Thank you for your confirmatory comments. You should read MIND AND NATURE
by Gregory Bateson. I think you will find that he describes the phenomena
in more detail but he does not ofer any explanation for it.
See below . . .
Kent
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On Tue, 28 Feb 1995, Kerron Lamb wrote:
> Hi Kent,
>
> I haven't yet introduced myself to the learning org. group, but I felt I
> needed to send you a big "THANK YOU!" for the thoughts you shared recently on
> learning different disciplines concurrently in order to get much more learning
> & growth out of the experience than studying one after the other. Very
> interesting (and encouraging) idea, which I had never been exposed to before
> (externally).
>
> Since my university days when I was taking a combined degree of Psychology and
> Business Administration, I marvelled at how much more insight I had into both
> disciplines because I was taking them concurrently. I found, as you
> described, that since my mind, at both conscious and subconscious levels, was
> working on queries in both disciplines at the same time, I often had wonderful
> integrating insights that involved concepts from both areas.
>
> To this day, I usually am studying two different disciplines at any given
> time, whether Animal Sciences and pottery, job classification and astrology,
> or Tae-Kwon Do and Neuro Linguistic Programming (my current preoccupations).
> I hadn't realized, until I read your message, how much I would have been
> missing out on if I had pursued each one of these interests separately. Thank
> you for being the catalyst which led to this personal revelation! Your
> description of this concept has encouraged me to continue to pursue the study
> of at least 2 different interests at the same time.
>
> Question for you: Have you seen, or do you have any thoughts on the effect of
> studying more than 2 disciplines at a time? Exponential benefits? Linear
> benefits? Decreasing marginal benefit of any more than 2 at a time?
>
Actually I often study multiple disciplines at a time. I rarely get over
five. The more you study simultaneously the more insights you get but the
less you really understand the discipines. Why do I do this. It is
normally because I want to communicate with a specialists so I need to
brush up on his speciality in order to talk to him. I might want to talk
to several specialialists at about the same time.
This glosssing cannot substitute for actual indepth study of a discipline
which is necessary too. I think you can only study two disciplines in
depth at the same time. Over time one can study many disciplines to
different depths as interests dictate. My rule is only go as far as my
fascination holds out. When it becomes work forcing myself to learn more I
stop. Many times this means coming back again and again to a discipline as
unanswered questions pile up again.
I think quite a few people discover the secret of dual learning. I think
this has implications for learning organizations. Real learning
organizations should encourage everyone to cross train and learn multiple
specialities within the organization. Everyone is a teacher and a learner
within the organization --- which increases until everyone engages in the
dialectic where both teachers and learners become the TAUGHT and new
information appears from nowhere. This is the goal. This is the ecstasy of
learning.
When you engage in the dialectic you become a philosopher. The
philosopher is ignorant and realizes he is ignorant and so he is open to
thinking with others and learning things that none of the participants
knew before. The cultivation of ignorance or wonder is the highest
calling and is what increases learning possibilities to the utmost. It is
the philosopher who stand on the edge at which emergent things arise into
existence. Finding that edge is the next goal beyond the increase in
learning capacity beyond dual or multi learning. The ultimate learning
organization is the one that leans out toward that edge that boders on
the void looking for what will appear from nowhere that is novel.
Philosophical ignorance is an embracing of that void. THAT is wisdom.
When you do that you become open to the Wonder and Awe inspiring nature
of existence in which meaning floods out from the void.
> The other aspect of your message that I found encouraging is the concept of
> generalists and specialists. I am surrounded by "specialists" at work, and I
> feel a certain amount of personal inadequacy when I look at how much they know
> in our field compared to me (I've only been in it 6 mos). I then look at what
> other activities/interests I would have to give up in order to have that depth
> of knowledge right now, and I feel OK about my decision to be a "Jack of all
> trades" instead of a "Master of one". As I continue to work in the field of
> Training & Development, I will no doubt become more of a specialist, while
> maintaining my generalist interests...
>
Specialists have limited themselves. They settle for linear increases of
efficacy by decreased learning potential and have steered away from
exponential increases of learning potential. Who today can not know
anything about any other discipline. Specialists merely say this does not
concern me. They are wrong but don't ever come to find out the fact that
they have limited themselves in that. The ecology of organizations is such
that specialists are the most valued but generalists are the most needed.
Philosophers are tabooed, yet it is only the philosopher who can
transform the organization utterly. The one who says "Why are we doing
this?" is the philospher in each case. The answer to that question can
transform the organization utterly demanding that it go in a completely
different direction.
> Thank you, again, for this thought provoking line of discussion!
>
> Kerron Lamb
> Generalist, sometimes specialist...
>
> lambk@Pwc-Tpc.ca
> Ottawa, Canada
>