compassion, collaboration & cooperation iN transistion
A compelling and thought-provoking guide to the historical and philosophical
notions that have shaped human civilization. From divine majesty to jihad,
from the dawn of time to the present day, from Ancient Greece to North
America, each idea is engagingly explained and powerfully illustrated over a
double-page spread.
In all, over 175 of the world's most pivotal ideas are liberated from their often
obscure and academic contexts, expertly distilled by one of the world's greatest
historians and thinkers,and given a new accessibility and ease of interpretation
with Dorling Kindersley graphics and design. The book is at once an original and
authoritative retelling of the story of civilization, a source book for all student
s of philosophy and history, and a highly browsable reference for the general
The connections between ground-breaking ideas are highlighted throughout
this early UK version of the publication - starting with the oldest - Eating
People - the idea of Cannibalism - then Give Me a Sign - the idea of Symbols
- and lastly the Global Village - the idea of Cultural Pluralism.
Fernandez-Armesto says - " It seems odd that one thing can signify
something else. Presumably symbols developed from awareness that some
events are cued by others. Language was, probably, the first system of signs
people devised - an agreed pattern or code of gestures and utterances with no
necessarily obvious resemblance to the things signified.
When the idea of symbolic representation occured to them, they had a means
of conveying information and making it available for critical examination - it
was an advantage over other species and, ultimately, a means of broadening
communication and protracting memory."
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto goes on to say in The New Illusion - the idea that
reality is unknowable - " The invention of geometry showed how the MIND can
reach realities that senses obscure or warp - a perfect circle, a line without
magnitude. Workers in arithmetic and algebra discovered unreachable numbers
- zero and negative numbers, ratios that could never be exactly determined, yet
which seemed to underpin the universe Pi for instance (22/7), the value that
determines the size of a circle, or what Greek mathematicians called the
"Golden Number" (3/2), which seemed to represent perfection of proportion."
More recently the film-maker Mark Whitney & art historian Carlo Pedretti produced a state-of-the-art computer animated video - Leonardo's Deluge - using - scenes of natural landscapes around the Arno River to underscore the symbolic significance of these drawings - and the proportional rule of thirds which is now so importantly understood by those involved in the art of film production - and those @zaadz who aspire to be so.
LEST we forget IT IS through THE Power of Visual Thinking that
IDEAS are brought to fruition, for the purpose of changing the
world, whether from a positive or negative perspective.
No less "an evolving example" of same, derives from the Leonardo
LINK with the work of I LEONARDO by Ralph Steadman.
Previously posted by Michael Grove @zaadz on November 9, 2006 at 9:30
.
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The turbulence that breaks up orderly systems and causes disorder to boil across our landscape in the forms of lava, wind, or water has long been an object of fascination for great minds. One of the earliest and greatest was Leonardo da Vinci, who made many careful studies of turbulent motion and became obsessed with the IDEA that A GREAT DELUGE would one day ENGULF THE EARTH.
In his observations and drawings of rapidly flowing water, Leonardo noted how vortices tend to fragment into smaller and smaller vortices, which then fragment again. The whole process en route to turbulence appears to involve endless subdivisions or bifurcations at smaller and smaller scales. Where do these bifurcations end? Is there a limit to their number? A fluid is ultimately composed of molecules; is it possible that true turbulence persists right down to the molecular level, or beyond?
The notion of vortices within vortices ad infinitum suggests that systems close to turbulence will look similar to themselves at smaller and smaller scales - suggesting that the strange attractor of turbulence is a mirror-world.
John Briggs & F. David Peat - Turbulent MIRROR
and Authors of Looking Glass Universe.
"Human rights and the principles of humanity - those values
we share across faiths and culture - together represent the
highest common vision of humanity. They form a global ethic,
already agreed by all states and their peoples throughout the
world. Such a global ethic provides a common framework to
inspire and shape concerted action."
http://letschangetheworld.ning.com/profiles/blogs/it-was-julia-h...
Without mathematics there is no art - Luca Pacioli
[IT] was during the time that I was studying GCE 'A' Levels at
Grammar School, in Maths Pure, Maths Applied, Physics and Art,
when I was first introduced to Ernst Mach's drawings that I first
became aware of the significantly different symbols utilised to
annotate the very distinction between the arithmetic and the
algebraic 'equal to & equivalent to' namely those that are seen
here below ...
Luca Pacioli tutored the artist in Euclidian geometry and Leonardo impressed the mathematician with his ability to depict intricate geometric shapes as works of art. Pacioli spent much of his time in 1497 composing the text of Divina Proportione, which is an in depth study of the golden ratio, or ‘divine proportion’ [a : b = b : (a + b)], in geometry and art and which also detailed Euclid’s regular and semi-regular Platonic solids and concludes with a treatise on perspective and architecture. Pacioli’s text made the golden ratio central to the understanding of painting, sculpture, architecture, music, poetry and philosophy and was illustrated by models drawn by Leonardo, making Divina Proportione the only book illustrated by the artist in his lifetime. Two copies of this work survive, now kept at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana and the University Library of Geneva.
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I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate you and your posts Michael. I look forward to every one :-)
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I love this book and I intend to come up with more ideas however small and insignificant as it may seem, can actually inspire others to do the same just like how passionate you are Michael in blogging about wonderful stuff. Yes indeed we look forward to every one. Thank you, Michael.
Samme
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HAIL & many thanks to you BOTH - and ALL of you others out there - for dedicating your precious TIME to reading my zblogs - be assured I will continue to do so throughout 2007 & the coming years - & in so doing hopefully provide just a little inspiration of how we are going to change the world together.