Systems

“There are two secrets to being great at magic.

The first is to never let them know all your tricks.”

- A Magician

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Part I

Fact or Fiction

See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil

What we label fact or fiction is often provisional, shaped by the limits of what is able to be imagined, measured, observed, or built at the time. People must act before certainty exists, so much so that they rely on patterns, habits, and inherited models whether that leads to the greatest positive net present outcome or not.

What is fact, and not fiction, is that continuously throughout history fact has been proven to be fiction and very often fiction has been proven to be fact. Once treated as fiction, even heresy, the man who stopped the Sun and moved the Earth had to wait until his deathbed to release his world-changing work that we all treat today as obvious and trite.

What was once a sincere, widely accepted scientific explanation for combustion, a literal ghost, later collapsed under better measurement and experimentation. Our misunderstanding didn’t mean scientists and thought leaders were foolish. Rather, it pointed to the idea that the tools being used and data being collected were incomplete.

What was once declared a certainty by the leading scientific authorities of an era, that human heavier-than-air flight is impossible - a conclusion that may be excused as rational given the information and technology available at the time - was devastatingly wrong. By the mid-20th century, humanity was not only flying across continents but launching satellites into orbit and operating machines that could see, calculate, and communicate far beyond human senses. From an office desk people could observe the world through mechanical extensions of themselves, devices that made the extraordinary feel ordinary, the impossible feel mundane.

It is at this point that questions of fact and fiction become less about intelligence and more about distance. Consider the Moon landing. Not as a debate to be settled, but as an example of how belief forms. How the line between fact and fiction is so easily obfuscated. Those who accept the landing as fact have ample reason to do so: technological momentum, institutional credibility, and continuity with observable progress. Those who doubt it have ample reason: historical secrecy, political incentive, and the reality that the event itself cannot be personally verified by most people.

It, the divide, does not exist because one group is rational and the other is not. It exists because humans are required to make judgments about complex, abstract events using incomplete information. In these moments, we default to habit, trust, experience, and prior models of the world. We do not calculate truth from first principles. Rather, we recognize patterns and act, often to our own disbetterment.

It is not a failure of human reasoning. It is a requirement of living in a world that demands decisions before certainty is possible. It is a requirement of existing within a system where fact and fiction are often interchangeable.

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Part II

King Crab

If you design a product for everyone, you design a product for no one

When systems are forced to act with limited information and finite resources, they do not explore infinite novelty. They reuse, repeat, and converge on previously successful functional patterns, even across independent evolutionary paths, in order to optimize persistence. Systems engage in constant repetition across binaries.

Carcinization

          Carcinization is a process in evolution where non-crab crustaceans develop a crab-like body shape, occurring independently in various species. This phenomenon is an example of convergent evolution, where different organisms evolve similar traits due to similar environmental pressures. The important point is not that crabs are optimal in some abstract sense. Rather, it is that the crab form solves multiple survival binaries at once. Nature keeps selecting that final form under constraint. Evolution across independent systems often copies answers instead of inventing new ones. 

Vermilingua

          Vermilingua is a taxonomic suborder, which includes anteaters, pangolins, and echidnas. The name comes from Latin, meaning worm tongue, referring to their specialized feeding habits. Different animals in different continents with different evolutionary histories, yet they have all converged on elongated tongues, reduced or absent teeth, narrow feeding apertures, and the high-efficiency extraction of small prey. Once the binary is set, the constraints of the system have carcinized, with small prey, hardened nests, and energy efficiency taking priority, the solution space collapses.

Molting

          A biological process of the shedding or casting off of an outer layer or covering and the formation of its replacement. Molting, which is regulated by hormones, includes the shedding and replacement of horns, hair, skin, and feathers. The process of shedding an external skeleton for the purpose of growth or change in shape is called ecdysis and it occurs in invertebrates as arthropods, nematodes, and tardigrades. Molting introduces the idea that growth requires temporary failure. That protection must be shed and rebuilt and that systems accept short-term risk for long-term viability.

Redundancy

          Molting organisms survive because they have timing mechanisms, behavioral safeguards, and redundant protections during vulnerable phases. They survive because they have systems within their systems. They survive because they have redundancy. Redundancy is not waste. It is survivability encoded into structure.

When it comes to surviving and leaving a legacy on this earth, the crab is king.

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Part III

Black Lotus

Seeing is believing

         This is not explanation section, but a conceptual aperture. This is not making a claim about religion or science. Rather, it is offering a representation that allows the reader to hold something otherwise ungraspable.

         In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form, and void. Those are the first eighteen words of the Book of Genesis. This language has often been flattened into the idea that in the beginning there was nothing. Yet “without form” does not mean shapeless or nonexistent. Without form may indicate chaotic or unordered. Void may mean empty, but it does not imply nothingness. An empty box is void, but it is still a box.

         Perhaps we think there is a cat inside the box, or not. But what if you opened the box and a tiger jumped out? Was that really a box or was it a cage? Or perhaps inside was a billion trillion atoms of hydrogen and oxygen. Or maybe something entirely unexpected like a ghost. The absence of form does not preclude the presence of content.

The Wave Function

          Is there something, tangible and calculable, in this world that could somehow, someway, represent something that is without form and void? 

          The wave function, in quantum physics, is a mathematical object used to describe the full range of possible states a system may occupy before it is observed. It is tangible in the sense that it is calculable, precise, and indispensable for making accurate predictions, yet it has no physical shape, mass, or location. 

          It does not describe what is, but what could be, assigning probabilities across a field of potential outcomes. Only when an interaction occurs does a specific result manifest. In this way, the wave function serves as a concrete representation of something without form, of a structured description of possibility itself, demonstrating that systems operate rigorously and effectively on abstractions long before they resolve into observable reality. 

         In the beginning the earth was a function of near incalculable potential within structured possibility.

         Cool.

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Part IV

Dark Ritual

Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear

         What do people do emotionally and linguistically when abstraction becomes threatening? When subjectivity overwhelms objectivity? We ritualize uncertainty to reduce anxiety and create symbolic boundaries for the unknown. This manifests through right versus wrong, success versus failure, and light versus dark. Building the borders and establishing the walls creates the box as much as the cage. 

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

         We have long been told that fear comes from the unknown. Yes, but also no. The unknown, the void, represents unlimited potential within a structured framework of possibility. Without the tools or experience to measure and observe, the unknown rightfully represents uncertainty. Whenever humanity has been confronted by the darkness we have risen up. We shined our light into the deepest depths of darkness and came out on top. Yet, we are still afraid of it because we learned and know that monsters could be hiding in the dark. Humanity’s fear of the dark is one of the oldest heuristic techniques, one of the oldest systems, life has created to persist and survive.  

Dark and Stormy

         If the solution to overcoming darkness is building a bigger and better flashlight, and humanity has been building bigger and better flashlights since one legend harnessed fire, why do even our most advanced disciplines still rely on fear-mongering language when confronting the unknown? Why do we label things that matter as dark, or holes in our fields of measurement as black. It is nothing special. It is a regression to a familiar for a system faced with uncertainty.

Black Operations 

It is important to mention that these labels do not describe what something or someone is. These labels describe how much is hidden. When we do not understand religious or philosophical practices, we call them the dark arts. When forms of causality fall outside accepted systems, we call them black magic. Controversial or transgressive comedy becomes dark humor, while a source of illumination that reveals the previously unobservable is called black light. Our reliance on black and dark as linguistic markers of the unknown, descriptors of reality, is yet another example of consistent repetition across binaries.

Darkness is not the absence of reality, but the absence of resolution.

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Part V

Ascendant Evincar

Believing is seeing

The Darkest Ritual

Hypatia of Alexandria was a renowned mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who lived in ancient Alexandria around 350 to 415 CE. She is celebrated for her contributions to mathematics and philosophy and is recognized as one of the first female mathematicians in history. She was also brutally murdered by religious zealots in a truly pathetic attempt to devastate her legacy. Murder is a terminal ritual. It is a system attempting to destroy ambiguity by destroying the symbol of it. Hypatia represented knowledge, abstraction, cross-domain thinking, and a refusal to collapse into binaries. Hypatia was not dangerous. She was uncontainable.

Demonization

When systems under uncertainty seek compression, they collapse complexity into visible markers. Whether it be skin color, hair color, or hat color, life needs to create binaries in order to develop reliable frameworks and structures for navigating life. Some of those binaries are patently absurd. We parrot lines about certain people with certain hair colors as being without a soul or being toxic. We have created factual boxes and filled them with fifty fictional shades of grey. Every shade except our own while we pretend we aren’t afraid of our own shadow.

Protect Yourself At All Times

It must be made clear that systems were not born of malice, but of fear and uncertainty. However, that is not to say that malice does not occur within systems. When a system begins to reach its limits, opportunities arise. When opportunities present themselves in systems reaching their limits, both virtuous and vicious sub-systems begin to engage in a return to the familiar. In a resurrection of redundancy.

When it comes to protecting yourself, will you love thy neighbour or will you kill thy neighbor? Will you be a good Samaritan or mumble about how you’re just following orders as you shoot another piece of metal into a carpenter.

A system will always reach its limit given enough time. Given enough time, a system will begin to misalign due to the amount of constant repetitions of the same behavior. That is systems and, while it may feel right to drain the swamp when its full of crabs, if you confuse fiction for fact, you don’t need a swamp for a nemesis to appear out of nowhere.

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Part VI

Opalescence

Shine brighter than a diamond

The universal condition of being afraid of the dark is an old heuristic, perhaps the oldest. There is something just as old, if not older. The condition of seeking out light. Life seeks light and warmth, and we search for it in everything. One popular manifestation is celebrity, fame, and fortune. If a person is wealthy, successful, and revered, that might be as close to a human diamond as one can get. If a person is the greatest talent and most successful competitor in their field, that might feel even closer.

But what if you want to be the greatest and you simply cannot? What if you try, fail, regroup, and try again, only to fail again? You keep trying. And then what if you cannot keep trying, because a career-altering injury removes the very thing that defined you? You can no longer be a magician on the court. You cannot fly through defenses like a bird. You cannot even live up to the dream of becoming like the person you once wanted to be. What do you do when the lights are on, when the system breaks, and you’re fully exposed?

You keep on moving. You become more.

Kobe Bryant believed in systems, whether they were spheres, squares, or triangles. His legacy is riddled with imperfection and error, and there is no skipping over that. It is also decorated with achievement, success, glory, and fame on a near-unprecedented level. Depending on the colors he wore, he could be a hero or a villain, a savior of a franchise or its scapegoat. Sometimes red, white, and blue. Other times yellow and purple. Always gold.

This is fitting for a legacy split into two halves: the first of a man trying to beat the best, the second of a man trying to be the best forever. Kobe Bryant was not just a basketball player. He was an Academy Award–winning artist, a successful businessman, a champion, and a leader. Most importantly, he became a husband, a father, and a role model for young women. Twelve championships could never match that. Kobe Bryant was a system, one that adapted, expanded, and persisted under constraint. Through continuous improvement and deliberate becoming, he crowned himself a king of becoming everything he chose to be. Not a goat.

We are often told to shine bright like a diamond, so often that we sing along to it. Diamonds do shine bright, perhaps brighter than any other jewel, but they are not rare. Some diamonds bring hope to the world while others haunt it. Manufactured diamonds are a dime a dozen and we often rely on a handful of other people to tell us if a diamond is valuable or not.

What do you do if you cannot be a diamond? If you cannot shine as brightly as you hoped?

You shine more.

This is the KOBE System.

You’re welcome to join.

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Part VII

Reya Dawnbringer

Let there be light

Successful systems rarely break down completely. They return to the familiar. Their functionality regresses towards redundant sub-systems while the whole reintegrates. This manifests consistently and repeats across binaries, from the microscopic to the macroeconomic. When the shadows become overwhelming we build a better flashlight.

We might think that newer is always better but that is not necessarily true. What is new for one person might be old for another. An old idea can present a new perspective on current events. With limited information and finite resources people have to make quick decisions. Another system life has developed to make decisions is novelty. You know it when you see it because you have never seen it before. An overwhelming sense of hopefulness regardless of uncertainty.

Things, ideas, and systems can’t always be novel and new. Novelty and sustainable innovation take time. As much as a system wants to do or do not, it must try before it can succeed. During this trial phase is where the system functionally regresses to its sub-systems and emerge through tradition.

Traditions are active frameworks and structures that bring coherence and continuity to a community. The most efficient and effective traditions surpass the test of time because they work. Others evolve into something greater in order to survive.

Christmas has been celebrated around the world for close to two thousand years. What began as the greatest birthday in the history of mankind evolved into a global celebration of kindness and peace effected through the greatest celebration of consumerism and decadence. We all love Christmas even if we don’t love Christ. This system works.    

New Years has been celebrated since life could measure time on earth. It is not something to be chosen or debated. We revolve around the sun and it takes about three hundred and sixty-five days every time we do it. That isn’t the system working. That is the system and we all celebrate it even if we don’t all agree when it to celebrate it.

Even more fundamental to life than our perception of time is attraction. We love to love. We love loving so much we will kill for it. Ourselves as much as others. But we don’t even know what love is. We love our kids and we also love the golden arches waiting for us at the end of the road. We can’t love both the same. It can’t be the same love. Maybe it’s not the same love. Maybe its not love at all. Maybe it’s a system of needs, wants, and desires conflating inputs.  

Whatever light you are looking for in your life. Whether it be science, philosophy, religion, business, law, or romance. You cannot only find novelty in books. Books are old news.

Go build a better flashlight.

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Part VIII

Spiritmonger

Rise from the ashes

The pursuit of knowledge and truth through science has birthed the most incredible technologies and ideas in the history of the world. Technology this advanced would look like magic just a few centuries ago. Technology this advanced looks like magic to humans today. What about technology that cannot be built today? Technology of the future that will be built. Technology using ‘dark’ matter that can harness ‘dark’ energy. That’s just humanity in a few centuries, if not decades, if not years, if we make it that far. It seems humans are wizards and mages already, if not the most technologically advanced biomechanical intelligence in the universe, if not gods.

We are not gods. God is God. Your God, my God, his God, her God, their God. Its just all God, all the time. But it doesn’t really help anyone or anything when there are so many systems willing to show how much more they love the system. Too many chefs spoil the broth and too many crabs poisons it. Is there a last meal we can all enjoy together?

G - Gravity

The universal gravitational constant, denoted by the capital letter G, is a fundamental physical constant that quantifies the strength of the gravitational force between any two objects in the universe. 

O - Everything

The letter O can represent everything or nothing depending on the context, drawing significance from mathematics, philosophy, and linguistics. In several contexts, O signifies absence or the starting point. In other contexts, O typically relates to the shape of a circle or sphere, which implies a container or completeness and infinity. In some theological or spiritual contexts, the divine is viewed as a unified, eternal entity, without a beginning or end, fitting the symbolic representation of a circle or O.

D - Time

Duration is a key concept in finance that measures the sensitivity of a fixed-income instrument's price to changes in interest rates. Macaulay and modified duration are two related, but distinct, systems used for this purpose. Macaulay duration is the weighted average time until a bond reaches maturity. Modified duration measures the percentage change in a bond's price for a minimal change in its time to maturity. Both are represented by the letter D in academic literature.

Man From G.O.D

God is a fundamental constant force that bonds everything together as the universe reaches its maturity.

God = Gravity x Everything x Time

God = G x O x D

God = GOD

Convenient.

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Part IX

Birds of Paradise

If you want to go fast go alone

A smart person once shared an idea about measuring fish by their ability to climb trees. We ask if a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? Which forest? While the fish were learning to climb trees, we began cutting them down. Now that there are barely any trees to climb we started asking fish to fly. We already had wings even if they made us into crabs.

We can fly around the world with a push of a button. We can experience flying from the comfort of our own homes through simulation systems. We can travel through space and time and experience life from other eras and other perspectives. Sometimes as a cowboy and sometimes watching a super human save the world. We can taste different countries and realms at a moments notice. Infinite knowledge and truth is at our fingertips. Somehow it’s not enough. It’s just never enough. Do more and be more. Try harder because failure is not an option.

What if we can’t roll the boulder up the hill this time. We climbed a lot of mountains and saw far beyond what we ever thought was possible. We stood on the shoulders of giants who were carried by the wings of angels. The reality is more like we are a caterpillar cocooning on a leaf on a branch extending from the tree of life and we’re just lucky to be here.

Butterflies are more than interesting. We really do not know what happens to them and we have used our collective imaginations to imagine what system caterpillars use to evolve. We titled the system as Imaginal Discs. Imagine that. These little discs represent infinite possibility of transformation and growth. Finite with regards to the caterpillar’s system as it has limited and finite resources. Infinite in the forms that can and will emerge.

Humans might not have imaginal discs to transform our bodies and become nature’s angels but we do have brains. If a butterfly knew what a brain was it would trade all its coins for it. We don’t have to rely on our biological system to transform ourselves. We just have to use our brain and try. Try new food or new music. Try new activities and experiences. Maybe try new perspectives. We don’t have to try too hard when failure is necessary. Trying is success.

Do or do not. Always try.  

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Part X

Gaea’s Cradle

If you want to go far go together

Living a life full of timeless resilience with effortless expertise is not a mirage. It’s in the palm of your hand. Whether it is molting from your shell, shedding your skins, or cleansing your soul, life has chosen to let go of bonds in order to make space for new experiences and ideas. This is consistently repeated across binaries. A system older than humanity.

Every man for himself has never worked. That is why we train children to coordinate during fire drills. That is why we have rules and laws. That is why we say teamwork makes the dream work. The real dream is to be part of the team. We say it takes a village to raise a child and that the child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.

The instant we are sentient we are introduced to a pure and unadulterated experience of warmth and sustenance. Ignorance is bliss. Life is perfect. Then the system reaches its limit. We reach our limit within the system and we begin to emerge as the healer says let there be light. A story as old as time. We all just want to be embraced. By the system, by the village, by God, or by one person we love. That’s it. No mystery or magic. That is all we really want and we tell ourselves its not enough. We are always living in the greatest iteration of the Garden of Eden and it’s just not enough.

It never is.

Except it is.

It always is.

It always was.

And it always will be.  

The end.