Leonard Mlodinow: Rules of thumb made to be broken

Physicist, television writer for such shows as MacGyver and Star Trek: The Next Generation, and author of The Drunkard's Walk, Leonard Mlodinow will be at IdeaFestival 2011 to talk about the role of chance and probability in our everyday lives. He recently took a few moments to answer three questions from the festival. Enjoy.

1) Humans are demonstrably bad at intuiting statistical likelihoods, but why? Can this inaptitude be studied, perhaps, by evolutionary biologists?

Our way of probabilistic thinking, though it can lead to errors, is really very useful and efficient. We are made to make quick decisions and so we use heuristics or rules of thumb in deciding. These are often biased by our prior experience, as they should be, for prior experience tells us a lot about the world. These methods however are not foolrpoof, and so, just as our eyesight is wonderful and efficient, but can lead to optical illusions, so too can our probablistic rules of thumb lead to “cognitive illusions.”

2) Can theoretical physicists use mathematics in the same way that English authors write for the human ear and experience? If so, do particularly elegant and compact expressions have more appeal? Why so?

Yes, human experience (but not the ear) has much to do with it. Many advances in physics are in a way advances in the expression of the concepts. For example, sometimes as we learn more about a theory its mathematical expression becomes more concise and elegant. And more compact elegant mathematical expressions are more powerful, easier to understand, interpret, and use. This happened with electromagnetism, for example. Also, with quantum electrodynamics, the theory of electrons and photons.

3) If the well asked question is half-answered, what is your favorite unanswered question? Why?

“What makes us human?” The fact that we ask that is the answer to the question itself.

DIY University?

Has the do-it-yourself movement come to higher education? New York Times, yesterday:

For those who have the time and money, the four-year residential campus still offers what is widely considered the best educational experience. Critics worry that the online courses are less rigorous and more vulnerable to cheating, and that their emphasis on providing credentials for specific jobs could undermine the traditional mission of encouraging critical thinking.

But most experts agree that given the exploding technologies, cuts to university budgets and the expanding universe of people expected to earn postsecondary degrees, there is no end in sight for newfangled programs preparing students for careers in high-demand areas like business, computer science, health care and criminal justice.

Chester E. Finn Jr., a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, predicted that all but the top tier of existing universities would 'change dramatically' as students regained power in an expanding marketplace.

Free and open to the public, the Wednesday, Sept. 21 "IdeaFestival Labs" will discuss ideas and topics of particular interest to Louisville and greater Kentucky. Come join a discussion of the impact that DIY degrees may have on institutional higher education.

Wayne

Monkey see, monkey horribly conflicted

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. - H. L. Mencken

The best how-to guide to creativity may be the one the starts in self restraint.

This video linked from a Fora.tv blog post a week ago, "West Point's most Creative Colonel," begins with a pretty funny punch line built around the following idea: we're inhibited far too often by what we think we know. Have a listen. Then read the quote below linked from the same post.

Another myth [Colonel Casey] Haskins addressed: We know why things happen. 'Why did the stock market go all the way up and all the way down every day last week? The answer is, no one knows,' he said. 'However, I can point you to 25 well-dressed, highly paid people who speak with great authority every afternoon about it.' It turns out we live in a complex world where causes and effects aren’t often clear. Believing that they are 'locks us in to our belief that a particular future is the future, and thereby prevents creativity.'

Wayne

Single IF 2011 tix available tomorrow, Aug. 24

Some rights reserved by Hryck.

The Science of Kissing, Selling Your Brain, The Other Wes Moore, Personal Foul, Dying to Do Letterman, The Drunkard's Walk, Live to 250 - beginning on Wednesday at 10a, single event tickets for these and many more IdeaFestival 2011 events will be available!

Wayne

Text and thrive? Not really

The IdeaFestival was founded on the assumption that most people have little opportunity to get out of their field to learn how to integrate, and apply to their area of interest, important ideas.

The quote above reminded me of a blog post last week at Psychology Today, "How our Senses Influence Creativity," in which the author makes the point that an ability to think broadly, or creatively, depends to an extent on what our senses are telling us.

Such research demonstrates strong links between perception and cognition. For instance, research has found that the concept of power is related to vertical spatial positions: powerful groups and powerful animals were identified more quickly when they were at the top of the screen, whereas there was no effect for powerless groups and animals. Another study found that when participants held a heavy (vs. light) clipboard, they invested more cognitive effort in dealing with abstract issues, such as displaying more elaborate thinking. 

One of the real ironies of our hyperconnected age - my view - is that the information we process while compulsively texting, checking email or answering the phone takes far too much time in the march happening in our prefrontal cortex and contributes far too little to the creative process. Fixed on the fleeting detail, we lose the bigger picture. At the moment, we're focused on the vibration in our pockets. At the moment, we're thinking about the call we should make to a business associate. Staring at the drive-through monitor, at the moment we might supersize that lunch.

Stop. Give yourself a chance to incorporate what your eyes and ears are telling you.

The IdeaFestival is the perfect place to put aside the phone for a little cognitive down time "out of your field." You'll be surprised at the unexpected left-field connection that happens.   

Wayne