I've been rereading parts of James Gleick's 1987 book Chaos (see What I've Been Reading), and I'm blown away by two sentences about Edward Lorenz's equations that gave birth, in 1963, to chaos theory:
Years later, physicists would give wistful looks when they talked about Lorenz's paper on those equations--"that beautiful marvel of a paper." By then it was talked about as if it were an ancient scroll, preserving secrets of eternity (30). (emphasis mine)
Although I had completely forgotten that simile, it may well have been what started me on putting "signs, stories, systems, spirit" together in my writing, my teaching, and, more recently, this blog.
The work being done on complex, nonlinear systems has, for me, the same quality I find in the Book of Ezekiel, The Gospel of Thomas, The Revelation of St. John the Divine, The Zohar, the rituals of Freemasonry, the Divine Comedy, the plays of Shakespeare, Joyce's Ulysses, Meditations on the Tarot. That quality is the sense that these books--Prospero's books--both conceal and reveal the deep hidden truths of the Cosmos.
Dear Brother Davis,
I just found out about your site this evening from the Masonic Traveler. What an incredible weblog! I look forward to reading it for years to come. Thanks so much for sharing.
Brother John W. Ratcliff
Wentzville Lodge #47
Posted by: John W. Ratcliff | 04 August 2006 at 01:02