rattus rattus’ blog

A few days ago, I was skimming through thousands of pictures looking for eyes, preferably eyes of a strong tree out of a dream come true, but that’s another story. In my breaks, I did some day-to-day work like hopping over, actually scurrying over, to Dave Pollard (who we had already referred to) reading his daily blog on why we have not yet saved the world. So much for the history. Recently, Dave was asking for advice in seven words or less. His list, whether I like it or not, made me add our blogs starting credo Stop making sense to the list of comments and further advice. But only when I checked back I found the one advice (to love, to remember, to be and trust)

Breathe!

Added by Siona van Dijk. Or in my mother’s words: Schnaufn nid vagessn (Austrian dialect for “Don’t forget to breathe”). Thus, in a daring attempt to get the feel of an eyes’ glimpse of the air she is breathing, I scurried over to Siona’s profile where she writes

I trust uncertainty, don’t care for irony, and believe that paradox is a profound measure of truth.
— Siona van Dijk

Paradoxes only! Can you see the tree? On the path from trust to truth and back, the very grounds for liars to let trees flourish (trees with leaves of words) what more could we ask for? — Coffee! Of course, yes, but that’s again another story (though the same as above). — Simplification? — This is going to be complicated.

However, in the list of Siona’s bookmarks I found a link leading us to a list of Ten Commandments for a Simpler Way of Life (maybe we should make a list of lists, Juliet, please) where one can find (further) advices such as

II. You shall laugh on a daily basis.
VII. You shall turn off your technology.
VIII. You shall be spontaneous.
X. You shall learn what is ‘enough’.
— Ririan, 2007-04-05

An interesting list of commandments as only no liars could ever compile. A liar, though, cannot resist to add: For to lead a simple life You shall simplify simplification!

Sure, we “believe that all this could very well be wrong” (Siona van Dijk).

Having found the eyes, I’ll now go and look for roots.

But before I gonna move on, one more advice from yours truly rattus rattus: Answer for yourself what advice means to you.

In “le rouge sans le noir” Cairo Otaibi wrote

sometimes we do not care, those are the good times.

And because it is not right what you say I so much trust your words.

[X] [X]

We featured the World Jump Day website earlier. The site now presents the incredible results caused by joint efforts of millions of people who took part in the synchronous world-wide jumping in order to stop global warming. A truly trustworthy illustration of human powers.

WORLD JUMP DAY 20 JULY 2006 11:39:13 GMT
This is 20 July 2006 13:39:13 CEST in e.g. Vienna.

Join us in the attempt to drive planet Earth into a new orbit, by letting millions of people jump!

Let’s jump!

Let us trust in the power of the human community.

[R]

Words ought not to be trusted – you can never be sure if they mean what they say.
— Ashleigh Brilliant

Let’s assume that when people say something they generally mean something different. Then, the question “What do you mean?” generally makes no sense at all.

If you think that some people at least sometimes do say what they mean, well, I anyway do understand something different from what they say let alone what they mean.

So, what does it mean when someone says that she or he makes a lot of use of dictionaries and thesauruses searching for word origins? Like Dave Pollard just wrote? Or like half of my own blog?

What does it mean if someone is especially picky about words, if we try to be precise, if we try to avoid obfuscation and ambiguity, and if we moreover foster meaning with references?

Experts of wording driving away from their audience, burying augury of knowledge in wisdom, the paradox of communication, blatant honesty about lying.

Of course, this makes sense to us, anyway.

Heinz von Foerster shares with us a beautiful riddle about trust and truth. When I wrote about it my working title was “Trust not truth”. I was thinking this title forth and back because one of my inner voices kept yelling something like “You can’t say one shall not trust the truth if Heinz von Foerster clearly shows that truth is based on trust. I mean, what else could we do but trust the truth?
Trust not truth is nonsense. Put it in your Nonsense Box.”

I did see that “trust not truth” can be read in many ways, too. One being “trust — not truth”. Yet, I eventually changed the title to “The problem is not truth” as if this was any less nonsense. But, I could always say it’s a quote of a quote of a quote :-) That’s why.

So, the problem is trust — not truth.
And this is the truth.

What? You mean there is probably more to it? You mean trust not truth? — Oh, yes, you got me on this one ’cause I am a liar.

There is a wonderful quote by Heinz von Foerster that I first learned about at a workshop in April 1991 in Vienna where he presented it in his opening talk:

The problem is not truth,
the problem is trust.

This is a very riddle. One can read it in many ways, and every time I look at it it’s likely to tell me another story. I am most thankful to Heinz von Foerster that he suggested 2 things for reading this riddle: Look up the words in an etymological dictionary, and … silence. He just looked into my eyes and smiled.

May I invite you to see for yourselves. Here is the quote with links to the Online Etymology Dictionary:

The problem is not truth,
the problem is trust.

In an opening address for a conference in 1990, see “ethics and second-order cybernetics“, Heinz von Foerster tells a story about the origin of the quote.

“No answer is an answer.” (rattus rattus : )
We can read this in many ways. Though, if one says “No.” I’d take it for an answer. Even if the question was: “Do you answer?”

Luckily, this simple paradox again and again leads to fruitful discussions:

Karen Kastenhofer once sent in a quote of some lines of e.e. cummings:

when god decided to invent
everything he took one
breath bigger than a circus tent
and everything began

when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because

Karen then asked if anyone dares to answer.

My immediate answer was: No.
Karen replied (maybe wittily) with “O.K., this [answer] was unmistakable. Does anyone else dare to answer?”

Some did and some did not. Yet, every answer is no answer and no answer is an answer. Thus, I wrote a poem as an answer to Karen and e.e. cummings:

Don’t search for contradiction in others, you have found it already.

there him was in her mind full
fear, hope and reason threaded
together a place that was and
because of her will – be

there where no man can reach
shall truth be kept hidden
for only trust in the was
keeps what began at a living
life.

Or, as e.e. cummings is said to have written:
No need to “stand with your lover on the ending earth”.