Language of Paper

"Neither the scientifically nor the artistically expressed reality is the most real reality.  The 'real' reality is a meaningless particularity, a total incoherence, a ubiquitous isolation, a universal disconnection.  It is a sheet of blank paper; we do not call the drawing or equations we make on the paper the paper.  Our interpretations of reality are not 'the' reality, any more than the blankness of the paper is the drawing.  Our drawings, our equations, are ultimately pseudo-realities, but those are the only realities that concern us because they are the only realities that can concern us."  John Fowles, The Aristos, 154.

This perfectly expresses the blindness of our civilization to "paper" i.e. the material substrate of all consciousness.  Paper is a good metaphor for this material substrate:  dead trees ground into 'meaningless particularities' out of sight somewhere, where these kinds of things are done.  When we look at only the human art and science and not the "paper" we are refusing to see all of the biological and industrial processes that go into making that blank page: the supposed unconsciousness of trees; the dumb labor of lumberjacks and factory workers, neither scientific nor artistic; the invisible support of wives and mothers; the nameless waters in which paper pulp is suspended before it can become paper. All of this comes before science, art, or any such anthropocentric endeavor.

There is another reality that must concern us, a third discipline that does not take the blank page to be meaningless, but glimpses that the paper is a body that has something to say, some remnant of the language of trees perhaps, if we would learn to hear it and heed it.  A discipline that does not presume that paper is dead matter, voiceless.  If we were to understand, truly understand, that without the paper there is no consciousness and therefore no science and no art, then there would be no science and art that did not understand itself as the voice of trees.   If we could understand this we might not continue on our blind, deaf path to the place where there is no more paper, and therefore no more art and no more science.  Or business. Or trees, possibly, for that matter.

Our culture gives us the options of science, art, or business.  None of these are coherent in the face of our  first responsibilities as living bodies within a field of other living bodies.  Only secondarily  can we be transcendent scientific or artistic minds or units of consumption, or systems designers. Without a theory of reason which is conscious of its biophysical origin and dependence, all of our efforts will lead us to disaster and insanity.

(Actually, we think we have gone beyond paper, and only need screens anymore, which is compounding our foolishness.)

The language of paper, by which I mean the language of living as a body within a field of bodies, is still waiting to be discovered. As yet we only perceive sound shadows echoing off the back of the cave, only incoherent fragments of the living language of the field into which we are born.