“The best way to get out of a local maximum that I’ve found is to incorporate elements of a different, but clearly functional, intellectual tradition.”
I agree wholeheartedly with this being a good way (Not sure about “best”). The crux is “clearly functional” and “maxima”—and as an adult, I can make pretty good judgments about this. I’m also likely to bake in some biases about this that could be wrong. And depending on what society you find yourself within, you might do the same.
If I understand you, you are basically asking to jump from one maxima to another, assuming that in doing this search algorithm, you will eventually find a maxima that’s better than the one you’re in, or get enough information to go back to the previous one. And we limit our search on “functional.”
But what if you have little information or priors available as to what would be functional or not, or even what constitutes a maxima? There’s no information telling a child not to go join a fringe religious group, for example (and I think they often do their recruiting among the very young, for this reason).
Moreover, if someone (1) without clear criteria for what constitutes a “maxima” or “functional,” or (2) who may even wish to explore other models of “functional” because they suspect their current model may be self-limiting, then we get to questioning.
And I think in (2) above, I am defining the positive side of post-modernism, which also exists and contributes to our society. The most salient criticism of post-modernism is usually that it is anti-heirarchical, yet insisting it is a better approach than those before it, constitutes a performative contradiction. Also, I think they are sometimes guilty of taking a “noble savage” approach to other cultures or ways of thinking (failure to judge what is functional).
However, if we combine the “questioning” (broad search, willing to approach with depth where it seems useful), with some level of judgement about “functional” (assuming our judgement is sound), then I think it’s still a useful approach.
Because what you have presented offers no method I can see for a child without existing priors, or someone educated in a Shalafi school or similar (where judgement of “functional” is artificially curtailed), to find better ways to think.
A child who’s educated in a Salafi school has two choices—become a Salafi or become a failed Salafi. One of those is clearly better than the other. Salafis, like almost every adult, know how to navigate their environment semi-successfully and the first job of education is to pass on that knowledge. It would better if the kid could be given a better education, but the kid won’t have much control over that (and wouldn’t have the understanding to choose well). Kids are ignorant and powerless; that’s not a function of any particular political or philosophical system.
I think in general it’s best for children to learn from adults mostly by rote. Children should certainly ask questions of the adults, but independent inquiry will be at best inefficient and usually a wrong turn. The lecture-and-test method works, and AFAIK we don’t have anything else that teaches nearly as well.
Later, when they have some understanding, they can look around for better examples.
We are also overloading the word “Child” here, which we may need to disambiguate at this point.
What you are saying applies broadly to a 7 year old, and less to a 16 year old. For the 16 year old, there’s no longer 2 possible outcomes “succeed as a Salafi” or “fail as a Salafi.” There is often the very real option to “Make your way towards something else.” And the seeds of that could easily start (probably did!) in the 13 or 14 year old.
It’s also neat that humans are kind of wired where the great questioning/rebellion tends to happen more in the 13-to-16-year-old than the 7-year-old. Thus the common phenomenon where the person graduates high school and church at the same time, or leaves the cult, emigrates, etc.
I think you’re onto something. I think, for this purpose, “child” means anyone who doesn’t know enough about the topic to have any realistic chance at successful innovation. A talented 16 year old might successfully innovate in a field like music or cooking, having had enough time to learn the basics. When I was that age kids occasionally came up with useful new ideas in computer programming, but modern coding seems much more sophisticated. In a very developed field, one might not be ready to innovate until several years into graduate school.
A 16-year-old Salafi will be strongly influenced by his Salafi upbringing. Even if he* rebels, he’ll be rebelling against that specific strain of Islam. It would take a very long and very specific journey to take him toward California-style liberalism; given the opportunity to explore he’d likely end up somewhere very different.
*My understanding of this particular Islamic school is hazy, but I doubt our student is female.
“The best way to get out of a local maximum that I’ve found is to incorporate elements of a different, but clearly functional, intellectual tradition.”
I agree wholeheartedly with this being a good way (Not sure about “best”). The crux is “clearly functional” and “maxima”—and as an adult, I can make pretty good judgments about this. I’m also likely to bake in some biases about this that could be wrong. And depending on what society you find yourself within, you might do the same.
If I understand you, you are basically asking to jump from one maxima to another, assuming that in doing this search algorithm, you will eventually find a maxima that’s better than the one you’re in, or get enough information to go back to the previous one. And we limit our search on “functional.”
But what if you have little information or priors available as to what would be functional or not, or even what constitutes a maxima? There’s no information telling a child not to go join a fringe religious group, for example (and I think they often do their recruiting among the very young, for this reason).
Moreover, if someone (1) without clear criteria for what constitutes a “maxima” or “functional,” or (2) who may even wish to explore other models of “functional” because they suspect their current model may be self-limiting, then we get to questioning.
And I think in (2) above, I am defining the positive side of post-modernism, which also exists and contributes to our society. The most salient criticism of post-modernism is usually that it is anti-heirarchical, yet insisting it is a better approach than those before it, constitutes a performative contradiction. Also, I think they are sometimes guilty of taking a “noble savage” approach to other cultures or ways of thinking (failure to judge what is functional).
However, if we combine the “questioning” (broad search, willing to approach with depth where it seems useful), with some level of judgement about “functional” (assuming our judgement is sound), then I think it’s still a useful approach.
Because what you have presented offers no method I can see for a child without existing priors, or someone educated in a Shalafi school or similar (where judgement of “functional” is artificially curtailed), to find better ways to think.
A child who’s educated in a Salafi school has two choices—become a Salafi or become a failed Salafi. One of those is clearly better than the other. Salafis, like almost every adult, know how to navigate their environment semi-successfully and the first job of education is to pass on that knowledge. It would better if the kid could be given a better education, but the kid won’t have much control over that (and wouldn’t have the understanding to choose well). Kids are ignorant and powerless; that’s not a function of any particular political or philosophical system.
I think in general it’s best for children to learn from adults mostly by rote. Children should certainly ask questions of the adults, but independent inquiry will be at best inefficient and usually a wrong turn. The lecture-and-test method works, and AFAIK we don’t have anything else that teaches nearly as well.
Later, when they have some understanding, they can look around for better examples.
We are also overloading the word “Child” here, which we may need to disambiguate at this point.
What you are saying applies broadly to a 7 year old, and less to a 16 year old. For the 16 year old, there’s no longer 2 possible outcomes “succeed as a Salafi” or “fail as a Salafi.” There is often the very real option to “Make your way towards something else.” And the seeds of that could easily start (probably did!) in the 13 or 14 year old.
It’s also neat that humans are kind of wired where the great questioning/rebellion tends to happen more in the 13-to-16-year-old than the 7-year-old. Thus the common phenomenon where the person graduates high school and church at the same time, or leaves the cult, emigrates, etc.
I think you’re onto something. I think, for this purpose, “child” means anyone who doesn’t know enough about the topic to have any realistic chance at successful innovation. A talented 16 year old might successfully innovate in a field like music or cooking, having had enough time to learn the basics. When I was that age kids occasionally came up with useful new ideas in computer programming, but modern coding seems much more sophisticated. In a very developed field, one might not be ready to innovate until several years into graduate school.
A 16-year-old Salafi will be strongly influenced by his Salafi upbringing. Even if he* rebels, he’ll be rebelling against that specific strain of Islam. It would take a very long and very specific journey to take him toward California-style liberalism; given the opportunity to explore he’d likely end up somewhere very different.
*My understanding of this particular Islamic school is hazy, but I doubt our student is female.