What's Your Law?

[coalescent]

The latest Edge asked a bunch of well-known thinkers to come up with 'some bit of wisdom, some rule of nature, some law-like pattern, either grand or small, that you've noticed in the universe that might as well be named after you,' and formulate it into a law. The results are interesting. And extensive. Some are serious, some are frivolous, some are essentially meaningless; several are variations on Clarke's Third Law, and there's even a straight-from-the-horse's-mouth definition of Godwin's Law.

Sterling's Law of Ubiquitous Computation

First, your home is a constant, while the Net is a place you go; then the Net becomes a constant while your home is a place you go.

Pollack's Law of Robotics

Start over with pinball machines.

Dawkins' Law of Divine Invulnerability

God cannot lose.

Simonyi's Law of Guaranteed Evolution

Anything that can be done, could be done "meta".

(These are some of the shorter, pithier ones; there are many longer, more complex ones, such as Rucker's Law of Morphogenetics...)

If I had my own law, I'd write it here. What's your law? Or, which of the laws in Edge's list most intrigues you?

Comments

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

Sterling's Law of Ubiquitous Computation

First, your home is a constant, while the Net is a place you go; then the Net becomes a constant while your home is a place you go.

This is by far too close to home for me to be comfortable. :P

[autodidactic.livejournal.com]

When I was younger, I realized to the very core of me that no interaction that a human had with another human was completely without self interest. It's much like something I heard once regarding the nonexistence of pure altruism. Perhaps one'd be able to argue with that quite eloquently and I'd not be able to refute, given that I'm sometimes not that articulate, but I'd guess my entry would have looked sort of like:

POWELL'S LAW OF UBIQUITOUS SELF-INTEREST, part 1: No one's looking at you. They're all too busy worrying about how they look.

POWELL'S LAW OF UBIQUITOUS SELF-INTEREST, part 2: If they seem to be looking at you, it's only because they're sussing out how to (or, how not to) fit you into their mythos.

Corrolary to POWELL'S LAW OF UBIQUITOUS SELF-INTEREST: History is propelled forward through time by the movements of selfishness. A sort of current is generated when people/places/things/ideas become more and/or less important to each others' world view. However, that could be like saying that wind is generated by the movement of leaves.

YMMV. I'm not really good at all this. My favorites were Brian Eno's and Helena Cronin's laws.

A.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh man! I'd haven't heard about that one net/home law in a very long time. Back in 1990 when the future was all about virtual reality a la The Lawnmower Man. I'm so glad we've past that fad.

http://www.theplug.net

the mental exercise of reading that lot has done me a lot of good

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

... and I'll probably bog off to my own journal to go over it thoroughly. But as well as thought-provoking "laws" there was also a fair amount of blind opimism, arrogance, amusement at ones own cleverness and some slightly petulant dwelling on sexual difference ... which leads me to my own law --

The Jeremy Dennis Law of Mistaken Understanding:

If eveything makes sense, you are probably drunk.

Which came to me while reading Calvin's law of coherence, one of the ones where the corollary was actually the law ... (teetotallers may substitute "mistaken" for drunk).

Of them all, my favourite is Kai Krause's example dilemma:

A good analogy is like a diagonal frog.

It's been done before, but that one is especially elegant.

one of the things I did find myself thinking

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

when reading many of the "laws"

yes, that law works for geniuses -- but what about the rest of us?

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

How about Riddell's Theorem: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from conspiracy"?

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Itchyfidget's law of integrity:

The one time you actually do something really cool and for the purest motives, nobody will know or see.

Here's a go

[applez.livejournal.com]

Any application of will begets positive reinforcing feedback, with decreasing reinforcing value equal to the increasing mundanity of that will.

Examples: good acts beget good reinforcement until that good act is mundane. Also vica-versa. I suppose that goes for relationships too, I suppose.

Re: Here's a go

[applez.livejournal.com]

I suppose I'm getting at inverse proportionality there, ahem.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of interesting ones there, thanks for pointing this out, but the one I found most apposite/intriguing was:

Hearst's Law

A public figure is often condemned for an action that is taken unfairly out of context but nevertheless reflects, in a compelling and encapsulated manner, an underlying truth about that person.