Wednesday, November 16

creating

Galileo... saw a church lamp swinging and was led to find the laws by which a body swings. He did not see that the laws that made his experience comprehensible were of his creation. He did not simply discover some natural process, but in fact added to the world an act of his own true individuality. I am not saying that Galileo impressed his subjectivity onto the world; rather the breakthrough was an act of his individuality uniting with the world. The point of individuality is that by creating, it creates what is actually there -- albeit not there in the form of comprehension, but only in the form of perception, until the creative act of comprehension takes place. Then the world rejoices, for it has become more whole; perception and comprehension together reveal the world more fully. The mistake of the natural sciences is that, until very recently, scientists believed they simply discovered the laws of the natural world, not recognizing that their observations were also creating in part what was being observed.

-- Robert Sardello Love and the World