Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!microsoft!gaben
From: gaben@microsoft.UUCP (Gabe NEWELL)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: emergent properties
Summary: Quote from Charles Fort on beauty and science
Message-ID: <58175@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 12 Oct 90 02:16:25 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 23

I mentioned to a friend of mine the discussion of beauty
and intelligence.  He sent me the following quote, which,
although entertaining, seems to demand some context which
I cannot supply.  Here it is for what it is.


From cameronm Thu Oct 11 18:26:25 1990
To: gaben 
Subject: Charles Fort
Date: Thu Oct 11 17:17:48 1990
<EndOfHeader>


Every science is a mutilated octopus.  If its tentacles were not 
clipped to stumps, it would feel its way into disturbing contacts.  
To a believer, the effect of the contemplation of a science is of
being in the presence of the good, the true, and the beautiful.  
But what he is awed by is the mutilation.  To our crippled 
intellects, only the maimed is what we call understandable, because 
the unclipped ramifies into all other things.  According to my 
aesthetics, what is meant by beautiful is symmetrical deformation. 

-- Charles Fort