Take a large sheet of paper. Fold it in two, and cut along the line. Keep one piece for later, and fold the other one in 2. Cut along the lines. Save the medium one for later and cut the remaining in 4 to 6 pieces.
I imagine the famous Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), in his candle-lit office, having some exquisite pleasure preparing his modern note system, cutting through the paper some 350 years ago.
To write on these multiple pieces of paper, he was using purple ink and oftentimes was first writing a pencil draft before inking the final version of his thought.
Blaise Pascal is a famous french Mathematician and Philosopher who left numerous inventions, including the first mechanical calculator (the βPascalineβ), the computer language Turbo Pascal named after him, and one of his most famous books, βThe PensΓ©esβ, i.e. the Thoughts.
Pacalβs note system probably wouldn't have survived if he had not died before he could finish the famous book. And thanks to his family and colleagues, his entire notes could be saved and revealed the hidden side of creativity.
Atomic Notes before the atomic notes.
What he left is a collection of around 1,000 pieces of scribbled paper, from the size of a post-it up to a full A4 page.
The smallest papers contained a few words, sometimes one or two sentences. These were his atomic thoughts. Although we have no direct evidence of it, we can imagine he would take these notes while working, feverishly taking a new piece of paper to jot down these few words; or even on-the-go as he had many assistants and around 15% of the notes were written by one of his assistants.
Some of these pieces are simply delicious such as βThe last thing you find when building a book is which thing to put in first.β which summarizes in one sentence the whole process he has been going through when elaborating his masterpiece.
Blocks from the 17th century
Medium sized sheets were a collection of 3 to 6 sentences copied from the smaller pieces, and separated by horizontal lines. Many of these medium size sheets were cut again, along the horizontal lines so he could reorganise his thoughts at a later stage.
This process is a strong testimony of Pascalβs multidimensional thinking. He didnβt have a modern, digital thought capture system that would allow him to link all these pieces together. He instead would use paper, scissors and time to rationalize his thoughts through multiple categories.
Each time a small note has been used, he would st
... keep reading on reddit β‘And in the Church?
Pascal is my favorite philosopher. He was also a Jansenist that weakened the Jesuits through his writings.
I'm not sure if Pascal renounced Jansenism before he died.
How is he remembered in Catholic philosophy? As a heretic or important philosopher?
My living room is - once again - a mess, and there are unopened letters on the table and Christmas cards that I have yet to respond to. I need to rework my resume, too, and get some tools for the chaos in the backyard. So I decide to avoid doing all these things, and instead opt to faff about on the internet.
And I come across that famous quote by Blaise Pascal. Pascal was a mathematician, philosopher, polymath, all-round genius, and this quote of his was one I'd come across before:
All of humanity's problems stem from man's ...
- What next? 'Greed' is an obvious one. How about 'religion'? 'Envy'? 'Lust', maybe? -
.... [from man's] inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
Does it sound ridiculous? How often have we felt, or written here: 'I'm bored! I need a drink.' That itching restlessness, disquiet, that unsettling, ineffable unease; what are we missing here? What's there a lack of?
Whatever it is, alcohol won't solve it.
May you all have a good festive season, people.
Einstein is it, so he closes his eyes and starts to count. Pascal runs off to hide, but Newton doesn't budge. Right in front of Einstein he bends down and scratches a box in the dirt, one meter on a side. The he just stands there, right in the middle of the box.
Einstein opens his eyes and says "Newton! I found you! You're it!"
"No," says Newton. "You found a Newton in one square meter. You found Pascal!"
It may be my modern person bias speaking, but I feel like the layman concept of "risk" is so inherent to... well, everyday functioning and any kind of strategic decision making. I know how probability theory was discovered, but I was wondering what people before that, as well as people in different parts of the world, used to express useful concepts such as "two in five ships that we send to location X are maraudered by pirates on the way, while it happens to four out of five by using alternative route Y"? Or, for example, were gambling houses "rigged" like modern ones are and how?
βFor after all what is man in nature? A nothing in relation to infinity, all in relation to nothing, a central point between nothing and all and infinitely far from understanding either. The ends of things and their beginnings are impregnably concealed from him in an impenetrable secret. He is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness out of which he was drawn and the infinite in which he is engulfed.β
Blaise Pascal
I think I get where he is coming from
