Marco Giancotti Hexo https://planktonvalhalla.com/favicon.ico https://planktonvalhalla.com/ All rights reserved 2026, Marco Giancotti Logbook of a Voyage in Thought 2026-07-02T05:52:44.702Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20251219-carving-nature-at-your-joints/ 2025-12-19T16:11:15.000Z

Boundaries and Purpose Trilogy Conclusions

2026-07-02T05:52:44.702Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20251204-purpose-from-first-principles/ 2025-12-04T14:52:46.000Z

The purpose of this last essay is to make sense of purpose.

2026-07-02T05:52:44.734Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20241030-recursion-tidy-stars-and-water-lilies/ 2024-10-30T18:50:39.000Z

Feedback is why there are things to talk about.

2026-07-02T05:52:44.746Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20240227-boundaries-are-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder/ 2024-02-27T20:21:23.000Z

Here we are, blissfully going about our lives, saying fancy things like "pass me the ketchup, please" and "the projections for our year-close budget ain't pretty, folks," and we're satisfied with that.

2026-07-02T05:52:44.698Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20231207-there-is-no-script-in-the-life-of-a-water-lily/ 2023-12-07T15:26:00.000Z

In this thread I'm going to make that point using one of the most beautiful flowers as exemplar: the self-creation of the water lily 🪷]]>

2026-07-02T05:52:44.790Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20230905-mass-producing-the-mistake-minimizer/ 2023-09-05T18:14:00.000Z

Science is a technology for the mind. What is it for, and who should be allowed to wield it? Science communication, open exposition problems, and our way forward.

2026-07-02T05:52:44.730Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20230720-the-plankton-valhalla-bestiary/ 2023-07-20T16:07:16.000Z

A showcase of the word definitions and transformations that I use for Plankton Valhalla's explanations.

2026-07-02T06:12:59.060Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20230525-a-non-magical-example-rich-introduction-to-emergence/ 2023-05-25T16:42:05.000Z

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlife, one in particular has stuck with me. Its title is Ineffable and it's short enough to be read in five minutes. This version of the afterlife (each story in the book gives an alternative variant) is not for people, but for...]]>

2026-07-02T05:52:44.690Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20230323-the-demon-and-the-tree/ 2023-03-23T15:30:03.000Z

structure of the system, and it determines what happens when differences pass through the system.]]>

2026-07-02T05:52:44.758Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20221216-toying-with-ideas-of-glass-circuits/ 2022-12-16T21:27:20.000Z

When you want to solve a new, hard-to-define problem, chances are old expertise won't cut it. You either make a groundbreaking new discovery (good luck!) or find new useful ways to combine the things you already know, new connections between things that no one before had thought to be connected.

2026-07-02T05:52:44.802Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20221006-the-invention-of-systems/ 2022-10-06T09:53:35.000Z

What would happen if one were to take the argument that the world is one big, intricate network a little too seriously? How would such a person talk about things?

2026-07-02T05:52:44.774Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20220829-the-world-is-a-network/ 2022-08-29T10:11:54.000Z

We regularly miss the best parts. We see without seeing, wander without wondering, and turn the time we spend in this inconceivably deep world into a jagged but linear route from B to D.

Yet it would be so easy to do otherwise!...]]>

2026-07-02T05:52:44.782Z Marco Giancotti https://planktonvalhalla.com/20220818-differences-contraptions-and-a-ripple-universe/ 2022-08-18T20:19:23.000Z

Back in university I studied physics and astronomy. Whenever someone asked me why I'd chosen that as my major, I mentioned that scene at the end of The Matrix where...

2026-07-02T05:52:44.706Z