Outside the box

There’s always a box. There are many of them. The best we can do is think outside this one. Sometimes that’s enough.

4 Comments

  1. If there is a box, it must have an outside. Or it wouldn’t be a box. Unless it was one of those fancy boxes without an inside. They’re not very useful though and make for crappy vases.

  2. You’re right! I watched a decorating show by mistake, and they profiled the offices of this famous design professional who had put up bookshelves and filled them with fake ceramic books. Maybe that’s a little bit like the fancy boxes without insides.

    Outside the box is another box. It’s like the old bad joke about the Indian and the Englishman. (I only remember bad jokes.) The Brit asks about the other guy’s cosmology. “Oh, the Earth sits upon the back of an enormous elephant.” “OK, so what’s the elephant standing on?” “The elephant stands upon the back of a gigantic tortoise.” “And the tortoise stands on what?” “Another tortoise.” “And that one?” “From there, it’s turtles all the way down.”

  3. I saw your comments on Savage Minds and followed a trail of breadcrumbs here. Savage minds is way above me, but I can handle boxes. Sometimes I comment on Crooked Timber but they mostly ignore me, unless I make a complete fool of myself. I seem to be good at that.

    Is “It’s math all the way down” really an improvement on turtles? Does it stop or does it keep going on and on until we give up?

  4. I get ignored some too. You’re welcome here.

    My inclinations on the ‘first cause’ kind of argument are to make pragmatic cuts. For most practical purposes the question of where it all comes from or how it all started can be suspended in favor of a more local and grounded analysis. It’s worth trying to find out more and in the meantime we’ve got to live with what we know so far.

    Would anyone be satisfied, do you think, if it turned out that God blew up to create the Big Bang?

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