Prot Asks: Eric about free software, art, religion, and cosmic consistency

2026-02-08

Raw link: YouTube OR Internet Archive

In this near-3-hour video I talk to Eric Frederickson about a broad range of issues that can be summed up under the theme of “cosmic consistency”. We start with a discussion about Eric’s endeavours with software development. I ask about Eric’s experience with free software and open source contributions, which makes us consider not just the programming side of things but also how there is a community-building component to the whole process. The development of GNU Emacs is a case in point. We explore how participating in free software is part coding part character building due to the social skills/interactions involved.

Our next big topic is art and creativity. Eric is a musician and has a keen interest in the artistic experience. Over the course of our talk we comment on ways to be creative, the different forms of expression we find from conservation to exploration, and how harmony is experienced. Many finer points here involve the sense of awe, how aesthetics cannot be reduced to words, that text alone disturbs us because we do not connect to a person’s emotional state, and more. Eric asks me what I think about the rhythm of life, also with regard to my way of choosing to live in the mountains and how all that underpins my creativity.

We share how myths and catchy stimuli play a key role in religiosity, as well as how religion cannot be reduced to a system of propositions: it also has a social aspect to it and a function of social reproduction. Our attention is focused on how people understand when not to take themselves too seriously. Examples we expound on involve Santa Claus and the Greek gods. In this regard I explain how Greek religion and Greek mythology are distinct, even if the latter draws inspiration from the former.

At many points we draw parallels between matters of human creation, such as art, and the natural order. For example, there is a way in which an idea stands the test of time when its application leads to viable results.

Eric has appeared before in this series: https://protesilaos.com/codelog/2025-07-23-prot-asks-eric-emacs-lisp-music-aesthetics-minnesota/.

Links from Eric

• My program “hms”, a featureful CLI time-duration calculator: https://emfred.com/programs/hms.

• My piece of music “Flying Home”, which features recordings of birdcalls at various playback rates: https://emfred.com/audio/sbp4-05-Flying-Home.mp3.

• My collection of music which includes “Flying Home”, called “Sketchbook, page 4”: https://emfred.com/sketchbook/pg4.

• And finally, in case a listener would like to contact me: https://emfred.com/about/contact

About “Prot Asks”

In this video series, I talk to anybody who is interested to have a video call with me (so do contact me if you want!). The topics cover anything related to Emacs, technology, and life in general. More here: https://protesilaos.com/prot-asks.