Wonder about Wonder

"How can a three-pound mass of jelly that you can hold in your palm imagine angels, contemplate the meaning of infinity, and even question its own place in the cosmos? Especially awe inspiring is the fact that any single brain, including yours, is made up of atoms that were forged in the hearts of countless, far-flung stars billions of years ago. These particles drifted for eons and light-years until gravity and change brought them together here, now. These atoms now form a conglomerate- your brain- that can not only ponder the very stars that gave it birth but can also think about its own ability to think and wonder about its own ability to wonder. With the arrival of humans, it has been said, the universe has suddenly become conscious of itself. This, truly, it the greatest mystery of all."

- V. S. Ramachandran (1951 - )
The Tell-Tale Brain

Creative Consciousness

"I believe that we need to learn from natural process about how to be appropriately creative ourselves, meaning that our activities should be appropriate to whatever is the context within which we are acting. This of course applies to everything we do, not just to art or architecture. The process of bringing something into being is what we and the rest of nature are engaged in all the time, but we have a tendency to assume that what emerges from our looking or feeling or doing was there to begin with and we just became aware of it. However just as quarks and mesons, organisms and galaxies are dynamically generated continuously, from we know not what, to become the natural kinds that we call in the generic language of dynamics, attractors, so we and the world we inhabit are generated continuously. The individual properties of these natural kinds reflect the context in which they arise by their particularities. It is this type of process that I believe we need to understand by participating in it, not just by looking at it.

...

The latest problem to appear clearly on the scientific agenda is how consciousness (and feeling) could emerge in a cosmos that is made up of totally inert, insentient components. Complexity theory always requires that there be some precursor of whatever property is observed to emerge in a system, such as superconductivity or the properties of water or the cooperative behavior of bees in a hive. The dilemma now is to account for the evolutionary emergence of feeling from a system that has no qualitative precursor of such a property. This would be a scientific miracle, and scientists don’t like miracles. So some other solution needs to be found. My own preference, to save the unity of scientific understanding, is to adopt some position like that of Whitehead or Bergson, so that consciousness and feelings are grounded in reality and not some ghostly epiphenomena that are not quite real. However, this will be very firmly resisted by the majority of scientists, and for perfectly good reasons. You do not lightly abandon a position that has been so phenomenally successful at explaining so much of nature. I don’t intend to abandon it either, but I believe that science has to be extended in some way to accommodate the reality of qualities."

- Brian Goodwin (1931 - 2009)

Heraclitean Fire

Higher-res portfolio

"All things are in flux; 

the flux is subject to a 

unifying measure or rational principle. 

This principle (logos, 

the hidden harmony behind all change) 

bound opposites together in a unified tension, 

which is like that of a lyre, 

where a stable harmonious sound 

emerges from the tension of the 

opposing forces that arise from the 

bow bound together by the string.

...

The living and the dead,

The awake and the sleeping,

The young and the old are all one and the same.

When the ones change, they become the others.

When those shift again, they become these again.

...

God is day and night.

God is winter and summer.

God is war and peace.

God is fertility and famine.

He transforms into many things.

...

Day and night are one.

Goodness and badness are one.

The beginning and the end of a circle are one."

- Heraclitus (c.535 - c.475 BC)

Emergence

"Can the emergence of real new properties in complex systems really be explained? If the sciences of complexity offer important new insights, theories, and methodologies for dealing with complex, higher-order phenomena (as we think they do), and if the traditional view of explanation cannot account for the explanatory strategies we find here, we should look for other accounts of scientific explanation. Perhaps the very idea of scientific explanation as a strictly deductive argument should be reinterpreted and explanations seen in a more dynamic and context dependent setting, eventually themselves being emergent structures, ‘emergent explanations’."

- On Emergence and Explanation
(Baas and Emmeche, 1997)

Firmament

"Throughout the earth there are ancient forms, forms incorruptible and eternal; any one of them could be the symbol I sought. A mountain could be the speech of the god, or a river or the empire or the configuration of the stars. But in the process of the centuries the mountain is leveled and the river will change its course, empires experience mutilation and havoc and the configuration of the stars varies. There is change in the firmament. The mountain and the star are individuals and individuals perish. I sought something more tenacious, more invulnerable. I thought of the generations of cereals, of grasses, or birds, of men. Perhaps the magic would be written on my face, perhaps I myself was the end of my search.”

- Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986)

Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

Grasping the Universe

"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 whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. "

- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Radiance and Instability

"Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it. Borne, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere, for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways; pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moondriven sea. Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the violence and power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, and its will.

But here rise the stubborn continents. The shelves of gravel and the cliffs of rock break from water baldly into air, that dry, terrible outerspace of radiance and instability, where there is no support for life. And now, now the currents mislead and the waves betray, breaking their endless circle, to leap up in loud foam against rock and air, breaking....

What will the creature made all of seadrift do on the dry sand of daylight; what will the mind do, each morning, waking?"

- Ursula K. Le Guin (1929 - 2018)

The Lathe of Heaven

Encountering the Whole

"We cannot know the whole in the way in which we know things because we cannot recognize the whole as a thing. If the whole were available to be recognized in the same way as we recognize the things which surround us, then the whole would be counted among these things as one of them. So we could point and say 'here is this' and 'there is that' and 'that’s the whole over there.' If we could do this we would know the whole in the same way that we know its parts, for the whole itself would simply be numbered among its parts, so that the whole would be outside of its parts in just the same way that each part is outside all the other parts… But the whole comes into presence within its parts, so we cannot encounter the whole in the same way as we encounter the parts. Thus we cannot know the whole in the way that we know things and recognize ourselves knowing things. So we should not think of the whole as if it were a thing…, for in so doing we effectively deny the whole inasmuch as we are making as if to externalize that which can presence only within the things which are external with respect to our awareness of them."

- Henri Bortoft (1938 - 2012)

Eerie Order

"It turns out that

an eerie type of chaos

can lurk just behind

a facade of order;

and yet, deep inside the chaos

lurks an even eerier type of order."

 -  Douglas R. Hofstadter (1945 - )

Metamagical Themas:Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern

Restructuring Consciousness

"The holistic mode of consciousness is complementary to [analysis]... this mode is nonlinear, simultaneous, intuitive instead of verbal-intellectual, and concerned more with relationships than with the discrete elements that are related. It is important to realize that this mode of consciousness is a way of seeing, and as such it can only be experienced in its own terms. In particular, it cannot be understood by the verbal-intellectual mind because this functions in the analytical mode of consciousness, for which it is not possible to appreciate adequately what it means to say that a relationship can be experienced as something real in itself. In an analytical mode of consciousness it is the elements which are related that stand out in experience, compared with which the relationship is but a shadowy abstraction. The experience of a relationship as such is only possible through a transformation from a piecemeal way of thought to a simultaneous perception of the whole. Such a transformation amounts to a restructuring of consciousness itself. … Whereas we imagine movement and change analytically, as if the process really consisted of a linear sequence of instantaneously stationary states (like a sequence of snapshots), when movement and change are experienced holistically, they are experienced as a whole. The elements which are experienced simultaneously in this mode are thus dynamically related to each other, and this dynamical simultaneity replaces the static simultaneity of the analytical mode."

- Henri Bortoft (1938 - 2012)

The Wholeness of Nature

Coexistence

Autopoiesis = Self-Creation

(from Greek auto = “self” and poiesis = “creation)

"… a network of mutually interacting processes that

continuously both create, and sustain, components that

regenerate the network of processes that produce them.

There is a constant and intimate contact among the

things that coexist and coevolve in the universe,

a sharing of bonds and messages that

makes reality into a stupendous

network of interaction and communication.”

— Ervin Laszlo

Philosopher / Systems Theorist (1932 - )

Coexistence

"There is a constant and

intimate contact among the

things that coexist and co-evolve

in the universe;

 a sharing of bonds and

messages that makes reality

into a stupendous network

of interaction and communication."

- Ervin Laszlo (1932 - )

Swirls, Whorls, and Tendrils

"Big whorls have little whorls

Which feed on their velocity,

And little whorls have lesser whorls

And so on to viscosity."

- Lewis Fry Richardson (1881 - 1953)

Weather Prediction by Numerical Process

Postscript: additional images from this series

Expressions of Deep Order

"If biologists have ignored self-organization, it is not because self-ordering is not pervasive and profound. It is because we biologists have yet to understand how to think about systems governed simultaneously by two sources of order, Yet who seeing the snowflake, who seeing simple lipid molecules cast adrift in water forming themselves into cell-like hollow lipid vesicles, who seeing the potential for the crystallization of life in swarms of reacting molecules, who seeing the stunning order for free in networks linking tens upon tens of thousands of variables, can fail to entertain a central thought: if ever we are to attain a final theory in biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the commingling of self-organization and selection. We will have to see that we are the natural expressions of a deeper order. Ultimately, we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after all."

- Stuart Kauffman

(1939 - )

Process, Emergence, and Autopoiesis

"I guess I've had only one question all my life. Why do emergent selves, virtual identities, pop up all over the place creating worlds, whether at the mind/body level, the cellular level, or the transorganism level? This phenomenon is something so productive that it doesn't cease creating entirely new realms: life, mind, and societies. Yet these emergent selves are based on processes so shifty, so ungrounded, that we have an apparent paradox between the solidity of what appears to show up and its groundlessness. That, to me, is a key and eternal question."

- Francisco Varela

(1946 - 2001)

Parts, Patterns, and Networks

"The patterns are simple, but followed together, they make for a whole that is wiser than the sum of its parts. Go for a walk; cultivate hunches; write everything down, but keep your folders messy; embrace serendipity; make generative mistakes; take on multiple hobbies; frequent coffee houses and other liquid networks; follow the links; let others build on your ideas; borrow, recycle; reinvent. Build a tangled bank."

- Steven Johnson

Emergence

Multidimensionality

“Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex.” 

- M. Scott Peck

Apparent Complexities

"It always bothers me that, according to the laws as we understand them today, it takes a computing machine an infinite number of logical operations to figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of time. How can all that be going on in that tiny space? Why should it take an infinite amount of logic to figure out what one tiny piece of space/time is going to do? So I have often made the hypotheses that ultimately physics will not require a mathematical statement, that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and the laws will turn out to be simple, like the checker board with all its apparent complexities." - Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988)

Morrison House Photography Talk

I am delighted to announce an upcoming slide presentation in Alexandria, VA, 6:00 to 8:00 pm on August 2 (Tuesday). The talk will be given at Alexandria's historic Morrison House (116 South Alfred Street, Alexandria, VA 22314) and is sponsored by the Torpedo Factory's Art Center.

From the press release:

Photography, Physics, and Complexity: Strange Bedfellows or a New Aesthetic?

Morrison House Presents: Andy Ilachinski, Photographer and Physicist

Physics and photography have always been inextricably linked: by chemistry, light, diffraction, refraction, reflection, polarization, etc. But these are only the most obvious and superficial of connections. This talk uses complexity theory – which describes the fundamental relationships between parts and wholes – to point to a vastly deeper, resonant level on which physics and photography – any creative art – are linked, and offer a possible glimpse of a new fundamental aesthetic grammar. In the end, it is argued, the outwardly-directed journey toward objective realities, and the inner passage toward subjective truths are revealed as but two interrelated aspects of a single creative thread of self-discovery.

Born in 1960 on Long Island, NY, and the only son of an architect and artist, Andy's life has always straddled left– (analytical, logical) and right– (creative, artistic) brained worlds.

On the left-brained side, he earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics (specializing in complex systems) in 1988 and has over 20 years experience as a research analyst and project director at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) – a federally funded research and development center headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia – where Andy has pioneered the application of complex adaptive systems theory to military operations research problems. He has authored two graduate-level mathematical physics texts on nonlinear dynamics and agent-based modeling, co-authored a book on artificial-life models and contributed to Springer-Verlag's 10-volume Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science, and is on the editorial board of two physics journals.

On the right-brained side, and both by temperament and inner muse, Andy is a fine-art black-and-white photographer, and has been one for far longer than his Ph.D. gives him any right to claim an ownership by physics. He has delighted in taking pictures ever since his parents surprised him on his 10th birthday with a Polaroid camera. Andy has won numerous awards (in both print and on-line juried contests), has exhibited in many juried solo and group shows, appeared in Lenswork (a preeminent fine-art journal of black and white photography), Focus magazine, both U.S. and U.K. Black & White magazines, and won a photo-magazine sponsored book contest. He has received multiple awards at the prestigious Black and White Spider Awards, and was one of the founding juried members of Lorton Art's Photography Workshop (in Lorton, VA). In 2010, Andy's work was featured (alongside two other artists) in a four month exhibit at the American Center for Physics (in College Park, MD).

More About the Series

This series of monthly talks is sponsored by the Torpedo Factory Artists’ Association, the Alexandria Archaeological Commission, and the Morrison House Hotel. The talks take place on the first Tuesday of each month. Cocktails will be available for purchase through The Grille at Morrison House Hotel, and dinner reservations can be made for guests who would like to continue their experience following the event.

About Morrison House

The Morrison House, a Kimpton Hotel, is an elegant boutique hotel located in the heart of Old Town, Alexandria. Named an outstanding hotel on Condé Nast Traveler’s 2008 Gold List, the hotel exhibits the romance of Europe and the charm of Early America through its decorative federalist-style reproductions. The architecture blends into the historic surrounding of Alexandria, while its warmly lit rooms, soft music, and outstanding cuisine define an experience that is graceful and effortless. The AAA Four Diamond property also features The Grille, an intimate restaurant that serves a menu of relaxed American fine dining. The hotel is located at 116 South Alfred Street, Alexandria, VA 22314, (703) 838-8000.

Coral Gables Photo Exhibit Follow-up

One of the joys of photography, as a public art form, is attending an opening of an exhibit of one's own images; a rare privilege and honor I had on Dec 7, as my family and I greeted invited guests and any and all interested bookstore customers at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida. Twenty seven photos were exhibited in all (two are "invisible" in the picture shown above, hidden by the angle of the shot by the protruding wood panel on the left). About a dozen or so were taken in the Miami area; which was no easy task, given that I live in northern Virginia (though visit Miami on a regular basis).

It was fun to both "observe" people looking at my work, and to chat with them about what they "see" (often, and unexpectedly, at great length, with the added benefit of gaining new insights into my own imagery). One individual, for example, a local psychiatrist, was particularly mesmerized by a shot of an old boat on a beach, facing an endless ocean ("Patient Longing").

He pointed out something about this photo that I confess had escaped my notice (at least consciously). Explaining that he had grown up relatively poor in the Dominican Republic, he said this photo evoked strong memories of longing he experienced as a youth. Longing for escape, both physically and psychically. While I could understand why he was drawn to this image, with its obvious symbolism, his reasoning was far subtler than mine. He said he was drawn more by the rope than the boat. While he agreed that the boat conveyed a strong message of longing toward the mysterious, "unknown" horizon, he suggested that the rope injects a deeper melancholy by reminding the viewer that even if the boat were seaworthy (which it may not be), the rope might still prevent a traveler from using it to escape. The two combined - dilapidated boat & rope - were enough to elicit very strong memories of his "longing for escape from entrapment" in his youth. From my perspective, it was enlightening (thrilling even) to hear about how one of my images so touched another person. A perfect example of the power of art to tap into universal patterns and experiences.

On the other hand, I also learned a few lessons about human nature on the other side of the spectrum (the slightly "shallower" end;-) There was a harmless, but misguidedly belligerent, individual who - apart from being dressed as though he had slept three nights at the bus depot (which he may well have done), and apart from the fact that he neither bothered to even glance at the exhibit, nor was polite enough not to pile enough au devours onto his plate to feed a small army (along with a more-than-generous helping of the "free" wine) - proceeded to corner "the artist" (literally, in a corner) to inform me that his pictures are the ones that belong on the wall. As I was desperately trying to think of a witty and pithy response, he snapped open a large wallet of post-card sized snapshots of old photos of Cuba and embarked on an unfathomable soliloquy about his early years as a photographer. "So this is what an opening night of an exhibit is like," I thought to myself. (Thankfully, everyone else I met that night was, Ahem, slightly more socially adept ;-)

The exhibit runs through the end of December. I plan on being back in Coral Gables (and to hopefully chat with a few more interested passer-bys at the exhibit) 24-29 Dec.