On Being Heard

beginning at the end; ambiguity in progress; a passing virus defeated the Wrath-of-god.

After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into such 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.) The philosophical remarks in this book are, as it were, a number of sketches of landscapes which were made in the course of these long and involved journeyings. 1

Many times I too have tried to bring the results of my wandering inquiry together, but, not having Wittgenstein's humility, wisdom, or talent, I plough on. A thousand sketches and designsThe tooltip text can go on and on and on and on have led me here, but while each has been a view of the whole none oner cn b shrt seems ever to bring that closer to realisation. The internet provides a new way to criss-cross wide and disparate fields, and hope to weld these together, but also endless routes to entanglement.

But words are unforgiving, They demand a beginning and a story, then, one by one, each nails a door closed. The only path is on. Sketches discarded, thoughts must submit to being pinned and models crushed into a line that turns and turns hopeless without you, its reader, and your time.

Facts are unhelpful - in themselves; this has to start somewhere; that is news; water is wet. True but unhelpful. Perhaps some languages find no need to separate wetness from water. Whatever power facts have lies only in the use we find for them. Take E=mc2 for instance.

Scientific facts emerge from definitions, simple, existing in a world of absolutes. Life though is like a movie, each frame a moment of choice, inescapable. The facts on which we base our choices are complex, hard to define or measure. Scientific facts and these facts of life are products of different languages, one big one small, which while appearing similar fatally contaminate one another.

The language of science is framed by microscopes and modeled in maths, created from definitions and laws. It's deceptively simple, rarified, and strangely powerful. It is a language synonymous with grammar, The language of life is formed by behaviours, sight, touch, and sound. It's expansive, inclusive and ambiguous, continuously evolving, developing and changing. It's a language synonymous with culture, and our life is the story we tell by it. The story I am setting out to tell on this site is the one I've lived in Finland. It's a meta-story, a story about language; communication and culture, deception and communion.

I came here from London, enchanted, and with no thought of tripping over the culture. Unlike Greek, Russian or Chinese, for this Englishman anyway Finnish was new but familiar; legible and speakable. The country was soft and the people seemed kind. But whereas the language of science is clear, natural language thrives on its ambiguities only being decodable through shared culture. And sharing evaporated here when my wife died.

It is vital to see things as they are, not as we would like them to be, nor as we fear they might be; but sight is only given meaning by perception and, being social creatures, this grows from experiences mediated by others. We cannot express ourselves if we have no fluency in big-language, and we cannot learn this if we have no audience. All we do is make a noise.

Like generals sending their troops off to the glorious slaughter, the interwebs are chock-a with exhortations to try harder, to make the impossible possible, and to refuse to accept the failure of our dreams. High moral is important, in life and war, but confusing dream and fantasy, perseverance and obduracy is ruinous. Words are only noise. Meaning is social, and personal.

As a child I felt lost. Life was a problem for me. And it became increasingly clear there were also problems with it. Teachers challenged me to find answers, and the two blurred into one. The fact my teachers hadn't themselves got the answers was perhaps a red flag, but kids know everything so it seemed just to confirm the failure of older generations. I accepted their challenge. Life was clearly a problem to be solved; I was clearly the one tasked to solve it.

So, what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Children are fascinated by problems like this. They live in worlds of black and white and so too do the certainty and logic of mathematics and science.X To me these were a welcome relief from life's chaos, and the perfect models on which to base my social inquiry. The older generations, despite knowing that life was anything but black and white, nonetheless encouraged me on my quest, confounding this with their own dreaming, and leaving me lost.

The failures of modernity are not due to the absence of dreaming but to the insistence that realism is defeatist. It is that insistence which is a failure of imagination. From wisdom crushed, new superstitions have arisen; sacharine sweeteners encouraging the forever young to continue in their belief that life should do their bidding. Because people are life. Outside of the economic machinery we build around ourselves, the power we have to change comes through the hearts and minds of others. Winning these comes from first accepting them as they are rather than as we might wish them to be. Reason has little purchase. This is reason.

And we have not dropped far from the trees, as politicians know. Gibberish and bravado still sway us more than reason and courage. Scientists imagine their knowledge will change the world, but it is the stories that others make it tell that does that. We have to rely on storytellers to give knowledge meaning. Facts are unhelpful - in themselves.

Even if none are left to read it, I have to post my report on my inquiry, my message in a bottle. Despite how it might sound, I am a practitioner more than a theorist. I've researched, then experimented and theorised, in a series of ongoing spirals aimed at getting either satisfaction or peace - the former being the latter as experienced through youth.

A news section should appear soon, to chart the progress of this publishing endeavour, together with a contact form, navigation and so on. We can never step in the same river twice X and that is particularly true for this, a work in progress. In general I think it might be called scientific but it is certainly not academic. In publishing I'll take courage from that passing virus - the one that killed the Wrath-of-god X - and share my story about stories; of metaculture, on being heard.

For more than one reason what I publish here will have points of contact with what other people are writing to-day.—If my remarks do not bear a stamp which marks them as mine,—I do not wish to lay any further claim to them as my property. I make them public with doubtful feelings. It is not impossible that it should fall to the lot of this work, in its poverty and in the darkness of this time, to bring light into one brain or another—but, of course, it is not likely. I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own. I should have liked to produce a good book. This has not come about, but the time is past in which I could improve it. CAMBRIDGE, January 1945.

written: w/b 1 July 2017. published: 9 July 2017. last edit: 9 July 2017.