The Heart of Elegance

            Complex solutions were not necessarily arrived at by complex means and only from the minds of geniuses.  They are typically derived with unwavering attention at the exact point that needs it, and a solution is ventured upon that point that may or may not work.  It probably won’t.  But there’s a possibility it does, and one can get good at guessing which solutions shall work and which shan’t.  All it takes is observation.  Reperepetitio est mater studiorum…

            And after that there’s a second pattern to notice: sometimes, one solution solves not only the problem being focused on but in its same course solves a second, yet unresolved problem.  It’s here that one can become even better at predicting the solutions, striving not only for merely a solution that works rather than one that won’t but instead for solutions that solve two problems rather than one.  It is just as the separation between an average golfer and a good golfer: playing from the same distance, the former aims for the green while the latter aims for a particular spot on the green.

            That is the heart of elegance: single solutions that simultaneously, intrinsically, solve several problems.  It leads to the association of complex solutions with brilliance, for there is the true heart of genius: not just to pull something off, but to pull it off so elegantly that it appears effortless.

Imagine A Penny

MAR 26 2016

Imagine a penny.  If you're like most people, you know just enough about a penny to distinguish it from all the other coins.  "Ah yes, the red one!"  If you know any of the following, consider yourself part of a rare breed:

• Which direction Lincoln is facing
• Where the year is stamped
• Where the minting facility is stamped
• How many times total (both faces of the coin) the words are "One Cent" stamped

These are stimuli that occur to us but which we filter out because they are unnecessary information: while your perceive everything, you only regard the minimum necessary to satisfy a situation.  Because you never need to know these details of the penny, you find yourself unable to remember them right now, even though you see pennies all the time.  Or if you don't, imagine something else that you do see all the time.  Money & credit cards, plant life around your home, or the architecture of buildings along your commute but which aren't ever your destination are all common examples.  It is this ability to filter that allows us to navigate complicated city routes without knowing the street names: we don't know what the front of every building on every street in the city looks like, but we know just enough to navigate using a few landmarks.  Our brain has boiled down the entire town to just a small handful of landmarks for a given trip and in the process saved much time, certainly an evolutionary advantage.

The marvelous perception-altering nature of LSD is such that you perceive the wonderful patterns, textures, and details of all sorts that're all around us - in nature, in machines, in people's faces, everywhere - which we normally ignore as extraneous stimuli and simply discard any notice of, let alone appreciation.  It is a way of seeing (and hearing, and tasting, and generally experiencing sensations of all types and origin) that we have not experienced for a very long time, perhaps not since before we can remember.  But to experience the goliath, unyielding continuity of reality with an adult brain and understanding is nothing short of breathtaking.