Parts, Wholes, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason

“Nothing takes place without sufficient reason, that is… nothing happens without it being possible for someone who knows enough things to give a reason sufficient to determine why it is so and not otherwise. Assuming this principle, the first question we have the right to ask will be, why is there something rather than nothing? For nothing is simpler and easier than something. Furthermore, assuming that things must exist, we must be able to give a reason for why they must exist in this way, and not otherwise.”

- G. W. Leibniz

(1646 - 1716)

"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

(1904 - 1980)

Dormant Microcosm

"This microcosm was pregnant with the germ of a proper time and space, and all the kinds of cosmical beings. Within this punctual cosmos the myriad but not unnumbered physical centers of power, which men conceive vaguely as electrons, protons, and the rest, were at first coincident with one another. And they were dormant. The matter of ten million galaxies lay dormant in a point."

- Olaf Stapledon (1886 - 1950)
Star Maker

Hallucination, Ego, and Nature

"We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that “I myself” is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which “confronts” an “external” world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. “I came into this world.” “You must face reality.” “The conquest of nature.”

This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin."

- Alan Watts (1915 - 1973)

The Book: On the TabooAgainst Knowing Who You Are

Nothing to Add, Nothing to Take Away

"In anything at all,

perfection is finally attained

not when there is no longer

anything to add,

but when there is no longer

anything to take away."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

(1900 - 1944)

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)

That Invisible Soul That Pervades Reality

"To hear never-heard sounds, 

To see never-seen colors and shapes, 

To try to understand the imperceptible 

Power pervading the world; 

To fly and find pure ethereal substances 

That are not of matter 

But of that invisible soul pervading reality. 

To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul; 

To be a lantern in the darkness 

Or an umbrella in a stormy day; 

To feel much more than know. 

To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain; 

To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon; 

To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves; 

To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets 

Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching. 

To be a smile on the face of a woman 

And shine in her memory 

As a moment saved without planning."

- Dejan Stojanović,  Serbian poet

(1959 - )

Symbols, Dreams, and Transformations

"The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it, we feel unhappy. A writer or any artist has the sometimes joyful duty to transform all that into symbols. These symbols could be colors, forms or sounds. For a poet, the symbols are sounds and also words, fables, stories, poetry. The work of a poet never ends. It has nothing to do with working hours. You are continuously receiving things from the external world. These must be transformed, and eventually will be transformed. This revelation can appear anytime. A poet never rests. He’s always working, even when he dreams. Besides, the life of a writer, is a lonely one. You think you are alone, and as the years go by, if the stars are on your side, you may discover that you are at the center of a vast circle of invisible friends whom you will never get to know but who love you. And that is an immense reward."

-  Jorge Luis Borges

(1899 – 1986)