This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We have said that consciousness is an operation rather than a thing, a repository, or a function. It operates by way of analogy, by way of constructing an analog space with an analog ‘I’, that can observe that space, and move metaphorically in it. It operates on any reactivity, excerpts relevant aspects, narratizes and conciliates them together in a metaphorical space where such meanings can be manipulated like things in space.
Consciousness | Space |
Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard
If one were to build the house of happiness, the largest space would be the waiting room.
Today’s milestone is human madness. Politics is a part of it, particularly in its lethal outbursts. Politics is not, as it was for Hannah Arendt, the field where human freedom is unfurled. The modern world, the world of world war, the Third World, the underground world of death that acts upon us, do not have the civilized splendor of the Greek city state. The modern political domain is massively, in totalitarian fashion, social, leveling, exhausting. Hence madness is a space of antisocial, apolitical, and paradoxically free individuation.
How strange when an illusion dies. It's as though you've lost a child.
Illusion |
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, fully Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky
I recognize nothing that is not material. In physics, chemistry and biology I see only mechanics. The Universe is nothing but an infinite and complex mechanism. Its complexity is so great that it borders on randomness, giving the illusion of free will.
Dōgen, aka Dōgen Kigen, Eihei Dōgen, titled as Dōgen Zenji NULL
The longness and shortness of the present moment can be recognized by utilizing a big image of the moon, which is reflecting on the surface of the ocean, and a small image of the moon on the surface of a cup of water, or in another example the very wide scale of the whole sky itself, and the very narrow space of the moon, which is shining in the sky.
The history of a nation is, unfortunately, too easily written as the history of its dominant class. But if the history of a nation, or a people, cannot be found in the history of a class, how much less can the history of a continent be found in what is not even a part of it - Europe. Africa cannot be validly treated merely as the space in which Europe swelled up. If African history is interpreted in terms of the interests of European merchandise and capital, missionaries and administrators, it is no wonder that African nationalism is in the forms it takes regarded as a perversion and neo- colonialism as a virtue.
One of the great intellectual mistakes Einstein made is that he thought that space and time are physically or ontologically entangled. In the present non-spatial universal computational program, space and time happen to be entangled to the extent that, under certain unique circumstances, changes in spatial measurements indicate changes in temporal ones. However, a change in the program itself may cause space and time to disentangle.
Cause | Change | Present | Space | Thought | Time | Unique | Thought |
Ken Wilber, fully Kenneth Earl Wilber II
Whenever we moderns pause for a moment, and enter the silence, and listen very carefully, the glimmer of our deepest nature begins to shine forth, and we are introduced to the mysteries of the deep, the call of the within, the infinite radiance of a splendor that time and space forgot - we are introduced to the all-pervading Spiritual domain that the growing tip of our honored ancestors were the first to discover. And they were good enough to leave us a general map to that infinite domain, a map called the Great Nest of Being, a map of our own interiors, an archeology of our own Spirit.
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
And once he had seen this, he could never again see it otherwise, just as we cannot reconstruct an illusion once it has been explained.
Illusion |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
The reality of the building does not consist in the roof and walls, but in the space within to be lived in.
A wonderful realization will be the day you realize that you are unique in all the world. There is nothing that is an accident. You are a special combination for a purpose -- and don't let them tell you otherwise, even if they tell you that purpose is an illusion. (Live an illusion if you have to). You are that combination so that you can do what is essential for you to do. Don't ever believe that you have nothing to contribute. The world is an incredibly unfulfilled tapestry. And only you can fulfill that tiny space that is yours.
Day | Illusion | Nothing | Purpose | Purpose | Space | Unique | Will | World |
Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
God is the infinite ALL. Man is only a finite manifestation of Him. Or better yet: God is that infinite All of which man knows himself to be a finite part. God alone exists truly. Man manifests Him in time, space and matter. The more God's manifestation in man (life) unites with the manifestations (lives) of other beings, the more man exists. This union with the lives of other beings is accomplished through love. God is not love, but the more there is of love, the more man manifests God, and the more he truly exists... We acknowledge God only when we are conscious of His manifestation in us. All conclusions and guidelines based on this consciousness should fully satisfy both our desire to know God as such as well as our desire to live a life based on this recognition.
Better | Consciousness | Desire | God | Life | Life | Man | Space | God |
Among all the emotions, the rich have the least talent for love. It is possible to love one's dog, dress or duck-shooting hat, but a human being presents a more difficult problem. The rich might wish to experience feelings of affection, but it is almost impossible to chip away the enamel of their narcissism. They take up all the space in all the mirrors in the house. Their children, who represent the most present and therefore the most annoying claim on their attention, usually receive the brunt of their irritation.
Experience | Feelings | Love | Present | Receive | Space | Talent |
Unlike any other business in the United States, sports must preserve an illusion of perfect innocence. The mounting of this illusion defines the purpose and accounts for the immense wealth of American sports. It is the ceremony of innocence that the fans pay to see -- not the game or the match or the bout, but the ritual portrayal of a world in which time stops and all hope remains plausible, in which everybody present can recover the blameless expectations of a child, where the forces of light always triumph over the powers of darkness.
Business | Ceremony | Hope | Illusion | Innocence | Light | Present | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Wealth | World | Business |
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
The point, being indivisible, occupies no space. That which occupies no space is nothing. The limiting surface of one thing is the beginning of another.
Lucretius, fully Titus Lucretius Carus NULL
Thus the sum of things is ever being renewed, and mortals live dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and like runners pass on the torch of life.
Ludwig Feuerbach, fully Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach
The present age... prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence... for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane.
Appearance | Illusion | Present | Truth |