I was just reading Roberto's blog, and he mentioned a few thoughts on Turner and the capacity of the mind that sparked a thought for me. He talks about the mind as a creative device rather than a storage device, mentioning how perhaps rather than encompassing the entire universe in our minds, the creative universe of our mind actually devises infinite ways to play out the same stories--so in that sense we are not encompassing the seemingly infinite universe, but rather creating it. (I hope I'm interpreting that correctly Roberto)
Deviating slightly from Roberto's point, it struck me that maybe we ARE able to contain the entire universe in our minds, because what appears to us as infinite, is in fact just a few things played out in an interminable number of ways-- which we find mirrored in the evolving and limitless possibilities that exist within Shakespeare's plays. If we can capture those few ideas/situations/plots/whatever they are from which everything else originates, then we have essentially encompassed the universe.
By contemplating seemingly inconclusive questions like "what does one truly need?", we are in fact sloughing off layers of constructed meaning and importance that have accumulated over thousands of years, to uncover the elemental, the origins, the truth. If we begin internalizing questions like this, then we have already embarked on that not-so-hopelessly-impossible task of containing the entire universe in our minds.
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