Walking as creative fuel, Oliver Sacks on the building blocks of personhood, mathematician Lillian Lieber on what math teaches us about social justice

NOTE: This message might be cut short by your email program. [View it in full](. If a friend forwarded it to you and you'd like your very own newsletter, [subscribe here]( — it's free. If you no longer wish to receive this, you can [unsubscribe](. [Brain Pickings]( [Welcome] Hello, {NAME}! This is the weekly email digest of [brainpickings.org]( by Maria Popova. If you missed the special annual edition of highlights, here is [the best of Brain Pickings 2017](. If you missed last week's regular edition — Auden on the political power of art, the laws of physics rendered in playful and poetic tangibility, Thoreau on the spiritual rewards of winter walks — you can catch up [right here](. And if you're enjoying this newsletter, please consider supporting my labor of love with a [donation]( – each month, I spend hundreds of hours and tremendous resources on it, and every little bit of support helps enormously. If you already donate: THANK YOU. [Walking as Creative Fuel: A Splendid 1913 Celebration of How Solitary Walks Enliven “The Country of the Mind”]( “Every walk is a sort of crusade,” Thoreau wrote in his [manifesto for the spirit of sauntering](. And who hasn’t walked — in the silence of a winter forest, amid the orchestra of birds and insects in a summer field, across the urban jungle of a bustling city — to conquer some territory of their interior world? Artist Maira Kalman [sees walking as indispensable inspiration]( “I walk everywhere in the city. Any city. You see everything you need to see for a lifetime. Every emotion. Every condition. Every fashion. Every glory.” For Rebecca Solnit, walking [“wanders so readily into religion, philosophy, landscape, urban policy, anatomy, allegory, and heartbreak.”]( Perched midway in time between Thoreau and Solnit is a timeless celebration of the psychological, creative, and spiritual rewards of walking by the Scottish writer Kenneth Grahame (March 8, 1859–July 6, 1932), best known for the 1908 children’s novel The Wind in the Willows — a book beloved by pioneering conservationist and marine biologist [Rachel Carson]( whose own [splendid prose about nature]( shares a kindred sensibility with Grahame’s. Kenneth Grahame Five years after publishing The Wind in the Willows, Grahame penned a beautiful short essay for a commemorative issue of his old boarding school magazine. Titled “The Fellow that Goes Alone” and only ever published in Peter Green’s 1959 biography [Kenneth Grahame]( ([public library]( it serenades “the country of the mind” we visit whenever we take long solitary walks in nature. With an eye to “all those who of set purpose choose to walk alone, who know the special grace attaching to it,” Grahame writes: Nature’s particular gift to the walker, through the semi-mechanical act of walking — a gift no other form of exercise seems to transmit in the same high degree — is to set the mind jogging, to make it garrulous, exalted, a little mad maybe — certainly creative and suprasensitive, until at last it really seems to be outside of you and as if it were talking to you whilst you are talking back to it. Then everything gradually seems to join in, sun and the wind, the white road and the dusty hedges, the spirit of the season, whichever that may be, the friendly old earth that is pushing life firth of every sort under your feet or spell-bound in a death-like winter trance, till you walk in the midst of a blessed company, immersed in a dream-talk far transcending any possible human conversation. Time enough, later, for that…; here and now, the mind has shaken off its harness, is snorting and kicking up heels like a colt in a meadow. In a sentiment which, today, radiates a gentle admonition against the self-defeating impulse to evacuate the moment in order to capture it — in a status update, in an Instagram photo — Grahame observes: Not a fiftieth part of all your happy imaginings will you ever, later, recapture, note down, reduce to dull inadequate words; but meantime the mind has stretched itself and had its holiday. Art from [What Color Is the Wind?]( by Anne Herbauts Nearly a century before Wendell Berry’s poetic insistence that in true solitude [“one’s inner voices become audible”]( and modern psychology’s finding that [a capacity for “fertile solitude” is the seat of the imagination]( Grahame writes: This emancipation is only attained in solitude, the solitude which the unseen companions demand before they will come out and talk to you; for, be he who may, if there is another fellow present, your mind has to trot between shafts. A certain amount of “shafts,” indeed, is helpful, as setting the mind more free; and so the high road, while it should always give way to the field path when choice offers, still has this particular virtue, that it takes charge of you — your body, that is to say. Its hedges hold you in friendly steering-reins, its milestones and finger-posts are always on hand, with information succinct and free from frills; and it always gets somewhere, sooner or later. So you are nursed along your way, and the mind may soar in cloudland and never need to be pulled earthwards by any string. But this is as much company as you ought to require, the comradeship of the road you walk on, the road which will look after you and attend to such facts as must not be overlooked. Of course the best sort of walk is the one on which it doesn’t matter twopence whether you get anywhere at all at any time or not; and the second best is the one on which the hard facts of routes, times, or trains give you nothing to worry about. In consonance with artist Agnes Martin’s quiet conviction that [“the best things in life happen to you when you’re alone,”]( Grahame writes: As for adventures, if they are the game you hunt, everyone’s experience will remind him that the best adventures of his life were pursued and achieved, or came suddenly to him unsought, when he was alone. For company too often means compromise, discretion, the choice of the sweetly reasonable. It is difficult to be mad in company; yet but a touch of lunacy in action will open magic doors to rare and unforgettable experiences. But all these are only the by-products, the casual gains, of walking alone. The high converse, the high adventures, will be in the country of the mind. Complement with poet May Sarton’s [sublime ode to solitude]( Robert Walser on [the art of walking]( and Thoreau on [the singular glory of winter walks]( then revisit Rebecca Solnit’s indispensable [cultural history of that art](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( on Facebook]( donating=loving Each week of the past eleven years, I have poured tremendous time, thought, love, and resources into Brain Pickings, which remains free and is made possible by patronage. If you found any joy and stimulation here this year, please consider supporting my labor of love with a donation. And if you already donate, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch. one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now]( [Give Now]( [The Building Blocks of Personhood: Oliver Sacks on Narrative as the Pillar of Identity]( “A person’s identity,” Amin Maalouf wrote in his [brilliant treatise on personhood]( “is like a pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment. Touch just one part of it, just one allegiance, and the whole person will react, the whole drum will sound.” In thinking about [how identity politics frays that parchment and fragments the essential wholeness of our personhood]( I was reminded of a poignant passage by neurologist Oliver Sacks (July 9, 1933–August 30, 2015), the poet laureate of the mind, from his 1985 classic [The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat]( ([public library](. In the twelfth chapter, titled “A Matter of Identity,” Dr. Sacks recounts the case of a patient with a memory disorder that rendered him unable to recognize not only others but himself — unable, that is, to retain the autobiographical facts which a person constellates into a selfhood. To compensate for this amnesiac anomaly, the man unconsciously invented countless phantasmagorical narratives about who he was and what he had done in his life, crowding the void of his identity with imagined selves and experiences he fully believed were real, were his own, far surpassing what any one person could compress into a single lifetime. It was as though he had taken Emily Dickinson’s [famous verse]( “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” and turned it on himself to answer with a resounding “I’m Everybody!” But just as depression can be seen as melancholy in the complex clinical extreme and bipolar disorder as moodiness in the complex clinical extreme, every pathological malady of the mind is a complex clinical extreme of a core human tendency that inheres in each of our minds in tamer degrees. By magnifying basic tendencies to such extraordinary extremes, clinical cases offer a singular lens on how the ordinary mind works — and that, of course, is the great gift of Oliver Sacks, who wrests from his particular patient case studies uncommon insight into the universals of human nature. Oliver Sacks (Photograph: Adam Scourfield) “Such a patient,” Sacks writes of the inventive amnesiac man, “must literally make himself (and his world) up every moment.” And yet that is precisely what we are all doing in a certain sense, to a certain degree, as we continually make ourselves and our world up through [the stories we tell ourselves and others](. A decade after philosopher Amelie Rorty observed that [“humans are just the sort of organisms that interpret and modify their agency through their conception of themselves,”]( Sacks examines the building blocks of that self-conception and how narrative becomes the pillar of our identity: We have, each of us, a life-story, an inner narrative — whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives. It might be said that each of us constructs and lives, a “narrative,” and that this narrative is us, our identities. If we wish to know about a man, we ask “what is his story — his real, inmost story?” — for each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us — through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives — we are each of us unique. Illustration by Mimmo Paladino for [a rare edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses]( Sacks considers the basic existential responsibility that stems from our narrative uniqueness: To be ourselves we must have ourselves — possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories. We must “recollect” ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative, of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self. [The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat]( remains a classic of uncommon illumination. Complement this particular portion with Rorty on [the seven layers of personhood]( and Borges on [the nothingness of the self]( then revisit Dr. Sacks on [the three essential elements of creativity]( [the paradoxical power of music]( [what a Pacific island taught him about treating ill people as whole people]( and his [stunning memoir of a life fully lived](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( on Facebook]( [Freedom, Responsibility, and Human Values: Mathematician Lillian Lieber on How the Greatest Creative Revolution in Mathematics Illuminates the Core Ideals of Social Justice and Democracy]( “The joy of existence must be asserted in each one, at every instant,” Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her paradigm-shifting treatise on [how freedom demands that happiness become our moral obligation](. A decade and a half later, the mathematician and writer Lillian R. Lieber (July 26, 1886–July 11, 1986) examined the subject from a refreshingly disparate yet kindred angle. Einstein was an ardent fan of Lieber’s [unusual, conceptual books]( — books discussing serious mathematics in a playful way that bridges science and philosophy, composed in a thoroughly singular style. Like Einstein himself, Lieber thrives at the intersection of science and humanism. Like Edwin Abbott and his classic [Flatland]( she draws on mathematics to invite a critical shift in perspective in the assumptions that keep our lives small and our world inequitable. Like Dr. Seuss, she wrests from simple verses and excitable punctuation deep, calm, serious wisdom about the most abiding questions of existence. She emphasized that her deliberate line breaks and emphatic styling were not free verse but a practicality aimed at facilitating rapid reading and easier comprehension of complex ideas. But Lieber’s stubborn insistence that her unexampled work is not poetry should be taken with the same grain of salt as [Hannah Arendt]( stubborn insistence that her visionary, immensely influential political philosophy is not philosophy. Lillian R. Lieber In her hundred years, Lieber composed seventeen such peculiar and profound books, illustrated with lovely ink drawings by her husband, the artist Hugh Lieber. Among them was the 1961 out-of-print gem [Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics]( ([public library]( — an inquiry into the limits and limitless possibilities of the human mind, beginning with the history of the greatest revolution in geometry and ending with the fundamental ideas and ideals of a functioning, fertile democracy. Illustration by Hugh Lieber from [Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics]( by Lillian Lieber Lieber paints the conceptual backdrop for the book: This book is really about Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, using ideas from mathematics to make these concepts less vague. We shall see first what is meant by “thinking” in mathematics, and the light that it sheds on both the CAPABILITIES and the LIMITATIONS of the human mind. And we shall then see what bearing this can have on “thinking” in general — even, for example, about such matters as Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness! For we must admit that our “thinking” about such things, without this aid, often leads to much confusion — mistaking LICENSE for LIBERTY, often resulting in juvenile delinquency; mistaking MONEY for HAPPINESS, often resulting in adult delinquency; mistaking for LIFE itself just a sordid struggle for mere existence! Illustration by Hugh Lieber from [Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics]( by Lillian Lieber Embedded in the history of mathematics, Lieber argues, is an allegory of what we are capable of as a species and how we can use those capabilities to rise to our highest possible selves. In the first chapter, titled “Freedom and Responsibility,” she chronicles the revolution in our understanding of nature and reality ignited by the advent of non-Euclidean geometry — the momentous event Lieber calls “The Great Discovery of 1826.” She writes: One of the amazing things in the history of mathematics happened at the beginning of the 19th century. As a result of it, the floodgates of discovery were open wide, and the flow of creative contributions is still on the increase! […] Furthermore, this amazing phenomenon was due to a mere CHANGE OF ATTITUDE! Perhaps I should not say “mere,” since the effect was so immense — which only goes to show that a CHANGE OF ATTITUDE can be extremely significant and we might do well to examine our ATTITUDES toward many things, and people — this might be the most rewarding, as it proved to be in mathematics. In order to fully comprehend a revolutionary change in attitude, Lieber points out, we need to first understand the old attitude — the former worldview — supplanted by the revolution. To appreciate “The Great Discovery of 1826,” we must go back to Euclid: Euclid… first put together the various known facts of geometry into a SYSTEM, instead of leaving them as isolated bits of information — as in a quiz program! […] Euclid’s system has served for many centuries as a MODEL for clear thinking, and has been and still is of the greatest value to the human race. Illustration by Hugh Lieber from [Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics]( by Lillian Lieber Lieber unpacks what it means to build such a “model for clear thinking” — networked logic that makes it easier to learn and faster to make new discoveries. With elegant simplicity, she examines the essential building blocks of such a system and outlines the basics of mathematical logic: In constructing a system, one must begin with a few simple statements from which, by means of logic, one derives the “consequences.” We can thus “figure out the consequences” before they hit us. And this we certainly need more of! Thus Euclid stated such simple statements (called “postulates” in mathematics) as: “It shall be possible to draw a straight line joining any two points,” and others like it. From these he derived many complicated theorems (the “consequences”) like the well-known Pythagorean Theorem, and many, many others. And, as we all know, to “prove” any theorem one must show how to “derive” it from the postulates — that is, every claim made in a “proof” must be supported by reference to the postulates or to theorems which have previously already been so “proved” from the postulates. Of course Theorem #1 must follow from the postulates ONLY. Half a century before physicist Janna Levin wrote so beautifully about [the limitations of logic in the pursuit of truth]( Lieber zeroes in on a central misconception about mathematics: Now what about the postulates themselves? How can THEY be “proved”? Obviously they CANNOT be PROVED at all — since there is nothing preceding them from which to derive them! This may seem disappointing to those who thought that in Mathematics EVERYTHING is proved! But you can see that this is IMPOSSIBLE, even in mathematics, since EVERY SYSTEM must necessarily START with POSTULATES, and these are NOT provable, since there is nothing preceding them from which to derive them. This circularity of certainty permeates all of science. In fact, strangely enough, the more mathematical a science is, the more we consider it a “hard science,” implying unshakable solidity of logic. And yet the more mathematical a mode of thinking, the fuller it is of this circularity reliant upon assumption and abstraction. Euclid, of course, was well aware of this. He reconciled the internal contradiction of the system by considering his unproven postulates to be “self-evident truths.” His system was predicated on using logic to derive from these postulates certain consequences, or theorems. And yet among them was one particular postulate — the famous parallel postulate — which troubled Euclid. The parallel postulate states that if you were to draw a line between two points, A and B, and then take a third point, C, not on that line, you can only draw one line through C that will be parallel to the line between A and B; and that however much you may extend the two parallel lines in space, they will never cross. Euclid, however, wasn’t convinced this was a self-evident truth — he thought it ought to be mathematically proven, but he failed to prove it. Generations of mathematicians failed to prove it over the following thirteen centuries. And then, in the early nineteenth century, three mathematicians — Nikolai Lobachevsky in Russia, János Bolyai in Hungary, and [Carl Friedrich Gauss]( in Germany — independently arrived at the same insight: The challenge of the parallel postulate lay not in the proof but, as Lieber puts it, in “the very ATTITUDE toward what postulates are” — rather than considering them to be “self-evident truths” about nature, they should be considered human-made assumptions about how nature works, which may or may not reflect the reality of how nature work. Illustration by Hugh Lieber from [Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics]( by Lillian Lieber This may sound like a confounding distinction, but it is a profound one — it allowed mathematicians to see the postulates not as sacred and inevitable but as fungible, pliable, tinkerable with. Leaving the rest of the Euclidean system intact, these imaginative nineteenth-century mathematicians changed the parallel postulate to posit that not one but two lines can be drawn through point C that would be parallel to the line between A and B, and the entire system would still be self-consistent. This resulted in a number of revolutionary theorems, including the notion that the sum of angles in a triangle could be different from 180 degrees — greater if the triangle is drawn on the surface of a sphere, for instance, or lesser if drawn on a concave surface. It was a radical, thoroughly counterintuitive insight that simply cannot be fathomed, much less diagramed, in flat space. And yet it wasn’t a mere thought experiment, an amusing and suspicious mental diversion. It bust open the floodgates of creativity in mathematics and physics by giving rise to non-Euclidean geometry — an understanding of curved three-dimensional space which we now know is every bit as real as the geometry of flat surfaces, abounding in nature in everything from the blossom of a calla lily to the growth pattern of a coral reef to the fabric of spacetime of which everything that ever was and ever will be is woven. In fact, Einstein himself would not have been able to arrive at his relativity theory, nor bridge space and time into the revolutionary notion of spacetime, without non-Euclidean geometry. Here, Lieber makes the conceptual leap that marks her books as singular achievements in thought — the leap from mathematics and the understanding of nature to psychology, sociology, and the understanding of human nature. Reflecting on the larger revolution in thought that non-Euclidean geometry embodied in its radical refusal to accept any truth as self-evident, she questions the notion of “eternal verities” — a term popularized by the eighteen-century French philosopher Claude Buffier to signify the aspects of human consciousness that allegedly furnish universal, indubitable moral and humane values. Considering how the relationship between creative limitation, freedom, humility, and responsibility shapes our values, Lieber writes: Even though mathematics is only a MAN-MADE enterprise, still man has done very well for himself in this domain, where he has FREEDOM WITH RESPONSIBILITY — and where though he has learned the HUMILITY that goes with knowing that he does NOT have access to “Self-evident truths” and “Eternal verities,” that he is NOT God — yet he knows also that he is not a mouse either, but a man, with all the HUMAN DIGNITY and the HUMAN INGENUITY needed to develop the wonderful domain of mathematics. The very dignity and ingenuity driving mathematics, Lieber points out in another lovely conceptual bridging of ideas, is also the motive force behind the central aspiration of human life, the one which Albert Camus [saw as our moral obligation]( — the pursuit of happiness. In the final chapter, titled “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” Lieber recounts the principle of metamathematics demanding that a set of postulates within any system not contradict one another in order for the system to be self-consistent, and considers mathematics as a sandbox for the subterranean morality without which human life is unlivable: [This] means of course that LYING CANNOT SERVE as an instrument of thought! Now is not this statement usually considered to be a MORAL principle? And yet without it we cannot have ANY satisfactory mathematical system, nor ANY satisfactory system of thought — indeed we cannot even PLAY a GAME properly with CONTRADICTORY rules! In a similar way, I wish to make the point that there are other important MORAL ideas BEHIND THE SCENES, without which there cannot be ANY MATHEMATICS or SCIENCE. And therefore, in this sense, Science is NOT AT ALL AMORAL — any more than one could have a fruitful and non-trivial postulate set in mathematics which is not subject to the METAmathematical demand for CONSISTENCY! One of these “behind-the-scenes” moral ideas, Lieber argues, is the notion of taking Life itself as a basic postulate: Without LIFE there can be no living thing — no flowers, no animals, no human race — also of course no music, no art, no science, no mathematics. Illustration by Hugh Lieber from [Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics]( by Lillian Lieber In a counterpoint to Camus, who considered the question of suicide [the “one truly serious philosophical problem,”]( and with an allusional jab at Shakespeare, Lieber writes: I am not suggesting that we consider here WHETHER life is worth living, whether it would make more “sense” to commit suicide, whether it is all just “Sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I am proposing that LIFE be taken as a POSTULATE, and therefore not subject to proof, just like any other postulate. But I propose to MODIFY this and take more specifically as POSTULATE I: THE PRESERVATION OF LIFE FOR THE HUMAN RACE is a goal of human effort. This does not mean that we are to go about wantonly killing animals, but to do this only when it is necessary to support HUMAN life — for food, for prevention of disease, vivisection, etc. Indeed a horse or dog or other animals, through their friendliness and sincerity, might actually HELP to sustain Man’s spirit and faith and even his life. And I interpret this postulate also to mean that so-called “sports,” like bull-fighting, or “ganging up” on one little fox — a hole gang of men and women (and corrupting even horses and dogs to help!) — is really a cowardly act, so unsportsmanlike that it is amazing how this activity could ever be called a “sport.” Echoing Alan Watts’s insistence that [“Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others,”]( Lieber springboards from this postulate into the moral foundations of equality, human rights, and social justice: All this is by way of interpreting the meaning to be given to Postulate I: ACCEPTANCE of LIFE for the HUMAN RACE. Surely everyone will accept the idea that is definitely present, behind the scenes, in science or mathematics. But this is not all. For, I take this postulate to mean also that we are not to limit it to only a PART of the human race, as Hitler did, because this inevitably leads to WAR, and in this day of nuclear weapons and CBR (chemical, biological, radiological) weapons, this would certainly contradict Postulate I, would it not? Lieber uses this first postulate as the basis for a larger, self-consistent “System of MORALITY,” just as Gauss, Lobachevsky, and Bolyai used the landmark revision of the parallel postulate as the basis for the revolution of non-Euclidean geometry. Four years before Joan Didion issued her timeless, increasingly timely [admonition against mistaking self-righteousness for morality]( and a generation before physicist Richard Feynman asserted that [“it is impossible to find an answer which someday will not be found to be wrong,”]( Lieber offers this moral model with conscientious humility: May I say at the very outset that the “SYSTEM” suggested here makes no pretense of finality (!), remembering how difficult it is, EVEN in MATHEMATICS, to have a postulate set which is perfect! Nevertheless, one must go on, one must TRY, one must do one’s BEST, as in mathematics and sciences. And so, let us continue, in all humility, to try to make what can only at best be regarded as tentative suggestions, in the hope that the basic idea — that there is a MORALITY behind the scenes in Mathematics and Science — may prove to be helpful and may be further improved and strengthened as time goes on. Illustration by Hugh Lieber from [Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics]( by Lillian Lieber Drawing on the consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which implies for living things an inevitable degradation toward destruction, Lieber offers additional postulates for the moral system that undergirds a thriving democracy: POSTULATE II: Each INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEING must fight this “degeneration,” must cling to LIFE as long as possible, must grow and create — physically and/or mentally. And for this we need POSTULATE III: We must all have the LIBERTY to so grow and create, without of course interfering with each other’s growth, which suggests POSTULATE IV: This Freedom or LIBERTY must be accompanied by RESPONSIBILITY, if it is not to lead to CONFLICT between individuals or groups which would of course CONTRADICT the other postulates. All this is of course very DIFFICULT to do, involving accepting LIFE without whimpering, growing without interfering with the growth of others, in short it involves what Goethe called “cheerful resignation” (“heitere Resignation”). But how can this be done? It seems clear that we must now add POSTULATE V: The PURSUIT of HAPPINESS is a goal of human effort. For without some happiness, or at least the hope of some happiness (the “pursuit” of happiness) it would be impossible to accept “cheerfully” the program outlined above. And such acceptance leads to a calm, sane performance of our work, in the spirit in which a mathematician accepts the postulates of a system and accepts his creative work based on these — accepting even the Great Difficulties which he encounters and is determined to conquer. […] And I finally believe that the results of such a formulation will re-discover the conclusions reached by the great religious leaders and the great humanitarians. Illustration by Hugh Lieber from [Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics]( by Lillian Lieber Lieber distills from this conception of the system “some invariants and some differences,” drawing from science and mathematics a working model for democracy: (1) Invariants: LIFE — which demands (a) Sufficient and proper food; (b) Good Health; (c) Education — both mental and physical; (d) NO VIOLENCE! (a real scientist does NOT go into his laboratory with an AXE with which to DESTROY his apparatus, but rather with a well-developed BRAIN, and lots of PATIENCE with which to CREATE new things which will be BENEFICIAL to the HUMAN RACE). This of course implies PEACE, and better still (e) FRIENDSHIP between K and K’! (f) Humility — remembering that he will NEVER know THE “truth” (g) And all this of course requires a great deal of HARD WORK. (2) Differences which will NOT PREVENT both K and K’ from studying the universe WITH EQUAL RIGHT and EQUAL SUCCESS — which is certainly the clearest concept of what DEMOCRACY is: (a) Different coordinate systems (b) Differences in color of skin! (c) Different languages — or other means of communication. And please do not consider this program as an unattainable “Utopia,” for it really WORKS in Science and Mathematics, as we have seen, and can also work in other domains, if we would only put our BEST EFFORTS into it, instead of fighting WARS — (HOT or COLD) or even PREPARING for wars — HATING other people, etc., etc. Complement [Human Values and Science, Art and Mathematics]( with Carl Sagan on [science and democracy]( Robert Penn Warren on [art and democracy]( and Walt Whitman on [literature and democracy]( then revisit Lieber’s equally magnificent exploration of [infinity and the meaning of freedom](. [Forward to a friend]( Online]( on Facebook]( donating=loving Each week of the past eleven years, I have poured tremendous time, thought, love, and resources into Brain Pickings, which remains free and is made possible by patronage. If you found any joy and stimulation here this year, please consider supporting my labor of love with a donation. And if you already donate, from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU. monthly donation You can become a Sustaining Patron with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a Brooklyn lunch. one-time donation Or you can become a Spontaneous Supporter with a one-time donation in any amount. [Start Now]( [Give Now]( [EXTRA: Black Hole Apocalypse]( [Black Hole Blues]( by astrophysicist Janna Levin was one of my favorite science books of the year. (It is also one of my absolute favorite books of any era and any genre.) Dr. Levin now has a fascinating new PBS documentary about black holes, [Black Hole Apocalypse]( — the first science feature in the 44-year history of PBS's Nova series to be hosted by a woman. It is free to steam on [the PBS website]( for the remainder of the month and well worth watching: [Forward to a friend]( on Facebook]( [---] You're receiving this email because you subscribed on Brain Pickings. This weekly newsletter comes out on Sundays and offers the week's most unmissable articles. Our mailing address is: Brain Pickings :: Made inBrooklyn, NY 11201 [Add us to your address book](//brainpickings.us2.list-manage.com/vcard?u=13eb080d8a315477042e0d5b1&id=179ffa2629) [unsubscribe from this list](   [update subscription preferences](