[QueueNews] Use It or Lose It

Mon Jan 7 08:00:02 PST 2008

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Latest Articles:

Use It or Lose It
Aphorisms in the abstract: The problem of balancing aphoristic elegance
and the search for useful but NON-obvious advice
http://acmqueue.com/rd.php?c.514
   (scroll down to read an excerpt from this article)

Powering Down
Smart power management is all about doing more with the resources we
have.
http://acmqueue.com/rd.php?c.513

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New article on ACM Queue:
Use It or Lose It
http://acmqueue.com/rd.php?c.514
Aphorisms in the abstract
by Stan Kelly-Bootle, Author

>From the Going Multimedia issue, vol. 5, no. 7 - November/December 2007

article excerpt:
My aphorisme du jour allows me to roam widely in many
directions, some of which, I hope, will be timely and instructive for
Queue readers. My choice of the French aphorisme is a justifiably
elitist affectation, paying homage to Montaigne, Voltaire, Bertrand
Meyer, and that cohue d'elegance. The Gallic gargled r (as in Brassens)
and the sublime long final syllable, if you get them right, simply drip
with class compared with the slovenly sequence of English diphthongs:
a-for-iz-um. (Anglophones also mangle the monosyllabic genre into
john-ruh.) We tend to treat the terms aphorism and epigram as posh
synonyms for maxim, motto, or even saying. They are all characterized
by
an attempt to condense volumes of wisdom into short, memorable phrases
suitable, say, for adorning our college crests, tombstones, or car
bumpers.

Originally, aphorism meant a definition, which
is, in fact, quite the opposite of current usage. A definition, by
nature, must spell out in detail (the definiens) exactly what the thing
being defined (the definiendum) means. In modern parlance:
zip(definiens) = definiendum; unzip(definiendum) = definiens. Unlike
the
compression of iTunes, quality is preserved! Once you've agreed on a
definition, its use certainly helps in reducing the verbosity of future
discourse. But, as Bertrand Russell remarked, definitions are simply
optional shorthand tricks, saving space and time but not contributing
anything essential to the theory. In practice, of course, as Russell
admits, the very fact that we have singled out a compound entity
worthy,
as it were, of being defined can be significant in developing and
explaining the theory. Thus, the definiendum momentum not only
saves effort compared with "mass x velocity," it also makes clear that
that strange, unnatural product plays a key role in mechanics.
Similarly
with net pay, defined as "gross less deductions."

Surprisingly,
the latest (sixth edition) Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
shuns a specific aphoristique category, listing its shorter memorable
selections under a section called "Sayings." I suppose you can blame my
Cantabrigian nit-picking bias, but the plumpen term sayings
lacks that classic flair we associate with aphorisms and their
epigrammatic siblings. I'm reminded of the critic who said of Jack
Kerouac, "That's not literature, it's just typing." Cynics from this
camp are fond of knocking the blogosphere, claiming that for the first
time in history we have more writers than readers. Luckily, most
bloggers don't see the enormity of this insult. The Borland Paradox
database had a sublimely vague data type called blob, meaning binary
large object. This may have influenced the coinage blog as a
blob generator, but others read it as binary logorrhea. I rush to add
that some of my best friends are bloggers. Does it help to call them
blogeurs or blogistas? Not really. I seek your suggestions.

Faber has rival anthologies fully devoted to the aphorism, including
the
recent The Blind Eye compiled by poet Don Paterson, who admits
that the aphorism is the most economical but least satisfying of
literary forms. According to NB's review (Times Literary
Supplement, September 28, 2007), Paterson often confuses bland
truisms with genuine aphorisms. NB offers an aphorism about The
Blind Eye aphorisms: "The problem with wit and wisdom is that you
usually get one or the other."

The Oxford anthology also gives a
self-referential aphorism from James Fenton: "Windbags can be right.
Aphorists can be wrong. It's a tough world!"

This warning finds
confirmation in the existence of such contradictory pairs as, "Many
hands make light work" and "Too many cooks spoil the broth." I invite
similar examples, preferably with IT implications.

 Using and
 Losing What?

Returning to my aphoristic title, "Use It or Lose
It," we see another danger in clever, apparent paradoxes posing as
assumed truisms. Some contexts for those damned elusive its can give us
falsisms. If we take "it" as a nonrenewable fossil fuel, our aphorism
is
downright dangerous. "Use coal or lose it" makes sense only as a
Chinese
slogan where "losing it" means losing the race to Americanize the
Chinese economy. Other variants may or may not appeal, depending on
your
cynicism. "Use IT or lose it," sneaking in the abbreviation for
information technology, is plausible unless you are trying to unify the
UK's National Health Service patient records system. Taking "It" as the
glamorous oomph factor is also problematical: "It" girls since Clara
Bow
in the 1920s, alas, have lost "It" through the ravages of time and/or
overuse.

We move to the more reasonable interpretations of my
title. The first will be familiar to all rugby union fans currently
enjoying or suffering the thrills of the World Cup, enacted every four
years like the unmentionable spherical-ball version called soccer (or
association football). Rugby is a ruffians' game played by gentlemen;
soccer is a gentlemen's game played by ruffians. (Here we see the
aphorism posing as a jokey definition.)

ACM Queue
readers who shun the sporting life are missing out on some
career-enhancing implications. Here we have the ideas of rules and
arbitration, the heart 'n' soul of algorithmic theory, played out in
flesh 'n' blood. Very briefly, rugby union has complex attacking
strategies including scrums, rucks, and mauls. In the maul, three or
more players including the ball carrier (yes, there's a sound reason
for
the ellipsoidal shape) push forward in an upright formation keeping the
ball off the ground, while the opposing team tries to prevent the
advance. In such an apparently chaotic confrontation (the very name
maul!), there are, in fact, many rules defining legal and illegal
actions: Who can join the maul and how? When does a maul end? One such
rule compares with Turing's halting problem: What's to prevent an
endless maul where attack and defense are evenly matched and the ball
is
not being advanced? It's up to the referee to break such a deadlock. He
(seldom she) calls, "Use it or lose it!" and the attacking team must
either advance or relinquish the ball within five seconds. We know this
because, rarely in field sports, the referee is wired for sound, and
the
world hears his calls and warnings in realtime.

We find another
context for "use it or lose it" in the pedagogical and neuroscientific
domains. The latter offers the widely held theories of learning and
memory based on neurons and synapses. Certain neural connections
certainly seem to be strengthened by use and weakened by neglect.
Although the mysteries of perception and consciousness remain, the
general idea of neural networks has proved useful in devising
educational strategies. There are still differences among the
educationistas: To what extent can we "train the brain" in the same way
that athletes incrementally improve their performance by regular
exercise routines? I believe that some rote learning, although
unfashionable in many curricula, is essential - let's say another of
those endemic necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions. The blank slate
needs some basic kick-start scrawls once the Chomskian prewiring has
surfaced. The open question: how to kindle the imagination and fire the
curiosity?
Read the rest of this article at acmqueue.com
http://acmqueue.com/rd.php?c.514

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