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shared by Matvey Ezhov on 24 Oct 09 - Cached

Formal education in science and engineering centers on teaching facts and problem-solving skills in a series of narrow topics.
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It is true that a few topics, although narrow in content, have such broad application that they are themselves integrative: These include (at a bare minimum) substantial chunks of mathematics and the basics of classical mechanics and electromagnetism, with the basics of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics close behind.
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By knowing the outlines of a field, I mean knowing the answers, to some reasonable approximation, to questions like these: What are the physical phenomena? What are their magnitudes? What are their preconditions? How well are they understood? How well can they be modeled? What do they make possible? What do they forbid?
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And even more fundamental than these are questions of knowledge about knowledge: What is known today? What are the gaps in what I know? When would I need to know more to solve a problem? How could I find it?
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It takes far less knowledge to recognize a problem than to solve it, yet in key respects, that bit of knowledge is more important: With recognition, a problem may be avoided, or solved, or an idea abandoned.
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This sort of knowledge is a kind of specialty, really — a limited slice of learning, but oriented crosswise. Because of this orientation, though, it provides leverage in integrating knowledge from diverse sources.
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shared by Danila Medvedev on 28 Jul 07 - Cached

Even more disturbing is how some of the most important ideas and thinkers of our time are largely being ignored by the general public. Watching Aubrey de Grey explain to a small audience how he’s going to conquer death created no small amount of cognitive dissonance in my brain; the room should have been packed. Hell, the room should have had people lined-up out front pounding at the door demanding to be let in.
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A good option at this point might be to employ a full-time speaker to travel the college circuit. Young, educated minds are the most amenable to the transhumanist cause. This could involve lectures or debates with other people about the merits of transhumanist technologies. It's useful to have someone with charisma.
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TransVision just needs to get over its schizophrenia and choose a modus operandi.
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shared by Danila Medvedev on 01 Apr 07 - Cached

shared by Matvey Ezhov on 24 Oct 09 - Cached

The distinction I have in mind is between knowing the inside of a topic in deep detail — many facts and problem-solving skills — and knowing the structure and context of a topic: essential facts, what problems can be solved by the skilled, and how the topic fits with others.
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Studying to learn about everything I recommend that intellectually ambitious students invest considerable time in a mode of study may set off subconscious alarm signals that conflicts with almost instinctive impulses imparted by classroom experience:
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