By Subtle Analogy
Tuesday • January 12th 2021 • 11:30:38 pm
I don't remember how I found Whitman's Kosmos,
as beautiful as the ending is, it is the middle that caught my attention.
"Who, out of the theory of the earth and of his or her body understands by subtle analogies all other theories,
The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of these States;"
I remember maybe Chomsky saying that genes that Apes use for navigation,
got copied and helped us develop other faculties that rely on now, more abstract, forms of navigation.
The thing that makes math useful,
or string theory stick for that matter, that is shares properties with the Universe.
Two apples and one more apple, make three apples,
this is not math, math uses numbers, not apples... this is Universe.
Math is something that is a subtle analogy,
to the basic rules of the universe, the universe that we see with our own eyes.
This idea of understanding things by Subtle Analogy is more than a tool for observations,
it is a tool that can create as well.
Leonard Susskind in his Must the Universe Contain Consciousness?
does not even make a big deal, or a small deal about thinking by subtle analogy to Biology.
Understanding something we have never encountered before,
by subtle analogy, to something we already understand, is a powerful tool.
And Knowledge clearly, is a fuel to understanding and inventing things,
by subtle analogy to what we already know.
It is safe to say, that the more we know the faster
we can learn and understand, create and invent.
Therefore, to read a thousand books,
does not just mean that a person acquires knowledge of a thousand lifetimes.
It means they reach the tipping point,
required for idea synthesis and become infinitely creative.
Even if the ideas they have are tiny at first,
they continue adding to them, almost as if they were learning from themselves.