520
as to be statistically irrelevant, then that by itself speaks to our species’ elimination
in the vaster scheme, which is running out of all patience with our illegitimate and
petty species-claims to tenure.
55.3 The Strange Dramas of Human Apperception
Human consciousness has betrayed itself and the assumptions most likely held by
all others, whether social insects or deep-ocean creatures. This realization will be
taken at much greater length in Part Three of this treatise, “A Natural History of
Existentialism.” But twenty-first-century schools of epistemology are fraught with
a losing effort to fully cognize those shameful history lessons we have ignored,
and the legacy of mind that has never been so desperate before a body reckless. In
1974, ethicist and law professor at New York University, Thomas Nagel asked,
“What is it Like to Be a Bat?”,
13
noting that consciousness is imperishably subjective. Its sole reality is its relatability to some other in-and-of-itself. For philosopher David J. Chalmers, this relationship basis for being in the world faces the
conundrum of qualia, particularly as such traits spawn “brute discontinuities in
fundamental laws” (of nature).
14
These are not mere words, spawned in the selfpreserving debates of contemporary philosophy. Rather, they warrant deep reflection, comparison, and study. The very words, “relatability,” “qualia,” and “brute”
come heavy bundled in a history of both etymological revelation, and current
peak-critique relevancy.
Marvin Minsky acknowledges the bat problem in his proposition that there is a
vast distance between “the nature of thoughts” and “the nature of things”.
15
Many
have tried to bridge the gap, of course. And these dialectics in turn invite what
Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison in their utterly incisive work, Objectivity, have
described as “the image-as-tool,” “a new kind of scientific self – a hybrid figure”
lodged somewhere between “representation” and “presentations” to ourselves.
16
We stare out dumbly at all the mysterious creatures; some we recognize, others
not—like Frilled Sharks, Vampire Squids, Goliath Beetles, Giant Blue Earthworms,
Assassin Bugs, the King of Saxony Bird-of-Paradise, Chrysopelea—flying snakes,
monotremes, the Antarctic marine Enypniastes eximia, and Bleeding Tooth Fungus.
Usually, we catch and cage them, like the carnivorous marsupial, Thylacine,
extinct at some point between the late 1930s and mid-1960s, but not before several
film cameras captured the tragedy of its final years, in bunkers, on concrete floors,
13 Philosophical Review, 83, 435–50; see p. 436.
14 David J. Chalmers, “Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia,” Conscious Experience,
edited by Thomas Metzinger, Imprint Academic 1995, http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html,
Accessed May 23, 2020.
15 In “Realms of Thought,” 29.1, The Society Of The Mind, by Marvin Minsky, Simon And Schuster,
New York, NY, 1986, p. 292.
16 Zone Books, New York, 2007, pp. 412–413.
55 No Equation for It: Numbers with No Attachment
as to be statistically irrelevant, then that by itself speaks to our species’ elimination
in the vaster scheme, which is running out of all patience with our illegitimate and
petty species-claims to tenure.
55.3 The Strange Dramas of Human Apperception
Human consciousness has betrayed itself and the assumptions most likely held by
all others, whether social insects or deep-ocean creatures. This realization will be
taken at much greater length in Part Three of this treatise, “A Natural History of
Existentialism.” But twenty-first-century schools of epistemology are fraught with
a losing effort to fully cognize those shameful history lessons we have ignored,
and the legacy of mind that has never been so desperate before a body reckless. In
1974, ethicist and law professor at New York University, Thomas Nagel asked,
“What is it Like to Be a Bat?”,
13
noting that consciousness is imperishably subjective. Its sole reality is its relatability to some other in-and-of-itself. For philosopher David J. Chalmers, this relationship basis for being in the world faces the
conundrum of qualia, particularly as such traits spawn “brute discontinuities in
fundamental laws” (of nature).
14
These are not mere words, spawned in the selfpreserving debates of contemporary philosophy. Rather, they warrant deep reflection, comparison, and study. The very words, “relatability,” “qualia,” and “brute”
come heavy bundled in a history of both etymological revelation, and current
peak-critique relevancy.
Marvin Minsky acknowledges the bat problem in his proposition that there is a
vast distance between “the nature of thoughts” and “the nature of things”.
15
Many
have tried to bridge the gap, of course. And these dialectics in turn invite what
Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison in their utterly incisive work, Objectivity, have
described as “the image-as-tool,” “a new kind of scientific self – a hybrid figure”
lodged somewhere between “representation” and “presentations” to ourselves.
16
We stare out dumbly at all the mysterious creatures; some we recognize, others
not—like Frilled Sharks, Vampire Squids, Goliath Beetles, Giant Blue Earthworms,
Assassin Bugs, the King of Saxony Bird-of-Paradise, Chrysopelea—flying snakes,
monotremes, the Antarctic marine Enypniastes eximia, and Bleeding Tooth Fungus.
Usually, we catch and cage them, like the carnivorous marsupial, Thylacine,
extinct at some point between the late 1930s and mid-1960s, but not before several
film cameras captured the tragedy of its final years, in bunkers, on concrete floors,
13 Philosophical Review, 83, 435–50; see p. 436.
14 David J. Chalmers, “Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia,” Conscious Experience,
edited by Thomas Metzinger, Imprint Academic 1995, http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html,
Accessed May 23, 2020.
15 In “Realms of Thought,” 29.1, The Society Of The Mind, by Marvin Minsky, Simon And Schuster,
New York, NY, 1986, p. 292.
16 Zone Books, New York, 2007, pp. 412–413.
55 No Equation for It: Numbers with No Attachment