020625,
Quote #255:
A Simple Understanding of Complexity
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...It
is true, and important to remember, that the simple cultures never
face the problems of complexity which we face in design. And it
is true that if they did face them, they would probably not make
any better a showing than we do. When we admire a simple situation
for its good qualities, this doesn't mean that we wish we
were back in the same situation. The dream of innocence is of
little comfort to us; our problem, the problem of organizing form
under complex constraints, is new and all our own. But in their
own way the simple cultures do their simple job better than we
do ours. I believe that only careful examination of their success
can give us the insight we need to solve the problem of complexity.
Let us ask, therefore, where this success comes from....
020611,
Quote #254:
From Converging Conditions
Come
Emergent Ideas
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One
of the most unusual and prolific research facilities
in history, PARC was originally conceived in much
more modest terms Ð as a research lab for a computer
subsidiary Xerox had recently acquired. How it
burst those boundaries in the early 1970s to become
something more closely resembling a national resource
is part of its special mystique. Four factors
contributed most to PARC's explosive creativity.
One was XeroxÕs money, a seemingly limitless cascade
of cash flowing from its near-monopoly on the
office copier. The second was a buyer's market
for high-caliber research talent. With the expenses
and politics of the Vietnam War cutting into the
government's research budget and a nationwide
recession exerting the same effect on corporate
research, Xerox was one of the rare enterprises
in a position to bid for the best scientists and
engineers around.
The
third factor was the state of computer technology,
which stood at a historic inflection point. The
old architectures of mainframe computers and time-sharing
systems were reaching the limits of traditional
technologies, and new ones were just coming into
play Ð semiconductor memories that offered huge
gains in speed and economics, for example, and
integrated circuits that allowed the science's
most farsighted visionaries to realize their dreams
for the first time. Never before or since would
computer science be poised to take such great
leaps of understanding in so short a period. The
intellectual hothouse of PARC was one of the few
places on earth employing the creative brainpower
to realize them.
020603,
Quote #253:
Science's 4 Step Creative Process
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Any
theoretical science has four aspects. These are:
insight,
to perceive the structure of new ideas;
imagination, which projects a mental image of
the whole idea, not only as a visual image, but
a feeling for it;
reasoning,
to work out the consequences logically; and finally,
calculation,
to get numbers that make possible precise tests
with experiment.
020518,
Quote #252:
"The Purpose of This Intense
Experience"°°
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As
is often the case with matters of real significance,
the constituent parts came together very gradually
at first, but then they fused together at the
end in a crescendo of insights and explosive recognition.
I can clearly recall being genuinely surprised
to discover, towards the end of our deliberations,
that my problem with respect to the people in
the lands beyond Camulod concerned nothing less
than the goals of the origin and survival in the
face of the unthinkable. My unexpected and intense
involvement with Nero Niger and his Appious clan
over the course of the ensuing few weeks provided
the different perspective that stripped the shutters
from my mind and allowed me to see the path I
had been unaware of for so long.
020426,
Quote #251:
Hymning to Life
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At
times like this, I can't resist getting into the
jeep with Ranguma and Paws and driving down the
hill to the mouth of Marble Canyon, and walking
up into it till we're 2000 feet deep in vertical
rock walls, and (if it's not spring, when Seneca
Creek really thunders), listening for the wildest
noise I think I've ever heard, the kingfisher's
cry echoing through the narrow canyon as he flashes
upriver, and that cry will call to me of all the
mysteries of nature, and of how, in Aldo Leopold's
words, everything is interconnected. And then
I may shout my great shout and Ranguma howl her
eery howl, and as the echoes fade we'll stand
silently marveling at the perfect desolation of
the place...
I
love all in man that talks to the patient roots
that move stones, and to the stones that move
but endure and to the water that feeds the roots
and rounds off the stones. I love all in man that
loves his world, all that hopes, all that remembers.
020408,
Quote #250:
The Value of Opinion
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...For
unfortunately, it is all too common among intellectuals
to want to impress others and, as Schopenhauer
put it, not to teach but to captivate. They appear
as leaders or prophets—partly because it
is expected of them to appear as prophets, as
proclaimers of the dark secrets of life and the
world, of man, history, and existence....
What
externally distinguishes the Enlightenment approach
and the approach of self-declared prophets? It
is language. The Enlightenment thinker speaks
as simply as possible. He wants to be understood.
In this respect Bertrand Russell is our unsurpassed
master among philosophers. Even when you cannot
agree with him, you have to admire him. He always
speaks so clearly, simply, directly.
Why
does simplicity of language matter so much to
Enlightenment thinkers? Because the true Enlightenment
thinker, the true rationalist, never wants to
talk anyone into anything. No, he does not even
want to convince: all the time he is aware that
he may be wrong. Above all, he values the intellectual
independence of others too highly to want to convince
them of important matters. He would much rather
invite contradiction, preferably in the form of
rational disciplined criticism. He seeks not to
convince but to arouse—to challenge others
to form free opinions. Free opinion formation
is precious to him: not only because this brings
us all closer to the truth, but also because he
respects free opinion formation as such. He respects
it even when he considers the opinion so formed
to be fundamentally wrong.
