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gsf_emergency_2 | 5 months ago
If I were to put myself in Archimedes' shoes (when he basically discovered calculus) motivation comes from "this is nuts but it could work" and meaning comes from "yep that works!"
(That was long ago, but I'm sure it also happens today)
fellowniusmonk|5 months ago
When we imagine something in our brain we are physically testing or creating something even if ephemeral, these thoughts you make have meaning and are real just with low distribution.
They can be very complex thoughts, you can invent worlds and objects and play around with them in your mind for relatively low cost, this is the root of humanities power, the ability to create meaning, to create arbitrary coherence (even if it's just internal coherence)
You can distribute this meaning to others, as a written or spoken word.
You can investigate if your thought has correspondence to something that exists in the exterior world. This can be science and discovery.
But you can also create something that you know doesn't exist and then work to have it realized in the external world.
What's the casual path from Gene Rondenberry to the iPod? Hard to compute.
We create meaning. It's what we do.
The funny thing is this, we keep talking about people's search for meaning, but if we look at the observable facts, to speak poetically, if the universe was sentient (and I don't personally believe it is) it would be looking to us to see what meaning we create and new shit we discover and why it works the way it does.
gsf_emergency_2|5 months ago
The causal path from Rodenderry to the ipod .. is.. easy to approximate compared to the causal path from Zen Monks to Darth Vader.. (though they are in roughly opposite directions)