A SCHOOL FOR POLYMATHS

Can polymathy be taught? In the autumn issue of Intelligent Life Edward Carr laments that we seem to be experiencing a polymathy end of days--alas, our accumulated knowledge in any given field makes it far too difficult to become an expert in more than one. But one reader has suggested that the problem may lurk within our educational institutions, which shove students along narrow career paths without teaching all the short-cuts and connections in between:

The explosion of knowledge that has taken place in the 20th century is not the root cause of the hyperspecialization we see today: the attitude of our society--and particularly our educational institutions--towards polymathy is. Our educational system has been reduced to a form of vocational training, but there is more to the concept of "education": what of learning, creation, and discovery?...

With others, I am involved with an effort to create a school for polymaths. It isn't going to be easy - we're up against a highly entrenched status quo - but challenges at the frontiers of knowledge are becoming increasingly interdisciplinary in nature, and we can no longer afford to approach them from a strictly monomathic perspective if we hope to succeed in solving them.

I'm delighted by the idea that polymathy can be learned (my hopes for becoming a true Renaissance woman--the kind that isn't uneducated, consumptive and pregnant by 15--need not be dashed). But how would a polymath-inspiring curriculum compare with a more ordinary one?

Look no further than the Polymath Lecture Series, which includes an online lecture called "How to Learn Everything" (superior "time management" skills are a feature all polymaths share, unfortunately). There is a vague yet empowering whiff to it all, with words like "potential" and "creativity" bandied about like so many pitches at a meeting where the chairs are soft and the snacks sweet. But before I dismiss this as another limp "lifehacking" exercise, I might also mention that the man seemingly behind it all claims the following:

I am a Computer Scientist specializing in Data Structures, Discrete and Continuous Mathematics (especially Number Theory and Statistics), Software Development, Web Development, Bioinformatics, Artificial Intelligence, Data Mining, and Artificial Creativity. However, I also have an extreme breadth of proficiencies, including System Administration, Musical Composition, Piano, Photography, Digital Art, Poetry, and Writing of all sorts.

On a page dedicated to his musical compositions, there is a rather catchy up-tempo piece for the piano called "On Grief and Determination". 

~ EMILY BOBROW

Autumn 2009  Issues & ideas  ISSUES & IDEAS  

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the math in polymath.

October 21, 2009 - 13:42 — Visitor (not verified)

When you look at the chart of skills that various polymaths acquired, many of them revolve around math, or more broadly, the articulation of patterns and relationships. There is a polymathic _view_ that one can have, which is different from the irritating, aspirational exercises in self-improvement in which people who idealize intelligence participate. Once you have the view, it's just a matter of exercising your interests and acquiring a couple of hobbies in which success at one can be used to support success in another.

Math is a useful discipline for this as it makes you better at pretty much everything that involves solitary contemplation and practice. Many years ago the Atlantic Monthly did a great article on the myth of genius and how it has religious overtones in the west and it would be worth re-examining it. In a world of foxes and hedgehogs, there are some hedgefoxes and foxhogs, but more often than not they end up as tragic eccentrics and Cassandras who have been imbued with a supernatural talent for offending pretty much everyone. It's why we invented the crime of heresy.