[Squeakland] the non universals
Alan Kay
alan.kay at squeakland.org
Mon Aug 13 11:52:00 PDT 2007
Hi Bill --
There are various sources for "universals" on the net and off. Quite
a bit more has been found out about these since the days of Lorenz
and Tinbergen. One of the several fields that studies these as
scientifically as possible is called "NeuroEthology" and there are a
number of good books on the subject. T.G.R. Bower was one of the
first to study very young humans specifically. An ancillarly field
that has appeared in the last few decades is called "bio-behavior",
and there also a number of illuminating books there.
I picked some of the "non-universals" that I thought were important
(and some particularly to contrast items in the universal list).
To answer your question marks ...
"Theory of Harmony" is kind of like "Deductive Abstract Mathematics"
in that most traditional cultures have some form of counting, adding
and subtracting -- and some make music with multiple pitches at once
(as did Western Culture before 1600). But the notion of harmony
before 1600 was essentially as a byproduct of melodies and voice
leading rather than a thing in itself in which chords have the same
first class status as melodic lines. How and why this appeared is
fascinating and is well known in music history.
Some of the most interesting composers in the Baroque period
(especially Bach) tried to make both the old and the new schemes work
completely together. Bach's harmonic language in particular was an
amazing blend of harmonies and bass lines with voice leading and
other contrapuntal techniques (quite a bit of his vocabulary is
revealed in his harmonized chorales (some 371 or 372 of them)). That
these two worlds are very different ways of looking at things is
attested to by a wonderful piece by Purcell "The Contest Between
Melodie and Harmonie".
As with "Greek Math", history doesn't seem to have any record of a
separate and as rich invention of a harmonic theory. So it is really rare.
"Similarities over Differences" was to contrast with the standard
processes of most nervous systems of most species to be more
interested in "differences over similarities" (which is listed on the
universal side). At most levels from reflexes to quite a bit of
cognition, most similarities are accommodated and normalized while
differences to the normalizations have a heightened significance (of
"danger" or "pay attention").
Paying attention to differences is good for simple survival but makes
it hard to think in many ways because it leads to so many cases,
categories and distinctions -- and because some of the most important
things may have disappeared into "normal" (in particular, things
about oneself and one's own culture). So we unfortunately are much
more interested in even superficial differences between humans and
cultures and have a very hard time thinking of "the other" as being
in the same value space as we are....
Part of the invention of modern math by the Greeks was their desire
to get rid of the huge codexes of cases for geometry and arithmetic.
This led to many useful abstractions which could be used as lenses to
see things which looked different to normal minds as actually the
same. For example, the Greek idea that there is only one triangle of
each shape (because you can divide the two short sides by the long
one to make a standard triangle of a given shape). This gets rid of
lots of confusion and leaves room to start thinking more powerful
thoughts. (The Greeks accomplished the interesting and amazing feat
of using normalization to separate similarities and differences but
paid attention to the similarities.) Calculus is a more subtle and
tremendously useful example of separating similarities and
differences. Convolution theory is yet more subtle ...
One way to think of my chart is that a lot of things we correlate
with "enlightenment" and "civilization" are rather un-natural and
rare inventions whose skills require us to learn how to go against
many of our built in thought patterns. I think this is one of the
main reasons to have an organized education (to learn the skills of
being better thinkers than our nervous systems are directly set up for).
History suggests that we not lose these powerful ideas. They are not
easy to get back.
The non-built-in nature of the powerful ideas on the right hand list
implies they are generally more difficult to learn -- and this seems
to be the case. This difficulty makes educational reform very hard
because a very large number of the gatekeepers in education do not
realize these simple ideas and tend to perceive and react (not think)
using the universal left hand list .....
Cheers,
Alan
At 09:11 AM 8/13/2007, Bill Kerr wrote:
>Alan Kay has a couple of slides in his Europython 2006 keynote,
>illustrating Universals and Non Universals
>
>It's right at the start of this video:
><http://mrtopf.blip.tv/file/51972>http://mrtopf.blip.tv/file/51972
>
> From anthropological research of over 3000 human cultures, he
> presented two lists, the first were universals, the things that all
> human cultures have in common. This list included things like:
> * language
> * communication
> * fantasies
> * stories
> * tools and art
> * superstition
> * religion and magic
> * play and games
> * differences over similarities (?)
> * quick reactions to patterns
> * vendetta, and more
>He then presented a list of non universals, the things that humans
>find harder to learn. This list was shorter and included:
> * reading and writing
> * deductive abstract mathematics
> * model based science
> * equal rights
> * democracy
> * perspective drawing
> * theory of harmony (?)
> * similarities over differences (?)
> * slow deep thinking
> * agriculture
> * legal systems
>
>These lists are really important I think as a guide to what our
>formal education system ought to be teaching - at least a starting
>point to a discourse on powerful ideas, as distinct from the dumbing
>down and smothering effect of generalised curriculum statements
>
>I'm curious as to where alan got his list of "non universals" from
>and would like more details about them. I put a question mark after
>a couple I didn't understand but which sounded interesting.
>
>When I google "non universals" anthropology not much comes up but
>the search universals anthropology was more successful:
>
><http://www.amazon.com/Human-Universals-Donald-E-Brown/dp/007008209X>http://www.amazon.com/Human-Universals-Donald-E-Brown/dp/007008209X
>
>or
><http://tinyurl.com/28n7vv>http://tinyurl.com/28n7vv
>
>--
>Bill Kerr
><http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/>http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/
>
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