WIDER HORIZONS – An essay on experiential limits to truth

“The intellect [as] a local effect of evolution, a flame, perhaps accidental,

which lights up the coming and going of living beings in the narrow

passage open to their action; an lo! forgetting what it has just told us,

it makes of this lantern glimmering in a tunnel a Sun which can

illuminate the world.” Henri Bergson

 

 

Revolutionary insights are bound to occur every few centuries. Evidence for this is clear since we stopped regarding earth as the center of the universe nor our solar system as the only existent planetary system; the “island universes” discovered in the early 20th century later became proof that we float inside a great vacuum filled with galaxies and our position is not in any way advantageous: we are merely an anthill in a vastly greater desert. Revelations of this sort change the root of all our understanding of the human being and his position in this strange universe. The above discoveries lead to a re-conceptualization of our place in the material plane. There are other revelations that force us to reevaluate our previous conceptions at a cognitive or intellectual level. Kant believed to have transformed philosophy with the same impact that Copernicus’ theory revolutionized astronomy. However, his philosophy as influential as it is, couldn’t produce the radical transformation its author had anticipated. In more recent times Heisenberg dramatically redefined the future of physics with his Uncertainty Principle, setting a perennial barrier to the accuracy of information we can obtain at the subatomic level. It will be safe to speculate that world-changing insights will continue to appear throughout history.

Because we are so immersed in our own opinions and hold with unswerving faith our convictions, it is no surprise that it becomes difficult for us to accept, much less digest, what new ideas are pointing at. The evolution of human knowledge is constantly pushing for wider horizons, breaking free from assumptions that were once crowned as truths but are in reality only provisional scaffolds that permit the growth of more profound insights. Such may be that case with our idolatry to matter; ever since science usurped almost every field of knowledge proclaiming that epistemological certainty is only possible through objective (that is, physically oriented) evidence.  Steadily ever since Einstein tried to unify electromagnetism and gravity there has been an increasing wave of believers in a unified theory of reality; which in closer analysis is a pretension to explain the entire universe, or all that is, by physical mechanisms. It rests on an unproven assumption that can be summarized like this: because we are able to perceive the physical universe with our five senses and technical apparatuses, everything we perceive can be explained from that which we perceive. In simpler terms we are convinced that there exists nothing more than what we are able to perceive or deduct from our perception, and although this sounds like the plainest commonsense, we should carefully rephrase that assertion to: we can only discuss what we perceive. But we should not discard beforehand the possibility that this world, every phenomenon at the experiential level, may be simply a fragment of a vaster and greater reality. This does not imply that that greater universe which we cannot perceive should be a concern to science and philosophy but it simply comes as a warning to our proud advancement of knowledge. My case can be summed up in the following way:

 

If our awareness and intelligence arose out of earlier biological experiments, its persistence on this planet must only be explained by the advantages it has given to our species. Its function has been to assist the survival of our kind and not as we now presume, to solve the riddles of existence. Intelligence did not arise to survey all the scope of whatever exists but only to aid the organism in its survival with its immediate environment. This may be a total and insurmountable obstacle for the arrogance of science and philosophy; merely because there may be dimensions of reality we are not designed to perceive, causes that may influence the physical universe which are not strictly perceivable nor deducible from physical phenomena. This condition could set an experiential limitation to our knowledge –not unlike the uncertainty principle – forever and ever concealing absolute truth from our grasp and revealing us not as possessors of facts but merely as gatherers of illusions.

 

knowledge_in_21st_century

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Un éctasis insensato

El miedo y la inseguridad pueden ocultar la inspiración

     construyen murallas alrededor de pequeñas alegrías

y cuando la rutina se une a sus fechorías

regresamos al lodo, nos revolcamos como lombrices

        dejamos el devenir correr,

nace la servidumbre al olvido – conocemos la sombra del silencio

    hace tantos años inventamos el milagro del asombro

ilimitadas realidades habían en un juguete o el vuelo de una ave

    cuando la vibración de cada percepción nos revelaba

la divinidad no-escrita de cada segundo, como discípulos del encanto

 antes que el aprendizaje aburrido, la brutal repetición

          nos convirtió la existencia en algo trivial,

común entre hordas de humanos,

   indiferentes a la poesía de la piel,

        indolentes al brillo de los astros

          apáticos al arte de la respiración

inasible vapor de la imaginación

    exploradores incansables de riquezas perecederas

incapaces en la producción de una sola lucidez

   al nunca trasmutar el bullicio de los días

al tacto embriagado de un poema:

 mucho menos al éctasis insensato

del un baile enloquecido y solitario ante el domo del cosmos.

Mi Ventana

Mirar afuera era la única tranquilidad que podía cosechar dentro de mi angustiosa convicción de que el mundo era viejo, inútil y testarudo. Mirar a través de la ventana que se va nublando con los añejados cansancios, las trepadoras inercias que tapan el invisible del vidrio y ahogan el fragmento del momento con su inexorable oscuridad. Mirar las hojas salvajes bailar al tempestuoso ritmo del viento, sorprender a un insecto en su vuelo errático y absurdo, o quizá, ver humedecerse las partículas de atmósfera con el acercamiento de una feliz tormenta. Existía ahí afuera algo sublime y encantador, algo ajeno a la repetición de apagados pensamientos; dirían otros que estábamos envueltos por un sueño que nunca podremos acceder o entender– nuestro territorio se limita a la cruda realidad de lo ordinario. Con los años de mirar y mirar, el cuarto se tornaba cada vez más insustancial y lo que había afuera era lo único merecedor de atención y dedicación. ¿Estaba buscando algo inmortal, algún gozo inmaterial que me haría olvidar la monotonía de mi desgasto? Las respuestas siempre son incompletas y casi innecesarias, porque la misma naturaleza del universo es inseparable del misterio, la incógnita reinará sobre las ciencias y filosofías por el resto de la historia. Así que yo solo veía, veía las gotas del sol que visitaban en intervalos de éxtasis. La nubosidad de recuerdos me guiaba por el crecimiento de un arbusto que hoy día era un árbol completo: el cambio era la melodía de este sueño, el que reside dentro del cuarto y el que se desenvuelve al otro lado de mi solitaria ventana. Porque al fin y al cabo, ambas esferas son tan deleznables como un sueño pintado por el aliento de ángeles subterráneos. Mi función si acaso se limitaba a contemplar ese largo drama que surgía espontáneamente afuera de mi ventana y dentro de las paredes de mi pasajero cuarto…

Bamboo

 Even though it is immeasurable
       My prison is still tight as skin
but my horizons wide as silences

Although it is incomprehensible
       The moment is clear as pain
but the mountain inside cold as ash

Since I have known only one
       Many drops fall as from bloodshed
but the fragile division was born as orphan

Nonetheless I was lover of the loneliest desert
       Counting the walls that serve as mistakes
but swallowed all the scriptures that read as noise

Thus, metaphorical speaking aside
       The clouds raised thoughts as mothers
but motion now seems so still as bamboo

 

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Presencia original

 

 

Ya no hay más formas
    cuando se olvida que existimos
    nace una corriente que cruza
    enteramente por la infinidad del tiempo
    por la eternidad de la materia
se puede rozar la más distante partícula
                       de polvo
como la zona más profunda del
                       átomo partido
la vieja civilización de moléculas
             vibran adentro
como recién nacido el universo
    la alba radiante del primer contacto
con el fuego del caos benévolo
 
De las infinitas posibilidades de formas
    conocimos una
de las miles de eras
    vivimos esta
pero somos todo lo que una vez fue
   somos todo lo que guarda
               el porvenir.

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Sentir el sinsentido

Nuestra corta existencia

      se acorta con cada nueva palabra

     elogiada en la punta del lápiz

se encoge el desfile de formas

     con la longitud de otra ambigüedad formada

y, aun así, podría seguir repitiendo en cada nación

                    cada lengua

el canto de mi desesperación

          repitiendo las agonías

declarando entre húmedas orgías

                el himno de la noche antigua

                “estoy solo y voy a morir”

irreducible aspecto de la mortalidad

      entre los hermosos cadáveres

                        que ríen, celebran y viven el día –

 así vivo también, pero moriría

         al final de una interrumpida oración
haber vaciado un sinsentido de sustantivos

             al hueco podrido del universo

ARS POETICA

They were there…

There they were, shattered

      sidewalks murderous sidewalks

frozen in their disorder, fractured by black color

     and had to reach down

        and pain their unfeeling scars

but this is not about sidewalks,

               it resembles that primordial awe

or the seven cold nights of tribesmen

         it intimates with old necessity

and the heavy mist that kills without moving

   because further down by the hollow blackness

            of cracked sidewalks and rapid decay

desasosiego, was called once in Spanish

           spontaneous hymns of indigent earth

shadowless religions with no clouds on their backs

       noiseless disaster tamed by echoed habits

stepping beyond – further into hopeless air

                 and with it, the truth concealed

hidden encounters with the ultimate Inexplicable

        certainly having probed the depths of terror

the animosity of rebellion and the flakes of solitude

      in what seems like ages of torment and desasosiego

         by the unknown light of trembling – hardened

frozen and broken like irrelevant sidewalks

           forgiving the ancient errors of willing blindness

alone, amongst these detached blocks of cold cement

           my finger slithered their gaps,

and call me mad, lost and nocturnal – again,

           I was nowhere, in calm beauty:

my irrelevant isolation.

La historia de la eternidad

Entra un pensamiento

    Su origen es incierto,

pero ha entrado al núcleo de este instante

    y llena este irrevocable momento

 con la substancia de una suspirada realidad.

 

 Se va.

   Los ojos miran sin esfuerzo

      Capturan el reflejo de una luz

despojan la sombra del vacío

   y transforman este segundo en:

                           percepción.

 

 Escuchas las manos del reloj;

    se repite el sonido de cada pauta

un latido por cada descanso de la aguja

               agrega un grano de polvo

 

al ponto sin fondo, llamado: Tiempo.

 

Se anuncia el recuerdo

      la visita a un rincón casi olvidado

se hunden las puntas de cada nervio

        penetras la nube de la memoria

el fantasma del ayer, vive sigilosamente;

                luego: se va.

 

Llegan las cosas y parten, se dividen

            se separan en hilos que ya no alcanzamos

regresan gemelos de hábitos una vez desistidos,

          nacen cambios para nuevas incógnitas.

 

Lenta,  deslizante se forma la eternidad.

        No excluye lo fútil, recoge todo,

cada migaja de sentimiento, colecciona 

          el aburrimiento, la soledad, el recuerdo,

se nutre con las vidas de insectos y humanos,

            seduce todo a tomar una pequeña porción

 de su,

     inmensidad.

 

 

For english version click here: http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/outoforbit/Eternitys.jpg

 

 

Cerca del hondo

 

 

Carecer de percepciones

   ahogarse en la oscuridad escondida

bajo los párpados sellados

abrigarse con el terciopelo de silencio

  la medianoche residente en mis entrañas

        una isla intangible

libre del tiempo

      envolviendo una identidad inidentificable

vibrando con tonos subjetivos

tomando vuelo sobre abismos familiares

      derritiéndome en la inercia

presente deseo de totalidad

      suspendido en el gran hueco

inexistente, flotante, espontánea profundidad 

descansando bajo las sombras de la mente.

 

ARS POETICA

The world’s a machine


^ A by ytuquike
http://ytuquike.deviantart.com/art/A-32785575

 

Let me tell you something. It may be a hard pill to swallow. No, on second thought, maybe my criticism is hollow and attempts to belittle a world too powerful to be challenged. Besides, most people are already aware of what I’m about to say. We all are. But it doesn’t matter. I must get it out; otherwise I’ll wallow in my own disgust and perpetuate a system too cruel in its indifference. 

I‘ve been sitting here for seven hours. Patiently chatting with customers over the internet, satisfying their demands, answering their recurrent questions. Yeah, it’s as simple as it sounds.  A few minutes here with a Dan from South Africa, a few seconds there with a Marysia from Bulgaria. I’m connected to the world but between me and the rest of the globe there’s a box that displays organized patches of light and allows me to interact with people I will probably never encounter, physically or virtually, again. It’s just that – organization – that bothers me. Here I am at the threshold of a global society and my enthusiasm is imprisoned under a thick layer of discomfort.


It doesn’t make sense to me. How we got here and all that. I was involuntarily born into a world that had organized itself in this way without my consent. Here I am functioning according to it, adding fuel to its monstrous engine by my insignificant but necessary participation in its affairs. I am a mere appendage to this colossal machine, a machine that keeps rolling on and on without any constraints – makes me wonder if we could stop it should we desire to? 


That fact is that it is here, an organization a priori to my existence, and I must operate according to its rules; my life with its sufferings and joys must fit the frame of modernity; my dreams are shortened by 40 hours a week which are mandatory for my basic survival. I’m no utopian, I don’t trust in any universal remedy for happiness and prosperity, yet even with my mistrust in progress I’ve perceived the approach of a conviction that promises a better world, a saner reality.


Hadn’t fear regulated most of our expectations, or if habit wouldn’t paralyze our imagination, would we still be living for minimal wages and restricting life to those scarce hours of leisure that work “allows” us? While trapped in those routines of cement and asphalt, how often do we get to experience the beauty of nature which, according to poets and sages, delivers endless moments of delight and communion with the divine?


I don’t know, I don’t care. I will continue to intoxicate myself with the monotony of uneventful hours… who cares what a screw thinks when the machine can operate without it. New screws will be born to furnish The Machine with the elixir of eternal life, namely:  

Our conformity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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