Somewhere T. S. Eliot writes something like this:
‘Our goal is to inquire, and to never cease to inquire,
until returning to the place from which we began,
we know it for what it is.’
What’s the right line? What’s the poem?
This ?
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”-Thomas Stearns Eliot
Isn’t it a quote, not a poem?
http://www.quotablequotes.net/quote.asp?subid=81&mysub=Life
2/3rd the way down the page
Bios:
http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1948/eliot-bio.html
http://www.island-of-freedom.com/ELIOT.HTM
Does this mean we all should have stopped at our first whistle?
JP
Thanks so much! No, we should buy lots of whistles,
selling the ones we had before to fund this, until
finally we rebuy the first whistle and appreciate it
for what it really is. Beautiful! Thanks again, Tony
Reminds me of a Zen saying about the process of enlightenment:
At first, The mountain is a mountain. Then the mountain is not a mountain. Finally, the mountain is a mountain.
In some sense this is what philosophers do–sometimes.
I’m writing a paper concerning a very old problem–whether
two things can be in the same place at the same time.
I don’t offer a solution but I try to put the problem
in a fresh perspective, so that we are in a position
to move forward in solving it. This isn’t very exciting
to referees, so I thought maybe if I throw some
Eliot at 'em they might take the bait.
The problem is this:
Suppose God creates a bronze statue of a unicorn out of
nothing, then annihilates it. The statue couldn’t have survived
radical shape change; but the bronze could have. If God
had recast the bronze as a mermaid the bronze but
not the statue would have survived. As the bronze
can survive what the statue can’t, the statue
and the bronze are distinct. So we have distinct material
things in the same place at the same time throughout
their career.
But that really does seem impossible–or at least well
worth avoiding. As the statue and the bronze are made
of the same molecules, in virtue of what are they two
and not one?
This puzzle goes back to Aristotle. Here’s another version
from the Stoics. Dion is a whole man. Theon is the
proper part of Dion that consists of all of Dion but
his left foot. This morning Dion’s left foot is amputated.
Dion survives; a man can survive the amputation of
his foot. Theon survives; nothing has been taken from
Theon. Theon is all that’s left of Dion.
Therefore Dion and Theon, after the amputation, are in the same
place at the same time. But Dion is distinct from
Theon–it is true of Theon, but not of Dion, that
yesterday he was a proper part of Dion (that is,
a part smaller than the whole). Therefore there
are two material things in the same place at
the same time.
Maybe I’d better add the line about mountains, too.
Don’t forget to consider this in light of The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle :roll:
Will do. Thanks.