If the Truth be Known ...

I've been tempted many times to become a Buddhist monk, maybe joining those in the caves of Nepal.  An acquaintance's son actually did it, and never came back.  He dropped everything: wife, children, job, house, car;  whatever goes with the standard American life.  I understand all of that, and the never coming back part, too.

The rest of us lead our material lives, lately more sullied with the details of a deceitful and vengeful American government that was selected for us.

Those who have ears, hear

I cannot write this for everyone, but only for those who know lies when they are told.  If you still believe this American government is telling you the honest truth,  I cannot help you, I cannot speak to you.

I won't recite to you all the lies they've said, and deceitful acts they've committed.  There are shelves full of books cataloguing the dishonesty of the Bush Administration, and the governments which preceded it.  Maybe dishonesty is in the nature of government; we only deluded ourselves in believing otherwise all these years.

If I had taken acid (LSD) and imagined everything being said, or was having flashbacks of another millennium, I would be picked up, hospitalized or imprisoned or both. Instead, I am here, under house arrest and, by television, subjected to endless, daily doses of re-education.

The only relief is the toilet, where I am allowed to sit at length in peace and quiet.  There, I am thankful for my age, my diseases and my doctors' prescriptions, which combine to require frequent relief.

However, in passing water often, I plead guilty to using more than my fair share of water.  Then, I am reminded of the General's obsession in Dr Strangelove, his fear of contamination, and desire for pure water. Is it all a matter of the water we use, the water we are, the water we pass?

Unseen Elephants

Here I must remind you of clichés.

First, the blind man and elephant story. Try it sometime. Try it on anything.  Make sure someone else presents you with a familiar object sufficiently disguised, and DO NOT PEEK!  Try the same thing with an unfamiliar object.  For many people, it is surprisingly difficult or impossible to know what a thing "is,"  without the evidence of one's own eyes.

Think of yourself as a very early organism, with only a sense of smell.  What is your world like then?  Add on a sense of touch: what do you have then?

Why would anyone think the world, as perceived by us humans, is an accurate rendering of whatever it is?  Consider our best physical science, as in Quantum Mechanics, which tells us the world is not composed of the things we commonly suppose are its "substance."  Atoms, molecules, dirt, flesh do not behave as we believe, and have a doubtful existence.  So say the scientists.

Second, Gödel's Theorem implies that there is an infinity of alternate explanations to the physics we accept.  Those explanations may or may not be equivalent, but they all "cover" the limited evidence we supply.  We may not think of all human experience as "limited," but it is.

Occam's Razor advises choosing the simplest explanation,  meaning the simplest equivalent explanation.  Why go around the barn a couple of times, when we can walk straight to the door?  But, Occam's Razor does not say anything about the ultimate truth or falsity of explanations, only that one should prefer bare bones.  It is an aesthetic argument.

So, the elephant potentially has an infinite number of legs and trunks and tails and other parts.  There are a potentially infinite number of observations and observers,  all of which are in some degree correct.  Some of these combinations will make "more sense" than others, or at least some will be easier to assimilate.

In the election of 2004, the Presidential parties either live in alternate Universes or believe they do.

You figure it out.

March 28-31, 2004

Last update: 11/02/2007

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