Physics: Synthesis! My E-Prime day, synthesizing physics - "as above, so below"
Going E-Prime
Rather than try e-prime for an entire day, which would be exasperating and maybe not always appropriate, I tried to apply this thoughtfully throughout the week. Sometimes it felt pretty natural and I thought, maybe I can do this! but other times it was impossible!
I was thinking about e-prime while listening to the radio, a thoughtful discussion on NPR. The talk was on self-empathy and the host and his guest seemed to me pretty e-primey. For their talk on how to interact with people -- doctors with patients, parents with children, etc.,-- it was refreshing to hear their statements couched in phrases such as "in my perspective", "I think", ... "to me" & that makes sense given that when we are communicating with other people and not just trying to speak for them, that we acknowledge how much room there can be for another interpretation or experience of that same communication.
On the other hand, I recalled when I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh out of curiosity for the "other side". I didn't (and still don't) understand the appeal of such a person. While listening to NPR speakers who sounded so e-prime, I recalled how Rush Limbaugh sounded so NOT e-prime, and maybe that is part of the appeal of such a person. I also wonder if this is part of the appeal of our current president -- why is that way of communicating so appealing? And what is so unappealing about speaking in an e-prime manner? And why do I sometimes like e-prime?...
"As above, so below?" -- Synthesizing Physics, East & West
This statement reminds me that knowledge is a two-way street, we can know a lot internally when we reflect & maybe even come to some cosmic conclusions, or we can have a completely different state of mind and hyper-focus, study all the parts in all their detail to arrive at the same place. I think that's perhaps what Bohr, Oppenheimer, and Heisenberg were speaking to when they acknowledged that recent discoveries in physics weren't "entirely new". They saw that Lao Tzu, the Buddha, and philosophical ideas from Japan already expressed much of what they were finding in atomic theory.
I don't really know the skills of the first method - how to observe nature and myself in nature and come to meaningful conclusions. This must be a real skill that can be developed, and I hope that for me it's not too late! :) It reminds me of a video I watched of this great philosophical thinker, Krishnamurti, speaking to a classroom of children towards the end of his life. One of the children asked, "how can I concentrate?... how can I meditate?". It was such an interesting question to come from a child, I thought. Krishnamurti told him to do what he's doing and allow that, basically. He said, that when your mind 'drifts' such as when you are looking out the window, not focusing on maths... you ARE concentrating in that moment, you ARE meditating. I found this really profound.
Rather than try e-prime for an entire day, which would be exasperating and maybe not always appropriate, I tried to apply this thoughtfully throughout the week. Sometimes it felt pretty natural and I thought, maybe I can do this! but other times it was impossible!
I was thinking about e-prime while listening to the radio, a thoughtful discussion on NPR. The talk was on self-empathy and the host and his guest seemed to me pretty e-primey. For their talk on how to interact with people -- doctors with patients, parents with children, etc.,-- it was refreshing to hear their statements couched in phrases such as "in my perspective", "I think", ... "to me" & that makes sense given that when we are communicating with other people and not just trying to speak for them, that we acknowledge how much room there can be for another interpretation or experience of that same communication.
On the other hand, I recalled when I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh out of curiosity for the "other side". I didn't (and still don't) understand the appeal of such a person. While listening to NPR speakers who sounded so e-prime, I recalled how Rush Limbaugh sounded so NOT e-prime, and maybe that is part of the appeal of such a person. I also wonder if this is part of the appeal of our current president -- why is that way of communicating so appealing? And what is so unappealing about speaking in an e-prime manner? And why do I sometimes like e-prime?...
"As above, so below?" -- Synthesizing Physics, East & West
This statement reminds me that knowledge is a two-way street, we can know a lot internally when we reflect & maybe even come to some cosmic conclusions, or we can have a completely different state of mind and hyper-focus, study all the parts in all their detail to arrive at the same place. I think that's perhaps what Bohr, Oppenheimer, and Heisenberg were speaking to when they acknowledged that recent discoveries in physics weren't "entirely new". They saw that Lao Tzu, the Buddha, and philosophical ideas from Japan already expressed much of what they were finding in atomic theory.
I don't really know the skills of the first method - how to observe nature and myself in nature and come to meaningful conclusions. This must be a real skill that can be developed, and I hope that for me it's not too late! :) It reminds me of a video I watched of this great philosophical thinker, Krishnamurti, speaking to a classroom of children towards the end of his life. One of the children asked, "how can I concentrate?... how can I meditate?". It was such an interesting question to come from a child, I thought. Krishnamurti told him to do what he's doing and allow that, basically. He said, that when your mind 'drifts' such as when you are looking out the window, not focusing on maths... you ARE concentrating in that moment, you ARE meditating. I found this really profound.
I really like that last part about Krishnamurti telling the kid he is concentrating on the moment. It's making me feel better about what feels a little like ADD to me sometimes. I think it's helpful sometimes to be reminded that minds can drift off and it's natural. Thank you for that :)
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