Posted by ---[Randal]--- at cache2-nrth.server.ntli.net on June 15, 2003 at 17:34:51:
In Reply to: Okay... Let's try this again. Feedback? posted by raoulduke on June 15, 2003 at 17:09:34:
: Wonderment and Trauma…Reality Without a Net…
: MWH
: Richmond, VA
: I am sitting here wondering if there has only ever existed this single instance of wondering if there has only ever existed this single instance of wondering if there has only ever existed this single instance of wondering.
: Tom Robbins' book "Skinny Legs and All" makes a little claim that the Hindu creator god Brahma moved westward and became Abraam became Abraham and grew a moustache and beard. I don't know about that, but it's a neat idea. Might do some research. Recently struck me how similar the Hindu word and concept "Shakti" is to the Jewish word and concept "Shekinah".
: Patterns fascinate me, as you well know. Patterns and popular conceptions of things as opposed to the way they really are. Identity. Time. Meaning.
: Little things with a few particular properties will form greater things that appear very structured and one gets the impression that they must have been designed that way, made that way by some external intelligence.
: Take, for example, flocks of birds. Or swarms of insects. Or schools of fish. Give each one a few simple properties or parameters:
: If you are within 3 lengths of three or more other units, change course 30 degrees towards their average position.
: If you are within 3 lengths of two other units, maintain course.
: If you are within 3 lengths of only one other unit, change course 10 degrees towards it.
: If you are not within 3 lengths of any other unit, change course randomly.
: Move five lengths in this direction and check again.
: Given these simple rules, the whole flock will move in interesting spirals and twists and turns and it will almost seem as if the whole thing is thinking as a whole. It's not, though.
: Take life... DNA... whatever. Give it a few simple properties. Each unit...
: ...assimilates appropriate available matter;
: ...reproduces;
: ...and occasionally produces slight differences.
: Many differences will arise, and most won't survive its initial generation, but very occasionally one will have an advantage over the others, assimilate more matter and reproduce more, and gain dominance. Goto 10. A zillion cycles later we have what has the appearance of an intentionally designed ecosystem. But it's not.
: Well, maybe. The distinction between intentional design and dumb luck alternates very quickly between real and non-existent, to me.
: Take an idea. Give it a couple of properties. It contains within itself the imperative (or at least the inclination) to pass it on to others. Each person has a slightly different interpretation of the idea, and lends their own thinking towards making it palatable to themselves and, thus, others. Certain variants are more palatable and contain more of an imperative to pass them on, and these gain dominance over the others.
: It seems like some insidious intelligence is behind it all, masterminding it. But there's not.
: We're born to see patterns, and we tend to attribute them in all kinds of directions. Primitive man sees in a rock formation, a human face, or maybe a human phallus, and induces its creation by an anthropomorphic being. Someone sees tea leaves that look a little like a crescent moon, and waits anxiously for this month to pass.
: Lotto numbers form one person's birth date, another person's random numbers.
: I narrowly escape death and call it a miracle. The people who don't narrowly escape death aren't around to call it dumb luck. Seems like so many miracles, so little dumb luck.
: The way we see things, the way we rationalize things, interests me.
: I met a guy who was telling me about this theory of how the mind works, that the mind has modules that perform particular tasks, and that as we've developed through civilization these modules have been adapted or used to perform new tasks. Same modules, new tasks. Pattern recognition being used for statistics, instead of hunting deer. Positioning being used for driving taxis instead of finding our way home to the huts. Danger anxiety being used for thrills in movie theatres instead of to avoid being gored by that boar.
: When I was young, numbers had personality.
: Number 7 still feels like an old imaginary friend.