30.EPILOGUE.73: December 23,
2003 -- INFINITY.
"*30*."
PART THREE: "Staring Into The Sun."
Wait, I've got an idea. An idea so smart my head would
explode if I even began to know what I was talking about.
--Peter Griffin
SUCK ME
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NO "X" IN "NIXON"
Eventually, my exposure to Robert
Anton Wilson led to my creation of the Teddy Ruxpin Society For The Spiritually
Enlightened. My own foray into creating a One True Religion.
(Digression: Very
broadly speaking, there are three different types of highschool students.
One type blindly believes in the religion of their parents and is morally
offended by most things he/she encounters in highschool (this also includes
Atheists). This group also tends to believe in the inherent moral
imperative of the government and whatnot. Then there are the indifferent
students who don't care about much and simply shuffle through their days
not really knowing if they believe or disbelieve anything as long as they
get their drugs, their tv time, their socializing and dancing and oral
sex in regular intervals; these students tend to be dull, but usually fit
well into whatever cliques they decide to form: sports, stoner, preppie,
artsie, nerd, whatnot. These ones also tend to believe in things
like government, but they can and frequently do believe in alternative
types of government because they distrust the current reigning status quo.
However, they tend not to understand that simply opposing something in
power just generates its own unfair, absurd status quo. And then
there are the antisocial, iconoclastic ones-- and by this I mean the real
antisocial, iconoclastic ones-- because there are a lot of students who
fall into the second group who think they're actually in the third-- this
is because they talk a good game, but when it comes right down to it they
actually have no real ideas, drive, or intellect to back up their supposed
rebellion. However, this Group Three, these real antisocial
ones are the ones who wander around, doing things like trying to create
their own religions, making fun of all the other students around them,
and never really fitting in with any of the little faux communities that
highschool spawns. And, also, these students are the ones who really
don't belong-- the real outcasts, the real nerds and the real geeks-- not
those fake geeks who run around synching up with other people-- usually
nerds-- and, y'know, getting laid, and having parties, forming little
nerd communities. Anyone who has a girlfriend or a boyfriend in highschool
is not a member of this third group, even if they want to believe they
are. Group Three is formed out of the real losers, and only really
consists of about a dozen members. Most of these people are terminally
fucked-up, either by circumstance, parents, abuse, or sometimes combinations
of all three, and can't really make the connections they need in order
to stay stable. So they stop believing in anything, really.
Including themselves and objective reality. Thus, they tend to see
the world "as it really is"-- i.e. masses of confusion and relativism.
In a sense, they are nihilists, believing in nothing-- even, in some extreme
cases-- nihilism itself. Of course, sometimes they do believe
in Star Trek-- but these Trekkies are not to be confused with the
other Trekkies, the majority of whom are still verifiable members of Group
Two because they can still form large-scale social networks without feeling
a growing sense of emptiness as they make more and more social connections.
Also, quite often, Group Three students get so battered around by their
own alienation that they shut down and drift off into Group Two, or even
Group One identities-- anything to shut out the horror of "reality" and
give them some sort of false sense of stability.)
Teddy Ruxpin was a cute
stuffed, automatic bear, charismatic and unreal. And, because he
had a slot for cassette tapes in his back, he would say whatever you wanted
him to. His mouth opened and closed to the words you provided.
Speaking to the masses in your voice, he became the perfect messiah, the
ultimate religious leader. It was genius. But, because I was
only 16 at the time, the T. R. S. F. T. S. E didn't go too far.
THE ENLIGHTENED AND THE GRUNTING
"Let's assume, just for starters,
that there is a God."
"Okay."
"And this God is the God
that theologians talk about, not the God that priests shove down our throats."
"There's a difference?"
"Usually, yes. The
God of organized religion is, in a sense, a dumbed-down God. A more
humanized God, something simplified so the masses can understand it."
"Oh."
"Yeah. The God of
the churches is anthropomorphic. A good tool to confuse and manipulate
people with. Kind of like Santa Claus with little kids. This
big guy who's like a mixture of a cop and Superman lives way up there and
he's got these arbitrary rules that you must follow, or else he'll work
you over and torture you. But don't worry, deep down inside he really
loves you-- because he is Love. But you should still do what
he says because if you don't you'll be punished. And I, the priest
or minister or other kind of leader, am the only one who knows how to interpret
what this guy up there says, so really you should do what I say.
Because I, a finite, mortal being, speak for this immortal, infinite
being and and get everything he says down exactly right. So you should
go do everything I say or this guy with super powers that you can't
see, but who's really real, trust me, will stomp you."
"And the theological God?"
"Is far more abstract.
Less like people. More like something that could be called a 'God.'
Not some mythical father figure who watches you like Santa, punishing you
if you've been naughty and giving you eternal life if you've been nice--
but only after you die so you can't complain if your 'immortality' turns
out to be something of a sham. There are many things wrong with churches,
of all sorts, and that's just one of them. But it's one of the worst.
The old guy on the throne who watches everyone and protects us from the
boogeyman is just, simply, childish. It's a simplistic image used
to convey simplistic information in a simple way in order to keep people
simple. We're talking about something more weighty, here."
"Okay."
"So, let us assume there
is a God. Just for the sake of this argument. And, I mean,
ultimately, assuming there is a God is no less lame than assuming there
isn't. There's just no evidence either way."
"Okay."
"But, even if we assume
for the purpose of this discussion that there 'is' a 'God,' the idea of
God is a human concept. And right there, we're in trouble.
Even if there is something we might call a 'God,' it is not a God because
the idea of a God is something that we, as humans, came up with-- and if
this thing we call 'God' is really God it's bigger than every aspect of
us from the outset, including our powers to comprehend and describe it--
and so this thing we have no choice but to call 'God' is larger than any
concept we can put around it. It escapes all categories. Even
the category which we devise to define it-- because it cannot be defined
by mere human minds."
"Okay."
"It is much larger than
any religious tradition can cope with-- because we create our religious
traditions and so, by their vary nature they are exclusive in a way that
this entity we define as a 'God' cannot be.
"Even religions that claim
to be borne out from the real and true word of this 'God', even these are
not-- by the very criteria they set down as God being the biggest, most
infinite thing-- adequate to contain and interpret the words they claim
to come from 'God.' Because those words are put in a human language
and refer to things humans can understand-- therefore they are by necessity,
relative to this 'God,' incorrect and merely fallible human constructions
that only capture a tiny, infinitesimally small, bit of this supposed entity.
That goes for all religions and thought everywhere-- it all only refers
to a tiny sliver of this thing we call 'God' which may or may not even
exist-- and in a certain sense it doesn't even matter if it exists or not."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, existence is a human
concept-- so this thing is beyond it. And so is nonexistence, that's
also a human concept. And so God or 'God' is beyond both. And
so if someone says that God exists he's right and if someone says God doesn't
exist he's also right. Because God must by its very definition be
beyond both existence and nonexistence because both existence and nonexistence
are categories that we use to define and contain the universe, or the finite--
even though we tend to describe the finite in infinite terms. And
even if existence and nonexistence can contain the infinite-- the infinite
is also a human concept-- and so God is beyond the infinite as well.
And whatever's beyond the infinite, that's also a human concept, and so
God is beyond that too.
"So, therefore, calling
God 'God' is wrong because the concept of 'God' is a also a human concept
and so God transcends that. Calling God 'God' actually brings God
down to our level because the idea of 'God' is something that we can comprehend,
which means that it isn't really God because God is bigger that that as
well.
"And, of course God doesn't
exist because existence is a human concept.
"And God doesn't not exist
because nonexistence is a human concept.
"And even calling God an
'it' or a 'he' or a 'she' is inaccurate because 'it,' 'he,' and 'she' are
also human concepts. And so on.
"And even when people like
Emmanuel Levinas propose a third state that is 'beyond essence' that still
doesn't contain this God thing because any third category 'beyond essence'
is still a human concept.
"And 'is' is also a human
concept.
"So this thing-- a thing
that isn't a thing because the idea/category 'a thing' is also a human
concept-- is beyond all time and space and dichotomy-- and neither good
nor evil because both good and evil are human concepts and so are limiting
and defining. Also, 'it' both exists and doesn't exist and does so
simultaneously because existence and nonexistence are human concepts and
hence limiting-- and even the idea of something simultaneously existing
and non-existing is also a human concept and so is the idea of limiting.
And so on.
"'God' is, quite literally,
beyond all understanding. Even the idea of Negative Theology-- which
is kind of what I've been half-assedly dabbling with in a ham-handed way
just now-- cannot accurately portray the situation. And so all we're
left with are inaccurate representations of something that we think is
a picture of this thing that is bigger than us, and that might not even
exist-- which is still the same as existing-- by the criteria that define
this thing. We're talking about going beyond being and nothingness,
beyond all science and math and religion-- because these things are all
human concepts and so are inherently wrong-- or at least they don't paint
the entire picture, not by a long shot. And the picture itself is
something that we created with our imaginations, anyway."
"Remind me never to join
any religion you create," she says.
"The problem with religion
is that it humanizes, it dumbs down, the infinite. And it controls
people. I mean, look at prayer."
"What about prayer."
"Well, you pray to God,
right? I mean, I don't. But on the abstract. Prayer is
for communicating with God."
"Sure."
"Well, again, let's assume
for a minute that God is real-- at least 'real' in the typically understood
conventionally infinite sense-- then, God is everywhere all the time always
and knows everything. And if this thing we call 'God' is everywhere
all the time and knows everything, it already knows what's going on in
your mind on both conscious and subconscious levels-- always. And
always will. So, getting on your knees to publicly praise this entity
is a waste of time because it already knows how you feel about it.
It already knows if you love it or not, and it also knows if you're lying
when you pray. So, all that's left then is an empty ritual designed
to imprint a specific image of an entity in your mind-- an image crated
by people, and an image that is used to control your behaviour. If
you except God as real you have to accept that God is infinite because
a God that isn't infinite has limitations and so isn't God. Therefore,
if you accept God as real and infinite, there is no need for prayer because
on a certain level you're always praying because God is always connected
to you, inside you, because God is everywhere. Also, if you take
the route that prayers are in fact a communication with God, that you have
to pray in order to communicate with God, then that implies that God actually
is at a distance, because communication only occurs between distances.
When i communicate with you,. I bridge a gap. And so, if you need
prayer to communicate with God, what this means is that:
"The universe is bigger
than God and sense 'more' than God, and that God isn't everywhere at all
times-- and so isn't infinite-- and thus isn't really 'God' because there's
something bigger than God and God isn't everywhere and so doesn't know
everything. And a God with limitations isn't God. In the sense
of the theological God, anyway. Not in the sense of the mythical
God, or gods, which is unfortunately the God of most religions-- be they
Christian or anything else. And thus, these Gods aren't really God,
but just images of some perfect, but still limited human, created by humans
for a very specific human purpose-- the control of society and the imposition
of 'moral' and 'legal' laws-- which are also subjective human creations
designed to keep us 'safe'-- which is also a subjective human creation."
WATERMARK
Life doesn't seem any different
now, than it did 15 years ago.
And then Brian wears a virtual
reality device on Family Guy, and I turn on my laptop computer and
surf the Internet from the air.
And then I unroll a thin
tube of organic plastic and watch movies on an OLED videoscreen.
And the empty thoughts of
my laptop are more human than my own.
UNDERWORLD
And, if language is a virus.
Or at least something kind of organic. It has a type of life.
It wants to replicate itself. And it does replicate itself whenever
you read it. (Reading in a very broad sense. Listening to music
and looking at a painting are also kinds of "reading".) And, so,
as long as *30* remains unfinished, it's alive because it's growing.
But when it's done, its language is physically static. It is graphically
complete. All its words are set in time and space. It has ended.
Of course, when you read it, it comes alive again inside you. But
that's a kind of resurrection. And, in order to be resurrected, it
first has to die. And it doesn't want to die.
A MODEST PROPOSAL
Scene: Infinite wasteland. Tumbleweeds.
BOB: I've got an idea.
BRIAN: Okay.
BOB: Have you ever thought about having your own pretension alert
system? Maybe a sign around your neck. You could do the five
colour system like the Dept. Of Homeland Security going from blue to red,
low to high, and you could also attach a Boredom Index-- some sort of 1-10
decimal system. You could also have maybe a regularly updated Barometer
Of Craziness And Incoherence, too. You could be a walking one-man
self-evaluation station. And I think it might save the rest of world
a lot of grief.
BRIAN: Very funny.
WHY, THAT'S NOT A VACCINE AT ALL, IT'S JUST A BITTER MAN WITH A DRILL!
"I'm gonna lose the quotes around
the word God, okay? This is all getting very confusing. Let's
just always assume it always has quotes around it, or not, because either/or
amounts to the exact same thing in this case."
"But," she says, "what about
that stuff in the Bible where man is created in God's image. And
I mean, not just the Bible, but lotsa other religions also have something
similar to that."
"Well, okay, sure.
But:
"One, the Bible is just
a book written by people and so it's going to be limited by human language
and knowledge and it's also gonna be pretty people-centric. And there's
going to be a lot of politics in it, too. And what better way to
get people on your side politically than telling them that they are all
created in God's image.
"However:
"Point Two: in a sense it's
true that we're 'created in God's image' though because we do what God
does-- we create and use language and create through language. That
idea runs through almost every religion, if not absolutely every one.
So, in a sense we are actually 'in God's image' because we do do all the
things God does in the Bible. And every day, we seem to do a little
bit more, and in some cases better, than how God does it.
"Three: after a fashion,
though, if you want to follow this through to its logical conclusion, everything
is created 'in God's image' because if God is infinite God is the sum of
EVERYTHING, including everything in the entire universe. In fact,
the entire universe is still just a fragment of all the things that God
is or can be. In short, everything is created 'in God's' image'
because God can do everything and knows everything , and so can create
everything-- everything is a part of an 'idea' by God. If you even
believe in God or not. If God even exists or not."
"How can what you're saying
be true if God isn't real?"
"We thought of God.
And even if there is a God we still came up with the concept on our own
and then tried to define it as something beyond us, outside of causality,
time and space, so it escapes all categories. Even if we tend to
ignore this definition. Unless of course God somehow gave this idea
to us.
"And even if God's not real,
the idea of God still informs all our actions, and all the things we think
or do. Because as a culture we bind ourselves to the idea, fuse with
it. Even people who rail against the idea of God are dependent on
it and so it controls their actions. It's a powerful concept.
Maybe the most powerful concept that humans have ever come up with.
It's even language itself.
"And so if God doesn't exist,
it's still a metaphor for Language. Which should also be in quotes."
"In the beginning was the
Word and the word was God."
"Exactly, sort of, in a
sense. And, I think, every religion has some variation of that idea
because people realized very early on that there's something weird, magical,
or 'holy' about language. And by language I mean everything that
communicates-- every written word, drawn picture, piece of music, anything
and everything that can be encapsulated by art or an idea. I can't
stress this one enough.
"The fact is we have no
identity without language. We have no thoughts, we have no memories,
we don't even have emotions. We might not even have a sense of space
or time. Without language, we, as human beings, don't exist.
And every religion is informed by this, and so are even some branches of
physics and other sciences.
"(Actually, all sciences
are informed by this idea, they just don't want to admit it to themselves.
Every himan discipline is, in fact.)
"And the word we translate
as 'word' in that Bible quotation is really 'logos' which is a Greek word
that gives us the words 'language' and 'logic' and the word 'word'-- it
also indirectly implies 'fire' and 'energy' and 'thought.' 'Logos'
is a great little word. You could also translate it as the 'living
fire that makes up the language of the universe,' if you were of a pretentious
mind and taking a lot of poetic license. And so logos is primary
and is both the tool of the divine, and the divine itself-- and it's also
the language that gives us identity and the ability to come up with sweeping,
bizarre, meta-infinite ideas like 'God'. Ideas that are really infinite
because they function beyond all understanding, beyond all dichotomy, or
any attempt to define them, and are also beyond being and nothingness.
Etc., etc."
"This is all kind of cosmic,
sure. But it also sounds sorta sophistic."
"Sure, it's both those things.
But, when you get right down to it, all we really have are our own ideas,
or own language, or our own sophistries. When you get right down
to it, all we have are our ideas and our ideas come from within us, and
from within language. Even our perceptions are the results of our
ideas which are the results of our language. When we see something
we have to encode it into some kind of visual language in order to identify
it, and then remember it, and then be able to think about it or respond
to it. And all this stuff is the result of some sort of communicative,
or linguistic process.
"All ideas are human ideas,
and the world we see is nothing more than a collection of human ideas.
"Being and nothingness are
human ideas. So are logic, math, and all forms of art. The
idea of an illusion is also just an idea. And so is the idea of reality.
And of relativity.
"And so if God is an illusion,
that's just as valid as God being real because by definition God is everything
and is both real and unreal at the same time. Beyond right and wrong.
Everything and nothing. Because all we have is the definition.
I'm starting to go in circles, here."
"It still sounds like sophistry
to me."
"It is sophistry.
But sophistry gets a bad rap because of what it says about the world.
Which is, of course, that everything is just a relative construction made
out of language. Even empirical reality is still really a construction,
and so is relative to the people who believe in it. And, so, sophistry
is all we have. Even if people try to ignore this by proclaiming
varying degrees of 'truth' and 'falsehood' in relation to anything, be
it a philosophical belief or a scientific 'fact.'"
"So, you're anti-science.
Is this going to turn into something like that Simpsons episode
where Lisa finds the 'angel?'"
"No. Because I'm not
anti-science. Not at all. In fact, I love science. Science
is good at pointing towards possible solutions to problems, solutions that
seem to work and generate useful results-- for a time anyway. After
all, we do live in a physical world-- even if the way we perceive it is
clouded by our language and identities, the world is still in some way
there. There is something physical that we interact with, but we
can never be sure really what it is, or if it will always be there tomorrow,
or if it was created or just an accident.
"I love science. But
what I'm against is the idea that science answers everything, that science
actually gets to the 'truth' of anything when what it really does is manipulate
what we perceive to be the physical world, and then generates results we
find useful within a scientific framework. And that's a very good
thing-- it makes televisions and vaccines, and houses and refrigerators
so our food doesn't spoil. Moralizing parables and discourses on
the nature of the divine don't really do that all too well. But what
I don't like is the idea that science seems to suggest that there's only
ever one way to solve a problem, and that the way is invariably scientific.
And I don't like that science suggests that its rules are absolute and
inviolate-- in the exact same way, in fact, that religion insists in the
absolute correctness of its rules-- even when things occur that seem to
contradict these rules all the time. And, of course, these things
are swept under the rug-- especially if they're really big."
"For example?"
"The arguments surrounding
the age of the universe as measured by the Hubble telescope. When
the Hubble went up it brought back evidence that the universe might be
much older than was previously believed. And then scientists went
ballistic, splitting off into two main camps, one of which wanted to believe
the Hubble evidence. And then there was the other which argued that
the universe was the age that we always believed it to be and that there
were either a) things we didn't know about the nature of time in the universe,
or b) the Hubble was simply wrong-- and both of these points were propped
up by the dogma that if the universe was older than we thought it was initially,
it would invalidate Einstein, and so the idea of an older universe must
be discarded. Because Einstein's theories are viewed to be inviolate
and absolute-- just like, y'know Aquinas on, I dunno, God knows what.
And this is bullshit because Einstein was just a guy who filtered the universe
through his own perspective. But the majority of scientists rally
around Einstein as a font of infallibility like Catholics rally around
the Pope. And that's idiotic.
"Or how about the current
angst fit the scientific community is undergoing because of Variable Light
Theory which suggests that light may have moved at a different speeds during
the early phases of the universe. And that also begins to imply that
light may be changing its speed right now. And that, of course, is
'clearly' impossible because, once again, Variable Light Theory would invalidate
Einstein. All this talk about invalidating Einstein and holding Einstein
up like some sort of deity sounds like priests and magicians squabbling
over what goat entrails mean.
"I'm also reminded about
how, when the motor car was first created, people believed-- and this was
something that had hard scientific proof backing it up-- that no
human being could ever travel faster than 60 miles per hours because he
would just simply suffocate because the air would not get into his lungs.
And that the stresses of traveling over 60 miles per hour would cause all
metals of the car to bend and snap. That was a 'proven fact' in the
early days of automotive transport. And yet, now, people drive faster
than 60 miles per hours all the time. And their cars magically stay
intact. And even with the tops down and wind blowing directly in
their faces, everyone gets more than enough air."
"But they didn't have the
technological or experiential knowhow to be able to discover this until
much later."
"Exactly. And how
is this any different than people supposing that light may not be a constant?"
"Well, everybody knows that
light always goes at 299, 792, 458 meters per second."
"And, everyone also knew
that no human being could survive speed higher that 60 miles an hour.
Both are equally 'scientific' and both are subject to the knowledge of
the times. And, quite possibly, both are relative. Just because
we can't break the light barrier now, doesn't mean we won't in the future.
(Except of course that we have, already-- and this is being kept sort of
quiet because of what it implies about scientific dogma. I've mentioned
this one before.) And just because our equations and equipment can't
measure light as a variable speed phenomenon now, doesn't mean they won't
be able to do so in the future.
"So, science is good and
all, and I like it. It's really really useful. But it is still
limited by our perceptions, and limited by what we can encode into language,
which is, of course, a human construct."
MAZOOLA MONTANA
And, Robert AntonWilson's books
were also filled with sex and drugs. Two things every growing boy
needs tons of in his reading-- if he's expected to survive the encroaching,
Lovecraftian horror of the post-highschool real world.
And the fact that the first
part of Illuminatus! actually had William S. Burroughs in it as
a character, that made it all the sweeter.
When I finally read that
part, after having read Burroughs.
Even though I do have a
vague memory of having read the Burroughs scene (it's setting is a protest
in either the late 60s or very early 70s) before I read Burroughs-- and
also a memory of maybe wondering who that guy was supposed to be.
So this implies that I may have read a bit of Illumninatus! before
I encountered Burroughs. And that makes sense, because I spent a
while trying to read the book before I actually managed to get through
it.
And so, I reveled in the
writing of Robert Anton Wilson, which is far from the most difficult thing
there is-- but because of its Joycean and Faulknerian tendencies-- especially
in Illuminatus!-- does take some getting used to. Especially
if you're in highschool and are unused to stream of consciousness writing.
And so I reveled and cackled and rolled on my back and wiggled like a happy
dog whenever I thought about Wilson-- even though I always stalled out
about 200 pages into Illuminatus!-- until Grade 11, that is.
And so here was this Robert
Anton Wilson, a guy who knew all sorts of stuff about everything.
A man who was a kind of a scientist but who also liked bizarre mystics
like Aleister Crowley. A man who tried to fuse quantum theory with
magick. A guy who knew that all human experience is subjective and
that even the things we believe to be objective are still subjective because
we really can't ever see beyond ourselves. And he used weird goofy
conspiracies about Freemasons and mystical societies and Pyramid Power
and whatnot else to illustrate how people can look at the most idiotic
data, and yet they can connect it all into a narrative that makes as much
sense as anything else out there. And after a while you start to
believe that everything is possible because nothing can be proven, which
is the same as saying that everything can be proven because nothing is
possible. Except that it is. But only when it isn't.
ASSEMBLAGE
"But science evolves through
discussion and experimentation."
"Sure."
"And religion doesn't evolve."
"That's not true."
"What do you mean?"
"Religion just evolves more
slowly, and through discussion and experimentation as well. It's
just that the discussion and experimentation are more internal, not external."
"Oh."
"Religion evolves, but it
evolves more slowly that science. In fact, religions are moving away
from the idea of an anthropomorphic God to a far more abstract, non anthropomorphic
God. Many are already there. At least at the upper levels.
The more sophisticated one's relationship to the universe becomes, the
more sophisticated and complex and abstract one's idea of God becomes.
If one is inclined to believe in God."
"But what about all the
fundamentalism in the world?"
"There's lots of it-- but
it's always uneducated ignorant people who are fundamentalists. The
more intelligent you become, the less fundamental your beliefs. And
we are getting more intelligent-- despite what George Bush's America
and the Al Qaeda cavemen seem to suggest. It's just that those guys
are in our field of vision right now because they make a lot of ignorant
noise, and really big explosions."
"But science--"
"The one thing religion
doesn't evolve away from, however, is God-- which is why scientific thinkers
tend to say that religion doesn't evolve. In a scientific framework,
really, the only evolution they want to acknowledge is an evolution towards
science, because they've artificially set themselves up as an end point
for knowledge. And we tend to buy into it because science makes better
televisions and cars than the Catholic Church. But the general
attitude of science is either you're with us or against us. Which
is a naive dichotomy, but emblematic of the simplification that science
tends to seek. And, it's also a bit paranoid and seems to smack of
insecurity, to me. And, not all scientists are like this. People
like David Bohm, Rudy Rucker, and Clifford Pickover seem pretty open minded.
But others like Stephen Gould are not and sometimes end up sounding like
myopic fools."
ROUGH GUIDE
And then, yeah, I remember reading
Gravity's
Rainbow in Grade 9, too. Or at least trying too. And it
also felt really weird and magical.
All the weird conspiracies
and the hundreds of characters and this strange cosmic feeling I got when
I tried to read it, like the universe was a mass of magical connections
even down in the quantum level, and we'll never understand it all because
even though it's all real we also invent it all with our minds-- and that
both those things are the same. I finally read it in Grade 12-- and
it was awesome. One of the most awesome books I've ever read.
Even better than Illuminatus! Oh-My-God-YES!!!
I got into Pynchon because
of the comparisons with Kurt Vonnegut on the back of a copy of Gravity's
Rainbow.
Now, Pynchon is nothing
like Vonnegut at all-- but it still intrigued me. I'd been reading
Vonnegut since Grade 6.
I got into Vonnegut in grade
6 because of a reference to the book Cat's Cradle in an issue of
Marvel Comics's Howard The Duck magazine. That issue of Howard
The Duck had had a fake issue of Playboy in the back of it,
called, appropriately enough, Playduck (the issue itself concerned
Howard and Bev slipping though a hole in spacetime and ending up on Howard's
home planet Duckworld). Cat's Cradle (or more accurately Duck's
Cradle, by Kurt Vonneduck, Jr) showed up as the subject of a book review
in the back of this partial issue of Playduck. The description
intrigued me, and I managed to hunt down a copy of the real book, somehow.
I'm not sure how I knew that Duck's Cradle was a parody of a real
book, and that Vonnegut/Vonneduck was a real guy. I just sorta did.
And I got into Howard The Duck through an issue of Crazy
magazine that my friend John showed me one afternoon. The issue of
Crazy
had a little one-, or maybe two-page strip featuring Howard and his human
girlfriend Bev. I read it and didn't really get it (it was just a
long house ad, after all) but for some reason I liked it. Also, Bev
was drawn sorta hot. So I searched out a copy of Howard The Duck.
I'd never even seen (or
heard of) Crazy magazine before John showed me that issue.
I have no idea how he'd been exposed to Crazy.
This doesn't have much to
do with Illuminatus!. It's just interesting (sometimes) to
invent chains of cause and effect.
WHAT'S LEFT INSIDE
But then she says:
"What about math?"
"That's also a human construct,
and so is logic. And, again, both things are useful and point to
different, yet interconnected, forms of relative 'truths', but neither
is still absolute, and both are also matters of perspective."
"Yeah, but 1+1=2."
"If you define the situation
as being one where 1+1=2, sure. In the abstract, in a Platonic sense,
one plus one does equal two. But this is still the result of a human
mind imposing a perspective on a situation, and so is still subjective,
and relative."
"Huh?"
"Look at it this way:
1+1=2 is a useful approximation, but it also depends on how you choose
to define '1.' As well as '2.'
"Two apples, cut one in
half: is that 1/2 + 1/2 + 1? or is that now 1+1+1 because even though
you cut the apple in half you now have '3' things. It all depends
on how you identify and define the things you're examining. It depends
on how you define 'one' or how you define 'a half.'"
"Uh... not exactly...."
"Or, to be really Greek
about it, take the idea of men-- Ancient Greeks like their men. No
one man is the same as another and so are not the same things. Therefore,
in that context one man plus one man does not equal two men, because both
men are different. So 1+1=1+1, but not 2 because in order for there
to be 2 1s, both 1s must be alike. They must be in some way defined
as being the same thing, or as being part of the same set in some way.
However, no two things can ever really be the same. They can come
close, but they can never really be identical, therefore they are never
really the same thing. We can only approximate. We can say
they are similar, and then we use that similarity as a statement of identically.
"We define the two men as
'men' and so we say one 'man' plus one 'man' equals two 'men.' In
order to even make sense out of the first five words of this sentence you
need to do that. And you also need to address similarity and indenticality
in order to have the phrase 'five words.' And so on. But in
'reality' no two words are the same even though we define them as two 'words,'
and ditto with 'men' or 'apples' or 'numbers.' And so on.
"And I know that the way
I'm thinking right now seems kind of weird when you think about it because
we substitute extreme similarity for identicality all the time. We
have to. We can't function if we don't do it, because then we'd get
really confused. And, we do it on a mostly subconscious level because
that's the way our brains work. In a sense, this is the Principle
Of Self-Identity extrapolated to things other than the self which is self-identical.
It's a variation on the principle A=A. However, the formula A=A only
works if both the As are exactly the same. But, again, no two things
are exactly the same. 'A' may equal 'A,' but that's only because
there is ever only 1 'A,' because another 'A' would have to be utterly
identical to the point of inhabiting spacetime at the exact same moment
as the first 'A.' So A=A is only an approximation. By the same
logic there can only be one 1 because another 1 would be a different thing.
This does not follow 'traditional' mathematical logic, but it is
a different way of looking at a situation, and it uses a consistent, if
not ultimately useless, logic of its own. Therefore, there are different
kinds of logics, and the logic you choose to subscribe to is just that--
a choice, and hence a subjective decision that places your logic in relation
to other logics.
"And so, logic is also,
because it's a human construct, relative. As well as seeming to be
an approximation to something that is perceived to be a greater idea.
But it is still 'perceived' to be a 'greater' 'idea'-- which means that
the perception of its approximation is still a human construct, as are
the notions of something that is 'greater' as well as the idea of 'idea'.
And so, logic is also an approximation to an approximation. And relative.
"But, in the long run, again
we're running in circles a bit, here, all we have are approximations.
We call two red things that share a vast majority of similarities 'apples',
and treat them as if they were the same because they're pretty damn close
to each other. But, ultimately, they are not the same. One
will have fewer or greater subatomic particles constituting its makeup.
One will be slightly less red in places than the other. One may have
a tiny bruise. One may have a slight deficiency in Vitamin C.
Even if they both come from the same tree. They are not the same,
even if they're very very close. But their differences are so minor
that they do not impact upon us in any significant way (if at all).
This, however, does not change the basic 'fact' that these two red objects
are not the same things and, in theory, if one were to be totally anal
retentive, deserve different names.
"And, when we get into the
realm of things like human beings where the differences are so vast, much
more than particle or cell count, or simple physical traits, but go deep
into the minds of the beings themselves, it becomes hard to define anyone
as belonging to a generalized group. But, we deal with approximations,
we group according to approximations. This is because any kind of
logic which makes every discrete thing into a category unto itself is,
ultimately, from a human point of view, self-defeating and ridiculous.
But this doesn't change the fact that it is a logic.
"There are types of religious
and magical logics, too. Surrealist, subjective, dream logics.
But we don't really worry about those these days because they're old, viewed
as being 'primitive,' and have been 'disproved' by the new, reigning, 'rational'
logic.
"This is because we only
really have ourselves, and our own opinions. Even logic and math
is just an opinion. Despite what logicians or mathematicians will
tell you-- usually. But even Willard Van Orman Quine had to confront
the existence of subjectivity in even mathematical logic. There is
just no guarantee that anyone but you will see logic in the same way you
do, will read those logic symbols and understand them as meaning what you
want them to mean, and no guarantee that sometime in the future someone
won't invent a kind of logic that contradicts or otherwise disproves, or
relativizes your logic. All we have are our own impressions and those
are extremely shaky."
A long pause.
She looks at me and puts
her hands in her pockets.
"That's all fine and good,"
she says, "except that nothing you just said makes any sense."
30 NUDE DANCERS 30
Of course, *30* dies little
deaths every time a chapter ends and that chapter is sent out into the
void. But there are still promises of other chapters. The potential
for more growth and ingorgeation. More language spurting forth.
This, however, is the last time there will be any more of these "little
deaths." This is the last chapter. Once this writing is done,
all that will be left are the readers. And a sense of stasis, completion,
death. A --30-- point reached. Resurrections are fine, but
those only come when the game is over.
HER TURN
"The stuff about math," she
says, "doesn't make any sense. It's totally clear that you don't
really understand mathematical logic.
"The A=A stuff you threw
in there for, I'm not sure what reason, other than maybe take a dig at
Ayn Rand or something, also doesn't really jibe.
"While it's true that no
two identical things are exactly the same because, when you get right down
to is they can't be because they're made out of different numbers of particles,
sure-- so they're not really 'identical', there is still enough similarity
between so-called 'identical' things to be able to group them together.
"And one plus one does
equal two.
"And, I dunno, I can't speak
about other universes, because mathematical laws might be somehow contingent
upon some wrinkle of physics that might change from universe to universe,
but, frankly, I can't conceive of another universe where one plus one doesn't
equal two. That doesn't mean there isn't one, even if I can't conceive
of it-- but still-- for all intents and purposes, until I somehow find
a universe where one plus one equals three or twelve or nine billion, I
have to assume that one plus one does and always will equal two.
It's Platonically pure.
"And the stuff about there
being other logics? I think that, frankly, you've confused the idea
of a 'logic' with simply a way of thinking.
"And when you mention that
W. V. O. Quine came to the conclusion that even mathematical logic has
to include some notion of the subjective, I frankly think you're just name-dropping,
and that you never really read any Quine, and that you only heard this
from another source.
"And this doesn't mean that
Quine didn't come to the conclusion you say he did. Just that you
don't actually know that for sure, either.
"And, yes, everything is
an approximation. And maybe we can't get to any sort of 'core' reality
because of our limitations. But so what? What we have seems
to work just fine.
"You also seem to imply
that you're talking about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem which says
that no proof can ever be absolutely proven to be absolute. And people
use this a lot to say that mathematics has never been able to prove definitively
that 1+1=2-- and that is true-- but that still doesn't mean that 1+1 doesn't
equal 2. Just that we, or more accurately Alfred North Whitehead
and Bertrand Russell, can't prove it using math itself. Because Gödel's
whole thing was really an essay about their Principia Mathematica
where they couldn't even after about 200 pages, really definitively 'prove'
that 1+1=2.
"Everything you've been
talking about is very, very shaky.
"It seems like everything
you're talking about just stems from anger.
"It's like you're so mad
at the universe so you don't even know why you're mad at it, and you just
want to dismiss it all as a bunch of non-existent nothingness.
"And, oh yeah, I've also
forgotten what any of this has to to with God or *30*, or why you're even
babbling about it in the first place."
WSB
Winter. And I'm in a bookstore
because I always haunted bookstores. And it's after school.
And the winter's bitter and cold. Brutal with icefog and blistering
skin and white snow piled up by the foot.
The book catches my eye.
I'm drawn to it like it's calling me. I get a vibe of weird coolness
off the book before I even touch it.
And so I pick it up, look
at it. It's a small paperback. It's called Exterminator:
a novel. And there's a picture of a cockroach on the front cover.
I buy it and take it home and it doesn't really read like a novel.
it's more like a bunch of short stories, and a couple of poems. But
the cover says it's a novel. So I believe it.
(Later on I discovers that
the "novel" was in fact a bunch of short pieces. But with Burroughs,
the distinction is sort of moot.)
The next day, I'm back in
the store and it's still winter and I find another book by Burroughs.
This book is called The
Ticket That Exploded. The cover is white and the word 'TICKET'
is written on the front in big, blocky, multicoloured letters. And
the word 'TICKET' is all shattered.
And I flip through the book,
but it doesn't seem to make sense. In fact it makes even less sense
than Exterminator. And that's when I know it's the book for
me.
And I read The Ticket
That Exploded that night alone in my room. And the lamp in my
room isn't really working all that well, so everything's sort of half-dark
and mysterious. And the book is so weird it kind of freaks me out
because it doesn't make any sense. Not linear sense anyway.
And it's really, really dark and twisted and violent and sexual and weird.
More bizzarre than anything I'd ever read before,
And at this point I don't
know anything about writing in cut-ups. And I don't know anything
about how Burroughs had constructed the novel by randomly editing other
writing together, mixing other writing with his writing. But, really,
not totally randomly. The results had been edited, formed, shaped
into a very abstract narrative.
And the book weirds me out.
But in a really good way.
And the thing is, The
Ticket That Exploded feels like some sort of demented science fiction
novel, but not like any science fiction I'd been used to up until that
point-- the kind of science fiction that was, in fact, beginning to bore
me with its predictability and linearity and bland writing style.
And the book also feels like like a trip into a dissolving mind.
A state of emergency at the heart of reality. Electric and exciting.
Like a novel, but at the same time totally unlike a novel.
There's no plot and it seems
to go backwards and forwards at the same time. And it's like a million
nightmares at once. But still kind of magical. And there's
gay stuff in it too, lots of gay stuff. But the gay stuff doesn't
bug me because everything else in the book is so strange so the gay stuff
just seems like it fits.
It's Grade 9 and I'm a kid
in the winter.
WOULD YOU HIT PEOPLE WITH A SHOVEL IF I PAID YOU TO?
"Like I said. I'm trying
to say that everything is subjective. Everything is baseless opinion
and confusion. And that doesn't mean that some of it can't work.
But that, ultimately, it's still baseless and wrong. All we have
are our selves, and our own perceptions-- perceptions of something that
may be real-- but we really don't know. So all we're left with is
guesswork and an unprovable reality."
"Sounds like Descartes.
And, again, everything I said before still stands. So what?"
"Descartes always gets a
bad rap because of what he implies: that we are all brains in jars, that
everything we know and experience is just opinion and vagueness and feeling,
that even our intellection is based on nothing, that we only know ourselves
but we still can't judge ourselves or really even know ourselves because
we're too close to ourselves, and that we can't really ever judge the world
because we can never get to it, and so all we're left with is confusion
and relativity. Sorry.
"It's an insoluble existential
dilemma, and extremely tired and trite. That you cannot know anything
other than yourself, and even that self is filled with subjectivity, and
that you cannot get outside of your head and into the head of another.
"That you cannot truly share
yourself.
"And so in turn you cannot
really receive what the other has to give.
"And that all you have are
impressions that might be wrong-- that probably are wrong. Like everything
you know and do is wrong.
"And so you cannot communicate
with another.
"And you will always be
alone.
"And, no matter what you
do, this is the way it will be forever. There is no changing it.
"And, the biggest joke is
that it applies to everyone.
"There are no Forms.
Everything subjective. Even the idea of forms depends upon personal
interpretations of the idea of Forms.
"And it's trite, but it's,
well, an accurate description of something that sure seems to apply, if
you look hard enough at reality.
"And this is what is known
as the end of philosophy. And that's another *30* moment. And
it's also the end of religion.
"And even the end of science.
"Because when you get right
down to it, science has penetrated so far into the quantum level that it
can't even really decide whether there really is something like cause and
effect any more. Science is beginning to wrestle with the idea that
the universe might be a result of our perceptions of it. And this
forms a weird, almost mystical closed-loop where it's impossible to determine
what came first, us or the universe. There seems to be a physical
reality, but at the same time, everything-- every substance we can conceive
of-- seems to be made up of little vibrating bits of nothingness, little
fluctuations in a vast field that can't really be said to 'exist' in any
way that we define 'existence.' We have come up to the limits of
our perceptions and we still don't have any real answers. There's
all sorts of things to learn in the mid-range, where there are still illusions
of order and logic and solid being, but on the quantum level all that goes
out the window.
"And that's something else
that's contained in *30*. The end of the limits of perception.
"And the funny thing is
a lot of this new, subjective science, the roots of it can easily be found
in the religious philosophers of the past. Look at NeoPlatonists
like Plotinus and all the weird stuff that came out of the Indian writers,
and the Buddhists in Japan, Chinese Taoists, and so on. Lots of scientists
are annoyed by this, and immediately scream NEW AGE BULLSHIT, but some
of their theories, or things that can be seen as being the seeds of their
theories, can be found in these places.
"So, what do we have now?
"The End Of History.
"The Ends Of Modernism /
Postmodernism.
"The End Of Logic, the end
of stable meanings. The End Of Science, and The End Of The Century.
"Also, The End Of Religion--
because ultimately it doesn't really matter whether God exists or not.
If there is no God, then there's no God, and if there is a God it's something
utterly big and alien that even saying that it exists is futile because
it can't be contained by existence or nonexistence, or anything for that
matter.
"Oh yeah, and The End Of
Irony. Let's get rid of irony, already. All this bullshit about
being so clever and witty and arch and defeated. In order to be ironic
you have to know something-- or rather pretend to know something-- so you
can set yourself up as being superiour and aloof and beyond all the mindless
rabble-- and that's clearly not the case in 'reality.' So let's open
ourselves up a little more to spiritual confusion. In order to be
Ironic, to ironize the game, you have to've convinced yourself that you
know the game, and nobody knows the game.
"That's one of the biggest
disappointments of Postmodernism. The idea that the Postmodernist
seems to have it all figured out, even when he says that he doesn't get
it. That it's all a game, but it's all a game with rules, clichés
and a sense of cleverness that can be manipulated. The real dudes--
the real hardcore Postmodernists-- people like Derrida and Robert Anton
Wilson and Pynchon-- they play, but their play is more serious. Their
play is less a show of personal erudition than an attempt to really wrestle
with the eternally shifting field that is reality. And then there
are the people like Kenji Siratori and Bill Burroughs and even Gertrude
Stein who are so Postmodern they break away from Postmodernity itself and
launch into some other realm there's no real language to describe.
They go beyond both Modernity and Postmodernity, always have and always
will. They will always be ahead of the game, forever. These
are the real adventurers. They're filled with spiritual confusion.
They don't just dismiss everything they don't understand in order to wallow
in a mid-range world of sappy sadness, and college-level wistful ironic
humour like David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers (who is a damn good writer
but not really about anything more than artificially-designed white male
guilt) and They Might Be Giants who are cute and clever for a while, but
get cloying pretty fucking fast. These people don't want to wrestle
with bigger ideas, they just want to let you know that they know everything's
subjective so let's all just forget about it and live our daily lives as
wistfully, blandly, and pseudointellectually as possible. And act
defeated and sad. So very sad, with that gently upturned crying-clown
smile."
END NOTES
Scene: Someplace bitter and sick.
BRIAN: What happened to the idea of the quest? People used
to go looking for things. They used to search out mysteries.
And it doesn't matter if the mysteries are invented because all mysteries
are invented.
BOB: People are sick of mysteries because mysteries have no solutions.
(If a mystery is solved, it never was a mystery.) Mysteries are the
result of active, open-ended imaginations. And so, that must mean
that people are sick of their imaginations.
BRIAN: People just want to live their daily lives now.
And forget, or never even learn, things that keep them human. They
don't want to expand their minds because that's becoming seen as futile.
You can't "make a living" if you think about the wonder of the universe.
BOB: But you can "make a living" if you pump gas at a
gas station and then come home, drink yourself into the abyss, smoke a
bowl or two, and the drift off into a narcotized sleep-- and wake up just
in time to go pump more gas at a gas station and "make a living."
BRIAN: It's basic survival
BOB: It's pragmatism brought on by a situation.
BRIAN: PRAGMATISM IS AN UGLY WORD!
BOB: And, even if your life is defined by slowly choking on the
banal hairball of pragmatism-- from a totally pragmatic point of view doesn't
it still feel good to amass information, to think about things, to wrestle
with the infinite or at least the infinitely mysterious?
BRIAN: DOESN'T IT FEEL GOOD TO LEARN THINGS?
Pause.
BRIAN: DOESN'T IT FEEL GOOD TO BE ON SOME SORT OF QUEST?
Pause. Brian's voice echoing, fading.
BOB: Pragmatism kills the drive to want to test your boundaries.
It's too easy to be defeated if you're a "pragmatist" because in order
to be pragmatic you must give up in advance. If you only concern
yourself with what you believe to be possible, you define and defend an
area around yourself. You should always attempt the impossible.
Then you begin to understand what's possible. And then you should
try to go beyond even that.
THE BOOK IS ON THE TABLE
And, of course, resurrections
bring their own games, their own sets of rules and creeping virulence.
They're something new.
But, still, the getting
there is scary as hell.
"RULES" OF "ORDER"
I look at her.
She looks at me.
"Also," I say, "I was also
gonna be published by the time I turned 30 and I wasn't and this is my
compromise
"Also, in the original plan
for *30*, my 30th year was going to be a pivot point. 3 'acts' with
2000 in the middle. That part didn't work out so well.
"Symbolism. *30* as
a symbol. Or a subtext. Or whatever else you want to call it:
"It doesn't really mean
anything, aside from a general sort of 'end', maybe a requiem for something
that's never really been defined and doesn't really look like it's dead
yet. But yet, it also means everything.
"The number 30 also has
all kinds of arcane significance. Some of which might be valid, and
some of which might now be. Who knows. When you go out this
far, everything no matter how stupid becomes equally valid and invalid.
"So, let me just see....
"As I'm talking to you,
in the 'real' world the other me is about to stand up, and go to bookshelf
and find something that might help a little bit. Help muddle things
up, anyway.
"Here we go.
"Yeah, this is it.
This is the one.
"Uh huh. Bingo.
"777 by Aleister
Crowley."
And she looks at me like
I'm nuts, yet again.
"Crowley?" she says.
Ý "Why not. The guy gets a bad
rap. And besides, 777 is a great handbook for weird archaic
correspondences between numbers and all sortsa shit. And I mean I
don't know how much of it is real-- by real I mean actually connects to
any sort of real mythology, not real as in 'really' real-- and how much
of it is just a bunch of crap that Crowley dreamed up because he was bored
or stoned or both, but it is interesting. And, when you get right
down to it, when you're talking about supposedly significant correspondences
between tarot cards and astrology and the gematria, or whatever, does it
really matter what's 'real' and what's just 'made up.' After all,
it's all just sort of imaginary anyway. Believe it you want to, don't
if you don't-- it all sorta boils down to the same sort of vague data shuffling
and subjectivity anyway.
"I'm not gonna cast a spell
on you-- boo....
"So here I go. Flip
flip flip. These charts are hard for me to understand.
"They don't really--
"Here we are. The
number 30.
"Just read long here, some
of the things I can find....
"Here.
"30.
"Relates to Apollo and Ra.
"The colours 'rich amber'
and yellow, orange.
"Gold, of course.
"The sun.
"The 'path' of the 'collecting
intelligence' in the sepher yetzirah. I don't exactly know what that
is, but you can think about it anyway. And I'm sure it's some stuff
that means something to somebody.
"Uh.
"The sun, again, this time
in tarot terms.
"Sol. Again, the sun.
Also the head. That's a good one. The number 30 stands for
the human head in some mystical system.
"Also the right eye.
"The Buddhist meditation
of light.
"The Hindu deity Surya.
"Olibanum, Cinnamon, and
'all Glorious Odours.'
"The bow and arrow.
"The circulatory system.
"The trigam Li, meaning
'inherent in, attached to, docility.'
"Light.
"Repletion.
"Pride.
"The Lord Of The Fire Of
The World."
30.EPILOGUE.73: December 23,
2003 -- INFINITY.