TSLC March 2010

[wm]

I agree that the effort required to move a boulder is significant, but with teamwork and focused effort it can be done.
. . .

The proof is, indeed, in the pudding, but we should all be eager to work on any program whose end goal is the improvement of a soldier's ability to learn.

Mere focussed teamwork does not always yield success. Teamwork and effort must be focused rather specifically (AKA in the right way) in order to achieve the desired goal--a team of 10 whose members can each lift 100 pounds cannot lift a half ton boulder if each applies his or her lift power sequentially (sequential effort being one way of focusing effort). Nor can they lift the boulder working in unision (another way of focusing effort) unless they they can all get a good grip on the rock at the same time.

While working on a program with a noble goal may be satisfying, I think it is even more satisfying to work on a program whose method of attacking the problem has more likelihood than a snowball's chance in hell of attaining the desired goal. I have seen nothing yet that shows how, what is being bruited about the new Army learning system is, to quote Immanuel Kant, to be "by means of one’s representations, the cause of the objects of those representations." In other words I'm still waiting for some to show me how talking about the goal will actually get us to it. Even if we are clear about the nature of the problem, I am not so sure that this clarity will also disclose the way to solve the problem. Knowing that we have to move a rock that is mighty big does not quite tell us to get it moved. (And, yes, I am repeating my biggest criticism of FM 5.0 for those who were following that thread)

[TheAdamBomb]

I blog externally at my Google blogspot "The Adam Bomb."