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An idea worth spreading

I am reminded of how Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) liked to tell the
story of his map of England. His map was a perfect map in that it showed
every road, every house, every tree, every leaf on every tree, every molecule
of every leaf on every tree. It could be such a perfect map because it was on
a one to one scale with what it was mapping -- England. It also wasn't a very
useful map because the first thing you needed to understand the map was
another map (the kind you can carry around).

Am I making my point here -- or do I have to draw you a map? :-)

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.40 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: Has religion outlived it's usefulness?

  Feb 28 2011: @daniel -- cold reading?

• A reply on Conversation: How would you describe the purpose of life in one sentence?

  Feb 27 2011: Self centered and anthropomorphic.

• A reply on Conversation: How would you describe the purpose of life in one sentence?

  Feb 27 2011: My mistake -- singularitarianism seems to be the belief in the singularity where something "beyond" human is created. However, this does not seem to be the creation of a new God (ie. one above all with powers of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence).

• A reply on Conversation: How would you describe the purpose of life in one sentence?

  Feb 27 2011: Not necessarily... (Could be a new God)

• A comment on Conversation: Which relevant/important events currently unfolding around the world are being ignored by the media? Why are they relevant?

  Feb 27 2011: Where the world will be in 10, 20, and 30 years. In other words, except for TED, there is not enough discussion of where the world is going in the future that people can apply to their lives today.

• A comment on Conversation: Can people who deny science be educated? How?

  Feb 27 2011: By its very nature, science is constantly changing and enlarging. Therefore, there isn't a simple principle that people can latch onto and accept in it. Religion, on the other hand, has basic tenets that remain constant, so people can latch onto them and remain committed to them. Therefore, the answer to you question might be to teach science like a religion to those people that need to understand it that way.

• A comment on Conversation: Has religion outlived it's usefulness?

  Feb 27 2011: Definitely. Religion is ancient man's way of rationalizing what he couldn't understand. Acceptance of science means that we no longer have to rely on religion to understand the world -- we can actively pursue our own answers to why things work the way that they do. In the end, we may find (and prove) that which we believed in the beginning -- that a higher order spirit is responsible for the creation of the universe.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: How would you describe the purpose of life in one sentence?

  Feb 27 2011: Purpose of life -- to create God. Think about it. :-)

• A reply on Conversation: Why do so many think that population growth is an important issue for the environment? Don't they know the facts of demographics?

  Feb 18 2011: But what will the effect on energy consumption be of raising all those Sub-Saharan Africaners (etc.) to having a good level of existence??
  
  If the reduction in population through attrition is going to be slow, the net effect is going to be a continuing spiral up in energy consumption by the world which contributes to global climate change and the eventual destruction of the planet (yeah, I know, doom and gloom). The point here is that population has a direct impact on global climate change in the following two ways:
  
  1. Increase in population causes increase in resource use which has effects on climate.
  2. Increase in resource use by population also effect climate.
  
  Either we begin looking into "Soylent Green" or we have to find means of resource usage that has *no* effect on climate.

• A reply on Conversation: Why do so many think that population growth is an important issue for the environment? Don't they know the facts of demographics?

  Feb 18 2011: Interesting question is what percentage of these 2% are born with a problem (ie. HIV)? And a further interesting question is what does this bode for the health of the world?