Imagination is a key. But, how do you keep imagination from running
amok?
How do you keep it on course? Answer: with longing, but with longing
of the
right kind. Longing can be pleasurable, but the deepest longing with
which
we have experience is at times of death. Then the portals are opened
wide
as we pine for what has been lost and we hope for the best.
In less grave circumstances, how might one control the longing that
directs one's
imagination? Here we meet a gate leading to the moral dimensions of
natural
philosophy. Don't run! I'll be brief and leave the preaching to others.
We stand
at the gate with a key, but the key will not work if our imagination
is false and
heartless. How can an artist control his arrowy vision without ruining
it?
Great art flourishes because it connects with the mystery of life. Great
art reaches
into this mystery, but it never hits bottom. Instead, it passes the
probe over to you
so that you can play with sounding the depths. What's the point? What
can be
relevant about the probing of a few disturbed artists? What if you
do not want
to play this game? Will you be cut out of some cosmic plan?
You are not being asked to paint or write poetry. Instead, you are being
encouraged to reach out, like Michelangelo's Adam,
for the hand of God.
This is where the moment of flight begins. It is in part, the movement
of Adam's
hand towards God that gives him the vital spark. His flame will then
be almost
self sustaining so long as he does not carelessly snuff it out. What
ancient man
did naturally and unconsciously, you must do with a conscious effort.
Through
your personal initiative, the mirror becomes a lamp.
The art of teaching
Begins with reaching
For outstretched hands
Above and below where you stand.
See how the nourishment is passed
from the first to the very last.
Reach high and then reach down
to your students gathered around.
Before your students can learn
A hunger in their hearts must burn.
Regardless of how the goal is hidden
Your students must always feel bidden.
Their lessons cannot be forced,
preached or coerced.
You must be subtle, sly and allusive
If your students are to be pensive.
To catch a student’s attention,
You must show more than wisdom.
Trickery and fancy must be employed
If your lessons are to be enjoyed.
To each of them, show that you care
And from their faces there will be no blank stare.
On their own, let them dig and lay bare
The treasures hidden in your lair.
You are being encouraged to consciously do what nature does unconsciously
all of the time. What do plants do? They reach, stretch
and intertwine themselves
in a web of life. Plants do it unconsciously because they do not have
an imagination.
As they seek water and nutrients they probe, test and explore ultimate
reality as well
as any artist or scientist, but of course in their own way. The simultaneous
probing
by all plants is what creates their web of life, their ecosystem. This
ecosystem includes
their interactions with animals and life forms that are not clearly
plant, animal or mineral.
In their own peculiar way, many animals are conscious of their environment.
They don't
experience it literally as we do apart from ourselves. However, they
constantly explore
and test it. The net result of this primordial teaming and reaching
is a healthy and dynamic
ecosystem coupled to the air we breathe and grounded in simple rocks
and minerals.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) described this incessant probing and testing
as being like
a thousand wedges being thrust into every unexploited gap in the fabric
of life.
Nature is constantly splitting open because at bottom, there is a restless
fermenting
substratum of sheer potential.
Inanimate matter is constantly sampling all of its possibilities. The
simple task of
changing from one state to another is achieved by simultaneously trying
all of the
possible routes. Using calculus, one can sum up all of the possible
pathways and
then discover the ones that are reinforced the most. The dominant or
most pronounced
behavior is often the one that is the most efficient. It is the "winner"
in a Darwinian
like competition in the inanimate world. Through these primordial strivings
and
reinforcements a stunning Grand Canyon can be formed.
The physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988) extended these classical applications
of
"The Principal of Least Action" to quantum physics. He let every possible
way of
accomplishing a task be treated on an equal footing. He then superimposed
the alternatives
using a way of summing (calculus) that is the essence of quantum physics.
I won't go into it
here, but it involves "2-dimensional" complex numbers and the venerable
superposition
principal. The end result is fantastically accurate predictions. A
readable summary of this
democratic summing over all possible histories can be found in Feynman's
book QED.
(The title stands for quantum electrodynamics).*
Each prediction in science can be reduced to a number. In the realms
of pure mathematics,
we can contemplate how any number can be realized as the sum of an
infinite series of finer
numbers, ad infinitum, and we can study how all numbers are interrelated
in strange and
unexpected ways. We now have a long climb from Platonic and Pythagorean
intuitions,
to inanimate matter, to plants, to animals and finally to conscious
and imaginative beings
like ourselves. Our "small vessel on fine lines" has hit upon some
choppy waters here while
trying to rush together the spirits of science and art. It is a controversial
task that has been
tackled before by none less than Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832).
Following Goethe,
let us again pick up the golden thread from matter to mind.
Take me higher!
Web surfers who have wormholed directly to this level could profit
by exploring the levels they have missed. Click below to jump to
.. Level 0 .. Level
1 .. Level 2 .. Level 3
.. Level 4 .. Level 5
.. Level 6 ..
.. Level 7 .. Level
8 ..