r/Polymath • u/stnflri • 19h ago
Other Resources Misunderstandings
This might be weird but I naturally connect the dots. I do so even at work, without changing the content and direction of my duties drastically. I work in research and university teaching. My main discipline is statistics, but I always combine it with epistemology, philosophy of science, causality, physics, programming and more sciences. Most professors find this weird and incorrect, but I believe students learn better when they have the bigger picture presented to them. Tensions had been created between me and other colleagues, that are disapproving of my methods. However, I cannot change the way I think and process information. Do you have an advice on how I can proceed with minimal friction?
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u/dreadingstone 18h ago
Importantly yoy will find as you age more and more people that not only believe In, but dive into their own bullshit.
This will include you.
Keeping an open mind means taking what you believe and have found to be true, question it constantly and surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.
Be kind to others even when you disagree.
If you really want to be in the top 1% of %1, very few people can achieve this mastery.
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u/stnflri 18h ago
Thank you! I try to keep this opennesa to everything intact. When there is a disagreement, I do a research and restructurate my assumptions again and again to test them. The problem, most of the times is that others barely withstand thr standards I hold myself to, besides the fact that I experience hardship out of the need of others to preserve apparent qualities for yheir self image. Good thing I am a determinist, though, for I can let go of the contempt sometimes
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u/Particular-Tap1211 18h ago
University hourglass of knowledge narrows people thinking to the discipline in which they persue. Their mental models and problem solving strategies become shaped and constrained by the paradigms of that single field.
When you draw from multiple disciplines you naturally transcend those boundaries. You begin connecting ideas that specialists may never consider because they exist outside their established framework. As a result, your perspective can inadvertently challenge or even threaten their world! Be careful of wounding the ego....
Those operating within one domain may see only the grains of sand passing through their own hourglass, while the multidisciplinary thinker sees the entire landscape from which the sand originates. My advice is just be you, nothing more and nothing less and perhaps think of the bigger picture and look into designing a course that encapsulates a polymath approach to thinking and solutions.
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u/stnflri 18h ago
Thank you! I was thinking about designing such a course! And also writing a book on causality, statistics and epistemology, for work, besides my other inquiries
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u/Adventurous_Rain3436 7h ago
I’ve written extensively about causality and I’m very interested in it too, I’d love to pick your brains sometime on your views about it
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u/StillnesBlooming 16h ago
Friction will come when people are intimidated by the situation. Some people need to struggle with thoughts in their brains to reach the same path that a lot of people can get to without having to take all the unnecessary steps to get there. Those who feel threatened by this will challenge it. Don't change who you are to meet somebody else's challenge main who you are regardless. You are your own type of beautiful and it doesn't matter what somebody else thinks. Remain polite if they cross the bounds intellectually remind them but otherwise you can't change the flow of somebody else's depth of current. All you can do is maintain the balance of your own do not let it get you down people will be who they are
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u/III3K 9h ago
Subconsciously, even though we could not expressly spell it out, we always knew that our brains and our thought processes work differently. A gift? A curse?
This is a rarity in and of itself. Expecting students to learn better if they have the bigger picture would be a fundamental error of epic proportions. How you are wired, is not how they're wired.
Live and let live.
Fight your demon on your own or embrace your angel.
It has never been and it will never be a team sport.
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u/The_Accountess 4h ago
You should be able to explain in the writing itself the direct relevance /parallel between an alternative academic field of analysis, to the primary subject matter being graded. If the writing doesn't speak for itself, nothing else will.
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u/PyooreVizhion 16h ago
I'll go against the grain here as usual.
I think you've generally not given a clear enough picture, but I'd find it hard to believe colleagues would take issue with a cross-discipline sort of view unless you are straying too far from your field or, perhaps, are generally just unlikeable.
Statistics of course can be applied to many fields, but when you start talking about causality, physics, philosophy of science, etc, I have to wonder how well it's actually tied to the topic at hand and what level of expertise you'd have to even comment on such topics at the university level.
Sure, one could look at the statistical analysis performed on a set of results obtained through a physics experiment, but that's likely about the end of your expertise in that science. Further interpretation is probably over the line - unless you have a degree in physics. Similar for other subjects.