Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Life and a Rubik's Cube

Today at work I noticed a Rubik's Cube on a co-worker's desk.  I had to do some research: is life like a Rubik's Cube?  The iconic cube is 30 years old.  Almost as old as...alright...I'm 3 years older than the puzzle.

"You Can Do It"

At this website you learn that there are many ways to solve the puzzle; and therefore you can reason there are many ways to mess.it.up.  Same with life.  Thankfully the website gives you a failproof and color-coded solution in 6 Stages.  Hmmm.  Sure.  But maybe if the Rubik's Cube Puzzle is like life then in whose hands is your/my life?  Can I color code it?  Is the meaning of life color coded?  Could it be for easy understanding?  Please?  Apparently all the color coding and twisting is based on mathematical algorithms. Sure.  Can I undo every.wrong.turn I've made?  How do I know when I've made a wrong turn?  Is there always a solution?  How are we defining "solution"?

What's an Algorithm?

So then I got to thinking about math and fractals (because I always do, right after behavior and Maslow's hierarchy) and remembered that JW and baby G and I went to the "Hyperbolic Coral Reef" exhibit on tour in Phoenix.  It was our "Free and Classy Friday Trip" last May followed by a decadent yet classy lunch at the Culinary Institute.



Hyperbolic Space

also see:

Darwinian Evolution

AMAZINGNESS!  Algorithims again.  Check.it.out.

Then I was interested in art and fun free things to take baby G to this weekend.  I found this description in one photographer's work:


Not only does it erase the intervening hours of each day from view but the
pattern created suggests a cycle, refuting a linear perception of time.

Not that I am thinking that with my photos; I am usually trying to capture memories that I don't want to forget, and that usually later, depending on their subject matter, I DO want to forget.  Yet, this is interesting.  Some Physicists and Philosophers theorize that time is a contiuum, or a circle.

Nonlinear system

Math again.  And CHAOS THEORY!  Some quantum physics?  YES!

Then I was reading a paper for work and this word was used:


Stochastic

And then this dude came up:
Iannis Xenakis

...with some Game Theory!  I have some reading to catch up on.  

In conclusion, I argue that life is not like a Rubik's Cube because life is more of a stochiastic algorithim.  Life can be random and unpredictable and chaotic and possibly not lived or solved in a linear constraint of time or of rigid matter; exactly the opposite of solving the Rubik's Cube puzzle.  Sweet.  

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