|
Do you ever think about what we are given in life? I mean to
me it seems as if we're given life (which I think most people think about) but
beyond that what else are we given? The only other thing I can really think of
is language. We're not necessarily given love, food, shelter or any of these
other things, but as long as we have contact, we have language. And even if a
person were not to be given human contact, they still have the language of
mathematics. And with this beautiful gift, few people take the time to explore
its beauty, its wonder and its limitations. I realize I find the most
fascinating thing in the world language. I mean others may argue human contact
is far more fascinating, and they might be right, but what good is human
contact without some rudimentary for of communication through some language?
Another thing I don't understand is why people try to build
a dichotomy between spoken/written language and math/science. They are the same
thing. They both lead back to the same problems, but each has a different
approach to communication. I know this makes very little sense (to anyone
besides me). Take human emotion, how does one describe it? With language, but
people feel the same emotions (anger, lust, love, happiness). We all feel these
before we transform them into language and try to communicate them in some coherent
fashion. Yet, we can never truly know if each person is experiencing the same
emotions, the same feelings and using the same language to describe them (e.g.
what I interpret as rage, may be your frustration). So we, as people, run into
the seeming limitations of written/spoken language.
So in the end the writer and the mathematician are in the
same place. They are in a large dark room. And they are looking for a light
switch. And when they find it they can show the rest of the world what they
see. An example of this would be Newton
and his calculus. Calculus existed before Newton,
before Socrates, before, Moses. Calculus existed in the natural world. The
natural world was/is the big dark room. And Newton
(as well as Leibniz) found this mathematical truth and turned on a light. The
mathematician/scientist is fighting to find the switches of the natural world
and make clear the world for humanity. The writer is dealing with the limits of
language to make humanity clear for everyone. But each discipline needs an adventurer,
a free thinker, a genius and a masochist to attempt this endless circle. For
we'll never answer all these questions, and I guess on some level one could argue
it should not be attempted. But I refuse to accept this logic. I think of it in
Dostoyevsky (in the Brothers Karamazov) terms, one should do it because one
can.
I guess the other thing thinking about something like this
can make one understand is the beauty of a Hemmingway or a Faulkner in the
literary world. Hemmingway is much closer to us. His deceptively simple sentences
are just what life is. Think of something you know for fact. Take 1+1=2 for
instance. How do you know it? Can you prove it? I know it can be proved, but it
is far more complicated. Yet, it is one of the fundamental things we accept
from kindergarten arithmetic. I mean, the proof consists of first defining that
numbers exist, then one has to create functions (division, addition, multiplication,
and subtraction) then one has to prove how the functions interact with the
numbers and then we can begin to prove one plus one equals two. It's easy to
see but difficult to prove. That's Hemmingway’s prose.
Faulkner is light years ahead of that; it's as if he's
dealing with something far beyond where we are at. Where Hemmingway is
discovering the nuance of the known, the simple, Faulkner is looking at the
outer limits of our world and making us accept what our language can do. What
it is possible of and what it cannot do.
In the end I think our (as humans) goal should not be to
build dichotomies but to tear them down to see the unity of our common human
thought and our common problems. To look at everyone and realize they are
probably on some level dealing with the same human condition and not feel so
alone in our minds.
|
