Probe-lemmatic

After probing a problem, one might realise that after nailing the main premises, one then has a choice of contentions that can be derived from the premises. The choice of contentions is itself a problem.

And so it is that after having left the premises alone for more than two and a half years, I am frequently being asked to look at them, make a choice of contentions, and come up with even more contentions from the choices I have made. As someone once said, a lemma is simultaneously a contention from premises and a premise leading to more contentions. And two lemmas (or lemmata, to be pedantic, but not 'lemmings') form a...

What to choose is itself determined by how to choose, or what criteria we could use to choose whatever has to be chosen. And who to choose is likewise determined by what we think we should look for in choosing.

The interrogators often pose the problem this way, "You cannot choose from existing choices; rather, do away with all such entities of privileged status, treat them all as heads at the same level, and then choose again." What then can you choose? What should you choose? And if you contend that you have no right to choose, there is no defence against being assured that you have such a right.

To me, I must simplify. I will look for competencies and the character to wield those competencies. And if there is culture, I will think of it as a plus. And if there is not, that will be sad. But I have many many many stepping stones to look at before a solution is reached.

And what if I am part of the problem?

Toolism

Ah yes, today I gave my little talk on 'East and West: The Problems of Knowledge and Inquiry'. It was fascinating to realise that almost every single teacher there was a humanities teacher. It's as if the local system has spasmed and decided that math and science teachers don't have problems with knowledge and inquiry. It used to be the same thing in the local university: science majors weren't normally offered the Philosophy 101: Introduction to Logic course.

In my experience science, math and engineering majors need a lot more of that sort of thing. It's because many of them are very good at limited rule-sets and closed (well pseudo-closed) logic systems, but very bad at figuring them out in human terms. A lot of the problems of philosophical logic are human problems — problems of problem identification, problem definition, problem expression.

I hate simplifying stuff for students unless I can tell them, "This is the simplest I want to make it for you; it is much more complex than that and if you want a good map of reality, WORK FOR IT YOURSELF!"

Give them the tools, let them make art. And if it doesn't work, it's not your fault. But give them good tools, useful tools, interesting tools.

The Rubbish Problem

You know what my biggest problem has always been? It's difficult to admit it, and it's painfully funny to think about it.

When I was young, my parents made me take out the trash every evening. I'd collect all the trash bags from around the house, consolidate them, and pack them into as tight a space as possible without bursting any bags. If a bag wasn't particularly full, I'd empty its contents into another bag and keep the original in its bin.

One evening, I took out the trash as usual. The air was redolent with the scent of cured tobacco from the Rothmans factory nearby, or at least something that smelt suspiciously like it. And then I realised two things.

The first thing was that I could walk north, and by morning, be in another country.

The second thing was that I actually liked taking out the trash. I'd grown into a person who liked exposing useless things, bagging them, and throwing them away. I never saw a piece of junk that didn't seem to say to me, "Bag me up and throw me away."

Well, you now know the kinds of thoughts that go through my head when people talk rubbish. Sometimes, they publish rubbish. Or summon large numbers of people and lie to them. Whoever 'they' are, they are masters of junk.

And I have this great urge to say it is junk, to expose it, bag it, and throw it away. It never fails to get me into trouble. And that's the problem.

Consultations

It must be a statistical thing. I keep bumping into people from McKinsey. McKinsey, of course, is to consulting as McDonald's is to fast food. But I am meeting up with McKinseyites as often as I meet McDonald's crew.

I thought about it for a while, and I came to the conclusion that I have a natural affinity for people doing that kind of job. The thing is that McKinsey is basically a firm that solves problems for other people. They synthesize solutions based on whatever their clients want done. And they are reasonably clever about it.

For a taste of what kinds of skills are required for this sort of job, you can go to the website and check out the Careers section. They're remarkably like the skills a good teacher ought to have. Sadly, as in real life, 95% of the candidates (or teachers, come to think of it) won't have these skills to a significant extent.

Modern society is heading towards the idea of teachers as consultants; if you really believe in slogans like 'Teach Less, Learn More' or 'No Child Left Behind' and such, you also have to believe that teachers can be intelligent personal coaches who can help their clients come up with competitive solutions that preserve quality of life.

It's going to be a hard thing to sell. Most teachers are content to not do that kind of thing.

Statistical Problem

It is amazing how much data you can tease out of the Internet without spearing yourself on the Official Secrets Act. Right now, I am contemplating putting up full data sets (all publicly available data) on the usual page. Then people with better statistical know-how can have some fun (especially those of you who have nothing better to do with your wonderful but now totally wasted minds). What do you think?

On a more directed note, let's consider this situation.

An institution generates data for about 1500-4000 individual humans working in it over a period of about 20 years, with the mean being somewhere around 2200 humans. These data take the form of appraisals of each of these individuals, with at least 80% of it being made available to members of the public. Of particular interest are the data on the longitudinal development of the appraised individuals.

The longitudinal development process is called 'education', and etymologically consistent with that term, it is a long drawn-out process. During this process, various interventions are applied. This is sometimes called 'teaching', but a lot of it is also 'coaching', 'mentoring' and 'having fun locally or overseas'; there are in all something like 120 definitively different interventions. The outcomes are reported in public documents in a reified statement to the effect of: "Success has been achieved. Holistic upgrading for the win."

[digression] Actually, this is pretty true in a literal sense. Success has been achieved, as defined in some ways; remember that etymologically speaking, 'success' means 'the chronological outcomes of a process' — hence the phrase 'a succession of events'. which means each event succeeds (is the successor to) a predecessor event. And of course, holistic upgrading is always for the win, or it would pretty pointless. [/digression]

What do you think a conscientious researcher would do in an attempt to improve future outcomes in such an institution?