on being heard

beginning at the end, ambiguity in progress, yet a passing virus defeated the Wrath-of-god

Inferring no other comparison between myself and him, Wittgenstein wrote in the preface to his final work of difficulties oddly similar to those I struggle with in publishing here:

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.) 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.

- Ludwig Wittgenstein 1

Many times I have tried to bring the results of my wandering inquiry together - a thousand sketches have led here - yet while each has been a view of the whole none seemed to bring it closer.

Words demand a beginning and a story. The only path is forward. They are unforgiving. One by one, each nails another door closed. Sketches discarded, thoughts must now submit to being pinned and crushed into a line that turns and turns hopeless without you.

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 are deceptively simple. They exist in a world of absolutes. Life though is like a movie; each frame a moment of choice. The facts on which we base our choices are complex, and 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. Emerging from definitions and laws it's a language synonymous with grammar. The language of life is built from behaviours, sight, touch, and sound. It's expansive, inclusive and ambiguous, continuously evolving, developing and changing. It's a language synonymous with culture. Our life is the story we tell by it, and the story I am setting out to tell through this site is the one I've lived in Finland. It's a meta-story, a story about language; communication and culture, of 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, although new, was legible and speakable. The country was soft and the people seemed kind. But whereas the language of science is clear, natural language thrives on ambiguities only clarified through shared culture. And sharing evaporated when my wife died.

It is vital to see things as they are, but, being social creatures, this perception, growing from experience, is mediated by others. If we are not a part of the society we cannot learn its big-language, and without that we cannot become understood. We are left alone on its fringes, just making noise.

Like generals sending their troops off to glorious slaughter, the interwebs are chock-a with exhortations: try harder, make the impossible possible, failure is not an option. And high moral is important, in life and war; but confusing dream and fantasy, perseverance and obduracy is ruinous. Words in the end are only noise. Meaning is social, and personal.

As a child I was lost. Life was a problem for me, and it became increasingly clear that life had problems too. Teachers challenged me to find answers and the boundary between the two blurred. The fact my teachers hadn't themselves got the answers was perhaps a red flag. But kids know everything so it simply seemed to confirm the older generations' failure. I accepted their challenge. Life was clearly a problem to be solved. And I had 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. So too do the certainty and logic of mathematics and science. These to me were a welcome relief from life's chaos, and the perfect models for my social inquiry. Knowing life was anything but black and white, nonetheless the older generations encouraged me on my quest. Confounding this with their own dreaming they left 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 our 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, and winning these comes from first accepting them as they are not as we might wish them to be. Reason has little purchase; this is reason.

We have not dropped far from the trees. Politicians know that gibberish and bravado still sway us more than reason and courage. Scientists imagine facts will change the world, but it's the stories told with them that do that. We have to rely on storytellers to give facts meaning. Facts are unhelpful - in themselves.

So, even if none are left to read it, I'll post my story, the report on my inquiry, my message in a bottle. Despite how it may seem, I am a practitioner more than a theorist. I've researched, experimented and theorised, in a series of ongoing spirals, driven by needs for satisfaction or peace (the former, youth's experience of the latter). It will certainly not be academic, but it might be called scientific.

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.

- Ludwig Wittgenstein XX

Written in 1945, many thought the darkness over. Many think so today. Not having Wittgenstein's humility, talent or wisdom, I plough on with my attempt to bring my results together. The internet provides a new way to criss-cross wide and disparate fields, new hope to weld these together, new paths to still greater entanglement.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

We can never step in the same river twice and that is particularly true for this, a work in progress. A news section is intended, to chart its progress; navigation to explain its structure; and a contact form, for thoughts I hope this all might prompt. I'll take my courage in it from that passing virus, the one that killed the Wrath-of-god, in sharing my story about stories; of metaculture; -
- on being heard.

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