Scan barcode
A review by bean_season
Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe by Brian Greene
Another reductionist, but I did learn some and it was a pleasure to read for the most part. And as he said: "Deep mysteries call for clarity delivered through a collection of nested stories. Whether reductionist or emergent, whether mathematical or figurative, whether scientific or poetic, we piece together the richest understanding by approaching questions from a range of different perspectives."
My favorite bit (my transcription from audio, so apologies for errors): "Experiences that fully lock our attention and spark emotional responses we value even in the absence (or, perhaps because of the absence) of a fully rational or linguistic description. What's curious, although likely common, is that while my process is thoroughly language-based, I feel no urge to explore these experiences in words. When I think of them, I feel no lack of understanding calling out for linguistic clarification. They expand my world without need for interpretation. These are the times when my inner narrator knows it's time to take a break. An examined life need not be an articulated life.
"The most arresting art can induce in us rarified states of mind and body comprable to those produced by our most affecting real-world encounters, similarly molding and enhancing our engagement with truth. Discussion, analysis, and interpretation can further shape these experiences, but the most potent do not rely on a linguistic intermediary. Indeed, even for language-based arts, it is the imagery and sensations that in the most moving experiences leave the most lasting mark. As elegantly described by poet Jane Hirshfield, 'When a writer brings into language a new image that is fully right, what is knowable of existence expands.' Nobel laureate Saul Bellow speaks, too, to our singular capacity for expanding the knowable: 'Only art penetrates what pride, passion, intelligence, and habit erect around all sides: The seeming realities of this world. There's another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality's always sending us hints which without art we can't recieve. And without that other reality,' Bellow notes, channeling thoughts set down by Proust, 'existence is reduced to terminology for practical ends which we falsely call life.'"
[Edit to add that I had heard of Saul Bellow but was unfamiliar with his political views. He proudly attended a counterprotest of the Vietnam war and Studs Terkel wrote him a letter saying he didn't like that. Terkel said: "He wrote me a letter back. He called me a Stalinist. But otherwise, we were friendly. He was a brilliant writer, of course. I love Seize the Day."
My favorite bit (my transcription from audio, so apologies for errors): "Experiences that fully lock our attention and spark emotional responses we value even in the absence (or, perhaps because of the absence) of a fully rational or linguistic description. What's curious, although likely common, is that while my process is thoroughly language-based, I feel no urge to explore these experiences in words. When I think of them, I feel no lack of understanding calling out for linguistic clarification. They expand my world without need for interpretation. These are the times when my inner narrator knows it's time to take a break. An examined life need not be an articulated life.
"The most arresting art can induce in us rarified states of mind and body comprable to those produced by our most affecting real-world encounters, similarly molding and enhancing our engagement with truth. Discussion, analysis, and interpretation can further shape these experiences, but the most potent do not rely on a linguistic intermediary. Indeed, even for language-based arts, it is the imagery and sensations that in the most moving experiences leave the most lasting mark. As elegantly described by poet Jane Hirshfield, 'When a writer brings into language a new image that is fully right, what is knowable of existence expands.' Nobel laureate Saul Bellow speaks, too, to our singular capacity for expanding the knowable: 'Only art penetrates what pride, passion, intelligence, and habit erect around all sides: The seeming realities of this world. There's another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality's always sending us hints which without art we can't recieve. And without that other reality,' Bellow notes, channeling thoughts set down by Proust, 'existence is reduced to terminology for practical ends which we falsely call life.'"
[Edit to add that I had heard of Saul Bellow but was unfamiliar with his political views. He proudly attended a counterprotest of the Vietnam war and Studs Terkel wrote him a letter saying he didn't like that. Terkel said: "He wrote me a letter back. He called me a Stalinist. But otherwise, we were friendly. He was a brilliant writer, of course. I love Seize the Day."