The Opus

One of my favourite articles, this is the oldest of the lot. The writing style is a little crude and the article is awfully long, so if have the patience, do read on.

Do you know what is ‘malus pumila’?Of course you do, but the term 'malus pumila' is alien to you. It is the scientific name for apple, a fruit so common to all of us. The point being made is one cant attach any intrinsic value to knowing the term 'malus pumila' as, not knowing it will not diminish your taste for it, nor would it render you incapable of acquiring one.Let me give another example to reinforce my argument, knowing that there are 12 inches in a foot and 3 feet in a yard have no intrinsic value attached to it because, if you are in a country where the metric system of measurement is prevalent this knowledge is useless.

Of course one may say that the knowledge of the scientific term for apple has no value for a layman but is significant for a student of botany, in the sense that it is elementary and a proficient student is expected know this much. But at this point many make the mistake of putting the cart before the horse, that is, assuming that the one who knows the elementary terminology essentially is proficient in his field.

So to make the knowledge of vocabulary as the basis to gauge ones proficiency is logically incorrect.Because a person might have done a path breaking research on the medicinal properties of apple and still be stumped when asked, what is ‘malus pumila’?

But what happens when students are in fact asked the same question again and again?The students stop worrying about everything else. When the students realize that it is the rote memory that is being rewarded you no longer expect them to think (the tendency to do least work-as perceived, to reap the same reward is one of the reasons…….but we’ll come to it later). Students, to coin a new word, start to vocabularize knowledge.

Vocabulary in this context means: the knowledge that is non-applicable or in more general terms ‘non-amenable to reason or manipulation’. And the term vocabularize refers to the process of assimilating useful knowledge in a way so as to render it non-amenable to reason or manipulation, or in other words accepting truth as uncorrelated list of names.

One of the extreme forms of vocabularization is manifested when students are unable to carry out basic operations in calculus when applied to elementary engineering problems despite the fact they have learnt the subject (calculus) in great detail.

The Modus operandi of vocabularization essentially consists of knowing the ‘end-product’ and understanding the ‘what’. As opposed to the rational method of knowing and understanding the initial conditions and following the dynamics that make the end product possible.

The end product here is any artificial creation of human mind and labor and hence the domain of the discussion is about the way we understand and apply abstract concepts like the calculus and the way we learn (analyse) and later design material objects like an earthen dam or a bridge.The initial conditions are the requirements or the inspiration (the original rudimentary idea of the creator) that trigger the process that culminates in an end product.Dynamics here mean the interpretation and application of the laws of the nature using his imagination and creativity by the creator to come up with the end product.

Vocabularization bypasses the law of causality and accepts the end products as thunderbolts out of blue that strike for ‘some reason’ of their own.This acceptance of an end product presupposes the validity of dynamics and ignores the initial conditions, thus obviating the need to understand the ‘some reason’, hence minimizing work.

From the forgoing discussion it follows that Vocabularization by the students is only a response to the teachers asking the ‘what’ and not the ‘why’. But the objective is only to minimize work (which is not an irrational thing per se)What gives the students the sanction to vocabularize is the belief that an understanding of the ‘some reason’ is unnecessary.

The root lies in the lack of respect for the individual capacity, the habit of escaping from responsibility and taking refuge in the ability of others.From this stems the notion that ‘I am’ not capable enough to comprehend a thing that others accept as such.

That’s why the teacher assumes that the person who writes the book is always correct(He takes refuge in the judgment of the publisher and the thousands others like him.) And tells his students to accept what he has to feed them on his authority. Any question from the students is taken to heart not because it challenges his conviction (he has no conviction of his own) but because it undermines his faith in others.

The creative faculty of the student gets progressively deteriorated, as the only thing he is taught to do is to repeat mechanically the procedures elaborated by others, and study passively the things made by others.In other words the student is trained to learn by observation, observing the existing end products as they exist and reproducing them as an when necessary.

Here the pragmatic person would interject: isn’t this the simplest of all methods which even the least intelligent person can use as it involves nothing more than a keen sense of observation.

The answer is NO. The rational method ensures that every possible end product can be explored as this method presupposes only a reasoning mind and the knowledge of the laws of the nature. On the other hand the person habituated to learn by observation can’t conceive of the ramification of even a slightest change in the initial conditions and needs to observe still more end products to find the one that suits the changed initial conditions. An end product, which may not exist in the first place. But a pragmatic person can’t wait for want of ideas, so the expediency of the situation allows for a poor imitation.

So to view the problem from another perspective the difference in the two methods lie in the amount of knowledge and the degree of understanding and creativity required.The pragmatic is incorrect on the count that to learn by observation is the simplest and the most practical way of learning. So are the students who vocabularize in order to minimize work when in fact they are choosing the most cumbersome way.

The system of learning by observation is faith masquerading as reason. It is a refuge of the second-handers and such a system of learning only produces second handers whose very existence primarily depends on others and unaided are incapable of doing anything.Whereas a reasoning mind, from a rational approach is capable to create new ideas and build things ab-initio. And it is to these reasoning minds who in most cases started form the scratch that the mankind owes the progress from the cave to the skyscrapers.

PS: Unlike most of my other articles, I have not tampered with this one since I wrote it around 4 yrs back. There are a lot of concepts I have learnt since then which apparently contradict the logic presented in "The Opus". I'll shortly come up with a revised version.