setting out
After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into a whole, I realized that I should never succeed. The best that I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks; my thoughts were soon crippled if I tried to force them on in any single direction against their natural inclination. (And this was, of course, connected with the very nature of the investigation; For this compels us to travel over a wide field of thought criss-cross in every direction.)
Overnight my thoughts slip the lines I tie them to, the goal of my rambling appearing no closer than before. Diagrams I drew along my way show the journey I've been on while heading somewhere else. Words are illusory, maps not territories; expression is recursive. For me this was the Red Pill.
I arrived in Finland from London, enchanted, unable to see how culture could trip me up. I was falling in love. The country felt soft the people seemed kind, and unlike Greek or Chinese I could at least read Finnish. But when my love died the society I had been part of died too and overnight I found I had become not only alone but incomprehensible.
As a child I was lost. Searching for a world of black and white the simple logic of maths and science became my safe place, and seemed the perfect guide. Yet for navigating the everyday its straightforward appearance is misleading, as readily describing chaos as order.
Scientists imagine their facts change the world, but it's the stories told with them do that. Meanwhile, the investments we've made in the stories that we know keep it the same. Facts are unhelpful in themselves. We've not dropped far from the trees. Leaders know that gibberish and bravado sway us just as much or more than reason or courage.
Stumbling across "a wide field of thought criss-cross in every direction", I have ploughed on with this story of stories — on being heard — encouraged by the passing virus that killed the Wrath-of-god. At its end, however, I realize my story has written me. And I am changed.
From the preface to: Philosophical Investigations, by its author: Ludwig Wittgenstein; Cambridge, January 1945, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe.
writing recursions
Like speech, writing appears to be transparent; however, meaning is not intrinsic to words, or to any sign, it must be deduced. It must be imagined. For meaning to be established, a context for signs is required, a conversation —on the other hand, computers have no need for understanding so have no need for discussion.
Writing engages both hemispheres of the brain simultaneously, the conversation that then takes place stabilizing and developing a writer's perception —monks were advised to write journals to fight the demons that visited them in the isolation of their cells.
T.S Eliot began work on his poem 'Little Gidding', in February 1941. With every draft, however, he became increasingly dissatisfied. Realizing the problems he was having were not with the poem but with himself, in September he stopped writing altogether, returning to finish it a year later. Despite his fluency, writing was a journey even for him.
see: Left hemisphere speech: Parts of the brain involved in speech, healthline.com, May 2019, retrieved: 5 Jan 2022.
and: 'Writing with the right hemisphere', Steven, Rapcsak, Pelagie, Beeson, and Rubens, Nov 1991, in Brain and Language, Elsevier.
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chaos
Chaos refers to the apparently random states of disorder and irregularity exhibited by complex, nonlinear, dynamical systems actually governed by interconnectedness, underlying patterns, and self-organization. While these systems are deterministic, their predictability is limited as it is is impossible to completely know their actual state at any point in time and the smallest difference in this from what has been assessed leads to behaviours that diverge exponentially over time from that foecasted —a characteristic often referred to as the Butterfly Effect.
the wrath of god
Timur, the last great nomadic emperor, known as the 'Wrath-of-God', invaded Baghdad in June 1401. After capturing the city, Timur ordered every soldier to present him with at least two severed human heads. When there were no more men to kill, many warriors killed prisoners captured earlier in the campaign, and when they ran out of prisoners many resorted to beheading their own wives; 20,000 citizens were massacred. Scholars estimate that Timur's military campaigns overall caused the deaths of 17 million people. Four years later, in the city that is modern-day Shahrisabz, as the 'Wrath-of-God' prepared to invade China he was killed by a virus.