By the Late John Brockman Page 9
The narrator is gone. The universe as a narrative story isn’t there. Evolution as a narrative story never happened: words are what matter. Evolution is a matter of the words used to describe it. There is no continuous, infinite, evolving world-universe-nature-knowledge waiting to be explained by man. It’s a word of words: a nature created in what it says.
The universe isn’t there. Man is dead. But “I can find no way of escape from what is not! Speech so fills us, fills everything with its images that we cannot think how to begin to refrain from imagining—nothing is without it . . . Remember that tomorrow is a myth, that the universe is one; that numbers, love, the real and the infinite . . . that justice, the people, poetry . . . the earth itself are myths.”80 The universe isn’t there. It is.
Don’t believe any of this. Place no value in the book, in the author. “Private authorship or ownership is not to be respected. It is all one book.”81 Give it up, the idea of an author, of truth. Give up all belief: believe only in yourself. You: your experience is my experience. Me: “it’s of me now that I must speak, even if I have to do it with their language.”82 Them: “I slip into them . . . it is a stratum, strata, without debris or vestiges. But it’s a world filled with debris and vestiges: before I am done I shall find traces of what was.”83 What was: is me, “never anyone but me talking to me of me, in words, made of words, other’s words, what others . . . the whole world is here with me.”84 Me: I don’t. I don’t believe any of this.
I can’t think of one anymore. This or that: I can’t differentiate anymore. I don’t believe it: I can’t think, “I must not try to think, simply utter.” Saying makes it so. This, this and that: “I shall have to banish them in the end, the beings, shapes, sounds, and lights with which my haste to speak has encumbered this place.”85
The necessity of stopping before starting. The necessity to forget it all.
Nobody knows, and you can’t find out.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PLEASE REFER TO the end of this book for the source of many citations and quotations throughout the text.
QUOTATIONS FROM T. S. Eliot’s The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950, © copyright by T. S. Eliot, published by Harcourt Brace and World, Inc. and used by permission.
Quotations from William Empson’s Collected Poems, © copyright by William Empson, published by Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc. and used by permission.
Quotations from Ezra Pound, Personae, copyright © 1926 by Ezra Pound, published by New Directions Publishing Corporation, and used by permission.
Quotations from Wallace Stevens’ The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, copyright © 1954 by Wallace Stevens, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., and used by permission.
Quotations from Wallace Stevens’ Opus Posthumous, copyright © 1957 by Elsie and Holly Stevens, published by Alfred A. Knopf Inc., and used by permission.
Quotations from I. A. Richards’ The Screens and Other Poems, copyright © by I. A. Richards, published by Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., and used by permission.
ENDNOTES
Part I
1. Norbert Wiener, I Am a Mathematician (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1956), p. 323. “The world about . . . system can transmit.”
2. Karl S. Lashley, “Cerebral Organization and Human Behavior,” in Harry G. Solomon et al. (eds.), The Brain and Human Behavior (New York: Hafner Publishing Co., Inc., 1966), p. 4. “there are order . . . considered the organizer.”
3. George Kubler, The Shape of Time (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 17. “The rest of . . . being are projected.”
4. J. Z. Young, Doubt and Certainty in Science (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 16. “Any system . . . it’s own stability.”
5. John C. Lilly, The Mind of a Dolphin (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967), p. 103. “Information does not . . . of these data.”
6. Young, op. cit., p. 17. “To speak of . . . to the change.”
7. Lilly, op. cit., p. 104. “The mind of . . . bits of signals.”
8. H. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964), p.26. “Effect involves the . . . of information movement.”
9. Stuart Brand, correspondence. “All that’s traceably . . . except through effects.”
10. Heinz von Foerster, “Logical Structure of Environment and Its Internal Representation,” in R. E. Eckerstrom (ed.), International Design Conference, Aspen, 1962 (Zeeland, Mich.: Herman Miller, Inc., 1963). “program is nothing . . . don’t do that . . .”
11. Lilly, op. cit., p. 104. “a brain and . . . body, another brain.”
12. Edward T. Hall, conversation. Professor Hall pointed out to the author that “we’re talking.” Theme is developed in Professor Hall’s books: The Hidden Dimension (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966) and The Silent Language (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1959).
13. Wiener, op. cit., p. 325. “new concepts of . . . and of society.”
14. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1967), p. 59. “it is of . . . period of progress.”
15. W. Grey Walter, The Living Brain (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1963), p. 148. “The supreme abstraction . . . glimpses of itself.”
16. Kenneth M. Sayre, “Philosophy and Cybernetics,” in Frederick J. Crosson and Kenneth M. Sayre (eds.), Philosophy and Cybernetics (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1967), p. 20. “Neither the presence . . . his observable behavior.”
17. René Descartes, “Cogito ergo sum.”
18. Benjamin Lee Whorf, Language, Thought, and Reality (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1956), p. 252. “an unfortunate word . . . characterized by patterning.”
19. Niels Bohr, Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (New York: Science Editions, Inc., 1961), p. 76. “Only by renouncing . . . account its characteristics.”
20. Ibid., p. 91. “the description of . . . simple physical pictures.”
21. Ibid., p. 70. “represent relations for . . . for objective description.”
22. Von Foerster, op. cit. “A measure of . . . b with a.”
23. Bohr, op. cit., pp. 78-79. “In return for . . . object-subject separation.”
24. Von Foerster, op. cit. “not only a . . . observing this universe.”
25. René Dubos, Man, Medicine, and Environment (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1968), p. 118. “The past experience . . . their ultimate expressions.”
26. D. and K. Stanley-Jones, The Kybernetics of Living Systems (New York: Pergamon Press, Inc., 1960), p. 55. “The only unit . . . or permeability wave.”
27. Ibid., p. 53. “each local area . . . source of origin.”
28. Ibid. “It matters nothing . . . of the telegraph.”
29. Ibid. “The qualities of . . . or frequency varies.”
30. Ibid. “namely, the diameter . . . of the procession.”
31. Ibid. “It is these . . . may be constructed.”
32. Ibid., pp. 53-54. “If an operation . . . bell was rung.”
33. Ibid., p. 54. “The mechanism whereby . . . the single track.”
34. John Lucas, “Minds, Machines, and Gödel,” in Kenneth M. Sayre and Frederick J. Crosson (eds.), The Modeling of Mind Computers and Intelligence (New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1968), p. 255. for any formal system . . . within the system.
35. Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1967), p. 199. “It is important . . . the imposed disturbance.”
36. Carlos Castenedas, The Teachings of Don Juan (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1968), p. 76. “All paths are . . . they lead nowhere.”
37. New York Post, April 7, 1968, p. 11. Deaths were caused . . . faulty television tubes.
38. Popular Science, February, 1968, p. 79. Scientific institutes warned . . . could cause cancer.
39. Walter, op. cit., p. 68. The most obvious . . . for the brain,
40. René Dubos, Man Adapting (New Haven, Conn.: Y
ale University Press, 1967), pp. 49-51. “in all animal . . . the human species.”
41. Ibid., p. 54. “there may well . . . environmental periodicities.”
42. Norbert Wiener, Extrapolation, Interpolation, and Smoothing of Stationary Time Series (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1949), p. 2. “A message need . . . transmission of ideas.”
43. Ibid., p. 3. “The main function . . . it’s own technique.”
44. Walter, op. cit., p. 189. “the parts of . . . stimulation has ceased.”
45. Stanley-Jones, op. cit., p. 60. “The visual receptors . . . of neural energy.”
46. Wiener, Cybernetics, pp. 134-35. “The human eye . . . range as possible.”
47. Dubos, Man, Medicine, and Environment, p. 40. “Mechanisms for perceiving . . . by earlier stimulation.”
48. Ibid., p. 41. “The information received . . . of new programs.”
49. Ibid. “The ability to . . . the early ones.”
50. Wiener, Cybernetics, p. 124. “There is reason . . . the storage elements.”
51. Stanley-Jones, op. cit., pp. 19-21. The orthosympathetic systems . . . through the system.
52. Dubos, Man Adapting, p. 29. The hormonal changes . . . performance actually begins.
53. Vishvassara Tantra. “what’s here’s everywhere; what’s not here’s nowhere.”
54. Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966), p. 4. “Man created his . . . use of it.”
55. Sören Kierkegaard, quoted in Loren Eiseley, The Firmament of Time (New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1966), p. 117. “The future is not.”
56. Lashley, in Solomon et al., p. 2. “a man thinks . . . good to eat.”
57. Wilder Penfield, “Functional Localization in Temporal and Deep Sylvan Areas,” in Solomon et al., p. 219. Electrical stimulation of . . . different from real.
58. R. G. Bickford, D. W. Mulder, H. W. Dodge, Jr., H. J. Svien, and H. P. Rome, “Changes in Memory Function Produced by Electrical Stimulation of the Temporal Lobe in Man,” in Solomon et al., p. 232. “By appropriate electrical . . . the phenomenon elicited.”
59. Young, op. cit., p. 16. The key to . . . of man’s communication.
60. Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings, p. 132. Where man went, so went man’s information.
61. Penfield, in Solomon et al., p. 219. Illusions of familiarity . . . for minor-handedness.
62. Walter, op. cit., pp. 98-100. the flicker experience . . . exaggerated electrical discharge.
63. Young, op. cit., p. 19. “a sense in . . . and his products.”
64. Whorf, op. cit., p. 239. “it may even . . . now call ‘mental.’”
65. Werner Heisenberg, Philosophic Problems of Nuclear Science (New York: Fawcett World Library, 1966), p. 106. “When we talk . . . by their application.”
Part II
1. Sir James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1932), pp. 117–18. “Entia non sunt . . . takes something away.”
2. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Zettel, eds. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), p. 73e, para. 410. “A person can . . . learned to calculate.”
3. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1960), p. 14. “Progress is always . . . what is obvious.”
4. Wallace Stevens, “Adagia,” in Opus Posthumous (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), p. 157. “progress in any . . . changes of terminology.”
5. Leon Brillouin, Scientific Uncertainty and Information (New York: Academic Press, Inc., (1964), p. 64. “A no man’s . . . past and future.”
6. Wittgenstein, op. cit., p. 116e, paras. 662-64. “a seeing into . . . past to us.”
7. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans.D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuiness (New York: The Humanities Press, 1960), p. 13, para. 5.4732. “point is that . . . language mean nothing.”
8. T. S. Eliot, “Choruses from ‘The Rock,’” in The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950 (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), p. 107. “a moment in . . . gave the meaning.”
9. Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 13. “the primary advantage . . . of common sense.”
10. I. A. Richards, “Complementary Complementarities,” in The Screens and Other Poems (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, (1960), p. 34. “Where you end . . . draw a line.”
11. Gertrude Stein, Lectures in America (Boston: Beacon Press 1935), pp. 209-10. “A noun is . . . write about it.”
12. Eliot, “Four Quartets,” op. cit., p. 126. “the growing terror . . . to think about.”
13. Wallace Stevens, “The Latest Freed Man,” in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), p. 205. “To be without description of to be.”
14. Stevens, “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction,” Ibid., p. 389. “The final elegance . . . plainly to propound.”
15. Stevens, “The Sail of Ulysses,” in Opus Posthumous, p. . “Of gods and . . . which they symbolized.”
16. Jeans, op. cit., p. 49. “All the pictures . . . are mathematical pictures.”
17. Niels Bohr, op. cit., p. 68. “a refinement of . . . imprecise or cumbersome.”
18. Ibid. “Just by avoiding . . . for objective description.”
19. Stevens, “The Man with the Blue Guitar,” in Collected Poems, p. 183. “Throw away the . . . the rotted names.”
20. Jeans, op. cit., p. 173. “We need no . . . of the moment.”
21. Ibid., p. 174. “exists in a . . . the ultimate reality.”
22. Niels Bohr, “Dialectica I,” 318, quoted in Richards, “Complementary Complementarities,” p. 36. “Our task can . . . its strict definition.”
23. Whitehead, op. cit., p. 19. “There are no . . . ill-defined and ambiguous.”
24. Brillouin, op. cit., p. 52. “The model need . . . we observe it.”
25. Max Born, Experiment and Theory in Physics (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1956), p. 39. “A physical quantity . . . and measure it.”
26. Jeans, op. cit., p. 172. “The making of . . . away from reality.”
27. Stevens, “Adagia,” p. 168. “the word must be the thing it represents.”
28. Whitehead, op. cit., p. 43. “the notion of . . . is completely abandoned.”
29. Ibid. “An actual entity . . . lost sight of.”
30. Wallace Stevens, The Necessary Angel (New York: Random House, Inc., 1951), p. 122. “The poet and his subject are inseparable.”
31. Richards, “Spring,” op. cit., p. 21. “Before the birth . . . Are both undone!”
32. J. Andrade e Silva and G. Lochak, Quanta (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969), p150. “To measure is to disturb.”
33. Brillouin, op. cit., p. 43. “We used to . . . stopped observing it.”
34. Whitehead, op. cit., p. 7. “we can never catch the world taking a holiday.”
35. Ibid. “the method of . . . observation, breaks down.”
36. Sir James Jeans, The New Background of Science (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959), p. 2. “Each observation destroys . . . become past history.”
37. Brillouin, op. cit., p. 52. “We cannot abstract . . . a mixed crowd.” “absolutely renounce . . . objective real world.”
38. Jeans, op. cit., p. 287. “our observation of nature, and not nature itself.”
39. Brillouin, op. cit., p. 50. “Experiments are the only elements which really count.”
40. Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), p. 186. “The elementary particles . . . things and facts.”
41. Andrade e Silva and Lochak, op. cit., p. 148 (quoting Goethe). “Do not look . . . up the doctrine.”
42. Stevens, Necessary Angel, p. 95. “To confront fact . . . Of the thing.”
43. Stevens, “Life on a Battleship,” in Opus Posthumous, p. 79. “We approach a society / Without a society.”
44. Stevens, “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction,” op
. cit., p. 383. “The first idea was not our own.”
45. Wittgenstein, Zettel, p. 58e, para. 315. “Why do you . . . are at present.”
46. Ibid., p. 199e, para. 687. “Why is a . . . than a tautology.”
47. Stein, op. cit., p. 11. “Knowledge is the . . . you do know.”
48. Max Born, quoted in Brillouin, op. cit., p. 36. “Concepts which refer . . . of physical continuity.”
49. Ibid., p. 35. “An infinitely small . . . space and time.”
50. Jeans, op. cit., p. 294. “events must be . . . fundamental objective constituents.”
51. P. W. Bridgman, The Way Things Are (New York: Viking Press, 1959), p. 3. “analysis in terms of doings or happenings.”
52. Jeans, Mysterious Universe, p. 118. “Nature is such . . . any experiment whatsoever.”
53. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, p. 143, para. 6.362. “What can be described can also happen.”
54. Stevens, “The Man on the Dump,” in Collected Poems, p. 203. “Where was it one first heard of the truth? The the.”
55. Eliot, “Four Quartets,” op. cit., p. 132. “The past has . . . Or even development.”
56. Bohr, op. cit., p. 7. “No pictorial interpretation . . . relations between observations.”
57. R. Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969), p. 65. “One picture of . . . the butterfly stage.”
58. Andrade e Silva and Lochak, op. cit., p. 157. “to know is to measure.”
59. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” op. cit., p. 7. “Do I dare to eat a peach?”
60. Eliot, “Four Quartets,” op. cit., p. 139. “If you came . . . or carry report.”
61. Sir Arthur Eddington, The Philosophy of Physical Science (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1958), p. 31. “Physical knowledge is . . . actual or hypothetical.”