by Higgs, JMR
The mathematical concept of imaginary numbers is a useful example here. As the laws of maths make explicit, imaginary numbers not only don't exist, they can't exist. The basic imaginary number, known as i, is defined as the square root of minus one. This cannot exist because there is no possible number, minus or positive, which will produce a minus answer when multiplied by itself. Regardless, mathematicians in the eighteenth century played around with imaginary numbers for the fun of it and found them to be surprisingly useful. Over time their properties became understood and they became an important tool for engineers. Our understanding of phenomena such as radio waves or electricity is reliant on them.
This is not to say that electricity behaves as it does because of something that doesn’t exist. Instead, it says that our most practical and useful models for understanding electricity rely on something that doesn't exist. Likewise magic (or art, if you prefer) doesn't exist but then again, it doesn't need to. In a narrative driven by people who practice magical thinking, magical thinking is a tool for following that story.
This still leaves us stuck with a question though - which is the best model to view these events, the magical thinking perspective which offers a descent into nonsense or a rational perspective which shrugs and gives up? For an answer to this we need to return to Robert Anton Wilson, and plunge back into the heart of Discordianism. For such a Discordian-influenced story, it is fitting that we should make sense of it using Discordian eyes.
Many people have been asked to explain quantum physics over the years, but Robert Anton Wilson had perhaps the best answer. He explained how, after he left LA, he moved into a little apartment in Santa Cruz. After something was stolen from his car he called the police, and they told him that he didn't live in Santa Cruz after all, but lived in a place called Capitola. The post office disagreed, however, and assured him that he did live in Santa Cruz. Wilson then spoke to a reporter on the local paper to see if he could shed any light on this, and the reporter explained that he did not live in either Santa Cruz or Capitola, but in an unincorporated area known as Live Oak.
Wilson was delighted to discover that he lived in three different places at the same time. His apartment didn't move, of course. What happened was different authorities had drawn different lines on their maps. Each authority had a system that worked well enough for their own purposes, so they had no reason to change it. The problem with quantum physics, Wilson argued, is that many people fail to realise that it is we who draw the lines on the map. "It seems hard to understand how a particle can be in three places at the same time without being anywhere at all," he said, "but when you remember that we invented all the boundaries [...], then quantum mechanics is no more mysterious than the fact that I live in three places at the same time."
Hence we have experiments that that show that light travels as a wave, and we have experiments that show that light travels as a particle. This strange dual nature of light, where it behaves as a wave when treated as a wave but behaves like a particle when treated as a particle, baffled many of the greatest physicists for many years. Wilson's point, however, is that both the 'wave model' and the 'particle model' are our own inventions, the lines that we have drawn on the map. Both models are elegant and useful, but they are not light itself. Light is not affected by our attempts to understand it. Like Wilson's apartment, it remains its own thing, removed from the models we use to understand it.
This recognition, that we habitually confuse our models with what they describe, is central to Wilson's thinking. Instinctively, we feel it is possible to know the nature of things themselves, and there is a natural resistance to accepting that we can only know our models. Wilson's work was dedicated to wearing down that resistance. His philosophy was one of multiple-model agnosticism - not simply agnosticism about the existence of God, but agnosticism about everything. With multiple-model agnosticism there is no point getting hung up on the models themselves, because that's all they are - models. Models are by definition smaller and simpler facsimiles of whatever it is that they are trying to describe. The models are not 'true', but they do vary in usefulness depending on how accurate they are in different cultures and circumstances. Once this is recognised, we no longer attach our sense of personal identity to the models we use, and we lose our resistance to swapping between different models when necessary.
Personally identifying with models that we don't realise are models is the cause of much discord. An obvious example of this is the furious arguments which erupt on the internet between people who, although they don’t realise it, are largely in agreement. These nasty, vitriolic clashes occur between people who both agree that people should try to be nice to each other, that the economy is important, that freedom is a good thing and that family should be protected. What is happening is that both sides in the argument are using different models (typically, different political models) and those models are clashing in much the same way that the particle and wave models of light clash. Sadly, these internet ranters do not realise that they are confusing their models with the actuality, and that their argument is about the models, not about the thing-in-itself. No true communication can occur in such instances. As Wilson wrote in Illuminatus!, "You cannot understand a man's actions unless you understand his beliefs."
The twentieth century was a continuous retreat from the notions of certainty and absolute truth. Einstein, Joyce, Heisenberg, Jung, Edward Lorenz, Tim Leary and Kurt Gödel repeatedly demonstrated that what had once been ordered was actually uncertain and what had once been true was really only true from a particular point of view. Our culture made a brave stab at absorbing this new perspective but its response - postmodernism - left a lot to be desired. Postmodernism was the collision of unrelated forms, all of which were given equal validity. This, clearly, was something of a dead end. Postmodern theorists may have convinced themselves that the statement "the sun will rise tomorrow" was as valid as the statement "the sun will not rise tomorrow," but they would have bankrupted themselves trying to prove it to a bookmaker.
The result was a retreat away from postmodernism and a return to models that promised certainty. This, unfortunately, ignored what we learnt in the twentieth century and the reasons why these certainties had been discredited in the first place. The resulting cultural battleground forced people even deeper into their self-referential reality tunnels, and those who believed in one great self-evident truth were forced into long, bitter warfare with others who favoured a slightly different great self-evident truth.
This is a great shame, because there was another option. The other option was Wilson's multiple-model agnosticism, where neither "the sun will rise tomorrow" nor "the sun will not rise tomorrow" would be confused with reality, the thing-in-itself, but both would be seen as models that could be assessed to see which was preferable in the current situation. In this example, the "sun will rise tomorrow" model appears to be pretty useful, while the alternative appears to be rubbish and should probably be put into storage. This is the reason why I earlier described Wilson's decision to adopt a 'giant invisible rabbit' model to explain why he was hearing voices in his head as "one the most important philosophical leaps of the twentieth century, if, admittedly, it is not yet generally recognised as such."
Multiple-model agnosticism, then, is a way out of postmodernism which doesn't lead into the belief that, out of all the billions of people in the world, you are the only one who really gets it and everyone else are idiots. The problem is, however, that our models are too damned convincing, and it is a struggle to remember that they are models and not reality. Hence much of the work of the Discordians - bar the stuff included purely for shits and giggles - is aimed at shocking people into realising the extent to which they confuse their models with the actuality. The 23 Enigma is a good case in point. Wilson was basically training his readers to notice 23s everywhere and, as any Discordian will tell you, he did this very well indeed. The point is, however, that there is nothing special about the number in itself. It is the
fact that it has been singled out and had meaning applied to it, and that Discordians have been trained to recognise it, which is significant. Had it been the number 47, or 18, or 65, the effect would have been the same. Indeed, in his later years Wilson admitted that it would have been much better if he had trained his readers to spot quarters on the ground instead of number 23s.
Of course, Multiple-model agnosticism also allows you to consider the model which states that the above paragraph is mistaken, and that the number 23 is significant. Many Discordians have explored this model at length. As I understand it, that model doesn't lead to anywhere pleasant, but the curious are encouraged to explore it for themselves to see if that's true.
The reason that the 23 Enigma is useful is because it demonstrates the amount of information that our models filter out. In actuality, the coincidental and synchronistic appearances of the number 23 are matched by coincidental and synchronistic appearances of every other number, even though our models fail to react to these. They are just models, after all, and models are significantly less detailed than what they represent. Reality itself is ablaze with infinite connections: every particle in the cosmos affects every other particle. It's Too Much, it really is, and seeing reality in all its innate finery would be so overpowering that you'd be in no state to nip down the shops when you need a pint of milk.
Understanding just how simplified and restrictive our personal models are is a useful tool to prevent you from confusing them with reality. A narrative, such as the one presented in this book, is a perfect example of this. From the near-infinite set of data points that were created by Cauty and Drummond's activities, one particular path was selected by this author to serve as a model for what occurred. The decisions which dictated which data points were ignored and which were presented as significant were made in an attempt to create a narrative that was (a) a good yarn, and (b) something that would mess with the reader's head on as deep a level as possible. Neither of those reasons is concerned with uncovering some profound and unarguable ‘truth’ about what happened, even if all the actual facts are true.
There are many other possible narratives that could have been presented and which would have been equally valid. The idea that this chosen narrative is the 'correct' one is only plausible if you forget that this narrative is just a simplified model of what happened back in the 1990s, and confuse it with the thing itself.
Wilson put it better. As he used to say, "All statements are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense." The statement that 'Cauty and Drummond's burning of a million pounds was a magical act that created the 21st Century' is a perfect example of this.
Alan Moore’s magical thinking and the materialist rational perspective, we must remember, are both models. They’re both pretty interesting models, to be fair, and there are a lot of good things about both of them. Artists couldn’t create without magical thinking, just as engineers couldn’t work without rational materialism. It is easy to see how both artists and engineers could confuse their models with the real world, knowing as they do how useful and reliable they are. But neither of these perspectives gives a complete picture. A musician is not going to be able to create a sampler using magical thinking. Or to demonstrate the blind spot of materialism, find a photograph of Johnny Rotten in 1976 and look into his eyes: as a human being, you will know that there is something extraordinary going on, something that the rational materialist model cannot even hope to explain.
When you are dealing with models, it is necessary to remember that they have limits. Even the best only work at certain times and on certain scales. Newton’s laws are so reliable and accurate on human scales that we trust our lives to them when we climb into aeroplanes, yet they break down at larger or smaller scales. They are unable to predict the orbit of Mercury, for example, for which we need the models created by Einstein, and they are little use on a subatomic scale. Communism, some have claimed, is the most effective model for social order, but only in tribes of around thirty people or less. Alan Greenspan’s economic model, likewise, was only useful under certain conditions. Magical and objective materialism are both models, even if this is often forgotten. And being models, they too have limits beyond which they are little use.
The magical thinking of the mind fails, more often than not, when it tries to move beyond the immaterial and affect the material world. Likewise, objective materialism has proved to be a fat lot of good at explaining or predicting the mental worlds that we inhabit. Once we are aware of those limits, the idea that these two models are incompatible falls away. Using multiple-model agnosticism, we no longer have to take sides and nail our colours to one or the other. We simply have to remember which model works in which circumstances and ensure that we apply the correct model for the projects we undertake, be they writing love poems or predicting earthquakes.
The need to use multiple models comes about because we do not possess one perfect, unarguable model that works in all situations and which everyone agrees is functionally perfect. If one is discovered it will be a cause for much celebration, but that day has yet to come and it seems optimistic to assume that it is around the corner. As a result we make do with a variety of competing explanations which we need to hop between and assess in order to see which is the most useful, on either practical or aesthetic levels. This is more work, but it keeps things interesting.
From a multiple-model perspective, the burning of a million quid in the boathouse in Jura can be said to be both a meaningless act by two attention seeking arseholes which was in no way connected to the wider changes in the world at large, and also a magical act that forged the twenty-first century. This makes it far more interesting than if it was just one or the other, for when the irrational magical narrative and the unconnected real world narrative dovetail, when they tell much the same story from incompatible viewpoints, there is a rush of insight and aesthetic harmony. We are like Picasso during his Cubist period, seeing his subject from multiple perspectives and producing a single image that is both nonsensical and also full of understanding.
Bill Drummond, it seems, was clearly on to something when he advises that we accept the contradictions.
That is my preferred take on the situation, anyway. You are free to consider other models. Perhaps this chapter was intended as an elaborate 'banishing ritual,' intended to dispel any troublesome energies that the writing of this book may have stirred up? Multiple-model agnosticism does challenge you to work these things out yourself. To quote Illuminatus! for the last time, "Think for yourself, schmuck!"
EPILOGUE
A few years ago I visited the primary school of one of my children. She has since moved up to secondary school, where a teacher told her that the father of a recent pupil had been a pop star who burnt a million pounds yet "was a really nice guy." But enough of coincidences.
I was looking at a poster of the solar system on the wall of a classroom when a teacher came up and spoke to me. "I get so many parents complaining about that poster," he said, as if fearful that I was going to do the same and hoping to confront me before I had the chance.
"Why's that, I asked?" The poster showed nine planets and their relative sizes, complete with other information such as number of moons and so forth. It seemed uncontroversial to me. The planets went, from left to right, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
The teacher tapped at the blue circle on the right, the ninth planet. "Pluto isn't a planet anymore," he said. This was true. In 2006, an international body reclassified Pluto as not a planet, but a dwarf planet. Pluto has many defenders, however, and this has proved to be a controversial decision. The poster, clearly, was printed before any of this happened. From the teacher's comments, it appeared that some smart-arsed parents had been showing off their knowledge of astronomy at the poor poster's expense.
> "It's a dwarf planet," the teacher continued, "so it makes sense to include it on a poster showing all the proper planets." He seemed happy with this conclusion.
"What about Eris?" I asked.
He looked blankly at me. "Eris?" he questioned.
"Eris is also a dwarf planet," I explained. "It's the biggest actually, bigger than Pluto. It's the ninth biggest thing in the solar system. If you're going to have Pluto on there, shouldn't you have Eris?"
There was a pause. "I've never heard of it," he said, and walked off to find a less-irritating parent to talk to.
There's no reason he should have heard of it, of course. It's big enough to have a moon of its own, Dysnomia, but it is a very distant thing. It was only discovered in 2005, and it has a wantonly elongated orbit that usually places it much further from the Sun than Pluto. It has been recently re-measured and found to be almost identical in size to Pluto, so my claim that it was the ninth biggest thing in the Solar System was actually wrong. The arguments that it generated in the astronomical community following its discovery led to the controversial classification of what was and wasn't a planet, and this led to poor Pluto being demoted. It was these arguments and the discord that they generated which resulted in it being given the name Eris. That, and the fact that Eris was the "favourite Goddess" of its finder Mike Brown.
I wonder what Hill and Thornley would have made of this? They invoked Eris, and brought her into the twentieth century after being forgotten for a couple of thousand years. The concept of chaos then spread through academia and the counter culture, those being the two places where new ideas are explored, and the results range from the chaos mathematics that drive our climate models, to the events in this story. Then Eris is discovered in the heavens, circling our Sun, bringing argument and upset. ‘As above, so below’, as the saying goes.