In science and technology, there is a broad and integrative kind of knowledge that can be learned, but isn’t taught. It’s important, though, because it makes creative work more productive and makes costly blunders less likely.
Formal education in science and engineering centers on teaching facts and problem-solving skills in a series of narrow topics. It is true that a few topics, although narrow in content, have such broad application that they are themselves integrative: These include (at a bare minimum) substantial chunks of mathematics and the basics of classical mechanics and electromagnetism, with the basics of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics close behind.
Most subjects in science and engineering, however, are narrower than these, and advanced education means deeper and narrower education. What this kind of education omits is knowledge of extent and structure of human knowledge on a trans-disciplinary scale. This means understanding — in a particular, limited sense — everything.
To avoid blunders and absurdities, to recognize cross-disciplinary opportunities, and to make sense of new ideas, requires knowledge of at least the outlines of every field that might be relevant to the topics of interest. By knowing the outlines of a field, I mean knowing the answers, to some reasonable approximation, to questions like these:
What are the physical phenomena? What causes them? What are their magnitudes? When might they be important? How well are they understood? How well can they be modeled? What do they make possible? What do they forbid?
And even more fundamental than these are questions of knowledge about knowledge:
What is known today? What are the gaps in what I know? When would I need to know more to solve a problem? How could I find what I need?
It takes far less knowledge to recognize a problem than to solve it, yet in key respects, that bit of knowledge is more important: With recognition, a problem may be avoided, or solved, or an idea abandoned. Without recognition, a hidden problem may invalidate the labor of an hour, or a lifetime. Lack of a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
Looking back over the last few decades, I can see that I’ve invested considerably more than 10,000 hours in learning about the structures, relationships, contents, controversies, open problems, limitations, capabilities, developing an understanding of how the fields covered in the major journals fit together to constitute the current state of science and technology. In some areas, of course, I’ve dug deeper into the contents and tools of a field, driven by the needs of problem solving; in others, I know only the shape of the box and where it sits.
This sort of knowledge is a kind of specialty, really — a limited slice of learning, but oriented crosswise. Because of this orientation, though, it provides leverage in integrating knowledge from diverse sources. I am surprised by the range of fields in which I can converse with scientists and engineers at about the level of a colleague in an adjacent field. I often know what to ask about their research, and sometimes make suggestions that light their eyes.
Note that the title above isn’t “how to learn everything”, but “how to learn about everything”. The distinction I have in mind is between knowing the inside of a topic in deep detail — many facts and problem-solving skills — and knowing the structure and context of a topic: essential facts, what problems can be solved by the skilled, and how the topic fits with others.
This knowledge isn’t superficial in a survey-course sense: It is about both deep structure and practical applications. Knowing about, in this sense, is crucial to understanding a new problem and what must be learned in more depth in order to solve it. The cross-disciplinary reach of nanotechnology almost demands this as a condition of competence.
Studying to learn about everything
To intellectually ambitious students I recommend investing a lot of time in a mode of study that may feel wrong. An implicit lesson of classroom education is that successful study leads to good test scores, but this pattern of study is radically different. It cultivates understanding of a kind that won’t help pass tests — the classroom kind, that is.
Read and skim journals and textbooks that (at the moment) you only half understand. Include Science and Nature.
Don’t halt, dig a hole, and study a particular subject as if you had to pass a test on it.
Don’t avoid a subject because it seems beyond you — instead, read other half-understandable journals and textbooks to absorb more vocabulary, perspective, and context, then circle back.
Notice that concepts make more sense when you revisit a topic.
Notice which topics link in all directions, and provide keys to many others. Consider taking a class.
Continue until almost everything you encounter in Science and Nature makes sense as a contribution to a field you know something about.
Why is this effective?
You learned your native language by immersion, not by swallowing and regurgitating spoonfuls of grammar and vocabulary. With comprehension of words and the unstructured curriculum of life came what we call “common sense”.
The aim of what I’ve described is to learn an expanded language and to develop what amounts to common sense, but about an uncommonly broad slice of the world. Immersion and gradual comprehension work, and I don’t know of any other way.
This process led me to explore the potential of molecular nanotechnology as a basis for high-throughput atomically precise manufacturing. If broad-spectrum common sense were more widespread among scientists, there would be no air of controversy around the subject, milestones like the U.S. National Academies report on molecular manufacturing would have been reached a decade earlier, and today’s research agenda and perception of global problems would be very different.
I think I prefer either of Drexler’s approach, Sarah Constantin’s / Scott’s fact-posting, and Holden Karnofsky’s learning by writing, all of which can start with endless breadth but also require (quoting Drexler) deep structure and practical applications as focusing mechanisms, to the sort of learning that I think might be incentivised by budding panologists having to maximise their minimum score across some standardised battery of tests. I also liked Sarah’s suggestion at the end:
Ideally, a group of people writing fact posts on related topics, could learn from each other, and share how they think. I have the strong intuition that this is valuable. It’s a bit more active than a “journal club”, and quite a bit more casual than “research”. It’s just the activity of learning and showing one’s work in public.
Eric Drexler wrote two essays that seem related, which I really loved.
The first is How to Understand Everything (and why). It’s short enough to be quoted essentially whole, so if you don’t mind I’ll do so:
The follow-up essay is How to Learn About Everything. It’s again short enough to quote wholesale:
I think I prefer either of Drexler’s approach, Sarah Constantin’s / Scott’s fact-posting, and Holden Karnofsky’s learning by writing, all of which can start with endless breadth but also require (quoting Drexler) deep structure and practical applications as focusing mechanisms, to the sort of learning that I think might be incentivised by budding panologists having to maximise their minimum score across some standardised battery of tests. I also liked Sarah’s suggestion at the end: