Clairvoyance Machines

What do you mean when you say (to yourself or to another) that you “know”? For example, I know ………..

Think of a thousand examples. Think of a million. In each you will find that the expression “I know” is premised upon an ability to predict the future. This is extraordinary!!!!

It means that we are clairvoyance machines. All life is clairvoyant. Knowledge is clairvoyance. Of course, on average, we are only approximately clairvoyant. Despite knowledge we can not predict with certainty. But we can predict. That is the point. Life is all about predicting the future.

It means that clairvoyants are people whose ability is more developed that the average persons. It validates astrology, palmistry, tarot, tea leaves, crystal balls, magic sticks, face readers and everyone else who claims to predict. It is superfluous to add “the future” because predictions can only be about the future. So, as “knowledge” gets refined it becomes more and more about predicting the future. As “civilizations” decay, this predict-ability becomes more and more about the self. Since, “civilization” is about the self, collective and individual. In other words, the inevitable “end” of all “civilization” is to perfect the art of prediction.

Why is it then that astrology and all the other methods and means used by people to aid their powers of prediction do not give good results? Or, in other words, give such unsatisfactory results. Because, like any other “system” of “thought”, these methods are based upon a simplification of reality; which is both chaotic and complex. The simplification, which modernity generally calls a “theory”, is necessary because the reality is too complex (and chaotic) to be comprehended. In other words, this reality is too complexly chaotic (or chaotically complex) to be comprehended directly. It must be put through a “mill” that grinds (into comprehensible bits), grades (into collections of uniform size) and arranges (into groups of “similar” types) the reality inputs that we receive.

What is the mill? We are the mill? Our whole body is the mill. Every pore of our body, every organ, every sense, is geared to filtering the onslaught of inputs that reality is. Filtering it, grinding, it grading it, arranging it, making “sense” of it. With the object to refining one’s “knowledge” about reality. Why should we want to “know” (or have knowledge about) reality? Because, we need to “predict” reality. Why do we need to predict reality? Because, the ability to predict reality is crucial to our survival. Without such ability our chances of survival are greatly diminished.

Assuming Darwinian natural selection, it is obvious that once it is accepted that the ability to “predict” reality is crucial to survival this ability must increase over time. Those with a greater ability to predict are more likely to survive (and propagate) as compared with those with a lesser ability.

But what is the object of this whole game? I don’t know. Who are the “greatest” humans in any situation? They are the witch doctors, the shamans, the crystal ball readers, the palmists, the astrologers, the clairvoyants. In fact, the clairvoyants are the greatest among these greats because they don’t need any system, any theory, to be able to predict. They have the ability to pluck out the face of the future from the masses of complexly chaotic information that is available to all of us. Why do I say “face”? Because, I don’t think they “see” the future in multiple dimensions. They probably see an image of the future. One can use one of the thousands of descriptions, real and imaginary, that are available, to describe what happens. Both, the real and the imaginary are, probably, equally “true”.

What is true, what is not; what is real and what is not? I think that if we see ourselves as clairvoyance organisms (life forms, creatures, whatever) then these distinctions cease to have the kind of meaning that we are used to giving them. Imagination is as “real” as anything else. Of course, reality exists. But ‘reality’ does not exist as knife sharp distinct from ‘imaginary’. There is a huge area of overlap. Theoretically, one could learn to live in this area, able to partake of both the “worlds”.