Modus Operandi of Experimenting Generalist
Dynamic MapReduce, Dabbling Across Perspectives, Levels of Organization
Hello from the Himalayas,
I hope you’re doing good. Today I finally got a long-overdue haircut from the barber. Happy to look civilized again. :D
In the third (and final) part of the Experimenting Generalism series, I want to illuminate the approach taken by an experimenting generalist. If you haven’t read the part-1(intro) and part-2(differentiation), check them out for more context.
Stepping Stones
Experimenting Generalism is a practice that involves traversing an open-ended wisdomsphere that comprises numerous complex domain-as-ecosystems, each driven by its own dominant perspective. Before one learns to tiptoe across these perspectives using learned heuristics, a few stepping stones are essential for a budding experimenting generalist to wrap his/her head around. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of these, in no particular order:
Acknowledging subjective limits on our own inquiry process and not get into the endless chase of the mirage of ‘absolute truth’.
‘All models are false, some are useful’: Learning to choose models/frameworks by usability/applicability.
Judging the usefulness of perspectives by using data gathered from the ‘ground reality’ that is common across domains and across perspectives.
Venturing into the ‘unknown unknowns’ armed with incredibly generative questions.
Unknown Unknowns: where data doesn’t exist or where data exists but we don’t know how to interpret it to get clarity/understanding or to make sense)
Levels of Organization
Illuminating philosopher-of-science William Wimsatt pondered in his 2007 book ‘Reengineering Philosophy for Limited Beings’ upon why it’s difficult to come up with sharp definitions and neat equations in domains like life-sciences and sociology compared to ‘hard sciences’ like physics and chemistry. Seems like it’s a matter of two things: the size of the system in focus, and the domination of reductionist language in scientific research since the enlightenment age.
Illustration source: William Wimsatt’ 2007 book: Reengineering Philosophy for Limited Beings
The size of a system appears to be directly proportional to the complexity it engenders. The level of the inherent complexity in a system influences its level of legibility for human understanding. Atomic-level systems studied in physics and molecular-level systems studied in chemistry are conducive to greater entification, allowing for the generation of bounded, simple definitions for entities involved and neat formulas/equations for the phenomena studied. In less resolved, large complex systems which are at organism-level (eg: metabolism system) or at socio-cultural-ecological level (eg: foodchain), there is lesser entification. This makes understanding the phenomena happening at higher levels in complex systems a problem of low-legibility.
Low-legibility is being tackled in higher-level domains such as biology and sociology by moving away from scientific reductionism. When you hit a wall trying to find the elusive universal formulas for living systems, what do you do? You acknowledge the limits of single-perspective ontic fundamentalism. You abandon scientific reductionism and cultivate an arsenal of differing perspectives.
Biology studies living beings. These dissipative structures are much more complex than fluid flows. They involve chemical reactions. However, the laws of chemistry are a consequence of those of physics. Living beings follow these laws, but more complex than fluids, they dissipate energy more efficiently. The problem of biology is that, under these conditions, it becomes difficult to perform reproducible experiments. The problem becomes even harder when addressing human sciences. That is why we talk about hard sciences (such as physics) and soft sciences (such as sociology).
-excerpt from the book Connectom by @Kpaxs
Dynamic MapReduce as Modus Operandi
A map procedure: filtering & sorting the sub-domains that pique my deep-curiosity or are undeniably interlinked to the work I am doing.
A reduce procedure: diving deep into the selected sub-domain, gaining conversational proficiency, participating in, and conducting experiments.
For an experimenting generalist, both of these procedures are open to change. Often, they change fast enough that the overall MapReduce System is almost always dynamically evolving like a rainforest to accommodate new opportunities & challenges as the external world changes.
The key benefit of using a Dynamic MapReduce approach for learning as an experimenting generalist is the improved liaisoning capacity which is essential for stewarding the process of building/improving a multidisciplinary system. Another crucial benefit is the gain in the robustness of my career-trajectory by maintaining substantial optionality with my expansive skill-stack & interdisciplinary tacit knowledge.
Quest(ion)
(Quest(ion) is a new feature of Daybrew’s Note—last note of every month to feature a list of generative questions that hit your curiosity spot & push you into a quest of inquiry)
Is Twitter facing unprecedented emigration? (to politically-differentiated platforms like Parler, to Cozy Web for privacy-minded users, to creator-favoring platforms like Substack for data-ownership-minded users)
Are Roma people the OG location-independent free-agents(LIFAs)?
Is data being used to create a lot more bullshit than generative insights?
Is hard sci-fi a better conduit of realist escapism than fantasy fiction?
Is Zoomotopia emphasizing human-to-human relationships and is the urgency cutting through the bullshit-blanket of bureaucracy?
How do you switch between modes-of-creation? (exploratory mode vs performative mode, creative mode vs analytical mode)
Interesting Finds of the Week
Connected Papers: A new network mapping tool to get a visual overview of a new academic field, create a bibliography to your work, and discover the most relevant prior and derivative works. More in this Medium post.
Unflattening by Nick Sousanis (democratizer of drawing)—is a comic that enables you to compare multiple perspectives via the medium that fuses the simultaneous visual art with sequential text. Two snapshots are included below.
Mary Azarian on Gardening (excerpt from Azarian’s book A Gardener’s Alphabet)
Reference Guides released this week by Charter Cities Institute. Twitter thread for a full overview here.
Thanks for reading the note. If you have a curious friend who doesn’t know about Daybrew’s Note, delight him/her by sending this note. Have a good weekend.
Until Next Week,
Vinay
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