My affection for the continuous value theorem (CVT) is well known to the few people who have ever been in my office and saw my homemade sign declaring it the only theorem one needs to know.
Nobody has pressed me about this odd affection, but I am going to tell you why the CVT is so special. Time is a continuous function. CVT reminds us that if you want to be 65 then you have to be 24. If you want get through a class then you have to get through all of its homeworks and exams. You cannot skip from time A to time C without going through time B. I think about this when I am driving. I have to pass through Roanoke, Lexington, and Waynesboro before I get to Crozet. I used to think, "damn, I am only at Lexington," but the CVT comforts me because I know that I have to go through Lexington to get to Crozet. The CVT reminds me that there are no short-cuts in life.
I am afraid that the prevalent philosophy of my peers resignates in the beat generation of the fifties. One of the main propositions of the beats were that experience was the only method of learning. You had to go on the drug induced road trip to Mexico to learn life. You could not appreciate someone's well-reasoned argument about the dangers of drug use and intoxicated driving. One had to experience it. It is a treacherous philosophy. It leads to teenage mothers, alcohol induced stupidity, bad relationships, etc. etc.
JobLess once told me that if I saw an interesting woman I should just go up and ask her on a date. No matter what happened, it would be an experience. I told him that I did not think this was a good strategy, but I could not give him a reason except for some bogus prisoner's dilemma.
Here is my refined answer: It is easy to get caught up in mediocrity. A kid sees another smoking a cigarette and it it looks beautiful. He knows that smoking is bad for you, but he must experience it. I do not need to smoke a cigarette to know it is bad for you. I do not want to be mediocre.
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2 comments:
Maybe that girl and the "experience" is point B? Maybe I'm reading this all wrong, but couldn't it be that the CVT is different for everyone. Some people can never understand that smoking is stupid until they die from it. So smoking the cigarette was just their path to getting there.
You are right. I remeber the reason that I trashed the post back in August. The CVT, experience versus observation, and mediocrity are three separate ideas. They have some relation, but I did not communicate clearly.
I agree that everyone is living on different functions across time.
Some people do not reason their decisions and then call their failures experience. Anyone who blames tobacco companies for smoking falls into this category. We take calculated risks, but do not blame someone else when the devil comes to collect. Learn from your mistakes, but be responsible.
When you go up to a random woman, you should expect average. I want someone/something better. There is nothing wrong with this desire. You want something better too. I do not like people who accept mediocrity. In the end, I will regress to the mean, but I have to try.
(I think)I can braid these three ideas, but I will do it in another post.
*I shouldn't have used (I think). You shouldn't have said "Maybe I 'm reading this all wrong." You couldn't have been reading it "all" wrong, and "the reader is soverign." Be confident.
No, you are right.
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