I went gradually from level to level, each time learning the next version of the thing, and in this there was nothing remarkable. Everyone knows it — everyone first learned the version of the stork and then the more realistic explanation of his own genesis. The point is that all the earlier versions, even those as patently false as the one with the stork, are not discarded completely. Something of them remains in us; they mesh with succeeding versions and somehow continue to exist — but that is not all. As far as the facts are concerned — say, in the case of my father’s diploma — it is not difficult to determine what the correct version is, the one that counts. It is otherwise with experience. Each experience has its weight, its authority, which does not admit of argument and depends only on itself. And herein lies the problem, for the sole guardian and guarantor of the authenticity of experience is memory.
Given it's Christmas Eve, I think our memories of Christmas and what it means is a good example of this. As children we explain gifts on Christmas as something Santa Claus provides overnight. The forward-motion of life eventually teaches us that it is, in fact, our parents giving gifts... Yet the original belief and magic stays with us, and the chronology of beliefs superceded by new beliefs and realities feeds the myth and power of Christmas.
Borges also discusses the subjective experiences we have when producing work in a number of his works[1], which is also magical in a way that Lem's paragraph is -- our lived experiences forever bias us in a ways that we might never expect.
The path dependency of the human nervous system, and all its derivative constructs, is remarkable to contemplate next to the great motions of the world.
There's a term for this: "level of abstraction". Also "level of detail" when it comes to computer graphics. He hasn't said anything remarkable here. To move faster, to understand things at a grander scale, to understand some larger phenomena you need to (sometimes) skip unnecessary detail that would slow you down in pointless arguments.
He's not really talking about abstraction or level of detail.
He's talking about how the "magical", naive, imagination-based ways we understand things when we are young colour the way we perceive them we we get older.
Even if we know, rationally, that the way we used to think about something was incorrect, and conflicts with what we know to be true as adults, we don't discard those old ideas entirely, and they remain internalised to some extent:
The point is that all the earlier versions, even those as patently false as the one with the stork, are not discarded completely. Something of them remains in us; they mesh with succeeding versions and somehow continue to exist
I actually think it's at least a little more profound than you give it credit for.
To each his own. Comparing his ideas to software development would not be my first instinct, but I don't think level of abstraction is what he was going for. A closer analogy would be where there are many different implementations of an interface that run concurrently and then have their many outputs fused back into one single output. But that reads more awkwardly than the way Lem said it :)
I forgot to type it in that reply (hence redundant 'understand'), but also something as common as discussion. If you talk with a pedantic person he might be 100% accurate but prevent it from moving forward. This is called obstruction. What Lem was saying is obviously true, definitions of different level remain in use. Because they're useful.
I like Lem but sometimes his complex grammar and vocabulary doesn't add any value. I think it's better to describe (relatively) simple things in simple language. Lem tended to phrase everything that way.
He also has an amazing essay on futurology called Summa Technologiae. It clearly shows his insight into what is happening to our society as we advance in tech.
It was recently translated to English and is a must read.
Every time I see an "ł", I think there's something on my monitor, or dead pixels. I definitely tried to remove the debris from my monitor with my thumb before realizing it was an "L with stroke" haha :)
Well it's similar in German and some other languages. In Latin "v" and "u" were the same letter and "w" was introduced to clean up the mess and be specific.
In Polish there's no "v", "u" is always the "oo" sound and "w" is always the "v" sound.
Same with "c"/"k"/"q" mess. In Polish there's no "q", "k" is always the sound in "Cat" and "c" is always the sound in "TZar". Simple. In English you have 3 letters randomly assigned to encode the same 2 sounds in different words.
Unlike English though, the pronunciation is almost always straightforward and non-ambiguous. The spelling for some sounds can be confusing at first, but once you internalize it, it'll work 99% of the time.
Pronunciation can be challenging but words are spelled in a very consistent manner. There are few exceptions where the word isn't spoken like the letters suggest (for example: zmarznięty).
I went gradually from level to level, each time learning the next version of the thing, and in this there was nothing remarkable. Everyone knows it — everyone first learned the version of the stork and then the more realistic explanation of his own genesis. The point is that all the earlier versions, even those as patently false as the one with the stork, are not discarded completely. Something of them remains in us; they mesh with succeeding versions and somehow continue to exist — but that is not all. As far as the facts are concerned — say, in the case of my father’s diploma — it is not difficult to determine what the correct version is, the one that counts. It is otherwise with experience. Each experience has its weight, its authority, which does not admit of argument and depends only on itself. And herein lies the problem, for the sole guardian and guarantor of the authenticity of experience is memory.
Given it's Christmas Eve, I think our memories of Christmas and what it means is a good example of this. As children we explain gifts on Christmas as something Santa Claus provides overnight. The forward-motion of life eventually teaches us that it is, in fact, our parents giving gifts... Yet the original belief and magic stays with us, and the chronology of beliefs superceded by new beliefs and realities feeds the myth and power of Christmas.
Borges also discusses the subjective experiences we have when producing work in a number of his works[1], which is also magical in a way that Lem's paragraph is -- our lived experiences forever bias us in a ways that we might never expect.
Merry Christmas everyone.
[1] For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Q...