Thursday, December 11, 2014

Multa Novit Vulpes, verum Echinus Unum Magnum

   Hm, I'm a bit past my usual 8:30 post-up time... That's alright, as long as it gets up today I suppose... Not that I can't backdate anything, like I've been doing, but that just seems kind of mean in the context...

   Is it just me, or have my entries been getting kind of, long, lately? Perhaps I should have split yesterday's into two parts, or something...? No, but I've got a great one for you today. Honest.

   ...I think.

   You know the fable, (apocryphally?) attributed to Aesop, about the fox who couldn't decide which of his oh so many tricks he's got he can use to evade capture, and gets caught? I guess I got caught as the fox this morning. It happens.

   Archilochus put it this way, πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα, póll' oíd' aló̱pi̱x, all' echínos én méga, the fox knows many little things but the hedgehog knows one big thing. It's kind of a false dichotomy, especially in context, but that doesn't stop it from being useful.

   Yesterday I gave you a couple of eponymous laws, Moore's and Rock's and all that, so- try this one on for size, Hick's. The more choices you have, the longer it takes for you to make a decision. It explains why it always takes you so long to decide what to get at Subway, for instance.

   So, it took me a while to decide. And why not; I've got a lot of choices. The universe, infinite and accessible at the same time- it's been something of a cliche since the 1950's, hasn't it? The first stirrings of counterculture, "expanded consciousness." It was all a load of crap back then, of course. But it's here for us now.

   Choices? You could say that. You could even say that, firsthand, I've seen the Aleph.

   And it was blinding.






   ...Just wanted to have a bit more for you than, hey, here's a couple of links to posts I've now got up. And that's what I came up with. So. Oh, and, hey, speaking of, here's a couple of links to posts I've now got up:

   Four down, ten to go, on that front.

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