Prospero's Books

Prospero's Books Book of the Year

In my library, Ervin Laszlo is tied for fourth most represented author, after Jung, Campbell, and Shakespeare. Since the early 1970s I've been reading almost everything he has published.

Laszlo's 2008 book Quantum Shift in the Global Brain: How the New Scientific Reality Can Change Us and Our World is (1) a next step in Laszlo's lifetime work on systems theory and evolution, (2) a survey of several recent, albeit controversial, discoveries in physics, (3) an application of these discoveries to the solution of the world's problems, and (4) a description of Laszlo's Club of Budapest and several of its programs. For its thoughtfulness, sweep, and passion, Quantum Shift is the 2008 Prospero's Books Book of the Year.

Laszlo's book joins 2006's Museum of Lost Wonder by Jeff Hoke and 2007's Cosmic Jackpot by Paul Davies.

Crazier and more of it than we think

Snow

--by Louis MacNeice

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was 

Spawning snow and pink roses against it 

Soundlessly collateral and incompatible: 

World is suddener than we fancy it. 

World is crazier and more of it than we think, 

Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion 

A tangerine and spit the pips and feel 

The drunkenness of things being various. 

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world 

Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes--

On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands--

There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses. 

The whole story doesn't show

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the landscape--the loneliness of it--the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it--the whole story doesn’t show.


--Andrew Wyeth

(Thanks to Changing Places for the quotation.)

Shift and change

"Physicists may look to a physical particle for answers to questions about the reasons for the existence of mass and its related properties. But the very nature of matter tends to shift and change, making at best a shaky foundation on which to build a solid structure."

--David A. Cornell, "Looking for the 'God particle'--or for Spirit?," Christian Science Sentinel, December 22, 2008, p. 15.

The vast expanse of interstellar space

The Big Picture blog is publishing an Advent calendar (well, not really Advent: December 1-25) featuring stunning photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope. 

Eucharistic Prayer C in the U.S. Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer reads, in part:

God of all power, Ruler of the Universe, you are worthy of glory and praise. . . . At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home (370).

I can think of no better calendar to use to await the birth of the Cosmic Christ.

(Thanks to Seed Magazine for the link.)

We are as gods . . .

Forty years ago, in the fall of 1968, a remarkable publication appeared: The Whole Earth Catalog. Perhaps no other single resource has so influenced my thinking since. Its "Understanding Whole Systems" section was a direct inspiration for this blog.

Every issue of the Catalog carried this purpose statement:

We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far remotely done power and glory — as via government, big business, formal education, church — has succeeded to the point where the gross defects obscure actual gain. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, person power is developing — power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.

Last week I was delighted to discover that the contents of the Catalog and its descendants are being archived at the Whole Earth Catalog site.

 

(Warning: Enter the site at your peril; you may not emerge from it for hours.)

Trying to force the great laws

The great Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis (”Zorba the Greek”) tells us that once when he was a boy he noticed a cocoon stuck to a tree, with a butterfly was about to be born. He waited a while, but it was taking so long, so he decided to warm the cocoon with his breath. The butterfly finally emerged but its wings were still stuck together and it died soon afterwards.

“I just couldn’t wait for the sun to complete the necessary process of patient maturation,” says Kazantzakis. “That small corpse is until this very day one of the heaviest burdens on my conscience. But that’s what made me understand what a true mortal sin is: trying to force the great laws of the universe. We have to have patience, wait for the right time and then follow confidently the rhythm that God has chosen for our lives.”

--Paolo Coelho (courtesy of my friend Jay at Bailey's Buddy)

Who cared?

“All was silent, benignly silent, below—the silence of peace, of repose, of a Sabbath. I closed my eyes and murmured a prayer of thanksgiving and praise...Who cared if there was really any Being to pray to? What mattered was the sense of giving thanks and praise, the feeling of a humble and grateful heart.”


--Oliver Sacks, A Leg to Stand On

(Quoted by Metanexus)

The world through fresh eyes

The Worldmapper project has produced nearly six hundred world maps, each varying the size of countries to focus on a specific feature. For example, in the Adult Literacy map in this post, "territory size shows the proportion of all people over 15 years old who are literate, that live there." (Click on the map for a larger image.)

Browsing even a few of the maps can reveal some big-picture truths about our planet.

(Thanks to the Santa Fe Institute for the link.)