#@danielkordan

Mother Nature x Mt. Fuji

Indonesia

Indonesia

📸 by Danielkordan.com

Indonesia

📸 by Danielkordan.com

Enlightenment Versus Thermodynamics:)

The search for infinite power is continually interrupted by finite biology.

"In the Twelfth Month of last year the Other suspended his work on the Great and Secret Knowledge and cancelled our meetings because he said it was too cold to stand about talking"

Piranesi, S. Clarke

Clarke is not simply mocking mystical traditions. She is exposing a very general psychological mechanism. The Great and Secret Knowledge is never clearly defined. That is crucial. Its content remains vague, but its promised reward is always the same. More power.

That is exactly how many ideologies function. The object of desire remains indefinite, but it is surrounded by enormous expectations. "If you awaken..." "If you become enlightened..." "If you discover the secret..." "If you raise your consciousness..." "If you manifest correctly..." The promise is always that there exists one decisive piece of knowledge that will fundamentally change the human condition.

Clarke makes this psychologically recognizable by having the Other constantly speculate. Perhaps it is telepathy. Perhaps shapeshifting. Perhaps controlling minds. Perhaps cosmic power. He never knows. The certainty concerns only one thing. There must be something extraordinary hidden somewhere. That "must" is the real object of satire.

From a Spinozist perspective, this is almost a perfect illustration of imagination outrunning adequate ideas. The mind feels its own lack of power and therefore imagines that somewhere there exists a final cause, a final secret, or a final technique that will remove that lack. This is the perfect image of sitting in zazen for 30 years to become enlightened. This is the perfect image of sitting in zazen for 30 years to become enlightened. And at the end, what awaits you? A promise.

Clarke inserts one of the funniest philosophical jokes in the novel. Winter arrives. The prophet of ultimate knowledge cancels the meetings. Not because of a profound metaphysical insight. Because he is cold. It is a wonderful collapse of abstraction into biology. Delightful, isn't it?

The body quietly wins. All the grand metaphysics, all the promises of extraordinary powers, all the secret meetings... and then thermoregulation says, "Not today." That is funny precisely because it reminds us that we are organisms first. First you need to take care of a warm butt and then imagine special powers. Clarke lets homeostasis interrupt metaphysics. Warmth first. Ultimate knowledge later. From an evolutionary perspective, this is exactly right. A freezing organism does not transcend biology. It returns to it.

The question is why does the Other want these powers? Telepathy. To eliminate uncertainty about other minds. Flying. To escape bodily constraints. Swimming like a fish. To escape environmental constraints. Moving objects by thought. To eliminate effort. Controlling other minds. To eliminate social uncertainty. Even extinguishing and reigniting the stars is the fantasy of abolishing dependence on nature itself. Every one of these fantasies reduces vulnerability. None of them is primarily about understanding reality. They are about becoming less subject to reality.

Living systems seek power because power means a greater capacity to maintain homeostasis. Spinoza would call this an increase in one's power of acting. Clarke is showing what happens when that perfectly natural tendency escapes all constraint and becomes mythologized. The organism no longer says, "I would like to be safer." It says, "Somewhere there must exist a secret that will make me almost omnipotent." Then winter arrives. And the joke is that the same organism cannot even continue the discussion because its ass (fingers) are freezing. That is not merely comedy. It is philosophy. It reminds us that the search for infinite power is continually interrupted by finite biology.

Indonesia

📸 by Danielkordan.com