It’s funny; Not to fail to be grateful for F’s several very nice observations below, and some vivacious prose, but it is good that he started his tirade with quantum mechanics and general relativity.
Reading them brought to mind a passage late in Kawabata’s Master of Go. I went looking for it online, but couldn’t find it. My memory won’t be quite right, as it is decades since I read it. But: The journalist meets an American Go enthusiast on the train. The American plays, and loses game after game, and happily claps his hands, eager to play another. The reporter says, in trying to capture what bothered him in the American’s play, something like: that there was a lack of muscularity in his play. We beat it to death a few years ago on the list, but there is something about modesty in how to read or to listen. F certainly asserts in style, if he doesn’t say it outright, that physics floats on a web of metaphor as if on a mirage. As if F has the metaphors and knows what they “are” and that they are like a mirage, and that when they break down the physics that floats on them will fall. Since there could be no reason to check that there might be something to _understand_, only on the far side of working and living, and the metaphors are an effort to be helpful if one wants to try. (Nowadays, of course, I would not use those metaphors, because we have much better ways to talk; and I understand that the people in those days, with whom F could speak directly, _did_ use those, and worse. Especially Bohr. So one must make allowances.) There was some of GPTs text about “position and momentum’s being intertwined in quantum mechanics” that landed about the same way. As Churchill said: But it was after dinner, and I let it go. Eric > On Jan 22, 2025, at 14:30, Nicholas Thompson <thompnicks...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I am curious how many of you on the list know or could guess at the author of > the following quote: > > I am interested in your guesses; if you know it for SURE, please hold off > guessing. > > I would be willing to throw away everything else but that: enthusiasm tamed > by metaphor. Let me rest the case there. Enthusiasm tamed to metaphor, tamed > to that much of it. I do not think anybody ever knows the discreet use of > metaphor, his own and other people’s, the discreet handling of metaphor, > unless he has been properly educated in poetry. > > Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, “grace” metaphors, and > goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one > permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, “Why > don’t you say what you mean?” We never do that, do we, being all of us too > much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in > indirections—whether from diffidence or some other instinct. > > I have wanted in late years to go further and further in making metaphor the > whole of thinking. I find someone now and then to agree with me that all > thinking, except mathematical thinking, is metaphorical, or all thinking > except scientific thinking. The mathematical might be difficult for me to > bring in, but the scientific is easy enough. > > Once on a time all the Greeks were busy telling each other what the All > was—or was like unto. All was three elements, air, earth, and water (we once > thought it was ninety elements; now we think it is only one). All was > substance, said another. All was change, said a third. But best and most > fruitful was Pythagoras’ comparison of the universe with number. Number of > what? number of feet, pounds, and seconds was the answer, and we had science > and all that has followed in science. The metaphor has held and held, > breaking down only when it came to the spiritual and psychological or the out > of the way places of the physical. > > The other day we had a visitor here, a noted scientist, whose latest word to > the world has been that the more accurately you know where a thing is, the > less accurately you are able to state how fast it is moving. You can see why > that would be so, without going back to Zeno’s problem of the arrow’s flight. > In carrying numbers into the realm of space and at the same time into the > realm of time you are mixing metaphors, that is all, and you are in trouble. > They won’t mix. The two don’t go together. > > Let’s take two or three more of the metaphors now in use to live by. I have > just spoken of one of the new ones, a charming mixed metaphor right in the > realm of higher mathematics and higher physics: that the more accurately you > state where a thing is, the less accurately you will be able to tell how fast > it is moving. And, of course, everything is moving. Everything is an event > now. Another metaphor. A thing, they say, is all event. Do you believe it is? > Not quite. I believe it is almost all event. But I like the comparison of a > thing with an event. > > I notice another from the same quarter. “In the neighborhood of matter space > is something like curved.” Isn’t that a good one! It seems to me that that is > simply and utterly charming—to say that space is something like curved in the > neighborhood of matter. “Something like.” > > Another amusing one is from—what is the book?—I can’t say it now; but here is > the metaphor. Its aim is to restore you to your ideas of free will. It wants > to give you back your freedom of will. All right, here it is on a platter. > You know that you can’t tell by name what persons in a certain class will be > dead ten years after graduation, but you can tell actuarially how many will > be dead. Now, just so this scientist says of the particles of matter flying > at a screen, striking a screen; you can’t tell what individual particles will > collide, but you can say in general that a certain number will strike in a > given time. It shows, you see, that the individual particle can come freely. > I asked Bohr about that particularly, and he said, “Yes , It is so. It can > come when it wills and as it wills; and the action of the individual particle > is unpredictable. But it is not so of the action of the mass. There you can > predict.” He says, “That gives the individual atom its freedom, but the mass > its necessity. > > Another metaphor that has interested us in our time and has done all our > thinking for us is the metaphor of evolution. Never mind going into the Latin > word. The metaphor is simply the metaphor of the growing plant or of the > growing thing. And somebody very brilliantly, quite a while ago, said that > the whole universe, the whole of everything, was like unto a growing thing. > That is all. I know the metaphor will break down at some point, but it has > not failed everywhere. It is a very brilliant metaphor, I acknowledge, though > I myself get too tired of the kind of essay that talks about the evolution of > candy, we will say, or the evolution of elevators—the evolution of this, > that, and the other. Everything is evolution. I emancipate myself by simply > saying that I didn’t get up the metaphor and so am not much interested in it. > > What I am pointing out is that unless you are at home in the metaphor, unless > you have had your proper poetical education in the metaphor, you are not safe > anywhere. Because you are not at ease with figurative values: you don’t know > the metaphor in its strength and its weakness. You don’t know how far you may > expect to ride it and when it may break down with you. You are not safe with > science; you are not safe in history. In history, for instance—to show that > [it] is the same in history as elsewhere—I heard somebody say yesterday that > Aeneas was to be likened unto (those words, “likened unto”!) George > Washington. He was that type of national hero, the middle-class man, not > thinking of being a hero at all, bent on building the future, bent on his > children, his descendents. A good metaphor, as far as it goes, and you must > know how far. And then he added that Odysseus should be likened unto Theodore > Roosevelt. I don’t think that is so good. Someone visiting Gibbon at the > point of death, said he was the same Gibbon as of old, still at his parallels. > > Take the way we have been led into our present position morally, the world > over. It is by a sort of metaphorical gradient. There is a kind of > thinking—to speak metaphorically—there is a kind of thinking you might say > was endemic in the brothel. It was always there. And every now and then in > some mysterious way it becomes epidemic in the world. And how does it do so? > By using all the good words that virtue has invented to maintain virtue. It > uses honesty, first,—frankness, sincerity—those words; picks them up, uses > them. “In the name of honesty, let us see what we are.” You know. And then it > picks up the word joy. “Let us in the name of joy, which is the enemy of our > ancestors, the Puritans….Let us in the name of joy, which is the enemy of the > kill-joy Puritan…” You see. “Let us,” and so on. And then, “In the name of > health….” Health is another good word. And that is the metaphor Freudianism > trades on, mental health. And the first thing we know, it has us all in up to > the top knot. I suppose we may blame the artists a good deal, because they > are great people to spread by metaphor. The stage too—the stage is always a > good intermediary between the two worlds, the under and the upper,—if I may > say so without personal prejudice to the stage. > > In all this I have only been saying that the devil can quote Scripture, which > simply means that the good words you have lying around the devil can use for > his purposes as well as anybody else. Never mind about my morality. I am not > here to urge anything. I don’t care whether the world is good or bad—not on > any particular day. > > Let me ask you to watch a metaphor breaking down here before you. > > Somebody said to me a little while ago, “It is easy enough for me to think of > the universe as a machine, as a mechanism.” > > I said, “You mean the universe is like a machine?” > > He said, “No. I think it is one . . . Well, it is like . . .” > > “I think you mean the universe is like a machine.” > > “All right. Let it go at that.” > > I asked him, “Did you ever see a machine without a pedal for the foot, or a > lever for the hand, or a button for the finger?” > > He said, “No—no.” > > I said, “All right. Is the universe like that?” > > And he said, “No. I mean it is like a machine, only . . .” > > “. . . it is different from a machine,” I said. > > He wanted to go just that far with that metaphor and no further. And so do we > all. All metaphor breaks down somewhere. That is the beauty of it. It is > touch and go with the metaphor, and until you have lived with it long enough > you don’t know when it is going. You don’t know how much you can get out of > it and when it will cease to yield. It is a very living thing. It is as life > itself. > > I have heard this ever since I can remember , and ever since I have taught: > the teacher must teach the pupil to think. I saw a teacher once going around > in a great school and snapping pupils’ heads with thumb and finger and > saying, “Think.” That was when thinking was becoming the fashion. The fashion > hasn’t yet quite gone out. > > We still ask boys in college to think, as in the nineties, but we seldom tell > them what thinking means; we seldom tell them it is just putting this and > that together; it is just saying one thing in terms of another. To tell them > is to set their feet on the first rung of a ladder the top of which sticks > through the sky. > > Greatest of all attempts to say one thing in terms of another is the > philosophical attempt to say matter in terms of spirit, or spirit in terms of > matter, to make the final unity. That is the greatest attempt that ever > failed. We stop just short there. But it is the height of poetry, the height > of all thinking, the height of all poetic thinking, that attempt to say > matter in terms of spirit and spirit in terms of matter. It is wrong to > anybody a materialist simply because he tries to say spirit in terms of > matter, as if that were a sin. Materialism is not the attempt to say all in > terms of matter. The only materialist—be he poet, teacher, scientist, > politician, or statesman—is the man who gets lost in his material without a > gathering metaphor to throw it into shape and order. He is the lost soul. > > We ask people to think, and we don’t show them what thinking is. Somebody > says we don’t need to show them how to think; bye and bye they will think. We > will give them the forms of sentences and, if they have any ideas, then they > will know how to write them. But that is preposterous. All there is to > writing is having ideas. To learn to write is to learn to have ideas. > > The first little metaphor….Take some of the trivial ones. I would rather have > trivial ones of my own to live by than the big ones of other people. > > I remember a boy saying, “He is the kind of person that wounds with his > shield.” That may be a slender one, of course. It goes a good way in > character description. It has poetic grace. “He is the kind that wounds with > his shield.” > > The shield reminds me—just to linger a minute—the shield reminds me of the > inverted shield spoken of in one of the books of the “Odyssey,” the book that > tells about the longest swim on record. I forget how long it lasted—several > days, was it?—but at last as Odysseus came near the coast of Phaneacia, he > saw it on the horizon “like an inverted shield.” > > There is a better metaphor in the same book. In the end Odysseus comes ashore > and crawls up the beach to spend the night under a double olive tree, and it > says, as in a lonely farmhouse where it is hard to get fire—I am not quoting > exactly—where it is hard to start the fire again if it goes out, they cover > the seeds of fire with ashes to preserve it for the night, so Odysseus > covered himself with the leaves around him and went to sleep. There you have > something that gives you character, something of Odysseus himself. “Seeds of > fire.” So Odysseus covered the seeds of fire in himself. You get the > greatness of his nature. > > But these are slighter metaphors than the ones we live by. They have their > charm, their passing charm. They are as it were the first steps toward the > great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. > > The metaphor whose manage we are best taught in poetry—that is all there is > of thinking. It may not seem far for the mind to go but it is the mind’s > furthest. The richest accumulation of the ages is the noble metaphors we have > rolled up. > > > -- > Nicholas S. 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