Lonely Notes

In “Hot Modeling Tips”, we used the knowledge of a single point in space to create new knowledge, simply by imagining copies of that point in new locations.  For instance, if we imagine one point away from another point, such that only 9 duplicate points could fit between them, then we can deduce that they are a distance of 10 points apart.

O        O
OOOOOOOOOO
|-10 pts-|

If we don’t compare the position of the old point with that of the new point, then we can’t measure the distance between them.  If we completely forget about the old point, we have learned nothing new.  In general, if we don’t contrast a point with something else, we can’t say anything about it; we can’t generate new information by imagining new points unless we explore the relationships between them.

Being a lonely note is about being different from others, but it takes those others to define the difference in the first place.

“What’s The Point” claims that more information can be generated from a single point in space than from the existence of the point itself, just by its being different from its surroundings.  How is this possible?  In the deeply insightful words of Barney The Dinosaur, by using your imagination.Barney must have known that by forming a representation of the point and surrounding space in your mind, you can manipulate those representations in countless ways (many of which may not be possible in the actual space itself).  For instance, you can imagine that there are 2 points in different positions.  You can also imagine that some greater number of points could fit in a straight path between those 2 position, and, voila, you have discovered the concepts of magnitude and distance.  Picture all of those points in your mind, and you have made a line.  Start thinking about many lines between many points, and you will be creating a wide variety of shapes and figures.

When I was a young boy, bored in class, I used to close my eyes and randomly stab a piece of paper with my pencil until the page was filled with points.  Then I would stare at the page, or start to blindly connect some dots, until a recognizable or interesting figure began to emerge, after which I would connect the remaining dots to complete or embellish the picture (and, yes, one was a dinosaur).  On many levels, this became a metaphor for my life.  Rather than mimic others, I prefer to combine semi-random thoughts, circumstances, and materials to create new, and hopefully interesting, outcomes.  I do not consciously choose to walk a lonely road–it’s just that my method of choice creates paths which can never be followed twice.

Difference is the fundamental material from which all existence is fabricated.  If every single thing in existence was uniformily the same as every other, with no spaces in between, that would essentially be the same as nothing.  If all you ever saw was solid white, or solid black, or solid puce, you would not even know it, because you would have nothing else to compare it to (as lovely as puce is).

Pretend that you are in a void with no prior experience (some may need to pretend less than others).  In this situation, you know absolutely nothing because there is no raw material to observe and store in your head.  You can’t even imagine anything, because your mind has nothing to manipulate.

Now pretend that there is a stationary point in this field of nothing.  Not only do you see the point, but you can discern every place in your field of view where the point is *not*.  You understand the concept of a point and the space around it.  You can imagine the space beyond your field of vision, and you can wonder if there are more points out there.  You can extrapolate physical properties such as magnitude (in multiples of points), direction, distribution, and proportion.

So much information can be derived from one, lonely point.  That is because the observation of a single point illuminated every other position the point was not at.  If the point had been the same as every nonpoint, nothing would effectively exist.  Instead, a very small difference created a very large world of possibility.  So dare to be different.  Dare to be lonely.