The scientific revolution has formed the basis of the technology revolution that has allowed humanity to progress to our present much longer lived and richer world. However, the coupling of this scientific revolution to "Specialization and Trade" is becoming very relevant but not well appreciated.
In my lifetime I have seen the scientific revolution go from the stage where very brilliant individuals could be renaissance men who knew and understood almost all areas of the real sciences (STEM). I have been honored to meet and know some of these individuals. However, science and scientific knowledge is expanding at an exponential rate to the point where individual scientists today only deeply understand narrow areas and don't even know the boundaries of human knowledge in other areas of science. This expansion, as indicated by the increase in scientific literature, creates new opportunities for technological innovation as new ideas interact with older ideas, creating a new cycle of innovation, which scales as a factorial function (faster than exponential).
This expansion of possibilities allows the number of possible specializations to extend all the way to the individual level. With the easy availability of FedEx and DHL one person can trade with the world in a small enough specialized niche market to benefit the entire world. I had a world wide market for some specialized biological materials which some of my customers could have done themselves. However, I could do it much cheaper (much lower labor cost) and air ship to customers ranging from Max Plank institute in Germany to the University of Singapore and almost every major university or government research lab in between.
The expansion of specialization makes each step of the expansion appear smaller by virtue of the small increments of the specialization. That is why many people claim that innovation is becoming limited, when it is actually the expansion of possible innovations exceeding the vision of even the smartest of the analysts who can't even read and understand the reports sections of Science Magazine, let alone the ramifications of those journal articles.
Cool. Another topic to consider for inclusion: bipolarity. People tend to reduce every decision down to YES or NO when making decisions. This seems to push group decision-making to extremes rather than median positions.
Very much this, as the kids say. I think about this a lot. I liken it to the "smoothing" (data pruning, extrapolation, etc.) of sensory data at the visual cortex that, while necessary in order to create a useful and manageable image of our environment, nevertheless makes us susceptible to a great many optical illusions. The oddities of human decision-making are easier to digest, I find, once this smoothing concept is mapped onto cognition more broadly, particularly with regard to our approach to handling complex abstract concepts.
We must stay focused on the biggest task at hand, saving the children's futures and all our QUEENS. We MEN must do our due diligence as the soldiers before us fought, killed and died for the very freedoms and rights we all stand for daily. Aswell for all the hard working Patriots today and over the years gathering the information many of us do and pass on to each citizen worldwide. Appreciate all of you, so many excellent writers out here. We must unite together properly and legally as the plan in play and prevent any violence or blocking of streets. We have wasted plenty enough time on this nonsense and many put their own children at risk by having them present at these events. We have to stay focused on the PLAN IN PLAY. TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAMWORK. Continue passing on all the knowledge we all can. Thank you to all. ONE LOVE.
These posts have been great, but this one hasn't been updated with links to all the essays in the series. Do you plan to update it, or should I just wait for the final ebook form to have them all collected? Thanks for this and for all you've written!
A few important ones that come to mind: social norms; taboos; guilt/shame; imitation; traditions; prestige bias; ritual; communication (linguistic and otherwise)
The scientific revolution has formed the basis of the technology revolution that has allowed humanity to progress to our present much longer lived and richer world. However, the coupling of this scientific revolution to "Specialization and Trade" is becoming very relevant but not well appreciated.
In my lifetime I have seen the scientific revolution go from the stage where very brilliant individuals could be renaissance men who knew and understood almost all areas of the real sciences (STEM). I have been honored to meet and know some of these individuals. However, science and scientific knowledge is expanding at an exponential rate to the point where individual scientists today only deeply understand narrow areas and don't even know the boundaries of human knowledge in other areas of science. This expansion, as indicated by the increase in scientific literature, creates new opportunities for technological innovation as new ideas interact with older ideas, creating a new cycle of innovation, which scales as a factorial function (faster than exponential).
This expansion of possibilities allows the number of possible specializations to extend all the way to the individual level. With the easy availability of FedEx and DHL one person can trade with the world in a small enough specialized niche market to benefit the entire world. I had a world wide market for some specialized biological materials which some of my customers could have done themselves. However, I could do it much cheaper (much lower labor cost) and air ship to customers ranging from Max Plank institute in Germany to the University of Singapore and almost every major university or government research lab in between.
The expansion of specialization makes each step of the expansion appear smaller by virtue of the small increments of the specialization. That is why many people claim that innovation is becoming limited, when it is actually the expansion of possible innovations exceeding the vision of even the smartest of the analysts who can't even read and understand the reports sections of Science Magazine, let alone the ramifications of those journal articles.
WTF
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Man-Who-Knew-Everything/dp/1851684948
Cool. Another topic to consider for inclusion: bipolarity. People tend to reduce every decision down to YES or NO when making decisions. This seems to push group decision-making to extremes rather than median positions.
Very much this, as the kids say. I think about this a lot. I liken it to the "smoothing" (data pruning, extrapolation, etc.) of sensory data at the visual cortex that, while necessary in order to create a useful and manageable image of our environment, nevertheless makes us susceptible to a great many optical illusions. The oddities of human decision-making are easier to digest, I find, once this smoothing concept is mapped onto cognition more broadly, particularly with regard to our approach to handling complex abstract concepts.
We must stay focused on the biggest task at hand, saving the children's futures and all our QUEENS. We MEN must do our due diligence as the soldiers before us fought, killed and died for the very freedoms and rights we all stand for daily. Aswell for all the hard working Patriots today and over the years gathering the information many of us do and pass on to each citizen worldwide. Appreciate all of you, so many excellent writers out here. We must unite together properly and legally as the plan in play and prevent any violence or blocking of streets. We have wasted plenty enough time on this nonsense and many put their own children at risk by having them present at these events. We have to stay focused on the PLAN IN PLAY. TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAMWORK. Continue passing on all the knowledge we all can. Thank you to all. ONE LOVE.
Agree 100%. WE are interdependent. Learn the art and science.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kwnorton/p/the-art-and-science-0f-becoming-a?r=boqs0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
These posts have been great, but this one hasn't been updated with links to all the essays in the series. Do you plan to update it, or should I just wait for the final ebook form to have them all collected? Thanks for this and for all you've written!
A few other possible topics:
The Sacred & the profane
Ritual
Friend/Enemy (Insider/outsider)
Terrific idea. I have upgraded to paid subscriber to show my support.
Your essays used to have a link that took me to an uninformative page. I like what you have here.
A few important ones that come to mind: social norms; taboos; guilt/shame; imitation; traditions; prestige bias; ritual; communication (linguistic and otherwise)
This might be of value to the effort
https://nonzero.substack.com/p/why-our-minds-are-designed-to-mislead#details