[FRIAM] words RE: words

[Nick Thompson]

"Familiarity extinguishes emergence"  - G. Ropella, 2019

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2019 12:39 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] words RE: words

IDK, man. I look at what my uncle does with his welding and woodworking and I'm amazed. He doesn't really even draft it out... just a few napkin sketches with some inches and feet and poof! there's a steel trailer you can haul your motorcycle on ... at freeway speeds.

I'm not amazed by CAs because I've *played* with them for hundreds of hours ... maybe even thousands of hours ... I have no idea at this point. It's difficult for me believe people who play hundreds of hours with anything could be regarded as "remarkable in their craft" ... except in the sense of stubbornness, perversity, or somesuch like that.

On 5/7/19 11:28 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> You see, this conversation just confirms me in my belief that you-guys 
> have lost touch with just how remarkable your craft is.
> 
>  
> 
> As I think Lee would say (dammit, Lee, where are you?), don't ask a 
> fish about water; he knows nothing of it.
> 
>  
> 
> What's the miracle of epigenesis?  /E uno pluris/.  We start with one 
> thing, we make a few exact copies of it, and then, all of a sudden, we are making different things, tissues, organs, etc.  We are surprised when uniformity generates variety.  What’s the miracle  of organisms?  /E pluribus unum/.  When the lion charges us on the Veldt, we face a huge collection of cells that somehow manages to act as a very concerted whole.  We are surprised when variety coalesces into uniformity.
> 
>  
> 
> Both phenomena are amply presented in the pages of Wolfram.  Every day 
> you go to work, you make both of these things happen on your screen.  And yet you are not amazed by it?

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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