Informed Sources

Informed sources are a criteria of judgment where knowledge exists we have no way of attaining through our own efforts. The Earth is round. Who says so? For most of us the roundness of the Earth is hearsay. We say we know such things because people whose business it is to nail down facts have made determinations, and because anyone with the time and resources to make a determination would arrive at the same informed position. The great body of human knowledge can be accepted as fact because it is is “over-determined.” At a certain point it must be admitted that anyone making the proper effort will uncover for himself or herself that the Earth is round.

Years ago I had a mad-scientist acquaintance in thrall of ideas of perpetual motion. He made drawings and elaborate charts and had pages and pages of mathematical equations. He also built exotic devices that never quite worked. He showed me the math for his latest romantic device which was not quite working. Looking at the math I pointed out to him that he had neglected to factor in time: and with time factored in, his machine showed up as a no-gain system with an immense amount of drag. I said: “You know, two and two equals four; everywhere in the universe, every time.” He looked at me wild-eyed and exclaimed with an expansive gesture, “But what if once in a while……….” Here stood a man not intimidated by over-determination, by facts: in short, a lunatic. Freedom of thought was a defining characteristic of his personality and in time it brought him great grief.

Our faculties are our only source of information. The store of fact accrued by century upon century of serious minded individuals is a powerful magic-wand, and we share in this store in so far as we make it our own. We make it our own by accepting it. We accept the store of accumulated knowledge because we trust the system that produced it. That system could be described as methodical reification: a system of observation and objectivity in an endless feedback loop that never quits checking its notes.

Ultimately we are our only source of information: how are we to make of ourselves a vehicle capable of perceiving the real? My old buddy's imagination always had its thumb on the scale of his perceptions, so his reckonings always included generous dollop of pure imagination. That unperceived, supinely accepted, generous dollop of pure imagination brought to grief almost every thing he ever tried to do, and he was a very energetic man. For all his boundless energy he never paused to consider the difference between imagination and perception.

The Circumvention of Ambiguity


Wood Betony
And tiny blue-green herbs
Amongst the thatch of dry red-brown fall grass


The function of intellect is the circumvention of ambiguity
And the path of affinity is one of truth



Thistle down

Goose feathers

Popcorn