A Storm in Social Medium

A Storm in Social Medium

21/4/24

In recent news there was a claim by an emeritus professor from Indian Institute of Astrophysics that in the recently built Ram Mandir they had set up the Surya Thilak – deflection of sunlight at a particular time at a particular spot.  Is this an information worthy of publicizing through social medium? Perhaps.  Should it have been done by someone who has held very senior position in the technology and science establishment in the country? Not sure.

          As far as the claimed accomplishment is concerned, it is at the level of a high school project.  It is like me telling a 3-year-old that I can heat up water using a stove.  (In six months, the child would grow out of getting excited about such a claim.)  If the announcement was made with the intention of wowing the general public (what other motive could there be?), it is a sad state of affairs because similar feats have been demonstrated in many ‘ancient’ constructions in the country and elsewhere, and our ancients were fairly knowledgeable in matters of astronomy.  But if it was meant to signal the powers that be, then there is likely some mischief afoot.  Because those who claim to be the builders of mandirs can be wowed by such claims and perhaps use them as indicators of Amrit Kaal.  Another explanation could be that retired professionals need such brownie points to justify their contributions while occupying post-retirement ceremonial positions.

What’s Progress

What’s Progress

17/4/24

The general election festival is upon us and it’s the season for the leaders to impress the followers where they have been or likely to be, what they might have done or might want to do.  I presume the followers ought to be satisfied in thinking that they are the beneficiaries in all this progress in this whole drama, in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  Nevertheless, this note is about my personal experience and has nothing to do with the political climate.

          Recently, while planning for a rail travel, I discovered that in some trains a new class of coaches have been introduced.  While the Railways, like all government service providers, are not shy of publicizing their innovations, but for some reason have not been very vocal about this particular development I am about to share.  Only by necessity I had a chance to discover this progress, while looking for all possible options for undertaking a few unplanned travels in short notice.  In some trains, particularly those connecting the regions most neglected by the Railways such as the heavily populated central Indian regions and the more despicable southern cities which offer some livelihood and opportunities.  These are the 3E coaches.  I’m not sure what the ‘E’ stands for.  It could be economy, economical, efficient, expensive or any such thing, I don’t have a clue.  They are priced between a 3 tier Ac and a Chair Car ticket, and the coach is air conditioned.

          Is this progress that the Railways have a new line of service in addition to the existing ones (and not in place of them)?  Since the tickets were available only for this category, I could experience this progress.  This is a sleeper coach which meant that it was designed for overnight travel, and perhaps not for day travel.  My travel involved only the night part and  I could attempt to catch some sleep.  But the coach was so cramped that getting into the sleeper was more challenging than in the 3A coaches I was previously exposed to.  Was this to justify the lower price?  But the interesting part was that a passenger cannot sit or get into a squatting position.  I’m short even by Indian standards, and even I had difficulty in getting into and out of the bed.  I can only imagine how most others manage to maneuver in longer travels.  I wonder how the Railways would have designed these coaches, and what criteria would have been the most prominent parameter for the design.  There is no change in the number of berths from the 3A coaches, and thus there would be no earning advantage.  Are the manufacturing or maintenance costs any lower? I don’t know.  They are not visible to me, except may be for the air conditioning system.  But there are more air-conditioned coaches overall in the train, at the cost of the non-AC coaches, and hence the revenue to the Railways must have increased from these trains at the cost of people preferring or affording to travel only by non-AC coaches (at a cheaper rate).

          I know I shouldn’t complain because what is becoming more common is that the idea of reserved seats has lost its meaning in many routes.  Genuine Railway customers who pay in advance for the travel by reservation find their seats and coaches so full as to either travel in the loo or cancel their ticket.  Bon Voyage.

          Although this note was not meant to be political it has turned out to be one.  Leadership of any large public service organization is appointed by the government.  Unfortunately, lately the appointments have become politically motivated driven by agenda and not service or expertise.  We might as well call them government agenda organizations (GAOs) instead of PSOs.  

Questions

Questions

7/10/23

In a previous post (https://ramamurt.wordpress.com/2023/10/05/answers/) I had brought up the issue of the attitude required towards learning and the character that gets built.  I would like to explore the support for that argument in this post.

When I said that the quality of questions determines the depth of learning, the question that follows is how does one improve the quality of questioning.  It is popularly said that children tend to ask more questions and gradually stop questioning as they grow up.  This is true to only to some extent, but not completely.  At least two counter points:  Not all children, only a few keep asking questions.  A very few begin to ask questions as they grow up after they overcome their anxiety and begin to grasp the breadth of the topics they pursue.  The question really becomes “how to learn to ask good quality questions”.  There could be many answers to this, and I will offer one or two.  It can begin with being suspicious about the quality of evidence. 

Most transactions in educational environment are about transmission of information.  In some subjects like poetry and literature the information could be completely imaginary, and hence there is no point in questioning the validity of the information.  More appropriately the style and organization of the presentation are points of inquiry.  In most other fields including history and technology, the style may not be that relevant as much as to the content and context of the information.

Being suspicious requires some clarifications.  Under the broad garb of what we term as cultural tradition in our country we equate respect with acceptance, meaning we don’t suspect whom we respect.  But there is no reason to equate the two.  Respect could be for many things other than what suspicion could be for.  Respect could be for age, relationship, experience, position in hierarchy, wealth, power, etc.   Suspicion, on the other hand, first should start with the evidence and method related to the information, which could progress towards intent and individuals, if warranted.  We should suspect the individuals based on the rigors of the methods they might have followed or have repeatedly exhibited intent to mislead.

The second process for questioning comes from discussion and scrutiny.  Scrutinizing a piece of information can tell us about the situation and conditions when information could be acceptable and when not.  Discussion requires participation of peers and advisors to evaluate the evidence and methods.

Learning Models…5

Learning Models…5

1/10/23

(To be read in continuation with previous posts to follow the thread of ideas.)

Is the current model of our education system outdated, going out of fashion?  Will the competing systems overwhelm the existing system?  If history is any guide, change is the norm, but one can expect a struggle or fight before any system goes extinct.

When I say current system what I wish to convey is the system of schools and universities, liberal arts and professional streams, diplomas and degrees, involvement of government, parents.  Although there are newer versions like home schooling, coaching classes, etc., they essentially augment the above conventional system, they are not serious replacement threats.  For example, coaching classes don’t have any meaning unless there is a degree certification at the end of the pursuit.

The current system had evolved to support the industrial revolution, basically to create workforce sought by the industry.  Although one might consider education is for the purpose of educating, meaning develop the mind, morals, provide information, practically what is sought is to train in skill, trade or profession with the idea that there is a demand for these capabilities.  However, the needs of the industry have been changing, while whatever the requirements are, they have never been met in a satisfactory, timely and consistent manner by the supply system.  The main reason for this is the inconsistent or incoherent communication between the seeker and the supplier, while other factors could also add to this gap.

Has the industrial economy changed?  Or, more importantly, has it become outdated?  The answer is ‘not yet’, but it is on the way.  The disparity among industrial sectors and between countries has increased, meaning while some have moved on others have been stuck with the demise in the horizon.  While in some cases the end is very near, in others the change is quite far off.  While standardization is still the requirement in some sectors, customization has become mandatory in others.  Is the industry resilient to make the transition?  How are they preparing their support systems for this? Is the education system prepared for this transition?

Answers

Answers

2/10/23

One of the main streams of my teaching to my students used to be “ask questions”.  While you prepare your mind with the context through your questions learning occurs when you get answers to those questions from someone else or you discover it yourself.  The quality of learning is directly related to the quality of questions one is able to ask.  The more learned one becomes the more sophisticated the questions become.  Unfortunately, in my job I was required only to look at the students’ answers and grade them on that basis, not their ability to ask questions and the quality thereof.

Communal living happens by participation by a group that could broadly be categorized into leaders and followers.  Societies that have more effective leaders in proportion to the followers make faster progress.  One of the learning from economic theory is that irrespective of how equal any playing field is set up, within a short period of time there will be leaders and laggards.  In any race sooner than the starting whistle is blown the separation of the contestants show up.  In other words, one cannot create an equal society by man-made rules.  However, the motivation is that the current leaders may not always lead and someone from behind can get ahead at any time.  But what needs to be avoided is that the gap between those at the front and those at the back becomes so large that there can be no motivation to narrow this gap.  This is particularly necessary for perpetual races like growth and development.

There are many ways to measure which group is at the front which at the back in all kinds of competitions, be it economy, health, safety, education, buying power, etc.  Society is a structure where each individual has a narrow group of activities that contribute to the whole group.  Thus, people engaged in many fields progress in a way that contributes to the benefit of everyone around them.  Having said this, there are two distinct groups among them: those who require instruction and direction and those who instruct or direct – the followers and the leaders. The proportion of leaders in any group decides how the group progresses.  What distinguishes the leaders from the followers is what motivates them.  Followers are those who require precise and clear-cut answers regarding what needs to get done while the other group is happy with ambiguous ideas or indications about what needs to get done.  They fill up the gaps with the details of what the requirements are.

Everyone aspires to get recognized.  Recognition happens when one feels that some accomplishment of theirs is identified as such by others.  If one doesn’t feel accomplished by their own contributions, an alternate route is through association with a group.  Since this is a much easier path, many look for association with more accomplished and hence recognized groups such as teams, companies, political parties, nations, etc. even though they may never have directly contributed to the accomplishments of the group.  Sport team fandom is a good example.  Interestingly, this phenomenon of group association is more common in large but lesser developed countries than in smaller more developed countries.  The idea of nationalism is exploited in large countries because of the large number of people who cannot identify themselves with their own accomplishments.  It is easier in such situations to push them to get associated with a large group than to push them towards their own accomplishment and their sense of belonging.

Learning Models…4

Learning Models…4

28/9/23

Learning is not completed until the received signals are processed and practiced.  Both these aspects are much more complex than their plain labeling would suggest.  Processing comprises of interpretation, categorization and response.  This also includes feedback to strengthen (or weaken) the learning and building of neuronal network.  This network is not just confined to the neurons but also with the sensory and the effector systems as well, so that the feedback could be put to use. 

Practice, on the other hand is mostly voluntary, meaning it is individually decided and acted upon.  When different individuals are observed responding to the same content of inputs practice shows a broad range of response.  While some might ignore, fail to perceive or be unresponsive to the signal others might respond mildly or strongly, with or without deliberation, purposefully or autonomously, frequently or randomly.  The response is an important aspect without which learning is incomplete. 

There is an important distinction between the feedback from the sensory system and from the deliberate practice system.  While the former is mostly autonomous the later is a consequence of deliberate action.  The former is a safeguard mechanism to prevent damage to the sensory system, the later directly drives the learning process to evolve and become better in the form of soft-wiring of the neurons.  What I call as practice comprises a variety of activities specifically aimed at strengthening the learning process.  This is usually designed and developed by a trained teacher to be precisely effective, but sometimes may require specific customization for the unique circumstance of individuals as well.

The practice differentiates between good and bad learners, and all the grading systems of academic institutions.  The response, to some extent can also be influenced by external agents such as a teacher, coach, examiner or a certification system – basically the academic infrastructure.  This is one of the strong arguments for the expectation of survival of academic institutions in the light of the competition from self-learning courses and online education programs.  Is this true?

I will explore the fallacy in this model in a subsequent post.

Learning Models….3

Learning Models….3

27/9/23

For soft learnings inputs are critical.  By altering inputs learnings can be directed or altered.  In a perverse way, we see this in indoctrination and radicalization.  But in the most normal way it is through the inputs that people are trained or coached.  Having said this, we know that there is a wide range of effectiveness in the working of the sensory systems among individuals.  These variations are due to many factors including genetic, developmental, environmental, exposure – deliberate or subliminal, and training.  In addition to these sources for variation in performance, intent to modify and correct can also play an important role in how our sensory systems develop to contribute to our learnings.  Consequently, the ability to learn among a group of individuals is highly varied.

One of the recent developments of the last three decades is the variety of media developed and promoted as learning aids.  The traditional written books had replaced the oral tradition of learning, but its competition in the form of art and figures, sound and video have no only provided other options but have also challenge for the sustainability of the established system.  As a personal case, although I enjoy the audible versions of books and articles, my retention of the ideas and concepts from this input is not as good as from a written down version of input.  I’m sure my experience is not universally shared, but the point is that for each individual the best learning mode is different.

          The systems we have created to impart learning, i.e., schools and universities, appear to be completely ignorant of these factors.  Other than a few special schools such as those for the deaf or the mentally challenged, most institutions have only one common mode for imparting learning to all its customers.  No wonder they do such a lousy job, as indicated by the comments heard from graduates, employers and other stakeholders of the enterprise.  Most tragic of all is that most students are unaware of their best instincts for learning since they are seldom exposed to the possibilities.

          Learning is not just confined to the inputs.  In the next post I will explore the further steps in the process.

Learning Models…2

Learning Models…2

26/9/23

One of the key ways in which the hard and soft wired learnings differ is the process adopted for learning to occur.  In the hard-wired case random changes are brought about in the hard wire, i.e., the genetic makeup which influence alteration in existing capabilities; some of these alterations turn out to be better suited to the existing challenges and they tend to stick in the long run.  There is no plan, no direction, no aspiration, no imagination to drive these changes, only randomness. This is the Darwinian model of evolution, and over long periods it has built in more complexity and capability to living systems.  As Richard Dawkins explains, the genes (the hard wire) drive the organism for their own survival, sometimes they win but most times they lose, irrespective of the desire of the system that brings about this change.  In contrast to this, the soft wired (neuronal) model depends on the inputs through the sensory systems to create what we call intelligence to drive change. Unlike the hard-wired model, this approach to learning is much more flexible, one can learn with intent both good and not so good things.  This process can now and then override the constraints placed by the hard-wired system, is generally much faster, can go through several layers of learnings before the hard-wired system can bring about change or adjustments to the existing constraints.  While the hard-wired system depends on vast number of individuals within whom selection can be effective, the threshold number of individuals for the number of individuals for the soft-wired system to succeed is much less.  We see this as a minority controlling the fate of the majority both within a species and across the species.  Only rare instances like epidemics show us that the balance of numbers could be tilted, as the number of pathogens far exceed the number of hosts in these exceptional cases.

          The key ingredient for the soft-wired learning is the input in the form of sensory signals.  Animals, including humans, learn both consciously and unconsciously from these signals to respond or act in situations.  At the sensory level humans are not the most evolved.  For each of the senses there are many other non-human examples where the performance is much better.  My hypothesis is that humans are much better at learning from these signals to respond in ways outside the constraints of these signals.  Unlike the hard-wired system that make the learnings better, the soft-wired system learns to utilize the inadequate capability of the hard-wired system to capture the signal.   For example, some birds and animals are much more sensitive to changes in air pressure to sense approaching storms and cyclones compared to humans.  But humans have learnt from the behavior of these animals to sense the approaching calamity.  This aspect of learning indirectly is not unique to humans since other animals also put it use.  Some such behaviors are hard-wired in some animals, and we call them instincts.  But humans are better only because we can build on instincts by imagining the consequences and developing a response such as developing a shelter house or a vaccine.

          In the next episode I will explore the relevance of soft learning to the enterprise of education.

Learning Models…1

Learning Models…1

25/9/23

Prolog: 

1.  This is a huge topic which I am not qualified or competent to comprehensively discuss.  Nevertheless, I will, in a series of posts touch on the varied aspects of this subject, each exploring some nuances and open new vistas for further debate and contemplation.  

2.  A substantial part of my career, time clocked wise, was spent in the profession of education.  On the basis of this I have had the privilege of interacting with smart youngsters and learning along the way.  In spite of this, I have had many situations where I have been unable to correct some systemic problems that over a period of time have festered on from bad to worse.  I hope the thoughts in these notes could inspire a few to find better approaches to overcome the impediments.  

Life is about learning.  Things that don’t learn don’t live, or at least long enough.  Learnings of living things catalyze changes which in turn lead to evolution or progress.  Things that do not have a system of learning do not make progress. (Inanimate things can and do react and thus make progress, but we may not call them as evolution.)  There are two systems of learning: one that is hard-wired and the other that is soft-wired.  The hard-wired learning is etched into our genetic makeup which is characterized by its transmission to our progeny.  Soft learning does not have this capability, but it can be as much or more powerful for bringing in progress.  It is not transmitted to our progeny directly, but can be transmitted widely without this constraint. It could be transmitted to anyone else whether they are genetically related or not, even across geographical boundaries or across species (teach a new dog old tricks).  In animals this system of learning is built through a flexible system we call the neuronal system.  In this system it is as easy to build as to modify, destroy or override the learnings.  These capabilities have superseded the more primitive genetic system of learning to bring about change.  The consequence of this kind of change is that the rate of evolution or progress has increased to such an extent that it is difficult to say whether the progress is in the desired direction or not.

          Humans have leant not only how these systems of learning work but also how to bring about or engineer changes to learnings in these systems.  Since the soft learning system is less constrained, we have tended to exploit this much more, experiment with it and bring in more takers for this type of learning.  Thus, the whole system of soft learning has been systematized, newer models explored and implemented and progress driven in predetermined ways.  This has, of course, also developed conflicts, created problems and possibly could end up in unanticipated consequences such as alterations in climate, ecology, equilibria and reduced diversity in ideas, thoughts, learnings and species.  The idea of self-correction is as much or more important than experimentation and innovation at some point.  Whether we have reached such a state is not only a matter of debate but also of opinion beyond the facts that are available to the contrary.

Miracles of Time

Miracles of Time

28/8/23

I have so much to complain about the teaching and learning process followed while I was a student in high school.  Of course, there is no single or a group of individuals to blame, but it is only to identify the opportunities missed.  In the formal set up of a school, teaching and learning are identified as standard processes wherein it is clearly identified who the teacher is and who the pupils are, and their roles are broadly understood.  No one even attempts to question the validity of such a standardized model, that the thought of the roles getting reversed frequently or more commonly the roles are not uniformly followed is not even entertained.  The cost for such blind acceptance is that the human potential it creates is consistently undercooked and mostly ends up with underemployment and underachievement.  Or, in other words, the human potential is never maximized, which should have been the goal of education, to begin with.

          To contextualize Chandrayan 3’s success, it is worth thinking about what progress were required to reach this trajectory.  Although humans have moved from a geocentric world to a heliocentric world, this transition in ideology was earned after a hard fight.  Copernicus had to endure and fight orthodoxy, suffer indignity for even the consideration of his logic, and his work was buried for over a century before it became widely known for others to evaluate and utilize. The field of astronomy has taught us our insignificance and perhaps a little humility to consider the miracle of life that is confined only to the planet we inhabit.

          Our curriculum has taught us the mechanics and the laws of Newton as mere statements, but the brilliance of his idea and implications of these laws were left unexplored. For example, our whole sense of time and development of the calendar system by following seasons, crops and cycles depends on the regularity of the movement of celestial bodies, particularly for us that of the earth, the moon and sun.  While a spinning top due to the drag will stop spinning in a short time, the regularity of movement of these bodies over billions of years is what has led to the current moment when we can ponder over these matters.  The precision of their movements in spite of small distortions due to an elliptical orbit can make us wonder about their precision.  It is an indication that the influence of other heavenly bodies is ever so slight that our calendar requires very minor correction in the period of time on a scale which is meaningful to us – days and years.           When thinking about miracles the underlying idea is the difference between perception and reality.  It is nowhere starker than in the usage and understanding of time.  Frequently we use time as a measure of something other than for what it is meant to convey.   For example, when we denote distance as in “the airport is thirty minutes away”, or “the sun is 8 light minutes from earth”.  We also use the time measure in other contexts like “a two year project” or “a four year degree”.  However, unlike the other things which are indicated in all these measures, what we generally accept as time changes only in one direction.  For example, can we ask “can we repeat the four year degree program?” when we know that the time does not repeats itself.  We inherently understand that the time is ultimately tied to the movement of our planet in reference to the sun, and because we are unable to retract this movement. The miracle is the almost perfect movement of these bodies which allows us to have consistency across everyone who is sharing this planet with us.