the key idea here is patent let's
suppose I'm going to borrow a metaphor
from Buckman's to Fulop suppose we have
a rope and the one section of this rope
is made of Manila hemp the next section
is cotton the next section is silk the
next section is nylon and so on
now we tie a knot in this rope just an
ordinary one over knot you find by
putting your finger in the knot you can
move it all the way down the rope
now as this knot travels its first of
all made of Manila hemp its then made of
cotton it's then made of silk it's then
made of nylon and so on but the knot
keeps going on
that's the integrity of pattern the
continuing pattern which is what you are
because you might you know would be for
several years you might be a vegetarian
and you might be a meat-eater and so on
and you know your Constitution changes
all the time but people still friends
still recognize you because you're still
putting on the same show it's the same
pattern that is the recognizable
individual but we are trained in our
language the very structure of the
language we talk deceives us into
misunderstanding this because when we
see a pattern we ask what's it made of
like you see a table is it made of wood
or is it made of aluminum but then when
you inquire into what is wood and how
does would differ from aluminum the only
thing a scientist can tell you is the
different patterns that is to say the
different molecular structure of the two
things and a molecular structure is not
a description of what something is made
of it is a description of what dance it
is performing what motions what kind of
a symphony this is because basically all
phenomena of life are musical and Gould
differs from lead in the exactly the
same
either the waltz differs from a mazurka
to different dance and there isn't
anything that's dancing that is a
deception we get into because we have
two spots of speech in our grammar we
have nouns and verbs and verbs are
supposed to describe the activities of
nouns and this is simply a convention of
speech you could have a language with
only verbs in it you don't need any
nouns or you could also have a language
with the nouns only in reverbs
and it would perfectly adequately
describe what's going on in the world so
if you were used to speaking with a part
with a language that had one part of
speech you could say just as much as we
can with two and be a lot clearer only
at first it would sound awkward but
you'd soon get used to it and then when
you got used to it it would be a matter
of common sense that the patterning of
the world is not some kind of stuff
that's patterning you don't have to seek
for a substance underlying though Venus
is patterning and we're all that and so
in this way there is to a person who
really wakes up you very soon realize
that your existence is not something
that is just the hopeless little
creature that suddenly confronted with a
great big external world that goes ah I
didn't know and eats him up every
tiniest little thing that comes into
being every my new little fruit fly or
net or bacterium I will go so far as to
say is an event upon which this whole
cosmos depends the thing goes both ways
if not only that every little organism
which exists depends on its total
environment the reverse is also true
that the total environment depends on
each and every one of those
organisms so that you could say this
universe consists of a an arrangement of
pattern in which every event is
essential for the whole thing now we
screen that idea out of our
consciousness in exactly the same way
that we screen out the perception of
space as an important reality just as we
pay attention to the figure and ignore
the background so we see one way of
looking at things mainly that the
organism is very frail against the
environment it lasts a long time the
environment that the organism only lasts
a short time what do you mean the
environment lasts a long time what is
the environment consists of just a lot
of little things and yet there is the
environment just as the same way as
there is the face in the newspaper
photograph behind all those little dots
when you get far enough away from it you
see the face when you get far enough
away from all the organisms and the
little bits of things you see the
environment in another scale of
magnification but actually the whole
thing is arranged in a polar system
where the enormous depends on the tiny
and the tiny depends on the enormous and
you get a relationship between these
extremes which can be called a
transaction that is to say a transaction
when there's buying and selling it's
impossible to have buying without
selling and selling without buying so
you you always wherever you are looking
at the general panorama of sensory
experience try switching try shifting
your attention to all the things you
thought were unimportant to the
constants to the background and begin
looking at the spaces between people
all painters have to learn this because
especially if you're working in oils you
actually have to paint in the background
weavers know this because when they're
making patterns in weaving they've got
to weave the background as well off you
do needlepoint with embroidery think of
the hours you spend putting in the
background over the canvas in wool and
you become aware of it same where the
people who made the great oriental
carpets they're much more aware of the
background as constituting an essential
part of the total experience
