I came across this puzzle recently, and I thought it would be fun to share.
The question is…
1 11 21 1211 111221 … What’s the next number?
I wont spoil the surprise in this post, see if you can work it out, then follow one of the links I’ve provided to learn all about it 
I was reminded today of the theory of relativity, and in particular the idea that funny things start to happen when you try to travel as fast as light. The idea is that in order to go as fast as light you need nearly infinitely large amounts of energy to get there and will suffer an effect known as time dilation.
For example, suppose you travel around the earth as fast or faster than the speed of light. In theory, you could move fast enough to get to the point where you started before the light you saw then had reached you, hence the effect of time travel.
What I often have to remind myself is that its not about where you’re coming from, but where you are going to. The destination. Start a stopwatch on yourself and one at the destination at the same time (never mind the logistics of that) and when you get to the destination, they should show exactly the same time regardless of how quickly you got there. It’s not about the time that you think the destination has from where you are, but their time (assuming you use the same type of clock).
So when someone looks at the stars and says the light we can see left there umpteen years ago, thats just a feature of the story light tells. If we traveled faster than radio waves, which is a good deal slower than light, the same effect occurs. It’s just not true time travel.
Travis Eneix has a really interesting blog about making stories and individual meaning/interpretation,
The mechanism of meaning making is vitally important to our survival, as individuals and as a species. It is not to be shunned. Rather, it is to be recognized, and kept in perspective for what it is: a useful tool. When it become more than that, when it become a replacement, and substitute, for reality the tool becomes a poison.
I recently came across this quote,
Information is knowledge, learning is wisdom.
I’m not really comfortable with this, both axioms appear to be a fallacy. So I attempted to come up with something better.
Information creates learning,
Learning builds knowledge,
Knowledge contributes to wisdom.
To me information doesn’t exist without some type of filter for organizing it. Otherwise its not useful, so by definition might as well be noise. Therefore the filter could represent some type of parallel evolution between a capacity to learn and the value of the information.
As filter(s) become more complex, we might suggest that they describe a representation of the information, knowledge emerging through the learning process. So knowledge is the result of a kind of interactive process in an environment
And finally, knowledge can contribute to, but does not always guarantee the deep insight that is wisdom.
I will think on this some more… I’m sure others have argued similar points so I should do some research. Any of you with suggestions please leave comments here.
This article I Think You’re Fat – Esquire describes the interesting insight of living with fewer intellectual filters. IMHO it’s not just about being honest with ‘others’, but as Aristotle says, “We are what we repeatedly do”. Like the author, I’m not 100% comfortable with this solution, but can see that it must be an all or nothing approach. As soon as a little bit of filtering creeps in, we find the whole house of cards reverting to the way we used to communicate. Lets face it, if you find a situation is uncomfortable, its usually because you have to adapt and change in some way to cope.
I wonder if the intellectual filters we eliminate by this approach are then replaced by a deepening emotional intelligence. Our intentions in communicating can be more clearly conveyed because there are less internal conflicts getting in the way, while our conviction/passion is more evident. Hmm…
Brandon Checketts
Liz Quilty
