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Feb. 20th, 2002 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petermarcusWill I ever get to see the ending to my story?
Show me what it's for, make me understand it
I've been crawling in the dark looking for the answer
Is there something more than what I've been handed?
-- Hoobastank
That, my friends, is the goal of all introspection... Divination: the urge or perhaps even the primal drive to figure out what will happen.
The roots of divination in Homo sapiens go back to prehistory, from Cro Magnon burial rituals to the use of Stonehenge to the prophecies of every religion. Science itself is based in the murky fog of wondering what will happen. Less than a quarter of Sir Isaac Newton's writings were about Calculus or gravity, the rest were about numerology, biblical interpretation, alchemy, and astrology. Johannes Kepler's famous inverse square law is buried in a thick book probing the meaning of it all. It is a book of philosophy, with the mathematical formula tossed in as a curious oddity -- that some element of the universe could be actually be governed by math, imagine that!
8000 years of truly modern humanity; from tonight, way back to the retreat of the last large glaciers when civilizations could scratch out a living with some sort of meteorologic stability. In other words, we needed the ability to predict the weather enough to plant and harvest crops.
Every armchair philosopher has dusted off his or her life and tried to find some meaning. The goal may be importance in one's life, or making a difference, or fame, or wealth, or knowledge, or perhaps just to love and be loved. Do we rise to our own vision of ourselves? Are we where we would like to be when we are old and grey and looking back upon it all?
Would I (more from the song): "... dedicate / And sacrifice my everything for just a second's worth / Of how my story's ending"? I have actually asked myself this in complete seriousness, three times in my life. In all cases, if honestly presented the chance, I don't think I would. Like a hardboiled detective mystery, it may be fun to try to guess the end, but knowing the ending is a different matter.
The game of life is the only game in town.
Show me what it's for, make me understand it
I've been crawling in the dark looking for the answer
Is there something more than what I've been handed?
-- Hoobastank
That, my friends, is the goal of all introspection... Divination: the urge or perhaps even the primal drive to figure out what will happen.
The roots of divination in Homo sapiens go back to prehistory, from Cro Magnon burial rituals to the use of Stonehenge to the prophecies of every religion. Science itself is based in the murky fog of wondering what will happen. Less than a quarter of Sir Isaac Newton's writings were about Calculus or gravity, the rest were about numerology, biblical interpretation, alchemy, and astrology. Johannes Kepler's famous inverse square law is buried in a thick book probing the meaning of it all. It is a book of philosophy, with the mathematical formula tossed in as a curious oddity -- that some element of the universe could be actually be governed by math, imagine that!
8000 years of truly modern humanity; from tonight, way back to the retreat of the last large glaciers when civilizations could scratch out a living with some sort of meteorologic stability. In other words, we needed the ability to predict the weather enough to plant and harvest crops.
Every armchair philosopher has dusted off his or her life and tried to find some meaning. The goal may be importance in one's life, or making a difference, or fame, or wealth, or knowledge, or perhaps just to love and be loved. Do we rise to our own vision of ourselves? Are we where we would like to be when we are old and grey and looking back upon it all?
Would I (more from the song): "... dedicate / And sacrifice my everything for just a second's worth / Of how my story's ending"? I have actually asked myself this in complete seriousness, three times in my life. In all cases, if honestly presented the chance, I don't think I would. Like a hardboiled detective mystery, it may be fun to try to guess the end, but knowing the ending is a different matter.
The game of life is the only game in town.
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no subject
Date: 2002-02-20 07:36 pm (UTC)Take a wild guess.
no subject
Date: 2002-02-20 07:41 pm (UTC)*smooch*
I'm harmless, hon, really!
Re:
Date: 2002-02-20 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-02-20 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-02-20 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-02-20 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-02-20 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-02-20 08:35 pm (UTC)Except that you actually put these fine words into a great perspective, and you do that very, very well :)
no subject
Date: 2002-02-20 08:43 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-02-20 08:51 pm (UTC)But yeah, we do see eye to eye musically ;)
RE: Primal Drive
Date: 2002-02-21 09:50 pm (UTC)Peter: petermarcus
That was a good entry yesterday and great examples of Kepler and Newton. For the life of me I could never fathom why these guys spent so much of their lives pondering the divine side of our existence. Of course it was a part of their culture. Even today though, you read many entries on LJ of people's introspection and obsessing in the same manner, pondering the inevitable end of our existence. It's a wrenching and frustrating effort that yields minute answers.
I appreciate Calculus and mathematical formulas because they explain the functions of this World and our relationship to the Universe. In his formative years Galilie Galileo watched the pendulum of a clock and was the first to explain "isochronism".
Then, there was Nicolaus Copernicus who ultimately changed the way man viewed the center of the Universe. Consider how far we have come since those days. Through the years it's been a fun ride to see the discoveries man has made in all the scientific disciplines and then we have the Hubble Observatory with its fantastic views.
The fun part of our existence is to see it all unfold. It sure beats divination. And when it all ends? Well, that is the way it is! We can honestly say, It was a remarkable trip
Nic Van Allen
Re: Primal Drive
Date: 2002-02-22 06:55 pm (UTC)I think a lot of science arose out of divination. Science beats philosophy hands down when it comes to predicting the future as science is universally reproduceable. But how did modern (non-greek) science start? Most likely in the same roots as philosophy; trying to predict the future. By the time of Galileo, the Renaissance provided an environment for the scientific method. At the time, Michaelangelo was creating many paintings and sculpture based on anatomical muscle and skeletal structures, an almost scientific application of art -- why does an arm look the way it does? Because of biceps and triceps, tendons and ligaments, the radius and ulna...
And yet, even today, there are still certain things that science cannot predict. IQ and intelligence, for example. Art, creativity, love, faith.
Trying to figure things out is built into our DNA, I'm guessing, but I agree with you -- nothing beats being a part of things as they happen.