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spikisms

a collection of idiosyncratic words and phrases that i use often

spandrel

spandrel: a contingent feature, usually pointing at a more generic structural constraint. the constraint itself is completely loose, and can be architectural, genetic, economic, mathematical, causal, ... this word is used often to point out that given features are not fundamental, but are instead pointing at something fundamental.

example: natural numbers are likely not fundamental, but the inductive process from which they arise likely are. to have a language (in the serial or non serial forms) whatsoever, you need a parsable grammar, which immediately brings into discussion something that looks like primitive recursion, which brings immediately into view natural numbers. i.e: at the point at which you’re discussing natural numbers (or a counterfactual language in which they don’t exist), you already have them.

note: a related term is ‘consequence’, which evokes a similar relationship: underlying structure / situation that brings forth a phenomenon / structure down the line. however, i don’t use these two interchangably exactly because ‘consequence’ has a temporal / causal connotation that i don’t want to evoke. the distinction is very similar to the distinction drawn between the local/differential vs global/variational perspectives in physics. consequences happen, spandrels are just there.

the happy button

the happy button: an emotional muscle that meditators obtain. similar to how body builders eventually learn how to contract indivdual muscle groups on command, a meditator can identify individual emotions, their triggers, and how to engage / disengage with them. this seems most prevalent as an acquired skill in the jhana tradition of meditation.

essentially, it is a switch / lever one can press emotionally that evokes a sense of deep happiness, in exactly the same vein as the sensations one might feel in the early stages of the jhanas.

note: while i associate the happy button with jhana 1-2, and tell people interested in meditation to be on the lookout for it (both because the triggered emotion is exactly the one you’re taught to conjure in those jhanas, and was also around the stages at which i acquired the happy button), i’m not entirely sure how much of it is an artifact of my particular circumstances, or is genuinely a skillcheck that other practioners acquire.

dragon problems

a dragon problem is a recurring motif in cs and other technical domains in which the usual approach to solving it involves scoping the problem extremely precisely, otherwise it completely blows up in complexity. if you solve a dragon problem you get a turing award (or equivalent).

examples:

dynamic software updating, build systems, distributed consistency, garbage collection

examples of dragon slayers:

beaver problems

a beaver problem is another recurring motif, primarily in cs, where the spec is pretty simply statable, but the search space for a valid solution is just completely intractable. usually only tackleable by scoping the problem to extremely small cases. if you solve a beaver prolem you get a fields medal / nobel prize (or equivalent).

examples:

the busy beaver function, model checking, sat/smt, program synthesis

examples of beaver slayers: