Mohammed El-Beltagy wrote: > Such holistic grasp and resultant passion may often accelerate our > understanding of the natural world in the left brain or analytic > sense. This case is very clear in ancient Egypt where that religious > passion gave rise to amazing advances in mathematics, geometry, > astronomy,..etc.
I find that keeping an arms length from specialists helps me get going on a project. I like the adventure of a new project, especially when a lot of it is new to me. Soon enough, I realize if I am out of my depth and need the specialists (or should just stop), if I can cope and push through myself, or if I can estimate what is involved in becoming such a `specialist' (in some areas it doesn't amount to much). But I find that once I'm past the static friction (and irrational exuberance), habit takes over and I block out distractions. In terms of effort, the idea was the easy part, and the work takes much more time. I don't need passion or a holy grail to keep going on the work, I would need sedation to stop. Also while a part of me would love to spend all day reading arXiv from end-to-end, Science, Nature, PNAS, etc. I wouldn't accomplish anything if I did that. I think for many (not all) people, general curiosity needs to have some practical limits. Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
