Longer Views (61 page)

One of the most famous of such problems is the question put by one of the greatest Glotolog philosophers:

“If, at night,
can be called true, though I feel
on my body, is this
real?”

The sense of this, along with the answer, seems self-evident to any English speaker; at the same time, to most of us, it is a mystery why this should be a great philosophical question. The answer lies in the logical form of the language as it has been outlined; but for those of you who do not wish to untangle it further, some of its philosophical significance for the Glotologs can be suggested by mentioning that it has caused among those perspicacious people practically as much philosophical speculation as the equally famous question by the equally famous Bishop Berkeley, about the sound of the unattended tree falling in the deserted forest, and for many of the same reasons—though the good Bishop's query, perfectly comprehensible as to sense by the native Glotolog speaker thanks to the shared terms, seems patently trivial and obvious to them!

A final note to this problem: In recent years, three very controversial solutions have been offered to this classical problem in Glotolog philosophy, all from one young philosophy student resident in one of the
southern monasteries (it rains much less in the south, which has caused some of the northern sages to suggest this upstart cannot truly comprehend the nature of this essentially northern metaphysical dilemma), all three of which involve the reintroduction of the metaphoric dot, placed not in its traditional position over the
or the
, or even over the
, but rather over the words “real,” “true,” or the question mark—depending on the solution considered.

More conservative philosophers have simply gone “
Humph!
” (another utterance common in both Glotolog and English) at these suggestions, claiming that it is simply un-Glotologian to use the metaphoric dot over imported words. The dot is, and it says so in the grammars, reserved for native Glotolog terms. As one of the wittier, older scholars has put it (I translate freely): “In Glotolog, English terms have never had to bear up under this mark; they may, simply, collapse beneath its considerable weight.” The more radical youth of the country, however, have been discussing, with considerable interest, this brilliant young woman's proposals.

35. Science fiction interests me as it models, by contextual extension, the ontology suggested among these notes. As it gets away from that ontology, I often find it appalling in the callousness and grossness of what it has to say of the world. (Like Wittgenstein, when I write these notes on science fiction I am “making propaganda for one kind of thinking over another.”) Does that differ any from saying that I like science fiction that suggests to me the world is the way I already think it is? Alas, not much—which is probably why even some of the most appalling, callous, and gross science fiction is, occasionally, as interesting as it is.

One difference between a philosopher and a fiction writer is that a fiction writer may purposely use a verbal ambiguity to make two (or more) statements using the same words; she may even intend all these statements to be taken as metaphoric models of each other. But she is still unlikely, except by accident, to call them the same statement. A philosopher, on the other hand, may accidentally use a verbal ambiguity, but once he uses it, he is committed to maintaining that all its meanings are one. And, usually, it takes a creative artist to bring home to us, when the philosophy has exhausted us, that everything in the universe is
somewhat
like everything else, no matter how different any two appear; likewise, everything is
somewhat
different from everything else, no matter how similar any two appear. And these two glorious analytical redundancies form the ordinate and abscissa of the whole determinately indeterminant schema.

36. Omitted pages from an sf novel:

“You know,” Sam said pensively, “that explanation of mine this evening—about the gravity business?” They stood in the warm semidark
of the co-op's dining room. “If that were translated into some twentieth- century language, it would come out complete gobbledy-gook. Oh, perhaps an sf reader might have understood it. But any scientist of the period would have giggled all the way to the bar.”

“Sf?” Bron leaned against the bar.

“‘Scientification?' ‘Sci-fi?' ‘Speculative fiction?' ‘Science fiction?' ‘Sf?'—that's the historical progression of terms, though various of them resurfaced from time to time.”

“Wasn't there some public-channel coverage about—?”

“That's right,” Sam said. “It always fascinated me, that century when humanity first stepped onto the first moon.”

“It's not that long ago,” Bron said. “It's no longer from us to them than from them to when man first stepped onto the American shore.”

Which left Sam's heavy-lipped frown so intense Bron felt his temples heat. But Sam suddenly laughed. “Next thing you'll be telling me is that Columbus discovered America; the bells off San Salvador; the son buried in the Dominican Republic . . .”

Bron laughed too, at ease and confused.

“What I mean—” Sam's hand, large, hot, and moist, landed on Bron's shoulder—”is that my explanation would have been nonsense two hundred years ago. It isn't today. The épistèmé has changed so entirely, so completely, the words bear entirely different charges, even though the meanings are more or less what they would have been in—”

“What's an épistèmé?” Bron asked.

“To be sure. You haven't been watching the proper public-channel coverage.”

“You know me.” Bron smiled. “Annie shows and ice-operas—always in the intellectual forefront. Never in arrears.”

“An épistèmé is an easy way to talk about the way to slice through the whole—”

“Sounds like the secondary hero in some ice-opera. Melony Épistèmé, costarring with Alona Liang.” Bron grabbed his crotch, rubbed, laughed, and realized he was drunker than he'd thought.

“Ah,” Sam said (was Sam drunk too . . .?), “but the épistèmé was
always
the secondary hero of the sf novel—in exactly the same way that the landscape was always the primary one. If you'd just been watching the proper public channels, you'd know.” But he had started laughing too.