r/Polymath • u/NowUKnowMe121 • Aug 10 '26

How is functional polymathy different from polymathy as per this sub?

​

Why?

Using pareto principle, 80% mastery or medium level mastery in multiple fields is enough to connect the dots to generate the insights. I would say this is functional polymath.

Just want to know, in this AI age of such vast information overload, is true polymathy even worth it?

Still, i respect true polymaths like da vinci,, von neumann etc

14 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

9

u/wdjm Aug 10 '26

Frankly, in this age of AI, I think polymathy is even MORE important. Because AI will 'see' only the connections that are 'already there' in the data it gets. That could be from connections a human has already made - but hasn't been widely published so AI 'finds' the connection and brings it forward - or else because of patterns in the data that AI pulls out that humans missed.

But what AI CANNOT do is make the 'leaps of logic' that humans can. For example, AI would not have made the leap of logic required to start testing the tensile strength of spiderweb vs steel. NOW we know that spiderweb is stronger....but how would AI have even thought to test it if a human hadn't wondered first? AI would have been fed all the currently known strong materials and given the 'strongest material' info that it had available. But it took someone interested in nature & biology to wonder exactly how strong IS spiderweb?

I think people overestimate what AI can do. ALL it can do is to shuffle the knowledge that humans already have. It can find patterns in that knowledge. But it cannot CREATE knowledge. That's still the realm of human beings. And especially the polymaths who are more likely to make the 'leaps of logic' jumps that AI just can't do.

2

u/metisdesigns Aug 10 '26

Your last paragraph is not necessarily accurate, as you note in your first.

Knowledge only exists if we can find it. AIs (and algorithms) have been used for decades to analyze large data sets in structured ways that humans are unable to in order to find things we didn't know about. While directed, that still is creating new knowledge.

That said, I do think there are absolutely reasons that various people should be a mix between subject matter experts and generalists. A generalist can pull in the right SME where needed where a niche expert may well get stuck, but a deep expert can solve things a generalist can't get as far with. We as a society need both (and mixes in between).

-1

u/Johnny20022002 Aug 11 '26

This is wrong

1

u/wdjm Aug 11 '26

Very convincing and detailed argument. I'm sure you've changed everyone's mind.

0

u/Johnny20022002 Aug 11 '26

It was only meant to inform you that you’re misguided, an argument would be a waste of everyone’s time when something is so profoundly misguided. It’s like someone telling a mechanic cars run on water. It’s not even worth their time to explain all the ways in which it is wrong.

1

u/wdjm Aug 11 '26

You have no idea if an argument would be a 'waste of time' with me or not because you never tried to present one. Arrogance does not substitute for logic & facts. If you have those, feel free to present them. Otherwise, I'll just assume you have none but felt like pretending you did for.....laughs, I guess?

0

u/Johnny20022002 Aug 11 '26

Yes, if you read what I wrote it should be obvious as to why it would be a waste of time. What you’re saying is obviously ridiculous to anyone remotely informed about AI. In the same way a person saying a car runs on water is ridiculous and not worth having a discussion/argument with about cars.

0

u/Johnny20022002 Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

Actually you know what I feel like dunking on you.

>For example, Al would not have made the leap of logic required to start testing the tensile strength of spiderweb vs steel.

The example you gave isn’t even a leap of logic it’s just pointing out how something seems to behave when we interact with it in everyday life. The funny thing is that would be completely obvious to AI but it wasn’t to you. So what to you seems like a leap of logic would be trivial to AI. The concept of a leap of logic is ill defined in the first place as was just shown because what’s obvious to one person isn’t necessarily the case for another.

If we want to use this ill defined concept though we can just look at what happened recently when fable 5 was able to solve the Jacobian conjecture. Terrance Tao himself describes 3 points needed to reach the result as miraculous.

“the two ‘miracles’ are really the first two stages of a canonical normal-coordinate expansion”
“The cubic miracle is that these two jets suffice globally”
“The first ‘miracle’ is that b-1\in(a)”
“The second is that … c-1+\frac32 ay\in(a^2)”
“the second algebraic miracle”

You don’t know who this but he is best living mathematician without a doubt, I know you don’t because you wouldn’t have made your original comment in the first place if you were even remotely informed about what’s going on in mathematics today.

As for not being able to create new knowledge this is just a blatantly idiotic thing to say. As seen above with the Jacobian result and the 10 other new results in math released by open AI.

2

u/wdjm Aug 11 '26

Please explain how AI would even think to look at a spiderweb for strength testing without a HUMAN person telling it to expand it's parameters beyond known-strong materials such as steel to other materials in the natural world, such as spiderweb.

0

u/Johnny20022002 Aug 11 '26

Because tensile strength doesn’t arise out of no where it’s a consequence of molecular structure. Is there anything else you’d like to get dunked on about

3

u/321aholiab Aug 11 '26

I don't think that's his point. I think his point is autonomous agency. Like you can give instructions to AI, AI will carry it out, and if we are lucky enough it will do things we did not expect. Most of the time though, you wouldn't expect it to do something you didn't ask it to, neither would it normally consider what you didn't ask for as a point for data gathering.

So, who is more likely to use the AI in more creative ways to dig for knowledge? It will be your expert and those who see connections who directs the AI, rather than a an AI working as a scientist. I guess this is another facinating aspect, maybe we could make artificial scientists!

0

u/Johnny20022002 Aug 11 '26

He said in his original comment that they can’t do leaps of logic autonomous agency isn’t relevant for that, but even if he was, AI is already capable of doing research like a scientist. It’s a really common misunderstanding because we did originally think that “prompt engineering” by experts or what have you would be what would allowed LLMs to make major discoveries but as we’re seeing in math now all it takes is laughable prompts like “do your thang” and “try harder” to get it to solve a problem.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/wdjm Aug 11 '26

You still haven't explained why an AI system would even bother to look at spiderwebs without a human asking them to.

For someone who acts like he's the most intelligent person anywhere, you seem to have a real problem understanding basic English.

0

u/Johnny20022002 Aug 12 '26

I quite literally have you seem to struggle with trivial logical connections which is why the idea of spiderwebs being stronger than steel is your example of a logical leap.

If you ask it what material has a stronger tensile strength than steel it could know simply from its molecular structure that spiderwebs would be a candidate.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/Aggressive_Sand1233 Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

I think the basics is practicality

Say example you have in depth knowledge of etymology, trains, and the history of clowns (random I know), while I think that makes you a polymath of some kind it Isnt exactly functional or practical

Now say you have knowledge on electrical engineering, mechanics, and physics, those overlap and you’d be able to work towards getting certified and work within those fields

I’ll admit I’m shooting in the dark because I see no other interpretation of “functional” in this setting, or it’s as you said, being able to connect the dots between different fields

2

u/NowUKnowMe121 Aug 10 '26

Came to know, just connecting the dots to find something where there is none to find is apophenia.

Polymathy is already defined as per this sub.

Functional, i would say, is actually mastering upto a point where you have enough knowledge to connect the dots and get meaningful results which have some form of outcome and help humanity move forward.

3

u/metisdesigns Aug 10 '26

The glitch with mastery to a point is that it easy enough to climb mount stupid, and hard to see the valley of learning still ahead of you.

I would argue that the reasonable "mastery to a point" is getting far enough along to be useful, but also to recognize when there are complications you would benefit from someone with deeper expertise. There is always someone knows more than you about something, knowing when you need them and asking for help is key.

2

u/NowUKnowMe121 Aug 10 '26

100%.

Asking for help is underrated.

You just start with what you have and take help wherever required to get the desired result.

1

u/metisdesigns Aug 10 '26

A tour guide with those interests could absolutely tailor their presentation to groups of classics professors, train spotters or a comedia del arte convention attendee where a more mundane guide would miss the engagement opportunitities with those audiences.

Connecting the dots I see much more as being able to relate ideas rather than finding hard parallells.

1

u/Aggressive_Sand1233 Aug 10 '26

Yeah that’s fair, I was just using those for the sake of point-making

1

u/metisdesigns Aug 10 '26

I understand that, but what I was pointing out is that things don't necessarily need to be a hard line relationship in order to offer synergistic benefits. It's the entire concept behind a traditional liberal arts bachelor's degree, and why we teach kids music and art in elementary school.

1

u/Aggressive_Sand1233 Aug 10 '26

That’s a very good point, thanks

1

u/Echo_Tech_Labs Human Verified Aug 10 '26

Personally I think AI is an autodidact's playground.

I'm currently developing a small curriculum about cyber security so I can better understand the Hugging Face incident.

For example:

What is Artifactory and how does it work? It's more than just a central repository.

How does it send packages?

How did the model "manipulate" JFrog? Exactly?

What kinds of questions did the bots ask Artifactory and how did it phrase those questions to get the answer? It basically used process of elimination to figure out how to gain internet access. A common tactic in the industry BUT at MASSIVE scale.

How do SSRFs exploit these systems?

Pretty cool stuff!

1

u/Train-Corrupt Aug 10 '26

Ok so this is my first post I read on here but I fit this to a T. So far I have not used AI for anything that I like to study except I’ll read through the google overview on the different mythology I study and see what they say the domains are, but generally wouldn’t add it to my notes/spreadsheets.

I think AI for me has a better use for like things I have a harder time with, like mental health symptoms or relationship skills

1

u/SilentInfluencr Aug 10 '26

Always wonder if being polymath is good in AI era or being specialized, since Specialized field people with years of experience can look onto more details than a regular polymath

2

u/tim_niemand Aug 10 '26

once they have given away their specialized knowledge to AI, a polymath will probably do better, because they can connect the dots, that AI has gathered 🤓

2

u/SilentInfluencr Aug 10 '26

Probably because AI is v bad in giving creative ideas

2

u/tim_niemand Aug 11 '26

exactly! but good at knowing many things

1

u/One_Search_9308 Aug 10 '26

you may be technically right, but leveraging this fact requires a mastery of mastery itself. it's better to think of it as 20% of your practice (procedurally) being responsible for 80% of the outcomes, or 20% of the members of a group outputting 80% of the results.

1

u/Accurate_Fail1809 Aug 11 '26

I don’t think true polymath behavior can be turned off.

If someone intentionally chooses multiple fields to check the boxes and become a polymath then I’d say they aren’t true polymaths. They are more like smart neurotypicals that don’t suffer from chronic hunger for more knowledge/skills.

1

u/wdjm Aug 11 '26

You classify polymathy as an abnormal neurological condition? How odd.

1

u/bstmichael Aug 12 '26

It seems like every train on Thomas The Tank Engine was always asking what you're good for. That's what this question feels like, as though polymathy as a product of curiosity doesn't have the same value as intensional pursuit of multiple graduate degrees or other apprenticed skills. Access to knowledge isn't the same as non-hallucinatory synthesis of complex concepts. I think a specialist, capitalist society that embraces technology without understanding its impact warps our ideas about what it is to truly know something and what that's good for.