Thomas Lunde wrote:
>
> ----------
> >From: "Brad McCormick, Ed.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >To: Steve Kurtz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> > I think we need also to add the enormous entropy of the
> > obsolescence of knowledge. This is sometimes stated
> > more "positively" as a shortening "half-life" of
> > knowledge, so that by the time an engineer has
> > been out of college 10 years, 50% of what (s)he
> > learned is no longer current (or whatever the exact numbers
> > are in each case). (The especial affront of this is that
> > it is not a consequence of "natural processes" outside
> > human control, but of human symbolizing activity.)
> Thomas:
[snip]
> There is also the problem, as you pointed out of continual learning. It
> sounds great, but it ain't easy and as you get a little older, the idea is
> not to keep learning as it is to take what is learned and act wisely from
> it.
[snip]
I'm almost 53 years old now, and I think I can learn things
as well if not better than when I was younger. What I have
increasing intolerance for is Sisyphean activity like
having to learn a different way of doing what I very well
already know how to do but the new computer doesn't understand
the old programming language. *Even worse* is when the new
way is *less intellectually elegant* (etc.) than the
old. I would offer the example of the C++ programming
language, e.g., as a genuinely ugly "creation" of the human
spirit. Pascal was just superficially bad; this stuff
is bad *in depth* (i.e., you don't just have to go thru
extra motions to accomplish anything: you also have to
invest a *lot* more mental effort!).
There have, however, been some computer things which
are honorable additions to "culture" in an honorific
sense: APL, SGML, IBM's OS/360....
For the spirit alone lives; all else dies.
(--The inquisitor in "The Return of Martin Guerre")
\brad mccormick
--
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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