constructions in magical thinking
The idea of stability is a central organizing concept in mathematics and control theory. Lately I have been pondering a more basic idea: equilibrium, which economists prefer to work with. Looking at some fallen trees this weekend, a point I had appreciated in the abstract hit me in a very tangible form: both stability and equilibrium are intellectual fictions. Here is the sight which sparked this train of thought:
I don’t usually read the Harvard Business Review because it is inconvenient to read for free, and expensive to pay for, but I happened to dip into the latest issue and was really impressed with the Jeff Bezos interview. Every generation in business is defined by one or two CEOs who manifest and model the defining qualities of the age. With this interview, I think Bezos is in contention for the 2000s.
I kicked off my writing on consciousness with a post on my overall framing of the problem. Now, by way of warm-up, let’s explore a problem that is confusing and interesting, but not completely mysterious, which I call the problem of indexical extent. The indexical problem is this: assume somebody explains consciousness satisfactorily, and even the existence of specific conscious points of view. Follow-up question: Why are particular conscious points of view associated with particular conscious beings? In particular, why is this particular conscious point of view associated with me? That’s still too hard, so let’s start with a simpler question: “Where is I?” This is the problem of indexical extent.
Everybody who gets up on a soapbox at some point needs to make a ritual declaration by finishing the sentence: “The twenty-first century will be about ________.” We’ve heard pronouncements from various gurus that the blank should be filled with 1) China, 2) Chindia, 3) BRIC nations 4) Global warming, 5) Terror, 6) Right-brained thinking, 7) Wisdom (the logic being “something that tops the age of information”) 8 ) Non-profits, 9) Multinationals 10) The aging global population. They are all wrong, and I know what I am talking about because my middle name is actually Guru. The twenty-first century will be about food. It will be a century of amazing progress. All aspects of humanity’s engagement of food: its culture, ethics, taste, healthfulness and philosophy, will get better. And it will all be in large part due to a revolution being ushered in by that much-maligned technology, television.
Note: the ideas in this post have been significantly refined and turned into a book. The treatment here is somewhat obsolete as a result, but the spirit of my revised arguments remain the same.
Suppose a job candidate walks into your office and hands you a resume. It proclaims, “strategic, systems thinker.” You wince, and almost throw her out right there, but since other parts of her resume look promising, you decide to give her a chance and proceed with the interview. Now ask yourself, how would you actually probe if there is any substance behind the candidate’s claim to strategic abilities? Here is a very good answer: ask the candidate to tell a story. Not any old story, but a relevant one, like how she views the history of development of her field. Or how she views her own personal trajectory. If you can’t figure out why this is an excellent question, read on.
I have encountered three metaphors for what most people call the ‘work-life balance’ issue. These are: juggling, keeping multiple plates spinning on sticks, and surfing. Each has its strengths and flaws. All share in common the problems that arise from calling the whole thing a ‘balance’ problem in the first place, but the ‘balance’ point of view has some merits. Here is a straight-faced analysis. I conclude that ‘surfing’ is the best-of-breed within the whole ‘balance’ category or metaphors. Here is why.
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For those of you following my series on digital physics (the first part, on the reality of the real line, and the second part on the relevance on cellular automata have been posted), you will like this documentary on the nature of infinity by BBC. It features Gregory Chaitin, whose work I covered in the first part.
Nandini tagged me to participate in a meme on books. Not exactly how I’d break down my reading tastes, but I suppose I have to be a sociable blogger. So here goes, the books in my life parsed through a dizzying array of angles:
Okay, so I am not clockwork regular in posting roundups, but at least it’s here. August and the first week of September saw a good deal of interesting activity on Ribbonfarm. Two minor milestones: first, I crossed 100 comments for a base of 27 articles, so that’s still nearly 4 comments per article, which makes me happy. Second, I got my first ever traffic spike from a social bookmarking site (StumbleUpon) — the piece on cartograms generated the spike (probably thanks to reader Kapsio posting a link to it at a popular data visualization site — thanks Kaps!). Anyway, here is a summary of the posts since the last update:
