Here is a recent article by Sabu Francis, again on one of his pet subjects: Learning. It is dedicated to all the students out there

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Close your eyes and imagine that you are progressing through life. Now I'll ask you to visualize some suitable analogy (as per your own experience) and describe that to me. What would you see? (Don't read ahead when you answer this question ...please!) Once you are ready with your answer, then scroll down further...

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

When I pose this question to people, I often find that their response is some kind of a linear movement. One step that is taken in front of a previous step that you took, like say walking or cycling, etc... Or a train chugging along a track, a bullock cart trundling along a path... Or a thermometer whose mercury is rising up its shaft, etc.

But the concept of progress need not be represented just as a linear movement

Think of a pebble being dropped into a calm pond. What happens to the surface? A series of ripples emerge from the point of contact of the pebble with the surface. Progress happens all around that point of contact. If there were no forces of friction, viscosity or gravity at work and if the surface was perfectly uniform and if the point of contact was one infinitely small point, then the progress of those ripples would be in perfect circles around that point. Come to think of it, they would still be fairly in concentric circles as far as the human eyes can perceive, even if those conditions are not perfectly met: Ask any boy sitting beside a pond lazily flicking stones into it, and he'll tell you the same!

To me; the lesson is obvious: Progress is usually holistic; all around. When we seek improvement, we have to look at multiple and different places and improve each part incrementally from that point in time where we had sought the improvement. Probably the amount of improvement in each of those places would have to be the same increment; so that we don't end up developing biases. The perfect circular ripples should not become elliptical

According to me, therefore, the analogy for progress is actually a set of simultaneous radial movements instead of a single (or even multiple) linear ones. Progress happens all around, equidistant from its reference point in time. The set of ripples is a strong indicator of progress. In this article, I am asking you to look for such concentric ripples (analogously) whenever progress (in any field/problem-solving, etc.) is sought. If we do not find those ripples, it could indicate that we may actually not be progressing and hence we can take suitable remedial steps at an early stage

I call this concentric ripple approach, the potter's approach: It is the approach taken by potter when they make a pot. When the first lump of moist clay is put on the potter's wheel, it has become a pot albeit a crude one and most likely a fairly useless one. As the potter rotates the wheel and then goes about making the pot, we would be getting a pot at every instance of time. i.e. If we freeze the process and examine the process at any instance of time, there would be a fully formed pot ready. The pot would be more and more usable and attractive as time passes. Metaphorically, each iteration of the pot is akin to the each of the circular ripples that appear when the stone is dropped in the water

This is usually not what is often preached to us. Many are of the opinion that holistic approaches are best left to the mystics. Instead, we were always asked to concentrate only on one thing at time and take it to completion. Yes, most of us find that we can easily do things that way. If our mind was involved only in one thing at time, it may look as if we can do it quite accurately. But that kind of comfort is misleading: Pretending that a problem is simple does not actually make it simple. The real world is out there, beyond our full control. That world has its own complexity irrespective of and independent of how we thought of dividing it up into what we thought were simple parts. Just because we divided the problem and took parts of it and followed each one separately does not mean we would be successful in solving the problem

There is a pressing case for the potters approach wherever we look at, all around us. Almost every process in Nature displays it: A baby growing in a womb, a flower that is blooming, a cloud being formed in the sky, the mountains growing up incrementally over centuries, the production of salt in a salt-pan etc.

It is when we come to human endeavors (like the creation of man-made objects such as architecture), where things could go wrong: Analogies cannot be applied so easily when it comes to representing actions done by man. In another article (The Importance Of Being Abstract), I've strongly criticized the use of analogies in our representation of problems. Though here, I did introduce the concept of the potter method using an analogy, such analogies should not be stretched beyond recognition to explain everything

There are several issues that crop up when a human wants to progress. The sheer frailty of a human being itself can be a hindrance. Instances of time-slices are arranged in an Indian file (i.e. one after another, in a single row) on the bed of time that gets laid in front of us from any point in time. A human can be involved with only one thing in each of those time-slices as he/she proceed towards the future. So how can we really adopt the potter approach?

The answer is actually rather simple: By a sleight of hand. The rotating blades of fan give the illusion of a disk due to something known as persistence of vision. Similarly, the continual shifting of the focus of attention from one point of the problem to another could make the human achieve the potter's effect. The continual shifting of focus needs to be done fast, so that by a principle similar to that of "persistence of vision", the process emulates the pottery process found in Nature

It also has to be done systematically, else all logic can break down and digressions can set in. The person responsible for the progress of the solution has to take charge of all the various different points that are to be pursued, and then advance each one of them incrementally while still maintaining the central objective (i.e. refinement or progress towards the solution). If the exercise was successful, the outside world would see an almost simultaneous radiating of ripples moving towards the solution. The world will soon receive a solution that addresses all aspects of the problem

The solution obtained in such a fashion would be a deep solution; not a superficial one. On the other hand, if the exercise was biased towards any one aspect or the other, the outside world would see the progression leading to a lopsided answer to the problem being addressed. Often the progression may not really lead to an answer, even if the person proposing the solution may think otherwise

Now we can look back at the analogy that was chosen (a potter at his work) in a new light: Though at every instance there is a new pot being formed, at each of those instances the potter's hands are touching only certain places. Now, if you carefully monitor his fingers, you would notice that they are never still: The actions they perform are never the same right through the pot making process. It jumps from one point to the other, all over the pot as it is being made. And right through the process, the potter is focused on the central objective of creating the pot. If that central focus is lost then his thoughts would digress elsewhere resulting in disastrous consequences for the pot being made

When I was learning pottery, I found the most difficult aspect was to learn when to shift the focus of my fingers from one part of the pot to the other: If I leave my fingers too long at one location, then the pot being developed gets cleaved at that section. If I move my fingers too quickly to another location then the pot is poorly developed at the first location. The time spent at any spot has to be just right

Similarly, when we try to advance a solution holistically we need to jump from one aspect of the solution to a different aspect and progress each one of them by the same increment. We should develop the knack of determining how much to concentrate on one aspect before moving on to another aspect, else we may end with a malformed pot

Pottery and learning
When we were children, our teachers used to divide the world around us into separate subjects called History, Geography, Physics, etc. Our attention was then made to flit (by the teachers) from one subject to the other. Hopefully, a fully formed pot of the world outside should have emerged. Unfortunately, many of us developed biases and we often tend to look at the world through the colored glass of subjects that we are more comfortable with. The solutions that each one of us propose to specific problems of the world outside, often do not contribute to real progress because we have got these subject-wise biases

The teachers are probably to be blamed for this state, because they rarely tell the students about the pot making process. Sometimes students habitually indulge in mutual-backslapping which reinforces these biases. For e.g. I have seen students who looked at architecture from the "art" point of view rather than "science" because their colleagues and alumni did the same. I've also seen architecture students; who did their architecture course from engineering colleges, who were more biased towards the science and engineering aspects of architecture. And worst: I've seen architecture students who would make biased conclusions about other architects/architecture students, based on their pedigree E.g. I know many who think I go about practicing/talking about Architecture as if it was just dry engineering (just because I did my course from IIT Kharagpur, a leading engineering college in India) whereas the real story is quite different

It is not just the teachers and students who are responsible for this state of affairs. The current interpretation of the concept of progress in society is intimately tied to the concept of specialization. People are encouraged to believe in the divide-and-rule myth: Divide a complex problem into its constituent parts, and give each one to its concerned specialist; and we shall subsequently achieve considerable progress towards a feasible solution. More often than not, it leads to disasters than real progress

Victor Papanek in his book Design For the Real World states that it would be our propensity to divide our world into specializations that may eventually drive us to extinction. He elaborates his case with meaningful examples from nature and anthropology

The Digger
This comes to the subject of digging, which is indicated in the title of this article. The act of digging is in many ways opposite to the actions of pottery. You dig a hole in one direction; by and large linearly (We'll get to the differences later on). When you drive a nail home, it punches a hole right into the wood and in it goes; linearly. Bang, bang. There is a sense of accomplishment and finality in the set of actions which constitute digging

When we cut up a complex problem into constituent parts, give each part to a specialist who would go bang, bang digging linearly into it and take his/her part to completion, it would indeed look as if this whole business of pottery can all be done well and truly. However, this would be true if:

• a) We were to divide the entire problem into its constituent parts
• b) We know where the boundaries of the different constituent parts are
• c) And all the specialists does their job equally well, and drives home their respective nails well and truly

Unfortunately, in the complex world that we live in, those conditions are met rarely. And whenever we think they have been met, we would almost always find some kind of misunderstanding of the problem which made us believe that the conditions were met. For e.g. Either the complex problem was not divided fully or nobody really knew where the boundaries were, or there were variations in the competence level of the specialists, and so on

Therefore, once again we need to do what we did with the pot: i.e. we need to grapple with the problem holistically, quickly flit from one part of the problem to the other, take each issue up, proceed incrementally towards a solution for that issue, then flit over to another issue and keep repeating the actions till the we achieve the progress we desire. Just as in the case of pottery , at no time would the problem actually get cutup and handed over to separate specialists

But let me dwell on the subject of digging once again: Is it actually much different from pottery? After all, when you dig a hole, even though the hole is going in linearly; it is can be looked at as a small hole becoming a bigger one step by step. So in that sense, even digging is a holistic process akin to pottery! And earlier, we learnt that humans can only do pottery by a series of (albeit small) diggings: A momentary hovering of the finger over a part of the pot being made is like making a small "dig" there.

Hence, being a potter or being a digger is not really too different from each other!

The conclusion is: Even if we do decide to take the conventional divide-and-rule process using separate specialists, each of those specialist themselves cannot actually avoid being a potter in his/her own specialization. Therefore, a holistic way of looking at problems can never really be avoided. It would appear again and again wherever we go, whatever we do, and whatever our approach may be. It would surface time and again, often in a fractal manner

Implications
Now that we have dealt with the subject of the potter and the digger, let us now examine the kind of hurdles that we would need to overcome. For example; if separate specialists are not to be called for; does it imply that each one of us has to be a polymath (a person well read in multiple fields)?

My honest answer to that question is, YES! Let us not scare ourselves into thinking that being a polymath is something out of the ordinary. During the Renaissance period, it was necessary for everyone to learn everything...even artists had to learn mathematics and geometry. The world during those times were full of polymaths: Albrecht D?Leone Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, etc. And society achieved considerable progress during that period, a well-rounded progress: in music, dance, other art forms, architecture, science, astronomy, etc.

Someone could argue that in the much more complicated world of today, the kind of knowledge that may be needed to become a polymath would require an enormous depth of understanding in many subjects. I may possibly agree to such a revised definition of a polymath. But I would now contest the need to have a depth to achieve a holistic progress: I can go ahead knowing just the basic principles behind all the relevant issues of the problem being solved; even if I may not really be a polymath as per today's modern definition

It is quite easy to pick up and retain the basic principles of practically any subject under the sun. I remember reading a fantastic textbook on general chemistry by Linus Pauling, where the basics of chemistry was explained so well that I still remember it even though I am hardly in touch with chemistry today. Once those basics are established, it would be easy to then interact meaningfully with a specialist (who would be part of the problem solving team) who can work on the further depths when solving a complex problem

I strongly believe that when we are setting out to learn anything (i.e. when we are playing the role of a student; irrespective of the age when we we do it) we should grasp as many issues as possible, as widely as possible -- i.e. the grasp of our stretched arms which is eager to welcome knowledge should be as wide as possible. We should not get carried away by sectarian issues in knowledge and get stuck in the depth of any one or even a subset of subjects. Let circumstances then dictate which subjects we should get into the depths of. Let that not happen due to our own mental blocks and insecurities. Let us not force ourselves into the nooks and crannies of this subject or that one. I believe that getting to grips of the basics of a wide range of issues is the only method that will allow each one of us to act as a potter when solving problems

An argument often put against the potter's approach is that it is a messy, confusing affair. Indeed it is one: There is wet mud flying all around the potter's wheel! Being an iterative process, there are several solutions that come out of the wheel as time passes. To a client who is waiting for the finished pot, all those interim steps may seem tedious and unnecessary. Often it is equated with un-professionalism. To me, such arguments are irrelevant. I think I have already overstated the case of iteration. And if we need to progress, we need to know how to creatively utilize our mistakes. (See Learning To Walk )

In this article, I have been trying to make a case for a holistic process in whatever manner we define progress to be. This need not be just in the area of learning. Problem-solving of practically any nature requires the potter's approach. But it is most relevant to the design fields such as architecture because the people involved are giving birth to things in the environment and they need to take up an equivalent creative role which is usually played by Nature. This is a very responsible act and if designers are not equipped to handle that responsibility properly, things can go really awry indeed. In fact they often do: Many man-made creations have often come out of political and economic reasons instead of designers exercising a holistic potter's approach. Architects are also known to use dogmas, stereotypes and cliches as (what they think to be) reasonable techniques to achieve progress

In today's complicated environment of architectural designing, team work simply cannot be avoided. This often conflicts directly with the potters approach. After all, to successfully utilise that approach, there can only be one potter who needs to retain charge of the overall top-down design process. The entire team simply should not poke their nose together (in the initial stages at least).

Unfortunately, conventional education has not equipped us to recognize the different issues involved in a project and then setup specifications which specialists in the team can then pursue further. Whenever such accurate specifcation does happen, society does get benefitted. But more often than not, the potter is ill-trained at flitting from one issue of the holistic to the other, and setting up specifications just in time for the rest of the specialists

Analysis vs synthesis
This whole debate is connected with the philosophical debate regarding analysis vs. synthesis (But once again, beware of loose analogies! We can get into that debate later.) When seeking progress, it is the analytical approach that makes us divide the problem at hand into its constituent parts. And it is the synthesis approach that lets us form a holistic solution that is proposed at any instance. In fact, there can be no debate that progress is intimately connected with the concept of synthesis : When we achieve progress, we have in fact synthesized or given birth to something (a thesis / an object / whatever) which had never existed before. The potters approach ensures that we never lose track of such a synthesis

Synthesis approach of Indians
Ancient Indian approaches of solving problems often has this characteristic: It emphasizes on synthesizing together many parts of the problem and putting them all together. Take for example; education in India using the Gurukul system never really had any pre-formatted syllabus which was used for teaching. This does not imply any informality or looseness in structure. On the contrary, the Gurukul schools were very rigorous and well structured

I cannot get into the details of the Gurukul system here. But the aspect which I would like to point to here (which is related to this article) is this fascinating method by which a teacher imparts knowledge to the students: The teacher was given complete freedom to talk on whatever subject that appealed to him, and he was encouraged to flit from one topic to the other and establish spontaneous connections as he spoke. Thus he was instrumental in generating the proverbial pot for the students listening to him. The students, in turn, have to be completely at the guidance of their master whom they serve everyday in whatever matters the teacher may decide. Rabindranath Tagore adopted some of the aspects of Indian teaching methods at his Shantiniketan school at Kolkatta, India. That's the school which produced the Nobel prize economist, Amartya Sen

I too try to use the potter's approach in many of the things I do, most of the time (In fact, the only time I don't end up using it is when the people around me prevent me from doing so! To give you an immediate example; This particular topic was developed in that fashion. (It was easy. Let me tell you another secret: This was developed initially in a Wiki on my personal website. All Wikis display this potter characteristic. The topic developed in a Wiki can only go through the potter process: A complete, crude topic exists the moment you start one in the Wiki. It then continually gets refined)

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