The Renaissance Man

http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/Polymath.html

by byrneseyeview • 19 years ago

22 5 19 years ago

pg• 19 years ago

I think nowadays the best solution is to be a sparse matrix. You can't do everything anymore. But you can do, say, eight or ten very different things.

dood• 19 years ago

It is argueable that the notion of a 'Renaissance' or 'Universal' man is obselete, and has been since perhaps the 19th century or so; I suspect you could live hundreds of modern lifetimes and still not come close to the relative amount of knowledge it was possible to have in the 15th century.

That said, with extreme specialization being the norm these days, I think there is a dearth of inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary thinkers, to unify the vast amounts of knowldege divided within and between fields, and to bring perspective to the almost unimaginable technology mankind will be able to wield in the next 20-40 years.

O3d• 19 years ago

When you speak of extreme specialization I can't help but think of The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. http://www.plexus.org/forster/index.html

Sometimes I worry that there aren't enough inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary thinkers. Of course, it may just be because I'm around a lot of academics who seem to be highly specialized.

qaexl• 19 years ago

From a different part of the world, at around the same era:

- Do not think dishonestly.

- The Way is in training.

- Become acquainted with every art.

- Know the Ways of all professions.

- Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.

- Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything.

- Perceive those things which cannot be seen.

- Pay attention even to trifles.

- Do nothing which is of no use.

-- A translation of Miyomoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings (http://samurai.com/5rings/ground/)

ivankirigin• 19 years ago

There are limits in human abilities. We actually don't multi-task very well at all. Concentration is key.

This means that the scarcity of time should kill all illusions of the potential to do it all. There just isn't enough time to get good at many things.

If we could fork our intelligence, learn and do multiple things at once, even if only virtually, and then merge the result, we'd get closer to the ideal. Unfortunately, this is still science fiction.

The Renaissance Man

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