The concept of a World

"The concept of a world in the [Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics] MWI is based on the layman’s conception of a world; however, several features are different. Obviously, the definition of the world as everything that exists does not hold in the MWI. 'Everything that exists' is the Universe, and there is only one Universe. The Universe incorporates many worlds similar to the one the layman is familiar with. A layman believes that our present world has a unique past and future. According to the MWI, a world defined at some moment of time corresponds to a unique world at a time in the past, but to a multitude of worlds at a time in the future."

- Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics,
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Helping Preserve the "Bullock Family Photography Archive"

"Light to me is perhaps the most profound truth in the universe.
My thinking has been deeply affected by the belief that
everything is some form of radiant energy."
- Wynn Bullock (1905 - 1975)

As I have written many times on my blog throughout the years, Wynn Bullock holds a special place in my heart. Although (sadly) I never had a chance to meet him, everything that I have learned about him - whether through his own writings and images, what others have written about him, and/or memories that one of his daughters, Barbara Bullock-Wilson, has kindly shared with me - makes me want to step into some alternate reality where he is still alive. I see myself pulling up a chair beside him near a cozy fireplace, settling in with a hot cup of coffee and just reveling in his presence, chatting away into the night about art, photography, science, the magic of light, and whatever else moves our spirits. 

My correspondence with Barbara began shortly after I received an email from her about a blog entry I published in Jan 2012 discussing my "discovery" of her dad's magnificent color light abstractions. Barbara has recently informed me of a crowdsourcing effort she's organized to help preserve this masterful work (that continues to inspire me, and, I suspect, all others that come across it and/or just see the works - or their reproductions - for themselves!). The goal of the "Bullock Family Photography Archive" project (recently launched at UC Santa Cruz) is to raise at least $30,000 to help UCSC acquire the rest of the Wynn Bullock Color Light Abstraction traveling exhibit as well as add a few black-and-white vintage photographs to their Bullock holdings. IMHO, this is an important effort that doesn't just enhance the Bullock collection at the University, but helps preserve Bullock's legacy for future generations! The crowdsourcing homepage includes a formal description and includes a short promotional video you can watch. I gently urge all of my humble followers to take a peek, and consider donating to Barbara's effort.

Postscript. The image at the top of this blog entry was captured in (what, for me, is typically) "serendipitously synchronistic" fashion, given the topic of this blog entry and Bullock's own close association with light and pattern: as I was walking past my eldest son's room while going to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee to jump-start my brain prior to writing this blog entry, I was struck by the "Bullockian light patterns" dancing across my son's bed. Of course, I had to rush back to my study and get my camera (heck, it was so mesmerizing, I even forgot to get my coffee)! It is as if Bullock himself reached out from that alternate reality in which he and I are schmoozing about life and art to gift me a bit of "light" to accompany my text 😊

Skeleton of Truth

"So there it is in words, Precise
And if you read between the lines
You will find nothing there
For that is the discipline I ask
Not more, not less
Not the world as it is
Not ought to be –
Only the precision
The skeleton of truth
I do not dabble in emotions
Hint at implications
Evoke the ghosts of old forgotten creeds.
All that is for the preacher
The hypnotist, therapist and missionary
They will come after me
And use the little that I said
To bait more traps
For those who cannot bear
The lonely
Skeleton
of Truth"

- Gregory Bateson (1904 - 1980) and Mary Catherine Bateson (1939 - 2021)

Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred

Abstract ETCs

"Irrespective of the possibility that the Galileo Project may discover additional, or even extraordinary evidence for ETCs [Extraterrestrial Technological Civilizations], at a minimum the Galileo Project will gather rich data sets that may foster the discovery of — or better scientific explanations for — novel interstellar objects with anomalous properties, and for potential new natural atmospheric phenomena, or in some instances terrestrial technology explanations for many of the presently inexplicable UAP."

- Galileo Project, Harvard University

The Simplest Thing

 "Even the simplest thing
is as important as the
things we consider important.
I consider a fallen leaf as
important as the Grand Canyon.
It's all important;

it's all connected.
One couldn't be
without the other."

- Ruth Bernhard (1905 - 2006)

Unclouded by Preconceived Ideas

"Watching as things arrange
themselves in the changing light,
the photographer with unobstructed
vision sees them as they are.
Appropriate images appear without
struggle, moving with the flow of light
like leaves in a stream,
to be immediately reflected in
a mind unclouded by
preconceived ideas."

- Benjamin Hoff (1946 - )

Chain of Connection

"In considering the study of physical phenomena, not merely in its bearings on the material wants of life, but in its general influence on the intellectual advancement of mankind, we find its noblest and most important result to be a knowledge of the chain of connection, by which all natural forces are linked together, and made mutually dependent upon each other; and it is the perception of these relations that exalts our views and ennobles our enjoyments."

- Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859)
Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe

Admiring Light's Beauty

"Look at light and admire its beauty.
Close your eyes, and then look again:
what you saw is no longer there;
and what you will see later is not yet. "

- Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

Improvisational Nature

"Perhaps the answers to these questions require fundamental advances at the interface of physics, the arts, and neuroscience. The deep links between musical form and physical form may be unveiled by understanding how both kinds of knowledge-music and physics-arise together in human brains and nowhere else. After all, brains, regardless of how mysterious they are, are the most complex structures in the universe.

...

It is amusing to speculate that the reason why music has the ability to move us so deeply is that it is an auditory allusion to our basic connection to the universe. If our cosmic origins are seated in sound patterns, is it too far-fetched to think that music viscerally enables us to tap into those origins?

...

What if there were a vibrational pattern
in the early universe capable of
generating the current complex
structure that we live in,
the complex structures that we are?
And what if these structures
had an improvisational nature."

- Stephon Alexander (1971 - )
The Jazz of Physics

Vibration of Spirit

"The vibration of Spirit is at such an infinite rate of intensity and rapidity that it is practically at rest — just as a rapidly moving wheel seems to be motionless. And at the other end of the scale, there are gross forms of matter whose vibrations are so low as to seem at rest. Between these poles, there are millions upon millions of varying degrees of vibration. From corpuscle and electron, atom and molecule, to worlds and universes, everything is in vibratory motion. This is also true on the planes of energy and force (which are but varying degrees of vibration); and also on the mental planes (whose states depend upon vibrations); and even on to the spiritual planes. An understanding of this Principle, with the appropriate formulas, enables Hermetic students to control their own mental vibrations as well as those of others. The Masters also apply this Principle to the conquering of Natural phenomena, in various ways. 'He who understands the Principle of Vibration, has grasped the sceptre of Power,' says one of the old writers.

...

...the differences between different
manifestations of Matter, Energy,
Mind, and even Spirit, result
largely from varying rates of Vibrations...
...the higher the vibration,
the higher the position in the scale."

- William Walker Atkinson (1862 - 1932)
Three Initiates, Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece

Postscript. In February of this year, I wrote about how the morning walks my wife and I took together during the pandemic (which we could do since I did not have to commute to my regular office; something which, sadly, I've had to resume doing recently) gave me an opportunity to see and appreciate how much beauty our local neighborhood offers. Back then, I was mesmerized with the "hosta-leaf corpses" that littered the sidewalks near our house, and which appeared to glow with a preternatural inner light. To communicate a sense of what first drew me to them (i.e., their radiance), I rendered them using reversed black and white tones (a small portfolio is here). Almost a year later, as we approach late autumn, I find my eye/I drawn to the radiance - or, better, to the colorful afterglow - of decaying maple leaves. Just as the all-but-decayed hosta leaves stubbornly clung to life with a mysterious and inexhaustible energy, the just-starting-to-decay maple leaves are now doing the same, but are suffused in an ineffably iridescent brilliance! There is a palpable fire burning inside that refuses to let go! I've tried to capture this ethereal energy by placing the leaves on a light table (using one that is sufficiently bright to illuminate the veins of the leaves), and rendering the final image on a dark backdrop in Photoshop. Although, as with the hostas, my maple macros only partly convey the excitement I felt as I encountered individual leaves, much of my raw emotion remains (albeit only in "Stieglitzian Equivalent" form). The image above is an amalgam of the photographs in a new "maple autumn macros" portfolio. Enjoy 😊