For the sake of this Frenchman (1875-1937) In order of preference. Hah.
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For the sake of this Frenchman (1875-1937) In order of preference. Hah.
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Today I read the following quote by Johannes Kepler:
"Now there is need, Urania, of a grander sound, while I ascend by the harmonic stair of the celestial motions to higher things, where the true archetype of the fabric of the world is laid up and preserved. Follow me, modern musicians, and attribute it to your arts, unknown to antiquity: in these last centuries, Nature, always prodigal of herself, has at last brought forth, after an incubation of twice a thousand years, you, the first true offprint of the universal whole. By your harmonizing various voices, and through your ears, she has whispered herself, as she is in her innermost bosom, to the human mind, most beloved daughter of God the Creator" Kepler is very well known for his mathematical attributions for I. Newton's work. But he thought that each planet, geometrically speaking (in the geometrical terms of the time), was harmonious to the Sun and the previous planets. That was a way of thought back then (1600's). The scientific revolution, and the praise for human knowledge was prefacing the Enlightenment. Also, this was a time in which polyphony was growing to reach a huge breakthrough (Bach). Now, there's more complexity between planets, more complexity within harmony than what Kepler thought. But in his time, and the way of thinking of that time was harmonious with his thought. We tend to connect our ideas with our known experience/tradition and thoughts on reality; and one of the big beauties of ideological innovation is that it can disprove a big amount of other ideas that were constructed out of a fundamental one. For example, notice in the quote the word "God" tells a lot of Kepler's way of thinking, and how geometry and harmony was according to his belief in a perfect architect. After century later, the Enlightenment would be praising human reason above all, and its capacity to explain everything, including human behavior. Things became interestingly complex then, Mozart was there, Bach was there, Beethoven too. It strikes me how every aspect of society can have a huge impact on the way theories develop. Now, some think there's a lot of chaos (which has order within it), there are lots of mindsets, and the way we create is less centralized. "The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is of noteworthy kind. They are dependent upon each other. Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is—insofar as it is thinkable at all—primitive and muddled. However, no sooner has the epistemologist, who is seeking a clear system, fought his way through to such a system, than he is inclined to interpret the thought-content of science in the sense of his system and to reject whatever does not fit into his system. The scientist, however, cannot afford to carry his striving for epistemological systematic that far. He accepts gratefully the epistemological conceptual analysis; but the external conditions, which are set for him by the facts of experience, do not permit him to let himself be too much restricted in the construction of his conceptual world by the adherence to an epistemological system. He therefore must appear to the systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous opportunist: he appears as realist insofar as he seeks to describe a world independent of the acts of perception; as idealist insofar as he looks upon the concepts and theories as free inventions of the human spirit (not logically derivable from what is empirically given); as positivist insofar as he considers his concepts and theories justified only to the extent to which they furnish a logical representation of relations among sensory experiences. He may even appear as Platonist or Pythagorean insofar as he considers the viewpoint of logical simplicity as an indispensable and effective tool of his research." - Einstein We strive to understand our own mind, which is pretty complex and the only means to get to that end is the mind itself. It's some kind cyclical-never-ending-loop. But I was just thinking about is these concepts we have for "perfect": a perfect circle, a perfect god, a perfect "etc.". Or even when we talk about "essence" and platonic ideals we recur to these concepts that are merely personal. But these thoughts let us see the universe with certain lens so at least we have a sense of the chaos that surrounds us, we try to put it in words, languages, and we call math one of those languages that only talks truth when actually it is also a human construct. How accurate it is, and how it explains the universe is a wide and complex question. But I want to focus in this case in the circle and the zero, because we have an idea of what a "perfect circle" is, or what "zero" means. But they just don't exist in a tangible, visible reality (so far as we know). But those keep us in the quest for some truth, some pattern that explains these concepts. Or maybe truth can be explained with the concepts. In the case of the zero, we understand it as "nothing" when there's no such thing as absolutely nothing in our Universe, so far as I know. It is just a scenario in our brain in which we subtract everything we know exists. But, in any sense, different cultures in the past that never had contact with one another, discovered this number, our minds somehow searched for some symbol to explain this "inexistent" nothingness. Also, with the circle. In order to find the area of a circle within the rules of our mathematical language we must use Pi, which is an irrational never ending number. And if we think we can explain nature with numbers, then how can we explain this number that creates that perfection in our minds, which is just another part of nature? (Conceptually, Euclid mentioned that "A circle is a plane figure contained by one line such that all the straight lines falling upon it from one point among those lying within the figure equal one another.", we can create that but how can we prove every characteristic accurately within our idea of perfection?). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle Picturing our imperfect, little minds, trying to explain something so vast and something so complex and chaotic as the Universe (with concepts of perfection) might be confusing and we might wonder why do we ask these questions. But the quest for meaning and ways to live better as humans in a world which is part of us as much as we are part of it is what makes it more beautiful. Franc is a Guatemalan musician/friend with a beautiful voice. He's been composing and making music for a while, his sounds are organic and well structured in my opinion. Listen! An Eskimo showed me a movie he'd recently taken of you The poor man could hardly stop shivering, his lips and his fingers were blue I suppose that he froze when the wind tore off your clothes And I guess he just never got warm, but you stand there so nice in your blizzard of ice Oh please let me come into the storm!
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