Everything’s A Derivative

Something profound I realized recently is that everything is a derivative of something else.

Is a derivative of something else.
Is a derivative of somethi…

All knowledge is derived from other knowledge.
All information from other information.
All art and creativity from other creative works.

All invention and innovation.

All suffering, joy, pleasure, happiness, war, and peace.
All of everything is derived from everything else.
Derivative is used a lot in the world of economics and the financial world.
Folks and institutions purchase something that is derived from the actual thing.
It’s not the thing itself, but it comes from whatever is connected to it in the hierarchy of a direct or indirect association.

They do this to get access to what it’s connected with.
And, to gain leverage.

Signs are another great example.
Signs aren’t whatever they represent.
They’re not “213 Miles To Nashville” or “749 Miles To Denver”.
They’re not “Children At Play”.
Or, “55 MPH” or “Exit 74”.
They are references pointing to something more or less specific.
Then there are names.
I am Jared Crenshaw.
In reality, I am not Jared Crenshaw.
Jared Crenshaw is my name.
But it’s not me.
My name is the sign or label given to me by my parents at birth.
It’s not who I am.
The same with my mom and dad.
My siblings.
They are not their names.
Their names point to their identities more specifically than generalized terms.
Like mom, dad, sister, or brother.

I love my parents deeply.
But, mom and dad are not who they are.
Those are just words that are signs that identify them relative to me and my siblings.

Human behavior is all derivatives.
Going back to the very core and instinctive drives.
Back through our evolutionary history.
To our primitive ancestors, then to less sophisticated (as far as we know) organisms, then to single-cell organisms…bacteria…viruses…
We were taught in school that atoms were the smallest indivisible units of matter.
And, we learned about protons and electrons, and neutrons.
That other particles and sub-particles have been discovered.

Then, there’s the whole thing of quantum physics that shows everything is waves and only particles when observed.

Which gets to the idea of reality.
The term reality itself describes what we experience.
That experience is achieved with our senses collecting stimuli in our world, and our brains processing them.
What we call reality is our interpretation via those processes.
Reality itself is a derivative pointing to…?

I’m not arrogant enough to say that I know.
I have opinions with loosely associated facts they’re based on.
No one knows.
Some have chiseled away in an attempt to understand base reality.
But their pile of knowledge, when compared to infinite knowledge, is no more than mine or anyone else’s.

It’s like saying 1000/infinity is greater than 1/infinity.
Big fucking deal.
And, lastly.
I’m writing this using words.
Words, language, and communication are a pretty damn incredible domain of derivatives.

Words get their meaning from our perceived reality, and at the same time, lean on each other for their basis.
They point to each other in an infinite dance of linguistic complexity.
And, somehow, they manage to achieve their objective.
At least on some level.