Friday, October 03, 2008
Happy Birthday, Telescope
It is 400 years to the month since the invention of the telescope, though only 399 years since the decisive moment when Galileo looked through one and realised everything we had ever been told was wrong. It was the birth of the experimental method and, thus, of modernity. The telescope gave us the power to see what had previously been unseeable. Science has continued this process outward and inward to the point where only the unseeable seems to have any imaginative force. This has created a new problem for humanity - seeing the seeable.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Bad news for theologians. What we have seen turned out to be far more strange and wondrous than anything that flowed from their fevered minds.
ReplyDeletei see the unseeable all the time, one of the privileges of being nearly invisible, and slightly insane.
ReplyDeleteThere is a school of thought that suggests perspective art (da Vinci, Alberti etc.) paved the way for the imaginative move required to look out into space in the first place. It's all very well having the technological means to do something, but as we see from the history of Chinese technology, if you don't have an imaginative reason to do something (e.g. replace swords with guns, or look out into space with a telescope) you'll just sit there eating your crab salad and looking at your expensive shoes and carrying on as you always have. Which suggests that if poetry/art changes nothing except the imagination, it may well change a great deal.
This has created a new problem for humanity - seeing the seeable.
ReplyDeleteBy God, that's putting it very well indeed. Did you just coin that?
(I shall certainly pass it off as my own in future discourse.)
Thanks, Brit, all mine.
ReplyDelete'realised everything we had ever been told was wrong'
ReplyDeleteAre we sure about this? I'm sure I read somewhere that certain people in past civilisations had known that the earth went round the sun..?
As for why it is so crucial for theology to have dignity that the sun go round the earth: Ive never really understood this. I had always thought a key teaching of theology was that man shouldnt think it's so important, and learn humility instead?
Of course from a purely observational, everyday, point of view, the fact that the sun doesn't go round the earth does not stop it from appearing to do just that. So in one existential sense it still does. Similarly the earth is also somewhat flat (look), even though it isn't. So what criterea for observation are we using?
Of course from a purely observational, everyday, point of view, the fact that the sun doesn't go round the earth does not stop it from appearing to do just that. So in one existential sense it still does. Similarly the earth is also somewhat flat (look), even though it isn't. So what criterea for observation are we using?
ReplyDeleteIn point of fact, both the Sun and the Earth revolve about their common center of mass. But each also revolves around its common center of mass with every other particle of mass in the Universe. There are no fixed points. It's a trick question.
Elberry, I just love to read your comments. You have a way of not only seeing, but expressing, what most of us miss. Long may you live, (perhaps) mad yet (certainly) brilliant man. Although, of course, I most wish you happiness -- even if it takes away your edgy insights.
ReplyDeleteThere is also a school of thought that says art and poetry without science and technology produces just beautiful things to look at and read.
ReplyDeleteHeh heh, thank you Susan. At the moment i'm full of 'toffee yum yums' from the supermarket and feel pretty close to happiness.
ReplyDeleteIt's all very well having the technological means to do something, but as we see from the history of Chinese technology, if you don't have an imaginative reason to do something (e.g. replace swords with guns, or look out into space with a telescope) you'll just sit there eating your crab salad and looking at your expensive shoes and carrying on as you always have.清洗机
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