When I started toying with computers, programming was programming and it was fun.
In the university I began to see that programming was not only programming, but programming was intertwined with and a constituent of a world of meaning-creation, knowledge construction, pragmatic inference, concept negotiation, local contingencies, and other exciting stuff. Seeing this stuff makes me a researcher and earns me a degree.
Now I see (again) programming as programming, and nothing else. That, however, doesn't earn me a degree. (Which is not unfortunate to me, but it is unfortunate to the degree.)
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5 comments:
This sounds very zen to me. Something along the lines of:
Zen is intially very simple, then becomes complex and then becomes simple yet again. The underlying message though is: expectations vs. perception, the simplicity becomes finite (somehow making it complex) and then once mastery is attained it again becomes simple---arguable from a profound understanding.
As I know the Gas Mask-Wearing author I know this much: a beer is simply a beer. Later it gets all complex as we analyze the taste, texture, mouth-feel, the (head) foam, bubbles in the beer, the various hues and shades of golden yellow and the glass that contains the beer. However, this process somehow nullifies the "nowness of this moment" or just fucking drink the goddamn beer. If you like it, have another. If not, order something else. Goddamn Matti, have a beer! :)
And while off topic I must ask the Wise One a question.
Dr. Essolinen-
If there are two types of people when it comes to climbing a mountain-
the first type that sees the beauty all around themselves, and the second type that sees only the summit as their goal...When one can then see that neither points are neither correct, or incorrect. And they then take an iron, an ironing board and heavy starch to the mountain. Does the aspect of zen all around vs. zen as the goal become nullified? Or does one just end-up with a well starched shirt?
Or both? Or a variation thereof?
Please enlighten this drunken being.
Dr. Martin, it certainly does sound like Zen as you have explained. My follow-up question is:
Would you characterize our lenghty and tedious alcohol research in Korea, Japan, and Finland as contemplating on the Zen of beer, Vodka, soju, and related products?
I think we studied that area very, very thoroughly at the time and delved into the fine complexities of drunkenness, before we finally arrived to the deep insight that alcohol is, after all, a very simple phenomenon which neither deserves nor requires any contemplation.
Dr. Esso, as I am not familiar with Zen, I am not certain if Super Iron Hero is Buddhist monk or just plain ordinary wannabe. Latter, I think.
Actually there is a reference in_Zen and the Art of Motorcylcle Maintenance_, to the same profound ascertainment of self. The author likens the concept of zen(the two schools of thought on zen) to climbing a mountain. On school sees the present as the most important; which is compared to seeing the zen all around i.e. every rock, blade of grass, shadow etc... The other school of zen sees enlightenment as the goal; this is compared to reaching the summit of the mountain.
Another way would be to delineate process and result. Not as a means to an end, but more like which do you put more energy into.
I then had some enlightenment of my own. What if there is no greener grass? What if this is as good as it gets? There is no Shangri-La (well okay there is Jokela.) Then once I started down the road to this problem I thought the zen bit from Pirsig had some merit.
Your comment reminded me of something I read a long time ago on zen and understanding zen.
I can not source the material, but it was along the lines of what you said. (which was good by the way!)
Once again Dr. Tedre, you have given me yet another point to consider in what I thought was a self-contained/air-tight smart-ass remark. Goddamn it! ee Matti ee
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