ON WISDOM: An Imagined Conversation with God

An imagined conversation:

"Lord, please grant me wisdom."
"How?"
"Hunh?"
"This wisdom you're asking for. How should I get it to you?"
"Uhhh..."
"Have I not given you the ability to read?"
"Yes."
"Do you not have available in written form the law of Moses, the wisdom of Solomon, the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the teachings of Peter, Paul and John?"
"Yes."
"Beyond all of that, have I not placed you within walking distance of a public library where you can read everything they have for free?"
"Yes."
"Have I not allowed you to acquire a device which you carry in your pocket, which you can use to ask essentially the entire world any question you want, 24 hours a day?"
"Yes."
"Are there not people in your life right now who are favorably disposed toward you, of whom you could inquire regarding their areas of expertise?"
"I guess."
"You guess?"
"Yes, there are."
"So, this wisdom you're asking for, what else do I need to do to deliver it to you? Inject it into your veins?"
"Can I get back to you on that?"
"Yeah. Do that."

Wisdom from slime.

This weird item was reported in several places; I'm going with the piece from autobloggreen (that is exactly how the name appears on the website. The kind of cleverness that dispenses of upper-case letters and spaces between words doesn't impress me, it annoys me), about how slime mold has been shown to mimic, if not precisely replicate, the interstate highway system.

I found this of particular interest because I consider the interstate highway system, overall, to be one of humanity's greatest achievements, both in engineering and in construction.

The barely-animate mold's evocation of that engineering and construction makes for a cool bit of strangeness, so please take a look (unless it reminds you so much of Greg Bear's "Blood Music" that it genuinely scares you. You're welcome.).

Anyway, this is what struck me most from the brief text:

"Once it's created a spider web-like network of tendrils, the mold maintains and strengthens whichever tendrils take the most direct or efficient paths to the food and withdraws the rest."

Wow. Discover efficiency, then delete inefficiency. DEDI.

Let me learn that.