House Rules

Convergence Clause

Convergence Clause

When it comes to my work, I did not invent all of these ideas. Some of them are genuinely novel. Some of them, I am sure, have been found before by people I have not read or studied yet. If someone else arrived at the same place in 1840 or 1990 or last Thursday, that does not embarrass the work. To me, it makes it stronger. A law that only one person can observe is not a law.

If you read something here and think, I have seen this before:: tell me. Send the citation. Name the thinker. If I got there independently, the convergence strengthens the finding. If I got there because I read them and forgot, or never read them and should have, I want the record corrected. And I want them to receive full attribution, not me. Some of my favorite discoveries have been finding that a thought I believed was novel was said better by someone else years earlier. When that happens, I and the inventor become friends.

We will be covering a lot of ground. Help me keep the ledger honest.

-Barnes