Writings, VII:xii

Collectively, mankind has spent countless hours attempting to discover the hidden meaning of the machinery of nature. There is a strange automation in the world around us; one which consensus suggests is beyond the scope of a priori understanding. However, empiricism has shown no greater progress in understanding. Nor have the empiricists succeeded in developing a parrot machine-- a replica which was produced according to the exact structure and specifications of the original, with no understanding of it's purpose or mechanism. No such machine has ever worked. Of course, you know this; what you might not know, is that hundreds of parrot machines have been built, all to no avail. This would seem to suggest that the order and mechanism apparent in the universe is lacking.

On the other hand, perhaps, it is we who are lacking. One would think that in a world so full of dumb mechanism, the one creature capable of metacognition and abstract analysis would be capable of building a dumb replica. It seems such mundane tasks are beyond us-- by taking the abstract, we have somehow lost touch with the concrete.

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De Quincey's name is perhaps too obvious... Oh well.

Edited to sound less arrogant (although no less didactic)

Clockwork

I've been inside that machine-- the one they say revolves the heavens about the earth-- I've watched its gears turn, traced the outlines of their teeth with my fingers; I've even stood on some. I watched a gear crack and fall, a spring loosed to follow its own path.

I looked up through the labyrinth of clockwork-- the endless cacophony of ticking and grinding-- and I thought to myself "This is not the machine which revolves the universe."

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Everything under *-*-*-*-* is meta; always. "*****" will be "in character" as the saying goes.

Albert... I like Albert; there's a good chance you'll see a lot of him. :D