mills: At the British Museum, there is a wonderful exhibit of clocks from various periods in history, some older than I thought possible; the mechanical brilliance of their construction attenuated, to a degree, notions of our contemporary technological supremacy. They also brought to mind one of my favorite metaphors: Karl Popper’s description of “clouds and clocks,” the two representations of determinacy and indeterminacy, which he uses to illustrate how those concepts interrelate in forms other than pure contradiction. I used to quote Popper often, and probably should get back to his work. Some of his assertions rank among the most important ideas I’ve encountered: simple, subtle, profound, and never in need of obscuring lexical complexity.

mills:

At the British Museum, there is a wonderful exhibit of clocks from various periods in history, some older than I thought possible; the mechanical brilliance of their construction attenuated, to a degree, notions of our contemporary technological supremacy.

They also brought to mind one of my favorite metaphors: Karl Popper’s description of “clouds and clocks,” the two representations of determinacy and indeterminacy, which he uses to illustrate how those concepts interrelate in forms other than pure contradiction.

I used to quote Popper often, and probably should get back to his work. Some of his assertions rank among the most important ideas I’ve encountered: simple, subtle, profound, and never in need of obscuring lexical complexity.

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