Friday, August 11, 2006

Context and Relativity

This is a PS blog ... late but better than never ;-) I was having a conversation the other day with someone about how every difference can be measured as based on the components of context and relativity. Large/small, rich/poor and the inevitable intelligent/stupid are all measured by relativity and context. It was interesting thinking about a few instances of this, examples abound in general lifestyle measurements and "opposites", but it was more from a technology front that got me thinking about it. Thinking about it now the general progress in computer technology comes to mind. Back in the days when, say punch cards were used to program computers (yes there were those days - but I personally wasn't there to witness!) that would have been considered "complex", "advanced" and perhaps "smart", but change the context today and "modern" electronics, come up with the idea and bam - you'd probably be laughed at! In this instance the main differentiator of the context was time, and that is one "context" which we can't change for real... yet. And don't hold your breath! But there are plenty of other "contexts" that we can control that affect us hugely. The point I was making to myself was that if you can even slightly change your context, you could take advantage of the change. Be it looking at a computer program from a different perspective, or looking at whether you are truly "busy" or "tired" ... or not. In any case, its something I'll be keepin' in the back of my mind, at least in my current context!