What is the probability that the sun will rise tomorrow?
First question, Theory of Elementary Statistics
On the day before the first day
God was tired with doing nothing
And determined to rise early
On the next day & do something
.... those lines of Cyril Connolly’s about drinking a Sundowner in honour of the first cavemen who, as they watched the sun go down, had no reason to expect it would ever rise again
Guardian 10.3.90
Tomorrow
I expect the sun will rise, and then set,
Tomorrow, for it has never failed yet:
But one never knows, & all may crack & go
Before I realise that it is so.
Sun, moon & stars were made, and so must die:
The question is: Will they go first, or I?
Cock before dawn
The West & the East are measured from me...
It's time I crowed. The sun will be waiting
For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage & the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret
Alan Paton: Cry the Beloved Country
The radiation of the heat from the sun, of which a small proportion reaches us, is the compensating process making possible the manifold forms of life & movement on the earth, which frequently present the features of increasing order.
A small fraction of the tremendous dissipation suffices to maintain life on earth by supplying the necessary amount of 'order', but of course only so long as the prodigal parent, in its own frantically uneconomic way, is still able to afford the luxury of a planet which is decked out with cloud & wind & rushing rivers & foaming seas & the gorgeous finery of flora & fauna & the striving millions of mankind
Schrodinger: Science & the Human Temperament
Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives his light, & gives his heat away;
And flowers & trees & beasts & men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday
William Blake: The Little Black Boy
Wittgenstein is alleged to have asked a friend: "Why do people always say that it was natural for man to assume that the sun goes round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?"
The friend responded, "Well, obviously, because it just looks as if the sun is going round the earth."
To which Wittgenstein replied, "Well, what would it have looked like if if it had looked as if the earth was rotating?"
I am up and I seem to stand, and I go round and I am a new argument of the new philosophy that the earth moves round. Why may I not believe that the whole earth moves in a round motion though that seem to me to stand when as I seem to stand to my company and yet am carried in a giddy and circular motion as I stand?
John Donne: Devotions & Meditations
I am convinced it is a most ridiculous thing to go around the world when by staying quietly, the world will go round you
Charles Darwin: Voyage of the Beagle
But when I waked, I saw that I saw not.
I, and the sun, which should teach me, had forgot
East, west, day, night, and I could only say,
If the world had lasted, now it had been day
John Donne: The Storm
You talk of wondrous things you see,
You say the sun shines bright,
I feel him warm, but how can he
Then make it day or night?
My day or night myself I make
Whene'er I sleep or play;
And could I ever keep awake
With me 'twere always day
Colley Cibber: The Blind Boy
Not death, nor the sun can we gaze upon directly – nor yet, upon ourselves
François Mauriac
The sun shone as it had to
WH Auden: Musée des Beaux Arts
The sun may set & rise,
But we, contrariwise,
Sleep, after our short light,
One everlasting night
But we, contrariwise,
Sleep, after our short light,
One everlasting night
Sir Walter Raleigh/After Catullus
Yesterday is already a dream & tomorrow is only a vision. But today, well-lived, makes every tomorrow a vision of hope
from the Sanskrit
Tomorrow never comes - Well, it did yesterday
Spotted on a sign outside a bar in Moorgate: Don't worry about the world ending today. It's already tomorrow in Australia
How do you know that the sun will come up tomorrow? ‘Don’t be so stupid,’ you might retort, in which case philosophy probably isn’t for you.
If you respond by citing the laws of physics, at least you’re thinking. But if you’re now worrying that you only trust them because they’ve worked in the past, just like the sun has always come up in the past, & that actually isn’t a terribly satisfying answer, then congratulations. You’re a philosopher already.
Hugo Rifkind Times How to be Smarter September 2012
*****
Postscript
The motion of two bodies - a universe consisting only of the Earth & the Sun, say - is periodic: it repeats over & over again. By hallowed tradition, the period - the time taken for the motion to repeat - is a year. This immediately proves that the Earth cant fall into the Sun or wander off into the outer reaches of infinity; if it did, it would have to fall into the Sun every year, or wander off to infinity every year. Those arent things you can do more than once, & they didnt happen last year, so they never will. In other words, periodicity gives you a very useful handle on stability. In a real universe, other bodies can shatter this cosy scenario, but periodicity - or related concepts - may still be applicable
Ian Stewart: Does God Play Dice?
