January 29, 2003

• 5 minute random-word freewriting exercise:
  
  MACHINE
  Back when the epitome of clever invention was a clock, the universe was seen as some sort of huge clockwork. Later, when the machine was the height of industry, the universe and even the human body was reckoned as a noble machine. Now that our greatest clever invention is a computer, there is a lot of ink and paper put to use explaining how the universe is not a clock or a machine, but rather a giant supercomputer.
  
  Additionally, since computers were already used as an analogy for the human brain (and vice versa), it doesn't seem a stretch to make the jump that the universe itself is a cosmic rational thing, operating like a computer or a brain, deciding on courses of action and implementing them and so forth.
  
  These are easy metaphors to make, just as it was easy for primitive man to create metaphors to explain anthropomorphically the frightening and uncontrollable ways of the universe.
  
  But what are the mechanisms by which the universe 'thinks'? Where is its memory? And what influences its choices?

  • 9:04 am
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