Breadth and Depth
Surfing the net will give you quite a breadth of knowledge, but it won’t be very deep. I know this is true for me.
Someone would do very well for themselves if they found out how to impart deep knowledge while still giving the user the quick satisfaction that shallow, new knowledge can bring.
Maybe the socratic method?
Just a thought.
I don’t know either. I’ve acquired a great breadth of information on a lot of topics, sometimes even to the point of becoming technically competent in them. But I feel like to actually get a true, deep understanding – the kind of understanding that transcends recalling facts, when you no longer have to _think_ and it’s simply second-nature – you have to keep at that one thing for a long, long time. I could tell you a lot about digital sound/music recording and production, but I cannot write a song to save my soul.
The fact is, there’s just not enough time to be good at everything. Either your knowledge is broad or it’s deep. You can imagine that your knowledge has a constant volume, or maybe it’s a function of time. You just have to decide weather to spread that volume out real thin or to pour it into a deep pit.
Jarrett
January 13, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Deep knowledge = Breadth of knowledge + hundreds of mistakes. Thousands in my case.
Wilkie
January 13, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Jarrett — I agree. Today, the idea of a renaissance man is impossible. I have, however, been wondering about the possibility of being good in certain specific areas, which then translates well to abilities in other areas.
For example, although I’m sure that psychology is a fine and interesting major, I doubt that, say, studying psychology with many other subjects will complement each other well.
One major that (I believe) universally complement other majors is mathematics; even if it is hard to see a direct connection (say your other major is theology), the training in formal logic and disciplined though is very beneficial. It is also said throughout academia that a bachelors in mathematics will prepare a student for almost any area of graduate studies.
For that matter, computer science would probably do the same thing, as long as emphasis were placed in the right areas.
Point being, there certainly isn’t enough time to be good at everything, but can we study certain things that will make learning other things much easier? This may be an important question.
Wilkie — Ha, I know what you mean. Mistakes can be quite… informative. They can also be a waste of time vs reading documentation, but I suspect that the mistakes you’ve made are specifically because of a lack of thorough documentation.
But, on that, I give you:
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
Abraham Lincoln
Joel
January 14, 2009 at 2:07 pm