How did the irregular polygon with a face idea came about?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600854
by skowmunk • 16 years ago
1 0 16 years ago

A good man (or was it a good woman?) commented on an earlier comment of mine, that it was verbose. (note to good man/good woman, near to the end, but in the appendix)

Yep, I agree, it was definitely verbose.

That's always been my challenge, to present my thoughts in a more readable and digestable mode.

In fact, I thought quite a bit about this challenge:

How would one make this idea readily understandable to more people, this idea about the possibility that what we see and may readily perceive might be the smallest or least irrelevant facet of an issue, or a problem, or an entity, or a person, or the truth and make people consider this possibility, and nudge them to consider the idea that they should probably be more open to facets other than the one that they currently see, before they judge or solve a problem (especially the tacky types)?

A sculpture - yep, a sculpture, with many faces of different sizes, shapes, colors, textures, materials, curvature, but with one feature being a must, the face closest to a visitor or a viewer (obviously when the viewer is at a particular point with reference to the sculpture) should be among the smaller faces our of which the sculpture is composed of, should be the cleanest, flattest, shiniest mirror ( i am thinking metal mirror here, looooove metal structures) and most importantly, when being looked at from where the visitor is standing should hide the rest of the sculpture completely from the viewers field of vision. This face should show just the viewers face with absolutely no distortion, basically present a piece of 'reality' that is most easily acceptable to them. (????????????USER FEEDBACK ALERT at the very end, suggestions are most welcome)

But once the viewer steps out of that designated spot, they should be able to see many of the other faces, the big structure is built with, with all their different characteristics and hopefully make the viewer realize that the face that was the closest and most easily accessible (by being close) was just one facet of a bigger reality.

I can see such a sculpture being sort of a pyramid ( not necessarily with just 3 or 4 sides, but I mean more like 'pyramid like' with each sides itself composed of more faces) lying on one of its side and the small face that hides the rest of the structure being at the tip of the pyramid, more or less perpendicular to the axis of the pyramid, so that it can easily block out the rest of the structure when being looked at it face on within a particular distance. Consider the word 'pyramid' being used here in very loose terms, its just a generalization of the overall shape. I can even think of putting in some tailish bunch of facets with some serious curves and irregular bulges in the tail, or probably even another whole pyramid with another flat surface (for the viewer), at the other end of the tail. In fact the more pyramids that one can connect to that first pyramid, the harder it can hit a viewer, the uneven and non-linear nature of reality. Hmm... now I am veering towards merging this idea into another idea/theory I have, nope, not now, will talk about it later.

Btw, a note on my earlier posting, thinking about this problem/challenge mentioned in paragraph 5 in this posting, is how I came across that solution of an irregular polygon where the rest of the structure is outside the field of vision when a particular face is being looked at. How to make more of us recognize this problem in our own thinking and see the solution to it - that is, to be more open?

This is one of my dreams, or shall I say - one small facet of my dream, when I make enough money, to commission such a sculpture, hmm... a big one and donate it to keep it somewhere where people can see it.

I would even like to make small replicas of it, sort of Rubik cube sized ones that can be kept on a desk and give it to my employees, so that they get reminded of this perspective (the way of seeing things - seems more like it) when they are trying to solve tough and nasty problems and not get pigeonholed into just their perspectives.

Oh no no no, now don't go about judging me to be a megalomaniac, that’s not the reason here. My obsession with contributing my bit in helping people realize the nature of things is driven by my belief that this realization and application of this realization in real life, at least with the tough and nastiest problems, can increase the efficiency of problem solving. And, problem solving is good, that's how the world progress ahead, that’s how anybody moves ahead.

I have seen people (including meself) mess up things because of the lack of readiness to see things in this way, in personal life, in engineering problems, in business problems and what not.

I have seen people (once again, I have done it too :))) looking at different facets of the same problem, arguing that their facet is the only 'real' issue or facet or whatever you want to call it of a problem, sticking to their positions and get stuck. Instead of realizing that they may be seeing different facets of the same issue, they get stuck to their perspectives, end up calling theirs the 'right' perspective and the others' the 'wrong' perspective and not make progress with the problem. Even the 'wrong' perspective on examining would reveal more things about the problem that may help in solving the problem. People do it, parents do it, kids do it, teams do it, leaders do it, unions do it, companies do it, states do it, nations do it, we all do it, but can do better by doing it less, that is , getting stuck to single perspectives and thinking they are the only perspectives possible.

This happens, with people on their own trying to solve their own problems too, getting stuck with one perspective and not get past that perspective to discover more aspects of the problem they are trying to solve, when discovering those perspective can and almost always do help in solving their problems.

No, its not that I am under the illusion that I may be the only one who sees things this way, I have seen many people who have solved problems by looking at it things this way and they all are my idols, at least with regards to that aspect. But as I said earlier, sharing these thoughts and commissioning that sculpture (when I have enough money to do that) is just me aiming to do my bit in helping more people see it this way, so that they can solve more problems than they already do, if they don't already do things this way.

In fact, i even struggle to use this way of looking at things consistently in my own life and that’s why I keep reminding myself of that sculpture idea, to remind myself in a quick and visual way of how I should do things. I do believe, the more and more I do it this way, while being practical, the faster my progress would be.

Of course, sometimes it may be even impractical and probably even inefficient to think this way, can result in "paralysis by analysis" syndrome and that’s not good in emergencies. But the stickiest and toughest problems can be helped with people assuming more of this attitude.

By the way, isn't stereotyping also a result of this same problem, sticking to one particular facet of a person or people and judging that the rest is completely influenced by that single facet that we are most ready to 'see' or 'perceive'?

More or less an end to this posting. ---- Appendix (couldn’t help it):

(sorry, about the verbosity, I have started liking stats and it has really messed up my mind :) , in the way I see things and the way I use the words related to possibilities, chances, probabilities, relatively and such)

About the structure of the sentences, or rather the lack of it, I apologize for posting such unclean, unedited crap. I am sorely aware that structuring it better can make it readable to more people and its not that I don't care, I would definitely like more people to read it. But, I don't have time, and I am not very fast at structuring language in a more easily readable way and struggle at it. It is tough to get time to do that when one is:

1) running and learning to run a company with 3 employees, a few contractors and trying to hire more employees. 2) carrying out development independent of the company ( you see, I am running a multi-pronged strategy for success, dunno if it will work, but trying) 3) doing a full time job in an area that is unrelated to what is mentioned in either 1 or 2

Phew - I really feel ridiculous putting out all those long sentences up there. Its so much faster ( at least it feels like) to think of solutions than to communicate them in a good way.

GOOD MAN/GOOD WOMAN who commented on my earlier posting, please don't take this posting as a negative retort to your comment, I just used that as an opener. Honest characterization and constructive criticism is always welcome.

TING, TING, TING, TING, TING, TING, TING, TING.........:

USER FEEDBACK ALERT TO THOSE WHO HAD THE PATIENCE TO READ AT LEAST TILL THE END OF THE 5TH PARAGRAPH)

Back where you see "????????????" I meant to ask a question for some feedback. If you, the reader, don't mind, can you let me know what you would be a better option to be used for the small flat surface mentioned in paragraph 5? 1) option 1 - a smooth steel colored metallic mirror 2) option 2 - a smooth gold colored metallic mirror (gold colored, as in brass) 3) option 3 - a smooth, pristine, white, surface 4) option 4 - a smooth, translucent, pristine, white, surface, may be with some 3-d effect, with some smooth, glasssy stuff on top of the white surface, with curved edges of the glassy stuff ending where it meets the white surface.

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