Less zendemic

“Literate man naturally dreams of visual solutions to the problems of human differences.”

“Electronic man. by becoming ever more deeply involved in the actualities of the human condition, cannot accept the literate cultural strategy.”

Marshall McLuhan   The Gutenberg Galaxy 

*****

Painting by Janney,

Under the willow,
the cat watches the birds,
the house watches the cat.
Flowers bloom.

One of the things about human beings is the practice of differentiating tings one from the other and giving them  a name, and then declaring doing this means you understand the “thing.*
Finding myself skulking around in the closet, sometimes what I do behind my back is more interesting . 

The concept of thing is pretty weird in itself.

No two things are exactly  alike, even if the only “thing” which differentiates them is their place in space, a descriptive fact  we do not know—we cannot measure  the position and the velocity of “thing” at the same time.

Of course that is science.

You may not “believe” in science and say its human will, not God’s will.

When you drive your car and approach a stop sign do  you and do you  put your foot on the brake or do you pray to God to stop the car?

Knowing requires noing,.

Science is not about what it knows, but how it knows what it knows.

They are equal things.

Science has the category of “thing” it calls facts, a discrete “thing” established through a  common method and meeting a formally accepted standard.

In science that standard is always challenged, and open to challenge. Reasons may include :

Regular human mistakes;

The process of  putting unknown things  in a group and when there are more we find differences among them and create new “things”;

Each new “scientific discovery” enables us to see the universe differently,  not just new “things,”  but we see the old “things” differently; and many other reasons.

I think its likely to go on forever.

Science is empirical, it means the process of knowing is sensual, through our senses— seeing, hearing, touching , smelling or hearing. Generally people have these abilities in a common range of capabilities and any  “scientific knowledge” can be tested again by any person who is willing and capable to  commit to the standards of science.

Science is a “democratic” methodology  of knowing as opposed to religion which is an “authoritarian” methodology of knowing.  In science you discover, enjoy and share knowing; in religion you are told what to know and to accept it on faith.

Still from a (western?) religious point of view discovering, enjoying  and sharing knowing  the universe is what got people into trouble  (with God) in the first place.

The “believing ” part of science is not about the knowledge but about the “process of knowing” or methodology. As an increase  in scientific knowledge  always increases  the capabilities of our sensual experiences, this methodology  means that scientific  knowledge  will always change.

This is different than S. Hawking says —I have  a cassette of lectures and some books—  regarding  knowing the universe, while philosophy was ahead of science, now science  is ahead of philosophy and would be until science knows  “every” “thing” about the universe and that end was foreseeable to Hawking,

I do not agree him, but then why should I bother my self with this issue, who is he compared to me . . .

I am just too busy looking at the world and finding myself.

Oh the awkwardness of it all, would you think I am invading someone’s privacy here   for a selfish reason such as to see myself?

I like to stand on the corners of Powell and California where pedestrians, bicycles, cars, trucks, motorcycles, and cable cars approach from all four sides approaching from steep  inclines or declines, and while there are traffic lights, they are blinking, no one who approaches  knows what to do, and are often frozen in place trying to figure it out . . . and the people behind them, who know or even don’t know  what is happening  but are about to find out, are frustrated.

And, there is a little building for an attendant who is there sometimes, some times not, and often when he was there—and I was there— he parked his blue BMW in a spot on the corner which interfered with the traffic flow often forcing two-lane traffic into one lane.

Do you think I look for something which I can never have? Or something I had and lost?  Maybe I was not capable of dealing with the situation?  allowed my feelings to control me?  or was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Sometimes is just  enough to not confuse me with my self—someone once said “The ego is the id on horse back.”

My meal finished, one short nap,
then getup for two bowls of tea.
I raise my head, look at the sun,
already declining in the southwest.
|The happy man regrets the swiftness of the days,
the sad man hates the year for dragging,
But the man neither happy or sad
accepts the life given him, long or short.

Po Chu-I  ( March 3,  772- September 8, 846)
Burton Watson translation