who is michael polanyi? michael polanyi · 2017. 1. 20. · 1958: michael polanyi: “personal...
TRANSCRIPT
-
Michael Polanyi
Marcel Kyas
Háskólinn í Reykjavík
2017-01-20
Who is Michael Polanyi?
Figure 1: Michael Polanyi
• 11.3.1891 (Budapest) –22.2.1976 (Northampton, UK)
• polymath• medicine• physical chemistry• economics• social sciences• philosophy
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 2 / 19
Pearl of Computation?
• Was friends with Alan Turing• His work influenced Hubert
Dreyfus’ critique of AI
• Founded Society for Freedomin Science with John Baker in1940
• Contributed to the analysis ofmonetary systems (1945)
• Contributed to the philosophyof science
• Influenced knowledgemanagement
Figure 2: The ‘Money Circle’
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 3 / 19
Why Michael Polanyi?
• As a first year student, we hadto prove convergence ofinfinite series
• Students asked the teacher:• How did you get the limit?• How did you choose n0?• How did you know which
test to use?• The teacher answered:
• It just came to me• I tried• I was lucky
• I taught concurrentprogramming
• Students had huge issues withprogramming assignments
• It did work!• I see this error, but it goes
away!• Sometimes it just stops!• Why does my machine
crash?
• I could identify the issue withinminutes
• To students, this was likemagic
• How did you do this?
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 4 / 19
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13681265
-
Freedom in Science
[S]cientists, freely making their own choice of problems andpursuing them in the light of their own personal judgment, are infact co-operating as members of a closely knit organization.
Such self-co-ordination of independent initiatives leads to a jointresult which is unpremeditated by any of those who bring itabout.
Any attempt to organize the group ... under a single authoritywould eliminate their independent initiatives, and thus reducetheir joint effectiveness to that of the single person directing themfrom the centre. It would, in effect, paralyse their co-operation.
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 5 / 19
Positivism dispute
• Logical positivism: When is aphilosophical method valid?
• must be communicated inlanguage
• must beobservable/empirical ordeduced from observables
• Observables areinter-subject conventions
• Are economics and socialscience actually sciences?
• Is social science a normativeobligatory statement inpolitics?
• 1935: Karl Popper “Logik derForschung”
• 1937: Max Horkheimer “Derneueste Angriff auf dieMetaphysik”
• 1958: Michael Polanyi:“Personal Knowledge”
• 1966: Michael Polanyi: “TheTacit Dimension”
• 1969: “Der Positivismusstreitin der deutschen Soziologie”marks the end of the dispute
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 6 / 19
All knowledge is personal
• All knowledge claims rely onpersonal judgements
• All knowing, no matter howformalised, relies uponcommitments that motivatediscovery and validation
• Scientific methods do notmechanically yield truths
• Scientists chose significantquestions likely to lead tosuccessful resolution
• We believe more than we canprove, and know more thanwe can sayM. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 7 / 19
Example from computing
• 1900: David Hilbert 2ndproblem: “Prove that theaxioms of arithmetic areconsistent.”
• 1928: Hilbert recasts theproblem: Is mathematicsconsistent, complete,decidable?
• 1930: Gödel announcesproofs of undecidability
• 1936: Church “An UnsolvableProblem of ElementaryNumber Theory” characterizeseffectively calculable
Figure 3: David Hilbert, 1912
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 8 / 19
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36302
-
Example from computing
• 1931: Gödel “On FormallyUndecidable Propositions ofPrincipia Mathematica andRelated Systems I”
• 1936: Church “A Note on theEntscheidungsproblem”
• 1937: Turing “On ComputableNumbers With an Applicationto the Entscheidungsproblem”
• 1939: Rosser notes theequivalence of effectivemethod proposed by Gödel,Church, and Turing.
• Gödel, Church, and Turingdefined their personal notionof computation:
• Recursive functions• λ-calculus• Turing Machine
• Same result in differentformalisms
• Rosser notes the equivalence,allowing objective formulation
• Kleene, 1952: Formulates theChurch-Turing Thesis.
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 9 / 19
Personal Knowledge (cont.)
• Experience is not “sense data”• Interpretive frameworks don’t
trap us in experience
• Tacit awareness connects uswith reality
• Tacit awareness suppliescontext within whicharticulations have meaning
• Minds cannot be reduced tocollections of rules
Figure 4: SHODAN
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 10 / 19
Tacit knowing
• Polanyi’s most importantdiscovery
• “We can know more than wecan tell”
• Skills, ideas, andexperiences
• difficult to access becausenot codified
• often cannot be codified
• Tacit knowledge is “know-how”– not “know-that”, “know-why”,or “know-who” (explicitknowledge)
• Bessemer steel process• First inexpensive industrial
process for mass-productionof steel from molten pig iron
• Removes impurities byblowing air into molten pig iron
• Buyers of the patent could notget it to work from the verbaldescription
• Bessemer set up his owncompany
• He could use the method• He could now convey it to
the users
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 11 / 19
Knowledge management
• Process of• creating knowledge• sharing knowledge• using knowledge• managing knowledge
• Long history• Master-apprentice relation• on-the-job discussion• discussion forums• libraries• training• mentoring
• corporate culture
• Tools• collaborative software
(wikis, blogs, socialsoftware)
• expert systems• expert directories (stack
overflow)• Technologies
• groupware• content management• eLearning• version control
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 12 / 19
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1414706
-
The first Bread Maker
• Tacit to tacit:• Learn bread making with master• Doesn’t create systematic
insight• Explicit to explicit:
• combining information• no knowledge creation
• Tacit to explicit:• formalizing and coding bread
making• mechanism and algorithm for
the bread maker• Explicit to tacit:
• transformation steps createknowledge
Figure 5: Raku Raku Pan Da
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 13 / 19
Model of knowledge transfer
• Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)were influenced by Polanyi:
• Explicit knowledge isobtained through learning
• Tacit knowledge is obtainedthrough experience
• The distinction of explicit andtacit introduces:
• Externalization: formalisingtacit knowledge
• Internalization: obtainingtacit knowledge fromformalisations
Figure 6: The Knowledge Spiral
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 14 / 19
Conclusion
• Chemistry (skipped)• Freedom in Science
• scientists are naturallycooperating
• more effective whenunorganised
• Personal knowledge• personal judgement• scientists motivation• no mechanical method• tacit awareness• mind not collection of rules
• Tacit knowing• explicit vs tacit knowing• tacit knowing
• cannot be formalized• obtained through
experience• knowledge transfer (SECI)
• transfer throughsocialisation codification
• internalisation• My answer: tacit knowing in
computing obtained throughrepeated application inapplying formal knowledge
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 15 / 19
Bibliography
Adorno, Theodor W. et al. (1969). Der Positivismusstreit in der deutschenSoziologie. Luchterhand Literaturverlag.
Church, Alonzo (1936a). ‘A Note on the Entscheidungsproblem’. In:Journal of Symbolic Logic 1.1, pp. 40–41. DOI: 10.2307/2269326.
– (1936b). ‘An Unsolvable Problem of Elementary Number Theory’. In:American Journal of mathematics 58.2, pp. 345–363. DOI:10.2307/2371045.
Gödel, Kurt (1931). ‘Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principiamathematica und verwandter Systeme I’. In: Monateshefte fürMathematik und Physik 38, pp. 173–198.
Hilbert, David (1900). ‘Mathematische Probleme’. In: Nachrichten derKöniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen,mathematisch-physikalische Klasse 3, pp. 253–297.
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 16 / 19
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7763007https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13188318
-
Bibliography (cont.)Hilbert, David, Hermann Weyl and Paul Bernays (1928). Die Grundlagen
der Mathematik. Leipzig: Verlag B.G. Teubner.Horkheimer, Max (1937). ‘Der neueste Angriff auf die Metaphysik’. In:
Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 6.1, pp. 4–53.Kleene, Stephen Cole (1952). Introduction to Metamathematics. North
Holland.Nonaka, Ikujiro and Hirotaka Takeuchi (1995). The Knowledge-Creating
Company. How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics ofInnovation. Oxford University Press.
Polanyi, Michael (1945). Full Employment and Free Trade. CambridgeUniversity Press.
– (1951). The Logic of Liberty. University of Chicago Press.– (1958). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.
University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 0-226-67288-3.– (1966). The Tacit Dimension. London: Routledge.
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 17 / 19
Bibliography (cont.)Popper, Karl (1935). Logik der Forschung. Vienna: Verlag von Julius
Springer.– (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Cited after edition by
Routledge, 2002. Hutchinson & Co.Rosser, Barkley (1939). ‘An Informal Exposition of Proofs of Gödel’s
Theorems and Church’s Theorem’. In: Journal of Symbolic Logic 4.2,pp. 43–60. DOI: 10.2307/2269059.
Turing, Alan Mathison (1937). ‘On Computable Numbers, with anApplication to the Entscheidungsproblem’. In: Proceedings LondonMathematical Society s2-42.1, pp. 230–265. DOI:10.1112/plms/s2-42.1.230.
Wigner, E.P. and R.A. Hodgkin (1977). ‘Michael Polanyi. 12 March1891–22 February 1976’. In: Bibliographical Memoirs of Fellows of theRoyal Society 23, pp. 413–448. DOI: 10.1098/rsbm.1977.0016.
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 18 / 19
Picture Credits
• Figure 1: Original author is unknown, found in Manchester archives –http://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/5213045000/, Public Domain.
• Figure 2: Polanyi, 1945, p. 4• Figure 3: By Original author is unknown, Public Domain.• Figure 4: By The ’Through the Looking Glass’ forums, courtesy of the
Systemshock.org Modifications Archive, fair use.
• Figure 5: By MASA - GFDL (投稿者撮影), CC BY-SA 3.0.• Figure 6: By JohannesKnopp - Own work, Copyrighted free use.
M. Kyas (RU) Michael Polanyi 2017-01-20 19 / 19
http://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/5213045000/http://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/5213045000/http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1005195https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=242.0