Plancks Constant, PI and Picasso.
When does a sculptor or a painter know when the product of their efforts is “finished”?
They don’t!
While the anatomical accuracy of Michelangelo’s ‘David’ is astounding and precise, there continues to be some debate regarding particular almost esoteric anomalies evident in this astounding piece of art. There is a curious irregularity amid the musculature of ‘David’s’ back, and perspective affords the sculpted subject a curious bi-focal and bi-planer gaze that has been the subject of discussion among anatomists for decades. In the same way that Tom Tompson or Paul Cézanne or any other artist for that matter accepts the fact that no human perception can flawlessly and with absolute accuracy mirror the apprehension of nature or anything else in this experience of existence, artists do the best they can with what they’re given in an imperfect and constantly changing reality.
Our physics relies on acceptable limitations imposed by, or if one prefers, dictated to, our awareness of and facility with everything that exists in the realms of not only physics but all science by the unique-ness of our, human perception of “reality”. We employ constants like Planck’s and PI to express the fact that our relationship with this experience of existence is by circumstance and necessity non-absolute and vulnerable to relational dynamics. Bacteria and viral structures redefine themselves, adapt to conditions and change constantly imposing both a conundrum and often a threat to many other life forms including of course, of the human variety of life form.
While every leaf in any artist’s arboreal panorama contributes to human perception of the notion “forest”, the fact is that the discrete individual beauty of every cell and fiber of every leaf isn’t necessarily critical to an understanding of or appreciation for the beauty of the whole. Similarly, just as quantum mechanics relies on declared “constants” like Planck’s, when you visit the hardware store to purchase enough paint to give that propane tank a lasting rust-resistant coat of paint, the calculation of the area of that cylinder is by circumstance indefinite thanks in part to PI….
Now, while it’s not necessary to calculate the surface area of a cylinder or a sphere or many other objects to some precise absolute metric, a liter or a quart of paint with such-and-such ‘coverage’ will suffice and if there’s a little left over in the bottom of the can….well that’s just life!
Pity that so robust an effort is made by religion to declare an absolute morality and so many exhausting dissertations are offered by high-priests and “holy-men” implying an ‘understanding’ of the declared absolutism of the nature of “god”.
While we accept that our interrelationship with our ‘local’ space-time/reality is replete with non-absolutes and we can successfully interact with the substance of our existence to yield survival and for many, a comfortable productive and satisfying experience, the high-priests and the assorted “wise” promulgators of mystical nonsense insist that their particular vision, their particular notions of “god” and of course the “nature of god’s will” is the definitive and absolute knowledge of a species of animals that demonstrates failure after failure to find peace both within itself and among its fellows. Despite thousands of years of hymns, chants, cannibalism (in some cases), poems songs and “scriptures” attested to by these great learned-men as the ultimate wisdom available to the enlightened.
The believer “gets” something for his/her investment. What the believer “gets” is of course unique to a particular individual believer, but ranges from rationalizations that permit bigotry and murder, to popularity and wealth delivered to the “soothsayer” by adoring adherents and the ambitiously hopeful.
Swell. I can understand that “life” can be a scary kind of experience and many “need” some absolute rock some unmoving and immoveable constant reference point in the universe upon which their prejudices and bigotry can depend as their license to replicate intolerance hatred and of course moral “superiority”….
Canadian Content provides “believers” with a canvas, a platform, a vehicle, and if we grant that the believer is performing some altruistic duty to his or her “beliefs”, if absolutely nothing were amiss in the world that became disjointed or cockeyed at the hands of “belief”, despite a plethora of evidence to the contrary, while merely a supercilious waste of time and energy, for the contributor and an imposition on the surfing habits of the reader demanding one skip the syrupy pap in the effort to get to something more substantive….well no harm no foul.
But it certainly does get tired quickly.
