Poetic Knowledge: Foundational (Ch.3 part 2)

Taylor states, "St. Thomas Aquinas said poetry occupies the lowest order of knowledge because it is less distinct and tends to be obscure compared to scientific knowledge." I believe this to mean "lowest order" in the sense of foundational - first rung of the ladder rather than low as in degrading, crude, or lacking honour or desirability. This is a very important understanding that does not exist, to the extent it should, due to our society's embracing of scientific knowledge as the only knowledge worth anything.

I was talking to a friend about this yesterday when I had an epiphany. Now, normally I do not do disclaimers but seeing as how I only know most of you ladies through the blogging world and not in a face to face personal basis and I know most of you are not of the same faith I am I will do one. I am not trying to preach or convert, only explain the epiphany. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and in addition to the King James Version of the Holy Bible we have The Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price as our scriptural cannon to nourish our souls with. Please bear with me my fellow Poetic Knowledge readers as I'd like to share a parable from the Book of Mormon that was a part of my epiphany. It is called Lehi's vision of the tree of life (part of the verses are Lehi talking and part are his son, Nephi, explaining the vision, any emphasis is mine)

[Lehi speaking here]
7...I beheld myself that I was in a dark and dreary waste.

8And after I had traveled for the space of many hours in darkness, I began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies.

9And it came to pass after I had prayed unto the Lord I beheld a large and spacious field.

10And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy.

11And it came to pass that I did go forth and partake of the fruit thereof; and I beheld that it was most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. Yea, and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen.

12And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit.

13And as I cast my eyes round about, that perhaps I might discover my family also, I beheld a river of water; and it ran along, and it was near the tree of which I was partaking the fruit...

26And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld, on the other side of the river of water, a great and spacious building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth.

27And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they were in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit...

33And great was the multitude that did enter into that strange building. And after they did enter into that building they did point the finger of scorn at me and those that were partaking of the fruit also; but we heeded them not.

[Nephi speaking now to end]
34These are the words of my father: For as many as heeded them, had fallen away...

18And the large and spacious building, which thy father saw, is vain imaginations and the pride of the children of men. And a great and a terrible gulf divideth them; yea, even the word of the justice of the Eternal God, and the Messiah who is the Lamb of God, of whom the Holy Ghost beareth record, from the beginning of the world until this time, and from this time henceforth and forever...

35And the multitude of the earth was gathered together; and I beheld that they were in a large and spacious building, like unto the building which my father saw. And the angel of the Lord spake unto me again, saying: Behold the world and the wisdom thereof; yea, behold the house of Israel hath gathered together to fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

36And it came to pass that I saw and bear record, that the great and spacious building was the pride of the world; and it fell, and the fall thereof was exceedingly great. And the angel of the Lord spake unto me again, saying: Thus shall be the destruction of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, that shall fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Now for the epiphany: As I was talking to my friend I told her that poetic knowledge is a foundational knowledge, in fact I really think it is a spiritual intuition, knowing beyond knowing. Our society only values the scientific knowledge - then it hit me! Our society, with it's value and pride in science, is in the great and spacious building that has no firm foundation and will fall.

Be sure to check out the other Poetic Knowledge rabbit trails here:
http://www.pelennorfields.com/mystie/2011/poetic-knowledge-book-club-connatural-intentional-and-intuitive-knowledge-part-2/

Poetic Knowledge: Ch.3 Pt. 1 and Senses

Okay, I had a tough time with this one. Maybe it's because I was distracted while I read it and had to read it over several days in the van while waiting for my hubbie to do errands while I had a massive headache...Really reading it over days usually isn't a problem for me, just the reading tough stuff with a headache.

Anywho...

Since I had a tough time and since poetic knowledge has to do with the senses I thought I'd share some things that have really appealed to me at sundry times and places. Things that I have craved for and had an overwhelming sense of satisfaction yet continual desire for.

Smell: Nearly 15 years ago I had some very tough times with family and personally. I was learning massage therapy along with some students who were very into aromatherapy. They introduced me to the scent of Sweet Orange and Sandalwood. For the longest time I couldn't get enough of that scent. Thinking on the experience now I would like to research those scents and see what their attributes are and see if somehow it was due to those attributes and my needs at the time that it was nourishing me. I'll have to look into that now...

Sound: Beethoven, Symphony 7, Allegretto, mvt 2. You can listen to this and see a fascinating visual display too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uOxOgm5jQ4. My absolute favorite part is the second minute but the who piece is beautiful. I'm not sure why but it really speaks to me at this time in my life.

Visual: When I was in high school (and before then too) I had the great advantage of being in the dance program. It was new in West Anchorage High and for the three years I was there I spent my lunch, dance class hour, and many after school hours in the dance studio (at one point I wasn't able to get into dance so I took typing instead and would speed through my work and the kind teacher would let me go to dance). When I wasn't actually dancing I would listen to music with my eyes closed and visualize the choreography. I still do it from time to time but I really don't have the ability like I used to.

Taste: I'm not sure this counts as a poetic experience per se but there is a dessert I recently discovered that is just divine. I'm a big chocolate lover but this is better! Really the only way to eat it is in snitched bites here and there when you shouldn't be eating it. Don't ask me why. It just is. You can try it, the recipe is here: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/02/apple_dumplings/

Touch: Since I did massage therapy I naturally received a lot of professional massages. But in all honesty I find the most relaxing touch is when someone runs their fingers through my hair (hmmmm, maybe I should tell my husband that?). The most thrilling touch I had was when I first met my husband and he would greet me quickly by squeezing my arm then rush off. What a tease he was! Ha ha ha! Again, I don't know if those would count as poetic but like I said, I had a bad headache while reading this and so this is my contribution! *smile*

Okay, I did get some things from this section:

1. "...the habit of poetic intelligence as a way of seeing the world, seeing the significance in the superficial, what most would dismiss, ignore, or never notice. Indeed, 'the way in which ideas arise in our minds,' while not poetry, is poetic." Just tonight a friend wrote to me, "It is so fun to read your thoughts because you make so many connections from so many different sources. The information is wonderfully stimulating word candy." Without a broad base of knowledge and deeper base in many areas it is hard for one to make such poetic connections. Here again is where the public school system fails our children in true knowledge because they keep everything so shallow. Makes me think of the song What I Am by Edie Brickell. I see Satan's influence and trickery all around. I recently saw a TIME magazine cover titled: What If There's No Hell. I didn't read it but I want to testify that Satan is real and there is Hell! The fact that that was the cover of a prominent magazine is evidence of Satan's reality because Satan doesn't want us to think he is real!

Okay, jumping off my soapbox now.

2. I found this part very telling, "...the credibility of intuitive knowledge was a kind of given in the power of the knower. The deliberate treatment of poetic knowledge by Maritain and others becomes necessary only after the seventeenth century and the ascendancy of science as the preeminent method of learning." Especially when joined with a previous section, "Abstraction, concepts, analysis, by themselves, isolate us from the real." These characteristics are all part of science. I believe science had it's place but it should not be isolated from all other sources of knowledge like it is in our world today. The more complicated we make things the further we get from what is real and true and good. I could go on but it's late and I want to post so...

...that's all for now folks!

See other posts on this book: http://www.pelennorfields.com/mystie/poetic-knowledge-book-club/

Poetic Knowledge: Foundation for Science example 2

Example 2 (this won't be as long, I promise!)

Again, Taylor emphasizes, "One of the ...main reasons for using the term poetic was that it is a sensory experience and, at the same time, a passionate one, where we are moved." He then quotes St. Thomas, "For we see that the senses are for the sake of the intellect, and not the other way about. The sense, moreover, is a certain deficient participation of the intellect."


Afterthoughts pointed out this article (which she got from Dawn): Dr. Jeff Myers' antidote to the brain damage caused by excessive media use in children"

This article says the,

"The brain was designed in such a way that work and accomplishment stimulate the executive center of the brain..., which...stimulates the pleasure center of the brain...Work brings satisfaction, and the desire for life satisfaction motivates people to work."

One study in relation to video games and the influence they have on 7-14 yr. old boys found that, "playing video games lights up the pleasure center of the brain while simultaneously shutting off blood flow to the executive center of the brain. In effect, these games offered boys the sense that they had accomplished something without actually having done so.”


Sorry I’m quoting so much, but this is good stuff,

“Consider the shocking implications. The games children play are designed to bring effortless pleasure (movies and music have the same effect). Over time, this slickly produced entertainment ‘tricks’ the brain into by-passing the executive center, making it more rewarding to pursue entertainment and less rewarding to accomplish anything of value.

How to fix this? According to the article, “…to rescue teens from the cultural addiction: engage them in conversation in the context of doing real things.”

How easy is that? The answer is explained more but essentially you “close the Headgates” (there will be a withdrawal period), do meaningful and real work together, and have significant conversations (passive listening to talk will not do the trick).


Here is the conversation science:

“Language lights up the brain…in order to trigger the use of language, both motivation (from the executive center) and arousal (from the pleasure center) are required…Language seems to be a bridge that reconnects the broken-down relationship between the executive and pleasure centers of the brain.”

Satan is so cleaver isn’t he? The very things that are best for us (like work and meaningful conversation) he has tricked us by inspiring men to create things that trick us into entertaining our lives away while forsaking the best. These entertainments dull the senses and trick the mind into weak passion, both essential traits of poetic knowledge…and I venture to say spiritual knowledge.


Did you know that Booker T. Washington’s history is very interesting in relation to this topic? My friend was telling me about his history…he was learned, he taught others who thought to be learned was to not have to work, he was an example to them that work is still for the learned. True education and work are essential parts of God’s plan for us. I see evidence of it in the Poetic Knowledge book, many other classic works, science studies, and a good life in general.

Poetic Knowledge: Foundation for Science?

Just thinking out loud, so to speak. I do not claim to fully understand this book as it is my first reading. That said, I found it interesting that scientific knowledge can act as a witness of poetic knowledge. I saw this instance at least twice in the section. Which makes sense as scientific knowledge stems from and has a foundation of poetic knowledge. Maybe that is a way to verify if the science is true by tracing it back to it's poetic source, if there is no poetic source then perhaps truth is lacking?

Example 1

Taylor states, "It was from Socrates, to Aristotle, to Augustine, that we learned there must be present something of the beautiful embedded as a universal in the particular object that gives rise to wonder and delight for there to be poetic experience." He later quotes Umberto Eco thus, "'The soul recognized in material objects a harmony identical with that of its own structure, and this recognition was the genesis of aesthetic pleasure.'"

I had my Thomas Jefferson Education (hereafter TJ Ed) bookclub Friday night last. Don't ask me how the topic went from Plutarch's Lives of Lycurgus, Numa Pompilius, Alexander, and Caesar to dinosaurs, Yetti, aliens, truth (no one has the market on truth), and electrons (to name a few of the many subjects discussed) but it did, maybe that's the great thing about classics, eh? They have such broad, yet deep application. Sorry, I digress a bit....

Electrons. One bookclub member brought up some articles he about electrons I found applicable to poetic knowledge. He sent me the articles. From one (sorry, he didn't tell me the title of the book*. I'll have to get that later) it states,

"In 1923 French physicist Louis de Broglie proposed the idea that an electron, like a photon of light, could behave both as a particle and as a wave. This discovery made scientists 'giddy' again. They were used to thinking of nature's objectivity: A flower is a flower; a tree is a tree. In the quantum world, a particle is a particle sometimes and a wave sometimes."

The article goes on to explain the "Two-Slit Experiment" that german physicist Max Born conducted to test the Broglie theory. In it Born sets up three testing areas. Each area consists of a screen with two doors that can be closed with a solid panel behind the screen. Each test "shoots" something at the screen with one door closed, then the other door closed, then both doors open. The first test uses a machine gun shooting bullets, the next water waves, and the third electrons. Born made curve diagrams for each test result. The bullets are like particles and made a pattern one would expect. The water waves resulted in a pattern one would expect too. Now for the interesting part,

"Since electrons are particles, the logical expectation is that they would form a pattern like the bullet pattern. The electrons behaved like particles, like the bullets, going through the slits, but they made a pattern on the screen like the water waves. The switch from particle pattern to wave pattern made no sense.

Born Shone a light behind the slits to see what was going on. When he watched the electron particles with his light, they made a particle pattern like bullets instead of the wave pattern they made when he was not watching. Then he dimmed the light and the pattern began to look like the wave patterns again. His conclusion was that electrons are one way or the other. If anyone sees them they are particles; if no one sees them they are waves. Electrons seem to come into existence as real objects or particles only when someone observes them."

The other article about electrons is found at this site: http://thetheoryofeverythingblog.com/particle-physics/the-electrons-shocking-story/ The relevant material is under the heading: The Electron and Its Shell. This article states,

"The electron pairs in each sublevel do not revolve around the nucleus in a conventional sense...Due to the electrons size and energy level when orbiting the nucleus, the electron is in all of the possible places at once. If we were to freeze-frame the atom, we could only see where the particle is, but would have no indication of speed or direction. In short, the electron in motion is a wave of possibilities all at once, until we observe it, rendering it a stationary particle but never both at once."

This made me think of Toy Story and how the toys play on their own when no one is looking and freeze in place when people are around. So the toys are like electron waves when unseen and like electron particles when seen.

How does this tie in to poetic knowledge? The poetic source in these articles are the scientists themselves and their love for what they are researching. It is only through them and their attention that the electrons come into being so to speak. They are the "something beautiful" giving "rise to wonder and delight" in the experiment experience. It is through them that, "the soul recognized" the electrons thus causing them to be "material objects...and this recognition was the genesis of aesthetic pleasure."

Just a thought...I could be wrong...I'm sure this has all come out as incoherent babble...

Okay, this is too long as it is. My next example will have to be in another post I'll do later this week.

*Shoot me an email if you want to read this paper. becky_teacher@yahoo.com

See other posts on this book: http://www.pelennorfields.com/mystie/2011/poetic-knowledge-book-club-chapter-2-part-2-the-philosophical-foundations/