14
flower, study guide, or textbook. CliffsNotes wherein every kid enamored of Huck
Finn has likely left his/her own doodles and interpolations upon the pages.
The point goes to the proliferation and compulsion of human ideas; of frenetic,
compulsive expression; its phenomenologies (first-person insights that are the subjective anecdotes that comprise any science and its inevitable thicket of interpretive
experience) of translation. All those unending tensions between subjective and
objective obsessions with endless layers of meaning, with levels of confidence, or
“confidence intervals”
3
; of “negotiation” (Umberto Eco),
4
of “communication”
(George Steiner),
5
of “individualist escapism” (Italo Calvino on James Purdy)
6
; the
very rudiments of neurophysiology of the last remaining hominin mind. A brain/
mind matrix of inscrutable layering, elusive and unknown to us, by turns enlightening and obfuscating, that somehow may be thought of as its own eco-dynamic flux
fraught with the temptation, easily given in to, to act out contradictory behavior, or
react to the world cynically.
The variables of such underlying contradictions (or ambiguities) have been discussed for thousands of years, involving such fundaments as life and death, the soul
and matter, senses and reason, change and permanence, being, becoming, yes, no,
here, there, not and why not, etc. These contraries, antonyms, oppositional forces,
knowns and unknowns are no less intriguing and mysterious than those same combinatorial effusions which highlight poetic function, form, beginnings and ends,
throughout the biochemical world we think of as earth, which translates and transliterates every inkling of DNA, every cell, molecule, and atom (Fig. 2.1).
So heavily entrenched is our species in copious domestic and international news,
information, gigabytes, and fiscal transactions, that the weight of our presence hinders even the possible hint of our ever stepping outside our frameworks, the human
context, the mind within. Or, as a website for Bloomberg Philanthropies states, “In
God We Trust; Everyone Else Bring Data.”
7
When the twelfth richest man in the world according to Forbes,
8
Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, joined his colleagues on the stage of his first democratic debate in Las
Vegas (February 19, 2020), amid the scathing flurries of exhausted rhetoric, transparent mantras, desperate efforts at identity differentiation, one candidate, the
3 See Wolfram Mathworld, http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ConfidenceInterval.html.
4 Mouse or Rat? Translation As Negotiation, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2003.
5 After Babel Aspects of Language and Translation, Oxford University Press, New York and
London, 1975.
6 Hermit In Paris – Autobiographical Writings, Translated from the Italian by Martin McLaughlin,
Pantheon Books, New York, p.49.
7 See “Bloomberg Philanthropies” – “Our Approach,” https://www.bloomberg.org/about/ourapproach/Accessed, February 20, 2020; this quote is allegedly taken from a statement by William
Edwards Deming, a U.S. statistician – “In God we trust; all others must bring data.” See online
article by same title, by Adam Breckler, November 18. 2013 –“5 min read” - https://medium.
com/@adambreckler/in-god-we-trust-all-others-bring-data-96784d01e9be, Accessed February
20, 2020.
8 2020 List, https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#578cd3173d78, Accessed February
20, 2020.
2 On the Nature of Paradox
flower, study guide, or textbook. CliffsNotes wherein every kid enamored of Huck
Finn has likely left his/her own doodles and interpolations upon the pages.
The point goes to the proliferation and compulsion of human ideas; of frenetic,
compulsive expression; its phenomenologies (first-person insights that are the subjective anecdotes that comprise any science and its inevitable thicket of interpretive
experience) of translation. All those unending tensions between subjective and
objective obsessions with endless layers of meaning, with levels of confidence, or
“confidence intervals”
3
; of “negotiation” (Umberto Eco),
4
of “communication”
(George Steiner),
5
of “individualist escapism” (Italo Calvino on James Purdy)
6
; the
very rudiments of neurophysiology of the last remaining hominin mind. A brain/
mind matrix of inscrutable layering, elusive and unknown to us, by turns enlightening and obfuscating, that somehow may be thought of as its own eco-dynamic flux
fraught with the temptation, easily given in to, to act out contradictory behavior, or
react to the world cynically.
The variables of such underlying contradictions (or ambiguities) have been discussed for thousands of years, involving such fundaments as life and death, the soul
and matter, senses and reason, change and permanence, being, becoming, yes, no,
here, there, not and why not, etc. These contraries, antonyms, oppositional forces,
knowns and unknowns are no less intriguing and mysterious than those same combinatorial effusions which highlight poetic function, form, beginnings and ends,
throughout the biochemical world we think of as earth, which translates and transliterates every inkling of DNA, every cell, molecule, and atom (Fig. 2.1).
So heavily entrenched is our species in copious domestic and international news,
information, gigabytes, and fiscal transactions, that the weight of our presence hinders even the possible hint of our ever stepping outside our frameworks, the human
context, the mind within. Or, as a website for Bloomberg Philanthropies states, “In
God We Trust; Everyone Else Bring Data.”
7
When the twelfth richest man in the world according to Forbes,
8
Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, joined his colleagues on the stage of his first democratic debate in Las
Vegas (February 19, 2020), amid the scathing flurries of exhausted rhetoric, transparent mantras, desperate efforts at identity differentiation, one candidate, the
3 See Wolfram Mathworld, http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ConfidenceInterval.html.
4 Mouse or Rat? Translation As Negotiation, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2003.
5 After Babel Aspects of Language and Translation, Oxford University Press, New York and
London, 1975.
6 Hermit In Paris – Autobiographical Writings, Translated from the Italian by Martin McLaughlin,
Pantheon Books, New York, p.49.
7 See “Bloomberg Philanthropies” – “Our Approach,” https://www.bloomberg.org/about/ourapproach/Accessed, February 20, 2020; this quote is allegedly taken from a statement by William
Edwards Deming, a U.S. statistician – “In God we trust; all others must bring data.” See online
article by same title, by Adam Breckler, November 18. 2013 –“5 min read” - https://medium.
com/@adambreckler/in-god-we-trust-all-others-bring-data-96784d01e9be, Accessed February
20, 2020.
8 2020 List, https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#578cd3173d78, Accessed February
20, 2020.
2 On the Nature of Paradox