Partha wrote:
>When we get together many Learning Individuals in a Learning Collective,
>why don't we get the same type of outputs from the Learning Individual
>that we would have got when the individual would have worked alone?
There are two points I would like to lean upon and launch into the
discussion:
1.Widening the range of elements within a system widens the levels of
entropy, thus generating more potential outputs. Therefore, a quantitative
solution as to the types possible, no? Which probably would lead us to a
different quality of outputs as well.
2. The individual reasoning organization is structured in quite a
different way as a collective reasoning organization, one interfering with
the other. Yet, I would be glad if someone could expand on this subject.
The re-structuring through the necessity of adapting to other's structure
seems to me a strong motive for change in type of output. Yet, the result
can be quite useless and harmful if organization, even if basic, is not in
place. An interesting example comes from Ned Markosian's «Paradox of the
Question», in «Analisys» magazine (a text highly critical of today's
direction of analitical philosophy).
Let me pass it on to you:
«Once upon a time, during a large and international conference of the
world's leading philosophers, an angel miraculously appeared and said, "I
come to you as a messenger from God. You will be permitted to ask any one
question you want - but only one! - and I will answer that question
truthfully. What would you like to ask?" The philosophers were
understandably excited, and immediately began a discussion of what would
be the best question to ask. But it quickly became obvious that they
needed more time to discuss the matter, so they asked the angel if he
could get back to them. The angel was obliging, and said that he would
return at the same time the next day. "But be prepared then," he warned
them, "for you will only get this one chance."
All of the philosophers gathered at the convention worked at a frenzied
pace for the next twenty-four hours, proposing and weighing the merits of
various questions. Other philosophers from around the world became
involved as well, faxing and emailing their suggestions. Some were in
favor of asking the kind of practical question that lots of people might
like to know the answer to, such as this one:
Q1 Is it better to check your oil when the car is hot or when it is
cold?
But others said they should not squander this rare opportunity, which gave
them a chance to learn something about a truly important and intrinsically
interesting topic, and after some discussion it was generally agreed that
this was right.
The philosophers were puzzled, however, about which truly important and
intrinsically interesting topic they should address in their question. The
problem was that they really needed to know in advance what would be the
best question to ask, in order to make the most of their marvelous
opportunity. One proposal was to try to sneak in two questions, by asking
something like this:
Q2 What would be the best question for us to ask, and what is the
answer to that question?
But this proposal was quickly voted down when it was pointed out that the
angel had explicitly said that they would get just one question.
Another proposal was simply to ask the first of the questions in Q2, in
the hopes that some day they would have another opportunity similar to
this one, when they could then ask the question they knew to be the best.
This proposal was ruled out, however, on the grounds that if they adopted
it then they would probably never get a chance to ask the best question
once they knew what it was.
For a while there was a growing consensus that they should ask this
question:
Q3 What is the answer to the question that would be the best question
for us to ask?
That way, it was argued, they would at least have the all-important
information contained in the relevant answer. But eventually concerns were
raised about the possibility of receiving, in response to Q3, an answer
such as 'seven', or 'yes', which would mean nothing to them unless they
knew which question was being answered.
Finally, just as the philosophers were running out of time, a bright young
logician made a proposal that was quickly and overwhelmingly approved.
Here was her question:
Q4 What is the ordered pair whose first member is the question that
would be the best one for us to ask you, and whose second member is the
answer to that question?
Nearly everyone (remember, these are philosophers we're talking about)
agreed that this was the ideal way to solve their little puzzle. By asking
Q4 the philosophers could ensure that they would learn both what the best
question was, and also what the answer to that question was. There was a
great deal of celebrating and back-clapping, and as the minutes ticked
down to the time when the angel had promised to return, the mood among
philosophers throughout the world was one of nearly feverish anticipation.
Everyone was excited about the prospect of learning some wonderful and
important truth. They were also more than a little pleased with themselves
for hitting upon such a clever way to solve the problem of how to find out
what the best question was, and also get the answer to that question, when
they had only one question to work with.
Then the angel returned. The philosophers solemnly asked their question -
Q4 - and the angel listened carefully. Then he gave this reply:
A4 It is the ordered pair whose first member is the question you just
asked me, and whose second member is this answer I am giving you.
As soon as he had given his answer, the angel disappeared, leaving the
philosophers to pull out their hair in frustration.
The above story leaves us with another little puzzle to solve. At the time
the philosophers asked Q4, it seemed like that question was the ideal one
for their peculiar situation. But as it turned out, Q4 was obviously not
at all the right thing to ask. (They would have been better off asking
whether one should check one's oil when the car is hot or when it is
cold.) The puzzle, then, is this: What went wrong? {1}
Copyright Ned Markosian
nmarkos@wvnvms.wvnet.edu
Note
1 I am grateful to Mark Aronszajn and Donald Turner for dicussions of
this topic, and to Donald Turner for telling me the joke that the puzzle
is based on. Back
»
This wonderful story can be seen from various different angles, but it
strikes me it that it shows how useless can collective work be if there
isn't some organization based on a common interest to work on. The fact
that the philosophers couldn't agree on Content led them to focus on Form.
In the end, that led to failure. Form is nothing but a safety bulge.
That's my interpretation.
Bruno Martins Soares
Lisbon, Portugal
--"Bruno Martins Soares" <bmartins.soares@mail.EUnet.pt>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>