'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Thursday, December 31, 2009

on certainty 210


210. Does my telephone call to New York strengthen my conviction that the earth exists?

Much seems to be fixed, and it is removed from the traffic. It is so to speak shunted into an unused siding.



if your conviction is real –

there is no need to strengthen it –

no reason to

if on the other hand –

it is a pretense –

and hot air

then yes –

you will have to shore it up –

on a regular basis

hence –

phone a friend –

in New York


NB


good idea to shunt –

the rubbish –

conviction –

certainty –

and anything else –

that’s ‘fixed’ –

in an unused siding


© greg t. charlton. 2009.