The advantage which sports gives us is a sense of ...

2008-06-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

The advantage which sports gives us is a sense of competition, game, and play. Those three elements are key to learning in unfamiliar territory. Remembering stats is part of playing the game of being a fan. Look at highly intellectual learning experiences for children such as FIRST and you will see the same type of dedication and the pay off which comes from it.

Sports, play and fandom are all part of learning and why things like simulation are growing so dramatically these days. It’s the sense of competition in being a fan which gives us such intellectual success as String Ducky for String Theory. That particular case shows exactly how being a fan can create the drive within a person to then move out of simply being a fan and act, learn and contribute to the overall collective intelligence of us as a race on this Earth.

In addition, what you were hearing on Planet Mikey was probably not an individual’s knowledge, but instead both the product of collective intelligence and also the practice of it. Many people pooling their knowledge to expand something and discuss a subject creatively. So what it sounds like on the surface is statistics, but in actuality it’s the beauty of knowledge learned from many people all coming together. Such practice has created the greatest human success from heart stents to Wikipedia.

Comments on ~ on media engagement, by Margaret Weigel: A thought on the benefits of fandom

The advantage which sports gives us is a sense of ...