Michael: While your submission regarding "subterranean currents" etc. is a
bit more poetic than I would go, I DO accept the Uncertainty Principle - to
an extent. One of the corrolaries of the Principle is that it may be
difficult or impossible to measure something without affecting the
measurement of the object. This is true and worth keeping in mind regarding
some observations. However, Cheerskep could probably articulate some virtual
certainties in the wrting/producing of plays. Similarly, lowering a
thermometer into boiling water to confirm the temperature at which water
boils may lower the temperature slightly. Nevertheless, I expect we'll find
reliably that water boils at 212 F. at sea level. So, yes Virginia, there
are still some cerrtainties (or near certainties - some of them related to
stoves and hot elements) even if all cannot be known.
Geoff C
From: Michael Brady <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CC: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Benjamin and aura(Blavatsky)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:55:58 -0400
On Oct 31, 2008, at 5:27 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I don't think one can seriously compare Madame Blavatsky or Stefan
George with Einstein or Freud. On poking about a little-Mme Blavatsky
died in 1889, having founded the Theosophy Society, which seems to be one
of those religions in which the smart people are better than everyone
else, and you can tell they are smart because they believe in the
religion. Stefan George had something along the same line. I cannot
believe Benjamin would fall for the raw aura so to speak-where was the
idea between 1905 and 1930, when he wrote about it?
I didn't mean that she's on their par, but that because of all of those
big theoretical upheavals in the accepted order of things, parascience and
pseudoscience and phrenology and all that stuff gained traction. I believe
that even to this day it is generally accepted that there is more to
things than meets the eye, that deep subterranean currents flow through
our actions and decisions, that we cannot trust the appearances of things
or what people say, but that the truth lies in undiscovered or
inexplicable forces and connections, that we can only know within the
degree of error, that the Uncertainty Principle permeates all facets of
the world, etc. etc. etc.
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Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
