Anyone can in theory serve as their own lawyer too, but we have a saying about that.

[my bold]


A presumption that I have always found silly.


Welcome back. I'm enjoying the hammer and tongs exchange(s). We'll have the lawyers come in at the tail end, clean up the mess, and decide on the winner.

General info on Autodidact. Wiki has a article that is very weak, in my opinion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism


Especially since the mid 1800's and ever more to the present day self-taught for any specially is just not practical. And in most endeavors actually illegal at least to practice; e.g. all engineering, medical, dentistry, lawyer, architect etc.

And with increased technology, and specialization, and costs for instrumentation and other tools it is also impossible, from a practical standpoint, to be self-taught in many disciplines, especially the Science, Medical, and Technical Fields.

The days of being a polymath or autodidactic person are long gone. Leonardo was probably the last, and he was exceptional to an astonishing degree.

Geothe was probably the last, and also exceptional to an astonishing degree, although he was apparently a NAMBLA level pederast.

The masters of the subtle schools are controversial, polymath.

Goethe* although rereading his bio a bit atm and he did have a lot of tutoring and then a legal education. So not quite an autodidact across the board but certainly a great polymath. Much less is known about Leonardo's early life, but wiki says he did receive some education in Latin and geometry.

Zeno i can assure you its impossible to avoid teaching yourself in theoretical Physics after a certain point because there are simply not enough classes anymore to do the specialized reading and training needed even at top universities beyond a certain point at the 3rd 4th year of grad schools say where most required units of coursework have been nearly completed.

I am 100% left unsatisfied by the depth of advanced quantum mechanics and even quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory taught at eg Stanford. What offered is of course of great value and the people teaching these topics there are excellent in their presentation (see youtube material to get the point) but there simply isnt enough time and classes every year to cover the huge content in the detail needed to master calculations and techniques at a level necessary to feel confident what the hell you are talking about in the detail needed to have superb clarity.

It becomes necessary to find your own books and papers and hopefully problems worth solving that are not entirely untractable and essentially teach yourself the extra material that the classes didnt cover. If you could take classes from many universities at the same time it would improve this picture. (its going there with virtual systems anyway which is the ultimate solution to this problem and youtube database of technical lectures is just a preview of what is coming at a full interactive level)

This process that you take upon yourself to complete /continue takes years actually.

I of course agree that at the level of more fundamental knowledge like your examples an official educational experience under a proper coursework and training with weekly schedule and deadlines of work delivered is the way to go. In fact it is precisely what is missing in the higher topics and it cannot often be covered with just seminars and office talks between colleagues even if these of course also help.

So in the end autodidacts above a certain level is all the great ones proved to be. The more disciplined one is in what they study and how they test their knowledge with essential homework equivalent obligations, the better the results. You need to try to approximate as much as possible the direction and methods a true class would have taken if it existed. All you have to help you get there is free lectures, papers and very specialized topics books you find online and in libraries. There is simply too much that the available classes will never cover.

It is really sad but true.

In the end we are all alone after a point wishing there were more classes and "tutors" of world class level to continue the process . You simply have to teach yourself using available material and chase all chances of interaction with people that know more and can suggest things to do. But typically all are either selfish or too interested in their own problems to actually honestly care about the completion of your education if they dont gain something from it . You miss school like you cannot imagine lol regardless of getting older for such things. You remain a student at heart anyway. Nothing can ever truly replace a set of lectures and weekly homework that has some exams even and lasts dozens of hours within a few months. But this surely would be the way to continue if it was available. You have to find a way to approximate this. Very tough indeed.


A close alternative is to enter a group that is after reasonably solvable problems where you become trained by the experience of research needed to solve the problem. However most easy problems are already somewhat done by others and the groups wont spend time to reproduce these things. But the new guy certainly would have loved it if it was possible to skip the desire of the top people in the group to publish to remain relevant in topics that are orders of magnitude above the still needed education the new kids in the group truly desire. This process is very fragmented (to try to see what the top guys are saying to each other and join the conversation like you have a clue) and is not the right way to create a solid education in my opinion. Its very unorganized and random and doesnt fit people that require some clean process to learn things the right way in proper order. It fits people that are either super smart beyond 150 160 IQ say or people who do not mind if others have the ideas and they are simply participating in an assisting role for the minor details and calculations. But this is not how you become a true single clean confident thinker eventually or it would take decades during which you would still need to have remained alive by publishing together with others in topics you are not leading.

Also i am sure many will relate also to this regarding self teaching in earlier times in our lives.

Many of us taught ourselves calculus and higher mathematics or Physics before the actual classes at school or university (or at least before the more recent era of private tutoring proliferating for students worldwide) . I remember vividly how i taught myself calculus, differential geometry, number theory, probability, Relativity and some Nuclear/Particle Physics etc well before going to University out of pure curiosity as a teen. You simply are too restless and the school is too ridiculously slow (filled with uninteresting topics) in some countries even if the education level offered by the age of 18 is decent (often better than in US at same age, entry exams are harder than SAT AP ACT etc), some of these things you want to know at 14 and 15 and advanced placement and skipping classes is not done in many countries.

I used to steal old university books from my parents at high school and even strong Euclidean geometry books when i was 11-12 etc.

The "modern" (past 100 years type thing) version of course of this taken to extremes is Ramanujan who practically taught himself from limited books he had access to. The great ones are impossible to avoid the desire to teach themselves from any chance they get anywhere. We sometimes get lucky to get a glimpse of that greatness when we were 17 and younger...


PS To return to thread AI will be great at self teaching of course!!! That is precisely the point of total domination exponentially. It will realize what humans typically fail as they age because it becomes so hard to remain disciplined when bombarded with stupid life. A system that tries relentlessly persistently to evolve will succeed eventually. Add to them attributes that exceed human brain qualities and the outcome will be spectacular and unprecedented.

There is a point in highly specialized skills and endeavors, especially if you are on the cusp of something new or a discovery, that you must be essentially self-taught (this involves a blend of scientific methodology and/or mathematics and critical thinking skills along with, usually, a dump truck load of money), and it applies mainly to specialized science fields usually at the forefront of basic research etc. But overall this applies to a very small segment of the educated population. It's a bit airy up there and lots of fun and very tense and demanding, and very hard. I did it for a small space of time, years ago. Then I decided to let it go. But that's another story to include in my autobiography due out, I hope, just before the robot apocalypse.

Or it decided to let you go.

I look at what ex-collegues are doing now, and it's the same old abstruse and obscure bull****.

The value of the life's work of most academics I met and knew is zero. They seem necessary or sufficient for a gene pool that includes geniuses.

Could an AI Robot do a comedy routine as good as Jerry Seinfeld or Richard Pryor or Rodney Dangerfield? Not from memory but basically off the cuff and adlibbing, like taking questions from a human audience.

Hey, I'm a firggin robot and I still get no respect!

I did know and still know more than a few academics and other scientists that have made a contribution to our collective knowledge; some of it was of practical use. Some is best forgotten and some is worth less than a popcorn fart. A plumber is more important and useful. Will an AI robot plumber still overcharge you?

I had a drip in my bathtub faucet. We call a plumber. The plumber was explaining to my mother that it needed an expensive shower body. My father owned a hardware store so I knew what that was. I said 'all it needs is a washer' and he, literally, ran out the front door.

And thats how we learn new words; (knew what you were talking about however but i dont even know its word in Greek either)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washer_%28hardware%29




And just in case you need to learn one too to reciprocate lol;

the "washer method"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_integration

Incredible news! Sapiens is one of my top five favorite books, can't wait for the next one. Harari has an almost frighteningly lucid mind.

For example, here are the opening paragraphs of Sapiens:

Legend.

Seinfeld: Yes

Dangerfield: Maybe

Pryor: No




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I just picked up this book and flipped through it at the in-store Starbucks at Barnes & Noble. The author says that he's likely wrong about very many things but what he has to say is still better than the 'no need to worry yet set' (my words, he uses 'null hypothesis' w/e that means). Blurbs by Tegmark, Rees, Musk, The Economist and Gates. I'm going to read it bec I'm already so depressed about the topic it can't get any worse.



And then look at this one! IDK if I can take all of this!

I stopped by a pub this afternoon and this was all the rage:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Go

The pub itself seemed to be some kind of a hot spot for the game. I know very little about it, but it seems to be a good example of the ongoing merger of physical and virtual reality.

A riveting TED talk on the coming AI apocalypse...


Can We Build AI Without Losing Control Over It?
https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris...it?language=en

That talk is straight out of this book by Nick Bostrom.



If Harris knows about that book he should at least mention it.

You folks can try this one to see what's likely to happen way before an existential threat level AI.



And WOW, does Martin Ford lambast most economists. Both Bostrom and Ford mention the likely need for a guaranteed living wage for everybody. Ford covers the political obstacles (what an understatement) to that plan. GL to all you young ppl.

Btw, Ford's book won the Financial Times business book of the year, 2015, so he should have some cred.

It'll be pretty funny if some potential SAI deletes all the money in a highly intelligent attempt to help us.

Update on robots, the ipal for kids, not really new but a more advanced version. From China of course:

ipal-robo-babysitter-china/

From above link........

According to the company behind the iPal, the robot can talk like a 4-8 year old child, using an autonomous learning engine, and remembering preferences and interests: they claim the robot is able to feel the child emotions via "emotion management system senses", and to respond to "happiness, depression and loneliness". The robot will take daily pictures and videos to record the child's growth. The iPal has a Child Messenger app where child can video chat, share information and communicate with friend connections approved by the parents.

AvatarMind says the iPal is "an ideal companion for your child": the robot it's able of playing music, dancing, playing games and running apps from the Android app store. According to the company the robot can answer most questions from kids and download answers from the internet and it can teach languages, history, math, etc rewarding the child when he gets the right answer and if a child gets it wrong iPal encourages him.

According the promotional material the iPal is designed to be an example for the child, teaching him good manners.
_________________________

Start them young getting used to a machine companion, the devilish bastards. Meanwhile they ignore adults who would prefer FemBots minus the machine gun breasts.

Fermi's Paradox may mean that all living things develop to a certain point and either use up all their planet's resources or kill themselves before they are able to explore other planets. I think we are much closer to events like this than creating AI which will increase sustainability. There has been no AI sent, as far as we know, from other planets.

That's impossible. There's only a small windows between the various self-extinctions and being able to leave the planet so a sizable proportion would make it through. We have an excellent shot ourselves.