Ok. There should have been a “something else” option and that is that really maybe 1 percent of the marbles contain 99 percent of the information that is consequential. And that we have do those marbles, we just forget about them. Does that make me an optimist or a pessimist?
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.
I appreciate the question, Mark. It seems foolhardy to believe our knowledge even amounts to a single marble in that pile if we consider how much change some of us with multiple decades under our belts have witnessed in our lifetimes. Every day I hear of something new being created, and with AI only in its infancy, I can only imagine how much more there is to discover. And then there's that whole unexplored universe out there. Even with all our probes, telescopes, satellites, space gadgets, etc., how much do we really know about it?
In a scene I just watched from Albert Brooks' film "Defending Your Life," (in a terrific new documentary by Rob Reiner on HBO Max), his character is "defending his life" in Judgment City in the Afterlife and is told that humans only use 3% to 5% of their brains and are called "little brains," compared to Judgement City residents, who use 40% to 60% of theirs. The purpose of life in this context is to grow smarter, which most humans haven't. The movie, made in 1991, still seems relevant today--and might have some bearing on your topic.
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]
Ok. There should have been a “something else” option and that is that really maybe 1 percent of the marbles contain 99 percent of the information that is consequential. And that we have do those marbles, we just forget about them. Does that make me an optimist or a pessimist?
We only use a small percentage of our brains and man has been here for a mere 190,000 years. There’s a lot more to figure out. 🤔
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.
I appreciate the question, Mark. It seems foolhardy to believe our knowledge even amounts to a single marble in that pile if we consider how much change some of us with multiple decades under our belts have witnessed in our lifetimes. Every day I hear of something new being created, and with AI only in its infancy, I can only imagine how much more there is to discover. And then there's that whole unexplored universe out there. Even with all our probes, telescopes, satellites, space gadgets, etc., how much do we really know about it?
In a scene I just watched from Albert Brooks' film "Defending Your Life," (in a terrific new documentary by Rob Reiner on HBO Max), his character is "defending his life" in Judgment City in the Afterlife and is told that humans only use 3% to 5% of their brains and are called "little brains," compared to Judgement City residents, who use 40% to 60% of theirs. The purpose of life in this context is to grow smarter, which most humans haven't. The movie, made in 1991, still seems relevant today--and might have some bearing on your topic.
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]