Chasing the Truth by All Means, Part 3...

I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject

or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.

Robert Sapolsky, WHY DON'T ZEBRAS GET ULCERS. p xii.

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And...the same false dichotomy is drawn between science and Christianity. YES, one can do both, and, humbly speaking, I think they can both be done well. Case in point, Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project. I did find a reference to a few others, if yer interested.

And, many the scientific mind is captivated by the arts. As I write, there hangs on the wall to my right a vibrant painting in the Chinese ink-and-brush style by my friend, Phil Booth. A metals engineer. Cite your own acquaintances. A college roommate said his dad had to choose twixt pursuing career as concert pianist and surgeon. I started college not knowing whether to study biology or music or Spanish. So, I kept a coupla toes in the water with both other options as I delved and delighted in the mysteries of living creatures.

Okay, my main point here is that there's a lot of stereotyping:
--All Christians are mindless adherents to outdated, cultic belief systems.
--Scientists cannot have any integrity if they adhere to the Christian faith.
--The arts don't really matter, they don't have anything to do with truth, being products of the human imagination.
--add yours below....

Let's drop the stereotypes and try to do as Stephen Covey said, "Let's agree to listen to each other, until we understand each other...you go first."

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(Me, practicing perspective.)

Chasing the Truth, by All Means. Part 2..

For the artist, the goal of the painting or musical composition is not to convey literal truth, but an aspect  of a universal truth that if successful, will continue to move and to touch people even as contexts, societies, and cultures change.

Daniel J. Levitan, THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC, p5.

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Thank you, Mr. Levitan! There are problems with the current perception of "truth" in our culture, including the denial of objective truth, as if something can be true to you and not true to me. Really.

Sorry, but I'm an absolutist: there is absolute right, and absolute wrong. Yes, there are shades of gray, but I believe that much gray is merely a slope that tilts toward either black or white, good or evil, truth or a lie. Sorry, pop culture--you're out of step with history--it's not me being a troglodyte, it's you being a libertine!

"Truth" is not determined by polls, public opinion, talking heads, or, let's break it to them gently, not by celebs or politicos! (gasp!)

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Okay, enough, David! Really, these people can read that bad news in the paper or half a dozen other sources for the nabobs of negativism.

I started this column intending to address creativity once again. I don't tire of flogging this topic, because creativity seems to have retained one lousy publicity agent. I have been thinking about this topic since I did a paper on it in college. There, I mostly focused on divergent rather than convergent thinking, and probably didn't address the arts at all!

So, poetry and prose, painting and (com-)posing, sculpting and styling, all are attempts to reassemble preexistent truths into new compilations, combinations, and compost. (Compost--why? Because, to try, to learn, to achieve anything new means that there's gonna be a lot of false starts, flops, and outright failures. Remember that famous line attributed to Thomas Edison as he cast about for a light-bulb filament that wouldn't burn out almost instantly: "Yes, I have tried over 10,000 different materials that have failed--but that means that I'm 10,000 steps closer to the one that will work!")

I try to write a poem a day. Some are merely rhymes that really have minimal artistic flavor or insight, they're simply silly, or are sarcastic swipes at pop culture--but there's the occasional one where I sit back and say, "Bam--that kicked it up a notch!" I wouldn't get that result without taking a run at a poem a day--kinda like practicing the piano or a foreign language...ah, but, is poetry a foreign language, or is it our God-given language and we are alienated from poetry?

And, by poetry, I don't mean my little rhyming couplets--I mean deep and beautiful words and images and sounds that swirl about your heart and make you feel like you are seated in the middle of a symphony and a thunderstorm and a rock concert and a Thanksgiving feast!

Read anything like that lately?

Chasing the Truth, by All Means. Part 1.

It was not possible for man to know himself and the world, except first after some mode of knowledge, some art of discovery. The most perfect, since the most intimate and intelligent art, was pure love. 

The approach by love was the approach to fact; to love anything but fact was not love. 

Love was even more mathematical than poetry; it was the pure mathematics of the spirit.

Charles Williams: Descent into Hell. p69.

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Okay, you probably read that and sighed. Or, read it twice or thrice, which is my hope!

This quote reminds us that to use our minds in the loving pursuit of knowledge is an act of worship...and that to honor anything that is less-than-true is to commit hellish idolatry. But, what really kicked my cranium was the last line--that to love is to enter into an equation--my mind on one side, and truth on the other.

What's this jazz about "...love more mathematical than poetry"? Has anyone in the history of humankind ever called poetry mathematical? Really?

Makes me fall deeper in love with poetry, real poetry, poetry written by honest seekers of truth. And, helps me to see why I hate some poetry (and some modern art): they're not seeking truth, they're just deconstructing with no interest or intent to reassemble the pieces to find truth--they like the fact that they've reduced something to sharp little shards of meaninglessness.

I think I blogged about the 81 page book of poetry where I understood only three or five pages...or, I kinda thought I might have understood them, perhaps? That author can be commended only for getting someone to print his stuff. Probaly goes over big at Berkeley.

Phoo.

That said, I think deconstructing in order to reconstruct--cool. Be it architectural elements or somebody's philosophy or a corpse on the autopsy table--we take stuff apart, learn, and build deeper truths from what we've learned!


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Charles Williams is a favorite author--he was one of the "Inklings," completing that famed trio with C. S. Lewis and Tolkien, sharing many the tale and pint at the Eagle and Child Pub there in Oxford. (Son Daniel told me it was also known as the "Bird and Baby" or the "Fowl and Foetus.") Williams wrote tales that match Stephen King for weirdness but omit the gore.

NOT reading?

What are YOU reading? Curious people wanna know.

                                           

The link below highlights a few "popular" books that the majority of Americans haven't read. Why? Because the majority of Americans aren't readers!

https://www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/678-books-the-bestsellers-americans-are-and-aren-t-reading#.U-KBxrl0ycw

Have you read THE HUNGER GAMES? Its sequel, CATCHING FIRE?
Howzabout any others on the list?

For me, I'd generally rather ignore the TV and instead be reading. Why?
--expands my horizons
--challenges my world-view
--stretches my vocab
--makes ME think up images that represent the story, instead of TV serving up pictures (and sound) in its soporific, mind-controlling, commercially-driven environment. (if ya wanna know how I really feel about television...well, let me just misquote Stephen King, who calls it the glass pacifier--actual term, "the glass teat." I'll bet your mind just came up with an image!)
--invites me to wonder about an author's meaning, their context, their biography
--helps me to applaud the gift of creativity as we emulate our creator.

Just a Book, and Don't Stir a Muscle (or a Mussel!)

While I drink more tea than I do coffee, I do love that brewed bean beverage!

Thinking about the medical effects of coffee...

“It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.”
― Dave Barry

Happily, that Dave Barry quote really isn't me--caffeine doesn't do that much other than give me a slight tremor if I've had two cups before eating anything!

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.

Abraham Lincoln


A good cuppa joe, a thick book, and see-ya-latah, world! With the emphasis on the book, thick and new and full of intrigue...or, mebbe, a dear old favorite: I've read Tolkien and CSLewis' Space Trilogy many, many times and am already looking forward to my next read-through. Re-read some Shakespeare this year: fun (as long as I remember to read it at high-speed--getting bogged down in archaic language can ruin a good story--which is why I now advocate for reading Wm Shkspr in the graphic novel editions for the obligatory high school courses!)