Modifying Horatio

It’s time to modify an old proverb. Hamlet said:

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Modified version:

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There is more in heaven and earth, Horatio, than the things dreamt of in your philosophy.

The new research I cited yesterday is part of a sea change away from the THINGS that science and philosophy dream of. The Endarkenment trained us to separate the world into neatly marked modules and categories, and then write math formulas or logic rules to describe how these THINGS act together. Everyone who works with reality knows from long and painful experience that ALL of these formulas are just convenient approximations that work in some situations, but science classes teach them as Absolute Laws created before the Big Bang by the Great God RandomSelection.

In electronics we have Ohm’s Law and similar laws providing nice neat formulas for Resistors and Capacitors and Inductors and Wires. In reality every resistor has some capacitance and inductance, etc. The mix of qualities is unavoidable at higher frequencies where the laws don’t work at all. Microwave circuits are more like sculptures with specific shapes of metal serving as R and C and L and Wires all at once.

Neurology and anatomy were slow to pick up the looseness. MRI techniques and gene modification techniques have enabled immediate viewing of living actions which had to be inferred STATISTICALLY from many experiments before. The research I cited yesterday is a perfect example. It finds that all living cells, not only neurons, are capable of learning and anticipating patterns.

The inferential evidence for nonspecialization has always been available. I mentioned the power of dosage schedules, and the anticipation skills of plants. Despite the massive evidence AGAINST Horatio’s things, most neuroscience clung to specialized modules and specialized paths between modules, like resistors and capacitors and wires, until MRI forced a change of understanding.

None of this is surprising to older cultures in the global South who were never spoiled by the Endarkenment. They have always understood the universe as an undefinable unmodulable mass of ENERGY, with “things” appearing momentarily as perceptual illusions.