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.
beyond abracadabra
More than a few in my line of work, particularly those from the generation before me, are amateur musicians. The first time it became clear to me was in Gale Dick's living room on Friday evenings. He loved to play the violin and had a nice homemade harpsichord as well as a piano. Friends would come to play, or in my case just listen to, chamber music. Regulars included a couple of physicists, a mathematician, a chemist, as well as some real musicians who seemed to enjoy themselves anyway. It was great fun and the beginning of a life-long addiction to live music, even though I'm just a lurker.
Years later I asked Gale if he understood the connection. He paused and then replied Bach letting it sink in before elaborating. Bach ... you see, so much of it has beautiful symmetries... He recalled when he was coming to grips with group theory in grad school. The year before he'd come across Noether's Theorem and was blown away.1 Years later, deep into the thicket of a difficult problem, he found himself playing a Bach violin sonata in his mind.
Then magic crackled and the work I was doing connected rather profoundly to those other areas.
Words came easily to him and new ones, or at least ones I couldn't find in the dictionary, would appear. As he described the violin sonata sequence, one I hadn't heard before appeared:
You see, Bach's music is this abracadaptor that connects two different kinds of magic giving birth to something that is also magic.
They're the abracadaptor that connects the original story with the artwork. When it's well done the resulting magic is better than what went into it.
Today I found myself using it in a text message to Sarah. The beach volleyball season that ultimately determines selection for the Paris Olympics begins in Doha tomorrow. She and her new partner Sophie have only been playing together for a short time and are still working things out.
You’re armed with some new knowledge and are likely making great progress putting your abracadaptor into regular operation.°
° abracadaptor. n. - A mechanism or technique that connects two different kinds of magic.
There are people who do this: that rare skill that allows them to connect the conversation of those with very different backgrounds creating a deep and wonderful communication. It's a skill I lack and I'm in awe of the few who can do it. I like to use some engineering terminology to describe these people - impudence matches. At its highest level two different magics are connected creating something deeper and an abracadaptor is afoot.
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1 Don't worry about either of these if they sound foreign. Both are important tools in the study of symmetry and deeply connected with physics.
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