What the web didn’t know… understanding “first” — if I say “first” it isn’t always in the same context. Most people know that if I ask for the first page something occurs the “first page” isn’t the only page I am asking about. Oh well, if at first you don’t succeed, try using a person with a book at hand.
Stranger in a Strange Land
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Publication Year: 1961
Premise: Valentine Michael Smith, a human born and raised on Mars, is brought to Earth as an adult. He is a “stranger” who must learn what it means to be human, and his journey challenges Earth’s culture, religion, and social institutions.
Key Themes: The meaning of love, sex, religion, and money; challenging social norms.
Origin: The term was coined by American author Robert A. Heinlein in his science fiction
novel Stranger in a Strange Land, published in 1961.
● Fictional Meaning: In the book, “grok” is a Martian word with no direct English
equivalent. Its literal translation is “to drink,” but its conceptual meaning is far more
profound.
● Profound Understanding: To “grok” something means to understand it so thoroughly
and intuitively that the observer and the observed merge into a single entity; the observer
becomes a part of the observed. It implies a deep, empathic comprehension and
integration of something on a molecular or fundamental level.
● Cultural Adoption: The term was adopted by the counterculture of the 1960s and later
became popular in computer programming and tech circles to describe the deep,
immersive understanding required to master complex systems. Robert Anton Wilson “Schrodinger’s Cat” … Tom Wolfe “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” John Muir “Volkswagen repair manual” used in many DIY for women car workshops.
Pages p.12 "Back even before the healing which had followed his first grokking … p.14 "Smith had been aware of the visit by the doctors but he had grokked at once that their intentions were benign. p.43 lawyers and owning a planet p.57 girls … p.67 martian held still p.72 the man from mars. p.221 used as the 50s “dig”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_on_Planet_Earth
Footnotes from this week
conceptual history… how long machines have been thinking… actually, how long people, aka blood-brains have been considering turning some of the workload over to other-brains.
seems much slower than first thought.
all jive. all jibe. words so far apart… Mindfulness, typically cultivated through deliberate practices, is characterized by non-judgmental attention to the present moment —
Sideband: name taken over by the weakling of tech. using as opposite of Woke, all the while being mere substitution for Grope. Make up your AWKen GREP will ya.
οἶδα the wordle RAH groped for but didnt grasp
OpenMemory treats time as a first-class dimension, letting your agent reason about changing facts.
woke before grok
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