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How about Polymath? | ||
Tags: Renaissance Humanism | Polymath | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| minus273 Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5767 days ago 288 posts - 346 votes  Speaks: Mandarin*, EnglishC2, French Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan | Message 17 of 26 05 April 2009 at 11:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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And definitely one field of real maths, genre algebraic geometry, homological algebra or some kind of obscure analytical number theory, just for bragging's sake.
Even without that, you just can't consider your education complete, without some understanding of how the mathematical world is built (things like ordinals and cardinals (w/o red outfit) and Dedekind cuts for reals). Edited by minus273 on 05 April 2009 at 11:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 26 06 April 2009 at 12:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I was interested in mathematics up to around 1971 and then from 1982 to around 1985. RIght now I'm more interested in languages (and travelling).
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| J-Learner Senior Member Australia Joined 6032 days ago 556 posts - 636 votes Studies: Yiddish, English* Studies: Dutch | Message 19 of 26 06 April 2009 at 8:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I read the wikipedia article on polymaths well before I saw this thread. I guess it is my ideas too. I'm just too damn curious to not have such an ideal :P
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| Dr. Fel Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 5644 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 20 of 26 14 June 2009 at 10:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Greetings to all
This is my first post on this forum (although on a somewhat obscure thread). It is a pleasure to be here and I look forward to meeting you all soon:) I love the ideal of a polymath / renaisance person and it is that ideal that over-rides my ideal of being a polymath. I am currently studying 4 foreign languages (well, revising 2 and learning 2 new ones). My ultimate linguistic goal is far more modest than many here - simply conversing comfortably with native speakers in the target language without too many gramatical mistakes. However - I also am aiming for "black belt" level in a martial art, my ski-instructors certification, pennant level tennis, a university level degree in a musical instrument, undergraduate - masters - doctorate level learning in my field of work, constant autodidactism in multiple disparate fields and, oddly, to work as a professional magician! Anyway, that is my "Jason Bourne" ideal. The expected time frame is at least 20 to 30 years. I still don't think achieving the above would make me a polymath (ie. someone who excells at everything). The "true polymath" or "pantomath" is probably unreachable. I would also like to reach the above without becoming A) an arrogant twat or B) a humongous bore or C) a sad person living in a fantasy world in his bedroom! Pleasure to meet you all Dr. Fel (incidentally named for the somewhat terrifying pseudonym that the multi-lingual and multi-talented Hannibal Lecter adopted in one of his novels) PS - Although I love food, I have no desire to list cannibalism iin the above list! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5671 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 21 of 26 14 June 2009 at 12:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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My approach is to have serial (rather than parallel) obsessions. Just about the only thing I admire about Russian communists was their idea of having "five year plans". For the past 30 years I have copied that idea, and set myself five years to completely master something - then at the end of five years moved on to something completely different. Here are some examples:
- I was always the worst kid at school in sports. The last one to be picked for teams. So, I decided to become an athlete. I spent all my time training, measuring, learning, and eventually competing. Within the five years I was winning competitions. Not an olympic medal by any measure, but certainly enough to be in the newspapers and a minor local celebrity. That was fine for me, and I felt the goal was accomplished, so it was time to move on. - I was terribly shy. Never spoke to strangers. Never volunteered to do anything. Never raised my hand to ask questions. I found an equally shy friend, and we agreed to help each other get over our shyness. We learned everything we could about being self-confident. Took Dale Carnegie classes, joined debating groups, and so on. Above all, we agreed that whenever there was an opportunity to volunteer to speak, we would be the first to raise our hands. Progress was actually quite good - compared to my expectations at least - in that the shyness slipped away in a few months. But it became quite addictive, and we both got rather obsessed with it. Within a few years we were both (occasionally) invited speakers, and won a few debating and public speaking awards. At the end of the five years, I felt I had mastered it, and there was nowhere else to go with it. So, it felt time to move on to something else. - I had a BSc, but had always wondered "what would have happened if I had gone further with education?". So, I decided to become a professor. In my 30s, I quit my job, sold all my possessions, and devoted five years to getting a PhD. As with all the five year plans it became an obsession, and I hung around other (more established) researchers to see how the game is played. A couple of years into it, I felt I had the hang of things: which is pretty much to find a narrow research area that fascinates you, then publish loads of academic papers in obscure journals about tiny improvements you have made. Eventually, I became a post-doctoral research fellow, and lecturer (this was in the UK). Again, at the end of the five years, I found myself feeling I need a new goal, so I moved on. - I decided I wanted to retire within five years, and there was no way an academic salary was going to enable that. So, my next five year plan was to start a software company, and spend those five years growing the company and its products, so that I could sell it. It was a real sink-or-swim experience at first. Particularly, when I realised that I don't actually enjoy the company of many rather overly (and deliberately) nasty business people. Still, I learned to "swim with the sharks" and kept telling myself it was only for a few years. Due to hard work, and (far more) to good luck and very lucky timing, I did manage to sell the business (actually after four and a half years), and was able to retire in my early 40s. - After retiring, I felt it was time to have fun, and just for the heck it it made my next five-year plan to become a super-stud. Given that I was geek, with a painful-to-look at physique, I could not rely on natural attraction. So, I studied all the famous super-studs (and bought books and courses) to see how they do it. The techniques are pretty simple: there is no such thing as "charisma" - it is all a learned talent, that eventually becomes part of you. With my new-found knowledge I moved to super-stud-heaven (Prague - where the women are beautiful). The first couple of years were simply practicing to be around stunning women without showing a trace of fear. Then I spent a year working out how to make them make the move on me (rather than the other way around). It was certainly a lot of fun. Highly recommended if you don't take it too seriously. Eventually, I settled down with (and married) a woman of (in my opinion) breathtaking beauty and great intelligence. Certainly, well beyond my "level" a few years back. - The latest five-year plan is to become completely fluent in Czech. I dabbled for about a year with boring classes, before going it alone early this year. I am full time on this. Thanks to this forum, I have toned down the use of textbooks and turned to authentic material and immersion. It is still too early to say what the outcome will be, but already I am hooked. What I have learned is that even though each of these five-year immersions is something I put aside at the end, each of them becomes internalised during the immersion process, and so becomes part of you even though you have left it behind. Just recently, I came across the now-famous 10,000 hours theory about how long it takes to become an expert in something. And when I look back, it probably explains why five years is the right amount of time (at least for me) to devote to something. Ten thousand hours is about six hours a day, every day, for five years. I have no idea what my next five-year plan will be, but it is likely to be something completely removed from language learning. Hopefully, by then, I will have mastered Czech enough so that it has become a natural part of me. Edited by Splog on 14 June 2009 at 12:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dr. Fel Diglot Newbie Australia Joined 5644 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 22 of 26 14 June 2009 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Now that is an impressive story
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| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6036 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 23 of 26 14 June 2009 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | ||
I've heard a slightly different version, applied to art: Everybody has 1 000 ugly drawings built into his hand; Once you get them out, you'll be a master of fine art. Apparently, the exact figure is rather arbitrary but the principle is correct - persistence matters. Edit: Actually, if each drawing takes 5 hours on average that amounts to 5 000 hours of work. Pretty close ;p. Edited by Sennin on 14 June 2009 at 2:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| lyzazel Tetraglot Newbie United Kingdom interlinearbooks.com Joined 5703 days ago 32 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Lithuanian*, Esperanto, English, Swedish Studies: Portuguese | Message 24 of 26 16 June 2009 at 3:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Splog: that is a really awesome story. I'd like to publish it on my blog or something but that would probably do it
no justice because it's not read much enough. Have you written/told this story somewhere else? As for polymath/Renaissance person I disagree that they are both Euro-centric and I think the comparison drawn here is incorrect. Polymath is just a greek word. If we select a word for it, it has to come from some language (duh) so we won't avoid it being something-centric. However, polymath is not Euro-centric in its content. Renaissance man/person alludes to a historical period which took place in Europe. Not only is the word coming from a European language, its content has cannotations with the European history and some background in this history is needed to understand the word. Therefore, polymath is less Euro-centric. QED. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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