Friday, January 25, 2008

We Living Clumps of Ash

Some of my skeptical blogging friends might be interested in Krista Tippet's recent interview with theoretical physicist Janna Levin on Speaking of Faith. Listening to it in the dark at 5:30 a.m. on my way into work really got to me. They tackle several ever-present questions for me: what do we really know about our world? are we really free agents? how far should we go in our pursuit of truth and how do we balance this out with the everyday "constructed" realities of life? And it offers stunning passages from her new novel (when do you get a chance to read a novel by a theoretical physicist?) A mad man dreams of Turing machines.

Here's one of the passages from her book that connected for me:

"I approach a man and a woman on a park bench. His glasses, her handbag, her umbrella. They're as still as stone. They're in front of me and then, within a few strides, I pass the green-painted bench with its concrete feet. I turn to watch them but they are swept along by time, unable to stop, dragged away along with the street and the wind.

I see them everywhere, my two mad treasures. An elegant man in a hat with an able, stocky woman at his side. A solitary black-haired boy with a peculiar stride. I am looking on benches and streets, in logic and code. I am looking in the form of truth stripped to the bone. Truth that lives independently of us, that exists out there in the world. Hard and unsentimental. I am ready to accept truth no matter how alarming it turns out to be. Even if it proves incompleteness and the limits of human reason. Even if it proves we are not free. [I love this bit though even in the loving I recognize that part of my love is not about the mere dedication to truth but also the romantic image of a brave soul pursuing truth.]

They are here in our minds, Turing's luminescent gems, Gödel's Platonic forms. There are no social hierarchies to scale. No racial barriers. Given to us along with our brains. Built into the structure of our thoughts — no bullying into blind faith, no threats of eternal damnation — just honesty, truth, and reason. [Again I'm motivated, motivated to know and focus on this truth: all these hierarchies are constructs which hold no reality to the being-me who is connected to the cosmos.]

I am here in the middle of an unfinished story. I used to believe that one day I would come to some kind of conclusion, some calming resolution, and the restlessness would end. But that will never happen. Even now, I am moving toward a train. My heart is thumping. My lungs are working. There is a man, a woman, a bench, the glasses, the smooth hair, an umbrella. We are all caught in the stream of a complicated legacy — a proof of the limits of human reason, a proof of our boundlessness. A declaration that we were down here on this crowded, lonely planet, a declaration that we mattered, we living clumps of ash, that each of us was once somebody, that we strove for what we could never have, that we could admit as much. That was us — funny and lousy and great all at once." [I'm reminded of a passage from a Dillard's unofficially entitled "Either this world, my mother, is a monster, or I myself am a freak" from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: "We little blobs of soft tissue crawling around on this one planet's skin are right, and the whole universe is wrong." Later she dismisses this view, instead deciding that we are indeed freaks. Both authors confirm that I too will always be restless, always peering out there, often aware of the planet's skin, compelled to consider the biggest possible questions I can fit into my puny head.]

If you haven't had a enough yet, check out the "Program Details" for this episode. It's a multimedia retelling of the interview with links to the music used, YouTube videos explaining dark matter, the text of the passages read, and more details about the two scientists from the novel, Godel and Turing. Sometimes, I really love the Internet.


8 comments:

Dr Write said...

These excerpts are interesting, but sadly confirm some of my fears about novels about ideas. Too much idea, not enough noveling. But in theory, very interesting.
I like "Speaking of Faith" quite a bit, but sometimes her guests are a bit too....earnest?

Counterintuitive said...

Agreed: not sure, from these passages, if it is a novel really. The same issue came up recently as I re-read Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being. I guess we can call them idea-centered or philosophical "novels." Maybe we need a new genre.

Agreed 2: I podcast about 10% of Speaking of faith episodes--I mean it is called speaking of faith and I prefer the speakers who have little faith.

shane said...

I'm not sure we need another genre (don't we have way too many genres already?). I can't imagine a definition of "noveling" so narrow that it doesn't include ideas, after all.

And, it seems to me, that explaining ideas is what novelists do best. Take out the ideas--the internal thoughts of the author, in other words--and all you're left with is plot and dialog; you're left with a film or a play.

I read enough about Krista Tippet's idea to be interested in her novel, but, unfortunately, the link to her interview didn't work on my computer (it played for only about thirty seconds and went haywire), so I'll have to learn more later.

I'd like to know, for one thing, how she defines truth. Is "truth" only an idea (is it only plot and dialog?)? I agree with Tippet about the limits of human reason. Human reason can't achieve truth as it's typically defined. But I'm not sure it has to. I'm not sure we need "truth" to feel satisfied and enriched. And maybe that's the criticism you and dr. write are hinting at: that there is too much emphasis on truth as idea in opposition to truth as something else--like satisfaction and enrichment, for example. Or maybe I'm putting words in your mouths.

The mention of Godel, btw, reminds me of the book "Godel, Escher, Bach"--an amazing read that explores the idea of consciousness, emergent phenomena, strange loops, logic, and all kinds of other ideas. Each idea is first demonstrated with a Lewis-Caroll-like story about Achilles and the tortoise. I think the book is listed as non-fiction, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's a novel. What IS the definition for that genre?

HH said...

CI,
I am starting to listen to it now. I think my views on "faith" should be fairly easy to deduce.

There are two common uses of the term (as I see it). Faith = proportional belief based upon probabilities and time. For example, "i have a strong faith that my wife is faithful." Given that she has lived with me 17 years and has not strayed (to my knowledge) my faith in her is proportional to the amount of time I have known her to behave in certain ways.
The other "faith" is a belief that is not proportional to evidence but is based upon feelings and intuition. An example is, "I believe in ESP." I have no reason to think there is an iota of evidence in the existence of ESP, but I may believe in it anyway. Further, I am aware of studies which clearly demonstrate that some who have claimed ESP powers could not stand the most basic test of scientific rigor.
I look forward to listening.

Best Wishes,

HH =)

HH said...

"There are some truths that can never be proven true." This is on the title of the webpage. Its a contradiction! Not a good start for me. Just sayin'

HH

Counterintuitive said...

so what did you think HH??

HH said...

I think that, as I listened to Krista Tippet's programs, she was attempting, solipsistically, to justify "faith."

Jana Levin was a bit too vague when answering tough questions. She frequently referred to Godel's (Theory of incompleteness) and Turing's theories in her, "A madman dreams of Turing machines." It seemed a bit too much of a dramatization of what Turing and Godel were actually writing about. An anthropomorphically unjustified leap.

"We can not begin to comprehend the world after we know certain things about it. We cannot begin to think of a world, pre- Copernicus," she stated. So what?
As knowledge accumulates why would anyone care what cro-magnum man thought of the night sky? It has as much bearing on what Ancient Egyptians thought of the position of stars, and their own fortunes. Nothing! Blind superstition.

I was not impressed with rationalizing a relationship between the "awe" inspired by pondering (and emoting about) the universe, and what actually may be understood.

I, for one, see no reason to think that the universe (and all therein) my NOT be understood by mankind. The more data (facts) that are analyzed, the closer we may approximate truth. We only know this through experimentation, and eventual control.

The dream that may be drawn out through language may bear no relationship to reality. In other words, the drama well written (like Levin's book) may move me emotionally, but has no bearing on the relationship of the arc-tangent curve of a bomb which, drops and wipes out Manhattan.

This sums up, for me, Levin's attempt to draw mathematical and physical principals into the limits of human reason, as justification for "faith." I see no reason to think there is anything profound there.

I know... damned empiricist arguing (again) for arguments sake...


;)
HH

spontaneous expressions said...

Coming in late to the conversation....to add my wee amount of input... but I understand what you mean by the idea of novels with an interesting story,...vs novels that seem to exist mainly to illustrate philosophical ideas. I read Kundera's novel too (in our book club) and I was surprised that the story seemed to be rejected and the philosophy was ignored and/or misunderstood. I don't think we need a new genre but there do seem to be limitations when a novel is used to expound a theory of the world vs. tell an interesting story. Of course...this technique seemed to work well for J.Smith.

I'm not sure what to do with K. Tippets. Sometimes I listen and think, what a waste of my time. Other times I value the experience, so my interest waxes and wans. Lately it has wanned. Looks like I should give this one a look. Thanks for the suggestion Ron.