philosophy cubed?

Start here:

nytimes.com/2020/09/16/book … e=Homepage

[b]'The first person to solve a Rubik’s Cube spent a month struggling to unscramble it.

'It was the puzzle’s creator, an unassuming Hungarian architecture professor named Erno Rubik. When he invented the cube in 1974, he wasn’t sure it could ever be solved. Mathematicians later calculated that there are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 ways to arrange the squares, but just one of those combinations is correct.

'When Rubik finally did it, after weeks of frustration, he was overcome by “a great sense of accomplishment and utter relief.” Looking back, he realizes the new generation of “speedcubers” — Yusheng Du of China set the world record of 3.47 seconds in 2018 — might not be impressed.

'“But, remember,” Rubik writes in his new book, “Cubed,” “this had never been done before.”

‘In the nearly five decades since, the Rubik’s Cube has become one of the most enduring, beguiling, maddening and absorbing puzzles ever created. More than 350 million cubes have sold globally; if you include knockoffs, the number is far higher. They captivate computer programmers, philosophers and artists.’[/b]

Then go to this:

Just out of curiosity, how and why would the cube captivate philosophers?

Or, for extra credit, ethicists?

You’re not going to like my answer iambiguous…

It fascinates philosophers and ethicists because of the amazing ability to solve objectivity with trillions or even infinite numbers of variables into concrete facts within seconds.

Anyone else?

K: ok, it is a puzzle, a problem and there is nothing
a philosopher likes than a puzzle, a problem…
we spend our days, and nights, trying to solve
problems… like what does it mean to be human and
what is the point of life/existence?

This is just another problem to be solved… abet a problem
with a possible solution…

not like those other problems that seem to be without solutions,
like what is the point of life/existence?

that is of course one interpretation among millions of possible interpretations…

or as they like to say, it is philosophy…
on a small scale…

Kropotkin

Well, I like a puzzle as much as the next guy, though I hate rubik’s cubes…boring.

But my guess that the Rubik’s cube, for Iambiguous is analogous to the various objectivisms, especially say, religious ones.

Where you have all these variations ‘saying they are right’ when, given the contradictions between them

only one, at best, could be right.

I know the old boy better than his fans, I’ll wager. Of course one could argue that the analogy backfires since the Rubik’s cube does have a solution and people, with training, can get better at finding it (or, really, achieving it).

But I like the analogical turn and it should be encouraged and analogies need not be perfect to give information or insight.

And no religion is going to be pleased to be compared with a pattern of colors in a plastic toy.

So, let’s tip our hats to the use of a metaphor and one that has a nice rhetorical shiv in it.