“Sorry. I was just thinking out loud.”
“About what?”
“I think I’m getting tired of all the muddles.”
“What muddles?”
“Political, mostly. And they’re everywhere. Europe, Africa, Asia, Middle East, North America. One muddled squabble after another. There’s no end.”
“But political squabbles have always been with us. People without power want power they never had or once had and then lost.”
“True. I know that. But in the so-called modern world, the muddles have become wider and even more unresolvable. And I think I know the reason. That’s what drove me to ‘think aloud.’ I remembered something John Wilkins wrote as a justification for his claim that the moon might have inhabitants.”
“Not familiar with that.”
“Picture this. It’s 1638, four years before Galileo’s death and Newton’s birth. Johannes Kepler had already devised his laws of planetary motion—in fact, he was already eight-years dead. Word was around that Galileo had discovered moons around Jupiter. The Inquisition was in a dither about the overturning of Ptolemy’s Earth-centered universe. People were beginning to question and think. Think anything they wanted to think. Look at all those diverse civilizations the explorers had discovered since 1492. So, 1638: John Wilkins published a little book called The Discovery of a World in the Moone. Yeah. He speculated that the moon had life.”*
“What could that possibly have to do with today’s political muddles?”
“It isn’t his specific speculation I was thinking of. No, it was one of his propositions, his first one. Wilkins argues this way for his cause, ‘That the strangenesse of this opinion is no sufficient reason why it should be rejected, because other certaine truths have beene formerly esteemed ridiculous, and great absurdities entertained by common consent.’ He calls that statement his ‘first proposition.’ I find his proposition somewhat apropos of the current world muddles.’
“And my reasoning is this. Of course, we now know that there aren’t any moon people, that our airless satellite is just a little rock that orbits our planet. And we’ve been looking for proof of life elsewhere so far without luck, though Mars seems to have once had all it needed to produce life, and a little piece of Mars, the meteorite ALH84001 found on Antarctica’s ice, became a cause celeb in 1996 when a NASA scientist published an article and a picture in Science. ‘Hey, that looks like a bacterium,’ we all said. Anyway, back to Wilkins, his proposition, and today’s political muddles.
“Apparently, not only social media, but also mainline news outlets adhere to Wilkins’s proposition: ‘Just because what I say is strange and lacking verifiable evidence doesn’t mean that it’s not true. Look, no one believed Columbus. No one wanted Galileo to be correct. If I want to say something strange that I can get others to accept, then, who’s to say I’m wrong?’ Wilkins writes, ‘Grosse absurdities have beene entertained by generall consent.’
“And that leads me to Wilkins’s second proposition: ‘That a plurality of worlds doth not contradict any principle of reason or faith.’ You see, Wilkins argues that the absence of evidence isn’t an issue. If one can’t find a contradiction to a speculation, then that opens the door to accept the speculation as valid. It’s like saying, ‘She’s having a secret affair.’ If it’s secret, how would anyone disprove it? The possible or even the remotely possible evolves into the probable and then into a reality in the news or social media. That second proposition of Wilkins ties into his sixth proposition: That there is a world in the Moone, hath beene the direct opinion of many ancient, with some modern Mathematicians, and may probably be deduced from the tenents of others.’ You see, if someone famous says it, well, you gotta give it some credence, don’t you? So-n-so says it; it’s at least probable if not true.”
“So, you were thinking aloud about how today anyone can claim anything regardless of a lack of proof or evidence, and once the claim is out there, it becomes the truth by common consent?”
“Yes, that’s about it. We love speculation, even the most baseless speculation. We argue with Wilkins that ‘well, it could be true; you don’t know.’ The arguments aren’t really arguments in the strictest legal or logical sense. They are gossip of the highest order. ‘I heard that….’ Then, the news people or the social media pick up the story because they can’t allow themselves to be out of the loop. They use the word alleged a lot, but it conveys an idea with a wink, especially if it applies to someone with a philosophical or political stance not favored by those ‘in the loop.’ That throws everyone who is aware of current news into the middle of the muddle.”
“Finished thinking out loud?”
“Wait. I also thought of Wilkins’s third proposition, ‘That the heavens doe not consist of any such pure matter which can priviledge them from the like change and corruption, as these inferiour bodies are liable unto.’ Quick background: Before Galileo turned his telescope toward the moon and Jupiter, the prevailing thought was that the heavenly bodies were perfect because they were ‘closer to God.’ They had no flaws until Galileo saw mountains and craters on the moon. And today’s muddle? Well, this person of note or that person of note is flawed just like the rest of us common people. If we harbor secrets, don’t those in the spotlight also harbor secrets. Let’s expose them even if we don’t really know what the secrets are or whether or not there really are any secrets. We can speculate, can’t we? We can hypothesize. And isn’t in our current way of thinking one hypothesis as good as another? Who needs evidence when the slightest gossip or the need of the opposition prevails? People on the moon? Hey, if we haven’t found them yet, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep looking. They’re probably hiding in the middle of their own muddles.”
*You can read Wilkins's work online at the Gutenberg Project's website: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19103/19103-h/19103-h.htm
“About what?”
“I think I’m getting tired of all the muddles.”
“What muddles?”
“Political, mostly. And they’re everywhere. Europe, Africa, Asia, Middle East, North America. One muddled squabble after another. There’s no end.”
“But political squabbles have always been with us. People without power want power they never had or once had and then lost.”
“True. I know that. But in the so-called modern world, the muddles have become wider and even more unresolvable. And I think I know the reason. That’s what drove me to ‘think aloud.’ I remembered something John Wilkins wrote as a justification for his claim that the moon might have inhabitants.”
“Not familiar with that.”
“Picture this. It’s 1638, four years before Galileo’s death and Newton’s birth. Johannes Kepler had already devised his laws of planetary motion—in fact, he was already eight-years dead. Word was around that Galileo had discovered moons around Jupiter. The Inquisition was in a dither about the overturning of Ptolemy’s Earth-centered universe. People were beginning to question and think. Think anything they wanted to think. Look at all those diverse civilizations the explorers had discovered since 1492. So, 1638: John Wilkins published a little book called The Discovery of a World in the Moone. Yeah. He speculated that the moon had life.”*
“What could that possibly have to do with today’s political muddles?”
“It isn’t his specific speculation I was thinking of. No, it was one of his propositions, his first one. Wilkins argues this way for his cause, ‘That the strangenesse of this opinion is no sufficient reason why it should be rejected, because other certaine truths have beene formerly esteemed ridiculous, and great absurdities entertained by common consent.’ He calls that statement his ‘first proposition.’ I find his proposition somewhat apropos of the current world muddles.’
“And my reasoning is this. Of course, we now know that there aren’t any moon people, that our airless satellite is just a little rock that orbits our planet. And we’ve been looking for proof of life elsewhere so far without luck, though Mars seems to have once had all it needed to produce life, and a little piece of Mars, the meteorite ALH84001 found on Antarctica’s ice, became a cause celeb in 1996 when a NASA scientist published an article and a picture in Science. ‘Hey, that looks like a bacterium,’ we all said. Anyway, back to Wilkins, his proposition, and today’s political muddles.
“Apparently, not only social media, but also mainline news outlets adhere to Wilkins’s proposition: ‘Just because what I say is strange and lacking verifiable evidence doesn’t mean that it’s not true. Look, no one believed Columbus. No one wanted Galileo to be correct. If I want to say something strange that I can get others to accept, then, who’s to say I’m wrong?’ Wilkins writes, ‘Grosse absurdities have beene entertained by generall consent.’
“And that leads me to Wilkins’s second proposition: ‘That a plurality of worlds doth not contradict any principle of reason or faith.’ You see, Wilkins argues that the absence of evidence isn’t an issue. If one can’t find a contradiction to a speculation, then that opens the door to accept the speculation as valid. It’s like saying, ‘She’s having a secret affair.’ If it’s secret, how would anyone disprove it? The possible or even the remotely possible evolves into the probable and then into a reality in the news or social media. That second proposition of Wilkins ties into his sixth proposition: That there is a world in the Moone, hath beene the direct opinion of many ancient, with some modern Mathematicians, and may probably be deduced from the tenents of others.’ You see, if someone famous says it, well, you gotta give it some credence, don’t you? So-n-so says it; it’s at least probable if not true.”
“So, you were thinking aloud about how today anyone can claim anything regardless of a lack of proof or evidence, and once the claim is out there, it becomes the truth by common consent?”
“Yes, that’s about it. We love speculation, even the most baseless speculation. We argue with Wilkins that ‘well, it could be true; you don’t know.’ The arguments aren’t really arguments in the strictest legal or logical sense. They are gossip of the highest order. ‘I heard that….’ Then, the news people or the social media pick up the story because they can’t allow themselves to be out of the loop. They use the word alleged a lot, but it conveys an idea with a wink, especially if it applies to someone with a philosophical or political stance not favored by those ‘in the loop.’ That throws everyone who is aware of current news into the middle of the muddle.”
“Finished thinking out loud?”
“Wait. I also thought of Wilkins’s third proposition, ‘That the heavens doe not consist of any such pure matter which can priviledge them from the like change and corruption, as these inferiour bodies are liable unto.’ Quick background: Before Galileo turned his telescope toward the moon and Jupiter, the prevailing thought was that the heavenly bodies were perfect because they were ‘closer to God.’ They had no flaws until Galileo saw mountains and craters on the moon. And today’s muddle? Well, this person of note or that person of note is flawed just like the rest of us common people. If we harbor secrets, don’t those in the spotlight also harbor secrets. Let’s expose them even if we don’t really know what the secrets are or whether or not there really are any secrets. We can speculate, can’t we? We can hypothesize. And isn’t in our current way of thinking one hypothesis as good as another? Who needs evidence when the slightest gossip or the need of the opposition prevails? People on the moon? Hey, if we haven’t found them yet, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep looking. They’re probably hiding in the middle of their own muddles.”
*You can read Wilkins's work online at the Gutenberg Project's website: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19103/19103-h/19103-h.htm
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