This was interesting! Here’s my attempt to make sense of the essay & the comments:
TL;DR We can think of the parts of reality that we have influence over as our surface area of contact with reality. One way of expanding this is increasing our scale of impact (e.g. self → friends & family → communities → world). Since reality is fractal though, you can also expand by engaging more deeply with reality and developing expertise in an area (e.g. beginner → able to cook good food for yourself). Increasing scale of impact tends to seem more impressive, but delving deeper also expands our agency over reality, just in a less visible manner. This fractal nature of reality also means that regardless of which scale you choose to work at, you will still be able to live a rich and rewardng life.
It’s remarkable to me how we are all living in the same physical reality, yet some people seem to be living in much bigger worlds than others. Some work for a salary, organize gatherings with friends, sew or knit, or read autobiographies of famous people. Others start companies, set up non-profit organizations, make software used by hundreds of thousands, or collaborate with famous people. Their worlds feel much bigger: things that are merely painted items on the backdrop of my stage are props they can interact with on theirs.
An easy way to measure this difference is scale of impact. People can generally control their own actions (most of the time) and maybe cajole a loved one to do as they wish. Some can persuade their friends to say, try out a new place for a meal or sign a petition. Fewer can manage departments, fewer still can lead a multi-national company, and yet fewer still can lead a country. Similarly, anyone can write, but only some can publish novels read by millions. People who have a larger scale of impact are more impressive, because they have influence over a larger part of reality. This generally comes along with developing expertise: the more you learn, the more your reality, i.e. parts of the world you have influence or agency over, expands.
The thing is, though, that reality is fractal. The surface of your bubble is not smooth—it consists of many small bubbles, and the surfaces of those bubbles consist of yet smaller bubbles. Thus, there is another way to increase your area of influence. Rather than increasing the size of your bubble or moving to a larger bubble, you can instead delve into the tiny bubbles along the surface.
One can think of developing expertise as learning to make increasingly precise adjustments to the effects you have on the world. When learning music, you start off trying to play the notes you see on your music sheet. Later on you try to play the notes with the dynamics you’re imagining in your mind. Later still, you work on using dynamics to convey the emotion you want the listener to feel. As you gain mastery, you explore the smaller bubbles, learning finer ways of influencing the world. Just like moving up the scale of impact, this gives you agency over a larger part of the reality—your action space increases. Only when you’ve spent time exploring the nuances of music can you play music that moves people. Only when you’ve spent time exploring the internals of a computer do you have the option of repairing your own laptop. Only when you’ve spent time shopping and comparing prices for your groceries will you know how to find the best deals.
When you engage with reality, your reality expands. You are rewarded with greater agency regardless of whether you move up the scale (zoom out) or explore the details (zoom in). However, zooming out often sounds more impressive than zooming in, because it is more visible and requires less expertise to detect.
It’s easy to compare the number of people reporting to a manager. Also, people who have larger spheres of influence are more likely to be known (you’re more likely to read about a CEO than a junior employee). In contrast, not everyone can evaluate how skilled a teacher is at teaching. Furthermore, a competent teacher is not necessarily going to be more well-known than a teacher who is less so. Or to put it another way, a division manager just sounds more impressive than a kindergarten teacher, even if the teacher is better at managing people.
There is a tradeoff between zooming out and zooming in, because you have a finite amount of time. Also, knowing the details can become unimportant (and possibly a waste of time) when you zoom out far enough. It’s important for a CTO to have technical expertise, but it would be unnecessary for the CTO to be familar with all the nuances of a programming language.
This is a choice you can make, and maybe some would decide to scale up as much as possible. Reality is fractal though, which means that you can live a rich and rewarding life regardless of which scale you choose to work at. There’s always lots of choices. For example, in cooking, you can explore making Mexican dishes, or creative presentation of food, or fusion of unusual flavors, or even finding as many ways as possible to use tofu. (Or you could move up the scale by becoming a chef and opening restaurants, sharing your grandma’s recipes on your website, posting Youtube videos so people can learn to make tasty vegetarian dishes, or building software that recommends recipes based on the ingredients you have on hand.) Reality is a very rich place to explore.
This was interesting! Here’s my attempt to make sense of the essay & the comments:
TL;DR We can think of the parts of reality that we have influence over as our surface area of contact with reality. One way of expanding this is increasing our scale of impact (e.g. self → friends & family → communities → world). Since reality is fractal though, you can also expand by engaging more deeply with reality and developing expertise in an area (e.g. beginner → able to cook good food for yourself). Increasing scale of impact tends to seem more impressive, but delving deeper also expands our agency over reality, just in a less visible manner. This fractal nature of reality also means that regardless of which scale you choose to work at, you will still be able to live a rich and rewardng life.
It’s remarkable to me how we are all living in the same physical reality, yet some people seem to be living in much bigger worlds than others. Some work for a salary, organize gatherings with friends, sew or knit, or read autobiographies of famous people. Others start companies, set up non-profit organizations, make software used by hundreds of thousands, or collaborate with famous people. Their worlds feel much bigger: things that are merely painted items on the backdrop of my stage are props they can interact with on theirs.
An easy way to measure this difference is scale of impact. People can generally control their own actions (most of the time) and maybe cajole a loved one to do as they wish. Some can persuade their friends to say, try out a new place for a meal or sign a petition. Fewer can manage departments, fewer still can lead a multi-national company, and yet fewer still can lead a country. Similarly, anyone can write, but only some can publish novels read by millions. People who have a larger scale of impact are more impressive, because they have influence over a larger part of reality. This generally comes along with developing expertise: the more you learn, the more your reality, i.e. parts of the world you have influence or agency over, expands.
The thing is, though, that reality is fractal. The surface of your bubble is not smooth—it consists of many small bubbles, and the surfaces of those bubbles consist of yet smaller bubbles. Thus, there is another way to increase your area of influence. Rather than increasing the size of your bubble or moving to a larger bubble, you can instead delve into the tiny bubbles along the surface.
One can think of developing expertise as learning to make increasingly precise adjustments to the effects you have on the world. When learning music, you start off trying to play the notes you see on your music sheet. Later on you try to play the notes with the dynamics you’re imagining in your mind. Later still, you work on using dynamics to convey the emotion you want the listener to feel. As you gain mastery, you explore the smaller bubbles, learning finer ways of influencing the world. Just like moving up the scale of impact, this gives you agency over a larger part of the reality—your action space increases. Only when you’ve spent time exploring the nuances of music can you play music that moves people. Only when you’ve spent time exploring the internals of a computer do you have the option of repairing your own laptop. Only when you’ve spent time shopping and comparing prices for your groceries will you know how to find the best deals.
When you engage with reality, your reality expands. You are rewarded with greater agency regardless of whether you move up the scale (zoom out) or explore the details (zoom in). However, zooming out often sounds more impressive than zooming in, because it is more visible and requires less expertise to detect.
It’s easy to compare the number of people reporting to a manager. Also, people who have larger spheres of influence are more likely to be known (you’re more likely to read about a CEO than a junior employee). In contrast, not everyone can evaluate how skilled a teacher is at teaching. Furthermore, a competent teacher is not necessarily going to be more well-known than a teacher who is less so. Or to put it another way, a division manager just sounds more impressive than a kindergarten teacher, even if the teacher is better at managing people.
There is a tradeoff between zooming out and zooming in, because you have a finite amount of time. Also, knowing the details can become unimportant (and possibly a waste of time) when you zoom out far enough. It’s important for a CTO to have technical expertise, but it would be unnecessary for the CTO to be familar with all the nuances of a programming language.
This is a choice you can make, and maybe some would decide to scale up as much as possible. Reality is fractal though, which means that you can live a rich and rewarding life regardless of which scale you choose to work at. There’s always lots of choices. For example, in cooking, you can explore making Mexican dishes, or creative presentation of food, or fusion of unusual flavors, or even finding as many ways as possible to use tofu. (Or you could move up the scale by becoming a chef and opening restaurants, sharing your grandma’s recipes on your website, posting Youtube videos so people can learn to make tasty vegetarian dishes, or building software that recommends recipes based on the ingredients you have on hand.) Reality is a very rich place to explore.