It seems that the very definition of real problems is up for debate. The answers are often quite personal, transforming the question into what real problems are for me (i.e. what is my pain)?
When we get to analyze that, as we're often taught to do in our western world education, we try to get to the root of the the problem, find the atomic reason for our particular pain.
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| Conrad Wolfram by Shervin Afshar |
Conrad Wolfram, the world renowned mathematician, talks about his real problem in a fascinating TED talk titled "Teaching kids real math with computers". His frustration with the current state of math alienation is quite obvious. A subject near and dear to him is taught in arcane methods that drive people away. Too much emphasis is put on memorizing and performing manual calculations. The real world math - as he puts it - is neglected. He suggests reversing that balance - learning how to calculate as a necessary step - but then delegate it to something that's really good and fast with calculations - computers. This way the learner can focus on the "music" of math in the real world, rather than on the "mechanics" of it (my terminology - sorry Mr. Wolfram).
His arguments make perfect sense to me. After all - isn't that a quality of progress? Identify a problem, invent a solution, refine, streamline, mass produce, eliminate the pain?
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| A cello gut string |
Do we really need to gut a poor animal only to produce strings to put on our musical instruments? Seems like a silly question, obviated by the use of metal strings, mass produced and store bought. Do we mourn the fact that we've lost touch with the craft of producing gut strings (and the bloody mess involved)? Probably not. We may mourn the loss of art that was involved, but we deem that loss a necessary step in the route of progress.
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And yet, change is hard. The torrent of talkbacks on the TED talk page is amazing. seems like a real resistance: "What will happen when we do not have computers? We've become too dependent on gadgets!".
These claims are quite strong. Should a devastating force of nature render all computers into a distorted, useless mass, we'd probably be facing a harsh reality. But we'd be facing that reality in many more aspects of modern life.
Is there any one person that knows how to make, from start to finish, a working car? How to manufacture each of the materials, calculate all the chemical formulas, design the engine, refine the fuel? How about a simpler device - the ballpoint pen? A pencil?
Progress is based on delegation and trust.
Should we be vain enough to think that real problems stem from trust issues?
I think you are almost there. What do you mean by "real" problems? It sounds like trying to find an objective measure to identify a situation which is a problem. But, problems are subjective in nature - only the one (or group) feeling a certain pain would identify it as a problem. The universe couldn't care less if you use gut or metal strings, or if humanity would perish because it forgot how to calculate by the time the Internet evolved to consciousness and eloped with God and the NASA budget to Mars.
ReplyDeleteSo not only trust issues - it's people's issues in general that are real problems, and seems like you have a problem trying to make it objective :)
Hmmm.
ReplyDeletePeople's issues? As in real problems stem from people's issues? All relevant issues are people's issues, and non-relevant issues are...
Making it objective by zooming out from trust issues to people's issues dilutes the case in point.
Therefore, real problems in the context of this post are non-objective.