I figured this was the best spot to post this considering it has some heavy science references that I feel will go over most non-science peoples' heads. But let me know what you think. The poem is only a few lines long but I explain it afterwards. Enjoy!
Maybe a Poem
Can you see the writing on the wall? Or past these words does your gaze fall? Or can you see? Real at live, it be? AND not see we? In deter men, it is able? Would you believe it's all a fable? ______________________________________________ I was inspired to write this by a few completely unrelated sources but what got it started for me was an unlikely note written on the wall of a bathroom stall in which I was relieving myself before class yesterday. The message was unimportant but it made me consider how much, if any, attention people pay to the things written on those walls. Personally, I find the entire bathroom experience to be enriched by the variety of smut and wit there marked and felt compelled to consider what my contribution would be if I were to join my peers' exchange in what I consider to be one of the first true public forums. As I was zipping up, the first two lines of the above poem popped into my head: “Can you see the writing on the wall? Or past these words does your gaze fall?”
The first line is a common idiom of American English language. Taken literally, the question is meant to ask whether or not the reader can see the obvious, overt meaning therein contained: “Are you reading this or are you not?” But taken figuratively, the meaning behind the question requests a more subtle appreciation for what these words, in this arrangement, could imply. The words in the sentence now become a vague metaphor, indeterminable until the reader applies his or her own natural prejudices. Perhaps for some, “Can you see the writing on the wall?” plausibly becomes “Can you appreciate the consequences of some action?” Maybe to others the question is more generic. Perhaps for these others the question simply asks: “Can this inquiry be taken in more ways than one?”
The second line, “Or past these words does your gaze fall?” meaningfully follows the first regardless of how the first line is interpreted. Perhaps the would-be reader never notices my inscription in the first place. Or maybe he notices it and takes the poem literally, in which case he would miss the metaphor thus seeing the writing and not seeing the writing on the wall at the same time. Or still maybe he does create for himself a clever metaphor thus seeing the literal writing and the underlying meaning all at the same time. Either, neither and both interpretations are possible until someone reads it.
The next lines represent this seemingly incompatible potential for interpretation. One might ask how any one reader could possibly perceive AND not perceive ANYTHING at the same time, let alone the meaning of my humble poem. The answer to this paradox, of course, lies in the poem itself not within the person. I will come back to this in a moment.
The first two lines of the poem suggest the answer must follow Aristotelian, either/or Logic. Either you see it or you do not. The next four lines, however, open up the question to include the kind of omnipotential which quantum mechanics uses to explain the behavior of very small pieces of matter. In quantum physics, electrons are said to exist as waves of possibility. Yet in relativistic (either/or) Newtonian physics, electrons are said to behave as particles. Common sense would tell us that it has to behave as either a wave or a particle but many experiments have been conducted showing evidence of both characteristics of this seemingly incompatible dichotomy known as wave/particle duality. The difference in these experiments is that for those which show the electron behaving as a wave there is no observer, whereas, in those experiments in which the electron acts as a particle, there IS an observer. Before there is an observer, all possibilities are, well, possible; once there is an observer the experience becomes subjective and relative to the observer. When the experience becomes relative, there is no longer any interderminable possibility (as seen when the electron assume the behavior of a wave) and the experience becomes concrete. In other words, before we look at the electron, we can’t calculate with certainty where the electron is like we can calculate the trajectory of a missile without looking. But once we observe it, we again can estimate where it too should be. (I understand this might be confusing. There's a link at the bottom which may be helpful for clarifying things. The link is a short but well made cartoon clip that illustrates what I am saying in a way words alone are unable.)
As I was saying, the next 4 lines are:
“Or can you see? Real at live, it be? AND not see we? In deter men, it is able?”
The first line of this set of four lines is asking a yes or no question again. If the answer is” yes” or “no,” then the question is answered according to the Theory of Relativity. Sound out “Real at live, it be.” The reality you live is relative to you. That is how it is/be. If you can “see AND not see we,” then you represent the union which ties the mutually exclusive determined and undetermined metaphysical philosophies together. Our macro-level world behaves according to relativistic (either/or), Newtonian physics yet is made up of matter which behaves according to non-local, non-relativistic quantum psychics. Like the Ying and Yang, it is this difference which actually brings both schools of physics together to create the whole picture of reality. In the last line of this set, if you can see AND not see, then there is still something left to be determined in what you cannot see. Now sound out “In deter men, it is able.” Not everything in our relative lives will always be determinable. Taken literally, this is a challenging concept for most to comprehend and, as such, it is very able to deter the minds of men.
Finally, the last line of our lesson asks us, “Would you believe it's all a fable?” By now this question should seem more overt. Although we live relative lives in an indeterminable world, we can never be certain that what we experience is what we are really experiencing. Much like no two people will ever see the same rainbow, due to differences in angles of the refraction of light through the moisture in the air (due to viewing the rainbow from different positions and the fact that the droplets of water in the air are moving all the time), No two people will ever experience anything the same way. How can we be certain our way is the actual, correct way of things? It seems the answer is indeterminable…
Not only are my words puns and can each whole sentence be made to mean multiple things but the entire poem itself might be a metaphor. If the whole poem itself is an electron representing the plurality of possibility, then the meaning, assigned by the reader/observer to the poem, is the behavior of said electron. In addition, each line is purposefully presented as a question rather than a statement to again affirm the indeterminability of it all. We can never be definitively sure of what is or isn’t. All we ever have is maybe.
(And lastly, in case you didn’t notice it, the number of syllables in each line progresses like a haiku starting with 9 syllables in the first line and continuing with 8, 4, 5, 4, 8, and ending with 9 again. The first two lines rhyme with each other, the middle three lines rhyme with each other, and the last two lines rhyme with each other. =D )
I hope my work was as enjoyable for you to read as it was for me to write! 
Here’s the link to that cartoon again. I highly recommend viewing it. It is definitely worth the watch
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"Once expanded to the dimensions of a larger idea, [the mind] never returns to its original size." -Oliver Wendell Holmes "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." - Ralph Waldo Emerson [quote] underfliptown said: Adaptation to a sick society is no measure of mental health. [/quote]
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