A recent news item covers the ability of fish to count to four. Which got me thinking.
I've always been fascinated about the preference to group things in four, whether psychological profiles, dream characters or business models. I am put in mind of research into the infant brain, which demonstrates the in-born ability to see circles, triangles and squares.
If we have the natural propensity to recognise squares and triangles, it seems to me, then we do not need to count until after four. One to four is something we can handle without numbers. We have in-built mechanisms that can group and identify two, three and four and differentiate between them without recourse to numeracy.
Maybe fish are the same. It would be interesting to see what shapes and notions come hard-wired into the piscine brain!
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Creative futures, again
I perceive a dark future for people earning a living through creativity, but others do not agree. The two extreme views I have met can be summarised as: just try harder; and so what?
Just try harder suggests that changes in distribution patterns present new opportunities for creative selling, whereas I argue that the changes shift the balance of income disproportionately to the distributors, especially in an age when anyone can produce a photograph or a piece of music or an article - small payments that are now made for most creative output now encourages people to give their work away for free or nearly-free in the hope of Getting Noticed, after which, it is hoped, other people will do their marketing in the expectation of large sales.
The so what? argument is a different kind of threat. Great creative output available in the market for next to nothing - that's great for consumers! I do not think it is sustainable. For sure, there will no longer be any premium paid for the ordinary - the competition in photo libraries ensures that anyone searching for a picture of a dripping tap is not going to have to pay very much - but people learning and perfecting their arts need that income to sustain themselves.
Maybe this is it, then. We are reverting to the mean for the arts: they are a luxury, to be funded on the whims of Kings and Corporations.
And behind it all is the real fear: that this is a sign that the Systems Thinkers are really taking over everywhere and the future for the individual is bleak.
Just try harder suggests that changes in distribution patterns present new opportunities for creative selling, whereas I argue that the changes shift the balance of income disproportionately to the distributors, especially in an age when anyone can produce a photograph or a piece of music or an article - small payments that are now made for most creative output now encourages people to give their work away for free or nearly-free in the hope of Getting Noticed, after which, it is hoped, other people will do their marketing in the expectation of large sales.
The so what? argument is a different kind of threat. Great creative output available in the market for next to nothing - that's great for consumers! I do not think it is sustainable. For sure, there will no longer be any premium paid for the ordinary - the competition in photo libraries ensures that anyone searching for a picture of a dripping tap is not going to have to pay very much - but people learning and perfecting their arts need that income to sustain themselves.
Maybe this is it, then. We are reverting to the mean for the arts: they are a luxury, to be funded on the whims of Kings and Corporations.
And behind it all is the real fear: that this is a sign that the Systems Thinkers are really taking over everywhere and the future for the individual is bleak.
Sunday, 10 February 2008
Funny thing, truth
So how did the Universe begin?, I am rarely asked. What is the truth of the matter?
And I would reply that matter is the simple aggregation of composite energy in three dimensions of space and one of time; that everything began with energy in a pure, undifferentiated form that was so pure that it needed neither dimensions of time nor space; that such purity could not exist so that it cooled and slowed and created dimensions; and, in that diminution, the energy became stretched and split over different dimensions of space and time; and that the cooling soup of energy in our bubble of dimensions collided and collated to form basic proto-leptons and quasi-quarks that recombined and were charged and so on and so on; and that our dimensions intercept the planes of other energy from the creation but that this energy is on only two dimensions of space and two of time; and that there are other interactions; and that quarks formed in different parts of the universe at different times will be different; and that most of the energy from the creation is in the other dimensions; and that there is a lot more but I lost your attention long ago.
And the point is? For us to regard something as true, we must regard that truth as having some utility. So it will be years before anyone realises that this definition of physics is useful. And, in the field of corporate communications, the necessity of effective communications is often regarded with the same raised eyebrow as someone explaining their theory on the origin of the Universe.
And I would reply that matter is the simple aggregation of composite energy in three dimensions of space and one of time; that everything began with energy in a pure, undifferentiated form that was so pure that it needed neither dimensions of time nor space; that such purity could not exist so that it cooled and slowed and created dimensions; and, in that diminution, the energy became stretched and split over different dimensions of space and time; and that the cooling soup of energy in our bubble of dimensions collided and collated to form basic proto-leptons and quasi-quarks that recombined and were charged and so on and so on; and that our dimensions intercept the planes of other energy from the creation but that this energy is on only two dimensions of space and two of time; and that there are other interactions; and that quarks formed in different parts of the universe at different times will be different; and that most of the energy from the creation is in the other dimensions; and that there is a lot more but I lost your attention long ago.
And the point is? For us to regard something as true, we must regard that truth as having some utility. So it will be years before anyone realises that this definition of physics is useful. And, in the field of corporate communications, the necessity of effective communications is often regarded with the same raised eyebrow as someone explaining their theory on the origin of the Universe.
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