Sometimes I think I’m hostile to science, perhaps because I give this impression to others. In fact I have no argument with science, except when it’s claimed that the science they call science is the only science. That is like saying that the Lord God of Israel is the only true god.
Art and Science: what’s the difference? Same as the difference between feeling and fact, I suppose.
Their science, public science, is devoted to asking “why?” questions; learning the secrets of cause and effect; applying their Promethean power to “improve” (at any rate to change irrevocably) the world around us. Mine is more interested in asking “what?” Not “What is the moon really?” but “What do I really see?” I once learned it’s a sphere of rock orbiting the earth, and have no argument with that. I don’t think it’s (she’s) a goddess, though I might have, if I lived three thousand years ago. Did they fuss about things being literally true in those days? As Francis says in his latest post :
I can find inspiration in a message which proclaims hope beyond hopelessness, vindication beyond failure, new joy beyond despair. Where I cannot journey with the Christians is their assertion that their narrative is a basically factual statement …
The moon I see is sometimes a disc, sometimes a crescent. It seems important to see what I see and not censor it in favour of what I’ve been taught, whether by scientist, preacher or poet.
My science, the kind I can practise for myself, has doctrines of its own. I must learn to see what I see, feel what I feel. It is the science of “What? What do you see, with your naked senses? What do you feel, in your unrepressed emotions?”
My science takes universal oneness as axiomatic on the straightforward basis that I can feel it. Not all the time, but that doesn’t matter. We take the sun as a given, though we’re not warmed by its rays all the time. Oneness implies that whatever I can feel, so can you, in principle; and I see no reason to deny feeling to any part of nature. Says Wordsworth in The Prelude:
I felt that the array
Of act and circumstance, and visible form,
Is mainly to the pleasure of the mind
What passion makes them; that meanwhile the forms
Of Nature have a passion in themselves,
That intermingles with those works of man
To which she summons him; . . .
In my science, the theory of evolution should acknowledge the role of desire embedded into all creatures. Giraffes have long necks because of natural selection, yes, but also because they desired to forage for foliage high in the trees.
I’ve just emerged from three or four days devoid of creative impetus, a state of comprehensive ennui when I didn’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything; as if my lifeblood had been replaced by dishwater. I read Rubye Jack’s blog, where she writes “Something I have little of at the moment is energy, and I've noticed that the older I get the less I seem to have.” And I thought to myself, better get used to it, it’s age wot does it.
This morning the ennui was gone, as mysteriously as it had come. In accordance with my science of “what” rather than “why”, I note the exuberant joy of my perceptions and feelings, back to the habitual level which too often I take for granted and fritter away on misplaced effort or idle indulgence.
So what is my kind of science, in practice? What kind of phenomenon is investigated? Miracles: not why or how, merely what. The process is merely to observe, drawing no conclusions—except one, always the same:
“This has happened. Therefore it can happen.”
Narrowing the scope even further, the only miracles I can observe are those which happen to me. There’s a time limitation too. I can only observe them as long as the feeling lasts, as long as the naked senses can retain the sight, sound, taste and smell.
And there is one more thing, to make it real science, as opposed to the simple flow of a lucky life. I should report my findings.
Here.
14 comments:
It is in living that life is lived.
And that is a purely spontaneous reaction - without thinking any whys - to your post.
Maybe a kind of koan ... :-)
Francis' statement on Christianity pretty much sums up my own feels on the matter.
As to the crescent moon, I sometimes try to discern the rest of the moon's shape out of the darkness. Then I wonder if there really was a time when they thought the moon was changing shapes. That would be weird.
Your statement near the end: "This has happened. Therefore it can happen." reminds me of a quote from the movie Magnolis (if I might make my own recommendation). When it starts raining frogs, this kid says, "This happens! This is something that happens!"
Should be "my own feelings on the matter." I'm really bad with the typos today.
And the movie is called: Magnolia
*sigh*
By the way, I notice also your rhetorical question about people in the old days fussing about literal truth. I've been meaning to mention something about that for a while now, a tendency I noticed. I wonder if that isn't a bit of projection on your part. It's easy in hindsight to credit ancient notions with a certain poetic naivete'. For instance, the notion of the moon changing shape appeals to you because you KNOW it's nonsense. Then you look at ancient people who believed the moon changed shape and go, "Yes! These are my kind of people!" But yet, I'm sure these folks took their notions about the moon just as seriously - and just as literally - as we do, and were in fact quite ready to execute people who claimed otherwise. Nothing too charming about that. Right?
Well, I may be guilty of hinting things rather than spelling out unambiguously what I mean, and this may have caused you to do a bit of projection yourself, to fill the gaps.
I meant to respond to your paragraph -
"As to the crescent moon, I sometimes try to discern the rest of the moon's shape out of the darkness. Then I wonder if there really was a time when they thought the moon was changing shapes. That would be weird"
- to say i had exactly the same thoughts as you.
My question re fussing about the literal truth arose from the Greek gods and goddesses, particularly Phoebe, Artemis, Selene and Hecate as goddesses of the moon. I didn't make up the idea of the Greeks not believing literally in their own myths, but got it from reading. Some would certainly believe, to the extent of attending sacred rituals and taking them very seriously. For others, it was a literary and cultural tradition. It's the same today, as surveyed by Francis in his Good Friday post.
When you say that the idea of the moon changing shape is nonsense, of course it is, if we already know it is a rock travelling in space. I'm not sure that they knew that, but they knew that lumps of rock don't change shape much.
"Then you look at ancient people who believed the moon changed shape and go, 'Yes! These are my kind of people!' "
Now this is nonsense & projection on your part as is the idea that ancient people were ready to execute people who had different notions about the moon.
I said nothing to indicate that I thought the ancient people were charming: only that they had, quite necessarily, different ideas. And this was precisely because their science had not developed the knowledge we have today.
But my example of the moon illustrates the point I was trying to make, that there can be a different science: one that uses what I call "the naked senses", a science of subjectivity, if you will.
For our perceptions and subjectivity are just as worthy of study as anything else in the universe. They are the windows through which we see everything, and they evolved along with everything.
I'm not battling for subjectivity against objectivity, not battling at all. Just voicing a viewpoint that's often neglected.
Seeing is (one is tempted to say) more than meets the eye. You can see in different ways, as indeed artists do and encourage us to do likewise. If you follow Gina's (Pagan Sphinx's) link at the bottom of this post to her feature on Max Weber, there's an illustration of this, and a quote from Weber too:
"In a 1915 newspaper article he stated that his aim at the time was to express 'not what I see with my eye but with my consciousness . . . mental impressions, not mere literal matter-of-fact copying of line and form. I want to put the abstract into concrete terms.' "
Hmm, it seems you may have taken my comment as bit more confrontational than I had intended. I'm not looking to pick a fight, and in facthope that's mostly behind us. I should have put it as a more general observation, something people frequently do. If I have misapplied it to you I apologize.
For instance, people often do this same thing with children. They credit them with a special wisdom for embracing what we adults would consider nonsense. When I was little, the first time I went to AZ it was by plane. Therefore I believed that AZ was in the clouds somewhere and you had to fly to get there. Even when we drove on subsequent trips, I thought the car sprouted wings while I slept. An adult would look at that and say, "How cute! How imaginative." But at the time of course, it was serious business. I believed it every bit as I now believe the world is round, and with same cold logic. You have to fly to get there, therefore it's up in the air.
Anyway, just making friendly conversation.
Yes, there's a whole industry based on fostering children's imaginative faculties, before they get skilled in recognizing what's nonsense and what's not. Rudolf Steiner's Waldorf education system for example. My grandson goes to one such school. the idea seems to be that you go through an evolution of consciousness. In the first classes they have nothing made of plastic. Everything is primitive, made of wood and rushes etc. Their drawings are colour-washes. They become steeped in myths, collect feathers and pine cones, observe Christian and pagan feast days and rituals. They don't learn to read too early, giving them the chance to relive oral traditions. Then they catch up rapidly and by the time they do stuff like physics or economics, they come to it fresh, ready to start making their way in today's world as well-equipped participants, whichever kind of career they end up in.
Francis, if I had the use of the Reply facility, now would be the time to connect this comment with yours. (But I dsabled it!)
Yes, it is a good koan! It makes me pause, seeking a logical connection between It is in living that life is lived and the content of the post.
I oscillate, not getting it, then suddenly getting it. Then when I ask "why?" & try to explain it, I lose it again.
So, you're sort of an ontological solipsist? Studying reality but only as it pertains to and is observed by you?
But then really, is there any other way?
That's an interesting thought, Rev. I would say, rather, quoting William Blake:
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would be seen as it is, infinite.
I wouldn't presume to argue with either your or Mr. Blake this early in the morning. I'll just drop one...little...link.
Thanks, Bryan. For not arguing. As for the link, I've nothing to say!
http://www.ted.com/talks/aaron_o_connell_making_sense_of_a_visible_quantum_object.html
A illustrative example of Intuition as a complement to Logic.
I learned as a teen, with the help of an Artist neighbor, that seeing with the eye of an artist is not simply taking things literally. In fact, adding the unseen, and seemingly illogical elements to your work can, in many ways, make the work seem more real.
Seeing differently is what separates an artist from one who thinks they cannot draw. Sure, there is the physical eye to hand coordination required to take what you see and manipulate some medium to render your vision.
However, seeing something completely, as it sits in the world around it, with all the connections rendered as well as the object itself, that is what makes a difference. That is what makes it a work of art.
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