In a mass of large bubbles The froth, therefore, though lacking long-range symmetry, nevertheless has very definite rules as to its composition. It is pleasing in appearance because the eye senses this interplay between regularity and irregularity. Structure, Substructure, and Superstructure symmetry
We wonder which is real, he of the picture or he who talks? In the tea room the fear of repetition is a constant presence. The various objects for the decoration of a room should be so selected that no color or design shall be repeated. If you have a living flower, a painting of flowers is not allowable. If you are using a round kettle, the water pitcher should be angular. A cup with a black glaze should not be associated with a tea-caddy of black lacquer. In placing a vase or an incense burner on the tokonoma, care should be taken not to put it in the exact center, lest it divide the space into equal halves. The pillar of the tokonoma should be of a different kind of wood from the other pillars, in order to break any suggestion of monotony in the room. Here again the Japanese method of interior decoration differs from that of the Occident, where we see objects arrayed symmetrically on mantelpieces and elsewhere. In Western houses we are often confronted with what appears to us useless reiteration. We find it trying to talk to a man while his full-length portrait stares at us from behind his back. We wonder which is real, he of the picture or he who talks, and feel a curious conviction that one of them must be fraud. Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea repetitionsymmetry
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus A Book by Ludwig Wittgenstein www.gutenberg.org The totality of factsEverything that can be saidI am my worldEthics and aesthetics are oneWhereof one cannot speak
The totality of facts The world is the totality of facts, not of things. The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts. For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case.
Everything that can be said Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly. What can be put into words understanding
I am my world What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think. In fact what solipsism means is quite correct, only it cannot be said, but it shows itself. That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of that language (the language which I understand) mean the limits of my world. I am my world. (The microcosm.) The thinking, presenting subject; there is no such thing.
Ethics and aesthetics are one Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher. It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one.)
Whereof one cannot speak My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. What can be put into words meaning