Conversation

8/ Slight tech aside: the popular A* algorithm (and derivatives like D* for incomplete info) as used for map navigation is technically a maze search, not a general graph search, because it relies on having a compass heading to work with. This requires an embedding.
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9/ Now we come to why mazes are better big picture visualizations than jigsaw puzzles. They not only provide a view of the whole, they have *paths* through them connecting points (shared with graphs). This opens a WHOLE NEW WAY of understanding them.
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10/ Many graph problems are also very interesting maze problems with very interesting properties, and are generally more tractable in their maze forms: all shortest paths, hamilton circuit, traveling salesman... all of them become easier if you have the power of the compass.
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But here's the BIGGEST reason this matters. A path through a graph, whether it is the shortest one, or a search-and-map one, or a visit-all-vertices one, is also a SERIALIZATION of a big picture. A path turns a maze into a STORY.
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Mazes therefore are at the heart of the connection between the two most important ways humans do big picture thinking: in SPACE (2d-2.5d MECE representations of a thing) and TIME (stories that evolve in 1d)
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Mazes are the corpus callosum of abstract human thought. They connect our spatial big picture thinking ability to our temporal big picture thinking ability, by providing a 1d view of a 2.5d and vice versa.
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Related to this, I'm using a "maze of time" to organize my thoughts on temporality in a spatial way. The masthead picture on the account is a portion of this maze, collaboratively developed by Dan and me. I'm using it to "serialize" my ideas about time... in time.
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One of the reasons I jumped on when I did is that it also seems to embody an understanding of "maze thinking" as opposed to "jigsaw thinking" or purely serial "narrative thinking". I'm using both Roam and mazes as prosthetics for my current multitemporality research
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