Loren Jewkes
Mr. Paul Berg
English 102
16 June 2014
Noise and Silence: Balance Creates Life
For this generation of urban and
suburban youth, noise is a constant surrounding; I am only recently an
exception to this accepted reality. Sirens pierce the air regardless of that
digital display, dial-hand, or clock-face this generation is so accustomed to
mindlessly glancing toward. Time and space are in many ways better understood
than any other generation past. The moment any event is observed is not the
actual moment it takes place; exact chronological understanding is a relatively
new development within the common knowledge of any society. Where time and
space are relative according to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Like a mix of
golf balls, steel shot, tennis balls, and bowling balls on taut sheet. The very
presence of something alters time and space around it. Within Quantum Theory,
the very act of observing an event changes the results of the event itself.
Yet, we disregard the thought of observing nothingness. We are so accustomed to
witnessing matter that nothingness
dwells outside of humanity’s bounded rationality. The vacuum of space is a
wonderful example of our understanding of physicality, compared to emptiness.
We’re seemingly un-associated with the concept of external emptiness.
Astronauts, however, are consciously acquainted with this abstract concept that
is a void. We do not truly understand what it is to be alive, until we know
what it is that differentiates the living from the defunct. Within at least one
interview with most every returning spacewalker is this simplistic, yet
profound, idea: There is no noise in space. None whatsoever.
We rely on noise heavily to
interpret our surroundings. Rain, shine, darkness or slumber, we construct our
surroundings based on what we hear. The beneficial aspects are unbelievable. We
can create a seamless four-dimensional cognitive understanding with little to
no thought at the forefront of our minds. Amazing. Until recently, sound was my
form of personal drug; more distracting than marijuana, alcohol, morphine and
Vicodin combined. Sonic overload dulls what is most impossible to dampen:
Individual, core thought on that root level of impressions; the very thought of
the soul. Compared to machines, which think in binary switches, I had
unwittingly learned to turn off impressional thinking. The most powerful and
core type of thought possible within humankind. It is argued that the soul
resides within the body, and communicates on a level comprised solely of
impressions. The language of souls is
that of impressions. Eloquent and powerful, this is what sets us apart from
those machines we have created to improve our lives. As we go from our root
language to higher and higher level languages we lose eloquence. As machines go
from their binary to high level programming languages, they gain elegance. We
both lose purity and raw power in return for mass adoption. Where machines
gain, we lose. Where we excel, they are incapable, and thus do not need to
contemplate or worry.
Emptiness
never bothered a machine. They do not get lonely, miss the embrace of a loved
one, or go insane as a result of sensory deprivation. We are different from
machines in that we understand the feeling of being alone. Being able to
recognize nothingness, and fulfillment on an emotional level is what sets us
apart as living beings. We are alive, and we recognize it naturally with every
fiber of our being, consciousness, and soul. Social interactions happen within
the form of high level languages: Verbal, body, and tonation. Rene Descartes
wrote, "I entirely abandoned the study of letters. Resolving to seek no
knowledge other than that of which could be found in myself or else in the
great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth traveling, visiting
courts and armies, mixing with people of diverse temperaments and ranks,
gathering various experiences, testing myself in the situations which fortune
offered me, and at all times reflecting upon whatever came my way so as to
derive some profit from it." He had decided to temporarily revoke the societal
noise of his time, and learn from what was around him. He would then compare it
to what was within himself, and create a harmonious mesh of external and
internal thought.
High-level
languages are easily translated, truly, yet most true emotion is lost in
translation. How does one convey emotion in a lossless manner? Is it possible?
Until communication is truly between two beings on that level of impressions,
no. Language-less and pure, it is the core
of who we are. Occam’s razor states that the hypothesis with the fewest number
of solutions is likely the truest answer (Heylighen). So, to simplify is to get
to a purer, more correct answer than the last. This theory can be likened to
communication in that the closer to the base level of communication, the purer
the impressions sent and received. Instead, we do constant impression bypass
surgery to get to the easy thoughts. Sounds constantly surround us. I moved
from a county with two-thirds of the entire population of Idaho, to a rural
town. I had never experienced such longstanding silence. It created cognitive
dissonance within my mind. I was losing my mind. I couldn't think without white
noise, music, or some other machine that filled the emptiness. I needed
machines to fulfill a need only in place due to my status as alive. Those things which were not
alive, nor never will be, were a form of mental salvation. I needed it more
than any drug I had ever suffered withdrawals. Imagine trying to diet while
working in a chocolate factory, and having a serious craving for chocolate.
Free reign to eat whatever, whenever as a job perk. Trying to quit drinking
while working at a brewery, because you’re an alcoholic. Your job is to taste
test the product for quality. Or, imagine an attempt at cutting your social media
usage, yet working at Facebook and Twitter simultaneously. It seems impossible.
How does one eradicate an addiction where the ability to remove the substance
isn’t present? Removing external influences in the form of sound is a daunting
task.
Sound
is universal to living beings. Even those deaf persons can still feel the thud
of a heavy drum beat, the light caresses of an angelic soprano, and the
vibrating intestines in loud locations. Sound is always present in some
capacity or another. Sensory deprivation was used as a torture vehicle in
Guantanamo to blur the lines between fiction and reality (Head). In a very real
way, our sanity is dependent on our ability to sense the world around us. Is it
not the same from within? When one loses touch with the ability to sense the
world within, would their sanity not suffer in the same way? In all ways
possible, the sounds of our external worlds are infinitely complex, pressing,
and present. There is no getting around its presence while within the confines
of Earth’s atmosphere. There is sound here. Without going to space, we have no
way to experience a lack thereof. Like unto those sounds outside, the sounds
within are ever more complex, pressing and present.
As
humans, the most accessible sensory stimulation available to us is that of
sound. It is essential to life, yet, too much ruins the very lives we try to
live. Sound can overwhelm impressions, leaving us effectively controlled by our
external world. No internal thought can make it past the first level, let alone
to the outside world; simply residing as a feeling with no explanation. Sound
makes us live, and we live because we are alive. Machines do not live, nor do
they care to live, let alone let sound into their non-existent lives. In our
quest to live externally, we lose the very reason we exist: to think and feel
in tandem. For, as Marvin Gaye so insightfully counselled, “If you cannot find
peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.” We can choose to
be effectively inanimate, for emptiness causes inanimation. We choose emptiness
by creating imbalance, and thus we choose to be alive yet not living.
In
every attempt to fill the emptiness outside of me, I simply created increasing
amounts of vacancy within myself. According to Immanuel Kant, morality is
encompassed by imperatives. We have moral obligations to act or take no action
to attain a desired result if that result is deemed necessary. These
Categorical Imperatives are absolute requirements that must always be followed,
else break moral code. That those imperatives are decided on an individual
basis is where free will may be applied. Prioritizing maximum positive result
for the group or the self (Johnson). An imbalance leaves one or both sides
dissatisfied and unfulfilled. A balance brings satisfaction to both the group
and the self. This balance is the choice we make to be human. I chose internal
silence as a form of being alive, yet I was not living. To be alive but only
respond to sensory inputs is machinistic. Machines respond predictably to
inputs, and return predictable results. Machines can contain priori knowledge,
which is knowledge independent of any physical experience (A Priori). While the
core soul can contain posteriori knowledge which is dependent on individual
experience (A Posteriori). It is imperative that the two types of knowledge
work together, else the requirements of humanity are not met. When in balance,
the claims of Existentialism are both supported and nullified. That as humans
we have the ability to give meaning to life by living it authentically. Its
nullification comes in the form of a society living together authentically can
create more meaning than any one individual in solitude (Existentialism). I
created a shell no better than a lifeless machine. Sound is the silence of
life. An extreme on either side, whether external or internal results in not
life, but death by inanimation. Balancing silence and sound of the external
world, and our internal impressional thought is essential. Machines are always
empty; some humans are just as empty. Without balance, we are less alive than
the machines we so desperately utilize. Machines do not choose to be machines,
nor do they choose to be lifeless. Their void is involuntary, and absolute. I
am human. I choose to be both alive, and to live my life. I am not empty
because I choose to be full. I choose
to be full of life with a balance of sound and silence. I choose to be human.
Works
Cited
Descartes, René, David Weissman, William
Theodore Bluhm, and René Descartes. Discourse on the Method ; And,
Meditations on First Philosophy. New Haven: Yale UP, 1996. Print.
"Existentialism." Psychology
Wiki. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 June 2014.
Gaye, Marvin. Words of Wisdom. Speech.
Head, Tom. "A Short History of the
Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility." About.com Civil Liberties.
About.com, n.d. Web. 15 June 2014.
Heylighen,, F. "Occam's Razor." Occam's
Razor. Principia Cybernetica Web, n.d. Web. 17 June 2014.
Johnson, Robert. "Kant's Moral
Philosophy." Stanford University. Stanford University, 23 Feb.
2004. Web. 15 June 2014.
"A Posteriori." Dictionary.com.
Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 17 June 2014.
"A Priori." Dictionary.com.
Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 17 June 2014.
"Theory Of Relativity." AllAboutScience.org.
All About Science, n.d. Web. 17 June 2014.
