Re: Happy Thanksgiving Day!

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006, jonathan wrote:
"William Elliot" <marsh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
On Thu, 23 Nov 2006, jonathan wrote:
"William Elliot" <marsh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
On Wed, 22 Nov 2006, jonathan wrote:

When's the last time E.*** had a metaphysical checkup?

As a naturalist, that's pretty much all she wrote about.
The properties of nature/reality and our place in it.

And I'd put her understanding of reality up against
any mind or current science. She is still ahead

Clearly she knows her mushrooms.

of her time. For instance, this one poem shows
she had already intuitively figured out the basic ideas
of the uncertainty principle and relativity in the
late 1800's. If that isn't enough, she could express
those ideas in a few short words. And in a way
that even sounds nice rolling off the tongue.

Lewis Carrol was much better describing his drug experiences.

PERCEPTION of an
Object costs
Precise the Object's loss.
Perception in itself a gain
Replying to its price;
The Object Absolute is nought,
Perception sets it fair,
And then upbraids a Perfectness
That situates so far.

Not only is she ahead of naturalists, she's ahead of philosophers,
ahead of linguists and grammarians, she's even ahead of herself.

Science is still looking for that absolute object, whether
with colliders or string theory. She correctly knew
that was futile. She knew there can be no complete
certainty in observing reality. She knew all observations
are relative the observer. Having already digested much
of the great discoveries of the twentieth century half
a century ...before...their discovery. And having realized
their limitations and they do not explain reality properly.

She moved on.

Whew.

The basic idea of chaos theory, now called complexity
science, which is the very latest non-linear mathematics
is expressed in the following concepts.

The first is attractor theory
http://www.calresco.org/attract.htm

Which uses a systems or holistic frame, instead of
reducing to parts, and sees natural behavior as a
combination of the three basic realms.
The static, dynamic and chaotic attractor basins/types.
As seen in her natural realms of simplicity, harmony and heaven

Sober up. You're hipping too much into her simple Zen, befouled a bit
with the philosophical or religious vogues of her day.

NATURE is what we see,
The Hill, the Afternoon-
Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee,
Nay-Nature is Heaven.

Nature is what we hear,
The Bobolink, the Sea-
Thunder, the Cricket-
Nay,-Nature is Harmony.

Nature is what we know
But have no art to say,
So impotent our wisdom is
To Her simplicity.

Another tenet of complexity science is that randomness
is a source of order, not an obstacle as the second
law implies. She understood what complexity science
teaches today, that the totality of randomness in nature
leads to creation and beauty in the whole.

Were you to stop being the commentator, the worth and the lack of worth of
her of her simple and of her convoluted poems would step forth.

AN altered look about the hills;
A Tyrian light the village fills;
A wider sunrise in the dawn;
A deeper twilight on the lawn;
A print of a vermilion foot;
A purple finger on the slope;
A flippant fly upon the pane;
A spider at his trade again;
An added strut in chanticleer;
A flower expected everywhere;
An axe shrill singing in the woods;
Fern-odors on untravelled roads,-
All this, and more I cannot tell,
A furtive look you know as well,
And Nicodemus' mystery
Receives its annual reply.

And she also understood that the answers to our reality
do not lie in finding certainty in our laws, equations or
axioms. That there is no certainty to be found.
So the answers must lie in the opposite. Uncertainty
is where the properties of nature and reality are found.
Ghosts she calls them. Chaos theory....began..with the
study of clouds. Where certainty is at a minimum since
both quantum-like and classical-like behaviors coexist
in a single system. Certainty is found by limiting our
observations to either quantum or classical realms.
Since each science is well defined. But where
both behaviors exist at once, where both sciences
are required...at once..to understand something is
where certainty is at the least. And uncertainty is
highest. Such as in a cloud. A continuous prccess
of step changes. A cloud acts as a wave and a particle
at once. This is where the true properties of the universe
are found, where fundamental law or simplicity is found.
She knew that.

WHAT mystery pervades a well!
The water lives so far,
Like neighbor from another world
Residing in a jar.

The grass does not appear afraid;
I often wonder he
Can stand so close and look so bold
At what is dread to me.

Related somehow they may be,-
The sedge stands next the sea,
Where he is floorless, yet of fear
No evidence gives he.

But nature is a stranger yet;
The ones that cite her most
Have never passed her haunted house,
Nor simplified her ghost.

To pity those that know her not
Is helped by the regret
That those who know her, know her less
The nearer her they get.


She understood that reducing to parts, looking for
that absolute object or truth, will only find futility.
Since fundmantal law is only found in systems
that are currently operating, looking at parts
sees only the past, the dead. She understood
a reductionsist view prevents a single consistant
mathematical model of reality from being found.


AS by the dead we love to sit,
Become so wondrous dear,
As for the lost we grapple,
Though all the rest are here,-

In broken mathematics
We estimate our prize,
Vast, in its fading ratio,
To our penurious eyes!


And having already juggled the concepts that most will still be
struggling with fifty years from now. She used them to derive
a philosophy of life and meaning that will stand the test
of all time. Imho.



THE SOUL that has a Guest,
Doth seldom go abroad,
Diviner Crowd at home
Obliterate the need,
And courtesy forbid
A Host's departure, when
Upon Himself be visiting
The Emperor of Men!



By E Dickinson (1830-1886)


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