6 Appendix I
1Selections from Buckminster Fuller’s ‘‘How Little I Know’’ (1966)
2 (First published in the Saturday Review, November 12, 1966, pp. 29--31, 67--70. This version is from Fuller’s And It Came to Pass Not to Stay. New York: Mac
3 millan Publishing Co., 1976.)
4 ‘‘Tell me
5 In five thousand
6 Written words’’—
7 (Equivalent, at my oral rate,
8 To three-quarters of an hour’s discourse) ‘‘What you have learned—In your lifetime,’’
9 Said Norman Cousins.
10 ‘‘That ought to be easy,’’ said I.
11 Three weeks have gone by—
12 I recall that
13 Thirty-eight years ago I invented a routine Somewhat similar to Muscle development Accomplished through A day-by-day lifting
14 Of progressively heavier weights.
15 But my new
16 Intellectual routine
17 Dealt with the weightless process Of human thought development Which subject is
18 Known to the scholars As epistemology.
19 And I have learned
20 That such words as Epistemology
21 Stop most of humanity
22 From pursuing
23 Such important considerations
24 As the development
25 Of the thought processes.
26 So my new discipline
27 Was invented for dealing
28 Even with the ephemeral Which word means
29Conceptual but weightless— As is for instance
30 The concept of circularity.
31 My new strategy required That on successive days
32 I ask myself
33 A progressively larger
3435And more inclusive question Which must be answered
36Only in the terms of Experience.
37Hearsaids, beliefs, axioms, Superstitions, guesses, opinions Were and are
38 All excluded
39 As answer resources
40 For playing my particular Intellectual development game.
41 However, when lacking Any possible experience clues I saw that it was ineffectual To attempt to answer
42 Such questions as for instance
43 ‘‘Why I?’’
44 Or
45 ‘‘Why …
46 Anything?’’
47 And because it was my experience That some individuals
48 Proved as persistently faithful In reporting their experiences to me As were my own senses The rules of my game permitted My inclusion of such individuals’ Directly reported experiences In my inventory of experiences For use in my progressively Great and greater Self-questioned answering.
49 In playing that game
50 I soon came
51 To what I assumed to be both The largest askable and The largest answerable Question:
52 ‘‘What do you mean,’’
53 I asked myself, ‘‘By the word Universe?
54 If you can’t answer
55 In terms of
56 Direct experience You must desist From the further use Of the word UNIVERSE For, to you It will have become Meaningless!’’
5758The 20th century physicists, In defining physical Universe As consisting only of energy, Deliberately excluded metaphysical Universe—Because the metaphysical
59Consists only of imponderables, Whereas the physical scientists Deal only with ponderables—Wherefore their physical Universe Excluded for instance
60 All our thoughts—
61 Because thoughts are weightless—
62 But thoughts are experiences—Wherefore I saw
63 That to be adequate
64 To the intuitively formulated
65 And experience-founded controls
66 Of my ever bigger
67 Question and answer routine,
68 My answering definition
69 Of UNIVERSE
70 Must be one which
71Embraced the combined
7273Metaphysical and physical Components of UNIVERSE.
74Thus my self-formulating answer emerged, And has persisted unshattered
75 By any subsequent challenges
76 From myself or others
77 As:
78 ‘‘By Universe I mean:
7980The aggregate of all humanity’s Consciously apprehended And communicated
81 (To self or others)
82Experiences.’’
8384And later I discovered that Eddington had said ‘‘Science is: The conscientious attempt To set in order The facts of Experience.’’
85And I also discovered That Ernst Mach—The great Viennese physicist, Whose name is used To designate flight velocity In speed of sound increments, Known as Mach numbers—Said:
86‘‘Physics is: Experience Arranged in Most economical order.’’
87So I realized that
88Both Eddington and Mach Were seeking to put in order The same ‘‘raw materials’’ —I. e. Experiences— With which to identify Their special subsystems Of UNIVERSE.
89Wherefore I realized that All the words in all dictionaries Are the consequent tools Of all men’s conscious And conscientious attempts To communicate All their experiences—Which is of course To communicate Universe.
90There are forty-three thousand current words In the Concise Oxford Dictionary.
91 We don’t know who invented them!
92 What an enormous, anonymous inheritance!
9394Shakespeare used ten thousand of them With which to formulate
95 His complete ‘‘works.’’
9697It would take many more volumes Than Shakespeare’s to employ The forty-three thousand —Logically and cogently.
98 In a five thousand word article
99 I would probably have use for
100 Only one thousand.
101 Are forty-two thousand
102 Of these words
103 Superficial and extraneous
104 In reporting on
105What I have learned?
106 I have learned that
107 You would think so
108 If you ever saw a magazine’s
109 Space rewrite editor
110 At work on my work!
111 I’m not inclined to use
112 The word ‘‘Creativity’’
113 In respect to human beings;
114 What is usually spoken of as creativity
115116Is really a unique and unprecedented Human employment of principles Which exist a priori in the Universe.
117I think man is a very extra-ordinary Part of the Universe
118 For he demonstrates unique capability In the discovery and intellectual identification Of the operative principles of Universe—Which though unconsciously employed Have not been hitherto differentiated, Isolated out and understood As being principles, By other biological species.
119 Rejecting the word ‘‘creativity’’ For use by any other than The great intellectual integrity Progressively disclosed as conceiving Both comprehensively and anticipatorily The complex interpatternings
120 Of reciprocal and transformative freedoms In pure principle
121 Which apparently govern Universe And constitute the verb god, I go along with the 5,000-year-old Philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita Which says ‘‘Action is the product Of the qualities inherent in nature. It is only the ignorant man, Who, misled by personal egotism, Says ‘I am the doer.’ ’’ I am most impressed
122 With the earliest recorded philosophic statements By unknown individuals of India and China. Through millenniums the philosophies Have become progressively Compromised and complicated.
123 I am an explorer, however, Of the generalized design science principles Which seemingly differentiate Man from animal
124 And mind from brain.
125 The word ‘‘generalization’’ As used in the literary sense, Means ‘‘a very broad statement.’’ It suggests covering too much territory—Too thinly to be sound.
126 The literary men say ‘‘This is too general.’’
127 In the mathematical sense, The meaning of generalization Is quite different.
128 The mathematician or the physicist Looks for principles which are Persistently operative in nature, Which will hold true in every special case. If you can find principles That hold true in every case, Then you have discovered What the scientist calls A generalized principle.
129 The conscious detection of
130131Generalized principles which hold true Under all conditions
132And their abstraction from any and all Special case experiences of the principles
- Is probably unique to humans.
133134By abstraction, I mean an idealized, ‘‘Empty set’’ statement
135 Such as, for instance, one of my own!
- ‘‘Tension and compression are only coexistent’’
- E. g., when you tense a rope
136 Its girth contracts—ergo compresses.
137138When you compress a sphere’s polar axis, Its equatorial girth expands and tenses, It is inconceivable that a dog
139 Tugging at its leash at one time
140 And, compressing its teeth
141 On a bone at another time,
142 Should formulate consciously
143 The generalized
144 ‘‘Only coexistence of tension and compression,’’ Though the dog is subconsciously coordinate In tension-compression tactics.
145 To generalize further than
146 ‘‘Tension and compression are only coexistent,’’
147 We may say that ‘‘plus and minus
148 Only coexist’’
149 And generalize even further
150 By saying ‘‘Functions only coexist.’’
151 Then there is an even more powerful
152 And intellectually more exalted stage
153 Of generalization of principles
154 And that is the generalization
155 Of a complex of generalizations
- Such as—unity is plural and at minimum two
- Which combines the generalized law
156 Of the coexistence only of functions With the theory of number.
157 In turn we discover the generalizations
158 Governing the associative powers
159 Of the nucleus and of the weak interactions
160 For the unity is two
161 Of the congruent, convex and concave spheres
162 As evidenceable in the generalized laws
163 Disclosed conceptually, arithmetically, and geometrically In synergetics.
164 I am certain that what we speak of
165 As human morality
166 Is a form of tentative generalization
167 Of principles underlying
168169Special case experiences of human potentials, Behaviors, actions, reactions and resultants. Man has also the unique ability To employ generalized principles
170 —Once recognized—
171 In a consciously selective variety
172 Of special case interrelationships.
173 The whole regenerative process
174 Of intellectual discovery
175 And specialized use of generalized principles
176 Is known as teleology.
177 Teleology embraces
178179The theory of communication, Though as yet having special case limitations.
180 It is a hypothetical
181 Approach to pure, abstract generalization
182 To say that teleology
183Is only intuitively initiated by humans.
184 Intuition alerts brain
185 To first apprehend
186 And then recognize
187 Each special case experience
188 Within some minimum number
189 Of special case recognitions.
190 Intuition alerts mind
191 To comprehend, and
192 Formulate conceptually
193 The abstract generalization
194 Of a principle recognized
195 As operative in all the special cases.
196 Intuition alerts brain to
197198The objectively employable generalized principle In hitherto unexperienced special case Circumstances inexplicably remote
199 From the earlier set of
200201Special case experiences within which
202The generalized principles were first experienced Before their generalization Occurred in the mind.
203 Teleology - as part
204 Of communications theory
205 Relates to the pursuit of truth.
206 As entropy and antientropy.
207 It may be that
208 Communications theory
209 May be mathematically equated
210 With electrical
211 Transmission theory
212 Whereby the higher
213 The meaning or voltage
214 The more efficient
215 And longer distance
216 Communication attainable.
217 Based on experiments
218 With any and all systems,
219 The second law of thermodynamics
220221Predicts the inexorable energy loss Known as ENTROPY.
222 Because the escaping energy
223 Does so diffusely,
224 In all directions,
225 Entropy is also known
226 Mathematically
227 As ‘‘The Law of Increase
228 Of the Random Element.’’
229 Before it had been discovered
230 By rigorous experimentation
231 That light has a velocity
232 It was erroneously assumed
233 To be ‘‘self-evident’’
234235That light was instantaneous - That all stars in the sky Were ‘‘right there now’’ In exact geometrical pattern, Being seen instantaneously And simultaneously
236By all who looked their way.
237But since Michelson’s measurement Of light’s speed We have learned that The light from the Sun, Our nearest star, Takes eight minutes To reach us here on Earth. From our next nearest star Light takes two years To reach our planet Earth. And other stars Are so far away Their light takes millions Of years and more To reach us.
238Assuming instant-Universe Classical Newtonian science Also assumed that Universe Must be an instant system—A simultaneous unit machine, In which every part Must be affecting Every other part, In varying degrees But in simultaneous unity. They assumed also that the Unit and simultaneous universe
239Must of course obey
240The great second law
241Of thermodynamics Whose, inexorable, Entropic energy loss Required self-dissipation And ultimately utter Self-annihilation
242 Of Universe.
243244‘‘Running down’’ they called it Wherever ‘‘down’’ may be.
245 Though light’s speed
246247Of seven hundred million miles per hour Is fast
248 It isn’t anywhere nearly as fast
249 As ‘‘instant’’—
250251Which means reaching anywhere ‘‘In no time at all.’’
252Ergo, the Einsteinians Instituted experiments To ascertain the behavioral characteristics Of a physical universe comprised Of only partially overlapping, Progressively intertransforming, Nonsimultaneous, energy events.
253The Einsteinian Era scientists’ experiments Showed that entropic energies Accomplished their disassociations here Only through associations there - That is by regrouping elsewhere. Thus early 20th-century scientists Found the intertransformative Energy quanta transactions, To be eventually,
254But not always immediately, One hundred percent accountable.
255 As a consequence of
256 The Einsteinians’ experiments
257258The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ Concept of a continually
259 Self-dissipating universe
260 Had to be abandoned
261 And in its place was established
262 The, experimentally required,
263 Law of Conservation of Energy
264 Which states that energy
265 May be neither created nor lost;
266 Ergo the energetic Universe
267 Is the minimum,
268 But nonsimultaneously realized,
269270Energy exchanging system, Which is to say
271That physical Universe,
272 As experimentally demonstrated
273 Is the minimum and only
274 Perpetual motion process,
275276Which as an aggregate of finite, Dissimilar and nonsimultaneous Energy events
277 Is in itself
278 Sum totally finite.
279 All the foregoing
280 Dissipates the foundations
281 Of the Newtonian world’s
282 Cosmogony and economics
283 Which assumed
284285That a ‘‘running down world’’ Suggested the prudence
286 Of saving, conserving and hoarding;
287288And that those who spent Were fools who would perish As resources dwindled.
289Though entropically irreversible Every action
290Has its reaction and resultant, And every nuclear component Has its positive or negative Behavioral opposite Which is however
291Not its mirror image.
292And the irreversible situations Give an evolutionary direction To otherwise stalemated Conditions of physical Universe.
293For instance it is discovered That wealth, whatever else it may be, Cannot alter an iota of yesterday And can alter only The present and forward Metabolic regeneration Conditions of humanity.
294Song of the Dead And the Quick—Newton was a noun And Einstein is a verb. Einstein’s norm makes Newton’s norm INSTANT UNIVERSE, Absurd.
295‘‘A body persists In a state of rest Or—
296Except as affected—’’ Thus grave stones are erected!
297 Nonsimultaneous, physical Universe Is Energy; and ‘‘Energy equals mass Times the second power
298 Of the speed of light.’’ No exceptions!
299 Fission verified Einstein’s hypothesis—Change is normal
300 Thank you Albert!
301 Irreversible verse. Einstein’s intellect
302 Defined energy as E = me2Energy cannot define intellect.
303 Intellect the metaphysical Is comprehensive to Energy the physical.
304 While Universe is finite Energy is definite Because definable Energy is XY.
305 Intellect is O.
306 The wealth of Earthians Is irreversible.
307 Wealth cannot alter yesterday’s experience.
308 It can only alter today’s and tomorrow’s experiences. It can buy
309 Forward time in which intellect May scientifically explore for The orderly interrelationships
310 Disclosed in yesterday’s experiences Which can be employed by intellect To forecast
311 Anticipatory and orderly rearrangements of tomorrow By technological transformations Of the physical energy environments, Events and circumstances.
312 Wealth is the organized and operative
313 Tools and energy capability
314 To sustain man’s forward metabolic regeneration;
315 To physically protect him;
316 To increase his knowledge
317 And degrees of freedom
318 While decreasing his interfrustrations.
319 Solo wealth is to commonwealth
320 As X is to X4.
321 Wealth is: Energy compounded With intellect’s know-how.
322 Every time man uses his know-how
323 His experience increases
324 And his intellectual advantage
325 Automatically increases.
326 Because of its conservation
327 Energy cannot decrease.
328 Know-how can only increase.
329 It is therefore scientifically clear
330 That:—wealth which combines
331 Energy and intellect
332 Can only increase, and that wealth can
333 Increase only with use
334 And that wealth increases As fast as it is used.
335 The faster—the more!
336 Wealth is accountable as
337 The inanimate energies shunted
338 Onto the ends of industrial levers
339 Whose physical capability is
340 Stateable in forward, automated,
341 Man days of travel miles
342 With first class comprehensive services
343 Including food, lodging, clothing,
344 Amusements, communication, information
345 And medical services
346347Based on the average physical experiences Of a top civil service rating’s World travel involvements.
348Has man a function
349In Universe?
350In dynamical balance With the inside-outing, Expanding universe Of radiant stars, Man witnesses
351Radiantly dormant Earth as A collecting or outside-inning, Contracting phase, of Universe. Earth receives and stores, A continually increasing inventory Of sun and star emanating radiation In its lethal-energy-concentrates Sifting, sorting and accumulating Spherical Van Allen belts.
352In addition to the Van Allen belts The succession of Earth’s concentric Spherical mantles, e. g., The ionosphere, troposphere et al., Constitute an extraordinary series Of discrete filters for
353The random-to-orderly sorting, Shunting, partially accumulating And final inwardly forwarding Of the benign radiation residues To the biosphere stage Of Earth’s continual and orderly Processing of its discrete share Of the expanding-Universe-propagated Energy income receipts.
354 Earth also receives daily
355 Additional thousands of tons
356357Of expanding-Universe-dispatched Stardust.
358 This concentration around Earth’s surface
359 Of the Universe-deposited dust
360361Apparently consists of 91 of the 92 regeneratively patterning
362 Chemical elements
363364In approximately the same systematic order Of relative abundance of those elements
365As the relative abundance
366Of those same elements
367 As they are found to occur
368 In the thus far inventoried
369 Reaches of Universe.
370 The biological life on earth
371 Is inherently antientropic
372 For it negotiates the chemical sorting
373 Out of the Earth’s crust’s
374 Chemical elements inventory
375 And rearranges the atoms
376 In elegantly ordered
377 Molecular compound patternings.
378 Of all the biological antientropics,
379 I. e. random-to-orderly arrangers,
380 Man’s intellect is by much
381382The most active, exquisite and effective agent Thus far in evidence in Universe.
383Through intellect, man constantly succeeds
384 In inventing technological means
385 Of doing ever more orderly
386 I. e., more efficient,
387 ‘‘Better sorted-out,’’
388 Local Universe, energy tasks
389 With ever less units of investments
390391Of the (what may be only apparently), ‘‘Randomly’’ occurring
392 Resources of energy,
393 As atomic matter,
394 Or energy as channeled electromagnetics.
395 To guarantee
396 All of life’s
397 Antientropic functioning,
398 Intellectual integrity Universe
399400Which has designedly arranged the great game Has also arranged that mankind, Like all the other living species, Has its ultra-shortsighted, Built-in, ‘‘desire’’ drives,
401Its romantic conception ambitions And protectively colored self deceits, As well as its longer distance ‘‘needs,’’ All of which cause each species To pursue its particular ‘‘honey’’ With its particular rose-colored glasses, As does the bumblebee Which at the same time
402Inadvertently and unconsciously performs Myriads of other tasks, Designed with fabulous
403Scientific capability by nature,
404Which inadvertent interco-ordinate tasks Unknown to the separate creature species Are all essential to realization Of the regenerative continuance Of the much larger
405Survival support conditions For the generalized
406Ecological system of ‘‘all life.’’
407 It is part of
408409The comprehensively anticipating, Design science of life
410That the bumblebee’s self-unviewed, Unwitting, bumbling tail
411Bumps into and knocks off male pollen, Which it later
412And again inadvertently,
413Knocks off upon the female botanical organs, Thus unconsciously participating in A vastly complex ecological interaction Of the many energy processing Bio-chemical ‘‘gears’’ Of the total life system Dynamically constituted by All the living species.
414The myriad inadvertencies Of all the living species Have sum totally provided A metabolically sustaining And regenerative topsoil process Which—it is realized now, But only by
415Our retrospectively gained knowledge—
416Has kept man
417Regeneratively alive on Earth For at least two million years, While ever improving His physical survival advantages And increasing his longevity.
418This vast ‘‘game playing’’ of life Has also indirectly occasioned Not only the regenerative multiplication Of human beings,
419But also a progressively increasing Percentage who survive in conditions Of ever improving Physical advantage.
420I think man is very properly concerned About that which he does not understand.
421I don’t think that it is the machine per se That bothers man;
422 It is just not understanding
423 Anything
424 That disturbs him.
425 When an accident bares
426427Portions of human organs Familiar only to doctors, Those organs look foreign And frightening to people. Stick your tongue way out Before a mirror.
428 It is a strange looking device.
429 If existing originally and
430431Transcendentally as psyches only, Individuals had to choose, And assemble their own sets Of organic parts,
432Having been assured of mortal incarnation And of mortal ‘‘honey chasing’’ experiences But only after successful selection And completion of the assembly—And were endowed—as psyches—Only with an aesthetic Sense of selectivity,
433Being devoid of any understanding Of either the separate or integrated Functions of those parts—No humans would merger
434Those co-operatively functioning parts Into mortal beings
435 For no part of the ‘‘guts’’
436 Would be chosen.
437438Nature had to skin over the regenerative Chemistry and physics controls, With an aesthetically intriguing, Pseudo-static, sculptural baby doll unity In order to trick the immortal psyches Into the problem-beset,
439Temporary occupation
440Of such humid process regenerative machines As those of the humans.
441I have learned
442That man knows little
443And thinks he knows a lot.
444I am the most unlearned man I know.
445I don’t know anyone
446Who has learned
447How little one knows
448As have I.
449But that does not belittle
450The little I seem to know,
451And I have confidence
452In the importance of remembering
453How little we know
454And of the possible significance Of the fact that we prosper, And at sometimes even enjoy Life in Universe
455Despite the designed-in littleness That we have to ‘‘get by with.’’
456 What the astronomers rank as
457 The nearest bright star to Earth
458 Is ‘‘Rigel Kent’’
459460Which is three hundred thousand times Further away from earth than is the Sun. It is easy to see a man
461 One third of a mile away and
462 We were surprised when young
463 To see a man
464 At that distance
465 Swinging a sledge
466 To drive a post into the ground
467 And to realize
468 That the sound of his maul
469 Hitting the post top
470 Registered in our brain
471 As reported through the ears
472 Four seconds later
473 Than had the visual news
474 Which ‘‘long since’’ had told us
475 That he had once more
476 Hit the post.
477 Through physical experiments
478479Performed by our scientists
480We have learned that
481The highest known velocity
482Among physical phenomena
483Is the speed of light and all radiation Relayingly scanned by nerve lines To our brain’s television conceptualizing Through the optics of our eyes.
484 Because the speed of light
485486Is approximately 186,000 miles per second, And the Moon is
487About twice that distance Away from Earth.
488 If we had a large mirror on the Moon,
489 And we flashed a powerful
490 Light toward the Moon
491 It would take four seconds
492 For the light to be reflected back
493 To our eyes.
494 That is, the light takes
495 Two seconds to get to the Moon
496 And two more seconds
497 To return to Earth.
498 And the overall four seconds lag
499 Of the visual report
500 Is the same time lag as that in
501 Our childhood realized lag
502 Of the sound report
503 Behind the visual report
504 Of the post-sledging event.
505 Because the light coming to Earth
506 From the Moon
507 Takes two seconds to make the trip,
508 And because the light
509 Coming to Earth from the Sun
510 Takes eight and one-half minutes,
511 And because the light coming to us from Rigel Kent
512 Takes four and one-half years,
513 We all see a live show
514 Taking place in the sky
515 Four and one-half
516 Years ago.
517 And as we gaze around
518 The starry heavens
519 We see right now
520 Live shows of ‘‘yesterdays’’
521 Ranging from millions to sextillions of years ago,
522 As we look at the stars
523 We see all of history
524 Now alive.
525526It took only two million years and Four and one-half billion human babies To establish a human survival beachhead Aboard the little Eight-thousand-mile-diameter Spherical Spaceship EARTH
527Whereby life could successfully realize Its highest known potential life span Possibly to continue indefinitely As one self-rejuvenation generation. Few of the stars we look at, Live-starring out there, Are young enough To witness
528 Those first human events
529 Taking place on Earth
530 Only two millions of years ago.
531532Since all the vital parts Of human organisms Have now become interchangeable, And many of them
533Have also become interchangeable With inanimate mechanical parts, And since human longevity Is continually increasing There is a good possibility That humanity is developing A continuous human
534 Who will persist in prime health
535 And youthful vigor.
536537With the lessening of need To replenish the population With fresh baby starts,
538The built-in drives to procreate Will lessen and be manifest in a proclivity Of females to camouflage as male And males to camouflage as female Thus suppressing the procreative urge By superficial antipathetic illusions, While permitting and promoting Procreatively innocuous sex companionships.
539Despite their billionfold numbers Babies and very young children Soon after their arrival on earth Have uttered and continue to utter Spontaneous comments and questions—Concerning life on Earth And in Universe—
540Which are so economical And uniquely fresh
541In viewpoint and formulation
542As to be pure poetry Apparently proving that Poetry is inexhaustible;
543To which their sophisticated
544And surprised off-guard adult audience Cliche unpoetically ‘‘Oh how cute.’’
545In the year 1964
546The one hundred largest Industrial giant corporations, Born and reared
547In the United States of America Invested four out of five
548Of their new plant and equipment Expansion dollars
549In production and service facilities In world lands outside the U.S.A.
550 This trending to World identity only
551 Of the industrial giants
552 Held true also not only with thousands
553 Of lesser magnitude
554 U.S.A, and European born
555 Limited liability industrial organizations
556 But also with the Communist countries’
557 Giant industrial organizations.
558 Wherefore world industrialization trends swiftly—
559 And altogether transcendentally
560 To man’s conscious planning—
561 Into an unitarily co-ordinate
562 World giant
563 With built-in automated,
564 Research fed,
565 Computer analyzed and selected,
566 Evolutionary self-improving
567 And self-transforming
568 Through alternatingly regenerated
569 Competitive precessioning
570571Of all the variable functions Of general systems theory.
572 TRUTH
573 I have learned that truth
574 Is an omnipresent, omnidirectional,
575 Evolutionary awareness,
576577One of whose myriadly multiplying facets Discloses that there are no ‘‘absolutes’’ -No ‘‘ends in themselves’’—no ‘‘things’’ -Only transitionally transformative verbing.
578 It seems possible to me
579580That God may be recognizable In man’s limited intellection
581 Only as the weightless passion drive
582583Which inspires our progressive searching For the—momentarily only -
584And only most-truthful-thus-far-possible—Comprehension of all the interconnections
585 Of all experiences.
586 It seems then to me
587588That the nearer we come to understanding, The nearer we come to the
589 Orderly omni-interrelationships
590 Of all the weightless complex
591 Of all generalized principles
592 Which seem to be disclosed to us
593 As so important
594 As to be tentatively identified as God.
595596For it is the integratable interrelationships Of all the generalized laws
597Which apparently govern
598The great verb ‘‘Universe’’
599 Of the vastly greater
600601—Because comprehensively anticipatory - Verb intellecting
602Which verb of optimum understanding May be ‘‘God’’.
603 It seems that Truth
604 Is progressive approximation
605 In which the relative fraction
606607Of our spontaneously tolerated residual error Constantly diminishes.
608 This is a typical
609610Antientropy proclivity of man—Entropy being the law
611 Of increase of the random element.
612613Heisenberg’s indeterminism, In which the act of measuring Always alters the measured, Would seem entropic were it not For the experimentally realized knowledge That the successive alterations Of the observed Diminish
614As both our tooling and instrumentation Continually improve;
615Ergo intellection’s effect
616Upon measurement and the measured
617Is a gap closing,
618And the pursuit of more truthful comprehension Is successfully antientropic.
619Before Heisenberg, T. S. Eliot said, ‘‘Examination of history alters history’’ And Ezra Pound,
620 And even earlier poets,
621 Reported their discoveries
622623That in one way or another The act of thinking alters thought itself.
624 When we ask ourself
625 ‘‘What have we learned?’’
626 We feel at first
627 That the answer is ‘‘nothing.’’
628629But as soon as we say so We recall exceptions.
630For instance we have learned
631To test experimentally
632 The axioms given to us
633 As ‘‘educational’’ springboards, and
634 We have found
635636That most of the ‘‘springboards’’ Do not spring
637 And some never existed.
638639As for instance Points, holes, Solids, surfaces, Straight lines, planes, ‘‘Instantaneous,’’ ‘‘simultaneous,’’
640Things, nouns, ‘‘Up,’’ ‘‘down,’’ ‘‘at rest’’
641The words ‘‘artificial’’ and ‘‘failure’’ Are all meaningless.
642For what they aver
643Is experimentally ‘‘non-existent.’’
644If nature permits a formulation It is natural.
645If nature’s laws of behavior Do not permit formulation The latter does not occur. Whatever can be done Is natural,
646No matter how grotesque, boring, Unfamiliar or unprecedented.
647 In the same way
648 Nature never ‘‘fails.’’
649650Nature complies with her own laws. Nature is the law.
651When man lacks understanding Of nature’s laws
652And a man-contrived structure Buckles unexpectedly, It does not fail.
653It only demonstrates that man Did not understand
654Nature’s laws and behaviors. Nothing failed.
655Man’s knowledge or estimating Was inadequate.
656The second law of thermodynamics—Entropy—is also as we have learned The law of increase of the Random Element I. e., every system loses energy—but Synergy means
657 Behavior of whole systems
658 Unpredicted by
659 The behavior of any separate part.
660 EN-ergy behaves entropically.
661 SYN-ergy behaves syntropically.
662 God is entropy
663 And God is syntropy,
664 God is synergy.
665 God is energy.
666 And God is always
667 A verb—
668669The verbing of Integrity.
670I assume that the physical Universe is definite And the metaphysical Universe is finite.
671 What men have called infinite
672 I call finite
673 And what men called finite
674 I call definite—i.e., definitive.
675 By my philosophy
676 The finite, but imponderable
677 Metaphysical Universe
678679Embraces the definite, Ponderable, physical Universe. Finite is not unitarily conceptual. Definite is unitarily conceptual.
680 I have mathematical proof
681 That the difference between the sums
682 Of all the angles around all the surface vertices
683 Of any conceptual, definitive physical system
684 And the finite but non-conceptual metaphysical universe
685 Is always 720 degrees
686 Or a difference of only one
687Definitive tetrahedron,
688 Therefore, the combined
689 Physical and metaphysical Universe is finite.
690 You can’t buy anything worthwhile
691 Like spontaneous love or understanding.
692 Though metaphysically finite
693 These are imponderables.
694 The absolute would be
695 Nontransformable, static and weighable.
696 Ergo, experimentally meaningless.
697 Infinity is only local
698 And occurs within definite systems,
699 As for instance
700 Following a great circle
701 Around a sphere
702 Which because of the fact
703 That lines—
704 Which occur experimentally
705 Only as energy vectors—
706 Cannot go through
707 The same point
708 At the same time—
709 Due to interference,
710 Which means also that lines
711 As curves
712 Cannot re-enter, or
713 ‘‘Join back into themselves,’’
714 Therefore, the circling line
715 Can only wrap around
716 And over its earlier part—
717 As the knot-making
718 Sailor says it,
719 The circle when followed
720 Around and around
721 Results in a coil
722 Which is an endless scenario—
723 An asymmetric spiral,
724 Which may be followed experimentally
725 Only as long as intellect is interested.
726 Not being simultaneous
727 Universe cannot consist of one function.
728 Functions only coexist.
729 Universe while finite is not definable.
730 I can define many of its parts
731 But I cannot define simultaneously
732 The nonsimultaneously occurring
733 Aggregate of partially overlapping experiences
734 Whose total set of local scenario relationships
735 Constitutes the whole Universe
736 Though the latter as an aggregate of finites
737 Is finite.
738 All the words
739 In all the dictionaries, as noted before,
740 Represent all of humanity’s attempts
741 To express the aggregate of experiences—Universe.
742 And while the dictionaries are finite
743 All the words
744 In all the dictionaries
745 Cannot be read simultaneously
746 And there is not one
747 Simultaneous sentence
748 Inherent and readable
749 In all the words.
750 In the same way
751 All the nonsimultaneous experiences
752 May not be conceived
753 And expressed as
754 A simultaneous system.
755 Ergo, there is no thinkable and logical Simultaneous conception
756 Of nonsimultaneous Universe.
757 There is strong awareness
758 That we have been overproducing
759 The army of rigorously disciplined
760 Scientific, game playing, academic specialists Who through hard work
761 And suppressed imagination
762 Earn their Ph. D.s
763 And automatic contracts
764 With prime contractors
765 At fifteen thousand dollars
766 Per year—and more—
767 Only to have their specialized field
768 Become obsolete and by-passed in five years, By severely altered techniques, instruments And exploratory stratagems.
769 Despite their honor grades
770 They prove not to be
771 The Natural Philosophers
772 And scientist-artists, implied by their Ph. D.s But just deluxe quality Technicians or mechanics.
773 And a myriad
774 Of emergency committees—
775 Multiplying swiftly
776 From one or two
777 Emergency Committees
778 Appointed by the President,
779 Have altogether discovered
780 That what the
781 Ph. D. scientists lack -
782 To adapt themselves to change
783 Has been officially pronounced to be
784 ‘‘Creativity,’’
785 But to my thinking
786 They lack the unique capability of mind—
787 Which is the ability not only to generalize
788 And to integrate a complex
789 Of pure generalizations
790 But also to project teleologically—
791 With fundamental understanding—
792 In any special case direction.
793 Fundamental wisdom
794 Can readily identify any and all
795 Special case aspects within
796 The generalized whole
797 When listening
798 Sensitively to one’s intuitions
799 By which alone
800 The generalized sub-subconscious integration
801 Of pattern cognition feedbacks
802 Are articulated.
803 Philip Morrison—Cornell’s head
804 Of the department of nuclear physics—
805 Talks about what he calls
806 ‘‘Left-hand’’ and ‘‘right-hand’’ sciences.
807 Right-hand science deals in all the proven
808 Scientific formulas and experiments.
809 Left-hand science deals in
810 All of the as yet unknown or unproven—
811 That is: With all it is going to take
812 Intellectually, intuitively, speculatively, imaginatively
813 And even mystically
814 By inspired persistence
815 To open up the as yet unknown.
816 The great scientists were great
817 Because they were the ones
818 Who dealt successfully with the unknown. All the ‘‘greats’’ were left-hand scientists.
819 Despite this historical patterning of the ‘‘greats’’ We have government underwriting Only the right-hand science, Making it bigger and sharper,
820 Rather than more inclusive and understanding*.— For how could Congress justify Appropriations of billions for dreams?
821 So the billions went only For the swiftly obsoleting
822 Bigger, faster and more incisive
823 Modifications of yesterday’s certainties, By Ph. D. specialists Guaranteed by the great Institutes of Technology To which the Congress Allocated the training funds As obviously ‘‘safe’’ .
824 And exempt from political criticism;
825 Despite that scientific investigation Had shown beyond doubt That almost all of America’s Top performance scientists Had been educated
826 In small, liberal arts colleges, And that almost all Of those top scientists Attributed their success To their good fortune In having studied intimately With a great inspiring teacher. It woud be considered Political madness
827 To risk charges of corruption
828 Through voting government funds
829 To any individual
830831Especially to ‘‘great inspiring teachers’’—‘‘Crackpot longhairs!’’
832 So it goes—
833 To hell with the facts
834 When re-election
835 To political office is at stake.
836837Everything that constitutes science Is unteachable.
838 And we recall that
839 Eddington said: ‘‘Science
840 Is the earnest attempt
841 Of individual initiative
842 To set in order
843 The facts of experience.’’
844845Scientific routines for specialized technicians And scientific formulas for their reference Alone are teachable. Initiative is unteachable.
846Because we have been governmentally fostering Ony right-hand science and Right-hand science to excess
847 The U.S.A. President’s science advisor
848 Instituted last year (1965)
849 A new direction of search
850 For sources of so-called ‘‘creativity.’’
851852Financed by the National Academy of Sciences, He asked New York University’s art department To bring together a representative group of America’s leading art educators and artists.
853It was felt by the National Academy That the art educators—As those who dealt with
854 Most of the almost drop-outs
855 Who had been switched into art
856 As a ‘‘last resort’’—
857 Were probably intimate
858 With the type of emerging youth
859 Who were allowed to remain
860 In a freer state of mind
861 —In the world of art —
862 Than would they have been
863 If disciplined rigorously
864 In sharp specialization by the sciences.
865 That meeting I thought fascinating
866 For it disclosed the artists as being
867 Individuals who develop powerful self-protection
868 Of their innate intellectual
869 And conceptual capability inheritance.
870 They often protect their innate capabilities
871 Through intuitively triggered poker-faced silence
872 Which in the elementary or high schools
873 Is interpreted as non-cooperative, mental inferiority, Often causing early termination
874 Of their formal education.
875 I think the consensus
876 Of the New York University meeting
877 Was that individuals
878 Of original conceptual brilliance
879 Were most frequently
880 Detected, protected, and made to grow By equally sensitive art teachers.
881 ‘‘Great teachers.’’
882 Which agrees elegantly
883 With the statements
884 Of the proven scientists
885 Regarding their own experiences.
886 Congressional appropriations committees Please take notice!
887 To comprehend the integral of art and science As an irrepressible, intuitive creative urgency—As an artist’s need to articulate—
888 Kepes at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Made a beautiful demonstration.
889 He took hundreds of 8’’ x 10’’
890 Black-and-white photographs
891 Of modern paintings and mixed them thoroughly Like shuffled cards
892 With photographs taken by scientists
893 Through microscopes or telescopes
894 Of all manner of natural phenomena Sound waves, chromosomes and such.
895 The only way you can classify
896 Photographs with nothing recognizable in them
897 Is by your own spontaneous Pattern classifications.
898 Group the mealy, the blotchy, the striped,
899 The swirly, the polka-dotted, and their sub-combinations.
900 The pattern classified groups Of photographs were displayed.
901 The artists’ work and the scientists’
902 Were indistinguishable.
903 Checking the back-mounted data, it was found
904 That the artist had frequently conceived
905 The imagined pattern before
906 The scientist found it in nature.
907 Science began to take A new view of artists.
908 Loving mothers
909 Prohibit here and promote there—
910 Often in ways irrelevant or frustrating To brain-coordinated genetic evolution,
911 Often suppressing
912 A child’s profound contribution Trying to emerge.
913 We have to look on our society
914915As we look on the biological world in general Recognizing, for instance,
916 The extraordinary contributions
917 Of the fungi, the manures, the worms, et al.— In the chemical reprocessing—And fertility up-grading of the earth.
918 We must learn to think
919 Of the functions of the trees’ roots
920 As being of equal importance To the leaves’ functions.
921 We tend to applaud
922 Only the flower and the fruit
923 Just as we applaud only the football player
924 Who makes the touchdown
925 And not the linemen
926 Who opened the way.
927 What society applauds as ‘‘creative’’
928 Is often isolated
929 Out of an extraordinary set Of co-equal evolutionary events, Most of which are invisible.
930 Evolutionary ‘‘touchdowns’’ are unpredictable—Sometimes centuries apart.
931 Who knows which child
932 is to make the next breakthrough?
933 In the next decade society
934935Is going to be preoccupied with the child Because through the behavioral sciences And electrical exploration of the brain We find that given the right environment And thoughtful answers to its questions The child has everything it needs educationally Right from birth.
936 We have thought erroneously of education
937 As the mature wisdom
938 And over-brimming knowledge of the grownups
939 Injected by the discipline pump
940 Into the otherwise ‘‘empty’’ child’s head.
941 Sometimes parents say ‘‘don’t’’
942 Because they want to protect the child
943 From getting into trouble.
944 At other times when they fail to say ‘‘no’’
945 The child gets into trouble.
946 The child, frustrated, stops exploring.
947 It is possible to design environments
948 Within which the child will be
949 Neither frustrated nor hurt
950 Yet free to self-educate, spontaneously and fully
951 Without trespassing on others.
952 I have learned to undertake
953 Reform of the environment
954 And not to try to reform man.
955If we design the environment properly
956 It will permit both child and adult to develop safely And to behave logically.
957 Order is achieved through—positive and negative—
958 Magnitude and frequency controlled alteration
959 Of the successive steering angles.
960 We move by zigzagging control
961 From one phase of physical Universe evolution to another.
962 The rudder concept of social law is most apt.
963 The late Norbert Wiener chose the word cybernetics
964 Derived from Greek roots of ‘‘rudder’’
965 Because Wiener, Shannon and others
966 in communication theory
967 Were exploring human behaviors
968 And their brain-controlled ‘‘feedback,’’ etc.,
969 As a basis for the design of computers—
970 And it became evident
971 That the human brain only waveringly
972 Steers man through constant change.
973 No sharp cleavage is found
974 Which identifies the boundary between life and non-life,
975 Between the heretofore so-called ‘‘animate’’ and ‘‘inanimate.’’
976 Viruses,
977 The smallest organized structures
978 Exhibiting ‘‘life,’’
979 May be classified either
980 As inanimate or animate -
981 As crystalline or ‘‘cellular’’ forms.
982 This is the level also at which
983 The DNA-RNA genetic code serves as
984 An angle and frequency designed
985 Structural pattern integrity.
986 Such pattern integrities
987 Are strictly accountable
988 Only as mathematical principles
989 Pattern integrities are found
990 At all levels of structural organization in Universe.
991 The DNA-RNA is a specialized case
992 Of the generalized principle of pattern integrity
993 Found throughout life and non-life.
994 All pattern integrity design
995 Is controlled entirely and only by
996 Angle and frequency modulation.
997 The biological corpus
998 Is not strictly ‘‘animate’’ at any point.
999 Given that the ‘‘ordering’’
1000 Of the corpus design
1001 Is accomplished through such codings as DNA-RNA Which are exclusively angle and frequency modulation.
1002 Then we may go on to suggest
10031004That ‘‘life,’’ as we customarily define it Could be effected at a distance.
1005Precession is the effect Of one moving system Upon another moving system. Precession always produces
1006Angular changes of the movements Of the effected bodies and
1007At angles other than 180 degrees, That is, the results are never Continuance in a straight line. Ergo all bodies of Universe Are effecting the other bodies
1008 In varying degrees
1009 And all the intergravitational effects
1010 Are precessionally angular modulations And all the interradiation effects Are frequency modulations.
1011 The gravitational and radiation effects Could modulate the DNA-RNA Angle and frequency instructions At astronomical remoteness—Life could be ‘‘sent on.’’
1012 Within the order of evolution as usually drawn Life ‘‘occurred’’ as a series
1013 Of fortuitous probabilities in the primeval sea. It could have been sent or ‘‘radiated’’ there. That is, the prime code
1014 Or angle and frequency modulated signal Could have been transmitted From a remote stellar location.
1015 It seems more likely
10161017(In view of the continuous rediscovery of humans As fully organized beings
1018At ever more remote historical periods) That the inanimate structural pattern integrity, Which we call human being, Was a frequency modulated code message Beamed at Earth from remote location.
1019Man as prime organizing ‘‘Principle’’ construct pattern integrity Was radiated here from the stars - Not as primal cell, but as
1020A fully articulated high order being, Possibly as the synergetic totality Of all the gravitation And radiation effects
1021 Of all the stars
1022 In our galaxy
1023 And from all the adjacent galaxies
1024 With some weak effects
1025 And some strong effects
1026 And from all time.
10271028And pattern itself being weightless, The life integrities are apparently Inherently immortal.
1029 You and I
1030 Are essential functions
1031 Of Universe
1032 We are exquisite syntropy.
1033 I’ll be seeing you!
1034 Forever.