A white plume moth (I think!) on a wall in north London this week.

​Different philosophical systems are like different languages. Each draws a slightly (or substantially) different picture of reality.  Having two or more languages is an enriching thing. We don't think of languages in themselves as being in competition with each other. There may be political or cultural considerations where a powerful country wishes to elimate or subvert the language of another. But the world-view that grounds one language doesn't nullify the world-view that grounds another. The language of an Amazonian tribe will be based on a different world-view of nature than the language of a western scientific country. I'm sure each can learn from the other.

Often the scientific world-view is seen as an opposition to more 'spiritual' world-views. Unless you believe fundamental truths are revealed through religious revelation, then foundational scientific or philosophical truths are based on axioms. These are strong first thoughts, irreducible to simpler thoughts, about the fundamental nature of reality.  They cannot be proven to be true but can be proven to be false. On the basis that 'nothing can be deduced if nothing is assumed', then all rationalist systems begin with an act of faith. 'We believe this axiom to be true.'

A simple but classic example of an axiom is the Euclidian rule that 'a straight line is the shortest distance between two points'. It can be 'proven' by considering its contradition. Thus the following definition: 'a straight line is the longest distance between two points' is an absurd concept. For some philosophers, this proves the axiom to be true necessarily. For others, it remains a strong thought but it is not proven beyond doubt. Their reasoning is that because it is a foundational position it requires an even more foundational footing to prove it true. Such a position can only prove it to be false. (Anything other than a straight line must, at the very least, be a curve.)

Einstein demonstrates Euclidean space to be false, yet geometry still works. It is a remarkably sucessful system, despite being founded on premises proven to be false. This is a key point about any rationalist system. Its axioms do not have to be true for the system to be a success. They are thought-tools to help us understand and give a richer reading experience of the world we live in.

Modern science is based on the axiomatic position that mechanical materialism is foundational. Whether or not this position is an absolutely true mapping of the ultimate nature of reality doesn't affect the enormous sucess of modern science. As with geometry, the system will work even if it were proved false. Maybe the main detriment would be to scientifically based atheism, but not on the workings of science itself.

Newtonian mechanics considers objects to be metaphysically inert. They are kicked into shape by the blind forces of nature; gravity, electromagnetism etc. This is an extremely successful way of understanding and harnassing the laws of nature for the greater good - or not, as is sometimes the case. There can be no doubting the success of modern medicine, engineering and computing. Equally there is the sense of wonder science fires up in us. Our knowledge of the planets and space, the world of quantum mechanics, the natural world of flora and fauna, the extraordinary story of evolution, has changed exponentially during the scientific era. It is supremely enriching.

Some philosophers question whether the axioms of science are the only axioms available to us to understand the deepest meanings of the universe. At its heart, science seems to treat the laws of nature as accidental to the material. They are a consequence of the material world. But the mindset of Solon's world consider the laws of nature to exist before the material comes into being and to involve intentionality - and eternality. There is mindfulness in the workings of the universe. Its laws are outside space and time. They come from somewhere else. But there are as many variations on this theme as there are philosophers. It is often closer to poetry as it is to modern science. It is endlessly interpretable. It is no surprise that many of the pre-socratic philosophers were poets.

I think it is important not to think of these other ways of seeing as an opposition to modern science. They don't constitute a competing scientific theory.
As I said at the beginning of this piece, it is akin to having a second language. It provides a different vantage point. It should be enriching.

Solon's story explores some of these other ways of seeing, but he is also a man of science. He believes the facts of the world are primary. Such facts are equally important to his poetic sensibility, both towards the natural world and human nature. He doesn't entirely dismiss mythologies or the gods because they are part of the world he lives in. No person can fully extract themselves from their milieu. Nevertheless he is also strongly skeptical

My neighbour's garage door and wall after sanding it down before he paints it.

​Saint Augustine and Decartes ask a question: Suppose I discover that everything is an illusion, including my own existence, can I then truly say 'I do not exist'? Is this not a contradiction?  Augustine pushes this to a stronger form when he asks if it is possible someone could deceive you into believing you exist? If you are deceived then you exist. 'For if I am deceived, I am.'

How can I deny my own existence, given it is me who is being deceived? A person cannot say 'I do not exist' in the literal sense. No matter how much you are filled with uncertainty, there is a you that is experiencing it. The existence of the doubter cannot be doubted. Out of doubt arises its negation, a form of certainty. I exist.

If we accept this line of reasoning (and many don't), then doubt affirms the certainty that the 'I' exists. Maybe humans could be defined as 'clumps of doubt'. Maybe the famous axiom 'I think, therefore I am' should have been 'I doubt, therefore I am'. The doubting 'I' affirms the certainty that I exist. Certainty, therefore, arises from the fire of doubt. It is produced from its opposite.

For Augustine and Decartes the 'I' has a solidity to it, a unity that is complete and, indeed, eternal. It is self-sufficient and self-identifying. It exists before everything else. But what if the statement 'I do not exist' is not as contradictory as it appears? What if the clump-of-doubt is the truly first condition of thought? It is not self-sufficient, but an ungraspable and incomplete thing, unthinkable and unnamable, and too fluid to have any identity? It is a thing that seeks identity. It is formless and seeks form. It is a kind of chaos that seeks order. The Cartesian 'I' is a construct from it. It needs the 'otherness' of the world to begin to find itself. It finds identity in the objects ideas that surround it. The Cartesian 'I' is a construct of the Age of Enlightenment. It is an individuated, culturally specific thing.

The Enlightenment 'I' has a concrete objectivity to it. It re-affirms the objective nature of reality. If the solid 'I' exists then all the things I see around me are probably also solid. Furthermore, they exist in the way that I see them (i.e. the way a man of Decartes' time and place would see them). Put simply, I can affirm that things exist as I perceive them because of the type of 'l' that I believe exists (though this 'I' is blind to its cultural specificity and believes it - as with both Augustine and Decartes - to have an eternal p1reality).

We are back in the objective world where our doubt began. Should we not begin again to doubt our new found certainty? I believe that we should. Otherwise there is a stale evangelism. There must be a recognition that our certainty is a shaky, temporary construct. That is not to deny the importance of temporary certainty. Doubt is a kind of non-existence. We couldn't take permanent residence in it. How would we communicate with each other? How would this blog piece about doubt have the concrete qualities necessary for you to read it?

Let us push this a little further and make the claim that the objective world, which is characterised by 'limits' and individuation, arises from an infinite subjectivity that, unlike its opposite number, is unlimited by any constraints or definitions. The doubting 'I' is born in this formless place. Indeed the word 'born' is wrong; the 'I' is identical to this formless place. (By definition there is no subject/predicate dualism. There is no X that exists in a place Y. There is no 'I' in this formless place.)

If this fomless place has a reality, then the doubting 'I' is 'born' in a place where you are not a woman or a man. (Because by definition, everything is formless.) You are not a black person or a white person. You are not intelligent or stupid. You have infinite freedom. Every random event is possible - the way it is in dreams or poetry. Until, of course, you meet the cold tidal waves of reality where there are battles to be fought and lost, where you can be swept under without the help of others.

If this formless place is the fire that keeps the atoms moving, then it is always with us. If it is switched off, everything is switched off. Maybe it is a place of sympathy, questioning and imagination. It can push for the good. It ensures that some of the battles in the concrete world can be won.



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​To some extent we all have a fear of the future. Some of us feel this acutely. Others not so much. Will I find success? Will I find love? Will I have children? Will my children find success? What must I sacrifice to ensure their success? Will I or those I love become ill or even die before their time?

It is undoubtedly the case that there is a 'present', which we experience, and a 'future' which, by very definition, we have yet to experience. Many societies, including our own, have a strong sense that the future is already mapped out. Many contemporary physicists and mathemathicians believe this to be the case. But even if this is true, there is an undeniable dualism between the 'I' of experience and the big pre-determined mechanism of the universe.

Many ancient stories use prophecies as a starting point. There is a prophecy at the heart of Solon's next adventure. For the purposes of the novel I will assume the process-of-prophecy begins, not in the prophecy itself, but in a protagonist's psychological intuition that the future is not good. She or he then visits the Oracle who confirms their feelings in the form of a prophecy. The protagonist is motivated to mitigate what is prophetised through their actions, but the consequences of those actions bring about the fulfillment of the feared prophecy. The process is tragically self-justified and circular.

In the current working draft of Solon's next adventure, a metal worker called Polymetis and his wife long for a child. Polymetis seeks the help of the Oracle and the gods. His wish is granted and they have a child, but when he returns to the Oracle to give thanks he is told that he will be the cause of his child's death. He is motivated to act with tragic consequences. But he acts out of love and the child's best interests.

Did Polymetis project his own fears of the future onto the enigmatic words of the Oracle? He tells us he had a deep forboding BEFORE he went to the Oracle. This probably goes against the grain of the way ancient stories use prophesies. The novel is presuming the psychological is a priori to the prophecy, but even the ancients seemed to sometimes believe the Oracle could be interpreted in different ways and they may have had a sense that they were projecting their own fears onto the enigmatic sayings of the Oracle. Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say that, for the ancients, the word from the gods comes first.

This is certainly what Polymetis believes. He interprets the prophecy as a true 'fact' about the future. I don't believe a modern reader would buy into this and I will push the idea that he is projecting a universal natural fear of the future onto the prophecy. Hopefully this will increase the reader's sympathy for him and his wife. It certainly adds to the tragic mood.

The tragic consequences of the prophecy occur before the story in the novel unfolds and are at the core of the novel's dilemma. (Solon helps to uncover them.) There is a fateful sense to them. Did Polymetis have any control over his decisions, though he obviously had no control over many of the events? Did he have free will? These questions probably won't be answered in the novel - how could they! But I hope they set the mood and help to engage our sympathy for Polymetis.

Nevertheless, there is still a metaphysical question that straddles both the ancient and modern reading. From where does Polymetis's initial intuition of doom arise? Let us reduce it (unfairly) to a kind of 'male post-natal depression' resulting from the birth of his child. We might try to explain this in (1) evolutionary terms or (2) an imbalance of chemical humours.

As regards evolutionary terms (1), if all the events in the universe are predetermined then the 'randomness' assumed in the mechanisms of evolutionary theory are epiphenomenal. They are a true and measurable insight but are secondary (but secondary to what?). As regards a chemical imbalance (2), it might be impossible to know which way the direction of travel is between the chemistry and the 'mood' of a person. Does the 'mood' determine the chemistry or vice versa? Science assumes the latter, but it is the 'only way to get things done'. It doesn't have to be foundational for it to work. (Geometry assumes a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. We know this isn't true, but geometry still works.)

Polymetis could be right afterall. What if the initial fearful intuition is not self-generating and possibly part of the determined nature of the universe? 

The view from Blackfriars Bridge last night on my way home from work. The strange streak of light on the bottom left-hand corner is the station platform reflected in the glass barriers.

​4/ The primordial gods of Eros, Gaia and Erebus arise out of the darkness of Chaos. Chaos I equate with a first primary intentionality that cannot be understood by humans. It is an infinite non-human mindfulness. As the centuries roll on up to approx 400 BCE these non-human powers are then 'humanised' as anthropomophic gods and then rationalised. 'Chaos' becomes the Logos of Socrates.

Primordial Chaos appears to have few human characteristics. It contains every possible definition, including its own negation. It is not like us. It is unknowable. This order of predication can be reversed. We are not like it. But this changes over the centuries so the we become more like the Logos - the first supreme rational good thought. We are made in the image of Logos, whose supreme intention is a Good and loving one. (A strong counter-argument is that we make the Logos in our image. It is a human creation.) According to Plato we can have knowledge of this supreme Good through philosophy.

(Again, I must stress these are my interpretations as I sketch out the next installment in Solon's journey. They serve the purposes of the story.)

The primordial powers of Erebus and Tartarus, the dark shadowy agencies, are more difficult to grasp for me. But one way of understanding them is to consider them in contrast to Plato's Logos - a concept that seems to anticipate The Christian idea of Jesus as 'the word'. This post-primordial idea of a supreme Good is devoid of a shadowy dimension. Indeed the shadowy dimension is the here-and-now of human perception and experience. (Christians, quite rightly, could point to the human aspect of Jesus.) The here-and-now awaits the redemption of the supreme good to 'save' it from itself. This seems to me to be less satisfactory than the primordial first intention which includes Erebus.

The primary opposition in Plato is between the supreme light of Reason/Logos and its shadows on earth. The here-and-now is a pale imitation of the perfection of Logos. I don't believe Solon is drawn to the Platonic schema. Neither are the priest-doctors at the Askepion. They see a harmony in the primordial powers. They probably reject the terms 'light' and 'dark'. It's possible that the cures they offer involves a rejection of these terms.

I'm sure it would be naive to think the early believers in primordial powers didn't see an opposition between light and dark. But what if they saw not oppositions but contraries or even complimentaries? For example, there is water and dry earth. We can consider them to be opposites by virtue of what they are in themselves. Mix them together and you have something more powerful than the constituent parts. Let us consider this to be a key paradigm in primordial thinking. The mixing of complimentary powers produces something greater. To oversimplify: in Plato's schema there are clear heros and baddies. There is the light of knowledge and the darkness of false knowledge, i.e. our perceptions of the here-and-now. Plato seems to separate-off the Light as the true reality. Could the Light and the here-and-now not compliment each other? They might be necessary for each other? By reaching out the Light becomes something greater.

I realise that I am being unfair on Plato. He is an immensely subtle thinker. He is also a great humanist. He captures a rich variety of personalities, human character and experiences; so much so, the human often seems more important than the One /Logos. Nevertheless his schema was taken up over many centuries and placed the here-and-now as a pale shadow of the One. It means that those who can claim knowledge of the One/The Truth can also claim political power over others. They own the narrative. This is a major downside.

Arguably by being truly human, we compliment the One, rather than 'sinning' against it. And rather than attempting to be like the One, we should try to find what is natural to us, embracing our corporeality and desires. Therefore we have to find a definition of what's truly human. But this is well nigh impossible. But let's have a go in the context of the primordial powers and not Plato's schema.

Let's assume Plato's schema produces alienation and anxiety rather than harmony. What if Erebus sits within us? It is our 'weaknesses'. But it is not an absence or a negation. It is part of our very definition. It has a 'heaviness'. But Erebus sets a challenge. It has agency because we can look kindly on its manifestations, both in ourselves and nature. We are moved when we see someone strive to better themselves; a child taking their first step. Without Erebus, this could never happen, because the starting point is always 'less than'. It is the empty-space that allows us move from one state to another. Erebus is always close to failure. When someone we love fails to achieve a goal we are moved by their endeavours and it makes us love them all the more. In turn, they may feel more loved, despite bitter disappointment. Hopefully, they will feel encouraged to try again.

But Erebus is a tragic stage because it is the setting for human thought and action. It is associated with darkness, but there is no true opposition of light. It is easy to see why Erebus is associated with the underworld. It is shadows (rather than darkness). There is no redemptive force to counter this.

Plato gives us a counterforce. By calling it the Good, Plato gives 'Chaos' qualities and makes it an object of thought. But this contradicts the idea that the true First Thought cannot be an object of thought. Possibly the flaw is that by calling it the Good, then any other attributes must be less than good. The 'Good' cannot be uttered without concurrently implying the opposite. Oppositions are created (Light/Dark, Perfection/Imperfection) but these are fallacies. Value judgements are introduced. Earthly manifestations of the Good are imperfect.

In fairness, the Platonists deny the One/Good is an object. It is impossible for us not to ask 'what is it?' and not try to come up with an answer. The natural gravity of thought is to give it a name. It could also be argued that Aehros and Erebus are attempts to give Chaos qualities for the same reason as the Platonists call it the Good. We want to have knowledge of it, we want to acknowledge it, so it must be given qualities that we can understand and measure against the reality of experience. Maybe these value judgements arise because Plato wishes to have knowledge of the One, and the road to knowledge implies making value judgements.

Fo​r the sake of argument, I'm going to say Plato is wrong to re-name Chaos as the Good. There can be no doubt that the world needs a moral compass and it needs redemption from the toil. But the seeds of this redemption are in the desire to care, nurture and love. This is Aehros, not Plato's re-naming of Chaos. At least, we will find redemption in Aehros, not the Good, which is accessable only to those who study philosophy. Aehros is accessable to all, but the Good is only accessable to those who are educated and, let's face it, education costs money. The Good imples a kind of elitism. Aehros is within us, so redemption is within us, if we are true to Aehros. But it also means the tragic setting, Erebus, where the human story is played out, can never be transformed. There is no second coming. But there is kindness and care, which is transformative.

Of equal importance is the realisation that love doesn't guanateee success. in fact, 'success' my not be the true measure of things. Recall the example of the child taking its first steps and the different elements of this moment. There is the loving gaze of the parent, the striving of the child to walk and the child's failure. These three elements make a 'whole'. The child's lack of success is only a part of this whole.

Pergamon is in the grip of a cult of luxury. 'Wealth makes us happy.' Luxury goods bring us contentment and happiness. The cult places the Good here on Earth. Our human weaknesses - failed ambitions, sickness etc. - will be banished. Failure and sickness are looked down upon. They induce disgust. The unity of Aehros and Erebus is broken. The narrow definition of success becomes the measure of success. The result is that most people feel inadequate. The cult creates many social problems, including addiction to a narcotic called kalodaimon, from 'kalo' (good) and 'daimon' (spirit). The Asklepion, the healing centre, tries to cure people of their addiction.

The 'cure' is not to embrace failure and sickness, to fetishise it, but to look at the human condition with sympathy and kindness. So how does the Asklepion define what the human condition is? They formulate an explanatory myth.

Here is a first sketch of the myth:

Out of Chaos comes Aphrodite (Aehros) and Erebus. Erebus is both male and female. Aphrodite is pure spirit, neither male nor female. Erebus produces children and begins to toil the land to feed them, but their hardwork fails. Aphrodite is moved by this - including the failure of nature to produce crops. (The 'entirety' moves her.) Aphrodite longs to embrace Erebus but cannot because she is pure spirit. Her desire causes her to develop a bodily form so that she can embrace Erebus and suckle the children while Erebus continues their eternal toiling of the land. The goal of life, the 'cure', is to cultivate the same love Aphrodite felt for Erebus.

There is a visual representation of this myth at the Asklepion with the aphorism 'Look kindly on the toils'. It will be a sculpture or effigy of some sort. It is not a representation or effigy to be worshipped but the viewer should be moved by it. It offers a path to self-worth. Of course, there is a very real danger that this will develop into a cult of its own. This will be an interesting area to explore. 

My favourite cafe, this morning. A den of culinary temptation. I stopped for a take-away coffee, but couldn't stop myself from taking a pic. 

2/ These primordial forces can be seen as oppositions or not. They induce anxiety when seen as oppositions, but offer consolation when seen as resolutions. 'Resolutions' is not a great word because it suggests an initial problem to be resolved. In other words, there is an opposition to be confronted. However it 'resolves' if we consider the opposition is not between these forces but between the self (the 'I') and these forces. The resolution comes in 'seeing ' where the true oppositions lie and trying to find an identity between the self and these forces. A kind of unity.

History is not just about describing what people did or what they built or their military victories. It is also about trying to understand how they thought. This is especially true when creating characters set in ancient times. And it's not just about their waking-thoughts, but their unconscious assumptions. I mentioned in the last blog post the concept of 'Chaos'. It it out of Chaos that the primordial deities arise - Eros, Gaia, Erebus. Chaos is the greatest thought that cannot itself be thought by humans. It is what gives rise to existence. In itself, it is such a supreme thought that it is impossible to believe it cannot exist. It is one unitary state that contains all possibilities. Within its infinite set of definitions and possibiities, it must contain the idea of existence.

If you are a student of philosophy you may recognise this as a version of what's called the ontological argument. One could also call it the ontological fallacy. We are all guilty of it - probably every day of our lives. A simple definition would be: 'I have a strong thought that X is the case, therefore X must be true'. We all have strong opinions and beliefs about certain things, and the strength of our convictions leads us to belive these must be true. It can even cause us to disregard the facts. Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Secretary for Defense, expressed it succintly when he said that where the facts and the theory are misaligned, the facts are wrong.

It is worth recalling another quote from Rumsfeld:

"As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know."

There are many things to agree with and disagree with here. I'm going to look at two. Firstly, we must have convictions. How can we survive without them? We would not be able to act or brings thoughts/plans into reality without convictions. Convictions arise even though we do not have a complete overview of any given situation. We never have access to all the facts. Sometimes these convictions will clash with the facts. They only tell part of the picture and if we had more facts we might see a different picture. Secondly, the phrase 'unknown unknown' is a contradiction. It is a concept in itself. We know it exists, yet it is a thing we know nothing obout, except that we KNOW we know nothing about it. It is not, therefore, a form of non-being. It has agency. We can look out for it, knowing it may trip us up. It is a hazard on our journey. It has a form of existence, therefore it exists. (Given that something either exists or does not exist. The Law of the Excluded Middle applies here. There is no half-way house.)

Arguably an 'unknown unknown' is truely a 'known unknown'. (Indeed in an Aristophanes' comedy it might be called a 'known unknown unknown'. To which another character will disagree and say it is a 'known unknown unknown unknown'. The infinite regress will only stop with the laughter of the audience.)

'Chaos' is a primordial 'unknown unknown'. No matter how many facts we uncover, the ghost of the 'unknown unknown' will always hang over us. It is a reductio ad absurdum. We can never grasp the complete picture. Socrates takes up this point when he says that true knowledge is knowing what you don't know. It is the basis of enlightened scepticism. Yet in its primordial sense, it is difficult to escape the feeling that it is a dark existential absurdity. Maybe the nearest we can come to having knowledge of it is to believe it is an 'intentionality'. We do not know what this intentionality is. It is hidden from us. Plato and later the Christians believed this first intentionality is supremely good and loving. It is the Light.

I don't get this sense from the primordial version. Darkness in the form of Erebus has an equal say. But if these different primordial forces are not oppositions and the only true opposition is between the self and these necessary first thoughts of nature, then they are not dark if we find a kind of union with them. They have a different presence in thier primordial sense. They are 'heavy' and 'dark' only when we are alienated from them.

​Pergamon has a problem with drug addiction. The doctor-priests at the Asklepion have attempted to develop a cure believing the addiction is the result of a spiritual malaise. They create a cinematic spectacle of these primordial powers, making people confront their fears but with the end goal of resolving the self into these oppositions to find consolation. (I have yet to work out what this spectacle is!) A cult of luxury and wealth has developed in the city which has alienated people from their spiritual selves. The ancient asklepions, essentially healing centres, encouraged people to dream. Patients could stay at the healing centres overnight and the atmosphere was such that the dream-cures seemed to work. Again, I have yet to work out how this fits into the actions in the novel. It is an ongoing process...  (P.S. An 'unknown unknown' or a 'known unknown?)