tom matrullo's possibly adjacent blog

AKMA writes:

The notion of “really knowing” may be like the “real me,” an asymptotic term that may trick us into supposing the attainable approximation faulty for not reaching the unattainable absolute. (After twenty-plus years, Margaret and I know one another pretty darn well—not “absolutely” or “unerringly” well, but well enough for me to say confidently that I “really know” her and she, me.) But “blurry” seems an appropriate condition for notions of identity; to really know the real me is to know a blur.

When someone says, "I am [name]," this is not merely indicative. It is a claim, an approximation, a wager and a promise.

There are other asymptotes. Indeed, many important things seem to be possessed of that interesting fabulo-mathematical predicament. None is precisely, properly, what it, so to speak, is. Discuss Asymptotic Etiquettes.