Particles, Fragments, and Entropy

"...he saw the dust and the ruin of the apartment as it lay spreading out everywhere–he heard the kipple coming, the final disorder of all forms, the absence which would win out. It grew around him as he stood holding the empty ceramic cup; the cupboards of the kitchen creaked and split and he felt the floor beneath his feet give.

Reaching out, he touched the wall. His hand broke the surface; gray particles trickled and hurried down, fragments of plaster resembling the radioactive dust outside. He seated himself at the table and, like rotten, hollow tubes the legs of the chair bent; standing quickly, he set down the cup and tried to reform the chair, tried to press it back into its right shape. The chair came apart in his hands, the screws which had previously connected its several sections ripping out and hanging loose. He saw, on the table, the ceramic cup crack; webs of fine lines grew like the shadows of a vine, and then a chip dropped from the edge of the cup, exposing the rough, unglazed interior...

...In a way,
he realized,

I'm part of the

form-destroying
process of
entropy."

- Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

The Mind's Order

"The order that our mind

imagines is like a net,

or like a ladder,

built to attain something.

But afterward you must

throw the ladder away,

because you discover that,

even if it was useful,

it was meaningless"

- Umberto Eco (1932 - 2016)

The Name of the Rose

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)

Cannot be Put Into Words

"Words have value;

what is of value in

words is meaning.

Meaning has something

it is pursuing,

but the thing that

it is pursuing cannot

be put into words

and handed down."

- Chuang Tzu (c.4th Century B.C.)

Layered Consciousness

"The color-patches of vision part, shift, and reform as I move through space in time. The present is the object of vision, and what I see before me at any given second is a full field of color patches scattered just so. The configuration will never be repeated. Living is moving; time is a live creek bearing changing lights. As I move, or as the world moves around me, the fullness of what I see shatters. “Last forever!” Who hasn’t prayed that prayer? You were lucky to get it in the first place. The present is a freely given canvas. That it is constantly being ripped apart and washed downstream goes without saying; it is a canvas, nevertheless. 

But there is more to the present than a series of snapshots. We are not merely sensitized film; we have feelings, a memory for information and an eidetic memory for the imagery of our pasts. 

Our layered consciousness is a tiered track for an unmatched assortment of concentrically wound reels. Each one plays out for all of life its dazzle and blur of translucent shadow-pictures; each one hums at every moment its own secret melody in its own unique key. We tune in and out. But moments are not lost. Time out of mind is time nevertheless, cumulative, informing the present. From even the deepest slumber you wake with a jolt- older, closer to death, and wiser, grateful for breath. 

But time is the one thing we have been given, and we have been given to time. Time gives us a whirl. We keep waking from a dream we can’t recall, looking around in surprise, and lapsing back, for years on end. All I want to do is stay awake, keep my head up, prop my eyes open,... "

- Annie Dillard (1945 - )

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Boundaries

"Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answers. A question with no answer is a barrier that cannot be breached. In other words, it is questions with no answers that set the limit of human possibilities, describe the boundaries of human existence."

- Milan Kundera (1929 - )

Life's Timelessness

"The timeless in you

is aware of life's timelessness.

And knows that yesterday

is but today's memory

and tomorrow is today's dream."

- Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

The Prophet