Gargantua’s admonishment of Pantagruel to employ his youth to profit both in studies and in virtue:
I intend, and will have it so, that thou learn the languages perfectly; first of all the Greek, as Quintilian will have it; secondly, the Latin; and then the Hebrew, for the Holy Scripture sake; and then the Chaldee and Arabic likewise, and that thou frame thy style in Greek in imitation of Plato, and for the Latin after Cicero. Let there be no history which thou shalt not have ready in thy memory; unto the prosecuting of which design, books of cosmography will be very conducible and help thee much. Of the liberal arts of geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave thee some taste when thou wert yet little, and not above five or six years old. Proceed further in them, and learn the remainder if thou canst. As for astronomy, study all the rules thereof. Let pass, nevertheless, the divining and judicial astrology, and the art of Lullius, as being nothing else but plain abuses and vanities. As for the civil law, of that I would have thee to know the texts by heart, and then to confer them with philosophy.
Now, in matter of the knowledge of the works of nature, I would have thee to study that exactly, and that so there be no sea, river, nor fountain, of which thou dost not know the fishes; all the fowls of the air; all the several kinds of shrubs and trees, whether in forests or orchards; all the sorts of herbs and flowers that grow upon the ground; all the various metals that are hid within the bowels of the earth; together with all the diversity of precious stones that are to be seen in the orient and south parts of the world. Let nothing of all these be hidden from thee. Then fail not most carefully to peruse the books of the Greek, Arabian, and Latin physicians, not despising the Talmudists and Cabalists; and by frequent anatomies get thee the perfect knowledge of the other world, called the microcosm, which is man. And at some hours of the day apply thy mind to the study of the Holy Scriptures; first in Greek, the New Testament, with the Epistles of the Apostles; and then the Old Testament in Hebrew. In brief, let me see thee an abyss and bottomless pit of knowledge; for from henceforward, as thou growest great and becomest a man, thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study, thou must learn chivalry, warfare, and the exercises of the field, the better thereby to defend my house and our friends, and to succour and protect them at all their needs against the invasion and assaults of evildoers.
Furthermore, I will that very shortly thou try how much thou hast profited, which thou canst not better do than by maintaining publicly theses and conclusions in all arts against all persons whatsoever, and by haunting the company of learned men, both at Paris and otherwhere. But because, as the wise man Solomon saith, Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and that knowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul [...]. Suspect the abuses of the world. Set not thy heart upon vanity, for this life is transitory, [...]. Be serviceable to all thy neighbours, and love them as thyself. Reverence thy preceptors: shun the conversation of those whom thou desirest not to resemble, and receive not in vain the graces which God hath bestowed upon thee. And, when thou shalt see that thou hast attained to all the knowledge that is to be acquired in that part, return unto me, that I may see thee and give thee my blessing before I die.
Note that this is not advice for everyone but apparently for a very capable youth:
Pantagruel studied very hard, as you may well conceive, and profited accordingly; for he had an excellent understanding and notable wit, together with a capacity in memory equal to the measure of twelve oil budgets or butts of olives.
I’m sympathetic towards the idea that pursuing all the knowledge we can get our hands on is a good thing. It is a tempting idea for me to believe in, because it offers a justification that is satisfying to values I hold like curiosity and respect for information. However, this means I might be biased. And I don’t want to believe this idea if it isn’t true.
When I think critically about this, I’m inclined to think that seeking so much knowledge across so many subjects is a suboptimal use of time, even for the prodigiously talented. My view is that details are important insofar as learning them helps us to learn broad patterns, and some types of details predictably are unlikely to lead to such insights and so can be safely ignored. For non-biologists, I don’t think there is much value in knowing all the names and types of the plants. For non-astronomers, I don’t think that the stars and planets are worth studying.
I acknowledge that there sometimes are cross-applicable ideas or universal patterns which can be discovered by studying obscure fields. For example, Newton’s laws of motion or his law of gravity are useful to almost all of science, not just to astronomers. However, even acknowledging this, it’s unclear to me whether the probability of discovering such patterns is high enough that it’s worth the opportunity cost. Maybe if people before Newton had been more inclined towards specialized knowledge, some astronomer would have discovered the equation for gravitational attraction even sooner. Perhaps we’d also have some additional knowledge besides.
Is there any actual evidence for the idea that unfiltered pursuit of knowledge is superior to the filtered pursuit of knowledge? The only other argument for it that I can advance is that a lot of famous intelligent people have believed so, but I find this argument pretty unpersuasive. Thoughts?
Partly, I may simply be taking reliable access to high quality detailed information for granted, since I’m used to living with internet access and Wikipedia.
Is there any actual evidence for the idea that unfiltered pursuit of knowledge is superior to the filtered pursuit of knowledge?
In my view, it’s about the right level of filtering. For most people, I think looking at much more sources than they currently do is justified, as is developing the ability to quickly extract important pieces of information from sources for efficiency. The latter includes developing the ability to prioritize, skim, summarize, and assimilate information as well as abilities related to acquiring new sources, like knowing how to reach people with knowledge of other fields who can expand your horizons. I think it’s also helpful to interact with others who can fill in gaps in your knowledge, e.g., you might have decided that learning about X was unimportant, but your friend in the same field read a lot about X and understands its importance. That example is basically applying parallel processing to knowledge acquisition. I can also think of a number of instances where I was looking for information about something, concluded it didn’t exist, but later found what I was looking for (or something close) in a different related field, often with different terminology.
For some basic evidence, consider the foxes and hedgehogs dichotomy. Foxes, who take a more global view, tend to perform better in predictions. Geoff Colvin also thinks that more knowledge is better and he discusses this in his book Talent is Overrated on pp. 150-151. (Edit: Actually, the latter author says nothing about the unfiltered vs. filtered distinction as I recall now, but he does believe that more knowledge is better in a general sense.)
There’s another common related view, which I see as misguided. Sometimes people claim that your thinking is often less constrained (i.e., you are more creative) if you are not familiar with a subject. I recently read a book, Gossamer Odyssey, where very successful engineer Paul MacCready attributed his success in human powered flight to not doing things the “standard” way, because he was totally unfamiliar with the standard way. He had a PhD in aerospace engineering, but he focused on atmospheric physics, not aeronautics. In MacCready’s case, I think he was wrong about ignorance being the key. It was broader knowledge that helped him here. His knowledge of gliders rather than traditional aircraft turned out to be the key. Indeed, if you look at a lot of the cases where “ignorance” is held up as being useful for creativity, you see that having broader knowledge actually was the key (This blog post about Invisalign is another example I can find right now).
So, this seems to me like a post-hoc rationalization of intellectual laziness, and misleading because wider knowledge (“unfiltered” knowledge as 27chaos put it) is often key in cases where ignorance is held up as a benefit. Even if some creativity benefits come from ignorance, it does not follow that one should always remain ignorant in a field you are interested in. It seems to me that an hybrid strategy would be best: think about things before and after you learn. That way if your mind is unconstrained early on, you get the benefits of that. (In this popular book on decisions, they recommend the same thing on p. 50 according to my notes.)
However, according to this blog post, the book Origins of Genius by Dean Keith Simonton provides evidence that creativity follows an inverted U curve as a function of knowledge, where both too little and too much knowledge can hurt you. I have not read the book, but you might find it to be of interest.
But because, as the wise man Solomon saith, Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and that knowledge without conscience is but the ruin of the soul, it behoveth thee to serve, to love, to fear God, and on him to cast all thy thoughts and all thy hope, and by faith formed in charity to cleave unto him, so that thou mayst never be separated from him by thy sins. Suspect the abuses of the world. Set not thy heart upon vanity, for this life is transitory, but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. Be serviceable to all thy neighbours...
What might rationalist!Rabelais write in place of those passages?
Replacing “God” by “Reality” goes quite a long way.
Gargantua’s admonishment of Pantagruel to employ his youth to profit both in studies and in virtue:
-- Chapter 2.VIII. in Project Gutenberg’s Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete, by Francois Rabelais written in 1532-1564, translated in 1894, see also Wikipedia on Gargantua and Pantagruel
Note that this is not advice for everyone but apparently for a very capable youth:
I’m sympathetic towards the idea that pursuing all the knowledge we can get our hands on is a good thing. It is a tempting idea for me to believe in, because it offers a justification that is satisfying to values I hold like curiosity and respect for information. However, this means I might be biased. And I don’t want to believe this idea if it isn’t true.
When I think critically about this, I’m inclined to think that seeking so much knowledge across so many subjects is a suboptimal use of time, even for the prodigiously talented. My view is that details are important insofar as learning them helps us to learn broad patterns, and some types of details predictably are unlikely to lead to such insights and so can be safely ignored. For non-biologists, I don’t think there is much value in knowing all the names and types of the plants. For non-astronomers, I don’t think that the stars and planets are worth studying.
I acknowledge that there sometimes are cross-applicable ideas or universal patterns which can be discovered by studying obscure fields. For example, Newton’s laws of motion or his law of gravity are useful to almost all of science, not just to astronomers. However, even acknowledging this, it’s unclear to me whether the probability of discovering such patterns is high enough that it’s worth the opportunity cost. Maybe if people before Newton had been more inclined towards specialized knowledge, some astronomer would have discovered the equation for gravitational attraction even sooner. Perhaps we’d also have some additional knowledge besides.
Is there any actual evidence for the idea that unfiltered pursuit of knowledge is superior to the filtered pursuit of knowledge? The only other argument for it that I can advance is that a lot of famous intelligent people have believed so, but I find this argument pretty unpersuasive. Thoughts?
Partly, I may simply be taking reliable access to high quality detailed information for granted, since I’m used to living with internet access and Wikipedia.
In my view, it’s about the right level of filtering. For most people, I think looking at much more sources than they currently do is justified, as is developing the ability to quickly extract important pieces of information from sources for efficiency. The latter includes developing the ability to prioritize, skim, summarize, and assimilate information as well as abilities related to acquiring new sources, like knowing how to reach people with knowledge of other fields who can expand your horizons. I think it’s also helpful to interact with others who can fill in gaps in your knowledge, e.g., you might have decided that learning about X was unimportant, but your friend in the same field read a lot about X and understands its importance. That example is basically applying parallel processing to knowledge acquisition. I can also think of a number of instances where I was looking for information about something, concluded it didn’t exist, but later found what I was looking for (or something close) in a different related field, often with different terminology.
For some basic evidence, consider the foxes and hedgehogs dichotomy. Foxes, who take a more global view, tend to perform better in predictions. Geoff Colvin also thinks that more knowledge is better and he discusses this in his book Talent is Overrated on pp. 150-151. (Edit: Actually, the latter author says nothing about the unfiltered vs. filtered distinction as I recall now, but he does believe that more knowledge is better in a general sense.)
There’s another common related view, which I see as misguided. Sometimes people claim that your thinking is often less constrained (i.e., you are more creative) if you are not familiar with a subject. I recently read a book, Gossamer Odyssey, where very successful engineer Paul MacCready attributed his success in human powered flight to not doing things the “standard” way, because he was totally unfamiliar with the standard way. He had a PhD in aerospace engineering, but he focused on atmospheric physics, not aeronautics. In MacCready’s case, I think he was wrong about ignorance being the key. It was broader knowledge that helped him here. His knowledge of gliders rather than traditional aircraft turned out to be the key. Indeed, if you look at a lot of the cases where “ignorance” is held up as being useful for creativity, you see that having broader knowledge actually was the key (This blog post about Invisalign is another example I can find right now).
So, this seems to me like a post-hoc rationalization of intellectual laziness, and misleading because wider knowledge (“unfiltered” knowledge as 27chaos put it) is often key in cases where ignorance is held up as a benefit. Even if some creativity benefits come from ignorance, it does not follow that one should always remain ignorant in a field you are interested in. It seems to me that an hybrid strategy would be best: think about things before and after you learn. That way if your mind is unconstrained early on, you get the benefits of that. (In this popular book on decisions, they recommend the same thing on p. 50 according to my notes.)
However, according to this blog post, the book Origins of Genius by Dean Keith Simonton provides evidence that creativity follows an inverted U curve as a function of knowledge, where both too little and too much knowledge can hurt you. I have not read the book, but you might find it to be of interest.
Excellent comment, thanks for all the links!
Here are the ellipses restored:
What might rationalist!Rabelais write in place of those passages?
Replacing “God” by “Reality” goes quite a long way.
Two words: “opportunity costs”.
Two more words: “training montage”.