![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
[email protected]Shown: posts 1 to 9 of 9. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by 64bowtie on February 4, 2005, at 9:47:29
1. I accept that my 10,000 nuggets of information that are my knowledge base takes up about as much space in the universe of knowledge as what space a beebee takes up in a standard 40 foot railroad boxcar; 'id est' (i.e.) a beebee in a boxcar...
2. Since we can put about 1.6 trillion beebees in a standard railroad boxcar, there are 160,000 completely different knowledge bases available, each having about 10,000 uniquely separate nuggets of useful info.
3. For me to arrogantly dismiss new or previously unknown information is like my throwing the 'baby out with the bathwater'... dangerously foolish, and silly to boot! Which subset of new nuggets could save my @$$? Which new nuggets could provide me with newer-better-sooner recovery info?
4. I'm searching for that boundary between sensible and foolish.Rod
PS: 1,617,910,000 beebees in a standard railroad 40 foot long freight carrying boxcar (give or take a few million)... And @ $2.99 per 1000......
Posted by Angielala on February 4, 2005, at 11:34:18
In reply to Picture a beebee in a boxcar..., posted by 64bowtie on February 4, 2005, at 9:47:29
I find that a lot of what I deemed foolish in the past has now become sensible.
Can you throw out beebees that are redundant or now not useful?
> 1. I accept that my 10,000 nuggets of information that are my knowledge base takes up about as much space in the universe of knowledge as what space a beebee takes up in a standard 40 foot railroad boxcar; 'id est' (i.e.) a beebee in a boxcar...
> 2. Since we can put about 1.6 trillion beebees in a standard railroad boxcar, there are 160,000 completely different knowledge bases available, each having about 10,000 uniquely separate nuggets of useful info.
> 3. For me to arrogantly dismiss new or previously unknown information is like my throwing the 'baby out with the bathwater'... dangerously foolish, and silly to boot! Which subset of new nuggets could save my @$$? Which new nuggets could provide me with newer-better-sooner recovery info?
> 4. I'm searching for that boundary between sensible and foolish.
>
> Rod
>
> PS: 1,617,910,000 beebees in a standard railroad 40 foot long freight carrying boxcar (give or take a few million)... And @ $2.99 per 1000......
>
Posted by 64bowtie on February 4, 2005, at 16:31:55
In reply to Re: Picture a beebee in a boxcar..., posted by Angielala on February 4, 2005, at 11:34:18
> I find that a lot of what I deemed foolish in the past has now become sensible.
>
> Can you throw out beebees that are redundant or now not useful?
>Angie,
<<< Try looking for new beebees... Your boxcar is chock full of more better beebees... The discarded ones may be embarassing but at least don't take up much room...
Rod
Posted by 64bowtie on February 8, 2005, at 2:11:46
Quote:
Avoid those who are unable...
to envision a reality...
greater than the one they (already) know...Now, re-read...
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050202/msgs/453054.htmlRod
PS: Protect your nuggets from view...
and you'll miss out on all the great new stuff
Posted by justyourlaugh on February 8, 2005, at 7:32:30
In reply to Thought for the day... and forever, posted by 64bowtie on February 8, 2005, at 2:11:46
are these killer african beebees in which you speak about?
j
Posted by gardenergirl on February 8, 2005, at 8:48:02
In reply to Re: Thought for the day... and forever, posted by justyourlaugh on February 8, 2005, at 7:32:30
Posted by AuntieMel on February 8, 2005, at 11:16:05
In reply to Thought for the day... and forever, posted by 64bowtie on February 8, 2005, at 2:11:46
I would think you would *want* to protect your nuggets.
Posted by Mark H. on February 8, 2005, at 19:38:42
In reply to Picture a beebee in a boxcar..., posted by 64bowtie on February 4, 2005, at 9:47:29
Hi Rod,
I think you've lost a few beebees....
10,000 x 160,000 = 1,600,000,000 (one billion six hundred million).
However, you write that "my 10,000 nuggets of information that are my knowledge base takes up about as much space in the universe of knowledge as what space a beebee takes up in a standard 40 foot railroad boxcar."
So you're saying 10,000 nuggets = 1 beebee, not 10,000 nuggets = 10,000 beebees.
Then you write, "Since we can put about 1.6 trillion beebees in a standard railroad boxcar [I'll take your word for this], there are 160,000 completely different knowledge bases available, each having about 10,000 uniquely separate nuggets of useful info."
But if your first paragraph is correct, then there would be 1,600,000,000,000 "completely different knowledge bases available."
However, what if 99.9% (or greater) of your 10,000 nuggets were actually just like everyone else's?
You write, "I'm searching for that boundary between sensible and foolish." I wonder if attempting to quantify the universe of knowledge by analogy falls into the latter category.
However, don't give up the search....
Best wishes,
Mark H.
Posted by Mark H. on February 9, 2005, at 19:27:01
In reply to Picture a beebee in a boxcar..., posted by 64bowtie on February 4, 2005, at 9:47:29
Hi Rod,
I was trying to be funny in my post above, but I don't think I succeeded.
Here's a quote from Buckminster Fuller that I like:
"Everything you've learned in school as 'obvious' becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines."
Especially with the Internet, we have almost unimaginable access to information these days, yet we still are able to absorb information at the same rate we did 200 years ago. How on earth do we decide what to let in?
I recall Carl Sagan opening one of his shows by speculating how many books a person could reasonably read in an average adult lifetime. Perhaps one a week? If so, he said, a person might read 3,000 books in his/her lifetime, "or about 1/10th of 1 percent of the books on this floor of the New York Public Library" where he was standing.
I was working in a bookstore at the time, and I realized with a shock that the notion of anyone being "well read" was intellectual vanity, at best a very relative and selective concept.
So I think we are indeed faced with a "boxcar full of beebees" when it comes to information today, and perhaps the next advances in education will be in the areas of self-management involved with the filtering and selection of knowledge bases.
Mark H.
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Social | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
[email protected]
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.