Jan
10
The Joy of Books
from http://www.openculture.com/2012/01/the_joy_of_books.html
Language is Life's Incidental Music
Occasional marginalia about language, life and music
Jan
7
The Rules of a Creator’s Life
A fine list of rules from creativesomething to consider and contemplate on this gorgeous Saturday winter morning. Non?
Click to view a tad‒bit larger. And share with your friends, co‒workers, and creative icons.
~reblogged by Trent Gilliss, senior editor
Dec
17
“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”
Baruch Spinoza
(Source: twitter.com)
Oct
1
“Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son,
Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in,
Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one:
Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no
Nor yet that thou art mortal—nay my son,
Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee,
Am not thyself in converse with thyself,
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven.”
Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in,
Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one:
Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no
Nor yet that thou art mortal—nay my son,
Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee,
Am not thyself in converse with thyself,
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven.”
The Ancient Sage
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sep
17
“All information looks like noise until you break the code.”
Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
(Corrected wording 25SEP2011)
Jun
16
“Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality.”
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Oct
20
The Unprovable Liar
‘What I am saying cannot be proved.’
Suppose this statement can be proved. Then what it says must be true. But it says it cannot be proved. If we assume it can be proved, we prove it cannot be proved. So our supposition that it was provable is wrong. With that road closed to us, let’s try the only other one available — let’s suppose it cannot be proved. Since that is precisely what it says, then it is true after all. And this ends our proof of the above statement!
– Gary Hayden and Michael Picard, This Book Does Not Exist, 2009
Reblogged from Futility Closet
Consultation
A letter from Lewis Carroll to 14-year-old Wilton Rix:
Understanding you to be a distinguished algebraist (i.e. distinguished from other algebraists by different face, different height, etc.), I beg to submit to you a difficulty which distresses me much.
If x and y are each equal to ’1,’ it is plain that 2 × (x2 – y2) = 0, and also that 5 × (x – y) = 0.
Hence 2 × (x2 – y2) = 5 × (x – y).
Now divide each side of this equation by (x – y).
Then 2 × (x + y) = 5.
But (x + y) = (1 + 1), i.e. = 2.
So that 2 × 2 = 5.
Ever since this painful fact has been forced upon me, I have not slept more than 8 hours a night, and have not been able to eat more than 3 meals a day.
I trust you will pity me and will kindly explain the difficulty to
Your obliged, Lewis Carroll
Reblogged from Futility Closet
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