Some Notes on the Material Circumstances of an Inspired Idea

Editor's note: this a strange thing to write down, it's true, but I always think back to George Polya's comments in his clever little book on meta-problem solving, "How to Solve It", on the art and the surprising mysteriousness of coming up with really, really good ideas, i.e. inspiration. I've only had a very small number of such ideas, and their mystery is intriguing enough that I decided the circumstances of this latest one might be interesting to record to posterity.

The idea itself deserves an entirely separate exposition, and will have to wait for another time.

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Snowed in the morning. Woke up earlier than usual, ate, prepared to go out. Road conditions were poor, so I dozed off for several more hours. Had extremely engaging, vivid, and colorful dreams, involving several very broad, sweeping landscapes, a train, more snow, a broad hillside view, many angry accusations, the speaking of foreign languages, the encountering of a partially visible and extremely valuable but dangerous artifact, frightening infirmity, shocking police corruptions, fossil fuels.

Spent day dabbling in various interests I had not had time for; investigated possibility for shoe-horning the Arduino into a full-on software radio, played a game of Go on PANDANET IGS (and won), read half of "Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception" by Michel Foucault. Had finished two other books earlier in the week, namely "Critical Path" by R. Buckminster Fuller, and "Thinking in Systems: A Primer" by Donella H. Meadows. Had spent most of that week, and the several weeks preceding, working very intensely on a stylized demonstration compiler exhibiting Harrison's resumption-monadic kernels as a an alternative way of compiling functional programming languages. This involved the introduction, absorption and quick application of a lot of new and highly formal concepts I had not really encountered or used before. Exhausted by these earlier efforts, and by an over-strenuous physical regimen that appears to have caused me some internal injury, this dabbling was a means of rest and recreation.

Also read several short passages from Eihei Dogen's "Extensive Record" ("A deluded person and an enlightened person at the same time use one boat [to cross the river] and each is not obstructed." -- Volume 1, lecture 52, 'Study of Sounds and Colors') and the Book of Chuang-Tzu ("When a man has been killed in battle and people come to bury him, he has no use for his medals." -- 'The Sign of Virtue Complete')

Visiting with family for the holiday, persuaded them to watch "Exit Through the Gift Shop", the peculiar documentary (?) of a supposed meeting between internationally renowned street artist Banksy and one Mr. Thierry Guetta, who, inspired by such street artists, began his own budding art career, which then went on to exemplify everything that street art had rebelled against. Drove sister home. Briefly discussed the film.

Went to Eastside Tavern for "Dirty Disco Dance Party", but no one was dancing, so I sat at the bar and had a beer. As I generally always do, I sat alone and contemplated whatever thoughts happened to enter my mind. Thought about an LED array I had assembled from a kit, and its possible applications to creating interactive devices that would allow visualization of otherwise invisible ambient data in real time. Thought of this partially from something I read in Meadows' book, regarding electric meters in the Netherlands and electricity usage. Thought about how the array I had assembled had several bulbs that were not working, and speculated as to why this might be. Also thought about the essentially finite nature of any output data the devices might produce, and thought about the contrast between this relatively small state space and the very large state space representing not only the physical device itself, but all the materials comprising it. Also thought about how this limited output state space relates to function. Was surprised to consider how strangely ephemeral the notion of the "boundary" of a system is, or even the idea that a system is an isolable thing at all. Wondered whether this notion of "isolable system" is a cultural artifact, and would be considered strange by an equally advanced culture with a very different history from mine. Thought about the various parts and functions of a system (still visualizing the LED array) as peaks and troughs in a series of waves of different frequencies, sometimes overlapping, sometimes not. This reminded me of something from Fuller's book regarding a paradigm revolution in the Twentieth century view, i.e. "a world normally in motion" as opposed to "normally at rest". Thought of Fourier transforms. Suddenly recollected something I had read in the ARRL Radio Engineering Manual about the Nyquist Sampling Criterion, that I had read that afternoon while trying to learn how to construct a rudimentary antenna for Arduino. Saw a very unexpected relationship between this and other thoughts about "systems" and what they are generally. Was pleasantly surprised, but did not make much of it at the moment; wrote a quick note to self in my notepad and continued drinking beer. Left when the beer was finished.

As I drove home, the idea seemed to gain further and further significance, snowballing into something that seemed at once very broad and very clear, with very concrete analogies to what seem to be well-understood and respected theories. Became more and more surprised and excited the more I thought of this. Resolved to make a note of all aspects of the concept immediately occurring to me. Wrote these down in my research notebook. Idea turned out to be a broad generalization of a very particular computer security problem that I had tried to formulate a definition of for some months; although I had formulated a workable definition, something about this previous, more specific idea seemed strangely too specific, as if missing some other important principle. Judged this new principle to be what was missing.

Also decided to write this account, because although this has happened to me before, it has not happened many times, and I would be curious to later observe and reflect upon the circumstances surrounding the appearance of a really, really good idea occurs to me.