Principles of Applied Epistemology (APPLIED EPISTEMOLOGY)

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

But you're the smartest geezer on that planet, am I right?

[Wile E. Coyote]

I no longer aim for smart in either attire or viewpoint, there came a point when I realised I simply wasn't good at it. It took an embarassingly long while to conclude this, but there you go, if I was smarter I would have concluded this much earlier. Or maybe if I was smarter I would not have opted to play by different rules, as presumably I would have been happier?

[Mick Harper]

These are more profound questions than you might think. Read on!

[Mick Harper]

The smartest person in the room (Part fifteen)

But do such people exist? In a world of relatively free communications and in any reasonably competitive environment they absolutely do. When a superior anything appears for which there is a market, there will be a vast corpus of individuals whose sole job is to [substitute gadget etc for theory etc]

1. not reject new theories out of hand
On the contrary, it is their lifeblood to test them out in order to

2. work out the data changes made necessary by the new theory
and instruct their audience on how best to

3. find ways to ensure this package can be seamlessly installed into brains with the old circuitry
and employ the mass (or specialist) media so that it will

4. cascade the results rapidly enough to reach you.
Soon, you won't even have a decision to make. The new will have completely transcended the old.

The smartest person in the world need merely look on, clutching his patent. He will be credited as the smartest person in the room by law. Such is the world we live in. Change and improvement via smartness would seem unstoppable. It seeps into every sphere of our lives. Who would want to mend a system that is not just not-broken but is self-repairing?

Except when you substitute back theory etc for gadgets etc.

[Mick Harper]

The smartest person in the room (Part sixteen)

Or, as we might say, science for technology. Technology moves on apace because the smartest person in the room is beavering away in his garage, as I speak. In their millions. They know what is needed, they know they will be rewarded, they know who they have to be smarter than and (sort of) how. And crucially they know when they have failed. Someone smarter got there first.

How many scientists do you suppose there are are in their attics deep in thought trying might and main for their Nobel Prize? None. Consult the lists. They were all in the lab tinkering away with some variation on a theme, some little push that will turn a known scientific principle into a technological practicality. It won't even be the smartest person in the lab who achieves this, only the one that turns the right lock. Right time, right place. If it did take the smartest person in the lab to do it, it will be the head of the lab that goes to Stockholm. "Among the people I would like to thank..."

Theory is different. Theory is the bugbear. Theory is what draws in the absolutely smartest people. But only if they are stupid enough to do it.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

I know exactly what you mean, Wiley, but can you explain for the benefit of the slower members of the forum.

[Wile E. Coyote]

A lot of "new thinking" is now a mixture of human brain and the brute calculating force of computers, so your team requires access to geeky types that can programme, and understand the results of the silicon assistance. The smart person simply asks the questions and writes up the results.

"Ortho" becomes not just "standing on the shouders of the greats", tirelessly collecting together their best bits, along with a summary of latest interesting research, but then, where appropriate, ie where the data is large, checking that the computer agrees.

[Wile E. Coyote]

It's also, of course, now a case of smartest person in the forum. So people's responses are a mixture of their own view and, err, what they just have googled.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]