Lapidarium

" “We replace the unknown with the known through the substitution of words and by the time a..."

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:23:00 +0100

“” “We replace the unknown with the known through the substitution of words and by the time a child is two or three they have completely created a cultural mosaic of words that is interposed between them and reality. Reality from that point on is only an unconfirmed rumor brought through the medium of language and every culture accentuates different parts of reality so that in a sense every culture is a different reality. Language is the stuff of the world, not quarks or wave-packets or neutrinos, but language. Everything is made of language. All the constructs of science are actually interlocking constructs of syntax. So that’s ordinary language which seems to define reality through a kind of process of lying about it. For instance by creating subject-object distinctions which are, in fact, not true to the matter, but somehow operationally necessary for us to navigate in the kind of lower dimensional space that we inhabit.” “”

- Terence McKenna, Ordinary Language, Visible Language Virtual Reality via Wildcat, A way out, A way in, Noos Aleatorius (the gaming mind)

" “We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The..."

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:30:00 +0100

“” “We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.” “”

- Niels Bohr (via stopvoleuse)

" “Man stands alone in the universe, responsible for his condition, likely to remain in a lowly..."

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:29:00 +0100

“” “Man stands alone in the universe, responsible for his condition, likely to remain in a lowly state, but free to reach above the stars.” “”

- Walter Kaufmann - Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre

" “The universe is perfectly transparent: we exist as flaws in ancient glass.” "

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:28:38 +0100

“” “The universe is perfectly transparent: we exist as flaws in ancient glass.” “”

- John Updike

" “To see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm..."

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:26:49 +0100

“” “To see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.” “”

- William Blake

Sailing the desert by Inga Nielsen

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:25:00 +0100

Sailing the desert by Inga Nielsen

" “The absurd is the essential concept of the first truth.” "

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:23:00 +0100

“” “The absurd is the essential concept of the first truth.” “”

- Albert Camus

" “Progress is the realization of utopias.” "

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:08:00 +0100

“” “Progress is the realization of utopias.” “”

- Oscar Wilde via Utopia - Expressions Of Utopianism

" “If Western man now stops thinking and dreaming the materials of new images of the future and..."

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:06:24 +0100

“” “If Western man now stops thinking and dreaming the materials of new images of the future and attempts to shut himself up in the present, out of longing for security and for fear of the future, his civilization will come to an end. He has no choice but to dream or to die, condemning the whole of Western society to die with him.” “”

- Frederik L. Polak (1907–1985) via Utopia - Expressions Of Utopianism

" “My visit to Google? Despite the whimsical furniture and other toys, I felt I was entering a..."

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:28:00 +0100

“” “My visit to Google? Despite the whimsical furniture and other toys, I felt I was entering a 14th-century cathedral — not in the 14th century but in the 12th century, while it was being built. Everyone was busy carving one stone here and another stone there, with some invisible architect getting everything to fit. The mood was playful, yet there was a palpable reverence in the air. “We are not scanning all those books to be read by people,” explained one of my hosts after my talk. “We are scanning them to be read by an AI.” “”

- George Dyson - Turing’s Cathedral | Edge (via spaceweaver)

" “In the future, the importance of geography will be matched by the importance of values and..."

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:27:55 +0100

“” “In the future, the importance of geography will be matched by the importance of values and ideas.” “”

- Alan Smith - Nationhood: The future of Nationalism

" “Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but..."

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:27:00 +0100

“” “Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.” “”

- Jean-Paul Sartre (via wildcat2030)

" “Everything of beauty in the world has it’s ultimate origins in the human mind. Even a..."

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:26:00 +0100

“” “Everything of beauty in the world has it’s ultimate origins in the human mind. Even a rainbow isn’t beautiful in and of itself.” “”

- Eliezer Yudkowsky (via wildcat2030)

What is Wisdom? What one generation can pass to another. Andrew...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:30:00 +0200

What is Wisdom? What one generation can pass to another.

Andrew Zuckerman new book and project. Inspired by idea that one of the greatest gifts one generation can pass to another is the wisdom it has gained from experience, the Wisdom project seeks to create a record of a multicultural group of people who have all made their mark on the world. Presented agains the same white space, all of the subjects are removed from their context, which not only democratizes them, but also allows for a clear dialogue to exist between them.

" “The bygone world was a world of rhythms. Today, we live in a world of [attempted]..."

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:57:00 +0200

“” “The bygone world was a world of rhythms. Today, we live in a world of [attempted] synchronization”.””

- Harmeet Sawhney via Timescapes of the Network Society

" “From our contemporary perspective, it is difficult to appreciate the extraordinary effect that..."

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:50:00 +0200

“” “From our contemporary perspective, it is difficult to appreciate the extraordinary effect that clock time has had upon modern and modernizing societies. And it is difficult to remember, so deeply has its logic impregnated cultures and societies, that it is not “time” at all, but a social construction given the seal of scientific truth and validity through the revolution in Newtonian physics. According to this mathematical perspective, time exists not in nature and humans, but that these exist in time. Newton put the case famously in his 1687 Principia when he wrote that: “Absolute true and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external.” “”

- Robert Hassan - Timescapes of the Network Society

" “Manuel Castells, in his book The Information Age: The Rise of the Network Society, argues that..."

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:48:00 +0200

“” “Manuel Castells, in his book The Information Age: The Rise of the Network Society, argues that globalization and the information age are heralding the era of domination by real-time, or what he calls “timeless time.” Real time, for Castells, is also a kind of “non-time” which means that as the network society becomes more encompassing of culture and society, “linear, measurable, predictable time is being shattered…in a movement of extraordinary historical significance”. In his speculative social theory, Paul Virilio is even more explicit when he writes in that “the teletechnologies of real time…are killing ‘present’ time by isolating it from its here and now, in favour of a commutative elsewhere that no longer has anything to do with our “concrete presence” in the world…” “”

- Robert Hassan - Timescapes of the Network Society

" “Perhaps an easily comprehended way to think about timescapes is to think of an array of temporal..."

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:38:00 +0200

“” “Perhaps an easily comprehended way to think about timescapes is to think of an array of temporal features - flowing durational “scapes” - that exist in lived reality, in us, in our cultures and in nature. Each feature, or temporal scape is implicated in all the others but not necessarily of equal importance. Context is the “now” or the “present.” It is the intersecting point of contact between the different timescapes that touch our lives - or those timescapes that we ourselves bring to a context or situation to generate a uniquely experienced timescape. As Christopher Prendergast puts it: “What we call ‘the present’ is a dynamic cluster of temporal traces, of the past it has been and the future it is in the process of becoming”. What we create and experience in “the present” is, in effect, a timescape that is part of a socially constituted temporal whole, part of what is to be alive in a becoming and emergent social world.”
(…) As archeologist Christopher Gosden said: People create time and space through their actions. Time and space, in turn, become part of the structure of habitual action, shaping the nature of reference between actions.” “”

- Robert Hassan - Timescapes of the Network Society

" “The past is consumed in the present and the present is living only because it brings forth..."

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:38:00 +0200

“” “The past is consumed in the present and the present is living only because it brings forth the future.” “”

- James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

" “It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but..."

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:37:00 +0200

“” “It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him is there only as idea, i.e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness, which is himself.” “”

- Arthur Schopenhauer, The World As Idea (via jamreilly)