Roberta Haas, recent Pulitzer prize winner in poetry, was interviewed today on the News Hour on PBS. In talking about his poem “The problem of describing trees” he ponders if a tree dances, no, capitalizes no… In the interview Haas quotes Wittgenstein’s “the limits of our language are the limits of our world” and E.O. Wilson’s “Every species lives in a different sensory world.” I’m aware that both of these claims, especially the first, might sometimes get overstated; still, I was bowled over by the latter. There are, without proving ETs, different worlds: my cat lives in my house yet in another house; the dolphin lives on this planet but we do not know the same world. Isn’t that an amazing thought? Each species has at its “finger tips” on its very own world.
And that got me thinking about how each of us human animals truly live in a different sensory world too. It's not that we merely perceive reality differently, we live in different realities. We’re probably all more similar to one another than we are to a cat, but still...this difference the ultimate proof of distinct subjectivities. All at once beautiful and terrifyingly depressing.
**I wrote this yesterday and had more to say but my all-day-grading-session has turned my mind to mush. I swear if I grade another paper I will barf up my brain.
5 comments:
I think this is why I treasure art so much, because somewhere in the pretentiousness and career-making of it, there's a human being making a little window into how s/he sees and understands it.
I think I got this finally, when I was having a long whiny talk with a painter (I was doing the whining, of course) about why write, who listens, blah blah blah, when he said that art comes from that perceptual self and it was a way of reaching out to other people. His instance was the enormously powerful painting and sculpture of Michelangelo which arose, first of all, from the fact that he loved the bodies of other men.
Anyway, thanks for this reminder that there's a world worth thinking about and experiencing beyond reading and grading.
Yeah, grading papers sucks!
Here's my favorite EO Wilson quote: If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
most excellent quote to put things into perspective
excellent post...
We do live in different sensory worlds and yet I think the tendency to is to superimpose our experience (especially Man's experience because we are Gods chosen ones) to all living things. I take that back...I think we rarely even think about the sensory experiences of other living things. Like my dog for example. His world consists of other dog's bums, kibble and searching for the next thing he can chew into a pulp. (last night he threw up my son's purple beads).
I live this experience every day. I ask my students to join me in "my world". I wish I could join theirs and see just for a day how their sensory experiences differ from mine. Sometimes it looks like they are having much more fun than I am by just staring at their fingers. I'm going to miss them and "their worlds" so much.
I'm glad my papers consist of a paragraph or maybe two. : )
Post a Comment