Day: June 15, 2011

Wittgenstein and the ladder

Oh, Wittgenstein ‘s writing’s divine.
I wish his thoughts were each mine.
I  understand just a few.
But they make me see anew.
I hope my own work will grow fine

Wittgenstein is an artist so true.
He created his meanings for you.
Language was  perception.
Or should that say conception?

 

I’ll leave that decision for you!

He appeals to more artistic minds.
In his work,  he gives hints for the blind.
I climbed his ladder up the fence.
What strange happenstance.
I always knew blackbirds were kind

Now the ladder has gone, disappeared.
But no one’s up here, I feel weird
From the fence to the roof.
I discovered a new truth.
Climbing’s not an act to be feared.

If you alter the place where you  stand,
You get an alternative view of your land.
New perspectives give us pause.
Don’t be hasty with laws,
Reality will  make its own demands.

Wittgenstein quote from "Foundations of Mathematics"

“The philosopher is the man who has to cure himself of many sicknesses of the understanding before he can arrive at the notions of the sound human understanding. If in the midst of life we are in death, so in sanity we are surrounded by madness.

Carnap on Wittgenstein

When I met Wittgenstein, I saw that Schlick‘s warnings were fully justified. But his behavior was not caused by any arrogance. In general, he was of a sympathetic temperament and very kind; but he was hypersensitive and easily irritated. Whatever he said was always interesting and stimulating and the way in which he expressed it was often fascinating. His point of view and his attitude toward people and problems, even theoretical problems, were much more similar to those of a creative artist than to those of a scientist; one might almost say, similar to those of a religious prophet or a seer. When he started to formulate his view on some specific problem, we often felt the internal struggle that occurred in him at that very moment, a struggle by which he tried to penetrate from darkness to light under an intense and painful strain, which was even visible on his most expressive face. When finally, sometimes after a prolonged arduous effort, his answers came forth, his statement stood before us like a newly created piece of art or a divine revelation. Not that he asserted his views dogmatically … But the impression he made on us was as if insight came to him as through divine inspiration, so that we could not help feeling that any sober rational comment of analysis of it would be a profanation

More fun and quotes


  •

      Eternal life


    Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
    Ludwig Wittgenstein
    Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/ludwig_wittgenstein.html#ixzz1PAuElzuJ
    sea of lettersvillage scene with sunNewspaperComplex
    Naive Fish


  •
    She’s very naive,you know.
    What,you mean she’s a naive artist?
    No she’s naive and an artist.
    That’s unusual.They seem a cunning lot.
    Well,she makes no money from it.
    Well,that must be hard these days.She could just boil a kipper
    and nail it to a plank and call it “The Crucifixion.”
    Hang on a mo,I can’t find my pen.#
    It’s here stapled to a plank and labelled “Write you are.”
    Can I borrow your pen?
    What do you think I am ,naive?Here’s a pencil stub.
    Now,what was I going to right down?
    Yes,you have gone right down.You’re practically on the sea bed.
    Well,better than a bed of nails.
    Can you still buy those>
    Ask Procrustes at the Acupuncture Centre.
    You get total acupuncture with one of those.
    Kill or cure.
    It’s money I want.
    Well., boil two kippers,a tampon and a hanky.
    That will be your tea,unless you glue it all together and call it the dilemma of modern womanhood.
    What’s the dilemma?
    Whether ’tis better to take kippers against a sea of trouble.
    I don’t think the herrings will like that.I certainly don’t.
    Oh,you one of the herring family,are you?
    No,but I’m applying to change my name to Herring Autonomous Blosch.
    A bit long to sign your paintings!
    It’s cheques I shall be signing.
    Here Mister,will you sign my tampon?
    Get off with you,not a true fish amongst you.
    Fish don’t menstruate.
    That’s lucky because how would they…..
    No,it goes straight into the bleedin’ sea.
    Well,when you see what we’ve put into it,the fish may very well start to menstruate shortly.
    Give me that pencil.I see money in this.Mini-tamps for female fish.
    But how would you advertise them?
    Don’t they have i-phones or i-pods or ITV?
    No,only the scales of justice.
    I wonder if I could sell them deodorants?
    That sounds a bit fishy to me.
    Smells a bit fishy too.
    Well,back to work.
    “Will the right honourable gentleman…