Chapter 6
Appendix I
2Selections from Buckminster Fuller’s ‘‘How Little I Know’’ (1966)
3 (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
4 millan Publishing Co., 1976.)
5 ‘‘Tell me
6 In five thousand
7 Written words’’—
8 (Equivalent, at my oral rate,
9 To three-quarters of an hour’s discourse) ‘‘What you have learned—In your lifetime,’’
10 Said Norman Cousins.
11 ‘‘That ought to be easy,’’ said I.
12 Three weeks have gone by—
13 I recall that
14 Thirty-eight years ago I invented a routine Somewhat similar to Muscle development Accomplished through A day-by-day lifting
15 Of progressively heavier weights.
16 But my new
17 Intellectual routine
18 Dealt with the weightless process Of human thought development Which subject is
19 Known to the scholars As epistemology.
20 And I have learned
21 That such words as Epistemology
22 Stop most of humanity
23 From pursuing
24 Such important considerations
25 As the development
26 Of the thought processes.
27 So my new discipline
28 Was invented for dealing
29 Even with the ephemeral Which word means
30 Conceptual but weightless— As is for instance
31 The concept of circularity.
32 My new strategy required That on successive days
33 I ask myself
34 A progressively larger
3536And more inclusive question Which must be answered
37Only in the terms of Experience.
38Hearsaids, beliefs, axioms, Superstitions, guesses, opinions Were and are
39 All excluded
40 As answer resources
41 For playing my particular Intellectual development game.
42 However, when lacking Any possible experience clues I saw that it was ineffectual To attempt to answer
43 Such questions as for instance
44 ‘‘Why I?’’
45 Or
46 ‘‘Why …
47 Anything?’’
48 And because it was my experience That some individuals
49 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.
50 In playing that game
51 I soon came
52 To what I assumed to be both The largest askable and The largest answerable Question:
53 ‘‘What do you mean,’’
54 I asked myself, ‘‘By the word Universe?
55 If you can’t answer
56 In terms of
57 Direct experience You must desist From the further use Of the word UNIVERSE For, to you It will have become Meaningless!’’
5859The 20th century physicists, In defining physical Universe As consisting only of energy, Deliberately excluded metaphysical Universe—Because the metaphysical
60Consists only of imponderables, Whereas the physical scientists Deal only with ponderables—Wherefore their physical Universe Excluded for instance
61 All our thoughts—
62 Because thoughts are weightless—
63 But thoughts are experiences—Wherefore I saw
64 That to be adequate
65 To the intuitively formulated
66 And experience-founded controls
67 Of my ever bigger
68 Question and answer routine,
69 My answering definition
70 Of UNIVERSE
71 Must be one which
72 Embraced the combined
7374Metaphysical and physical Components of UNIVERSE.
75Thus my self-formulating answer emerged, And has persisted unshattered
76 By any subsequent challenges
77 From myself or others
78 As:
79 ‘‘By Universe I mean:
8081The aggregate of all humanity’s Consciously apprehended And communicated
82 (To self or others)
83 Experiences.’’
8485And later I discovered that Eddington had said ‘‘Science is: The conscientious attempt To set in order The facts of Experience.’’
86And 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:
87‘‘Physics is: Experience Arranged in Most economical order.’’
88So I realized that
89Both 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.
90Wherefore 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.
91There are forty-three thousand current words In the Concise Oxford Dictionary.
92 We don’t know who invented them!
93 What an enormous, anonymous inheritance!
9495Shakespeare used ten thousand of them With which to formulate
96 His complete ‘‘works.’’
9798It would take many more volumes Than Shakespeare’s to employ The forty-three thousand —Logically and cogently.
99 In a five thousand word article
100 I would probably have use for
101 Only one thousand.
102 Are forty-two thousand
103 Of these words
104 Superficial and extraneous
105 In reporting on
106 What I have learned?
107 I have learned that
108 You would think so
109 If you ever saw a magazine’s
110 Space rewrite editor
111 At work on my work!
112 I’m not inclined to use
113 The word ‘‘Creativity’’
114 In respect to human beings;
115 What is usually spoken of as creativity
116117Is really a unique and unprecedented Human employment of principles Which exist a priori in the Universe.
118I think man is a very extra-ordinary Part of the Universe
119 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.
120 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
121 Of reciprocal and transformative freedoms In pure principle
122 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
123 With the earliest recorded philosophic statements By unknown individuals of India and China. Through millenniums the philosophies Have become progressively Compromised and complicated.
124 I am an explorer, however, Of the generalized design science principles Which seemingly differentiate Man from animal
125 And mind from brain.
126 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.
127 The literary men say ‘‘This is too general.’’
128 In the mathematical sense, The meaning of generalization Is quite different.
129 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.
130 The conscious detection of
131132Generalized principles which hold true Under all conditions
133And their abstraction from any and all Special case experiences of the principles
- Is probably unique to humans.
134135By abstraction, I mean an idealized, ‘‘Empty set’’ statement
136 Such as, for instance, one of my own!
- ‘‘Tension and compression are only coexistent’’
- E. g., when you tense a rope
137 Its girth contracts—ergo compresses.
138139When you compress a sphere’s polar axis, Its equatorial girth expands and tenses, It is inconceivable that a dog
140 Tugging at its leash at one time
141 And, compressing its teeth
142 On a bone at another time,
143 Should formulate consciously
144 The generalized
145 ‘‘Only coexistence of tension and compression,’’ Though the dog is subconsciously coordinate In tension-compression tactics.
146 To generalize further than
147 ‘‘Tension and compression are only coexistent,’’
148 We may say that ‘‘plus and minus
149 Only coexist’’
150 And generalize even further
151 By saying ‘‘Functions only coexist.’’
152 Then there is an even more powerful
153 And intellectually more exalted stage
154 Of generalization of principles
155 And that is the generalization
156 Of a complex of generalizations
- Such as—unity is plural and at minimum two
- Which combines the generalized law
157 Of the coexistence only of functions With the theory of number.
158 In turn we discover the generalizations
159 Governing the associative powers
160 Of the nucleus and of the weak interactions
161 For the unity is two
162 Of the congruent, convex and concave spheres
163 As evidenceable in the generalized laws
164 Disclosed conceptually, arithmetically, and geometrically In synergetics.
165 I am certain that what we speak of
166 As human morality
167 Is a form of tentative generalization
168 Of principles underlying
169170Special case experiences of human potentials, Behaviors, actions, reactions and resultants. Man has also the unique ability To employ generalized principles
171 —Once recognized—
172 In a consciously selective variety
173 Of special case interrelationships.
174 The whole regenerative process
175 Of intellectual discovery
176 And specialized use of generalized principles
177 Is known as teleology.
178 Teleology embraces
179180The theory of communication, Though as yet having special case limitations.
181 It is a hypothetical
182 Approach to pure, abstract generalization
183 To say that teleology
184 Is only intuitively initiated by humans.
185 Intuition alerts brain
186 To first apprehend
187 And then recognize
188 Each special case experience
189 Within some minimum number
190 Of special case recognitions.
191 Intuition alerts mind
192 To comprehend, and
193 Formulate conceptually
194 The abstract generalization
195 Of a principle recognized
196 As operative in all the special cases.
197 Intuition alerts brain to
198199The objectively employable generalized principle In hitherto unexperienced special case Circumstances inexplicably remote
200 From the earlier set of
201202Special case experiences within which
203The generalized principles were first experienced Before their generalization Occurred in the mind.
204 Teleology - as part
205 Of communications theory
206 Relates to the pursuit of truth.
207 As entropy and antientropy.
208 It may be that
209 Communications theory
210 May be mathematically equated
211 With electrical
212 Transmission theory
213 Whereby the higher
214 The meaning or voltage
215 The more efficient
216 And longer distance
217 Communication attainable.
218 Based on experiments
219 With any and all systems,
220 The second law of thermodynamics
221222Predicts the inexorable energy loss Known as ENTROPY.
223 Because the escaping energy
224 Does so diffusely,
225 In all directions,
226 Entropy is also known
227 Mathematically
228 As ‘‘The Law of Increase
229 Of the Random Element.’’
230 Before it had been discovered
231 By rigorous experimentation
232 That light has a velocity
233 It was erroneously assumed
234 To be ‘‘self-evident’’
235236That light was instantaneous - That all stars in the sky Were ‘‘right there now’’ In exact geometrical pattern, Being seen instantaneously And simultaneously
237By all who looked their way.
238But 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.
239Assuming 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
240Must of course obey
241The great second law
242Of thermodynamics Whose, inexorable, Entropic energy loss Required self-dissipation And ultimately utter Self-annihilation
243 Of Universe.
244245‘‘Running down’’ they called it Wherever ‘‘down’’ may be.
246 Though light’s speed
247248Of seven hundred million miles per hour Is fast
249 It isn’t anywhere nearly as fast
250 As ‘‘instant’’—
251252Which means reaching anywhere ‘‘In no time at all.’’
253Ergo, the Einsteinians Instituted experiments To ascertain the behavioral characteristics Of a physical universe comprised Of only partially overlapping, Progressively intertransforming, Nonsimultaneous, energy events.
254The 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,
255But not always immediately, One hundred percent accountable.
256 As a consequence of
257 The Einsteinians’ experiments
258259The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ Concept of a continually
260 Self-dissipating universe
261 Had to be abandoned
262 And in its place was established
263 The, experimentally required,
264 Law of Conservation of Energy
265 Which states that energy
266 May be neither created nor lost;
267 Ergo the energetic Universe
268 Is the minimum,
269 But nonsimultaneously realized,
270271Energy exchanging system, Which is to say
272That physical Universe,
273 As experimentally demonstrated
274 Is the minimum and only
275 Perpetual motion process,
276277Which as an aggregate of finite, Dissimilar and nonsimultaneous Energy events
278 Is in itself
279 Sum totally finite.
280 All the foregoing
281 Dissipates the foundations
282 Of the Newtonian world’s
283 Cosmogony and economics
284 Which assumed
285286That a ‘‘running down world’’ Suggested the prudence
287 Of saving, conserving and hoarding;
288289And that those who spent Were fools who would perish As resources dwindled.
290Though entropically irreversible Every action
291Has its reaction and resultant, And every nuclear component Has its positive or negative Behavioral opposite Which is however
292Not its mirror image.
293And the irreversible situations Give an evolutionary direction To otherwise stalemated Conditions of physical Universe.
294For 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.
295Song 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.
296‘‘A body persists In a state of rest Or—
297Except as affected—’’ Thus grave stones are erected!
298 Nonsimultaneous, physical Universe Is Energy; and ‘‘Energy equals mass Times the second power
299 Of the speed of light.’’ No exceptions!
300 Fission verified Einstein’s hypothesis—Change is normal
301 Thank you Albert!
302 Irreversible verse. Einstein’s intellect
303 Defined energy as E = me2 Energy cannot define intellect.
304 Intellect the metaphysical Is comprehensive to Energy the physical.
305 While Universe is finite Energy is definite Because definable Energy is XY.
306 Intellect is O.
307 The wealth of Earthians Is irreversible.
308 Wealth cannot alter yesterday’s experience.
309 It can only alter today’s and tomorrow’s experiences. It can buy
310 Forward time in which intellect May scientifically explore for The orderly interrelationships
311 Disclosed in yesterday’s experiences Which can be employed by intellect To forecast
312 Anticipatory and orderly rearrangements of tomorrow By technological transformations Of the physical energy environments, Events and circumstances.
313 Wealth is the organized and operative
314 Tools and energy capability
315 To sustain man’s forward metabolic regeneration;
316 To physically protect him;
317 To increase his knowledge
318 And degrees of freedom
319 While decreasing his interfrustrations.
320 Solo wealth is to commonwealth
321 As X is to X4.
322 Wealth is: Energy compounded With intellect’s know-how.
323 Every time man uses his know-how
324 His experience increases
325 And his intellectual advantage
326 Automatically increases.
327 Because of its conservation
328 Energy cannot decrease.
329 Know-how can only increase.
330 It is therefore scientifically clear
331 That:—wealth which combines
332 Energy and intellect
333 Can only increase, and that wealth can
334 Increase only with use
335 And that wealth increases As fast as it is used.
336 The faster—the more!
337 Wealth is accountable as
338 The inanimate energies shunted
339 Onto the ends of industrial levers
340 Whose physical capability is
341 Stateable in forward, automated,
342 Man days of travel miles
343 With first class comprehensive services
344 Including food, lodging, clothing,
345 Amusements, communication, information
346 And medical services
347348Based on the average physical experiences Of a top civil service rating’s World travel involvements.
349Has man a function
350In Universe?
351In dynamical balance With the inside-outing, Expanding universe Of radiant stars, Man witnesses
352Radiantly 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.
353In 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
354The 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.
355 Earth also receives daily
356 Additional thousands of tons
357358Of expanding-Universe-dispatched Stardust.
359 This concentration around Earth’s surface
360 Of the Universe-deposited dust
361362Apparently consists of 91 of the 92 regeneratively patterning
363 Chemical elements
364365In approximately the same systematic order Of relative abundance of those elements
366As the relative abundance
367Of those same elements
368 As they are found to occur
369 In the thus far inventoried
370 Reaches of Universe.
371 The biological life on earth
372 Is inherently antientropic
373 For it negotiates the chemical sorting
374 Out of the Earth’s crust’s
375 Chemical elements inventory
376 And rearranges the atoms
377 In elegantly ordered
378 Molecular compound patternings.
379 Of all the biological antientropics,
380 I. e. random-to-orderly arrangers,
381 Man’s intellect is by much
382383The most active, exquisite and effective agent Thus far in evidence in Universe.
384Through intellect, man constantly succeeds
385 In inventing technological means
386 Of doing ever more orderly
387 I. e., more efficient,
388 ‘‘Better sorted-out,’’
389 Local Universe, energy tasks
390 With ever less units of investments
391392Of the (what may be only apparently), ‘‘Randomly’’ occurring
393 Resources of energy,
394 As atomic matter,
395 Or energy as channeled electromagnetics.
396 To guarantee
397 All of life’s
398 Antientropic functioning,
399 Intellectual integrity Universe
400401Which 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,
402Its 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
403Inadvertently and unconsciously performs Myriads of other tasks, Designed with fabulous
404Scientific capability by nature,
405Which inadvertent interco-ordinate tasks Unknown to the separate creature species Are all essential to realization Of the regenerative continuance Of the much larger
406Survival support conditions For the generalized
407Ecological system of ‘‘all life.’’
408 It is part of
409410The comprehensively anticipating, Design science of life
411That the bumblebee’s self-unviewed, Unwitting, bumbling tail
412Bumps into and knocks off male pollen, Which it later
413And again inadvertently,
414Knocks 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.
415The 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
416Our retrospectively gained knowledge—
417Has kept man
418Regeneratively alive on Earth For at least two million years, While ever improving His physical survival advantages And increasing his longevity.
419This vast ‘‘game playing’’ of life Has also indirectly occasioned Not only the regenerative multiplication Of human beings,
420But also a progressively increasing Percentage who survive in conditions Of ever improving Physical advantage.
421I think man is very properly concerned About that which he does not understand.
422I don’t think that it is the machine per se That bothers man;
423 It is just not understanding
424 Anything
425 That disturbs him.
426 When an accident bares
427428Portions of human organs Familiar only to doctors, Those organs look foreign And frightening to people. Stick your tongue way out Before a mirror.
429 It is a strange looking device.
430 If existing originally and
431432Transcendentally as psyches only, Individuals had to choose, And assemble their own sets Of organic parts,
433Having 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,
434Being devoid of any understanding Of either the separate or integrated Functions of those parts—No humans would merger
435Those co-operatively functioning parts Into mortal beings
436 For no part of the ‘‘guts’’
437 Would be chosen.
438439Nature 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,
440Temporary occupation
441Of such humid process regenerative machines As those of the humans.
442I have learned
443That man knows little
444And thinks he knows a lot.
445I am the most unlearned man I know.
446I don’t know anyone
447Who has learned
448How little one knows
449As have I.
450But that does not belittle
451The little I seem to know,
452And I have confidence
453In the importance of remembering
454How little we know
455And of the possible significance Of the fact that we prosper, And at sometimes even enjoy Life in Universe
456Despite the designed-in littleness That we have to ‘‘get by with.’’
457 What the astronomers rank as
458 The nearest bright star to Earth
459 Is ‘‘Rigel Kent’’
460461Which is three hundred thousand times Further away from earth than is the Sun. It is easy to see a man
462 One third of a mile away and
463 We were surprised when young
464 To see a man
465 At that distance
466 Swinging a sledge
467 To drive a post into the ground
468 And to realize
469 That the sound of his maul
470 Hitting the post top
471 Registered in our brain
472 As reported through the ears
473 Four seconds later
474 Than had the visual news
475 Which ‘‘long since’’ had told us
476 That he had once more
477 Hit the post.
478 Through physical experiments
479480Performed by our scientists
481We have learned that
482The highest known velocity
483Among physical phenomena
484Is the speed of light and all radiation Relayingly scanned by nerve lines To our brain’s television conceptualizing Through the optics of our eyes.
485 Because the speed of light
486487Is approximately 186,000 miles per second, And the Moon is
488About twice that distance Away from Earth.
489 If we had a large mirror on the Moon,
490 And we flashed a powerful
491 Light toward the Moon
492 It would take four seconds
493 For the light to be reflected back
494 To our eyes.
495 That is, the light takes
496 Two seconds to get to the Moon
497 And two more seconds
498 To return to Earth.
499 And the overall four seconds lag
500 Of the visual report
501 Is the same time lag as that in
502 Our childhood realized lag
503 Of the sound report
504 Behind the visual report
505 Of the post-sledging event.
506 Because the light coming to Earth
507 From the Moon
508 Takes two seconds to make the trip,
509 And because the light
510 Coming to Earth from the Sun
511 Takes eight and one-half minutes,
512 And because the light coming to us from Rigel Kent
513 Takes four and one-half years,
514 We all see a live show
515 Taking place in the sky
516 Four and one-half
517 Years ago.
518 And as we gaze around
519 The starry heavens
520 We see right now
521 Live shows of ‘‘yesterdays’’
522 Ranging from millions to sextillions of years ago,
523 As we look at the stars
524 We see all of history
525 Now alive.
526527It 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
528Whereby 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
529 Those first human events
530 Taking place on Earth
531 Only two millions of years ago.
532533Since all the vital parts Of human organisms Have now become interchangeable, And many of them
534Have 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
535 Who will persist in prime health
536 And youthful vigor.
537538With the lessening of need To replenish the population With fresh baby starts,
539The 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.
540Despite 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—
541Which are so economical And uniquely fresh
542In viewpoint and formulation
543As to be pure poetry Apparently proving that Poetry is inexhaustible;
544To which their sophisticated
545And surprised off-guard adult audience Cliche unpoetically ‘‘Oh how cute.’’
546In the year 1964
547The one hundred largest Industrial giant corporations, Born and reared
548In the United States of America Invested four out of five
549Of their new plant and equipment Expansion dollars
550In production and service facilities In world lands outside the U.S.A.
551 This trending to World identity only
552 Of the industrial giants
553 Held true also not only with thousands
554 Of lesser magnitude
555 U.S.A, and European born
556 Limited liability industrial organizations
557 But also with the Communist countries’
558 Giant industrial organizations.
559 Wherefore world industrialization trends swiftly—
560 And altogether transcendentally
561 To man’s conscious planning—
562 Into an unitarily co-ordinate
563 World giant
564 With built-in automated,
565 Research fed,
566 Computer analyzed and selected,
567 Evolutionary self-improving
568 And self-transforming
569 Through alternatingly regenerated
570 Competitive precessioning
571572Of all the variable functions Of general systems theory.
573 TRUTH
574 I have learned that truth
575 Is an omnipresent, omnidirectional,
576 Evolutionary awareness,
577578One of whose myriadly multiplying facets Discloses that there are no ‘‘absolutes’’ -No ‘‘ends in themselves’’—no ‘‘things’’ -Only transitionally transformative verbing.
579 It seems possible to me
580581That God may be recognizable In man’s limited intellection
582 Only as the weightless passion drive
583584Which inspires our progressive searching For the—momentarily only -
585And only most-truthful-thus-far-possible—Comprehension of all the interconnections
586 Of all experiences.
587 It seems then to me
588589That the nearer we come to understanding, The nearer we come to the
590 Orderly omni-interrelationships
591 Of all the weightless complex
592 Of all generalized principles
593 Which seem to be disclosed to us
594 As so important
595 As to be tentatively identified as God.
596597For it is the integratable interrelationships Of all the generalized laws
598Which apparently govern
599The great verb ‘‘Universe’’
600 Of the vastly greater
601602—Because comprehensively anticipatory - Verb intellecting
603Which verb of optimum understanding May be ‘‘God’’.
604 It seems that Truth
605 Is progressive approximation
606 In which the relative fraction
607608Of our spontaneously tolerated residual error Constantly diminishes.
609 This is a typical
610611Antientropy proclivity of man—Entropy being the law
612 Of increase of the random element.
613614Heisenberg’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
615As both our tooling and instrumentation Continually improve;
616Ergo intellection’s effect
617Upon measurement and the measured
618Is a gap closing,
619And the pursuit of more truthful comprehension Is successfully antientropic.
620Before Heisenberg, T. S. Eliot said, ‘‘Examination of history alters history’’ And Ezra Pound,
621 And even earlier poets,
622 Reported their discoveries
623624That in one way or another The act of thinking alters thought itself.
625 When we ask ourself
626 ‘‘What have we learned?’’
627 We feel at first
628 That the answer is ‘‘nothing.’’
629630But as soon as we say so We recall exceptions.
631For instance we have learned
632To test experimentally
633 The axioms given to us
634 As ‘‘educational’’ springboards, and
635 We have found
636637That most of the ‘‘springboards’’ Do not spring
638 And some never existed.
639640As for instance Points, holes, Solids, surfaces, Straight lines, planes, ‘‘Instantaneous,’’ ‘‘simultaneous,’’
641Things, nouns, ‘‘Up,’’ ‘‘down,’’ ‘‘at rest’’
642The words ‘‘artificial’’ and ‘‘failure’’ Are all meaningless.
643For what they aver
644Is experimentally ‘‘non-existent.’’
645If nature permits a formulation It is natural.
646If nature’s laws of behavior Do not permit formulation The latter does not occur. Whatever can be done Is natural,
647No matter how grotesque, boring, Unfamiliar or unprecedented.
648 In the same way
649 Nature never ‘‘fails.’’
650651Nature complies with her own laws. Nature is the law.
652When man lacks understanding Of nature’s laws
653And a man-contrived structure Buckles unexpectedly, It does not fail.
654It only demonstrates that man Did not understand
655Nature’s laws and behaviors. Nothing failed.
656Man’s knowledge or estimating Was inadequate.
657The 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
658 Behavior of whole systems
659 Unpredicted by
660 The behavior of any separate part.
661 EN-ergy behaves entropically.
662 SYN-ergy behaves syntropically.
663 God is entropy
664 And God is syntropy,
665 God is synergy.
666 God is energy.
667 And God is always
668 • A verb—
669670The verbing of Integrity.
671I assume that the physical Universe is definite And the metaphysical Universe is finite.
672 What men have called infinite
673 I call finite
674 And what men called finite
675 I call definite—i.e., definitive.
676 By my philosophy
677 The finite, but imponderable
678 Metaphysical Universe
679680Embraces the definite, Ponderable, physical Universe. Finite is not unitarily conceptual. Definite is unitarily conceptual.
681 I have mathematical proof
682 That the difference between the sums
683 Of all the angles around all the surface vertices
684 Of any conceptual, definitive physical system
685 And the finite but non-conceptual metaphysical universe
686 Is always 720 degrees
687 Or a difference of only one
688 Definitive tetrahedron,
689 Therefore, the combined
690 Physical and metaphysical Universe is finite.
691 You can’t buy anything worthwhile
692 Like spontaneous love or understanding.
693 Though metaphysically finite
694 These are imponderables.
695 The absolute would be
696 Nontransformable, static and weighable.
697 Ergo, experimentally meaningless.
698 Infinity is only local
699 And occurs within definite systems,
700 As for instance
701 Following a great circle
702 Around a sphere
703 Which because of the fact
704 That lines—
705 Which occur experimentally
706 Only as energy vectors—
707 Cannot go through
708 The same point
709 At the same time—
710 Due to interference,
711 Which means also that lines
712 As curves
713 Cannot re-enter, or
714 ‘‘Join back into themselves,’’
715 Therefore, the circling line
716 Can only wrap around
717 And over its earlier part—
718 As the knot-making
719 Sailor says it,
720 The circle when followed
721 Around and around
722 Results in a coil
723 Which is an endless scenario—
724 An asymmetric spiral,
725 Which may be followed experimentally
726 Only as long as intellect is interested.
727 Not being simultaneous
728 Universe cannot consist of one function.
729 Functions only coexist.
730 Universe while finite is not definable.
731 I can define many of its parts
732 But I cannot define simultaneously
733 The nonsimultaneously occurring
734 Aggregate of partially overlapping experiences
735 Whose total set of local scenario relationships
736 Constitutes the whole Universe
737 Though the latter as an aggregate of finites
738 Is finite.
739 All the words
740 In all the dictionaries, as noted before,
741 Represent all of humanity’s attempts
742 To express the aggregate of experiences—Universe.
743 And while the dictionaries are finite
744 All the words
745 In all the dictionaries
746 Cannot be read simultaneously
747 And there is not one
748 Simultaneous sentence
749 Inherent and readable
750 In all the words.
751 In the same way
752 All the nonsimultaneous experiences
753 May not be conceived
754 And expressed as
755 A simultaneous system.
756 Ergo, there is no thinkable and logical Simultaneous conception
757 Of nonsimultaneous Universe.
758 There is strong awareness
759 That we have been overproducing
760 The army of rigorously disciplined
761 Scientific, game playing, academic specialists Who through hard work
762 And suppressed imagination
763 Earn their Ph. D.s
764 And automatic contracts
765 With prime contractors
766 At fifteen thousand dollars
767 Per year—and more—
768 Only to have their specialized field
769 Become obsolete and by-passed in five years, By severely altered techniques, instruments And exploratory stratagems.
770 Despite their honor grades
771 They prove not to be
772 The Natural Philosophers
773 And scientist-artists, implied by their Ph. D.s But just deluxe quality Technicians or mechanics.
774 And a myriad
775 Of emergency committees—
776 Multiplying swiftly
777 From one or two
778 Emergency Committees
779 Appointed by the President,
780 Have altogether discovered
781 That what the
782 Ph. D. scientists lack -
783 To adapt themselves to change
784 Has been officially pronounced to be
785 ‘‘Creativity,’’
786 But to my thinking
787 They lack the unique capability of mind—
788 Which is the ability not only to generalize
789 And to integrate a complex
790 Of pure generalizations
791 But also to project teleologically—
792 With fundamental understanding—
793 In any special case direction.
794 Fundamental wisdom
795 Can readily identify any and all
796 Special case aspects within
797 The generalized whole
798 When listening
799 Sensitively to one’s intuitions
800 By which alone
801 The generalized sub-subconscious integration
802 Of pattern cognition feedbacks
803 Are articulated.
804 Philip Morrison—Cornell’s head
805 Of the department of nuclear physics—
806 Talks about what he calls
807 ‘‘Left-hand’’ and ‘‘right-hand’’ sciences.
808 Right-hand science deals in all the proven
809 Scientific formulas and experiments.
810 Left-hand science deals in
811 All of the as yet unknown or unproven—
812 That is: With all it is going to take
813 Intellectually, intuitively, speculatively, imaginatively
814 And even mystically
815 By inspired persistence
816 To open up the as yet unknown.
817 The great scientists were great
818 Because they were the ones
819 Who dealt successfully with the unknown. All the ‘‘greats’’ were left-hand scientists.
820 Despite this historical patterning of the ‘‘greats’’ We have government underwriting Only the right-hand science, Making it bigger and sharper,
821 Rather than more inclusive and understanding*.— For how could Congress justify Appropriations of billions for dreams?
822 So the billions went only For the swiftly obsoleting
823 Bigger, faster and more incisive
824 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’’ .
825 And exempt from political criticism;
826 Despite that scientific investigation Had shown beyond doubt That almost all of America’s Top performance scientists Had been educated
827 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
828 To risk charges of corruption
829 Through voting government funds
830 To any individual
831832Especially to ‘‘great inspiring teachers’’—‘‘Crackpot longhairs!’’
833 So it goes—
834 To hell with the facts
835 When re-election
836 To political office is at stake.
837838Everything that constitutes science Is unteachable.
839 And we recall that
840 Eddington said: ‘‘Science
841 Is the earnest attempt
842 Of individual initiative
843 To set in order
844 The facts of experience.’’
845846Scientific routines for specialized technicians And scientific formulas for their reference Alone are teachable. Initiative is unteachable.
847Because we have been governmentally fostering Ony right-hand science and Right-hand science to excess
848 The U.S.A. President’s science advisor
849 Instituted last year (1965)
850 A new direction of search
851 For sources of so-called ‘‘creativity.’’
852853Financed 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.
854It was felt by the National Academy That the art educators—As those who dealt with
855 Most of the almost drop-outs
856 Who had been switched into art
857 As a ‘‘last resort’’—
858 Were probably intimate
859 With the type of emerging youth
860 Who were allowed to remain
861 In a freer state of mind
862 —In the world of art —
863 Than would they have been
864 If disciplined rigorously
865 In sharp specialization by the sciences.
866 That meeting I thought fascinating
867 For it disclosed the artists as being
868 Individuals who develop powerful self-protection
869 Of their innate intellectual
870 And conceptual capability inheritance.
871 They often protect their innate capabilities
872 Through intuitively triggered poker-faced silence
873 Which in the elementary or high schools
874 Is interpreted as non-cooperative, mental inferiority, Often causing early termination
875 Of their formal education.
876 I think the consensus
877 Of the New York University meeting
878 Was that individuals
879 Of original conceptual brilliance
880 Were most frequently
881 Detected, protected, and made to grow By equally sensitive art teachers.
882 ‘‘Great teachers.’’
883 Which agrees elegantly
884 With the statements
885 Of the proven scientists
886 Regarding their own experiences.
887 Congressional appropriations committees Please take notice!
888 To comprehend the integral of art and science As an irrepressible, intuitive creative urgency—As an artist’s need to articulate—
889 Kepes at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Made a beautiful demonstration.
890 He took hundreds of 8’’ x 10’’
891 Black-and-white photographs
892 Of modern paintings and mixed them thoroughly Like shuffled cards
893 With photographs taken by scientists
894 Through microscopes or telescopes
895 Of all manner of natural phenomena Sound waves, chromosomes and such.
896 The only way you can classify
897 Photographs with nothing recognizable in them
898 Is by your own spontaneous Pattern classifications.
899 Group the mealy, the blotchy, the striped,
900 The swirly, the polka-dotted, and their sub-combinations.
901 The pattern classified groups Of photographs were displayed.
902 The artists’ work and the scientists’
903 Were indistinguishable.
904 Checking the back-mounted data, it was found
905 That the artist had frequently conceived
906 The imagined pattern before
907 The scientist found it in nature.
908 Science began to take A new view of artists.
909 Loving mothers
910 Prohibit here and promote there—
911 Often in ways irrelevant or frustrating To brain-coordinated genetic evolution,
912 Often suppressing
913 A child’s profound contribution Trying to emerge.
914 We have to look on our society
915916As we look on the biological world in general Recognizing, for instance,
917 The extraordinary contributions
918 Of the fungi, the manures, the worms, et al.— In the chemical reprocessing—And fertility up-grading of the earth.
919 We must learn to think
920 Of the functions of the trees’ roots
921 As being of equal importance To the leaves’ functions.
922 We tend to applaud
923 Only the flower and the fruit
924 Just as we applaud only the football player
925 Who makes the touchdown
926 And not the linemen
927 Who opened the way.
928 What society applauds as ‘‘creative’’
929 Is often isolated
930 Out of an extraordinary set Of co-equal evolutionary events, Most of which are invisible.
931 Evolutionary ‘‘touchdowns’’ are unpredictable—Sometimes centuries apart.
932 Who knows which child
933 is to make the next breakthrough?
934 In the next decade society
935936Is 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.
937 We have thought erroneously of education
938 As the mature wisdom
939 And over-brimming knowledge of the grownups
940 Injected by the discipline pump
941 Into the otherwise ‘‘empty’’ child’s head.
942 Sometimes parents say ‘‘don’t’’
943 Because they want to protect the child
944 From getting into trouble.
945 At other times when they fail to say ‘‘no’’
946 The child gets into trouble.
947 The child, frustrated, stops exploring.
948 It is possible to design environments
949 Within which the child will be
950 Neither frustrated nor hurt
951 Yet free to self-educate, spontaneously and fully
952 Without trespassing on others.
953 I have learned to undertake
954 Reform of the environment
955 And not to try to reform man.
956 If we design the environment properly
957 It will permit both child and adult to develop safely And to behave logically.
958 Order is achieved through—positive and negative—
959 Magnitude and frequency controlled alteration
960 Of the successive steering angles.
961 We move by zigzagging control
962 From one phase of physical Universe evolution to another.
963 The rudder concept of social law is most apt.
964 The late Norbert Wiener chose the word cybernetics
965 Derived from Greek roots of ‘‘rudder’’
966 Because Wiener, Shannon and others
967 in communication theory
968 Were exploring human behaviors
969 And their brain-controlled ‘‘feedback,’’ etc.,
970 As a basis for the design of computers—
971 And it became evident
972 That the human brain only waveringly
973 Steers man through constant change.
974 No sharp cleavage is found
975 Which identifies the boundary between life and non-life,
976 Between the heretofore so-called ‘‘animate’’ and ‘‘inanimate.’’
977 Viruses,
978 The smallest organized structures
979 Exhibiting ‘‘life,’’
980 May be classified either
981 As inanimate or animate -
982 As crystalline or ‘‘cellular’’ forms.
983 This is the level also at which
984 The DNA-RNA genetic code serves as
985 An angle and frequency designed
986 Structural pattern integrity.
987 Such pattern integrities
988 Are strictly accountable
989 Only as mathematical principles
990 Pattern integrities are found
991 At all levels of structural organization in Universe.
992 The DNA-RNA is a specialized case
993 Of the generalized principle of pattern integrity
994 Found throughout life and non-life.
995 All pattern integrity design
996 Is controlled entirely and only by
997 Angle and frequency modulation.
998 The biological corpus
999 Is not strictly ‘‘animate’’ at any point.
1000 Given that the ‘‘ordering’’
1001 Of the corpus design
1002 Is accomplished through such codings as DNA-RNA Which are exclusively angle and frequency modulation.
1003 Then we may go on to suggest
10041005That ‘‘life,’’ as we customarily define it Could be effected at a distance.
1006Precession is the effect Of one moving system Upon another moving system. Precession always produces
1007Angular changes of the movements Of the effected bodies and
1008At 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
1009 In varying degrees
1010 And all the intergravitational effects
1011 Are precessionally angular modulations And all the interradiation effects Are frequency modulations.
1012 The gravitational and radiation effects Could modulate the DNA-RNA Angle and frequency instructions At astronomical remoteness—Life could be ‘‘sent on.’’
1013 Within the order of evolution as usually drawn Life ‘‘occurred’’ as a series
1014 Of fortuitous probabilities in the primeval sea. It could have been sent or ‘‘radiated’’ there. That is, the prime code
1015 Or angle and frequency modulated signal Could have been transmitted From a remote stellar location.
1016 It seems more likely
10171018(In view of the continuous rediscovery of humans As fully organized beings
1019At 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.
1020Man as prime organizing ‘‘Principle’’ construct pattern integrity Was radiated here from the stars - Not as primal cell, but as
1021A fully articulated high order being, Possibly as the synergetic totality Of all the gravitation And radiation effects
1022 Of all the stars
1023 In our galaxy
1024 And from all the adjacent galaxies
1025 With some weak effects
1026 And some strong effects
1027 And from all time.
10281029And pattern itself being weightless, The life integrities are apparently Inherently immortal.
1030 You and I
1031 Are essential functions
1032 Of Universe
1033 We are exquisite syntropy.
1034 I’ll be seeing you!
1035 Forever.