I love philosophical poetry

this unfolded very nicely

I hope to see you perform it Sophie.

Have you practised reading it aloud yet? How about a posting on youtube or perform at DGPS

great intelligent puzzle in a poem

Me again, Sophie, I want to ask you loads about this rather interesting poem -- but will wait till tomorrow since I've got to meet a deadline on some other work today. But I have read it quite a few times and the questions are lining up! mmmmm -- very thought-provoking.

Hello Sophie, here are my questions:

What do you mean by

'encapsulates the entire universe'? -- especially 'encapsulates'?
Doesn't 'Universe' encapsulate the 'Universe'?

What is the 'within' and what is the 'without?

'all that is born,
all that dies?' -- isn't that everything that lives?


To answer this question, first answer another –

Which came first,
the chicken?
or the egg?

It has to be the ur-chicken, the first of the species that via genetic mutation/evolution created an egg. There is no other answer, really.


The answer is:
Either,
or
Neither
or
Both ---or none of the above?

It is all three,
But the unspoken word is ‘and’

So truly the answer is:
Either, (and)
or
Neither (and)
or
Both (and)

So the word that is best suited to describe the whole universe
all that exists within,
all that exists without,
all that is born,
all that dies
Is the unspoken ‘and’

It implies progression
It implies causation
It implies great duration
It implies variety
It implies addition
It implies succession
and
It implies a great number of…



I can understand 'and' as a generative and continually connecting conceit but 'universe' contains it all because the word 'universe' includes everything that is, in whatever state it's in, however much there is of it. The word 'universe' contains whatever the sum total is -- it's not a word that is superceded, or that can be superceded or be diminshed.

Oh darn it: I really like the sound of the poem, it's ritualistic rhythm, but I get jammed in its reasoning.

I did attend meditation lessons with, as I discovered, a buddhist teacher who kept ranting about the deficiencies of the Western mind. I said that I thought he was being insulting and that the Western mind (and it's a concept open to some discussion) was fine and dandy and what made the 'Eastern mind' superior? I suggested that both were probably useful and had their good points -- they had developed out of necessity and the conditions that primed them, and both had their failings and that if he wished to teach me meditation then he would have to address the fact that I was born in the so called West and was therefore harbouring a 'western mind' and that he would need to stop ranting about something he could not properly define, accept differences, accept that he had a western mind, too, and to enjoy a spot of mind-detante. He then invited me to his temple to talk to his teacher 'who would have the answers.' I replied that he would probably have some answers but not necessarily those in response to my questions. And that he would probably say it was because they were zen koans. And I said meditation should be possible without insulting people's minds and saying they are deficient. No meditation was taught on that night, and I never went back!

It's interesting what you say about the universe being everything. There is a conceit in science that the universe was created at the big bang and is expanding rapidly, but if so what is it it expanding into? The answer is the universe - so there is a paucity of language in this area especially as we can't define the universe as anything but everything we can conceive of.

I noticed the other day that scientists had discovered an area of space of at least a trillion, billion miles of absolutely nothing and the only name they could think of was something like "the big nothing".
So any suggestions for a name for it?

By the way " Paul's brain" is not a valid answer.

Yes, I'd read about the 'big nothing' but it's still the universe, a word coined to encapsulate the amazing tremendous everything, whether or not we've been able to identify all that it contains or not, but 'universe' is still 'universe.' A human body is still a human despite discovering more and more complexities about it. Nobody feels deprived by having to call their human body a 'human body.' We find words to name the new discoveries but they're still within the universe, not extraneous, add ons, exceptions to.

Components: we discover components but they're still components, contained, belonging to.

Ah, yes, the big word thing -- it's a known technique that, if you want people to take your theory seriously, you give it a complex, long name. People respond to this -- psychologically, we give more importance to complex, over-long nomenclature.

So any suggestions for a name for it?

The unverse.