... every cultural product or manifestation has... an
objective meaning in that it can be grasped without knowing anything about the "intentional
acts" of the individual "author" of the product or
manifestation. All we need know is the "system"... in terms of which
the data we perceive coalesce into a meaningful entity' Manheim, Karl cited in
Mysticism and Architecture, Paden, Roger.
The lovers of sights and sounds
The lovers of sights and sounds, I replied, are as I
conceive, fond of fine tones and colours and dorms and all the artificial
products that are made out of them. But their mind is incapable of seeing or
loving absolute beauty. True, he replied, few are they who are able to attain to
the sight of this. Very true, and he who having a sense of beautiful things but not absolute beauty or
who, if another led him to a knowledge
of that beauty, is unable to follow, of such and one I ask is he awake or in a
dream only? Reflect, is not the dreamer sleeping or waking, one who likens dissimilar
things, who puts a copy in the place of the real object? I should certainly say
that such, and one, was dreaming. But take the case of the other who recognises
the existence of absolute beauty and is able to distinguish the idea from the
objects which participate in the idea, neither putting the objects in the place
of the idea nor the idea on the place of the objects. Is he a dreamer or is he
awake? He is wide awake. And may we not say that the mind of the one who knows
has knowledge and that the mind of the other, who opines only, has opinion?
Certainly. The Republic Book 3
Omar Khayyam
For
in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis
nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd
in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round
which we Phantom Figures come and go.
The Rubayyat of Omar Khayyam
Verse XLVIII
Translated into English in 1859
by Edward FitzGerald
I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful.
Two mirrors, (60x25cm) one with mirroring removed in places.
Thales
Thales, it is said, was the first to inscribe a right-angled triangle into a circle. He is said to have sacrificed an ox in honour of his discovery.
Thales Theorum: if A,B and C are points on a circle where the line AC is a diameter of the circle , the the angle ABC is a right-angle.
Realms
Plato divides the world into realms. The realm of the forms was the highest, an intelligible, rather than experiential realm of truths. These forms, for Plato were more real than the everyday world because of their immutability and singularity, as opposed to the multiplicity and ever changing character of the world of men, analogised as the wall of flickering shadows in plato's cave.
"Plato has a system in which he makes a division between the material sensible world and what he terms, an other worldly realm of forms; of perfect, eternal, ideal, non-sensible principles. And those are the things that are truly real and everything in this world is simply representing it or imitating it. The ideas is that somehow we must try to get as close to the forms as we can and particularly the form of the good." Angie HobbsFrom In Our Time Neoplatonism BBC Radio 4 First Broadcast 19th April 2012
Hypnosis and sensation
I was watching the star and the star was watching me. We were poised, exactly equal weights, if one can think of awareness as a weight, held level in a balance. This seemed to endure and endure, I don't know how long, two entities equally suspended in a void, equally opposite, devoid of any meaning or feeling. There was no sensation of beauty, of morality, of divinity, of physical geometry; simply the sensation of the situation.
John Fowles, The Magus p.237
Heraclitus
Over the same rivers,Stepping into them,
Different and different waters flow.
Strict translation of Heraclitian aphorism You cannot step into the same river twice.
In Our Time 'Heraclitus' Last broadcast on Thu, 8 Dec 2011, 21:30 on BBC Radio 4
Heroism
On the fields of Troy a fallen soldier pleaded with Achilles the Greek hero to save his life. According to Homer Achilles replied, 'Do you not see what a man I am, how huge, how splendid, and born of a great father, and the Mother who bore me immortal? But even I have also my death and strong destiny, and there shall be a dawn or an afternoon or noontide, when some man in the fighting will take the life from me also. Either with a spear cast or an arrow flown from the bow-string.'
With that, Achilles killed him.
Cited on In Our Time 'Heroism', First Broadcast BBC Radio 4, 9:00AM Thu, 6 May 2004
Where do you think you'll end up by taking the Utopian Road? Do you really believe that this is the way out of the mistakes and the misery that surrounds us? Have you forgotten that this road is as long as the existence of man and that no one has ever found resting place along it? Can't you see that it is illuminated by a false light; that the footsteps you can hear advancing are the sounds of dreams; that the lakes you can see from it are a mirage, a shimmering fata morgana provided by the blinding sun? Superstudio, 1972.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
