Week 229: “You are to act in the light of experience as guided by intelligence.”
Another bottle episode today, as I'm on the road in New Jersey. If Catie's team does well on their small group and qualifies for the Final Five at Worlds, we will need this. If not, we'll be home in time for me to add an hour of writing to this and it won't be short.
I've been a fan of the Nero Wolfe stories since college. I have a history of picking up things from Half-Price Books for the next flight, since I read The League of Frightened Men on a flight to Phoenix for nationals, I've found room for them in my bag.
I've appreciated the books for their linguistic precision, appreciation of food and other personal passions, and their division of labor. A housebound, routine-bound, genius of detail who would be nowhere without a constantly prodding active body no less sharp, but in different ways. I aspired to Archie Goodwin-hood in my youth, and I think I've coasted on my near-enough-to-photographic memory through much of my life. But if we're talking about coaching quiz bowl, coaches must be Wolfe in the brownstone, guiding their investigators, and only leaving their chair in extraordinary circumstances.
Some time last year I picked up In the Best Families, the third part of the Zeck Trilogy, a series of three Wolfe novels involving to increasing degree, Arnold Zeck, an attempt to create an archenemy for Wolfe. I haven't read the third volume, but I suddenly realized this week that is the book that contains the statement that summarizes all advice I've taken from the books. It's a quote I've frequently run across prior to reading the book, but because I took the trilogy in order, I've never read it in full context. It comes as a final note of guidance to Archie as Wolfe suddenly disappears (you and I will have to read the book for the complete circumstances.)
“You are to act in the light of experience as guided by intelligence.”
I have tried to include this in numerous points in the book that is to come. I have yet to settle on the right spot, and the right context to deliver it. It's a succinct way of showing how this particular key of knowledge locks into the burr puzzle of the task. But faced with approaching it in full context, I'm uncertain as to whether I've been using it correctly.
As I'm getting into the book this quote comes from I realize I've been using it partially backwards all these years. My formulation as been "your intelligence as guided by your experience, " which reflects a different vector of approach at the same target. I could use that phrase as a panacea to explain a lot of things in quiz bowl without needing to go into detail.
How do you know to buzz in? Use your intelligence as guided by your experience. When your feeling is such that you're probably right, buzz in.
How do you anticipate the answer? What you have heard in previous questions is your experience. When your intelligence starts supplying possible clues that come next, there is your intelligence working.
How do you know all the bonus answers that come from a single leadin? Experience with the bonus questions tells you how far the questions can go from the leadin. Experience tells you all that can be there. Intelligence allows you to recall it.
My formulation is a good umbrella to group a bunch of advice together, but it's fast, loose, and unhelpful, while looking solid and sage from a distance. It would be a mistake Wolfe would catch.
What I've also had to consider in the run-up is the possible definition shift of the word "intelligence," because my formulation is different from my inclusion of the word "your." If it refers to intelligence not as a natural faculty of the person, but intelligence, the gathered knowledge of a subject given to you by another person. That seems more accurate to much of what else I've written. Missing questions and seeing why you missed them is better training than having an instructor going through it with you without letting you fail. And you are limited by playing time to see your failures through to their conclusion. Your experience will tell you how much you can trust it, but you need to know how much you trust your knowledge when it comes from someone else’s experience. What you have been given by others may be inaccurate, but their information is necessary to cover new situations.