The traces of thoughts

The traces of thoughts

To the roots of mountains ;
to the utmost heights of streams ;
to Sun and Moon ;
to the very womb of Cosmos…
Seek thee the source of all things good.

Hark the music of the Spheres
And be glad.

Watch the paths of shooting stars,
Feel the breath of world’s first wind,
In Ithilien fair scent first blooms
That touched the tastes of angels,
And recall.

Thine infinity is not thine own,
Sweet soul,
Nor yet thine personhood.

Your I you love and all admire
Is a universe indeed ;
Touched by angels it surely is,
But yet by something more.

Seek it with impressive drive ;
And strive to know it as ne’er before ;
And think the thoughts that from it come.

A worthy search, a worthy find.
A loveliness of other kind.

But pause …. and first recall your words …
And question boldly – then –
Find a thought that comes from I?

But ask not, “Whence comes I?”

Jamie MacNab 10/2011

After Atoms of Stars …  http://atomsofstars.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/the-inward-eye/

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Stars don’t count

Hardly a day passes without some sign of the profound mystery of the world coming to mind.  Thinking of its origins : the universe, in its early stages of evolution, is completely invisible to us. It is known to us only by essentially geometrical expressions and, because the universe had no objects in at that ‘time’, the geometry is non-metrical. It is all numbers.

But then, isn’t almost the whole of science numbers? science requires measurements and quantities. But where do these numbers reside? If we wanted to know how many stars there are in a particular cluster, we should not expect to find each star sporting a plate with its serial number on it. The numbers exist, not on or in the stars, but in the mind of the person who counts the stars. Likewise, there is no plate bearing the figure for the mass of each star. Neither do the stars present a direct figure to express the distances one from another. If we mentally construct three lines to join three stars, there is no direct apprehension of the angles subtended by the lines – and the lines themselves exist only in the mind that constructs them.

Mathematics is a language and, like all languages, it is a peculiarly human mental construct. In the English language, does the word ‘orange’ have any necessary connection with the orange itself? Words can be seen as signs which refer to things ; but are they the things themselves? Numbers can be seen as signs that refer to things ; but are they the things themselves? A road sign pointing to Birmingham has no necessary connection with Birmingham except that we say so.

Perhaps it is human beings that decide the meanings of numbers – but the universe might be quite indifferent to our opinions and decisions. I wonder what the implications might be?

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Celestial fireworks

Bombs generally are unpleasant things ; that is why it is good to think about them.  A bomb going off in a remote and uninhabited place would attract little attention from the news media.  But a bomb exploding in a crowded public place would be of national and international concern ; it would be at least a nine-day wonder.  Which is why the astronomical Big Bang comes a such a surprise ; or at least the attention given to it is a surprise ; for it certainly occurred in a remote place.

For some theorists, the Big Bang – the biggest anyone can even hope to imagine – did indeed occur in a remote and uninhabited place.  There was no mortal wight present to hear it, or to see it, or to feel it.  Indeed, if modern beliefs are true, the explosion was causeless ; no trigger set it off.  No agent planted that bomb.

The nature of that Big Bomb is so secret that nobody can verify what it was made of ; its ingredients were never seen.  But it is surmised that it was a small device considering its evident great power.  It packed a lot of bang per buck, as we might say.

So, the Bomb went Bang, and the universe was set to create itself.  The stuff of that bomb expanded under its own motive forces ; and as it expanded, so it evolved ; The stuff settled down to what we nowadays call ‘matter’.  After many evolutions, it eventually settled into the state we describe as being made of elements – and of more complex assemblies called compounds.

These states of matter are the residues of the Big Bang.  The countless stars, and the equally countless galaxies to which they belong  are, like the debris, dust and smoke that are the aftermath of a man-made bomb going off in some remote and uninhabited place on Earth.  But we must add that the man-made bomb is designed to a purpose, whereas the Biggest Bomb of All was entirely accidental.

And of course to a modern thinker, the evolution of life in the universe is a continuation of the evolution of matter.  Life is no more than complex matter.  And so, if we are very modern thinkers, we may conclude with confidence that homo sapiens is also no more than the detritus of that Big Bomb.

I cannot help thinking that our very modern thinkers are being very bold when they assert that they (the dust and debris of the universe) have somehow unlocked the mysteries of that universe.  Who is to say that Man is privy to the Natural Secrets, while rabbits and beetles aren’t?

What  might a Being who lives a million light-years away say to that?

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