Samhain \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Thanksgiving Moon<\/p>\n
Not often a letter to the editor makes me stop because of its literary quality. However, a letter by John Ball of Huntsville, Alabama to the Scientific American did.<\/p>\n
Writing about the quantum world he said, \u00a0“We must remember that such representations (wave analogies among others) do not describe the true, alien reality of the quantum world. \u00a0We are like fish studying the stars.”<\/p>\n
Such an important idea phrased in an arresting way. \u00a0The map is not the territory. \u00a0It applies, and we don’t often acknowledge this, to our knowledge of other people. \u00a0We see only a thin map of their on going narrative, a fluid process dynamic within them. \u00a0And we only see that through the filter of our senses and our understanding.<\/p>\n
An interesting variant on this idea is our tendency to look for the real, the true nature of institutions with which we interact all the time. \u00a0Richard Rorty, an American pragmatist, said that the beginnings don’t matter. \u00a0What we perceive as the foundations don’t matter. What matters is how something works now.<\/p>\n
Is the government making our lives better? \u00a0Then it’s a good government. \u00a0If not, it’s a bad government and needs to change. \u00a0Are the schools educating our kids? \u00a0Do businesses make our world safer, more secure? \u00a0If not, they need to change. \u00a0If so, let them do their, well, business.<\/p>\n
Most interestingly you can run this same pragmatic test on religious institutions. \u00a0Does the church make our lives richer and fuller? \u00a0Then it’s a good church. \u00a0Does it make us guilty, self-doubting, naive? \u00a0Then it’s a bad church. \u00a0But notice the key move here. \u00a0The nature of the church’s foundations, that is, the Bible, its metaphysical claims about divinity and an afterlife, don’t matter.<\/p>\n
In the world of religion we are like fish studying the stars.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Samhain \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Thanksgiving Moon Not often a letter to the editor makes me stop because of its literary quality. However, a letter by John Ball of Huntsville, Alabama to … Continue reading We Are Like Fish Studying The Stars<\/span>