Month: June 2023

Some may see where where these considerations lead us to a certain conclusion. That in some ways, perhaps even precisely in the same way as the matter of truth, consciousness is to us no more than a concept, a thing we are so very used to thinking of, or talking about as absolutely the real and in our possession; but which to us remains suspended as the more theoretical in nature. It is like following a trail of bread crumbs fully believing therefore a whole loaf exists (from which such fragments must originate)…somewhere, somehow…but of which we are only experiencing at best fragments and parts. Even parts that to us testify the whole of it is somewhere, surely. Not unlike knowing, of which we sometimes (oftimes?) think ourselves complete in having, we may come to find out we only possess in like fragments. The spaces between the frames we see and believe we know what we know…who knows?

But like the automobiles we use everyday, and the even more technologically sophisticated devices, for most of us it doesn’t matter how they work, only that they do. Mostly we don’t care about timing between pistons and valves anymore than we care about “electron flow” through the myriad channels in our handhelds, ignorance does not prevent us from their use. And generally (specifically?) to each, our minds and consciousness work “good enough for me”. Besides which, what can one do with a thing but be locked into its usage…even by it…when “it” tells you…”I’m all you (or anyone’s) got to go by. I’m even what tells you…you have it.”

But O! those dreams! Where something is betrayed. Waking I can consider routes, excuses, make plans, create in mind escapes…forge whatever is necessary to overcome threat(s) as they might present…but whence comes from same mind, self same self…such equipping with only water pistol to repel those who chase (in mind) with real guns, and real bullets…and fill the mind with terror? Or whatever forms of absurdity testify of complete inadequacy, total subjection, ineffable vulnerability. Yes, O, those dreams from same mind (?). Same mind that when waking so easily assumes…”But I have knowing! I can handle things!”

And yes, I can reach for blanket, touch a wife, look around familiar room and comfort myself…”that was not real”…yet…it is as absolutely real (and created in) same mind now looking for other and other feedback for assurance. I look to material, if I do, and think it is enough. But here’s the thing. The thing we try so desperately to get around, the thing it may well be such dreams will not allow us to escape, the reality I can only accept as metaphor to myself, and not the reality it is; and a thing of knowing…even if it be so deep and dark to us that we spend all our waking hours to avoid confronting squarely as the truth it is…all my material (as with all that is material, even that which is reached toward for comfort) is passing away. Even our “waking” knowing tells us this…but we find ourselves ill equipped to its handling, or ability to be “lived in”…everything we now see and believe know…is vanishing, and will, from before us. At any time, at any moment…”we” are over. Done. Finished. Though everything may even testify of this, even these fragments of other’s disappearing that are daily made known to us and too plain to be any comfort to or for us (as we live, if we do, only materially) we cannot see this…of, nor for ourselves. But something knows. Something knows…of what again can only be described as ineffable vulnerability. Too vulenrable…for any of us to handle with knowledge.

Knowledge of it is the knowledge that undoes our assumptions/presumptions about knowing.

We are subject to everything.

Masters…of nothing.

But who can live there?

Knowing one is not even master of his own mind?

For, if we were, who would ever allow for themselves even one troubling thought?

Everything is thrusting upon us…but who is aware?

Is the everything aware of what “it” is doing…to us?

As unapologetic as one may be about being in apparent paradox, or living in contradiction if you prefer; I am no less unashamed of being an absurdity, even and most often to myself. In having spoken briefly about Rutherford in the last section (39) can we consider for a moment (if accepting the anecdote as having any veracity) how absurd to himself he appeared in thinking his bed offered him some support his floor could not, or would not?

This is not for the purpose of poking fun at him, for he no doubt overcame his fear and left it to travel further in this creation he had learned is far more substance of “space” than his sense and senses once informed him. Like knowing, which to us is formed of experience to carry us into further experience and to us is presumed to be solid, we may find holes…even great gaping holes, not merely around our knowing…but shot right through it; betraying a fragility heretofore inconsiderable. Even untenable to us till undeniably revealed to us as in us; that where we think we stand is not nearly as sure as once we believed. And without doubt (as the anecdote amply exemplifies) such suddenness of conclusions thrust upon us by such revelations immediately affect our view of all, and even most common habit(s), like merely stepping out of bed.

There would (or surely could) be such moment giving way to terror that is likewise followed by some further revelation of the absurdity of ourselves. Even if, as in Rutherford’s circumstance, we do not immediately see the absurdity of thinking our bed is more substantial than the floor because (and only because) we are in the experience presently of its support, it is neither rocket science nor a great generation of herculean logic to posit… “But upon what is the bed sitting?”

The floor I fear falling through.

Yet the experience comprises more than what is on surface addressed in the anecdote. And that is how “our” knowing, and even by our knowing, we are self convinced this now changes the reality of matters. Oh, do not doubt that to us individually it surely does; I am sure Rutherford never looked at things the same way after; but he had only discovered how things are and not rather by his discovery actually changed the nature of things. But to him…in that knowing and for those brief(?) moments he was convinced the floor he walked upon yesterday with no regard was suddenly made abyss by his knowing of its truer nature. And so do we all. We tend to think our knowing actually changes the nature of things…and that is the absurdity. No doubt he could have looked from his bed out a window and seen many others carrying on in walking down a street as fully supported as yesterday, but for him…for him, and to him…his knowing was working in him to not only a terror, but a terror because he knew. He specifically, knew. Even what no one else (it is presumptively surmised) to that time…knew. Rutherford changes the world! (Just as you and I imagine we do)

The Father of Nuclear Physics, when actually the physics have been long at work in nuclei and thence elsewhere in our everywhere long before. Long, long, before. Something else has claim to their fatherhood. The laying down of “laws” to be discovered…and not created by their discovery. Though to us in our framing of them, using our maths, using our equations, our assembling their descriptions under various circumstances to such degree we believe we have defined them, and thus by definition have made them “our” laws, regardless of how much we may say otherwise.

“Newton’s” first law. (When it is only a framing of what Newton believed he discovered, and with which some others brought into some agreement)

Now, I get why you don’t like having pointed out all the holes in your consciousness. Even in your knowing. I don’t much like it when mine are shown, either. Far more like Swiss cheese than a block of cheddar. We are all in the same boat regardless of how full we believe our own consciousness to be. (And each of us imagines ourselves…”fully conscious”…do we not?) We will all find, if not already, just how much of unforeseen consequences result, and can, and do, from our proceeding according to what we believe we know. So when we say “If I had only known then what I know now” we are simply admitting to the fact of that matter…we didn’t know what we thought we knew in that knowing that moved us. And to speak again of the absurd, it is how much folly to think “but now I know…better”. For we no less thought enough then, to trust our knowing that moved us. (And I am aware this is being repeated from prior section).

To take a step back, not as concession, but as elucidation is to come to some understanding that our perception of what it means to know something (or anything) is more often quite far from what we perceive it to be, or mean. We, again, think it bedrock. “I know this”…or such and such. It’s so easily seen when we apply this to certain personal matters (though I am being convinced it applies to all) especially in regards to knowing a person. How often do we think we know someone, then in some circumstance a certain attitude or action causes us to think or say “I see I didn’t know that person at all”. Of course it seems awkward to us to likewise think the same in other terms even if this example is applicable; especially of those things we think static, like a rock. “Well, rocks don’t change and I can know what a rock…is.” Or “math doesn’t change, I can always know what two and two are.” But most specifically it would be hoped that on a more fundamental level it would be an understanding of what we think it means to know, is at best incomplete, if not entirely corrupted. But, who can live where they understand that to themselves…all things are at best theoretical? Surmised (only) to some end that is actually quite far from the knowing in the sense we use it?

It was said in the last section ridiculous examples would be used. Rutherford’s account was considered briefly as one. Some may not find this applicable to themselves…for who of us has explored the fundamental nature of this thing we call “matter” by such experimentation to discover it is not at all as once assumed? So here is another example that may have a broader application for (I would surmise) any, or every man’s experience.

A man awakens in terror in the night. Heart racing, pulse pounding, he has just had the most vivid and terrible of dreams. He may sit up, grasp the blankets, feel the bed, look over at wife or companion for assurance he is now in the “real” reality and that what he is leaving behind is all of unreality. He may be troubled, he may scoff, there are no doubt a myriad of reactions, and likewise a myriad of measures he may take to assure himself he has left unreality and is now “back” in the real…and draw comfort from that. (Rutherford might advise…”don’t think those blankets, that pulsing digital clock, or that wife snoring next to you is actually composed the way you think for a more sure touchstone“, but this is not really the point.) The man tells himself…and is more than glad to know what he was just leaving in dream…was not real. “It isn’t real…whew! Just a dream!”

What we most probably do not do, or are loathe to do or consider is that state of mind that terrorized us in the night is/was…actually a real experience. A real “state of mind” we have just experienced. We would like to consign it all to unreality, but who is fooling whom? We know our mind can have such an infection of raw and naked terror as to repulse us from all and any acknowledgement that was just took place in ourselves…had any reality to it, at all. But we know. We do know. A state of the mind that is in (what we would consider) all unkindness to us. It doesn’t matter to what we grasp at for comfort for excuse or reason, like that last slice of pizza too soon before retiring…or whatever; we know we can know deepest, darkest, and most frightening terrors we have known.

And, what is “doing it” to us? This mind we call friend in all reliance upon during waking hours? Our most “trusted” asset if you will? The “us” that is us…even? For how deeply do we identify with, and as, our own mind, our own consciousness? Isn’t that the very thing we think is the thing…(and in which we experience) the us…that is what we call the us or I? How do I know I am me…and not you…except it be my mind (consciousness) telling “a” me so? To take it even further into the absurd, as it surely must appear to some or many…who is the you (or me) to which we say our mind is speaking? “My mind is telling me”… “my thoughts are telling me…” … “my experience has taught me…” … “my desires are leading me…” and on and on.

How divided are we…within ourselves? Maybe our math is not as irreducible as we once thought…and our concept of one or even being “one”…as in one person…is not now as sure to us as once appeared.

What would a truly one person…appear as…look like? But we would never, nor could, even ask this question until we discover how divided we are within ourselves…and how our presumption of “oneness” (embraced to ourselves) is not at all according to what we think we mean…when we say “one”. Or think we ourselves…are. We surely are who we are…but like those blankets for comfort, or sound of wife snoring to reassure of the real…we have simply adopted a way of thinking of ourselves, and for ourselves, that is of no less a frantic grasp for comfort. For any other way of thinking of ourselves…is simply too terrifying.

For who then is the “I”…claiming identity, and control?

Too troubling?

Rightly so.

Again, and without apology, I lead into what appears paradoxical. Toward the man who can either believe or say with some confidence “I know my knowing is wrong, incorrect, and not merely incomplete” (as most any, even the proudest of us, would not hesitate to say “I know I don’t know everything!”)…but that all my assumptions about knowing, what I think it is, how it functions in me to lead me, and how it is to me irreducible…is all wrong“.

I suppose, in short, it is some admission of having glimpsed or experienced matters in such a way of having learned there is nothing of myself on which I can depend for anything (especially “my knowing”) and that it is not, in all, subject to change. And this would be the truth of this matter of knowing. And that it has even been in some way, by function of this thing I call “my knowing” and by which I proceed in all; that has caused (or been used) to lead me (and I do suppose any man) into such estate. Thinking “I know” leads me ( does it not lead all?) to that place of seeing that it has not been at all as it had appeared. I thought it bedrock…but now find it no more than shifting sand.

Do not doubt there is some terror in this and to this. I am not speaking as one more comfortable in his own bed. There is a starkness that is, and to some if it appears too bold to say, terrorizing. Something is able to “monkey with” my consciousness.

Listen if you can to what may sound ridiculous examples. I believe they are terribly hard to understand because we are afraid to (even terrified to) face their simplicity. They are far too easy to us, which makes them very, very, hard. Have we talked about Ernest Rutherford (known as “The Father of Nuclear Physics”)?

For this I will quote another, Karl Smallwood, who wrote of it in his article (searchable by Google) with his far more engaging style than I can manage entitled, “The Physicist Who Was Scared of Falling Through his Bedroom Floor”

I shall excerpt that portion subsequent to how and when Rutherford learned atoms are constituted of mostly empty space:

“…basically it shows the path of the particles Rutherford was firing and his observed results, mainly that the majority of them passed straight through the atoms inside the gold sheet, indicating that they were mostly empty space.

Now this is where the story gets adorable, because the legend goes that after discovering this fact  Rutherford was totally freaked out to learn that approximately 99% of the entire physical world he was standing in was composed of nothing but empty space. To make it even worse, Rutherford was the first person to make this discovery, meaning he was literally the only person on the planet who was aware of this fact at that point in time.

Rutherford was reportedly so freaked out that when awoke the next morning, upon trying to climb out of bed, Rutherford stopped his foot from hitting the floor and climbed back into bed, purely because he was scared his foot would slip through his floorboards, because hell, they were technically 99% empty freaking space after all. If you really think about it, the fraction of Rutherford’s floor that physically existed was technically a statistical anomaly, we’re not surprised the guy was scared to climb out of bed.

As for why he didn’t think he’d slip through the atoms making up his bed, we’re guessing the part of our brain that makes us think hiding under the covers would stop monsters when we’re kids was working its ***-damn ass off in Rutherford’s brain that day. Eventually, sense prevailed and Rutherford did climb out of bed and changed the face of physics as we know it instead of hiding and crying until he died of starvation like we probably would have.”

Is it easy to understand? Hard to understand?

Now I might take issue (and do) with this statement and appraisal:

“the fraction of Rutherford’s floor that physically existed (Italics mine) was technically a statistical anomaly, we’re not surprised the guy was scared to climb out of bed.”

We are terrified to admit that this thing which, in the above referred to space, and that we would call empty or “the nothing” does actually exist…physically in our reality. Space exists. It is too much, (or “Is it too much…?”) for us to engage that…(what we might call) “the nothing”…exists. Space (or what we might think of, or prefer to call “the emptiness”…or even “the nothing”) is as much part and parcel (and by volume far greater) to the all in which we are. Not only so in regards to what we may call the “solid” or material matters we perceive looking outwardly at the universe…but that we ourselves (as most know themselves in being a material or physical being) are also and no less.

And also and no less pertaining to all matters of “ourselves”…yes, even consciousness…can one find himself “falling though the gaps” (holes or emptiness) of his own mind and consciousness?

Have you?

And…what is it, or what would it be that is doing “the falling”? Is it the “real” passing through emptiness of nothingness? Or is it the unreal…passing through (or falling through) what is actually “the more real”? How real…is emptiness? Space?

How real is the “I” I believe…I know?

Too much?

Too bad.

Or

Too good?

Depending.

How much of crazy have you been equipped to handle?

How much of your own insanity makes sense to you…thinking that by “knowing something” you are now able to bite off more for the handling…that will not bring terror?

I suppose if one could one might say…”Ask Rutherford”…about “need to know”…about experiments prompted by need to know that reveal the terrifying, show that things are not at all as previously assumed to be…that all is upended by what might even be called better knowing…

But, you really don’t have to ask Rutherford…you already are in your own little laboratory.

Have you found anything that scares you? The you that you assume…is the you?

Even terrifies that…you?

Is something able to monkey with what you believe is your knowing?

Or, are you the one who is far too clever to be made a fool of to himself?

There is one more clever who knows…how to deal with the clever.

To know one thing purely or clearly, even indisputably…we may come to understand is no small matter (or asking). We may say “I am”, assured to ourselves this is so, this is true, this is indisputable in all, and there think such foundation is firm. But what do any know (if knowing or believeing they do know anything) apart from change? If the “I am” is no less changing…even in such discovery of knowing (going from not knowing to now knowing, as in waking up) then at what particular point is that “I” of such stasis as can be known? Like trying to hit an ever moving target, or in some understanding of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle here applied to our own consciousness…the one observing the “I” in its ever moving estate, can never really know it fully.

If we add to this (who can’t?) some knowledge of death as the ultimate change in estate for the “I”, and as into which the I is ever proceeding…and our assumption is that there is a coming time in which the I will be not, and of such duration as imagined interminable (or indeterminable) and without end…then whatever small space (or length of time) such I may presently occupy along that infinite continuum is surely as nothing. Nothing at all. Even thus undoing any presumption of a sure present estate; for it is always in change, and always moving toward its not being.

Therefore “I am” may be far better stated “I am becoming not”…and that for a long, long time. Like forever after. Were we to “throw in” (so to speak) the time interminable before what says “I am” (before birth and awakening to consciousness)…we begin to see how weaker still is such presumption of knowing, as even most claimed fundamental knowing that “I am” is a firm foundation of any knowing. Yeah…it’s not only weak, but perfectly so. Even as I write, and you perchance read, our “I am” is in total flux.

So, what is?

Is anything in a full state of being of itself?

For if we say “everything is changing” as an a priori, or pooh pooh such considerations as absurdly framed cleverness, then we might as well go whole hog and say nothing is ever truly known. But even that statement contradicts itself if claiming to know that, or state that as truth.

To understand we are always given to “look with a kinder eye” upon ourselves in matters of all judgments goes far beyond mere seeming legal matters or matters pertaining to what might be called the moral sphere. Surely it is more plainly apparent when speaking of matters of guilt and its assigning; but to come to see it suffuses the whole of the foundation of our thinking, touching matters of our logic and reasoning (what appear the colder, cleaner, or more precise matters) is not as easily apparent. Yet we all are given in deepest recesses to our way of thinking, very much thought of and known to us as our own, and even from which almost all of our identity in, and of, ourselves is developed.

Even our coldest logic, which is like an internal mathematics to us…precise, unambiguous, tidy and built upon to form what might be called our world view, our way of seeing and understanding things, is chock full of ingredients neither knowingly placed nor accounted for. And when faced with the reality of these matters (to whatever extent) we most often seek a housecleaning of sorts, especially if, when found, they have led to some calamity. We are presented with some frustration of our thinking, or of our knowing, that we may discover is due to some residual taint previously unaccounted for that has skewed our sight as to hide what we are now in as consequence. We are self persuaded that if able to start from a perfectly clean slate, uninfluenced from outside, (or even others) that our own logical process(es), then pure, would serve us better. Then surely…we would know…and understand what appears to us as the outside through which we move in time and actions would be, not only better understood, but even more controllable. It is, in that sense, back to “If I had only known then what I know now…” or “I should have known better”.

Yet, what prevented me?

Let me find that disposition and be rid of it so it will not lead to calamity again, and now “I will know better”. But the very shovel we dig with is no less a product of such disposition to thinking “I can know better…and will”. And when such is embraced we hold to us a new starting line, a new place of venture out from, better equipped with some knowing and thinking “now I am better prepared to meet the unknowns that tripped me up last time.” Rarely are we so established in understanding that any knowing also presents a whole new set of “not knowings” into which we venture.

And so it remains again, and always, double edged. Even were we to utter such rubric as “the more I know (or learn), the more I realize I don’t know”, we remain convinced there is a knowing attainable that is unshakable to us. Who, if given the temerity to even utter such, does not continue to seek after knowing? Knowing by doing such (if he were true to such stating), he is only embracing all the more unknowing? Our own logic here is undone. It would tell us start here, build up with this next, then this, then this…and finally what can be known…will be. But if and when we might even see we are now led into the greater of unknowns and unknowing, we can’t help ourselves.

Can one (or any?) bear witness to such a consciousness?

To speak of a matter such as guilt, if it can even first be established that such a matter is, leaves one in a very peculiar place. Being so very subjective in experience, perhaps even exquisitely so, causes any discussion of it, particularly if proceeding from any notion of its attribute-ability, extremely precarious and difficult. Assigning guilt to another, or projecting it for its reception and acceptance by that other is easily frustrated. In some way it requires a prior assumption of another projection being embraced as not only practicable in all practicality, but also as itself a true matter able to be exercised to, or of, some verity. That is the assumption that “If I were you…” can stand. But, can it?

Not unlike “If I had only known better” or “If I only knew then what I know now“, whose insertion or projection is to another time or made of us as taking our present self and “moving” it to an earlier now (which to us is a then) “If I were you…” also signals an assumption of the facility with which one can become, or be another. When looked at this way the utter frivolity and vanity of its presumption to us becomes absurd. And yet we say it, do we not?

We understand that this observation is made subject to saying “It’s just a phrase, just a play with words that are not really meant that way described” and so the conclusion of absurdity is itself absurd. Or “It’s merely another way of saying one is experiencing some regret at prior choices or motions in the lacking of a fuller informing that is now present” Or in this other case (If I were you…) one is merely saying that given the situation or circumstance expressed by one to another, one is saying “If in that same circumstance, I would do this”.

But is it not absurd? For which is the more vainly presumptive, that the one with full belly can so enter the experience of the hungry man and advise him (thinking he is no less fully understanding of that circumstance, though his belly be full) being neither pressed presently at all with the all the attendant pressing(s) that comes with starving in experience, and insert himself; or that one by simple imagining has access to all experience(s)…even or especially those he is not presently in?

Now, one could say “But I have known hunger”…(or faced such a decision, using whatever situation for example) and therefore I am equipped to make such judgments about one in such a circumstance. But that one would have to imagine that his own experience of hunger (when brought to it is carrying all his own prior experiences and knowings) and that these are all the same across the board.

But, are they?

We carry into each circumstance our own informing about that circumstance. For whom of us does not know himself as only himself, and to himself unique, even to all that has formed him/her? We cannot have it both ways, or can we? That in all our presumed uniqueness we only show that this matter, this matter of seeking to hold to all our own uniqueness is so common to each, that in that way by claiming our own uniqueness we simply show we are the most common of men? Yes, each one is unique…just like everyone else. Have I tossed some dust upon your preeminence? Sorry, but not sorry.

For we are odd in our assessments, ourselves being more of a mystery to ourselves than others mostly. For where and when we might generally look at another and think “I know why so and so did that” believing we can see motive(s), to ourselves when caught we more generally wonder “why on earth did I do that?” And so, and in that way, though we might even concede each is unique (if pressed to it) we find ourselves a little more so, having a bit more uniqueness (if you will) due to our believing we are bit more mysterious in the workings of our self.

And if we take what would appear an opposite view; that is, saying all (others) are ignorant of their own motives, but not me of mine, as in “I know why I do things”, then the moment we are pressed to admit to some fault we are doubly guilty…for we claim to do with full knowing. Is it any wonder then how this is so easily circumvented of ourselves in resistance to admission of fault? Just don’t admit to fault and the wearing of guilt (and attendant shame) never need be acknowledged nor worn. This then becomes a matter of will or wills and the why of the saying above:

Assigning guilt to another, or projecting it for its reception and acceptance by that other is easily frustrated.

Do you see how we get into trouble…even, or especially, in such matter as assigning guilt? Even to ourselves. If taking the position in regards to any bad acting we hold only others guilty of motives of all malevolence, while we let ourselves off with plea of ignorance; or conversely, find all others guilty of ignorance while holding knowing to ourselves, we are the more guilty when our own fault is found. We are so bound either way…in being guilty of carrying an unjust balance.

And if all are guilty, no doubt so is our own sense of justice skewed.

Who escapes the charge of looking with a kinder eye upon themselves than upon any other?

But why do we? How couldn’t we?

And why do you behold the mote that is in your brother’s eye but do not see the beam that is in your own?

In the matter of “like” (those things in which we find affinity) and likeness, there is much to be said. Were we to strip away all matters of affinity due to their emotional provocations that often stir our consciousness, we would most likely also discover how much of what we think we know also being stripped from us. We rarely consider how much of (what we consider) our knowing is merely attributable to such affinities. Our predilection to want to believe and know certain things and resistance to others; that we either go on to establish as known true to us, or seek to negate…that are simply based upon “like” and dislike, runs deep indeed. This has been touched upon.

We may even be persuaded within that we “like” the truth, or want only the truth. Even to know the truth. That we are and would be above all (truth be known!) the securest of guarantors for its safe keeping if, or in, its granting to us. The fickleness of others we may see and even eschew greatly of their multiple and manifest hypocrisies…but we trust ourselves to act and be, differently. It would be funny but for the ravages wrought of those thinking themselves able, and able to be, more right. Who could escape judgment for this?

Yes, here consciousness shows itself quite double edged; for to believe one knows a thing rightly comes with it some pressing to be consistent to its rightness of knowing that we find unable to fully uphold. We simply don’t like being nakedly displayed as hypocrite and liars. (Why that is is for another time) But…we do not like it. Suffice it to say for now we hate being shown how insubstantial (without substance) we truly are of ourselves. We like to think (and very much so) ourselves as real…even substantially…real. With all our capability to thence decide what is real. And true. Of some internal integration toward truth and upon such integration to truth that we esteem our own integrity.

Oops, there’s another knowing we hold attributable to only “like”. A pressing to see ourselves as being a certain way. In such way we want to.

Listen if you can. I surely don’t know where, or on to whom, these words might land. And if it appears as some picking on any in particular, it is enough to say there is enough hypocrisy to go ’round.

One holding to a purely materialistic view (if believing all that current science tells) that is, that all is simply, basically…even truly particulate in nature, even down to subatomic particles and built up to what is seen and known due to inherent forces present in, and of, and acting and interacting upon these particles; a purely deterministic view is likewise inescapable. In order for anything in or of that system to believe in choice (or such as would appears so, or be described so) would imply that such being of this thing called choice or option-ality is of position to control and effect all these most fundamental forces and particles of matter. For if consciousness is only a matter of these things, quaint notions as reason with attendant (or so called) rejection of illogic become not merely moot, but untenable. How could a thing of consequence (consciousness) owing in all to a certain order and arrangement of necessity for its being, hold sway over that to which it owes its being?

If you need a ridiculous example, I am not shy about being ridiculous. It is akin to a person telling their parents to mate so that he might be born. And yet, who of us most practically speaking does not embrace our own ability to effect, even and including to the judging of others for the effects of their being? But such hypocrisy is not limited to the merely materialistic minded, it would even be hypocrisy in that instance to embrace such a notion as hypocrisy as most would understand that word. Yet we act and react with others according to the extension of a principle embraced inwardly “I can effect…(and make choice how to)…therefore…I can rightly judge others according to this same measure for the effects I judge as to their being.”

And this occurs to such measure in each that together and in some agreement (are its foundations made more sure by agreement…if they are already all of false?) that “legally” it can be decided (chosen?) in the extreme of agreement that one can have such effect(s) by chosen action as to merit what we consider nullification of their being (death penalty). But what is one, or many…removing? Nullifying? The effects of certain particles…so arranged? But who of us isn’t (in that case) merely and also no more than certain particles…so arranged? Yes, it is rather hilarious that certain agglomerations of atoms think themselves “better” in some ridiculous notion of what is commonly called morality. But, who of us doesn’t?

Hypocrites (if hypocrisy exists) all.

But, and if, morality is itself also a consequence of consciousness (at least to, and in, man’s mind) the very consciousness we embrace as real to ourselves (at very least, our own) is no less the very consciousness before which we all stand accused.

How double edged it is having consciousness! On the one hand we would celebrate it (at very least, our own) as our supremest having, (even being terrified of its possible nullification) but eschew the very thing we find so inimical to our celebrations, no less carried in it, bonded to it, present without contradiction as suffused also throughout all its (consciousness’s) being…guilt.

What a party pooper.

Things are.

This precise order in word(s) may not enter our consciousness as such, but were we to clear away all other matters accruing to this most fundamental stating of the estate of our consciousness, is that not what we are left with? Things are.

We may not have any understanding of the “how” of the things that are (by full knowledge of their working in expression), or even the how many of the things that are, but wouldn’t it be fair to say we fully believe in being? Are-ing. Things are is-ing. Existence…is.

How we participate, what we do about (at least) all the things that to us are made known as in existence (believing wholly in it, existence itself) and in our relationship(s) to them, from thoughts (even consciousness itself) to people, to the color(s) we prefer for our house or the shoes for our feet…everything we do or consider is based upon the most basic assumption of us…that things are. And our doing about them, and such as what we do about them is what constitutes what we call our life.

I know here I am toying with the absurd, or at least reductio ad absurdum. For the man who would think to himself in such terms as “I am neither philosopher, nor engaged in philosophy (literally “lover of wisdom”) but simple and practical in all” cannot deny that his exercise in to what he attributes being and existence no less includes those judgments of what is/are not (in being and existence), and neither can be. In that sense the truth about existence, or the reality of matters which may sound like an intellectual or philosophical pursuit, is really engaged in most commonly. And whether he admits it or not, such matter as truth and what is true in any or every sense (at least to him) is always at work in him. Let him hear his wife was seen at lunch the other day with another man and suddenly truth and matters of it become more than a dalliance of the philosophically minded.

What is true in existence and about it/them (those things) does not make us philosophers, we already are. At least in the practical sense…but whether we are truly “lovers of wisdom” in some fuller sense remains to be seen. From what might be called the coldest, hardest, most stern discipline of the utterly mathematical mind…this matter of truth, as in the rightness or wrongness of the most convoluted equation, holds sway. Oh, the numbers can exist on the whiteboard in whatever array of presentation (that is fact)…but the fact that they be there…does not make them true to any rightness. As much as perhaps we are practical philosophers we are no less practical mathematicians working in the reality/realities we “know” trying to make sure we have things add up…rightly. Even truly…to us.

But it’s kinda late for each of us, isn’t it? All the factors “in there” (of our consciousness), and so many of which were placed before we even had any sense of having a bouncer at the door (our judgment) of what is worthy to enter or be turned back has too long been formed. This “1” I carry to the next column…is that mine or my father’s 1, my mother’s predilections or displeasures…and/or understandings? Whose way of looking at things…summing up things…is really only my own? That I might even “know” as mine? Add in all the “commonly accepted” matters in community or history, things of which we have neither time nor inclination to test for ourselves to verify (or are unable) and we discover how much we move in a trust of knowing, even if it not be ourselves. How many people do you imagine would be using cell phones if it were limited to only those who fully understand their workings? TV? Automobile?

Ha! Yet we use our consciousness/reason/mindfull(?)ness to appraise a thing we call (a or the) reality as to what is, might be, or cannot be true in it, or about it. This is fact…but is there, even in the slightest thing in its regard…true about it and its use? Like the whiteboard we can string our numbers and equations to whatever sequence we do so… and place the = sign just before our answer as to what is reality. Do you doubt we do this? Feel/sense an even total and irresistible need to make answer for what we believe…real?

And why.

Do you know because your father(s) claimed to? Or do you resist his/their knowing due to some form of a motivating to resist? Either way…the ones who have gone before remain the governing factor of reception or rejection.

Or maybe, you just don’t like…me.