What we need to understand may only be expressible
in a language that we do not know
(Anthony Judge)
-----Original Message-----When I heard the learned astronomer,
From: Brian McAndrews [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2002 7:41 PM
To: Brad McCormick, Ed.D.
Cc: futurework-scribe.uwaterloo.ca
Subject: Re: FWk: Re: Double-stranded Economics
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Looked up in perfect silence at the stars.
Walt Whitman
Brad,
I gave this poem to the list as art. Not as evidence of anything. The words I bolded intrigue me.
Un -account- able suggests to me the absence of reason.
Gliding out suggests to me his spirit leaving the lecture
Mystical speaks for itself if you have had that kind of experience
Perfect silence reminds me of the last statement in Wittgenstein's Tractatus:
"What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence"
Wittgenstein believed that ethics and aesthetics can not be spoken or written about; they must be shown. In the way that Whitman's poem shows us the ineffable. When the Vienna Circle (Carnap and friends) believed that his Tractatus was the perfect book to launch the Logical Positivist movement, Wittgenstein went to a meeting with them and read passages from Rilke's poetry. They did not invite him back.
Wittgenstein reminds us that if science was able to answer all of its questions we would still be left with our most fundamental concerns: are we loved and how well are we able to love.
Brian McAndrews
