More on stability
Continuing the topic of stability.......

I've lived in this house for nearly 25 years. Before this, I was typically changing address every year and changing jobs every three years. Those fast-changing years were more exciting and interesting, but I never had the time to develop and observe baselines. After years of stability, I can perform all sorts of experiments on daily activities and behavior, and observe little things that demonstrate laws of physics and biology.

Lately I've noticed a couple of odd Pavlovian learned responses. (1) When I take bus 22 to the NW Blvd Safeway, I always get sleepy at the same point on the route. When I'm actually short on sleep, the urge is nearly irresistible; when I'm adequate, the urge can be controlled. Makes no sense on the days with adequate sleep. Has to be Pavlovian. (2) I figured out by experiment that a little exercise around 5 AM helps to boost a good dump at 6 AM. With real exercise like shoveling snow or hacking weeds, this makes good sense. Move the upper body for 10 minutes, loosen up the innards. But it works equally well if I simply take out the trash at 5 AM. This isn't exercise at all; maybe 50 footsteps and no upper-body action. Has to be a Pavlovian response to the symbol of Being Outside.

A typical school science course has no time for baselines. The book mentions subject 1 and you read a few factoids about subject 1 and the book mentions subject 2 and you read a few factoids about subject 2 and the book mentions subject 3 and you read a few factoids about subject 3 and the book mentions subject 4 and you read a few ....

This is not science. This is just word-processing.

Ideally a science course would start a job-relevant project in first grade, then complicate and extend the project in each year thereafter. Time to form a baseline, time to acquire deep expertise on your project, time to notice the little things that really matter.

Labels: Metrology, TMI

  ¶ 5:41 AM