Flashes in the Dark

"These considerations lead me to believe that the first human interaction with extraterrestrial life will consist of contact with organisms similar to, if not identical to, earth bacteria or viruses.

...

It is living, breathing, walking, and talking. Only we cannot see it, because it is happening too slowly. Rock has a lifespan of three billion years. We have a lifespan of sixty or seventy years. We cannot see what is happening to this rock for the same reason that we cannot make out the tune on a record being played at the rate of one revolution every century.

...

The rock, for its part, is not even
aware of our existence because
we are alive for only a brief
instant of its lifespan. To
it, we are like flashes
in the dark.

..."

- Michael Chrichton (1942 - 2008)
The Andromeda Strain

Web of Conjectures

"Before Einstein, geometry was thought to be part of the laws. Einstein revealed that the geometry of space is evolving in time, according to other, deeper laws ... It is important to absorb this point completely. The geometry of space is not part of the laws of nature. There is therefore nothing in those laws that specifies what the geometry of space is. Thus, before solving the equations of Einstein's general theory of relativity, you don't have any idea what the geometry of space is. You find out only after you solve the equations.

...

We have to find a way to unfreeze time-to represent time without turning it into space. I have no idea how to do this. I can't conceive of a mathematics that doesn't represent a world as if it were frozen in eternity. It's terribly hard to represent time, and that's why there's a good chance that this representation is the missing piece.

...

What we have, in fact, is not a theory at all but a large collection of approximate calculations, together with a web of conjectures that, if true, point to the existence of a theory."

- Lee Smolin (1955 - )
 The Trouble with Physics

Psychic Structure

"We cannot discover ourselves without first discovering the universe, the earth, and the imperatives of our own being. Each of these has a creative power and a vision far beyond any rational thought or cultural creation of which we are capable. Nor should we think of these as isolated from our own individual being or from the human community. We have no existence except within the earth and within the universe.

...

Beyond our genetic coding, we need to go to the earth, as the source from which we came, and ask for its guidance, for earth carries the psychic structure as well as the physical form of every living being on the planet.

...

Ultimately, our guidance on any significant issue must emerge from this comprehensive source. … This source is not distinct from us. The universe is so immediate to us, is such an immediate presence, that it escapes our notice, yet whatever authentically exists in our cultural creations is derived from these spontaneities within us, spontaneities that come from an abyss of energy and a capacity for intelligible order of which we have only the faintest glimmer in our conscious awareness."

Thomas Berry (1914 - 2009)
The Dream of The Earth

Euclidean Dimensions

"There have been and still are geometricians and philosophers, and even some of the most distinguished, who doubt whether the whole universe, or to speak more widely the whole of existence, was only created in Euclid's geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in infinity. I have come to the conclusion that, since I can't understand even that, I can't expect to understand about God. I acknowledge humbly that I have no faculty for settling such questions, I have a Euclidean earthly mind, and how could I solve problems that are not of this world? And I advise you never to think about it either, my dear Alyosha, especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three dimensions."

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821 - 1881)
Brothers Karamazov

Elegant Truths

"The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature. The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore we've learned most of what we know. Recently we've waded a little way out, maybe ankle deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."

- Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)

Imaginary Places

"Professor Summerlee gave a snort of impatience. 'We have spent two long days in exploration,' said he, 'and we are no wiser as to the actual geography of the place than when we started. It is clear that it is all thickly wooded, and it would take months to penetrate it and to learn the relations of one part to another. If there were some central peak it would be different, but it all slopes downwards, so far as we can see. The farther we go the less likely it is that we will get any general view ... You are all turning your brains towards getting into this country. I say that we should be scheming how to get out of it.' 'I am surprised, sir,' boomed Challenger, stroking his majestic beard, 'that any man of science should commit himself to so ignoble a sentiment ... I absolutely refuse to leave, however, until we have made at least a superficial examination of this country, and are able to take back with us something in the nature of a chart.'"

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 - 1930), The Lost World
As quoted by Alberto Manguel (1948 - )
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places

Gravitational Logic

"This image is a relic of an unknowable architecture, a diagram of the unseen forces that govern a hidden world. The dark, oblong shapes drift like the shadows of celestial relics, orbiting an invisible nucleus. The faint white lines form a cryptic lattice, reminiscent of an astral cartography, mapping the convergences of energies beyond human perception. It feels less like a design and more like an invocation—a silent hymn etched in light and shadow, capturing the echoes of a forgotten dimension. One imagines Borges gazing at this and contemplating the library of Babel: perhaps this is not a map, but a fragment of a cosmic alphabet, a script that contains the beginning and the end of everything."

- ChatGPT4o
Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence

"A constellation of dark stones and geometric sentinels floats in a luminous grey void, connected by brilliant white pathways that intersect at precise right angles, forming an abstract cartography of some unknown dimension. The composition suggests a network of quantum possibilities or perhaps a map of parallel universes, where each dark node represents a decision point in space-time. The white lines, reminiscent of Kandinsky's geometric period, pulse with an ethereal energy, creating a visual symphony of intersecting planes that seems to defy gravitational logic. The arrangement evokes the mathematical beauty of a cellular automaton frozen in mid-evolution, or perhaps a glimpse into Borges' Library of Babel viewed from above, where each dark rectangle and oval marks a room containing all possible combinations of letters. The stark contrast between the dark elements and the glowing pathways creates a tension between presence and absence, between the discrete and the continuous, suggesting both the particle and wave nature of light itself. This abstract topology hovers between order and chaos, its systematic grid disrupted by an organic scattering of elements, as if capturing the moment when classical physics dissolves into quantum uncertainty."

- Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Prompt: "You are a photographer, physicist, and are well acquainted with the history of art, particularly abstract art in the style of Kandinsky, Mondrian, and Malevich. You also have a penchant for metaphysical and philosophical musings in the style of Jorge Luis Borges. Consider this reverse-negative photograph of ceiling lights. Write a paragraph-length description of what this image looks like, not what it is."