Fluency and immediacy

Fluency is immediate interaction.

There is no interpretive mediation — no translation in the middle — between intention and action, perception and understanding, or understanding and intention.

Intention flows directly into action; action flows directly into perception of its effect; perception flows directly into understanding; understanding flows directly into intention.

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Algorithm is action mediated by explicit language. Where one must explain (or justify) how one will do a thing before doing it, explain (or justify) how one is doing a thing while doing it, and explain (or justify) how one did a thing after doing it, the mediation of language is necessary.

Algorithmic activity and flow are incompatible.

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Understanding a philosophical work means understanding a new set of concepts and gaining fluency in their use in understanding.

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A philosophical work is understood only in an experience of fluency acquired through the act of reading, which is transferable to practical life beyond books and reading. What is happening is immediately understandable through the philosophical concepts.

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If one is fluent in a language, novel things are said without thinking about the language. The novel sentence flows forth as an expression of the intention.

A great designs supports fluency. Not only in repetitive tasks, but in novel interactions. One intends to do some thing, and the action flows out through the designed thing without a mediating “how do I?”

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In David Appelbaum’s The Stop the awareness of the blind is sightless fluency. No visual image of the disposition of objects intervenes.

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A dancer is not recalling steps, nor imagining the visual effect of the movements of her body. She has the awareness of the blind.

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The most exceptional experience bypasses words and makes language reel. Then language recovers and talks it out of its uniqueness. When asked “Why?” we give an answer.

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