Ishmael Community

Ishmael Community – Blogged earlier that Daniel Quinn’s “Ishmael” trilogy was on my reading list following a recommendation from Peter Senge / Charles Handy via the Peter Drucker Foundation. Picked-up this link from a hit from the highly mystical SohoDojo which I erroneously misread as being connected with Joho.

Q. How to explore the non-scientific side of knowledge without getting drawn into mysticism ?

So much to read, so little time.

Been out of circulation for almost two weeks due to US business trip plus a long weekend in New Orleans. Came back to find a link from Dave Pollard’s blog – thanks for that. Lots of interesting stuff to browse here – particularly noticed several posts on thge “metaphor” thread. Also found a new link from AsWeKnowIt with an antidote to Steven Pinker, who had impressed me. Mainly a series of quotes from H Allen Orr’s review of Pinker in the NYT. Paul Kelly’s own quote about Pinker as being “less about science as politics” is crucial to my position. I’m in no position to judge Pinker’s scientific evidence, though I remain impressed by his ability to present the distinction between science and politics. My Catch-22 position of course is that science isn’t everything, so I guess I’m on thin ice anyway. Which brings us back to one of the Metaphors quoted by Pollard.

The Cost (and Benefit) of Abstraction

The Cost (and Benefit) of Abstraction – This originated with Seb [via Spike] [via Lilia]. I commented on Spike’s blog that least abstraction “necessary” is a good qualification, because we certainly couldn’t do without it – in fact humans succeed because they are evolved to be good at it. The problem is that abstraction is part of “compression” – packing all those “bits of knowledge” into manageable communicable units on which to base decision rationale. It would be so inefficient any other way.

This is how language evolves – words / jargon / acronyms / metaphors as brief memorable tokens for complex stories. One adage I use all the time with colleagues (at the interface between business analysis and system design) is “Why use one word when a sentence will do ?” – you only abbreviate to a jargon word once all parties exhibit common understanding – but crucially, not before.

Zero-Tolerance equals Zero-Intelligence

Zero-Tolerance equals Zero-Intelligence – Morons in the News [via McGee’s Musings]. Can’t quite see how this Richard Gayle quote get’s to be here [Quote] Oh. What a wonderful Catch-22. A 6 year old is facing expulsion for having a plastic butter spoon in his backback. A spoon he got in the cafeteria and wanted to take home. So if they press for expulsion, the parents will sue the school for provding a dangerous weapon to their 6 year old. Zero-tolerance is for morons. I hope the parents get a ton of money. [Unquote] But I think this is my Hyper-Rationalism thread – it is just not intelligent to apply “laws” scientifically in unscientific situations. Catch 22 at two levels, one at the level of it being rational to be irrational (less than 100% rational anyway), and two at the level of the double-bind of the parents having the school in a no-win situation.