known unknowns

Sun 12.1.19

      Some people believe that the earth is flat, that you drop off the edge into . . . infinity, I guess.  Although the whole business of earth revolving around the sun causing night and day to occur sounds like a plausible story to me, internally cohesive.  We all try to imagine what we know we don’t know.  The news is a very good example of that phenomenon writ large.  It’s become a common occurrence to see the Epstein tag these days, “Epstein didn’t kill himself” at the end of essays without it having any relation to the essay.  The citizenry will not go that far in accepting that he committed suicide in a maximum security prison on August 10, 2019.  At this point there are probably as many theories of what happened to him as there were strands of hair on the man’s head.  Or we could say, there are, since many hold that he’s been rescued by the Mossad for his service and he’s now enjoying life in Jerusalem.

      But that’s irrelevant.  There are much more important questions that need our attention, starting with the most important which is, why are we in the dark?  It’s like Rumsfeld said, “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.”  A lot of people know that Epstein didn’t commit suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City.  I guess that would qualify as a known unknown.

      Most of human knowledge fits into the category of known unknown.  We have theories and hypothesis to explain our world.  They are no different than the ancient tales of how the world worked.  I would add to Rumsfeld’s list, the knowns denied erased.  One knows something to be, yet denies and erases it.  I have a very good example of that one.

      My brother Armand, the eldest son, was describing the marquee at a certain theater featuring a show he was interested in.  No, I said, you are wrong.  I walked by there every day I surely knew what was featured.  I was a kid, he was the older brother, when he insisted, I backed down thinking he was right.  After a moment, I realized that I had denied my own truth; I was not comfortable with that thought at all.  I wasn’t agreeing with Armand just to go along with him, I was saying Yes, that’s true.  That’s what the marquee says.  The mind erases your known knowns and the world is none the wiser.

      “The worse prison is to be trapped in the merely personal story of your life,” say Ekhart Tolle, or as Philip K Dick would have it, “Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn’t go away.”  And, I say, Epstein didn’t kill himself. 

The favorite essay this month has been, Oy, Oy, Oy