It is not the amount of knowledge that makes a brain. It is not even the distribution of knowledge. It is the interconnectedness. When Wells used the word network—a word he liked very much—it retained its original, physical meaning for him, as it would for anyone in his time. He visualized threads or wires interlacing: “A network of marvellously
... See moreJames Gleick • The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
Nature, art, and technology all matter because of their complexity. Complexity is beauty . It’s when a bunch of simple patterns overlap in a harmonious way to create something profound. A beautiful painting might appear simple, but if you analyze and isolate the patterns, you realize how much action is happening under the hood of your attention.
michaeldean
This stems from the structure of the web — it’s a tangle of links, a jumble of interconnected ideas. It fractalizes our attention, nudging us to leave fragments of our mind trapped in open tabs like a thousand tiny horcruxes — open loops feeding off our attention until they wither away, replaced by our latest distraction.
There’s a bottleneck here:
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