Luminous Insistence

"In some photographs the essence of light and space dominate; in others, the substance of rock and wood, and the luminous insistence of growing things ... It is my intention to present - through the medium of photography - intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to spectators."

- Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)

Old Wood

"The whole world is, to me, very much 'alive' - all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can't look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life - the things going on - within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood."

- Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984)

White Hole

"Unless something goes in or out of the horizon,
from the outside a white hole is
indistinguishable from a black hole.
...
The black horizon, like Gandalf,
has magically turned white.
...
Despite the complete difference between
what happens inside them, time’s
sleight of hand on the horizons allows a
white hole and a black hole to be
the same thing outside.
...
A white hole is a black hole with time reversed.
...
...finite are the lives of us all, of
every living organism, every star,
every galaxy, of all stories,
in this universe of joy and pain.
Not even white holes last forever."

- Carlo Rovelli (1956 - )
White Holes: Inside the Horizon

Secret Order

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order."

- C. G. Jung (1875-1961)

"There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. what we can't understand we call nonsense."

- Chuck Palahniuk (1962 - )

""We are not human beings having a spiritual experience;
we are spiritual beings having a human experience."

- Teilhard De Chardin (1881- 1955)

Subjective Feels

"Supporters of strong emergent materialism point to the fundamental differences between the subjective psychological reality and the objective physical (or neural) reality. The former includes qualitative experiences that feel like something and exist only from the first-person point of view; the latter consists of physical entities and causal mechanisms that involve nothing subjective or qualitative about them and exist from the third-person point of view or objectively. Nothing we can think about or imagine could make an objective physical process turn into or 'secrete' subjective, qualitative 'feels.' It is like trying to squeeze wine out of pure water: it is just not there, and there can be no natural mechanism (short of magic) that could ever turn the former into the latter."

- Antti Revonsuo, Consciousness

Mycelial Awareness

"Fungi marched onto land more than a billion years ago. Many fungi partnered with plants, which largely lacked these digestive juices. Mycologists believe that this alliance allowed plants to inhabit land around 700 million years ago. Many millions of years later, one evolutionary branch of fungi led to the development of animals.

...

I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind. The mycelium stays in constant molecular communication with its environment, devising diverse enzymatic and chemical responses to complex challenges.

...

If you were a tiny organism in a forest’s soil, you would be enmeshed in a carnival of activity, with mycelium constantly moving through subterranean landscapes like cellular waves, through dancing bacteria and swimming protozoa with nematodes racing like whales through a microcosmic sea of life."

- Paul Stamets (1955 - )
Mycelium Running:
How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World

Silence and Stillness

"When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, I am reminded, by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, of the inexpressible privacy of a life - how silent and unambitious it is. The beauty there is in mosses must be considered from the holiest, quietest nook.

...

Silence is the communion of a conscious soul with itself. If the soul attend for a moment to its own infinity, then and there is silence. She is audible to all men, at all times, in all places, and if we will we may always hearken to her admonitions.

...

The gods delight in stillness, they say ’st-’st. My truest - serenest moments are too still for emotion -they have woolen feet. In all our lives we live under the hill, and if we are not gone we live there still."

- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

Angle of Totality

"Guo Xi, a painter and writer who lived some four centuries after Xie He, indicated that the painter’s ability to see the spiritual meaning of things depended on his or her own spiritual character: 'A virtuous man takes delight in landscapes so that in a rustic retreat he may nourish his nature, amid the carefree play of streams and rocks, he may take delight.' To see in nature the qualities of excellence and virtue, the artist must be attuned to receive them.

...

Chinese painters ... often abandon normal limitations of perspective and unity of composition; they are emphasizing a scene not as it presents itself to the eye, but as it inhabits the soul. In a photograph, our vision is limited by the lens. In a painting ... we see the mountain, not as it appears from one vantage point at one time, but as it appears to a man who has walked among its nooks and crannies, loved it, and come to associate it with the various events of his life. Guo Xi called this freedom of perspective the 'angle of totality.' For the artist who lived in these mountains, each part of the scene has become a friend and reveals a personality."

- Nathan Beacom
The Prayers of the Chinese Nature Painters

The One "Before Whom Words Recoil"

"The purpose of all words is to illustrate the meaning of an object. When they are heard, they should enable the hearer to understand this meaning, and this according to the four categories of substance, of activity, of quality and of relationship. For example cow and horse belong to the category of substance. He cooks or he prays belongs to the category of activity. White and black belong to the category of quality. Having money or possessing cows belongs to the category of relationship. Now there is no class of substance to which the Brahman belongs, no common genus. It cannot therefore be denoted by words which, like 'being' in the ordinary sense, signify a category of things. Nor can it be denoted by quality, for it is without qualities; nor yet by activity because it is without activity—'at rest, without parts or activity,' according to the Scriptures. Neither can it be denoted by relationship, for it is 'without a second' and is not the object of anything but its own self. Therefore it cannot be defined by word or idea; as the Scripture says, it is the One 'before whom words recoil.'"

- Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963)
The Perennial Philosophy

Myconeurological Networks

"I believe that the mycelium operates at a level of complexity that exceeds the computational powers of our most advanced supercomputers. I see the mycelium as the Earth’s natural Internet, a consciousness with which we might be able to communicate. Through cross-species interfacing, we may one day exchange information with these sentient cellular networks. Because these externalized neurological nets sense any impression upon them, from footsteps to falling tree branches, they could relay enormous amounts of data regarding the movements of all organisms through the landscape. A new bioneering science could be born, dedicated to programming myconeurological networks to monitor and respond to threats to environments. Mycelial webs could be used as information platforms for mycoengineered ecosystems."

- Paul Stamets (1955 - )
Mycelium Running:
How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World

Leaves of Forgotten Paths

"On this plank of silent wood, a leaf descends like a stray sentence from a book never written, a fragment of the universe’s lost prose. The droplets cling to it, like memories of rain on the brink of being erased. They are not droplets at all, but miniature worlds, reflecting all that ever was, and all that will never be. Within this moment, time folds itself inward, a palimpsest of lives and stories overlapping in their stillness, as if each droplet were a star trembling on the edge of oblivion.

The leaf, fragile and delicate, is the map to nowhere—a path we will never walk, though it was laid out for us in some forgotten dream. Its veins are threads of infinite labyrinths, spun from the cosmic loom of contingency. Do they lead to Eden or toward the dust? Borges would have marveled at the infinity it holds within the finite, a cipher for the universe itself, decipherable only by those who have forgotten how to read. Its edges fray with the mystery of countless fates untaken.

But look closely—each grain of wood beneath it bears the imprint of time’s invisible steps. Could it be that this scene was destined to be? Or does the leaf choose its resting place, in defiance of all that is written? The universe pauses, just long enough for this image to be both remembered and lost, seen and unseen, a paradox folding in on itself. We are left to wonder if, in the fading moments of the universe, there will be a single leaf left resting on a board, and if we—trapped in Borges’ eternal dream—will finally understand its purpose."

- ChatGPT4o (12 Sep 2024)
Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence

Prompt: "You are a photographer, poet and philosopher, with a penchant for metaphysics and stories by Jorge Luis Borges. You have taken a black and white image of a leaf resting gently on some old wooden boards. Write a prose poem in the style of Borges that describes a mystery imbued in and implied by this image. Limit the number of stanzas to three, with 5 lines each. Be creative."

Fungal States of Minds

"Fungal organisms can perceive the outer world in a way similar to what animals sense. Does that mean that they have full awareness of their environment and themselves? Is a fungus a conscious entity? In laboratory experiments we found that fungi produce patterns of electrical activity, similar to neurons. The new field of fungal consciousness is opening in front of us. Let us discuss directions of future studies. Do fungi have holistic states of mind? Do they combine/modify such states? How many fungal states of mind could be described? Do fungi create specific relational contexts? Or are they, on the contrary, not capable of having holistic states of mind, and are just following completely prefixed patterns? At which extent can we include fungi affects into such cognitive processing? Fungal chemotaxis could be part of such proto-emotional states. A deeper consciousness state allows us to understand and accept sacrificing our 'self' for higher purposes (martyrs, heroes).

...

Given the peculiarity of fungi morphology and degree of connection, we may imagine how radically different computational schemes are embedded into a fungal consciousness. For example, rather than 3-dimensional visual perception, holographic perception might be possible, considering the quasi-flat distribution of mycelia and its mechanoceptive reconstruction of moving objects (animals) at the upper boundary layer. Non-causal consciousness might arise from this specific perception framework, eventually hindering the time perception. All of these remain open questions for further investigations."

- Andy Adamatzky, et al., "Fungal States of Minds"

Twigs and Rocks

"Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all - young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks at the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last, 'I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.' The other creatures laughed and said, 'Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you shall die quicker than boredom!' But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, 'See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!' And the one carried in the current said, 'I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.' But they cried the more, 'Saviour!' all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour."

- Richard Bach (1936 - )
Illusions

The Mind of Some Eternal Spirit

"When scientists study the world of phenomena, the shadows which nature throws onto the wall of our cave, they do not find these shadows totally unintelligible, and neither do they seem to represent unknown or unfamiliar objects. Rather, it seems to me, we can recognize chess players outside in the sunshine who appear to be very well acquainted with the rules of the game as we have formulated them in our cave. To drop our metaphor, nature seems very conversant with the rules of pure mathematics as our mathematicians have formulated them in their studies, out of their own inner consciousness and without drawing to any appreciable extent on their experience of the outer world.

...

And now it emerges that the shadow-play which we describe as the fall of an apple to the ground, the ebb and flow of the tides, the motion of electrons in the atom, are produced by actors who seem very conversant with these purely mathematical concepts-with our rules of our game of chess, which we formulated long before we discovered that the shadows on the wall were also playing chess.

...

When we try to discover the nature of the reality behind the shadows, we are confronted with the fact that all discussion of the ultimate nature of things must necessarily be barren unless we have some extraneous standards against which to compare them. For this reason, to borrow Locke's phrase, "the real essence of substances" is forever unknowable. We can only progress by discussing the laws which govern the changes of substances, and so produce the phenomena of the external world. These we can compare with the abstract creations of our own minds.

...

It does not matter whether objects 'exist in my mind, or that of any other created spirit' or not; their objectivity arises from their subsisting 'in the mind of some Eternal Spirit.'"

- Sir James Jeans (1877 - 1946)
The Mysterious Universe

Memory is strange

"Memory is strange. Scientifically, it is not a mechanical means of repeating something. I can think a thousand times about when I broke my leg at the age of ten, but it is never the same thing which comes to mind when I think about it. My memory of this event has never been, in reality, anything except the memory of my last memory of that event. This is why I use the image of a palimpsest - something written over something partially erased - that is what memory is for me. It's not a film you play back in exactly the same way. It's like theater, with characters who appear from time to time."

 - Gore Vidal (1925 - 2012)

What's a Photographer to Do Without a 'Real' Camera?

"The best camera is the one that's with you."
- Chase Jarvis (1971 - )

As I wrote about in my last blog post, my wife and I recently visited our youngest son in college. Since the trip was only for a few days (cross-country, no less: we live in northern Virginia, but our son's college is in California), and our ostensible purpose was to attend "Parent's Day," I reasoned - foolishly, as it turns out - that there would be zero time for "real photography" (meaning: photography with what I call my "real" camera). Note that I intend no disrespect either to my iPhone (which I always have with me) or to anyone who's "real camera" is an iPhone. The iPhone is a great photographic tool and is more than capable of capturing wonderful images! I use this phraseology only to convey a truth of my own reality: if I am without the camera(s) that I am usually armed with when I go on my photo safaris I somehow feel less than whole - disarmed, as it were - photographically speaking (which in hindsight of course is, again, rather foolish). Which is not to say that my "eye" is not constantly searching for something to photograph (even as the brain behind the eye laments not having my "real camera"). 

The (abstract) triptych above is an assembly of a few miscellaneous "shots" I took with my iPhone while waiting to board one of our planes. A few other "quick grabs" I managed to take during the trip included: (1) a shot of the ceiling at an American Airlines' Admirals Club (the "upside down" view of which I much prefer over the "straight" version) ...

(2) a shot of a chandelier at LAX ...

(3) a series of "fire abstracts" (captured while waiting for our dinner to arrive at a restaurant close to our son's college) ...

... and (4) - my personal favorite - a Wynn-Bullock-like "abstract energy-field" (that is really just a part of the tree ring structure I found in an old stump while hiking with my son in a local park):

So, what is a photographer to do without a "real" camera? Exactly what the photographer would have done with a real camera: look for pictures and capture them as best as possible given whatever camera happens to be with you 😊

One Model of Reality

"The world in which you were
born is just one model of reality.
Other cultures are not failed
attempts at being you; they
are unique manifestations
of the human spirit."

- Wade Davis (1953 - )

Random Mutations

"At this moment, in this place, the shifting action potential in my neurons cascade into certain arrangements, patterns, thoughts; they flow down my spine, branch into my arms, my fingers, until muscles twitch and thought is translated into motion; mechanical levers are pressed; electrons are rearranged; marks are made on paper.

At another time, in another place, light strikes the marks, reflects into a pair of high-precision optical instruments sculpted by nature after billions of years of random mutations; upside-down images are formed against two screens made up of millions of light-sensitive cells, which translate light into electrical pulses that go up the optic nerves, cross the chiasm, down the optic tracts, and into the visual cortex, where the pulses are reassembled into letters, punctuation marks, words, sentences, vehicles, tenors, thoughts.

The entire system seems fragile, preposterous, science fictional."

- Ken Liu (1976 - )

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Organized Patterns

"Perhaps our creative forays, from the stags at Lascaux to the equations of general relativity, emerge from the brain’s naturally selected but overly active ability to detect and coherently organize patterns. Perhaps these and related pursuits are exquisite but adaptively superfluous by-products of a sufficiently large brain released from full-time focus on securing shelter and sustenance… What lies beyond question is that we imagine and we create and we experience works, from the Pyramids to the Ninth Symphony to quantum mechanics, that are monuments to human ingenuity whose durability, if not whose content, point toward permanence.

...

Whereas most life, miraculous in its own right, is tethered to the immediate, we can step outside of time. We can think about the past, we can imagine the future. We can take in the universe, we can process it, we can explore it with mind and body, with reason and emotion. From our lonely corner of the cosmos we have used creativity and imagination to shape words and images and structures and sounds to express our longings and frustrations, our confusions and revelations, our failures and triumphs. We have used ingenuity and perseverance to touch the very limits of outer and inner space, determining fundamental laws that govern how stars shine and light travels, how time elapses and space expands — laws that allow us to peer back to the briefest moment after the universe began and then shift our gaze and contemplate its end."

- Brian Greene (1963 - )

Until the End of Time

Associative Play

"The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be 'voluntarily' reproduced and combined.

There is, of course, a certain connection between those elements and relevant logical concepts. It is also clear that the desire to arrive finally at logically connected concepts is the emotional basis of this rather vague play with the above-mentioned elements. But taken from a psychological viewpoint, this combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought — before there is any connection with logical construction in words or other kinds of signs which can be communicated to others.

The above-mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a secondary stage, when the mentioned associative play is sufficiently established and can be reproduced at will."

- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Ideas and Opinions