by Neil Vodavzny

Having arrived at H+ (Transhumanism), a few observations may be in order: things in the multiverse have to be either instantaneous or very fast. There seems to be no time for pace, tempo, stillness or even serenity. Probably that’s because they don’t exist in the multiverse! Why should that be, since in most other respects everything’s hunky dory?

Einstein famously stated “Time is an illusion”, though he wasn’t playing the piano at the time.  And the general consensus seems to be that we experience time as a way of making sense of space-time, which in reality is continuous (like Dr Manhattan, or the Starchild). It’s easy for scientists to accept this since the nature of time is still unknown.  Philosophically, this is highly improbable since such statements as “ actions have consequences” would lose their meanings.

What you can equally do is turn this round to its opposite and say, time is real while the multiverse is fake. Of course, what scientists will say is, we can observe such and such an event – so that is true. Quite, but what they’re observing is the world of pure reason, a Cartesian world. However far they peer they’re not going to detect the works of Shakespeare.

That begs the question, what is time? Whatever it is has to be non-Cartesian, a dialectic such as that between night and day. We’re back to the principle that tension creates a world which, otherwise, is pure technic. Marxism and capitalism may muddy the waters somewhat by positing a type of “technical dialectic” – production, supple-and-demand – making them compatible with a Cartesian model.

The time seems to have come to call a spade a spade. Seas, wooded mountain slopes and barren deserts, eagles souring in cloudless skies are the realities which have a dialectic tension reflecting the notions of pace, tempo, cause and effect. Just a hint of poetry in the air is enough to dispel the notion that time can be illusory or, even if it is, the illusion is the reality. The existential meaning of culture has to be something of this nature, a will-o-the-wisp that is most easily reached by means of wit, words, a poet’s perception.

European culture specifically can be swallowed up by an egalitarian techno-order. In order to pin-down the meanings of the culture and its historical roots, you should perhaps listen to something like Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood (original 1954 recording).  A day in the night of a semi-fictional Welsh seaside village, incestuous, ribald and even cross-dressing if critic Kenneth Tynan is to be believed:

“He conscripts metaphors, rapes the dictionary and builds a verbal bawdy-house where words mate and couple on the wing, like swifts. Nouns dress up, quite unself-consciously, as verbs, sometimes balancing three-tiered epithets on their heads and often alliterating to boot.”

Such works of imagery and actions are the real sources of culture in all its ethnic intensity – a microcosm to repel the all-conquering multiverse.

We should also be aware that ethnic differences impact on culture in very subtle ways, things which have a type of poetry like, say, Buchan brogue and dialect   Very specific things relate to a way of life, fisherman or farmer. My hunch is that traditional pastimes like fiddle-playing, and the easy ambiance of a fishing village impact on the mind and influence thought.

Pardon the humour!

Here’s another example of poetry, whimsy, Jabberwocky.

After all, we’re told time and again social-media influences thought and behaviour. The question is, do we want short attention spans, or a well-paced, adroit verbal and mental dexterity? The subtext is, who benefits? This is a political question.