Zoetrope

Say it with me!  Zo-e-trope!!

What a wonderful world of words we live in.

THIS is a Zoetrope:

Fascinating, aren’t they!  I’m a big fan of animation in general, I think it is one of the most extremely creative art forms there is.  If I could have a doppelganger (ghostly double OR counterpart of a living person) I would want them to be prolific animators that create beautiful things.  Always good to consider life in an alternate universe.

Heuristic

–adjective

1. serving to indicate or point out; stimulating interest as a means of furthering investigation.

2. encouraging a person to learn, discover, understand, or solve problems on his or her own, as by experimenting, evaluating possible answers or solutions, or by trial and error: a heuristic teaching method.

3. of, pertaining to, or based on experimentation, evaluation, or trial-and-error methods.

4. Computers, Mathematics. pertaining to a trial-and-error method of problem solving used when an algorithmic approach is impractical.

What began as a totally random google search turned into the discovery of a new favorite word as well as an interesting mathematical dilemma.

I really wanted to write a post today, but could not think of a topic.  So I turned my brain into what I like to call “stream of consciousness” mode.  Giving all credit to the revered author William Faulkner, it basically means I just stop filtering my thoughts and let whatever pop into my head be typed into the google search bar.  A couple of dead ends lead me to the thought of “I wonder if the traveling salesman still exists?”  So I kept my search simple and typed in “traveling salesman” and pressed enter, anxious to see what google would present me with.  Despite fear of being presented with a list of websites dedicated to Death of a Salesman or some ridiculous wikihow article of how to lay out your wares in the trunk of your car, I was pleasantly surprised by the first result Google presented.  It was titled “The Travelling Salesman Problem.”

It turns out that there is a mathematic-related formula called the “Travelling Salesman Problem” or TSP as I will refer to it from hereon.  According to wikipedia (not the lesser wikihow) “The problem was first formulated as a mathematical problem in 1930 and is one of the most intensively studied problems in optimization.”  What is optimization you may query?  Optimization is “a mathematical technique for finding a maximum or minimum value of a function of several variables subject to a set of constraints, as linear programming or systems analysis.”  Let me try to put this more succinctly.  From what I gather, TSP is a problem that attempts to find the shortest route to a list of given cities in a terrain.  So if you were to go to France and wanted to get around the country to specific cities, the TSP would attempt to provide the most efficient method of getting to all those desired cities by coming up with the shortest route to each of them while visiting each city only once — and most likely endeavors not to allow overlapping of territory.

TSP is a heuristic as it pertains to the third definition of heuristic above.  It is a trial-and-error sort of problem.

As fascinating as TSP is, I was fortunate enough to consider that I was not entirely sure of the definition of heuristic.  I think I am in love with heuristics.  If you have read this blog at all, I endeavor in each post to live up to the very first definition that is listed.  To stimulate interest so as to further investigation is this blog’s goal in its entirety.  All I ever hope to do is shed an infinitesimal spec of light on a subject that can usually offer so much more if the reader cares to pursue the subject himself/herself.

I am also in love with heuristic’s second definition.  I think that is one of the best ways of learning, to encourage people to learn through their mistakes and discoveries.  It requires a certain amount of creativity to learn that way — something that I think is being systematically erased from our population through each successive generation.  It requires flexing the muscles of the brain and reaching outside of *cough* standardized testing *cough*.  It requires teachers to be more open-minded when it comes to the multitude of learning styles children have.  It also is a method which requires parents to release their children from their “safety harnesses” and allow them to move around in their environment so that they can gain their own understanding of the way the world works rather than relying on what their parents say.

Whoops, how did I get up on that soap box?

At any rate, heuristic is a magnificent word, and  TSP is a remarkable mathematical method.

Transcendental

Transcendentalism: Also called transcendental philosophy. any philosophy based upon the doctrine that the principles of reality are to be discovered by the study of the processes of thought, or a philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical: in the U.S., associated with Emerson.

I think if I had to pick a religion, this is the one I would choose.  It is how I tend to get through my days anyway!

I mainly want to talk about Henry David Thoreau, who wrote Walden, but since Ralph Waldo Emerson is listed in the definition of transcendentalism, I suppose I’ll start with him.  In case you aren’t sure who he is, allow me to illuminate.  He is the one who postulated the philosophical theory of transcendentalism in the first place!  Or put simply, he is the father of transcendentalism.  He lived from 1803-1882, to the ripe old age of 79.  Pretty impressive given that during his time period the average age was probably around 40.  Emerson was pretty prolific as a writer, orator, and philosopher.  Most pertinent for my purposes, he was Henry David Thoreau’s mentor.  Perhaps I’ll save Emerson for another time, because I like him a lot too.

At any rate, Henry David Thoreau met Emerson and joined Emerson’s Transcendentalist Club.  In their view, Nature is the outward sign of inward spirit, expressing the “radical correspondence of visible things and human thoughts,” as Emerson wrote in Nature (1836).  I could go on and on about Thoreau’s philosophy as well, but I’ll skip that for the time being and trust that if you are truly interested you can google him.

So in 1845, when Thoreau was 28, he moved to a small house owned by Emerson that sat on Walden Pond.  This began his two-year experiment in simple living and led to his book Walden.  He believed that in getting away from societal norms, he would be able to achieve a more balanced self.  Societal norms to me includes things like materialism, customs, formalities, etc.  I think his effort was, broadly put, an exercise in replacing “wants” with “needs.”  He concluded Walden by saying  “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

I bring all of this up because lately I have been considering my surroundings and the way I live my life and have noticed a couple of overwhelming trends.  First, that my “wants” have surpassed my needs to a shocking degree.  I would bet that 75% percent or more of the things in my life are not essential to my ability to live.  Being American, and proud to be so, it is impossible to ignore the fact that I have grown up in a time where greed is at an all time high.  Advertising is to the point of being invasive, and social customs are ridiculously warped.  Technology has created severe side effects on the general population’s ability to genuinely relate to one another.

I am now in the process of simplifying.  While I am not going to hunker down in a cabin and grow beans while I journal about it for 2 years like Thoreau, I am going to purge.  I am going to give away what I don’t need (wiping out a good portion of my closet probably), and sell what I can.  I enjoy being philanthropic, but lets face it, I’m a student.  I am going to start keeping my grocery receipts and keeping a closer watch on my budget.  I am going to endeavor to live more simply.

A lot of this yen to live a simpler life comes from experience.  I am fortunate enough to know what it is like to live a more “natural” life, and I miss it.  Nature alone is enough to set my spirit soaring, but I can’t rely so heavily upon nature to give me the support I need.  It needs to come from within.  The transcendental approach is onto something I think.  It will be difficult for a time, but it is draining to be so materialistically bound.  Financially and psychologically.

“Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”

— Thoreau