Unexpected challenges to my self-confidence and then reading The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli sent me on an exploration of time and memory. Rovelli took my understanding of time to pieces from a physics perspective and put it back together again from a philosophical one. I've been aware for years of those famous words of Descartes - 'I think, therefore I am.' Rovelli is saying something similar, that it is our memories that make us who we are. Rovelli says everything is made up of atoms and photons and more besides, and they are in constant motion - hence the term 'dancing dots'. I love the notion that a rock isn't rock-solid at all, but a mass of dancing dots. And if everything in the universe is made of dancing dots, what of our thoughts and our spirits?
Unexpected challenges to my self-confidence and then reading The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli sent me on an exploration of time and memory. Rovelli took my understanding of time to pieces from a physics perspective and put it back together again from a philosophical one. I've been aware for years of those famous words of Descartes - 'I think, therefore I am.' Rovelli is saying something similar, that it is our memories that make us who we are. Rovelli says everything is made up of atoms and photons and more besides, and they are in constant motion - hence the term 'dancing dots'. I love the notion that a rock isn't rock-solid at all, but a mass of dancing dots. And if everything in the universe is made of dancing dots, what of our thoughts and our spirits?