Poetry and photography

Poetry is not about fantasy all the time .It is sometimes about unreal situations,the unreality arising out of the fantastic combination of things and events which do not exist in real life.This does not mean that it is entirely unreal and is not reflective of life . What happens is the strange set-up of things and events which do not occur in the same combination in real life but happen nevertheless as a possibility which is captured by a change of perspective. The change of perspective adds to the beauty of the situation which is unreal but nevertheless exists in visual perception. Photography is so much like poetry in this regard.

The strange mixture of things  makes for a new reality.The wind rustles in the leaves and the leaves fall to the ground .The fantastic reality of the tree and the falling leaves mixes with the blue sky and whiteness of cloud and as I stare through the sky-spaces another world is born,another sky comes into existence. I travel to the office in the white heat of April Summer alongside bright-red bougainvillea my world is not the same world as it has been all the time.The white-and -red bougainvillea are entirely different as the April sun falls on them , their luminescence strangely different from what they were this very morning.This is the new reality which a photograph captures and if you look backwards you can recognize the wistfulness present in the unique spatial situation captured by the photo by recollecting all the elements of the picture as an ensemble or at least the motif of the picture if it had one at the time it captured the situation

What is truth?

If we have to arrive at some definition of truth we may look at it as a commonly agreed perception of reality. The definition has its own weaknesses :firstly ,common agreement could be in limited space, limited time and could turn into disagreement in another space,another time. Secondly we are talking about perception which even if common could be misleading and for arriving at correct perception individual and group biases will need to be recognized and eliminated .Thirdly even if we are agreed on the perception of the reality both in our time and in the past (i.e. we and our ancestors have looked at the reality as the same) we do not know what the perception will be like in future and will tally with perceptions of the present time and the past .

I wonder whether we should pursue this inquiry any further .Isn’t it fruitless? The truth keeps changing now and then and our definition will depend upon the changing context and the changing values.

Time is a mere successon of one’s ideas

The philosopher Berkeley views time as a mere succession of ideas-a puzzling thought.

It may be this way :When we view Time we are not thinking about how individually we perceive the way Time is measured by the movement of the clock but about the passage of Time which is independent of the physical ticking of the clock which only measures the passage of time but is not the passage of time itself.

On the other hand it is ideas that flit through one’s mind which make for the passage of time for you and me .This is because it is succession of ideas that governs our perception of the world irrespective of the “objective reality” and it is the perception which marks our time ,not the clock.

Questions about the length of the rulers and their possible answers

If there is a 10 CM ruler and someone ask you how long is that. The answer should be 10CM. If there is a 5 CM ruler and someone ask you how long is that. The answer should be 5CM. Now, If there isn’t any ruler and someone ask you how long is that. I should answer 0 or “N/A”? In this case, does 0 and “N/A” have the same meaning?

http://www.askphilosophers.org

The question asked about what the length of the ruler is when there is no ruler cannot be answered . Only when there is ruler and that is the one being referred to can the answer be made to this question. There is an assumption behind the question that we are specific about the ruler and it is not any ruler but the ruler and since there is no ruler it is safe to assume that the question has no answer.

More accurately we can say that the question does not arise. It is assumed that the questioner is clear about what ruler he is referring to and the answerer with a reasonable application of mind can decipher what ruler the questioner is referring to .The question will then arise and the answer can be expected.

One ambiguity can arise in answering the question. The questioner can say the ruler can exist with a “zero” length and if the question is about the length of the ruler it is correct to answer “zero”. N/A can also be used if instead of answering the question we say that the question does not beg an answer. Both of course are not the same as N/A would imply the answerer is challenging the correctness of the question itself while in the case of “zero” reply a technically correct answer is being given.