July 1998 Archives

Several months ago, we had a very interesting guest speaker on the campus (the Microsoft campus, that is). It was none other than Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. He was actually there to talk about his upcoming (then) computer adventure game. Fortunately, I don't remember anything about that. :)

However, what I do remember was his view of the role and function of the human brain. He defined it as a modeling tool (he also talked about how computers act as augmented extensions). This description rang so true to me. I had a similar idea but it wasn't clear and defined at all. And he made it so clear.

We each have an idea (or a model) of what ourselves and our surroundings (the world) are like. We have formed (and continues to modify) as we grew up, accumulating, processing, and evaluating our interaction (or experiences) with the outside (of the brain) through our sensory systems. Humans have similar shape, dimension, and sensory systems and live on the same planet, so our models (or views) of the world are pretty similar (I think "similar" is the key word, here).

If there were a sentient being somewhere in other galaxy with different dimension, shape and sensory systems (which is very likely), their model of the world would be completely different from ours? How would they act? Can we understand each other?

All these are very fascinating thoughts. I am grateful to Mr. Adams for making things so much clear.

It's so hard to generalize about the world, especially the people. There is no doubt that a generalized view of something (a society, a human, or an American male, for example) is useful (this has somewhat related to the fact that our mental capacity is limited). However, there hardly is one instance in the surveyed domain that would exactly fit the generalized (or average) view! Finding this exact "average" is relatively easy when there is only one parameter involved. For example, we can find a student with an average math test score most of the times. However, this becomes more unlikely as the number of parameters grow.

I've once read in a newspaper several years ago about the "average" Korean with such height, such weight, certain clothes, such income, etc. Did this "average" man exist? It didn't say, but very unlikely. But people still continue this constant search of an average. And I must say, they do bring some useful, even insightful sometimes, results.

Why did I bring up this thing everybody knows? Because it seems many people often forget a group (or a society) is comprised of individuals. Because people constantly compare themselves (or their personal experiences) to the "average" (mostly what the media portrays) and lay too much weight on it. Because people too often try to fit the individual (the "cause" or the source) into the average (the result or the outcome).

An average implies a distribution and a deviation. Why is it so hard to accept this fact?

I came to think that "the limited mental capacity" plays a very, if not the most, significant role in human, both as an individual and also as a society. We cannot retain all the experiences we ourselves go through in our life-span, let alone the collective knowledge across the time. We forget. Our mental capacity is limited. Even if we can use all 100% of our brain, this problem won't go away.

So, what's the consequences of this short-coming? Well, we will have to go through the same mistakes over and over again, inevitably. Fortunately, we have methods to transfer some of our collected knowledge across time (any kind of recording and communicational means). This allows us, as a society, to go through the same mistakes a lot fewer and the periods of these cycles longer. However, just transferring the end result without the background experiences leading to it has its limited usefulness as a perfect information transfer method if you think about it. Without all the relevant background information, the result is often mis-interpreted and we have to go through some of the past experience over again. Most parents like to tell their children that they've lived longer and knew better so it's better that they listen to them. Partially true. However, I think that deprives of an individual a most exciting part about life: having one's own experience and building one's own knowledge as a result. That is, becoming an "individual." It seems people would very much like to ignore the fact that pain and suffering (which are "value-added" terms, by the way) are also a part of what I would like to call a life.

To me, "The World" seems to consist of the continuity of two "concepts:" those of "value" and of "no value". As a thinking entity, evaluating "values" on what we observe and experience is one of our many essential traits. And as a thinking individual who has different experience, we have different evaluation procedures and standards. This is one of many reasons why we have conflicts. But also, that's what makes this world much more interesting.