Leonardo and Da Vinci- The Tao of Meta-Learning: What's in a Name?

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Leonardo da Vinci - The Supreme Renaissance Person

"The mass of children lead lives of quiet desperation because rote learning nips their potential in the bud. To nip rote learning itself in the bud before it nips their potential is, therefore, not an option but a categorical imperative." - Leonardo and Da Vinci - The Tao of Meta-Learning.

Ever since the book Leonardo and Da Vinci - The Tao of Meta-Learning has been published, an overwhelming number of readers have been coming up with questions. And as many of these questions are of a generic nature, we have thought it best to put these in the form of dialogues rather than narrative posts. For, dialogues stimulate perceptive thinking, one of the main purposes of this book, the first volume of a series, and the volumes that are to follow.

These dialogues will essentially be conversations between Leonardo and Da Vinci themselves, the robot mentors who emerge in the last chapter of this book and who play an increasingly prominent role in the sequels to the book.

And as in the spirit of the dialogue mode, free ranging in its spirit and scope in the sense that they are not planed beforehand and instead, allowed to emerge spontaneously and self-organize themselves as we talk. Nor will completeness be the aim of each blog post. Rather, they may end as abruptly as they began.

Leonardo: I think the best way to begin is for me to ask you what occurs to me as a reader. Let's start with the title of the book itself. Why Leonardo and Da Vinci, I mean why split the name, Leonardo da Vinci into two. I think I already have an idea but still...

Da Vinci: I think I can guess what your idea could be and that is this: Leonardo da Vinci was a renaissance person encompassing diverse kinds of learning and knowledge. As such it was difficult to imagine a single person to possess that phenomenal versatility. It was easy as in the case of William Shakespeare to explain it away by saying that it was not a single person to whom all that work was attributed to but perhaps two or more persons were involved.

Leonardo: Yes, you guessed it right, that's what I was thinking.

Da Vinci: And that's not right anyway. The reason why the name Leonardo da Vinci has been split up into Leonardo and Da Vinci has more to do with the idea of the beginner's mind and the master's mind. Leonardo represents the spirit of youth and Da Vinci that of wisdom. Neurologically, Leonardo's brain is minimally loaded with knowledge but has maximal learning capacity. Da Vinci's brain is maximally loaded with knowledge but has maximal learning capacity.

Leonardo: Just a moment, I could not fail to catch that even for Da Vinci you said that his brain comes loaded with maximal learning capacity. Now, conventionally, according to neuroscience, that is not exactly correct isn't it. It should be that Da Vinci's brain cannot have maximal learning capacity as it is only the beginner's brain that has that capability.

Da Vinci: No doubt, according to neuroscience, what you said is absolutely correct. But Leonardo da Vinci like his ancient predecessor Archimedes is an exception to the rule. His brain, even in his mature years, exhibited maximal learning capacity.

Leonardo: I now get it. Please go on.

Da Vinci: And psychologically, according to the multiple intelligences terminology of Howard Gardner, Leonardo represents the unschooled mind and Da Vinci the disciplined mind. And neuroplastically, Leonardo's brain is endowed with infant brain plasticity and Da Vinci's brain also is endowed with infant brain plasticity, again as an exception to the rule.

Leonardo: So this was the real reason for the split. I think it is very apt that it has been done so. 

Da Vinci: It also facilitates us to focus on one or the other, that is, the beginner's brain-mind or the master's brain-mind depending on what we want to talk about. Also, Leonardo represents the student and Da Vinci the mentor.

Leonardo: What about the protagonist Angiras, then?

Da Vinci: Angiras represents the renaissance individual in the making. As such, he is the archetypal beginner and student aflame with the thirst for learning. 

Leonardo: As every bright young child is.

Da Vinci: Yes, every bright young child naturally is, born with stupendous capabilities before schooling begins to interfere with the exponential nature of the learning and linearizes it from a global to a local capability.

Leonardo: What about the subtitle of the book, "The Tao of Meta-Learning?"

Da Vinci: Ah, the subtitle signifies that the book is actually about all the subtleties of meta-learning. And the "tao" is to suggest its all-encompassing comprehensiveness. And as you know, this is only the first in a series of volumes that may well go into several.

Leonardo: I have heard that the second and the third volumes are also complete and will be published soon.

Da Vinci: That is so, Leonardo. 

Leonardo: And we'll continue our dialogue in the next blog post?

Da Vinci: Of course, Leonardo.