Quatrain LXXX is linked closely to the previous quatrain, LXXIX.
Second Edition: Quatrain LXXIX
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvast sow'd the seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
As you can see, the previous quatrain leads directly to today's quatrain.
Second Edition: Quatrain LXXX
Yesterday, This Day's Madness did prepare:
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
Fifth Edition: Quatrain LXXIV
Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.
Aside from two punctuation changes, a dropped comma after "Yesterday," and the substitution of a semi-colon for a colon after "prepare" (which may have simply been a typesetter's errors), the two versions are the same.
The first two lines bring out a theme that has appeared before this--that of causality. Today's events or happenings are the result of what happened in the past and will inevitably lead to future consequences. This suggests predestination or a deterministic universe. The first two lines still leave the past free if you want to see it that way. Others may argue for an unbroken chain of events going back to . . .? On the other hand, to complicate the issue, we can always bring in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Chaos Theory which many now see as refuting any theory of a deterministic universe.
The last two lines restate a very familiar theme: we don't know where we came from and we don't know where we are going, and we don't know why we are here. This, of course, strikes directly into the heart of most religions whose basis for their existence is that THEY know all the answers. The Poet/Narrator clearly has some doubts about this, which he has stated many times throughout the poem.
Showing posts with label predestination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label predestination. Show all posts
Sunday, December 4, 2016
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
The Rubaiyat: Second Edition, Quatrain LXXVII
Quatrain LXXVII of the Second Edition refers back to the previous quatrain in the Second Edition:
Second Edition, Quatrain LXXVI
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
The Moving Finger reference comes from the Bible, Book of Daniel, chapter 5, in which Daniel interprets the words written on Belshazzer's palace wall during a feast. The words predict Belshazzar's death and nothing can be done to change that.
Second Edition: Quatrain LXXVII
For let Philosopher and Doctor preach
Of what they will, and what they will not--each
Is but one Link in an eternal Chain
That none can slip, nor break, nor overreach.
This quatrain appeared first in the Second Edition and was then dropped from all following editions. FitzGerald apparently had second thoughts about it. One possible reason may be the theme. The theme of the previous quatrain was the immutability of the past. What has happened, has happened and can't be changed. This quatrain goes beyond that and appears to extend it into the future: the philosophers and doctors are "but one Link in an eternal Chain." This, to me anyway, hints at predestination, which is rejected by most Christians and Moslems, as far as I know.
Second Edition, Quatrain LXXVI
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
The Moving Finger reference comes from the Bible, Book of Daniel, chapter 5, in which Daniel interprets the words written on Belshazzer's palace wall during a feast. The words predict Belshazzar's death and nothing can be done to change that.
Second Edition: Quatrain LXXVII
For let Philosopher and Doctor preach
Of what they will, and what they will not--each
Is but one Link in an eternal Chain
That none can slip, nor break, nor overreach.
This quatrain appeared first in the Second Edition and was then dropped from all following editions. FitzGerald apparently had second thoughts about it. One possible reason may be the theme. The theme of the previous quatrain was the immutability of the past. What has happened, has happened and can't be changed. This quatrain goes beyond that and appears to extend it into the future: the philosophers and doctors are "but one Link in an eternal Chain." This, to me anyway, hints at predestination, which is rejected by most Christians and Moslems, as far as I know.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Four SF films
Predestination (2014)
The Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Solaris (1972)
The Zero Theorem (2013)
Predestination
I watched Predestination last night. It's, of course, Heinlein's "All You Zombies" embedded within a time-traveling anti-terrorist organization which is attempting to prevent the Fizzle Bomber from blowing up a goodly part of NYC. As far as I can remember, Robert A. Heinlein's core story was treated accurately. I enjoyed the film, once I accepted the premise that the expanded version was necessary for making the film. After all, who would want to watch a film solely based on RAH's short story? The only weakness I found was in the role of "the unmarried mother." That character just didn't come across as convincing to me. Perhaps Sarah Snook, who played "the unmarried mother," wasn't convinced either by the character.
I watched some of the special features, and one of the comments made by a producer? director? actor? was that this was an entirely unique concept in time-travel stories. However I can think of at least two other stories which played with the same paradox, and there probably are others.
A time-traveler goes into the future and finds a world destroyed, probably by war. He finds the remains of a building and inside is a display case with a knife in perfect condition inside it. He brings the knife back to his time. The knife is analyzed and even a small sliver is taken from it. The material is unlike anything the scientists have seen before. Eventually they lose interest in the knife and it is placed in a small display case near the entrance of the research institute. The story is "As Never Was" and was written by P. Schuyer Miller. A similar incident is found in Ford Madox Ford's novel, Ladies Whose Bright Eyes.
I would rate the film as at least a 4 on a 5 point scale.
The Edge of Tomorrow aka Live Die Repeat
Tom Cruise plays the role of a smarmy self-involved PR person in the military in the midst of an alien invasion. It's a role perfectly suited to him. He irritates a general and ends up busted in rank and headed for the front lines, more specifically an invasion of Europe from England, a futuristic replay of WWII's Normandy invasion, with far more disastrous results. The humans are wiped out. Through a rather unbelievable set of circumstances, Cage, Cruise's character, is time-warped back to the time when he is forcibly united with the squad that he will join in its ill-fated invasion. Again, he is killed and so on. Each time he presumably learns a bit more and survives a bit longer.
The star of the show is actually the battle suit--see Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers. The special features or bonus features focuses solely on the battle suit and on the creation of the aliens. What we see of Cruise involves the heroic struggles he makes in learning to manipulate the suit. Nothing was mentioned about anything else in the film: plot, setting, characterization. It was all suit, suit, suit.
The reason is simple: there really isn't much in the way of plot, setting, characterization. If the action scenes were removed, only about 2-3 minutes would remain of the total running time of 113 minutes.
If you want action, this is your film.
I'd give it 3.5/5.0 for the action scenes which were technically highly effective and kept one from thinking about the implausibility of the plot, what there was of it.
Solaris
The film is based on Stanislaw Lem's novel of the same name and is directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
It has his signature film elements--long and loving takes on nature and humans doing nothing or sleeping. I would also be more likely to recognize Donatas Banionis' (he plays the major character Kris Kelvin) profile than his face, as the camera spent some time focused on his ear (right one, I think)
It's my fault, probably, that I didn't get Tarkovsky's message: for example: the commentary regarding Kris, the psychologist, who supposedly functions solely by reason and with no emotions or feelings, tells us that he has no love for nature. Not knowing this, I thought the first few minutes of the film which portrays him wandering through the grounds where he lives suggested that he was enjoying his wanderings. Later, when I found out he was leaving the planet, I thought he was soaking up memories of nature for the future when he would be surrounded by metal and plastic in the space ship and on the station around Solaris. But, no, according to the commentary, this part shows he is detached from nature, and that he does have only some minimal feelings is demonstrated when he washes his hands in the small lake.
Once aboard the space station in orbit around Solaris, he encounters the same sort of visitations that affect the other crew members. His dead wife suddenly appears to him in a physical form and not just as an image or vision. He now begins to understand the problems faced by the other researchers on the station. Are these visitations an attempt by the inhabitants of the planet, or even the planet itself, to study the strange visitors in orbit or an attempt to communicate with them or both? Or are the humans suffering from hallucinations which have little to do with the planet? The viewers are left to decide this for themselves. The ending?-- well, the film just sort of stopped. Perhaps someone reading this can leave a comment that will help me understand it.
It's been long since I read Solaris, so I can't do any reasonable commentary on the faithfulness of the film to the novel, but I do remember being confused by the film in much the same way I was confused by the novel, which probably is as it should be. How alien can a being or race be, if one is not confused or bewildered by at least some aspects?
Rating: ?? This was my second viewing, and I suppose I will try again sometime down the road.
The Zero Theorem
Dir. Terry Gilliam
In Henry James' short work, "The Beast in the Jungle," John Marcher has the strange fixation that something unusual, either good or bad, is going to happen to him. So, he avoids getting too close to people and does not propose to a woman who would certainly accept him because he fears to subject others, including a wife, to his fate, whatever it may be. At the end of the story he wonders if the marvelous thing that was supposed to happen to him had already happened, and he failed to recognize it when it did.
Qohen Leth, in a similar fashion, has isolated himself while he awaits a phone call. Many years ago, he received a phone call from a stranger who asked if he wanted to learn the answer to the mystery of life and existence which would then make him a supremely happy person. Before he could answer "yes," he was disconnected. Since then he has thought about nothing except waiting for this phone call. He is even afraid to leave the house for fear of missing the call. Since he isn't rich, he has to go to work, but he hurries home immediately after work in order to be there when the phone rings. He has also been haranguing Management, unsuccessfully so far, to allow him to work at home.
He is considered a computer genius whose job is "entity crunching," and exactly what that entails is beyond me. He finally persuades Management to allow him to work at home, and it proves the point that getting what one wants is not always a good thing. He has been assigned to work on the Zero Theorum, a task which has defeated many others before him, and the need for secrecy is likely what prompts Management to allow him to work at home. The Zero Theorem is a mathematical formula which, when proven, will support the theory that the universe is meaningless. The universe is an accident that will not happen again for there's no reason for it to happen again. Ironically, his home is a burned out cathedral.
Aside from the plot, the costumes, setting, and special effects are part of the charm of the film. The film was shot in Bucharest, Rumania, and Gilliam takes full advantage of the varied architecture of the city. It supposedly takes place in London, but this is clearly not the London of today.
I found the costumes to be bizarre: one of the scenes is a costume party, but I couldn't see much difference between what they were wearing at the party and the clothing worn by people on the street. This effect was brought about by using clothing styles from the '40s, '50s, and '60s, but not made of the expected fabrics of cotton, wool, or silk or even polyester. Instead (and this was forced to some extent by the film's low budget), the costumes were made from shower curtains and other items made of a shiny plastic material. The exception was the main character, who work black and other dark colors, which clearly set him aside from the rest of the cast.
The story is the conflict that develops when he becomes distracted by a young woman which interferes with his devotion to his job and his constant preoccupation with The Phone Call. She offers him a way out, an escape, but he can't let go of solving the problem of the Zero Theorem and of waiting for the phone to ring. (One hint: the film does not end when you might think it does.)
It's an interesting story with an intelligent plot and some serious questions that have been around since humans started wondering about when and where and how and why. It's also a feast for the eyes with the bright colors, with a tinge of the steampunk universe hovering about.
Rating: 4/5
The Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Solaris (1972)
The Zero Theorem (2013)
Predestination
I watched Predestination last night. It's, of course, Heinlein's "All You Zombies" embedded within a time-traveling anti-terrorist organization which is attempting to prevent the Fizzle Bomber from blowing up a goodly part of NYC. As far as I can remember, Robert A. Heinlein's core story was treated accurately. I enjoyed the film, once I accepted the premise that the expanded version was necessary for making the film. After all, who would want to watch a film solely based on RAH's short story? The only weakness I found was in the role of "the unmarried mother." That character just didn't come across as convincing to me. Perhaps Sarah Snook, who played "the unmarried mother," wasn't convinced either by the character.
I watched some of the special features, and one of the comments made by a producer? director? actor? was that this was an entirely unique concept in time-travel stories. However I can think of at least two other stories which played with the same paradox, and there probably are others.
A time-traveler goes into the future and finds a world destroyed, probably by war. He finds the remains of a building and inside is a display case with a knife in perfect condition inside it. He brings the knife back to his time. The knife is analyzed and even a small sliver is taken from it. The material is unlike anything the scientists have seen before. Eventually they lose interest in the knife and it is placed in a small display case near the entrance of the research institute. The story is "As Never Was" and was written by P. Schuyer Miller. A similar incident is found in Ford Madox Ford's novel, Ladies Whose Bright Eyes.
I would rate the film as at least a 4 on a 5 point scale.
The Edge of Tomorrow aka Live Die Repeat
Tom Cruise plays the role of a smarmy self-involved PR person in the military in the midst of an alien invasion. It's a role perfectly suited to him. He irritates a general and ends up busted in rank and headed for the front lines, more specifically an invasion of Europe from England, a futuristic replay of WWII's Normandy invasion, with far more disastrous results. The humans are wiped out. Through a rather unbelievable set of circumstances, Cage, Cruise's character, is time-warped back to the time when he is forcibly united with the squad that he will join in its ill-fated invasion. Again, he is killed and so on. Each time he presumably learns a bit more and survives a bit longer.
The star of the show is actually the battle suit--see Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers. The special features or bonus features focuses solely on the battle suit and on the creation of the aliens. What we see of Cruise involves the heroic struggles he makes in learning to manipulate the suit. Nothing was mentioned about anything else in the film: plot, setting, characterization. It was all suit, suit, suit.
The reason is simple: there really isn't much in the way of plot, setting, characterization. If the action scenes were removed, only about 2-3 minutes would remain of the total running time of 113 minutes.
If you want action, this is your film.
I'd give it 3.5/5.0 for the action scenes which were technically highly effective and kept one from thinking about the implausibility of the plot, what there was of it.
Solaris
The film is based on Stanislaw Lem's novel of the same name and is directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
It has his signature film elements--long and loving takes on nature and humans doing nothing or sleeping. I would also be more likely to recognize Donatas Banionis' (he plays the major character Kris Kelvin) profile than his face, as the camera spent some time focused on his ear (right one, I think)
It's my fault, probably, that I didn't get Tarkovsky's message: for example: the commentary regarding Kris, the psychologist, who supposedly functions solely by reason and with no emotions or feelings, tells us that he has no love for nature. Not knowing this, I thought the first few minutes of the film which portrays him wandering through the grounds where he lives suggested that he was enjoying his wanderings. Later, when I found out he was leaving the planet, I thought he was soaking up memories of nature for the future when he would be surrounded by metal and plastic in the space ship and on the station around Solaris. But, no, according to the commentary, this part shows he is detached from nature, and that he does have only some minimal feelings is demonstrated when he washes his hands in the small lake.
Once aboard the space station in orbit around Solaris, he encounters the same sort of visitations that affect the other crew members. His dead wife suddenly appears to him in a physical form and not just as an image or vision. He now begins to understand the problems faced by the other researchers on the station. Are these visitations an attempt by the inhabitants of the planet, or even the planet itself, to study the strange visitors in orbit or an attempt to communicate with them or both? Or are the humans suffering from hallucinations which have little to do with the planet? The viewers are left to decide this for themselves. The ending?-- well, the film just sort of stopped. Perhaps someone reading this can leave a comment that will help me understand it.
It's been long since I read Solaris, so I can't do any reasonable commentary on the faithfulness of the film to the novel, but I do remember being confused by the film in much the same way I was confused by the novel, which probably is as it should be. How alien can a being or race be, if one is not confused or bewildered by at least some aspects?
Rating: ?? This was my second viewing, and I suppose I will try again sometime down the road.
The Zero Theorem
Dir. Terry Gilliam
In Henry James' short work, "The Beast in the Jungle," John Marcher has the strange fixation that something unusual, either good or bad, is going to happen to him. So, he avoids getting too close to people and does not propose to a woman who would certainly accept him because he fears to subject others, including a wife, to his fate, whatever it may be. At the end of the story he wonders if the marvelous thing that was supposed to happen to him had already happened, and he failed to recognize it when it did.
Qohen Leth, in a similar fashion, has isolated himself while he awaits a phone call. Many years ago, he received a phone call from a stranger who asked if he wanted to learn the answer to the mystery of life and existence which would then make him a supremely happy person. Before he could answer "yes," he was disconnected. Since then he has thought about nothing except waiting for this phone call. He is even afraid to leave the house for fear of missing the call. Since he isn't rich, he has to go to work, but he hurries home immediately after work in order to be there when the phone rings. He has also been haranguing Management, unsuccessfully so far, to allow him to work at home.
He is considered a computer genius whose job is "entity crunching," and exactly what that entails is beyond me. He finally persuades Management to allow him to work at home, and it proves the point that getting what one wants is not always a good thing. He has been assigned to work on the Zero Theorum, a task which has defeated many others before him, and the need for secrecy is likely what prompts Management to allow him to work at home. The Zero Theorem is a mathematical formula which, when proven, will support the theory that the universe is meaningless. The universe is an accident that will not happen again for there's no reason for it to happen again. Ironically, his home is a burned out cathedral.
Aside from the plot, the costumes, setting, and special effects are part of the charm of the film. The film was shot in Bucharest, Rumania, and Gilliam takes full advantage of the varied architecture of the city. It supposedly takes place in London, but this is clearly not the London of today.
I found the costumes to be bizarre: one of the scenes is a costume party, but I couldn't see much difference between what they were wearing at the party and the clothing worn by people on the street. This effect was brought about by using clothing styles from the '40s, '50s, and '60s, but not made of the expected fabrics of cotton, wool, or silk or even polyester. Instead (and this was forced to some extent by the film's low budget), the costumes were made from shower curtains and other items made of a shiny plastic material. The exception was the main character, who work black and other dark colors, which clearly set him aside from the rest of the cast.
The story is the conflict that develops when he becomes distracted by a young woman which interferes with his devotion to his job and his constant preoccupation with The Phone Call. She offers him a way out, an escape, but he can't let go of solving the problem of the Zero Theorem and of waiting for the phone to ring. (One hint: the film does not end when you might think it does.)
It's an interesting story with an intelligent plot and some serious questions that have been around since humans started wondering about when and where and how and why. It's also a feast for the eyes with the bright colors, with a tinge of the steampunk universe hovering about.
Rating: 4/5
Monday, March 5, 2012
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain LIII
Quatrain LIII introduces a new theme, that of predestination, or so it can be interpreted. See what you think of this:
First Edition: Quatrain LIII
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man's knead,
And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
Second Edition: LXXIX
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
Fifth Edition: LXXIII
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
There are several changes from the First to the Second Edition. Apparently FitzGerald was satisfied with the changes, for the Fifth is identical to the Second. In the first line, the poet writes of kneading the Last Man's clay, whereas in the later edtions, it becomes the Last Man who is kneaded. The change seems to subtly suggest that Man is not separate from the Clay but is the Clay itself. The second change occurs in the second line where the "then" becomes "there," a change of time to place. The last change is the substitution of the more prosaic "And" for the poetic and Biblical sounding "Yea."
Overall, the quatrain states that the ending is written or was written on the first day of Creation. The reference to the "Last Dawn of Reckoning" suggests the Judgement Day, and what will be read of humanity's behavior was actually written on "the first Morning of Creation."
This corresponds closely to the Calvinist doctrine of "unconditional election: "which asserts that God has chosen from eternity those whom he will bring to himself not based on foreseen virtue, merit, or faith in those people; rather, it is unconditionally grounded in God's mercy alone. God has chosen from eternity to extend mercy to those He has chosen and to withhold mercy from those not chosen. Those chosen receive salvation through Christ alone. Those not chosen receive the just wrath that is warranted for their sins against God.
In other words, we are all sinful and unable to gain redemption on our own, and God chooses those whom He would save, and this choice is NOT based on the "virtue, merit, or faith in those people." I have seen a few lines in the Qur'an which seem to say something similar, but it is not spelled out as clearly as it is in the doctrine of the Christian Calvinist sect.
I think this is even a bleaker view of our position in the universe than was brought out in earlier quatrains which said that we were puppets or chess pieces controlled by the Master Player who engaged in games for His own entertainment. It is a very mechanistic view of the universe which was shared by philosophers and scientists of the time. It was only with the beginning of the 20th century when the theories of Einstein and Heisenberg argued for a relativistic and and uncertain universe that some measure of freedom was once again supported, but not universally accepted.
The question is still this: do we have free will and are able to some extent anyway to make choices freely or are we predetermined to make the "choices" that we only seem to make freely?
First Edition: Quatrain LIII
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man's knead,
And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
Second Edition: LXXIX
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
Fifth Edition: LXXIII
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
There are several changes from the First to the Second Edition. Apparently FitzGerald was satisfied with the changes, for the Fifth is identical to the Second. In the first line, the poet writes of kneading the Last Man's clay, whereas in the later edtions, it becomes the Last Man who is kneaded. The change seems to subtly suggest that Man is not separate from the Clay but is the Clay itself. The second change occurs in the second line where the "then" becomes "there," a change of time to place. The last change is the substitution of the more prosaic "And" for the poetic and Biblical sounding "Yea."
Overall, the quatrain states that the ending is written or was written on the first day of Creation. The reference to the "Last Dawn of Reckoning" suggests the Judgement Day, and what will be read of humanity's behavior was actually written on "the first Morning of Creation."
This corresponds closely to the Calvinist doctrine of "unconditional election: "which asserts that God has chosen from eternity those whom he will bring to himself not based on foreseen virtue, merit, or faith in those people; rather, it is unconditionally grounded in God's mercy alone. God has chosen from eternity to extend mercy to those He has chosen and to withhold mercy from those not chosen. Those chosen receive salvation through Christ alone. Those not chosen receive the just wrath that is warranted for their sins against God.
In other words, we are all sinful and unable to gain redemption on our own, and God chooses those whom He would save, and this choice is NOT based on the "virtue, merit, or faith in those people." I have seen a few lines in the Qur'an which seem to say something similar, but it is not spelled out as clearly as it is in the doctrine of the Christian Calvinist sect.
I think this is even a bleaker view of our position in the universe than was brought out in earlier quatrains which said that we were puppets or chess pieces controlled by the Master Player who engaged in games for His own entertainment. It is a very mechanistic view of the universe which was shared by philosophers and scientists of the time. It was only with the beginning of the 20th century when the theories of Einstein and Heisenberg argued for a relativistic and and uncertain universe that some measure of freedom was once again supported, but not universally accepted.
The question is still this: do we have free will and are able to some extent anyway to make choices freely or are we predetermined to make the "choices" that we only seem to make freely?
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