{"id":15403,"date":"2014-04-11T11:13:51","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T15:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=15403"},"modified":"2015-02-18T16:51:06","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T21:51:06","slug":"at-root","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/at-root\/","title":{"rendered":"At Root"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aGsnm2nOnso?rel=0\" height=\"338\" width=\"601\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: launch trailer for the puzzle game <\/em>Antichamber<em>. I haven&#8217;t played it (yet), but the object<br \/>\nseems to be to keep moving forward &#8212; when the answer to the question, &#8220;Move forward<br \/>\nfrom <\/em>where<em>?&#8221; changes constantly. The game&#8217;s designer <a title=\"Steam: Antichamber FAQ\" href=\"http:\/\/steamcommunity.com\/app\/219890\/discussions\/0\/864958451427610439\/\" target=\"_blank\">says<\/a> that it has an end&#8230; despite the appearance<br \/>\n(to me) of an edgeless, centerless geometry of edges and centers.*]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From <a title=\"whiskey river: 'Isle of Mull, Scotland' (excerpt), by Naomi Shihab Nye\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2014\/04\/we-walked-where-ancient-pier-juts-into.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>whiskey river<\/em><\/a> (italicized portion):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Isle of Mull, Scotland<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Because by now we know everything is not so green elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>The cities tied their nooses around our necks,<br \/>\nwe let them without even seeing.<\/p>\n<p>Not even feeling our breath soften<br \/>\nas clumps of shed wool scattered across days.<\/p>\n<p>Not even. This even-ing, balance beam of light on green,<br \/>\nthe widely lifted land, resonance of moor<br \/>\nwinding down to water, the full of it. Days of cows<br \/>\nand sheep bending their heads.<\/p>\n<p><em>We walked where the ancient pier juts into the sea.<\/em><br \/>\n<em> Stood on the rim of the pool, by the circle<\/em><br \/>\n<em> of black boulders. No one saw we were there<\/em><br \/>\n<em> and everyone who had ever been there<\/em><br \/>\n<em> stood silently in air.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Where else do we ever have to go, and why?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Naomi Shihab Nye [<a title=\"Google Books: 'You and Yours,' by Naomi Shihab Nye\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=5rrD1WIb_XEC&amp;pg=PA25#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: Peter Matthiessen, on failing to express the inexpressible\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2014\/04\/in-dream-i-am-walking-joyfully-up.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The secret of the mountain is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no &#8220;meaning,&#8221; they <em>are<\/em> meaning; the mountains <em>are<\/em>. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, there is a ringing that we share. I understand all this, not in my mind but in my heart, knowing how meaningless it is to try to capture what cannot be expressed, knowing that mere words will remain when I read it all again, another day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Peter Matthiessen [<a title=\"Amazon.com: 'The Snow Leopard,' by Peter Matthiessen\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Snow-Leopard-Penguin-Classics\/dp\/0143105515\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Someday, sometime, you will be sitting somewhere. A berm overlooking a pond in Vermont. The lip of the Grand Canyon at sunset. A seat on the subway. And something bad will have happened: You will have lost someone you loved, or failed at something at which you badly wanted to succeed.<\/p>\n<p>And sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. You will look for some core to sustain you. And if you have been perfect all your life and have managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t want anyone I know to take that terrible chance. And the only way to avoid it is to listen to that small voice inside you that tells you to make mischief, to have fun, to be contrarian, to go another way. George Eliot wrote, &#8220;It is never too late to be what you might have been.&#8221; It is never too early, either.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Anna Quindlen [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Being Perfect,' by Anna Quindlen\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=NV1oFgdaQa0C&amp;pg=PA47#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from\u00a0<em>whiskey river<\/em> &#8212; first, a musical interlude:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.25em;\"><em>[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>Slouching Towards Bethlehem<em>. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left &#8212; a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 6:55 long.<a class=\"hidden\" title=\"13.4MB - you sure about this?\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/audio\/slouchingtowardsbethlehem_jonimitchell.mp3\" target=\"_blank\">]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"border: 1px solid silver; margin: 0.25em auto 0.5em; padding: 1em 0.5em 0pt; width: 400px; float: none; text-align: center;\" title=\"Click Play button to hear 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem'\">[audio:slouchingtowardsbethlehem_jonimitchell.mp3|titles=&#8217;Slouching Towards Bethlehem&#8217;|artists=Joni Mitchell]<\/div>\n<p><em>[<a title=\"jonimitchell.com: 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' (lyrics)\" href=\"http:\/\/jonimitchell.com\/music\/song.cfm?id=17\" target=\"_blank\">Lyrics<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Mathematics, [Poincar\u00e9] said, isn&#8217;t merely a question of applying rules, any more than science. It doesn&#8217;t merely make the most combinations possible according to certain fixed laws. The combinations so obtained would he exceedingly numerous, useless and cumbersome. The true work of the inventor consists in choosing among these combinations so as to eliminate the useless ones, or rather, to avoid the trouble of making them, and the rules that must guide the choice are extremely fine and delicate. It&#8217;s almost impossible to state them precisely; they must be felt rather than formulated.<\/p>\n<p>Poincar\u00e9 then hypothesized that this selection is made by what he called the &#8220;subliminal self,&#8221; an entity that corresponds exactly with what Phaedrus [Pirsig&#8217;s alter ego] called preintellectual awareness. The subliminal self, Poincar\u00e9 said, looks at a large number of solutions to a problem, but only the <em>interesting<\/em> ones break into the domain of consciousness. Mathematical solutions are selected by the subliminal self on the basis of &#8220;mathematical beauty,&#8221; of the harmony of numbers and forms, of geometric elegance. &#8220;This is a true esthetic feeling which all mathematicians know,&#8221; Poincar\u00e9 said, &#8220;but of which the profane are so ignorant as often to be tempted to smile.&#8221; But it is this harmony, this beauty, that is at the center of it all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Robert Pirsig [source])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Yes and no\u2026this or that\u2026one or zero. In the basis of this elementary two-term discrimination, all human knowledge is built up. The demonstration of this is the computer memory that stores all knowledge in the form of binary information. It contains ones and zeroes, that&#8217;s all.<\/p>\n<p>Because we&#8217;re unaccustomed to it, we don&#8217;t usually see that there&#8217;s a third possible logical term equal to yes and no which is capable of our understanding in an unrecognized direction. We don&#8217;t even have a term for it, so I&#8217;ll have to use the Japanese <em>mu<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mu<\/em> means &#8220;no thing.&#8221; Like &#8220;Quality&#8221; it points outside the process of dualistic discrimination. <em>Mu<\/em> simply says, &#8220;No class; not one, not zero, not yes, not no.&#8221; It states that the context of the question is such that a yes and a no answer is in error and should not be given. &#8220;Unask the question&#8221; is what it says.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mu<\/em> becomes appropriate when the context of the question becomes too small for the truth of the answer. When the Zen monk was asked whether a dog had Buddha nature he said &#8220;<em>Mu<\/em>,&#8221; meaning that if he answered either way he was answering incorrectly. The Buddha nature cannot be captured by yes or no questions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Pirsig [<em>ibid<\/em>.])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There was a young man from Trinity<br \/>\nWho solved the square root of infinity.<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">While counting the digits,<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">He was seized by the fidgets,<\/span><br \/>\nDropped science, and took up divinity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Anonymous, apparently\u00a0[<a title=\"Google Books: 'Mathematically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations,' by C.C. Gaither and Alma E Cavazos-Gaither\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=4abygoxLdwQC&amp;pg=PA108#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>_______________________<\/p>\n<p>* <a title=\"Polygon: 'Antichamber review: M\u00f6bius trip'\" href=\"http:\/\/www.polygon.com\/2013\/1\/31\/3936030\/antichamber-review-mobius-trip\" target=\"_blank\">One reviewer<\/a> has dubbed\u00a0<em>Antichamber<\/em> a &#8220;M\u00f6bius trip.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: launch trailer for the puzzle game Antichamber. I haven&#8217;t played it (yet), but the object seems to be to keep moving forward &#8212; when the answer to the question, &#8220;Move forward from where?&#8221; changes constantly. The game&#8217;s designer says that it has an end&#8230; despite the appearance (to me) of an edgeless, centerless geometry [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,95,74,1189,5,36,251,324],"tags":[236,1172,1763,1897,2357,2374,2827,3446,3456,3777],"class_list":{"0":"post-15403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-science-medicine","9":"category-music","10":"category-videocomputer-gaming","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-reading","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-researchresources","15":"tag-geometry","16":"tag-naomi-shihab-nye","17":"tag-limericks","18":"tag-joni-mitchell","19":"tag-anonymous","20":"tag-anna-quindlen","21":"tag-peter-matthiessen","22":"tag-robert-m-pirsig","23":"tag-infinity","24":"tag-antichamber","25":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-40r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15403"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15418,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15403\/revisions\/15418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}