That Schmidt, he didn’t have enough imagination for mathematics.
Now he has become a poet. For that he had just enough.
————-——David Hilbert
I think I knew Schmidt. He preceded me
In his fascination with mathematics and poetry
And his weakness of imagination, but that’s all I can tell you.
Gödel said the axioms force themselves on you as true
In a way to be explained, that doesn’t recognize your name at all;
And I believe that poems can do that too, though beyond their
Solitary refuge from the world I’m not aware of any deeper kinship.
He said his highest ambition in life was “pleasure of cognition,”
And I guess I’ve felt that too, though never with the intensity he did,
That takes what the imagination gives it and then makes it real.
He included “materialism is false” on a list of things to keep in mind
In case he happened to forget them, and suddenly it seemed to me
In my embarrassment that of course these things we want to talk about
Are real, for what else could they be? And it’s not just numbers and minds
And the other things we think we have to try to work around, but history
As it simultaneously imagines and explains us, social worlds we reify and live in,
Things so commonplace it’s easy to forget how strange they are, like books
And DVDs, new kitchens and the budget plans we buy them on. These things
Make up the furniture of the world, and if none of them pass muster metaphysically,
So what? It’s enough that what we think of them be true, that we can separate
Fact from fiction, thought from superstition, axioms from angels. As for the holy
Grail of what there really is, Horatio, instead of less than meets the eye
I like to think there’s more in my philosophy than I can dream of or imagine,
Though I can’t take credit for it, since it’s what I found and went along with
And it would have happened anyway. Lie in peace, sweet Schmidt.
John Koethe’s most recent books are Beyond Belief (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Thought and Poetry: Essays on Romanticism, Subjectivity and Truth (Bloomsbury). The poems in this issue will be included in the forthcoming Cemeteries and Galaxies (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
Photo by MACAU PHOTOGRAPHY on Unsplash
