Thank you Chidi,

I am happy that you enjoyed my essay, and that it brought fond memories. I'm also glad you came to the work of H.D. Zeh on your own, because his insights are priceless. His work is often cited, but remains poorly understood.

It is interesting to note that I already had your essay page open in the next tab, when I read your message above. So I was and am at least hoping to read your essay before midnight tomorrow, and maybe sooner than that.

All the Best,

Jonathan

  • [deleted]

Jonathan,

funny how the 'pick a boo' game quantum mechanics is playing with us is providing us so much headache, where the babies can't stop laughing playing it. This is somehow theme of my essay. I'm not so sure though what can be learned from quantum mechanics, but surely we have to continue to play.

Great essay, enjoyable to read. Thanks

Luca

    Hi Jonathan,

    I think you are so right about play. It's an attitude, a state of mind towards life and work where everything actually becomes more enjoyable and productive.

    Here are some quotes that particularly resonated with me:

    "the swiftest progress is often made when there is only an interest to see what nature is telling us, with no specific expectation of what we will find. "

    "When people are intimidated into compliance, or compelled to adhere to an artificial timetable, their ability to make progress suffers. While necessity can foster innovation, often the best scientists can do is create the ideal conditions for a discovery to be made, and then wait for nature to reveal herself in the experimental results. "

    "When we send our most able scholars the message that it is not OK to play and they must do 'serious work' instead, we are doing them and our world a disservice. "

    Best wishes,

    Lorraine

      Thanks so much Lorraine!

      It's hard for some to imagine that play boosts productivity, but in so many pursuits it does just that. If we are more allowing, and accord more slack, or give more room for something to happen, this sometimes gives the extra available energy (as Ed Klingman puts it) and creates the freedom for individuals to make progress happen. Making room for play therefore helps serious progress to happen.

      All the Best,

      Jonathan

      Thanks Luca,

      It's true that Quantum Mechanics can be like a game of peek a boo. Are the particles there when not detected? It is 60% likely they are at A, and 40% likely they are at B; or are they? Peek a boo..

      All the Best,

      Jonathan

      Jonathan,

      I read your essay a month ago. Didn't get back to rate it. Thinking about it tonight. I think I am a 'player'. So, of course I think 'play' is important. Very important. Good essay.

      James

        Thank you very much James..

        I am happy you are a playful soul, and that you affirm the importance of play. I also appreciate your helping to put me over the top, in the final day of ratings.

        All the Best,

        Jonathan

        5 days later

        I played around with Excel last night and came up with a way to predict the contest winner. Basically, by downloading all the data pertinent to this contest such as the title of the essay, how many posts, the community rating, the public rating, how many community ratings and how many public ratings, and one more column for a combination of all the ratings and how the essay judges are likely to weight all the columns with respect to eachother, it spits out an answer.

        With all those numbers, I sorted on each column and changed the color of the top 10 essays in each column. Then when it was all done I just looked for the "most colorful essay".

        And the winner (will likely be)...

        Open Peer Review to Save the World by Philip Gibbs

        #2: Recognizing the Value of Play by Jonathan J. Dickau

        #3: Bohr-like model for black holes: the route for quantum gravity by Christian Corda

        #3 wins the slot because the contest judges will want to be science-minded. That's why Corda will likely win out over the Honorable Mention

        How to save the world by Sabine Hossenfelder

        because #3 is very science-y and #4 is a bit more of a preachy title without as much of a hint towards what the essay is about.

        Well, there's my prediction. It was enjoyable to participate in this contest. By my own criteria, my essay wasn't "colorful" at all. Maybe the judges will score highly on ease of understanding and practicality? Nahh, the guys who are at the top of this list still do very well in such categories.

        Good luck to you all.

        Kevin O

          dear Jonathan,

          Congratulations with your high score and entrance to the finalists pool.

          I still wanted to thank you for the comments on my thread and now I wish you good luck with the judges.

          best regards

          Wilhelmus

            8 days later

            Jonathan,

            In your comments, you indicated an interest in education issues. As a former teacher, I also have a passion there. I would like to share an article I just wrote: http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/06/the-education-cure/.

            Regards,

            Jim

              I just listened to an awesome podcast that you will definitely want to check out! The latest On Being podcast, with the amazing host Krista Tippett, is an interview with Stuart Brown, who is probably the top expert psychologist on play, and he runs the International Center for Play (or something like that). The interview was one of the most enlightening and informative hours of media that I've encountered in a long time. I urge everyone interested in a healthy world to check it out, or at least check out Brown's organization.

              Also, I've been meaning to add that a while back I created a Reddit community called /r/SciencePlayground that is dedicated to providing a casual communication hub for highly creative and joyful exploration of the universe at all levels of understanding and welcoming all styles and personalities. It provides a more open-ended, bottom-up, emergent companion to the more focused, top-down, highly controlled venues of academia, where only the popularly recognized experts generally have a voice. The Science Playground community has been mostly ignored (or just never discovered), but it's there for anyone to use, appreciate, enjoy, etc. It might also serve as a nice space for brick-and-mortar "science playgrounds" (hackerspaces, fab labs, museums, etc.) to share their own ideas and questions with one another. I welcome everyone to at least stop by and share your own thoughts on what you'd like to explore!

                Thanks greatly Turil,

                I think Stuart Brown is wonderful, and I have had the privilege to communicate with him somewhat. His organization is called the National Institute for Play, and I would encourage everyone to check out their website, by clicking on the link.

                I might put in some time visiting the Science Playground, and I appreciate the value of what you have created, but I am busy creating my own spaces, right now.

                All the Best,

                Jonathan

                Thanks Jim,

                I greatly enjoyed your article, and I will comment further on your page, or by e-mail. We largely share the same opinions about Common Core. It looks to me like the testing companies want the public to pay for their Education research, by having Government compel a large number of students to be part of their database. But what do I know?

                All the Best,

                Jonathan

                You are most gracious Wilhelmus!

                Thank you for your thoughtful regard. I appreciate your wishes of luck and the gratitude you have shared.

                All the Best,

                Jonathan

                Wow!

                Thanks Kevin. I would be honored to receive such high regard, though I will be grateful if I get a 4th prize as well, or whatever. For the sake of my message and its importance to mankind's survival, as we know ourselves, I hope the judges do look upon my essay in a kindly fashion - and award it some prize. But I do know that FQXi is highly selective about who they invite to join their number.

                All the Best,

                Jonathan

                Hello Everyone,

                I'm back from a vacation in Nevada, so I expect to be able to keep up with comments for a while. There is some exciting Physics collaboration brewing in my life right now, so I shall have some fun things to report soon - on that front. But I have also been working on a Video, pertaining to my essay topic, and on the new layout for my Science is Play web-site.

                Stay Tuned!

                Jonathan