Love is eternal

[Snoopy]

"Philip Larkin’s great line – “What will survive of us is love” – is, it seems, not so much wishful sentimentality as a summary of state-of-the-art scientific thinking about life (or at least consciousness) after death."

- A loopy way to look at life and love-Comment-Columnists-Richard Morrison-TimesOnline


s.

[Tariki]

Hi Snoopy,

The name "Philip Larkin" caught my eye, being an admirer of his poetry.............which I have described elsewhere as being often bleak, yet tinged with compassion for the human situation. The line quoted rang some sort of bell, and I looked it up. It is actually the final line of Larkin's poem "An Arundel Tomb", which centres around a sculptured gravestone of an ancient Earl and Countess.................perhaps seeking in stone what can never be in truth?

The final verse reads.......

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

Given Larkin's outlook, perhaps the word almost holds the key, at least for him?

Anyway, I did give the linked article a look. Whatever the merits of the ideas spoken of, personally I'm always virtually unmoved by such arguments, however sound, in whatever way. That "love" is eternal seems to be a "truth" that unveils itself in other ways, at least for me. Maybe we need to move for a while in the "almost-instinct almost true" of a Godless nihilistic chaos.........

For the garden is the only place there is, yet we shall not find it until we have searched everywhere and found nowhere that is not a desert

(W.H.Auden)

Maybe in the end we do create our own worlds........

That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept. (Auden, again)

....create our own worlds? Well, unless Grace steps in......

[Snoopy]

I find reports like this intriguing because they are at the interface of “science” and “religion” (for want of a better word) and although their techniques and terminology may not always be the same I think that they can (and do) inform each other, permitting (in the long term) progress in both. Ultimately I suppose there is not “science” and “religion” but that which is real and that which is not.

s.

[flowperson]

Hello all:

Hofstadter's previous book, a non-fiction bestseller on its own merit Godel- Escher-Bach. explores the mysteries of this recursive set of tendencies in the real world, and where they may have possibly come from. Very informative and useful for studying the finer points of the complexity of life wherein everything is entagled in the neverending fabric of space-time which itself seems to be constructed in ways that facilitate such loopings.

It is also interesting to note that this author is a professor of computer science, which I might add is a science almost exclusively based upon recursive (looping) algorithms. Godel, Escher, and Bach expressed these features in a past age in their artistic, mathematical, and musical works for us all to marvel at and wonder about. In a curious way I believe that they were empowered to create what they did back then to help prepare us all for the future that is dawning upon us all just now.

What has been said here and in the article about his newest work tells me he's onto some of the truths about the timelessness of spiritual phenomena.

Thanks for posting this snoop !

flow....

[Snoopy]

Do you need to be a computer nerd (technical term I know) to understand his books?

s.

[flowperson]

Hi Snoop...No, as I recollect his Godel-Escher-Bach book revolves around a Socratic conversation between a tortoise and a hare. I don't recall much technical stuff. He's a good writer that respects his audience and doesn't try to force many technical concepts down one's throat except through metaphore and analogy. Worth the read for you I would think. But it is science oriented and might be a bit of dry reading for many. However always keep in mind the idea of variations on themes that was so well demonstrated in Bach's compositions

Before you read the book it would also help to browse some of M.C. Escher's images. Being as visual as I am I found that the principles that Hofstadter approaches are more easily understood with the help of visuals, at least for me.

flow....

[Snoopy]

OK thanks, my fellow fishy friend!

s.