Achtung: Gewinnspiel!

beer? and fingerprint? as long as there is no wine in the tube quasi no spiritus!

there is no such thing as absolute importance. it could be fun to play this game but the way the question is posed simply spoils it for me. me absolvo.

natura, naturalmente.

well, the question was not what was the single or absolute most or only important part. To the original important question the answer (as provided by pattern decoding e.g.) could have been "V" (pronounced oo). The provided decision-tool (as is its wont, narrows the possibilities by making a strong hint to the designation of part being "word". One could ask "most important by what amount?" As the notes make clear nullifying the question is a valid option but needs more arguments than just the assertion that there is no such thing as absolute importance. I'll leave the gewinnspiel yet open for a while.

playing with an assumption?

The trick thing is that the normal/common form of this ellipsis is "Deus sive Natura" or sometimes "Deus sive Natura sive Substantia". "Der Kleine Stowasser" on quasi: (von quam si)

1. als wenn nach comp.
2. coniunct. als wenn, als ob
3. adv. gleichsam, gewissermaßen bei Zahlbegriffen: ungefähr, fast
4. in Vergl.sätzen, gleichwie on sive: (si mit enklitischem (??) ve)
5. oder wenn (zur Fortführung hypothetischer Sätze
6. (doppelt) sei es dass
7. oder: eiecto sive emisso
8. interrog. ob ... oder ob

Is it time now to give a resolution? Its pretty "verwixt" though. First step: pronouncing the winner(s): Everybody who participate[d|s|<-will] is a winner and entitled to alcohol and goodfood provided by tiny. motzes gets an extra halfpoint for daring the obvious and easy (although we all know Yoda said "fast and easy the way to the dark side is"). The argument chain, why either DEVS, QVASI, NATVRA, VVV, AAA or any meta is correct will follow later this afternoon.

The inner sense of the whole thing is to express my desire to discuss these topics with nice people around me which is hard to begin with. And to say that we might do good to think and talk more about nature, god, glue code and other such tabooed stuff again. Given the fact that we know shit about gravity and that bright mathematicians are not able to finish the Grand Unified Theory should be inspiration enough for this. Even when only doing sw and leaving hw to industry for many a reason we cannot leave some framework things completely undecided. World view definitely influences our lives and work and physics still is a larger world view influencer than for example PageRank which already is a pretty big one.

Physics (and even metaphysics I might add) do not need to be boring, too difficult or dead. Well, uff!

Most followers of Spinoza cite his conjecture of God and Nature and Substance as "Deus sive Natura". The form I used is somewhere in his letters if I am not wholly mistaken and I like it better. Most often this ellipsis has been interpreted in a pantheistic way which runs well with certain interpretations of natural science.

In the dominant preEnlightenmentSpeak, one would have said God is the most important (first mover) being and nature flows from him and so quasi represents him in way our senses can recognize. The middle ages are over and so this solution is out (not quite with Spinoza though).

Under the conditions of enlightenment and natural science progress and with a wish to remove the transcendental God of Descartes from the system, one would have said, nature is god and everything and god is only a representative idea of the innermost structure of nature. Not bad and can be upheld until today. So hns is right naturalmente.

Under the conditions of modern physics, the uncertainty principle, statistical quantum systems, awe inspiring progress in the digital domain etc. you could, with some right say the glue that holds everything together (links, weak and strong force, electromagnetism, gravity, strings) is the dominant thing which deserves most of our attention and so the conjunction (quasi) is the winner in such a (as tobi points to) cruelly simplified multiple choice question. motzes wins also.

Searching for hidden patterns, referers, outbound and inbound links to this little piece might be what sw people like us would do and yes everything that exists is valid and looking at that is valuable. So tobi is right too.

So at last again: All participants are winners. Fixing the date for receiving the price is your task.

well, well, i will take a glass, looking forward. but it requires a trip to vienna - and as not everyone lives in town, the problem with your prizes as a catcher are that they are not adequat to virtuality. - but be aware, i will be there soon ;)

to absorb my hard-earned prize! Also not in Vienna right now, but soon enough.