2012 : WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DEEP, ELEGANT, OR BEAUTIFUL EXPLANATION?

ernst_p_ppel's picture
Head of Research Group Systems, Neuroscience and Cognitive Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany; Guest Professor, Peking University, China

Trusting Trust

After many years
A little gift to Edge
From the first culture.

Using the Haiku
Five seven five syllables
To express a thought.

Searching for beauty
To explain the unexplained
Why should I do this? 

What is my problem?
I don't need explanations!
I'm happy without!

A new morning comes
I wake up leaving my dreams
And I don't know why.

I don't understand
Why I can trust my body
In day and in night.

Looking at the moon
Always showing the same face
But I don't know why!

Must I explain this?
Some people certainly can.
Beyond my power!

I look at a tree.
But is there in fact a tree?
I trust in my eyes.

 But why do I trust?
Not understanding my brain
Being too complex. 

Looking for answers
Searching for explanations
But living without.

Trust in my percepts
And trust in my memories
Trust in my feelings.

Where does it come from
This absolute certainty
This trust in the world?

Trusting in the future
Making plans for tomorrow,
Why do I believe?

I have no answer!
Knowledge is not sufficient.
Only questions count.

What is a question?
That is the real challenge!
Finding a new path.

But trust is required
Believing the new answers
Hiding in a shadow.

Deep explanations
Rest in the trust of answers
Which is unexplained.

Is there a way out?
Evading the paradox?
This answer is no!

The greatest challenge:
Accepting the present,
Giving no answers!