Two Paths Converged in a Wood That Appeared Yellow

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Two paths converged in a wood that appeared yellow . . .

(This post was actually written a couple of weeks before Stephen Hawking died, but I had not posted it before his death. Then he died and I lost focus and began to work on the essay prompted by his passing. I have pretty much finished with that post. But I will post this first as the two make more sense together. I’ll post the other in a couple of days. - RLS)

I have been encountering some new interest in an old discussion. Most recently the March 3rd issue of New Scientist reviews Angela Potochnik’s book Idealization and the Aims of Science and a collection of essays titled Science Unlimited?: the concept of scientism. Both works are epistemological in nature, focused on how we come to know and understand the physical nature of the universe and the philosophical nature of our own existence. Unfortunately the collection of essays seems, from these reviews anyway, to see the issue as some sort of contest. And they bring out the big guns, quoting Hawking as saying “philosophy is dead,” and Feynman asserting that a philosophy of science is as useful to science as ornithology is to birds. These pronouncements constitute a warning - and perhaps one to which we all should pay more attention - of how wrong even the brightest among us can be when they mistake their own expertise for a kind of global certainty. Potochnik, an unrepentant philosopher, appears to try to take more of a middle road, but is anything but oil on troubled waters when she declares that “science isn’t after the truth.”

I wonder why this intellectual cat fight seems to have nine lives of its own. But then again, having spent almost half a century on university faculties, I am really not at all surprised. The academic world is a world of competitive storytelling. It is the “best” story that gets published, that attracts grants, that gets you tenure. And so to elevate your own story, you must demean or destroy the stories of those others seeking the increasingly limited rewards the academy has to offer. When the storytelling contest takes place within the confines of a particular discipline the contests are usually bound by the canon of the discipline - those dominant stories that define the current beliefs of the tribe. Those narrative duels often tweak and expand the canon, but rarely challenge its central core.

However, when the fight breaks out across disciplines, things can get totally out of control. It is a shame that the “winner takes all” nature of intellectual debate in the academy has seen fit to cast scientists and philosophers as antagonists. Distilled Harmony reveals that nothing could be further from the truth. Academic cat fights proceed from the assumption that for me to be right, you must be wrong. Distilled Harmony proceeds from the mandate of its first tenet - Foster Harmony. In this context that means we should seek to learn what we can from the perspective of the other in order to increase our shared understanding of larger issues.

The truth is that at their most fundamental level science and philosophy seek to answer the same question: what is the nature of the universe and what is our place in it? The fact that we have arbitrarily given the first portion of the question over to science and the second part to philosophy is intellectually myopic.

It is true that to date science has concerned itself primarily with the notion of the mechanics of the universe: how it came to be, what it is made of, and how its various parts work together. The progress it has made down this path in the past thousand years is truly astonishing. Even now hardly a day passes without some new insight regarding the very large frontiers of black holes, distant galaxies, and gravitational waves. The same is true of the incredibly tiny world of nano particles, quantum mechanics and quantum computers.

Philosophy has been less overtly successful, perhaps because its focus has been less precise - seeking, often through religion, to answer those questions better left to its sibling science. But rather than railing against science’s success, philosophy would be better directed to turn its attention to the issues that blend more naturally with science’s investigations.

Science has made great strides in revealing what the universe is and how it works, and occasionally uses those advances to assert its intellectual primacy. However it is only able to tout these advances by quietly failing to address one of the questions that every first year journalism student is taught to apply: why? Why are the universe and existence so structured? And that should be the true calling of philosophy: seeking to understand the reason for, and the universal nature of existence.

If there is one great common theme between these cosmic twins of Science and Philosophy it is that notion of seeking. Both disciplines rest on the cornerstone of curiosity - always searching for the next set of questions posed by the current answers. Assuming certainly should be anathema to both. Certainty in science turns science to dogma and certainty in philosophy ends in fundamentalism. In each case the discipline stagnates and grows more concerned with staking out positions to be defended rather than creating paths to new knowledge and greater understanding. These are fatal flaws as the universe cannot be constrained in a terrarium nor can existence be finally explained with tracts of mystic, unquestionable, declaratory prose.

Perhaps a metaphor offers the best conclusion to this current rambling:

Consider four mountaineers attempting to scale the face of an unknown peak. They may choose to climb separately or together. The two youngest, most fit, and perhaps even the most skilled, sprint off alone on separate paths, determined to be the first to reach the summit. The remaining pair decide to climb together. They carefully check their equipment, study the few available maps and begin their studied ascent. Each takes the lead when the terrain favors his or her unique skills. The other leads when the situation is reversed. They move steadfastly up the mountain eventually gaining the apex from which they can see their younger colleagues, paths now crossed, bickering below. As the pair on the summit survey the surrounding vista, they see another peak nearby, even more beautiful and alluring than the one on which they stand. After a brief meal, and perhaps a nap, Science and Philosophy gather their gear together and, curiosity flaring, begin their next ascent.
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Tanked

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I had hustled over to the grocery 

Later than intended, 

But needing a few things that  

Would ease the morning. 

Eggs, coffee, juice. 

Maybe some English muffins. 

I rounded an end cap  

Featuring a flashy rainbow  

Of sugared cereals, 

When I glimpsed him 

From the corner of my eye. 

He was backed, or perhaps 

More accurately, “fronted” 

Into a dark corner shadow. 

The traitorous tail tucked under, 

Beady eyes studiously turned away 

From those lingering shoppers  

Still stalking the aisles at closing time. 

Perhaps it was a conscious strategy, 

Shrinking away from the fluorescent 

Glow illuminating the gaudy filets 

Of “wild caught salmon” nestled on  

Uncomfortable beds of crushed ice. 

If so, it seemed to be working. 

He was, after all, 

The last lobster in the tank. 

All alone he, or she -  

How do you know which? - 

Seemed more piteous than 

The cluster of similarly fated 

Crustaceans that usually caught 

My more focused afternoon attention. 

They would mill about among bubbles. 

Almost like an aquarium  

In the lobby of a posh lawyer’s office, 

Or along the wall of a therapist’s 

Discrete and confidential retreat, 

Aping a display at Seaworld. 

Still, no amount of dissembling could 

Hide the eventual end of this tail. 

Yet there he was,  

Tucked behind a carbonated veil, 

Hoping in vain that somehow the deepest 

Reaches of the tank would provide 

The sanctuary denied him 

At the bottom of the sea. 

It all saddened me somehow, 

So I hurried past

Seeking something grass-fed, 

Or even non-GMO free-range, 

Comfortably wrapped in plastic, 

That I could take home 

And toss out upon the grill. 

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Silliness . . by any other name.

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According to the blinking screen on my phone it is 2:29 AM. Which means she must have shown up, what, maybe 20 minutes ago? My ex-wife’s brother’s second wife. She wandered into a dream. Didn’t play a major role in the dream as I recall. But, of course, now that I’m awake the details of the dream have fled. Still, I can remember quite clearly what she looked like. Very pretty woman. A little Polynesian blood perhaps? I can even remember some details of her life, a few of which sent my then brother-in-law off to wife number three. Actually, now I’m not sure if he married number 3 - maybe not. My brother did, but did my then brother-in-law? Who knows? That’s not the point. You see, the problem is I cannot for the life of me remember my ex-wife's brother's number 2 wife's name.  Got the names of her two kids, who remain in touch with my children. I can even recall  the name of my ex-brother-in-law’s first wife. But ex-sister-in-law number two remains nameless.

You might think this would cause me to worry about my fading memory. No, that is not the issue at all! The real cause for concern is far more sinister and widespread. The issue is names. There are simply too many of them. Malthusian doomsday voices cry out about the impossible task of feeding the planet’s burgeoning billions. Feed them? First things first. How are we going to name them all? George Foreman, who famously named his four sons after himself- Georges I, II, III and IV - may have pointed us in the right direction. But even that is I fear, only buckets against the flood. The Hapsburgs tried it, the Catholic Church still does. So a few kings and Popes slipped by, but more kept appearing on the horizon, all needing names! Like the Super Bowl - where does it end? King George the 312th?  CCCXII? Pope Pius the 87th? LXXXVII?

Parents are already cracking under the strain. My class lists grow increasingly weird, evidence of desperate parents driven to Krogers in search of a name that will be unique in preschool. I understand the pressure. But Cheerios Huntington-Smythe? Really?

It is not a new phenomenon, I admit.  Freshman year, Kalamazoo College, circa 1968. A classmate and I presented an original one-act play in a local campus venue called The Black Spot.  Together we crafted the memorable line - “Name names now Norris near Nancy’s nice newly named nuisance.” Ah, they don’t write ‘em like that anymore.

The name of that co-author of my youth? Ah, yes. Ah, Clint. Clint something . . No, not, Eastwood. It will come to me.

4:20 AM. Anita! Her name was Anita

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Page World

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“The trouble with poetry is

that it encourages

the writing of more poetry,”

                    - Billy Collins, The Trouble With Poetry 

An empty page contains

Every possible nuance.

Nouns gather in a circle

As verbs scramble beneath them.

Adjectives pass ammunition . . .

Then everything stops

While the ellipses stroll through,

Holding hands, laughing,

And talking of something else

Entirely . . .

Cowed pronouns huddle together,

Praying that the adverbs 

Can best the dangling participles,

Who seek to breach 

The wall of complex sentences,

Before it all stops

At the bottom of the page.

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Stalking the Waking Brain

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It is an image that, not surprisingly, occurs to me most often when lying awake in the hours just after midnight. A brain, not a floppy, oozing true-to-biology brain, but a cartoonish, cute, vaguely puppy-like brain scurries about in the imaginary space above me, avoiding my gentle net of sleep. It is a clever little critter. Just when I think I have it cornered it leaps away chortling  “Ah ha! How about matter and anti-matter? If there had only been a tiny bit more anti-matter after the Big Bang, it would have consumed all the matter and there would be no universe! What do you think about that?” And then it slips out of sight around a corner.   

I follow it down the stairs. Thinking I have it trapped on the landing, I raise my net, “Taxes!” It hollers and slides laughingly down a spiral bannister . 

“Did you lock the garage door?” “Do you think your hip will hurt if you sleep on your right side?” “Will shrinking sea ice doom the polar bears?” “Did you finish the PowerPoint for tomorrow’s lecture?” “Does love extend beyond the heliopause?” “Will we remember previous lives if we attain enlightenment?” “Are there enough eggs in the fridge to make an omelet for breakfast?” “What will retirement be like?” “Should we get a dog?” “Is Milton a silly name for a black lab?” “What is a memory palace and why do I keep forgetting to build one?” “Do people see colors the same way? Or do they see what I call purple when they look at what I call turquoise?" 

I plod gamely after the little bugger and, just as the rosy-fingered dawn begins to flirt with the eastern horizon, I find it curled up on the couch. Eyes tightly closed, it is sucking its little brain thumb, smiling and thinking secret thoughts.  Softly I slip the net of sleep around it. 

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