to live here stupidly…

“actually, there are countless ways to live upon this tremorous sphere in mirth and good health, and probably only one way – the industrial, urbanized, herding way – to live here stupidly, and man has hit upon that one way.”

tom robbins

 

at one point, i became disillusioned with being one of a thousand visitors stomping on the galapagos. most of the animals i saw were either eating rubbish, or being harassed by a khaki wearing two-legger with a camera (include me in there – but without the khaki).

hence, i put down my camera, stopped bothering the live animals, and instead bothered the live tourists.

“please sir will you take a picture of me with this giant headless flamingo?”

i am very grateful to all the lovely volunteers.

my disillusion is with us as a herd, rather than us as individuals. seems when we grow in number, our ability to put the plastic bottle in the recycle bin, and the half-chewed fish burger in the garbage, evaporates.

why is that?

complementarity (compromise) in science and life

“so there are two styles of science typified by athens and manchester,

einstein and rutherford,

abstract and concrete,

unifying and diversifying.

the two styles are not in conflict with one another. they are complementary, giving us two views of the universe which are both valid but cannot both be seen simultaneously.

the word “complementary” has here the technical meaning that it has in niels bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics [i.e the particle and wave aspects of physical objects…like bubbles]. according to bohr, an electron cannot be pictured as a simple material object but must be described by two complementary pictures emphasizing its particle behaviour and its wave behaviour separately.

einstein and rutherford gave us complementary views of science, and each was too single-mindedly attached to his own view to understand the other. 

both of them , for opposite reason, rejected the compromise which bohr’s notion of complementarity offered them.”

freeman dyson

unshaken assurance

“[on scientists]…they are apt unconsciously to assume that they already enjoy a good bird’s-eye view of what reality is, combined with an unshaken assurance about what it is not.

they tacitly suppose that every discovery, if genuine, will find its place within the framework of a perfected physics, and, if it does not, may be summarily dismissed as mere superstition.”

lord balfour, 1925, in science, religion, and reality

“…neither of the humility of the mystic seeker for God, nor the humility of reason acknowledging its limits…”

arthur koestler, 1959, in the sleepwalkers: a history of man’s changing vision of the universe

inherently incalculable

“the story of man is something more than a mere continuation of the story of matter…

if we cannot calculate the course of human history, that is because (among other reasons) it is inherently incalculable.

no two specimens of humanity exactly resemble each other, or live in circumstances that are exactly comparable. the so called “repetitions” of history are never more than vague resemblances. the science of history therefore, if there be one, is something quite different from (say) the science of physics.

…when man is regarded as a spiritual agent in a world under spiritual guidance, events of spiritual significance cannot be wholly judged by canons of criticism which seem sufficient for simpler cases.”

bronislaw malinowski (1925) in science, religion, and reality

new years eve - quito, ecuador

common inspiration

“…the twin threads of Science and Religion

…falling apart and re-uniting again,

now tied up in knots,

now running parallel courses,

and ending in the polite and deadly ‘divided house of faith and reason’ of our day,

where,

on both sides,

symbols have hardened into dogmas,

and the common source of inspiration is lost from view.”

arthur koestler