High Cognitive Minds

A large proportion of my life is centered on the internet, which would seem to make me either a geek with no real life, or a loser who escapes real life via the net. There’s a good bit of overlap between the two, and at least a smidgeon of truth. But over the last couple of months I’ve begun to look at the internet in a new way that’s still evolving in my mind.

My impression is that, even for those who recognize the resources available on the web, it’s still not much more than a supplement to “real” education and real life. Real knowledge exists out there in the three dimensional world, and everything on the net runs a poor second.  I was past that simplistic notion but I hadn’t gone too much beyond it.

The day that changed was the day I fully understood the niche I’ve been working in for so long, and how important the web has been to its development. I already knew that nobody else was doing what I’ve been doing—creating a unique body of work in a stagnant but important area of knowledge. What I finally realized was that my laboratory has been the internet. Without thinking about it as such, I’ve spent the last few years doing field research, and doing it without all the usual supports (necessities)—grant money, colleagues’ oversight and advice, institutional approval, etc.  

And that changes everything. It’s a watershed, in a way that I can’t fully grasp yet. I do know that if I can grasp it—if others can grasp it—it will be a major shift in the way intelligent self-sufficient people conduct their education and their lives. Maybe that’s why it suddenly felt like the right time to build the website.

“When starting one’s private intellectual journey the question often come up: what shall I study? Sometimes it isn’t even clear which subject area a person wants to pursue. Generalists like Your Humble Correspondent find this a persistent, nagging, and fiendishly frustrating issue.

“Add to this puzzle the otherwise sage and sound advice of P. B. Medawar who, in his wonderful little volume Advice to a Young Scientist, insists that the budding seeker of knowledge spend his or her time on problems that matter.”

This post from Cogito! considers what it means to find problems that matter. And how do we decide what matters? The question is quite different from the point of view of a scientist whose career depends on the right answers, and that of the intellectually gifted amateur who may want nothing more than to find something that matters on a personal level.

Click to read more ...

I'm reading The Independent Scholar's Handbook for the first time in two or three years, and I find myself dipping here and there and coming up with provocative quotes. Author Gross tells the story of his first post-college job at the publishing house, Simon and Schuster, in New York. He was called into Max Schuster's office, for what was apparently the standard talk for newbies. Schuster told him: "...to choose some subject, some concept, some great name or idea or event in history on which you can eventually make yourself the world's supreme expert. Start a crash program immediately to qualify yourself for this self-assignment through reading, research, and reflection."

Most intellectually gifted individuals wouldn't have any trouble with the idea of becoming the world's supreme expert on a subject, but I suspect that a lot don't go much further than that, allowing their expertise to enrich their lives as avocation rather than career. The Handbook is about taking an interest to the next level. It can still be an avocation or a lead-in to a career, or something that isn't really either. You don't have to be hampered by the old idea that only a college graduate or a professional in a field can make a worthwhile contribution. The world is full of amateur scholars whose work sometimes provides the basis from which professionals can take off, or even constitutes a new field.

Gross's book was written in the eighties and has never been revised, which is surprising considering that he's still around and writing. The world has gone through immense changes since the original edition, including computers and the internet, both of which tremendously expand the possibilities for independent scholarship. It's an important option for anyone who's felt that they have something to contribute but have let doubts and uncertainties hold them back.

The Independent Scholar's Handbook, Ronald Gross