Pursuing praxis

Things come in lumps. I think everyone’s experienced this. Of course, it’s more a psychological phenomenon than a material one, but no matter. You become aware of some topic, and suddenly it’s everywhere! It’s great when it’s things like awesome dogs or complexity or cryptography or something else really cool. But the interesting thing about this little psychological phenomenon is that - it appears to me - you don’t consciously choose this topic that then innundates your life for a short while.

So, let me get to the point. I’ve lately felt swamped by statism. I seem to run into it at every turn. First, I see V for Vendetta. I really let myself mentally walk on the streets of a nation like that, and it was terrible, even though I knew the good guy would win. The whole prospect that America had totally disintegrated in 20 years, Britain was a statist state, etc. just depressed the hell out of me, because I know that it’s possible, that this isn’t Hollywood hype. It’s already happened, many times over in the history of the world, and the slow slide towards it again is evident to me.

I go to see the Rach 3, and the program has this long article on Shostakovich and his two-faced communist-artist ways. Disconcerting, but interesting. I start reading We the Living, and I know it’s a tragedy. What an ugly society, and Kira’s so beautiful, and I just know it’s going to wreck me in the end, because I hate when the good guy dies.

And now I’m headed to China. I’ve been looking forward to this since last summer, and I am somewhat excited, but in between all the sights and sounds and conversation, part of my mind will be on a kind of recon mission - I’ll be in a communist country, something completely foreign to me, and hostile to basic principles I hold. How will it be? What’s different? How do they juggle the contradictions they have? What are the people like? What’s the business like? How do they sell their ideas to the people? Will I even notice anything at all?

Plus I’m doing taxes.

… the fifth of November.

Loved it, except for one thing: love makes life brighter, not bleaker, no matter what happens. I’m going to go get the book.

I’ve been on a self-enforced book-diet since Christmas. Read my lips: no new books (till after China). Well, China’s a week away, and it just seemed like the right time. My mind’s about to turn (yet another) corner, and I want ammunition on hand. Time for show and tell.

First on the chopping block: Calculus, again. I’ve taken/taught calc I three times. Does it ever stick? No. And calc II is but a series of vague memories of exclamation points and numbers in pyramids. I need to know about matrices. The weapon? Calculus: Concepts and contexts, by none other than Jimmy Stewart. Ok, James Stewart. I bet he gets that a lot.

Next: logic. About time, don’t you think? I sure do. Does anyone have suggestions on do-it-yourself logic books, besides this one? Tarski’s certainly tops, but I’m a beginner.

Next up: Stuart Kauffman. A labmate recommended At Home in the Universe at least once to me. Kauffman got several pages of treatment in Gould’s Structure, and he’s like white on rice with the Santa Fe Institute. I think he could be the father (or self-proclaimed father, at least) of complexity theory. I’m thinking I need to read some of Brian Goodwin’s papers too. I have more reading to do now than ever.

But, I think it’s important to hear from more than one person on a given subject. So I picked up another book on complexity: Complexity: The emerging science at the edge of order and chaos, by M. Mitchell Waldrop.

And, finally, to return home: Gould’s The hedgehog, the fox, and the magister’s pox. I’ve been eyeballing this one for, yeah, two years. Ever since it came out.

As if I didn’t have anything to read on the plane already.

—

(Re)observation of the day: I notice that after any kind of monster academic exam, it’s like I can’t let go. And I don’t want to. The immediate removal of all expectations and duties doesn’t, for me, result in gleeful, reckless abandon. The exact opposite. I crave more of the same. After finals sophomore year, with organic chem and cell biology still pinging around my brain, I pounced on a spare cryptography book and started learning about algorithms while everyone else was out drinking. Same now. After my exam, I headed straight to class and we hashed out exaptation and emergent properties. At the bar after that, someone asked me, "Why aren’t you wasted?" "Because I have a meeting to run in about 15 minutes," I said. The full truth, though, was that it would have felt like a total waste not to push on, even though my brain felt like day-old roadkill. 

This drive for more, it’s like a dance my brain really doesn’t want to stop - I get into learning, and get into hammering it hard, like tomorrow I’ll be on a battlefield of knowledge, and moment to moment, in preparation for this thing that will probably never come, I’m as happy as can be. Nothing will tear me away. I feel like I could go forever - no food, no sleep, no coffee, just a little water and my cd player and stacks and stacks of books, and I’m on top of the world. But, it’s not quite that pure. I think my brain’s got an agenda, some sort of equilibrium it’s trying to re-establish in its own wierd way. It feels like a combination of biology backlash (I seem to go for the math-y things after OD-ing on biology) and the "nature abhors a vacuum" principle applied to my brain and knowledge. I can’t go from full knowledge to full brainlessness. I don’t think I’m physically capable of it. It’d be throwing away the very best of everything, when, with just a little more effort, I can have - know - be - even more! That’s irresistable.

Well - I passed. I thought I would feel like this:

Instead, I’ve got a mild headache and a bajillion things to do. I’ve been more excited checking my mailbox before. At least I’ve fended off the irrational pissiness of last night - I was mildly pissed that I didn’t do better, and that the exam wasn’t harder. But, I probably wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything less than an invitation to join the National Academy of Science, and I’d have flopped on any test that would make that kind of thing an actual achievement. Time to check premises, eh? Yeah. So, birthday cake ice-cream but no ticker-tape parade. That’s good.

Onward and upward. China is still a lifetime away.

I have finished it. And I cried, the last two pages. I think Gould, with all his prose putting on its happy face, was sad it ended too. What a wonderful, mind-opening, life-changing journey.

Got context?

Hopefully this is NOT me, come Wednesday.

But I’m trying. Hard.

The good shall triumph. Because she always gets back to work.

From Nature’s graduate journal column, March 16, 2006.

Have you got grad skills?

by Milan de Vries

It isn’t until the end of graduate school that you begin to wonder whether you’ve acquired any transferable skills. Despite having been at school since the age of five, it suddenly occurs to you that you’re not generally useful to the world.

I know what transferable skills I don’t have. I once sat next to a hypochondriac on a plane who berated me for four hours for being a biologist but not being able to cure his adult-onset diabetes. Thing is, unless you are a yeast cell I can’t really help you with your health problems. I can measure sporulation efficiency pretty well, but most humans don’t actually turn into spores, it turns out.

Then I started watching the Olympics. The commentators kept telling me how much pressure these athletes are under. That’s when it hit me. This month I taught a class, wrote an abstract for a thesis committee meeting, finished key experiments for two projects, caught up with the literature, met my adviser a few times, and in my spare time even made it to the supermarket once or twice. This would have seemed like a bit much to handle in my first year of graduate school. Now, it’s par for the course. I’m not sure it’s enough to get hired, but where were those commentators when I trudged to my lab during a blizzard because an experiment couldn’t wait? Good at multitasking under pressure — that’s one transferable skill. Now if only I could land a triple axle.

From Matt. Friggin genius, as always. I found the Smithsonian article in lab, late one night, drifting around aimlessly (me or the article, I don’t remember). It was so awesome, I immediately sat down and transcribed all three columns of this backpage riff. Worth every keystroke. And I thought it was Kevin’s. Pshaw. I should have known better.

We are the music makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams.
Wandering by lonely sea breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World losers and world forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world, forever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up with world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.
We in the ages lying,
In the buried part of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth
And o’erthrew them with prophesying,
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

Arthur O’Shaugnessy (1844-1881)

Thanks to Carlo for pointing this out to me.

Copied from: Neurotopia. I agree with everything but the requisite depression and/or mental health problems. I’ve heard these sentiments elsewhere (widely), but I thoroughly disagree. I’ve figured out how to have grad school and my sanity too - by remembering the facts of reality (I don’t have to be in grad school) and the context (I freakin’ love my work). The trick is getting it to work for me, while I work my butt off for it. A simple challenge in strategizing, really, which is what my brain thrives on. I’ll make knowledge and make money, that’s the plan - not the hope, the plan. As for schmucks who think they know more about my science (or science in general) without having done a tenth of the work I have: schmuck off.

Late Night Rant - Who am I?

What do you think scientists are like? Are we a bunch of aloof, ivory-tower eggheads? Do we not care or notice what goes on in the world around us? Are we goofy, endearing nerds with pocket protectors who mumble a lot and trip over our own feet? Do we have great compassion for humanity and work for the advancement of society as a whole? Or are we just in it to make a buck?

I think people get a terrible impression of scientists. Certainly cretins like George Deutsch make a mockery of us, as if scientific knowledge was this vast postmodern melting pot of weak ideas easily supplanted by the next uncredentialed toady fool with a metaphysical ax to grind. I mean come on, who the hell do you think you are, Mr. Scientist?

But popular portrayals aren’t much better. Read on…

For instance, recall Ghostbuster’s Peter Venkman (played by Bill Murray) who cooks his goofy parapsychological research, goading pretty young college students into believing they have ESP, and presumably coaxing his way into their pants, by implication. Can you imagine the gall of such behavior? Who the hell does that Venkman guy think he is?

Or, on the other end of the spectrum, CSI. Cops these days can do it all! Slap on a nice suit, interview eyewitnesses, collect evidence at the crimescene, take said evidence to the mobile lab, extract 30-year-old DNA from a carpet thread inside of a bleach bottle, throw it on a gel, and image it with one hand… all while sipping a latte and driving to court with the other, to obtain a warrant 3 minutes before the statute of limitations expires then lead a SWAT team into the lying perp’s crack house, save the dying hostage, make the bust, and extract the confession just in time to exonerate some poor blind priest on his way to the electric chair for a crime he didn’t commit. Science, apparently, is brash, sexy, completely incidental to other endeavors and pathetically easy to conduct by the seat of your pants. Jerry Orbach, you were a troglodyte by comparison.

Or consider your average Intelligent Design Creationist. ID, too, is sexy. ID purports to reveal the mind of God hand of a designer. ID "science" is done by writing popular books that purportedly overturn the godless status quo. ID scientists regularly preach give lectures to the faithful interested at local churches community centers. ID scientists are regularly found testifying in court, brave in the face of the Evil Darwinian Orthodoxy. Who do you think you are, Mr. Darwinist?

This is not reality. If you want to do science, you’re in the lab. You’re in the lab a lot. Sometimes you forget what the sun looks like. You gotta pay your dues. That means laying your intellect bare for harsh criticism for years on end. Committee members and advisors constantly challenging you. Who the hell do you think you are? What makes you think you can succeed in this field?

A scientist makes a commitment to years of schooling long past what is legally required, and must possess a burning drive to push the envelope of our knowledge. A scientist is not generally reimbursed well, especially during graduate school.

And yes you have to "do it all", but not like it’s done on CSI: Miami. Many days you go home reeking of monkey piss, or covered in rat shit and tempera paint (don’t ask). All your clothes have grease spots from fixing broken equipment, chemical stains from a spilled reagent here and there, ketchup stains from some disgusting fast food choked down between procedures, or bleach spots from disinfecting the lab.

So with that in mind, I propose the following job description:

Position: Postdoctoral Researcher in Behavioral Neurobiology

What is your Perfect Major?

This is why I won’t be bothered if it takes me 7 years to get my degree - I’ll have done half a degree of half a dozen other subjects as well! Multi-variable calc (or linear algebra) and philosophy of mind are on the chopping block for the fall.

As with all seeming instances of entrapment, my strategic cleverness combined with stubborn stalwartness carries me through. Problems mitigated, dethroned, stowed. The path is clear once again. I will make my way, my way.

Because of a recent series of mind-poppingly frustrating "intellectual" exchanges, I’ve been feeling misanthropic and hermit-ish. Stupid, mean, smart-people just suck.

For people that are honestly interested in learning, I will bend over backwards to explain stuff, as best I can, a hundred times over, till my voice gives out, and then I’ll go for the chalkboard and try again. And I love doing it. We don’t even have to agree. The quality of interaction is detemined by approach and attitude and priorities - content and conclusions and agreements are secondary. But, a good process tends to produce good content and conclusions, and sometimes even agreement and, at the end of the day, improvement.

But those who take my honest, considered, time-consuming expositions of my knowledge, and pick out the two mistakes or the two disagreements in the whole thing, treat the rest as if I hadn’t written it, and proceed to trash people’s characters (mine, or the people who generated the ideas I’m discussing) rather than engage with the material, can go fuck themselves.

Except that I don’t feel that way. I’m frustrated and saddened that these people are the ones that in theory have more in common with me than someone off the street. Where’s the hope? The potential? How on earth can I make myself understood to people who don’t want to understand? Obviously, I can’t. And I start to see my whole life’s work being doomed to misperceptions except by a handful of people I know personally. I plan on doing the kind of work that matters, in the long run, and it’s likely to be very cool and compelling in the short run. It’ll be a great set-up for both increasing raw knowledge, and making it palatable for everyone outside my field. Science rocks. But even if I’ve produced it, will it matter, will it have any impact, if no one chooses to avail themselves to it? How can it?

This is why, not too distantly past, Thoreau and Edward Abbey were my favorite authors, and becoming a Tibetan monk - just for the solitude and simplicity - sounded like a great idea. Now I catch myself wondering how much a chunk of land in the Yukon goes for these days, and that I should work on turning my brown thumb into a green thumb. There are lots of things I can do, that benefit no one but me. These are the days I understand the strike. Because, even among people who should know better, I catch the whiff that, if I become great, it’s a fate worse than slavery. Every schmuck who’s ever heard of me will feel entitled to tell me why my ideas are wrong, even though he’s never studied, really studied them, and quadruple that for every half-assed "colleague". All attempts to lay bare my ideas and advances in a comprehensible form will be trounced - branded as arrogant, self-serving, condescending, lime-light-seeking and/or uninformed, misguided, unoriginal, and unworthy of anyone’s time. I’ll spend all my time putting out fires, correcting mistakes, clarifying and re-clarifying and re-re-stating my points, without end. And all for pennies. Why do it??

But I want this work so much. I want to know. The question I can’t answer, though, is: does my desire to know outweigh all the inescapable hurdles and chains that come with doing respectable, public science in the 21st century?

I don’t know.

On a walk with Roxie today, I came across this amazing old building. It appeared partially abandoned, although there were still arts, crafts, and school stuff inside. The plaque by the door said it used to be the Hillside School, built in 1925 in the Tudor style, and it’s now an historical landmark.

I looked at it, walked around, and decided I wanted it. If I ever have enough money at the right time, I want to buy this old place and turn it into my own research and learning building: a big huge library and reading room in that big, windowed room on the left, and halls and halls of lab space, and collections space, and storage space all along the corridors. A conference room, and workout room, and a place to make art. I’d take out all the non-essential doors and walls in the long corridors, and make it a totally free-form lab space, completely seamless, though partitioned as needed for work. It would be a place for ideas and a huge amount of productive work.

Turns out the place has just been vacated. The Berkeley School of the Arts just quit in January. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the building. There are no signs, no indications of movement, improvement, or activity. I also learned it sits squarely on the Hayward Fault. But it’s an awesome place, and the start of a great idea for me.

I’m through posting on online forums for anything but club meeting announcements and other business-type stuff. No lengthy discussions, no heuristic expositions. There is no benevolent universe in online forums. Those that would otherwise create that universe - I know many of them personally, and we can take our discussions elsewhere.

The concept of what used to be called "salons" really interests me. I don’t think an informal version of that is much different from what I already do - hanging out and having great conversation with friends and friends of friends. Honest, open, exploring conversation where we actually build knowledge, expand views, acknowledge and celebrate improvement, revel in the awesomeness of our own minds, and treat disagreements as great opportunities for learning, without fragile egoes and imperious proclamations constantly disrupting the flow of thought. This is where the concept of a benevolent universe shines through, outside of each of our selves.

On a related note, I’ll be starting a series of posts (hopefully on a new page, if I can figure out how to do that) on modern (i.e. last 35 years) topics in evolutionary theory, and in what ways the general public’s understanding of evolution is actually waaaaaaaay out of date and inaccurate, and trying to succinctly, and interestingly, fill in the gaps as best I can. (Succinct meaning I can type it in one evening, and is shorter than Crime and Punishment….). I want to improve my ability to communicate these concepts to interested and constructive non-evolutionary-biologists, as well as explore some of the frontiers in evolutionary theory.

[Update: I decided against the page on evolution. Too much to do.]