Lightbulb moment

[403]

I like working with big, messy systems with lots of variables. From where I stand now, that's the most prominent thread connecting what I've enjoyed about studying STEM fields.

It makes me wonder whether I wouldn't be better off in a field that's generally acknowledged to be difficult to handle with reductionistic methods. (Classic example being the life sciences - if you take a creature apart to try to figure out how it works, it very quickly stops working.)

Comments

[polydad]

>...if you take a creature apart to try to figure out how it works, it
>very quickly stops working.)

Sort of the point of so doing, no?

Sounds like you want to be in either programming or a neurology-related field -- which latter is a subset of the former if you think about it right. *Studying* brains is by definition recursive -- or if it's not, please let me know what you're thinking that with.

best,

Joel

[403]

Sort of the point of so doing, no?
Not really, no. If the topic of interest is live cats, you quickly run out of things that can be learned about them by studying dead cats. (This is in contrast to nonliving systems, which can often be taken apart and put back together again with no ill effects.)

As we've discussed, I have no interest in programming as a career, or even as a significant part of one. Neuroscience is in the right ballpark, but it's something I occasionally read about, not something I care to do. I'm not sure I want to work with animals, much less humans.