Generalization versus specialization

The curse of specialization, exploration versus exploitation

In this piece I will talk about specialization.

In particular, how it relates to your education and what benchmarks should you set for yourself. The contents of this piece emanates from my experience of specializing in Robotics. I have spent a decade working on the subject, spent time pursuing a masters and a PhD degree from good universities.

All the degrees that can attest to my professional qualifications, truth remains that I am still a student and a beginner.

Knowledge is indeed infinite, no matter how much of it is acquired, you will only be in possession of a tiny dose.

Contents

• Specialization: the usual strategy

• An analogy

• The problem

• Generalization

• Exploration and exploitation

• Insights

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Specialization: the usual strategy

Every one wants to be special and the best at a particular craft.

They want to excel and belong to the club of people good at that particular craft. A great ambition, one must possess.

How does one pursue such an ambition?

Usual strategy is to obsess and spend most part of the day working towards the goal. One begins by taking a course or enroll oneself at an university and earn an academic degree as a proof of qualification. All good, as it contributes to your knowledge.

With enough persistence you will become better than most in your chosen field. If you persist long enough you will master the field.

Is it enough though?

No. This path leads to unwanted consequences.

Not that it is a wrong path, but something crucial is missing.

An analogy

Specialization is a treasure burried deep in an area except, you do not know where it is burried. It is not a unique treasure. In fact there exist many such treasures, which treasure you find is unknown and rather random.

What you need to do is start digging.

The problem with usual strategy of specialization is that a university or trends in the current job market tells you:

• The location of the treasure where you need to dig.

• The skill you would unlock when you dig deep enough.

Once you dig deep enough you acquire all the skills (analogous to university education or a short term course). You possess all the skills in a particular field, but you do not know what to do with it.

You know what everyone does with it and are limited to such a knowledge.

The problem

Your efforts in pursuing the course or the degree, digs a hole in the area you want to excel. Your need to specialize incentivizes the act of digging deeper. As a result, you may chose to pursue a masters or a PhD degree. Soon, you find yourself to be stuck in the same hole.

The need to generate wealth arising out of family responsibilities and your desires keep you hooked into the hole, which has now become your comfort zone. You want to get out, but fear that you cannot do much about it. After all you specialized in a particular skill.

This comfort zone becomes an impediment to further specialize and innovate. Your learning rate hits a wall and you realize lack of growth. You become mechanical. The need for creative expression takes over. It manifests as loss of motivation and the habit of procrastination, if left unexpressed.

Realize that your need to specialize made your actions exploitative (digging in the same area), as opposed to explorative (digging in different areas). Further, the exploitative decisions were chosen by an external entity, as opposed to your curiosity. As a result, you have deprived yourselves from varied experiences which are necessary for serendipity to occur.

If you wish to be a master and achieve a feat unique to you, you need the essential element of generalization.

Generalization

Mastery is not specialization. Although specialization is the visible part of mastery. As with most things, visuals are illusory. They only reveal part of the story, the tip of the iceberg, a beautiful tree whose deep roots go unnoticed.

Generalization is necessary to accumulate varied ideas even if it's at a superficial level. These generic ideas provide necessary support to your specialized skills, enabling mutation of ideas and thus increasing possibility of stumbling upon something unique.

Mutation of different ideas are necessary for growth in a particular skill or creation of a new skill. Serendipity drives innovation. Through exploitative actions of specialization we have blocked ourselves to the much need stimulus which drives innovation.

Is it a surprise we feel stuck, unable to generate unique ideas?

Exploration and exploitation

I consider this exploitative behavior as a case of instant gratification when pursuing our goals.

One must learn to develop varied skills - delay gratification - which allows serendipity to occur in the future. One must remain explorative.

The ideas such as productivity, efficiency etc - terms that one would use for a machine - runs counter productive to the goals of specialization in true sense. Unaware, we associate with such notions and as a result, we get obsessed with the outcomes instead of learning.

To see this point, consider the great thinkers of the past when the vanity pursuits of high status academic degrees did not exist. Sages in ancient India were well versed with language, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, human nature and left behind a trail of literature.

Similar pattern can be observed in European thinkers who begun the era of science. They all had in common, interests in diverse areas, eventually be known for a subset of their works. Their failures and works of lesser impact buried with time.

Insights

The snide comment “ Jack of all trades and master of none”, in this context is misleading. Remember,

Generalization is explorative, specialization is exploitative.

You need both. You need to explore in order to determine what to exploit. This combination is what makes mastery a difficult task, a path paved with uncertainty.

Therefore I contend,

You need to be jack of all trades in order to be master of one.

Great ideas and great minds are not cultivated in isolation. This is opposite to the nature - which is anything but isolated. We do the exact opposite in our efforts to specialize.

Therefore, explore, delay gratification, be jack of all trades. Specialize through learning everything that evokes your curiosity. Allow the serendipity to work its magic. There are no certain solutions for the uncertain pursuits.

Mastery is an uncertain pursuit.

Thanks for reading! If you liked the piece leave a comment and share!

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Recommended reading: Mastery by Robert Greene

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