Читать книгу This Place of Prose and Poetry - Lucian Krukowski - Страница 16

Poems are like butterflies; they flit blamelessly to the outsides of the page—just in case they must hide—or otherwise protect themselves from the demands of a lurking prosy notion that took on the rule of power to profess the truth, but in the process became too dessicated to perform in places set aside for song, dance, and the sweeter sadness. There are few such places now—worn shelters that once resounded with old ballads—all the ones that overcame their rhyming to tell us what is important for us to know.

Prose is hard.

Is that all you have to say?

But, I say

I’m getting smarter by the day.

Poetry is harder.

Is that all that counts for you?

But, you know—

maybe that-there’s all there is

to say.

When did poetry relinquish its affinity between telling and knowing? Perhaps when truths that come from knowing became democratic and lost their categories, when most any truth would qualify for all levels of profundity—and become suitable for most any use —whether in prose or poetry. But should we not, if we need a measure to keep our truths together, safe and in one piece, choose a good measure—the best we can afford—and then only mind the most potent truths? After all, there are so many that try to play the game, and increasingly they (both truths and measures) look less and less alike—unless we show them all we love them equally and dearly. But then—how can we choose between them—when love is made before its choosing? Well, we could avoid this riddle —and tell the chosen that some won’t get paid (in kind) for being lovers—unless they’re certifiably true-as-advertised, and also will behave themselves as stipulated.

This is difficult to do with truth, for the word hides many sentiments such that, if you listen carefully, can have outlandish applications—some of which you would not reference with friends at supper or when in bed with a friendly stranger. There’s no stopping public sentiment, however. One can slash the pictures, burn the books, and ring the curtain down—even shoot the messenger. But, like Asian carp, presumptive truths will get through the barriers and proliferate down stream—by the very banks upon which you and your true love once were safely wont to bide.

Years have been wasted building barricades—but I say the day can still be won. The wars of truth are raging still. (can you imagine—after all this time?) So get off your fat ass and reach with me into the seamy places where truths of all persuasion comport and disport one with the other. We cannot love them all, for some are too sad and tired, others too mean and ugly; and many—more than we once thought—will not show themselves because they are already spoken for in hostile languages.

But some truths look familiar: They have grown to full discourse in adjoining neighborhoods, speak the same if differently inflected language as we do, wear trousers that buckle snugly at the waist instead of sagging below the butt, do not use wigs or multi-dye their hair, avoid tatoos, and seldom pierce in private places.

Such truths represent us better than do the others: Among these familiars are the self-evident truths—they come in all colors. When asked why they are true, they smile and wave at everything that now is and has ever been—and then quietly affirm that we and they, and all of that and them, are one. There is no point in arguing with self-evidential truths—but a glass of white wine at an outdoor table is comforting.

Then there are the logical truths—they are neither red nor blue (actually, somewhat colorless). These truths are more vulnerable to the question: “Where do truths come from?” than to the question: “What is true?” In respect and wonderment, we see them in their stern and subtle robes, but we also want to know what place it is that gives them their authority. They reply that they, of course, are from the mind—that is where they think up the rules by which they themselves, their proofs and propositions, are formed—a neat trick—the snake in full-circle with tail-in-mouth. But we can also suppose that they come from elsewhere—the mind of God, or maybe chanting on the beach.

We now retreat to go forward: As the mind is—must be—a proper part of the brain—then the logical truths, together with all possible rules of formation, must be there as well—assigned variables and firing neurons are kissing cousins. Indeed, one might imagine the brain to be (not merely look-like) a comprehensive (bio) logical system. It once was understood as a comprehensive (teleo) logical system. Both are true under certain conditions. But can we imagine the mind that way? It is (should be) too unruly to conform with systems—or parentheses.

If we poke around—dissect, scan, and otherwise illuminate—we might find those rule-forming places in the brain more easily than if we searched for them in the mind. Poets, it must be said, have done some good mind-searching—but have published their findings through their poems—which, as art, can be discounted but not disputed.

If we assume that the brain (unlike the mind) is a proper part of our physical extension, we can, as above, speculate that rules are somewhere there as well—that the rules of logic must be compatible with the stuff of the physical world—thoughts, their formats, and their stimuli must have a material basis and location. If logic can be found in the brain—as this story goes—we can seamlessly reach out from brain to world, and then return from world to brain along a parallel reaching: The world is logical—ergo—logic is physical—it and we all are rational.

Wonderful! But, of course, there are problems with this conflation of logical thought with a physical site: Logical truths do not justify themselves by waving at the vagaries—excesses and insufficiencies—of the world. They have an internal elegance—but are reticent, often shy, and show their external beauty only to afficionados. They gain their status through coherence in their rules—such rules as govern contradiction, negation, implication, necessity, and the like. But these rules do not show themselves through a correspondence with events which would demonstrate them in the world—they show themselves in language where, in various ways, they talk about the world—or about themselves. Indeed, logical truths need not have support from the outside world (although logicians do). They are in the mind—marvelous creations—and so, are unworldly or other-worldly.

But they are somewhere—everything is—and this brings us back to the choice of a creator God—who would give them infallibility—or to a primordial chaos that develops into quiescent plateaus—of which our world is one. (Is logic dependent on quiescence? Is there a logic of chaos? Is “God” compatible with chaos?) Help me out.

But we—as compendia of—dependents on—both mind and brain, do need worldly reference to give reality to our affairs. The beliefs we have in matters of controversy, that, e.g., “our arguments are better than theirs”—first need a logic provided by the mind—from which we migrate across the border to the relevant physical events. The world is actual—the mind is logical—the brain is the transfer station between the two. This is our reality.

Moving from mind to brain to world, then, involves having (increasingly) adequate measures of compatibility that affirm the completeness of the transfer between the descriptions specific to each. If this is true, then nothing—in principle—should be left out. But as long as the world moves in time—there always is something left out. As a counter to this worry, there is the optimistic thesis of development: “We are getting better at knowing what there is.” True—but as we get better, the subjects of knowledge increase—the “is” changes and gets larger.

The movement from brain to world is easy; from mind to brain is harder.

To begin with: We would all agree that our thinking capacity—personal and historic—seems unlimited. On the other side—the billions or so of neurons and their firing pathways also seem unlimited. But the task of correlating these sets (whether they are infinite or merely indefinite) is formidable—even if we knew what the “correlations” are we want to make.

Are we, for example, trying to explain (as if the neural evidence, long embalmed, could show) why Keats was a great poet? Or are we trying to predict (to find out through her DNA) as to which now-surly undergraduate will write good music?

Or are we—for the sake of tidiness—trying to avoid the normative and aesthetic questions entirely in our thinking?