'A cake,'
said I, 'is largest when it is One, for there has been made no division of it
into slices; but, if we cut it first into halves and then quarters, quarters
and then eighths, we see a strange paradox of numeracy arises: that as the
numbers multiply the substance divides.' 'What's that got to do
with anything?' he replied, 'I'm trying to carve here.'
Number derives from quantity and quantity
from perception; perception is flawed, quantity is flawed, number is flawed. I
asked my mother what the number one was and she made an inspired answer
after I suggested it was but an imaginary unit, 'Of course, there could be one
pin and there could be one lorry with millions of pins inside it.' I thought it
an excellent example, for we verily assign to each case, a single pin and a
single lorry, the unit of One, and yet patently these are vastly
different things. Thus my mind reflected on the nature of assignment and
how it is utilised to great effect in the sublunary enterprises of our species;
length and calculation for building and engineering, number and algebra for
computing, and all which that has entailed. Yet though I never would deny the
influence and utility of these things in helping us to understand some parts
to reality, I feel obliged to record what I notice of the method which is,
quite simply, that it has no basis in fundamental truth. Spinoza would assert
that it deals in the modes of things, although admittedly Spinoza himself might
disagree with me in this. I know he considered the properties and
characteristics of a triangle for example, or a circle, to be eternal truths,
for which belief he adopted the rather ungainly geometrical style of writing,
but I think if I pressed him on the subject he would yield to my point of view
(for I think it necessary to his thesis), which is namely, that his Substance
(or what I would define as the entirety of existence singularised) absorbs the
preponderance, and more than the preponderance, of that which its varied modes
themselves absorb. Therefore, we cannot hold the nature of the triangle an
eternal truth, in that it is only a fleeting mode of the truly Eternal Truth,
which is the Substance he and I define as God.
I think perhaps mathematicians would be
offended by my treatment of their monads, their numbers, but I also think if
they took my position it would help to explain the many difficulties which
arise in mathematical paradoxes. The extraordinary efficacy of mathematics of
course means something, a very great deal indeed, but it is a problem dealing
with a problem, as all studies are, except transcendent philosophy. The strange
thing is that it is often the most flawed studies which can prove the most
useful socially, as the mathematical method has informed practically every
technological development since the dawn of civilisation. But in such a way I
am sure many mistaken apothecaries in past ages cured their patients of the
diseases they had by treating them for diseases they did not have, perhaps by
advising dietary changes, perhaps by advising rest, perhaps by process of disinfection.
Success is not a guarantee of Truth, Failure is not a proof
of Falsehood, but these things intermingle with one another and are only
categorised by the preconceptions which we already have set up in our many
fields of enquiry.
Why do I except transcendent philosophy? I
except it only when it is transcendent philosophy, true transcendent
philosophy, the philosophy which reminds itself in every sentence that I do
not know the Truth, but (paradoxically) by knowing this Ignorance of mine I am assured of its Existence, and so I am brought into Communion with It, and
of such is Faith. For example, a man has liver failure, the doctor
diagnoses the liver failure, and everyone is satisfied that human beings have a
perfect knowledge (at least of one thing: of liver failure), but what is a liver?
What is failure? 'Liver failure, my boy, is but the term we use for a liver not
functioning properly.' 'And what, doctor, does it mean to function?' 'Why you
take me out of my province Mr Holmes!' 'So you do not know what the words you
use mean?' 'I recognise a liver when I see one.' 'But you do not know what it is,
I mean, what it really is.' 'Why no, for if I looked hard at it enough I
would have to become a biologist, a chemist, a physicist, a philosopher, a
mystic, a magician, and I have a golf game at two. It is not a doctor's
business to know but to diagnose and treat.' 'That is an excellent
answer, doctor, for it summarises all of human occupation.' 'And all of human
occupation, what does that summarise?' 'I doubt not much more than a raindrop
summarises about the Pacific Ocean, but it is a goodly raindrop, I love it
well, it is a piece of jewelled beauty, only people look at it so long and so
closely they forget the ocean it is falling towards.'
Now one of the most beautiful philosophies I
ever came across on this earth is latent in the Japanese practice of Kintsugi,
which uses silver, gold, or platinum, veins in order to repair broken pottery. It
is always my intention in my essays to achieve as fully as possible my ideal
synthesis of apparently disparate elements into an illuminating
Compound, for of such is Existence and so Truth, but this philosophy of Kintsugi
summons so many reflections to my mind
that it is a struggle to balance them together. It describes very well what I described previously about human endeavour and especially mathematics, that somehow
can utilise problems in order to solve problems. The practice of Kintsugi
takes something which is broken, which many people would consider useless or
fit only to be discarded, a tragedy of mischance but nothing to spare limited
time or energy upon, and it uses this very fact to advantage, and from this
ruined property, this injured nature, a thousand times increases its beauty,
its significance, and its individuality. I see this application in mathematics,
a broken system of counting, hardly advanced upon since its finalisation into
decimal, which has been patched and beautified with golden repairs, till the
present day when it has raised up the social standards of living to heights
unimaginable in previous ages. But surely the most obvious and profound application
of this philosophy is in the human. A human being is a small world,
and in that world there is inevitably collision and destruction. Yet this world, and the human being who reflects it, is not to be defined a chaos for
the sake of this destruction. A chaos it could be called and should be called if
out of the destruction came not forth sweetness, came not forth creation
(which I define as refinement's refiguration), but we see that there is an
automatic tendency to the development of harmony in nature, and I believe Kintsugi
epitomises this in a wonderfully visual and elegantly simple way. Who thinks of
a potter as a philosopher? Is it not a simpleton's trade? How much more
profundity there is in such a simplicity than in a million cobwebbed
intricacies!
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