- Benjamin Hoff (1946 - )
The Tao of Pooh
Tuesday, November 02, 2021
Wu Wei
Sunday, October 31, 2021
Mind-Stuff
- Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882 - 1944)
Postscript. I have long been intrigued by the propensity of some of history's great physicists to wax mystical when engaged about the "meaning" of it all (e.g., Stephen Hawking's "fire" that breathes life into our equations, and the "bit" behind John Archibald Wheeler's It-from-Bit:
"It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom, at a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation; that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." (John Archibald Wheeler, 1911- 2008)
For those of you interested in taking a slightly deeper dive into the possible relationship among the ontology of quantum physics, Jungian psychology, and Eddington's thoughts on a "conscious universe," there is also this open access paper that was published a few years ago in the Behavioral Sciences journal, and from which I borrowed the quote that appears above. While the paper makes only an indirect mention of art (and refers to photography even more obliquely), spiritually inclined readers are likely to resonate with its illuminating discussion of how consciousness is entangled with the "mystical mind"; and of how we - as conscious creative beings - both instantiate ourselves within and "see" the universe at large.
Saturday, October 30, 2021
Dreams and Mirrors
Not only in front of the impenetrable crystal
Where there ends and begins, uninhabitable,
An impossible space of reflections,
Made me so fearful of a glancing mirror.
- Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986)
“Mirrors” in Dreamtigers
Friday, October 29, 2021
Limits of the World
mean the limits of my world.
Logic fills the world: the limits
of the world are also its limits.
We cannot therefore say in logic:
This and this there is in the
world, that there is not.
For that would apparently presuppose
that we exclude certain possibilities,
and this cannot be the case since
otherwise logic must get outside
the limits of the world:
that is, if it could consider these
limits from the other side also.
What we cannot think,
that we cannot think:
we cannot therefore say
what we cannot think."
Sunday, October 24, 2021
Seeing the Tree
Thursday, October 21, 2021
The Nature of Water
- Bruce Lee (1940 - 1973)
Artist of Life
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Beyond Language
- Inger Christensen (1935 - 2009)
The Condition of Secrecy