| Thoughts, emotions, and sensations are serialized to text to transmit to others. Inherently, the serialization is lossy and the deserialization is also lossy. Good writing can have: - high compression ratio: many things transmitted rapidly - higher fidelity: original thought is serialized in a way recoverable by sufficient available deserializers - novelty Of course, this is a serde problem, so people try to name each of these things in different ways: deserializers that have the ability to extract more information from serialized content are called connoisseurs, for instance. Frequently this is because the serialized content relies on pre-computed results stored in the deserializer memory, sometimes called "allusions". I will leave you with two examples of text expressed in different ways. The Remains of The Day is a book that follows a man's journey of self-discovery after he has spent much of his life in service, having missed many opportunities due to his devotion to that service. I urge you to read the book, compare it with that text, and see if I was accurate or did service to it. Second: I sometimes do things that seem unlike the image of me that I retain. Something makes me do them. Why is that? That is one way to express what Captain Ahab says in Moby Dick: What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? |