I am a native New Yorker. I grew up in New York but moved away for college and did not return to live until eight years ago. This month marks my eighth anniversary back in the Big Apple. I am also interested in numbers. For instance, I’ve noticed that my life seems to run in eight-year cycles like an octave in music. Every eight years a major event occurs, which could be anything from a job change to a move or a new relationship.
So, I have been thinking about the number eight lately. Just like Richard Mercurius, the main character in The Gringo (Blumen Publishing, 2011) who obsesses over the year of his birth, 1961, because it looks the same upside down as right side up, I have been musing over the number eight, which also looks the same upside down as right side up.
Actually, it’s not eight that fascinates me but the movement from seven to eight to nine (7-8-9). You see, at an exact moment on the afternoon of August 15, I will end seven “plus” years in New York City, complete my eighth, and begin my ninth. I will not reach eight years until the seventh has run its course. And just as the seventh crosses into the eighth, I will begin my ninth. All in the blink of an eye.
Words fail. Much depends on concepts like end, complete, begin. When you use words to describe numbers, it is just as clumsy as trying to quantify words, which is why artificial intelligence will never get off the ground. Neither words nor time can be reduced to digits in any meaningful way. Three events–ending my seventh year, completing my eighth, and beginning my ninth–will happen all at once. And the fact that this will occur in the eighth month of the eighteenth year is of momentous import. Who could deny that?
If this isn’t at all clear to you, think of a quarter-mile track. Let’s say you decide to run for two miles, or eight laps. The instant you cross the finish line of the eighth lap, you will have ended seven, completed eight, and begun the ninth lap, whether you intend to run it or not. It doesn’t matter if you collapse on the sidelines in exhaustion. Three dimensions of time–past, present, and future–exist in that one instant crossing the finish line.
This also works with clocks. Imagine the second hand passing from 7:59 to 8:00. As it does, it ends the seventh hour, completes the eighth, and moves toward the ninth. Three dimensions of time are at work as the clock strikes eight. And it does strike. I can hear the bell in the church tower on 187th street even now.
This is not as crazy as it sounds. In fact, there’s probably a mathematical name for it. I got started on it years ago running track, even before Richard’s obsession with 1961. The Easter Vigil only made things worse. How could Christ have died on Friday and risen on the third day when there is only one day separating Friday from Sunday? Turns out the Romans did not have zero, although the Babylonians identified it a thousand years earlier. The Romans also marked time according to spatial coordinates. Troops arriving late were said to be at the end of the line (in novissimo).
What does all this mean for you? It ought to serve as a reminder not to take things for granted or accept the given simply because it is what everybody else is doing or thinking. We need tradition, of course, but part of our tradition in the West is to question reality and test assumptions. If we step back and look at life with the eyes of a child, we may see things differently. This includes a deeper appreciation for what goes on around us and not just under our noses. It will make us sensitive to the other dimensions we live in.
Did you ever imagine that we could transcend time, even travel through it, by paying attention in a different way? Knowing that, we can avoid the narrowness of mind identified by E.M. Forster, who said of one of his characters, “He lived for the five minutes that have past and the five to come; he had the business mind.”
Want more? Go to Robert Brancatelli. Eight ball photo by Pau Casals on Unsplash; typewriter photo by Tim Arterbury on Unsplash; clock photo by Stas Knop from Pexels. Note to self: You’ve gotta love baseball. It’s the only major sport with dirt.
by the way, your extensive musing on numbers reminded me of a song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjV-SHCDlec
I like this, although I can’t help feeling that I just want to be left alone. From the alt-Right, radical-Left, hedge fund techno ideologues at Google…maybe that’s just me.
the alt-right are dicks, i dont like them any more than the blues brothers did. the radical left are insane. the people at google are not techno ideologues, theyre corporate ideologues that understand technology. its a very dangerous combination which isnt new at all, except google takes it to entirely new levels.
google is helping to create killer robots. lots of tech is helping to create killer robots. killer robots are something that exist, in increasingly great numbers, doing increasingly great damage (at least occasionally, to good ends. but at what cost to humanity?)
its gotten so bad that people are leaving google in protest, but google will just hire new drones (yes, not-so-subtle wordplay there.) and the people that work for them are so clever, they work mostly unaware (or not caring) that they are cogs in a great dystopian engine of death.
on the other hand, the internet is the largest library that mankind has ever built. so what you want from the future of technology depends on whether youre a true luddite (which might feel tempting, but i dont think thats you. blogging alone puts you closer to the fence) or a futuristic librarian, or simple someone that likes to watch air-to-people missiles hit their targets. cause we have those, and i sort of think that the u.n. should ban missles designed for people.
guided missiles should be used on bunkers, armored vehicles and military installations. having robots locking onto humans (sometimes unarmed) isnt the future we really want, but its the reality we live in. and googles research (in light of this present reality) is just creepy as f—. people should use google less, even if theyre not going to give it up.
Killer Robots from Google sounds like a B movie from the 50’s. It would be funny if it weren’t true. But I do think your material is good. I will pass it along to Bobby B for him to use, assuming he ever gets back on stage. He’s stubborn, though. Now, if I can get him a gig at a Google dinner dance. Do they still have those? Are robots dancing now…? Think of Sleeper…
the part about ai is funny, but its no longer true. and id be perfectly happy if all progress with artificial intelligence stopped right here. it wont, but that would be fine.
for a business school teacher, or a technologist, recommended viewing is the video from the chaos communication congress on why we know exactly how ai will work, because corporations work exactly like (and are an example of) ai.
now theres an example of stringing unquantifiable words together. and yet it brings things into focus and clarity, dont it?
Very interesting group. I note that you missed the barbeque. Is AI a tech version of old school anarchy…?
no, ai is a technological implementation of old school fascism.
whether it has to be that way altogether, or is simply the easiest sort of ai to create (and the one we are being increasingly saddled with at the moment) is a question for ai researchers to answer.
if not ai researchers, then technologists in general. you should note im not very sympathetic with the tech press most of the time. the tech press is probably comparable to most popular “indie” music labels. they think indie is a genre, and that if you are part of the riaa or sony records, you can still be “indie.” and you can, provided that all words mean exactly the same thing, and war is peace, and freedom is slavery, etc. etc.
Time is of the essence? What does that mean to you The measure of existence should not be looked as cyclical despite the tales the planets tell it should be measured i terms od a progression as in ” I am the Alpha and the Omega”.
That’s exactly right, Bernie. In fact, that’s the point of past-present-future all at once. It’s eschatological. You hit it!