Previous posts have seized on the phrase “I don’t see why not” as a perfect—yet unintentional—admission of ignorance in response to statements involving limits or constraints. In this unusual post format, I present a bevy of haiku to explore a variety of domains in which the “I don’t see why not” mantra exposes a cognitive insufficiency characteristic of our (or any) species. What else can we expect from hardware that is a mere subset of a greater ecological complexity? Anyway, “I don’t see why not” is an unwitting but brutally frank acknowledgment of mental limits, which ought to be celebrated as an expression of humility—even if accidental.
While refraining from exhaustive prose presents a personal challenge, the haiku form is especially attractive and germane in this exercise in that it imposes hard constraints that must be heeded—much like the universe itself (previously expressed in a representative pair of haiku). Some may also recall a related experiment to convey tricky concepts in single-syllable format.
But let’s dive into the familiar world of staggering ignorance and delusion…
Our Brilliant Future?
Will human beings
ultimately live in space?
I don’t see why not!
Might wise aliens
teach us how to live on Earth?
I don’t see why not!
Will humans one day
achieve immortality?
I don’t see why not!
Can the human brain
find its home in silicon?
I don’t see why not!
Will Lord Man* achieve
global peace and unity?
I don’t see why not!
Have We Transcended Limits?
Can techno-progress
proceed indefinitely?
I don’t see why not!
Is capital growth
a fixture of our future?
I don’t see why not!
Can the right choices
maintain progress evermore?
I don’t see why not!
Does modernity
supersede ecology?
I don’t see why not!
Can we detach from
the ecological realm?
I don’t see why not!
Might humans survive
a mass-extinction event?
I don’t see why not!
Could humans design
an ecology from scratch?
I don’t see why not!
I Am Universe!
Could the universe
be controlled by a Sky God?
I don’t see why not!
Can the universe
fit inside my boundless brain?
I don’t see why not!
Is there more to “me”
than materiality?
I don’t see why not!
Can “I” override
how physics instructs “my” atoms?
I don’t see why not!
Will Lord Man* one day
rule their universe as god?
I don’t see why not!
* Lord Man is a fantastic construct I got from Eileen Crist.
Coda
This set does not nearly exhaust a large collection of similarly-mediocre constructions I was able to hammer out in a short burst, but it seemed appropriate to constrain the presentation to a 5–7–5 arrangement. Because human cognition is virtually unlimited as to what we fail to recognize, examples abound. A common element is a heavily-biased self perception: what it means to be an individual, and what it means to be human. Colossal ignorance easily makes room for arrogance, aggrandizement, and narrow scope. What we don’t know can (and does) fill a universe.
As always, I advocate deferring to what the universe itself has to say, if we have the requisite skill to listen. The universe is not the one spinning stories of space colonization, immortality, indefinite growth, technological exceptionalism, global harmony, ecological detachment, human supremacy, or transcendence from material reality. Those are human mythologies borne of wistful and unmoored imaginations. The key is in looking to deep-time arrangements and not to the explosion of human-written garbage over the last several millennia. Wisdom isn’t in smarty-pants spectacles but in richly-woven relationships that have proven durability.
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This post is absolutely excellent! The format of haiku is such an interesting, creative, and concise way to express your point. The haiku you created are subversive in the way they deconstruct our expectations once someone looks just below the surface.
As a long time reader of your blog and similar material by other authors, I find it hard to discuss this with loved ones due to the unexamined cultural assumptions that shape so much of our world views. I will, however, share this post with my friends and family and I expect it will lead to some interesting discussions!
Tom
Nice poetry 🙂
Can you elaborate on this bit :
"Will Lord Man* achieve
global peace and unity?
I don’t see why not!"
… my guess is you've covered this in other posts, so forgive me if I've missed it. What are you saying directly or indirectly with this bit? That the ideals of some to stop human conflicts aren't really practical or feasible? Given the context of your content… I would guess that a lot would have to get deconstructed from these ideas anyways. For example, I assume your guess is that really long-term,… the whole concept of nation-states with borders won't even really be feasible without modernity… therefore the notion of having some type of unity and peace among nations is kind of a faulty long-term concept to begin with… as thousands of years from now… we may not even have "countries" that resemble anything like we have today. Maybe you can elaborate more on this? Does that mean that you think that people that want to end war and conflict are naive or silly or not even approaching the right questions to begin with? I mean what are your thoughts on this topic to begin with? War and conflict etc. My guess is you just view it as part of the current "fireworks" show of modernity… and remove the overpopulation and fossil fuels… and there simply won't be similar such types of conflict in humanity's future? Just hoping you can unpack more of what you were satirizing with that particular haiku. Thank you
Indeed, it is hard to condense sprawling ideas into a few lines. You have the main theme. A lazy extrapolation goes from band-level humans to sedentary agricultural villages to feudal arrangements (with a Lord Man) to kingdoms to nation states to the UN and finally global governance. Consolidation has been the trend, so that global unity is a logical next step. But logic lacks context, and the reversal that likely comes will start winding the progression backwards (still a form of "progress" in that it will progress from one stage to another).
I don't fault anyone for trying to end war: terrible activities. But I'd rather it not be under the fantasy pretense that we can keep modernity and just eliminate war. As you say, war is part of the fireworks show: a symptom of a deeper underlying disease that has separated us from an ecological context. In the end, that's not going to work.
In a different sense, global "unity" may be (again) achieved in that humans join all other living beings, living by the Law of Life (per Daniel Quinn). But this form of unity looks nothing like coordinated, centralized, global governance.
In Scotland, a high coo is a grazing animal whose field contains a particular mushroom.
Will Tom return to
regular exhaustive prose?
I don’t see why not!