From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Jan 14 2002 - 09:59:11 MST
Brian Phillips asked: "How did you learn/teach-yourself to think this way"
===
I don't remember learning formal methods, and although I may have read about
them, I think my adoption of them was because I was encouraged to live them.
Aspects of how I was brought up made the result as inevitable and as natural
as breathing.
First the cast of players will help.
Mother: Touchy feely, devout anglican, child psychologist/clinical
psychiatrist (today a dispensing homeopath), completely sold on Dr Spock's
theories which might have done me more harm if my father had not ameliorated
the worst effects. The best manipulator I have ever met. Proof of the
pudding, I didn't have a clue how intelligent she was until after I was 28 -
and it took my father telling me that she had an higher IQ than him to get
me to work it out. Intensely practical, she can learn, or turn her hand to
anything (engineer's daughter). Very poor critical thinking (IMO) but
incredibly "intuitive" - she "reads minds" (no, not really - she notices
tiny reactions and will make changes to her style on the fly to work out
what the patterns mean and having figured it out can play people the way a
virtuoso plays a Stradivarius). As an example she will give out her
homeopathic remedies to my father and I, and both of us rational, and not
easily persuaded of the value of a pseudo-science (which homeopathy is) will
take what she gives us - because her remedies work. (NB Few do. The field is
pseudo science and rife with frauds). If she offers an explanation for why
she chooses a particular remedy, or the supposed reason that it will work,
we will decline to listen to it - because if we hear her explanation we
would not bother to take it - the "explanations" are worthless rubbish. But,
her drug choices are effective. How can this be? I think she notices
patterns and changes at a far smaller level of detail than most people and
"intuits" appropriate dispensing patterns very quickly at a subliminal
level.
Father: gentle genius (engineer, economist, botanist, classicist,
astronomer, historian, mountain climber). Total pacifist - in fact, the
closest I have come to an argument with him is over some of my military
activities. The kindest person I know. Also the best read and most
knowledgeable about anything and everything under the sun. Fully eidetic
memory and a master of mathematics and language. His range of interests is
far wider than mine, and although I have a somewhat more practical bent, his
"butchery" tends to be effective. I wish I could show you the cable operated
brake system which he designed and built for an ATV he and I collaborated on
(as he did not have a lathe to machine appropriate hydraulic ratios). Heath
Robinson would be jealous, but it worked and the forces and throws were
precisely calculated to work despite the "unusual" appearance based on 16th
century marine technology. I suspect that he is a mild atheist or pan-Deist
of some sort (the latter being more likely). He does not discuss religion -
he holds that this is something that we all have to figure out for ourselves
and that discussion about it only muddies the water. I did learn that my
mother and father had an agreement that she could bring us up religiously
(as she wished) and that he would not interfere (a mistake I think - it cost
me a lot of confusion and pain to overcome this). Consciously or
unconsciously (the latter I think, he has more integrity than is good for
him), he sabotaged this by ensuring that I read the classics and history.
Particularly Toynbee. Who put me off Deist religions forever. A lot of what
my father is, was chosen by him deliberately so as not to be like his father
(who hovers over both him and me as an ideal and a warning) and who I think
needs to be understood to really comprehend him (or me) despite the fact
that he really didn't have a lot to do with the subject at hand.
Grandfather (paternal): Certainly I hero worshiped my grandfather, which my
mother greatly resented. I think she really hated him. The following story,
from when before I was born, may illuminate the reason and something about,
if not his character, his sense of humor. Mother, father, paternal
grandmother and grandfather are eating (formal, very formal, it always was)
Sunday dinner together, and the servants have withdrawn. Grandmother: So
[father] is going to France? Father: Yes, I'm going to be lecturing at...
Grandmother: And is [mother] going with you? Grandfather (without any
hesitation): "No. You don't take sandwiches to a feast."
He came from a minor Prussian aristocratic family, with a thousand year
tradition in the military and literature (and 300 year association with
South Africa). His parents moved to South Africa where they owned a vast
ostrich farm in the late 1800s and where he was born. He lost both parents
and all bar one sibling in his early teens (British concentration camp).
Brought up by an uncle (a Jesuit) in Germany. Graduated from Berlin at 14.
Became a lecturer at Oxford and later at Berlin and Augsburg. Wrote a series
of articles that angered Hitler enough to want him thrown into a
concentration camp, yet managed to get the family out of Germany through
occupied Europe and eventually to South Africa. Academic par excellence.
Classics teacher, author, linguist, philosopher, socialist, philanthropist,
publisher, farmer, art and book collector and dealer. Museums and archives
around the world, Russell, Shaw, van Loon, Toynbee and many other
intellectual giants of the 20th century, consulted and collaborated with
him. Atheist and humanist - but a brutal realist. His humanism was for the
mass, not the individual. Never spared friend or enemy the edge of his
tongue. A Genius. Witty. Unbelievably dominating personality. When he walked
into a room, he absorbed whoever was in it - even Churchill listened to him
rather than the other way around (and I wish somebody had written down their
discussions as both delighted in the use of the sarcastic epigram). When
persuasion didn't work, he had a vile temper which he could and did use to
get his own way - every time. He was, I think, in love with South Africa.
Certainly he became involved. He formalized Afrikaans and established the
foundation which still runs the "source" dictionary for the language. He
founded historic preservation in South Africa, establishing and endowing
many "living museums".
He drank himself to an early death (87) (we think deliberately, certainly he
polished off a 50 year collection of wines an liquors and then expired),
when South Africa took the apartheid route and it became clear that the
United Party (which he was highly involved in and which had ruled the
country before the Afrikaners took over) had become irrelevant - that like
Germany in the 1930s, and possibly like America today, the system itself was
broken. Sad in a way. Had he chosen to live longer, he may well have seen
the end of Apartheid - although had he seen what has followed, it might have
been worse for him.
Me: Born in Cape Town. Moved to Europe as a child. Raised in Europe and the
UK, moving often. One year we moved 7 times (and as my dad would usually go
ahead to start work and to arrange housing, this makes my mother some kind
of a hero given the four children she managed to keep alive (the youngest
only 6 months old at the start of the year)). Home taught, only I don't
remember much actual "teaching" (I explain why below), and already thought
much as I do now. So the answer is earlier. What could it be?
Raising Rational Thinkers
Stimulation (3 younger siblings didn't hurt as competition for attention was
sharp). Any time my dad was not lecturing/studying/working, and he seemed to
make a lot of time for us, the family would travel to historic sites and my
dad would talk about the societies, environment, geomorphology, art,
literature, technologies and culture. He could always explain not just the
how and the what, but also the why - even when not asked. I don't ever
remember stumping him with a question (and worked out much later that this
was a self-imposed challenge for him too, he would study up on things before
we went places). No subject was ever taboo, no question ever went
unanswered.
We lived in a household surrounded by books (which moved with us - I still
have many of my childhood favorites - the ones not stolen by my siblings -
grrr). I taught myself to read at four (from the Beatrix Potter books, which
have few enough words on each page to be able to work out what the words
sound like for comparison with the written patterns) despite my mother's
strenuous objections. It wasn't the way Spock said it should be. I was more
determined than she was, and after discovering that I had started spending
most of the nights under the blankets with book and a torch, she gave up her
opposition and started to help. (I think she was not just worried about my
eyesight, but also dreaded facing me when I was exhausted and
mega-hyper-active in consequence). She was also fascinated by how I learnt
to read. My reading was not alphabetic but pattern oriented - I only learned
the alphabet latter, when I started to type. Book reading was a reward for
doing things from as early as I can remember. Punishment often involved
losing reading privileges. To read a book, we had to wash our hands first.
The only time I saw my father lose his temper - ever - was when at five or
six, I scribbled (in crayon) in a book, and received the thrashing of my
life. I realized when I was older that the fact that it was a first edition
Robinson Crusoe didn't help matters. Nevertheless, I still remember that
beating. It had a very educational effect on me - I still find it difficult
to write anything in a book unless very lightly in pencil. And freak at
other people doing so. I taught myself Latin, again by word patterns, not
alphabetically, by 6 and the content may have had some influence on my
thinking, but I think that learning the sentence structure was more
important though I hated it when it happened (infra).
Films were rare and television, other than the news once a day, was
verboten. Home made entertainment (song, puppet shows, reading) and hobby
related activities were "subtly" encouraged - as was chess. When we turned
4, each of us would receive our own library tickets and we were taken to a
library every day if we were not traveling. As we turned 8 we got bus/tram
tickets and museum/art-gallery access passes to let us "choose" what we did
with our time - but as an adult I recognize that this, being without cost,
was a deliberate "steering" of our choices. One that I in no way resent.
Most evenings we usually had people visiting us, and more often than not
were allowed to join in and were treated as adults while we behaved like
them. This was a privilege not a right which could be lost if we made a
nuisance of ourselves. But it meant that we became used to good conversation
and structured discourse (most visitors were academics and researchers).
If we wanted something (e.g. a kite, a book, my own hi-fi) we had to write
and defend a paper about it, what it was, how it worked, and what we would
get from it, and then, if persuasive enough, and practical, something would
be done. Usually, I suspect whenever possible (e.g. kites and hi-fi), we
would be taught (and helped (even when that meant learning together)) how to
make whatever it was we wanted. Although I didn't realize it at the time,
there was undoubtedly a lot of "focusing" built into this process. For
example, when I decided I wanted a "railway set", I ended up "choosing"
N-scale (we wouldn't have had space to build a permanent layout at a larger
scale) although I had wanted a Marklin in HO. Having agreed we would do it,
it turned into a three year family project, where we built a model of a
section of the Apennines, and would spend weeks researching the buildings,
industry, periods, rolling stock etc before building anything. And anything
that went onto the diorama (which eventually took up seven 4x8 sheets) had
to be justified and researched before becoming a part of it. I rapidly
learned how to get my way by doing research which "proved" I was right - at
least until my youngest sister (and smartest sibling) started doing the
same. The project was important to me, as I learnt electronics by designing
(which included building ECAP models) and then building engine controllers
for it, and boolean logic and mapping while designing the switching system.
After any of us completed something we had wanted, we used to write reports
on our own and each others' efforts and once or twice this ended up in a
purchase (A sailing dinghy in the Lake District was bought after we had
learned to swim, built canoes and tried (and failed) to add a mast and sail
to it and finally succeeded in turning it into a kind of primitive tripod
masted catamaran).
There was always wheeler dealing going on, as we had to earn both money and
help - usually by doing household chores, babysitting, or work related stuff
(sorting punch-cards, filing papers), but also for "intellectual property" -
photographs that went into the family collection, puppet shows, singing,
researching places to visit, etc. All of which taught us, but in so painless
a fashion (aside from the time when I reinvented slavery and my dad
eventually worked out what was happening...) that we didn't realize how much
we were learning. Payment was market related, but as our competition was
usually a guest-worker, the rates were low. We had to pay for adult help,
including taking us places and help with learning, at the same rate as we
were being paid, which I think fixed a lot of very nasty problems that can
happen in large families (we learnt that our parents' time was valuable too)
- and taught us a great deal more about self-sufficiency than most kids
learn until they are turned loose upon the world to sink or swim.
I do remember being forced, very much against my will (which was strong), to
learn Latin grammar, multiplication tables and handwriting. I asserted that
I did not need them, that I could look-up what I needed to know and could
use the selectric to write. My father asserted that I would benefit from
them - and "persuaded" me, but only by applying a leather belt to my gluteus
maximus on an almost continuous basis, that he was correct. I think I may
have been about 6 to 8. From then on it was much easier to persuade me to do
things as it taught me that he could be at least as stubborn as I can
(which, speaking genetically should come as no surprise, but which shocked
me at the time).
I developed one set of habits I have retained, and one I unfortunately did
not. The retained one was a voracious, indiscriminate, insatiable love of
reading. A fascination with how - and why - things worked. All the above
worked to build a vast general knowledge and collection of trivia. Learning
to recognize "the piece that does not fit" including "the dog that did not
bark". The one that did not stick, was the keeping of a journal, with notes,
photographs, thoughts and sketches of the places we went and things we saw
and wanted to learn more about. Each of us would fill a notebook every two
or three weeks. Unfortunately this was broken in the military, and I didn't
ever resume it.
What else has helped make me the way I am?
A musician, antique restorer, reproducer of classic instruments, paederast,
logician, photographer and gentleman, Viscount XXX, Knight of the Garter and
KBE to boot, who was undoubtedly as interested in getting me into his bed as
he was in improving my mind, but who taught me a lot (e.g. Gilbert &
Sullivan, Flanders & Swann, Predicate Calculus, inlay restoration,
varnishing and building spinets, how to drive) while attempting to seduce
me, before I discovered how much fun girls could be and so unfairly robbed
him of his objective. If I had the chance to replay my life, I would start
fucking (girls that is) earlier, but wouldn't miss out on what I now see as
having been a missed opportunity that I might have enjoyed. Who knows? Time
goes forward and I was virtuous (or trying to be) back then. Apropos of
something, I think he taught my mother something too, as I met him at the
Church she insisted I attend - and when she finally discovered that not only
was his interest in me, shall we say, not entirely platonic, but that I saw
nothing wrong with this - and had a second want-to-be homosexual lover (a
schoolteacher) I was thinking about, in the same Choir, and who, at her
suggestion I had been camping with - so that it wasn't for lack of
opportunity but only my insistence on it being my choice that had prevented
any kind of "consummation", I was finally able to avoid any further of her
religious enthusiasms.
A mathematician, Professor Skewes (Regius Professor of Mathematics and
discoverer of the Skewes number), who tutored me and taught me a lot of the
advanced maths I know, in exchange for discussing Modesty Blaise. Later,
when his eyes became problematic, I was able to partially repay by reading
to him, but I owe him a huge debt of gratitude.
One exceptional lecturer, a Dutchman and a dry SOB, whose skill was
designing things that could not possibly work but looked as if they should
(which requires an exquisite knowledge of what it takes to make things
work), Prof Cornelius (applied mathematics), out of all of them the only one
I recall clearly, He refined my analytic and sarcastic capabilities
significantly by insisting that I find every fault in anything he taught -
or suffer his humor. A sweet girl who taught me a lot - and died too young,
leaving me uncaring enough to learn to apply sarcasm like a scalpel, and
with Prof Cornelius as my mentor I could hardly fail to perfect it.
A lot of little things which taught me moderation - somewhat. Too much time
spent on nasty but necessary jobs in the military. Time spent lecturing kids
not all of whom were sure that they wanted to learn. Time spent in faculty
lounges engaging in academic repartee (more murderous in intent, even if
more refined, and much more significant than usually happens on the CoV).
Time running debating and acting societies. Time spent in debate - often
with the religious - on Usenet and IRC. These all helped. But they had a
very solid foundation. Which makes a nice conclusion.
Hermitish Thinking & Motivations
So what makes for Hermitish thinking? In my case, exceptional parents. I
hope to eventually see all parents being able to function like this - and
where the parents can't (which won't happen in generation as they won't have
the skills to teach their children in that critical 0-4 year stage, but
their children or grand children might have this capability), to see society
supply as much as possible of what the kids cannot obtain at home. I think
that all children deserve the start I received and would like to think that
the CoV might be able to play a role in this process. I know that I am
unlikely to make this happen alone. I studied the wrong things, have used to
much of my life on other things, and indeed, still have many other things
that I wish to accomplish that demand my time and attention. My hope is that
if enough like minded people can come up with a "recipe", that it may be
persuasive. Even if it doesn't happen, and I fail utterly in this rather
vague idea, perhaps some of our children will benefit from these discussions
and may have better luck working on the problem in a world which is a little
less faith-filled.
But before messing with children, where the cost of errors is potentially
very high, we should try to figure out how to persuade adults to be
rational. The CoV being filled with consenting (they pressed send to join
the list) adults, many of whom have such skills acquired in numerous ways
(and others who are more like prototypical two year olds), felt, when I
first got here, like the best place I had found to start learning about
teaching this.
As I have said before, I am learning a lot from the CoV - including
pointers, formal ideas and language which I didn't have before. Hopefully, I
am "paying my way" in what I return.
Kind Regards
Hermit
_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:39 MDT