Entrepreneur
Set in stone is said of plans, dates and rules to mean they cannot change. Derived from the foundation’s primitive that to exist is to vary, the phrase is literally true only of the Past, which is real and does not exist — said of anything present, stone included, it names a rate of revision somebody is keeping low. … readWhat Is Set in Stone
Attention is stolen when a small Actual tips the scale that Expectation had already calibrated in secret. … readThe Scale Attention Tips
The whole story is usually pictured as the longest honest telling, the one with nothing left out. Derived from the foundation’s primitive that the Past is one settled totality and not one branch, the phrase turns out to weld two things together — and no telling becomes the whole by getting longer, because the difference is between a branch and the totality, not between less record and more. … readWhat Is the Whole Story
Attention is stolen when Actual finds the one gate in Expectation where an idea is already waiting to admit it. … readThe Gate Attention Enters
A requirement is usually read as a share of the outcome — meet them all and the rest should follow. Derived from the foundation’s definition of a condition, a requirement names what an outcome needs and nothing about what it will yield: necessary by definition, sufficient by nothing in it, and able to decide an outcome only by being unmet. … readWhat Is a Requirement
Attention begins when a small Actual uncovers a buried idea that Expectation had mistaken for ordinary ground. … readThe Excavation Attention Begins
“Who discovered it?” is usually heard as a question about where a thing started. Derived from the foundation’s eighth primitive, the verb already carries the answer — a discoverer is, by the word’s own grammar, not the origin of what was found — and “discovered or invented?” splits cleanly: the naming is discovery, the mark is invention. … readWhat Is a Discovery
Nina Schick says we are turning sand into non-biological intelligence. Here are eight predictions for what happens when the scarcest thing a civilization ever had becomes a manufactured good. … readWhen Intelligence Comes Off an Assembly Line: Eight Predictions
Everyone who has ever known you keeps a model of you, compiled from your artifacts and locked in a subconscious neither of you can read. The machine’s memory panel is the first such model with a page you can open — and the flinch when you read it is an instrument pointed at the gap between what you mean and what you leave. … readThe Record’s Version of You
“She has so much potential” is usually heard as a report about a larger, finished version of a person stored inside them. Derived from the foundation’s tenth primitive, read before the first mark is made, the phrase carries three things at once — the form, the forecast and the response — and only the last one belongs to her. … readWhat Is Potential