“All problems are either clouds or clocks,” said the eminent philosopher Carl Popper. There are two different kinds of systems, he meant. To understand a clock you can take it apart, examine its individual pieces, understand it or fix it. A cloud is different. You can only observe it as a dynamic, shifting, morphing whole. […]
Silence
When Words Fail
How do you communicate with someone who doesn’t speak your language, nor you theirs? That, essentially, is the question Pam and I always face when we visit our French friends, Serge and Betty, whom we visited in Nice for five days last week. We do speak some French, Pam more than I; and they do […]