November 9, 2005

• Butterfly Effect
  
  From today’s

  online New York Times:

  

  John Fowles on two of his novels:

  “I wanted to show the seeds of an intense future evolution in a particular period.”

  Ray Bradbury, “A Sound of Thunder” (1952), on the death of a butterfly:

  “It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could
  upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes and then big
  dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years across Time.”

  Zhuangzi:

  “Once Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and
  fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased.  He
  didn’t know he was Zhuang Zhou.  Suddenly he woke up and there he
  was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou.  But he didn’t know if he
  was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly
  dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou.  Between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly
  there must be some distinction!  This is called the Transformation of Things.”

  Related material:

  • Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu),
  • The Book of Transformations –
    The I Ching –
    (see previous entry) and

  • Log24 entries of November 7.

  • 7:59 pm
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