Science and Its Discontents

C. P. Snow made a career describing what he called the gulf between religion and science.  Nobody reads him much anymore, and that is mainly because that battle is over. That gulf may even, as one wag said, have never been more than a ditch anyway.

Still scientists seem not to have gotten the word. They spend as much time distancing themselves from the those intellects who feed on the fumes of the fast food wrappers that scientists leave, as they do denouncing religion.  In both cases one has to ask what is going on here.  

Why expend energy on denouncing the kooks and fundamentalists?  The evidence of quantum entanglement is not proof of mental telepathy.  Why waste your breath on denouncing such rooky thinking when there is the mystery of dark energy to occupy one's intellect. Nobody but the scientists takes certain fundamentalist preachers as exemplars of religion. And especially since there is a sociologically interesting class of intellects-- the scientific popularizers-- whose job it is to keep the borders of science pristine, why expend your energy in this direction. 

 What are they afraid of---an invasion of a faculty meeting by people waving diagrams of perpetual motion machines or rattling rosaries at them. .

I do not suggest there are not shades of gray here. Look at Perelman, declining the Field medal, the Nobel for mathematicians. I mean ---LOOK at his figure in photographs. Is he not the picture of a Russian staretz? (The holy men from the steppes of Czarist Russian).  

Nor is my intent to denigrate scientists, they are a critical portion of humanity, the mechanical brain in fact.

Still this wasteful use of humanity's brain cells, leads me to propose, just a thought, and probably not by any means a comprehensive explanation, but--- it is as if scientists are trying to forget, trying to obscure aspects of a planetary reality, wherein the distance between a scientist and a foil capped  kook, is so small as to be insignificant, compared to the cleavage plane between  a master of radical mysticism, and the natural scientists.

Evidence in favor of my idea is the questions scientists do not ask. Scientists never ask how come we have to continually rediscover man's lack of free will and then continually forget about it, they do not ask whether it is logical to take the most literal of spokesmen for religion and treat them as exemplars of philosphical and religious insight. They do not ask whether the lack of answers to childish prayers is a relevant consideration to one exploring the dimensions of humanity. The glaring inconsistencies and illogical approach to any survey of humanity, on the part of the scientific establishment, leads me to treat their behavior as a puzzle of the piece. 

A Habit of Royalty

Perhaps you wonder why purple is the color associated with royalty.  Some relate that it derives from an old dye used in the ancient world, but how could that explain the persistence of the color as emblematic of a ruling class.  The vision of spring color, that fresh minted quality, that is unique to latitudes where there are distinct seasons, is what brought up the question. Spring denotes a rebirth, a reassurance.  There is also perhaps a sense of excess, of extravagance in the flowers and blooms of that season.  Darwin in fact, said that nothing puzzled him more than how to explain the fact of flowering.  Royalty in the past was an inherited status, and nothing was less compelling to one of royal birth than the expectation that he or she needed to explain, to justify, their right to power.  A sublime sense of entitlement was the result and the potency of their genetic heritage.  An example of this, that Jan Cox pointed out, though in a different context, was the way that dispossessed royalty merely grouped on the border of their former territory, waiting the opportunity to regain control----giving up was simply not an option--it did not cross their minds.  In the color of purple, so predominant in spring blooming,  we see this sense of unearned glory, sheer celebration, and it occurred to me that this was parallel to the attitude of royal folk and might explain their preference for the color. 

What such a class did not comprehend was the idea of another kind of royalty, a mental, self minted, royalty which was always individual, never a group label. Both kinds of royalty share a disdain for verbal justification. And both are ultimately transitory. Only, though, the mental self-minted royal, builds in an awareness of the transitory. This recollection, of the vanishing, is not as obvious as the royal class insistence on dynastic succession, but it is more realistic. More realistic, and the opposite of a group royalty in that it must be, invisible, to the world.

Picture of spring

It's spring, and the cat sits at the foot of the tree. The cat is alert but still, quiet, even the twitching tail is still. So quiet. Why is this. The cat is waiting for some vernal creature. You could be the cat, and you would be waiting for ---- a word.... Waiting like this of course will be different for you and the cat. Your triumph is NOT catching something. For both of you patience and quiet will bring success.

woods and words

One picture of the way words work is fence slats. You know, those
privacy fences. You walk or run by and you are aware of mainly of
these flat identical pieces of wood. How could that be like words?
Identical pieces of wood are like words? In a way words are like slat
of wood though, identical slats of wood. Because while there is a
small --what the philosphers call denotative value to words, (the
definitions, which you might say make words different) in fact words
have many other functions in the human economy, and these functions
--- maintaining a certain homeostatic stability in your psyche for
instance--- rely on aspects of words which are little observed or
analyzed. Words for instance function to insulate people, even
scientists, everybody in fact, beyond a certain age, from the actual
buzz and rush and constant motion of the world we share in. We could
not function if we paid attention to everything going on. What has
happened though (and Jan Cox discussed this a great length in his
books and papers) is that we have come to take words as if THEY were
the reality. Assuming words are reality is like eating a cereal box
for breakfast. You are missing the real fun of life. So when I say
words are like slats in a fence, it is to point out that between they
slats, if you can slow down, between the slats you get a glimpse of a
world you have forgotten, of color and light and wonder. Between the
words. Learning to look between the words is actually very difficult
and can take years, although some folks get a blessed glimpse
accidentally and this spurs them on investigate these events and
strive to make them reoccur. That at least is the way it seems in the
beginning. For everyone.

A 13th century straw, after 800 years

Picture a postage stamp, somehow mine is faded, purple, and cancelled,
but it can be any stamp. In your mind tear the stamp into as small of
pieces as possible. Still visible, and adhering to your finger tip.
Get out an exacto knife, put the smallest part of the stamp on a safe
surface, and slice a tinier piece of stamp. Barely visible to the
cutter. It is possible that all anyone knows, is about the size of
that partial postage piece.

Litcrit and metaphysics

T. S. Eliot in his  "Four Quartets," said "We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/will be to arrive where we started/and know the place for the first time."  He's dead and I am using his words to make a point about the modern mind, nothing about Eliot himself, or anything in any way personal.  But he wrote and people responded, the poem series referenced is widely acclaimed, and so a few points here about the world we live in may be appropriate, using his words as evidence.  For these words were spoken by the same person who famously announced he was Conservative, a Royalist, and Anglo Catholic.  He should have added he was a resident of bus stations, waiting for a bus to transport him.
One assumes his poetic descriptions derive from what some would call mystical experiences. He had  no one to point out how mystical experiences figure in a larger economy of mankind, and the whole weight of human history was against his figuring out for himself, --- that these so-called moments of religious, aritistic scientific discovery, cannot be labeled without hindering their return.  For what they denote is nothing that can be verbally labeled.  They in fact are like frosting, which could be a hint of other realities, but if discussed, these common human experiences, become categories and prevent one from discovering ---- the purity of cake. The frosting of these moments of insight can mean one is close to a doorway, they are not  really the finish.
The bus mode of transportation is the common verbal assumptions that allow people to assess their world. These shared assumptions largely veil actuality. If they studied the human propensity for mystical apprehension they would realize, as Gurdjieff noted (though not in these words) that these experiences have started as many wars as religions. 
Listen again to what Eliot said:
 "We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/will be to arrive where we started/and know the place for the first time.  Sounds fine, but knowing some place for the first time means not categorizing your perceptions verbally.  That it sounds okay, is because of all the literature Eliot read, not from any ability of his to grasp what it could mean to: know the place for the first time.
How can I be sure of this?  Eliot was aware, as were all artists between the wars, of the work of Georges Gurdjieff, who alone, with Jan Cox, sought to drag religion sticking and careening, so to speak, into the 20th century.  And these are the words Eliot used to discuss one of Gurdjieff's students and translators, A. R, Orage. Orage he wrote in an obituary was a "reckless religious adventurer."  So we can assume Orage learned enough to appreciate that whatever the real path is, the trodding of it is always, alone, on foot. No waiting at respectable bus stations for Orage. Part of the difficulty of finding the start of the path, much less how to proceed, is that, and again, Eliot is merely an example, but the words of the poets we take to be accurate descriptions, clues. So we recall them at certain times, and thereby risk cutting our own throats, if our goal is really to explore a new land, to "know the place for the first time."  Because that knowing must be non-verbal.

How Intelligence Works

Is it just a work story, about comparing a country to a person? I believe it is in general parlance, the picture of a country with workers, like a individual body, the king as the brain, and the heart, whatever--religion.
The recent obit on a Mossad operative, David Kimche (http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=63678) reminded me of this metaphor, because in intelligence work you see---- a great picture of intelligence as in the human brain intelligence, and the endeavor to see what is really going on. (that's those of us who are interested in the work of Jan Cox.) There is a country/body and to survive, just like any person, a inquiry into one's circumstances has an evolutionary advantage. So how do you find out what is happening in your surroundings? The lack of such knowledge could shorten your life---perhaps the country around you has some lizards that could sting you. You need to know where you are. 
The intelligence of intelligence is silent.  That is how the work is done.  You work without speaking/that is, drawing attention to yourself, without drawing attention to your goal.  That is the only way to discover your situation.  Like a spy, like a stranger is a country where the wrong word could mean death, your only real goal is to survive (see what is really going on) and there are no rules here. Survival authenticates itself. Did what you break a law? The only answer is , I am still here,  If you speak you lie. Jan Cox, and a few intelligence operatives knew this. The difference between Jan and these agents, is he knew the more difficult side of that---the critical nature of internal quiet.
The intelligence of intelligence is silent.  Only now can the dead body of a Mossad agent tell us something.