Psychological Needs & the torture rack of specialization?

[atlashead]

It's up to each individual to know their own truth, which truth objectively exists; I feel I have the need to be multiple things firsthand: an engineer, a physicist, a biologist, and an artist.  I think they are roles that an individual has to play to be healthy psychologically.  In truth I'm making this post because I felt the desire to share how much I love engineering & science, and in the moment before posting, reflecting, I am sure that for the short term-specialization may be ok.

[BaalChatzaf]

9 hours ago, atlashead said:

It's up to each individual to know their own truth, which truth objectively exists; I feel I have the need to be multiple things firsthand: an engineer, a physicist, a biologist, and an artist.  I think they are roles that an individual has to play to be healthy psychologically.  In truth I'm making this post because I felt the desire to share how much I love engineering & science, and in the moment before posting, reflecting, I am sure that for the short term-specialization may be ok.

Very few people are polymaths.  If you want to do well in science and engineering you have to drill down deep in a limited area of expertise. 

Basically there are two choices:  Learn a little about lots of things  or learn a lot about a few things. 

[Brant Gaede]

On 2/6/2017 at 7:25 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

Very few people are polymaths.  If you want to do well in science and engineering you have to drill down deep in a limited area of expertise. 

Basically there are two choices:  Learn a little about lots of things  or learn a lot about a few things. 

I learned a little about a lot of things, but the little is cherce.

--Brant

the third choice

[anthony]

On 2017/02/06 at 7:17 AM, atlashead said:

It's up to each individual to know their own truth, which truth objectively exists; I feel I have the need to be multiple things firsthand: an engineer, a physicist, a biologist, and an artist.  I think they are roles that an individual has to play to be healthy psychologically.  In truth I'm making this post because I felt the desire to share how much I love engineering & science, and in the moment before posting, reflecting, I am sure that for the short term-specialization may be ok.

You CAN have it all, to your selected degree as you go along - which is the terrific value of having a conceptual mind. One can know some small amount about everything, and plenty about some things. I would advise, seeing nothing specific has seized your attention, to not limit yourself too early. Begin building a concrete and conceptual base for all those areas. (And get a truck licence too, do a paramedics course, learn a music instrument, qualify as a boat skipper, write poetry, learn to operate a lathe, etc. etc.-- out of interest or just for the hell of it. There is no telling when extra skills/qualifications can come in handy or may later open up a business opportunity/vocation). If I'd do it all over, I would have gravitated to engineering (which I considered sorta dull then but absorbing now). Still, the modern insistence and expectations of "specialization", I think narrows one over much, and well-meaning folk try to push one that way. Hear them, but they can't really know you, only you can assess your own mind. The main thing is to apply oneself to *something real*, otherwise it remains all too abstract. ("Science", e.g.)

[Peter]

Ba’al wrote: Very few people are polymaths.  If you want to do well in science and engineering you have to drill down deep in a limited area of expertise.  Basically there are two choices:  Learn a little about lots of things or learn a lot about a few things. end quote

 

I watch a Fox Business Channel show called “Strange Inheritance” hosted by Jamie Colbie. It is weird how people can become obsessed by ONE THING to the exclusion of the rest of the world, but so much good comes from that human trait. Collections of artifacts like guns and sabers, and a dinosaur park in Oregon were featured on the last two shows. Of course museum owners and paleontologists are examples of a fixation with reality. And members of my own family are intrigued by all history and not the interpreted “spun” crap but what really happened and was said.

Peter  

[Nerian]

On 2/6/2017 at 3:47 PM, atlashead said:

It's up to each individual to know their own truth, which truth objectively exists; I feel I have the need to be multiple things firsthand: an engineer, a physicist, a biologist, and an artist.  I think they are roles that an individual has to play to be healthy psychologically.  In truth I'm making this post because I felt the desire to share how much I love engineering & science, and in the moment before posting, reflecting, I am sure that for the short term-specialization may be ok.

I think you're mistaken about what humans need to be psychologically healthy. Those are specialized fields that no human has to study.

[Wolf DeVoon]

8 hours ago, Nerian said:

I think you're mistaken about what humans need to be psychologically healthy. Those are specialized fields that no human has to study.

Good one. Yeah, we can do without engineering or biology.

[Brant Gaede]

20 hours ago, Nerian said:

I think you're mistaken about what humans need to be psychologically healthy. Those are specialized fields that no human has to study.

Then the real question is whether a human being needs some specialized knowledge "to be psychologically healthy"?

That's like asking if he needs self esteem.

One can be a generalist, but that's not the foundation. The foundation is made up of many specifics. And who has to study astrophysics except that person who has a passion for the subject. Why? Because if he didn't but he could he'd be hurting himself in the brain pan.

--Brant

[Nerian]

On 12/28/2017 at 12:22 PM, Wolf DeVoon said:

Good one. Yeah, we can do without engineering or biology.

You literally can do without it, personally. Humanity cannot. Massive difference. That's what money is for.

[Nerian]

On 12/29/2017 at 12:24 AM, Brant Gaede said:

Then the real question is whether a human being needs some specialized knowledge "to be psychologically healthy"?

That's like asking if he needs self esteem.

One can be a generalist, but that's not the foundation. The foundation is made up of many specifics. And who has to study astrophysics except that person who has a passion for the subject. Why? Because if he didn't but he could he'd be hurting himself in the brain pan.

--Brant

Are you saying everyone has to study astrophysics to be healthy or am I reading you incorrectly?

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, Nerian said:

Are you saying everyone has to study astrophysics to be healthy or am I reading you incorrectly?

That instance was offered as an example of a more general point.

 

[Wolf DeVoon]

3 hours ago, Nerian said:

You literally can do without it (engineering and biology), personally. Humanity cannot. Massive difference. That's what money is for.

Has little to do with money, bub. You are the recipient of modern medicine, clean water, and IT, courtesy of your betters.

[Nerian]

On 2/1/2018 at 1:10 PM, Wolf DeVoon said:

Has little to do with money, bub. You are the recipient of modern medicine, clean water, and IT, courtesy of your betters.

I think you misunderstood my meaning. You don't need to know all things, you can specialize in your own field, to provide value for others who know other things, and then trade the products. ie. You don't need to know engineering, that's what earning money is for.

[Wolf DeVoon]

Money by doing what? -- flipping hamburgers, sweating copper tubes under a bathtub, or telling tall tales? hauling crates and hides and sacks of wheat? or driving a car or a truck? or factory shift work? -- I've done all those jobs, required no skill whatever. And worse: none of those jobs would have existed without the enormous legacy infrastructure gifted by our forebears who fought wars, invented and built whole industries, drilled hundreds of thousands of oil wells and built refineries and pipelines that haven't been expanded or upgraded since 1970. A curious year, 1970, peak domestic auto production and peak oil production, long before you were born. The internet was a gift of DARPA and CERN, government agencies. Speaking of which, government spending explains your entire life as a schmoo, a guy without scientific, medical, or engineering skills. Do you like television? -- then thank Philo T. Farnsworth who invented it, a statue in his honor being taken down for some trivial reason, a lack of space to honor an unproductive schmoo. Read how much Farnsworth sacrificed to give you a window to the world. And consider Frank Zappa, who you did not know nor pay a single penny for a genius who illuminated the world at the price of his life, typical of many who gave you x-rays and world security, the Green Revolution and human rights. No genius? No military service? -- you're dead weight, bub, a delusional ingrate who doesn't understand economics. Your money is a $20 trillion handout in Federal debt, a $500 trillion pyramid of derivatives backed by what's known in the trade as good collateral. Guess what that is? U.S. bonds -- worthless paper without the men and women of genius, gambling in life to keep you and hundreds of millions of other schmoos alive, masses who think that they pay their way by doing nothing of note, shopping in stores that they did not build or finance, consuming a bounty that they did not mine, grow, import, manufacture, or transport -- none of which would have existed without daring pioneers and the power they bequeathed. Have a computer? Thank William Shockley, an asshole no one liked, and Ada Lovelace, who public schmoo history ignored.

Ayn Rand said that 2% of mankind feed and clothe the other 98%. She was right.

 

[Brant Gaede]

On ‎2‎/‎3‎/‎2018 at 5:11 PM, Wolf DeVoon said:

Money by doing what? -- flipping hamburgers, sweating copper tubes under a bathtub, or telling tall tales? hauling crates and hides and sacks of wheat? or driving a car or a truck? or factory shift work? -- I've done all those jobs, required no skill whatever. And worse: none of those jobs would have existed without the enormous legacy infrastructure gifted by our forebears who fought wars, invented and built whole industries, drilled hundreds of thousands of oil wells and built refineries and pipelines that haven't been expanded or upgraded since 1970. A curious year, 1970, peak domestic auto production and peak oil production, long before you were born. The internet was a gift of DARPA and CERN, government agencies. Speaking of which, government spending explains your entire life as a schmoo, a guy without scientific, medical, or engineering skills. Do you like television? -- then thank Philo T. Farnsworth who invented it, a statue in his honor being taken down for some trivial reason, a lack of space to honor an unproductive schmoo. Read how much Farnsworth sacrificed to give you a window to the world. And consider Frank Zappa, who you did not know nor pay a single penny for a genius who illuminated the world at the price of his life, typical of many who gave you x-rays and world security, the Green Revolution and human rights. No genius? No military service? -- you're dead weight, bub, a delusional ingrate who doesn't understand economics. Your money is a $20 trillion handout in Federal debt, a $500 trillion pyramid of derivatives backed by what's known in the trade as good collateral. Guess what that is? U.S. bonds -- worthless paper without the men and women of genius, gambling in life to keep you and hundreds of millions of other schmoos alive, masses who think that they pay their way by doing nothing of note, shopping in stores that they did not build or finance, consuming a bounty that they did not mine, grow, import, manufacture, or transport -- none of which would have existed without daring pioneers and the power they bequeathed. Have a computer? Thank William Shockley, an asshole no one liked, and Ada Lovelace, who public schmoo history ignored.

Ayn Rand said that 2% of mankind feed and clothe the other 98%. She was right.

Please, take a deep breath. You're either a productive human being or not. Not doesn't necessarily mean wrong; you may be living off of past work, etc.

Overstating your case ironically runs it into the ground. That was also a forte of Ayn Rand. 

--Brant

 

[Wolf DeVoon]

22 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Please, take a deep breath. You're either a productive human being or not. Not doesn't necessarily mean wrong; you may be living off of past work, etc.

Overstating your case ironically runs it into the ground. That was also a forte of Ayn Rand. 

--Brant

I spoke of it to acknowledge that I can't feed myself, no power of technical skill, no talent to produce anything the market wants.

[Brant Gaede]

41 minutes ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

I spoke of it to acknowledge that I can't feed myself, no power of technical skill, no talent to produce anything the market wants.

You said that's true of 98% of us.

--Brant

does not compute! does not compute!

[Wolf DeVoon]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

You said that's true of 98% of us.

--Brant

does not compute! does not compute!

Okay, only true of 2%, Ayn Rand had it backwards. It is the exceptional man who is incompetent.

[Peter]

On ‎2‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 9:25 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

Very few people are polymaths.  If you want to do well in science and engineering you have to drill down deep in a limited area of expertise. 

Basically there are two choices:  Learn a little about lots of things  or learn a lot about a few things. 

Or become an English major and specialize in something like business or become an English teacher. So many journalism majors have lost their jobs and that is a shame, and the more conservative journalists are the first to go.