Learning as an inelastic collision

[The_Doc_Man]

Those of you who know me know that I have done a lot of reading in my time, focused on sci-fi/fantasy but with occasional forays into other literature.

Randall Garrett, who wrote many stories about "Lord D'Arcy" (his magic-world equivalent to Sherlock Holmes), also wrote a story called Unwise Child about an AI who could learn. In it, Garrett named something that he called "Lagerlocke's Principle" in which education was described as an "inelastic collision." The analogy he tried to present was that when we encounter something, it either affects us - and we learn something - or it doesn't affect us at all - and we learn nothing. An inelastic collision is what happens when two unyielding objects collide. For simple cases, think "billiard balls."

For the record, my web searches do not return anything for that name, but then again, if it is obscure enough, it might be real. Might not.

The physical analogy he used was a collision between two objects. If the objects were very hard, they bounced off each other and nothing changed. But if either of them had some degree of softness, the soft object would slightly deform. The super-hard objects would behave the same way for each collision but the softer objects would bounce differently (go at a different angle) if they had a collision on a place that had been changed. Imagine a collision two billiard balls. Then imagine a collision between a billiard ball and a ball of clay, followed by using that ball of clay a second time without reshaping it.

We use the term "hard-headed" for people who don't learn from their mistakes. We also talk about how we will "beat it into your head" regarding something you do that is not considered proper behavior. Perhaps Mr. Garrett was on to something? Learning is an inelastic collision?

 

[Jon]

There is something very visceral about your viewpoint on learning. Indeed, the "hard-headed" descriptive term resembles the colliding billiard balls. Given that, is learning therefore an elastic collision, rather than inelastic collision? The elastic collision leaves a dent, while the inelastic collision leaves nothing but a sore head.

There is also the third option, which is maybe what you are referring to in the first instance, which is a hard ball hitting a soft ball. But then that would not be an inelastic collision, but a mere collision? I am aiming to ace the pedantic score here.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Strictly speaking in physics, a perfectly elastic collision transfers all energy from one colliding body to another AND momentum is conserved. An inelastic collision has some type of wasted energy, and a soft object vs. hard object would exhibit that kind of waste. And to be pedantic, the wasted energy was wasted on deformation of the soft object.

By this image, learning is not an elastic collision because for such collisions, no energy was expended on making a change to either participant in the collision. If your life experiences don't change you in some way, one could argue that you learned nothing.

The "collision" analogy also occurs in that description of the best school ever - the "school of hard knocks." If you get knocked hard enough, you learn from it. So that particular phrase supports the idea of learning as an inelastic collision.

 

[Jon]

You are absolutely right having just looked up the physics definition. I was thinking in terms of the objects themselves having a degree of elasticity as opposed to the hidden nature of force being lost on impact. The "school of hard knocks", like the "hard-headed" metaphor are both great examples. Yet at the same time, they strangely seem to contradict one another. On the one hand nothing goes in, but on the other hand it does.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

This is where the analogies get a little strained, but...

In the school of hard knocks, just like in any other school, you either learn or you don't. If you are hard-headed enough, it takes a REALLY hard knock to get through to you. You bounce off of the experience without learning.

Take violent criminals, for example. They get shot but then when they heal, they go back to hang with the gang again. They are not learning that thug behavior gets you killed. Then one day they approach a shopkeeper who has a gun under the counter. They demand money, look around to see if anyone is getting frisky, and in that moment the shopkeeper delivers the ultimate inelastic collision with a copper jacketed slug.

However, there ARE stories of kids who get in trouble and when they get out of jail or the hospital, they leave gang life. Sadly, we so rarely hear about this because that doesn't make front-page headlines; that is more of the back-page human-interest story.

As to the physics definition, it is all about energy return. For instance, consider tennis balls. The standard for a tournament tennis ball is that if you drop it from a static test rig from a height of 10 feet, you must get a bounce of 4.5 to 6 feet in return. (Or something like that, the numbers might have changed since I last played.) If you take a super-ball, you would get over 9 feet. If you drop play-dough, it goes splat. So the super ball, tennis ball, and ball of dough form a spectrum of energy return. To be precise, billiard balls actually have a high degree of elasticity and a LOW degree of susceptibility to deformation. To finish the analysis, if you have an object with a high degree of resistance to deformation, you still can have a serious effect on it. But that is because if you hit it hard enough, you exceed its structural integrity limits and it shatters - the ultimate deformation. (And the long-term fate of most super balls if kids get to them.)

In similar analogy, your mind can be inflexible, meaning that you can't easily learn from new situations that are outside your experience. Or you can learn to be adaptable, in which case a new situation only slows you down a touch before you eventually handle the situation. And this flexibility or inflexibility has secondary exhibits. How many people, when faced with the horrors of war, have a break with reality? In essence, they shatter under impact, but mentally rather than physically.

Like I said, I'm straining the analogies a little (or more than a little), but I think it fits into this thread.

 

[Bee]

Interesting. In UK English, the term school of hard knocks relates to kids who are physically aggressive.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Ah, yes. That is a difference. In USA English, the "School of Hard Knocks" is the schooling afforded by difficult life experiences that provide adversity as something to be overcome.

 

[Bee]

Actually, I wish to clarify. The USA interpretation also applies in the UK, but if you describe someone as a 'hard knock', then it's because they are likely to resort to physical violence. There is a difference. Or, for Jon's benefit - a nuance

 

[Jon]

Behave!

 

[Insane_AI]

This is an interesting read but how do we use this knowledge?

"Have an open mind but no so much that your brain falls out"

 

[Jon]

If we bang enough heads together, we might come up with an answer. Sorry, I couldn't resist that one!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

We use this knowledge by recognizing that education is meant to change us. We have to be receptive to change. Learning is not a passive thing - it is an active, participatory thing. It requires an attitude of willingness to learn something else than we learned before. I.e. don't walk into a class thinking there is nothing you can learn from it. Otherwise, you just wasted your time (and, if college, your tuition for that class.)

There is also a strategy of teaching that sometimes we need a dramatic demonstration to get a point across. Which is why teachers sometimes make "controlled mini-volcanoes" in classrooms to demonstrate exothermic reactions. And why physics teachers put a fifty pound weight on a chain suspended from the ceiling, then hold it one inch from their nose and, standing perfectly still, let it go to demonstrate principles of conservation of momentum and predictability of pendulums. The idea of the latter demonstration is that here is this 50-pound weight heading for the guy's nose, kids expect to see blood, but nothing happens. The weight stops and reverses course before it hits his nose.

The principle in both cases is that dramatic presentations affect spectators. So presentations for marketing or education will have that "pizazz," that "bling," that "WOW effect." The likelihood of having an elastic collision - or an ineffectual presentation - is inversely proportional to its impact factors. THAT's how you use it in practice.