A Bridge Essay I. The Pattern in Ten Stories If you've just read The Axiom Engine, you've experienced something unusual: mathematical theorems as lived constraints. The Oracle tried to predict and failed. The Arbiter tried to satisfy all axioms and collapsed. The Wanderer walked freely and discovered necessity. Each story followed the same arc: Confusion … Continue reading From Axiom Engine to Deferential Realism: How Stories Generate Philosophy
Tag: limits
The Axiom Engine: A Phenomenology of Abstract Structures
Prologue We usually treat mathematical structures as things we look at—diagrams on a page, symbols in a line, objects to be manipulated by the intellect. But they are not objects. They are environments. They are the invisible architectures that determine what is possible, what is impossible, and what is necessary. You do not just solve … Continue reading The Axiom Engine: A Phenomenology of Abstract Structures
Crystal Nights by Greg Egan
"The Phites who’d invented the boost had had one big advantage as they’d tinkered with each other’s brains: it had not been a purely theoretical exercise for them. They hadn’t gazed at anatomical diagrams and then reasoned their way to a better design. They had experienced the effects of thousands of small experimental changes, and … Continue reading Crystal Nights by Greg Egan
The Limits of Growth
"Whether we find ourselves amidst the vast terrain of the commercial internet; in our libraries, archives and museums; or between the parks, public housing facilities and utility infrastructures of our cities, thinking beyond growth as an end in itself requires attending to maintenance and care: who deserves it, who performs it, and to what end. … Continue reading The Limits of Growth
Words We Don’t Have
"Language and culture are inextricably linked. The words that exist (or that we make) form our language, and hence, are definitive of our culture. This place explores words that are unique to dialects or non-English languages, with an aim to examine what these words might illuminate about their cultures (and ours)."—WordsWeDontHave.com
Champagne Taste, Kool-Aid Money
"...all who want to get rich manage to do so. That scandalizes people who have dreamed of having money, and who do not have any. They looked at the mountain; but it just waited for them. Money, like every other advantage, demands fidelity above all else. Many people imagine that they want money simply because … Continue reading Champagne Taste, Kool-Aid Money
Dissection of Life
Cutting concepts, time, our perspective into fragments can help us understand some things. But, even so, the life of the frog cannot be fully explained with the dissection scalpel.
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