How the infinite objects of the variegated world
Crowd in upon us each a congeries of other objects
What is this air of substance mixed
What is this ocean of substance mixed
What is this earth of substance mixed
And here a theme but little noted in a decadent age
Of monarchs and subjects and subjects and objects
Oh the times oh the mores
That not only is the object well fitted to the subject
But wholly dependent upon it
And yet the involution of the world
Involves the dynamic interpenetration
Of these two infinities
The phenomenal and the experiential
For we experience both what we perceive
And what determine a priori
But more directly we experience our own consciousness
And we directly infer the consciousness of much besides ourselves
And how closely allied inseparable
That which separates and mingles on the one hand
And that which remains on the other
Two hands of one consciousness
Of one subject perceiving and evaluating and knowing
But each subject exists only in relation to other subjects
And in relation to the world prior to subjectivity
And in relation to that part of the world divided into objects
Hail science compendious repository of objective fact
Incisive method for determining fact
Product of analysis template of rigor
Laid up in brick and stone
And in ephemeral gelatinous brains
And in generous bequest of hand and mind across centuries
Through the ministries of text image graph and schematic diagram
Donor of great pleasure in reading learning and growing in understanding
Discovered in the laboratories
Observed in the observatories in orbit and on earth
Induced in the huge particle accelerators
And collected near the sidewalk where a child brings home specimens
The ramifying taxonomies of biology geology and subatomic- and astrophysics
The proliferating units of measurement the grams the milliliters the light years
Ah but here let us pause
For we measure not merely in vague appraisal of duration or extent
Contingent upon our narrow familiar provinces
But in number unconfined in space or time
Innocent of phenomenal manifestation
Save that of certain merciful regularities to be inferred
As of that apparently insurmountable constant
The speed of light expressible as ratio
Such that we can intuit that spacelessness and timelessness
In the instance of mathematical facticity
Interpenetrate the spatiotemporal part of the world
That fluxuous world of forces and particles
That ceaselessly collect and dissipate
Mingle and separate
Every object a perplexing congeries of other objects
And what is this particle whose velocity we express as ratio
And what exactly do we measure
And how would we persuade this presubstantial substance
To sit up and have its picture taken
Wouldn’t it be simpler to confess
That we enjoy tantalizing glimpses
Of something deeply interfused
And that we know not how far
Manifestly present consciousness
Might extend in the world
That is in the world that is
The world that obtains
The world that happens happens happens
Both phenomenal and innocent of phenomenal manifestation
Something before force and prior to particle
Something far more deeply interfused than either
For time and space cannot confine number
Nor who knows what other entities with what other properties
Such perhaps as moral properties
Such as the immaterial properties of consciousness
And thoughts you cannot measure
But let us note that the gay science of phenomena
Of all this moving world that blooms
In color and in sound
In texture and in luxurious taste
Has been colonized by the dismal science of economy
And all value reduced to utility
But thus has it ever been
For to sustain our human households
Our human communities our human lives
Far more dependent upon technology than are other species
We must adapt we homo sapiens the objects of nature to use
And must prerequisitely therefore comprehend their properties
As of flint fiber antler iron and semiconductor
And but rarely do we seek knowledge for its own sake
And thus technology is the fall of man
The straitening of Pegasus in bridle and bit
To plummet earthward
Though conceivably a fortunate fall
When we direct technology toward wellbeing
While we fall and will again fall
But even our impressive future tense
Realm of dreams the tranquil and the anxious
Cannot anticipate unintended consequence
Circumstance being a dotard afflicted with presbyopia
As when playthings maim
As when labor-saving devices poison and destroy
As when the humans invent tillage
Thus condemning themselves to monoculture
Or nearly so
Loaves to feed multitudes
Badly
But you can’t plant and grow a fish
And the fruit of the field comes in all at once
And must be stored in granary ominous infrastructure
Under lock and key and guard armed and dangerous
The plowshare slow and patient
Begetting the sword terrible and swift
For the bounty must be doled out systematically
And not flung abroad for all comers
And must be regulated in fat years to feed the lean
And the commander controls the guard
And the sway of empire extends
And here we are as on a stubble plain
From which have been removed
Vast stores of knowledge and of grain
But where the hand to give it
And thus we humans have arrogated dominion
Over nature and one over another
And built our big beautiful walls
And built our superyachts too large to launch
And nobody should be that rich
While children in shadow
Dwindle to brittle sticks
Though worthy of our warmest love