Publisher's Synopsis
Individual sheets of paper accurately represent a lot of things, but is the world one of them? Even a math word-problem can become a powerful testimonial to the presence of the world if the problem begins and ends with an accurate representation of itself. Perhaps the 'quotidian viewpoint' doesn't measurably move the needle on our engagement in interesting stories. They're 'real world' so we are disarmed of their usual question, "When will I ever use this?" There is a second axis we focus on less. That axis looks at work. It looks at what we do as humanity. That work can be real or fake also. The fake work is narrowly focused on precise, abstract, formal calculation. It's necessary but it interests us less. It interests the world less also. Real work - interesting work, the sort of work we might like to do later in life - involves problem formulation and question development.
