For All The Marbles
New ideas are not in short supply
There are lots of ways to see the world and I think each of them are useful. After a bunch of posting it is not surprising I might repeat myself. It feels better to consider it means my thinking is converging. In an old post I shared a favorite quote from the statistician George Box — “All models are wrong but some are useful”.
Right, Wrong, and In Between
When I was young and impressionable my parents started with right and wrong. I think the model was wrong but it was useful! Right and wrong is a great way to simplify the world especially if you don’t know what a hot stove feels like. Yes and no, right and wrong, left and right, up and down. Useful, but wrong sometimes.
I would imagine we would have figured out most everything a while ago if there wasn’t any subtlety to the world. What our path on this Earth has taught us is we need our eyes and other senses at all times. I figure once we accept black or white as a truism, we may as well wear a hood and earplugs. Certitude is the path to getting lost in the wilderness.
This doesn’t mean there is no value in a compass, our anchored beliefs, or acquired knowledge. What is true, at least for me, is with practice I can be joyful in learning new things or even subtle adjustments to what I thought I knew.
I didn’t always think this way. Nowadays I have come to a place where I have equal parts faith and hope that any current understanding can always be refined and get better. For those things I’ve gotten wrong and let be settled in my mind I must work through it to a better understanding. I like to believe this is not only better for me but for the reflected self the world experiences. The best part of all of it is the approach nurtures my hope and faith.
What a wonderful thing it would have been to have this outlook as a young man. That’s not how it works. We are all works in progress.
Marble Talk
So what’s up with the marbles? Today I am imagining that everything worth knowing in the world and how it works can be represented by a bunch of marbles. Now the experiment I would like each of you to imagine is the following:
Let’s imagine we spread out all the marbles as representatives of what I will call consequential knowledge
Now, imagine you want to choose the fraction of “all the marbles” that represent what we’ve collectively figured out.
The marbles left to be figured out will be the leftovers.
So before we go further, pick a number for the fraction of the marbles we’ve figured out so far.
I suppose based on whether you are a pessimist or an optimist will govern whether you use the large jar or the small jar.
Today’s poll comes early as I want to see how my readers view the world and our progress so far.
I Want Your Opinion
I certainly have an opinion but unless I am just full of it, I can be swayed. I would prefer hearing from some of you as I can’t help but learn something that way. Join me in the comments for a fun dialog. I plan to revisit this topic early in December and it will be heavily based on your opinions.
Some Ideas From The Past
A topic I have discussed previously is the recency of when we developed an alphabet. I think all of the necessities for us to trailblaze toward understanding have been accomplished. An alphabet was a huge step forward for us.
Another opinion I consider important is conquering the limitations of our senses. There is a lot of very cool stuff out there. Some of it is REMARKABLY small while other parts of our world are IMPOSSIBLY large. If you are interested in small stuff and want to understand our progress so far, this one is for you
If your interest shades toward big stuff my favorite is about supernovas.
Wherever you come down on my question for a Monday morning, please check in with a comment. If you prefer your anonymity please vote in the poll.
Music
In the spirit of there are no wrong answers, enjoy this song by one of my favorite artists. The dude can sing.
I wouldn’t even begin to try to guess! It’s still fascinating to me that nobody has even quite figured out how humans manage to walk bipedally. Knowledge feels like a fractal, infinitely discursive.
One of my favorite tidbits of knowledge that I enjoy was the statement attributed to Charles Holland Duell, which has since been debunked, "Everything that can be invented has been invented."
This is from Wikipedia:
Duell has become famous for, during his tenure as United States Commissioner of Patents, purportedly saying "Everything that can be invented has been invented."[4] However, this has been debunked as apocryphal by librarian Samuel Sass[5] who traced the quote back to a 1981 book titled "The Book of Facts and Fallacies" by Chris Morgan and David Langford.[6] In fact, Duell said in 1902:
In my opinion, all previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness. I almost wish that I might live my life over again to see the wonders which are at the threshold.[7]
Dennis Crouch saw a correlation between the expression and a joke from an 1899 edition of Punch magazine.
In that edition, the comedy magazine offered a look at the "coming century." In colloquy, a genius asked "isn't there a clerk who can examine patents?" A boy replied "Quite unnecessary, Sir. Everything that can be invented has been invented."[8]