Randall Munroe has this wonderful way of stating depth. (via his wonderful xkcd)
It's been fashionable to talk about information overload for some time, but the amount of information we and our machines make is almost infinitesimally small next to the amount information in the natural world. We don't directly experience the world. Rather we rely on heavily filtered senses to feed models our mind creates. Even the stand types of information we rely on - images and sound - represent only a tiny bit of what's out there.
We've become adept in building models to understand what's going on. In the late 19th century a few physicists developed statistical mechanics - a mathematical construction that allows you to consider enormous numbers of objects (say the air molecules in a room) and be able to accurately describe what's going on as well as well as what will happen. It was an enormous leap in thought that directly led to the development of quantum mechanics a few decades later. Here's one of the best introductions to a field I've seen in a textbook: from States of Matter - a sophomore/junior level text by David Goodstein. (image grabbed from the ebook)
Science has given us tools and techniques to extend our vision beyond our senses. The development of lenses for microscopes and telescopes, judged by the avalanche of knowledge they led to, may be the most important invention of the past millennia.
We have a difficult time sorting out information we and other people produce. Generally we use a combination of active and passive filters. These filters change with both experience and technology. We often find ourselves cutting out more than we should. We often live and work in 'echo chambers', surrounding ourselves with information from similars. Some sociologists refer to this as cocooning, a term I prefer. Machine learning produced cocooning is very real and an active area of study.
A trick is to create active filters that provide breadth. The one I practice is regularly read and talk to interesting people outside my area. There are a lot of smart people out there who are willing to share, but there are a couple of tricks. First you need to describe what you do in a manner that they can get a good-enough understanding. They have to do the same. This can be very difficult - it's like teaching an introductory course or writing a book and often, as a by-product, sharpens your understanding of what you do. Second you need to develop a working understanding. I find offering whatever I can bring to work on their problem to be both fascinating and useful. It's one of the main reasons why I tithe my time to 'help' others. In fact it's a type of homemade university I've created.
These conversations or library ramblings sometimes break down. The secret weapon, should you be lucky enough to know one, is a human impedance match.1 The rare ability to ensure a good-enough two way information transfer. I know of two (there may be more) on this list and feel lucky to know them.
Sometimes you can put together a serendipity machine. I've been around two - possibly three - so far. A small group of people with a very wide range of backgrounds who know, understand and respect each other and their differences. Put them in a comfortable place - face to face is important as a good deal of out of channel communication goes on - and let them range. The topics may be concerned with an engineering issue, but somehow jump to 13th century Sicily and that jump, realized a few months later, was the productive insight. That group was in the spirit of Ted Lasso's Diamond Dogs, although it usually met on Friday afternoons with meetings the ran from four to ten hours. It isn't terribly efficient, but can be fun and produce very interesting ideas and understandings.
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Finally Pip talked about the need to communicate something positive as a counterpoint to the negative news and social media message we usually get. So here goes - a short story of great fun and imagination. Chivalry by Neil Gaiman. It must be listened to rather than read from the page. Only a half hour, the performance I recommend is from the Selected Shorts series with Christina Pickles doing the honors. Simply wonderful! About $3 at the Apple Bookstore and probably the same at Amazon.
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1 I first came across electronic impedance matches as a teenage amateur radio builder and operator. Without going into detail, a signal in the form of an alternating current usually has different values in different "boxes". If a signal goes from one box to another of differing impedance, there is a loss of signal. An impedance match minimizes the loss of signal. The example I fought as a kid was making sure the impedance of my transmitter matched that of my antenna. (the same analogy works for power transmission)
A human impedance match often probes the two people figuring out what questions to ask and clarifications to add to increase the level of understanding on both ends. It's a skill I work on, but still lack after all these years.
auteur and other fine words and phrases
About a week ago my friend Paul reported on his walking vacation in Iceland. Paul happens to be in his late 80s and hasn't lost his knack for physics or interesting words and phrases. He sent photos and noting some beautiful displays of the lux septentrionalis. In the 45 or so years I've known him I've picked up a fair amount of Latin, Greek and German. He bears direct responsibility for some of the phrases I use.. cheating in a way as I'm not fluent in these languages.1 Auteur is a particularly interesting word, so let's dwell on it.
Recognizing creation of a book is easy. Usually there are one or two authors get the credit even though editors, proof readers, printers and more were involved. It's similar in scientific papers - at least until you get to collaborations of a half dozen or more. Music is created by a composer, but orchestral performances are jointly credited to the composer and a conductor. It's the complexity of something - when more than a few creative people are involved, that the term auteur seems appropriate. I'd nominate James Murray of the Oxford English Dictionary as one of the first auteurs of a series of books - he went far beyond what normal editors do.
The term auteur is usually associated with film. Even in the thirties one hundred people might be involved in making a film and more than a handful - actors for example - may have had centrally important roles. Here the equivalent of the creation of the film is usually given to the director. A director may not know how operate a camera, the intricate lighting or be able to perform on stage. What they bring is vision and the ability to communicate it.
Alfred Hitchcock wanted control over every scene of the movie. He had to work it out ahead of time and communicate it so he repurposed Walt Disney's invention of story boarding to acted film. Hayao Miyazaki draws or corrects a lead frame of each animation segment of his films and spends a large amount of time with composer Joe Hisaishi to get the music right. His style is dictatorial, but animators regard him as the best - an auteur among animation auteurs. Pixar has a handful of internally grown auteurs who have seen remarkable success. Wes Anderson is so good that name actors fall over themselves to get parts before seeing scripts. It's an impressive group.
In spending time with an animation house as well as having worked on some large scale physics experiments, I see a common thread. There needs to be a vision. There may be, and probably is, someone in the organization for each of the speciality skills who is better at their skill than the auteur. The problem is having everyone do their best with limited knowledge of the rest causes project to drift from the goal. It's the sort of thing David Epstein talks about in Range. Someone has to have vision and taste and that's a special skill that requires development.
It can apply to business. Steve Jobs comes to mind and there are certainly others at various levels. An interesting question is at what point does a project get big enough that an auteur is necessary and how does that vary by project type? Many of you can come up with interesting examples.
Since sport is something of a mirror, one can think of great coaches as auteurs. It's certainly true in team sports like football, soccer, indoor volleyball, etc. Great coaches have developed a sense of the game and the taste in how it should be played. Certainly they need a group of good players, but not necessarily all need to be, or even should be, great. Finding a combination to execute the vision is the important piece.
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1 Here's a non-alphabetical list of some that come to mind:
Danish (I know three Danes well)
klap lige hesten "pat the horse" means shut up
det blæser en halv pelican "it's blowing half a pelikan" means it's very windy
ingen ko på isen "no cow on the ice" means whatever the problem is, it's no big deal
så er den ged barberet "the goat is shaved" means the problem has been fixed, or the work is done
gå som katten om den varme grød "walk as the cat around the hot porridge" means some is avoiding the problem
det regner skomagerdrenge "it's raining shoemaker's apprentices" means the rain is very heavy
hygge a special coziness - what you might find on a snowy evening with good friends, food and a fire.
Italian
commuovere to be moved by a story to the point of tears
Greek
meraki throwing yourself into something complete with passion, creativity and love. This is how Paul approaches physics.
Tagalog
kilig the feeling of butterflies in your stomach as it romance or discovery
Malay
pisan zapra the time it takes to eat a banana - about two minutes
Swedish
fika gathering to talk and take a break from ordinary routines. Coffee must be involved.
resfeber the beating of a traveler's heart at the beginning of a journey. A anxiety with anticipation.
Welsh
hiraeth a homesickness for the time and place to which you can't return
Japanese
komorebi the sunlight filtering through leaves on the trees
boketto gazing into the distance without thinking about anything
wabi-sabi finding beauty in imperfections, an acceptance of the cycle of life
German
kummerspeck 'grief bacon' the weight you gain from emotional overeating
freudenfreude finding joy in the success of others
Yiddish and Yinglish
shlimazel someone who seems to only have bad luck
(this part of the list is long .. mostly from friends on Long Island and NYC. Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish is a wonderful resource)
Bantu
ubuntu 'I find my worth in you and you find your worth in me' human kindness
French
flâneur a person who lounges or strolls around in a seemingly aimless way. Often seen as an aloof observer of urban society
sirop de poteau 'pole syrup' imitation or very low quality maple syrup that must have been harvested from telephone poles.
auteur a person of influence or artistic control - often associated with filmmaking.
I'll stop here..
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