The Puzzle Analogy
May. 7th, 2003 05:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stevenehrbarUpon reflection, perhaps the problem is people didn't grasp the puzzle analogy. It was that the experience of completing a thousand-piece puzzle and the experience of completing the bottom half of a 2000-piece puzzle were qualitatively different, even though in each case you completed a whole thousand-piece puzzle.
Apparently, people didn't get it. I did not understand it fully consciously, but it was so obvios, like a bolt of lightning, that I was unreasonably frustrated by the lack of comprehension by others. Anyway . . .
The thousand-piece puzzle has no gaps, no missing pieces; it may be a fairly undetailed picture, but you're not seeing the table through it. All the pieces are integrated together coherently. It is a whole.
The same is true of the bottom half of the 2,000-piece puzzle. It has no gaps, no missing pieces, and all the pieces are nothing missing -- it looks complete. All the pieces are integrated together coherently.
Except that the first puzzle has a complete picture, while in the second, there's a row at the top where no straight pieces are, making it obvious that something else is supposed to be added. It is not a whole; there are other things that are supposed to be integrated with it.
Remember losing a tooth as a kid, and how the open spot was tender but drew your tounge to it anyway? That's what things like the two entrries and six paragraphs dealing with Imperial Warrants are like to me. I've got pieces that link to the other half of the puzzle, but I can't connect them. They drive me nuts.
Apparently, people didn't get it. I did not understand it fully consciously, but it was so obvios, like a bolt of lightning, that I was unreasonably frustrated by the lack of comprehension by others. Anyway . . .
The thousand-piece puzzle has no gaps, no missing pieces; it may be a fairly undetailed picture, but you're not seeing the table through it. All the pieces are integrated together coherently. It is a whole.
The same is true of the bottom half of the 2,000-piece puzzle. It has no gaps, no missing pieces, and all the pieces are nothing missing -- it looks complete. All the pieces are integrated together coherently.
Except that the first puzzle has a complete picture, while in the second, there's a row at the top where no straight pieces are, making it obvious that something else is supposed to be added. It is not a whole; there are other things that are supposed to be integrated with it.
Remember losing a tooth as a kid, and how the open spot was tender but drew your tounge to it anyway? That's what things like the two entrries and six paragraphs dealing with Imperial Warrants are like to me. I've got pieces that link to the other half of the puzzle, but I can't connect them. They drive me nuts.
