Friends are Electric

What is the purpose of an education?  Forget for a moment post-secondary education specifically.  Much more generally: Why do we go to school?

Well, early on we go to school because its the law.  Why is it the law?  Democracy does not function with an illiterate population.  Truly, one of the major reasons why the residents of what would become Canada pushed for self-government is because individual farmers lacked the resources to educate their children on their own.  They needed the whole of society to support the education of a child.

Did they want an education for their children so that they could work?  In part.  They wanted a better life for their children and wanted a better society to live in.  Work is part of that, but not even the most important part.  Educated masses were the goal, for educated people are more difficult to push around.  It was a way to preserve gains.

Fast forward.  Why do we go to university? To get work? Hardly.  Work is important, and many of us have deluded ourselves into thinking that the goal of our education is a job at the end of it.  Like those who believe they are voting for a party or prime minister, they are not exactly wrong, just confused.  With government, we elect someone to represent us and indirectly select a governing party and prime minister.  With school, the work which comes after is not the goal but a desirable side effect.  The goal is to make citizens of students.  Citizens who can think and question.

Thats how it is.  As for how I think it should be, I believe that the government should only concern themselves with citizenship. Specific technical skills should be left to vocational training, which itself should be handled by the industry or professional organizations.  For example, provincial professional engineering organizations should run engineering schools, which may be associated with universities or collages, but not necessarily.  Vocational training should feature apprenticeships, much like many collage vocational training programs already do.  The focus should be on the utilitarian technical skills rather than abstract knowledge, which belongs in the realm of citizenship focused schools.

The confusion of schooling for knowledge and schooling for technical skills is something I view as negative since it downplays the importance of citizenship in us all.  It is something we should focus on repairing.

Or: Why scientific analogies are often fitting

So, just to recap: plate tectonics is the net result of many interactions within the Earth which results in a dynamic surface which features mountain building and, due to different topography, erosion, transport and deposition.  Suffice to say, in this analogy, plate tectonics is a force which changes the topography of a region.  Any further detail is confusing things.

Now, let us pretend we have a little robot which constantly seeks the highest point it can find.  This is not an absolute highest point, but a local maximum point.  It cannot simply find the highest point now and expect that to remain the highest point forever (we will say that this robot experiences geological time, rather than human scale time).  The robot must constantly search out the new maximum point, make small adjustments on a perpetual basis.

In this analogy, the robot is our actor and the altitude is our fitness function.  For whatever reason we have decided that peaks are ideal (this is simply for visualisation purposes, the topography can be n-dimensional).   The robot acts to seek out what is the ideal attainable solution at a given point in time.  Attainable because it is a local maximum, the robot doesn’t actually know if the peak it has found is a global maximum or not.

This is an example of an evolutionary algorithm, (I suggest reading people who actually study this subject, it is very fascinating and I know very little).  Applied to populations, it produces a very nice aggregate function which is excellent for product design and creation (assuming you are knowledgeable enough to navigate it properly).  Applied to an individual, it determines what is best for a given person at a given time, again assuming that such a person is capable of applying such a method.

The most important thing to note is that such functions are highly dynamic and that it is entirely impossible to know if one solution is the best possible solution or just the best so far.

Which brings us to a nice effect of averaging: everyone acting on their own tries out a huge number of possibilities.  Any solution anyone comes up with is entirely appropriate if they determine that it is best for them.  Best for them does not mean best for everyone, or even approaching a good composite function maximum.  Another effect of averaging: the more people creating to find a maximum, the closer everyone gets to finding the average global maximum.

This explains why things go out of style, the driving force of the topography of the system has changed what is considered best.  This also explains why some people defy our understanding: they have different variables which they seek to maximize.  They might also have found some local maximum they are comfortable with and are unwilling to explore around to find another, potentially higher, maximum.

I recommend  Wikipedia on evolutionary algorithms and on complexity economics as starting points.

The human mind clings to symbols like it grasps few other things. Symbols have intense power. Ask any person of religion how they feel when viewing their holy symbols, especially in trying circumstances. Or all of the ideas and violence that went into something like the Soviet hammer and sickle. These images contain much more information due to collective memory than their basic parts ever could.

People do get attached to symbols.  The feelings and ideas attached to them are very strong.  The same is true of certian slogans, musical tunes and moments.   Charlemagne did not have to go to Rome and be crowned ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, it was a symbolic act who’s value and purpose is far beyond the simple action itself.  It represented the subservience of European kings to the church and changed the course of Western Civilisation forever.  Mickey Mouse is the most famous being on earth.  This character is not human, not an animal, not anything, really, except a symbol.

A symbol’s power is not in its direct form.   The actual form is immaterial, its the meaning associated with the form which contains the power.  The form and the meaning, however, are inseparable.  A change in form may result in the loss of the meaning and thus of the power and use of the symbol.  And a symbol without any power is a useless symbol, it may as well be a transient piece of graffiti on a railroad car.

When modifying something as powerful as a symbol, one must consider what is meant by it.  Denying history is a certain road to failure, ignoring it is likely worse.  A symbols past is its memory and purpose.  A change in direction is a process which must take a prolonged period of time as adjustment to modified symbolism will not happen overnight.  If the Catholic Church were to change one of their most important symbols, the cross, how many years would the transition take place over?  How about a modern nation, changing their motto or animal representatives?

Any modification of such symbols must have abundant need and must be gradual in nature.  To do otherwise is to deny their purpose, value and to undermine popular support for such an action.  If such need exists it must be clear to all.   Symbols belong to the group as a whole and are not a responsibility of any one person or subgroup.  Their meaning exists from group consciousness, not any one individual.  Any one individual lacks the insight needed to understand that with which they deal.

Symbols are the primary means of human communication.  All language, visual art, music and literature are all entirely symbolic.  One cannot simply change things abruptly and expect the desired results.  Group ownership, memory and the power of the symbol must be accounted for.  To do otherwise is to destroy the power, purpose and meaning of the symbol, deny your own participation within the group at large and to fragment that which you meant to improve.

A thought has been worrying me a lot recently.

I am a man of reason.  To me, there is nothing more fundamental.  I follow my reasoning wherever it takes me.   Since I am an engineering student, this is a rational way to be.  Science follows reason. It is natural.

What is strange to me is how we, as a society, become convinced of unreasonable things.  I speak now of creationism.  Not that some subscribe to this belief, I can understand that.  I do not wish to prevent others from believing what they wish.  What is in one’s own mind is no business of mine.  What I mean is about the conflict between creationism and evolution.

I say conflict, but this is somewhat misleading.  Reason dictates that evolution is truth.  Let us not get bogged down in any details.  Anyone needing convincing of this fact is invited to educate themselves. Biological evolution is a fact.  This, then, is at the root of what is confusing me.

Evolution is truth in terms of the origins of life.  Darwin was wrong in the same sense that Newton was wrong. Science progresses. Evolution is correct, just as gravity is correct, albeit both have been and will be modified in the future as that is the way of science.

My question is this: If evolution is so clearly true, which it is, how has society been convinced that there is even a `debate’ between creation and evolution.  This is the true triumph of creationists, since creationism is provably false.  But convincing the masses that there is descent is an impressive feat, one which deserves recognition and retaliation.

I do not call for violence.

I do call for reason.

Whenever you hear someone speak of a debate between creationism and evolution, set them straight.  Science knows the truth.