Ten years the same, ten years different

Every ten years each of us becomes Theseus' ship, or a ship of sorts. Allow me to clarify what I mean by this. Legend has it that the famous ship sailed by the hero Theseus was kept in a dry dock, prefiguring what we do with some museum pieces, for all to behold the vessel that had enabled so many feats of prowess. Plutarch wrote in this piece (nicely translated by John Dryden) that as some of the ship's planks started to rot they were replaced, and that year after year all of the original planks had been replaced so that it was logical for some to contend the very existence of Theseus' ship. If no original piece remains, it can't be the same ship, can it?

To cut a very long story short, the issue has been debated up until now, and is likely to remain so for a long time. It didn't help that Thomas Hobbes introduced a spin-off to the story (in De Corpore, 1655): the Athenians who replaced the rotten planks didn't have the heart to throw them away, but kept them in a dry place for future generations to manage. Imagine now that these future generations repaired the rotten planks and reassembled the ship to its original form. Which one would be the “real” ship of Theseus?

You might have seen me coming by now: it's sort of the same thing with us. It is now common knowledge that many, many cells in our body have a life span, that they die and are replaced in a continuous cycle. In just a few days our intestines will have renewed themselves completely. Taste buds in ten to fifteen days. It takes two weeks to a month for our body to renew its skin cells entirely. Same for our lungs. Liver cells renew in a few months (four or so). Every three to six years not a single hair on our head is the same. Bones take a decade to regenerate, while studies show that the stem cells in the heart are replaced over the course of twenty years or so.

So...are we still the same? If our entire body is completely renewed in the course of ten years, we can't really be the same “us”, can we? A person aged eighty will have shed its body eight times over, like a spider shedding its casing so it can grow. Those who are keen to question the ontological paradox cannot ignore that this comes with some caveats: only the cornea in your eyes renews its cells, the rest of the eye is the “same” age as you are. The brain doesn't renew anything during its lifespan – which therefore corresponds to your lifetime. So it must be something else.

Heraclitus proposes to answer this by taking the analogy of the river: if you step in a river one day, and you step in the same river many years later, neither the river nor yourself will be the same. The drops of water will have been long gone into the sea, and you will have experienced events which will have changed you. The key here is experience: life events change our frame of mind, our perspective and outlook on life, death and other matters. In a way, we're never ourselves entirely and fully as we constantly change.

So...no self, ever? As per usual, it's a tad more complex: our identities may change and shift over time, our bodies may not entirely be the same as our cells renew themselves, as we acquire scars. Epigenesis postulates that even though the DNA sequence is the same in every cell, our genome changes over time, epigenetic markers bearing witness to the thrives and throes of any individual's life. (Long aside here: epigenesis is a fascinating subject, I can't recommend enough that you research it for yourself...and initially I didn't want to give any pointer as I didn't want to influence anyone on this particularly hot topic, but as it's a vast and complex issue I could recommend reading this article, perhaps this one too which is less technical, and researching Lamarck, Weissmann, and Lyssenko.) In a nutshell, all the environmental changes around you which influence in one way or another your way of living, or your diet, or the need to be warm or look for colder climes etc. will leave a chemical mark in your genome, to be passed on – or not – to future generations.

Hang on, so now you're telling us that every ten years we're different all over? Well, no. Schrödinger and Heisenberg would probably frown at this, and each for different reasons, but it is theoretically possible for an object to be in two states, or for this object's state to be indeterminable, at the same time. The ship could be in two locations at the same time because if A = B and B = C then A= C, or nowhere at the same time because the ship doesn't matter, as A ≠ B and B ≠ C then A ≠ C (ergo, there is no ship). The key question here is: is reality dependent on the observer, or is it true at any time and place, regardless of whether or not people measure and attribute meaning to the thing observed? If you change every single member of your favourite football team, is it still the same team you're supporting year in and year out? That's because we attribute more internal “meaning” than what science tells us there initially is (actually science tells us that there can be no internal meaning as there might be no external meaning).

Chomsky would probably agree that our definition of “the same” is screwed because our outlook is skewed. The two ships, our bodies (rather, the different aspects of our body over time), are qualitatively identical, not numerically so. He would also gloss that we, poor human beings with limited senses and perception, externalise some of what we believe to be ontologically true onto the physical world. Our gut feeling (aka intuition) tells us this or that ought to be true but cognitively speaking we're mistaken. Same goes with Theseus' ship exemplifying our double standards. Imagine the ship in a museum: the whole ship is labelled “Original Ship of Theseus”, parts are labelled “Original bed”, “Original linen”, “Original rudder”. Some planks have been replaced: still the same ship. Most planks have been replaced: same ship. All of them: same ship. Rudder need be replaced: well, not original rudder any more...fake news! Changed linen: change the label! Do parts compose the whole? Is the whole whole even if it's no longer whole?

Perhaps the conundrum should be put differently, within a tighter set of boundaries. Being or remaining the same or different remains a valid line of questioning if we pluralise our approaches and don't consider one set of variables to be the only one worth examining. For our brains will tell us different things at different times. It might tell us that the original ship is waiting to be reassembled, and we will have to use the same elements, down to the same nails. But even if we use the same techniques as back then, would your brain tell you it's (finally!) the real ship of Theseus? How could we know? What if Theseus' crew had to change parts of the “original” ship while on board? Do we have to redefine 'original' even after every repair? Do we have to question and redefine our selves every ten years? Every other month? Is identity an ever-shifting concept, never to be grasped? What is right: our senses, our intuition, natural sciences, philosophy, quantum theory?

I'll leave you with one such theory: would it be utterly nonsensical to figure ourselves one object at a particular point of space and time, and then agree that this is “me” or “Theseus' ship”, and then agree further that this “me” is also “me” at a different point in space and time, and that these “mes” are just multiple covariants of “me”? Part and parcel of the same equation? A set of coordinates doesn't mean anything per se, and differentials can only acquire meaning if the frame of reference remains within the bounds of what we designate as 'reality'.

The answer, if there needs to be any, follows the same differential path: it shifts according to the tools with which its components are examined, and possibly lies in more than one frame of reference.

Black into the light

I have an app on my phone which features a different painting every day. This morning this painting by Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko (1846-1898) was featured. It's titled “The Prisoner” (in Russian: « Заключённый »), dated 1878.

It is available here. I was deeply moved by the subtle chiaroscuro, the position of the man with his back towards us, looking out this narrow window. The barely perceptible bed, the crumbling plaster, the scratches on the wall. All of this made a strong impression on me. The painting has a muted brutality. I imagined the longing, listening to muffled sounds from outside seeping through the basement window, the sole source of light in the squalid cell. I imagined the days, the hours, the loneliness. The efforts to prop himself up on an invisible sill for a few seconds to catch a glimpse of the life he's missing out on.

The problem with this app is that sometimes it doesn't give any information on the painting, and it was the case today. I didn't know who had painted it, when, where, why. I was working so I was frustrated not to be able to research it, but when I got home and after a bit of fumbling around I found a different version:

This one is available here. There is a stark difference, to say the least. The second one is much more colourful, yet it somehow doesn't make it any less brutal. The dreariness of the cell is more glaring, and less subtle. The table isn't paired with a chair, the book sitting on it might be a bible which could use some reading, and the tin pot has seen better days. The light from the basement window is warmer, more orange in tone, as of late afternoon. The posture of his legs reminded me of someone who has been standing up for too long and alternates his supporting leg. Somehow, this detail makes his situation seemingly worse: this is where he spends most of this days, looking out. Perhaps he has done this for longer than he cares to remember. He doesn't seem to be contemplating escape, he is a passive onlooker. This fraction of a window is all he has to remind him of the life outside, that life goes on for those on the other side.

I'm not certain how to explain the difference between the two versions. I believe only one painting was made, so the photograph of the painting must have become darker than the original because of poor lighting, or poor exposition, thereby altering the warmer colours of the original work. If anyone knows or has a better educated guess, feel free to enlighten me. It also provides a shining example of one-sided information: if I hadn't done my research I would have believed the first version to be the original one. We should always do a bit of research because really all it took me was less than a few minutes...and though I didn't become a Yaroshenko scholar (though the app previously featured some of his work, and that of other Russian painters), I feel less stupid (and it's I believe the goal of this type of apps ^_^).

 

Pretty sure the Hitch would have loved this one

"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

Bertrand Russell, in Mortals and Others (1931-1935)

What Really Irritates Me In Men, Women and Poodles, and Other Sartorial Considerations Very Late at Night, Part 7

Dear readers,

I woke up a little while ago, and looking out the window makes one legitimately confused as to whether it's today or tomorrow, today or tonight. Technically, it is now, and more precisely today, albeit very early. Looking at my notes, I decided it was time to let some of the bile ooze out of the system, to rage quietly against the dying of the night. One has to run the risk of becoming cantankerous too early in one's career.

I previously addressed people picking their nose, but now another category has emerged, in which men seem to have a facetious upper hand: the ones who manage to successfully wring out, singlefingeredly, a reluctant-because-it-was-warm-up-there boogie while you're talking to them, then proceed to roll up and casually let the balled bogey fall. Yet the casualness needs to be dropped when the gob gets too gooey and persists like a sinful thought in the mind of a 12^th Century flagellating Carmelite monk. The innocuous “You don't happen to have a tissue, do you?” has, since I paid attention to the practise, been a test of my character, for I have rarely been able to keep a straight face. It's also a tell-tale reminder that Murphy and his Infallible Set of Laws watches over us mere mortified mortals...who also eat their cuticles. Also while talking to other people. The worst part of it all is when they gnash at the flake of skin and tear too much off it, and end up bleeding. Now that I have written this, I think the worst part is that I have become so used to people's eccentricities – actually just them being themselves – that I simply go on talking as if nothing were happening, while my soul shrivels and cringes and suffocates. I am a blend of weltschmerz and whateverism.

Speaking of German loan-words: Schadenfreude, primum motum of the humanverse. Probably the sole valid reason to remain on this godforsaken piece of mud that is Earth. The vindication of the statistics. The serendipitous theatre of chance dramedy. The habit you didn't know you shared with some mammals. The glint of light that brightens your day. Yes, all of this. The following anecdote be ample proof.

The weather has been nuts for some time now, and we have had almost constant rain or snow for the past two months – and people have the knack not to wipe their feet off the mat at the school's entrances. Students and colleagues alike. Some will even go to great lengths to avoid wiping their feet on the one metre by three brown mat, thereby muddying the corridor and especially the tiled floor right after the mat. Why they don't want to wipe their feet remains to be asserted with certainty. My wild guess is that they believe the mat to be dirtier than the sole of their shoes – which would fall short of so many logical properties pertaining to the existence and usage of the doormat. Anyway, I had warned people that it became slippery and increased the chances of somebody falling. They called me a killjoy...which is potentially what I was to them, but not to me. The Oh-so-pleasurable moment when I saw a colleague – who shan't be named for obvious reasons – throw his leg in a hubristic attempt to step over the mat, and slip on the slush – mind you, with a bang not a whimper. Grin I did, but I didn't sport the expected I-told-you-so look on my face, for it's a much less pleasurable facial expression to feel it than the I-was-so-waiting-for-this look. Schadenfreude, je t'aime.

The next phenomenon is not recent, but it has gathered momentum in the last five years. People who heard from somebody who heard from somebody who heard from somebody very knowledgeable that you shouldn't say stadiums but stadia, that you'd have to be a total moron to write octopuses instead of octopi – they get my goat because they think they are so much smarter than you because you don't know how to form plurals properly. Well. How am I going to put this. You insufferable piece of S...tadia is the plural for the Greek or Roman unit of length (i.e. circa 185 metres, what an average stadium would measure back in the day) which, retroactively (linguists style this as a 'backformation'), became an alternative form of stadiums. So please stop correcting people because both forms exist. Same thing with forum...when you so smartass-ly use fora, you describe the public square or marketplace in ancient Roman cities, not the web page where people post comments. Aquarium accepts both aquariums and aquaria. Octopus comes from the Greek, by the roundabout way, so stick to octopuses unless you want to use octopodes as scientists do.

There is no hard-and-fast rule about plural formation, as each word behaves according to the language from which it has been borrowed, and also because more importantly we speak bloody English, not Latin or Greek. Thus, considering how many people already struggle with simple syntax, grammar, and plurals, perhaps we should stick to regular forms in -s/-es...unless you all want to be ignoramuses (yep, it's a verb in Latin you numbnuts, not a noun). You're welcome, xox. (Now go back to the beginning of the paragraph and find the plural for the two underlined words in the first sentence...you'll probably infer why 'agendas' ought to be wrong).

A few weeks back I stumbled upon a French poodle into one of James Thurber's fables (The Owl Who Was a God – hilarious) who wasn't the smartest cookie in the jar. Made me wonder if he thought poodles were dumb (bull's eye?) or if he thought the French were dumb (ditto?), or even if adjoining the two would make the aptest personification of dumb (c'est la vie?).

On a different, but poodle-related note, the trend-scouting will undoubtedly have noticed the Rise of the Floodle (sounds like a 1950s sci-fi movie title). Otherwise known as the Flatdoodle, it is a cross between a Flatcoated Retriever and a poodle. I suspect that the people responsible for this atrocious mix have come across the various denotations for “floodle” on the Internet, one of which being the flaccid state of the penis during the sexual act (aka floppy noodle) – hence them frolicking casually back to Flatdoodle. For once, I can't seem to be able to find fault with that.

Quick side note: sure, I can't deny that poodle puppies are cute. That's because they are puppies. Puppihood, puppiness confers great advantages regardless of the breed and the end result. Puppies are meant to be heart-meltingly clumsy and stoopid. The fact that poodles remain so (replace 'heart-meltingly' with 'heart-burningly') is both evidence and motive to continue picking on them.

Apparently the latest sartorial fad in France is to wear an oversize jumper (aka “pull-over” in French, true story) and stuff it into your jeans. Only you don't ram the whole shebang in, you only jam the front, and even then you leave the sides near the hips out. Combine this with high-waisted pants and you might see some, granted unintended, comical effects. So much different than the cheek-peeking, thong-showing, navel-nagging low-rise pants we had a decade ago. “Whale tail” to this day remains a valid entry in Wikipedia, perhaps dormant in case fashion as it so often does needs to resurrect the practise, perhaps to prove to posterity (mmmhmmmh, that pun was intended) that ridicule doesn't kill as long as enough people join you in the same ridiculous action.

It is too cloudy for the sun to even peek through, but I can tell it's day. Or time to go about my day. I had other stories to tell yet they will have to wait, pouring as they are from the tap of human idiosyncrasies. I hope you enjoyed reading this gerondic jabber, the gruffness of which the act of telling has not abated, nor fuelled. But watching the snow gyre nimbly in powdery clouds, murmur like starlings at dusk between the building in its peculiar, hypnotising fashion, I somehow feel tranquil, appeased, unraving at the nascence of the light.

 

In Memoriam

"Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation's heart, the excision of its memory."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008). Nobel lecture in Literature 1970.

The entire lecture is available here, in both English and Russian

Responsage

""Si on lui parlait de son courage, Guillaumet hausserait les épaules. Mais on le trahirait aussi en célébrant sa modestie. Il se situe bien au-delà de cette qualité médiocre. S'il hausse les épaules, c'est par sagesse. Il sait qu'une fois pris dans l'événement, les hommes ne s'en effraient plus. Seul l'inconnu épouvante les hommes. Mais, pour quiconque l'affronte, il n'est déjà plus l'inconnu. Surtout si on l'observe avec cette gravité lucide. Le courage de Guillaumet, avant tout, est un effet de sa droiture."

Sa véritable qualité n'est point là. Sa grandeur, c'est de se sentir responsable. Responsable de lui, du courrier, des camarades qui espèrent. Il tient dans ses mains leur peine ou leur joie. Responsable de ce qui se bâtit de neuf, là-bas, chez les vivants, à quoi il doit participer. Responsable un peu du destin des hommes, dans la mesure de son travail.

Il fait partie des êtres larges qui acceptent de couvrir de larges horizons de leur feuillage. Être homme, c'est précisément être responsable. C'est connaître la honte en face d'une misère qui ne semblait pas dépendre de soi. C'est être fier d'une victoire que les camarades ont remportée. C'est sentir, en posant sa pierre, que l'on contribue à bâtir le monde."

Antoint de St-Exupéry, Terre des Hommes (1939).

Three days of rain

Three days of thrashing rain

the path glistens like mercury

dampness impossible to dry

cold tremors running up the spine

the days dwell in darkness

impenetrable to sunrays

to any sense of joy

trees and rocks coated in molten metal

yet all things colder to the touch

and older too, and more spiteful

those affronting the downpour

shoulders hunched as under yoke

head down and that forward thrust

of one ploughing the field of dark

the cows bored stiff, the sheep silent

the dogs shuffle from hearth to door

sniff the air from the slit and trot back

spin into a pungent bun on their mat

only the cat imperturbable

her silvery coat blending in

her yellow eyes like lit windows

pierce the deluge in a drowsy vigil

her ears poised for abating rain

even when cleaning her spotless paws

the torrent drumming in the gurgling drain

 

Histoires

Les histoires, on préfère les raconter qu'en faire

les écouter du bord du sommeil,

certains les écrivent au fer

rouge, d'autres à l'encre du soleil.

Certaines histoires ne vivent qu'un soir,

d'autres pour s'écrire attendent la veille,

pour d'autres, encore, on a besoin de boire.

Les histoires, il y en a autant que de gens,

même s'il n'y en a parfois qu'une qui compte.

Elles se créent toutes en se multipliant.

Certaines sont fières, d'autres nous font honte,

d'autres tiennent à l'oubli d'un gant,

d'autres s'effacent alors que l'eau monte,

et toujours, toujours une autre qui attend.

 
 

Insatiable

"The truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is."

Nadine Gordimer, novelist, Nobel laureate (1923-2014)


The full essay, entitled "Leaving School - II", is available here.

No man's land

Dogs pacing to and fro in kennels

ears and tail hanging low, whimpering,

growling

the thick darkness

slowly cowling the broad daylight

not your typical summer storm

it seemed a spoonful

would be darker than

the darkest night we ever knew

the people stopped ploughing

hand on brow as a visor

soon the sun blanketed

a sense of dread like a clod underfoot

a finely-polished listlessness

imperative to avoid panic

and the clouds, the clouds

amassing like billowed fear

and the dogs barking, barking

gravity warped the mirror into smithereens

people fell to their knees, prayed,

called for shelter

ran away from the epiphany

it was too much reality

too much science

too much life in one sitting

the last starless night fell upon the earth

tucked us motherly in

whispered gently, gently,

“good night”.