play, the scientist

i wrote on mind-play a while back; i labelled it as fun but not urgent. i realized recently that i had not invested in empirical play. i tried it this weekend, and discovered an entire new way of being in play with the world. poking at base world is so much more satisfying than poking at my own brain and the schemata of other humans. direct verification via experience is so much more truth-y.



science and art overlap in their mode (play) and emotion (joy); they are differentiated only by their aims. one is truth-seeking, one is dream-creating. they are two of the few spaces of sacredness left that have not been desecrated by Western rationality.













there is something here - not total consilience, but some magical way of being that exists at the interaction of science//art - but i don't know what it is, and i don't think i could discover it here in san francisco. i need more machinery to think about the world, and to have enough time to build that machinery i must move to an environment where i am encouraged to dance and dive in.



the best scientists and philosophers are incredibly courageous - they follow their experiments and reasoning all the way to the end, to completion, even if the conclusion is terrifying and world-bending. my only hope is to be that brave.



a quote i have lost the attribution for:

to do science is, for me, one kind of response to the alienation of being a small creature in an enormous world. part of being a scientist, for me, is that in the end i know that i alone am responsible for what i believe.