What we see comes from that which is not apparent.

This statement is axiomatic for us, becoming embedded in the DNA of our culture since the rise of science as a basis for knowledge.  Did it all began when Galileo pointed his 10x homemade refracting telescope at the moon, and discovered, saw with his own eyes, that the moon is not smooth, polished like a gemstone?  He saw — the mountains, craters, ridges.

We are all Galileo’s children, — amazed, delighted, and challenged by what our instruments allow us to see.  As standard issue human beings, essentially unchanged since Galileo’s time 400 years ago, and indeed since the ancestors of Western culture, the Greeks and Romans,–seeing is believing.  The form-image interpreted by our mind constitute the foundations for moral, ethical, and scientific validity.  “Seeing is believing” and always will be for us.

Some of us have never recovered from that simple, ground breaking use of Galileo’s telescope to see for the first time what had never been seen before.  Our friend Gary, makes a annual pilgrimage by vehicle to New Mexico to join with other astronomers for a star gazing convocation.  It’s a journey with a purpose and judging from the reports, the same excitement still obtains that Galileo experienced when he pointed his instrument at the heavens.

I’ve never been the same since as a Eagle Scout I was taken into a laser lab by our scout master scientist. The whine of the power supply and the “crack” of the beam of light striking the target continues to echo in my memory.  That was in 1965. Who could imagine what could be done, if the disorganized energy in common sunlight, could be organized, made coherent, focused in a single wavelength….  What about using a ruby crystal polished at both ends?  We no longer need to imagine.

I’m still amazed by that experience.  It changed my life.  I search for the possibilities hidden in my experience, –as a amateur philosopher, a business man, a husband, a parent, a grandparent, etc.

Indeed the things which are seen arise from things that are not apparent.

Keep looking my friends, keep looking!

And my sincere thanks to Gene Bland for showing this kid “the light” so long ago.

If you’d like to read more about Galileo and his wonderful telescope I suggest this source.

http://www.universetoday.com/15763/galileos-telescope/

Will write more later about the link between seeing and believing.