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At the most basic level, the merchant sold everything he had to be able to purchase something of greater value. At a deeper level, if we wish to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, we must be willing to sell all that we have and dedicate our lives in service to others. And this gem of knowledge, like the facets in a well cut diamond, will provide insights (light) reflected in many different aspects of our lives, as we study and pray, seek and ponder, and meditate and find.
Today there is more data, information, and even knowledge and wisdom available to anyone who has read this far in this book than has ever been available before in the history of humanity. The Internet, Public Libraries, museums, and similar public institutions have collected immense data banks. However, accessing relevant knowledge can be a problem when searching through the froth of digital storage mediums. There is plenty of opportunity to apply pattern finding techniques to organize digital data banks and to allow point and click access to relevant knowledge.
Bill Bavinger, a friend who was at
Rice University in Houston, Texas for most of the years I worked
with him, and who died in an untimely automobile accident, taught
me about pattern space in data and information. One of the studies
he did had to do with oil fields. From the data he derived a series
of groups of similar oil fields using clustering algorithms.
Clustering these patterns of oil fields, he determined there were
two basic classifications (invariant polynomials): (1) hotter and
deeper; and (2) cooler and shallower. Bill was an architect, and
it amazed me to see the valid conclusions he derived using pattern
finding techniques. I expect this approach has widespread application.
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paradoxes