kaleidoscope — Jacob-B

Ye the kaleidoscope and lots of poems can be used for philosophical insights

Maybe all poems

"take a sunrise..sprinkle it with dew..a miracle or two.. the world taste good.. take a rainbow and wrap it in a sigh, soak it in the sun"

I wonder whether the kaleidoscope ever features in philosophical studies? — Jacob-B

Bergson famously uses the image of the kaleidoscope in his study of perception in Matter and Memory:

"Here is a system of images which I term my perception of the universe, and which may be entirely altered by a very slight change in a certain privileged image - my body. This image occupies the center; by it all the others are conditioned; at each of its movements everything changes, as though by a turn of a kaleidoscope. Here, on the other hand, are the same images, but referred each one to itself, influencing each other no doubt, but in such a manner that the effect is always in proportion to the cause: this is what I term the universe." (p.25)

"How do we parcel out the continuity of material extensity, given in primary perception, into bodies of which each is supposed to have its substance and individuality? No doubt the aspect of this continuity changes from moment to moment; but why do we not purely and simply realize that the whole has changed, as with the turning of a kaleidoscope? Why, in short, do we seek, in the mobility of the whole, tracks that are supposed to be followed by bodies supposed to be in motion? A moving continuity is given to us, in which everything changes and yet remains." (p.197)

https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Bergson/Bergson_1911b/Bergson_1911_04.html