tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94936012024-03-18T08:17:04.468-05:00Tao of Photography by Andy IlachinskiMusings, speculations and links relating to photography, science, art and the creative process (and an occasional image or two)Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.comBlogger1218125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-52542784231487138762024-03-17T10:32:00.001-05:002024-03-17T10:32:20.777-05:00Self-Conscious Flow<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOVohuypjkBLgQleRGtArBLsdV8zqkXouW3cFczUBPAI0F5UoLJ4qQXCvAvrTh1W5fN9sYYxsbjP4f-obY23OSFpuDuILz7X2Ut800NkvhEEhHrsbtk95tZ_-hAeSF-zhzwthAZNYvKPiad7ybWy2jZanKLo3JlWjUQJTT0JWjdBv5vN94cfmafg/s1400/_DSC1082sq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOVohuypjkBLgQleRGtArBLsdV8zqkXouW3cFczUBPAI0F5UoLJ4qQXCvAvrTh1W5fN9sYYxsbjP4f-obY23OSFpuDuILz7X2Ut800NkvhEEhHrsbtk95tZ_-hAeSF-zhzwthAZNYvKPiad7ybWy2jZanKLo3JlWjUQJTT0JWjdBv5vN94cfmafg/s320/_DSC1082sq.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"Great art and great science involve a leap of imagination into a world that is different from the present.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">...</div>Many of the peculiarities attributed to creative persons are really just ways to protect the focus of concentration so that they may lose themselves in the creative process. Distractions interrupt flow, and it may take hours to recover the peace of mind one needs to get on with the work. The more ambitious the task, the longer it takes to lose oneself in it, and the easier it is to get distracted.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">...</div>I mean, we’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention. In some ways, this is getting far afield. I mean, we are—as far as we know—the only part of the universe that’s self-conscious. We could even be the universe’s form of consciousness."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi" target="_blank">Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi</a> (1934 - 2021)<br /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics-dp-0061339202/dp/0061339202/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience</a><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">(See "<a href="https://neurosciencenews.com/creativity-zone-neuroscience-25697/" target="_blank">Unlocking Creative Flow: How the Brain Enters the Zone</a>")</span></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-21045740766047094752024-03-16T12:35:00.003-05:002024-03-16T12:35:55.726-05:00Zen Drops<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV6UI4FNRJHAu5eipQ1E__mb0kYMXKE2TUsZQ-qWoMdyd8IxrhKsG0WVhwjdIZKlfnWRv-ja9BW48i7c3vvpkUzQI3vXtnosfYGGtGvFQhINoX6Lc0UaBdg96KoDCrtJ9sfyge4j9ahalvxyGNIb-Wz1pFakA6XcJcWh1eI9y1xgq2OTJ5IjMYSA/s1600/_DSC1013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV6UI4FNRJHAu5eipQ1E__mb0kYMXKE2TUsZQ-qWoMdyd8IxrhKsG0WVhwjdIZKlfnWRv-ja9BW48i7c3vvpkUzQI3vXtnosfYGGtGvFQhINoX6Lc0UaBdg96KoDCrtJ9sfyge4j9ahalvxyGNIb-Wz1pFakA6XcJcWh1eI9y1xgq2OTJ5IjMYSA/s320/_DSC1013.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">"In one drop of water are found<br />all the secrets of the oceans."</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlil_Gibran">Kahlil Gibran</a> (1883 - 1931) </div><p></p></div>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-13677063719407810032024-02-24T18:20:00.000-05:002024-02-24T18:20:05.504-05:00Geometrodynamics<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhdKVovxAJc03sDKRBJmxEm7lJ1Ia97e0Yc-2c0g6-pLE4odWK5G_MCzcBDG0TcZ91wHbX4ePmT7zMaFvwVu81ZglJsLONbdgAbL24yn9c-VvcNe5z-4l_KYUMHKVaQliInhTIflCFVze7AFmKAxs09teiUbLvr7nsEq3zFMC34s_K-yHNPd51Gw/s1600/_DSC1283bwcr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhdKVovxAJc03sDKRBJmxEm7lJ1Ia97e0Yc-2c0g6-pLE4odWK5G_MCzcBDG0TcZ91wHbX4ePmT7zMaFvwVu81ZglJsLONbdgAbL24yn9c-VvcNe5z-4l_KYUMHKVaQliInhTIflCFVze7AFmKAxs09teiUbLvr7nsEq3zFMC34s_K-yHNPd51Gw/s320/_DSC1283bwcr.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"The universe does not exist “out there,” independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense, this is a participatory universe. Physics is no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, fields of force, into geometry, or even into time and space. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/scientists_wheeler.html">John Archibald Wheeler</a> (1911 - 2008)</p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-88443303067779134042024-02-18T16:44:00.001-05:002024-02-19T21:33:31.394-05:00The Woods are Alive<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvuTrYdJSmuyl9jTeH3fz6uz4qx-C77e_sSyRFzaGIEdF02Q2qoTwyTV8q0VRdrS8zDHgp8J4tBOyqQaijKSPCvjc2WT-c_oE5He7wBwiPIjpfSj6tTHJTujWCOGK_zTYPzC6n-xrN9tL2G7_FMqk1fRKBZv9_vhUBKEiAeKRS7zYqWSWyRcJziQ/s2100/_DSC0973cr2Topaz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1277" data-original-width="2100" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvuTrYdJSmuyl9jTeH3fz6uz4qx-C77e_sSyRFzaGIEdF02Q2qoTwyTV8q0VRdrS8zDHgp8J4tBOyqQaijKSPCvjc2WT-c_oE5He7wBwiPIjpfSj6tTHJTujWCOGK_zTYPzC6n-xrN9tL2G7_FMqk1fRKBZv9_vhUBKEiAeKRS7zYqWSWyRcJziQ/s320/_DSC0973cr2Topaz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Woods are not like other spaces. To begin with, they are cubic. Their trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides. Woods choke off views & leave you muddled & without bearings. They make you feel small & confused & vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs. Stand in a desert or prairie & you know you are in a big space. Stand in the woods and you only sense it. They are vast, featureless nowhere. And they are alive.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">...</div>There is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere. However far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods. It’s where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow. The woods is one boundless singularity. Every bend in the path presents a prospect indistinguishable from every other, every glimpse into the trees the same tangled mass. For all you know, your route could describe a very large, pointless circle. In a way, it would hardly matter.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">...</div>At times, you become almost certain that you slabbed this hillside three days ago, crossed this stream yesterday, clambered over this fallen tree at least twice today already. But most of the time you don’t think. No point. Instead, you exist in a kind of mobile Zen mode, your brain like a balloon tethered with string, accompanying but not actually part of the body below. Walking for hours and miles becomes as automatic, as unremarkable, as breathing."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson" target="_blank">Bill Bryson</a> (1951 - )<br /><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Walk-Woods-Rediscovering-Appalachian-Official/dp/0767902521" target="_blank">A Walk in the Woods</a></i></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-39593501585614898982024-02-17T12:28:00.001-05:002024-02-17T12:28:27.771-05:00Secret Order<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUce6NZ_aYKqm7URmPuPVc8u24wbElZCn8Aa4z7OrNnm6Ao_U59gWz0ePAvKKkZdfH6VGM8Q7JDjHehr5RIgWLDZNQYLz-CP5tT_ZMZ7xhnCGJOcwRneIIRZKeiGzDBrNY-cJuzCuDx2BDdxkXK6gkJkFJPeUhFDf2WXXcoWIws9foYuXwG5e1pw/s1400/_DSC1021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="963" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUce6NZ_aYKqm7URmPuPVc8u24wbElZCn8Aa4z7OrNnm6Ao_U59gWz0ePAvKKkZdfH6VGM8Q7JDjHehr5RIgWLDZNQYLz-CP5tT_ZMZ7xhnCGJOcwRneIIRZKeiGzDBrNY-cJuzCuDx2BDdxkXK6gkJkFJPeUhFDf2WXXcoWIws9foYuXwG5e1pw/s320/_DSC1021.jpg" width="220" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"In all chaos there is a cosmos,<br />in all disorder a secret order."</div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung">C. G. Jung</a> (1875-1961)</div><p></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-68656452614606916542024-02-14T10:11:00.002-05:002024-02-14T10:11:59.802-05:00The Silence Within<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi61l5sJCkEy4u-0KQtVNXQzhib_kQXp8al2EkBWssEoakpqYp-IJoaEeFu9xuhbt7ZIXbIZraQukTxICvmRon_af9n2Bko-3dpiNKpXAnQON6nJ6y5aBKLMOimpJ_X-U2hFsms11c9yWG6U2DKlusrGK4o2Zp7qmS4hTwk9_r9YRqqkMcCRTdc_Q/s1600/Untitled-13b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi61l5sJCkEy4u-0KQtVNXQzhib_kQXp8al2EkBWssEoakpqYp-IJoaEeFu9xuhbt7ZIXbIZraQukTxICvmRon_af9n2Bko-3dpiNKpXAnQON6nJ6y5aBKLMOimpJ_X-U2hFsms11c9yWG6U2DKlusrGK4o2Zp7qmS4hTwk9_r9YRqqkMcCRTdc_Q/s320/Untitled-13b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"The longest journey is the journey inward.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">...</div>To have humility is to experience reality, not in relation to ourselves, but in its sacred independence. It is to see, judge, and act from the point of rest in ourselves. Then, how much disappears, and all that remains falls into place.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">...</div>In the point of rest at the center of our being, we encounter a world where all things are at rest in the same way. Then a tree becomes a mystery, a cloud a revelation, each man a cosmos of whose riches we can only catch glimpses. The life of simplicity is simple, but it opens to us a book in which we never get beyond the first syllable.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">...</div>To preserve the silence within - amid all the noise. To remain open and quiet, a moist humus in the fertile darkness where the rain falls and the grain ripens - no matter how many tramp across the parade ground in whirling dust under an arid sky."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dag_Hammarskj%C3%B6ld" target="_blank">Dag Hammarskjöld</a> (1905 - 1961)</p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-55539869422772155182024-02-13T11:18:00.000-05:002024-02-13T11:18:01.378-05:00A Pattern or Dance<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrSta02nGSQOj29jY4Lnf_ezVQ7d6F6tVzUYIpS21yAsUT89xl7GenaZPzzRAuUeb2z5uGMid7zHDqUNqBZNChhBxmt5MGadDOZ9b_DsXeDA3lkKG0BE0k8VjfWTFe63q-BbusG8H2ujlwk0Y6QW2uBBSUINHi4UOxfmLseP3DNd9YEsW5aula6w/s1600/Untitled-1b2c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1410" data-original-width="1600" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrSta02nGSQOj29jY4Lnf_ezVQ7d6F6tVzUYIpS21yAsUT89xl7GenaZPzzRAuUeb2z5uGMid7zHDqUNqBZNChhBxmt5MGadDOZ9b_DsXeDA3lkKG0BE0k8VjfWTFe63q-BbusG8H2ujlwk0Y6QW2uBBSUINHi4UOxfmLseP3DNd9YEsW5aula6w/s320/Untitled-1b2c.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"Is no one inspired by our present picture of the universe? This value of science remains unsung by singers: you are reduced to hearing not a song or poem, but an evening lecture about it. This is not yet a scientific age.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps one of the reasons for this silence is that you have to know how to read music. For instance, the scientific article may say, “The radioactive phosphorus content of the cerebrum of the rat decreases to one-half in a period of two weeks.” Now what does that mean?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It means that phosphorus that is in the brain of a rat—and also in mine, and yours—is not the same phosphorus as it was two weeks ago. It means the atoms that are in the brain are being replaced: the ones that were there before have gone away.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So what is this mind of ours: what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week’s potatoes! They now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago—a mind which has long ago been replaced. To note that the thing I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance, that is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of the brain to be replaced by other atoms. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, and then go out—there are always new atoms, but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday."</p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman" target="_blank">Richard Feynman</a> (1918 - 1988)</p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-69550996118465021072024-02-11T13:51:00.002-05:002024-02-11T13:51:45.443-05:00Imagination Itself<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizZXb08hnj2MxPwKK-HsnNWLnPUN-yQKbzd-6GF4JuvRw77D568pg4eZgdw4FSKtHB9mgqzuCqstJeWZZ-iMTjtZx3wr_rA5TObWs2UMhEUwNbVV8Anfk7y7biq6P23qvuSUIx1j6wM4aXk9vaVycClWiYRme97MwAQ002rkI54gXU0wymhl7BNg/s2100/_DSC0996b-clean.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1236" data-original-width="2100" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizZXb08hnj2MxPwKK-HsnNWLnPUN-yQKbzd-6GF4JuvRw77D568pg4eZgdw4FSKtHB9mgqzuCqstJeWZZ-iMTjtZx3wr_rA5TObWs2UMhEUwNbVV8Anfk7y7biq6P23qvuSUIx1j6wM4aXk9vaVycClWiYRme97MwAQ002rkI54gXU0wymhl7BNg/s320/_DSC0996b-clean.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"The tree which moves some<br />to tears of joy is in the eyes<br />of others only a green thing<br />that stands in the way. Some see<br />nature all ridicule and deformity... <br />and some scarce see nature at all. But<br />to the eyes of the man of imagination, <br />nature is imagination itself."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake" target="_blank">William Blake</a> (1757 - 1827)</p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-24593814786418501072024-02-10T12:04:00.000-05:002024-02-10T12:04:22.332-05:00Terra Mobilis<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCCwdS86OLmfuAwAjeF7eekGi1OnO2AD90A-qaHw6IRQOgrKv45hVMh6ulm_duubLiOx6Dmn-bpG13flYYuK6QthsJMGP1OP09ECUP_xrnsxXG4726ynZScvwDHTrYRBKM9OPpyz-v0VS6va4-wEUAOA66fhAq_avpF_3Koc7akU0C69IDZTqUYQ/s1600/_DSC1117cr2b2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1003" data-original-width="1600" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCCwdS86OLmfuAwAjeF7eekGi1OnO2AD90A-qaHw6IRQOgrKv45hVMh6ulm_duubLiOx6Dmn-bpG13flYYuK6QthsJMGP1OP09ECUP_xrnsxXG4726ynZScvwDHTrYRBKM9OPpyz-v0VS6va4-wEUAOA66fhAq_avpF_3Koc7akU0C69IDZTqUYQ/s320/_DSC1117cr2b2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"Through the spectacles of geology, terra firms becomes terra mobilis, and we are forced to reconsider our beliefs of what is solid and what is not. Although we attribute to stone great power to hold back time, to refuse its claims (cairns, stone tablets, monuments, statuary), this is true only in relation to our own mutability. Looked at in the context of the bigger geological picture, rock is as vulnerable to change as any other substance.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Above all, geology makes explicit challenges to our understanding of time. It giddies the sense of here-and-now. The imaginative experience of what the writer John McPhee memorably called 'deep time' - the sense of time whose units are not days, hours, minutes or seconds but millions of years or tens of millions of years - crushes the human instant; flattens it to a wafer. Contemplating the immensities of deep time, you face, in a way that is both exquisite and horrifying, the total collapse of your present, compacted to nothingness by the pressures of pasts and futures too extensive to envisage. And it is a physical as well as a cerebral horror, for to acknowledge that the hard rock of a mountain is vulnerable to the attrition of time is of necessity to reflect on the appalling transience of the human body."</p><div style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Macfarlane_(writer)">Robert Macfarlane</a> (1976 - )</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mountains-Mind-Adventures-Reaching-Summit/dp/0375714065">Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination</a></span></i></div>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-42372891513688249142024-02-09T10:27:00.000-05:002024-02-09T10:27:21.028-05:00Light is a Thick Yellow Vitamin<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpCEvOkZy5GlschPwiw4Mla5x-WdqSMoxJ_eAh4usrMpaVVF_TOZNrC3QZp3K5G_ruxjSbRnEF6ABiea5lVtOvLtV8DMcVK4JQ8g1SnjpY7jdiLvhk_Ex1-f9OTjWzf6-Z-Xc68y7Fk1813B6Lmu5jn1Tn59LQRUH7L_mYkrjVXxxdtQpVPyDHsQ/s2100/Untitled-2crb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1461" data-original-width="2100" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpCEvOkZy5GlschPwiw4Mla5x-WdqSMoxJ_eAh4usrMpaVVF_TOZNrC3QZp3K5G_ruxjSbRnEF6ABiea5lVtOvLtV8DMcVK4JQ8g1SnjpY7jdiLvhk_Ex1-f9OTjWzf6-Z-Xc68y7Fk1813B6Lmu5jn1Tn59LQRUH7L_mYkrjVXxxdtQpVPyDHsQ/s320/Untitled-2crb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"In the rain forest, no niche lies unused. No emptiness goes unfilled. No gasp of sunlight goes untrapped. In a million vest pockets, a million life-forms quietly tick. No other place on earth feels so lush. Sometimes we picture it as an echo of the original Garden of Eden—a realm ancient, serene, and fertile, where pythons slither and jaguars lope. But it is mainly a world of cunning and savage trees. Truant plants will not survive. The meek inherit nothing. Light is a thick yellow vitamin they would kill for, and they do. One of the first truths one learns in the rain forest is that there is nothing fainthearted or wimpy about plants."</div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://www.dianeackerman.com/" target="_blank">Diane Ackerman</a> (1948 - )</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rarest-Rare-Vanishing-Animals-Timeless/dp/0679776230" target="_blank">The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds</a></i></span></div><p></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-5826026866775425612024-01-20T14:36:00.003-05:002024-01-20T14:36:55.687-05:00The World as a Neural Network<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBecfwGbf-BfegRafVY4f0uwYVg7xk55vgNnOMdyvHplST25D0hyphenhyphenfkuT_f8POxFeM3kHPsNYzkV1XG2fm8JtfxXAso6gSSJuJSrC8Opegd-mIGf0TBSepSBTtbPhvhP101zRN1MjAcVoD0aTFqZKJptUwRcoB222vW_mqSfjPMVXpJN6gboG8y4g/s1600/Untitled-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBecfwGbf-BfegRafVY4f0uwYVg7xk55vgNnOMdyvHplST25D0hyphenhyphenfkuT_f8POxFeM3kHPsNYzkV1XG2fm8JtfxXAso6gSSJuJSrC8Opegd-mIGf0TBSepSBTtbPhvhP101zRN1MjAcVoD0aTFqZKJptUwRcoB222vW_mqSfjPMVXpJN6gboG8y4g/s320/Untitled-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If the entire universe is a neural network, then something like natural selection might be happening on all scales from cosmological (> 10⁺¹⁵ m) and biological (10⁺² − 10−⁶ m) all the way to subatomic (< 10−¹⁵ m) scales. The main idea is that some local structures (or architectures) of neural networks are more stable against external perturbations (i.e. interactions with the rest of the network) than other local structures. As a result the more stable structures are more likely to survive and the less stable structures are more likely to be exterminated. There is no reason to expect that this process might stop at a fixed time or might be confined to a fixed scale and so the evolution must continue indefinitely and on all scales. We have already seen that on the smallest scales the learning evolution is likely to produce structures of a very low complexity (i.e. second law of learning) such as one dimensional chains of neurons, but this might just be the beginning. As the learning progresses these chains can chop off loops, form junctions and according to natural selection the more stable structures would survive. If correct, then what we now call atoms and particles might actually be the outcomes of a long evolution starting from some very low complexity structures and what we now call macroscopic observers and biological cells might be the outcome of an even longer evolution. Of course, at present the claim that natural selection may be relevant on all scales is very speculative, but it seems that neural networks do offer an interesting new perspective on the problem of observers."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- Vitaly Vanchurin<br /><i><a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.01540" target="_blank">The World as a Neural Network</a></i></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-90773311211215879912024-01-15T19:44:00.002-05:002024-01-15T19:44:33.764-05:00Time and Space<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGkaZVnZ0HbrFdGyMKxICYJsgDqQM94BZy8J8lhvUiOVOWZbzNvc19jcufCUB1zwtLhcambM4Uaq0mZs7Gbp9NDoMJPxg-FGkZX8g7qNnrqxBypK_48xWLVbMbA2ig1-xt2cMhqw367-o9O3TJEIfwqf7oPaFVc1wLV-7VfvtNzZ7gyuif0cf96g/s1600/_MG_8535.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGkaZVnZ0HbrFdGyMKxICYJsgDqQM94BZy8J8lhvUiOVOWZbzNvc19jcufCUB1zwtLhcambM4Uaq0mZs7Gbp9NDoMJPxg-FGkZX8g7qNnrqxBypK_48xWLVbMbA2ig1-xt2cMhqw367-o9O3TJEIfwqf7oPaFVc1wLV-7VfvtNzZ7gyuif0cf96g/s320/_MG_8535.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;">"Because of the hazy, nondefinite character of quantum physics (called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle), at the dimensions of the Planck length, space and time churn and seethe, with the distance between any two points wildly fluctuating from moment to moment, and time randomly speeding and slowing, perhaps even going backward and forward. In such a situation, time and space no longer exist in a way that has meaning to us."</p><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">- <span style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://cmsw.mit.edu/alan-lightman/">Alan Lightman</a> </span>(1948 - )<br /><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Probable-Impossibilities-Musings-Beginnings-Endings/dp/152474901X" target="_blank">Probable Impossibilities</a></i></div> <p></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-65761606124799982852024-01-08T17:19:00.000-05:002024-01-08T17:19:22.978-05:00Symbolic Communication<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipW-kkAcuYh6_hs0G3th-NgIGOoIDia5jQIIrdQW8RqEvz806FnN55h4FfBeyrozjn1J8-mT-YVOqKV0AxW5PiAYLmojnnq4NyxlrmAS-udB0a74njZIPkbfsKTe-0nXdspH7FmTFDrGJUeoTNmbQCl1K46pXGg57lz04Nz2-I7H16aNtMrR_hoA/s1600/IMG_7017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipW-kkAcuYh6_hs0G3th-NgIGOoIDia5jQIIrdQW8RqEvz806FnN55h4FfBeyrozjn1J8-mT-YVOqKV0AxW5PiAYLmojnnq4NyxlrmAS-udB0a74njZIPkbfsKTe-0nXdspH7FmTFDrGJUeoTNmbQCl1K46pXGg57lz04Nz2-I7H16aNtMrR_hoA/s320/IMG_7017.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"Intellectual-level communication between more advanced terrestrial [non-human intelligences] NHIs and us will require direct access to our cognitive processes. They will have to directly modulate our own abstract references and modes. In other words, they will have to convey their ideas to us by prompting our own mind to articulate those ideas to itself, using its own conceptual dictionary and grammatical structures. And because their message—a product of their own cognition, incommensurable with ours—is bound to not adequately line up with our grammar and conceptual menu, this articulation will perforce have to be symbolic, metaphorical; it will have to point to the intended meaning, as opposed to embodying the intended meaning directly, or literally. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is plenty of clinical precedence for this in the literature of depth psychology. Analytical Psychology, for instance, maintains that the deeper, evolutionarily ancient, instinctive layer of our mind, for not having the language capabilities of the executive ego, speaks to us in dreams and visions through symbols, and metaphors. It can’t tell us in English, for instance, that time is flowing while we procrastinate, prompting us to act. So it may, instead, trigger and modulate a dream in which we, say, accidentally drop our backpack in a fast-flowing river and watch helplessly as it floats away. If the deeper layer of our mind, for being phylogenetically primitive, is incapable of articulating the conceptual abstractions ‘time,’ ‘flow,’ and ‘procrastination,’ it can still point symbolically to its intended meaning; it can still confront us with imagery that evokes the same underlying feeling—a sense of urgency—that would have been evoked by the statement, “time is flowing while you procrastinate.” This is what intellectual-level communication looks like when the interlocutors do not have commensurable cognitive structures. And this is how we may expect NHIs to communicate with us, if they have the technology required to reach directly into our minds and manipulate our cognitive inner space."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://www.bernardokastrup.com/" target="_blank">Bernardo Kastrup</a> (1974 - )<br /><i><a href="https://thedebrief.org/uaps-and-non-human-intelligence-what-is-the-most-reasonable-scenario/" target="_blank">UAPs and Non-Human Intelligence</a></i></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-44254339920961715952024-01-07T10:30:00.004-05:002024-01-08T17:25:02.651-05:00Cosmogenesis<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb_CcRP4uxNuc_k-Cu339so3YdPLdT3-GpmwjPqW1qTSPIRsO79UZ_6RjRcGaZjlkSEHxNeUezv1KVXsZ0tcIR3uS9Fsk6T64L68lpSsrMLVvWmBvUWpkljJ9fOiZTXrn472kuJt65PflsMB0c8qoVOJ1aOHy2mgkXWrZGgek4WNSmXYuKE4PusA/s1300/Celestial%20MicroCosmos2bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="1300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb_CcRP4uxNuc_k-Cu339so3YdPLdT3-GpmwjPqW1qTSPIRsO79UZ_6RjRcGaZjlkSEHxNeUezv1KVXsZ0tcIR3uS9Fsk6T64L68lpSsrMLVvWmBvUWpkljJ9fOiZTXrn472kuJt65PflsMB0c8qoVOJ1aOHy2mgkXWrZGgek4WNSmXYuKE4PusA/s320/Celestial%20MicroCosmos2bw.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">"We live in a universe where the mathematical equations of the beginning are alive in us. If you altered them in any way, we wouldn’t even be here. We would never have come forth. Those conditions at the beginning of time are exactly what they had to be for us to allow the mathematics of the universe’s beginning to think inside us."</div><div style="text-align: center;">...</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Our universe had been creating itself for billions of years and suddenly, through the work of a handful of human beings, the universe found a way to reflect on itself, on how it had developed over billions of years."</div><div style="text-align: center;">...</div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The greatest discovery of the last four hundred years is the time-developmental nature of our universe. Scientists have come to realize we live not in a cosmos but in a cosmogenesis, a universe developing from a primordial simple state into ever more complex states."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Swimme" target="_blank">Brian Thomas Swimme</a> (1950 - )<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cosmogenesis-Unveiling-Brian-Thomas-Swimme/dp/1640093982" target="_blank">Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe</a></i></span></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-26864822945523416822024-01-04T14:28:00.006-05:002024-01-07T10:30:58.839-05:00Cosmic Serpent<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8FiQC2wFkWVN0WQt_MAMo8jypLV4zbUEhJ9rKjRw5KoRGykB0jZThSFX5JTL9AU7Q4PUcA1NNL11RzqWwdo9r_yQYlVCvRaqbJz-1RHaxWcUE_i5Fo-BumxIFaJMFYx0VtyuXyKVi9qzqeanlSexQ6kh6YQJiBu4E-HZaAz8BWHozUQ5fhTSotw/s2100/Celestial%20MicroCosmosB2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="954" data-original-width="2100" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8FiQC2wFkWVN0WQt_MAMo8jypLV4zbUEhJ9rKjRw5KoRGykB0jZThSFX5JTL9AU7Q4PUcA1NNL11RzqWwdo9r_yQYlVCvRaqbJz-1RHaxWcUE_i5Fo-BumxIFaJMFYx0VtyuXyKVi9qzqeanlSexQ6kh6YQJiBu4E-HZaAz8BWHozUQ5fhTSotw/s320/Celestial%20MicroCosmosB2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"All the peoples in the world who talk of a cosmic serpent have been saying as much for millennia. He had not seen it because the rational gaze is forever focalized and can examine only one thing at a time. It separates things to understand them, including the truly complementary. It is the gaze of the specialist, who sees the fine grain of a necessarily restricted field of vision."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Narby" target="_blank">Jeremy Narby</a> (1959 - )<br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Serpent-Jeremy-Narby-ebook/dp/B0049MPVJ0" target="_blank">The Cosmic Serpent, DNA and the Origins of Knowledge</a></i></span></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-66133864110154457042023-12-25T15:37:00.009-05:002023-12-29T09:52:35.155-05:00A Borgesian Wink and a small Gift to readers of my Blog<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.andy-ilachinski.com/_files/ugd/c80570_3c619de9978d4c8fbfc612c5d47217bb.pdf" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1251" data-original-width="3127" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHUCl97RULTI3TtAZJZjZou-JO1qUNnRjpSzOOsf0H9n4IVN7voXJZWS37QY78-BHNyJcsQ_EfrxmxDRXfbzbqro6qwclWcsvZ781IFMuEujKO1L9xtbaFTT9STAh-AtB_wTe-zJlfbuYH9AZ_B8LYZa6Wrp8nVX0Qx4YnUVqYzYRZikGl8mzQ0g/s320/icelandic%20abstracts%20-%20extended.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">As a small thank you to all the kind visitors of my blog - think of it as a holiday gift - please feel free to download an extended version of my "Icelandic Abstracts" portfolio that was just published in the <a href="https://www.lenswork.com/previewpages/lw166/lw166preview.html" target="_blank">Dec issue</a> of <i>Lenswork </i>magazine (and whom I thank for allowing me to offer it as a freebie here); clicking on the triptych above will take you to a 22MB Adobe pdf file. While it is always a thrill to be published in <i>Lenswork </i>(that belongs at the top of any list of the best "pure photography" magazines in the world; camera gear is only occasionally mentioned, and when it is, only to support the "story" behind the visual narrative; there are also no ads -ever- except those for <i>Lenswork </i>itself), it is a double pleasure for me this go around since my "Icelandic Abstracts" appears in the same issue as a portfolio by <a href="https://www.seankernan.com/" target="_blank">Sean Kernan</a>. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Although I do not know Kernan, I have long admired his talents as a photographer. And, devotees of my blog all know of my fascination with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges" target="_blank">Jorge Luis Borges</a>. The fact that Kernan's and my portfolio appear side-by-side in this month's <i>Lenswork </i>is therefore (from my perspective, at least) a quintessentially Borgesian twist of fate: Kernan's book of photographs accompanying Borges' tales - <a href="https://www.abebooks.com/signed-first-edition/Secret-Books-Borges-Jorge-Louis-Kernan/30976464947/bd" target="_blank">The Secret Books</a> (published in 1999 and long out of print, it is unfortunately prohibitively expensive if/when found) - is among my most cherished literary/photography possessions! I'd like to think that (again, purely from my perspective, certainly not Kernan's) some otherworldly incorporeal incarnation of Borges just gave me a Borgesian wink 😉</p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-73312317475494899082023-12-23T20:31:00.003-05:002023-12-23T20:55:26.717-05:00Complexity<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikISidwttkX7yBBso0QZHAutAYTlaiPZK-ZyT1rXCj9wk5UrTPTLnzowtjx2Et1vTquypY_iXwv6UKUkm9kRsGKpBQG1INGRBPVjEDCIlkf9vhulBxEgJxN2MG1AFTdy6GC3AW71ulhN8Zgqujyy8Zp3AY8WGINos9avYtekqLJx00etN3nWrr6A/s2400/complexoty%20-%20triptych%20-%2023%20dec%202023b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="811" data-original-width="2400" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikISidwttkX7yBBso0QZHAutAYTlaiPZK-ZyT1rXCj9wk5UrTPTLnzowtjx2Et1vTquypY_iXwv6UKUkm9kRsGKpBQG1INGRBPVjEDCIlkf9vhulBxEgJxN2MG1AFTdy6GC3AW71ulhN8Zgqujyy8Zp3AY8WGINos9avYtekqLJx00etN3nWrr6A/s320/complexoty%20-%20triptych%20-%2023%20dec%202023b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"Today the network of relationships linking the human race to itself and to the rest of the biosphere is so complex that all aspects affect all others to an extraordinary degree. Someone should be studying the whole system, however crudely that has to be done, because no gluing together of partial studies of a complex nonlinear system can give a good idea of the behavior of the whole. "</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann" target="_blank">Murray Gell-Mann</a> (1929 - 2019)</p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-81492270612106258932023-12-19T21:31:00.003-05:002023-12-19T21:35:12.898-05:00Full of Fire<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKf-Faw9_TIlBCwB4gfKni1kW2rm-9iGdx7GP5ZOlra2gw7rfVUXKNG5oqksLirQ9A_jIEZ4GuvJhcX_PSVkJwQwrF_1IzOqK7bvDNR2oMmx5E5vB2EMoNEW7Wr0sZjh_qaP0uG7iDkgqSV2-jK7VxJ6AsL265krzA_YUUCAS9xwYMIVsHSi9yOg/s1800/_DSC0630bw-color-2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKf-Faw9_TIlBCwB4gfKni1kW2rm-9iGdx7GP5ZOlra2gw7rfVUXKNG5oqksLirQ9A_jIEZ4GuvJhcX_PSVkJwQwrF_1IzOqK7bvDNR2oMmx5E5vB2EMoNEW7Wr0sZjh_qaP0uG7iDkgqSV2-jK7VxJ6AsL265krzA_YUUCAS9xwYMIVsHSi9yOg/s320/_DSC0630bw-color-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"When primitive man gained control over fire, it was a great step. However, the Universe is full of fire; consider the stars. Because we can think, and nothing else on our planet seems to be able to do so, it is natural for us to hold our intellectual prowess in great esteem. However, it may be that information processing, instead of being the sole province of us humans and our machines, may be a part of almost everything else in physics. Life itself, is clearly mediated by digital information; the genetic code. Digital Mechanics assumes that physics is also a process based on informational processes. We may need to rid ourselves of the prejudice that purposeful, thought related action is exclusively the domain of humans or perhaps aliens similar to humans. There are kinds of thinking that are qualitatively unimaginable to us though we can think about it quantitatively. We should not be afraid to consider intellectual activity as the driving force behind the creation of the Universe. By a close and quantitative examination of the possible parameters of Digital Mechanics, we can arrive at reasonable guesses as to what might be the purpose behind the creation of a universe like ours. That, in turn, can lead us towards intelligent speculations about Other, the space that contains the engine of our world."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Fredkin" target="_blank">Edward Fredkin</a> (1934 - 2023)<br /><i><a href="http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/im/ftp/poc/fredkin/New-Cosmogony" target="_blank">A New Cosmogony</a></i></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-92185317240915394172023-12-18T19:33:00.002-05:002024-01-07T22:45:50.444-05:00Be Still With Yourself<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9jweb05w_7TJKKY7wFfwtouY5yAICiJoBqY_6jz8-GYzfQ4Gksaeh-phPuaM3lYAsPgvKoCdm_j3_fvi9zOSk-odQef69qsn3wsyFd1nbgi-FQaNUpMieONSVje5F6iJX9jILxj7cf4lUh_q6BiJJh8Qfn086m1KDm8G7R4u_90Ake7LXaG-cQ/s1400/_DSC0869b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9jweb05w_7TJKKY7wFfwtouY5yAICiJoBqY_6jz8-GYzfQ4Gksaeh-phPuaM3lYAsPgvKoCdm_j3_fvi9zOSk-odQef69qsn3wsyFd1nbgi-FQaNUpMieONSVje5F6iJX9jILxj7cf4lUh_q6BiJJh8Qfn086m1KDm8G7R4u_90Ake7LXaG-cQ/s320/_DSC0869b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">"When you approach something to photograph it,<br />first be still with yourself until the object<br />of your attention affirms your presence.<br />Then don't leave until you have<br />captured its essence."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_White">Minor White</a> (1908 - 1976)<br /><i></i></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-6947103107148892932023-12-17T17:33:00.000-05:002023-12-17T17:33:03.608-05:00Lily Math<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC0SkAIJoZDqTAScW2KLFamm28hlfKuPignIFNmQRr6zDJT3BMA_Vln5gfwkF7wNmX_tNUogXTFx03FLMl9A6Rw3YrUj5C0HODvhHUWI4N8KRLVlai0BWFT21GOMp7M0KXpZVd6ER6j5_WfqrlzVd2JOeA3Ud7Ujnu0NLOtEfKtP5N-cKSklo0bA/s1800/stack-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC0SkAIJoZDqTAScW2KLFamm28hlfKuPignIFNmQRr6zDJT3BMA_Vln5gfwkF7wNmX_tNUogXTFx03FLMl9A6Rw3YrUj5C0HODvhHUWI4N8KRLVlai0BWFT21GOMp7M0KXpZVd6ER6j5_WfqrlzVd2JOeA3Ud7Ujnu0NLOtEfKtP5N-cKSklo0bA/s320/stack-14.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">"Philosophy is written in this all-encompassing book that is constantly open to our eyes, that is the universe; but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to understand the language and knows the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures; without these it is humanly impossible to understand a word of it, and one wanders in a dark labyrinth."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei" target="_blank">Galileo Galilei</a> (1564 - 1642)<br /><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Assayer" target="_blank">Il Saggiatore</a></i></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-79178701637159281192023-12-14T09:55:00.000-05:002023-12-14T09:55:18.871-05:00Orderly Action Within the Whole<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBzq_vWbCC6G5WAiaXShxu6bbe_LHV_IXdWgy5iCHK43c4Z4UY7cWk4HbPMTfUC1CKhdaiXDIhVk1TliyJTMovN0oIgl7o1ftRfd4UlJds8m_hqAoGbOaObtc5T6j0TJNWbe6xv19ukYMVluKTXT5gSJkhoL0AdCpAZWO8ZKmPMShP4NT-m2FZ6w/s1800/_DSC0863Topaz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBzq_vWbCC6G5WAiaXShxu6bbe_LHV_IXdWgy5iCHK43c4Z4UY7cWk4HbPMTfUC1CKhdaiXDIhVk1TliyJTMovN0oIgl7o1ftRfd4UlJds8m_hqAoGbOaObtc5T6j0TJNWbe6xv19ukYMVluKTXT5gSJkhoL0AdCpAZWO8ZKmPMShP4NT-m2FZ6w/s320/_DSC0863Topaz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;">"One must then go on to<br />a consideration of time as a<br />projection of multidimensional<br />reality into a sequence of moments.</div><div style="text-align: center;">...</div>Thought divides itself from feeling and from the body. Thought is said to be the mind; we have the notion that it is something abstract or spiritual or immaterial. Then there is the body, which is very physical. And we have emotions, which are perhaps somewhere in between. The idea is that they are all different. That is, we think of them as different. And we experience them as different because we think of them as different.<br /><div style="text-align: center;">...</div>Man’s general way of thinking of the totality, i.e. his general world view, is crucial for overall order of the human mind itself. If he thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border (for every border is a division or break) then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"> - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm">David Bohm</a> (1917 - 1992)</p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-71367773621144771552023-12-11T09:09:00.006-05:002023-12-12T10:07:39.298-05:00Illimitable Spirit<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_QIcUHrxots_XzCjKJiEEJZU_0il9eWkqc6uSZMdhEYyjL_dECyMzN4RDZQ9nhS9UyacknNokA4uQ-MA6EYaa77bNeZKtNtkJxStMAJEnsY8MXaWkE-ETfBLa-HzJ_2Hek0bTRIO4qZqEHQSxqRxc9gRrcGQwCPHHSPxVBJFOyDvVNRj5mDwNkg/s1600/stack-7bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1005" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_QIcUHrxots_XzCjKJiEEJZU_0il9eWkqc6uSZMdhEYyjL_dECyMzN4RDZQ9nhS9UyacknNokA4uQ-MA6EYaa77bNeZKtNtkJxStMAJEnsY8MXaWkE-ETfBLa-HzJ_2Hek0bTRIO4qZqEHQSxqRxc9gRrcGQwCPHHSPxVBJFOyDvVNRj5mDwNkg/s320/stack-7bw.jpg" width="201" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">"My religion consists of a humble<br />admiration of the illimitable superior<br />spirit who reveals himself in the<br />slight details we are able to perceive<br />with our frail and feeble mind."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein" target="_blank">Albert Einstein</a> (1879 - 1955)</p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">"Blessed be you, mighty matter,</div><div style="text-align: center;">irresistible march of evolution,</div><div style="text-align: center;">reality ever newborn; you who,<br />by constantly shattering our<br />mental categories, force us to go<br />ever further and further<br />in our pursuit of the truth."</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin">Teilhard De Chardin</a> (1881- 1955)</p><p style="text-align: center;">"What matters most:<br />What he had yearned to embrace<br />was not the flesh but a downy spirit, a spark,<br />the impalpable angel that inhabits the flesh.<br />Wind, Sand and Stars."</p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bach" target="_blank">Richard Bach</a> (1936 - )</p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-35317550992474064332023-12-10T16:18:00.000-05:002023-12-10T16:18:05.118-05:00Walls of the Worlds<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4MlsdiHE8myMEzdyQKtwTCEa4gmgId0YQ2Bd5at6q6AG4ltNvMbzUL_uMkhJf2YPBOgQvxonTyFkxwMwarRkdtv9GWOUjwPnOCCunF6b1McgUTfyrGI4-w01JI8Nkyw3cVnKRpBx36H0W0LGa3t5-oBVIQWm0XRSxuvKjzjHa635jppgOrNucLg/s1800/stack-13b-bw-cr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4MlsdiHE8myMEzdyQKtwTCEa4gmgId0YQ2Bd5at6q6AG4ltNvMbzUL_uMkhJf2YPBOgQvxonTyFkxwMwarRkdtv9GWOUjwPnOCCunF6b1McgUTfyrGI4-w01JI8Nkyw3cVnKRpBx36H0W0LGa3t5-oBVIQWm0XRSxuvKjzjHa635jppgOrNucLg/s320/stack-13b-bw-cr.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"At least nine-tenths of all the original reality ever created lies outside the multiverse, and since the multiverse by definition includes absolutely everything that is anything, this puts a bit of a strain on things. Outside the boundaries of the universe lie the raw realities, the could-have-beens, the might-bes, the never-weres, the wild ideas, all being created and uncreated chaotically like elements in fermenting supernovas. Just occasionally where the walls of the worlds have worn a bit thin, they can leak in."</div><p></p><div style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett" target="_blank">Terry Pratchett</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span>(1948 - 2015)<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Moving-Pictures-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0062237349" target="_blank">Moving Pictures</a></i></div></div>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-17252160633447955972023-12-08T18:59:00.004-05:002023-12-12T10:04:04.752-05:00Disorder to Order<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-1ad-EfXdtWOqU80E-xS3pB2r_pomSZX_IrOxZo6LIScwDtpc72xw_QLdrkdSvDwTrADioUzqKnXOdEglg_NBfE5c0WfWB20VGm5SSPkYe8-XAUQIQu-fo_TpDycrkuhb7qKL_2vQuZbDjBWvDGAFywOaW0t9Q8_cTRw4OQdjhrbHv52z_fcj2w/s2400/reflections%20triptych%20-%201%20dec%202023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="805" data-original-width="2400" height="107" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-1ad-EfXdtWOqU80E-xS3pB2r_pomSZX_IrOxZo6LIScwDtpc72xw_QLdrkdSvDwTrADioUzqKnXOdEglg_NBfE5c0WfWB20VGm5SSPkYe8-XAUQIQu-fo_TpDycrkuhb7qKL_2vQuZbDjBWvDGAFywOaW0t9Q8_cTRw4OQdjhrbHv52z_fcj2w/s320/reflections%20triptych%20-%201%20dec%202023.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">"And here the fundamental dilemma appeared. The grim picture of cosmic evolution painted by the physicists—an engine that is slowly running down and grinding to a halt—was in sharp contrast to the evolutionary thinking of the biologists, who observed that the living universe evolves from disorder to order, toward states of ever increasing complexity. At the end of the 19th century, then, Newtonian mechanics, the science of eternal, reversible trajectories, had been supplemented by two diametrically opposed views of evolutionary change—that of a living world unfolding toward increasing order and complexity, and that of an engine running down, a world of ever increasing disorder. Who was right, the physicists or the biologists?"</div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">- <a href="https://www.fritjofcapra.net/" target="_blank">Fritjof Capra</a> (1939 - )<br /><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Connection-Essential-Essays-Decades/dp/082636280X" target="_blank">Patterns of Connection</a></i></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9493601.post-45478761472259015972023-12-06T18:27:00.005-05:002023-12-06T21:17:27.318-05:00It’s a Visual World<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL_153dJhFwGy0KbKLU8YVSlsXe2A1A7g7CUc4tEuXL6IuaMk3HdckTzDPODBSqKtSDO_paJCBvA-VkEDJ2wXjYzFoKR_QyeYcv7wnYlK_jQDKv6dTw81MWXO-v_EIs8QAftv3o9CuuABZpstswP3vZMkMw_2aKUnQKIWTfbgU64RVyMZRzJgVCA/s2400/synesthetic%20triptych%20-%20coral%20gables%20-%20nov%202023b.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="2400" height="107" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL_153dJhFwGy0KbKLU8YVSlsXe2A1A7g7CUc4tEuXL6IuaMk3HdckTzDPODBSqKtSDO_paJCBvA-VkEDJ2wXjYzFoKR_QyeYcv7wnYlK_jQDKv6dTw81MWXO-v_EIs8QAftv3o9CuuABZpstswP3vZMkMw_2aKUnQKIWTfbgU64RVyMZRzJgVCA/s320/synesthetic%20triptych%20-%20coral%20gables%20-%20nov%202023b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Leonora Carrington</i> (asked if there had been other artists in the family): My mother used to paint biscuit tins for jumble sales. That’s the only art that went on in my household.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Interviewer:</i> I wonder where it came from?</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Leonora Carrington:</i> I have no idea.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Interviewer: No other artists in our family? None at all?</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Leonora Carrington:</i> Why are you fixed on the idea of heredity? It’s not hereditary … comes from somewhere else, not from genes. You’re trying to intellectualize something desperately, and you’re wasting your time. That’s not a way of understanding, to make a kind of intellectual mini-logic. You never understand by that road.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Interviewer:</i> What do you think you do understand by then?</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Leonora Carrington</i>: By your own feelings about things …if you see a painting that you like… canvas is an empty space.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Interviewer: </i>If I got one of your pictures down from upstairs and said to you what were you thinking when you painted this…?</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Leonora Carrington</i>: No. It’s a visual world, you want to turn things into a kind of intellectual game, it’s not… the visual world, it’s totally different. Remember what I’ve just said now, don’t try and turn it into a …kind of intellectual game. It’s not… It’s a visual world, which is different. The visual world is to do with what we see as space, which changes all the time. How do I know to walk –that’s one concept– to this bed and around it without running into it. I’m moving in space. Or I can have a concept of it and then I can see it as an object in space…”</p><p style="text-align: center;"> - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonora_Carrington" target="_blank">Leonora Carrington</a> (1917 - 2011)<br /><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Guit8Yum8q4" target="_blank">Don't try to intellectualize art</a></i></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Note. </i>The text above is transcribed by <a href="https://oook.info/" target="_blank">Hugh Blackmer</a>, whose <a href="https://oook.info/blog/" target="_blank">blog</a> is a "must visit" for anyone even remotely interested in photography, art, philosophy, whimsical musings on life and reality, and other thoughts on subjects that language alone is inadequate to describe (Hugh covers a lot of creative ground 😊. The <a href="https://oook.info/blog/?p=4514" target="_blank">post</a> from which I pilfered Hugh's interview fragment contains links to far more material on Leonora Carrington than just this one interview. Thank you, Hugh! </div><p></p>Andy Ilachinskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14572501787099507666noreply@blogger.com0