Subject: (urth) Order and chaos, light and dark, ...

From: Adrian Robert <arobert at cogsci.ucsd.edu>
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 03:55:52 +0000

"The Increate maintains all things in order surely; and the theologians 
say light is his shadow.  Must it not be then that in darkness order 
grows ever less, flowers leaping from nothingness into a girl's fingers 
just as by light in spring they leap from mere filthiness into air?  
Perhaps when night closes our eyes there is less order than we believe. 
  Perhaps, indeed, it is this lack of order we perceive as darkness, a 
randomization of the waves of energy (like a sea), the fields of energy 
(like a farm) that appear to our deluded eyes -- set by light in an 
order of which they themselves are incapable -- to be the real world."

(Shadow, chap. 24)

Can any of the wise folk on this list lay hold of antecedents for this 
gem.. some musings of St. Thomas, perhaps, or some other of those 
remarkable intellects of Christian theology little known today?  Yet 
connecting so beguilingly with the physicist's conceptions of entropy 
and measurement?

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From: Bob Miller <bob_bageera at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 10:17:29 +0000

No promises, but it sure looks like some of the stuff that, several years 
ago,  Kurt Rudolph? (sp) wrote on the Gnostic Gospels found at Nag Hammadi.

From: Adrian Robert <arobert at cogsci.ucsd.edu>
Reply-To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
To: The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
Subject: (urth) Order and chaos, light and dark, ...
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 23:55:52 -0400

(Shadow, chap. 24)

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From: James Machin <jfmachin at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:15:09 +0000

I don't know about theology, but this passage certainly brings to mind 
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. He made a distinction between phenomena 
(things as they are perceived) and noumena (things as they are in themselves 
(“ding an sich”)). His denial that any real understanding of the universe as 
it actually is possible has always made me think about similar schools of 
thought in gnosticism and kabbalism (making the admittedly big assumption 
that the unknowable universe and the unknowable increate are 
interchangeable).

(Shadow, chap. 24)

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From: Bob Miller <bob_bageera at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 13:28:58 +0000

I deny wisdom or knowledge of Wisdom; however, as a science fiction fan the 
thought that came to mind when I first read this 20 some years ago was, "Ah, 
this man reads Roger Zelazny, too."  Who, of course robbed his from earlier 
texts (as you were subsuming of Wolfe) such as the Upa nishads or Hindi 
mystical writings drawn from several of the Vedas (Max Muller's translation 
only one I've dealt with).  And, of course, we may thank Ms. Wolfe's 
creativity for going on from there.  And, btw, I have read passages of the 
BOTNS in Bible study class to share insights.

(Shadow, chap. 24)

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From: Stanislaus <sbocian at poczta.fm>
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 18:13:47 +0000

Hello Adrian,

> connecting so beguilingly with the physicist's conceptions of entropy 

That's a good joke. He makes it seem like his usual Kabbalistic or
neoplatonic influences, and this is simply straightforward quantum
physics.

-- 
Best regards,
 Stanislaus                           mailto:sbocian at poczta.fm

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From: Stanislaus <sbocian at poczta.fm>
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 18:15:49 +0000

Hello Adrian,