Questions have a way of ballooning into unexpected regions.Exactly. A good motto for any blog, actually.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Church-finding
You should pay attention to the sidebar of commenters' blogs on your own, of course, but sometimes I like to highlight one. I don't know, but... tells the story of leaving one church and seeking another. Key quote:
The Budget: Clarity
Aegon01, formerly Tigerhawk Teenager, has a great simplified explanation of the budget. It will take you 15 seconds and clarifies things nicely.
Wikipedia Bias
Yeah, that could be a whole category on a blog, couldn't it?
There was a Ferdinand Marcos link on the Wikipedia main page today. I come from a Marcos-hating era, of course, as his declaration of martial law occurred while I was liberal, and his fall from power occurred when I was apolitical. In the end, I recalled, even the American conservatives dropped him as just too corrupt and too vicious, however reliably anticommunist he was. So I still had extreme negative associations with Marcos.
Yet I recalled a doctor from the Philippines, Melicio Flores, who I had worked with during the 80's and 90's at the hospital. I recall him being very anti-Marcos, pro-Aquino, but also annoyed at some of the posturing his countrymen were doing back home. Something along the lines of They forget how they cheered him then, early on. He did some good things early on, that they benefited from but don't talk about now. Many of the families that are against him now made a lot of their money by being his friends. And they forget how dangerous his enemies were. Still, Dr. Flores was glad to see him go. Fifteen years early would have been fine with him.
Thus, I thought it a good time to read up on Ferdinand and Imelda, to see what good things had been accomplished, however roughly, that might moderate my negative opinion of him.
Apparently there were none. According to Wikipedia there was nothing redeeming about him ever, other than being clever. And American involvement in the Philippines was likewise entirely without virtue until the day that Reagan belatedly cast Marcos aside. I'm going to bet that's not true. Not that I doubt any of the accusations they make against him. I expect that they are sourced and accurate.
I also expect that the account is slanted enough to be deceitful. Perhaps not. Perhaps he really was a Ceausescu, a Saddam, a Stalin, whose virtues were so insignificant as to no longer bear mentioning. Yet is should be noted even with those comparisons that Saddam and Ceausescu started off pretty reasonably those first few years.
Yet I recalled a doctor from the Philippines, Melicio Flores, who I had worked with during the 80's and 90's at the hospital. I recall him being very anti-Marcos, pro-Aquino, but also annoyed at some of the posturing his countrymen were doing back home. Something along the lines of They forget how they cheered him then, early on. He did some good things early on, that they benefited from but don't talk about now. Many of the families that are against him now made a lot of their money by being his friends. And they forget how dangerous his enemies were. Still, Dr. Flores was glad to see him go. Fifteen years early would have been fine with him.
Thus, I thought it a good time to read up on Ferdinand and Imelda, to see what good things had been accomplished, however roughly, that might moderate my negative opinion of him.
Apparently there were none. According to Wikipedia there was nothing redeeming about him ever, other than being clever. And American involvement in the Philippines was likewise entirely without virtue until the day that Reagan belatedly cast Marcos aside. I'm going to bet that's not true. Not that I doubt any of the accusations they make against him. I expect that they are sourced and accurate.
I also expect that the account is slanted enough to be deceitful. Perhaps not. Perhaps he really was a Ceausescu, a Saddam, a Stalin, whose virtues were so insignificant as to no longer bear mentioning. Yet is should be noted even with those comparisons that Saddam and Ceausescu started off pretty reasonably those first few years.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
What We Love
The cliche is that if you do what you love, you will never "work" a day in your life. This seems unlikely to me, as jobs have this tendency to include irritating tasks as well as rewarding ones.
Still, there is certainly something to it. I had a math/science friend from high school who majored in geology because he loved it. I believe it was paleogeology he mentioned as his specialty at Rennsalaer. He was also fascinated by computers, and as our school was on the DTSS* system got a lot more time working with them then most highschoolers did. He continued this is college, getting a minor in computer science - I am not sure many schools had it as a major, then; it was part of the math department - and expressed to me over Christmas break 1972, our sophomore year, that he worried whether he would be able to find work in his specialties at graduation, because a lot of the good jobs seemed to be tied up for decades. He was considering pushing on to graduate school, even though his family couldn't afford it, really, so that an academic or research might open up.
Paleogeology is one of the foundation specialties of looking for petroleum, and that computer thing, as you know, really did take off. In the recession of 1975, when I was glad to find a job as a part-time hotel clerk, oil companies were throwing money at him to do something quite close to what he loved. He never went on to get his PhD, and according to my online research, he is quite happy with that decision.
I have written about both natural intelligence and personal energy this fall, raising questions of what factors go into worldly success. Both have something to do with the drive to learn. But I think there is something different about the desire to learn about "things," which I have in abundance, and a desire to learn about some particular subject. I now think the latter is a greater contributor to doing something important in the world. It can come from either personal energy or natural intelligence, but it is what makes the world go forward. One can call folks like me polymaths, or Renaissance men, but the term dilettante might apply just as well. We are deeply related to the more focused students, and we have our place in the overall system as well. But ultimately, we are gap-fillers and they are builders.
I think I will expand on this soon. Here is a fascinating story about Dennis Ritchie (Lucent) and Robert Morris (Dartmouth, NSA, cryptology) that illustrates the drive of love of subject. At the time, they would have seemed like corporate tools, not cool at all, to me. Computer geeks were button-down types who I backpedaled away from. Yet in a few short years, they looked like this. The computer folks learned that the folks who really knew what they were doing weren't the 3-piece suit guys, but strange-looking people who had chosen this field because of fascination.
*DTSS: Dartmouth time-sharing system for computing. NH, MA, and VT highschools (especially prep schools) were permitted on in the late 60's, but it was mostly for Dartmouth and the US Naval Academy. Mathematician and later Dartmouth president John Kemeny had developed the computer language BASIC, which I was pretty good in in 1970. But when I went to William & Mary, no one there had heard of it. They taught Fortran. It is so odd to read about these things now, to see that I was near a major development node in highschool, but moved to a backwater for computers in college. And yet. Had I the drive or the love of subject, that would not have stopped me. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves. I thought being a folksinger, medievalist, and actor was cooler. And that was likely the right decision for me.
Still, there is certainly something to it. I had a math/science friend from high school who majored in geology because he loved it. I believe it was paleogeology he mentioned as his specialty at Rennsalaer. He was also fascinated by computers, and as our school was on the DTSS* system got a lot more time working with them then most highschoolers did. He continued this is college, getting a minor in computer science - I am not sure many schools had it as a major, then; it was part of the math department - and expressed to me over Christmas break 1972, our sophomore year, that he worried whether he would be able to find work in his specialties at graduation, because a lot of the good jobs seemed to be tied up for decades. He was considering pushing on to graduate school, even though his family couldn't afford it, really, so that an academic or research might open up.
Paleogeology is one of the foundation specialties of looking for petroleum, and that computer thing, as you know, really did take off. In the recession of 1975, when I was glad to find a job as a part-time hotel clerk, oil companies were throwing money at him to do something quite close to what he loved. He never went on to get his PhD, and according to my online research, he is quite happy with that decision.
I have written about both natural intelligence and personal energy this fall, raising questions of what factors go into worldly success. Both have something to do with the drive to learn. But I think there is something different about the desire to learn about "things," which I have in abundance, and a desire to learn about some particular subject. I now think the latter is a greater contributor to doing something important in the world. It can come from either personal energy or natural intelligence, but it is what makes the world go forward. One can call folks like me polymaths, or Renaissance men, but the term dilettante might apply just as well. We are deeply related to the more focused students, and we have our place in the overall system as well. But ultimately, we are gap-fillers and they are builders.
I think I will expand on this soon. Here is a fascinating story about Dennis Ritchie (Lucent) and Robert Morris (Dartmouth, NSA, cryptology) that illustrates the drive of love of subject. At the time, they would have seemed like corporate tools, not cool at all, to me. Computer geeks were button-down types who I backpedaled away from. Yet in a few short years, they looked like this. The computer folks learned that the folks who really knew what they were doing weren't the 3-piece suit guys, but strange-looking people who had chosen this field because of fascination.
Of Pancakes and Candidates - and Feathers
Ben is up from Houston, and is re-experiencing what it was like to grow up here in NH presidential primary season. We get frequent phone calls, ignoring many because of caller ID. We didn't have that in earlier years.
We were trying to recall who the candidate was who fell off the back of the stage while flipping pancakes. Tracy and Ben had been present for the event. A school snow day, perhaps. Was that '96 or 2000? Or perhaps even '92? No, it was all Bush 41 and Buchanan for that one - we would have remembered that. Was it Gary Bauer? It wasn't Dole... It wasn't Alexander...Forbes?...Dornan?
It was Bauer, 1996, for those tormenting themselves over it.
We discussed how such foolishness is in many ways a good thing. Even our stuffiest, most self-important candidates have to venture such things. They have to risk looking foolish, having to quickly cover, looking a little sheepish. You can't imagine Vlad Putin putting himself in that position, nor Bashar Assad. Dictators try to look like a Man of the People by wearing military garb, as Saddam Hussein or a thousand Latin American leaders did. In the West, and I think particularly in the Anglosphere, we require more. We make you throw baseballs, and eat kielbasa.
I think Obama is pretty imperious, yet I can easily imagine him covering a pancake-flipping fall with charm and grace. Mao, not at all, and Hu Jintao, just barely starting to make his way into that territory. That tells us something about a country, doesn't it?
It has it's bad side, of course, and isn't exactly a qualification for the presidency. Plenty of corrupt, glad-handing, back-slapping politicians also have that common touch we like. But it provides a check on one type of bad presidency, and for that we should be grateful.
It's been that way a long while, too.
We were trying to recall who the candidate was who fell off the back of the stage while flipping pancakes. Tracy and Ben had been present for the event. A school snow day, perhaps. Was that '96 or 2000? Or perhaps even '92? No, it was all Bush 41 and Buchanan for that one - we would have remembered that. Was it Gary Bauer? It wasn't Dole... It wasn't Alexander...Forbes?...Dornan?
It was Bauer, 1996, for those tormenting themselves over it.
We discussed how such foolishness is in many ways a good thing. Even our stuffiest, most self-important candidates have to venture such things. They have to risk looking foolish, having to quickly cover, looking a little sheepish. You can't imagine Vlad Putin putting himself in that position, nor Bashar Assad. Dictators try to look like a Man of the People by wearing military garb, as Saddam Hussein or a thousand Latin American leaders did. In the West, and I think particularly in the Anglosphere, we require more. We make you throw baseballs, and eat kielbasa.
I think Obama is pretty imperious, yet I can easily imagine him covering a pancake-flipping fall with charm and grace. Mao, not at all, and Hu Jintao, just barely starting to make his way into that territory. That tells us something about a country, doesn't it?
It has it's bad side, of course, and isn't exactly a qualification for the presidency. Plenty of corrupt, glad-handing, back-slapping politicians also have that common touch we like. But it provides a check on one type of bad presidency, and for that we should be grateful.
It's been that way a long while, too.
McLaren, Bell, MacArthur
Somewhat accidentally, I have recently encountered an essay by Brian McLaren, portions of Rob Bell’s farewell address, and half a chapter of John MacArthur discussing changes in the church. All three referred in rather general terms to other Christians who had disagreed with them or criticised them. In each case, I thought “Y’know, those people don’t put it like that. They have a better argument for what they do and why they do it.”
In each case there were additional comments available – the Amazon book reviews for MacArthur, the comments sections for McLaren and Bell. As these things go, those in agreement were more prominent in all cases, and they in turn were even more pronounced in misreprenting what “those other” Christians believe. But those in disagreement were no better. In all cases, the references were not to individuals, where one could perhaps discern whether the quoted person was indeed central to a Christian group or movement, or even – mad thought - track down an actual quote. It was vaguer than that: the evil old way or new way or other way of seeing things. And we’ve got their number. We can display why they are wrong in just a sentence or two.
Do we all do this? Render ourselves unable to give an accurate summary of other *POV’s, and embed ever more comfortably in our own nests?
*shouldn’t that be P’s OV? That is accurate but strange-looking. What is that acronym's protocol?
In each case there were additional comments available – the Amazon book reviews for MacArthur, the comments sections for McLaren and Bell. As these things go, those in agreement were more prominent in all cases, and they in turn were even more pronounced in misreprenting what “those other” Christians believe. But those in disagreement were no better. In all cases, the references were not to individuals, where one could perhaps discern whether the quoted person was indeed central to a Christian group or movement, or even – mad thought - track down an actual quote. It was vaguer than that: the evil old way or new way or other way of seeing things. And we’ve got their number. We can display why they are wrong in just a sentence or two.
Do we all do this? Render ourselves unable to give an accurate summary of other *POV’s, and embed ever more comfortably in our own nests?
*shouldn’t that be P’s OV? That is accurate but strange-looking. What is that acronym's protocol?
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
New Conventional Wisdom
Where does this idea come from that the protests all over the globe are somehow related, springing from the same frustrations and impulses? Egypt, Pakistan, Greece, Tunisia, OWS, London.
That's just insane. A perfect example of people making up a pattern to give themselves the illusion of understanding - and thus not have to think too hard about events too close to their own lives.
Are there any prominent non-liberals falling into this nonsense? I'm betting yes, even though I have run across any yet.
That's just insane. A perfect example of people making up a pattern to give themselves the illusion of understanding - and thus not have to think too hard about events too close to their own lives.
Are there any prominent non-liberals falling into this nonsense? I'm betting yes, even though I have run across any yet.
Monday, December 26, 2011
No Politics
Very little political this month, and most of that is noting what others think rather than what I think. Looking over the last few months, that has been increasingly true. Replaced by music.
Maybe I'm not thinking as much, and so not writing about my thought. Much easier to watch other people think.
My current thought is to read absurdists and existentialists and connect it to church and culture. My fear is that I will have many brief, unrelated thoughts that don't tie in to any helpful ideas.
(Head slap) Lists! Lists are supposed to drive up traffic, and are traditional at the end of the year. I imagine they drive up traffic with real readers, too, not the in-and-out kind that come over to download ABBA or meerkat pictures.
AVI's Top Ten...Top Ten...can't think of anything. Absurdist dramas isn't likely to grip the imagination, nor is ABBA costumes, nor obscure NH villages, and English language trivia you can get on other sites pretty easily.
Maybe I'm not thinking as much, and so not writing about my thought. Much easier to watch other people think.
My current thought is to read absurdists and existentialists and connect it to church and culture. My fear is that I will have many brief, unrelated thoughts that don't tie in to any helpful ideas.
(Head slap) Lists! Lists are supposed to drive up traffic, and are traditional at the end of the year. I imagine they drive up traffic with real readers, too, not the in-and-out kind that come over to download ABBA or meerkat pictures.
AVI's Top Ten...Top Ten...can't think of anything. Absurdist dramas isn't likely to grip the imagination, nor is ABBA costumes, nor obscure NH villages, and English language trivia you can get on other sites pretty easily.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Note To Self
Events are not interesting to others, even if they care about you, just because they happened to you. They must be narrated well and/or have some other point of interest.
I deeply fear that all stories are going to end at Westford Center someday. DNR.
If that sounds grim, I'm a pretty strong DNR guy anyway.
I deeply fear that all stories are going to end at Westford Center someday. DNR.
If that sounds grim, I'm a pretty strong DNR guy anyway.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Two From Ben
He'll be home from Houston Christmas Night, and finally able to sleep after filmmaking, but Ben has been able to post a few interesting things during the making of the film for Christmas Eve.
I have been having trouble keeping the embed. Perhaps twitvid takes it down. If so, you can go to their site for the video here.
In (assumedly) unrelated news, A species of miniature dragon has been discovered. Well, little "dracos" have been known about for awhile, but this one does seem different and definitely cool.
"I was trying to create the sound effect of a mug smashing for "Unexpected", but it turned out to be harder than I thought. The end result seemed funny. But then, I'm pretty tired."
I have been having trouble keeping the embed. Perhaps twitvid takes it down. If so, you can go to their site for the video here.
In (assumedly) unrelated news, A species of miniature dragon has been discovered. Well, little "dracos" have been known about for awhile, but this one does seem different and definitely cool.
Ron Paul
He continues to poll about 20% here, so I thought I let you know my unscientific reading of that, based on what I hear people say at work (not everyone who works in a psych hospital is a social worker, after all) and a t church. Half of that number are people who are pretty lined up with Ron on a lot of issues, who would vote for him any year. Another half might dislike, even greatly dislike, one or another of his general positions, particularly on foreign policy. But they are so determined that the government should shrink that they'll risk that, and they're voting for him in the primary.
That's not going to be me, but I entirely understand that reasoning.
That's not going to be me, but I entirely understand that reasoning.
Friday, December 23, 2011
50 Best Quotes
Right Wing News has it's 50 Best Political Quotes of the Year. I don't agree with them all, and surprisingly, Michael Moore had one of the ones I liked best (#26. for its irony.) Ann Althouse at #47 has one dear to my heart, as it echoes my A&H Tribe thinking.
Why does the left hate free speech? Because they don’t know how to talk about the substantive merits when they are challenged. Having submerged themselves in disciplining each other by denouncing any heretics in their midst, they find themselves overwhelmed and outnumbered in America, where there is vibrant debate about all sorts of things they don’t know how to begin to talk about. They resort to stomping their feet and shouting “shut up”… when they aren’t prissily imploring everyone to be “civil.”Jonah Goldberg at #40.
If you’ve ever known anyone with a serious addiction, the easiest thing for friends and family to do is pretend it’s not a big deal. Who wants to have a confrontation? Far easier to let things slide and have a good time. “Let’s have a nice Thanksgiving without any arguments, OK?” The tea party is like the cousin who’s been through AA and refuses to pretend anymore. As a result, he spoils everyone’s good time. For the enablers, and others in denial, he’s the guy ruining everything, not the drunk. Uncle Sam is the drunk and the tea partiers are the annoyingly sober — and a bit self-righteous — cousin. Measured by spending, and adjusted for inflation, the federal government has increased by more than 50 percent in 10 years. Some have enabled the drunken spending, others continue to deny it’s even a problem. The tea party is sounding the wake-up call. If America didn’t have a problem, then there really would be good cause to be furious with the forces of sobriety. Nobody likes a party-pooper, especially the people hooked on partying.Carl at No Oil For Pacifists has his own favorites, and you can get the full link there.
Epitaph
I have mentioned before that I am a fan of Eugene Ionesco, who is (wrongly) grouped in Theatre of the Absurd. Unlike Beckett or Pinter, the playwrights Ionesco, Jarry, and especially Stoppard do not teach that absurdism must necessarily lead to despair, but sense hope out beyond the final wall of death.
I learned today that Ionesco's epitaph is "Pray to I-don't-know-who. Jesus Christ, I hope."
I learned today that Ionesco's epitaph is "Pray to I-don't-know-who. Jesus Christ, I hope."
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Christmas Party
Frosty. Jingle Bells. Yes, Virginia, with its “The
eternal light with which childhood fills the world…” stealing from religious
imagery for its power, as always.
But it is our holiday, right? Or was, originally.
War Is Over. Deck The Halls. White Christmas.
Richie comes up and amidst some more secular pieces slips in
“Hark the Herald,” then a Christian contemporary of his own composition. Good
work.
The Little Drummer Boy.
Marginal – at least it’s got Jesus in it.
From my job I can see the day when an Actual Christian will
be brought out as some museum piece to weakly sing a carol no one knows
anymore, with all the sentimentalists beaming at the old bird, thinking that
they’ve gotten the authentic flavor of the traditional holiday – similar to
those old-fashioned peppermints you have to special order now, which they get
for their grandchildren every year.
It hasn’t reached you yet.
This is New Hampshire, which, along with Maine and Vermont have the
lowest percentage of Christians, and gee-whiz-who’da-thunk it, the least
charitable giving as well. European levels. I am sad to see the gospel leave
the place where I live – because Christmas and Easter are the last cultural
holdouts, and if we can’t sustain those, we won’t sustain anything else – but I
am glad that it has at least found other places to land, in Africa and Asia.
I am glad of this for other reasons as well. I used to think that an apophatic faith – one
defined by contemplation of what God is
not, was rather a dodge, a contrariness with more than a hint of arrogance,
looking down on those who used mere worldly attributes to understand what God is.
But I learned in dry years that this is not so. We lean on the physical and sensory to carry
us: if those around us don’t Do Christmas (or Do Worship, or Do Charity) in
quite the way we think it should be, it gets ruined for us.*
And yet, Christ comes,
just as much in ruined Christmas as in an orderly one. We walk in a world among people who
breathlessly say “…very special moments that remind us of what this holiday
season is really about!” – meaning smiling and punch and watching the Grinch
with friends – but the ordered steps of the earth and sun are unaffected, the
season comes, and the appointed time for preparation is now joined to it as
long as the earth spins. Christ was, and is, and is to come. The apophatic faith which says “Not thus…nor
thus…” is more popular in the East, where there are always bad governments,
shorter lifespans, more death. A good
approach for tragic times, or even merely irritated ones. No one sang “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming”
this year. No matter. Christ comes.
Rejoice.
For contrast to this post, I wrote The Sadness of NPR Christmas a few years ago.
*Can this be AVI, who usually calls us to immerse in the
worldly and the physical trappings of the faith – the taste of the wine, the
harmony of the music, the dark ceiling recesses of the cathedral? Yes, the same. Those are there for our instruction, to teach
us great things. They are the mold of
our faith, giving it shape. Yet the day
may come when the mold is stripped away – and the faith has to stand alone. Rejoice in that day also.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
But If It's True..
But what if the story of William James Sidis, minus the obvious exaggerations, is essentially true? Where then does he rank?
Norbert Wiener, in his book Ex-Prodigy, quite clearly testifies to Sidis' brilliance in mathematics at a young age. That is the single most powerful bit of evidence in favor of the premise that Sidis was the real deal. Wiener was not close to him, but knew him at Harvard, had a class with him, and had some conversations with him. He also knew him later in life, when William was haunting the halls of MIT for employment doing computational work, of which there was plenty in the 1940's - but no more, because he did not want to get too deeply into mathematics any longer. Sparse contact, but real, not hearsay.
The short answer is that Wiener hints that Sidis' non-mathematical accomplishments, his languages and varied subjects of curiosity, are padded and his physics was suspect, but his mathematical potential was top-shelf. He also confirms some rumors of Billy's eccentricities and contradicts others. As Wiener was himself top-shelf, I take that seriously enough to accept the evaluation with no further evidence. Had NW said that about a laboratory custodian at MIT with no other credentials I would accept the judgement. That excellence in math, in turn, gives at least some support that the other precocities might be somewhat true. We don't have to believe that he taught himself Latin and Greek at 4, as his mother claimed, to believe that he was very good.
Yet these find no echo in his later life. The mathematics, though he came to avoid it, at least shows up off and on. The languages, not at all. Not even a passing mention by friends, family, interviewers, reporters later - only the languages that he supposedly knew when young. We might conclude that he had ability but no further interest, and let it slide, or that he kept the abilities only for personal use or amusement.He does not seem to have read widely in other languages, at any rate.
Language prodigies tend not to pan out. Languages as read and as spoken are different, and the subtleties of expression somehow do not register with them as well. In Sidis's case, social subtleties eluded him even in English, so it would hardly be surprising that nuance eluded him in other tongues. Math and music prodigies are most common, languages after that, and males far more common than females. They translate the literal sense of things, they know rules and constructions. They do not get called on to translate literature or diplomatic speech - those arts seem to develop slowly.
Still, Sidis might have known enough of many languages to understand much of what is written in them. What number we claim he "knew" - five or forty or a hundred - is likely to depend strongly on what we call "knowing." There was no fluency in Pennacook, as there were no native speakers but there might have been enough to cobble together a meaning from any document that came to light. A useful skill, and one that demonstrates high intelligence. But "genius" would seem to require more than mere accumulation.
The categorising of streetcar transfers makes immediate sense to anyone who understands the OCD or autism spectra. It gives pleasure, and there is no reason not to. But spinning lengthy theories about Atlantis, Red Men, and the Constitution with no real grounding, how do we rank that? Do we simply award no points in our estimate of his intelligence, or do we take them away? Similarly with philosophy stretched over physics - originality is a good thing, but what are we to make of a person who cannot look at his work and say "Wait, this just doesn't add up?"
We can't know what William might have been if he was brought up by a less driven father - or if someone had whacked his father a few times and made him see the obvious. Boris pushed and William broke. Would he have broken anyway? Would he have been brilliant anyway? Not only unknown, but currently unknowable.
Let us assign some modest percentage to the possibility that Norbert Wiener was fooled somehow - that reputation plus William's computational feats plus overidentification because Wiener was himself a prodigy with a driven father caused him to believe that young William was smarter than he was. The greater likelihood remains that Wiener sized him up correctly, and Sidis had it in him to contribute to 20th C mathematics at highest levels. Even at that, even granting everything, I don't see him at the very top. Smarter than anyone you are likely to run into this week, perhaps. But we are entering territory where the competition is stiff as well. There isn't evidence that William James Sidis did anything more than moderately special, he just did it younger. That's not enough. Precocity is not in itself proof.
We imagine that there is an arc to intelligence over the lifespan, and that a steeper trajectory in youth must mean a higher peak. There is some evidence for this. But in music, and athletics, in drawing, and performing, and chess, we know of examples of early promise that simply peaked before their age mates but ultimately rose no higher than the others in the top 1% in the field. Just earlier, not better. If we are going to speculate about some mind that William Sidis would have had if, we have to also take it as it is - ultimately not focused, not able to sort good ideas from bad, original but not precise.
So what is your estimate of his intelligence? One in a hundred? One in a thousand? A million? A billion?
Norbert Wiener, in his book Ex-Prodigy, quite clearly testifies to Sidis' brilliance in mathematics at a young age. That is the single most powerful bit of evidence in favor of the premise that Sidis was the real deal. Wiener was not close to him, but knew him at Harvard, had a class with him, and had some conversations with him. He also knew him later in life, when William was haunting the halls of MIT for employment doing computational work, of which there was plenty in the 1940's - but no more, because he did not want to get too deeply into mathematics any longer. Sparse contact, but real, not hearsay.
The short answer is that Wiener hints that Sidis' non-mathematical accomplishments, his languages and varied subjects of curiosity, are padded and his physics was suspect, but his mathematical potential was top-shelf. He also confirms some rumors of Billy's eccentricities and contradicts others. As Wiener was himself top-shelf, I take that seriously enough to accept the evaluation with no further evidence. Had NW said that about a laboratory custodian at MIT with no other credentials I would accept the judgement. That excellence in math, in turn, gives at least some support that the other precocities might be somewhat true. We don't have to believe that he taught himself Latin and Greek at 4, as his mother claimed, to believe that he was very good.
Yet these find no echo in his later life. The mathematics, though he came to avoid it, at least shows up off and on. The languages, not at all. Not even a passing mention by friends, family, interviewers, reporters later - only the languages that he supposedly knew when young. We might conclude that he had ability but no further interest, and let it slide, or that he kept the abilities only for personal use or amusement.He does not seem to have read widely in other languages, at any rate.
Language prodigies tend not to pan out. Languages as read and as spoken are different, and the subtleties of expression somehow do not register with them as well. In Sidis's case, social subtleties eluded him even in English, so it would hardly be surprising that nuance eluded him in other tongues. Math and music prodigies are most common, languages after that, and males far more common than females. They translate the literal sense of things, they know rules and constructions. They do not get called on to translate literature or diplomatic speech - those arts seem to develop slowly.
Still, Sidis might have known enough of many languages to understand much of what is written in them. What number we claim he "knew" - five or forty or a hundred - is likely to depend strongly on what we call "knowing." There was no fluency in Pennacook, as there were no native speakers but there might have been enough to cobble together a meaning from any document that came to light. A useful skill, and one that demonstrates high intelligence. But "genius" would seem to require more than mere accumulation.
The categorising of streetcar transfers makes immediate sense to anyone who understands the OCD or autism spectra. It gives pleasure, and there is no reason not to. But spinning lengthy theories about Atlantis, Red Men, and the Constitution with no real grounding, how do we rank that? Do we simply award no points in our estimate of his intelligence, or do we take them away? Similarly with philosophy stretched over physics - originality is a good thing, but what are we to make of a person who cannot look at his work and say "Wait, this just doesn't add up?"
In a rough chronological order, William James held a theory about reserve energy. Boris Sidis learned of reserve energy from William James. Boris claimed that William’s intelligence was in part due to the use of reserve energy. William Sidis pondered how William James’ theory of reserve energy might be removed from the metaphysical realm and brought into a scientific study. The Animate and the Inanimate is William Sidis’ pondering about how the second law of thermodynamics might apply to William James’ reserve energy theory…Does that even mean anything?
We can't know what William might have been if he was brought up by a less driven father - or if someone had whacked his father a few times and made him see the obvious. Boris pushed and William broke. Would he have broken anyway? Would he have been brilliant anyway? Not only unknown, but currently unknowable.
Let us assign some modest percentage to the possibility that Norbert Wiener was fooled somehow - that reputation plus William's computational feats plus overidentification because Wiener was himself a prodigy with a driven father caused him to believe that young William was smarter than he was. The greater likelihood remains that Wiener sized him up correctly, and Sidis had it in him to contribute to 20th C mathematics at highest levels. Even at that, even granting everything, I don't see him at the very top. Smarter than anyone you are likely to run into this week, perhaps. But we are entering territory where the competition is stiff as well. There isn't evidence that William James Sidis did anything more than moderately special, he just did it younger. That's not enough. Precocity is not in itself proof.
We imagine that there is an arc to intelligence over the lifespan, and that a steeper trajectory in youth must mean a higher peak. There is some evidence for this. But in music, and athletics, in drawing, and performing, and chess, we know of examples of early promise that simply peaked before their age mates but ultimately rose no higher than the others in the top 1% in the field. Just earlier, not better. If we are going to speculate about some mind that William Sidis would have had if, we have to also take it as it is - ultimately not focused, not able to sort good ideas from bad, original but not precise.
So what is your estimate of his intelligence? One in a hundred? One in a thousand? A million? A billion?
Smart, Wealthy, Athletic – A Digression on IQ
We can’t measure any of the above with precision, because their
meanings are elusive. We have approximate, somewhat similar ideas what we mean,
but can’t nail them down. We think if
Rasheed Wallace had been just a little smarter, then he could have (fill in
the blank – mine is “kept himself in just a little bit better shape in 2010 and
won us a championship). But his POV is “I made millions of dollars, won
championship rings, had a great time, didn’t force a disabling injuring –
explain to me how I’m the one who got this wrong.” Uh, good point,
that. Literature is full of smart people
figuring out how to win at life in quiet ways that don’t look as
successful – Mycroft Holmes being a good example.
We can measure riches by reading the Fortune 500 list –and
we can play with the list to take liquidity, control, or security into
consideration. But philosophy, religion,
and literature are likewise chockablock full of discussions of True Wealth,
True Riches. The most entertaining is
the Talmudic give-and-take recorded by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
"Who is wealthy? He who has pleasure in his wealth": this is the view of Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Tarfon said: "He who possesses a hundred vineyards, a hundred fields, and a hundred servants working in them". Rabbi Akiva said: "He who has a wife who is comely in good deeds". Rabbi Jose said: "He who has a toilet near his table"This was the kind of table-talk in which the rabbis delighted, coming at a subject from all angles, and perhaps not too seriously. Rabbi Meir gives a philosophical answer: wealth is a state of mind, rejoicing in what you have, whether it is much or little. Rabbi Tarfon won't have any of it: wealth is wealth, and let's not evade the issue. Rabbi Akiva tells us frankly that someone who has a good wife is wealthy whatever else he lacks. And Rabbi Jose replies in the spirit of "If I were a wealthy man". Oy, If only I didn't have to go so far to the toilet, that would be riches indeed.“Wealth and Poverty, a Jewish Analysis” Social Affairs Unit 1985
Every four years we call the winner of the Olympic Decathlon
“The World’s Greatest Athlete,” then forget who he is and pay 100,000 other
people more money to be athletes. So we
don’t really mean that. If we are
pressed, we will define athletic along some measures of strength,
endurance, speed, coordination, and flexibility. We know what we mean approximately, and we
know it when we see it.
When I use the word intelligence in discussing Sidis or
other prodigies, I am choosing a meaning closer to IQ than to smart,
not because I think IQ is more important, but because we already have a word
for smart, and I am making a distiction.
Intelligence is g-factor, candlepower. It has components of analogising, processing
speed, and memory (at least) and is not quite definable. (In New England, we
often make the distiction with our favorite intensifier. Smaht could mean cleverness or wisdom
– and can be used ironically, but wicked smaht is something closer to
the IQ meaning of intelligence.)
Tweet Theology
The recent “tweet of the year” in conservative circles was
quite clever, and I don’t want to take too much away from it by being too
literal. In referring to the death of
Kim Jong Il, Josh Trevino tweeted “I’d like to think God let Havel and Hitchens
pick the third.” Obviously, if you press
this very far you come up against “Wait, what little-known heavenly loopholes
allow Hitchens in this conversation?” Or, “Who says God is a grinning,
clubbable old guy who likes revenge?” Ruins the fun – and it is fun, to
think of Hitchens and Havel looking over the population and discussing who is
going to be swept from the board.
I prefer to ruin this in a different way. Who says that Havel and Hitchens were
especially important souls to be given this honor, simply because they were
famous here? Far more likely that the
greatest souls who died in the last few weeks, as measured by their honor when
we see them in glorified form, are people whose names we have never heard, and
never will in our lifetimes. God is not
a respecter of persons in that way. The
last shall be first. I don’t say that to
remind the great persons of the world of their true place – I doubt many of
them drop by here - but for us, the medium and medium small people of the
world, to remember that those smaller than us may be greater as well.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
About That Harvard Exam (Sidis Part 3A)
An anonymous commenter linked to the 1869 Harvard entrance exam that was dug up by a NYTimes writer and made the rounds last year. It looks pretty intimidating at first glance, and the commenter used it as evidence that Billy Sidis's entrance into Harvard in 1909 was a pretty solid accomplishment in itself. Interestingly, the boy's getting in was probably even better than the exam would indicate. Harvard was no great shakes in 1869, but had improved considerably by 1909, and was one of the world's best by then. I will note that it was still not what we think of today. Competitive university admission is mostly a post WWII, or even post 1960 phenomenon. Many of the brightest did indeed go to the Ivies, the Little Ivies, or the Seven Sisters,* but you simply couldn't count on it. The rich and the alums got their kids in, and nationally, people stayed closer to home and many of the brightest went to other schools, far more than, say, in 1990.
The gap exactly covers the period of Charles William Eliot's presidency of Harvard, if you want more background than I will give here.
But the test. That Latin and Greek looks awfully impressive right out of the gate. If you are older, and/or a reader of history, and/or a traditionalist, you may still have Latin Envy, believing that a "proper" education must include it, and Greek! Why, that just seals it. A different alphabet and everything. Weren't they smart, then?
No, not especially. They had had six years of Latin and four of Greek by then, whether by tutor or at academy. If you took any languages at all in late 20th C, and make the mental comparison of what, exactly, they were being asked to do, it looks much less impressive. Note also, there was a standard set of works studied in those languages, which these questions are drawn from, plus frequent drill in grammar. Even if you had Latin yourself, you should note that the primary authors studied now are not quite the same as studied then, nor in quite the same way. These exam questions are essentially "Did you have proper teachers, are you reasonably bright, and did you make a moderate effort these last few years?"
Before I get into the math, let me note the major difference, then and now. Look at what is missing in this exam. There is no biology, no chemistry, no physics, and certainly no other sciences such as geology or economics. There are no questions on English Literature - no Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton - and certainly no American literature (horrors! To even imagine such a thing!). No modern languages, no history other than ancient, no world events, no weather, no basic medicine. Even deeper, no methods of research, and no use of reference materials. Because these were not taught to young men. They were taught English Composition and Grammar, Latin and Greek, Ancient History, and the mathematics you see here. That's it.
Thus, their facility with L&G is dropping even farther down the list of impressiveness. Most of what 7th-12th graders have to learn today they did not have to even pretend to know. They were being trained to be gentlemen. The push for more useful arts was just beginning in this country.
The mathematics would look worrisome at first, but on closer examination, not so. The arithmetic is mostly just big numbers, and irritating, tedious working by hand. We forget mathematics that we don't use very quickly, but these students were still immersed.
Two stories: I was a math wizard, but I had to relearn a lot of it each time a son got beyond the first few weeks of algebra in HS. The terms and symbols were familiar, but I couldn't remember where they went. I could get it back, but I had to sit and stare, consult the index, and trial-and-error a bit. All year, for both algebra and geometry. (And as the first two seldom needed help, I was even less prepared for the others.) Story 2: There was a math magazine when I was in school, which posed problems each month. It printed the names of those who solved them the next month. I did a few months of that in 12th grade. Because of going to St Paul's for summer studies, I recognised the names of many of the other NH students who got problems right. One month, there was a problem where I was the only kid in the country to submit a right answer - something about rotating one parabola along another and describing where the focus went. Very cool. I pretended, in my conceit , that I was the only one able to get it, which was insane. How many students, even the nerdy math ones, read magazines and submitted problems? Fast forward one year. I was in a different type of math at college, but for some reason wanted to review my accomplishment from the year before. Narcissism, likely. I could not follow the solution I had myself written, only one year later.
We lose new abstract thoughts quickly, unless they are used. Look at the logarithms, trig, and plane geometry in the exam. Even if you can't even remember how to begin to solve it now, do you recognise the words and ideas? Do you have some recollection of solving problems sort of like that? Then in all likelihood, you could have done those problems when you were in 11th-12th grade. And especially, if you didn't have to study any Biochem, Shakespeare, or Intro to Psychology as well. If you had the same five subjects pretty much year after year, you'd know 'em quite well.
Also - there was some different emphasis in what maths were taught then. Trig was the top shelf, and you got two years of drill in it. No sets, calculus, or statistics for you.
Also - read the directions. See how few questions were required.
Also - it doesn't say what a passing score was, does it?
185 out of 215 applicants got into Harvard that year.
*Fun trivia test for you: name 'em. I got five on my first try, then a sixth popped into my head a year or so later (this was before internet). I never did get the seventh until I looked it up.
The gap exactly covers the period of Charles William Eliot's presidency of Harvard, if you want more background than I will give here.
But the test. That Latin and Greek looks awfully impressive right out of the gate. If you are older, and/or a reader of history, and/or a traditionalist, you may still have Latin Envy, believing that a "proper" education must include it, and Greek! Why, that just seals it. A different alphabet and everything. Weren't they smart, then?
No, not especially. They had had six years of Latin and four of Greek by then, whether by tutor or at academy. If you took any languages at all in late 20th C, and make the mental comparison of what, exactly, they were being asked to do, it looks much less impressive. Note also, there was a standard set of works studied in those languages, which these questions are drawn from, plus frequent drill in grammar. Even if you had Latin yourself, you should note that the primary authors studied now are not quite the same as studied then, nor in quite the same way. These exam questions are essentially "Did you have proper teachers, are you reasonably bright, and did you make a moderate effort these last few years?"
Before I get into the math, let me note the major difference, then and now. Look at what is missing in this exam. There is no biology, no chemistry, no physics, and certainly no other sciences such as geology or economics. There are no questions on English Literature - no Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton - and certainly no American literature (horrors! To even imagine such a thing!). No modern languages, no history other than ancient, no world events, no weather, no basic medicine. Even deeper, no methods of research, and no use of reference materials. Because these were not taught to young men. They were taught English Composition and Grammar, Latin and Greek, Ancient History, and the mathematics you see here. That's it.
Thus, their facility with L&G is dropping even farther down the list of impressiveness. Most of what 7th-12th graders have to learn today they did not have to even pretend to know. They were being trained to be gentlemen. The push for more useful arts was just beginning in this country.
The mathematics would look worrisome at first, but on closer examination, not so. The arithmetic is mostly just big numbers, and irritating, tedious working by hand. We forget mathematics that we don't use very quickly, but these students were still immersed.
Two stories: I was a math wizard, but I had to relearn a lot of it each time a son got beyond the first few weeks of algebra in HS. The terms and symbols were familiar, but I couldn't remember where they went. I could get it back, but I had to sit and stare, consult the index, and trial-and-error a bit. All year, for both algebra and geometry. (And as the first two seldom needed help, I was even less prepared for the others.) Story 2: There was a math magazine when I was in school, which posed problems each month. It printed the names of those who solved them the next month. I did a few months of that in 12th grade. Because of going to St Paul's for summer studies, I recognised the names of many of the other NH students who got problems right. One month, there was a problem where I was the only kid in the country to submit a right answer - something about rotating one parabola along another and describing where the focus went. Very cool. I pretended, in my conceit , that I was the only one able to get it, which was insane. How many students, even the nerdy math ones, read magazines and submitted problems? Fast forward one year. I was in a different type of math at college, but for some reason wanted to review my accomplishment from the year before. Narcissism, likely. I could not follow the solution I had myself written, only one year later.
We lose new abstract thoughts quickly, unless they are used. Look at the logarithms, trig, and plane geometry in the exam. Even if you can't even remember how to begin to solve it now, do you recognise the words and ideas? Do you have some recollection of solving problems sort of like that? Then in all likelihood, you could have done those problems when you were in 11th-12th grade. And especially, if you didn't have to study any Biochem, Shakespeare, or Intro to Psychology as well. If you had the same five subjects pretty much year after year, you'd know 'em quite well.
Also - there was some different emphasis in what maths were taught then. Trig was the top shelf, and you got two years of drill in it. No sets, calculus, or statistics for you.
Also - read the directions. See how few questions were required.
Also - it doesn't say what a passing score was, does it?
185 out of 215 applicants got into Harvard that year.
*Fun trivia test for you: name 'em. I got five on my first try, then a sixth popped into my head a year or so later (this was before internet). I never did get the seventh until I looked it up.
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