Prospero's Books

God found I wasn't there

Religious fundamentalists are often guilty of lifting text out of its context--such as quoting the ban on homosexuality in Leviticus without noting that it's surrounded by many obsolete, and mostly unobserved, laws.

Atheist fundamentalists are often guilty of the same wrong. Two recently published collections of "atheist" quotations--and quite a few Web sites--reproduce the first four lines of Robert Frost's eight-line poem "Not All There":

I turned to speak to God
About the world's despair;
But to make bad matters worse
I found God wasn't there.

What's left out is the remaining four-line stanza:

God turned to speak to me
(Don't anybody laugh)
God found I wasn't there--
At least not over half.

The poem as a whole makes a complex statement, reflecting the complexity, nuance, and ambiguity of Frost's religious thought. Quoting only the first stanza is intellectually dishonest, doing great disservice to Frost--and, more importantly, to the reader. 

Come in! Wander around!

The Museum of Lost Wonder, Prospero's Books' 2006 Book of the Year, has a wonderful animated tour on its Web site.

I could live there.

Come in! Wander around! Push buttons!

Rome Reborn

If you're interested in the "big picture" viewpoint of this blog, and in dialogue between science and the humanities, you should visit the site of Rome Reborn 1.0, a digital 3D model of Rome as it existed on June 21, 320 A.D. The site currently includes still pictures, video and audio clips, and papers. Coming is interactive online exploration of the model.

Rome Reborn was created at the University of Virginia. I have to think that Thomas Jefferson would be delighted!

(Thanks to Seed Magazine for the link.)

The secret rules on which the universe runs

From physicist Paul Davies's Cosmic Jackpot (see What I've Been Reading):

The ancients were right: beneath the surface complexity of nature lies a hidden subtext, written in a subtle mathematical code. This cosmic code contains the secret rules on which the universe runs. Newton, Galileo, and other early scientists treated their investigations as a religious quest. They thought that by exposing the patters woven into the processes of nature they truly were glimpsing the mind of God. Modern scientists are mostly not religious, yet they still accept that an intelligible script underlies the workings of nature, for to believe otherwise would undermine the very motivation for doing research, which is to uncover something meaningful about this world that we don't already know (4).

Deep beyond our wildest imagining

At Science Musings, Chet Raymo has demonstated again that he's one of the world's best science writers. His recent posting "Why Do Birds Sing," is a thoughtful critique of reductionism of any kind. Here's just one paragraph:

Anyone who would attempt to explain the universe must possess some measure of arrogance. The important thing is to not let hubris get out of control. Here's my scientific "religion," which like Weinberg's is a matter of faith: No theory conceived by the human mind will ever be final. The universe is vast, marvelous, and deep beyond our wildest imagining -- its horizons will forever recede before our advance. All dreams of finality are futile. Period.

Improvisation is what we're doing all the time

The January 2007 issue of Esquire includes lists, by well-known people, of "What I've Learned." Here are a few items from actor Alan Arkin. You could find a worse guru to follow:

• Things are never going to turn out the way you think they will.
• Improvisation has been crucial to my whole life; it's what we're doing all the time.
• No matter what you do or where you are, you're going to be missing out on something.
• If you're looking outside yourself for substantiation of your own happiness, you're going to fail.
• Anything you're rigid about, sooner or later, the rug is going to be pulled out from under you.
• I read somewhere that some people believe that the entire universe is a matrix of living thought. And I said, "Man, if that's not a definition of God, I don't know what is."
• Truth is always unfolding. It's not an absolute (104).

Fractal fundamentals

Several times on this blog, among my posts on fractals, I've linked you to Chaotic Utopia, and Karmen's amazing Friday Fractals, both recent and less recent. This week, she has published the clearest explanation of fractal geometry I've ever read.

It's a hands-on explanation, requiring a sheet of paper and a few minutes of your time. Please have a look.

It was forty years ago today . . .

. . . and I was working as stage manager at the Straight Wharf Theatre, on Nantucket. Several of us on the tech staff knew that the new Beatles album, something strangely called Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, had gone on sale that day in the UK.

The next morning it would go on sale in the US. We were at the record store when it opened. We carried the album back to the theatre. Charlie Folger, our lighting and sound guy, took the record up to his booth, turned on the theatre's sound system, and turned out all the lights. We sat in the dark in the middle of the house and listened to the big speakers stage right and left, pumping out a kind of music we'd never heard before.

No drugs were involved. No drugs were needed. What we heard that day transformed us.

If you remember June 2, 1967, why not do what I'm going to do tomorrow: listen to Sergeant Pepper straight through. (I know you own it.)

If you don't remember June 2, 1967, listen too. It will help you understand the philosophy and spirituality of a generation. (And try to forgive me for being one of those boring old Boomers.)