[In this piece we’ll be exploring a bit of the ‘mental jiu jitsu.’]
I gathered within myself a couple of sighs and a couple of chuckles before I even sat down to this one. I’m always in a cheerful mood now, though that will require some explaining.
Abandoning conventionality will be registered with the reference point BFK19330.33889 which aligns with what I said in …Petty bickering (BFK19329.98819) re: an easy-reference system.
[The nomenclature is simple, that’s the number of days, down to a resolution of 8.64 seconds. That gives the specific moment something appears to occur to someone. This is valuable information, as we will see later.
To compile the human record into a clean, crisp, and easily followed database, we use this nomenclature because the current record for human lifespan is 44724.5 by Jeanne Calment (1875–1997) of France. This gives the method a useful life at least as far into the future as it takes the first of us to achieve a lifespan of 273 years, 286 days. I’d estimate that to be roughly 250 years from now.
You’ll note that the easier the system looks, the more complex the backend has to be in order to achieve it effectively. This is known as the Law of Inverse Complexity, or Tesler’s Law. Tesler is a special favorite of mine, as he was the…drum roll please…inventor of Copy & Paste. Because I want to keep this linear English description of a fractal space limited in length, I won’t pursue this further for the moment.
You might also want to know that my mother was a reference librarian. Some people are just lucky, I guess.]
You’ll note that in the next-to-last piece The next step (BK19330.99) I noted the following — reasonably worthwhile bits of information to keep track of:
- How critical it is to let bygones be bygones
- How hopeful I am that we can get this done
- How convinced I am that we can: pretty much absolutely convinced
- A few of the utterly astonishing things I learned in the first eight hours of today (they’re there, I needn’t list them)⁵
- And finally, the last bit I want to put here: ᶜᵖᵗIn a letter to Robert Hooke in 1675, Newton wrote, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”ᶜᵖᵗ
So now this is a ‘loosely established’ convention by which to track what I’m working on. This will make it very easy to follow everything I’m saying whilst reading through this. It’s really quite plain, I think.
To recount/explain:
I realized that I needed to provide a more stable and in some way more consistent reference strategy; I wanted people to be able to be free from the unbelievable nuisance of the old style of citations.
Thus I built my own.
This is fair, of course, since I only use mine in my own work. Other people can use their own in their work. It will be easier for me to follow their references if they use ‘my’ style of referencing, but they are obviously at their own liberty. Give me liberty, etc. etc. I’m not into the whole process of force-feeding people. Too much of a nuisance. Sort of a horse to water thing.
However, I would like to point a few things out:
- If my way is easier, people will prefer it.
- If there are multiple ways of doing it already, then certainly one more way (used in one single author’s work) will hurt nothing.
- If there are multiple ways of doing something and one is both the easiest and the most lossless, I think that one will probably win.
Did you ever hear the story of the turtle and the hare? Neither did I. Not this particular telling, anyway. Where something of mine (this reference system) was pitted as ‘the turtle’ against the following Herculean rabbits of inestimable praise and good-sense-ed-ness:
ᶜᵖᵗThere are several major citation styles used for citing works in academic and professional writing. Each style has its own set of rules and guidelines for formatting citations and references. The choice of style often depends on the academic discipline or the preference of the publisher or institution. Here are some of the most widely used citation styles:
- APA (American Psychological Association): Commonly used in the social sciences, such as psychology, education, and sociology.
- MLA (Modern Language Association): Frequently used in the humanities, especially in literature, arts, and cultural studies.
- Chicago Style: There are two main types within this style:
Notes and Bibliography: Often used in history and the humanities.
Author-Date: Used in the social sciences and sciences. - Harvard: A popular author-date system used across a variety of academic disciplines.
- Turabian: A variation of the Chicago style that is geared more towards students and researchers.
- IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers): Commonly used in technical fields such as computer science and engineering.
- Vancouver: Predominantly used in the health and life sciences.
- AMA (American Medical Association): Often used in medical research and journals.
- OSCOLA (Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities): Used primarily in law.
- ACS (American Chemical Society): Used in chemistry.
Each of these styles has specific rules for in-text citations, footnotes/endnotes, and the format of the bibliography or reference list. It’s important to consistently follow the guidelines of the appropriate style for your field of study or the requirements of your publication or instructor.ᶜᵖᵗ
Here’s the thing:
Even simply considering this variety of referencing methods is cumbersome and unnecessary in the twenty-first century. Not only that, but it makes things like training AI systems on massive data sets *(not the current data but the data coming down the pike this next week, month, and year)* somewhat…
Let’s say, ‘troublesome.’
It’s troublesome in that when things actually get complex (they haven’t yet, I assure you) we’ll want to track down where our mistakes were made with the minimum amount of effort (i.e., procedurally.)
Any dunce with proper command of his quantum brain can realize this. In fact they ought to also real-eyes it, and thereafter reel-eyes it. [This I will explain in a few minutes, i.e., the difference between realize, real-eyes, and reel-eyes.]
Let’s suppose we already have all of our current fifty billion or a hundred billion or whatever little ‘data chunks’ tagged with where we found them— and when.
Surely if that’s true — I mean if it’s true under the following conditions:
- It’s tagged with a unique tag.
- It’s a reversible tag.
- It’s a piece of information a person ‘put out to the field’ which they are proud of, i.e., it’s a piece they wish to grow (e.g., like these mustard seeds I’m currently planting, Johnny Appleseed-style)
We can then:
- Give better credit where credit is due
- Greatly improve the likelihood that plagiarism will not occur
- Preserve the peace in the already-restless lives of the best of our creators.
We don’t want our creators to get sad, guys. That would be dumb.
Creators who get sad are creators who become less productive. We’ve all seen Limitless by now, and if you haven’t, have a look at the trailer:
Now I know it sounds like I’m suggesting we start by trashing all the old reference methods, but it’s really not like that. They can stay, surely. Vestiges of a day when we didn’t know any better — but let’s not do the ‘well gas stations are around because we need them’ thing.
Don’t even get me started on that one. I’m like Captain Planet on that one.
So the new method (this method I’m re-clarifying) works as follows:
- Author takes tag.
- Tag is comprised of …well, see, I’ve done this math elsewhere and I hate doing things twice, but since I’m doing this so you guys can all follow the logic…
The tag is comprised of the minimum number of characters which would be necessary to uniquely identify, let’s say, 100 billion people. That should be plenty for now.
The snag comes in the fact that there are still *lots* of languages, and some have very few characters.
[Note: this whole ‘autoformatting’ nightmare of a loop needs to be fixed. Both here and in MS Word, etc. We’re not children enough anymore to have our metaphorical fingers/hands slapped every.single.time we want to make a list and then a sublist and make it be legible for readers. I ought to be able to make up a perfectly obvious word like ‘sublist’ on the fly without having to stop what I’m doing, reach over to my mouse, remove the obnoxious red underling from the word (yeah, like I want to pull up a drop down and keep hitting ‘add to dictionary’ every 78 seconds or wtf it is on average. Medium probably doesn’t even have a way of cross referencing words added against other users so that we can seamlessly update the system dictionaries as society.inches.along.to.the.impossible.to.imagine.singularity.)
Guys, really. Do I *HAVE TO* walk you through all this stuff at this pace? I’ll do it, you know I will, but this business about *I* am the turtle…
This business about “you seem quite manic-y” etc. etc. etc. is *REALLY* rather annoying.]
So…where were we…
Ah yes, I was attempting again [in linear English, omg this kills me] to describe to you how:
- Author takes tag (mine is BFK, sorry if you don’t like it. This is the next version of cybersquatting. You remember when people just scarfed up everything that might look like a good website tag, right?
- Tag consists of some minimum number of characters to identify a single human being. Since we have quite a few languages, and the ‘smallest’ of them look something like this:
ᶜᵖᵗRotokas:
Spoken in Papua New Guinea, Rotokas has an alphabet of just 12 letters, which is one of the smallest in the world. It consists of 11 consonants and 5 vowels.
Pirahã:
This language, spoken by the Pirahã people in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, has a very small phonemic inventory. The exact number varies by gender: men use about 11 phonemes, and women use 10.
Hawaiian:
The Hawaiian language has a relatively small alphabet, consisting of only 13 letters: 8 consonants and 5 vowels.
Samoan:
Samoan has a total of 14 letters: 5 vowels and 9 consonants.ᶜᵖᵗ
…this “minimum number of characters to identify a single human being” really resolves itself to DNA + an extra section for D.O.B. [This would be the shortest of the long versions. I could, but I won’t, point out how this would also allow us quite a remarkable identification system as well — considering that it’s not particularly easy to fake one’s DNA. Probably what will happen is a DNA sample will be preserved from a person’s birth, the tag will use normal characters, and then we’ll be able to use the work they contribute throughout their lives (along with some cute little hacks I’ve come up with) to figure out how we should feed ourselves and exercise for maximum productivity and happiness.]
Here we need to do a brief interlude for somewhat obvious reasons:
To provide a ‘memory tag.’ These will come in handy to draw new pictures and help us navigate an almost frighteningly large new creative landscape.
How do we do this?
We reference a specific rock.
This is much like…well, it’s like Tolstoy’s short story here:
https://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2738/
So we palm for ourselves a few rocks (three works, that forms a triangle, which is perfect from a computer modeling perspective) for this section, the first of which is pretty obvious:
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson:
Dwayne Johnson, also known by his wrestling name “The Rock,” is a well-known actor, producer, and retired professional wrestler with Samoan heritage through his mother’s side.⁵
That’s rock 1. We’ll just set that there. Rock 2 is:
Troy Polamalu:
A former American football strong safety who played his entire twelve-year career for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL). Polamalu is of Samoan descent and is renowned for his exceptional play on the field, his distinctive hair, and his humble personality off the field.⁵
Rock 3 is
Israel Kamakawiwoʻole
The artist who famously sang a version of “Over the Rainbow” was Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, also known as “Iz.” He was a beloved Hawaiian musician, singer, and songwriter, not Samoan. Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s rendition of “Over the Rainbow” combined with “What a Wonderful World” became known worldwide for its beautiful, ukulele-backed melody and his soulful voice.
Israel Kamakawiwoʻole is a significant figure in Pacific Islander culture and is revered for his contributions to Hawaiian music and his efforts to advocate for Hawaiian rights and independence. His music continues to be celebrated and has left a lasting legacy.
For now, I’ll just note that each of these people form an important part of my ‘mind’s eye’ way of looking at the world. In each of them I found qualities I wanted to espouse.
Since Iz has now passed (May 20, 1959 — June 26, 1997) I’ll posthumously give him tag IK’’K’ and note that I’m doing my brain a processing favor not remembering the spelling: Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole.
I’m also not hurting Iz. He’d probably appreciate it. In fact, if I were dead — and in probably less than 20,000 short days I will be — I can tell you I *know* that I would appreciate it.
If you didn’t stop long enough on that one to double take, please do so now. I’ll wait a minute and make some tidy ups toward the top.
[several minutes later]
It occurs to me that it would be nice if I had a regular computer or an AI trained at helping me keep track of where I was. I imagine it’s going to be easier as the days get along — finding my way through what I’ll call for now call mQ space — but a little prompting so I didn’t have this extra ‘load on my mind’ might be useful. Maybe a toggle switch.
I know when I was composing this, again, as a ‘linear description in English of a 5D fractal’ it took a lot of goading to imagine the space where something like that could be modeled. However, if you look at it more like this (bear with, this was iteration #1):
This:
Is more along the lines of what we’re looking for.
So what we’d do is this, by steps:
- Real-eyes that all individual people are always going to be 100% distinct*
- Real-eyes that this allows them to all be placed in one of our usual 3D spaces
- Realize that by gathering the gumption, we can map out all their beliefs, hopes, dreams, fears, interests, etc. etc. in separate ‘slices’ of that 3D map
- Build a software system which has a bunch of sliders on the side of it — so that you can mix various interests and have the system ‘spit out’ a list of the people who have had that particular set
- Route all the information they’ve explored (to the extent they’re willing and able to divulge it) into a handy folder.
Lemme see…why would a tool like THAT be useful…
I dunno…maybe because we’re currently running around the world like a bunch of rats after about four different colors of cheese and that’s getting old.
Cheese #1: Money. The cheese of champions like Musk and Bezos. This one usually comes with a side of the other cheeses, so in effect, by choosing this one you can have yourself a cheese board.
Cheese #2: Fame. Samuel L. Jackson. Morgan Freeman. Ryan Reynolds.
Cheese #3: Power. Putin. Trump.
Cheese #4: Knowledge/Recognition. Einstein. Dawkins. Peterson. Harris.
Cheese #5: Happiness. Everyone. It’s still a cheese, folks.
Sorry if this little thought exercise threw you for a loop. Seeing Putin in there with Einstein and Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds probably made a few people vomit a little into their mouths, but that’s just it:
You can’t see them all seeing eye to eye because they’re not chasing the same things.
Chase the extension and vibrancy of life beyond this planet and then this cohort of humans can say:
Yep. Just as soon as we heard the gun go off (the great release of tension from most basic human conflict being resolved) we took off like a cat being chased by a funny little man named Erwin.
Why? Because then we’ll feel we’re on the same team. We have so damned much additional productivity coming down the pike we don’t even have any idea what we’re going to do with it. *I* don’t even know what we’ll do with it, and I’m a little bit ahead of the class at the moment.
More seriously:
If someone is a young person wanting to become a marine biologist, for example, typically they would follow marine biologists. This is effective, but not as effective as it would be if Sarah Connor — the girl who would one day grow up to play a critical role in recovering the Great Barrier reef from decimation — had access to a folder at the snap of her fingers as a twelve year old, curated based on information complexity and containing nifty little Easter eggs like this one:
ᶜᵖᵗThe group that does knitting to model 3D things like coral reefs is typically associated with the practice known as “hyperbolic crochet,” part of the broader field of mathematical art and craft. The most well-known project in this area is the “Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef” project by the Institute For Figuring (IFF), created by sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim.
The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project combines the art of crochet with mathematical principles to create models of coral reefs that mimic the hyperbolic geometry often found in nature, particularly in coral structures. This project serves both as an artistic endeavor and an educational tool to illustrate concepts in hyperbolic geometry, as well as an environmental statement about the fragility and endangerment of coral reefs.
Participants in the project use crochet to create models that resemble real coral. The technique exploits the nature of hyperbolic planes, which can be simulated by increasing the number of stitches in a regular pattern. The project has grown to include contributions from many people around the world and has been exhibited in various museums and galleries. It’s a unique blend of mathematics, environmental activism, art, and community.ᶜᵖᵗ
An only child alone and wild, a cabinet maker’s son
His hands were meant for different work
And his heart was known to none
He left his home and went his lone and solitary way
And he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay
A quiet man of music denied a simpler fate
He tried to be a soldier once, but his music wouldn’t wait
He earned his love through discipline, a thundering velvet hand
His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand
The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I’m just a living legacy to the leader of the band
My brother’s lives were different for they heard another call
One went to Chicago and the other to St Paul
And I’m in Colorado when I’m not in some hotel
Living out this life I’ve chose and come to know so well
I thank you for the music and your stories of the road
I thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go
I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough
And papa, I don’t think I said I love you near enough
The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man
I’m just a living legacy to the leader of the band
I am a living legacy to the leader of the band
This piece is dedicated to Tony Cheng, my best friend in the world and a guy I will one day marlin fish with on a nice, slow sailboat.
As with all my pieces, I wish you would please do me the respect of — if you’re going to clap — clap once and once only. If you decide you wish to respect that rule, I’ve no doubt you can also respect the rule of only clapping if you’ve placed 100 of your own words in the comments.
