If access to learning mastery in an ongoing living tradition, or having the best chance of reviving a dead tradition if so-called experts of it can’t be relied upon, requires access to a physical location, that doesn’t seem like an insurmountable obstacle for most people. Elon Musk predicts one day it will be in the reach of the average middle-class person if they wanted to afford a ticket on the trip to Mars. If that’s realistic, I think it’s within the grasp of the average person to gain access to high-fidelity body of knowledge of a tradition. This includes physical locations. I can think of some common barriers.
The very best bodies of knowledge preserved at physical locations may not be accessible to everyone. Most people won’t be able to get into the world’s top universities where methods are passed down from one generation of award-winning scientists to the next. This goes for other types of institutions as well. Lots of people can teach themselves to code, but that doesn’t mean just anyone can end up as an engineer on one of Google’s most advanced or important projects.
People may be limited to their proclivities and inclinations. For example, somebody who has organic inclinations to the arts trying to make it in a technical field isn’t as likely to succeed as they would be in the arts, and visa-versa.
In the most conventional sense access to educational institutions which preserve traditions of knowledge are heavily geared toward youth. Not just that it’s odd to think of someone in their thirties being accepted into an undergraduate program at Harvard, but that so much education is designed to fit the mindset of younger student bodies. I think if we think of ‘tradition of knowledge’ more broadly, someone dedicated to gaining access to a high-quality body of knowledge at a physical location could do it well into being middle-aged. I don’t know if that gives enough time for people to gain mastery, although they could become experts. If someone is middle-aged with enough spare time to dedicate themselves to pursuing mastery of a tradition of knowledge, I don’t know how much of a predictor that would be someone isn’t cut out to specialize in traditions of knowledge. By then a lot of people are into careers which de facto constitute at least expertise in a field, or are doing other things at that stage of life which occupy most of their flexible time. Not fitting a mold predisposed to pursue expertise/mastery in a tradition of knowledge doesn’t mean people can’t pursue all kinds of other valuable roles. If someone has had potential for so long while it remains unfulfilled it could be a strong indicator of unfitness to pursuing mastery in a tradition of knowledge. I expect at least expertise in a lot of traditions of knowledge is accessible to people who are middle-aged.
Adjusting for these considerations, it seems within reach for most people to gain access to a physical location which preserves a tradition of knowledge with enough fidelity to allow at least expertise to be gained in many different traditions.
This is an excellent analysis of a particular aspect. Firstly I do want to emphasize that this mindset is already very rare, few people reason from the existence of traditions of sound knowledge and begin thinking how to access them. The exercise for most remains, pardon the pun, academic.
The only thing I would add is less of an emphasis of universities and more on particular institutions such as branches of government or particular companies. This represents a kind of institution that, assuming a sound career or skill-set, those in middle age are better positioned to understand and make use of. Particular social circles can fulfill this function as well. Further those in middle age can and do easily gain access to postgraduate education of high quality but seem to do so less frequently. As a very practical example I could cite Robin Hansons reorientation towards the social sciences after a successful stem career.
If access to learning mastery in an ongoing living tradition, or having the best chance of reviving a dead tradition if so-called experts of it can’t be relied upon, requires access to a physical location, that doesn’t seem like an insurmountable obstacle for most people. Elon Musk predicts one day it will be in the reach of the average middle-class person if they wanted to afford a ticket on the trip to Mars. If that’s realistic, I think it’s within the grasp of the average person to gain access to high-fidelity body of knowledge of a tradition. This includes physical locations. I can think of some common barriers.
The very best bodies of knowledge preserved at physical locations may not be accessible to everyone. Most people won’t be able to get into the world’s top universities where methods are passed down from one generation of award-winning scientists to the next. This goes for other types of institutions as well. Lots of people can teach themselves to code, but that doesn’t mean just anyone can end up as an engineer on one of Google’s most advanced or important projects.
People may be limited to their proclivities and inclinations. For example, somebody who has organic inclinations to the arts trying to make it in a technical field isn’t as likely to succeed as they would be in the arts, and visa-versa.
In the most conventional sense access to educational institutions which preserve traditions of knowledge are heavily geared toward youth. Not just that it’s odd to think of someone in their thirties being accepted into an undergraduate program at Harvard, but that so much education is designed to fit the mindset of younger student bodies. I think if we think of ‘tradition of knowledge’ more broadly, someone dedicated to gaining access to a high-quality body of knowledge at a physical location could do it well into being middle-aged. I don’t know if that gives enough time for people to gain mastery, although they could become experts. If someone is middle-aged with enough spare time to dedicate themselves to pursuing mastery of a tradition of knowledge, I don’t know how much of a predictor that would be someone isn’t cut out to specialize in traditions of knowledge. By then a lot of people are into careers which de facto constitute at least expertise in a field, or are doing other things at that stage of life which occupy most of their flexible time. Not fitting a mold predisposed to pursue expertise/mastery in a tradition of knowledge doesn’t mean people can’t pursue all kinds of other valuable roles. If someone has had potential for so long while it remains unfulfilled it could be a strong indicator of unfitness to pursuing mastery in a tradition of knowledge. I expect at least expertise in a lot of traditions of knowledge is accessible to people who are middle-aged.
Adjusting for these considerations, it seems within reach for most people to gain access to a physical location which preserves a tradition of knowledge with enough fidelity to allow at least expertise to be gained in many different traditions.
This is an excellent analysis of a particular aspect. Firstly I do want to emphasize that this mindset is already very rare, few people reason from the existence of traditions of sound knowledge and begin thinking how to access them. The exercise for most remains, pardon the pun, academic.
The only thing I would add is less of an emphasis of universities and more on particular institutions such as branches of government or particular companies. This represents a kind of institution that, assuming a sound career or skill-set, those in middle age are better positioned to understand and make use of. Particular social circles can fulfill this function as well. Further those in middle age can and do easily gain access to postgraduate education of high quality but seem to do so less frequently. As a very practical example I could cite Robin Hansons reorientation towards the social sciences after a successful stem career.