first a quick prompt. there are several typos and syntactical errors this time. worth running it through an AI (grammerly kind) for clean up...
coming to the article,
in several ways this post in your arc is a critical junctional one, IMO, because it is moving towards the holy grail of any knowledge pursuit - to seek to know that GENERAL THEORY OF ..... (a la the General Theory of Everything in physics...)
what is invaluable for the human being is the pursuit itself - this intense, *honest* thinking through, because that is what makes your entrapped *Spirit* move towards itself freeing yourself from its bodily trappings, blind-spots, colourings, refractions and all other kinds of truncations... what one could, after a fashion, call an exercise in Gyan Yoga.
WRT your key question of this fine piece, "who gets to decide the ranking, and by what test?" -
i think this is where it would be appropriate to introduce the magnificent Concept of DHARMA.
the short answer is, 'decide by the test of Dharma'.
the great new, next pursuit would be to first study and learn, and get a sense of adequacy in, 'what Dharma is' - this subtlest and most exquisite of moral systems that mankind across any civilisation has todate thought about.
Sid, following DJ, I would also request you to drop the ji and call me only Sumant. After all, on this substack,, you are the main lead in ideation and we are here to follow You!
That said, we need to examine the question itself before we attempt an answer. Specifically, we need to ask the following questions about the question itself: (this could apply to any question)
(1) What is the significance of having the question answered? What benefit accrues if the question is answered? What opportunities are missed if it is left unanswered? In other words, is answering it worth the effort?
(2) What would constitute an answer to the question? How could we verify that the answer does indeed answer the question rather than just pretend to answer the question?
(3) Does the question have a single universally valid answer or multiple valid answers depending on the context? After all the vertical direction in Australia is different from the vertical direction in India.
Let us now apply this to the main question of this thread: Why is this worth knowing?
(1) The ability to answer to this question would empower you to filter out usable data /information /knowledge and reject the useless. This would maximize the benefit from usage of your limited ability to receive information, leading to earlier achievement of your chosen objective. Not bothering to develop the ability to answer this question would lead you to spend your limited receptivity and time in pursuing data /information / knowledge that does not bring you closer to your goals.
(2) What would constitute an answer to this question depends on the definition of "worth" which is a highly personal, individual choice. It depends on having already chosen what one wants to do with one's own life. Shankar Mahadevan, a brilliant graduate of Information Technology, chose music as his vocation. Chetan Bhagat, a graduate of IIT and IIM, chose to be a writer. Perhaps somebody has an intense affinity for animals and would like to be a zookeeper or a horse farrier as in the case of Girl Twenty. What is worth knowing depends on what they are going to do with the knowledge. An engineer working on designing the tallest bridge in the world and who likes to watch crime thrillers on the TV for recreation must actively reject all information that does not pertain to either his work or to his hobby. The person in charge of horses at the Vaccine Institute needs to know the idiosyncrasies of his horses individually, not YouTube videos which give vague advice.
Once you know what you are going to use that information for, you automatically know whether it is useful or not because you are then the domain knowledge expert.
(3) Does the question have a universally valid single answer? Of course not! This question would have to be asked afresh for every piece of data /information /knowledge which comes your way. What is necessary is a template, a process. And if it is a process, some AI company is going to hook on to it and do it for you after you fill out a detailed questionnaire about what is your interest. From then on, your personal choice would have become somebody's meal ticket!
Reminded me of this comic: https://poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/knowledge/
Also the quote — "THE ILLITERATE OF THE 21ST CENTURY WILL NOT BE THOSE WHO CANNOT READ AND WRITE, BUT THOSE WHO CANNOT LEARN, UNLEARN, AND RELEARN. "
~ALVIN TOFFLER
Just followed you on LinkedIn ✌️
Thanks Man.
It's an interesting read. The question has always been about "Why". The what and how generally follows.
first a quick prompt. there are several typos and syntactical errors this time. worth running it through an AI (grammerly kind) for clean up...
coming to the article,
in several ways this post in your arc is a critical junctional one, IMO, because it is moving towards the holy grail of any knowledge pursuit - to seek to know that GENERAL THEORY OF ..... (a la the General Theory of Everything in physics...)
what is invaluable for the human being is the pursuit itself - this intense, *honest* thinking through, because that is what makes your entrapped *Spirit* move towards itself freeing yourself from its bodily trappings, blind-spots, colourings, refractions and all other kinds of truncations... what one could, after a fashion, call an exercise in Gyan Yoga.
WRT your key question of this fine piece, "who gets to decide the ranking, and by what test?" -
i think this is where it would be appropriate to introduce the magnificent Concept of DHARMA.
the short answer is, 'decide by the test of Dharma'.
the great new, next pursuit would be to first study and learn, and get a sense of adequacy in, 'what Dharma is' - this subtlest and most exquisite of moral systems that mankind across any civilisation has todate thought about.
happy hunting, all !
Great article and totally relate to Girl Number 20 - wow you are spot on here. Find me on LinkedIn
Why, but also why not?
It seems you have given me the next thread for this series!. Let me explore on this thread. Thanks a lot.
Sid, following DJ, I would also request you to drop the ji and call me only Sumant. After all, on this substack,, you are the main lead in ideation and we are here to follow You!
That said, we need to examine the question itself before we attempt an answer. Specifically, we need to ask the following questions about the question itself: (this could apply to any question)
(1) What is the significance of having the question answered? What benefit accrues if the question is answered? What opportunities are missed if it is left unanswered? In other words, is answering it worth the effort?
(2) What would constitute an answer to the question? How could we verify that the answer does indeed answer the question rather than just pretend to answer the question?
(3) Does the question have a single universally valid answer or multiple valid answers depending on the context? After all the vertical direction in Australia is different from the vertical direction in India.
Let us now apply this to the main question of this thread: Why is this worth knowing?
(1) The ability to answer to this question would empower you to filter out usable data /information /knowledge and reject the useless. This would maximize the benefit from usage of your limited ability to receive information, leading to earlier achievement of your chosen objective. Not bothering to develop the ability to answer this question would lead you to spend your limited receptivity and time in pursuing data /information / knowledge that does not bring you closer to your goals.
(2) What would constitute an answer to this question depends on the definition of "worth" which is a highly personal, individual choice. It depends on having already chosen what one wants to do with one's own life. Shankar Mahadevan, a brilliant graduate of Information Technology, chose music as his vocation. Chetan Bhagat, a graduate of IIT and IIM, chose to be a writer. Perhaps somebody has an intense affinity for animals and would like to be a zookeeper or a horse farrier as in the case of Girl Twenty. What is worth knowing depends on what they are going to do with the knowledge. An engineer working on designing the tallest bridge in the world and who likes to watch crime thrillers on the TV for recreation must actively reject all information that does not pertain to either his work or to his hobby. The person in charge of horses at the Vaccine Institute needs to know the idiosyncrasies of his horses individually, not YouTube videos which give vague advice.
Once you know what you are going to use that information for, you automatically know whether it is useful or not because you are then the domain knowledge expert.
(3) Does the question have a universally valid single answer? Of course not! This question would have to be asked afresh for every piece of data /information /knowledge which comes your way. What is necessary is a template, a process. And if it is a process, some AI company is going to hook on to it and do it for you after you fill out a detailed questionnaire about what is your interest. From then on, your personal choice would have become somebody's meal ticket!
Hi feel, I have to take this offline. So to absorb all this. I will email you and DJ. Hopefully we can get into Google meet call sometime next week.