subtitle_dump.txt

gistfile1.txt

: cusa_clock

The concept of a clock enfolds all succession in time.

In the concept the sixth hour is not earlier
than the seventh or eighth,

although the clock never strikes the hour,
save when the concept biddeth.

Nicholas of Cusa, 1450


: abbad_wine

The glass is transparent,
the wine transparent —

the two are similar,
the affair confused.

There seems to be wine
and no glass,
or glass
and no wine.

Sahib bin Abbad, circa 990



: einstein_cosmic_religious_feeling

I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling
is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.

Only those who realize the immense efforts
and, above all, the devotion

without which pioneer work in theoretical science
cannot be achieved

are able to grasp the strength of the emotion
out of which alone such work,
remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue.

What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe
and what a yearning to understand,

were it but a feeble reflection
of the mind revealed in this world,

Kepler and Newton must have had
to enable them to spend years of solitary labor
in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics!

Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived
chiefly from its practical results

easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality
of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world,

have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide
through the world and through the centuries.

Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends
can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men

and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose
in spite of countless failures.

It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength.

A contemporary has said, not unjustly,
that in this materialistic age of ours

the serious scientific workers
are the only profoundly religious people.

Albert Einstein, 1930



: augustine_silence

Imagine if all the tumult of the body were to quiet down,
along with all our busy thoughts about earth, sea, and air;

if the very world should stop, and the mind cease thinking about itself,
go beyond itself, and be quite still;

if all the fantasies that appear in dreams and imagination should cease,
and there be no speech, no sign:

Imagine if all things that are perishable grew still –
for if we listen they are saying,

We did not make ourselves; he made us who abides forever –
imagine, then, that they should say this and fall silent,

listening to the very voice of him who made them
and not to that of his creation;

so that we should hear not his word through the tongues of men,

nor the voice of angels,
nor the clouds’ thunder,
nor any symbol,

but the very Self which in these things we love,

and go beyond ourselves to attain a flash
of that eternal wisdom which abides above all things:

And imagine if that moment were to go on and on,
leaving behind all other sights and sounds

but this one vision which ravishes and absorbs
and fixes the beholder in joy;

so that the rest of eternal life
were like that moment of illumination
which leaves us breathless:

Would this not be what is bidden in scripture,
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord?

Augustine of Hippo, circa 400



: tashih_gate

One nature, perfect and pervading,
circulates in all natures;

One reality, all-comprehensive,
contains within itself all realities.

The one Moon reflects itself
wherever there is a sheet of water,

And all the moons in the waters
are embraced within the one Moon.

The Absolute of all the Buddhas
enters into my own being,

And my own being is found
in union with theirs....

The Inner Light is beyond praise and blame;
Like space it knows no boundaries,

Yet it is even here, within us,
ever retaining its serenity and fullness.

It is only when you hunt for it that you lose it;

You cannot take hold of it,
but equally you cannot get rid of it,

And while you can do neither,
it goes on its own way.

You remain silent and it speaks;
you speak, and it is dumb.

The great gate of charity is wide open,
with no obstacles before it.

Yung-chia Ta-shih, circa 700




: ryonen_autumn

Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld the changing
scene of autumn

I have said enough about moonlight,
Ask no more.

Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no
wind stirs.


Ryonen, 1711



: dhamma_153

Through many births
I have wandered on and on,

Searching for, but never finding,
The builder of this house.




: einstein_library

Your question is the most difficult in the world.

It is not a question I can answer
simply with yes or no.

I am not an Atheist.
I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist.

The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds.

May I not reply with a parable?

The human mind, no matter how highly trained,
cannot grasp the universe.

We are in the position of a little child
entering a huge library filled with books
in many languages.

The child knows someone must have written those books.
It does not know how.

It does not understand
the languages in which they are written.

The child dimly suspects a mysterious order
in the arrangement of the books
but doesn’t know what that is.

That, it seems to me,
is the attitude of the most intelligent human
toward God.

Albert Einstein, 1930




: einstein_mystical

The most beautiful experience we can have 
is the mysterious. 

It is the fundamental emotion 
that stands at the cradle 
of true art and true science.

Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, 
no longer marvel,

is as good as dead, 
and his eyes are dimmed. 

It was the experience of mystery — 
even if mixed with fear — 
that engendered religion. 

A knowledge of the existence 
of something we cannot penetrate, 

our perceptions of the profoundest reason 
and the most radiant beauty, 

which only in their most primitive forms 
are accessible to our minds — 

it is this knowledge and this emotion 
that constitute true religiosity; 

in this sense, and in this alone, 
I am a deeply religious man. 

I cannot conceive of a God 
who rewards and punishes his creatures, 

or has a will of the kind 
that we experience in ourselves. 

Neither can I nor would I want to conceive 
of an individual that survives 
his physical death; 

let feeble souls, 
from fear or absurd egoism, 
cherish such thoughts. 

I am satisfied with the mystery 
of the eternity of life 

and with the awareness 
and a glimpse of the marvelous structure 
of the existing world, 

together with the devoted striving 
to comprehend a portion, 

be it ever so tiny, 

of the Reason
that manifests itself in nature.


Albert Einstein, 1931





: jeans_eos_1

Looked at on the astronomical time-scale,
humanity is at the very beginning of its existence —

a new-born babe,
with all the unexplored potentialities of babyhood;

and until the last few moments 
its interest has been centred,

absolutely and exclusively,
on its cradle and feeding-bottle.

It has just become conscious of the vast world
existing outside itself and its cradle;

it is learning to focus its eyes on distant objects,
and its awakening brain is beginning to wonder,

in a vague, dreamy way, what they are
and what purpose they serve.

Its interest in this external world
is not much developed yet,

so that the main part of its faculties
is still engrossed with the cradle and feeding-bottle,

but a little corner of its 
brain is beginning to wonder.       

James Jeans, 1928


: jeans_eos_2

In any case, our three-days-old infant 
cannot be very confident of any interpretation

it puts on a universe which it only 
discovered a minute or two ago.

We have said it has seventy years of life before it, 
but in truth its expectation of life

would seem to be nearer to 70,000 years.

It may be puzzled, distressed, and often irritated
at the apparent meaninglessness 
and incomprehensibility of the world

to which it has suddenly wakened up.
But it is still very young;

it might travel half the world over
before finding another baby
as young and inexperienced as itself. 

It has before it time enough and to spare 
in which it may understand everything.

Sooner or later the pieces of the puzzle 
must begin to fit together,

although it may reasonably be doubted
whether the whole picture can ever be comprehensible 

to one small, and apparently quite 
insignificant, part of the picture.

James Jeans, 1928



: niffari_sea

God bade me behold the sea,
and I saw the ships sinking
and the planks floating;

then the planks too were submerged.

And God said to me,
“Those who voyage are not saved.”

And He said to me, “Those who, instead of voyaging, 
cast themselves into the sea, take a risk.”

And He said to me, 
“Those who voyage and take no risk shall perish.”

And He said to me, 
“In taking the risk there is a part of salvation.”

And the wave came 
and lifted those beneath it 
and overran the shore.


And He said to me,
"The surface of the sea is a gleam that cannot be reached. 

"And the bottom is a darkness impenetrable. And between
the two are great fishes, which are to be feared."

Niffari, circa 970


: arabi_veils

There is nothing in existence but veils hung down. 

Acts of perception attach themselves 
only to veils, 

which leave traces in the owner 
of the eye that perceives them.

ibn Arabi, 1231



: tagore_voyage

I thought my voyage had come to its end
at the last limit of my power — 

that the path before me was closed,
the provisions exhausted,
and the time come to take shelter in silent obscurity.

But I find that thy will knows no end in me

And when words die out on the tongue,
new melodies break forth from the heart;

And where old tracks are lost,
New country is revealed with its wonders.




: tagore_end

Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs.
It was they who led me from door to door,

and with them I have felt about me,
searching and touching my world.

It was my songs that taught me
all the lessons I ever learnt;

they showed me secret paths,
they brought before my sight many a star
on the horizon of my heart.

They guided me all the day long
to the mysteries of the country of pleasure and pain,
and, at last,
to what palace gate have they brought me
in the evening at the end of my journey?



: tagore_boast

I boasted among men that I had known you.

They see your pictures in all works of mine.
They come and ask me, "Who is he?"

I know not how to answer them.
I say, "Indeed, I cannot tell."

They blame me and they go away in scorn.
And you sit there smiling.

I put my tales of you into lasting songs.
The secret gushes out from my heart.

They come and ask me, 
"Tell me all your meanings."

I know not how to answer them.
I say, "Ah, who knows what they mean!"

They smile and go away in utter scorn.
And you sit there smiling.

- Rabindranath Tagore, 1910



: endgame

a star at dawn

: bubble_in_stream

a bubble in a stream

: flash_of_lightning

a flash of lightning in a summer cloud

: flickering_lamp

a flickering lamp

: a_phantom

a phantom

: and_a_dream

and a dream.




: hofstadter_activation

Our hangnails are incredibly real to us;

whereas to most of us, the English village of Nether Wallop 
and the high Himalayan country of Bhutan, 

not to mention the slowly swirling spiral galaxy in Andromeda, 
are considerably less real, 

even though our intellectual selves might wish to insist 
that since the latter are much bigger and longer-lasting 
than our hangnails, 

they ought therefore to be far realer to us 
than our hangnails are.

We can say this to ourselves till we’re blue in the face, 
but few of us act as if we really believed it.  

A slight slippage of subterranean stone 
that obliterates 20,000 people in some far-off land, 

the ceaseless plundering of virgin jungles in the Amazon basin, 

a swarm of helpless stars being swallowed up 
one after another by a ravenous black hole, 

even an ongoing collision between two huge galaxies 
each of which contains a hundred billion stars —

such colossal events are so abstract to someone like me 
that they can’t even touch the sense of urgency and importance, 

and thus the reality, of some measly little hangnail 
on my left hand’s pinky.

We are all egocentric, and what is realest to each of us, in the
end, is ourself.  

The realest things of all are 
my knee, my nose, my anger, my hunger, 
my toothache, my sideache, my sadness, my joy,

my love for math, my abstraction ceiling, and so forth.

What all these things have in common, what binds them together, 
is the concept of "my", 

which comes out of the concept of "I" or "me", 
and therefore, 

although it is less concrete than a nose or even a toothache, 
this "I" thing is what ultimately seems to each of us 
to constitute the most solid rock of undeniability of all.  

Could it possibly be an illusion?  
Or if not a total illusion, could it possibly be less real 
and less solid than we think it is?  

Could an "I" be more like an elusive, receding, 
shimmering rainbow 
than like a tangible, heftable, transportable pot of gold?

Douglas Hofstadter, 2007



: heisenberg_on_pauli

The physicist Wolfgang Pauli once spoke
of two limiting conceptions, 

both of which have been extraordinarily fruitful 
in the history of human thought, 
although no genuine reality corresponds to them. 

At one extreme is the idea of an objective world, 
pursuing its regular course in space and time, 

independently of any kind of observing subject;
this has been the guiding image of modern science.  

At the other extreme is the idea of a subject, 
mystically experiencing the unity of the world 

and no longer confronted by an object 
or by any objective world; 

this has been the guiding image of Asian mysticism.  

Our thinking moves somewhere in the middle, 
between these two limiting conceptions; 

we should maintain the tension resulting 
from these two opposites.

Werner Heisenberg, 1974



: zen_points_beyond_language

In a sense, what modern physics is to the history of Western thought,
Zen is to the development of the Eastern worldview: 

the ultimate refinement of more than two thousand years 
of incisive debate, discussion, and critical development. 

Yet the difference between the two could hardly be more marked. 

Whereas physics is interested above all 
in theories, concepts, and formulas, 
Zen values only the concrete and the simple. 

Zen wants facts — not in the Western sense of things 
that are measurable and numerical (which are, in fact, abstractions!) 
but as living, immediate, and tangible. 

Its approach to understanding is not to theorize 
because it recognizes that previously accumulated ideas and knowledge — 

in other words, memories of all kinds — 
block the direct perception of reality. 

Therefore, Zen adopts an unusual approach. 
Its buildup involves language — which is unavoidable. 

Any method, even if it turns out to be an antimethod, 
has first to convey some background in order to be effective. 

But the way Zen uses language is always to point 
beyond language, beyond concepts to the concrete.

David Darling, 1996




: zen_physics_intellectual_catastrophe 

Two major schools of Zen exist in Japan: 
the Rinzai and the Soto. 

Both have the same goal, of seeing the world unmediated, 
but their approaches are different. 

In the Soto school, the emphasis is on quiet contemplation 
in a seated position without a particular focus for thought. 

The method in the Rinzai school, however, 
is to put the intellect to work on problems 
that have no logical resolution. 

Such problems are known as koans, 
from the Chinese kung-an meaning “public announcement.”

Some are mere questions, for example:

“When your mind is not dwelling 
on the dualism of good and evil, 
what is your original face before you were born?”

Others are set in a question-and-answer form, like:

“What is the Buddha?” 

Answer: “Three pounds of flax” 
or “The cypress tree in the courtyard” 
(to name but two of the classic responses). 

According to tradition 
there are seventeen hundred such conundrums 
in the Zen repertoire. 

And their common aim is 
to induce a kind of intellectual catastrophe, 

a sudden jump 
which lifts the individual out of the domain of words and reason 
into a direct, nonmediated experience known as satori.

Zen differs from other meditative forms, 
including other schools of Buddhism, 

in that it does not start from where we are 
and gradually lead us to a clear view 
of the true way of the world. 

It is not a progressive system in this respect. 

The sole purpose of studying Zen is to have Zen experiences —
sudden moments, like flashes of lightning, 

when the intellect is short-circuited 
and there is no longer a barrier 
between the experiencer and reality. 

David Darling, 1996



: feynman_wine

A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." 

We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, 
for poets do not write to be understood. 

But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine 
closely enough we see the entire universe. 

There are the things of physics: 
the twisting liquid which evaporates 
depending on the wind and weather, 

the reflections in the glass, 
and our imagination adds the atoms. 

The glass is a distillation of the earth’s rocks, 
and in its composition we see the secrets of the
universe’s age, and the evolution of stars. 

What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? 
How did they come to be? 

There are the ferments, the enzymes, 
the substrates, and the products. 

There in wine is found the great generalization: 
all life is fermentation.

Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, 
as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. 

How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence 
into the consciousness that watches it! 

If our small minds, for some convenience, 
divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts —

physics, biology, geology, astronomy, 
psychology, and so on — 

remember that nature does not know it! 

So let us put it all back together, 
not forgetting ultimately what it is for. 

Let it give us one more final pleasure:
drink it and forget it all!

Richard Feynman, 1963



: feynman_uncertainty_of_science

If we were not able or did not desire to look in any new direction,
if we did not have a doubt or recognize ignorance, 

we would not get any new ideas.  
There would be nothing worth checking, 
because we would know what is true.  

So what we call scientific knowledge today
is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty.  

Some of them are most unsure; some of them are nearly sure; 
but none is absolutely certain.  Scientists are used to this.  

We know that it is consistent to be able to live and not know.  

Some people say,
“How can you _live_ without knowing?” I do not know what they mean.

I always live without knowing.  That is easy.  
How you get to know is what I want to know.

This freedom to doubt is an important matter in the sciences 
and, I believe, in other fields.  
It was born of a struggle.  

It was a struggle to be permitted to doubt, to be unsure.

And I do not want us to forget the importance of the struggle 
and, by default, to let the thing fall away.  

I feel a responsibility as a scientist 
who knows the great value 
of a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, 

and the progress made possible by such a philosophy, 
progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought.  

I feel a responsibility to proclaim the value of this freedom 
and to teach that doubt is not to be feared, 

but that it is to be welcomed 
as the possibility of a new potential for human beings.

If you know that you are not sure, 
you have a chance to improve the situation.  

I want to demand this freedom for future generations.

Richard Feynman, 1963



: feynman_atoms_with_curiosity

It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, 
to contemplate what it would be like without man, 

as it was in a great part of its long history 
and as it is in a great majority of places.

When this objective view is finally attained, 
and the mystery and majesty of matter are fully appreciated, 

to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, 
to view life as part of this universal mystery 
of the greatest depth, 

is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting.  

It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility 
of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, 

this thing — atoms with curiosity — 
that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders.

Well, these scientific views end in awe and mystery, 
lost at the edge in uncertainty, 
but they appear to be so deep and so impressive 

that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch
man’s struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.

Some will tell me 
that I have just described a religious experience. 
Very well, you may call it what you will. 

Then, in that language I would say 
that the young man’s religious experience is of such a kind 

that he finds the religion of his church inadequate to describe, 
to encompass that kind of experience. 

The God of the church isn’t big enough.

Richard Feynman, 1963



: einstein_searchers

Of all the communities available to us, 
there is not one I would want to devote myself to, 

except for the society of true searchers 
which has very few living members at any time.

Albert Einstein, 1924



: cezanne_motif

“You see, a motif is this...”

(He put his hands together, drew them apart, the ten fingers open, 
then slowly, very slowly brought them together again, clasped them, 
squeezed them tightly, meshing them.)

“That’s what one should try to achieve. 
If one hand is held too high or too low, it won’t work. 

Not a single link should be too slack, leaving a hole through which the emotion, 
the light, the truth can escape. 

You must understand that I work on the whole canvas, 
on everything at once. 

With one impulse, with undivided faith, 
I approach all the scattered bits and pieces. 

Everything we see falls apart, vanishes, doesn’t it? 
Nature is always the same, but nothing in her that appears to us, lasts. 

Our art must render the thrill of her permanence 
along with her elements, 
the appearance of all her changes. 
It must give us a taste of her eternity. 

What is there underneath? Maybe nothing. 
Maybe everything. 
Everything, you understand! 

So I bring together her wandering hands. 
I take something at right, something at left, 
here, there, everywhere, 

her tones, her colors, her nuances, 
I set them down, I bring them together. 

They form lines. They become objects, 
rocks, trees, without my planning. 
They take on volume, value. 

If these volumes, these values, correspond on my canvas, 
in my sensibility, to the planes,

to the spots ... which are there before our eyes,
then my canvas has brought its hands together. 

It does not waver. 
The hands have been joined neither too high nor too low. 
My canvas is true, compact, full. 

But if there is the slightest distraction, 
if I fail just a little bit, above all if I interpret too much one day, 

if today I am carried away by a theory 
which runs counter to that of yesterday, 

if I think while I paint, if I meddle, 
whoosh! everything goes to pieces.

Paul Cezanne as related by Joachim Gasquet, 1921



: eddington_entering_a_room 

I am standing on the threshold about to enter a room. 
It is a complicated business. 

In the first place, I must shove against an atmosphere 
pressing with a force of fourteen pounds 
on every square inch of my body. 

I must make sure of landing on a plank 
travelling at twenty miles a second round the sun — 

a fraction of a second too early or too late, 
the plank would be miles away. 

I must do this whilst hanging from a round planet 
head outward into space, 

and with a wind of aether blowing 
at no one knows how many miles a second
through every interstice of my body. 

The plank has no solidity of substance. 
To step on it is like stepping on a swarm of flies. 

Shall I not slip through? 

No, if I make the venture one of the flies hits me 
and gives a boost up again; 

I fall again and am knocked upwards by another fly; 
and so on. 

I may hope that the net result will be that I remain about steady, 
but if, unfortunately, I should slip through the floor 
or be boosted too violently up to the ceiling, 

the occurrence would be, not a violation of the laws of Nature, 
but a rare coincidence. These are some of the minor difficulties. 

I ought really to look at the problem four-dimensionally 
as concerning the intersection of my world-line 
with that of the plank. 

Then again, it is necessary to determine 
in which direction the entropy of the world is increasing 

in order to make sure that my passage over the threshold 
is an entrance, not an exit.

Verily, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
than for a scientific man to pass through a door. 

And whether the door be barn door or church door 
it might be wiser 

that he should consent to be an ordinary man and walk in 
rather than wait till all the difficulties involved 
in a really scientific ingress 
are resolved.

Arthur Eddington, 1927



: eddington_eyes

As scientists, we realise that colour is merely a question 
of the wavelengths of aethereal vibrations, 

but that does not seem to have dispelled the feeling 
that eyes which reflect light near wavelength 4800 
are a subject for rhapsody 

whilst those which reflect wavelength 5300 
are left unsung. 

We have not yet reached the practice of the Laputans, who, 
“if they would, for example, praise the beauty of a
woman, or any other animal,

“they describe it by rhombs, circles,
parallelograms, ellipses, and other geometrical terms.” 

The materialist who is convinced that all phenomena 
arise from electrons and quanta and the like 
controlled by mathematical formulae, 

must presumably hold the belief 
that his wife is a rather elaborate differential equation, 

but he is probably tactful enough 
not to obtrude this opinion in domestic life. 

If this kind of scientific dissection 
is felt to be inadequate and irrelevant
in ordinary personal relationships, 

it is surely out of place 
in the most personal relationship of all — 
that of the human soul to a divine spirit.

Arthur Eddington, 1927




: eddington_humor

We have two kinds of knowledge which I call symbolic and intimate.

I do not know whether it would be correct to say 
that reasoning is only applicable to symbolic knowledge, 

but the more customary forms of reasoning 
have been developed for symbolic knowledge only. 

The intimate knowledge will not submit to codification and analysis, 
or, rather, when we attempt to analyse it 
the intimacy is lost and replaced by symbolism.

For an illustration let us consider Humour. 

I suppose that humour can be analysed to some extent 
and the essential ingredients 
of the different kinds of wit classified. 

Suppose that we are offered an alleged joke. 
We subject it to scientific analysis 
as we would a chemical salt of doubtful nature, 

and perhaps after careful consideration 
we are able to confirm 
that it really and truly is a joke. 

Logically, I suppose, our next procedure would be to laugh. 

But it may certainly be predicted 
that as the result of this scrutiny 
we shall have lost all inclination we ever had 
to laugh at it. 

It simply does not do to expose the workings of a joke. 

The classification concerns a symbolic knowledge of humour 
which preserves all the characteristics of a joke 
except its laughableness. 

The real appreciation must come spontaneously, 
not introspectively.

I think this is a not unfair analogy 
for our mystical feeling for Nature, 

and I would venture even to apply it 
to our mystical experience of God. 

There are some to whom the sense 
of a divine presence irradiating the soul 
is one of the most obvious things of experience. 

In their view, a man without this sense 
is to be regarded
as we regard a man without a sense of humour. 

The absence is a kind of mental deficiency. 

We may try to analyse the experience as we analyse humour, 
and construct a theology, 
or it may be an atheistic philosophy...

But let us not forget that the theology is symbolic knowledge, 
whereas the experience is intimate knowledge.

And as laughter cannot be compelled 
by the scientific exposition of the structure of a joke, 

so a philosophic discussion of the attributes of God 
(or an impersonal substitute) 

is likely to miss the intimate response of the spirit 
which is the central point of the religious experience.

Arthur Eddington, 1927


: eddington_generation_of_waves

One day I happened to be occupied with the subject of 
“Generation of Waves by Wind.”

I took down the standard treatise on hydrodynamics,
and under that heading I read —

If the external forces p’ yy, p’ xy be given
multiples of e ** (ikx + at), where k and a are prescribed,
the equations in question determine A and C, 
and thence, by (9) the value of eta....
 
And so on for two pages. At the end, it is made clear 
that a wind of less than half a mile an hour 
will leave the surface unruffled.

At a mile an hour the surface is covered 
with minute corrugations due to capillary waves 
which decay immediately if the disturbing cause ceases. 

At two miles an hour the gravity waves appear. 
As the author modestly concludes, 

“Our theoretical investigations give considerable
insight into the incipient stages of wave-formation.”

On another occasion the same subject 
of “Generation of Waves by Wind” 
was in my mind; 

but this time another book was more appropriate, 
and I read —

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter 
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,

Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance 
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white

Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, 
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

The magic words bring back the scene. 
Again we feel Nature drawing close to us, 
uniting with us, 

til we are filled with the gladness of the waves 
dancing in the sunshine, 
with the awe of the moonlight on the frozen lake. 

These were not moments when we fell below ourselves. 
We do not look back on them and say, 

“It was disgraceful for a man with six sober senses 
and a scientific understanding 
to let himself be deluded in that way. 

“I will take Lamb’s Hydrodynamics with me next time.” 

It is good that there should be such moments for us. 

Life would be stunted and narrow 
if we could feel no significance in the world around us 

beyond that which can be weighed and measured
with the tools of the physicist 
or described by the metrical symbols of the mathematician.

Of course, it was an illusion. 
We can easily expose the rather clumsy trick 
that was played on us. 

Aethereal vibrations of various wavelengths, 
reflected at different angles 
from the disturbed interface between air and water, 

reached our eyes, and by photoelectric action 
caused appropriate stimuli to travel along the optic nerves 
to a brain-centre. 

Here the mind set to work 
to weave an impression out of the stimuli. 

The incoming material was somewhat meagre, 
but the mind is a great storehouse of associations 
that could be used to clothe the skeleton. 

Having woven an impression, the mind 
surveyed all that it had made 
and decided that it was very good. 

The critical faculty was lulled. 
We ceased to analyse and were conscious 
only of the impression as a whole. 

The warmth of the air, the scent of the grass, 
the gentle stir of the breeze, 

combined with the visual scene 
in one transcendent impression, 
around us and within us. 

Associations emerging from their storehouse grew bolder. 
Perhaps we recalled the phrase “rippling laughter.” 

Waves—ripples—laughter—gladness—the ideas jostled one another. 
Quite illogically, we were glad, 

though what there can possibly be to be glad about 
in a set of aethereal vibrations 
no sensible person can explain. 

A mood of quiet joy suffused the whole impression. 
The gladness in ourselves was in Nature, 
in the waves, everywhere. 
That’s how it was.

It was an illusion. Then why toy with it longer? 
These airy fancies which the mind, 
when we do not keep it severely in order, 

projects into the external world 
should be of no concern to the earnest seeker after truth. 

Get back to the solid substance of things, 
to the material of the water moving 
under the pressure of the wind 

and the force of gravitation 
in obedience to the laws of hydrodynamics. 

But the solid substance of things is another illusion. 
It too is a fancy projected by the mind 
into the external world. 

We have chased the solid substance 
from the continuous liquid to the atom, 
from the atom to the electron, 
and there we have lost it. 

But at least, it will be said, 
we have reached something real at the end of the chase — 
the protons and electrons. 

Or, if the new quantum theory condemns these images 
as too concrete and leaves us with no coherent images at all,

at least we have symbolic coordinates and momenta and Hamiltonian
functions devoting themselves with single-minded purpose to ensuring
that qp-pq shall be equal to ih/2π.

I have tried to show that by following this course 
we reach a cyclic scheme which, from its very nature, 
can only be a partial expression of our environment. 

It is not reality but the skeleton of reality. 

“Actuality” has been lost in the exigencies of the chase. 
Having first rejected the mind as a worker of illusion 
we have in the end to return to the mind and say, 

“Here are worlds well and truly built 
on a basis more secure than your fanciful illusions. 
But there is nothing to make any one of them an actual world. 

“Please choose one and weave your fanciful images into it. 
That alone can make it actual.” 

We have torn away the mental fancies 
to get at the reality beneath, 

only to find that the reality of that which is beneath 
is bound up with its potentiality of awakening these fancies. 

It is because the mind, the weaver of illusion, 
is also the only guarantor of reality 
that reality is always to be sought at the base of illusion. 

Illusion is to reality as the smoke to the fire. 
I will not urge that hoary untruth “There is no smoke without fire”. 

But it is reasonable to inquire whether, 
in the mystical illusions of man, 
there is not a reflection of an underlying reality.

Arthur Eddington, 1927




: schweickart_eva

Up there you go around every hour and a half, 
time after time after time.  

You wake up usually in the mornings.  
And just the way that the track of your orbits go, 

you wake up over the Mid-East, over North Africa.

As you eat breakfast you look out the window as you’re going past
and there’s the Mediterranean area, 

and Greece, and Rome, and North Africa, 
and the Sinai, the whole area.  

And you realize that in one glance that
what you’re seeing is what was the whole history of man for years —

the cradle of civilization....

And you go around down across North Africa 
and out over the Indian Ocean, 

and look up at that great subcontinent of India 
pointed down toward you as you go past it.  

And Ceylon off to the side, Burma, Southeast Asia, 
out over the Philippines, 
and up across that monstrous Pacific Ocean, 

vast body of water — 
you’ve never realized how big that is before.

And you finally come up across the coast of California 
and look for those friendly things:   
Los Angeles, and Phoenix, and on across El Paso 

and there’s Houston, there’s home, 
and you look and sure enough there’s the Astrodome. 
And you identify with that, you know — 
it’s an attachment.

And down across New Orleans and then looking down to the south 
and there’s the whole peninsula of Florida laid out.  

And all the hundreds of hours 
you spent flying across that route, 
down in the atmosphere, 
all that is friendly again.  

And you go out across the Atlantic Ocean and back across Africa.

And you do it again and again and again.

And that identity - that you identify with Houston, 
and then you identify with Los Angeles, 
and Phoenix and New Orleans and everything.  

And the next thing you recognize in yourself, 
is you’re identifying with North Africa.  

You look forward to that, you anticipate it.  
And there it is. 

That whole process begins to shift 
of what it is you identify with. 

When you go around it in an hour and a half 
you begin to recognize 
that your identity is with that whole thing.  
And that makes a change.

You look down there and you can’t imagine 
how many borders and boundaries you crossed 
again and again and again. 
And you don’t even see ’em. 

At that wake-up scene — the Mid-East — 
you know there are hundreds of people killing each other 
over some imaginary line that you can’t see.  

From where you see it, the thing is a whole, 
and it’s so beautiful.  
And you wish you could take one from each side in hand 
and say, 

“Look at it from this perspective. 
Look at that. What’s important?”

And so a little later on, your friend, those same neighbors,
another astronaut, the person next to you goes out to the Moon.  

And now he looks back and sees the Earth not as something big, 
where he can see the beautiful details, 

but he sees the Earth as a small thing out there.  

And now that contrast between 
that bright blue and white Christmas tree ornament 
and that black sky, that infinite universe, 
really comes through.

The size of it, the significance of it — 
it becomes both things, 

it becomes so small and so fragile, 
and such a precious little spot in that universe, 
that you can block it out with your thumb, 

and you realize that on that small spot, 
that little blue and white thing  
is everything that means anything to you. 

All of history and music and poetry and art 
and war and death and birth and love, tears, joy, 
games, 

all of it is on that little spot out there 
that you can cover with your thumb.

And you realize that that perspective ... 
that you’ve changed, that there’s something new there. 

That relationship is no longer what it was. 

And then you look back on the time 
when you were outside on that EVA 
and those few moments that you had the time 
because the camera malfunctioned, 

that you had the time to think about what was happening.  

And you recall staring out there at the spectacle 
that went before your eyes. Because now 
you’re no longer inside something 
with a window looking out at a picture, 

but now you’re out there 
and what you’ve got around your head 
is a goldfish bowl and there are no limits here. 

There are no frames, there are no boundaries. 

You’re really out there, over it, floating, 
going 25,000 mph, ripping through space, 
a vacuum, and there’s not a sound. 

There’s a silence 
the depth of which you’ve never experienced before, 
and that silence contrasts so markedly with the scenery, 

and the speed with which you know you’re going. 

That contrast, the mix of those two things, 
really comes through.

And you think about what you’re experiencing and why.  
Do you deserve this? This fantastic experience? 
Have you earned this in some way? 

Are you separated out to be touched by God 
to have some special experience here 
that other men cannot have? 

You know the answer to that is No. 
There’s nothing that you’ve done that deserves that, 
that earned that. 

It’s not a special thing for you. 
You know very well at that moment,
and it comes through to you so powerfully, 
that you’re the sensing element for man.

You look down and see the surface of that globe 
that you’ve lived on all this time 
and you know all those people down there. 

They are like you, they are you, 
and somehow you represent them when you are up there —

a sensing element, that point out on the end, 
and that’s a humbling feeling. 
It’s a feeling that says you have a responsibility. 
It’s not for yourself.

The eye that doesn’t see does not do justice to the body. 
That’s why it’s there, that’s why you’re out there. 

And somehow you recognize that you’re a piece of this total life. 

You’re out on that forefront 
and you have to bring that back, somehow. 

And that becomes a rather special responsibility.   

It tells you something about your relationship 
with this thing we call life....

And when you come back, there’s a difference in that world now, 
there’s a difference in that relationship 
between you and that planet, 

and you and all those other forms of life on that planet, 
because you’ve had that kind of experience.  

It’s a difference,
and it’s so precious. 

And all through this I’ve used the word “you” 
because it’s not me, it’s not Dave Scott, 
it’s not Dick Gordon, Pete Conrad, John Glenn, 
it’s you, it’s us, it’s we, it’s life.  

It’s had that experience. 
And it’s not just my problem to integrate, 
it’s not my challenge to integrate, my joy to integrate — 
it’s yours, it’s everybody’s.

Russell Schweickart, 1975.




: skinner_autonomy

In the traditional view a person is free. 
He is autonomous in the sense that his behavior is uncaused... 

That view, together with its associated practices, 
must be re-examined when a scientific analysis 

reveals unexpected controlling relations 
between behaviour and environment....

By questioning the control exercised by autonomous man 
and demonstrating the control exercised by the environment, 

a science of behavior also seems to question dignity or worth.  

A person is responsible for his behavior, 
not only in the sense that he may be 
justly blamed or punished when he behaves badly, 

but also in the sense that he is to be given credit 
and admired for his achievements.  

A scientific analysis shifts the credit as well as the blame 
to the environment, 
and traditional practices can then no longer be justified.  

These are sweeping changes, 
and those who are committed to traditional theories and practices 
naturally resist them....

As the emphasis shifts to the environment, 
the individual seems to be exposed 
to a new kind of danger.  

Who is to construct the controlling environment 
and to what end?  

Autonomous man presumably controls himself 
in accordance with a built-in set of values; 
he works for what he finds good.  

But what will the putative controller find good, 
and will it be good for those he controls?

Answers to questions of this sort are said, of course, 
to call for value judgements.

B.F. Skinner, 1971




: skinner_reciprocal

The relation between the controller and the controlled 
is reciprocal. 

The scientist in the laboratory, 
studying the behavior of a pigeon, 
designs contingencies and observes their effects. 

His apparatus exerts a conspicuous control on the pigeon, 
but we must not overlook the control exerted by the pigeon. 

The behavior of the pigeon 
has determined the design of the apparatus 
and the procedures in which it is used. 

Some such reciprocal control is characteristic of all science. 
As Francis Bacon put it, 
nature to be commanded must be obeyed.  

The scientist who designs a cyclotron 
is under the control of the particles he is studying.  

The behavior with which a parent controls his child, 
either aversively or through positive reinforcement, 
is shaped and maintained by the child's responses. 

A psychotherapist changes the behavior of his patient 
in ways which have been shaped and maintained 
by his success in changing that behavior. 

A government or religion prescribes and imposes sanctions
selected by their effectiveness 
in controlling citizen or communicant. 

An employer induces his employees 
to work industriously and carefully 
with wage systems 
determined by their effects on behavior. 

The classroom practices of the teacher 
are shaped and maintained 
by the effects on his students. 

In a very real sense, then, 
the slave controls the slave driver, 
the child the parent, 

the patient the therapist, the citizen the government, 
the communicant the priest, the employee the employer, 
and the student the teacher.

B.F. Skinner, 1971



: gangaji_silence

When we choose silence, 
we choose to give up the reasons not to love, 

which are the reasons for going to war, or continuing war, 
or separating, or being a victim, or being right. 

In a moment of silence, 
in a moment of no thought, no mind, 

we choose to give those up. 
This is what my teacher invited me to.
 
Just choose silence. Don't even choose love. 
Choose silence, and love is apparent. 

If we choose love we already have an idea 
of what love is.
 
But if you choose silence, that is the end of ideas. 
You are willing to have no idea, 

to see what is present when there is no idea, 
past, present, future. 

No idea of love, no idea of truth, no idea of you,
no idea of me. Love is apparent.

Gangaji, 2009



: kingsmill

What is divine in man is elusive and impalpable, 
and he is easily tempted to embody it in a concrete form – 

a church, a country, a social system, a leader – 
so that he may realize it with less effort 
and serve it with more profit. 

Yet the attempt to externalize the kingdom of heaven 
in a temporal shape must end in disaster. 

It cannot be created by charters or constitutions 
nor established by arms. 

Those who seek for it alone will reach it together, 
and those who seek it in company will perish by themselves.

Hugh Kingsmill, 1944





: denck_nobody_finds

O my God, how does it happen in this poor old world

that Thou art so great and yet nobody finds Thee,
that Thou callest so loudly and nobody hears Thee,

that Thou art so near and nobody feels Thee,
that Thou givest Thyself to everybody 
and nobody knows Thy name?

Men flee from Thee and say they cannot find Thee;
they turn their backs and say they cannot see Thee;

they stop their ears and say they cannot hear Thee.

Hans Denck, circa 1520


: chuang_tzu_boat

Suppose a boat is crossing a river, 
and another empty boat is about to collide with it. 

Even an irritable man would not lose his temper. 

But supposing there was some one in the second boat.
Then the occupant of the first 
would shout to him to keep clear.

And if the other did not hear the first time, 
nor even when called three times, 
bad language would inevitably follow. 

In the first case there was no anger, 
in the second there was; 

because in the first case the boat was empty, 
and in the second it was occupied. 

And so it is with man. 
If he could only roam empty through life,
who would be able to injure him?

Zhuangzi, 4th century B.C.



: mitchell_ttc_11

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

Lao Tzu, 6th century BC



: wordsworth_peak

                    Lustily
I dipped my oars into the silent lake,

And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat
Went heaving through the water like a swan;

When, from behind that craggy steep, till then
The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,

As if with voluntary power instinct,
Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,

And growing still in stature, the grim shape
Towered up between me and the stars. . . .

                     But after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days my brain

Worked with a dim and undetermined sense
Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts

There hung a darkness, call it solitude,
Or blank desertion.

William Wordsworth, 1888




: clifford_shipowner

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. 
He knew that she was old, 
and not well built at the first; 

that she had seen many seas and climes, 
and often had needed repairs. 

Doubts had been suggested to him 
that possibly she was not seaworthy. 

These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy; 
he thought that perhaps he ought to have her 
thoroughly overhauled and refitted, 
even though this should put him at great expense. 

Before the ship sailed, however, 
he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections.

He said to himself that she had gone safely 
through so many voyages and weathered so many storms 
that it was idle to suppose 
she would not come safely home from this trip also. 

He would put his trust in Providence, 
which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families 
that were leaving their fatherland 
to seek for better times elsewhere. 

He would dismiss from his mind 
all ungenerous suspicions 
about the honesty of builders and contractors. 

In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction 
that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; 

he watched her departure with a light heart, 
and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles 
in their strange new home that was to be; 

and he got his insurance-money when she went down in
mid-ocean and told no tales.

What shall we say of him? 
Surely this, that he was verily guilty 
of the death of those families. 

It is admitted that he did sincerely believe 
in the soundness of his ship; 
but the sincerity of his conviction 
can in no wise help him, 

_because he had no right to believe
on such evidence as was before him_.

He had acquired his belief
not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, 
but by stifling his doubts. 

And although in the end he may have felt so sure about it 
that he could not think otherwise, 

yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and willingly 
worked himself into that frame of mind, 

he must be held responsible for it.

William K. Clifford, 1874


: clifford_busy

If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood 
or persuaded of afterwards, 

keeps down and pushes away any doubts 
which arise about it in his mind, 

purposely avoids the reading of books 
and the company of men 
that call into question or discuss it, 

and regards as impious 
those questions which cannot easily be asked 
without disturbing it — 

the life of that man is one long sin against
mankind....

“But,” says one, “I am a busy man; 

“I have no time for the long course of study 
which would be necessary to make me in any degree 
a competent judge of certain questions, 

“or even able to understand the nature of
the arguments.”

Then he should have no time to believe.

William K. Clifford, 1874


: brooke_the_dead

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.
Rupert Brooke, 1914


: cusa_impossible

Therefore, I thank you, my God,
because you make clear to me

that there is no other way of approaching you

except that which to all humans,
even to the most learned philosophers,

seems wholly inaccessible and impossible.

For you have shown me that you cannot be seen
elsewhere than where impossibility confronts and obstructs me.

O Lord, you, who are the food of the mature,
have given me courage to do violence to myself,

for impossibility coincides with necessity,
and I have discovered that the place where you are found unveiled

is girded about with the coincidence of contradictories.

This is the wall of paradise,
and it is there in paradise that you reside.

The wall's gate is guarded by the highest spirit of reason,
and unless it is overpowered, the way in will not lie open.

Thus, it is on the other side
of the coincidence of contradictories

that you will be able to be seen
and nowhere on this side.

If, therefore,
impossibility is necessity in your sight, O Lord,

there is nothing which your sight does not see.

- Nicholas of Cusa, 1453


: cusa_invisible

Formerly you appeared to me, O Lord,
as invisible by every creature

because you are a hidden, infinite God.

Infinity, however, is incomprehensible
by every means of comprehending.

Later you appeared to me as visible by all,
for a thing exists only as you see it,

and it would not actually exist unless it saw you.

For your vision confers being,
since your vision is your essence.

Thus, my God, you are equally invisible and visible.
As you are, you are invisible;

as the creature is,
which exists only insofar as the creature sees you,
you are visible.

You, therefore, my invisible God, are seen by all,
and in all sight you are seen by everyone who sees.

You who are invisible,
who are both absolute from everything visible
and infinitely superexalted,

are seen in every visible thing
and in every act of vision.

Therefore, I must leap across this wall of invisible vision
to where you are to be found.

But this wall is both everything and nothing.
For you, who confront
as if you were both all things and nothing at all,

dwell inside that high wall
which no natural ability can scale by its own power.

- Nicholas of Cusa, 1453


: cusa_name

O Lord God, helper of those who seek you,
I see you in the garden of paradise,

and I do not know what I see,
because I see nothing visible.

I know this alone
that I know that I do not know what I see
and that I can never know.

I do not know how to name you,
because I do not know what you are.

Should anyone tell me
that you are named by this or that name,

by the fact that one gives a name
I know that it is not your name.

For the wall beyond which I see you
is the limit of every mode of signification by names.

Should anyone express any concept
by which you could be conceived,

I know that this concept is not a concept of you,
for every concept finds its boundary
at the wall of paradise.

Should anyone express any likeness
and say that you ought to be conceived according to it,

I know in the same way that this is not a likeness of you.

So too if anyone, wishing to furnish the means
by which you might be understood,

should set forth an understanding of you,
one is still far removed from you.

For the highest wall separates you from all these
and secludes you from everything that can be said or thought,

because you are absolute from all the things
that can fall within any concept.

- Nicholas of Cusa, 1453