Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Monday, October 31, 2011
A Candle in the Dark
This is an image I had whilst dreaming...but I quite like the idea.
Imagine a room – An enormous room, almost unimaginably enormous (the ceiling and the walls are so far apart you cannot touch a single wall if you walk for days.)
Now imagine the Universe – or ‘Existence’ IS the room.
The room is pitch black and full of objects/paintings/furniture.
All you have is a small candle and you are in the middle of this room.
All you can discover and see are small parts of the room at a time.
By walking around you can try and piece together, through your perception,
what you believe the reality of the room is.
But you cannot see the room in its entirety (unless you find a light switch – which is nearly impossible, by the mere size of the room as well as the fact that the switch could be anywhere – and most probably somewhere you cannot reach.)
You can make assumptions about what the room is like, or what it is made of, but you cannot KNOW for certain.
Even if you were to find the light switch you would see a small section of the room from a subjective viewpoint.
You might spend your whole life walking around this room trying to discover the ‘secret’ of the universe or your existence.
Now imagine further that this room is part of a larger house still and you firmly believe that only the room you are in is the one that exists.
When you 'see' you may come to 'believe' that everything around you is the only truth/reality (but you still cannot know). When you 'believe' it is more than everything around you, you may 'see' reality in a different way but again not know...
I feel this is one way that could also be used to describe the plight of believing or not believing in a God (or a Creator) of the Universe/Existence..
Science fumbles around with one candle, religion with another, philosophy with another, and individuals with another...
Labels:
being,
belief,
Creation,
creator,
existence,
faith,
God,
nothingness,
philosophy,
religion,
Sartre,
science
Monday, September 21, 2009
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
I picked up this book from a second hand sale by the Thames last week during Thames festival. I'd heard a lot about it from various places and decided that it would be worth having a look at. I finished the book in a day. This book is very original. It is written from the perspective of a fifeteen year old boy, Christopher, who is very clever and knows a lot about maths and science. His next door neighbours dog is murdered and Christopher sets out to discover the killer and writes a 'murder-mystery' novel, which is what we have in our hands here, from his own words. The reason why this book is so different is because Christopher isn't like normal fifeteen year old kids. He is socially awkward and does not understand why people do not 'observe' the world as he does. An insightful book, it allows the reader to truly, even for a few days, think about the true and real things around him or her. I would recommend it to anyone!
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