Information Theory

"The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproduction at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that is, they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem. The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set of possible messages."

- Claude Shannon (1916 - 2001)
A Mathematical Theory of Communication

Eternity in Motion

"He stood there, spellbound, listening to the voice
Of Time itself, the moments hurrying by
For ever irrecoverably. I heard
His very thought. The stones were on their way
To the ocean that had made them; every
note In their wild music was a prophecy
Of continents unborn. When he had seen
Those continents in embryo, beds of sand
And shingle, cumulant on the coastwise plains,
Thousands of feet in thickness, he had doubted
Whether the river of time itself could grind
And pile such masses there. But when he heard
The mountain-torrents rattling, he recalled
How races had been born and passed away,
And night and day, through years unreckonable,
These grinding stones had never ceased to roll
On their steep course. Not even the Cordilleras,
Had they been ribbed with adamant, could withstand
That slow sure waste. Even those majestic heights
Would vanish. Nothing - not the wind that blows
Was more unstable than the crust of the earth."

- Alfred Noyes (1880 - 1958)

Unrevealable Sea

"More than bare mountains ’neath a naked sky,
Or star-enchanted hollows of the night

When clouds are riven, or the most sacred light

Of summer dawns, art thou a mystery

And awe and terror and delight, O sea!

Our Earth is simple-hearted, sad to-day

Beneath the hush of snow, next morning gay

Because west-winds have promised to the lea

Violets and cuckoo-buds; and sweetly these

Live innocent lives, each flower in its green field,

Joying as children in sun, air, and sleep.

But thou art terrible, with the unrevealed

Burden of dim lamentful prophecies,
And thy lone life is passionate and deep.
...

Light ebbs from off the Earth; the fields are strange,

Dusk, trackless, tenantless; now the mute sky

Resigns itself to Night and Memory…"

- Edward Dowden (1843 - 1913)
"Ocean," in Poems

Unknown Shore

"Look about you, Clarke. You see the mountain, and hill following after hill, as wave on wave, you see the woods and orchard, the fields of ripe corn, and the meadows reaching to the reed-beds by the river. You see me standing here beside you, and hear my voice; but I tell you that all these things - yes, from that star that has just shone out in the sky to the solid ground beneath our feet - I say that all these are but dreams and shadows; the shadows that hide the real world from our eyes. There is a real world, but it is beyond this glamour and this vision, beyond these ‘chases in Arras, dreams in a career,’ beyond them all as beyond a veil. I do not know whether any human being has ever lifted that veil; but I do know, Clarke, that you and I shall see it lifted this very night from before another’s eyes. You may think this all strange nonsense; it may be strange, but it is true, and the ancients knew what lifting the veil means. They called it seeing the god Pan.

...

I stood here, and saw before me the unutterable, the unthinkable gulf that yawns profound between two worlds, the world of matter and the world of spirit; I saw the great empty deep stretch dim before me, and in that instant a bridge of light leapt from the earth to the unknown shore, and the abyss was spanned."

- Arthur Machen (1863 - 1947)
The Great God Pan

Cosmic Ether

"One does not seem really to have got out-of-doors till he goes to sea. On the land he is shut in by the hills, or the forests, or more or less housed by the sharp lines of his horizon. But at sea he finds the roof taken off, the walls taken down; he is no longer in the hollow of the earth’s hand, but upon its naked back, with nothing between him and the immensities. He is in the great cosmic out-of-doors, as much so as if voyaging to the moon or to Mars. An astronomic solitude and vacuity surround him; his only guides and landmarks are stellar; the earth has disappeared; the horizon has gone; he has only the sky and its orbs left; this cold, vitreous, blue-black liquid through which the ship plows is not water, but some denser form of the cosmic ether.

...

The world is left behind; all standards of size, of magnitude, of distance, are vanished; there is no size, no form, no perspective; the universe has dwindled to a little circle of crumpled water, that journeys with you day after day, and to which you seem bound by some enchantment."

- John Burroughs (1837 - 1921)
"At Sea" in Fresh Fields

Harmonic Order

"For every mixture, if it is rightly made, as Socrates says, requires these three things, beauty, truth, and symmetry. For neither will any thing base, if it is introduced into the mixture, impart rectitude, since it will be the cause of error, and of inordinate prerogative, nor if truth is at any time separated, will it suffer the mixture to consist of things that are pure, and which are in reality subdued, but it will fill the whole with an image and with non-being. Nor without symmetry will there be a communion of the elements, and an elegant association. Symmetry, therefore, is necessary to the union of the things that are mingled, and to an appropriate communion. But truth is necessary to purity. And beauty to order; which also renders the whole lovely. For when each thing in the mixture has a place adapted to itself, it renders both the elements, and the arrangement resulting from them, beautiful. Here therefore, in the first mixture, these three things are apparent, symmetry, truth, and beauty. And symmetry indeed is the cause to the mixture, that being is one; truth is the cause of the reality of its existence; and beauty is the cause of its being intelligible. Hence it is intelligible and truly being."

- Proclus Lycius (412 – 485)

Note. This remarkable geometry is what meets the gaze of anyone who looks up at the Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport in Spain. We were racing through the airport to get to our flight from Madrid to Galicia last month (to watch the eclipse), my iPhone managed to catch a few vies of the beautiful overhead design in Madrid. Next to the Escher-like ceiling at the international terminal in Auckland, New Zealand, Madrid, this is among my all time favorites.

Weathered Memory

"Now, to return to our immediate subject, it so happens that, in architecture, the superinduced and accidental beauty is most commonly inconsistent with the preservation of original character, and the picturesque is therefore sought in ruin, and supposed to consist in decay. Whereas, even when so sought, it consists in the mere sublimity of the rents, or fractures, or stains, or vegetation, which assimilate the architecture with the work of Nature, and bestow upon it those circumstances of color and form which are universally beloved by the eye of man. So far as this is done, to the extinction of the true characters of the architecture, it is picturesque, and the artist who looks to the stem of the ivy instead of the shaft of the pillar, is carrying out in more daring freedom the debased sculptor's choice of the hair instead of the countenance.

But so far as it can be rendered consistent with the inherent character, the picturesque or extraneous sublimity of architecture has just this of nobler function in it than that of any other object whatsoever, that it is an exponent of age, of that in which, as has been said, the greatest glory of the building consists; and, therefore, the external signs of this glory, having power and purpose greater than any belonging to their mere sensible beauty, may be considered as taking rank among pure and essential characters; so essential to my mind, that I think a building cannot be considered as in its prime until four or five centuries have passed over it; and that the entire choice and arrangement of its details should have reference to their appearance after that period, so that none should be admitted."

- John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)
“The Lamp of Memory” in The Seven Lamps of Architecture

Recursive Gallery

"Zeus himself could not undo the web
of stone closing around me,
I have forgotten the men I was before;
I follow the hated path of monotonous walls
that is my destiny. Severe galleries
which curve in secret circles
to the end of the years. Parapets
cracked by the day’s usury.
In the pale dust I have discerned
signs that frighten me. In the concave
evenings the air has carries a roar

toward me, or the echo of a desolate howl.

I know there is an Other in the shadows,

whose fate it is to wear out the long solitudes

which weave and unweave this Hades

and to long for my blood and devour my death.
Each of us seeks the other.
If only this were the final day of waiting."

- Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986)
"The Labyrinth" in Borges: Selected Poems

Mystic Sea

"The smell of the sea in my nostrils,
The sound of the sea in mine ears;
The touch of the spray on my burning face,
Like the mist of reluctant tears.

The blue of the sky above me,

The green of the waves beneath;

The sun flashing down on a gray-white sail

Like a scimitar from its sheath.

And ever the breaking billows,

And ever the rocks' disdain;

And ever a thrill in mine inmost heart

That my reason cannot explain.

So I say to my heart, ‘Be silent,

The mystery of time is here;

Death's way will be plain when we fathom the main,
And the secret of life be clear."

- Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 - 1906)
The Mystic Sea

Verdant Spirit

 

"I was utterly alone with the sun and the earth. Lying down on the grass, I spoke in my soul to the earth, the sun, the air, and the distant sea far beyond sight. I thought of the earth’s firmness—I felt it bear me up: through the grassy couch there came an influence as if I could feel the great earth speaking to me. I thought of the wandering air—its pureness, which is its beauty; the air touched me and gave me something of itself. I spoke to the sea: though so far, in my mind I saw it, green at the rim of the earth and blue in deeper ocean; I desired to have its strength, its mystery and glory. Then I addressed the sun, desiring the soul equivalent of his light and brilliance, his endurance and unwearied race. I turned to the blue heaven over, gazing into its depth, inhaling its exquisite colors and sweetness. The rich blue of the unattainable flower of the sky drew my soul towards it, and there it rested, for pure color is rest of heart. By all these I prayed; I felt an emotion of the soul beyond all definition; prayer is a puny thing to it, and the word is a rude sign to the feeling, but I know no other.

...

Touching the crumble of earth, the blade of grass, the thyme flower, breathing the earth-encircling air, thinking of the sea and the sky, holding out my hand for the sunbeams to touch it, prone on the sward in token of deep reverence, thus I prayed that I might touch to the unutterable existence infinitely higher than deity."

- Richard Jefferies (1848 - 1887)
The Story of My Heart

Fathomless Becoming

"As I wend to the shores I know not,
As I list to the dirge, the voices of men and women wreck’d,
As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer,
I too but signify at the utmost a little wash’d-up drift,
A few sands and dead leaves to gather,
Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift.

O baffled, balk’d, bent to the very earth,

Oppress’d with myself that I have dared to open my mouth,

Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me
I have not once had the least idea who or what I am,

But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me
stands yet untouch’d, untold, altogether unreach’d,

Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,

With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,

Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.

I perceive I have not really understood any thing,
not a single object, and that no man ever can,

Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me
to dart upon me and sting me,
Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.
...

Tufts of straw, sands, fragments,

Buoy’d hither from many moods, one contradicting another,

From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell,

Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil,

Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown,

A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, drifted at random,

Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature,

Just as much whence we come that blare of the cloud-trumpets,

We, capricious, brought hither we know not whence, spread out before you,

You up there walking or sitting,

Whoever you are, we
too be in drifts
at your feet."

- Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892)
"As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life" in Leaves of Grass

Elemental Exchange

"The mountain range
the stones in the water
all are strange and rare
The beautiful landscape
as we know
belongs to those who are like it
The upper worlds
the lower worlds
originally are one thing
There is not a bit of dust
there is only this still and full
perfect enlightenment.
...
Without a speck of dust being raised,
the mountains tower up;
without a single drop falling,
the streams plunge into the valley."

- Muso Soseki (1275 – 1351)

First Distinction

"‘In the beginning,’ my dear, ‘there was that only which is, one only, without a second. Others say, in the beginning there was that only which is not, one only, without a second; and from that which is not, that which is was born.

‘But how could it be thus, my dear?’ the father continued. ‘How could that which is, be born of that which is not? No, my dear, only that which is, was in the beginning, one only, without a second.

‘It thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent forth fire.

‘That fire thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent forth water.

‘Water thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent forth earth.’"

- Chāndogya Upaniṣad (8th to 6th century BCE)
Translated by trans. F. Max Müller, The Upanishads

Nested Worlds

"Whence it appears that in the smallest particle of matter there is a world of creatures, living beings, animals, entelechies, souls. [...] Each portion of matter may be conceived as like a garden full of plants and like a pond full of fishes. But each branch of every plant, each member of every animal, each drop of its liquid parts is also some such garden or pond. [...] And though the earth and the air which are between the plants of the garden, or the water which is between the fish of the pond, be neither plant nor fish; yet they also contain plants and fishes, but mostly so minute as to be imperceptible to us. [...] Thus there is nothing fallow, nothing sterile, nothing dead in the universe, no chaos, no confusion save in appearance, somewhat as it might appear to be in a pond at a distance, in which one would see a confused movement and, as it were, a swarming of fish in the pond, without separately distinguishing the fish themselves. [...] Thus, although each created Monad represents the whole universe, it represents more distinctly the body which specially pertains to it, and of which it is the entelechy; and as this body expresses the whole universe through the connection of all matter in the plenum, the soul also represents the whole universe in representing this body, which belongs to it in a special way. "

- G.W. Leibniz (1646 - 1716)
Monadology

Boundless Within

"The person in the hut lives here calmly,
not stuck to inside, outside, or in between.
Places worldly people live, he does not live.
Realms worldly people love, he does not love.
Though the hut is small, it
includes the entire world."

- Shitou Xiqian (700–790)

Pathless Way

"The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity

your very effort fills you with activity.

As long as you remain in one extreme or the other,

you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way

fail in both activity and passivity,

assertion and denial.

To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality;

to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality."

- Sengcan (496? - 606)
Xinxin Ming

Ephemeral Vastness

"Firewood becomes ash. Ash cannot become firewood again. However, we should not view ash as after and firewood as before. We should know that firewood dwells in the dharma position of firewood and has its own before and after. Although before and after exist, past and future are cut off. Ash stays in the position of ash, with its own before and after. As firewood never becomes firewood again after it has burned to ash, there is no return to living after a person dies. However, in Buddha Dharma it is an unchanged tradition not to say that life becomes death. Therefore we call it no-arising. It is the established way of buddhas’ turning the Dharma wheel not to say that death becomes life. Therefore, we call it no-perishing. Life is a position in time; death is also a position in time. This is like winter and spring. We don’t think that winter becomes spring, and we don’t say that spring becomes summer.

...

When a person attains realization, it is like the moon’s reflection in water. The moon never becomes wet; the water is never disturbed. Although the moon is a vast and great light, it is reflected in a drop of water. The whole moon and even the whole sky are reflected in a drop of dew on a blade of grass. Realization does not destroy the person, as the moon does not make a hole in the water. The person does not obstruct realization, as a drop of dew does not obstruct the moon in the sky. The depth is the same as the height. [To investigate the significance of] the length and brevity of time, we should consider whether the water is great or small, and understand the size of the moon in the sky."

- Dogen (1200 - 1253)
Genjōkōan

Stillness Without Seeing

"...Stillness without seeing,
Not moving in a dark room.

Wakeful without wandering,

The mind is tranquil yet bright.

All phenomena are real and eternal,

Profuse, yet of a single form.

Going, coming, sitting, standing,

Don’t attach to anything.

Affirming no direction,

Can there be leaving and entering?

There is neither unifying nor dispersing,

Neither slow nor quick.

Brightness and tranquility are just as they are.
They cannot be explained in words."

- Niutou Farong (594-657)

Sacred Threshold

"Here, we are no longer in the well-known valleys of human and psychic life. We find ourselves at the door of the third enclosure: that of the divine life of the mystics. We have to grope timidly, and make sure of every footstep, as we cross the threshold. And even when the threshold is crossed, where shall certainty be found? Where shall we discover those marvelous laws that we are perhaps constantly disobeying: laws of whose existence our conscience is ignorant, though our soul has been warned? Whence comes the shadow of a mysterious transgression that at times creeps over our life and makes it so hard to bear? What are the great spiritual sins of which we can be guilty? Will it be our shame to have striven against our soul, or is there an invisible struggle between our soul and God? And is this struggle so strangely silent that not even a whisper floats on the air? [...] Must we always be warned, and can we only fall on our knees when some one is there to tell us that God is passing by? If you have loved profoundly you have needed no one to tell you that your soul was a thing as great in itself as the world; that the stars, the flowers, the waves of night and sea were not solitary; that it was on the threshold of appearances that everything began, but nothing ended, and that the very lips you kissed belonged to a creature who was loftier, much purer, and much more beautiful than the one whom your arms enfolded."

- Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 - 1949)
The Treasure of the Humble

Fluid Becoming

“The body pre-eminently—that which we are most justified in isolating within the continuity of matter, because it constitutes a relatively closed system—is the living body; it is, moreover, for it that we cut out the others within the whole. Now, life is an evolution. We concentrate a period of this evolution in a stable view which we call a form, and, when the change has become considerable enough to overcome the fortunate inertia of our perception, we say that the body has changed its form. But in reality the body is changing form at every moment; or rather, there is no form, since form is immobile and the reality is movement. What is real is the continual change of form: form is only a snapshot view of a transition. Therefore, here again, our perception manages to solidify into discontinuous images the fluid continuity of the real."

- Henri Bergson (1859 - 1941)
Creative Evolution