"Know that the whole creation is an imagination ..."

“ Know that the whole creation is an imagination, and that you are an imagination in that imagination, and that whatever you think is an imagination, in that imagination, in that imagination ”

Ibn 'Arabi (1165 – 1240)

Ibn Arabi, the 12th century Sufi mystic from Moorish Spain is considered as the greatest of Islamic metaphysical thinkers. He traveled throughout the Islamic world of his time and wrote extensively on metaphysical subjects. 

I read his above quote on imagination nearly two decades ago and wrote it in my diary. There is still a strange feel to it. What was he talking about? He considered the knowledge attained through reason as inferior to the one coming directly from God and acquired through mystic training. So it is plausible that it is about the mind of God and the whole of creation coming out of His imagination.  But remove that context and these lines may also look akin to the present-day speculation about the whole creation living inside a gigantic computer simulation…

In his book Futuhat-e-Makkiyya (The Meccan Revelations), besides elaborating his Sufi doctrine, he also mentions visiting several alien worlds in visions or dreams. He names great cities, having technologies far advanced to the ones that existed in his days…

Was he speculating like ancient Greek thinkers on the subject or was there a proto science fiction writer or a dreamer at its heart...?

Broken things have a sad beauty

Paddler: It’s broken.

Anne: I think broken things have such a sad beauty. After years of stories and triumph and tragedy infused into them, they can be much more romantical than new things that haven’t lived at all.

Anne with an E (S2 - E4) - The painful eagerness of unfed Hope

Math with bad drawings

An excerpt from the book “Math with Bad Drawings: Illuminating the Ideas That Shape Our Reality" by Ben Orlin

"On a fundamental level, mathematicians do not care about reality. I’m not talking about the odd habits of mathematicians - muttering to themselves, wearing the same trousers for weeks, forgetting their spouse’s names on occasion. I’m talking about their work. Despite the aggressive ad campaign about its “real-world usefulness,” mathematics is pretty indifferent to the physical universe. What math cares about are not things but ideas. Math posits rules and then unpacks their implications by careful reasoning. Who cares if the resulting conclusions - about infinitely long cones and 42-dimensional sausages - don’t resemble physical reality? What matters is their abstract truth. Math lives not in the material universe of science but in the conceptual universe of logic. Mathematicians call this work “creative.” They liken it to art. That makes science their muse. 

Think of a composer who hears chirping birds and weaves the melody into her next work. Or a painter who gazes at cumulus clouds drifting through an afternoon sky, and models her next landscape on that image. These artists don’t care if they’ve captured their subjects with photorealistic fidelity. For them, reality is nothing more or less than a fertile source of inspiration. That’s how math sees the world, too. Reality is a lovely starting point, but the coolest destinations lie far beyond it. Math sees itself as a dreamy poet. Science sees it as a supplier of specialized technical equipment. And herein we find one of the great paradoxes of human inquiry: These two views, both valid, are hard to reconcile. If math is an equipment supplier, why is its equipment so strangely poetic? And if math is a poet, then why is its poetry so unexpectedly useful?"

Red-tailed Hawk

A juvenile Red-tailed Hawk with its prey on Danforth

Today when I passed along the Danforth road near Shoppers World, the usual rock pigeon flock was nowhere to be seen. There was not a single bird in sight. A strange kind of hush prevailed in the absence of their soothe cooing. And then I saw this guy who was jealously guarding its prey, totally unfazed by the passing traffic and people.

Update: This hawk remained the terror of Danforth path for nearly a week. I saw a number of dead birds during this period in the area. But now it has moved on and my happy flock is back to its familiar cooing chorus.

Rachid Taha (1958-2018)

Rachid Taha during Toronto Luminato Festival on June 12, 2010

Rachid Taha - Ya Rayah (YouTube)

(Lyrics Translation)

Oh departing traveler, where are you going?
Eventually you must come back
How many ignorant people have regretted this?
Before you and me

How many countries and empty lands have you seen?
How much time have you wasted?
How much have you yet to lose?
Oh, traveler in the country of others
Do you even know what's going on?
Destiny and time follow their course but you ignore it

Why is your heart so sad?
And why are you staying there miserable?
Hardship will end and you no longer learn or build anything
The days don't last, just as your youth and mine didn't
Oh, poor fellow who missed his chance just as I missed mine

Oh traveler, I give you a piece of advice to follow right away
See what is in your interest before you sell or buy
Oh sleeper, your news reached me
And what happened to you happened to me
Thus, the heart returns to its creator, the Almighty