Experience = f(Photograph; Context, Interpretation)

In a recent blog entry ("Photography as Transcendence"), I presented what I believe is one core component of what distinguishes "fine-art" photography from a "photograph" (even an otherwise technically well executed one). I wrote that the finest photography makes you forget you are looking at a photograph and makes you experience it as if it were real; as if you were a part of it. The example I used was (indeed, the whole blog entry was based on) a nude portrait taken by one of the photographers at the photography Co-op I belong to. As such, it was obviously representational; which prompted at least one reader to ask whether I was implicitly arguing that the "finest photography" must depict something real, since how else can the viewer feel she is "one" with the work?

My answer is that photography obviously need not be restricted in any way in what it represents, or how it represents it. Even the word "photography" is needlessly restrictive. It is useful only insofar as it "points to" something someone has created (which the world calls a "photograph"). But once the physical object is created, the word "photograph" has served its purpose and can be safely discarded. It is the object we care about; or, more precisely, the affect the object has on us, as viewers. Of course, the degree to which one viewer "feels as one" with a photograph always depends on the viewer's particular predilections and aesthetics. Ardent admirers of Andy Warhol generally react markedly differently to a given image (whatever the image!) than admirers of the art of Wassily Kandinsky. But that is the whole point; a point that - upon deeper reflection - may hint at the embryonic stirrings of an experiential equation of aesthetics:

Before I explain some of the (obvious?) parts of this equation, let me quickly get the "f" (= "function") out of the way. Feel free to disregard it. It is inserted merely as a philosophical placeholder, and for completeness. It reminds us that there is "something" that binds and equates the two sides, but its precise makeup is (for our purposes here) unimportant. It is exceedingly unlikely to have a nice, mathematically well-defined definition. In fact, the best description of what it is a placeholder for is a "human observer" (of "photograph"); and no one, so far as I know (with the possible exception of Stephen Wolfram, developer of Mathematica and the soon-to-be-released Wolfram Alpha), has yet been bold enough to posit a "function" for a human being.

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness." - Albert Einstein

So what do I mean by this equation? I mean that - ultimately - that the only experience that is of any lasting consequence to an observer viewing a photograph (or any work of art; or anything!) is the experience itself. That is to say, after all is said and done, after an observer "views" an artwork, the only thing that matters to that observer, the only thing that is of any lasting value, is how - from the observer's own inner point of view - the observer has changed as a consequence of experiencing the artwork. No one can say what that experience will be like, beforehand. The observer is able to reflect back on what the experience was like - on what the artwork means - only after experiencing it (which involves recursive feedback loops on nested experiences, meta-experiences, and the like; none of which we'll get into here). But the observer will be changed in some way. She may be happy, sad, puzzled, angry, detached, thoughtful, tearful, sardonic, ..., or (though unlikely) she may remain completely unchanged, save for the memory of having physically interacted with the artwork. And it is the way in which our ineffable inner state - our prison-like solitary experience of "I-ness" - changes as a function of our viewing of an artwork that defines what that artwork means to us, as viewers.

The left-hand-side of the equation thus represents the inner experience that a viewer has of an observed artwork. The "Photograph" is the physical photograph, and is perhaps the only part of the equation that may be described with something approaching a mathematical rigor. It represents the tangibly objective properties of an image. The paper it appears on, the color dyes and pigments it is imprinted with, its tonal range and contrast levels, and - to some degree - the "things" it depicts (either representationally or non-representationally, as "abstract" shapes and forms; defined mechanically, as by a digital scanner).

The "Context" refers to (1) the context in which the photograph itself appears (perhaps as one of a series of related images, or some other over-arching portfolio of images; is it hanging in a gallery? is it a stray remnant of a discarded box of old polaroids? a web-only image on some unknown photographer's photo-blog?); and (2) the context in which the observer finds herself in while viewing the image, which itself includes both inner and outer dimensions. Is the observer in a gallery setting? is it a private viewing with family and co-workers (the latter set including people to whom she is not as "close")? has she just had lunch with a friend and is in a good mood? has she recently had a spat with her mom and is feeling sad? has she had a long interest in photography, or is perhaps herself a photographer, or is her interest more fleeting?

Finally, "Interpretation" refers to how the viewer interprets the artwork; or the (inner) meaning she ascribes to the work. Interpretation refers to how she really "sees" the work; not necessarily how the work "really" is (objectively speaking, as defined by its physical dimension, the "Photograph"). Note that the viewer does not have to (and, in general, may not even be able to) "see" any of the objectively-hidden "subjective" dimensions of an image, if there are any. Think of the well-known "Hidden Dalmation" image which consists of black and white patches, and may be "seen" as such by some viewers; or may be "seen" as a dalmation by others. The "Photograph" dimension of this experience is the objective image; the "Interpretation" dimension is either "seeing black and white patches" or "seeing a dalmation" (and its attendant associations: does the viewer like dalmations? is she afraid of them? does it remind her of a childhood incident that, by itself, has nothing to do with dalmations or dogs of any kind?...)

"All our thoughts and concepts are called up by sense-experiences and have a meaning only in reference to these sense-experiences. On the other hand, however, they are products of the spontaneous activity of our minds; they are thus in no wise logical consequences of the contents of these sense-experiences. If, therefore, we wish to grasp the essence of a complex of abstract notions we must for the one part investigate the mutual relationships between the concepts and the assertions made about them; for the other, we must investigate how they are related to the experiences." - Albert Einstein

What the equation E=f(P:C,I) suggests is that whatever an observer experiences by viewing a photograph (or any artwork) is a (likely very complicated) function of (1) the photograph itself, as a physical object; (2) the inner emotional and outer environmental contexts in which the viewer is situated in while viewing the photograph; and (3) the interpretation that the viewer ascribes to the photograph (which, since it is also a function of multiple factors, may be but only one exemplar - true for a given context - of a possibly vast set of alternative interpretations by the same observer).

On a trivial level, we've simply decomposed a single dimension ("Experience") into three. As an academic exercise, it focuses attention on some of the basic factors that influence how we view art in general. Other writers, considerably more esteemed than I (and with deeper results), have gone through this exercise before. For example, the well-known photographer / photography theorist Stephen Shore, in his book The Nature of Photographs, introduces a similar set of factors (that he calls "levels") for interpretating an image: the physical level, the depictive level, the mental level, and mental modeling. Each depicts one of the four core elements of an image: vantage point, frame, focus and time. John Szarkowski, the late great photography historian / curator / critic, in his The Photographers Eye, suggests five dimensions: the thing itself, the detail, the frame, time, and vantage point. But however you slice the dimensions - one can always add or subtract to taste - such decompositions, if done thoughtfully, are useful because they partly disentangle the otherwise messy soup of objective and subjective factors that define our overall experience of an artwork.

But what I am after here is subtly different. Assuming that the experience of an artwork is the most meaningful dimension (though, as we've discussed, it too has an ephemeral nature, and may take on added dimensions as the same observer "views" an artwork at different times and in different contexts), what the equation leaves the door open for - at least formally - is the possibility that the same overall experience may result from many different combinations of photograph, context, and interpretation.

Think about that for a moment. Suppose the "Experience" is "feeling joyful, imagining you are in a field of Gold, without a care in the world, and being suddenly transfixed by the notion of Buddhist impermanence" (or anything else, for specificity;-). What gave you this experience? Perhaps it was looking at Ansel Adams' "Moonrise, Hernandez" at the Smithsonian (where an original print was recently on display, and which induced roughly the same "inner experience" in me as I was viewing it). Although we are conditioned to think of our experience - after the fact - as being synonymous with what we were viewing (when asked, we reply: "I was looking at the Ansel Adams exhibit"), the more personally meaningful symbolic (and literal) token of our experience is the memory of the experience itself. It is the memory of what we felt as we were viewing whatever we were viewing; the state of mind we were in, cognitively, intuitively, and emotionally. (For mathematically inclined readers, this is essentially the art-equivalent of taking a Fourier transform between, say, momentum and position space in physics. The respective spaces represent two views of the same system; and do so in a way that preserves information. In our case, "information" is equivalent to "experience," and the function "f" hints at a Fourier-transform-like "experience preserving" sloshing back-and-forth among three dimensions.)

Now imagine - perhaps in some distant time, when evolution has worked its magic on our cognitive / emotional / aesthetic processing abilities - we are able to recall experiences as readily as we now recall things and events. Were we such creatures, we would not care whether the "thing" was the "Moonrise, Hernandez" by Ansel Adams (or the "event" a showing at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC in 2008); we would care - and remember - only that there was a moment in our lives when we felt "joyful, imagined we were in a field of Gold, were without a care in the world, and were suddenly transfixed by the notion of Buddhist impermanence." But so many other combinations of photograph, context, and interpretation could have put us into the same state! Depending on the person, perhaps Minor White's "Capitol Reef, Utah (1962)," viewed on a computer monitor late at night could induce essentially the same experience. Generalizing further, perhaps the same experience may also be had by listening to, say, Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata with a group of close friends at a local country concert hall.

Getting back to - and expanding upon - the main thesis of the earlier blog entry, I now state the main conjecture of this blog entry: the finest photography consists of those images that - for the broadest possible set of contexts and interpretations - yield the most meaningful experiences in the broadest class of observers. Note that the class of "finest photographs" is emphatically not defined solely by the physical dimension of any one photograph; and - critically - includes the observer. "Moonrise, Hernandez" - arguably a fine example of "fine photograph" in the Western world ;-) may rank somewhat lower among the Aka People of Africa (whose collective "aesthetics" are probably quite different from ours). Photograph and viewer are - must be - inextricably interwoven and coupled. A "photograph" has no more a single interpretation, and entails no more of a single experience, than a human is defined by a single inner state and experiences life as a single event (though some mystics claim that is precisely what life is). What a photograph "is" (to an observer) depends on - and is, in turn, shaped by - how the observer experiences the photograph; which henceforth becomes part of the observer, and helps shape what other photographs "will be" and the manner in which they, too, will shape the observer.

"I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive." - Joseph Campbell

Taking a cue from Campbell, we can rephrase the main conjecture of this blog entry as follows: the finest photography consists of those images that - for the broadest possible set of contexts and interpretations - induce the richest, deepest feelings of being alive in the broadest class of observers.

Thought Experiment #1: What would an artwork that depicts all of the possible artworks, in all of the possible contexts and interpretations that a given observer might ascribe to them, look like, starting with - as an example - Adams' "Moonrise, Hernandez"? How would an observer of Adams' "Moonrise, Hernandez" experience this meta artwork? Is there a Borgesian Aleph of art?

Thought Experiment #2: This blog entry has introduced a formal destinction between a "fine art photograph" and a (run of the mill?) "photograph" as defined for a group of observers. An obvious question is, what does this distinction entail for the individual observer? Folloing our formulation, we speculate that an observer - say the artist herself? - seeks that combination of artwork, context and interpretation (as any other observer does, of course) that induces the richest, deepest feeling of being alive. Here's a thought experiment: thinking only of yourself as observer (no collective "averaging" is being done here!...this is you we're talking about!), what would you imagine that artwork to look like that - out of all possible artworks that you can possibly create in this lifetime, and that you can observe in all conceivable contexts so as to form all imaginable interpretations - is the one that makes you feel most alive? Now go out and create it....

Postscript: the image posted at the top of this blog entry is a triptych of photographs of moonlight, reflected in Lake Saranac, in the Adirondacks NY. The images were taken from a series captured during a single, exceptionally clear night in August, 2008.

The Click of the Shutter Button...and A Deep Mystery

Physics is replete with "revolutions" in world-view that emerged after someone was brilliant enough - and brave enough - to question the foundations of "common wisdom." Witness Copernicus and his assertion that the Earth was not the center of the universe; Newton and his realization that the same force that binds us, as physical beings, to this planet is the same one that keeps the planets in their orbits; James Clerk Maxwell and his curiosity about the relationship between electricity and magnetism; Einstein and his stubbornly persistent analysis of the deep meaning of simultaneity; and Louis de'Broglie (along with a handful of others, including Einstein) puzzling over the difference between particles and waves. The list goes on and on, of course. In each case, a seemingly mundane - but sincere - questioning of an "obvious" fact (as Tommy Lee Jones says to the Will Smith character in the movie Men in Black, as he tries recruiting Smith's character to join MIB: "Everybody knew the Earth was flat...") led to a radical conceptual reordering of how we think of the universe, and our role in it.

While I do not propose any such radical reconceptions of our world in this humble little blog entry, I am going to suggest that the "creative act of photography" affords us an opportunity to ask a disarmingly trivial question (that may indeed alter how we perceive and interact with our environment, and ourselves). I will preface the question by first positing that one of the deepest mysteries confronting science today (apart from questions pertaining to the standard model of physics, string theories, or loop quantum gravity) is the nature and origin of consciousness. Consciousness is something we all, presumably, possess; yet is something about which - apart from knowing we possess it, and guessing that our experience of it is "pretty much the same" as that of any other humanly conscious creature - we have little or no real understanding.

Three of the more cogent (and often widely disagreeing) discussions of consciousness are (1) Consciousness Explained (by Daniel Dennet), (2) The Conscious Mind (by David Chalmers), and (3) I am a Strange Loop (by Douglas Hofstadter). None of these, of course, "explains" consciousness; but all are great at stimulating further discussion.

My particular interest, at least for purposes of this blog entry, is that aspect of consciousness that has to do with intentionality; i.e., the (apparently) willful decision to "act" (such as when we decide to "press the shutter" of a camera). Before I ask that question, however, consider this "simple" experience: I am holding a ball in my hand, which, at some point in time, for whatever reason, I decide to throw up in the air a few inches, and catch again. A trivial everyday act. Yet an utter mystery, as far as both fundamental physics and our understanding of consciousness is concerned. Just as there is no "physics" (of which I am aware), no equations or simulations, that accounts for why a small sphere located at some space-time position (x,y,z,t) suddenly "decides" to move against the gravitational field; there is no theory of consciousness that "explains" why I chose to throw up a ball. Oh, I certainly register the fact that the ball has been thrown - i.e., I am "conscious" of having done so after I've done it - but I have utterly no idea why I chose to throw it at the time I threw it. Bejamin Libet has studied this fascinating phenomenon in the laboratory (see Mind Time), and has found that consciousness is actually far from a vehicle of willful intentionality; indeed, its real purpose may be to negate possible actions, not - as we have been taught by convention - to create them.

Why am I choosing the words I'm typing now, and not others? How are they forming in my mind (and, while we are on the subject, what is mind?) I am aware of having "written", but I am at a complete loss as to explaining why I chose the words I did; nor am I able to "explain" why they emerged when they did. They "come out of me," as if by magic; and I have little, or no, "control" over what they are or when they will form. My conscious self reflects back on their existence, but appears blissfully unaware of the process by which they were created.

So what does all of this have to do with photography? Everything, really; the creative act of photography is a microcosm of our general state of conscious experience. In my previous blog entry ("Experiential Flow in Photography"), I wrote of how the best photography is usually done when the photographer is in a state of flow; in which many of the attributes of "self awareness" - or consciousness itself - vanish. In truth, though, every single photograph is a result of (at least an instant's worth) of a "lack of consciousness." When I press the shutter, at that instant, I am completely unaware of why I have done so. It is important to understand exactly what I mean by this. I do not mean that I have idea of what I am doing. Clearly, I am out taking photographs, and I am fully aware of this, even as I press the shutter. But when my finger physically moves down on the shutter button to initiate capture, I have absolutely no idea why that act did not occur a microsecond before or a microsecond after. Indeed, if Libet's research is to be believed, the best I can say is that I become aware of having pressed the shutter button only after I have done so, but in no other way has my consciousness been an active participant in the process that led up to pressing the button.

The act of taking a picture thus presents the photographer with both a puzzle (about who we really are, apart from the role we play in helping the universe take a picture of itself) and an opportunity to learn something about the universal core of the creative process and consciousness itself.

What I sometimes do (when I can retain enough of my self-awareness to remember to do this;-) is to try to minimize the time between which I have pressed the shutter and at which I become conscious of having pressed the shutter. This is not at all as "easy" at it may sound. It requires a razor-sharp Zen-like focus on the process and the moment; and is, at heart, obviously antithetical to the "photographic flow" process, as described in my earlier blog entry. It harbors a bit of a paradox: the deeper one is immersed in the "flow," the less able one is to "reflect" on the process and "understand" the unconscious instant of capture; on the other hand, the "easier" it is to reflect on the process, the less likely it is that the process being reflected upon is the one of deepest interest (i.e., "flow"). Paradox - unavoidably it seems - always lurks around questions about consciousness; and just as mysteriously, it lies at the very heart of the creative process.

Toward an Aesthetic Grammar: Part I

A few years ago, I gave an invited presentation at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, entitled Nature's Way: The Art of Seeing Complexity. My lecture was part of a multiweek workshop sponsored jointly by the Washington Center for Complexity & Public Policy and the Resident Associate Program of the Smithsonian Institution.

The ambitious goal I set out to accomplish with my talk - which, in hindsight I ought to have known would be impossible to achieve in the short time I had to achieve it (about two hours) - was to use the soul-searching inner musings of a physicist as photographer as a springboard toward forging a possible conceptual bridge between art and science; one that is defined by an aesthetic grammar, and hints at an even deeper aesthetic physics (two phrases that I promise to define more carefully below). As I diligently plowed through my slides, and talked through a few I had prepared especially to explain these subtle points, I could tell from the many blank stares and questioning smirks, that my skeletal new art-science "aesthetics theory" was destined to fall far short of my intended goal that day.

"The division of the perceived universe into parts and wholes is convenient and may be necessary, but no necessity determines how it shall be done." - Gregory Bateson (anthropologist, 1904 - 1980)

So, for another, slightly expanded attempt at communicating some soul-searching inner musings of a physicist as photographer...let me begin - in Part I of a multipart series of essays I intend posting in the coming weeks on the same topic as my Smithsonian talk, but retitled Towards an Aesthetic Grammar - by introducing a provocative theorem that I will first make a cautionary meta-claim about: please be forewarned that the theorem I am about to state will likely strike you either as obvious (at best) or idiotically vacuous (at worst). However, I will immediately argue that not only does the truth (of its interpretation) lie nowhere near these two extremes, but that the theorem is deceptively subtle and points to a universal "core truth" that underlies all cognitive, scientific and creative endeavors!

What is this remarkable theorem? It is called the "Ugly-Duck Theorem" (named after the well-known story by Hans Christian Andersen), and was proposed and proven by statistician Satosi Watanabe in 1969 (who was then at the University of Hawaii).

Suppose that the number of predicates that are simultaneously satisfied by two nonidentical objects of a system, A and B, is a fixed constant, P. The Ugly Duck theorem asserts that the number of predicates that are simultaneously satisfied by neither A nor B and the number of predicates that are satisfied by A but not by B are both also equal to P. While this assertion is easy to prove, and certainly appears innocuous at first glance - indeed, you would be forgiven to think it entirely "meaningless" since it is merely restating an obvious combinatorial fact about the set of possible predicates - it has rather significant philosophical and conceptual consequences.

"Thought is creating divisions out of itself and then saying that they are there naturally." - David Bohm

For example, suppose that there are only three objects in the world, arbitrarily labeled (@,@,#). An obvious interpretation is that this describes two kinds of objects: two @s and one #. But there are other ways of partitioning this set. For example, line them up explicitly this way: @ @ #. An implicit new organizing property seems to emerge: the leftmost @ and the rightmost # share the property that they are "not in the middle". We are free to label this property using the symbol @, and the property of being in the middle, #. Now, substituting the new property for each of the original objects, we have @ @ # -> @ # @.

Had we sorted these three objects according to the new property (that discriminates according to spatial position), we would again have two kinds of objects, but in this case they would have been different ones. Obviously, we can play this game repeatedly, since there are endless number of possible properties that can arbitrarily be called @ and #. That is the point. Unless there is an objective measure by which one set of properties can be distinguished from any of the others, there is no objective way to assert that any subset of objects is better than, or different from, any other.

The theorem demonstrates that there is no a priori objective way to ascribe a measure of similarity (or dissimilarity) between any two randomly chosen subsets of a given set. (Or, stated more whimsically, the theorem states that, all things being equal, an ugly duck is just as similar to a swan as two swans are to each other!) More technically speaking, we see that asymmetries within a system (i.e., differences) can be induced only either via some externally imposed “aesthetic” measure, or generated from within.

"Of course" ... you might be saying ... "that is obvious! But why is this important?" It is important because it demonstrates that - fundamentally - all of our perceptions of the world, precisely because they are demonstrably not all uniform, appear as sets of different things interrelated in a myriad of ways because of an internal aesthetic (or internal grammar, or physics!) that we automatically impose on what we perceive (doing so mostly unconsciously). The problem is to find a way to characterize and articulate what such a grammar might actually look like!

We "see" rocks and chairs and people primarily because nature has evolved an immeasurably powerful sensory-cognitive processing mechanism that rapidly "tags" for us (for our "I") the patterns in our environment that we will most likely be interacting with repeatedly throughout our lifetime. These objects are not visible to us (as "things") because the universe has labeled them "objectively meaningful" in a global sense (I doubt whether the universe really cares whether a particular transient pattern of atoms is called a "chair", a "collection of wooden planks" or "an exemplar of post-modern, neo-minimalist drivel"); rather, they appear to us as "meaningful" only because they are meaningful to us locally, in terms of the natural aesthetics we were born with (and evolve for ourselves as we interact with our perceptions and experiences) that determine what objects we can see, and the degree to which we can distinguish one object from another.

Who we are - our "I" - is defined and shaped most strongly by our internal aesthetic; which, I shall argue shortly, does not just describe "what we happen to think is beautiful at the moment" but molds our entire conception of the world, with all of the artistic, scientific, philosophical and spiritual depths that entails.

When I use the phrase "conceptual grammar" (or "aesthetic grammar") I mean - no more and no less - the set of aesthetic-weights we use (mostly unconsciously) to ascribe more or less "thingness" to an object A compared to another object B. According to the Ugly Duck theorem, we would expect the components of this set of weights to all be equal and therefore completely undiscerning in a rigorously objective world. Our conceptual grammar, understood in this way, therefore also constitutes the backbone of a primitive "local physics" we all use to describe our world; where by "physics" I mean a set of "organizing principles" that describe the underlying patterns of what our aesthetics "permit" us to recognize as existing.

Thus, when I write "grammar", I am thinking of primitive building blocks of "things" that (we imagine and/or perceive to) populate our (aesthetically generated asymmetric) local world, and the ways in which things may be "combined" to yield other things. And when I write "physics", I am thinking of the primitive building blocks of "patterns" that connect the things.

"Man tries to make for himself in the fashion that suits him best a simplified and intelligent picture of the world; he then tries to some extent to substitute this cosmos of his for the world of experiences, and thus to overcome it. This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientist do, each in his own fashion." - Albert Einstein

I will discuss some important consequences of the Ugly Duck theorem, and suggest how it might be used to generalize what we (think we) know about our "scientific aesthetics" to begin probing what an (objectively artful) "aesthetic grammar" may look like, in Part II (stay tuned....) Speculations on what all of this has to do with complexity, photography, the "art of seeing", and using art to find one's "I", will also appear in forthcoming essays.

Technical Note: The Ugly Duck Theorem complements another well-known theorem called the No Free Lunch theorem, proven by Wolpert and Macready in 1996. The No Free Lunch theorem asserts that the performance of all search algorithms, when averaged over all possible cost functions (i.e., problems), is exactly the same. In other words, no search algorithm is better, or worse, on average than blind guessing. Algorithms must be tailored to specific problems, which therefore effectively serve as the external aesthetic by which certain algorithms are identified as being better than others. Technical proofs of Watanabe's theorem appear in his books Knowing and Guessing and Pattern Recognition (both of which are, sadly, out of print).

Cosmic Mystery

"The most beautiful and most profound religious emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. And this mysticality is the power of all true science. If there is any such concept as a God, it is a subtle spirit, not an image of a man that so many have fixed in their minds. In essence, my religion consists of a humble admiration for this illimitable superior spirit that reveals itself in the slight details that we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds." - Albert Einstein

Kauai's Kalalau Valley Lookout

The towering, majestic cliffs of Kauai's Na Pali ("Pali" = "Cliff") coast represent one of the Kauai's most spectacular sights. While numerous waterfalls and streams (that are all powered by the wettest spot on the planet, Mt. Waialeale) quietly but dilligently carve out rugged valleys, the ocean just as inexorably pounds the earth down below into Pali. Stone-walled terraces still exist in the valleys as monuments to where Hawaiians once lived and cultivated taro.

While the Na Pali coastline can be experienced in many ways - on foot (via the Kalalau Trail that starts at Kokee State Park), via a helicopter, or on a raft - the easiest, and arguably, the most visually stunning views (although one could just as easily argue that any view of the Na Pali coastline is destined to be "visually stunning", so that comparisons are essentially moot!) can be had from the Kalalau Valley Lookout (~4000 ft. elevation). You can get there simply by following Waimea Canyon road all the way to the end (see my earlier Waimea Canyon in Color blog entry).

The lookout area is typically shrouded in Mt. Waialeale's cloud cover; though if the clouds are slowly drifting out toward the water, only a bit of patience is required and they are likely to part long enough (at least in spurts) to permit a peek of this magnificent valley. However, if there are heavy clouds coming in from the ocean, you may need a considerably heavier dose of patience to catch a view!

Kalalau Valley Lookout is my Church, for it is here that I feel closest to the heart and soul of the world and universe. It is here that I most strongly resonate with Einstein's Cosmic Religious Feeling. And it is here that I can best hear the faint whisper of the true answer to the question, "Who am I?"

Transcendent New Vision of Nature, Order and Beauty

Christopher Alexander's four volume Opus, Nature of Order, is an absolutely stunning achievement of the highest caliber! I agree with a quote that appears on the inner flap of each of the volumes, to the effect that while very few (if any) philosophical/conceptual works (and their authors) are likely to be remembered 500 years hence, there is a strong possibility that Alexander's Opus will be remembered as a precursor to what our present day (only partially overlapping fields of) "science" & "art" will have evolved to in 500 years (a unified, wholistic body of "Sci-Art" in which the schism between objective & subjective / inner & outer no longer exists).

What Alexander presents in these books is a tentative first stab at a magnificent new concept; not a mathematical or physical theory (though rudiments of what might go into a more formal description are also discussed). Although many of Alexander's ideas are quite subtle and require thoughtful reflection to fully comprehend and integrate into (ironically) a whole (new worldview), the basic thesis is original and profound: everything that exists contains life, and the degree (lesser or greater) to which life is manifest in "X" can be objectively determined by probing one's subjective (inner) world. Nature is seen, in this view, simply as the totality of life, continually unfolding; and beauty (as generated by local life-forms such as humans), as a resonance between outwardly objective forms and (the very deepest) subjective inner feelings.

Western science's longstanding divide between "what's out there in the world" and "what is in here, in our hearts and souls" is exchanged for a new worldview in which our understanding of the cosmos is predicated on an active unity between objectivity and subjectivity; between dispassionate form and intensely personal beauty; between "eye" and "I"; between the deepest inner feeling and continually unfolding outer life. If this sounds radical (and perhaps even a bit strange), that is because it is radical; Alexander is proposing a sweeping idea that is both revolutionary and (only in hindsight, after having read his extraordinary Opus) obvious! For it really cannot be any other way! Every thinking -- no, every feeling -- creature who wants to know our cosmos and his/her unique role in it needs to read these books. They are truly remarkable! The next great strides in art and science will be made (simultaneously) when, one day, an Einstein-Alexander appears and uses the ideas expressed in these books to develop (using a mathematics not yet created) a rigorous new theory of "Sci-Art-Beauty-Life". These are ostensibly books on "architecture"; but they far -- far -- transcend that field; they speak, collectively, about everything that exists.

Other links: Amazon, Notes (by Nikos Salingaros), and a landmark (semi-technical and deeply philosophical) paper called Harmony Seeking Computation (about which Alexander writes: "In this paper, I am trying to lay out a new form of computation, which focuses on the harmony reached in a system. This type of computation in some way resembles certain recent results in chaos theory and complexity theory. However, the orientation of harmony-seeking computation is toward a kind of computation which finds harmonious configurations, and so helps to create things, above all, in real world situations: buildings, towns, agriculture, and ecology."). This paper may just contain the essential ingredients for how "complexity science" as it is currently understood may itself evolve into a deeper understanding of nature's patterns and rhythms.