Dr. James Borges' Website

About Me

My name is Dr. James Borges. I am a professor emeritus and lecturer of philosophy at Mertes University.

Borges' Game

As many of you will have noticed, I share a name with the Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges. I am often asked: "Dr. Borges, are you related to Jorge Luis Borges?" The answer is no. However, his work is quite a legacy.

The original Borges proposed an infinite library of 410 pages. Infinite books and means that every combination of roman letters is available. That means that all knowledge in the world is contained within the library, at least if it can fit in the pages. That constraint itself is broken if you allow multiple books to chain together!

It is my job to create knowledge. I take pride in it and I hold my work to high esteem. But when I read my fellow Borges' work, I discovered a fatal flaw. Of course, you might think that it is the missing letters! Mr. Jorge Luis began with teh Spanish alphabet ad cut letters, including (but not only) our English letters of 'k,' 'w,' 'q,' and 'x.' But that is not the problem.

Rather, Jorge Luis Borges forget about all forms of creation outside written langauge. That is where we come in. If you want to obey the original Borges' Babel, you can write. You can also speak, sculpt, engineer, sketch, sew, et cetera.

I will take from Borges to say this: it is a shame that our species will die and the civilizations in the far future will see that our legacy is a failure. We have failed to do and create everything that we are capable of. I believe Mr. Borges would have seen this creation as our duty.

I encourage you to do and create as many things as you can, and to treat it as your life's goal. There is only one rule:

1. It must be completely unique.

If it would suit you, you can submit your unique object of creation on my website. I will keep a tracker of things here. I also encoruage all players of Borges' game to make their work as widely known as possible. My website is not 'smart' enough to share work publicly, so only you will be able to see it. How useful is that really, if we want to leave a legacy?

BTW: Don't worry too much about that rule. It is impossible to make something that is completely identical to another thing. I think any physicist can tell you that!

Contact

E-mail: drjamesborges@hotmail.com

Address: Department of Philosophy

Mertes University

387 Elk Run Road

Loalville, Ohio

USA