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I have registered the arbitrarities of Wilkins, of the unknown (or false) Chinese encyclopaedia writer and of the Bibliographic Institute of Brussels; it is clear that there is no classification of the Universe not being arbitrary and full of conjectures. The reason for this is very simple: we do not know what thing the universe is. “The world - David Hume writes - is perhaps the rudimentary sketch of a childish god, who left it half done, ashamed by his deficient work; it is created by a subordinate god, at whom the superior gods laugh; it is the confused production of a decrepit and retiring divinity, who has already died” (‘Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion’, V. 1779). We are allowed to go further; we can suspect that there is no universe in the organic, unifying sense, that this ambitious term has. If there is a universe, it’s aim is not conjectured yet; we have not yet conjectured the words, the definitions, the etymologies, the synonyms, from the secret dictionary of God. |
✖ Via “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins” by Jorge Luis Borges. Translated from the Spanish ‘El idioma analítico de John Wilkins’ by Lilia Graciela Vázquez; edited by Jan Frederik Solem with assistance from Bjørn Are Davidsen and Rolf Andersen. A translation by Ruth L. C. Simms can be found in Jorge Luis Borges, Other inquisitions 1937-1952 (University of Texas Press, 1993) This very short essay contains the famous reference to the bizarre animal classification allegedly listed by an unknown Chinese encyclopedia. Learn more about the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge’s taxonomy on Wikipedia. The extent to which we do not understand very well what is taxonomy (we all experience certain difficulties when comes the time to classify things : think of your fridge for instance, or the desk you’re sitting at right now) certainly will be reflected in the ways bloggers are going to handle the new custom taxonomy user interface as well as custom post type capabilities within the upcoming WordPress 3.0. For a fun approach of the problems to come, read about Content Post Madness. |
• May 29, 2010 link notes tagged:
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No concept, not even those of mathematics, is absolutely precise; and some of the most important for everyday use are extremely vague. Nevertheless, our instinctive beliefs involving such concepts are far more trustworthy than the best established results of science, if these be precisely understood. For instance, we all think that there is an element of order in the universe. Could any laboratory experiments render that proposition more certain than instinct or common sense leaves it? It is ridiculous to broach such a question. But when anybody undertakes to say precisely what that order consists in, he will quickly find he outruns all logical warrant. Men who are given to defining too much inevitably run themselves into confusion in dealing with the vague concepts of common sense. |
✖ Via “Answers to Questions Concerning My Belief in God” by Charles Sander Peirce, 1906 |
• Apr 14, 2010 link notes tagged:
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Contrary to “primitive” peoples, who endow everything that moves with personal expression ―or even the first Greeks, who deified every aspect and force of nature―modern humans are obsessed by the need to depersonalize (or impersonalize) all that they most admire. There are two reasons for this tendency. The first is analysis―that marvelous instrument of scientific research to which we owe all our advances, yet which allows the soul to escape from one undone synthesis after another, until we are left facing a pile of disassembled parts and evanescent particles. The second is the discovery of the sidereal world―which is such a vast subject that it seems to destroy all proposition between our own existence and the dimensions of the cosmos around us. A single reality appears to subsist that is capable of covering both the infinitesimal and the immense at once: energy, that universal floating entity from which everything emerges and into which everything falls back, as if into an ocean. Energy is the new spirit, the new god. The impersonal is at the Omega of the world as well as its Alpha. |
✖ Via The Human Phenomenon by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, tr. by Sarah Appleton Weber, Sussex Academic Press, [1956]1999, p. 183 Here’s the original French version: “A l’inverse des « primitifs » qui donnent un visage à tout ce qui bouge, — ou même des premiers Grecs, qui divinisaient toutes les faces et toutes les forces de la Nature, l’Homme moderne est obsédé par le besoin de dépersonnaliser (ou d’impersonnaliser) ce qu’il admire le plus. Deux raisons à cette tendance. La première est l’Analyse, — ce merveilleux instrument de recherche scientifique, auquel nous devons tous nos progrès, mais qui, de synthèse en synthèse dénouées, laisse échapper l’une après l’autre toutes les âmes, et finit par nous laisser en présence d’une pile de rouages démontés et de particules évanescentes. — Et la seconde est la découverte du monde sidéral, objet tellement vaste que toute proportion paraît abolie entre notre être et les dimensions du Cosmos autour de nous. — Capable de réussir et de couvrir à la fois cet Infime et cet Immense, une seule réalité semble subsister : l’Énergie, entité flottante universelle, d’où tout émerge, et où tout retombe, comme dans un Océan. L’Énergie, le nouvel Esprit. L’Énergie, le nouveau Dieu. A l’Oméga du Monde, comme à son Alpha, l’Impersonnel.” Éditions du Seuil, Paris, 1956, p. 177. PDF. Previously on Skandalon: Point Omega. |
• Apr 11, 2010 link notes tagged:
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