From Discreet Music

Extract from the Liner Notes

In January this year I had an accident. I was not seriously hurt, but I was confined to bed in a stiff and static position. My friend Judy Nylon visited me and brought me a record of 18th century harp music. After she had gone, and with some considerable difficulty, I put on the record. Having laid down, I realized that the amplifier was set at an extremely low level, and that one channel of the stereo had failed completely. Since I hadn't the energy to get up and improve matters, the record played on almost inaudibly. This presented what was for me a new way of hearing music - as part of the ambience of the environment just as the colour of the light and the sound of the rain were parts of that ambience. It is for this reason that I suggest listening to the piece at comparatively low levels, even to the extent that it frequently falls below the threshold of audibility.

Brian Eno - September 1975

Barcodes in starlight are all we need to define the poetics of the Universe. There is so much we do not and cannot understand and which is 'fair game' for poetry. It would not be unfair of us to use any and every aspect of science as the basis for some form of literary masterpiece. From the depths of cosmology, through the the formation of the stars and planets to the final beauty of the ultimate entity of this mess of atoms we call creation - the evolution of life, there is nothing that cannot enthuse with a sense of awe and wonder. Even in the repeating structures and events of our daily lives there is the beauty and mystery of chaos underpinning our very existence. So often we seem to miss this beauty and everything about science and number which describes all that is not science. Science and Art are polarised opposites and yet as well, they are complementary disciplines, each mirroring the other but neither standing on its own. Technology and Spirit. Complexity and Simplicity. We live with both elements and yet we set one against the other as if one was correct and one incorrect. Do not decry the scientist and do not dismiss the artist.

"It is science alone that can solve the problem of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening customs and traditions, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people. Who indeed can afford to ignore science today? At every turn we have to seek its aid. The future belongs to science and to those who make friends with science."

Jawaharlal Nehru - 1962 - inscribed on the wall of atrium in the atrium of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in New Delhi, India.

As Richard Dawkins says, it is sad that among India's most recent triumphs of science has been ther development of nuclear weapons. That does not help hunger, poverty or anything else.

One final er .. debunking is the only word I can find for it. The article Armageddon Fiction Grips the US got me very bothered. Why are the authors of such fiction - very hard emphasis on fiction - certain that they are right and anyone who does not believe them is wrong. Nothing supernatural has occurred yet. This promotes not only Christianity over other religions but seems to promote a very narrow brand of Chrsitianity. Writing all this has made me realise how silly even bothering to write about this actually is. The end of the world when and if it comes will either be man-made or because the sun goes Nova.