Jacob,

Boy, are you right. I used to hate Walt Whitman. I used to wish he'd stop comaring his body to the heavens and his heart to the stars and tell me something I could relate to. But I was 19 and hadn't gotten the full grasp of poetry yet. Now, after even befriending T.S. Eliot, I think I'd better take another look at the arts' great philosophers.

Of course, this is off the subject. You're right about our relationship with nature and the insights we gain from its open disclosure to us -- when we look. I think also that it is inevitable that scientists who follow a less-mental pattern, if you will, who give into the intuitive of what they see and feel from nature, will have more success in revolutionary science than those who keep looking through the same lense over and over.

There are secrets Nature will tell us, I am sure, only when we approach it as itself. That is, when we realise we are it, in fact, and allow ourselves to use the same lense to observe it as it would were it observing itself (which it is through us.) This does often mean that thinkers have to abandon structure they may have been taught in school and sort of feel some things about what they see and know of the universe.

I know this works for me in my understanding of nature and its products, which are often beautiful systems.

Maya

On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Science Integration Institute wrote:
>
> ----------
> > From: "jacob wilsonn" <aplodontia@hotmail.com>
> > Date: Sun, 9 Jul 2000 20:20:11 -0500
> > To: info@scienceintegration.org
> > Subject: Re: quote of the week
> >
> > Hey all,
> > In the Living Today section of the Oregonian on June 18 (I've been out of
> > town) there was an article about a friend of mine, Terry Kem, nature
> > educator. The last paragraph from the article speaks to the quote from June
> > 19: "The reason that nature is so beautiful at teaching is that nature is
> > totally honest," Kem continues. "there's no attitude in it, or ego, or the
> > things we have to deal with in the real world. We can see without judgement
> > and with total awareness. And that can run into every aspect of your life.
> > It's the way we're meant to walk on the earth."
> > This also runs into the hot subject, well settled in my opinion by Chris and
> > Maya. We're all talking about interpreting nature, scientists and TT
> > practitioners and idol worshippers. I think Terry is saying you observe
> > nature with an open heart, and you integrate what you've learned into your
> > life. The latter is what scientists often forget about, or they think it
> > means you use the resulting material product. I think a person needs to
> > experience that information, with as much focus, as many of the senses, and
> > plenty of imagination, then it will burn into your personal cosmology. I
> > think this was part of Einstein's success. Through opening up to and
> > exploring the processes of his own perception, he realized aspects of
> > thought like imagination and spirit for example, that our scientific world
> > has given the boot, work.
> > Maybe you're all familiar with the fact that Einstein used 15% of his
> > brain while the ave. American of the time used aprox 7% (and it's going down
> > fast). The rest of the story is that domestic animals use 40% and wild
> > animals use 100% and a band of nomadic hunter gatherer Australian Aborigines
> > use an ave 60%. Now it's time for another quote:
> >
> > "I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid
> > and self-contain'd
> > I stand and look at them long and long.
> >
> > They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
> > They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
> > They do not make me sick discussing their duty to god,
> > Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania
> > of owning things,
> > No one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands
> > of years ago,
> > No one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth."
> >
> > Walt Whitman
> >
> > Trust me, I'm not saying we should become wild animals, but maybe some of
> > that good stuff can rub off on us if we change our perception and
> > relationship to nature a little, like Einstein did.
> > One more quote goes something very roughly like this:
> >
> > "God protect me from those who think only with their minds."
> >
> > W.B. Yeats
> >
> > Thanks, and what do you think? Jacob
> >
> >> From: Science Integration Institute <info@scienceintegration.org>
> >> To: SII listserv post <science@lists.pdx.edu>
> >> Subject: quote of the week
> >> Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2000 11:12:18 -0700
> >>
> >>
> >> "We believe that the experimental dialogue is an irreversible acquisition
> >> of
> >> human culture. It actually provides a guarantee that when nature is
> >> explored by man it is treated as an independent being. It forms the basis
> >> of the communicable and reproducible nature of scientific results. However
> >> partially nature is allowed to speak, once it has expressed itself, there
> >> is
> >> no further dissent: nature never lies."
> >>
> >> - Prigogine and Stengers, "Order Out of Chaos," p. 44
> >>
> >> --
> >> *********************************
> >> * Science Integration Institute *
> >> * info@scienceintegration.org *
> >> * (503) 848-0280 *
> >> * www.scienceintegration.org *
> >> * 1971 SE 73rd Ave. *
> >> * Hillsboro, OR 97123 *
> >> *********************************