Salvete! This week, I thought we could change things up with a bit of drama. The following short story i plagiarized from a dream i had; my conscious mind could never come up with anything so epic. A few of you have already read it when I originally wrote it, but that was some time ago, and I have added much to it. Enjoy...
The March to Water
...As I came upon friends and neighbors (strangers all alike), I noticed a grim business at hand. They prepared themselves in solemn procession and began to file forward. Where are we headed?
“Across the water,” a craggy old voice whispered to me. “The battles have been terrible and now it is come to an end.”
Finally! What joy, we shall crush them. The suffering shall be ended. With such an army in splendid array, our foes will be no match.
It is a wonder that they did not share my excitement, but kept to their grim business. The state of mind is vital to maintain, I reasoned, and marched silently on. I had come upon them at the edge of the water. This is whence our warships previously set gloriously and courageously out, conquest and defense simultaneously their sacred mission. Their sleek, slender bodies were smooth and cut easily through the water, as if carved in one piece from gigantic trees, which had grown since generations beyond any our people had seen. From these acnient sources, we could draw our strength, primal and eternal, a wellspring of life that seeped up out of the ground and imbued us with a power that would never be overcome. As legend told, the trees that populated our land were offspring of Yggdrasil itself; and so we fought on the very side of Life itself.
As we crossed the water, I noticed tokens being set adrift as if memorials. They were candles set upon delicate lilypads. Through the mist of dawning light, they appeared to me as perfect exemplars of life. Fire burning bright, raw, consuming energy, yet perched so perilously that the slightest turbulence might precipitate their demise into the grey depths. They spread out from our hands as the harbor entrance widened and they each followed separate paths that seemed so difficult to predict. I watched them, entranced for quite some time as I continued to absently follow the procession. Up ahead, I heard shouting. Finally, the battle is on, the time is at hand! And yet as I approached, these warcries turned to celebration and revelry.
The waters that separated our land from our most mortal enemies were shallow; indeed, perhaps our proximity was the reason we were so diametrically opposed. Though we occupied so similar a geographic region, we had nonetheless developed quite differently, and these divergences were cause for constant tension and discord. Perhaps this is the way with humanity, that we can be so near in our perspectives and yet still our slight differences metastasize into black, cancerous hatred where, in reality, understanding should flourish. We refuse to see past these insignificant differences and demonize each other, refusing to believe that each person we see is a reflection of ourselves, of our relation with the unknown. Is then, our hatred for others merely a frightened acknowledgment of our own flaws?
Finally, we reached the shores of our enemies, and I was shaken out of these laughable reveries by my returned and reignited bloodthirst. My momentary weakness was thankfully replaced by the return of my unconscious desire to avenge my family, my forebears, my country for centuries of injustice and insult at the hand of our enemy. I beat upon my chest and joined the collective cry for vengeance, and I teetered upon the very edge of insanity as I gave in to the frenzy of war. However, something was wrong.
To my amazement, we walked right through their streets, awaited, expected, yet not attacked. Watched, we passed the smooth stone roads, and the gigantic marble columns, which shone with the brilliance of the Ancients. In their likeness, I saw the embodiment of the demons I had heard of as a child. It was a polite nightmare, a silent profile of old horrors and completely unintelligible heroes, values of which I could never conceive. These were the faces of the Enemy, who had shed the blood of countless of my brethren. Strange as I now saw them for myself, they seemed almost human. They had two eyes with which to see the world, and yet they saw things so differently. They had ears which had heard such different things. They spoke words, but were they anything but poison? For the first time in my life, I felt a moment of hesitation. Were they really any different? They looked so similar to us, would I have even noticed these almost familiar faces as they silently infiltrated my homeland, doubtless on some nefarious mission? Again, I was interrupted, but I felt as if I were on the precipice of some great Realization.
We came to a Temple, and I witnessed a strange and inexplicable sight. Each one of our line, our Nation, each man, woman and child, silently bowed his head beneath their sacred fountain.
What is this?! What is this treachery, what insult, to be anointed by our foes?!
“Hush,” said the old woman who had spoken to me before. “Don’t you know? The war is over. The battles have been too long and too costly. The blood runs thick as from rivers, and we are weary.”
What do you mean?! Then are you saying...?”
“That we go to be cleansed, to be purified, so that we may stand before their altar. And be sacrificed...”
Friday, October 22, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Why There Are No Identical Things
Greetings once again. Last week's post was somewhat of a Structuralist piece, in my opinion, so I thought I'd change it up, lest you think me old-fashioned. In reality, I consider this a further step beyond the "theory of familiarity", which should be seen as a social theory only. Hopefully, you'll enjoy this lively dialogue, the form of which I can't help but admit borrows a bit from good ol' So-crates himself...
Why there are no Identical Things
(a dramatic dialogue in one act)
Dramatis personae: A
B
(scene opens upon A and B, who are engaged in heated debate. They are surrounded by several chairs)
A: Well then, why? Why are there no identical things? Why, I can see two identical chairs right there! I demand you explain!
B: First, will you explain to me what you mean by "identical things"?
A: What?! So, you're going to be difficult then? All right, fine then, let me pull out my Dictionary, which I happen to have for just such an occasion.
B: It is good to be so well-prepared...
A: "Identical-adj. sharing the same properties." And "thing-n. an object".
B: Well, so Identical Things would be objects that share the same properties? I may presume that we are in agreement with this then?
A: Yes, go on.
B: Well, I will firstly explain how no physical object can ever be identical. (At this, A starts with incredulity) Though I must admit, this will be a very superficial argument. Let's take these chairs you were just referring to. They seem, by all appearances, to be the same, no? They are the same size, color, shape, built from the same material, etc etc?
A: Yes, they certainly appear to be.
B: Good. And I would wager that if we examined more closely, we would find some sort of marking to indicate that they are both the same model and were probably even made in the same factory, perhaps one right after the other.
A: A safe bet. And wouldn't that prove, then, that there are, if not these two particular chairs, somewhere, and quite often indeed, many different pairs of identical chairs? (his pace quickening as he senses victory) And we could even then assume that, since they are identical to their neighbor, and that that neighbor is also identical to its neighbor, that these are all identical chairs, right on down the line?
B: Yes, that may seem to be so. However, you are failing to realize several very important points.
A: (smugly) And what might these be?
B: Firstly, you have made the assumption that we are working with some sort of idealized machine which crafts each one of these chairs in precisely the same fashion, down to the smallest detail. But this immaculate machine should appear to be even more improbable than the idea of identical things itself. In fact, the existence of this machine is either impossible or it binds us into an infinite regress. For the only way that such a machine could have been built is either by a Greater and Also Perfect Machine (which continues to imply that there is an Even Greater and Also Perfect Machine and so on) or that this perfection emerged magically out of the chaos of the less-perfect machines that assembled it. I hope you'll agree that both seem unlikely. There are always minor deviations and fluctuations in the way things work. They may lie below the surface of our perception, but they exist. And this is not to mention that in all likelihood these chairs are not made by one gigantic, all-purpose chair-making machine, but are more likely assembled by several smaller machines, which increases the chances of deviation significantly.
A: Now you are just being difficult.
B: I agree, this is only a mostly semantic argument. To me, what is far more troubling is this, that you have been unconsciously picking and choosing which qualities of these chairs qualify them for identicality. Yes, it may seem that on the surface they are the same, but even if we assume your perfect machine is at work, for the sake of argument, are these qualities of appearance and materials really the only characteristics a chair possesses? Let me ask you, how were these chairs made?
A: I do not know, but I suppose we have been imagining them on an assembly line.
B: Indeed, as have I. And on an assembly line, are not all items assembled in pieces, and then the pieces are put together as they slide down the line?
A: Yes, of course. I don't see what that has to do with it, unless you are still nagging on the idea that these pieces could be slightly, imperceptibly different.
B: No, actually, I am pointing out their chronological differences.
A: (with a return to incredulity) What is THAT supposed to mean? That one chair is OLDER than another? You cannot be serious, who would consider a chair's age as a difference?
B: And why not? Would you not point out the age of an old man and a child when describing ways in which they differ from each other? Or better yet, do not twins often refer to which one of them is older, even though one may have preceded the other only by a matter of minutes?
A: This is ludicrous. Chairs do not have ages, that is an irrelevant fact.
B: Really? Are not very old chairs valued at high prices as antiques? Does not a brand new chair have a higher retail value than one that has been slightly used and then returned? Then, it seems that the age of a chair, though it may be inanimate, must matter at some point. But, for the purposes of this argument, we have simply decided that it doesn't apply here. However, Time is just as relevant a dimension as any other, and to deny that an object might be identified by its place in spacetime seems like a hard position to justify.
A: Hmph...
B: And, if this does not satisfy you, as I know it won't, we can still consider the three dimensions we easily observe. So far, you have appealed solely to these chairs' intrinsic properties of length, width and height, and yet you have forgotten that they too can be described by their location in relation to another object. For instance, this chair is the one that is to the right of that one, and vice versa. Therefore, they occupy different spaces as well, correct? The very fact that we can distinguish one from the other makes true identicality of objects impossible. You see, the harder we look, the more differences we find.
A: Well, fine then, perhaps manmade objects cannot be identical. However, I'm afraid that this does not indict all physical objects as you so rashly boasted.
B: Is that so? Well then, I ask you to name for me two natural objects which can be identical. Certainly no living thing can be identical. It has been made unique by each and every one of its experiences. Even if we somehow created two clones, aside from them existing in an unconscious vacuum, the very minute they had even the slightest variation in sensation or experience, they would become distinct. And if they "lived" in an unconscious vacuum, then I don't know that one could rightly describe them as living at all.
A: Well, what about two cultures of the same bacteria, created in segregated compartments by parallel procedures? The two would never meet, and as far as they would "know", their respective container would house the entire universe.
B: Yes, subjectively, they would, but at the same time, these two would exist outside of the other's knowledge and so comparison amongst the two would be impossible. And, anyway, outside observers would be able to tell the two apart by exactly the same means as described above, especially their spatial location.
A: (cleverly) What if we were to switch the two specimens without the observer being aware, or even better, if we devised some mechanism to switch the two randomly without our knowing? Then we would not be able to tell the two apart, and therefore, they would be identical!
B: Well, firstly, I will caution you regarding the use of that word "random", but that is for another occasion. In this case, you continue confusing perception with reality. The two specimens would still be different, would have had different histories, but this is something we do not perceive. But, our ability to perceive certain characteristics of an object or not has no relevance to its truth value.
A: You are a tough one indeed. Well, what, then, about the molecules that make up these bacteria? And their atoms? Clearly, they are made up of the same elements which do not change.
B: Oh but again, I'm afraid that you are mistaken, my friend. You see, there is great diversity amongst atoms. Many have particular ions, in which the number of some of their constituent particles, the electrons differ. Not to mention that the electrons are by no means arranged in any specific order. It is not as you may have been lead to believe by your high school Chemistry class.
A: Wait, wait, aren't the electrons at least confined to their specific rings or something like that? I can't remember the exact word right now.
B: Orbitals, and only somewhat. Really, these are only approximations of configurations that we use to give us a rudimentary idea of how an atom is constructed. In reality, the truth is much more complicated. Our increasing precision and sophistication in both theory and experiment have led us to the basic principle and paradox of quantum theory which seems to be Uncertainty. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to be exact, but in sum, the picture that quantum theory presents us is merely one of probability rather than of rigid inevitability. When we say a particle is located at a certain spot, we are merely saying that there is a rather high mathematical probability that it is there. However, and though it may seem strange, it just as well could possibly be in any other spot in the Universe, though the chances of that become vanishingly smaller as one moves further away.
Another problem with this argument is simply that, once we have deconstructed an object past its molecular structure and delve into its atoms, it ceases to be what it once was. It is no longer the object, it is an atom.
A: What about numbers then? Certainly, 1 is 1 and 2 is 2. Mathematics is immune from your physical arguments.
B: This again is a flaw. Numbers are simply abstractions, they are concepts that we have agreed upon. They are a way that we can conceive of the world, that we can describe and make sense of it all. There is no thing that is 1 nor 2. They are all merely theoretical objects that we can use to impose order on the world. But remember, that we have already shown that the objects we conceptualize by them are not identical and so grouping them together can only be approximate.
A: So this is it then? We have reached the threshold, and there are no identical things. I find I can no longer argue you, and I humbly concede.
B: Don't take it too hard. In fact, I may be able to offer you some consolation. We have still one step to go, though it stands on the outskirts of, possibly even beyond, our ken. There is a twist ending to this story. Atoms, as you know, are not as elemental as their name implies. The word originated with the ancient Greeks such as Democritus and their idea that there is some sort of uncuttable particle (atomos). In the late 18th and into the 19th Century, it seems scientists were a bit hasty when they deemed the hydrogen structure the "atom", for we later found that the atom could be cut further, into protons and neutrons and electrons. As time went by, other subatomic particles were discovered. Eventually, even the particles themselves were found to be made up of tinier components called "quarks". It seemed that we were bound in an infinite regress. However, (and fortunately), many scientists generally now agree that we have reached the bottom level of fundamental particles for reasons that I currently am shamefully ignorant of. Still, scientists have lead to question what made up these quarks. Some theorists have come to a most surprising conclusion. According to Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2, which implies that matter is interchangeable with energy. String theorists assert that particles are made up of tiny loops of energy vibrating through more dimensions than we can see. This seems to suggest that in fact, when reduced to the most basic levels, all matter is composed of energy. So, when we have simplified all things to their absolute most fundamental essence, in a way, they are all made of the same thing. If this proves true, at the most basic level of the Universe, we are all one. THERE IS NOTHING BUT IDENTICAL THINGS!
(At this point, the curtain closes on a thoroughly confused A and B, and the disembodied voice of The Narrator speaks)
I'm sure that by this point you, attentive reader, have a burning question: So What? Why should I care that things are never truly identical, even though we cannot perceive the ways in which they differ? If we can't see their differences, can't we just consider them as the same? Won't we all simply go crazy if we think this way? I certainly understand your concern. Indeed, it is a question which I have pondered for a long while myself. At first, when this concept revealed itself to me, I began to wonder how I could make sense of the world ever again. We understand by identifying traits, by categorizing, by comparison. But if there are no identical things, then there is nothing by which to compare, and we can never know anything. This can be quite frustrating.
Still, one must never use frustration or the relative "hardness" of an idea as an excuse to discount it, as A pointed out earlier, our feeble attempts at comprehension have no bearing on the actual truth-value of a claim. I certainly hope that the reader also does not expect for me to "make it all better" by saying simply that this has all been a long intellectual joke. The light-hearted banter of this dialogue should not imply that this has been just silly play. This idea is real and I believe it is vitally important to understand. The point is to realize that all of the order we try to impose upon the Universe is simply that. Like any other animal, we are scared creatures who have a need to survive and have developed an instinct to try to understand the world. We must or we will die. But, we also must realize that we have merely shored up a makeshift monolith and snapped a rigid frame upon everything. The Sea of Ignorance smashes itself upon our greatest strength. We have tried to protect ourselves from the Unknown, have built a fortress to keep the savage waves out. But in the end, we have also built our own prison. What we see as real, as unshakable: society, laws, even human emotion are illusions we have crafted over millenia. They have become so ingrained and embedded as to become invisible, but they are simply things we have made. We must realize this, not to destroy them, for that it is too late, but to gain perspective on they way things truly are. The Waters are brutal and terrifying. It is likely that we will die if we set sail upon them. But we cannot let this fear hold us back. Death comes for us all, and we never know what lands may wait for us beyond the horizon...
Why there are no Identical Things
(a dramatic dialogue in one act)
Dramatis personae: A
B
(scene opens upon A and B, who are engaged in heated debate. They are surrounded by several chairs)
A: Well then, why? Why are there no identical things? Why, I can see two identical chairs right there! I demand you explain!
B: First, will you explain to me what you mean by "identical things"?
A: What?! So, you're going to be difficult then? All right, fine then, let me pull out my Dictionary, which I happen to have for just such an occasion.
B: It is good to be so well-prepared...
A: "Identical-adj. sharing the same properties." And "thing-n. an object".
B: Well, so Identical Things would be objects that share the same properties? I may presume that we are in agreement with this then?
A: Yes, go on.
B: Well, I will firstly explain how no physical object can ever be identical. (At this, A starts with incredulity) Though I must admit, this will be a very superficial argument. Let's take these chairs you were just referring to. They seem, by all appearances, to be the same, no? They are the same size, color, shape, built from the same material, etc etc?
A: Yes, they certainly appear to be.
B: Good. And I would wager that if we examined more closely, we would find some sort of marking to indicate that they are both the same model and were probably even made in the same factory, perhaps one right after the other.
A: A safe bet. And wouldn't that prove, then, that there are, if not these two particular chairs, somewhere, and quite often indeed, many different pairs of identical chairs? (his pace quickening as he senses victory) And we could even then assume that, since they are identical to their neighbor, and that that neighbor is also identical to its neighbor, that these are all identical chairs, right on down the line?
B: Yes, that may seem to be so. However, you are failing to realize several very important points.
A: (smugly) And what might these be?
B: Firstly, you have made the assumption that we are working with some sort of idealized machine which crafts each one of these chairs in precisely the same fashion, down to the smallest detail. But this immaculate machine should appear to be even more improbable than the idea of identical things itself. In fact, the existence of this machine is either impossible or it binds us into an infinite regress. For the only way that such a machine could have been built is either by a Greater and Also Perfect Machine (which continues to imply that there is an Even Greater and Also Perfect Machine and so on) or that this perfection emerged magically out of the chaos of the less-perfect machines that assembled it. I hope you'll agree that both seem unlikely. There are always minor deviations and fluctuations in the way things work. They may lie below the surface of our perception, but they exist. And this is not to mention that in all likelihood these chairs are not made by one gigantic, all-purpose chair-making machine, but are more likely assembled by several smaller machines, which increases the chances of deviation significantly.
A: Now you are just being difficult.
B: I agree, this is only a mostly semantic argument. To me, what is far more troubling is this, that you have been unconsciously picking and choosing which qualities of these chairs qualify them for identicality. Yes, it may seem that on the surface they are the same, but even if we assume your perfect machine is at work, for the sake of argument, are these qualities of appearance and materials really the only characteristics a chair possesses? Let me ask you, how were these chairs made?
A: I do not know, but I suppose we have been imagining them on an assembly line.
B: Indeed, as have I. And on an assembly line, are not all items assembled in pieces, and then the pieces are put together as they slide down the line?
A: Yes, of course. I don't see what that has to do with it, unless you are still nagging on the idea that these pieces could be slightly, imperceptibly different.
B: No, actually, I am pointing out their chronological differences.
A: (with a return to incredulity) What is THAT supposed to mean? That one chair is OLDER than another? You cannot be serious, who would consider a chair's age as a difference?
B: And why not? Would you not point out the age of an old man and a child when describing ways in which they differ from each other? Or better yet, do not twins often refer to which one of them is older, even though one may have preceded the other only by a matter of minutes?
A: This is ludicrous. Chairs do not have ages, that is an irrelevant fact.
B: Really? Are not very old chairs valued at high prices as antiques? Does not a brand new chair have a higher retail value than one that has been slightly used and then returned? Then, it seems that the age of a chair, though it may be inanimate, must matter at some point. But, for the purposes of this argument, we have simply decided that it doesn't apply here. However, Time is just as relevant a dimension as any other, and to deny that an object might be identified by its place in spacetime seems like a hard position to justify.
A: Hmph...
B: And, if this does not satisfy you, as I know it won't, we can still consider the three dimensions we easily observe. So far, you have appealed solely to these chairs' intrinsic properties of length, width and height, and yet you have forgotten that they too can be described by their location in relation to another object. For instance, this chair is the one that is to the right of that one, and vice versa. Therefore, they occupy different spaces as well, correct? The very fact that we can distinguish one from the other makes true identicality of objects impossible. You see, the harder we look, the more differences we find.
A: Well, fine then, perhaps manmade objects cannot be identical. However, I'm afraid that this does not indict all physical objects as you so rashly boasted.
B: Is that so? Well then, I ask you to name for me two natural objects which can be identical. Certainly no living thing can be identical. It has been made unique by each and every one of its experiences. Even if we somehow created two clones, aside from them existing in an unconscious vacuum, the very minute they had even the slightest variation in sensation or experience, they would become distinct. And if they "lived" in an unconscious vacuum, then I don't know that one could rightly describe them as living at all.
A: Well, what about two cultures of the same bacteria, created in segregated compartments by parallel procedures? The two would never meet, and as far as they would "know", their respective container would house the entire universe.
B: Yes, subjectively, they would, but at the same time, these two would exist outside of the other's knowledge and so comparison amongst the two would be impossible. And, anyway, outside observers would be able to tell the two apart by exactly the same means as described above, especially their spatial location.
A: (cleverly) What if we were to switch the two specimens without the observer being aware, or even better, if we devised some mechanism to switch the two randomly without our knowing? Then we would not be able to tell the two apart, and therefore, they would be identical!
B: Well, firstly, I will caution you regarding the use of that word "random", but that is for another occasion. In this case, you continue confusing perception with reality. The two specimens would still be different, would have had different histories, but this is something we do not perceive. But, our ability to perceive certain characteristics of an object or not has no relevance to its truth value.
A: You are a tough one indeed. Well, what, then, about the molecules that make up these bacteria? And their atoms? Clearly, they are made up of the same elements which do not change.
B: Oh but again, I'm afraid that you are mistaken, my friend. You see, there is great diversity amongst atoms. Many have particular ions, in which the number of some of their constituent particles, the electrons differ. Not to mention that the electrons are by no means arranged in any specific order. It is not as you may have been lead to believe by your high school Chemistry class.
A: Wait, wait, aren't the electrons at least confined to their specific rings or something like that? I can't remember the exact word right now.
B: Orbitals, and only somewhat. Really, these are only approximations of configurations that we use to give us a rudimentary idea of how an atom is constructed. In reality, the truth is much more complicated. Our increasing precision and sophistication in both theory and experiment have led us to the basic principle and paradox of quantum theory which seems to be Uncertainty. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to be exact, but in sum, the picture that quantum theory presents us is merely one of probability rather than of rigid inevitability. When we say a particle is located at a certain spot, we are merely saying that there is a rather high mathematical probability that it is there. However, and though it may seem strange, it just as well could possibly be in any other spot in the Universe, though the chances of that become vanishingly smaller as one moves further away.
Another problem with this argument is simply that, once we have deconstructed an object past its molecular structure and delve into its atoms, it ceases to be what it once was. It is no longer the object, it is an atom.
A: What about numbers then? Certainly, 1 is 1 and 2 is 2. Mathematics is immune from your physical arguments.
B: This again is a flaw. Numbers are simply abstractions, they are concepts that we have agreed upon. They are a way that we can conceive of the world, that we can describe and make sense of it all. There is no thing that is 1 nor 2. They are all merely theoretical objects that we can use to impose order on the world. But remember, that we have already shown that the objects we conceptualize by them are not identical and so grouping them together can only be approximate.
A: So this is it then? We have reached the threshold, and there are no identical things. I find I can no longer argue you, and I humbly concede.
B: Don't take it too hard. In fact, I may be able to offer you some consolation. We have still one step to go, though it stands on the outskirts of, possibly even beyond, our ken. There is a twist ending to this story. Atoms, as you know, are not as elemental as their name implies. The word originated with the ancient Greeks such as Democritus and their idea that there is some sort of uncuttable particle (atomos). In the late 18th and into the 19th Century, it seems scientists were a bit hasty when they deemed the hydrogen structure the "atom", for we later found that the atom could be cut further, into protons and neutrons and electrons. As time went by, other subatomic particles were discovered. Eventually, even the particles themselves were found to be made up of tinier components called "quarks". It seemed that we were bound in an infinite regress. However, (and fortunately), many scientists generally now agree that we have reached the bottom level of fundamental particles for reasons that I currently am shamefully ignorant of. Still, scientists have lead to question what made up these quarks. Some theorists have come to a most surprising conclusion. According to Einstein's famous equation, E=mc2, which implies that matter is interchangeable with energy. String theorists assert that particles are made up of tiny loops of energy vibrating through more dimensions than we can see. This seems to suggest that in fact, when reduced to the most basic levels, all matter is composed of energy. So, when we have simplified all things to their absolute most fundamental essence, in a way, they are all made of the same thing. If this proves true, at the most basic level of the Universe, we are all one. THERE IS NOTHING BUT IDENTICAL THINGS!
(At this point, the curtain closes on a thoroughly confused A and B, and the disembodied voice of The Narrator speaks)
I'm sure that by this point you, attentive reader, have a burning question: So What? Why should I care that things are never truly identical, even though we cannot perceive the ways in which they differ? If we can't see their differences, can't we just consider them as the same? Won't we all simply go crazy if we think this way? I certainly understand your concern. Indeed, it is a question which I have pondered for a long while myself. At first, when this concept revealed itself to me, I began to wonder how I could make sense of the world ever again. We understand by identifying traits, by categorizing, by comparison. But if there are no identical things, then there is nothing by which to compare, and we can never know anything. This can be quite frustrating.
Still, one must never use frustration or the relative "hardness" of an idea as an excuse to discount it, as A pointed out earlier, our feeble attempts at comprehension have no bearing on the actual truth-value of a claim. I certainly hope that the reader also does not expect for me to "make it all better" by saying simply that this has all been a long intellectual joke. The light-hearted banter of this dialogue should not imply that this has been just silly play. This idea is real and I believe it is vitally important to understand. The point is to realize that all of the order we try to impose upon the Universe is simply that. Like any other animal, we are scared creatures who have a need to survive and have developed an instinct to try to understand the world. We must or we will die. But, we also must realize that we have merely shored up a makeshift monolith and snapped a rigid frame upon everything. The Sea of Ignorance smashes itself upon our greatest strength. We have tried to protect ourselves from the Unknown, have built a fortress to keep the savage waves out. But in the end, we have also built our own prison. What we see as real, as unshakable: society, laws, even human emotion are illusions we have crafted over millenia. They have become so ingrained and embedded as to become invisible, but they are simply things we have made. We must realize this, not to destroy them, for that it is too late, but to gain perspective on they way things truly are. The Waters are brutal and terrifying. It is likely that we will die if we set sail upon them. But we cannot let this fear hold us back. Death comes for us all, and we never know what lands may wait for us beyond the horizon...
Friday, October 8, 2010
The Theory of Familiarity
Greetings, and so sorry for the long absence. I plan to be updating this page much more often now. I have many ideas to share, as well as some stories. I hope that you will follow diligently and enjoy and maybe even be challenged. The following is the first in a set of essays which I have been working on. They may look intimidating, but my goal is to be as explicit as possible. Comments and discussion are not only welcome, but encouraged...
The Theory of Familiarity
(A Theory of Everything?)
So, what is this theory? For decades, physicists have searched desperately for a so-called "theory of everything", a unifying framework to explain the deepest mysteries of existence. These ideas are fraught with mathematics so complex that they have yet to even be developed. The "truth" seems to lie dormant, sleeping until the next brilliant light comes along to show the way, perhaps a new calculus must be invented. What small glimpses we have been able to catch of these possibilities are astounding and exciting, which makes them all the more tantalizing as we realize it may be decades before technology and the human mind develop enough to fully understand them. But fear not, dear reader. Your Humble Narrator is no mathematician, and this theory is not one of these. As later writings shall make clear, the following idea is more of an archaeological or anthropological analysis of the human condition.
Still, I admit, I have not answered the question at hand, but please, be patient. We shall make our way to it soon enough. The Theory of Familiarity is just that. It is a theory that I believe is immediately familiar to us, for lack of a better word. It is so basic and fundamental to our everyday existence that, once it is explained in the following pages, it will be instantly recognizable and at once comprehensible. Indeed, the very fact that it is so commonplace is what I believe makes this realization go unnoticed by most people. But, any good theory should be easily explainable to people. As Richard Feynman was fond of saying, it should be able to fit on the front of a T-shirt.
Furthermore, in no way would I feel confident in asserting that this realization will be a unique revelation to anyone. I doubt that I have stumbled upon a thing that no one else has ever "thunk up" before and that this is somehow an "original idea". In fact, the Theory can be seen to assert that there is no such thing that is Original in the true sense of the word, which is to say that it has somehow just popped into Existence with no discernible source. Nonetheless, I believe most of us do not immediately realize the full implications of this theory, and my purpose is to demonstrate that its reach is far indeed. As such, this should be seen merely as a stepping-stone, a foundation for other ideas later to come. There is a journey to be undertaken, but we must first come to the most basic and superficial realizations before we may really begin.
So, what is my T-shirt motto? Though posterity (if indeed, this idea catches on) will positively design a snazzier slogan, I'll start with this: "What we know is what we hold most dear". That's it. No earth-shattering, mind-blowing cryptic enigma of an axiom, at least not at this point. Surely, one can hardly argue with this idea. We love our friends more than strangers, we love our home more than somebody else's and, presumably, we love ourselves more than we love others (a point to which we shall return in another essay). This is simply an observation of fact, and yet, once we think about the matter a little deeper, and realize we can apply this principle further, we see that it can actually serve as explanation for our entire perception of the world.
For example, a small child can identify a circle, a square, a triangle. It doesn't matter if that circle is slightly elliptical, the square more of a rectangle or the triangle is scalene, isoceles or equilateral. At such a young age, these shapes all fit into the broad categories of basic shapes we have created in our short lifespans. Similarly with colors, we don't recognize if a shade is burnt sienna or periwinkle; it is brown or blue.
We learn by organizing things into categories called gestalts and distinguish them from other gestalts by the ways in which they differ. Initially, these are very rudimentary and only consider basic criteria for inclusion, but as we grow so too do our gestalts become more subtle and refined. We partition them off into smaller and smaller gestalts as we learn to distinguish less and less superficial characteristics that we had previously been ignorant of. In this way, we become more conscious of the world around us. Slowly, as we grow, we begin to see more. We live our early years in a state of constant awakening. Each day, we become more aware of this curious world in which we find ourselves. And because we find the world to be curious, we ourselves become curious and we ask constantly (as any exasperated parent can tell you): WHY? We wonder about things. We wonder why the sky is blue, the grass green and how in the world can one fat man in a flying sled visit every child on Earth in a single night. Many of these questions are difficult to answer, and often the answer is not what we wish it to be, but, by this process, we come to understand the world.
Unfortunately, what also happens is that we begin to cease questioning as we get older. Somehow, we unjustly gain a sense that we have come to know everything, as smug teenagers will boast. We can't exactly explain why the sky is blue (something about light refraction?) but we feel secure in just knowing that it is. It simply is. We stop questioning and learn to accept. Partly out of laziness and disinterest, partly because there are simply too many things vying for our attention and energy and partly because we are conditioned not to ask anymore, we stop wondering "why?". We understand it all.
This is a crucially important epoch of our development. It is when our opinions and ideologies are becoming cemented in us. Though it is often a time of great (and usually stupid) experimentation, the seeds have already been sown and we can hardly flee our roots. Already, our experiences have vastly shaped us and though we may appear alien to society as a whole, eventually our wild teenage ways will settle somewhere near 'normalcy'. Of course, it is important to remember that we are referring to our Western context here and that there are myriad other cultures with different ways of doing things. But, I, for one, would be willing to bet that they have similar analogues to this "John Hughes syndrome".
In any event, this is the period when our outlook on the world, our political views become first articulated. When we are younger, we form only a very basic view of "right" and "wrong",. This includes such broad conceptions as "Stealing is Wrong", "Killing is Bad", "Eat Your Veggies" and what-have-you, but as we are increasingly exposed to the "real world," we find that this black-and-white blurs into shades of grey. We learn that there are many subtleties and nuances to moral reasoning (what if the person is stealing to feed his impoverished family? or killing to defend himself?). Then the issue gets a bit more prickly. How are we to make sense of this roiling sea? Where does our sense of moral rightness come from at all? This is when we may refer to the theory of familiarity. In the first, our basic societal customs and norms have come from this, a concern for our own family and/or group. In primitive society, heaviest priority was placed on the welfare of the group. In a time when survival of the tribe was so tenuous, things that were unfamiliar were assumed to be dangerous and, therefore, to be avoided. All cultures of the world thus have similar injunctures against killing, lying, stealing, disobeying authority figures, et al. They have been progressively dressed up in the manner of the widely various tribes, but by and large, these basic codes remain the same at their core and can be distilled to these initial principles.
This group centered-ness gives rise both to compassion for our fellow man and an almost inescapable ethnocentrism. In the first, this certainly seems good as we feel concern for others and an aversion to their suffering. This makes us act in kind and considerate ways. But as we look at foreign cultures, and the similarities become less apparent, this feeling of goodwill becomes necessarily diminished. Though we may disagree passionately with human suffering and atrocity, rare (and unfortunate) is the person who can truly claim to be equally affected in this way. Who is this natural tzaddik who would feel just as sharply the death of some person whom they've never met living on the other side of the globe as they would their own mother or brother? As the language implies, we simply are not as familiar with this stranger, and indeed if they had never existed, in most cases, it would not have had the slightest effect on the outcome of our own lives. This principle applies similarly in broader cultural contexts as well. We feel the loss of American schoolchildren in senseless shootings and plane bombings. We find the slaughter of millions of Jews, Catholics, etc in the Holocaust hateful and loathesome because we know these people. They are our neighbors and members of our communities, and frankly, are within our sight on a daily basis. Therefore, their suffering seems more real to us. But we do not feel the tragedy of the Rape on Nanking or the brutal expulsion of the Huguenots from France in even remotely the same sense. If we are even aware of these crimes, obscure as they are to our common Western knowledge, we know these horrors were wrong; but as they are not as culturally salient, we do not carry their scars.
Before one has a chance to misunderstand, it should not be taken from our musings so far that the Theory of Familiarity is a negative or pessimistic or even a cynical view of the world. Neither is it optimistic. As all other proper theories and so-called (and important-sounding) "Laws of the Universe", it is neutral. Trees do not grow to provide us life, earthquakes and hurricanes do not arise to destroy it. Nature exists independently and regardless of our presence, and it is only through its processes that we are here to observe it.
That being said, it is now necessary to highlight some of the so-called "dark side" of this theory. While there is, in and of itself, nothing wrong with primitive cultures fearing that which they do not know, just as there is no harm in telling children to never trust strangers, and in fact, this is probably more useful than not, continued appeal to this kind of blinder-thinking also gives rise to the most savage of human brutality.
Through this thinking, we establish the concept of "the Other". The Other is that which is not us, a shadowy figure that bears no resemblance to us. We can and have built up a vision of unfamiliar cultures that casts them as something different. Eventually, this idealization becomes inhuman, an animal, and for this reason, we make this soulless beast scapegoat, unworthy of consideration. This defense mechanism allows us to commit the most barbaric atrocities that we should shudder simply to recollect. To some extent, this is a necessity, as in the case of war, and it informs and reassures our previous reservations regarding the morality of killing another. It is easier to kill an idea than another human being, flesh of our flesh. Historically, this concept gained considerable mileage in epic literature where mass slaughter was glorified as a means for honour. Outside of some brief mention in Homer or the Chanson d'Roland of human suffering, the actual reality of carnage is for the most part glossed over. This is, as stated before, a necessary evil because otherwise a lord would have a most difficult time exhorting his ordinary soldiers to eagerly kill.
Most cultures have some degree of this desensitization built into the indoctrination of their children. As before, it is essential to the primitive group's survival. Unfortunately, once society has moved past this kill-or-be-killed stage of tenuous existence, these previously necessary and blameless caricatures remain in the cultural subconscious where they surface as bigoted stereotypes, though they have now become obsolete. Once one has been viewed as an enemy and less than a man for so long, it will be most difficult to release these tensions once they are no longer needed. The very ideas of Good and Evil allegorized as Light and Dark show us how amazingly deep these roots grow. We are taught to love Light and fear the Dark. The Light is understanding, truth, goodness. The Dark is deception, fear and evil. This is easy to understand. Things are apparent to us when illumined, we simply see them better. But things may hide in the dark, their actual form may fool us or go completely unnoticed. Of course, these ideas spring from evolutionary and survival instincts, but they stay with us as superstitions. There is clearly nothing "wrong" with darkness, essentially. Indeed, the Universe itself is overwhelmingly pitched in constant night, and yet it certainly cannot be interpreted as bad. But, also, it is a thing that we do not understand and so we are frightened by it.
In another regard, historically speaking, I believe that the concepts of light and dark very easily came into use to refer specifically to skin color, as most of our inherited literature comes from the pale skin of our European ancestors. The unknown were the swarthy-skinned "savages" whom we brutally conquered and subjected to nameless horrors. And the savages knew of us as "the White Devil".
When we don't understand another's ways, it is far easier to write them off as backwards or uncivilized. But, as a teacher once told me, in a statement I will never forget, instead of snidely asking "How can you believe THAT?" we should instead seriously consider "How CAN you believe that?"
The Theory of Familiarity also offers valuable insight into the way that we learn about things and it helps explain how we think and how we come to make any sense of this crazy world we find ourselves in. In possibly better language, we learn by comparison. As stated earlier, we form ideas of what things are often by noticing what they are not. Imagine that you are asked to identify a fruit by touch alone. Let's say that the fruit is actually a tangerine, but that, through Fortune's elaborate and convoluted twistings, you have never encountered this particular type of fruit before. You have, however, heard legends that speak of this mystical "tangerine" as being like an orange, only smaller. The first choice is small (which is good), but its skin is smooth and bumpy on the ends like an apple, so you guess that this is not it. The next offering is long and cylindrical and you suppose it to be a banana. The search continues. The next object is much too big to be correct (it is, in fact, a watermelon). Finally, you reach the last item. It is small and its skin is cratered with tiny pockmarks as you have felt before on an orange. At last! You have found your Forbidden Fruit!
When we have no previous direct experience with a specific stimulus, our understanding of it must come from these comparisons and contrasts of our earlier experiences. This apples to oranges (to say nothing of bananas and watermelons) example extends to our patterns of logic as well. Through our personal experiences, we have formulated basic principles of thought and "what-makes-sense"-ness which we appeal to and build upon with further experience and example. We ultimately seek to reduce all situations to these archetypes by systematic (but usually unconscious) rules of thinking. Imagine a mathematical proof, supposedly the purest form of logic. We can start from a seemingly intractable premise and, through careful considerations and tedious calculation, arrive at a convincing proof of "truthfulness" of that given claim. It is not that all the details are the same but that, in the end, we can reduce them to the same principles.
And this is, in essence, the central thrust of the Theory of Familiarity. We live in a world that is strange and awe-inspiring and terrifying in diversity. We strive to understand our place in it, though in reality, this is almost certainly an insignificant matter to the Universe. Often though, we become sidetracked from our quest as we become wrapped up in a situation's particulars and these distractions confound our reasoning and perception. We may think that we see everything, but this is basically untrue. The universe, all we see around us, is made up of the same few, possibly even only one, bits of stuff. Human behavior is not difficult to understand for the most part, we simply lack all necessary information. Things that seem irrational have a basis in understandable phenomena, we have only to find the means to comprehend. We must learn to clear away the dense fog that clouds our understanding. Rules, preconceptions, laziness shackle us to the disappointment of surrendered dreams. Once we realize the unity of all that is around us, we begin to see clearly. Only when we learn to approach the world with open-mind and wide-eyed wonder can we "go confidently," as Thoreau urges, "in the direction of our dreams".
The Theory of Familiarity
(A Theory of Everything?)
So, what is this theory? For decades, physicists have searched desperately for a so-called "theory of everything", a unifying framework to explain the deepest mysteries of existence. These ideas are fraught with mathematics so complex that they have yet to even be developed. The "truth" seems to lie dormant, sleeping until the next brilliant light comes along to show the way, perhaps a new calculus must be invented. What small glimpses we have been able to catch of these possibilities are astounding and exciting, which makes them all the more tantalizing as we realize it may be decades before technology and the human mind develop enough to fully understand them. But fear not, dear reader. Your Humble Narrator is no mathematician, and this theory is not one of these. As later writings shall make clear, the following idea is more of an archaeological or anthropological analysis of the human condition.
Still, I admit, I have not answered the question at hand, but please, be patient. We shall make our way to it soon enough. The Theory of Familiarity is just that. It is a theory that I believe is immediately familiar to us, for lack of a better word. It is so basic and fundamental to our everyday existence that, once it is explained in the following pages, it will be instantly recognizable and at once comprehensible. Indeed, the very fact that it is so commonplace is what I believe makes this realization go unnoticed by most people. But, any good theory should be easily explainable to people. As Richard Feynman was fond of saying, it should be able to fit on the front of a T-shirt.
Furthermore, in no way would I feel confident in asserting that this realization will be a unique revelation to anyone. I doubt that I have stumbled upon a thing that no one else has ever "thunk up" before and that this is somehow an "original idea". In fact, the Theory can be seen to assert that there is no such thing that is Original in the true sense of the word, which is to say that it has somehow just popped into Existence with no discernible source. Nonetheless, I believe most of us do not immediately realize the full implications of this theory, and my purpose is to demonstrate that its reach is far indeed. As such, this should be seen merely as a stepping-stone, a foundation for other ideas later to come. There is a journey to be undertaken, but we must first come to the most basic and superficial realizations before we may really begin.
So, what is my T-shirt motto? Though posterity (if indeed, this idea catches on) will positively design a snazzier slogan, I'll start with this: "What we know is what we hold most dear". That's it. No earth-shattering, mind-blowing cryptic enigma of an axiom, at least not at this point. Surely, one can hardly argue with this idea. We love our friends more than strangers, we love our home more than somebody else's and, presumably, we love ourselves more than we love others (a point to which we shall return in another essay). This is simply an observation of fact, and yet, once we think about the matter a little deeper, and realize we can apply this principle further, we see that it can actually serve as explanation for our entire perception of the world.
For example, a small child can identify a circle, a square, a triangle. It doesn't matter if that circle is slightly elliptical, the square more of a rectangle or the triangle is scalene, isoceles or equilateral. At such a young age, these shapes all fit into the broad categories of basic shapes we have created in our short lifespans. Similarly with colors, we don't recognize if a shade is burnt sienna or periwinkle; it is brown or blue.
We learn by organizing things into categories called gestalts and distinguish them from other gestalts by the ways in which they differ. Initially, these are very rudimentary and only consider basic criteria for inclusion, but as we grow so too do our gestalts become more subtle and refined. We partition them off into smaller and smaller gestalts as we learn to distinguish less and less superficial characteristics that we had previously been ignorant of. In this way, we become more conscious of the world around us. Slowly, as we grow, we begin to see more. We live our early years in a state of constant awakening. Each day, we become more aware of this curious world in which we find ourselves. And because we find the world to be curious, we ourselves become curious and we ask constantly (as any exasperated parent can tell you): WHY? We wonder about things. We wonder why the sky is blue, the grass green and how in the world can one fat man in a flying sled visit every child on Earth in a single night. Many of these questions are difficult to answer, and often the answer is not what we wish it to be, but, by this process, we come to understand the world.
Unfortunately, what also happens is that we begin to cease questioning as we get older. Somehow, we unjustly gain a sense that we have come to know everything, as smug teenagers will boast. We can't exactly explain why the sky is blue (something about light refraction?) but we feel secure in just knowing that it is. It simply is. We stop questioning and learn to accept. Partly out of laziness and disinterest, partly because there are simply too many things vying for our attention and energy and partly because we are conditioned not to ask anymore, we stop wondering "why?". We understand it all.
This is a crucially important epoch of our development. It is when our opinions and ideologies are becoming cemented in us. Though it is often a time of great (and usually stupid) experimentation, the seeds have already been sown and we can hardly flee our roots. Already, our experiences have vastly shaped us and though we may appear alien to society as a whole, eventually our wild teenage ways will settle somewhere near 'normalcy'. Of course, it is important to remember that we are referring to our Western context here and that there are myriad other cultures with different ways of doing things. But, I, for one, would be willing to bet that they have similar analogues to this "John Hughes syndrome".
In any event, this is the period when our outlook on the world, our political views become first articulated. When we are younger, we form only a very basic view of "right" and "wrong",. This includes such broad conceptions as "Stealing is Wrong", "Killing is Bad", "Eat Your Veggies" and what-have-you, but as we are increasingly exposed to the "real world," we find that this black-and-white blurs into shades of grey. We learn that there are many subtleties and nuances to moral reasoning (what if the person is stealing to feed his impoverished family? or killing to defend himself?). Then the issue gets a bit more prickly. How are we to make sense of this roiling sea? Where does our sense of moral rightness come from at all? This is when we may refer to the theory of familiarity. In the first, our basic societal customs and norms have come from this, a concern for our own family and/or group. In primitive society, heaviest priority was placed on the welfare of the group. In a time when survival of the tribe was so tenuous, things that were unfamiliar were assumed to be dangerous and, therefore, to be avoided. All cultures of the world thus have similar injunctures against killing, lying, stealing, disobeying authority figures, et al. They have been progressively dressed up in the manner of the widely various tribes, but by and large, these basic codes remain the same at their core and can be distilled to these initial principles.
This group centered-ness gives rise both to compassion for our fellow man and an almost inescapable ethnocentrism. In the first, this certainly seems good as we feel concern for others and an aversion to their suffering. This makes us act in kind and considerate ways. But as we look at foreign cultures, and the similarities become less apparent, this feeling of goodwill becomes necessarily diminished. Though we may disagree passionately with human suffering and atrocity, rare (and unfortunate) is the person who can truly claim to be equally affected in this way. Who is this natural tzaddik who would feel just as sharply the death of some person whom they've never met living on the other side of the globe as they would their own mother or brother? As the language implies, we simply are not as familiar with this stranger, and indeed if they had never existed, in most cases, it would not have had the slightest effect on the outcome of our own lives. This principle applies similarly in broader cultural contexts as well. We feel the loss of American schoolchildren in senseless shootings and plane bombings. We find the slaughter of millions of Jews, Catholics, etc in the Holocaust hateful and loathesome because we know these people. They are our neighbors and members of our communities, and frankly, are within our sight on a daily basis. Therefore, their suffering seems more real to us. But we do not feel the tragedy of the Rape on Nanking or the brutal expulsion of the Huguenots from France in even remotely the same sense. If we are even aware of these crimes, obscure as they are to our common Western knowledge, we know these horrors were wrong; but as they are not as culturally salient, we do not carry their scars.
Before one has a chance to misunderstand, it should not be taken from our musings so far that the Theory of Familiarity is a negative or pessimistic or even a cynical view of the world. Neither is it optimistic. As all other proper theories and so-called (and important-sounding) "Laws of the Universe", it is neutral. Trees do not grow to provide us life, earthquakes and hurricanes do not arise to destroy it. Nature exists independently and regardless of our presence, and it is only through its processes that we are here to observe it.
That being said, it is now necessary to highlight some of the so-called "dark side" of this theory. While there is, in and of itself, nothing wrong with primitive cultures fearing that which they do not know, just as there is no harm in telling children to never trust strangers, and in fact, this is probably more useful than not, continued appeal to this kind of blinder-thinking also gives rise to the most savage of human brutality.
Through this thinking, we establish the concept of "the Other". The Other is that which is not us, a shadowy figure that bears no resemblance to us. We can and have built up a vision of unfamiliar cultures that casts them as something different. Eventually, this idealization becomes inhuman, an animal, and for this reason, we make this soulless beast scapegoat, unworthy of consideration. This defense mechanism allows us to commit the most barbaric atrocities that we should shudder simply to recollect. To some extent, this is a necessity, as in the case of war, and it informs and reassures our previous reservations regarding the morality of killing another. It is easier to kill an idea than another human being, flesh of our flesh. Historically, this concept gained considerable mileage in epic literature where mass slaughter was glorified as a means for honour. Outside of some brief mention in Homer or the Chanson d'Roland of human suffering, the actual reality of carnage is for the most part glossed over. This is, as stated before, a necessary evil because otherwise a lord would have a most difficult time exhorting his ordinary soldiers to eagerly kill.
Most cultures have some degree of this desensitization built into the indoctrination of their children. As before, it is essential to the primitive group's survival. Unfortunately, once society has moved past this kill-or-be-killed stage of tenuous existence, these previously necessary and blameless caricatures remain in the cultural subconscious where they surface as bigoted stereotypes, though they have now become obsolete. Once one has been viewed as an enemy and less than a man for so long, it will be most difficult to release these tensions once they are no longer needed. The very ideas of Good and Evil allegorized as Light and Dark show us how amazingly deep these roots grow. We are taught to love Light and fear the Dark. The Light is understanding, truth, goodness. The Dark is deception, fear and evil. This is easy to understand. Things are apparent to us when illumined, we simply see them better. But things may hide in the dark, their actual form may fool us or go completely unnoticed. Of course, these ideas spring from evolutionary and survival instincts, but they stay with us as superstitions. There is clearly nothing "wrong" with darkness, essentially. Indeed, the Universe itself is overwhelmingly pitched in constant night, and yet it certainly cannot be interpreted as bad. But, also, it is a thing that we do not understand and so we are frightened by it.
In another regard, historically speaking, I believe that the concepts of light and dark very easily came into use to refer specifically to skin color, as most of our inherited literature comes from the pale skin of our European ancestors. The unknown were the swarthy-skinned "savages" whom we brutally conquered and subjected to nameless horrors. And the savages knew of us as "the White Devil".
When we don't understand another's ways, it is far easier to write them off as backwards or uncivilized. But, as a teacher once told me, in a statement I will never forget, instead of snidely asking "How can you believe THAT?" we should instead seriously consider "How CAN you believe that?"
The Theory of Familiarity also offers valuable insight into the way that we learn about things and it helps explain how we think and how we come to make any sense of this crazy world we find ourselves in. In possibly better language, we learn by comparison. As stated earlier, we form ideas of what things are often by noticing what they are not. Imagine that you are asked to identify a fruit by touch alone. Let's say that the fruit is actually a tangerine, but that, through Fortune's elaborate and convoluted twistings, you have never encountered this particular type of fruit before. You have, however, heard legends that speak of this mystical "tangerine" as being like an orange, only smaller. The first choice is small (which is good), but its skin is smooth and bumpy on the ends like an apple, so you guess that this is not it. The next offering is long and cylindrical and you suppose it to be a banana. The search continues. The next object is much too big to be correct (it is, in fact, a watermelon). Finally, you reach the last item. It is small and its skin is cratered with tiny pockmarks as you have felt before on an orange. At last! You have found your Forbidden Fruit!
When we have no previous direct experience with a specific stimulus, our understanding of it must come from these comparisons and contrasts of our earlier experiences. This apples to oranges (to say nothing of bananas and watermelons) example extends to our patterns of logic as well. Through our personal experiences, we have formulated basic principles of thought and "what-makes-sense"-ness which we appeal to and build upon with further experience and example. We ultimately seek to reduce all situations to these archetypes by systematic (but usually unconscious) rules of thinking. Imagine a mathematical proof, supposedly the purest form of logic. We can start from a seemingly intractable premise and, through careful considerations and tedious calculation, arrive at a convincing proof of "truthfulness" of that given claim. It is not that all the details are the same but that, in the end, we can reduce them to the same principles.
And this is, in essence, the central thrust of the Theory of Familiarity. We live in a world that is strange and awe-inspiring and terrifying in diversity. We strive to understand our place in it, though in reality, this is almost certainly an insignificant matter to the Universe. Often though, we become sidetracked from our quest as we become wrapped up in a situation's particulars and these distractions confound our reasoning and perception. We may think that we see everything, but this is basically untrue. The universe, all we see around us, is made up of the same few, possibly even only one, bits of stuff. Human behavior is not difficult to understand for the most part, we simply lack all necessary information. Things that seem irrational have a basis in understandable phenomena, we have only to find the means to comprehend. We must learn to clear away the dense fog that clouds our understanding. Rules, preconceptions, laziness shackle us to the disappointment of surrendered dreams. Once we realize the unity of all that is around us, we begin to see clearly. Only when we learn to approach the world with open-mind and wide-eyed wonder can we "go confidently," as Thoreau urges, "in the direction of our dreams".
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