abyrinthine would be an apt term for the nature of the task before me. Wading through facts that I hoped could ultimately lead me to Doug's location, but unaware of where it would lead me, or if I'd ever get there. But first back to Greek mythology and the origin of the term labyrinth.
Daedalus was a skillful architect who created what we know as the labyrinth, a complex unicursal structure, at the request of King Minos. The king commissioned the labyrinth to be built to imprison his wife's son, Asterius, who was a Minotaur. Upon completion, the king's son (edit That would be King Aegeus' son)Theseus managed not only to navigate the labyrinth to find the Minotaur, but also came out to tell about it. The king was furious that the labyrinth had failed its original intention and mandated that Daedalus and his son, Icarus, be locked up in a tower so that the existence of the labyrinth or its purpose would never become known to others. The fates of Daedalus and Icarus are yet another story.
Often a labyrinth is mistakenly confused with a maze. While a maze is of complex design offering choices of path and direction, a labyrinth has only a single, Eulerian, (a term derived from the noted mathematician, Euler), path to the centre. The key to the labyrinth is that as one progresses towards the centre, a decisive turn can bring one out again.
Socrates describes the labyrinthine line of a logical argument as... "we thought we were at the finish, but our way bent round and we found ourselves as it were back at the beginning, and just as far from that which we were seeking at first."
After Doug's departure to the West Coast in mid-March, my day-to-day life had become terribly quiet and lonely. I didn't know why he hadn't received my emails. Perhaps, indeed, he had ultimately been called to Japan on another high security project.
With only a computer and access to the Internet at my disposal and no knowledge of whether Doug Reynolds was his real name and all alone again for the Thanksgiving holiday, I chose to begin to navigate the winding course through Cyber space...
Daedalus was a skillful architect who created what we know as the labyrinth, a complex unicursal structure, at the request of King Minos. The king commissioned the labyrinth to be built to imprison his wife's son, Asterius, who was a Minotaur. Upon completion, the king's son (edit That would be King Aegeus' son)Theseus managed not only to navigate the labyrinth to find the Minotaur, but also came out to tell about it. The king was furious that the labyrinth had failed its original intention and mandated that Daedalus and his son, Icarus, be locked up in a tower so that the existence of the labyrinth or its purpose would never become known to others. The fates of Daedalus and Icarus are yet another story.
Often a labyrinth is mistakenly confused with a maze. While a maze is of complex design offering choices of path and direction, a labyrinth has only a single, Eulerian, (a term derived from the noted mathematician, Euler), path to the centre. The key to the labyrinth is that as one progresses towards the centre, a decisive turn can bring one out again.
Socrates describes the labyrinthine line of a logical argument as... "we thought we were at the finish, but our way bent round and we found ourselves as it were back at the beginning, and just as far from that which we were seeking at first."
After Doug's departure to the West Coast in mid-March, my day-to-day life had become terribly quiet and lonely. I didn't know why he hadn't received my emails. Perhaps, indeed, he had ultimately been called to Japan on another high security project.
With only a computer and access to the Internet at my disposal and no knowledge of whether Doug Reynolds was his real name and all alone again for the Thanksgiving holiday, I chose to begin to navigate the winding course through Cyber space...
Set your sail according to the wind
Selon le vent, la voile
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