Of Jan Major and other Minor things

Gardening Day started with a lesson in biodiversity over breakfast from Jan Major. Biodiversity, in a nutshell, is about balance and equilibrium. I'd like to think of it as dynamic stasis - a boundary of parameters that allow the most number of processes and products to occur. Too much of one thing collapses the possibility of other thiings occuring. "It will re-establish equilibrium," he says. "But that'll take thousands of years...". (He uses words like "resource management" when describing plants.P) 

Correct my ignorant delusions if I am wrong, but perhaps this contributes to what you mean by structures for uncertainty. Too much change in one's lifestyle - which is essentially an ecosystem of social ties, work responsibilities and environments - would upset its dynamic stasis.

I used to be uncomfortable with the idea of stasis: that we don't "progress", and really, we just are. If we don't progress, then why are we alive? What do we strive for? What do you think. Over the past two years, with the help of some excellent professors,  I've slowly turned to the idea that progress is a very hegelian idea: by default, it necessitates an absolute ideal, a judgement on what is better/worse. It is a juridical conception of the world: a false absolute. In opposition, I think of gypsies, carnivals and nomads: the maximum number of difference processes in the smallest confines, a multitude of friction between personalitites, or, dynamic stasis. Its a different mode of thinking and living. I'm not sure how to evaluate my day/life in this framework, except to divide it into loose moments (post dinner, where I drift) and intensifications (10am - 10pm, roughly, where I live by strict stucture and goals).

I like how gardens gain momentum and cadence. They grow even when you're not working on them, and they index the passage of time very explicitly. In our parking-lot/backyard garden, there are snap peas, eight types of tomatoes, corn, rhubarb, strawberries and mint. The watermelons did not survive winter. The tomatoes were doing too well and overcrowding the other plants, so some had to be transplanted to another pot. (Good soil consists of plenty of organic matter and mulch.*)

After gardening, we sat by the firepit in the backyard tiki hut (a bamboo lean-to they made last summer). It was around 8, and the sun had just gone down and the air smelled of the sea. We had Bush Bread, which is a thicker doughier version of bread cooked directly in the ashes of the fire. The bread comes out looking grey and mangey from the ash, but has a smokey rainbow of flavour when you bite into it. (The secret is butter, nuts and fruit bits.*)

Last night, I finished "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers", written by Paul Hoffman about the late mathematician, Paul Erdos. The elegent trick of the book is simple: Hoffman gets you engaged with the neurotic character of Erdos. With this, he sneaks in real theorums and contextualizes them with the different vectors that inform it: the history of some theorums, differences between prime and composites and the personalities behind it (betrand russell, einstein, von newman, fermat, godel all make guest appearances.) In case you never read it, I wanna share some lines and ideas I found enjoyable:

On the Plan for No Plan: "Random methods were effective in routing telephone calls," said Graham, who spent thirty-five years in R&D at AT&T. "... you want to avoid systematic bias. It was better to have no rule and just pick a random link." . 

On Critical Paranoia as applied to Maths: "Mathematics is about finding connections, between specific problems and more general results, and between once concept and another seemingly unrelated concept that really is related." 

On Structural Delusions: "I have a theory... in so many areas of mathematics, it seems natural of appropriate to create your own mathematical world... It can carry over to the rest of your life. There's a tenency to mae up your own rules. A + B is not equal to B + A. Well, everyone knows it is, but suppose it isn't. Now what have you got? Why should you drive on the right when you can drive on the left?"

And with that last line, we're now full circle. "Perhaps what we need to build are structures for safe uncertainty." It is now 930am on a cloudy Sunday. Good bye.

* = words of Jan Major