Let's Talk About... Depth!

In every thing I want to grasp

Its very core.

In work, in searching for the path,

In heart's uproar.

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To see the essence of my days,

In every minute

To see its cause, its root, its base,

Its sacred meaning.

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Perceiving constantly the hidden

Thread of fate

To live, to think, to love, to feel

And to create.

This poem, written by the 20th-century Nobel Prize winner Boris Pasternak, may well be called a hymn to polymathy. A person with a strong polymathic trait is anxious to get ocean-deep (or better to say universe-deep?) into the essence of all things. However, despite being such a crucial polymathic feature, depth remains a “hidden champion” in the identification of polymaths: The depth to which they dig for knowledge and the depth of the knowledge acquired is what distinguishes a polymath from a scanner, dilettante, generalist, multipotentialite, etc. Depth is what makes many-sided people dig into one subject for years, or even their whole lives.

The ability to pursue a topic extensively across a long timespan is perhaps not that common. Especially today, when we are misled by the promise that we can acquire knowledge of a whole subject within a two-month course. In our world, abundant with facts and fast-food style information, the depth dimension becomes a rarity.

But how do we identify a person with a depth of knowledge? Is it by the ability to freely talk about a topic for hours? Or is it by the ability to ask insightful questions? Is it even something possible to express in words?

My sister, who is an amazing opera singer, someone who has been deeply immersed in her art for decades, takes a different perspective. She perceives a person as a whole, and intuits the depth of their knowledge at an instinctive level. It reminds me of the principle of the Guru (teacher, master) in Indian philosophical tradition: a person who becomes a master emits a certain gravity, even without needing to speak at any length.

Similarly, the Chinese term for a multi-faceted person indicates the depth dimension expressed by their level of achievement - a “master of talents”. There is a beautiful Chinese story from a chapter of the Zhuangzi known as the Tian Dao (天道), meaning ‘Heaven’s Way’ or ‘The Way of Heaven’, that encapsulates the aspect of depth:

??A wheelwright named Pian tells a duke that the book of sage advice he is reading is nothing but "chaff and garbage." Outraged, the duke demands an explanation. The Wheelwright replies that, at least as far as his craft is concerned, he can only do what he does because he has developed a "knack" that cannot be fully put into words. If the blows of his hammer are too soft, the cutter slips and won't stick. If the blows are too hard, the bit digs in and won't budge. "Not too soft, not too hard - you can put it in your hand and feel it in your mind" he says. “So, I've lived 70 years and I'm still chiseling wheels into my dotage. When the sages of old times died, they took with them something that couldn't be inherited. So, what you read here must be nothing but the dregs of old men."

The depth of the wheelwright’s mastery, as well as that of the sages, is the result of long-term effort, skill, self-taught tricks, all integrated into the self. It is not just the amount of knowledge, but something intuitive, beyond comprehension, something like Aristotle’s observation that “the whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

The Buddhist idea of gaining depth adds another integral aspect to this philosophy, that knowledge has to be gained through a systematic process. First, you listen to a teacher or read a book. That is important, but not enough. It’s like having a set of self-assembly furniture and an instruction book. Reading the book is vital, but it does not build the furniture. You must apply that knowledge, and in doing so ruminate on what that weird piece in the picture is, and where exactly it goes based on the unnecessarily obscure illustration. You have to consider the information in order to apply it, possibly even meditate upon it. It shows two components of the depth-gaining process: first gathering data, and then reflecting on it to gain true understanding. This cannot happen overnight, despite what many modern courses might promise.

It must be for a good reason that many job postings require at least 3-5 years of experience. I do not go so far as to propagate the “10,000 hours rule”, but longevity of knowledge and skill development should not be underestimated. It takes time to internalize information, enrich it with experience, and shape it into mastery and wisdom.

One more important feature needs to be highlighted in regards to the depth dimension - expertise. What is it? Everybody thinks they know how to distinguish an expert from a novice, but in truth it’s much harder to define. Psychologists have developed several approaches to “measure” expertise, particularly to see how an expert solves problems. I found it interesting, because it touches upon some very polymathic ways of thinking. Professor Vladimir Spiridonov wrote about international research in this area. Psychologists studied many different professions: managers, chess players, military and political scientists, programmers, and doctors. These professions were suitable because they could be given specific tasks, then compared in the effectiveness, consistency, and strategies of their solutions. They discovered three areas in which high-level experts can be very different to novices:

1. They have different ways of presenting problems.
2. They also have different solutions strategies, which are not the same as those used in traditional representations.
3. They also differ in how they manage their own self-management during the process of solving the problem.

A group of psychologists, led by Micheline Shea, conducted research with a different method, but in the same area. They asked students who were new to physics, and teachers with years of experience, to classify physics problems without solving them - problems from a physics textbook that no one in the sample had worked with previously.

Researchers then compared these classifications, and found several fundamental differences between those of the experts and the beginners.

Firstly, teachers accurately arranged talks in various non-intersecting classes, while beginners did not always manage to do this.

Secondly, experts used basic physical principle as the main criterion to group classifications.

These groupings helped to show interconnectedness and suggest methods by which individual problems within the group could be solved. Good expert classifications are usually a handy tool that helps to immediately orient oneself to the problem’s solution.

When we analyze how polymaths work, it seems obvious that because they specialize in at least two or three areas, they can more easily identify patterns and trends, and can cross-pollinate them from one domain to another. Polymathy draws on a deep knowledge base and deliberate practice, another fascinating topic of research for future scholars of polymathy.