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Aella
@Aella_Girl
When I was a teenager, my friend and I were building a magic system and got into an extended debate. I wanted the most elegant system possible; something that was beautifully parallel, consistent all the way to the top, fully explained, organized. He wanted something more
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
organic and mystical; something that was built to work with the story primarily; asymmetrical, disorganized, "naturally grown". I've often thought back at our contrasting approaches as relevant for different approaches to frameworks in many other spheres. The advantage of-
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
my approach was that it was very elegant and useful. Knowing what to do came out of "principles," which matched patterns, and felt beautiful to use. But my approach, compared to his, was a gross simplification. Mine could be fully explained *easier*; it took less information to-
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
-understand, because it was so heavily pattern based. Because it was my brain that planned and predicted it, it was necessarily limited by what I could comprehend. It lost complexity. His approach, for what it sacrificed in predictability, made up for in complexity.
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
No rule was absolute; nuance was huge; it was not easily understandable, and in this it was closer to a living being. I nowadays try to approach things as a balance between his old view and my old view. When operating with large-scale principles, whether it be economics or
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
morality, recognize that they're limited in their use. Reality is not simple, and whatever system you're using to categorize it is necessarily going to miss the nuance and "living-beingness" of what's going on. Ofc I don't mean don't use principle at all - only recognize that
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Aella
@Aella_Girl
Replying to
@Aella_Girl
principles are a necessarily simplifying *tool* that you are using for *specific purposes*, and be prepared to loosen your grip on that tool whenever reality gives you a concept that isn't quite so elegantly manipulated by that tool.
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