The myth of the nineteenth century was the permeance of matter. The myth of the 20th century was the existence of empirical data. In the 1920’s quantum mechanics disproved both the permeance of matter and the illusion empirical data. In fact, in experiments by Schrödinger, the perceiving mind of the observer changed the outcome of the experiment (i.e., the collapse of the wave function of energy into a particle (photon) was different in speed or location with each observing mind). This indicates that matter (as the photon) is under the stipulation of a non-material mental force – or mind.
So many examples can be given briefly. First, Matter is observed to be essentially non-material light waves at the microscopic level. Second, the advocate of empirical data must, in the end, if honest, admit that having all the facts of the case is not within the realm of the possible. No doctor can say he knows in each instant all the chemical reactions of a trillion trillion cells. He can only assert an approximate, hoped for, result of any new drug (after listing the many possible exceptions their lawyers insist upon.). Third, the atom is essentially empty, and operates under essentially unseen forces of electric charge.
These facts are ignored by the educators of science in the West. Science, after heroic struggle with the Christian control of education for 2000 years, asserts (in academia) that science is the language of reality and it has finally discovered the ultimate reality, and that reality is a categorically a secular material reality. Everything else in the child’s mind should go to the wall.
And it does.
There are royal particles, cunning bosons, and kinetic switches by which all material objects operate. Yes, there are still unknowns. Yet these few remaining parts, still firmly solid with mass, await only to be mopped up and dissected where they are still obscure, when given enough time, machinery, and funding. that is the central myth.
Since no citizen can read a science paper, or would dare try, he takes the supremacy of the scientific school as dogmatic faith. The undeniable trust in science is essentially an article of belief, and makes science into a dogmatic church. As with any religion, any challenge to the faith of science will generate a violent and emotional outburst against the party challenging the supremacy of the scientific world view. This is exactly how a religion operates.
Yet the myth of the enlightenment persists. It is the status quo – our supreme dataset – our city set upon a hill. Since it is now all we know, no sane citizen is going to give it over – for what? – a new age of faith and oil lamps? Even today it is still believed that there are facts to be learned of matter and science only possesses all the facts of the case. The myth would have the citizen believe that science is the only frontier of reality, the story of the final and most supreme idiom of Homo sapiens.
In Story Theory, science is not the final idiom of Homo Sapiens. It is one of many idioms, and in time to be replaced by the next civilization. As supreme paganism could not suspect that an obscure wandering intenerate would destroy their world empire, so Catholicism did not suspect that some gentlemen from the royal academy would utterly discredit the 2000 rule of the Christian church. No civilization ever sees what is coming. The age of secular scientific materialism does not see what is coming. That is the prophesy of Story Theory.
In the grand myth of science, all prior narratives of reality must be canceled – or disenchanted. The spiritual origins of life, logically, must be non-existent precisely because spirits had no physical mass, was not promiscuous to quantitative measurement, and thus not defined as a material, exploitable dataset of scientism. Yet what if science is only one of many schools of poetry? Its seems incredulous. What if it so far from being a school of symbology, science is not even the final idiom of Homo sapiens? That would change everything we think we know about “reality”. That is the objective of Story Theory.
For all its science, modern man is still unable to define what is real. Any material object at the micro or macro disappears or alters into other forms. This being so, no definition of “reality” can stand up to exhaustive investigation. The world alters ruthlessly in each moment and escapes fixed definition. This means all that a man can do, the best he can do, is describe what he thinks he sees. This always results in an abridged description using symbols. Using symbology to describe the world of experience is the etiquette of a school of poetry.
In Story Theory, when a man attempts to describe his life, even in the first syllables, he transitions immediately to story. This is the thesis of Story theory.
In Story Theory, no man can define any phenomena with microscopic definition. We do not define each blade and cell of a mountain valley; instead, we say see a “green field with poppies.” This is a description, an act of poetry – not a definition. A definition would count each blade of grass and each cell of the blade, on and on into infinity. This is not possible in the world we live in. It is impossible for the rationalist, therefore, to every, at any single moment, to have all the facts of the case.
Since a precise, detailed, exhaustive definition of the world is beyond human capability all speech defaults to a poetic description. This is the thesis.
No human, no object had ever been defined with exactness and totality. Humans are able only to describe persons and objects – using poetic symbols. In truth, the modern lives daily with the undefined. The facts of the case are clear to anyone who closely examines human communication.
No human has ever successfully defined reality. No human has observed (or replicated) the totality of any phenomenon. Science has never reproduced or defined consciousness. Man, in effect, lives without fully knowing his world. Reality remains, permanently, undefined.
And this is the only justification for poetry. This is the fundamental genius of poetry. Poetry is the only possible language of Homo Sapiens and it is used in each instance of speech.
No one is able to utterly define the person next to them, the person they are most intimate with, their most cherished relative – with any definitive detail. We say, mother, father, uncle, wife, son or daughter, precisely because we are utterly at a loss to define these creatures next to us – their depth of character, emotion, sorrow, struggle – still less their intimate thoughts and emotions now or before we entered their life. We live with the undefined.
Modern man, no less than all previous ages of man, is incapable to describe “the thing in itself.” The very necessity of words (symbols) in place of “things,” “people”, “places,” or “events” –each described with poetic brevity – illustrates that we live with the undefined. There are words exactly because the thing-in-itself eludes definition.
No human can be described with total perfection or full scope. Any possible description of a living person would, at its very best, only be partial, prejudiced, insufficient, incomplete, and necessarily, characterized with extreme compression and brevity. These are elements of poetry – not science. No man speaking of a desk or a table has defined the desk or table, since they are undefinable in normal speech, since do we include a discussion of each cell fiber of wood or the forever concealed joints of carpentry? We use a symbolic language to give a poetic brevity of the object. Our entire experience of world is nominated with poetic brevity.
We reference a city on a hill, likewise, poetically – with brevity – yet with as much precision as possible, in one phrase, to achieve the aim of representation of world. In fact, any city has trillions and trillions of descriptive details. Yet we name this city Paris or Jerusalem – poetically – since in usage we necessarily avoid any exact definition, and we allow that the name alone invokes much that we do not have the time (or knowledge) to investigate. Paris, London, New York or Jerusalem remains forever outside the competence of an exact definition, house by house, brick by brick. This is the protocol of poetry. It’s the way humans speak of their world, precisely because the world remains undefinable. Story Theory has always been hiding in plain sight.
Poetry is brevity that aims at precision. Moderns may think they are rationalists, or scientists, or capitalists, or religious, or materialists. We have words that take the place of “things-in-themselves” precisely because we cannot define “the thing in itself.” No human has ever precisely defined a “thing in itself.” And therefor no man has seen reality face to face, or has been able to designate a final reality.
Poetry is brevity that aims at precision of emotion. We agree to speak poetically of the undefinable. Every phenomenon we see with eyes is designated poetically. Animals, pets, brothers, uncles, dead relatives, each forever, cell by cell, remain undefined and undefinable. These undefinable persons in our lives are permanently fixed, designated, and concealed by the brevity of poetry – the necessary brevity of descriptive speech (symbolic language).
We all are poets when we speak of the world, and in speaking the world, and by the same measure we are also making the world. The Greeks word for the poet was the “maker.” Now we know why. The poet is the only maker of our world since he is the master of describing (making) the images of the world. Precisely because the world is undefinable, poetry is indispensable.
If true, this thesis will encourage the modern to alter his view of poetry as irrelevant, as something vague, or defective as a medium of information. The thesis is that poetry is not passé but rather a reliable and prestigious method of investigating the modern experience.
It is impossible that secular modernism has found the final reality, as it is impossible that science has discovered the final idiom of Homo sapiens. We know that every civilization has taken the opposite “world view” of the society it has preplaced. Our nearest example is Classical polytheism, replaced by Christian monotheism, replaced by modern secular science. There will be other interpretations of worlds in the next human civilization. And this coming civilization will have its own poetry.
No one sees what is coming. And that is why poetry is the only way to live with the undefinable world.
We have must therefore explore the possibilities of the thesis here presented. Since the same “reality” is never found in situ, is never independent from a perceiving mind, each civilization produces their own empiricals. Therefore, in Story Theory, each narrative, each idiom of any civilization is exactly true. Isis is true. Jesus is true. Abraham is true. Joseph and Joshua are true. Moses is true precisely because these civilizations have poetically (and empirically) reduced the perceived life-source to the most essentials – the perceived essentials – and these essentials operate as designed within the social network – of the people sharing the same “empiricals.” When a society believes the same idioms those idioms are proven to be operative and true. When all scientists believe the same datasets there is no way to climb back down from the dataset. Every story has to remain within the story. Or it all crashes down.
As an example, no modern could accuse the High Plains Indian fiercely arrayed on his brightly adorned horse, that he was not supremely well with his world. His senses we alert to his ecosphere and he could hear, see, and smell every sign on the wind in this world. The world of the High Plains Indian was empirical in all respects that apply to the empirical. Everything he believed came true – as expected. Who will say otherwise? A modern?
Speaking individually, every man’s life and death is undefined as it appears to anyone observing the life and death of a man. Every life remains permanently undefined. Every death is permanently undefined since each person’s death is different and unknowable to any other living person. There is very little the idiom of science can add to the problem of the absolute definition of either life or death. There is only a poetic solution to the problem of life and death. And each man climbs up into his own poem. And who is to say he was wrong?
Poetry is true because the world is not fixed and can never be fixed for all times. Every civilization produces its own brilliant school of poetry, precisely because each fails to define the world. All they can do is try to describe (poetically, briefly) their world. No civilization has ever discovered the final idiom of reality. this is why we say that all that remains of a civilization is poetry. From time to time there is a powerful civilization, telling a story of a fixed human reality – and men climb up into this poem – this new possible reality – and thereby make their cherished story real – even experiencing plausible empirical results.
Since no person, and at no period in history, has ever precisely defined reality, poetry is not only permitted, but is required skill-set. A field of grass, cannot be precisely described (with each blade of grass, and each cell of the blade) – but the attempt must be made to speak of a field of grass (and it might be speckled with red poppies – but no one knows how many.). Clearly it cannot be avoided to speak of a field of grass. Therefore, in all cases, we are poets when we speak of world – and we cannot avoid the art of poetry – unless we are willing to be mute. It is clear we are limited in communication by time; we must necessarily have some skill of brevity and economy of thought. This is the protocol of poetry.
There are billions of thoughts, forever unseen events and trillions of cell interactions, pains and joys, never glimpsed by another human – and thus they remain forever beyond human description. No man can precisely define a world, an object, or a fellow human. A man may only make approximations – iconic representations – brief symbols, each only a place holder, of the person face to face with him. This is poetry.
No man has ever successfully defined an object in all its infinite detail. A field of grass, as all fields of grass, remain forever beyond definition. No man can explain a single tree, its every cell, the origins of its seeds and the seeds before those seeds. All we can say about a forest of trees, and in all cases, is brevity and conjecture. Consequently, all descriptions of a forest of trees, or a city of men, are poetic. If we say, “I saw a green field with red poppies,” we have not made a definition, we have made the brevity of a poem – a poem infused with human emotion.
In no case do we ever make an absolute definition since the object we see with our eyes is beyond the competence of linguistic definition. Rather, we make poems that take the place of “things.” The brevity of detail, the editorial selection of one quality over another, is an emotive poetic choice – not a precise definition of the field of grass.
Conclusion? Because “things-in–themselves” are undefinable, the poet is indispensable.
The facts of the case are before us. No man has ever successfully defined a fellow human. We cannot see, or explain the person face to face with us. No man or woman can explain a single personality, the activity of another person’s every cell, the precise scope and depth of a person’s emotive thoughts and the previous subjective experiences. The person sitting next to us, face to face, remains undefinable in precise detail. Eternity would not give sufficient scope to explain the life of an individual, his life experiences, his joy or pain, terror or hope, or every cell interaction in each moment of his existence.
We have poetic names for our relatives precisely because they are beyond a fullness of definition. A father, mother, brother, an uncle, the people face to face to us, are indefinable. Our relatives, our associates, our friends, as any figure of history, any ancestor, remain only poeticized, in fact, marginalized by a poverty of anecdotes. When our poetry stops, people disappear.
Consequently, all descriptions of another living person are poetic. Poetic anecdotes are chosen with the aim to represent with precision. But never is there a full definition of our ancestors. We say our grandfather said this, my father did this, my uncle said life was like this, or like that. Then they are forever gone – absent, disembodied. Poetry is the only medium we use to speak of fellow humans. Only poets make humans, both the living and the dead, existent. When there is no monument in speech, no poetic record, there is no proof of human existence.
Because people are undefinable, the poet is indispensable.
Our argument reaches its stride when speak of arrogance modern scientism. Everything modernism considers certain and defined, solid and quantifiable, in fact, remains forever undefined. The purpose is not to denigrate the poetry of science; the aim is to show that science is only one of many possible schools of poetry.
The Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the High Plains Indians, and the Christians each had their own fully operative schools of poetry – and each school of poetry made their own empiricals – their perfectly working social networks. Not just scientism, but every historical age of man has a crisis of defining “reality.” Each made their own brilliant solution – but each was a school of poetry defining and making their world more concise, more in focus, and fully enlightened – the measure of their own shimmering lights.
Science does not know the origins of life. Secular materialism cannot account for human consciousness. Modern men do not know anything of a living soul’s non-material origins or his futurity beyond this life form. All elements of the physical or spiritual world, in the round, remain forever beyond the scope of descriptive competence. There is a permanent lacuna in envisaging life.
This is the argument for the necessity, then the supremacy, of poetry. Poetry, as story, gives cause, action, scope and meaning in the absence of direct evidence of cause, action, scope, and meaning. It is an essential argument for understanding the human condition, and one, moreover, that usually passes unremarked in modernism. Because there are words are for things, words (poetries) are indispensable. Because there are poets there are phenomena where only senseless chaos would otherwise appear.
The thesis allows a new perspective on human reality. Poetic scriptures will never be recovered as prestigious and correct sources of information until science, itself, is expose as a school of poetry. Story Theory proves science is a brilliant, if flawed, school of Victorian poetry.
Precisely because we live with the undefinable, becuase nothing can be defined with prefect precision, poetry is indispensable to human life. And that’s the point.
Living with the Undefined
The myth of the nineteenth century was the permeance of matter. The myth of the 20th century was the existence of empirical data. In the 1920’s quantum mechanics disproved both the permeance of matter and the illusion empirical data. In fact, in experiments by Schrödinger, the perceiving mind of the observer changed the outcome of the experiment (i.e., the collapse of the wavefunction of energy into a particle (photon) was different in speed or location with each observing mind). This indicates that matter (as the photon) is under the stipulation of a non-material mental force – or mind.
So many examples can be given briefly. First, Matter is observed to be essentially non-material light waves at the microscopic level. Second, the advocate of empirical data must, in the end, if honest, admit that having all the facts of the case is not within the realm of the possible. No doctor can say he knows in each instant all the chemical reactions of a trillion trillion cells. He can only assert an approximate, hoped for, result of any new drug (after listing the many possible exceptions their lawyers insist upon.). Third, the atom is essentially empty, and operates under essentially unseen forces of electric charge.
These facts are ignored by the educators of science in the West. Science, after heroic struggle with the Christian control of education for 2000 years, asserts (in academia) that science is the language of reality and it has finally discovered the ultimate reality, and that reality is a categorically a secular material reality. Everything else in the child’s mind should go to the wall.
And it does.
There are royal particles, cunning bosons, and kinetic switches by which all material objects operate. Yes, there are still unknowns. Yet these few remaining parts, still firmly solid with mass, await only to be mopped up and dissected where they are still obscure, when given enough time, machinery, and funding. that is the central myth.
Since no citizen can read a science paper, or would dare try, he takes the supremacy of the scientific school as dogmatic faith. The undeniable trust in science is essentially an article of belief, and makes science into a dogmatic church. As with any religion, any challenge to the faith of science will generate a violent and emotional outburst against the party challenging the supremacy of the scientific world view. This is exactly how a religion operates.
Yet the myth of the enlightenment persists. It is the status quo – our supreme dataset – our city set upon a hill. Since it is now all we know, no sane citizen is going to give it over – for what? – a new age of faith and oil lamps? Even today it is still believed that there are facts to be learned of matter and science only possesses all the facts of the case. The myth would have the citizen believe that science is the only frontier of reality, the story of the final and most supreme idiom of Homo sapiens.
In Story Theory, science is not the final idiom of Homo Sapiens. It is one of many idioms, and in time to be replaced by the next civilization. As supreme paganism could not suspect that an obscure wandering intenerate would destroy their world empire, so Catholicism did not suspect that some gentlemen from the royal academy would utterly discredit the 2000 rule of the Christian church. No civilization ever sees what is coming. The age of secular scientific materialism does not see what is coming. That is the prophesy of Story Theory.
In the grand myth of science, all prior narratives of reality must be canceled – or disenchanted. The spiritual origins of life, logically, must be non-existent precisely because spirits had no physical mass, was not promiscuous to quantitative measurement, and thus not defined as a material, exploitable dataset of scientism. Yet what if science is only one of many schools of poetry? Its seems incredulous. What if it so far from being a school of symbology, science is not even the final idiom of Homo sapiens? That would change everything we think we know about “reality”. That is the objective of Story Theory.
For all its science, modern man is still unable to define what is real. Any material object at the micro or macro disappears or alters into other forms. This being so, no definition of “reality” can stand up to exhaustive investigation. The world alters ruthlessly in each moment and escapes fixed definition. This means all that a man can do, the best he can do, is describe what he thinks he sees. This always results in an abridged description using symbols. Using symbology to describe the world of experience is the etiquette of a school of poetry.
In Story Theory, when a man attempts to describe his life, even in the first syllables, he transitions immediately to story. This is the thesis of Story theory.
In Story Theory, no man can define any phenomena with microscopic definition. We do not define each blade and cell of a mountain valley; instead, we say see a “green field with poppies.” This is a description, an act of poetry – not a definition. A definition would count each blade of grass and each cell of the blade, on and on into infinity. This is not possible in the world we live in. It is impossible for the rationalist, therefore, to every, at any single moment, to have all the facts of the case.
Since a precise, detailed, exhaustive definition of the world is beyond human capability all speech defaults to a poetic description. This is the thesis.
No human, no object had ever been defined with exactness and totality. Humans are able only to describe persons and objects – using poetic symbols. In truth, the modern lives daily with the undefined. The facts of the case are clear to anyone who closely examines human communication.
No human has ever successfully defined reality. No human has observed (or replicated) the totality of any phenomenon. Science has never reproduced or defined consciousness. Man, in effect, lives without fully knowing his world. Reality remains, permanently, undefined.
And this is the only justification for poetry. This is the fundamental genius of poetry. Poetry is the only possible language of Homo Sapiens and it is used in each instance of speech.
No one is able to utterly define the person next to them, the person they are most intimate with, their most cherished relative – with any definitive detail. We say, mother, father, uncle, wife, son or daughter, precisely because we are utterly at a loss to define these creatures next to us – their depth of character, emotion, sorrow, struggle – still less their intimate thoughts and emotions now or before we entered their life. We live with the undefined.
Modern man, no less than all previous ages of man, is incapable to describe “the thing in itself.” The very necessity of words (symbols) in place of “things,” “people”, “places,” or “events” –each described with poetic brevity – illustrates that we live with the undefined. There are words exactly because the thing-in-itself eludes definition.
No human can be described with total perfection or full scope. Any possible description of a living person would, at its very best, only be partial, prejudiced, insufficient, incomplete, and necessarily, characterized with extreme compression and brevity. These are elements of poetry – not science. No man speaking of a desk or a table has defined the desk or table, since they are undefinable in normal speech, since do we include a discussion of each cell fiber of wood or the forever concealed joints of carpentry? We use a symbolic language to give a poetic brevity of the object. Our entire experience of world is nominated with poetic brevity.
We reference a city on a hill, likewise, poetically – with brevity – yet with as much precision as possible, in one phrase, to achieve the aim of representation of world. In fact, any city has trillions and trillions of descriptive details. Yet we name this city Paris or Jerusalem – poetically – since in usage we necessarily avoid any exact definition, and we allow that the name alone invokes much that we do not have the time (or knowledge) to investigate. Paris, London, New York or Jerusalem remains forever outside the competence of an exact definition, house by house, brick by brick. This is the protocol of poetry. It’s the way humans speak of their world, precisely because the world remains undefinable. Story Theory has always been hiding in plain sight.
Poetry is brevity that aims at precision. Moderns may think they are rationalists, or scientists, or capitalists, or religious, or materialists. We have words that take the place of “things-in-themselves” precisely because we cannot define “the thing in itself.” No human has ever precisely defined a “thing in itself.” And therefor no man has seen reality face to face, or has been able to designate a final reality.
Poetry is brevity that aims at precision of emotion. We agree to speak poetically of the undefinable. Every phenomenon we see with eyes is designated poetically. Animals, pets, brothers, uncles, dead relatives, each forever, cell by cell, remain undefined and undefinable. These undefinable persons in our lives are permanently fixed, designated, and concealed by the brevity of poetry – the necessary brevity of descriptive speech (symbolic language).
We all are poets when we speak of the world, and in speaking the world, and by the same measure we are also making the world. The Greeks word for the poet was the “maker.” Now we know why. The poet is the only maker of our world since he is the master of describing (making) the images of the world. Precisely because the world is undefinable, poetry is indispensable.
If true, this thesis will encourage the modern to alter his view of poetry as irrelevant, as something vague, or defective as a medium of information. The thesis is that poetry is not passé but rather a reliable and prestigious method of investigating the modern experience.
It is impossible that secular modernism has found the final reality, as it is impossible that science has discovered the final idiom of Homo sapiens. We know that every civilization has taken the opposite “world view” of the society it has preplaced. Our nearest example is Classical polytheism, replaced by Christian monotheism, replaced by modern secular science. There will be other interpretations of worlds in the next human civilization. And this coming civilization will have its own poetry.
No one sees what is coming. And that is why poetry is the only way to live with the undefinable world.
We have must therefore explore the possibilities of the thesis here presented. Since the same “reality” is never found in situ, is never independent from a perceiving mind, each civilization produces their own empiricals. Therefore, in Story Theory, each narrative, each idiom of any civilization is exactly true. Isis is true. Jesus is true. Abraham is true. Joseph and Joshua are true. Moses is true precisely because these civilizations have poetically (and empirically) reduced the perceived life-source to the most essentials – the perceived essentials – and these essentials operate as designed within the social network – of the people sharing the same “empiricals.” When a society believes the same idioms those idioms are proven to be operative and true. When all scientists believe the same datasets there is no way to climb back down from the dataset. Every story has to remain within the story. Or it all crashes down.
As an example, no modern could accuse the High Plains Indian fiercely arrayed on his brightly adorned horse, that he was not supremely well with his world. His senses we alert to his ecosphere and he could hear, see, and smell every sign on the wind in this world. The world of the High Plains Indian was empirical in all respects that apply to the empirical. Everything he believed came true – as expected. Who will say otherwise? A modern?
Speaking individually, every man’s life and death is undefined as it appears to anyone observing the life and death of a man. Every life remains permanently undefined. Every death is permanently undefined since each person’s death is different and unknowable to any other living person. There is very little the idiom of science can add to the problem of the absolute definition of either life or death. There is only a poetic solution to the problem of life and death. And each man climbs up into his own poem. And who is to say he was wrong?
Poetry is true because the world is not fixed and can never be fixed for all times. Every civilization produces its own brilliant school of poetry, precisely because each fails to define the world. All they can do is try to describe (poetically, briefly) their world. No civilization has ever discovered the final idiom of reality. this is why we say that all that remains of a civilization is poetry. From time to time there is a powerful civilization, telling a story of a fixed human reality – and men climb up into this poem – this new possible reality – and thereby make their cherished story real – even experiencing plausible empirical results.
Since no person, and at no period in history, has ever precisely defined reality, poetry is not only permitted, but is required skill-set. A field of grass, cannot be precisely described (with each blade of grass, and each cell of the blade) – but the attempt must be made to speak of a field of grass (and it might be speckled with red poppies – but no one knows how many.). Clearly it cannot be avoided to speak of a field of grass. Therefore, in all cases, we are poets when we speak of world – and we cannot avoid the art of poetry – unless we are willing to be mute. It is clear we are limited in communication by time; we must necessarily have some skill of brevity and economy of thought. This is the protocol of poetry.
There are billions of thoughts, forever unseen events and trillions of cell interactions, pains and joys, never glimpsed by another human – and thus they remain forever beyond human description. No man can precisely define a world, an object, or a fellow human. A man may only make approximations – iconic representations – brief symbols, each only a place holder, of the person face to face with him. This is poetry.
No man has ever successfully defined an object in all its infinite detail. A field of grass, as all fields of grass, remain forever beyond definition. No man can explain a single tree, its every cell, the origins of its seeds and the seeds before those seeds. All we can say about a forest of trees, and in all cases, is brevity and conjecture. Consequently, all descriptions of a forest of trees, or a city of men, are poetic. If we say, “I saw a green field with red poppies,” we have not made a definition, we have made the brevity of a poem – a poem infused with human emotion.
In no case do we ever make an absolute definition since the object we see with our eyes is beyond the competence of linguistic definition. Rather, we make poems that take the place of “things.” The brevity of detail, the editorial selection of one quality over another, is an emotive poetic choice – not a precise definition of the field of grass.
Conclusion? Because “things-in–themselves” are undefinable, the poet is indispensable.
The facts of the case are before us. No man has ever successfully defined a fellow human. We cannot see, or explain the person face to face with us. No man or woman can explain a single personality, the activity of another person’s every cell, the precise scope and depth of a person’s emotive thoughts and the previous subjective experiences. The person sitting next to us, face to face, remains undefinable in precise detail. Eternity would not give sufficient scope to explain the life of an individual, his life experiences, his joy or pain, terror or hope, or every cell interaction in each moment of his existence.
We have poetic names for our relatives precisely because they are beyond a fullness of definition. A father, mother, brother, an uncle, the people face to face to us, are indefinable. Our relatives, our associates, our friends, as any figure of history, any ancestor, remain only poeticized, in fact, marginalized by a poverty of anecdotes. When our poetry stops, people disappear.
Consequently, all descriptions of another living person are poetic. Poetic anecdotes are chosen with the aim to represent with precision. But never is there a full definition of our ancestors. We say our grandfather said this, my father did this, my uncle said life was like this, or like that. Then they are forever gone – absent, disembodied. Poetry is the only medium we use to speak of fellow humans. Only poets make humans, both the living and the dead, existent. When there is no monument in speech, no poetic record, there is no proof of human existence.
Because people are undefinable, the poet is indispensable.
Our argument reaches its stride when speak of arrogance modern scientism. Everything modernism considers certain and defined, solid and quantifiable, in fact, remains forever undefined. The purpose is not to denigrate the poetry of science; the aim is to show that science is only one of many possible schools of poetry.
The Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, the High Plains Indians, and the Christians each had their own fully operative schools of poetry – and each school of poetry made their own empiricals – their perfectly working social networks. Not just scientism, but every historical age of man has a crisis of defining “reality.” Each made their own brilliant solution – but each was a school of poetry defining and making their world more concise, more in focus, and fully enlightened – the measure of their own shimmering lights.
Science does not know the origins of life. Secular materialism cannot account for human consciousness. Modern men do not know anything of a living soul’s non-material origins or his futurity beyond this life form. All elements of the physical or spiritual world, in the round, remain forever beyond the scope of descriptive competence. There is a permanent lacuna in envisaging life.
This is the argument for the necessity, then the supremacy, of poetry. Poetry, as story, gives cause, action, scope and meaning in the absence of direct evidence of cause, action, scope, and meaning. It is an essential argument for understanding the human condition, and one, moreover, that usually passes unremarked in modernism. Because there are words are for things, words (poetries) are indispensable. Because there are poets there are phenomena where only senseless chaos would otherwise appear.
The thesis allows a new perspective on human reality. Poetic scriptures will never be recovered as prestigious and correct sources of information until science, itself, is expose as a school of poetry. Story Theory proves science is a brilliant, if flawed, school of Victorian poetry.
Precisely because we live with the undefinable, becuase nothing can be defined with prefect precision, poetry is indispensable to human life. And that’s the point.
