Composed players aren't actually perceiving time more slowly than those around them. Their brains are just better at predicting what comes next, so they're preparing their next move while everyone else is still processing the current one. The stillness is a byproduct. The speed was spent earlier, in the reading rather than running.
In both instances—the epic poet and jazz musician—the performer learns numerous stock phrases of specific metrical length, and often uses these repeatedly in live renditions. For Homer, these are the descriptors that recur in the Odyssey, such as "rosy-fingered Dawn" or "swift-footed Achilles." Jazz musicians do the same thing, but their building blocks are known as "licks."
Its power, like that of Bach's series of variations, accumulates slowly, moment by moment. By the end, as the original theme returns, you are left with the feeling of having experienced a great arc, a fully realized idea explored in all its possibilities and permutations.
clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.
4mo ago
The mind is furnished with a set of instincts which seek out certain kinds of phenomena and ask for explanations of certain kinds of congruity in those phenomena. Order is the one thing we cannot do without.
There could be more complex patterns in nature — too complex for a human to hold in their mind, or even notice in the first place, but stable and useful nonetheless. What if there are other complex-but-useful patterns in other domains, like materials science and biology? If they exist, I think AI will be able to find them and apply them.
Although World War 2 officially began when Germany invaded Poland, conflicts that either foreshadowed the final conflagration or eventually merged with it began years earlier, in the mid-1930s. WW2 had foothills.
4mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
