I. Mercury Preamble: The best I know, he likes coins and currency and, of course, since he is a messenger, there are so many forms of communication he dabbles in. Something of a trickster deity, he truly is a dabbler. Tricksters don’t necessarily specialize, except at being good at so very many things; they pick and choose their methods as they see fit. But its an odd mix. Do you tip the messenger? And if so – before or after you open the envelope they delivered…
II. Lloyd S. Shapley. Math. Economics. Game Theory. A recent death, after a life lived playing with numbers. He never took a course in economics though he won a Nobel Prize for it, for contributions made with his wizardly mathematics…finessing the way patterns worked and could be measured, predicted. Most magicians use some sort of measuring devices in their alchemy… their calculations. The universe is made up of this stuff, after all, these strands and bits of information coursing through everything in some sort of strange numerical dance that gives life form.
The son of an astronomer, Lloyd broke a meteorological code in WW II, one of the boy code-breakers. He went on to other work – he said game theory was made for him, as he was always “messing around with” (yes, his words) great, big game-like models: “the sort of thing they call ‘Dungeons and Dragons,’ I always enjoyed the mathematics of it.”
The conceptualization of choices and interactions – conscious and unconscious, large and small, personal and institutional , the ones we make every day — that was the stuff that consumed his long working life. Methods to predict satisfaction or discontent, success or failure; he eked out ideas on stability based on innumerable individual transactions. Who says science isn’t an art form? He sculpted the stuff of his theories… and yes there were concrete applications – that would match organs with donors, students with schools, doctors with hospitals, lovers with the potential for stable unions. Who says science isn’t magic, too?
He comes to me, this man of theories, as a fitting offering on my altar to the messenger who dabbles in coins, currency, communication — who also has a gaming approach to life. I catch Lloyd’s dapper, elderly presence in Stockholm, accepting one more award; he isn’t exactly a semi-famous dead person, nor an also-ran… but one that speaks nonetheless from beyond the grave, of the beauty of patterns below the surface of the seen ~~
III. The messengers and the messages flitter and filter through my awareness. I wake up one day last month thinking of game theory and later that day find myself reading an obituary for Dr. Shapley, my introduction to his life, and work. Who orchestrates these funny syncs? And where is the tip jar for these divine gifts from messengers unseen?
by Carli Castellani
Originally published April 29, 2016
#2 of 21 Dead People for the Winged Messenger
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