Friday, June 10, 2016

Electrons, Protons, and Chess


"When you ask what are electrons and protons I ought to answer that this question is not a profitable one to ask and does not really have a meaning. The important thing about electrons and protons is not what they are but how they behave, how they move. I can describe the situation by comparing it to the game of chess. In chess, we have various chessmen, kings, knights, pawns and so on. If you ask what chessman is, the answer would be that it is a piece of wood, or a piece of ivory, or perhaps just a sign written on paper, or anything whatever. It does not matter. Each chessman has a characteristic way of moving and this is all that matters about it. The whole game of chess follows from this way of moving the various chessmen."

- Paul A. M. Dirac (1902 - 1984)

Wednesday, June 08, 2016

Light and Peace


"Thus Gotama [Buddha] walked toward
the town to gather alms,
and the two samanas recognized him
solely by the perfection of his repose,
by the calmness of his figure,
in which there was no trace of seeking,
desiring, imitating, or striving,
only light and peace."

- Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962)

Tuesday, June 07, 2016

Constituent Parts


"The entire range of living matter on Earth from whales to viruses and from oaks to algae could be regarded as constituting a single living entity capable of maintaining the Earth's atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those of its constituent parts."

- James Lovelock (1919 - )

Monday, June 06, 2016

Organ of Perception


"If we see in thinking the capacity to comprehend more than can be known to the senses, we are forced on to recognize the existence of objects over and above those we experience in sense perception. Such objects are Ideas. In taking possession of the Idea, thinking merges itself into the World Mind. What was working without now works within. Man has become one with the World Being at its highest potency. Such a becoming-realized of the Idea is the true communion of man. Thinking has the same significance for ideas as the eye for light and the ear for sound. It is an organ of perception."

- Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925)

Sunday, June 05, 2016

Complete Mind


"Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses; especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else."

- Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

Thursday, June 02, 2016

Outside Space and Time


"But the solution to the riddle of life and space and time lies outside space and time. For, as it should be abundantly clear by now, nothing inside a frame can state, or even ask, anything about that frame. The solution, then, is not the finding of an answer to the riddle of existence, but the realization that there is no riddle. This is the essence of the beautiful, almost Zen Buddhist closing sentences of the Tracticus: 'For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. The riddle does not exist.'"

- Paul Watzlawick (1921 - 2007)

Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Ocean of Being


"We should not for a moment
consider even our best-established
knowledge of existence as true.
It is awareness only of the
colors that our own vision paints
on the film of one bubble
in one strand of foam
on the ocean of being."

- Olaf Stapledon (1886 - 1950)