Meandering in the matrix . . .

Today is the birthday of Edwin Abbott Abbott (December 20, 1838 – October 12, 1926), schoolmaster and theologian. He is best known as the author of the mathematical satire and religious allegory Flatland (1884).

"I see a fulfilment of the great Law of all worlds, that while the wisdom of Man thinks it is working one thing, the wisdom of Nature constrains it to work another, and quite a different and far better thing."
- Edwin Abbott Abbott

"My volition shrinks from the painful task of recalling my humiliation; yet, like a second Prometheus, I will endure this and worse, if by any means I may arouse in the interiors of Plane and Solid Humanity a spirit of rebellion against the Conceit which would limit our Dimensions to Two or Three or any number short of Infinity."
- Edwin Abbott Abbott

"Although popularly everyone called a Circle is deemed a Circle, yet among the better educated Classes it is known that no Circle is really a Circle, but only a Polygon with a very large number of very small sides. . ."
- Edwin Abbott Abbott

"Men are divided in opinion as to the facts. And even granting the facts, they explain them in different ways."
- Edwin Abbott Abbott

Abbott image source (1)

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Today is the birthday of David Joseph Bohm (December 20, 1917 – October 27, 1992), quantum physicist and philosopher. He is oft referred to as a maverick physicist who stepped far outside the mainstream.

"Then there is the further question of what is the relationship of thinking to reality. As careful attention shows, thought itself is in an actual process of movement. That is to say, one can feel a sense of flow in the stream of consciousness not dissimilar to the sense of flow in the movement of matter in general. May not thought itself thus be a part of reality as a whole? But then, what could it mean for one part of reality to know another, and to what extent would this be possible?"
-David Bohm

"If man thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole."
- David Bohm

"Dialogue is really aimed at going into the whole thought process and changing the way the thought process occurs collectively. We haven't really paid much attention to thought as a process. we have engaged in thoughts, but we have only paid attention to the content, not to the process. Why does thought require attention? Every thinking requires attention, really. If we ran machines withinout paying attention to them, they would break down. Our thought, too, is a process, and it requires attention, otherwise its going to go wrong."
-David Bohm

"During the past few decades, modern technology, with radio, TV, air travel, and satellites, has woven a network of communication which puts each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other parts. Yet, in spite of this world-wide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale. . . "
-David Bohm

"If I am right in saying that thought is the ultimate origin or source, it follows that if we don't do anything about thought, we won't get anywhere. We may momentarily relieve the population problem, the ecological problem, and so on, but they will come back in another way."
-David Bohm

Bohm image source (1)