Kermit may also qualify as an Imaginary Number, n + Kermit^2 = n - Kermit. After all, Kermit is not only irrational, but he is both imaginary and complex, oh so complex.
My son has a degree in Philosophy. During his program, he came home with all this stuff about Physicalism and Reductive Materialism. Reductive meaning it boils down to a fundamental or radical base. I tend towards Reductive Idealism. Idealism, in this case, is about the idea of Reality, not some perfect, idyllic or ideal Reality. I am a monist (the Universe is one thing). In the case of Physicalism, the base is "stuff" physical material. Its exact nature may be in dispute, but the idea is there is the "concrete" Reality and nothing more. I have two degrees in Computer Science and as my son is describing his class material, I can clearly see the influence of the Computer Age on the thinking here. They talked about things like "Brain State", the idea that if you were to stop everything or even remove everything but preserve the information about what state the elements of the brain was in (think Star Trek transporter technology), then when you reassembled the component material parts and hit the "go" button again (started Time back up) there would be no gap, no loss to the system and no noticeable change. This is exactly what computers do when they shut down normally. They record their processor memory and cache states, then, upon starting back up, replicate that state so the rebooted computer is right where is left off. Except that computers don't generally restore the clock. they know or can know time has passed.
This has lead to the modern Physicist and Philosopher to consider the fundamental base of the Cosmos to be Information. However, information is like energy. Most of us talk about energy as though it is a thing all its own. We ignore the fact that without mass, there can be no energy. Energy is only an expression of the relationship of mass (E=mc^2). It is the same with information. Without a physical vessel to store and act upon the information, there is no information. That is why this philosophical paradigm is referred to as Physicalism. It deals with phenomena in a physical Reality.
For sailors, this fits perfectly with how they view the World. Sailing manipulates the physics of a material World in almost a magical way. We can't see the wind, but we know its effects and feel its force. The wind is there to some senses but not to all senses. We have information about the wind but not much else. Mostly, we infer its presence.
You are sitting with friends in the cockpit of your boat and someone says, "Wow, look at the wind blow!" What they really mean is, look at the masts swaying or look at the flag over the marina building flapping out straight. Maybe they are talking about the clouds flying by over head or a Hobie with two sailors hiked out high on a raised pontoon flying past. And wind itself is just an expression of a state of being for air. Wind doesn't exist on its own. It needs air to be. Like information itself, wind is also dependent on the existence of matter that is not wind nor air. It is really just an expression of a relationship. Even air that is moving has no wind until there is something else to conflict with that moving air. The movement of air needs to be relative to something else for there to be wind. Water makes a great second data point for Wind to exist. Now we have the potential for something here. Now we can do work (sail a boat). No matter how much air and movement of air you have, without water your boat is just falling.
When you are out there under your sail and the wind is beautifully constant and the course is set and there is little need to attend to the immediate processes of sheeting, navigation, rules of the road, changing sails or tack or even getting another beer, what is it that is worth the effort of thinking about? Are you running reaction drills for sailing, the last win of your favorite ball club, all the chores that are waiting for you when you get home, whether there is a giant squid lurking beneath the waves to attack, if you so much as peek over the side? For me, it is this stuff. I can't help it, "I was drawn this way." i blame my father.
-Will (Dragonfly)
. Hope you are not unhappy.
