For Sophia and Phil

Why is it I can sit here, in a chair in a room in a school,
Or for that matter, be here—anywhere—at all?
People have been arguing about that for a pretty long time.

Why is it I can express myself at all,
Be able to think for myself?
Maybe part of the answer is “free will.”
Sometimes there are thoughts, concepts, even feelings
That we find ourselves at a loss to be able to describe.
Sometimes it is language that fails us,
And sometimes, perhaps less often, it is logic.
Does language form thought? Or the other way around?

What, one asks, is the essence of intelligence?
That which takes us from jumping to conclusions to cognitive leaps…
Objectivity.
How should intelligence, emotions, imagination interact?
Intelligence prevents us from relying unwisely on emotion.
And if any of the three operate independently of one another,
It is at their peril.

What do knowledge and wisdom hold?
They hold the ability to think about thinking.
They hold the ability to discern between truth and falsity.
They hold the truth.
A library is full of knowledge,
But not wisdom.
In human terms, knowledge may be what we know.
Intelligence may be what we understand.
Wisdom may be, in part, the product of a mind
That has learned to apply reasoning and insight, even morality,
And then makes decisions accordingly.

Knowledge and wisdom are, like nearly all things, limited.
We can learn to gain knowledge, but only so much;
We can observe to gain wisdom, but only to an extent.

Art is the language that all people know
And yet is spoken differently by each and every one of us
Art is as good as beauty.
Science is the technical language
The culmination of our understanding
Of how everything around us operates,
From the smallest subatomic particles
To the most distant galaxies.

For all that one thinks of when they think of life,
Whether it be the earth, the universe,
The arts and sciences,
Love, morality and religion,
And the infinitude of things in-between…
It seems that some of the simplest rules,
Even the clichéd-sounding ones,
Have some of the most meaning.

Both our imperfect understanding and our prejudices
Color the way we see and interpret the world around us.
Reason, logical thought, as suggested Lewis Carroll,
Are what prevent the world around us
From descending into confusion and chaos.
Without logic, without knowledge and wisdom
We blindly follow the glow of the ignis fatuus
Down the road to ignorance, deception, confusion, disorder.

On writing "For Sophia and Phil"

The assignment was to write a love poem for Valentine’s Day. This does not look like it has much of anything to do with love. In the traditional sense, it doesn’t. But the title explains everything – it is a play on philos and -sophy, the two root words that make up philosophy, which means “the love of knowledge” (or wisdom). The poem doesn’t require much explanation. It draws distinctions between knowledge and wisdom, thought and how it is expressed, art and science, and so on. The poem talks about the limitations of knowledge and understanding, and it ends with an appreciation of logic, knowledge and wisdom as being what prevents the sort of illogical world seen in “Alice in Wonderland” books. Ignis fatuus is Latin for “foolish fire” and means a deceptive goal or hope.