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.
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