encapsuled: var(semic) consists of a conversation between Michelangelo, the artist known as encapsuled and Elisabeth Sweet grounded in philosophical texts by David Hume & Ludwig Wittgenstein. each movement culminates with a question inviting the algorithm made by encapsuled to give the final word.
read ONLY MIRACULOUS, the second movement of encapsuled: var(semic) below.
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Elisabeth Sweet (ES): if proximity and repetition guide our perception, it might be said that something familiar is an impression held close and repeated often. thus some- thing unfamiliar would be far away and infrequently experienced, if ever. we can explain the familiar while the unfamiliar is unexplainable. that which is unexplainable is typically dismissed, feared, or revered. why does the unexplained – the unfamiliar, the far and infrequent – intrigue a human mind so set on pattern-seeking?
Michelangelo (M): exactly because it breaks the pattern. when the unexpected happens, it means that our system failed to predict the course of events, it made an error. errors are fatal in evolution: what cannot adapt perishes. so it’s critical for us to take into account this new piece of information – the unexplained – and explain it, incorporating it in our realm of possibilities so that we are not taken again by surprise. fear and reverence are opposite ends emotionally but they share the same high intensity, reflecting the importance of this new information.
however, incorporating new information means that we need to restructure our system and that is very hard to do, often even traumatic. so rather than going through this process, an easier answer is denial, dismissing the possibility of our system being wrong. this can be useful to preserve some coherence in times when our system is already challenged but usually leads to less adaptation – and adaptation is necessary for existence.
ES: part of the seduction of a miracle is that it can never be proven, yet this uncertainty is what gives it the strength to withstand reason. miracles rely on human testimony, which Hume says is something we can never fully believe because “it is nothing strange that men should lie in all ages,” yet it is the central thing we hold when considering history. miracles are used to codify religion and create an aura of sanctity around people and objects, yet their persistence throughout history points to a real impression – therefore a perceivable truth – experienced by one or many. when can we know if something is “only marvellous, [or] really miraculous”?
M: miracles are a specific category of facts. facts are quite complex phenomenons: they cannot determine themselves, facts require explanation, interpretation. there is always a context associated with a fact and the context is what determines the meaning of the fact and its truth or falsity. for example, what does “coming back to life” mean?
to answer, even literally and not metaphorically, we need to define what “life” is. every time a human interacts with another, they share parts of them- selves that become part of each other. these parts remain even after the physical death and inform our decisions, our actions, our future. “coming back to life” can mean that the influence a person has on us becomes stronger.
language requires definition, definitions are made by humans, humans necessarily have a specific context. “only marvellous” or “really miraculous” are subjective lenses applied to an objective fact, remembering that a fact can never be observed without a lens.
ES: Wittgenstein writes much about the “ostensive definition” of words, or what a word points to in reality. one might think of this as the role of the word. what is the role of “miracle” in lan- guage and subsequently in society?
M: ostensive definitions work when the par- ties involved understand the category that is being talked about – referring back to the blue walnut example, if I point to it and say “blue” to someone who does not know English, they might think that “blue” refers to the type of nut and not to the color. it’s important that the people in dialogue are in agreement on the category that is being talked about, and I think that a misalignment in categories is often the problem.
a group of people may think “miracle” as “act of God(s)” while others may think about it as “something unexplainable”. but these two categories are radically different, for one implies the existence of at least one superior being and the other not. I think that “miracle” is a polarizing word and as such should be used carefully, thinking about the tension mentioned earlier.
ES: fusing Wittgenstein and Hume, a miracle is “a proposition” in “violation of the laws of human nature.” to believe a miracle, one must suspend their continuous impression of reality and allow an anomalous category of facts to become the pattern. if a person did not witness the miracle directly, then they place belief in the testimony of others, which amounts to agreement with the language used to express an impression or experience.
Hume says testimony is a challenge because men lie while Wittgenstein might say that even the testimony, because of its root in language, hides the reality or essence of the event. yet despite argument and disagreement, miracles and their claim persist throughout history, demonstrating the strength of their proposition and thus the power of their original and continuous impression. what might we call a miracle everyone agrees on?
encapsuled:
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read the first and third movements of encapsuled:var(semic) here.