Re: virus: (The utility of) opposites

KMO (kmo@c-realm.com)
Tue, 12 Jan 1999 09:56:53 -0800

Tim Rhodes wrote:

> And by this you have increased your knowledge of rivers or geometry...
> in what way?

I'm not sure. Twelve seemed to be propossing a mental exercise. Many concepts come in opposing pairs, up/down, right/wrong, us/them. Twelve asked "what's the opposite of a meme, a concept which does not come with an obvious opposite?" The exercise is to hold the concept up to the light, look at it from various angles and see if you can find (or invent) a vantage point from which you can pick out something that a casual inspection does not reveal. It seems like there might be some value in performing an exercise of this sort, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Do you usually demand that the value of an exercise be appearrant after a single repetition?

> When one can clearly say of a thing, "This thing, which I consider, is most
> completely unlike that other there, in every way!" it is of great value for
> our understanding of them both.
> But it should be remembered, that value is by no means distributed uniformly
> throughout the universe.

Sure. You seem to be saying, "This game doesn't seem to have enough of a payoff to be worth investing my attention in it." This is a perfectly reasonable position to take. I turn down the opportunity to participate in games everyday, games in which other people find hours of happy distraction. We all do. We have to. Nothing wrong with that. There's only so much of our attention to go around.

Anyway, I'm off to Peru. I'll be back in two weeks with one mutha of a trip report.

C ya.

-KMO