That’s who I am. Ok, I’ve slowly evolved to a computer and mathematica kind of guy now, but it’s the same thing. Same enough. I observe. I don’t actively experiment. It’s all in the head. It always has been, it always will be. Thought experiments are as dirty as I am willing to get.
Attempt to explain, quantify.. recreate rationally in the mind, is what it’s about. The “doability” of actions never plays a part in any of this. Sitting quietly in a corner somewhere and figuring it all out, at least, attempting to, without really doing anything.
Which is fine and all that, when the goal is just getting a grip on how things behave the way they do. That is all that matters to me, it’s not what I plan to do with that gained knowledge. There was never a bigger plan, that was the goal.
Then you realize that’s totally the antithesis of the expected mentality of an engineer. Engineers are the lower geeks who don’t really get it. More importantly, they don’t care that they don’t get it, as long as they get what they want done. You tend to think, hah, lowlifes.
That’s when it hits you, (it hits me anyway, on days like today), that everyone’s understanding of what happens around them is very very limited. Sadly, this makes me one of them. More sadly, even the little bit we’ve “figured”, sigh, at a fundamental level is an elaborate curve fit (last seen here). Sadder still, is that the “we” in my previous sentence encompasses all of us, every single one.
Like when I was talking to Sarah earlier, I realized how complicated things are and how little we knew about what is really going on. But at least some people actively try. They experiment with things going on around. They probe, they might find. It’s talking with people who do, when you realize “doability” is an issue, one that we paper pencilers don’t see.
But then again, what is it that’s found? Wise(r probably) (wo)men look around, see patterns, form “theories” that attempt to “explain” things in such a way that they don’t violate any of these observations. That is all. This is what I refer to as everything being an elaborate curve fit.
These people have tremendous insight no doubt, but none of it is fundamental truth. Everything just attempts to be correct until some Jane (Ok, not Jane, Fotini Markopoulou Kalamara, happy?) probably finds a counter example some day and a theory’s scrapped. And the next is born.
When you’re younger, things are so much easier. You’re just about as willing to believe in theories as truths as you are the tooth fairy.
I wish I were a wide eyed child again. I also wish I realized what I was really looking for. Finite lifespans with slow brains suck.
Finite lifespans with low brains suck as in you wish you were a computer??Didnt get.
Oh, that was slow, and not low.
No, I just wish I were infinitely intelligent, or at least, lived long enough to “get” it all. Anybody else would have said it better. Copied and pasted from the “about me” page:
It’s a pity, like one of my teachers later, so eloquently put it, knowledge is infinite, and our time to grasp it all is finite. Actually, it sounded a lot cooler when he said it, but you get the idea.
Point being, you can’t be finitely intelligent and live finitely long and yet attempt to grasp what’s infinite. I am not the most articulate of people, and it doesn’t bother me.