ZEROING IN ON ZENO

January 5th, 2019

I say ‘Marco’, you say ‘Polo’.  And based on what I hear, which direction it sounds like ‘Polo’ comes from and how faint or loud it is, I move in that direction a certain distance.  I repeat it and call out ‘Marco’ again, and hopefully the response sounds a little closer. 

A basic search algorithm for a set of numbers that seeks to find just one number will query the half way point to see if that half way point is smaller or greater than the number it seeks to find.  Having done this, the search algorithm has eliminated half of the dataset from it’s search.  It then performs the same function on just the remaining half, and it repeats this until it finds the number.

Each time it queries whether the halfway point is larger or smaller than the sought after number, it’s somewhat like calling out ‘Marco’ in the game of Marco-Polo.

Then there is Zeno’s Paradox, which states: if you are travelling from point A to point B, then you have to pass the halfway point between A and B, and while traversing the second half, you have to pass the halfway point of this segment, and in order to traverse the second half of this segment, you again have to cross the halfway point.  And since we can always cut something in two in theory, we never arrive at B because we are busy slicing the remaining distance in half.    Zeno’s paradox holds if there isn’t some kind of smallest possible distance that cannot be divided into two, but this is beyond our scope, and question of large debate among physicists.  Clearly we can get from point A to B but this does not some how negate the usefulness of Zeno’s paradox.

Mathematically, Zeno’s paradox is describing an asymptote.  We can picture a curve on a graph that is always getting closer to a particular number, but never actually arriving.  While Zeno’s paradox is always framed as a curious thought experiment about distance and space, it’s more accurately applied to finding, learning and strategizing.

We might think of a given skill that we can learn, like playing pool.  Our first hour playing might be awful, but as we figure things out, our brain is constantly pivoting back and forth in order to find a method of operating that works in closer concert to our goal.  Quickly the accuracy of our shot goes from not even hitting our indented target on the pool table to trying to get it to ricochet at just the right angle.  We are making smaller and smaller adjustments as we move forward.

Or we might think of a sculptor, whether adding clay or removing stone, large amounts of material are being moved to rough out a basic shape, and as the sculptor continues less material is moved with each action until the finishing touches are barely perceptible changes in the form and feature of the sculpture.

Or we might think of switchbacks that lead up a mountain.  At the base each switchback is long, but as we get closer to the top there is literally less room for each switchback so we pivot faster, more often but on a much smaller scale. 

In the case of pool, each shot being taken is slowly zeroing in on a better understanding of the geometry involved.  For the sculpture, the artist slowly zeroes in on just the right size and shape in order to convey the object they portray, and for the hiker, it’s as simple as zeroing in on the top. 

All learning incorporates a kind of search algorithm like this that helps us zero in our skills and fine-tune our efforts.  We start with large leaps, cutting half the dataset out of our perspective, and then slowly work our way towards tiny steps, until we are fine-tuning on such a small scale that there is nearly nothing left to cut in half, or certainly nothing we can easily perceive that can be improved upon. 

This is why, when a friend shows an impressive project, we might be astonished but the creator is likely to disagree somewhat and say that it could be better.  As a mere observer our ability to recognize the interaction of all details pales in comparison to the creator who is zoomed in to the project and sees it with a fine-tooth comb.

It may seem like Zeno made a mistake by applying a principle to the wrong domain, but it’s clear his creative command of concepts zeroed in on just the kind of brain teaser that would last for millennia.

This episode references Episode 8: Tiny Steps and Leaps, and Episode 54: The Well-Oiled Zoom and Episode 72: Perseverance vs. Pivot

IF YOU WILL

January 4th, 2019

This phrase is defined as being used to politely invite a listener or reader to do something or to entertain a fanciful term.

It’s fairly straightforward with regards to asking someone to do something. But why ask with a fanciful term?

Is this just a relic of earlier times when perhaps conventions in language were more formal in the same way that the word ‘please’ comes from the phrase ‘if it pleases you’?

Perhaps, but even so, the lingering linguistic tendency can be usefully interpreted regardless.

So much of the dialogue that goes on is a kind of battle where points are launched in debate against one another.  Arguments abound and a phrase like ‘if you will’ strikes a completely opposite tenor from the tone we often see, most particularly on social media and the news. 

‘If you will’, is an invitation, asked with kindness, to be generous.  Generous with what? we might ask? 

Generous with our perspective, if you will.

Our perspective is a kind of place in the conceptual and linguistic landscape.  If you will is a gentle request that we move – if only for a moment or two – out of our perspective in order to inhabit a different point and place in the conceptual landscape. 

It’s almost as if to say ‘if you will entertain my idea for just a moment, you might be able to see things how I see them, from the place that I stand.’

The suggestion to ‘walk a mile’ in someone else’s shoes seems to be under-used in the atmosphere of today’s divisively inclined world, but it fits in well here.  The phrase in focus asks,

“If you will step into my shoes”

The phrase is almost demure, and perhaps this attitude is more generous than submissive because it can be read to carry an implicit understanding that it’s difficult to abandon one’s own perspective in favor of trying to truly see and understand what someone else is thinking, feeling, experiencing, and ultimately what they are trying to express.  We are all too often trying to achieve this on our own terms, to express what we are thinking and feeling instead of going on the difficult quest of generously entertaining someone else’s point of view. 

Which is, perhaps, the tragedy of the age, if you will.

YOU HAVE A POINT

January 3rd, 2019

The word point in this sense of a matter being discussed comes from the late 14^th Century.  As with all words and phrases it’s drifted and morphed into all sorts of expressions:

While you may think you have a point, someone else might say “what’s the point” out of a negative sense of defeat, or they might say “get to the point,” out of frustrated restlessness.  Neither seem to indicate that the distance between our perspective and our companion in dialogue is closing, but quite the opposite.

It’s only when we hear someone say “you have a point,” that we move our discussion in the other direction.  Such a statement is either overly polite and a person wants to indicate a vaguely positive sentiment without conceding the point, or they have been surprised by an unexpected perspective and their own is somewhat unsettled by this. 

It’s only when someone reacts to our ideas by saying they’re ‘on point’, that we know we’re in accord.

Perhaps in this sense it’s more evocative of our common point of view?

Clearly, the number of ways to use this deceptively simple word is large and wide-ranging, making it either very complex, or incredibly simple.

The fractured etymology of this word originally refers to a sharp instrument used to prick a hole in something.  A sharp point if you will.

We can imagine an echo chamber getting a hole pricked in it’s conceptual fabric by a better idea.  Such a hole in the bubble of our own little world might afford us a view of what’s going on outside our own claustrophobic little mindset.  Indeed, it would be a new point of view.

Any new point of view that we seriously entertain is inherently destabilizing.  To lend it credibility is to risk usurping credibility from another part of our worldview.  Such change requires a comfort with uncertainty that seems to be increasingly in short supply the safer our physical lives become.  A risky physical environment makes us attentive because there can be so much more to lose.  Such potential violence might prime the mind to stay receptive to new information in order to survive, whereas a coddled mind, having less and less reason to fear any real repercussions becomes stagnant and stubborn.

In such a circumstance we need to sharpen our own tool and challenge our echo chambers from the inside out.  Nothing is more powerful than a good question to do this. We can sharpen our questions, by rethinking them into new questions, asking them in more specific or counter-intuitive ways, and in so doing fashion a point with which to poke a hole in our own echo-chamber.  A true question is an open-ended concept that creates forward momentum – a forward momentum that takes us out of our comfort zone and challenges us with a new perspective that exists outside our own opinion, seen by means of a new point of view.

This episode references Episode 128: Question, and Episode 30: The Only Tool.

TAKE A HIKE

January 2nd, 2019

Everyone talks about the view from the top, but this is not why we go on hikes.  Certainly the reward of a lovely and interesting view is nice, but few actually spend more than a few minutes looking around, snapping a few photos and trying to orient what they know about geography to what is in front of them.  We go for the actual hiking. 

At it’s most basic, it’s exercise in an interesting natural environment.  But beyond this, you get what you can’t get in a gym: you get a lot of variance in how you have to move your body and where your concentration needs to go as the path winds up.  And at any moment, taking a break is an opportunity to take in the natural world, as opposed to huffing and puffing while looking at a cement wall or at a muted Television.

The hike is a sort of process.  We have to make a decision with every step, being sure to place our foot in a way that is safe and advantageous, all the while having a vague focus on the larger picture of getting to the top. 

Carrying out many ideas that have never been done before require a similar kind of process.  A new business for example, while it might be like many others is inevitably going to involve some kind of novel approach, even if it’s just due to the fact that the person or people have never done it before.  But as with a hike, each and every step is not and will not be perfect.  Our boot slips on wet rock, but this usually does not ruin the hike.  Nor perhaps do we always pick the right spot, and find our boot sinking in mud or punching through soft rotten wood.  As with the process of starting a business or trying to meditate or write a book, almost no single step in the process is perfect, and some might be downright setbacks, but all taken together and we can bask in the glory of a good view from the top of such achievements.

So often we do not start our project, thinking that we must imagine it in our minds so perfectly that each step will be flawless, all obstacles being anticipated and planned for.  But such a perspective is pure fantasy, just as expecting to have an idea of every step of a hike just by looking at the mountain from afar is a ridiculous notion. 

We must toss the idea of the perfect start and just start.  Any success down the line will simply show that a perfect start was not needed, nor was any other perfect step needed, just that steps are taken.

So when we find an interesting but difficult and unlikely idea tumbling out in our language and in response someone sneers and says “go take a hike.”  Perhaps we should take heed and give it a shot.

RE-SOLVE

January 1st, 2019

Today is the entirely overrated first day of the year when we all try to initiate all sorts of new positive behaviors and attempt to beat back the old bad habits that are all too easy to fall back into.

What exactly are these resolutions?

Re-solution.  As in, solve again, or try a new solution. So to resolve to do something, to have a resolution is to attempt to solve a problem.

This is the core of the word but the often missed point.  Each year we start the same good habits with gusto and motivation and naively think that this year the new difficult behavior will stick for sure!  Our sense of drive and determination is all too quiet when our new, fragile behavior has fallen by the wayside.

This boils down to the simple fact that we are not trying a new and different solution to our age-old problems, we are actually just repeating the old solution that we’ve had in our head for a year or two, or perhaps even decades.

Why does it take us so long to clue into the fact that much of our behavior is fruitlessly repeated without change in the result?  We like to cite the ill-conceived idea that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result and yet everyone is guilty of this sort of contradiction.  Especially in the first weeks and months of the year when the excitement of the arbitrary change of year has worn off.

This problem might have to do with the convincing nature of emotions.  We go through the same self-defeating motions because the pattern of emotion that leads us from one action to the next is the same each time.  It’s quite fitting that the two words motion and emotion differ by one letter. 

Because of this behavioral function, New Year’s resolutions are more like New Year’s Repetitions.

We check our mirrors while driving before changing direction, and so too we should look back and honestly think about how any resolutions a year ago failed.  Why did they fail?  And what can be done differently this time to actually solve the problems we resolve to fix?  What about the manner of our thinking can change in order to find this difference in strategy?

When it comes right down to it, the attempt to change one’s self and one’s behavior is a quest and question of emotional manipulation.   We are often chasing goals because of how we imagine we might feel after the goal is achieved, but then we get sidetracked in our progress because the emotions aroused by the progress or lack thereof are not in line with what we expect or what we hoped for.  Focusing on the pattern and flux of different emotions during the process of behavioral change or building to some achievement or goal is probably far more effective than continually trying to remind one’s self of the imagined emotion that waits at the end of the rainbow’s goal.  We must also take into account the very real possibility that we could be wrong about how we’ll feel once we’ve achieved what we’re looking for.  Like an ambitious student who becomes a doctor but forgets to factor in the small problem that they despise being around sick people.  The achievement can be a doorway to misery, even if it comes along with the status and pomp. 

We are best to focus on editing our process.  Finding the Minimum Viable Success here by chipping the goal into small composite pieces is particularly key here.  By biting off small enough chunks of the problem that we can solve and slowly build upon, we can build real achievements.

Knowing how to manipulate one’s own emotional story in this way is key because it is a skill that can then be utilized for any goal or problem that comes up in life. 

The old proverb ‘know thyself’ has a real and practical meaning here.  Being mindful of our emotional state, it’s fluctuations, it’s trips and forks and what cracks exist where we can wiggle in the thin edge of the wedge and hack our way to a new state is the underlying key to changing ourselves, building progress towards achievements and ultimately reordering our operating system to be optimized for a fulfilling process as opposed to chasing some imaginary state.

None of this applies to just one specific day but is relevant during every day we find ourselves still with the gift of being alive.  Each day is not only an opportunity to work towards a goal, but to learn about our own self a little more deeply and perhaps see with a fuller context just how we might steer the ship in a different direction, for even a change of a single degree leads to radically different places.

This episode references Episode 34: Wiggle, Episode 234: Chipping the Composite, Episode 169: Practicing Insanity, Episode 257: Check your Mirrors, and Episode 200: Think Again