Untitled. 29 May 1977. Taming Wild Thoughts [II]

Anybody reading this account so far in the first chapter can see that it is hardly what you would describe as ‘scientific’; that is to say, it could be seen as something that, according to the individual who is reading it, can be assessed as imaginative, or fanciful, or imitation science. It is a matter of opinion. I mention this point because these opinions have to be entertained when one is attempting to evaluate – whatever it is: whether it is the physical appearance of a person, or whether it is his character that seems to be betrayed in what he says or writes or does. In short, we are making a kind of interpretation of what evidence is brought into us by our senses. There is still the fact that it would be helpful to know what the quality of the information is which is brought in, because we depend on evaluating that evidence. First of all we have to evaluate the value of the actual gathering mechanism. I, for example, have now a good deal of experience on which to base my opinion about how reliable I would consider my impressions to be, and how healthy I consider my ability to see, how accurately my eyes work, and so on.

Although it is possible to divide this discussion up when it is a question of talking or writing, making these verbal transformations, we cannot in fact divide up whatever it is we are in contact with and which we wish to assess and to understand; that is not divided up, not even in any way, although I suppose you could say you ‘heard’ it, or ‘saw’ it, or you heard somebody ‘say’ it. Those divisions are more applicable to the machinery, the personality and its equipment, which is gathering the information, than it is to the universe in which we exist. The universe does not obey the laws of articulate speech, or the laws of optics, although we consider that the laws are approximating to light itself. But it is questionable how much of the laws apply

to the actual objective phenomena and to what extent the laws only apply to, or are largely si