Interview with Phil Friedman
Phil Friedman kindly agreed to an interview with me. We both have been on BeBee for some time, and I find his posts and comments incisive and insightful. Interested to know more about his views and more about Phil the person, we exchanged emails. Here then are the Q’s all the way from Johannesburg, SA, and the A’s from Florida, USA.
ON PHILOSOPHY AND FIRST PRINCIPLES
Gert:
Phil, you were once a professor in philosophy and logic at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, and before that taught logic at Southern Illinois University. In fact, you were the first graduate student in the history of the philosophy program at Washington University (St. Louis) to pass the doctoral qualifying examinations with departmental honors. Yet, for the last thirty, years your vocation has been involved with designing and building boats.
The first requires a high degree of abstract thinking ability, the second insight into mechanical, aesthetic and practical matters. How did you traverse two widely differing fields and how do you combine these ways of thinking?
Phil:
I don’t believe, Gert, that the ways of thinking in these areas of endeavor are so different from one another, but rather that the subject matter is.
Granted, philosophy is often concerned with abstract questions, whereas yacht design and construction, and marine business management are deal with practical issues. However, it’s perfectly possible, indeed beneficial, to apply some of the techniques of analysis and reasoning found in philosophy to other areas of activity, for instance, business or engineering or design. Which is what I’ve always tried to do.
As an academically-trained philosopher, I find myself looking always for the “First Principles” of a given discipline, that is, the higher-level generalizations that distill clusters of data (experience) into brief, clear maxims to guide actions and decisions.
For example, in business, a First Principle might be to never trust anyone who tells you to just trust them and never mind the effort to memorialize an agreement in writing.Similarly, in boat-building, a First Principle might be that, all factors equal, it’s the product that counts, not how you achieve it.
There are many ways to build a yacht. But if two yachts are the same size, weight, and strength, exhibit the same performance, have equivalent seakeeping ability, are equally seakindly, and cost the same, it matters not a whit if one was built using supposedly obsolete manual techniques, while the other was built using modern automated processes. The result is the same, and the result is what counts.
To my mind, grasping First Principles in a given field is what leads to substantive accomplishment in that field, whether it’s writing, engineering, designing, business or even medicine. Which is why I say thinking comes before writing — or designing or engineering or building.
ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS
Gert:
I always read your business posts carefully. You have published excellent articles on the truths and myths of small business and entrepreneurship. Now, if you were to give the most essential advice to entrepreneurs in no more than 200 words, what would that be?
Phil:
I appreciate the kind words. With 195 left, here’s what I’d say to aspiring entrepreneurs:
Don’t decide to be an entrepreneur because you think it will be more fun than working for someone else. Unless you consider it “fun” to be up to your ears in debt much of the time, worrying every day how you’re going to make this week’s payroll, agonizing over how to boost sales, trying to mollify your spouse or significant other over all the time you’re not spending with him or her or your family, or planning how to stave off the venture capitalists who are threatening to take over your business and kick your ass out because you havent’t achieved the numbers to which you agreed when they lent you the money to start or expand your business.
In my experience, entrepreneurs are a breed apart. They’d rather gamble and lose than play it safe. They get as much of a kick out of the process of making it big as in having what results from making it big. And they’re prepared to put business success ahead of all else… literally.
If the shoe fits, wear it. If not, choose a different way to make a living.
(For the record, Gert, that’s 200 words exactly, count ‘em.)
CANINE COMPANIONS
Gert:
From your posts and comments, I take it you are fond of dogs – a fondness that I share. To my mind one can learn a great deal by observing their behaviors, besides that they really are man’s best friend. What do you see as the significance of having dogs as pets?
Phil:
You’re absolutely right, I am a dog person. In fact, my wife is also a dog person. And my daughters are dog people.
My daughters had dogs sleeping with them in their bassinets from the first day they arrived home. And like Eliza Thornberry, they grew up with the ability to “speak” to the dogs (and to horses and many other animals, as well.)
As a matter of fact, both my daughters literally barked before they spoke. They would toddle over to the front windows of the house with the dogs to woof at the mailperson or other interlopers on the street.
I’ve lived with dogs for more than fifty years. I’ve found they teach us about unconditional love and loyalty. They teach us about caring for others and being cared for by others, about social order and the value of discipline and habit and communicating with those who are essentially different from us.
And here’s a small bit of advice about dogs. If you want truly to understand them (and they you), you must let them live and sleep with you.
Dogs are pack animals, and you will never see them in a true light, never see into their souls, never learn their body language and vocalizations (or they yours) unless you allow them to be part of your pack. Just, by the way, make sure they understand from the beginning that you are the leader of that pack.
GROWING UP IN CHICAGO
Gert:
In a blog you once said: “I grew up in inner-city Chicago, early on the West Side near Roosevelt Road and Kedzie Avenue, then later on the South Side. And that I attended high school first at Chicago Vocational, an area-wide technical school known for being a "hard" place, then later at Hyde Park HS at 63rd Street and Stony Island Avenue, which was located in an area about as different from the white-bread suburbs as you could find.” Related to this, is there anything about your early family life or formative years you can share?
Phil:
I rarely talk about my youth because my teenage years were not a happy period for me. My parents were divorced at a time when it was not as common (or accepted) as it is today. And because my Mom worked full time, I was left on my own, with my younger brother, to pretty much fend for myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I always had food to eat, clothes to wear, and a decent place to live. But I had to work for anything else — which I guess was not really a bad thing, although at the time, it often seemed daunting.
I found school, especially high school, generally far less than interesting and most teachers far from inspiring. I was physically on the small side and so always fending off bullies. It didn’t help that my very best friend was a pretty big and very tough kid who delighted in encouraging those bullies to pick on me so he could see the surprised looks on their faces when they were met with a kick to the knee or cojones or an elbow to the Adam’s apple.
I quit high school in my senior year a few months short of graduating and went to work. I hitchhiked across the U.S. twice (with a copy of Kerouac’s On The Road in my back pocket). Finally, I decided that, if I were to find any form of genuine fulfillment, I’d have to get a formal education. Which I did — because during those days in the U.S., it was still possible to put oneself through school without building up massive debt.
PHIL, THE BOATBUILDER
Gert:
You live in Florida close by the ocean and I get the impression that you love being out at sea, and that you are in your element in the open waters - on a well-designed boat of course! What is it about the open sea that attracts you and why is it there that you come to your own?
Phil:
I do love being out on the water. I find it calming and peaceful in a very unique way. And it has always been an outlet for my lifelong abiding need to be self-sufficient. Some of my best days were during the seven years my wife and I lived and cruised aboard our 18-ton cutter, the “Noka” (seen in the accompanying photo).
However, to be honest, I also love designing and building boats and yachts that put others out on the water. Which, by the way, is what distinguishes a boatbuilder from someone who manufactures boats — the boatbuilder messes about with boats for the love of it and is often just as happy building a boat as sailing her.
Perhaps, the greatest single satisfaction I’ve experienced was hearing from someone who had acquired a small sailing yacht I designed in the late 70's, a Kodiak Cruiser 33, and successfully and safely circumnavigated the Pacific Rim in her. What a blast from the past receiving that letter was.
FATHER AND DAUGHTERS
Gert:
I recall you posted a beautiful letter to your daughter some time ago, giving her sound advice on how to think independently on her leaving home. Could you tell more about your daughters?
Phil:
Well, I love them beyond all else, as does my wife. I was well into middle-age when they were born and apprehensive at the time about being able to rise to the occasion of being a parent. But they’ve brought a sense of joy and well-being to my life that was completely unexpected. Indeed, I often say to my wife that, if nothing else ever goes right in our lives, we’ve already has our fair share of luck in being blessed with our daughters.
They are beautiful in their father’s eyes, athletically inclined, and stubbornly independent. And I look forward to the day when they again come to believe that I know at least a tiny bit about something … anything. (I’m told that will happen when they reach 25 or so.)
As a parent, the accomplishment I am most proud of is that when they were younger, if you asked them would they like to go to Disneyland or head to the Rocky Mountains to hike the trails and streams, they would without hesitation yell “the mountains!”
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE HUMAN BRAIN
Gert:
Recently you published a collection of articles on AI. To infer from your posts - you are of the opinion that AI will never surpass the combined cognitive, empathetic, creative, predictive and computational capabilities of the human brain. Am I correct? Why do you think so?
Phil:
You’re correct, as long as you substitute “mind” or “brain/mind” for “brain” in that statement. Also provided you drop the term “computational”, since straight computation is what Ai excels in. Indeed, computation is the only activity that Ai excels in.
Look, it comes down to this: Despite all the hype and all the millions, indeed billions invested to date in the development of “Artificial Intelligence”, the best we’re being offered at this point in history are the likes of Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google’s Assistant. Which are no more than dumb voice-recognition programs that operate and control electrical and electronic devices.
Oh wait, that’s not being completely fair, is it? Truth be told, we’re also being run over by Google’s and Uber’s killer autonomous cars, aren’t we?
Elon Musk has said we should be fearful of Ai … and he is right. If any more autonomous automobiles or trucks or cranes or drones are launched, we’ll find ourselves run over, maimed, and killed at increasing frequency. The disparity between the claims made on behalf of Ai and the reality is pathetic, if you ask me.
As I’ve said elsewhere, the Prophets of Ai are driven by the Profits of Ai to way oversell both its current state and future potential. They also overlook what I see as an essential ingredient in human intelligence, namely, the as yet unexplained ability of the human mind/brain to achieve insight — namely the ability to reach a correct conclusion without stepping through thousands of otherwise necessary intermediate logical steps in a correct chain of reasoning.
Emotionalists and anti-rationalists like to point to this particular ability of the human mind/brain as evidence of some form of non-rational cognition or a transcendental connection to some higher level of Being. But I believe it’s neither.
I believe that intuition and insight are expressions of the highest form of human Reason and Rationality, operating in our sub-conscious at speeds and in a state of hyper-awareness outside the restrictive confinement of conscious thought. But from what I read and see, the Prophets of Ai have not even yet begun to recognize this, never mind duplicate it in their manufactured cyber-brains.
I personally believe we are eons away from achieving artificial intelligence in any true sense of the term “intelligence”. Moreover, I predict that ultimately the path to genuine artificial intelligence will be the cultivation and growth of organic-based artificial neural networks, i.e., “brains”.
I also believe that, as a practical matter, much more will be gained, in the short to medium term, by emphasizing development of the man-in-the-machine concept, in which sophisticated and strong machines become the physical extensions of highly trained human operators (the “brains” in the machines).
There is, of course, a lot more to be said. And anyone interested might read my five-part series on this topic at:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/kmntUE
ON WRITING
Gert:
A last question, as writing is a big interest of mine. You have developed a writing course titled Before Writing Comes Thinking. You say in a blog that, “Many people are interested in improving their writing. But most of the time, what they really need first is to improve the way they organize their ideas, data, information, opinions and arguments.” Also in one of the comment streams you mention: “The first step is to strengthen your thinking because strong ideas expressed in an average way will always win out over weak ideas clothed in the finest of language”. Are there pointers you can provide (without giving away your course) on the thought process before actually writing anything?
Phil:
Yes, here are a half-dozen, for what they are worth.
1) Always ask yourself why you believe something. Ask, “How do I know this is true?” If you are relying on someone else’s opinion, how confident are you in their knowledge, abilities and judgment?
2) Always ask for supporting evidence or argument or both before accepting a claim as true, especially if it is being used as the basis for “proving” something further.
3) If someone asserts that A+B=C, take a minute to do the math. In other words, ask yourself if it really adds up. You’ll be surprised how many times it doesn’t.
4) Keep in mind that saying something loudly (or typing it in caps) doesn’t make it true. It may be true, but more often it is not. Maintain a healthy skepticism — always. Especially on social media.
5) Watch out for ad hominem argument. Whether a statement is true has nothing necessarily to do with what the person making the statement is like. A real jerk can speak the truth, not likely, but possibly. So too, someone you respect can make false assertions, either purposely or mistakenly. Accepting something as true simply because it’s asserted by some you like is defective thinking at its worst.
6) Watch out for “non-sequiturs”, that is, conclusions drawn from unrelated statements or premises. If true premises or assumptions don’t relate in a meaningful way to the conclusion being asserted, make no mistake, they do not support that conclusion.
For example, George Washington was the first president of the United States (true), George Washington was reputed never to lie (true), Donald Trump is currently president of the U.S. (true), therefore, Donald Trump never lies (not supported because the premises, although true, are irrelevant to this conclusion).
Paying attention to even just these six tips can improve your thinking and reasoning tenfold or more, Gert. Although I’m confident from reading your writings that you know most if not all of this already.
But thanks for asking me to do this interview. It’s been a lot of fun getting a chance to ramble on this way.
Gert:
My appreciation goes to you Phil, for taking the time. This interview has certainly opened my mind and it’s been great to hear more about your personal side.
We say here in Afrikaans: Baie dankie.
Which means: Thank you very much.
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Comments
Phil Friedman
5 years ago #33
Wow, , thank you for the very kind (and generous) words. Cheers!
Phil Friedman
5 years ago #32
"Mildly interesting" from Big Jim is a home run in my book! Cheers!
Jim Murray
5 years ago #31
🐝 Fatima G. Williams
5 years ago #30
Ken Boddie
5 years ago #29
Phil Friedman
5 years ago #28
@Proma, “Noka” is Ojibway fro “Then Bear” a symbol of strength and courage in Ojibway culture. My design was inspired by a design for a robust cruising yacht done by Jack Hanna several decades previous, which was built and called “Little Bear”.
Proma Nautiyal
5 years ago #27
Gert Scholtz
5 years ago #26
Phil Friedman
5 years ago #25
Thank you, Milos Djukic's questions had a lot to do with drawing me out in such a personal way. So he deserves much of the credit, if this piece is worthwhile. Cheers!
Milos Djukic
5 years ago #24
Bill Stankiewicz
5 years ago #23
Bill Stankiewicz
5 years ago #22
Bill Stankiewicz
5 years ago #21
Bill Stankiewicz
5 years ago #20
Bill Stankiewicz
5 years ago #19
I agree 100%
Bill Stankiewicz
5 years ago #18
Phil Friedman
5 years ago #17
Thank you, Claire L Cardwell, for the kind words. Yes, I love the designs you see in Gert's piece. And not only because the "Noka" was my home for more than seven years. I gave up designing small sailing yachts in the mid-80s because the market had moved away from the type of utlitarian craft that were my specialty. Well ... I guess the only constant in life if change. Cheers!
Phil Friedman
5 years ago #16
Thank you, Pascal Derrien, for your exceptionally generous and kind words. Were it only that I actually deservied them. Cheers!
Mohammed Abdul Jawad
5 years ago #15
Pascal Derrien
5 years ago #14
Lada 🏡 Prkic
5 years ago #13
Randall Burns
5 years ago #12
Jan 🐝 Barbosa
5 years ago #11
Jerry Fletcher
5 years ago #10
Ali Anani
5 years ago #9
Ian Weinberg
5 years ago #8
Debasish Majumder
5 years ago #7
Debesh Choudhury
5 years ago #6
Debesh Choudhury
5 years ago #5
Liesbeth Leysen, MSc.
5 years ago #4
Liesbeth Leysen, MSc.
5 years ago #3
Wayne Yoshida
5 years ago #2
Kevin Pashuk
5 years ago #1