Dear Kari and Learning-org,
''Language plays an active role in the development of scientific ideas."
David Peate
"Nothing is more usual than for philosophers to encroach on the province
of grammarians, and to engage in disputes of words, while they imagine
they are handling controversies of the deepest importance and concern."
David Hume
In Bohr's words, "We are suspended in language in such a way that we
cannot say what is up and what is down"
Bohm showed -how, " fixed forms and the insensitive use of language can
lead to blocks in scientific creativity, in particular the famous break
down in communication between Bohr and Einstein which he traced to the
different values and meanings that were placed on certain words and
concepts." Why? Because words and strings of them as sentences are just
quantum thinglys and come from places we know knot ;-)...
Language in science is not playing a passive role, not simply a vehicle
for meaning and information from one speaker to another. There is the
common presupposition that the essential role of language is to transport
a cargo which is variously described as meaning or content. In such a
light, scientific writing has, as ---its--- objective, the conveying of
''scientific knowledge'' to the reader in a clear and economical way.
The writings of Bohr and Bohm have made it clear that, in the evolution of
scientific thought, language is playing a more active role than is implied
by a passive vehicle which merely conveys information. In the context of
communication theory, linguists themselves have also pointed to the
inadequacies of this traditional viewpoint, for it is clear that the
listener is as active as the speaker in elaborating the content of the
message.
The idea of a mental space is most clearly understood in the case of
vision in which much of what we see is built out of what we already know.
Visual scanning of an exterior scene is not so much involved in conveying
"bits" of information to the brain as it is a part of an active and
ongoing process in which certain clues are sought for and visual
hypotheses are put forward and confirmed or modified.
"Some intimation of what is going on can be appreciated by looking at the
drawings of an artist like Matisse, or the sketches of Rembrant. In these
cases there is a considerable economy of marks upon the page, when
compared with the works of many other (often lesser) artists, yet the
final drawings are particularly satisfying. On the basis of the
"information content" conveyed to the brain by these marks it would appear
that such drawings are particularly impoverished. Nevertheless they arouse
considerable activity within the mind, for each mark on the paper can be
completed, or complemented, in a very rich way by the visual imagination
of the viewer. Indeed such drawings could be said to involve a play upon
the many complex visual strategies we use to fill in and complete what we
see. These strategies advance hypotheses, take us in new visual directions
and generate a whole dynamical feeling of space, form and movement."
(Peate and Bohm) - argue that there are strong parallels to be drawn
between the way in which the visual world is created and the way in which
language is used to create mental spaces. They therefore see that language
can play a particularly subtle and active role in the way scientists
communicate with each other and the ways in which new ideas are developed,
or can be blocked. "A particular characteristic of mathematics which
appears in one aspect to differentiate it from language is its appeal to
visual thinking. Of course geometry and topology make direct appeal to
visual conformation and to short cuts in thinking that require
manipulations in a sort of mental visual space. But visualizations also
occur in branches of mathematics that are not directly connected with the
properties of space. Mathematicians claim that some of their thinking is
quite different than that which uses language. Einstein himself appears to
have been aware of a level of thinking which involved muscular tensions
within the body and an almost tactile experience of space. In this sense
therefore mathematics would appear to be both more and less than a
language for while being limited in its linguistic capabilities it also
seems to involve a form of thinking that has something in common with art
and music."
Kari, look at this Titian for a moment, ((remember what I showed you)) ...
Picasso...about the ''handling of his marks'', like a innered-writing, it
has energy. Let me now cover all this part of the picture, the ostensible
subject matter of the Pope with my hand...look..it is just like a larger
part of a Picasso painting.
So long (sic;-) as we only ever see the 'subject' and 'surface' levels of
complex living structures, org's, soc's and comm's we never arrive at the
more whole appreciation of reality. Now Kari I have shown you in one
movement of my hand...and since I did not actually say these above words
then, but chose others ;-) because I knew your mind was opening like a
rose, you will no longer be like the couple with the book on their table,
in their garden who do not really fully appreciate the contribution of
artists to this the world. (Which was one reason I talked the the lady
campinologist about the 'noise of bells' and the ''essence'' of
''dissonance''...but you might recall, she was so enthused with the
physicality of her own ''relation'' to the ''music of the bells'', she was
in danger of...Mmmmmm.
Many people are, as Bohm describes it, restricted as people gazing at
cubist images are often restricted, like-- " a man walking on a vast
limitless planar surface and who concentrates his attention almost
exlusively on a very complex system of pathways along which he can
continue to walk indefinitely, whithout ever noticing that he is limited
in this was in not being able to look at what is above or below (within)
this surface. In this way the man embarks upon a similarly limitless and
complexly analytical path of explanations, he never leaves the 'plane'.
When you collapsed at my 'ricketypaitingtable' you were, as it is,
standing at the furthest edge of your ''pastpresentfuture''. You made the
leap and you flew. You ''slipped'' and you ''glimpsed'' as an America
artist once said it. You are now a ''slipping glimpser''.
There are energies in and surrounding that table, ''world'' (''old man'')
energies, Andrew energies, Anona energies, Leo energies, Terry
energies...wind energies, rain energies, sun energies, cloud energies,
birds that alight energies, bees that rest energies, colour energies,
light energies, fragrance energies, sky energies, earth energies, star and
moon energies, day and night energies, awake and asleep energies, all that
at your ''essos'' centre ;-) and all of that passing through the tip of
your fingers...Mmmmmm;-)
Recall you image that I shared with a plane ;-) hereabouts ;-) your image
not be understood as a particle but as a whole, a realised whole. (Read up
a bit;-) on what Paul Cezanne said about 'realizing' his 'sensations', and
'wholeness' and 'harmony'...and Bohm, what might he have seen in your
picture (in not on) which is an altogether new '' instanding ;-) '' of
''knowledge'' ;-)..."Kari, (Bohm speaks) my friend Albert and I both
believe that particles (not matter;-) how large or clever they appear to
be ;-) are not to be considered the starting point of reasoning about
reality. Rather, they have to be understood as abstractions from a stream
of events or a flow of a process, in which every object is regarded as an
essence, a relatively invariant form of such an abstraction. That is to
say that an object is now to be considered to be more like a pattern of
movement than like a solid separate things that exists autonomously. Any
localized structure may be described as a ''world tube'', brought into
existence in space and time from a broader background or context and
eventually dissolving into the background."
Kari, Albert, David and relatively ;-) stupid and ignoramus Andrew know
something very beautiful, and (''knowing''()''beautiful'') is not like
any kind of ''knowledge'' or ''information'' at all... reality now
includes your ''deams'' and ''visions'' and the 'reality of reality' is
both the most intense realization of you most innered self what i the
other day called to myself (INSTANDING) ...holding hands with the softest,
gentlest, nearest furthest...I know -> you know ;-) we don't have to say
it.
There is another woman of whom I was inspired to quote some old poem, by
John Donne. Her name is May. May understands these ''doings as knowings''.
May sometimes slips all the 'surly bonds'...it can be done...it is often
one a long way from home, when one is travelling.
Leonardo saw the future out of the past into the present ;-) You can do
that.
Andrew, Leonardo, David and Albert know this...
<Movement gives shape to all things
Structure gives order to movement>
And there, my darling you have a cosmos in a nutshell ;-)
I know that you ''instand'' what all this is about, what David took from
Leonardo's implicate present our past and I now place into your future,
that, A DEEPER AND MORE EXTENSIVE INNER MOVEMENT CREATES, MAINTAINS, AND
ULTIMATELY DISSOLVES STRUCTURE.
Kari<>pretty ;-) much every time i type ;-) ''disslove'' it comes out as
''dissolve''.
Here is a living voice from my fields...
"Andrew, never forget that imaginative truth is the only truth and yet
nature is all-powerful." Leonard McComb RA
Love,
'Uncle' Andrew
PS Look after the world, it is the only one we have ;-)
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