XXXV Reality is not perception ?

Annie took in the sounds and energy of London, Bernstein was on his mobile phone talking to the Oxford University administration people, they had called, to give him updates and to also to find if everything they had arranged were in place, Annie and the Prof. were already in the car, on their way to The Hilton, as the Hilton car driver, who was incidentally an Indian, focused hard to manoeuvre the vehicle through the lashing rain, somehow the whole set of things happening around her acted like soft mnemonics, taking Annie’s mind to her native village, Buchireddypalem near Nellore, in the State of Andhra Pradesh, back in India, incidentally both her grand parents - both from her Father and her Mother’s side - hailed from the same location, albeit from 2 different villages, separated by just a few score kilometers, both sides of the families owned large tracts of agricultural land, considered the most fertile soil areas in South India, Nellore was located on the eastern bank of the river Pennar. Nellore had a number of things that set it apart from various other parts of Andhra Pradesh, one it was famous for its rich, aggressive, feudal agrarian landlords who had amassed so much tax free money that they not only had virtual stranglehold of the Andhra state’s political fortunes they were also huge migrants to the Americas, quite a few of them eventually became landlords owning big tracts of land in the US too. Annie was too cosmopolitan for many of the migrant Indians, especially the neo rich IT & Software clique, Annie hardly had any Indians in her circle, Daniel was an exception. But then Daniel too had long discarded his Indian identity, both Annie and Daniel wore their identities very loose, they never really bothered about it. Hardly found the need.        

Bernstein had finished his mobile phone conversation, smiled at Annie giving an indication that everything was fine and settled and then he told her that he had included some input on Blake , Coleridge and Wordsworth as a prelude to his presentation today. He then went on to outline the other additions he had made, a few on Aesthetics that included some new research on Edmund Burke, he had even included Annambhatta’s Tarkhasangraha to highlight certain aspects of Asian dialectics, as the Prof went about explaining to Annie, She in turn guessed that her mentor had hardly slept through the journey, She had a strong urge to find out if she had snored but thought against interrupting their ongoing conversation.

Bernstein was convinced that the field of Philosophy could find a huge amount of answers to many of its lasting problems, especially those pertaining to the need to bring a more holistic feel to Philosophy through the study of Literature, Art, Music and folk art in fact at Harvard, Bernstein had even redefined the University’s Philosophy Curriculum by adding a number different genres of art, literature and speculative Sciences as a part of the Masters program at the University. 

Among the reasons why the Prof. found Annie very special as a student and as a research Assistant. Her academic background had an interesting graph, that had a mix of Christian and Hindu archetypes study and then her shifting to a boarding School in Ooty and her later association with the likes of the Max Mueller Bhavan , the Alliance Francaise, her voracious appetite for all sorts of Literature- Indian, English, Russian, Spanish, African - her taste in Music – from Western Classical to Rock and African folk - her interest in Aesthetic art, Quantum Physics and Political economy had all made things perfect for Bernstein to take her into his wing and soon become her admirer – for her sheer energy and free will.       

Annie certainly held huge promise for the field of Philosophy. Harvard was certainly glad to have her with them.

Annie was now discussing with Bernstein the cognitive aspects of the views that were passing them as they drove through the English urban landscape, the images they could see from the frosted car windows, and how, they both viewed each of the images they were seeing; To her the world outside seemed to be rushing backwards like they were caught in a flood or like they were thrown out of an aircraft, to Bernstein the whole thing looked stationary and slow in their motions. Reality and the perception of reality were such contrasting occurrences. Cognition wasn’t a free bird, it was clouded and enslaved by a huge number of factors. Under such complexity how would one derive reality ? two people sitting in the same car, viewing at similar images, almost at the same instant still had starkly differing views of what they saw. Annie knew that f they had a 3^rd person sharing the cab that person would have had a completely different view and if they added a child of say 3 years the reality for the child would have been something that the 3 other adults would just not have connected with.  

Annie’s thesis at the Harvard was an attempt to redefine certain aspects of Burke and Kant and the Theory of Human Perception. She was also assisting a few other researchers working on subjects as varied as Dementia and Blind rage and a new theory on certain cognitive dissonances and Personality disorders that had already created a huge buzz in the Philosophy and Psychology circles.

“ So Bernie what do you see ? Are you really seeing ?

No I’m not. Really.         

So Why aren’t you seeing / or are you lying ?

Bernie gave out a smile and turned to face Annie and reply to her taunt  

“Burke had once said that “Infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with a delightful horror" and then connected the idea of ‘Good’ perception to what he had called ‘efficient causes’ but Annie let’s remember that the world has long since lost its symphony , we’ve become so dissonant, what we see as a deluge of visual carcass moving backwards is but a rejection by your unconscious mind of what you see – the dissonance is painful and so wants to quickly discard the visual and seek a new visual and continue to do so until it finds some point to settle’

Annie wasn’t someone to let go of a good argument, so she replied

If what you say is true, Bernie, then the only visual that a human mind would accept without dissonance will be visuals that have nature or those that are close to nature, so do you mean to say that anything man made is dissonant ?  is every human creation factually some kind of a destruction? In essence you are harking back to the days of Plato, Aristotle and maybe the Taliban by rejecting the idea of art as ‘ugly’ ?

She paused, She knew she had him cornered, Bernstein paused before replying, making sure this time he had Annie directly under his piercing gaze –

“Listen, when the surrealists started the talk of Art for Arts’ sake, their treatise of dilettantism and the talk of deliberate destruction of the senses the world of creative protagonists roared their disapproval, condemned Dali and friends calling them Artistic pseudo masochists, they said what they were doing was creative Sodomy, they spent endless volumes to argue and kill the idea of derangement thinking that was the right thing to do but what many of those like Sartre or Camus or Beauvoir or even say Ibsen, who were themselves desolate but I feel they could not accept what was clearly a statement of the end of all things creative, the end of the idea of purity, at least until the world woke up to the likes of Beckett and Kafka , most of us were oblivious, to the fact that the world of true art had already fallen”

    

Bernstein shifted so that he could look at Annie more directly and then continued “ Annie, look around you? do you see purity ? of creation ? anywhere , any place ? what you see are all the creations of a world that only knows ‘art for arts sake’, everything that you see are deliberate creations, the lines, the circles, the angles, nothing out there is pure, and deep inside, your cognitive mind as it evolves , it matures, and develops ‘intuitivity’ , the idea of sublime and the beautiful has by then found a mystique touchstone that’s different from these man made designs and then it starts rejecting everything it sees ”  

Annie waited to assimilate what Bernstein was saying and then looking directly at her mentor said ‘ Sounds so much like the language of the Continental Philosophers, Bernie, is there a world out there that is pre ordained, pre designed ? and is primordiality the only sense of form and aesthetics? Have we been wasting time ? evolving, building ? Annie looked around and indicated the outside world when she said that. Maybe for just taking forward the argument I'll partially accept that existentialism ended up romanticising human ingenuity and the likes of Sartre, Camus or even Beckett and Kafka did not eventually expect Creativity as a pure form of human artistic output to die and in its place put a more synthetic something, that way maybe Nietzsche and Husserl were exceptionally far sighted, but it still is difficult to accept that human cognitive faculties lives and prefers a primordial city and it refuses to accept say an Al Burj tower but would be glad to accept the view of a simple Oak tree and Uncle Sam's barns outside California".

Bernstein nodded, as a signal of his assertion that that's what he meant, mentally acknowledging the brilliance of his student to have so easily assimilated such a complex theory. And then was about to say something more but stopped noticing that Annie had her eyes closed and she was about to say something. Annie opened her eyes and using a softer tone that was almost reflective said -   

“We will need specific analytics that can support such a premise, otherwise it would be rejected as convoluted’ completed Annie even as she admired the brilliance of the premise. Bernie nodded, an indication that he did have something in place, ‘ all we need is to look beyond Russell and Wittgenstein and we’ll get some of what we are looking for’ and gave a smile , Annie laughed, She knew Bernstein was joking. How can you forget the father of Analytics and logic and build a new logic? Absurd she muttered to herself even as she continued smiling. 

Just then the driver said they were nearing the Hotel.

It was like talking music without Beethoven and Bach ! And that’s exactly what she was treated to, as soon as they stepped into the Hilton Hotel.

Annie walked in, the theatre just had a number of dark, unknown heads seated and looking straight on, the stage was lit just right, on the stage they had 2 musicians , Annie guessed, they were Bach and Beethoven standing on either side of their own Orchestra troupe, ready with their batons – all they expected was for Annie to snap her fingers for them to take off. She waited until she was ushered in and shown her seat, she stood straight and without a lapse ‘snapped her finger’ – and the music blew her off from her seat.

Annie frowned at her own little child like imagination, music seemed to have that thing in it, it brought the child in her. She looked around , Englishmen and Women, they loved to live a life that’s well “hidden” she thought as she saw most them talking in hushed tones and walk past with their wooden looks even as the front desk gave them a practiced yet pleasant welcome smile. 

Bach and Beethoven went about with their own overtures. Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. Rendered by the Royal Philharmonic, supervised by Yehudi Menuhin?

Anyone ?