We have had a number of new subscribers to the blog over the past couple of weeks (I’m not sure why. Maybe our billboard advertising campaign is finally paying off?), so I thought this might be a good time to review some of the core tenets of CMEpalooza as a courtesy to those of you who are new to the program or may have simply forgotten. In order to do so, we first need to talk about the Ship of Theseus.
The Ship of Theseus (a.k.a. Theseus’s Paradox) is a thought experiment about, to quote Wikipedia, “whether an object is the same object after having all of its original components replaced over time.” If I have a boat and, over time, I have replaced the rudder, the sail, the deck, the anchor, etc., is it still the same boat? If not, when did it stop being the same boat? (Before I am accused of once again making an obscure reference to something I read in a book recently, I’d like to clarify that my first exposure to the Ship of Theseus was through a podcast called The Rights to Ricky Sanchez which is, of course, a Philadelphia 76ers themed podcast. Apologies to all you Thomas Hobbes podcast fans out there.)
The Ship of Theseus paradox is relevant here because, in order to conduct this thought experiment, we must first break down the object under consideration into its essential components that could theoretically be replaced. What makes the object the object? What makes CMEpalooza CMEpalooza?
There are three core tenets of CMEpalooza:
- It should be educational, but fun
- It should be easy to access
- It should be free
These are the rock-solid pillars of CMEpalooza that have held it up ever since the first palooza in March of 2014. We have other traditional elements that have become synonymous with CMEpalooza, such as:
- Scott’s biannual sponsor event/game, which will be coming next week
- The CMEpalooza STEPtacular Challenge (sponsored by Talem Health), which will take place the week of October 13
- My CMEpalooza Haiku blog post, coming October 15, unless I get a wicked case of writer’s block, which is always a possibility
But you can remove all three of these elements, and CMEpalooza will still be CMEpalooza.
CMEpalooza will always be fun, easy, and free. We have had different faculty, different topics, different formats, and a different platform. but because those three core tenets remain, the Ship of CMEpaloozeus sails on.
CMEPALOOZA 