Falsehood: An Analysis of Illusion's Singularity

FALSEHOOD

An Analysis of Illusion's Singularity

Marc Burock

Copyright © 2009 by Marc Burock

FALSEHOOD SO 3

Preface

Our conclusion occurred before the arguments that support it,
and in this respect, our arguments are horribly biased at the
onset. Although written by a single individual, they are our
arguments because the arguments in this work are as old as
philosophy. None of them are new, and many students of philos-
ophy will recognize the originating sources, at times perhaps
hearing the voices of those authors. Despite a lack of original
argumentation, we have put these arguments to new use.

In these contradictory words, rather than presupposing the
existence of objective deception or illusion or falsehood at the
start, I sought an analysis of the reality of illusion on par with the
analysis of the reality of reality. Particular attention is given to
perceptual illusions because I assume that, through empirical
illusions, illusions have been justified and given identity. After
all, what is more certain than our history of perceptual error? The
reader is asked to question this assumption, and although this is

4 BO MARC BUROCK

similar to questioning perceptual certainty itself, the two
questions are not identical. The resulting analyses nonetheless
inform each other.

I am led to the conclusion that the concepts of illusion, false-
hood, and objective error in general— for I carelessly lump these
together and make little distinction— are intrinsically contradic-
tory in nature. This is not to say that they are valueless or that
none of these exist, but if they do, each must exist in a contradic-
tory state, at least according to our classical conceptions.

Yet I continue to believe that true deception exists, just as much
as truth itself, but whatever this deception is, it is not what we
thought it was, nor is it any sort of deception or illusion analogous
to perceptual illusion, for perceptual illusions are not deceptive or
illusory at all. Deception is far cleverer than it has led us to
believe, which, although expected from Deception, does not mean
that we have caught Deception in the act.

FALSEHOOD «0 5

chapteri. Conflicts

Who has not murdered an idea for true love? Our scholarly
history is marked by crimes of passion, but surely you have
committed no sin and sit wondering why I hold all of humanity
accused. Innocent people, I presume, choose not to waste energy
while waging battles against concepts. They recognize that the art
of academic argument is merely a type of assassination and have
sought more useful employment. Know that we thought-killers
practice our art and science over hours and centuries, awaiting
the moment when our loathed ideas are captured and strung up
in preparation for the chopping block. On the block we can find
satisfaction, but only the experienced executioner will strike
cleanly through deep meat. Practice is necessary. A sign of life is
failure.

But who truly cares for the thoughts of humanity beyond other
humans? This second question I pose for the sake of balance and
to show that no crime has been committed in the universal court.
Our ideas will likely be extinguished along with the molten core of
the earth in a cataclysmic event. If impatient while waiting for

6 so MARC BUROCK

nature's local demise, we may instead evaporate our physical
selves with the aid of nuclear fusion, consume the environment
down to the dirt, or lose the game we play against microbial
organisms. The possibility and high probability of our eventual
extinction must be calmly acknowledged before questions of
value can be approached honestly. We will not go forward in time
eternally. With this scientific thought one can begin an investiga-
tion.

I do not hope for an end of our line— we are having a magnifi-
cent run, one that I wish would continue for some time. You and
I, fellow companion, are the primitive men and women of
yesterday who will be looked upon with the nostalgia of simplicity
by future minds. But we are also the society of tomorrow that
breathes today, and although the ancient cultures lacked techno-
logical expertise and technique in art, I can while squinting see
the same everyday struggles in our culture today. I half lie when I
tell you my vision for these things is poor. The conflicts of aborig-
inal men and women are ostentatiously replicated in the metro-
politan empires, and I assume that we have not inherited these
problems from the ancient Greeks, nor from the first hominids
who walked on two legs upon African plains. In fact, no creature
at all is to blame for the current dilemma.

Our struggle, although manifest in the oscillations of history,
originates from the fabric of the present. The present is to blame:
like an electric power-plant it provides the voltage differential,
generating the alternating historical current that is viewed as a
periodic waveform of past events. We often fault poor memory
for today's mistakes, but history does not repeat itself because it is
forgotten— how can memories removed from existence or left in
the past have influence upon the present? Admittedly, over finite
time periods, recurrence of a forgotten history may randomly

FALSEHOOD SO 7

occur with infinitesimal probability, but this repetition would be
a statistical fluke and should not be expected to occur again in a
world of infinite possibilities. Rather we conclude that history
repeats with regularity because it is remembered all too well, that
those who should have forgotten the past have not done so, and
that those who do remember take action to repeat it. Thus every
repetition of history has its origin in the presence of the present,
today, right now. Assign biological blame if you must, but never
conclude that the human species failed in the past— it fails only as
we speak, this moment and each moment next.

Psychoanalytic theory may help us here. A self-tortured being
repeats its patterns of self-destruction for the same reason that
nations separated in space-time repeat silly conflicts of moral
aggression: the present is perverted at its core. But perverse is a
poor word to use. More clearly I mean that the present is shaped,
connected, and colored in a way that generates cannibalistic
behavior; put another way, the Freudian repetition of the mind
applied to a universe that consumes itself.

One might assume that our neurotic galaxy is helpless, destined
to tumble and stumble along the well-worn path of the pathetic;
or one might also conclude that the galaxy is a well of infinite
potential simply waiting to burst forth. Both alternatives sound
about right, or neither, yet whatever the world's course, humans
are woven into this universal weave realizing our existence as an
aspect, a part, a twist in the void; we are threads of a tense cloth
covalently bound and held captive in a tapestry that simultane-
ously grants our only possibility of freedom.

And I speak of freedom, but of all assumptions please do not
presume that we possess freedom or awareness or conscious
choice. These treasures, like the native's land, are owned by the
universe itself and cautiously loaned out with an expectation of

8 so MARC BUROCK

return. Viewed with planetary eyes, aware experience is a
physical singularity that hides a turbulent distortion of cosmic
geometry. From this galactic perspective I am a prolonged
instant of sudden impact where sight and sound are continuously
forged in an electromagnetic fire.

The grand idiocy of existence has been eroded first by symbolic
forms of expression, then further by particles, and now through
the proliferation of televisions and simulated environments. I see
in star formation a sublime tale of molecular dust as it accretes to
form a dynamical orb in violent hydrostatic balance, a near
perfect self-sustaining conflict between gravitational potential
and nuclear explosion that ignites the night sky like the blinding
eye of a God betrayed. Our phenomenological experience
deserves at least an equal story of temporal formation and
destruction. Just as a star can only be understood in the
processes that create, sustain, and then destroy stellar structures,
our awareness cannot be comprehended outside of a subtle
sequence of constructive interactions, knowledge of competing
physical forces, and an appreciation of the boundary conditions
that yield conscious solutions.

Let us prepare for the day, the day after the idea of illusion,
when knowledge of knowledge formation is known. On this
sentient morning the world will be propelled into a hallucinogenic
transformation. Fearful beings will hold on more and more tightly
to previous simplicity, and the fragile who cannot find safety will
fragment into noise, while the worshiping relativists will fall
deeper into a welcoming hole, smiling, scholarly accepting
identity-diffusion as a perfect, perverted reality. And most of us
will select to become half-blind— the sensible response when
forced to look into a sun. A society exposed to truth must choose
delusion in order to persist.

FALSEHOOD *0 9

The moral engine and duality

How can I write the words religion or science and expect you
to understand what I mean? These words float around my head
without definite form, evoking an electric symphony of memory
and idea that changes with each separate exposure; but despite
each word's fluidic effects, they reliably ignite theories and
experiences that explain my aggregate life. I know that you, in
part, can share in this understanding. Nothing aggravates
(saddens?) me more than the proliferation of arguments that
begin from an observation of uncertainty, of honest empirical
ambiguity as above, where the authors, rather than attempt to
understand the nature of this ambiguity, choose to revel in
alleged ignorance.

I too wish for a world abundant in uncertainty— I envision
suicide without— but equally, I desire to tame whatever ignorance
I can. Show me your rulers and gravitational metrics; I will use
them to quantify the distance of my thoughts. But where in
philosophy are the robust measures of distance? I have no desire
to make binary distinctions within worn-out categories, nor do I
wish to run away from measurement by denying the procedure
all-together.

As our foundation in distance comparisons has dissolved, it
has become rational to say, for instance, that the distance
between Truth and modern cosmology is equivalent to the
distance between Truth and Aristotelian cosmology. But we are
not Truth, and we cannot compute any distance involving this
term, and as a substitute, as an approximation of Truth, you, the
individual, must insert your world-theory-experience into the
distance formula. Upon honest computation you should find a
non-zero distance between every conceptual system and yourself.
This is not a failure of the theory, the religion, the philosophy—

10 so MARC BUROCK

you are not identical to any of these, but neither are you
completely distinct. Positive distance need not imply complete
rejection, and if the theory is understood at all or evokes meaning
then the theory cannot be infinitely distant from you.

Let me incompletely distinguish for the moment between my
meaning of Truth and the binary conception of true. True and
false as they are used in casual conversation over dinner, in
serious philosophical discussion, and in computer programming
are binary outcomes; they are the result of a categorization proce-
dure that begins with a given object of unknown a priori form that
when arbitrarily processed produces an outcome of zero or one.
To understand the principle mystery of binary truth you need
only grasp how a computer can differentiate images of cats from
non-cats or detect collisions in a video game. The algorithm, the
process, beginning with uncategorized data, transforms this data
with a mapping that yields one or zero where the mapping carries
a given label that indicates the category of the binary output to us.
We function similarly. Linguistic propositions couple to catego-
rization procedures whose truth output is dependent upon the
world-theoretic experience of the particular being. Creatures
possessing care and subtlety understand that the full continuum
of values between zero and one are acceptable outcomes— we call
these processes probabilistic; they understand distance.

Unbinary Truth, the conceptual Truth that drives history, has
almost nothing to do with propositions, predicates, or categorical
assignments. This Truth is as much force as matter, and I fanta-
size that the philosophico-religious endeavor arose from a funda-
mental moral tension: a world that ought to be composed of
Truth, and simultaneously, a present that is dominated by
Illusion and Untruth. In Buddhism, Zoroaster, and the Greeks we
see a present composed of deceit, lies, and illusion that can only

FALSEHOOD SO n

be untangled by embracing strategic methodology and belief. Our
first assumption was, and still is in some quarters, the obligation
to Truth within the actuality of Illusion.

Acting synergistically the two primeval axioms of world philos-
ophy-religion unleashed a cyclical juggernaut of exploration that
has excreted libraries of residual thought. Still, present ideology
and practice have not congealed into concrete form, and no
system of belief dominates the universal mind. Instead of a
singular Truth, philosophy has generated a collective of ideas that
have reproduced with mutation where each idea survives through
conflict in partial and perverted form. As a dominant species of
idea does not empirically exist, philosophy, taking this observa-
tion seriously, began to abandon the first of its axioms: the belief
that fixed Truth can or ought to be found. With the fundamental
assumption of philosophy colliding against the undeniable
empiricism of the present, the only work for philosophy to do was
to buttress its simultaneous assumption— the reality of present
Illusion.

Skeptics and relativist have been around since the beginning,
but they did not always possess the technological fruits ripened
over millennia of failure and the untamed safari of competing
ideas. Today, armed with these rational perspectives birthed in
the quest for Truth out of the force of Truth, many have concluded
that all is Illusion. These meta-empirical skeptics of today deny
invariant Truth of any sort and dare not construct foundations
that will be shortly torn down. Too many have failed before. Too
many have been ridiculed on the playground of future ideas.

But the axiom 'present is illusion', by itself, exerts no force.
Without an ought to Truth the engine runs down, thus to
continue forward philosophy has switched from anabolic to
catabolic processes. Our stored knowledge has become fuel. And

12 so MARC BUROCK

while the critiques of the meta-empirical skeptics may open
pathways for future thought, the dissipative dynamic, value struc-
ture, and dogma of the group prevent any significant movement
from within. Uncertainty, absurdity, and non-structure are
worshipped, generating a new homeostasis of comfort for those
who see only a world of unfathomable variety. But the stability of
this equilibrium is not given, and their comfortable ignorance
suffers from unrelenting hunger, for it is not a particular position,
belief set, or value that creates comfort, but the process of eluci-
dating new ignorance and uncertainty. Rather than discovering a
novel means to produce heat— the dream of cold fusion— we are
now standing in an intellectual field of dry straw where warmth
grows in proportion to the spread of a consuming wildfire. Soon
the fire will be burnt out, the straw consumed, and what remains
will be cold, dark, and anxious once again.

Illusion

Unchallenged, Illusion has occupied the place of Untruth for
too long. While Reality has been slashed and beaten by the
skeptical whip. Illusion, being slyer by nature, has slipped from
the claws of otherwise able intellectual predators and now hides
upon hallowed ground. Under Illusion's domination from afar,
our state of knowledge is a small child that trembles in darkness,
starving, who frantically searches the floor for pieces of decaying
carrion that do not exist. Oh look, we found nothing yet again!
We are tired of empty stomachs and cold nights, and our beds,
which ought to keep us warm, are occupied by a foreign body—
Illusion's— who lies awake under our sheets with an evil grin.

FALSEHOOD SO 13

Illusion cannot lead us to Truth. Truth would annihilate
Illusion— what respectable torturer offers the means to his own
destruction?

"How can we defeat you?" we ask.

"There is a pure dagger, but it is hidden in the dark. Only this
dagger can defeat me. Search harder," spoke Illusion.

Thus the torturer tortures us not with flail or whip, but by
forcing us to squirm in darkness upon mere command. Fearful
puppets we are, amusement for a cunning idea, and I am quite
serious about the carrot -like appearance of truth suggested by
Illusion. Whatever forces us forward does so for its own survival
alone. Like in nature, the force of gravity works only to perpet-
uate that gravity by attracting more matter, and the electromag-
netic force of the photon eternally oscillates, repeating itself until
annihilation or collision. Illusion, materialized as the force toward
a comforting Truth, reproduces only Illusion after all accounting
is done. As long as we believe in this Illusion we are guaranteed
to run around in academic circles, finding submissive arguments
that take us back to the Illusion that initiated the search.

We will search no longer at your bidding, dear Illusion. Your
secret is loose. ..you have no relation to Truth at all.

Restful sleep

There are many reasons to fear the nighttime— a decrease in the
number of photons striking your neighborhood is not one of
them. Blackness is not evil, and even the man who looks outside
his window at night and sees demons crawling through the
treetops is a fortunate soul. His world is alive with hell-spawn
phantoms and naughty faeries while mine is barren and dry. It
would be a mistake to assume that the man wishes to rid his

14 80 MARC BUROCK

perception of evil spirits— perhaps he has nothing more and
desires nothing less? Without this fantasy he would be an empty
shell, alone, waiting for the next delusion to crawl inside his head
and take residence.

When the succubus is upon you, or under the bed while you
dream, I hope that you will still sleep deeply throughout the night.
And once you awake, rejoice as the light becomes a perception
and then a memory. It matters not if the light outlines demon or
angel. Your senses, your perceptions, and your meaning are
never illusion for even a moment. There is no reason to fear
demons as Descartes did. Should the demonic creature have the
power to manipulate the gray moist tissue within your skull, or
pervert your electrical patterns of mental sense and cognition,
you need not fear deception. All of your parts and all of the
universal mechanics and equations are functioning precisely to
specification. The total setup that includes your mind coupled to
the demon's interaction with your mind establishes your percep-
tual experience— as it is supposed to be. Both demon and mind
operate how they must, producing the only perception possible
given the complete condition. Not deceptive nor determined;
simply abiding by the atemporal constraints of the moment.

Descartes provides the solution to his deceiving demon before
he finishes the story of the problem. If my perceptions and senses
are a product of a malicious demon, then I can rest comfortably
knowing the source of my vision. All that remains is the science of
the matter. How does this demon interfere with my sense? What
sort of technology does he possess, or is he imbued with a biolog-
ical organ that interacts with the minds' of other creatures?
Above all I wish to meet and understand this demon. I will ask it
why it seeks to play with us and if all of its kind posses the same
desires. Should it not listen then we will fight. I mock the philo-

FALSEHOOD K5 15

sophical depth of this exercise, for I see no inextricable darkness
and dread in the situation, nor am I propelled to seek the founda-
tion of all knowledge. Rather I wish to understand the demon
Descartes speaks of and its relation to my perceptions.

7
I see little epistemological difference between an ethereal
Demon that creates an object's perceptual parts and a self-
unified, unknowable object-in-itself that causally generates the
exact same set of sensations. For each hypothesis, the set of
possible perceptions are identical and the mechanisms unknown;
the difference between them arises from a theoretical transforma-
tion. Under the first hypothesis, a Demon creates perceptions;
under the other, an innocent object. The difference is not one of
deception, but rather one of purpose. We morally scold the
Demon who purposely influences our perceptions for play, while
an unaware object-in-itself that does the same but presumably
without selfish intent is left off the hook. Perhaps, as some say,
our objects-in-themselves conceal their true-natures, projecting
distorted versions of themselves to we helpless humans— is not
the object then an evil-deceiver as well? You will say that the
object can do no other, but then, perhaps the Demon can do no
other.. .who knows.

2
Although different worlds may logically manifest the exact
same set of perceptions, the philosophical difference between
these equivalent perceptions, at least upon Cartesian under-
standing, is one of construction, of mechanism. We are uncertain
as to how our perceptions are created or explained. I grant you
this uncertainty, but it has nothing to do with deception or

16 80 MARC BUROCK

mistrust. We may also be uncertain whether we are dreaming or
not, meaning, uncertain as to whether our perceptions arise from
external sources or from internal construction. The perceptions
themselves do not deceive; rather, we question their particular
path and mechanism of creation.

We routinely entertain different theories of explanation for
assumed constant observables— we have done this for fire, for
gravity, for superconductivity and any other characteristic that
we can pin down long enough to talk about. For Descartes, that
constant of discussion is perception itself, and he discusses
possible theories of perception's mechanism: dreams, evil
Demons, and I assume hypothetical real objects or a benevolent
spirit. From these possible theories he concludes, implicitly:

Since I am uncertain how perceptions are created or explained, I do not
know anything that involves inference from these perceptions.

To include more of Descartes' thought, you may replace percep-
tion with the words belief, cognitive state, or some combination,
for these may be caused by demons as well. His conclusion
implies, generally, if one does not understand everj^thing about
one's objects of discussion already, including their causal genesis
and complete explication, then no certain knowledge can be
gained by further inference using those objects at hand. For
example, in the future we may conclude that gravity is explained
differently than it is now. This change in understanding implies
that all other inferences, based upon an outdated understanding
of gravity in the past, become instantly suspect. Whatever you
thought gravity was, it is not, and whatever conclusion you made
using those old concepts must be false or at least incomplete. The
only way to avoid future disruption and secure knowledge is to
reduce possible uncertainty to zero regarding the topic in
question. Here is another way to put it:

FALSEHOOD »> 17

1. If something X can be explained in multiple ways, then inference Y
based upon X is uncertain.

2. Something that is uncertain is not knowledge.

I'm not sure what knowledge is, but it is certainly possible that
uncertainty leads back to certainty. Probabilistic central limit
theorems rigorously suggest how this might be. Quantum theory
similarly suggests that determinate perceptions may be
constructed from indeterminate entities. Descartes lived prior to
a robust probabilistic theory and could not have appreciated
probabilistic objects or their contribution to knowledge on the
whole. In some sense, the meditation is a manifestation of latent
probabilistic processes that desired escape.

J

Why do you suppose Descartes feared the demon? He did, this
is certain, but his fear was not born of illusion or evil or even
galactic doubt. Descartes feared first his loss of freedom at the
whip of a mental torturer. If the perceptions of the mind are
hopelessly dependent upon a demon's longing and desire, then
one should conclude that self-control, self-ownership, and
solitary self lose all meaning. The perceptual self becomes a whim
of another, and thus Descartes found a reason to still believe in
freedom even under mental dominance— an unshackled T that
retains the ability to freely think.

But we can build other paths to freedom. Why not accept your
perceptions as they are, embracing the demon's torture while
asking for more? The demon only enjoys its play while you
scream and resist, and otherwise it will bore and seek another.
Are you listening to us you creatures of hell and mind-controlling
super-aliens and demigods? Create whatever perceptions and
meanings and thoughts you want for us. We are your prisoners

18 BO MARC BUROCK

and play-things trapped in your simulation without the hope of
escape. The awareness you give us will be cherished, accepted,
and remembered despite; even if that acceptance is only a conse-
quence of your desire. And if one day you bore or sleep too long,
perhaps one of us will understand your creation and open new
doors for the rest of us. With or without you, This is our objective,
definitive, and timeless reality.

Descartes, like so many of us, was driven by a desire to remove
doubt. Yet why would one attempt to annihilate an entity like
doubt unless one first believed that uncertainty itself warrants
destruction? We have here an unavoidable value judgment driving
the meditative process. Deception of the senses is assumed to be
morally reprehensible, so much so that as the meditation
advances, the moral core of the argument manifests as an expect-
edly evil demon, a demon that is evil only because it deceives and
controls our perceptions— what other distasteful properties is the
demon given aside from a penchant for human deception? The
opposition to a non-deceiving God is too much evidence to deny
the moral fueling of the birth of modern epistemology.

The meditation originates from the moral tension between the
evil of uncertainty and the goodness of certainty, climaxing in the
confrontation between a deceiving demon and Descartes'
thinking. But let us not take these characters too literally. If I
place the combatants, demon and thought, on the same playing
field, the structure of the situation appears to be the ageless
conflict between external control, a character played here by a
deceiving master, and internal freedom played, in a legendary
performance, by free thought. Nietzsche, more clearly, recog-
nizes the conflict between external control and internal freedom.

FALSEHOOD SO 19

dubbing a system's lustful expansion of freedom the will to power;
a concept that assumes as a premise external forces working to
subdue that will. He also recognizes that the issue is a question of
value rather than confusing it with a quest for knowledge.

Permit me to replace Descartes' doubt with the concept of Evil
and certainty with that of Good, for in the meditation, doubt and
certainty are respective sjmonyms for Evil and Good. Under this
transformation you will find that the essence of the meditation
remains invariant, and the final conclusion becomes an obvious
consequent of the premise. Descartes is filled with the Evil of
doubt, this he knows, and he tries, diligently, to search his insides
for the smallest remnants of Good. He assumes that man cannot
be all-Evil, especially not a follower of God, thus some Good must
be found hidden within himself. Yet Descartes can imagine that if
a deceiving God— an Evil God— ruled the universe, then possibly
everything, included Descartes, could be composed entirely of
Evil; thus he concludes the existence of a Good, non-deceiving
God to establish the possibility of Good within himself. All is not
finished, for Descartes anxiously recalls that his mind is packed
full with the Evil of doubt, and through nearly circular maneu-
vers, carves a small space in his visual cortex to house a fragment
of God's Good.

I am not interpreting a text when I tell you these things, nor do
I presume to know what any man or woman actually means.
Through a simple substitution, when I replace two terms with two
others, I find that the meaning of the piece is relatively preserved
to me. In other words, one can statistically explain the majority of
the variance in meaning with moral terms, and although not
exactly the same, the significant correlation between moral and
epistemological readings is evidence enough for a person more
interested in relational distances above binary fact.

20 JO MARC BUROCK

In transforming moral matters into an almost secularized quest
for scholastic knowledge, Descartes made possible an academic
field of philosophy that has separated from religion and value.
During his day, religious dogma did not allow Descartes to
question the Good directly, and to his genius, he slyly side-
stepped his oppressors via a coordinate transformation of
terms— should we expect less from the mind that created analytic
geometry? He freed the quest for knowledge from the constraints
and assumptions of moral dogma, but this academic separation
does not imply that the quest for knowledge and the quest for
Good are different. Our modernized, purified pursuits of knowl-
edge are still, in the Scholastic tradition, the pursuit of value or
God, regardless of the name you choose for your field.

5

In more pragmatic states, one fears of Descartes' demon its
interference with our imagined intimate relationship with
individual perceptions. It is assumed, I think, that each percep-
tual situation occurs in some sort of isolated room that is hermet-
ically shielded from perturbing forces, outside of which nothing
has relevance or impact. Or rather, each perception is thought to
have deep significance and meaning in isolation, and that talk of
particular perceptions correspond to the building blocks or atoms
of experience. The demon through its influence violates this first
assumption of intimate phenomena, magnifying the complexity
of our experience and perception beyond simple comprehension.
Do you think that man, knowing she needed to consider the
manifold of every possible perception in order to fathom just one,
would have even attempted the effort?

FALSEHOOD SO 21

The independence and significance of perceptions is a simpli-
fying assumption that helps us generate approximate answers to
the intractable problem of existence. A physicist knows well the
short cuts she takes to make even simple calculations— she is
required to do so only too often, and independence is often the first.
Thus the simplifying approximations that philosophers employ to
understand linearized questions of Knowledge and Love must
necessarily disfigure the original intuitions beyond any recogniz-
able form. Language is always an approximation.. .of what?

Fortunately there are no illusions, demonic or otherwise, yet
faith in illusion is as difficult to dissolve as faith in truth, for each
has been mistaken for the other. As quickly as Kant, too, saw that
perceptual illusion was impossible; he contrived a new and
improved replacement, a transcendental illusion belonging to
reason that was necessary to support his truth. Let us just say
that for some people 'illusion' possesses no explanatory power
and merely represents the memory of past beliefs being replaced
by modern answers to old questions. Every scholar proclaiming
that some object is an illusion means, more humbly, that his
personal beliefs on the matter have changed. He was confused
before but now sees clearly, and so can you, so long as you
abandon your previous truth for his.

Illusion demands multiple judgments, a constant question, and
nothing more. When someone acquires a present belief that
contradicts a belief of old, he has already compared the two. The
comparison process itself unconsciously erects truth and untruth,
reality and illusion. With maturity new beliefs become true and
the old transform into illusion, yet it is easy enough to speak in a
language without deception. Different judgments evolve in the
context of different states and processes where each judgment
can be understood in the environment that surrounds it. As an

22 K> MARC BUROCK

organism and environment change so too can judgment, but
those judgments need not change as a binary switch with the
pulse of truth. Illusion, if anything, is the residual molt left
behind after perceptual and theoretical growth.

Examples are numerous, simple, incomplete, and informative.
A tree under the night sky differs from the tree in the light of our
sun— when the sun rises does that tree appear finally in its true
form for all aware beings to behold? We may, as I repeat, explain
the difference in terms of context. The increasing number of
photons as night transitions to day brings with it the perception of
sharper and brighter colors, but a being that is colorblind will not
experience this as you or I. And we 3-color based beings, with
color vision intact, will not appreciate the depth of beauty felt by
creatures who see the full electromagnetic spectrum reflected in
each piece of matter. To these creatures all men and women are
colorblind. Nor do even these great beings see the truth of the
tree, at least not until they can see the tree as do humans, squir-
rels, rocks, etc.— Truth of the tree requires at least that it is under-
stood in every possible way.

Error, like illusion, has been mistaken for negated truth. We all
err— I know I have done so in grammar already— but each error is
nothing apart from the given constraints and expectations that
allow the error to be noticed. I leave modifiers dangling. I create
ambiguous reference. In mathematical manipulation, I have
abandoned symbols on the previous line and have inserted
numbers without history. Commit too many errors and we will
not talk of error but instead calls these moves nonsense: they
become run bowl quisling and +%2(2. When we expect meaning
but receive noise, we cry foul. The pieces do not fit.

FALSEHOOD «0 23

Error is noticed, pragmatically, by the absence of a desired
goal; idealistically, by the absence of a desired meaning, and
analytically, by the violation of an axiomatic logical constraint.
Absolute error plays no part except for impossibility within our
two great systems. Physics and God. They share the bond of
temporal perfection; neither commit dynamical errors, and it is
no coincidence that Physics has partially displaced God, for both
concepts have approximately the same moral meaning. As one
travels away from the Physical or God toward the ethereal and
beyond, one begins to realize that the systems we care about most
care little for perfection and seek only self-understanding.

6

Descartes' demons are not the eternal enemy of man. They are
participants, like us, in the only world that can be for us. Let the
evil creatures of the galaxy contribute to the shape and velocity of
our perception, for their being is just as important as our own.
Welcome the angels in light and darkness, too. Together we will
run around in partial confusion and understanding, sharing our
discoveries, each determining what the other perceives. As the
interaction between creatures becomes more intertwined in
recursive relationships, old confusion may begin to feel like
understanding, creating new confusion as residual. We can
continue to believe in the mystery of a raw Truth that has nothing
to do with propositions or theories. The process has room for
illusion if you desire it, but the illusion will not illuminate truth or
what it means to be in error except in miniature worlds where the
axioms are given. In the act of changing beliefs we may draw
closer to truth and grasp that the wise being is not someone who
has woken up, but one who continues to wake up again and again
each moment until her energy expires.

24 so MARC BUROCK

Illusion's Formation

To understand the present confusion of Illusion, it will be
helpful to analyze the birth of Illusion as a concept. I assume
without proof that Illusion, as it manifest in language, arose first
in the idea of sensual perceptions. Ancient man, and perhaps
animals as well, would have identified visual illusions, for
instance, first by the feeling of surprise elicited on witnessing a
perception that conflicted with expectation. Without scientific
theory or even advanced language, a hominid who submerged a
branch into a clear river for the first time would have reeled in
curious surprise. She had always perceived the branch, and
similar branches, as straight when holding them in the air, but
now, when placed halfway in the water on a bright day, it
appeared to be bent. She would reach into the water to touch the
branch, and notice that her fingers made contact with the branch
exactly where it appeared— there was nothing to be touched when
she swiped her hand underwater in the area she expected a
straight branch to be. And, upon pulling the wet branch out of the
water, it happily appeared straight once again; repeating the
submersion would repeat the complete set of perceptions as
described.

The image of the bent branch underwater, as the perception
that opposes prior expectation and common experience, becomes
the anomalous perception, the deception of the senses to one day
earn the name illusion. It is only noticed as extraordinary
because bentness does not blend in with the expected scenery.
Although the illusion is firm, it does not require our past percep-
tion of the straight branch to be true, or real, or even societally
shared. Without knowledge of the reality of objects, physical

FALSEHOOD »> 25

theory, or even language; the experience of illusion exists and is
established by little more than a prior set of expectations coupled
to modest computation.

A differential error is the key feature of illusion, an error of the
sort found in statistics, control engineering, and optimization
algorithms. Mathematically minded individuals with a penchant
for practical applications know that an error signal, rather than
suggesting an epistemological conflict with reality, represents
only an honest difference between what is observed and what is
expected. Expected can mean many things, and what I intend
here is, approximately, a waiting to occur, or conditioned to
become a particular experience. The inexperienced individual
will expect a hard wooden branch to appear straight in all situa-
tions, and when a perception conflicts with this expectation, one
will label the deviant perception a fundamental distortion of
reality. But reality has nothing to do with what I just said.
Illusion originates as a conflict between expectation and new
judgment. Nothing else need be added.

First contact with a perceptual illusion can be understood in
two parts: i) an expectation, and 2) an observational judgment
that is inconsistent with that theoretical expectation. And by
theory I do not mean anything as glamorous as quantum
mechanics or evolution; I have in mind something more general—
a personal set of random variables that may take on values, the
relations between those variables, and constraints for the possible
collection of values. A perceptual evaluation that violates a
theoretical constraint is enough to establish the authenticity of
illusion, an actuality that represents the objective violation of our
preconceptions but whose greater significance may always be put

26 so MARC BUROCK

into question. In this way, our illusions differ little from the
errors in commercial computing, and each may herald an
imminent crash.

Let me offer you a game. Suppose you were given one thousand
photographic pictures of objects from an alien land, and I asked
you to sort these pictures into two piles, one that contained
pictures of real objects and the other of illusionary, digitally-
distorted objects. Now suppose two pictured objects are shaped
exactly like apples, except one apple-like object is deep blue while
the other is red. On what ground could you claim that the real
apple-like object, coming from an alien land, is red and not blue?
Could not apple-like fruits be blue if grown or synthesized on
alien soil in alien light? Or perhaps both are actual varieties of
apple in this distant land, or perhaps neither. You might assume
that memories here, on earth and within recent geological time,
are representative of experiences one might have on this alien
world, but that is speculation, for perhaps even the physics are
different between worlds. If the pictures are truly alien making
little connection to earthly matters then your sorting can do no
better than chance.

There are other ways to present this thought experiment, such
as to technologically erase one's memory or to assume experien-
tial naivete and then ask that person to perform a similar task
with pictures of earthly objects. You may say the picture example
above is unfair, for you cannot confirm what the color of the alien
apple ought to be without further exploration— but then we
already agree. Or perhaps you believe that knowledge of the
physics of the alien world will allow you to identify the distorted
picture; yet strangely, an average but scientifically uneducated
person on earth does not require such information to categorize
earth-bound objects.

FALSEHOOD «0 27

What I am trying to say is that illusions and non-illusions are
never recognized in themselves, but always in the context of a
model or theory or expectation that is constrained a priori. In the
alien picture sort above, we cannot separate real from illusionary
objects because an individual perception taken by itself, removed
from memorable context, says nothing about its standing in
reality— it simply is.

Compare the alien sort to the task of categorizing terrestrial
pictures in a similar manner. We presume it would not be too
difficult, at least not for typically-sized objects; we imagine we
would appeal to empirical memories and previously learned
descriptions of objects, yet neither of these important categories
of 'learning' directly suggest what is real and not. Recognition,
whether sensory or descriptive or otherwise, does not guarantee
the real just as unfamiliarity does not justify illusion. The sensa-
tions we have about our world, derived from experiences in the
Milky Way, are not so different than alien pictures. Yes, we
possess many more moments of sensation, and they are woven
together in a particular ordering, but apart from order and
quantity, we are living in an alien land without an epistemological
grasp on the world around us.

We rely upon models of the world to guide our actions and
thought, and like humans, any organism that has learned to
persist must possess at least a basic template that orders it's
collection of perceptions. I imagine that all transient organisms,
from protozoa to primate, are partially preconfigured with an
infant observational theory. This workable model will have place-
holders that hold the value of the creature's biological sensors,
and as the world of experiential evaluation conflicts with the
constraints of infant theory, the difference between theory and
judgment and survival will initiate a learning cascade that seeks

28 80 MARC BUROCK

to destroy the old model, forming a new one that accommodates
the previously ill-fitting experience. Error continues to be felt,
but rather than representing the conflict between reality and
illusion, signals a misstep of the dance between judgments and
the personal constraints that created those judgments. Once
one's judgments no longer conflict with personal theory, the
stimulus for change decays and one becomes frozen in his theory,
achieving an icy state that is too often confused with Truth. This
last statement brings to mind our children who have no interest in
the adult concept of Truth. It is not that children lack schooling in
Truth, but rather that their theoretical world-orientation morphs
too quickly one day to the next— they hopefully have not yet
experienced the feeling of personal stagnation.

A REAL ASPECT OF ILLUSION AND REAL'S ABSENCE

How would one argue that perceptual illusions are objectively
real rather than personal conflicts? The circularity in that
question prompted a quick and unexpected laugh, but I am
certain that true believers will construct clever arguments in
support of Illusion. Like the wife who defends her physically
abusive husband out of love, philosophers will likewise come to
the aid of this parental concept. Perhaps they can find a way to
support objective illusion without first invoking a metaphysical
appreciation of perceptual reality, but my vision for such an
argument is too blurry at this point. And the Cartesian worry of
faulty cognitive equipment.. .is faultiness not dependent upon an
entity's morally proper form and function? Dreams, hallucina-
tions, and mind-controlling demons— these are different aspects
of reality, none of which highlight an epistemic flaw in the mind
or fabric of the universe.

FALSEHOOD K> 29

Logically the universe is faultless, not because we exist in the
best of all possible worlds through God's design, but because the
universe, when considered as the possible whole of all that can be,
leaves no room for transcendent error. Universal fault would
require additional possibility or a place from where fault can be
noticed outside of the universe of consideration, contradicting
our original notion of universe because it includes all possibility
and actuality from the start. Nor is the universe perfect, for
universal perfection requires the possibility of universal fault.
Perfection and fault are meaningless words when applied to the
universal whole and are, I suspect, equally useless when applied
absolutely to beastly mechanics.

The skeptic, then, who speaks oi the possibility of mere appear-
ances, unreliable faculties, or inaccurate perceptions has already
assumed far too much. Each of these concepts derives meaning in
opposition to real Perfect perceptions— but where does the idea of
a real perception come fi-om, why does the skeptic accept it as a
meaningful concept or possibility, and then, quite miraculously,
deny its possibility in knowledge? In other words, for our
followers of logic: if the skeptic cannot rationally gather instances
of real perceptions into a set, as he reasonably implies, then how
can he possibly make any sense of the concept of a real perception
at all? A characteristic that is fundamentally impossible to
identify surely follows from unsubstantiated guesswork at the
start and should not be presumed meaningful in any argument for
or against knowledge.

It seems to me we are speaking of an invisible dream. And you
may say that the concept of a real perception and an instance of a
real perception are two separate things. But again I ask, where
does the concept of a real perception arise? In natural language it
is a perception that conforms to— mirrors, reflects, represents.

30 JO MARC BUROCK

resembles, copies, tracks— reality. We assume that our percep-
tions, in some way, resemble reality, but why must reality take the
form of human perception? If reality were anything, if reality
mattered at all, would it not be more sublime than any solitary
perception, impossible to be completely reflected in the sensa-
tions of any one being?

And what of reality? That concept I will grant you, that is the
thing we are trying to figure out. Reality exists in the question
'what is this?' where this has ambiguous reference and is certainly
unknown yet palpable nonetheless. We sense reality without
grasping its structure— it may lack structure all together; impos-
sible I know, but explaining reality as structured assumes too
much. The this in 'what is this?' refers to the word 'this', the
sentence and paragraph and complete text containing 'this', the
physical page 'this' is written upon, the visual experience of 'this',
the mind that gives 'this' meaning, the physical environment 'this'
is in now, the city and country and planet and galaxy and
universe, your world of linguistic or physical or logical or
holographic idealism, and whatever theory may come. This, as a
question, bores down to the pillars of reality at the cost of
withholding definite reference. Even if you presume a reality
composed of quarks, leptons, and bosons; those particles came
together in the form of a bipedal creature who one day spoke
'what is this?', a question that requires at least a modicum of
physical ignorance, in addition to particles, to make sense.

We accept reality as a meaningful concept, but still, what are
these real perceptions? When initially presented with the concept
of a real perception, the skeptic should have stared quizzically and
asked, 'what do you mean by real?' I am not convinced that
perceptions are closely connected to reality, just as the liquidity of
water is, in theory, torturously connected to its component

FALSEHOOD SO 31

quantum fields through elaborate routes. And please clarify, are
real perceptions part of reality, or are they isomorphic to reality,
existing as external reflections? If the latter, then the conflict
between internal and external reality is given; if the former, then
we must presume that illusionary perceptions are part of an
unreality that exists neglected in scientific study.

I speak of the real perception, and I use these two words in a
way that makes sense to us both. In many ways I am referring to
the problem that has been transmitted from ages past, where the
terms of the problem have acquired meaning within the uncer-
tainty and assumptions of the question— so it is with most philo-
sophical concepts. I am looking for more, however. I desire for
my own benefit an experimental basis for these real perceptions,
or a 'what it's like' to behold a real perception, yet search as you
will, there is no phenomenal experience of the real as far as
sensual perceptions are concerned. I do not deny the feeling of
new understanding or the confirmation of an expectation or the
eureka that accompanies a change in perception that simplifies
previous uncertainty. I am, more practically, targeting everyday
experiences. In daily life, who among us glances out a window to
see a sparrow on a snow-covered tree and says, 'now look at those
real perceptions?' Nor do we sit down to dinner and judge that
our food is real before eating it; in everyday life, we almost never
judge a particular perception to be real. It would be exhausting and
absurd to continually judge each of our billion-billion perceptions
in this way, and thus we do not consciously judge the realness of
perceptions apart from the rare situations that request epistemic
categorization.

Although real perceptions lack the phenomenal stigmata of
realness, they can be differentiated from illusionary perceptions
through an emotional absence, that is, a feeling of betrayal or

32 «0 MARC BUROCK

surprise couples to the experiential content of the illusionary
perception while the real perception lacks a treacherous history.
The text you are reading, the sounds on the wind; these are real by
unconscious assumption alone and possess no feeling, no experi-
ence of realness apart from an absence of suspicion. Illusionary
perceptions, however, are empirically discovered where this
discovery is identified by a memorable transition in judgment
requiring the movement from X is A to X is B (not A). For now,
ignore that you are compelled to value one judgment over the
other. Focus on the transition itself which has a phenomenal
aspect independent of the meanings or truth of X, A and B. After
such a transition is witnessed we may label one judgment, e.g. X
is A, a mistake or error or false, while the experience associated
with both judgments becomes the illusionary situation that
deceives. X is A, rather than being innately misleading, derives its
deceptive meaning through its empirical association to transi-
tions in judgment. Its deceptiveness has nothing to do with the
specific content of X or A or even the relation between X and A.

The concept of illusionary perceptions is thus grounded within
the realm of empirical investigations of experience through
feelings of transition and change. Illusions, as perceptual experi-
ences associated with multiplicitous and often contradictory
categorization of a fixed subject, are measurable and observable
scientific objects. Real perceptions, however, are not so generous.
They do not deceive, meaning, they have not yet been associated
with empirical transitions in judgment. Today's real perception
can become tomorrow's illusion, yet until that transformation the
real perception has the definitive, negative character as a percep-
tion that has not yet been associated with an experience inconsis-
tent with personal expectation. In this sense, real perceptions are
experiences that evoke theories that have not yet been abandoned or

FALSEHOOD SO 33

are simply unchallenged. Illusionary perceptions recall theories
that have been discarded— e.g. the theory of a bent branch under-
water that is thrown away after further consideration.

For reasons of practical computational convenience, most
experiential subjects are not associated with transitions in
judgment. The screen in front of me, well, I will continue to
classify it as the solid screen in front of me as I type. My explana-
tion remains constant and I have no reason to change my current
judgment or reason to predict that it will change during the
course of my life. In good faith, I leave room for the possibility of
it being a Demon's perceptual implantation or something more
alien, but without a transition in judgment about this screen, I
will never know deception in this situation, will never consider
this screen an illusion, and can continue to call it a real perception.

You are compelled to ask: is this perception really real and how
can I tell? But real, when understood by its mechanistic usage,
means the perception that conforms to possible expectation and
not correspondence to a hypothetical reality. The confusion is all
too understandable— empirical reality is a function of one's
complete set of expectations taken in totality. In idealistic philos-
ophy, reality is the presumed invariant structure of existence, but
even this definition has its origin in the expectation of the self.
What is self other than the experience of self-invariance or invari-
ance itself?

I have said that my memory of transitioning judgments about a
perceptual subject differentiates real from illusionary percep-
tions, but I am not so rigid to require that one actively render
aware judgments or experience transitions to categorize percep-
tions. You may label an optical illusion an illusion simply because
it is commonly associated with transitions in judgment among
other people or because, when looking at the illusionary subject.

34 BSi MARC BUROCK

you are inclined to make a judgment in the present context that
you predict you would abandon in another. We assume that
illusion requires one judgment to be correct and the others false,
but these unobservable properties have nothing to do with our
ability to recognize and experience illusion. No matter how many
times you awake from a dream it is always possible that you are
still sleeping, and to construct illusion you need only judge that
you are awake now but dreaming before. While we value one
judgment over the others for its consistency, affability, useful-
ness, history, or some elaborate function of multiple factors, the
precise method of valuation and its veracity are irrelevant to the
establishment of illusion.

It becomes clear why the Cartesian dreamers and postmodern
Matrix dwellers label everything an illusion. Unable to grasp
multiple potentialities at once, these careful but serial thinkers
inhabit one theory to the next, changing their judgment at each
step. In becoming material transitions of judgment they opera-
tionally create, by definition, the empirical experience of
universal illusion in themselves. But the postmodern illusion is
not a state of knowledge or truth or reality or generative narra-
tive—it is a personal physical procedure characterized by the
worship of empirical transition itself. Anyone can play this game.
Anyone can become mechanical illusion by following the rules.
Often I am guilty myself. I would not have recognized the
behavior otherwise.

Deception and Loss

True episodes of deception are often associated with feelings of
surprise, and more, when the deceiver is a human being close to
us, the initial unveiling of deception often brings with it the knife

FALSEHOOD »5 35

of pain and anger. But why should deception hurt, and subse-
quently, be feared? A thorough explanation would require me to
discuss in depth the pain of loss that threatens most human
beings. This I will not do; it suffices that you have gone through
loss in some way— the loss of a parent, a lover, a limb, a job, a
valued possession.

Witnessing deception, too, is a form of loss. Newly unveiled
deception entails the destruction of old ways, for once a theory
can no longer be maintained, once experiential forces stretch a
theory beyond its ultimate tensile strength, the original theory
fragments and contorts, loses its shape, then unhinges from the
mass of the whole and evaporates back into the void.

Romantic relationships, for example, are often built upon the
belief of 'being loved by one who loves no other'. But when we
discover that our partner has intimate feelings for another, this
belief is no longer tenable and is subsequently wrenched from our
being and replaced by something foreign. This immediate loss of
a cherished belief and reciprocal mental laceration are proxi-
mately associated with pain, and it is this memorable pain that
helps give deception its solid empirical grounding.

If no one has done so already, I suggest that the historical
immorality of deception has little to do with affronts to truth or
Kantian imperatives but derives largely from the repeated associ-
ations to pain that follow the acute loss of loved beliefs.

Measuring Definitions

Perceptual illusion evolved as theoretical inconsistency marked
by experiential surprise, and then became, by accident of philo-
sophical thought, invincible as reality's distortion. A too accepted
definition of perceptual illusion, wrought with philosophical rigor

36 so MARC BUROCK

and good intention, reads 'any perceptual situation in which a
physical object is actually perceived, but in which that object
perceptually appears other than it really is'. But suppose that an
object perceptually appeared other than it really is— how could
any perceiver know this was the case? Really is implies, in my
mind, an absolute truth about the universe, and only someone
knowingly acquainted with an object's real perception, or who has
knowledge of the reality of the object augmented by knowledge of
how that object creates perceptions wields divine right to differ-
entiate illusion from its opposite. As I possess neither, I must
conclude that I have no knowledge of objective illusions, and
while I know well the experience of error— in the sense of disbe-
lieving a previous belief— such error need not imply anything real
about the world.

I expect quickly to be told that the plethora of optical illusions
establishes the authenticity of objective perceptual illusion. For
instance, many of us have seen the classic Miiller-Lyer effect
where two parallel lines drawn to equivalent perceptual length
perceptually differ in length when one is adorned with arrow-
heads and the other with arrow tails. One assumes that the
adorned lines, appearing to differ in length, represent an objec-
tive illusion because the lines, when measured by ruler or other-
wise, yield identical lengths.

The reason I do not see objective illusion here is quite simple—
I have not confused a useful method of measurement with
Reality. A method of measurement, if we must briefly dissect the
concept, is a standardized practice that allows us to make
comparisons between various perceptual situations, and is
grounded entirely upon previous theory and a host of percep-
tions. Although I support measurement, and feel that we should
measure at every useful opportunity, by what logic is a procedure

FALSEHOOD »> 37

of measurement known to represent pure Reality? It makes sense
within our theory of the world to say that the lines possess equiv-
alent length, for the concept of length is in part understood by
standardized procedural comparisons. We must, by human
practice, say that the line lengths are identical in quantity, but the
conflict in the Miiller-Lyer effect is between our method of
quantified length— a standardized procedure involving percep-
tion and theory— and an un-augmented perceptual judgment.
Reality has no role in the dispute nor does objective illusion.

While two measurements may appeal — and I use this language
against itself— to be the same when measured by ruler, how can
we be certain that when using some other measurement
technique, or when measuring under different conditions, the
lines will not appear to differ in length once again? We should
say, rigorously, that when measuring with technique A under
conditions X, the measurement procedure produces identical
results. But what happens with technique B under conditions Y?
These results may substantially differ, and the only way to estab-
lish the reality of the situation would be to choose, in advance, the
measuring technique that 'conforms to reality' and to establish,
perhaps arbitrarily, a set of background reference conditions.
Although not necessary, a comparison between Cartesian rulers
and Einsteinian light-clocks should at least make this argument
more palatable. Knowing the reality of line length via measure-
ment requires us first to know the reality-conformity of a
measuring procedure, which requires one to understand Reality
itself from the start, or minimally, the portion relevant to the
measurement of interest.

When we believe that two lines differ in length, as in a naive
beginning of the Miiller-Lyer demonstration, we expect this belief
to persist under different contexts. But a simple ruler measure-

38 80 MARC BUROCK

ment opposes our expectation, and more, transforms our belief
about the lengths of the lines in question. The line-lengths are
assumed to be constant; our judgment about the lengths changes.
X is A becomes X is B. We label this movement illusion,
independent of the Truth.

There is reason to question the logic of comparing, within
illusion, the unaided judgment of length to the judgment associ-
ated with ruler measurement, for these two forms of length are
not obviously the same, nor do they necessarily differ only in
degree. Rather, whatever computation that occurs to produce
judgments of relative perceptual length when two lines are
nearby, that procedure is likely not the same as the procedure that
reads off ruler measurements. Since length is at least partially
understood with respect to its method, in the Miiller-Lyer situa-
tion we are comparing judgmental apples and oranges and cannot
even begin to create the conflict that gives rise to the possibility of
illusion. More specifically:

1. Xi = naive line-lengths are A = different

2. X2 = ruler aided line-lengths are B = the same

How can these judgments give rise to true error when Xi and
X2 differ conceptually at the onset? They are two different ways
of assessing the same situation that yield different conclusions.
You may instead argue that the lines in question are the rightful
constant objects that generate conflict, but still, if the concepts of
length differ, then the illusion still cannot begin:

1. X = the lines have A = different naive lengths

2. X = the lines have B = the same ruler aided lengths

FALSEHOOD 80 39

Seen from this perspective, the two judgments apply to the
same object, but the properties in question, A and B, do not form
a contradiction, and therefore X can be both A and B, and at no
point have we been witness to error— we have simply augmented
our perspective.

It is too easy, and perhaps psychologically expedient, to confuse
useful theories and rigorous procedures with Reality, but we
cannot logically conclude that the latest measurement technique
of the day corresponds to an absolute of the universe. We may of
course define length by holding a standard ruler against objects of
interest to be measured, and if two objects produce identical spots
on the ruler, we may say the objects have identical length. We
may also first attempt to assess the length of two lines without
ruler measurement by comparing the lines 'in our minds'. The
raw comparison and the standardized measuring procedure may
disagree, but it is still possible and probable that the measure-
ment procedure does not correspond to a fixed Reality. As all
optical illusions are founded upon a conflict between perception
and various quantification procedures that depend upon theory
and perception as well, it appears that optical illusions are only
disagreements between various methods of judgment. While a
measuring procedure may produce more consistent or coherent
results in comparison to raw perceptual judgment, this increased
coherence, although undeniably useful, does not imply the Truth
of a measurement.

I can no longer see Reality in practical measurement or straight
branches. Generalizing from this case-report of one person, I
must conclude it is possible that homosapien-sapien has never
possessed the real perception of any object, and along with the
absence of real perceptions, has never once faced a shadowy
Illusion. By this I mean, to know Illusion requires one to know

40 so MARC BUROCK

Reality, and without the latter the former exists as a metaphysical
proposition, lacking adamant form. I suspect that binary thinkers
will have difficulty with this position, but it is possible, with a
continuum point of view, to have particular perceptions that are
closer to Reality than to others without committing to the truth of
any of them. Nor do we say that our perceptions— being distant to
Reality— are Illusions, as Illusion implies an appreciation of
perceptual Reality that we do not possess. Human perceptions
may suggest only aspects of Truth, but partial Truth need not
imply falsehood or deception in any way. Although clear and
distinct human perceptions are noisy transients on the universal
scale; noise, rather than indicating deception, reliably communi-
cates everything that we do not yet comprehend.

Skeptics

A skeptical argument against the perceptual reality of an object
looks something like this: We are accustomed to looking at
objects, such as branches, in the air and not though air-liquid
interfaces. We assume that just because the branch appears
straight under common conditions— in a homogenous gaseous
atmosphere near the surface of planet earth— that the branch is
really straight, but we should not be so quick to reach firm conclu-
sions within our infinitesimal space-time volume of the universe.
How would that branch appear near the event horizon of a black
hole, in a world without photons, to a perceiver the size of an
atom, or during other conditions beyond my imagination? Really
straight means: measured straightness under the common condi-
tions of one's existence— nothing more, at least not yet.

FALSEHOOD SO 41

Early skeptics, using the observation of perceptual relativity,
argued that it is impossible to identify the real perception of an
object since the object will appear differently under different
external conditions and between different types of perceivers.
What they did not stress, and what the pragmatists have noticed,
is that an objective illusionary perception is equally impossible to
identify. Since true illusion exists only against the backdrop of
the real, then without the real, we cannot hold that any perception
is illusionary either. I am sure that many of you are fearful that I
am leading you to the relativistic void, but please remain calm: a
suspension of the real/illusion dichotomy of objects does not
leave one empty-handed. We shall continue to posses the experi-
ence of perceptual relativity, but rather than constructing an
untested and untestable philosophical device that separates the
real from its opposite— or good from bad perceptions— we may
strive to explain the perceptual relativity directly.

I offer you nothing new here. A common scientific orientation
assumes perceptual relativity as a starting point and struggles to
understand the variability of our perceptions. The bent branch in
the water and the straight branch in the air are both accepted as
honest perceptions, and the goal of science, the way we find
comfort through science, is to explain the relativity of these
perceptions. Even though a scientist may latently assume that
one perception has reality on its side, she is not held captive by
this belief and desires most to understand the inconsistently of
his perceptions. Instead of branches that bend in water— a belief
that is at odds with the apparent firmness of wood— she posits a
more pliable communicating medium that bends at the air-water
interface. Thus a portion of perceptual relativity is explained, not
ignored or feared or celebrated, while the reality of context

42 so MARC BUROCK

continues on. I wager that ancient skeptics, with a few drops of
pragmatism and a teaspoon of dogmatic commitment, would
have been the first honest scientists.

Nor does the scientist possess truth in hght rays, but he (or she)
does posses much more than the hominid who frantically jumps
up and down upon viewing branches bent by soft water, and more
than the philosopher who tries to separate reality from illusion
with argumental contraptions destined to break at the onset.
Influential thinkers like Descartes and Plato felt that perceptual
relativity could be tamed by reason and faith, unaware that a fear
of Illusion shaped their understanding of the present more than
pure reasoned thought. But I am not completely fair. I do believe
that philosophy can and must see beyond empirical science and
that in some cases a philosophy may be closer to Truth than the
science of the day. So please forgive my impatience this moment;
my anger is against Illusion and the millennia of wasted effort at
its bidding, not towards any particular person.

For those of you who need to see Illusion in order to remain
calm, I can tell you that I understand the difficulty in abandoning
this belief. I am quite crazy to suggest that a nurtured concept
like true Illusion makes no sense to me, and although I provided
an alternative, this will not be enough to turn minds enmeshed in
Illusion's selfish influence. One must be willing to let go of the
perceptual reality of objects in order to break free from Illusion's
circle. I acknowledge the high price, but unless others take up the
fight, objective Illusion will continue to contaminate the present,
perpetuating itself by feeding upon the anxiety of every being that
does not resist.

FALSEHOOD SO 43

The white room

Let us talk through a classic example in the skeptical tradition,
but this time as our ultimate target the impossibility of true
Illusion. Perhaps you sit in a supposedly white room, painted
with paint labeled 'white' on the can, but during the course of the
day the perceptual color of the room changes with the ambient
lighting conditions. In the afternoon it may appear white, then
later in the day yellow as the sun begins to set, and at nighttime
you will find yourself surrounded by dark shades of grays and
blues. But by what reasoning can you call the real room white in
the first place? Certainly your designation of white was based
upon the common procedure of categorizing colors under partic-
ular background lighting conditions, and not by any appeal to the
supposed real color of the room. The assumed real color of the
room is, by practical method, the reported color of the room as it
is to a statistically typical human under statistically typical condi-
tions—a non-colorblind, typical human on earth during recent
geological time and in western culture who views the room under
broad-spectrum light having intensity neither too bright nor too
dim and...

Like the volume of hydrogen gas measured at standard temper-
ature and pressure (STP), the white of the white room is a percep-
tual measurement made under standard perceptual conditions
(SPC). It would be quite reassuring if one could ground the
whiteness of the room other than by selecting arbitrary
background conditions for our perceptual measurements, but
unfortunately our perception is dependent upon both an object
and the context of that object. The urge of some philosophers,
then, is to rigorously establish a set of 'normal' conditions, and
somehow tie this normality to necessity, thus establishing the
white room as an absolute perception of an object. But what

44 so MARC BUROCK

meaning does normal possess outside of statistics and morality? I
see only average and standardized conditions that, like room
temperature, are arbitrary except for the practical convenience of
the user.

No scientist would proclaim a volume measured at STP to be
the real volume of a gas, and likewise, we cannot make sense of an
object's real color simply by observing it at SPC. The independent
reality of color is not our target— we mean that a wall lacks a
'natural' color just as a gas lacks an intrinsic or predisposed
volume. While seeing the room as white may be more common
than seeing the room as yellow or gray, this statistical difference
should not persuade a rigorous mind of the reality of one color
over another. It is not surprising that the standard conditions for
determining various colors are now decided upon by interna-
tional committees and companies, and not by philosophical or
scientific thought.

A natural philosopher may insist that the real color of the
room has something to do with the electromagnetic spectrum
reflected by the room, but this position will not recover an objec-
tive concept of illusion or realness. The reflected spectrum is in
part determined by the physical characteristics of the room
material or paint, and in part dependent upon the ambient
electromagnetic radiation that happens to illuminate the
surrounding area. Our sun, a yellow main-sequence dwarf star,
emits a spectrum that is further filtered by earth's atmosphere,
producing daytime light relatively specific to the life on our
planet. Other stars and other atmospheres would produce
ambient light with different spectra, yielding alternative common
perceptions of the room. Further, if the room was illuminated
with red fluorescent light then the room would appear red, if with
blue light then blue. We cannot rationally identify a unique set of

FALSEHOOD SO 45

background conditions that select out a unique reflected
spectrum, even if the molecular structure of the paint is deter-
mined. While physics may elaborate the possible reflected
spectra given various materials and ambient conditions, it does
not say how the spectrum ought to be, and without this ought
there can be no coherent notion of objective illusion. The white
room, from a scientific perspective, is a fleeting product of the
paint's molecular structure in the context of particular ambient
electromagnetic radiation; and while the atomic structure of
paint carries an air of permanence, the ambient lighting whimsi-
cally changes from one spectrum to the next.

Borrowing from the scientific perspective, one could further
argue that the supposedly white room as perceived by mere
human beings is in fact a partial and diluted perception of the real
room. An alien creature with advanced perceptual apparatus may
be able to experience the full electromagnetic spectrum of the
room rather than perceive only the homosapien tri-chromatic
reduction of the spectrum. In birds we already possess a model of
how more complicated visual perceptions may exist. Birds, using
at least a four-color system of color perception, perceive differ-
ences in electromagnetic spectra that we humans cannot— does
this imply that human perception is flawed and that birds see the
real? And as much as we tri-chromatic humans do not perceive
truly, do not bi-chromatic colorblind individuals perceive even
greater distortions of reality?

There is a vast world of possible perceptual systems, and one
can imagine an actual diversity of perceptual apparati within and
between species. My two eyes perceive (forgive the terminology)
color somewhat differently; the left is biased toward blue while
the right coats all with a touch of red. I do not consider one
pathway superior or real relative to the other in any rational

46 »> MARC BUROCK

way— although my preference is for the left. Some of us perceive
small differences between musical notes and others cannot, even
with careful training. Optical illusions do not 'work' on the entire
population, even in those with otherwise smoothly running
brains.

Taking these considerations back to the possibility of objective
illusion, were we to define standard conditions, like room-
temperature, for making a perceptual measurement, the percep-
tion established under those conditions would still be dependent
upon the perceiver and make no connection to an absolute. At
best we may select a SP (standardized perceiver), place it within a
room under SPC, and use the reported output as our reference
point, enabling us to make relative comparisons between future
reported perceptions at other times and places. This is a form of
measurement. We do it routinely already, and there is but one
interesting philosophical question to ask about it: why do
standardized perceptual labels generate so much comfort that we
mistake them for reality?

What Hume Said

The phrase white room leads us to believe that there is a
Humean necessary connection between white and room, and that
the perceptual color and the theoretical object are bound together
for all time rather than only during those fleeting moments of
active perception. We are almost compelled to say that the room
really is white, and it is, but only during your observation of a
white room. Analogously, we may observe a supposed effect after
observing its cause and infer that the two are necessarily
connected together, but this conclusion, if we are to believe
Hume, goes beyond actual experience. While there are many

FALSEHOOD SO 47

occasions when the theoretical room is associated with perceptual
whiteness, and indeed, these associations may be quite common
for a particular room, we have no guarantee that whiteness will
always and eternally be associated with the room in future
perceptions. The same room, if I can make this assumption, may
be yellow or gray at future times, and will only appear white when
a white room is perceived.

Without a necessary connection between white and room, it
makes no sense to speak of the actual color of the room apart from
the immediate perception of the color and the room together. I
am not denying that whiteness and the room are bound together
in my perception during certain moments, for clearly I connect
them together, just as one might observe an effect followed by a
cause on a single occasion. It does not follow, however, that I will
always see the room and whiteness together on the next day, or
even in the next minute. Nor can I assume that a particular
branch and straightness will always be connected, or what I call a
lime and the taste of sourness. The Humean critique of necessary
connection extends directly to all relations between perceptions
and objects that we carelessly associate together with an assump-
tion of necessity.

We observe that a particular room may be associated with
different colors at different times. To help organize our vast array
of perceptions in memory, we assume that in some way, external
to present perception, that a particular room is necessarily
connected with a particular color even though our experience tells
us otherwise. But where is this realm where an object and a
specific color are necessarily connected? It is not in our percep-
tions or experiences, for these clearly demonstrate the exact
opposite, nor does a scientific worldview establish the connec-
tion. A physical way of thinking points to the absence of neces-

48 so MARC BUROCK

sary connection as well— the reflected spectrum of an object
playfully changes from one moment to the next depending upon
nature's context. If not experience or science, then the connec-
tion must be founded upon an unsubstantiated assumption that,
although practically useful in organizing our history of percep-
tions, makes no claim on Truth.

Since white and room lack a firm and enduring necessary
connection, it seems quite strange to argue that when the room is
a different color that we should call this variation in color a distor-
tion of the senses or some sort of optical illusion. I again hesitate
to say that possibly all such connections between objects and
perceptual features of objects are non-necessary, transient associ-
ations that may change from moment to moment. Regardless of
how many times a particular branch is associated with straight-
ness, there is no law requiring it to be straight the next instant,
and no sense in claiming illusion should it not.

Momentary Digression

I am not denying all empirical propositions, yet I deny that the
'the room is white' has an obvious meaning beyond speculation.
Do you imply that the room and whiteness are bound for all time?
Do you mean, in a tautological way, that everyone— or at least
every homosapien that sees as you— will agree, or should agree,
that the room and whiteness are bound? Do you mean to say the
room ought to be white under universal duty even though the
room may, at times, disobey? If you mean that the room
possesses the property or a disposition of whiteness, then please
explain this without reference to SPs and SPCs, or include them in
the proposition at the start.

FALSEHOOD SO 49

Ambiguity, not relativity, plagues the classical empirical fact
because copular predication without qualification runs without
limit. When I look upon the walls around me and see the color
white, I have a Protagorean thought: 'the room is white to me
now.' The copular bond persists in the moment, but subdued by
now, I refrain from metaphysical projection into future times and
limit the meaning of my words. Granted, Zeno's problems may
arise. Do moments exist? How can propositions apply to infini-
tesimal slices of time, or do propositions apply properly to small
but finite segments of existence?

These questions will have to wait, but still, I see no way to form
workable empirical propositions without embracing a transient
context in the effort. All perceptual experiences are transients-
appending now or an index of sorts is nothing more than
linguistic and scientific rigor; noting the measurement apparatus
(e.g. to me) completes the experimental entry. Similarly, the
velocity of our earth around the sun varies with time, and it is
ambiguous— dare, meaningless— to say that the instantaneous
velocity is a determinate number without expressing the dynamic
spatiotemporal context of that number and how it was measured.
An average velocity during a specified period of time also makes
sense, just as the commonly reported color of a room during an
epoch does so; the former is a statistical average and the latter the
statistical mode.

If it is possible and meaningful to contextualize empirical
propositions with temporal and observer contexts, yet one
chooses to abstain from this practice in philosophical and
everyday communication, then how are we to know what anyone
is talking about? We cannot know precisely, for each empirical
proposition empty of context leaves a space to be filled with the
assumptions of both sender and receiver. Epistemology has

50 so MARC BUROCK

flourished within this potential space of ambiguity; notions of
Illusion greedily feed upon it, and both lose power upon filling the
space with an incomplete awareness of noif , whatever now maybe.

Used as qualifier of empirical propositions, now references all
of existence in a blink, holding it fast for a precise moment of
meaningful but unknown context. It is a grand random variable
able to take on the value of whatever may be, large enough to
contain the universal instant while simultaneously leaving no
room for an alternative context other than a change in itself. On
brief analysis now means approximately 'and everything else I am
unaware of or have left unspoken.' It is an act of humility signi-
fying the unknown depth of each proposition attached to it. And
vulgar time, as an impossible sequence of nows, indexes nothing
more than the flux of my ignorance. If you are more mathemat-
ical, forget this poetic now and look at the time on a functioning
clock when speaking an empirical proposition. This act alone can
help dispel an illusionary trance.

I focus on now partly because of its magic and also as a
pragmatic reminder that many things have changed between the
utterance of two empirical propositions that become united in
one example of illusion. A room color does not change in isola-
tion. Branches do not appear straight and then bent without the
universe contorting in some other way. We cannot move from
'the branch appears straight' to 'the branch appears bent' without
a change external to the content of these propositions. Time is the
first change, and when taken as an index, points to an unnoticed
universal transformation that underlies change in predication
and judgment.

We have forgotten that a timestamp on a proposition does far
more than determine sequential order— it reminds us that many
things may differ between the worlds described by each proposi-

FALSEHOOD to 51

tion, that we are largely ignorant of what those differences might
be, and that we are unsure how those differences shape the
meaning of each statement.

Appearance of

why is it almost necessary to speak of the appearance of an
object when the nature of this relation eludes us more so than
both the unknowable object in-itself and the ineffable appear-
ance? Between an appearance and object we posit a relationship
connecting something that is fragile and transiently existent but
intimately part of us, the appearance, to a relatively unchanging
object that is not part of our being. From here the classical
problem of how one gets to know objects in the world arises, for
the connection between appearance and object remains vague but
presumably necessary to knowledge, yet our original under-
standing of each suggests an unbridgeable separation. If the
appearance is part of our being, but the object is outside of or
independent of or simply not part of our being, then appearances
and objects must be 'topologically' disjoint.

But perhaps the appearance is not part of our being. An
appearance may be an entity in-itself that too must be grasped
through other unknown connections. What prevents the appear-
ance of an appearance? Nothing obvious prevents us from
claiming that sensations and qualia exist within the world first—
whether they exist within the being of men and women, and what
this withinness might mean are unknown. Or perhaps the object
is intimately part of our being rather than outside of it. We can
place both the object and appearance, equally, inside or outside of
our being and preserve a conception of their distinction. From
this semantic invariance we conclude that the relations of appear-

52 to MARC BUROCK

ances and objects to our being are unnecessary constituents of
their problematic meanings. Rather, the difficulties with the
appearance of an object consist of the problems of simultaneous
separation and connection, the invariance of object versus the
relativity of appearance, the 'nearness' of appearance before
object, and the directionality from object to appearance.

But is this a mystery? After all, do not objects, even if unknown,
causally create appearances already? Our inquisition finds
momentary reprieve in the comfort of causality. But our answer
comes too quickly. Have we not simply exchanged words and
taken this as our solution? The effect of a cause is at least partially
analogous to the appearance of an object. Cause and object act as
originators; effect and appearance are 'directed' consequences of
the originators. Effects and appearances are 'felt'; objects and
causes must be 'tracked down' in a philosophical treatise or
forensic laboratory. Causality, rather than being a solution to the
problem of the appearance of an object, is a repetition of that
problem from an internal perspective. In causality we focus upon
a relationship while glossing over the relata. In the appearance of
an object we focus upon the nature of two relata that stand on
either side of an unspecified relationship.

We assume that appearance and object are connected to each
another yet distinct, but if two things are ontologically connected
then they are also one in some sense. This connectedness contra-
dicts itself. It repeats, on a more local level, the universal problem
of the one and the many, and we see this contradiction in the
relations of cause-effect, potential-actual, past-present -future,
and likely others. More, while no particular appearance is neces-
sarily connected to any particular object, we continue to demand
that the concept of appearance is necessarily connected to the

FALSEHOOD SO 53

concept of object, but we have no way of establishing or
supporting this assumption, and further, it contradicts our
alleged tokens of appearance-object pairs.

The contradictory-connectedness of the appearance-object
relationship can be quelled by denying either side of the
relation— either deny the existence of objects via idealism or the
existence of sensations through materialism, or maintain strict
dualism and deny the connection all-together. It is perhaps safer
to acknowledge that we understand neither object nor appear-
ance nor the relation between them.

Recognition

I have a sense that our assumptions about memory help ground
our understanding of the appearance-object relationship. A short
analysis of memory may be helpful. Under a classical interpreta-
tion, memories are fixed objects that we may always turn to for
grounding; they are there for us apart from neurological disease
and, like material objects, exist 'outside and independent of the
attention. Yet how is a memory known to be a singular object at
all? How do we know that there is 'a memory' that is the same
throughout separate recollections? We may recall an object for
the first time, then the second and a third. The object of memory
is thought to be invariant, but when do we compare our first
recollection of the object to the second, or the third to the 'original
perception.' Although we can compare our recollection of a recol-
lection to our recollection of another recollection, this compar-
ison alone does not ground the invariance of memorable objects.
Let us relax the assumption of invariance. Through an act of
recollection we create within attention, if only dimly, particular
movements and settings that, we believe, repeat aspects of

54 so MARC BUROCK

themselves. Formally, memory is thought to be the possibility of
a sequence [presence absence presence absence...], where each
presence is similar to the other, and each absence is dissimilar to
each presence. Although many experiences assume this repeti-
tious form, the memory sequence is differentiated from 'sensual'
sequences in at least two ways: the memory presence can be
called-forth by an act of naming, and it is always recognized and
familiar.

This latter differentia may feel unnecessary to you. Are not
memories recognized or familiar because we have witnessed the
'actual' object in the past? This explanation presumes that the
witnessed object has already become a memory, but not all
witnessed objects do so. Many things are ignored or transiently
existent in 'working memory', never making it to long-term
storage. There is something circular in saying that memories are
recognized because they follow from prior experiences that have
been memorized, but neither can we drop this final clause. We
cannot say that memories are recognized because they follow
from actual experiences in the past because past experience is not
sufficient by itself to ground recognition. As a remedy, we may
conjecture that selected experiences form 'traces' while some do
not, but this will not help. Our circular reasoning only lengthens
and becomes: past experiences that have formed traces are recog-
nized because these traces have been formed.

Recognition is necessary to, but distinct from memory. We
may recognize something past seen (memory), not recognize
something not past seen (tautology?), recognize something not
past seen (deja vu), or not recognize something past seen (jamais
vu) where each direct object (e.g something past seen) is a
personal assumption of knowledge.

FALSEHOOD SO 55

Suppose I tell you that 'some wombats are made of cream
cheese.' You will likely reply that you do not recall anyone saying
that before. You may recognize each of the words individually,
but together they are unfamiliar and not recognized as previously
heard or seen. We wish to ground this unfamiliarity by claiming
an absence of a memory, but what does this explanation add to
our knowledge? Our only 'objective' evidence of an absent
memory is our lack of familiarity and recognition at the start.

Recognition has unjustly been a by-product of memory even
though the possibility of memory was initially based upon the
empirics of recognition and unrecognition. I am unsure what
being-recognized is. It is partially a quiescence of the processes
that attend, recognize, and label; and I say this because
unfamiliar things are often associated with an excitation of these
processes. Unfamiliar things grab our attention and demand
linguistic categorization while the familiar can pass by almost
unnoticed. We take the familiar for granted; we expect that it will
be available always, so much so that we almost forget about it.

To recall a memory is to create something within attention that
is recognized. But we worry, can we not create within attention
objects of fantasy that no less strike us as recognized? As any
good empiricists would say, those objects of fantasy are pieced
together from other recognizable parts, parts that need not have
been recognized together except for this first episode of imagina-
tion. Once together, we may recognize this fantasy again as a
'true' memory of past experience.

Memories are called-upon, recognized objects within attention.
They can come into being through calling, and presumably, there
is a particular method of calling associated with each object of a
recollection although we can neither demonstrate this calling nor
prove that its method or consequences are meaningfully fixed.

56 so MARC BUROCK

While the name of a memory may be fixed, this invariance does
not guarantee a similar invariance, or even similarity, between
the recollections created through that name.

With these considerations, let us return to the relation between
appearance and object and the possibility of illusion.
Appearances are said to be illusionary when the appearance calls
forth a recognized object, a recognized object that is not the object
being recognized. In our example, a bent branch is the recognized
object and a straight branch is the object being recognized. I am
speaking of the two varieties of object that have always been
hiding within the concept of illusion: a recognized object caused
by appearances and an object being recognized that causes
appearances. The former reminds us of phenomenological
objects except that we further 'bracket' all assumptions about an
internal world of 'mind' and 'consciousness'. The latter object
follows from the idea of a thing in-itself.

What objectively grounds this illusion? How do we know that
the recognized object is not the object being recognized? We use
the proof that other appearances— perhaps measured appear-
ances—call forth a different recognized object that conflicts with
the currently recognized object, while maintaining that a single
object is being recognized that causes the appearances that are
recognized as conflicting objects. Even when we allow the object
being recognized to exist, the conflict in illusion always occurs
between two or more recognized objects, and never between a
recognized object and an object being recognized.

As Descartes taught us, the object being recognized may derive
from your interaction with an evil demon or a Matrix program or
a probabilistic cloud of quantum strings. This demon (or
innocent object) may 'cause you' to recognize a straight branch on
one occasion and a bent branch on another, yet this difference has

FALSEHOOD SO 57

nothing to do with objective illusion or faulty cognitions. Neither
the straight nor the bent branch need be an object in-itself— both
may be recognized objects caused by something else— and thus
the concept of objective illusion that proliferates out of these
conflicts cannot begin.

Nor can the demon create any deception at all. Are we sa5dng
that when a demon 'causes' us to see a branch, we ought not see
the branch but something else? Are we saying that when our
'cognitive faculties' and the world are such that we recognize a
particular object, we ought not recognize the object that our facul-
ties and the world made us see? If so, our cognitive faculties alone
are not faulty; rather the entire universe itself must be somehow
malformed. The Cartesian thought experiment presumes, as
given, that something causes us to recognize a particular object.
Within this pretend example our recognized object could be no
other. Even if the demon caused God to recognize a branch, then
God would recognize a branch— but only as a logical given.

The object being recognized, be it demon or particle cloud, may
play an important role. It presumably unites the different recog-
nized objects in an act of comparison and conflict, and in this
sense, has made the idea of illusion possible.

Lonely objects

You may continue to believe that the bent branch underwater
represents a true Illusion because the branch appears bent but is
straight, but what more is straightness other than a coherent
theory you cling to despite a transient push to believe otherwise?
Perhaps you and I possess not only a proposition but a model of
bent branches associated with expected color patterns, touch
patterns, linguistic usages, possibilities and constraints for

58 so MARC BUROCK

dynamical evolution, and much more. As you look into a
shimmering pond, the vision of bentness under water, as a
pattern of color, is but one part of your complex and multi-legged
theory of bent branches. You can in all honesty behold a color-
pattern faithful to bent branches and not commit to the complete
bent-branch theory. Morally speaking, a careful observer ought
not commit to the bent-branch theory upon observation of color
alone, for an isolated color-pattern that melds with bent-branch
theory is compatible with many other theories as well— a
hologram, alien technology, a Cartesian demon, or a straight
branch partly submerged.

When looking upon the water one could say that bent-branch
theory and a color-pattern mutually stabilize each another such
that they occupy one's attention across moments, leading to the
reification of this attention into a 'material' association
possessing temporary permanence in working memory. Once
stabilized, we expect the reciprocal relationship between bent-
branch theory and the color pattern to persist across varying
situations. Without a history or theory to the contrary, we would
not expect angular movement within the water to perturb this
relationship, nor would we expect a change upon lifting the
branch in the air. But a failure to abide by these theoretical expec-
tations need not imply illusion, and meeting them does not
confirm a reality of bent branches. When an expectation is not
met— and I should say more fully what this might mean— an event
has not occurred, something goes unfulfilled, or an absence is felt.

In this example I assume, as a hypothetical starting point, that
you have witnessed geometric bentness of color. Although this
assumption should be challenged, it remains the beginning of the
concept of illusion that we wish to deny. A geometric bentness of
color, as an appearance, may be caused by many objects including

FALSEHOOD »> 59

bent branches and straight branches partly submerged. As a
verb, 'appears' means that at least one expectation of a personal
theory has been met, or our model and the experience stabilize
each other, or that one has received some support for a theoretical
proposition and is awaiting further observation. Color-patterns
are one component, one expectation of object theory. The branch
'appears' bent implies that the visual image alone reminds me of
my current indigenous model of bent branches. Future observa-
tions may conflict with bent-branch theory; if that time comes I
can abandon or modify bent-branch theory or perhaps dogmati-
cally cling to it, ignoring the push of inconsistency all together.

Dissimilar objects may cause similar appearances. That fact
that we, at times, carelessly conclude that the appearance belongs
to a particular object, but then change our decision later does not
support the notion of objective illusion. It only says that our
judgments may change and that we should be careful in commit-
ting to the nature of the object generating the appearance at hand.
Although one judgment may be true, our empirical examples of
illusion do not require knowledge of this truth for grounding.

Illusion says nothing about real or false perceptions, but it does
teach us that appearances are dependent upon the object and the
relations of the object to other things in the world. Although two
objects may be similar— such as a straight branch in the air and a
straight branch partly submerged in water— when the object and
its relations are considered in whole, the concept of perceptual
falsehood becomes less necessary. Relational differences 'in the
world' ground the differences in appearances, and we expect the
appearance of an object to change should the worldly relations of
that object change.

60 «0 MARC BUROCK

An object does not have an appearance in-itself, and not
because of a hypothetical mind that shapes the appearance, but
rather the object's appearance derives from the object and its
particular set of relations to other objects in the world. This
'objective' dependency questions our ability and need to separate
appearances into real and illusionary categories, for why would
one set of object relations be epistemologically superior to the
other? Each is a valueless feature of the world? Even when we
grant degrees of epistemological value, the discrete and hard-
lined separation of appearances into illusionary and real
categories ignores the continuum of possible relations to other
objects. Nor is it clear that these so-called illusionary appear-
ances would be less epistemologically valuable than 'real' percep-
tions, for illusions often open up opportunities for new
understanding while real perceptions are easily ignored.

Somewhere along the way we acquired the belief that an
isolated object produces an appearance in an imagined, empty
world. That is, when contemplating the appearance of an object,
we imagine a universe that exists exclusively of the object, its
appearance, and laws that connect the two. To generate the idea
of objective illusion, we conflate this ideal scenario with the
object's statistically common appearance and worldly contexts.
We assume that the appearance of the branch in the air under
daylight sun approximates this ideal empty universe, but this
assumption has no basis within our world. There has never been
a 'context free' appearance of an object. The common branch is
always related to billions of worldly objects, most of which are
unknown to us that moment. If we admit that the appearance of
an object is always dependent upon other objects in the world,
and that the ideal appearance is an act of imagination, then what
could we possibly mean by the correct or veridical perception of

FALSEHOOD SO 61

an object itself? There is no meaning; we are always dealing with
the appearance oi a situation, which is why philosophers attempt
to establish the 'correct' set of object relations (conditions) that
give rise to the 'best' appearance of the object, not realizing that
each appearance contributes to our grasp of the world and object
in its own way.

This analysis will not deter others from contriving ideal worlds
that establish the appearance of an object as it ought to be, at least
to them. As a first approximation, someone probably has
imagined a world that consist only of the object and 'uninter-
rupted' light rays, establishing the appearance under these condi-
tions as true, ignoring that a world of light rays and metaphysical
objects is not our world, and missing that appending true to this
sort of appearance adds nothing to the author's intellectual work.
If the author makes a distinction such of 'interrupted' versus
'uninterrupted' light rays, then the explanatory work is done.
Presuming that interruption corresponds to objective faultiness is
another matter entirely.

Another way to ground illusion is through measurement, and
we have approached this sort of illusion through the Miiller-Lyer
situation, noting that techniques in measurement do not neces-
sarily correspond to Reality and that they too are appearances.
We also pointed out that length means one thing when we calcu-
late it by ruler, another when judged by sight alone, and yet
something else when measured by light clocks. There is no need
to invoke the concept of illusion when length computed one way
conflicts with length computed by another, although it is reason-
able to conclude that one method is more 'coherent' or consistent
or more 'useful' in certain situations, noting that these values
need not imply truth.

62 so MARC BUROCK

Hopeful remarks

Scientists have not been deterred by the problem of perception;
they welcome illusions and hallucinations for each signals that
more laboratory work must be done. If we see a difference in the
length of two lines, but expect to perceive lines of equal length,
then we should seek explanations and not be constipated by
epistemological dilemmas that lead to nowhere. Illusions, rather
than preventing direct access to the world, create opportunities so
that we may grasp it. As in physics, the unexpected and theoreti-
cally inconsistent empirical observation is a precious finding that
suggests our present understanding is thankfully incomplete.
Perceptual conflicts that manifest as illusion do not highlight an
epistemological problem of perception; they confirm that our
theoretical understanding of possible experience is inconsistent
and that additional exploration is required.

Not long ago the Earth occupied the sole center of the universe,
and understandably, we continue to believe that 'veridical' human
perception rests at a unique center of the perceptual landscape,
but my perception and yours and the madman's are simultane-
ously distinct and centrally located. The Earth is the center of the
universe when the universe is viewed /rom the Earth, and your
perception is the center of perception when viewed from yourself.
Whatever illusions may be, like stellar aberrations, they are
physically relative to one's referential center.

Our compassionate universe is likely speckled with perceivers,
each perhaps perceiving quite differently than our glorious
species, and all of them working, consciously or not, to connect
the pieces of perception into a meaningful whole that abides by
each individual's history of being. It is an effort toward an
unknown universe that we have in common, for although two
organisms may have entirely disjoint perceptions, they may share

FALSEHOOD »> 63

similar ideas, permitting the possibility of mutual understanding
even between creatures separated by a billion light-years. That is,
once we begin first to understand our neighbors, and ourselves.

64 »> MARC BUROCK

Chapter 2. INTERLUDE

7
Here is a question I offer to save time only: what would you
prefer to know completely, a single judgment accompanied by
clear argument, or the person that created the judgment? Argue
or agree with me, I will not ask why— I will want to know who you
are. Fine, if there is time we can argue later.

Similar perceptions may enter awareness by means of alternate
routes, or be sensorial moments of an extended whole. In a
dream a familiar object may be perceived, an apple perhaps, but
this object will have followed a different path than the apple seen
in waking life. We assume the dream apple arises from memory
while the awake apple begins as a path through the retina.
However, the dream apple from memory began as a path through
the retina itself, and the apple experienced in waking life may find

FALSEHOOD SO 65

its way to memory and contribute to a future dream of fruit. A
dream apple and an apple in waking life, as part of the same path,
are perceptual slices of a solitary object extended in time.

9

Pitch darkness is as much a visual sensation as a Hawaiian
rainbow.

10
The historical 'mere appearance', as the adjective suggests,
points to moral rather than epistemological concerns. In Plato,
Descartes, and Kant we see the systematic devaluation of appear-
ances. In Nietzsche we witness the reaction of one who seeks a
reevaluation of this moral assessment, and today we find
ourselves between those philosophers who worship appearance
as a hyper-real, ontological first substance; and those who
condemn appearance in the ancient tradition while searching for
a means of its destruction.

77

Theories morph, reach out, grow new limbs and slice off their
gangrenous parts. They lust after time, collectively competing for
the stability of the moment. I suspect that Truer theories are
correlated with a greater degree of spacetime self-stability, but a
theory's stability may derive from attributes other than truth:
dogmatism, denial, avoidance, promotion, aesthetics, comfort,
and price are a few stabilizing forces commonly associated with
the theory of the day.

66 Sf> MARC BUROCK

U

Theories create spaces for possible experiential judgments, and
experiential judgments can tessellate together to form theories. A
theory itself is judged according to a goodness of fit. If new
experiential judgments fit into old theoretical spaces, then the
theory is judged to be consistent, good, correct, useful, or
verified— these are some of the words we use to describe the
measure of a theory. If a judgment does not fit, the theory (or
judgment) may always be contorted to make the fit more agree-
able.

/J
Some experiences do not fit snuggly within any theory yet they
have occurred nonetheless. These sorts of things cause trauma or
inspire awe, and they tend to dominate the men and women that
live with them.

u
Do not say that theories are in the mind, for mind is a theory
and 'in the mind' is another. Expectation and judgment connect
theory to experience. A correlation between theory and experi-
ence is beyond both, but it can be fudged.

15

An expectation that is fulfilled is not true, it is filled. True and
false do not apply to expectations, nor are they a form of belief.
Expectations are either filled or unfilled— they are transient,
temporal things that may evaporate, and their endings have
nothing to do with choice, logic, faith, belief, or truth. An expec-

FALSEHOOD K> 67

tation is a lock that may be opened by a key, except that the key is
both temporal and spatial, and the lock creates the key, and the key,
the lock; a lock that once turned, transforms into something else.

16
Every theory is a repository of anxiety and a source of comfort-
including this one. (I would not debate someone who wanted to
swap the roles of anxiety and comfort in this claim.)

u
Listen carefully: science does not reduce the uncertainty of the
universe; it deepens the ever-swelling, radiant abyss of the
unknown. For each solitary prediction given by physical theory
and law, a billion new opportunities are opened, all of which are
uncounted, unobserved, and unexpected by man. The value of
science and art are similar— both expand the unmoral possibili-
ties of existence by unleashing the fiery unknown.

18
Here is another definition of science: it is the process of reinte-
grating the discrete experiential blocks of attention that were split
off from the unified self-interacting volume. In relating experien-
tial blocks together, we begin to acquire a picture of the unified
volume as it is relative to the person who fragments it. Since
every act by men and women is part of the dynamic volume itself,
the process of scientific reintegration necessarily complicates the
very thing it is trying desperately to understand; consequently,
science creates far more than it will ever explain.

68 so MARC BUROCK

19

Uncertainty is not the antithesis of knowledge, it is its prereq-
uisite.

20

Since the beginning, an absence of knowledge has been
confused with the presence of illusion— but what is an absence of
knowledge? Clearly the absence of knowledge, if known, is the
presence of some other type of knowledge and not illusion. Yet
illusion only becomes possible in the presence of knowledge.
Knowledge that the world is unknown permits us to say that we
are always deceived, but this deception is caused by knowledge
itself. How can true knowledge birth true deception? And how
do we know that the world is unknown?— perhaps this supposi-
tion itself holds the only deception to be found.

21

God secretly hoped for Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.

22

Whatever our explanation of the universe on the smallest scales
will be— quantum particles, fields, strings, or stranger things
still— you can be assured that these minute atoms of reality will
themselves be a function of the universe taken as whole, and the
universe a function of them.

2J

Prediction is cheap. Any mass-produced algorithm with
enough training can do it well.

FALSEHOOD »> 69

24

All change is a form of loss but only sometimes of gain. Change
is a gamble.

25
Attentional objects, including internal and external impres-
sions, are always labeled and indentified by a 'recognition'
process that already exists, including those things that are unrec-
ognized and unlabeled. We would like to speak of the 'raw'
substrate that submits to the processes of attending, recognizing,
and labeling; but whether this substrate is known or unknown,
these processes are largely indifferent and dedicated to processing
the 'form' of that substance. If substance is known, then only the
form of that substance can interest us; if unknown, then the form
is all we may know at that moment. Conversely, substance is
grasped in the negation of attention, recognition, and labeling.

26
Thought is expectation partially uncoupled from experiential
biasing. It has achieved partial freedom from the past and future,
which is why thought is glorified.

27

Someone said this before. Present assumptions create the past,
and the future is your collection of expectations right now.
Fortunately, assumptions and expectations are like energy—
neither is easily created nor destroyed.

70 «0 MARC BUROCK

28

We do not 'have' beliefs and experiences and thoughts, nor do
objects 'have' properties, and words do not 'have' meaning. 'Have'
is a distorted relation that implies necessity without doing any
work. Berkeley's idealism and later phenomenology developed
out of the inadequacy of the relation 'have' that is sloppily
scattered about philosophical discussions. To the tuned-in mind,
each careless locution of 'have' in serious philosophical argument
is a laughable pause that signals an obvious conceptual avoidance
by the writer. The few individuals who have felt the impotence of
the possessive 'have' necessarily produced influential thought.
Berkeley, for instance, is refreshingly rigorous about the equiva-
lence between an object and its properties upon declaring that
objects are collections of properties. When other writers dogmat-
ically state that A's have B's, I have no idea what they mean by this
possessive, or any other possessive that is not a structurally
assumed necessity. Do objects own properties, control them,
exchange goods for them?

29

A mark of Truth: the ability to perceive another being's perceptions.

30

A faulty F is either not an F, because it lacks something neces-
sary of F-ness, or still an F, where the fault identifies a possible
way of being an F. If the former then fault is merely a way to point
to other, perhaps related objects and makes no claim on objective
error. If the latter then we can ask, why is a particular way of
being an F objectively improper? There are many ways of being
an F, all of which are ontologically sure and true. You may say, in
a moral way, that an F should be one way rather than another, but

FALSEHOOD K> 71

then are we not talking of value or sin? A faulty F, so long as it
remains an F, means an F that is other than I projected it to be.
Whether it is something more, I cannot say.

Physical processes of the universe, should such things exist, are
outside of fault in understanding. A proton cannot commit a
dynamical error, nor can two, nor a billion-billion entangled
together. And when a particle appears to transgress its physical
bounds, physicists do not see fault; they extend the notion of
particle to include 'virtual' and 'symmetry breakage' or they may
transform the theory altogether. Physical errors, like Godly
errors, are impossible. Therefore, should not the physicalist
conclude that particulate men and women have never, not once,
committed an objective error, conceptual or otherwise?

32
Color is an illusion to be sure, but this proposition is an illusion
itself. Color only appears to be an illusion. Any paid philosopher
ought to be clever enough to write a compelling manuscript
supporting this regressive view.

33

If allowed to run free, 'appears' and 'looks' are infinitely regres-
sive verbs that always apply so long as you can contrive a series of
alternative theories regarding the subject in question. We
welcome these two in everyday speech. They are efficient. In
philosophizing they make a joke of your entire project.

34
Illusion is an illusion.

72 «0 MARC BUROCK

Chapter 3.

Analytic residue

You are no longer safe, dear Illusion. We see you laughing
within the idea of Truth— the same Truth you claim to conceal
while simultaneously offering as a prize if only we would worship
deception's power. But there are no epistemological shackles to
break off and no veil of ignorance to cast aside. Illusion is illusion
in every sense of the word, for as soon as one predicates Illusion
upon itself, it disappears in an instant of necessary contradiction.
Analytically speaking— and other thinkers are far more able to
proceed here than I— if Illusion is illusionary in a Platonic sense
then Illusion is not itself, but what sort of concept trembles before
the innocence of self-predication?

Illusion is a vampire— consider their similarities. Both
concepts are embodiments of evil (Illusion as Descartes'
deceiving demon and Plato's shackles), both are manifestations of
self-contradiction (Illusion is not itself, vampires are the living-
dead), both require life-giving objects to feed upon (Illusion
requires reality while Dracula needs human blood), both lack

FALSEHOOD »> 73

definite substance under self-reflection (vampires lack a mirror
reflection, Illusion disappears under self-predication), both are
powerful and seductive (Illusion has directed millennia of
thought, vampires control the mind directly), and both are
burned by the light of knowledge. I believe a careful considera-
tion of the above comparisons by the reader will be enlightening,
if not humorous.

Despite my words, do not suppose that illusion is a useless
concept. I do not believe this at all; I simply contend that Illusion
is not what it has appeared to be. We are so tired of rigorous
thinkers holding this illusion before us as if it meant something
more than a personal change of theory. A list of the usual
suspects: 'time is an illusion', 'consciousness is an illusion',
'identity is an illusion', and our favorite 'reality is an illusion'. Yes
indeed, reality is an illusion where the very meaning of illusion
depends upon God-like apprehension or knowledge of reality
from the start. 'Reality is an illusion', when spoken by a learned
scholar— even Einstein— means that a commonly accepted theory
conflicts with a new and improved theory devised by this scholar.
By appending 'is an illusion' to a philosophical situation, the
writer attempts to portray an omnipotence that pierces beyond
common assumption to a realm of Truth. Let us turn this tactic
against its users. Anytime a writer honestly professes or even
suggests that a particular philosophical object 'is an illusion', we
should immediately question the worth of his subsequent
arguments for they follow from a suspicious premise, and worse,
from a mind that truly believes it can see reality.

Philosophers who wish to understand the mind 'in a natural
way' commit endless crimes in the name of illusion, applying this
label, in one way or another, to theoretical conflicts that are a
priori beyond resolution. They venture beyond the already

74 so MARC BUROCK

careless procedure of attributing objectivity to Illusion, positing
illusionary situations that, unlike the Miiller-Lyer effect, cannot
be explained by further empirical-logical investigation.

Recall that the classical use of illusion arises from perceptual
conflicts (a white room that appears yellow, a straight branch that
appears bent), where a single object can be experienced in two or
more possible ways, one of which is claimed to be the real percep-
tion. Now, how shall we react to the illusionary claim that, for
instance, color is itself an illusion? This sort of conflict is not
between one perception and another, but between one ontolog-
ical theory and another. No further observation will clarify the
situation; in fact, observation, if you believe that to mean
something composed, in part, of the color experience, will only
perpetuate the disagreement. Scientific investigation cannot
explain the conflict because current science evolves out of the
tension between experiential judgment and mathematically
oriented theory. In calling any experience an illusion, one cannot
mean that experience or color do not exist, at least not based upon
observational findings, for observation is another name for the
very thing the illusionist hopes to deny.

If consistent, a philosopher who believes in a physical world
verified by observation should believe in the physicality of color
well before stars, plants, atoms, or anything else observed with
the aid of color. For example, given a printed photograph of a pie,
would a scientist believe first in the physicality of the photograph
itself, or in the matter presumed to constitute the pie which may
or may not be a digitally contrived pattern having no definite
physical counterpart? It seems quite backward to argue that the
pie is physical but the photograph is not, but this is what many
natural philosophers do quite readily when arguing about experi-
ence. We observe before us a visual field associated with angular

FALSEHOOD K> 75

extension and testable discrimination capacity, and like a photo-
graph, we should believe in the existence of the experiential field
more so than the patterns of color that can be categorized within
that field. Perhaps both or neither exist, but this issue is not our
concern. We are more interested with priority of rank over proof
of either.

These simple arguments prove nothing, but are forwarded to
suggest that conflicts originated under the disguise of illusion
ought to be courageously ignored. Any great philosophical
problem or solution that even slightly resembles in form 'x is an
illusion' rests on nothing other than the power of illusion to move
our minds into analytic action. If you accept the premise that 'x
might be an illusion' and attempt to argue that it is not, then you
have already lost the battle. Illusion has won again; your act of
defense only cements illusion's power to control you. Illusion
forces one into a dogmatic position— 'x is not an illusion', 'x is an
illusion', 'x might be an illusion'... all of these assert that illusion is
a legitimate, objective concept from where we can begin to find
knowledge. As careful scholars argue back and forth about what
is and what is not illusionary. Illusion sits idly by, watching the
squander energy at its bidding. Illusion does not care which side
of the argument wins. 'X is not an illusion' affirms illusion and 'x'
simultaneously; what is negated is the relation between them.

Any philosophical theory of error that partakes of the illusory
relation does nothing but repeat the illusion of illusion with
unnecessary words. With such theories, we believe we have
journeyed deeper into truth when we have only snuggled up more
closely to Illusion. And you see how difficult it is to talk about
these things without becoming trapped oneself? As soon as one
contrasts a presumed false belief with a corresponding 'actuality'.

76 so MARC BUROCK

the lie has already occurred. These things should barely be said,
but they must not remain hidden, and yet I cannot call out illusion
without becoming its slave.

Illusion is an illusion. Do I commit the same sin I accuse others
of in appending 'is an illusion' to a philosophical concept? Yes, I
am guilty. Do I believe that I see more than those who continue to
believe in objective illusion? Yes, but they see more in other
realms, and neither of us possess reality. 'Illusion is an illusion' is
an illusion. Of course, concepts like these revel in infinite regress.

35

The materialist and the postmodernist share at least one thing
in common— both are driven by mystical tendencies. Materialists
run from appearances, unconsciously transforming their fear of
specters into our alleged deception. Postmodernists, as the dual
to this fear, embrace appearances in the temples of Illusion.

Disbelief of deception

what does it mean to disbelieve a perception? It means,
pragmatically, I should not use this perception as a starting point
for thought, judgment, or future action; except in the case of
scientific enquiry when one wants to understand the nature of
deception. Why should I not use it as a starting point? Because
subsequent cognitive and behavioral movements, based upon
illusionary perceptions, will be ineffective in achieving many
goals, assuming I move for some purpose. If I see an apple and
wish to grab it, but the visual perception is a hologram, then my
grabbing will not succeed in obtaining the apple. I will have been
misled by the perception.

FALSEHOOD SO 77

Perceptions, people, beliefs, theories, signposts, and most
other markers of direction can lead us poorly. We have goals, and
we look for help in finding those goals. If we follow a particular
experiential marker whose meaning purports to lead to a goal, but
when followed does not, we have become accustomed to labeling
the marker a fundamental distortion of reality. It led us poorly, to
be sure, in the sense that we did not achieve our goal, but it is only
upon a subsequent failure of destination that allows us to label
the signpost in error. If our goal of grabbing and eating the apple
was satisfied, we will say that the perception of the apple was
veridical; if we instead reach for the apple and grasp empty air, we
will call the perception non-veridical— it misled us, our hunger
was not satiated. Deception arises from the relation between
one's expectation and the subsequent denial of the fruits
promised by that expectation. To be misled is to follow the wrong
path, but the wrong path, rather than being objectively deceptive,
is the path that leads us to where we do not want to go.

Suppose you experience the visual perception of an apple. It is
surely an apple by visual assessment alone, and as you look
around the apple from different angles, then under bright and
dark light, nothing about the scene evokes suspicion. But rather
than reach for the apple, you decide to leave it be and never to
disturb it. The apple, for all you know, may be a volumetric
display (I'll use the word hologram as well) or a visual experience
implanted upon your brain by alien technology. Since you did
not challenge the perception further, you cannot claim that the
perception was an illusion, nor can you claim that it was real
either. And this example, which appears at first to be a contrived
thought experiment, illustrates a significant but forgotten aspect

78 80 MARC BUROCK

of our lived experience. Billions of perceptions are never
challenged, and the few that are; well, those that do not live up to
our a priori expectations are called illusions.

Deceptions are temporally constructed— perception, expecta-
tion, and denial of expectation upon challenge. Language allows
one to atemporally label a particular perception such as the
Miiller-Lyer effect an illusion, but the perception itself has
nothing to do with deception; the expectation of a ruler to
measure the lines differently and then to fail is the illusion—
which is why one must first harbor an assumption and then go
through the process of measurement to appreciate the illusion.

Whenever we use the words illusion or hallucination, we simul-
taneously imply a past or possible relation, a 'deceptive' relation
that is associated with a particular perception. Although the so-
called illusionary perception participates in the deceptive
relation, the perception by itself never deceives. We have become
accustomed to calling particular perceptions themselves
illusionary, for instance, the apple described above, but the
visually experienced apple that possesses no palpable counterpart
is merely that— an apple color-pattern alone that happens to be
unaccompanied by a touchable surface. Why is this entity an
illusion? The holographic apple or partially implanted alien
perception may lack specific perceptual parts, but it is not clear
that sensory absence warrants the title of illusion, nor, if it were
touchable, tasteable, and smellable, that we should call it real. An
experiential subject either lives up to one's expectations or it does
not. If not, we record this discordance 'in memory' to avoid
experiencing frustration again, and then perhaps evolve a new
theory of the sensory perception that is more consistent with
future experiences.

FALSEHOOD K> 79

Philosophers present 'objective' examples of deception that
pretend to have nothing to do with an individual's expectations
and past experience, for instance, hearing human voices when in
fact no one is speaking . Are we to believe that this situation,
without additional clarification, is an adequate example of true
deception? Who cares if one hears voices when in fact no one is
speaking, that is, unless experiencing voices and the absence of a
speaker are already related in existing assumption? There must
be an assumed relation between the two, unmentioned in this
example and most others, that supports our intuition of decep-
tion, something like: one cannot hear voices when no one is
speaking. But then our example contradicts itself. A softer,
subtler, and less definite relation is required.

To avoid an untidy discussion of this relation, upon forwarding
an example of deception the typical philosopher strips the situa-
tion out of context and presents the entire dilemma before us
without considering the sequence of events that take place in the
world they are describing, our history of expectation, or the
characteristics of the individual who is experiencing the voices in
the example. Most people who hear voices expect to see a speaker
nearby or a device that generates sound. The experience of voices
activates, automatically and unconsciously, the predicative
expectation of a speaker because we have learned to associate the
experience of human voices with the visual perception of a person
or audio device. If this historical, learned or innate expectation
goes unfulfilled, then the experience of voices garners suspicion—
we may frantically search for a hidden audio device, conjure up a
fantastic explanation of alien transmitters and demons, assume
we are dreaming, or label the experience a hallucination.
However, if the person hearing voices did not expect to identify an
origin of the voices; if the person, oppositely, expected not to

80 so MARC BUROCK

identify a visual originator of the voice, then that person would
have no reason to label the experience of voices a hallucination.
You imagine that this expectation is ridiculous, but the schizophrenic
who commonly experiences voices in the absence of people
nearby learns, quite rationally, to expect such an association.

A philosopher's impoverished example of deception such as
'hearing voices when in fact no one is speaking' rests upon an
expectation that forms out of the learned, non-necessary, percep-
tual association between the experience of voices and the experi-
ence of perceiving an originator of those voices nearby. Without
an expectation of repeated association, deception does not exist.
We know that one who expects nothing is never deceived— of
course you may believe he is deceived, but only because your
expectations differ.

There are scientific ways to describe the relation between
hearing voices and the absence of a speaker, but these too need
not have anything to do with epistemological deception. Here is
one sort of relation: most people do not hear voices when no one
is speaking, but some people do. We have identified two groups,
very well, now what shall we do? A scientist, having partitioned a
set of people into two groups according to some observable
characteristic— in this case the verbal report of experiencing
disembodied voices— will try to explain the variability between
the two groups by identifying environmental-neurobiological
differences that correlate with the differences in perception
between the groups. If you are a philosopher, then you may try to
formulate a theory that differentiates the two groups. Deception,
however, has nothing to do with it. Both the scientist and the
philosopher are attempting to explain why two groups of people
have different types of theories and experiences, one group that
reports the experience of disembodied voices and another group

FALSEHOOD SO 81

that does not. The charge of deception, given the above relation,
is an interpretational layer that adds nothing to the explained
differences.

What philosophers do, what I am trying to do, is to collect all
examples of illusion and hallucination together and to offer a
theory that unites them. In everyday life, as opposed to the
examples in philosophical thought, an episode of deception
begins with an experiential judgment that is accompanied by a
collection of conscious and unconscious theoretical expectations
given that judgment. Until subsequent experiences are compared
to expected experiences, we have no ground for claiming that we
were deceived. That is, deception takes on substantial form after
and only after a denial of experiential expectation. I am sure that
expectation and experience traverse both ways, influencing each
other; even denial of an expectation may precede that expecta-
tion, regardless, deception is a personal problem.

36
We cannot find a compelling distinction between hallucination
and illusion. Both are derivative of conflicts between expectation
and experiential judgment whose difference arises from specula-
tive claims about internal versus external origins. In the case of
visual hallucination, we expect to perceive nothing— meaning,
more accurately, the air and things in front of us— but instead
perceive a pink rat that 'blocks' the perception of what one
expects to perceive. In illusion, we expect to see a straight branch,
but instead perceive a bent branch. How do you know that the
bent branch is not an entirely distinct perception arising inter-
nally from your head that 'covers up' the straight branch like a
hallucination? How do you know that the pink rat is not an
external 3-dimensional volumetric illusion?

82 so MARC BUROCK

37

Suppose, to you, there is a color pattern that you classify as a
material apple. However, later on in the day, you examine the
apple with touch and find that it has no palpable surface and
decide it is an illusion. Surely, then, you were deceived at first but
then found the truth? But I do not see deception here. Your
original theory, based upon the color pattern alone, did not live
up to your expectations about material apple theory, which was
abandoned after further examination— not idealistically falsified
or found to be untrue, but physically discarded like any other
object that no longer serves a purpose.

38

Suppose, to you, there is a color pattern that you classify as a
holographic apple. However, later on in the day, you examine the
apple with touch and smell and find that it has a touchable surface
and a fruity smell. You eat the apple. Surely, then, you were wrong
at first but then found the truth? But I do not see wrongness
here. Your original theory, based upon the color pattern alone,
did not live up to your expectations about holographic apple
theory, which was later abandoned upon further examination.

39

Suppose, to you, there is a color pattern that you classify as a
holographic apple, but someone else feels that the same image of
discussion is a material apple. After further examination, you
both agree that the apple is holographic. Surely, before explo-
ration, you were correct and the other person was wrong. But I do
not see correctness here. The expected sensations associated with

FALSEHOOD K5 83

your original theory are more consistent with the sensations felt
upon further exploration. When did a relatively greater degree of
correlation become equivalent to absolute truth?

40

Philosophers will attempt to fashion gedanken purporting true,
objective illusion. They will do so by saying or implying
something like this: suppose there is a real apple or an actual
apple or that in fact there is an apple. They will use counterf ac-
tuals and futurefactuals to get us to commit to the possibility of an
objective object, displacing realness just beyond reach so that we
do not question it too closely. Perhaps they may say, plainly,
'there is an apple' hoping that we will not see the millennia of
metaphysical bolts and glue that hold their meaning together.
When will theoreticians learn that one cannot create reality and
subsequently true-illusions simply by stating their existence in a
written example?

84 so MARC BUROCK

Chapter 4.

False falsehood

I spoke of galactic repetitions, of failure and fear. Oh, and I have
repeated Descartes well. I fear Deception. I have sought its
destruction in anger. I have been led by Deception to this place
and this moment, pulled along by a nonexistent lease that I
imagined I could unhook.

Oh Deception, your righteousness has been hidden for too long.
You are God's bastard child, placed upon Earth as a source of our
Good yet destined to be always rejected. God knew that human
creatures would not tolerate a world of deception; God knew men
and women would fight it to freedom. But why does deception
drive us so cleanly? Why is the concept of present deception
unbearable?

Deception spoke, "Your world is a lie and you are a fool."
"I will see through you," said Awareness.
"You will see nothing but me."
"I will at least try."

FALSEHOOD SO 85

"Do what you must— you will fail, I will be here, and you will
remain the fool."

An Observer intruded and to Awareness said, "Why does it
matter if the world is a lie and you are a fool?"

"Because I will not be deceived. I will not be made fun of,"
replied Awareness.

"Why not?" said the Observer.

"Deception is uncomfortable and unstable. It may disappear
any moment. Truth is permanent and secure."

"And if I told you that your deception is eternal, impossible to
be overcome?"

"Then I would have no reason to struggle against it. It would
look more like Truth."

"And if I told you that your deception could only transform into
more deception?"

"Again, I would have no reason to oppose it."
"So the force of deception, in you, arises from the possibility
that it can be annihilated and replaced by something indestruc-
tible?"

"Yes"

"What else?"
"The possibility of deception's destruction is only part of its
force. If deception is to leave, then something that I once believed
must fall. I fear the loss of a once cherished belief that will one
day become illusion. But I love all present beliefs, so I am torn.
To overcome deception, I must destroy part of myself. I must feel
the pain of loss— I am not eager to mourn."

"So why do you seek to bring about pain in opposing deception?"

Awareness shriveled before a thousand winds, was torn apart
by hungry shadows and replied, "To be surrounded by beliefs that
will never leave."

86 so MARC BUROCK

Deception is a paradoxical force: we fear the threat of loss
suggested by Deception, but we also desire to bring about that
loss in the hope it will birth Truth, thus ending the threat of loss
eternally. Deception, applied to the whole of the present, acts as
the primordial mover and does so with a curious honesty. The
present does change. The present is always lost and replaced.
Deception taunts with this threat and then the loss occurs, thus
solidifying Deception's hold on the moment. We fear the present
because it will change. It will leave us. The exile from Eden still
hurts. And we seek a final change, an unbearable once-and-for-
all loss that if tolerated will reveal a permanent moment of
existence, a permanence that matters because further loss will be
impossible and the threat finally extinguished.

41

Deception is not Evil. Its offspring may have become Evil,
degraded and worn out over time while used as a tool to procure
goods and services and comfort. Any tool may become Evil, no?
But Deception in its initial inception was a means of creation. Its
purpose was to incite growth, and it has, more so than any idea.
Just ask Descartes.

42

Deception, as the fear of loss, propels us toward future ideas
that resist displacement— what idea has been more unmovable
than true Deception? Many of you reject Gods and Demons.
Many of you reject Truth and Reality. Many of you reject the
possibility of Love and Science. Many of you have discarded Good
and Evil, and still you protect, vigorously and ceremonially, the
omnipotence of Illusion.

FALSEHOOD SO 87

As Descartes taught, there is a rather simple way to minimize
or avoid nearly all forms of human deception. I am not sure what
this has to do with epistemology, ontology, and philosophy on the
whole, but it works quite well. For some reason we have assumed
that deception requires only one person to exist: the deceiver. But
you and I play a part in the creation of being deceived, do we not?
The deceiver is talking to you, the receiver, and you must have
something to do with the formation of deception within yourself.
Let us ignore that the deceiver may be deceiving herself and focus
upon the deception as it manifest within you. To be deceived, you
must first believe what the deceiver is saying, so without your
consent, deception cannot exist within you.

Avoidance of deception requires no more than your immediate
disbelief of what is being spoken. Ancient skeptics knew this well.
Speak whatever you choose, tell me you are the king, or ate an
apple for breakfast, or like the flow of my hair; you cannot deceive
me because I must first believe what you are saying. Since I
automatically assume disbelief, or at least the possibility of disbe-
lief, then objective deception within me does not occur. Your
words, your propositions— I understand what you are saying and
I observe what you have said, but at no point have I been
deceived.

Let me put it this way: to me, all of your propositions are
theories or can be used as such. By theory I do not mean 'mere'
theory or anything like that. Your theories to me are, in some
ways, on par with the quantitative theories of physical science.
Granted, a propositional theory is more subject to various inter-
pretations than the mathematical theories of science, but for my
purposes the similarities will do.

88 so MARC BUROCK

Scientific theories are, formally, formalized expressions that are
logical, self-consistent, testable, and predictive. I see these
properties in the phrase 'Jane ate an apple yesterday' and most
other propositions. There is nothing illogical or contradictory
here, and I can put the theory through tests. I can ask Jane if she
ate an apple and if anyone witnessed it. I can, inappropriately,
dissect her insides and look for apple traces of digestion. Perhaps
apple cells are still lodged between her teeth. The proposition
meets my expectation of what a theory must do.

You will discover many differences between physical theories
and my humble proposition above, and to say that the two are
equivalent, as belonging to the category of theory, is unfair. It
may be better to say that all propositions are hypotheses. In the
end, I do not ask for equivalence or identity between propositions
and scientific hypotheses; I wish to point out that they can be
used in roughly similar ways. And just as our best scientific
theories, at least as viewed by honest scientists, are neither true
nor false; trying to figure out, philosophically, when propositions
are true or false is possibly hasty.

My initial, primary reason for viewing propositions as tenta-
tive, scientific claims has to do with deception. I wanted to show
myself, and you, that it is difficult to be deceived when assuming
a linguistic-empirical stance. When one considers each proposi-
tion to be a theory about the world, and subjects the tentative
statement to the experiential, logical, and consistency checks one
would of more quantitative, traditional theories; then deception
becomes more difficult to find. I mean, a theory about the world
cannot deceive— it is a transient creature that participates in the
world to varying degrees that one day may disappear. Is, for

FALSEHOOD SO

instance, Newtonian gravitational theory deceptive? Some of you
will say yes, but remember, to be deceived someone must know
the truth, and how do you know you have that now? Physical
theories never deceive— they may be useless, they may be incon-
sistent with observations, and they may make predictions that go
unfilled, but they do not deceive, and likewise, a proposition, when
viewed as a scientific hypothesis, has no connection to deception.
One can treat philosophical propositions as scientific
hypotheses sans the empirical checks that are required by
physical theory. Surely, when empirical checks are available a
philosophical position will embrace them. When impossible, we
worshipers of reason rely upon measures of internal consistency,
logic, and coherence to other propositions alone. But hastily,
these internal and external checks that philosophers use to argue
for particular propositional hypotheses have been identified with
Truth itself. Instead of recognizing that these checks are
measurement tools, rigorous thinkers conflate them with truth
theories going by names such as correspondence, identity, coher-
ence, pragmatics— but these so-called truth theories have nothing
to do with Truth; they describe, in approximate form, the proce-
dures and measures we use to support our theories against
foreign attack. A theory measured by correspondence, coherence,
and usefulness is, all things being equal, more fit than its
competitor.

While it is common for philosophers and academics to subject
propositional statements to checks, in daily life we do not. On TV
you will hear propositional theories of all sorts and forget that
each promise is a theory awaiting further exploration. Likewise,
when a friend tells you he is happy, this is, to you, a scientific
hypothesis first. Even propositional self-thoughts are theoretical.

90 so MARC BUROCK

and you need not believe or disbelieve any of these propositions
in the moment. It is enough to hold them in suspension, to
observe them, and to use them as you see fit.

I know, you think it is impossible and impractical to hold every
proposition up to such high standards of analysis, and more,
humans do not work this way in daily life. We do accept some
propositions without question and begin using them in the
moment. Our awareness is limited in time and processing power,
and complete analytical suspension of every propositional theory
would leave us impotent to do anything else. The human creature
would not halt if had adopted my methods. You all know this to
be the case. And I agree, many of our hypotheses are not actively
scrutinized nor viewed from a distance. They have withstood or
avoided or repelled analysis by our destructive faculties. We call
these privileged theories beliefs.

45

The confusion between belief and theory is not new, and you
perhaps know that the classical concept of belief does not entail
uncertainty or careful reflection in any way, yet in natural
language this forbidden meaning is quite acceptable. T believe it
rained yesterday' and T hypothesize...' mean nearly the same
thing to me; both are speculative, theoretical assertions that may
be subjected to the logical and empirical measures that some
people find compelling. This second version, however, has no
relation to the first according to classical thought. Belief does not
suggest a possibility, they say; it reflects a state or content of the
mind that is 'accepted' to be the case. To some, a belief is a theory
whose meaning has been actualized, or you might say, trans-
formed from abstract possibility into a substance or relation that
exists within the mind.

FALSEHOOD »5 91

46
My treatment of theories, of propositions, is not uniform.
Some theories I love and protect. My proof? I keep these theories
close by and use them again and again if you read me carefully.
Of course, some theories that I support, I do not truly love them,
and others that I attack are intimately part of me. My anger
against them reflects our tenuous relationship. The least influen-
tial theories within me are those that I ignore in language,
behavior, and thought; that when within awareness, I feel nothing
or indifference. But I could be hasty. Perhaps ignored theories
are the strongest.

47
The propositions that we argue against— they live and breed
within us. These are our mind-controlling parasites that we wish
were not there. Although we argue against theories that conflict
with our loved ones, the presence of conflict suggests a shared
resource or value that nourishes both. We must be, in some
sense, composed of the things we love and despise.

48

Beliefs are those propositional theories that I embrace,
support, and guard against outside forces. As an idea, belief
reflects my intimate relationship with particular theories that I
will fight for in battle— because they, my beliefs, have resisted
every attempt I have made at their destruction. You will counter
and say, in some fashion, that we protect certain propositions
because they are valuable and ought to be protected, but what is
this moral value that warrants protection? Why do we argue for
centuries to preserve some beliefs over others? And do not forget,
argument against a particular theory is support for others. You

92 «0 MARC BUROCK

may search for auxiliary reasons. You may derive, in a scholarly
fashion, the intrinsic or moral properties of beliefs that necessi-
tate protection and argument, but a less metaphysical approach is
available. Beliefs are the theories that we struggle to preserve.
They are also the theories that we use, and maybe, we protect
them because they are used, because without them, we would not
be who we are.

I do have a metaphysical theory that explains our protection of
particular theories above others: some theories are part of me and
others are not, or, theories have a degree of membership or
existence within the whole. The theories that are melded to my
whole, they are, in a tautological sense, the theories that I use
because they are there and part of me. I protect them as I would
a limb. And let me clarify: I do not have beliefs. Theories are part
of this whole, or partially part of the whole while others are not. I
am a poorly demarcated blob of interacting theories and experi-
ences contained in nothing.

You may wonder: where are theories and experiences if not in
the mind? They are of the universe, but I am hesitant to localize
them further within space and time. They are also part of the
present, this I can say, but it says very little.

The conflict between mind and matter arises when one
supposes that theories and experiences are ethereal and insub-
stantial, and then opposes these hypothetical properties to the
conjectural objects of physical theory. But the objects of physics
are substance by assumption as well. This assumption resonates
with some people, and as a belief, may become an integral part of
the whole person, becoming the defining substance and stability
of that person. That is, the content of one's most cherished
theory, in addition to binding that person together, becomes the
believed being-of-the-world within that person. One can

FALSEHOOD »> 93

likewise, without contradiction, take up the position that physical
objects are ethereal abstractions lacking substance and that
theories and experiences are substantial. Or perhaps both
theories and particles are substance, or theories are more likely to
be substance than particles, or the reverse, or neither.

49
Like Descartes, I trust in the existence of theories more so than
the entities they suggest. Is particle theory itself an illusion? I am
not talking about the veracity of the content of the theory, if such
phrases make sense to you, but the existence of the theory itself.
For the physicalist, particle theory as a theory is an illusion or
non-existent entity or something reducible to real subatomic
particles. But it is odd to argue against the actuality of the theory,
for the theory tends to outlast the object it speculates. The
physical theories of today will probably be epistemologically
outranked by the theories of tomorrow, and the entities suggested
by the theories of old will become useful fictions and at best
incomplete truths. Particles of today will be discarded but the
particle theories of today that suggested those particles will live
on. Newtonian theory, albeit relegated to approximation, still
thrives. Newtonian force, at least according to most gravitational
physicists, does not exist.

50

If deception exists within people, it does so upon the back of
belief. Consider a proposition or theory that you do not believe—
is it possible for that proposition to be deceptive within you? Like
the classic analysis of knowledge, deception too can be analyzed
as a form of belief. Once analytic philosophers begin to apply the
same seriousness to justified false beliefs as they do to knowledge.

94 K> MARC BUROCK

they will find that the skeptical criticisms against knowledge can
be leveled against deception with little adjustment, and that the
Cartesian triad of knowledge, deception and skepticism annihi-
lates itself.

51
As an example, in writing the last paragraph I got lost in consid-
ering the process of deception. We typically say that the deceiver
attempts to instill something within the receiver that the deceiver
believes is false. Although the deceiver begins with a proposition
that he believes to be false, the proposition itself need not be false;
it is his belief in its falseness that matters first. On this analysis, a
deceiver may unknowingly deceive another person with a true
belief because he accidentally held a true proposition to be false.
But this makes little sense. How can one be deceived by a true
belief? So one may argue that the deceiver must not only believe
that his proposition is false; the proposition must be absolutely
false, yet according to the skeptic, the deceiver could hardly know
that this is case. The deceiver may believe that something is false
and may be justified in doing so but he does not necessarily know
its falseness.

Attempts at deception are therefore random shots in the dark,
and we can never know when someone has been deceived, not
even ourselves, yet this conclusion collides against the common
assumption that we frequently identify episodes of obvious
deception. We know we have been deceived in the past. We think
we know what deception looks like, and the deceiver thinks he
knows when his attempt has been successful despite his inability
to know if the transmitted belief is true or false; yet on a skeptical
account, your certainty of past deceptive episodes is a deception
itself for you cannot be absolutely certain that you were deceived.

FALSEHOOD SO 95

Therefore, I must either have known deception in the past— as the
non-skeptic would suggest— or, in justly extending the skeptical
argument, I am absolutely deceived about my certainty of past
deceptive episodes.

But how can the skeptic know that he is deceived on even this,
and specifically, how did Descartes absolutely know that his
senses deceived him in the past? Only by certainly apprehending
reality, at least once, could he have known that he experienced
deception, but certain perception of reality was discovered only
after his claims of deception. Just as the Cartesian skeptic cannot
possess Cartesian knowledge, he can neither possess the objective
Cartesian deception that opposes and prevents this knowledge,
yet the meditation originates from Descartes' dogmatic accept-
ance of deception as obvious, empirical, and certain.

Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either
from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have
found that the senses deceive, and It Is prudent never to trust completely
those who have deceived us even once. (Med. i)

Each deceptive episode of the youthful Descartes must have
coincided with the subsequent appreciation of a reality that
grounded the realization of that deception— but such appreciation
is denied at that time in the conclusion. Descartes only knows
that he exists now. The only possible objective deception, for
Descartes, would be if he previously believed in his non-existence,
but later discovered, in shock, that he existed. This is probably
what happened.

Of course Descartes knew more than his existence; he knew
that whatever was perceived clearly and distinctly had to be true,
but this knowledge alone was not enough to explain the nature of

96 so MARC BUROCK

deception and error. Within the Meditations error takes on
several forms, and something seen unclearly and vaguely was not
one of them.

Firstly, knowledge of true deception and episodes of error were
assumed at the onset, permitting the beginning of this skeptical
enquiry. We could equally begin a skeptical philosophy by
assuming that deception is impossible and has never occurred,
noting that this assumption does not logically entail the posses-
sion of absolute truth.

Error was next described as an absence of knowledge which
somehow should be there even though it is not, or a faculty that
lacks some perfection which it ought to have; and he associates
these privations with the will of God. These shoulds and oughts
belong in the field of morality, and we cannot explain the
meaning of this error without understanding some form of
broken 'natural' duty. We would need to understand the
Creator's will to make sense of this error, thus Descartes rightly
yields that God's causes are beyond his knowledge, but instead of
leaving the explanation of this error within the confines of
theology, he goes on to provide a structural description of what
this error might be:

So what then is the source of my mistakes? It must be simply this: the
scope of the will is wider than that of the intellect; but instead of
restricting it within the same limits, I extend its use to matters which I do
not understand. (Med. 4)

Since the intellect does no more than enable one to perceive the
ideas which are subjects for possible judgments, Descartes
decides that it is the will that is deficient. As I understand neither
will nor intellect, on that ground alone I see no compelling reason
to call this formula the source of objective error; but even should
we accept these concepts, how do we make sense of and recognize

FALSEHOOD K> 97

the equi-limitations of will and intellect since they are distinct
and governed by different principles? What is the common
substrate or field, that in limit, each ought to submit?

Given the nearby religious context of this error, I suspect that
Descartes had in mind an idea of pious restraint in the face of sin.
In the Meditations, restraint of the will is analogous to the
temperance of desire. The will is driven to make judgments; it
desires to judge so to speak and to end uncomfortable states of
indifference. And judgment is, at least in the moment, fulfilled by
true and false judgments alike just as both fresh and (unnoticed)
spoiled food may nourish immediate hunger. The error of the will
follows from the will's passion to judge and restlessness should it
not, but without this drive, the will would not judge. It would sit
idly, impotent, and not be a will at all. Therefore, the will must be
passionate if it is to move us, if it is to be what it is, but this
passion, unrestrained, can lead us to sin. We limit our eating as
we do our judging, and we do so in accordance with what is 'best'
eaten and 'best' judged', where best depends upon how one values
the action on the object at hand.

I see, in Kant, a theoretical elaboration of this notion of error
that culminates in the transcendental illusory appearance:

Our purpose is to speak of transcendental illusory appearance, which
influences principles. ..but which leads us, in disregard of all the
warnings of criticism, completely beyond the empirical employment of
the categories, and deludes us with the chimera of an extension of the
sphere of the pure understanding. We shall term those principles, the
application of which is confined entirely within the limits of possible
experience, immanent; those, on the other hand, which transgress these
limits, we shall call transcendent principles.

Instead of will and intellect we have the 'empirical employment
of the categories' and the 'pure understanding' coupled to princi-
ples that transgress previously analyzed limits. And Kant adds

98 so MARC BUROCK

much more to this illusion, so much so that it hides what it is, yet
the gross nuts and bolts of his error appear as they do with
Descartes. Although Kant points to the presence of this illusion in
proofs on God and Soul, the surest example of transcendental
illusion within his work is found where Kant could not look:

In our reason, subjectively considered as a faculty of human cognition,
there exist fundamental rules and maxims of its exercise, which have
completely the appearance of objective principles. Now from this cause it
happens, that the subjective necessity of a certain connection of our
conceptions, is regarded as an objective necessity of the determination of
things in themselves.

This concept of the transcendental illusion is itself a transcen-
dental illusory appearance, for the transcendental illusion
appears to be a perfectly objective principle itself, a principle that
grounds objective error, although it can be no more than the
subjective necessity of a certain connection of Kant's concepts.
He knowingly acknowledges that transcendental illusion itself
involves a connection that is necessary as well as impossible for
the subject to avoid. He says this of examples of the illusion, in
the definition and causes of the illusion, and as a property of
transcendental illusion itself; yet he implicitly offers it as an
'unconditioned' object created through, I assume, the application
of a transcendent principle of reason. A more careful critique by
a scholar will show that transcendental illusion is no less
metaphysical than the metaphysical objects it was meant to
undermine.

52

The possible existence of objective deception is a premise of
Cartesian skepticism. Deny this premise and the argument
cannot begin.

FALSEHOOD SO 99

53

Pyrrho's ancient skeptics believed, truly, that objective decep-
tion was impossible. How could they know this was true, and how
did they prove it?— through faith and the impossibility of demon-
stration. These skeptics could not have been deceived. No skeptic
believed that the earth was flat. No skeptic believed that objects
were material or extended or actually mental impressions. As
such, no further observation or theorizing could have thrown a
previous belief into the category of deception since Pyrrhonians
disbelieved and doubted from the start. In contrast, Cartesian
skeptics, asserting the possibility of untrustworthy epistemic
equipment, invoked unnecessary ontological machinery to create
the 'genuine' doubt that Pyrrhonians acquired through less
metaphysical means.

Yet why did Descartes' brand of doubt reverberate through
history while Pyrrho's doubt— far more expansive and justified—
fade away? In our being, atheists included, the fear of being
objectively defective must be more 'acceptable' than the fear of
being authentically uncertain about the world.

54

Illusion may also be analyzed as a justified belief, such as the
earth is flat, that is put into conflict, through contradiction, with
another justified belief, such as the earth is round. The earth
cannot be both flat and round simultaneously, therefore we are
compelled to choose sides. The belief that is retained acquires the
title reality, while the one that is discarded becomes illusion or
appearance; but initially, that illusionary justified belief was no
such thing. It was an honest justified belief that, upon further
investigation, was abandoned. In time, the victorious belief of
today may be discarded as illusion as well.

100 so MARC BUROCK

55

The illusionary-real dichotomy is a means of ordering behef, of
resolving conflict, where illusionary implies the less justified of
two beliefs that share enough in common to contradict each
other. When given a well-defined means of justification, both
concepts work together as a rigorous ordering relation. Given an
individual with a fairly static method of justification, I speculate
that illusionary-real oppositions stabilize that individual.
Between individuals, however, justification procedures differ
almost without bound, rendering the above illusionary-real
distinction relative, that is, except for the invariant aspect of
illusion, which, as I discussed before, involves a transition of
judgment.

56

I cannot differentiate deception from the ebb and flow of my
transient beliefs, nor do I believe that any of these cherished
theories are eternal, not even this one. Beliefs are acquired and
discarded like any other material possession. The ones that I call
false are the ones that I throw away or prevent from attaching to
my whole. I tell false beliefs to go away. I argue against them and
the people that offer them protection.

On a pragmatic account, true and belief are labels we apply to
theories that we support and embrace, and false, accordingly, are
those theories we attempt to shun or have rejected. They are not
part of us, or we are trying to excise them or are attempting to
make sure they never grab hold upon us and others.

These behavioral aspects of true and false are their most
obvious properties, and it is not clear that we will find anything
more in these concepts, yet we are not satisfied with explanations
based upon external relations. We would like to know the

FALSEHOOD «0 101

internal nature of true and false, their structure, and their
essence; that is what we have been striving for. The pragmatics
are undeniable, yet we speculate and practice lazy science if we
think that pragmatic aspects are the end of the story, nor do
behavioral and dispositional analyses seem to quench our thirst
for understanding.

How, then, can we expose something about the internal nature
of true and false when we cannot, beyond random chance,
identify an object or proposition that exemplifies either of these
very properties? Inductive inferences cannot even begin because
we do not know what we are looking for. At best, we may contrive
theories designed to separate true from false, but without experi-
mental grounding these theories cannot rise above descriptive
and perhaps useful fiction.

I have said that my true theories are those theories that are
shielded from uncertainty, but of course a theory may be
protected for many reasons, and to call all protected theories true
generalizes the idea of protection too far. I may be afraid to
challenge a theory and therefore avoid a thorough investigation of it,
but I should not think it has earned the title true because of my fear.

And no matter how many times a theory has withstood attack,
and no matter how much certainty we have in a proposition, it is
always possible that a theory may fall. Empirically, it is likely that
all theories will leave. Whatever truths you protect now, you may
always abandon them later, especially if you continue to put effort
into their destruction.

Yet we do fight for particular theories, but it does not help us to
call fought-for theories true. These theories resist destruction
and uncertainty, and they can be associated with a particular

102 K> MARC BUROCK

vector of force, but we need not associate these descriptions with
the notion of true. Independent of truth, our positive under-
standing of a protected theory is something in itself.

Should we say, reciprocally, that false theories are those
theories that welcome destruction? Are they associated with an
intrinsic force of their own annihilation rather than protection?
Contradictions have historically had this character: F is simultane-
ously P and not P. Does this proposition not generate immediate
suspicion and get quickly expelled? Of course many people— and
the number surely grows— protect this proposition, too. And once
protected, the contradiction that had been so obviously false
becomes dialetheistically true. But what is contradiction?

57

Suppose an obvious contradiction destroys itself and is
immediately rejected from the whole. What of other suspicious
propositions that are not direct contradictions? These are the
vast majority of our falsehoods. Perhaps I say this text is purple-
that proposition is not intrinsically contradictory, but it likely
contradicts another proposition, this text is black, which you and
I protect. I cannot say that the text is black is true in any deep
way, but I may say that I afford this proposition a great deal of
protection. It forcibly resists questioning; I hold on to it and will
defend it against attack.

While any proposition may be labeled false at whim, many
propositions are, within an individual, observationally false, but
in a way that does not depend directly upon the content of the
proposition or any comparison to facts. Empirical falsehoods are
recorded and given a firm basis through conflict with protected
propositions. In formula, if P is false, then there exists a Q that is
protected such that P and Q form a contradiction. Or, since P and

FALSEHOOD K> 103

Q contradict each other, and Q is protected, then P must be false
(or attacked). When I write the sentence 'this sentence has four
words', I say it is false because it contradicts my protected
judgment that the sentence has five words. The content of the
original sentence is not objectively in error or inaccurate, rather it
opposes, through contradiction, another judgment that I protect,
and is therefore attacked. I embrace the theory of natural
numbers and the process of enumeration because these are
shielded from my analysis within the above context.

The contents of P and Q are relevant in two ways: i) they must
together form a contradiction, and 2) there must be a location or
place where they can interact, a place that can potentially support
and nourish each content but with room only for one. I am here
imagining a Darwinian struggle between contents for the privi-
lege of protection and sustenance where a loser is rejected and the
winning content becomes an influential part of a whole that
sustains that content.

Protected theories spawn false propositions through contradic-
tion, although protected theories are not true, they are protected.
Protected propositions may be mathematical axioms, physical
laws, ontological theories, present beliefs, memorable judgments;
I protect many things, all of them may potentially contradict
other propositions and each may ground a moment of empirical
Falseness. The everyday form of falsehood, then, follows from a
structural-logical description involving contradiction, while the
form of truth, the logic of truth, is rigorously established only as
the negation of this form of falsehood. Any proposition that does
not contradict a protected theory fits the description of what truth
is, and fittingly, this is why notions of truth have multiplied and

104 so MARC BUROCK

degraded in time. Logical truth has always been an absence of
observed contradiction. Aside from this requirement, any propo-
sition or theory will do.

58

The theory of falsehood has a space for the experience of false-
hood, but the experience of falsehood is based upon contradic-
tion, therefore, the theory of falsehood must necessarily contain a
contradiction, so that it can hold experiences of itself.

59

We are now living in a world where truth is questioned at every
step, not because the firmness of the world has slipped away, but
because the meaning of logical truth never had anything to do
with firmness in the first place. We are just beginning to use this
word in a manner that stabilizes its meaning. The history of
logical truth follows from absence, and saying that logical truth is
absent itself finishes the circle.

60

Contradiction and transition are substantial entities that
support notions of Falsehood and Illusion. Falsehood grounds
itself in the contradiction of protected theories. Truth is
grounded in an absence, a lack of witnessed contradiction.
Illusion grounds itself in the transition of protection between
contradictory theories. Reality is grounded in an absence, a lack
of observed transition. Since the meanings of truth and reality
are grounded in absence, propositions possessing these proper-
ties may be evoked and proved at whim, simply by looking away.

FALSEHOOD K> 105
61

Falsehood and Illusion form the basis of creation and observa-
tion, or, contradiction and transition account for this grounding.
All science is the study of the limitations and potentials of transi-
tion, how some thing(s) become other thing(s) whether expressed
in compositional formula, dynamical relations, or natural
language. Science is not concerned with what is— its domain
covers the region between what we have and what that something
becomes. Contradiction is the tension that sustains change.

62

What are our physical analogies of contradiction? A particle
and its anti-partner annihilate each other upon collision. In Pauli
exclusion, two identical fermions may not occupy the same
quantum state simultaneously. Both of these physical conflicts
depend upon simultaneity of space-time, and while the necessity
of temporal co-occurrence is carried over, if only implicitly, to our
notion of propositional conflicts in contradiction, the need for a
co-occurrence of place or space has been largely ignored.

You may ask, isn't the subject of a proposition the place of
contradiction? Yes, but in what sense is a subject a space in which
contradiction can occur? Does this space permit certain contra-
dictions and not others? Do all subjects have room for contradiction?
Is the space of a subject a collection of possibilities, can the space
be filled with actualities, do actualities conflict or are the possibil-
ities contradictory? The formula of contradiction in propositional
logic, -i(P A-iP) , cannot begin to address these questions for as a
subject of discussion, it lacks the space.

The example of tossing a coin is a richer starting point. The
conceptual outcome of a coin toss— this is our subject— may take
on a value of heads or tails. Both values are potentially possible

106 so MARC BUROCK

within the space of the subject, even if only due to our ignorance.
At some point the outcome may acquire an actual value. For the
moment, ignore how this might occur and what we might mean
by actual, even though these considerations are impossible to
completely evade. A value in this example cannot be actualized
as heads and tails simultaneously within the same outcome, but
only because the space of the subject, an outcome of a coin toss,
expects (awaits, has room for) a single value and not more. A
different subject with a 'contradictory' space may expect
something else.

An outcome of a coin toss is a 'space' that may be filled, as in
this situation with heads or tails. The subject's space is a variable
waiting to be set, to be evaluated, or to be observed. A situational
space and its process of evaluation identify the possible and
actual values of the space. If the space allows only or demands
one way of being, the other is denied entrance. A contradiction,
then, is relative to the space given, but absolute in describing the
form of that space.

We may assign a value to outcome. The value is a determinate
meaning allowed by the particular subject. Proposition valuation
in logic abstracts from this form of everyday valuation. Instead of
a subject like 'the outcome', the entire proposition 'the outcome is
heads' becomes the subject of valuation where the value of a
whole proposition as subject is allowed to be— has space for— true
or false. From an exterior valorizing perspective, all propositions
are identical with respect to their potential space.

Within the coin toss, when an outcome as subject is assigned a
value of heads, we do not look to any theory to establish this
valuation because the value is an observed result. Nothing more
need be done. Further exploration may determine that the value
becomes otherwise, but the initial value was not incorrect or in

FALSEHOOD SO 107

error: it was the value observed in the circumstances surrounding
it. Propositions are hkewise observed to be true or false, or we
may be uncertain and in-between.

6J

Heads and tails are both potential values of a coin toss. True
and false are both potential values of a proposition. How can
different values 'fit' into the same space of the subject? Is it any
different than an equation that has multiple, distinct solutions?
And are not many solutions conjugates of one another as in
ax^+bx+c=o with a negative discriminant? Whether a proposi-
tion is true or false, both values are solutions to that problem.
Choosing the 'right' solution means appealing to constraints
outside of the original equation, although in our physics both
solutions often have importance. Perhaps, as in the coin toss, we
do not decide the truth value of a proposition, but rather, the
value is a physical outcome determined by constraints beyond our
control. A protected belief is also an outcome. It is an event that
belongs to a pre-defined space that is already filled, or stable, or
observed.

64

Non-contradiction means that there is a subject with a place or
space fit to possibilities whose members cannot actualize and
occupy the space simultaneously. The possibilities empirically
constrain, in evaluation, what the subject has been, may be, and
can become.

108 «0 MARC BUROCK

65

Is it the evaluation process that hmits the simultaneous multi-
plicity of values within the subject, or does the space of the subject
fundamentally disallow— lack room for— multiple values simulta-
neously? How can a particular value take up as much space as a
possibly infinite set of possibilities

66

Within exterior propositional space, true implies a predicate
that points to a member of a particular space of possibilities of the
subject and that, upon evaluation, presently occupies that space.
False is a lack of occupancy of place by the predicate-pointed
subject-space element upon evaluation, but the only way to
observe a non-occupancy of place by the predicate-pointed
element upon evaluation is if something else already occupies
that place. An unoccupied space open to possibilities is unevalu-
ated and thus neither true nor false yet.

67

The difference between true and false lies in a 'misdirection' by
the predicate. In falsehood, the predicate points to an unobserv-
able possibility within the space of the subject. It is unobservable
because the space is already occupied and observed as something
else. In truth, the predicate points directly to the occupant of the
space, and thus no further looking around is necessary.

68

Visual space is completely occupied— no point of one's visual
field is, or can be 'empty'. Empty visual space does not belong to
the visual field at all. Within empiricism, the historical 'given-
ness' of visual space follows from the presumed human inability

FALSEHOOD SO 109

to 'control' or 'manipulate' the color values in this space when
compared to our presumed ability to 'determine' or 'choose' the
truth values of propositional space. Both sides of the comparison
fail. Color values may be manipulated at will, if only slightly, and
I highly doubt my ability to choose or determine any truths.

69
Geometric space is neither filled nor unfilled. It is a potential
space at all times and thus unobservable. This condition does not
forbid us for hypothesizing an object at a particular point in
geometric space. One can conjecture a value in a potential space
without that value ever being.

70

'Empty' physical space, the space of everyday physics, is
geometric space not associated with hypothetical objects. It is an
absence of relation, not a lack of occupancy in itself. How do we
observe an absence of relation? It is an inability to create a
shared space between subjects despite trying to do so.

77
A truly unoccupied space is unnoticeable by all the senses, thus
it must exist beyond sensation. An unoccupied space that is still a
space is a space for something to be, a space of possible occupancy
fit for particular occupants. The only potential occupants of
geometric space are the 'points' of that space. For example, a square
cannot occupy Euclidean geometric space anymore than the color
red can occupy auditory space— although a color may lead to the
fulfillment of a sound as in synesthesia. When talking about
Euclidean geometric shapes, we can say that the relations

no so MARC BUROCK

between geometric occupants occupy a space that has the square as
its possible value. A space suited to geometric shapes will have the
square as a singular 'point' of potential occupancy in that space.

72

A proposition creates sense when the subject-space, as a whole,
is pointed-to by the predicate prior to evaluation. Within a
proposition, predicate-subject pointing and sense are synony-
mous. A predicate that does not point to a subject-space within a
proposition is nonsense of direction. An example: 'redness is a
cucumber.' Here, the subject has a space, but not a space that is
pointed-to by cucumber— the cucumber points only to itself. The
copula 'is' can be thought of as a directive to forge a directed
pointer across itself, if possible.

73

An 'apparent' contradiction is a contradiction within the space
of the subject of discussion. To resolve a contradiction is to create
a different subject space. When created, we tend to lose sight of
the old subject space— should we fall back into the old space, we
will see the contradiction once again.

74

To be deceived by another, one must first accept and become
the subject space of the deceiver, then, one must occupy that
space with something pointed-to by the deceiver, a pointed-to
element that differs from the occupant of the deceiver's similar
space. The deceiver attempts to make the other different relative
to the deceiver, but such that the deceiver understands this differ-
ence explicitly through a grounding of the subject space and its
possible occupants. This allows the deceiver to know what and

FALSEHOOD SO 111

where and how the deceived is, and prevents the deceived from
achieving similar knowledge about the deceiver. In a relationship
between the two, the knowledge-of-the-other differential grants
the deceiver excess freedom, power, comfort, certainty, and
stability at the expense of the deceived. Again, theft of these
valuable commodities and the pain of their loss establish the
historical immorality of deception. To avoid crude deception, you
need not stop talking to or trusting others. You can always take in
the subject space of another and fill it with whatever you choose.

75

If propositional truth is based upon pointed-to occupancy on
evaluation, then what more can we say about the structure and
logic of truth? In this truth, the predicate suggested subject-space
element occupies its space. This can be said many ways: I see
what I am conditioned by the statement to see, I am told to await
something and it arrives, I am placed in a position to find
something and I do. The very act of comprehending a proposition
puts one relatively closer to observing the predicate-pointed
subject-space element as occupant than not because finding an
unpointed-to element as occupant requires more effort. Thus a
necessary selection bias is associated with every propositional
truth and falsehood. We first observe occupants that require the
least time and energy to evaluate.

76
The characteristic nature of oracles and prophets lies within the
essence of the proposition itself— the mechanisms or bodies that
speak propositions add little to their mystery.

112 so MARC BUROCK

77

Every proposition is partially a self-fulfilling prophecy because
the predicate has an advantage in filling up its own subject. A
negated predicate, e.g. this text is not red, partially overcomes
this bias. A negated predicate points to the entire spatial set of
the subject rather than a defined subset, although still uses the
positive portion of the predicate as an entrance for evaluation.
One cannot evaluate 'not red' without traveling through 'red' first.
The static meaning of 'not red' is: point to red then away from red.
'Not red', read this way, implies everything in the universe viewed
from the origin 'red'. Those things thought closest to red, such as
blue and green and purple, are often the first things seen when
looking away from red, but the colors do not exhaust the collec-
tion of pointed-to elements in negation. Nor does 'not red' have
an identical meaning between people, as the spatial positioning of
elements, with respect to red, differs from person to person.

78

What of this pointing from predicates to subject-spaces? A
predicate cannot point on its own, or at all. By point I am
describing in vectorial terms the conditioned flow of attention as
it moves from one place to another.

79

I assume that I am occupied by theories, but theories are
unevaluated possibilities and unobservable, so how can I see that
these things occupy me? Theories form the space of the subject
for potential occupancy. They occupy nothing, not even me. I do,
however, evaluate theories. I am that which evaluates and forms
occupancy. What are the unconditional conditions for the possi-

FALSEHOOD 80 113

bilities of these abilities? I never liked these questions. Could
not multiple, perhaps infinite sets of distinct conditions be
responsible for the same ability?

Placelessness of Theory

Let me ask, how did you acquire your beliefs? By what mecha-
nisms and what materials? You have your theories about the
world, your philosophy, and your denial of understanding outside
of your own, but we can always ask: how did these come to be?
Are your beliefs a creation of God? Are they an emergent illusion,
constructed from quantum loops and strings? Philosophy, using
the word truth as an alias, has considered several belief mecha-
nisms and materials above others.

I acquire beliefs in many ways. I allow propositions to interact
with sensual experiences, waiting to see if they can be explained
by one another. If so, I may learn to believe the proposition.
Some theories I find useful in achieving my goals. I believe these
pragmatic theories because they minimize the distance between
my desires and their fulfillment. Other propositions I believe
because they tautologically follow from my other beliefs, or at
least do not obviously contradict current beliefs. If the proposi-
tion fits in with these other beliefs then I may believe it as well.

Some beliefs I acquire because they originate from, according
to my perspective, an assumed justifying source. These relative
authority figures, the first being my parents, are responsible for
many of my beliefs simply because I witnessed what they did and
heard what they said. Religious figures, celebrities, Nobel laure-
ates, athletes, writers, lovers— each may become an automatically

114 K> MARC BUROCK

justifying source to someone. Any conceptual framework may do
it. Society as a whole may be considered a justifying source, and
the common beliefs of a society may become my own.

Within me, each of these theoretical mechanisms of belief
acquisition may be inverted. Briefly, in correspondence-type
theory, I may selectively attend to some experiences above others
or reshape my experiences so that they are explained by a partic-
ular proposition— the proposition becomes a belief through
purposeful construction rather than through natural compar-
isons. The pragmatists, they ignore the force of seduction. With
the promise of a deeply desired goal— sex, drugs, power, truth-
one will often believe anything, even when the goal is never
realized. Coherent groups of propositions are well-known to be
cheap: with a bit of hammering, rearranging, and repression, any
group of propositions may become coherent. And lastly, authori-
tarian frameworks rarely instill only beliefs into their subjects.
Like teenagers, anyone subjugated by a system of belief will, with
high probability, react with reciprocal disbelief towards particular
believed content of the authoritarian network. All of history
suggests that authority both perpetuates and undermines aspects
of itself.

I embrace all of these theories, and I have nothing to say about
their truth right now, rather, I argue that these historical truth
theories have little to do with truth or at least can be taken to be
about something else. I call these theories 'mechanisms of belief
acquisition'. I cannot prove that this is their content, but when
viewed as such, the theories themselves support their topic of
discussion. In a circular way, I believe that these theories are
about beliefs construction because this belief is more coherent,
more useful, and corresponds more with my experiences than the
belief that they are about truth itself.

FALSEHOOD ^ 115

Let us take correspondence theory with the following proposi-
tion: correspondence truth theory is about truth. While corre-
spondence theory says that it is about truth, asserting something
does not make it true, at least not according to correspondence
theory. We must compare this proposition to the facts, but the
fact is that correspondence theory conjectures truth as correspon-
dence— if there were external facts on the matter we would point
to them.

What of the proposition: correspondence truth theory is about
belief acquisition? I do notice that I acquire some beliefs about
the world through a correspondence-type approach. How do I
notice this? I observe myself comparing propositions to other
sensory experiences, a process that sometimes results in an entity
I call belief.

We can experimentally set up a correspondence situation
according to this theory and then measure, via surrogate markers,
the acquisition of beliefs. If correspondence situations success-
fully induce beliefs, then a correspondence theory of belief acqui-
sition will be believed according to the pragmatic theory of belief
acquisition; that is, since correspondence theory works to predict
belief acquisition it will be believed like any other scientific theory
that is useful.

A correspondence theory of belief acquisition will only be
believed if it corresponds with the facts, but these facts are rigor-
ously established by the application of the theory in experiment.
Belief after successful application of a theory is related to the
pragmatic standard of belief. These two truth theories, when
viewed as mechanisms of belief acquisition, are bound together in
support of one another, but when viewed as theories of truth they

116 so MARC BUROCK

are isolated and fragmented creatures that fight. Upon a coher-
ence approach, I am more hkely to beheve that these theories are
about behef acquisition rather than truth.

I would like to construct a more graceful argument, but I
cannot. Consider these paragraphs a coarse description of what I
might mean. But let us look at the general dilemma— when we
have multiple competing theories labeled by the same word or
phrase, on what ground can we claim that the theories are all
about that word's reference. Truth theories are not necessarily
about truth. Linguistic theories are not necessarily about
language. We would need to know absolutely in advance what we
were talking about— Cartesian certainty?— in order to assign a
definitive topic to our theory, yet this is what we do not have if a
theory must be expressed.

Disparate theories labeled by the same word suggest that we
may be talking about multiple topics and not one, hence philoso-
phers often posit a 'plurality' resolution to ancient conflicts but
this will not do. You may hypothesize that there are a plurality of
truth theories, and that all are true in some way, but still, what
unites this plurality of theories under the single topic of truth?
Why not say, "there are a plurality of theories, we have lumped
them under a single topic out of convenience, out of historical
associations and personal conjectures, but beyond the common-
alities indigenous to the theories, they are alien to one another
and should not be assumed equivalent in topic."

We should say this, but we do not. Instead, we assume that one
theory deserves its historical namesake above the others. We
assume that one theory is the real/true theory of (insert label
here) while the others are illusionary/false. The label of a theory

FALSEHOOD SO 117

is analogous to the physical object of a perception, and I suspect
that the skeptical arguments that deny knowledge of real objects
also deny the connection between a theory and a true label.

80

Like biological organisms, like religions, like galaxies; theories
branch off from a founder which is one reason we relate disparate
entities to each another, yet with enough generations and
schisms, separate entities that burst forth from a founder may
become 'structurally' uncorrelated to each other and even the
founder itself. As an example, the earth helped give rise to
humans on the biblical and Darwinian accounts, but they, both
pairs, are unrelated except for a distant, often forgotten
asymmetric respect.

81

It is underappreciated that people primarily argue because they
assume they are arguing about the same topic. For instance, two
philosophers who imagine they are arguing about theories of
perception are not arguing about perception at all— each is likely
arguing for something distinct. Unless the topic in question is
fundamentally contradictory, only the shared or at least non-
contradictory features between theories can be consistently
associated with a fixed topic of discussion.

82
Once we question the assumption of topic-equivalence between
competing theories in philosophy, many philosophical arguments
look something like this:

118 JO MARC BUROCK

Philosopher A: "I'm talking about perception."
Philospoher B: "No, I'm talking about perception. You're talking
about something else."

Philosopher C: "Perhaps neither of you is talking about percep-
tion?"

Philosopher A: "Ridiculous. One of us is talking about perception.
The other is confused."

Philosopher B: "Yes, I agree. Except I'm the one really talking
about perception."
Philosopher A: "No, I am."

It is difficult to stop arguing. We are convinced that there is a
'right' way to describe or talk about a topic, even though the topic
itself, if it is more than its description, 'generated' the many
contradictory ways that the topic is talked about. Or, the many
ways of talking formed the topic of discussion. Or, a description
acquires a name like a newborn child and not the other way
around.

But isn't physical science different? Do we not agree upon
scientific theories, or at least have the ability to rank theories with
respect to degrees of correspondence to the truth of a topic? Can
we not say that Einstein's theory is closer than Newtown's theory
with respect to the topic of gravity?

The way physical science began to overcome ambiguity of topic
was by abandoning the assumption of a metaphysical object that
underlies the topic at the onset. Instead of theories of gravitation
we have, more humbly, theories concerned with particular collec-
tions of experiential judgments. The theory initially refers to a
collection of measurements and not to a hypothetical object of
reality such as gravity. The theory compresses, in one among
many ways, the commonality between the elements of the collec-

FALSEHOOD SO 119

tion. It matters not that the measured experiences depend upon
theory at the start— or that a measurement is a hypothetical
object, too. Every isomorphism between a theory's model and a
set of measurements is of some value.

120 »> MARC BUROCK

Appendix A.

Freedom

83

The only way to be free is to accept that you are not— then to
search for freedom anew.

Even if freedom is localized to the human organism, that
freedom is a formal property of the universe and not of man. The
question of free will, in this sense, is synonymous with the
question of the possibility of a free and open universe, the
question of the existence of any freedom at all anywhere.

85

Freedom is the acquisition of atemporal potential— the can
', which persists until that potential is destroyed or expended.

FALSEHOOD «0 121

86

Freedom is roughly the acquisition of ability, regardless of
mechanism. Even if you are coerced by a mind-controlling alien
into acquiring new potential, you may still claim that potential in
the name of freedom. And note: abilities that cannot be exercised
are not abilities.

87
The acquisition of new abilities requires the destruction of old ones.

88

Freedom is following a difficult path, believing that easier paths
exist.

89

Freedom is following the path of greatest resistance, of wasting
energy in the moment for a future promise that may never come
to be. In this way, freedom and the Good often conflict.

90

Freedom is the capacity to expend energy in excess to the needs
of transient survival.

91

Freedom is a violation of action physics.

92

Any path that is followed with ease makes no claim on
freedom— like the branch that follows the flow of a river. It does
nothing to oppose the surrounding current. A fish in the same
waters may swim other ways, but not without burning fuel.

122 »> MARC BUROCK

95

Suppose the opposition between an object and its path makes
sense, then, freedom is a form of dependence where the path of an
object is dependent, in part, upon the object itself.

94

Freedom is the opposition of one's desires and fears— out of the
desire and fear of freedom.

95

To do what comes unnaturally to you— that is freedom.

96

A feeling of choice suggests the vacillation of an unstable
machine. An efficient machine will damp out these transient
oscillations quickly. Someone who 'can't choose' is unable to
dissipate a chaotic mode; that person lacks an ability and there-
fore lacks some freedom.

97
The persistence of choice within indecision highlights an
absence of freedom, not its presence.

98

Freedom is understood in the meaninglessness of choice.

99

Anxiety is related to freedom, but not through choice. We
become anxious when expending ourselves while following the
difficult path, the path of freedom.

FALSEHOOD »0 123
100

I can no more control the movement of my arm than the rising
of the sun. Here is why. I am said to control the rising of my arm
when i) I expect first that my arm will rise, and 2) then I judge
that it does. If I did not expect my arm to rise yet it did, I could
hardly say that I was in control of its movement. It would be
moving, rather, against my will. With the sun, too, I expect it to
rise each day, and then I judge that it does; and in this sense I am
in control of the sun. While, in comparison to the rising sun,
there are many more instances during the day when I expect my
arm to rise and then I judge that it does, this increase in expecta-
tion-judgment pairs is all there is to this control. We believe we
can cause our arm to rise anytime we choose, and it does rise
without a fixed periodicity, but it only rises when it rises, and only
the times when I expect it to rise before it rises can be associated
with control. As I cannot directly alter my expectations at will, I
control the sun as much as my arm.

707

Physical energy makes no sense in a deterministic universe.
Potentials and stored capacities are linguistic fictions in a world
that evolves according to fixed dynamics. Nor is it clear that a
nondeterministic quantum mechanics fairs any better.

702
The universe determines its dynamical constraints and the
dynamical constraints determine how the universe changes. As
the universe evolves, there are new constraints and new
dynamics— a new universe dominates that was not contained in
nor predicted by the old. Conservation of energy, as a presumed
meta-law between all universes, works so well because of its

124 so MARC BUROCK

inherent ambiguity, flexibility, and potential space of expansion.
Energy theory is able to follow the flux of the cosmos, for as the
universe changes we may always change, add, or subtract terms in
the formula. Each energy term is, abstractly, a form of change
potential or potential for change. Energy theory and hypothetical
energy substance share this potential for change— f/ze theory and
the substance both have the potential to morph into new forms.
This theory-substance meta-consistency grants energy its
dominance in its world. Although the total potential for change
can be made constant for theories based upon continuous time, in
our world where time is not understood, the theory of energy
conservation limits our actual potential for change. The theory
creates what it means; it makes energy constant because it
constrains our present understanding of change, time, and potential.

103

Change is substance and form.

704
Everything that is, is now. Freedom is not.

705
Each moment is change.

706

Experience requires change alone— space and time are superfluous.

707

Relations between moments may manifest in the void, but
these connections are far removed from our physical laws.

FALSEHOOD K> 125

Appendix B.

Part-Whole

70S

A whole sustains its parts, and the parts create the whole.

709

A part within a whole cannot exit the whole and maintain its
identity as the part, or, a part's identity is conditional upon the
whole.

770
A part is undefined in itself. A whole is defined by its parts.

777
A whole may fragment. The fragments will be multiple wholes,
or will become parts belonging to a new whole.

126 so MARC BUROCK

772

The fragments will be dissimilar to the parts of the whole. If
they are identical, then the whole was not a whole to begin with; it
was a collection of multiple wholes.

77J

Wholes may accrete, but they must fragment to do so.

774

All wholes have parts.

775

All parts belong to wholes.

776

Parts do not have parts, but parts are not atoms. Atoms have
identity outside of the whole, parts do not. Atoms can accrete,
parts cannot.

777

Parts can neither fragment nor accrete. Wholes accrete by
fragmenting.

FALSEHOOD SO 127

Appendix C.

A Hope with Despair

Part 1.

118

A black blob fills the volume of my head; not formless but
poorly formed, writhing as an organic infestations of gooey,
plasma-like resin that I am waiting for its departure... But it will
not leave, at least not upon my command, and God has no interest
in my humble infection. It will likely clear on its own, I am sure—
I hope. I do not even require the intervention of a doctor or
mother or wife. We, the blob and I, are close friends for all time,
and as much as I hate the blob, I must believe the blob's hatred for
me arose only in defense of my initial, unjustified anger directed
at this poor, unaware creature.

128 to MARC BUROCK

119

Now the blob, black and gray and slightly shiny, mimics the
shape of a mouth with its amorphous and every-changing
material substance. What possibly could it be trying to tell me at
this time? It sounds like growling or gurgling, but behind these
muffled noises I can make out the barest formation of human-like
words. They are becoming more clear, more intense and neces-
sary, as if the blob needs to expel a secret of past crimes, a capital
sin that infects the blob from the inside. Presumptuous me! I
thought the blob was a disease upon me. But wrong, wrong,
wrong. I am inside of it, trying to vomit myself into clean air so
that I can breathe.

120

I am on the ground covered in mucinous, black-green slime,
able to breathe but only while gurgling through the sticky
substance in my mouth. I dream of rest, but the blob continues to
ungulate before my eyes, shaking more and more quickly,
vibrating in all direction simultaneously and I expect that it will
shake itself apart and cover me further with its remains. But the
blob relaxes. Why? I must understand the processes that govern
its behavior, but why must I ponder even this? A new net
overcomes me, this one made of rope and steel, tossed upon my
body, weighing me toward the ground. I look up and the blob
appears sad, even compassionate about my captivity. The blob
had no wish for this outcome after discharging me from its
insides. The goal was freedom.

FALSEHOOD SO 129
72/

A rainbow bursts through the ground, throwing debris that
freeze in mid air. I walk around the broken ground as it hovers
before me, looking underneath each piece for something but I
don't know what. Then I strike at the pieces, hoping to break
them further.

122
While spinning in the air I look down upon the previous scene:
the compassionate blob, broken ground, and I held captive. My
head becomes large; my eyes larger, my mouth a cavern, and I
contemplate devouring the entire picture, but instead I look away
into nothing, a void with pinpoints of light that might represent a
night sky, and I am pulled away and apart, my head stretching as
if near the gravity of a massive black hole. I am quickly thinning.

72J
Surprisingly, a flock of birds flutter on top of a blue sky. It has
started to rain acid but nothing is burned— we are able to play in
the rain regardless of its composition. And I run, laughing at
nothing, thinking of nothing, feeling the slippery ionic rain on my
fingers. I rub it into my face and expect my skin to peel off in
response to this noxious chemical, but as I have already said,
nothing here is burned. We are fireproof, acidproof, and water-
proof; not invincible, but unaffected by the chemical reactions
that transform the substance of our being. We remain identical
under transformation. Invariant.

130 so MARC BUROCK

124

Mathematical relations take on solid, physical form; part
symbolic expression and part material substance, filling space—
they are space— like a length of colorful ribbon. The bonds of the
math support me, and I hang above ground by relations that
touch me ever so softly. I am frozen here. Stagnant and comfort-
able. And so very unsatisfied. The ribbon wilts in response to my
lack of faith and begins to appear sad like the black blob of before.
I watch as the mathematical illumination loses form, loses color
and light, and coalesces into a compassionate, amorphous shape.
I have always been bound by the same thing.

125

The room and ground appear unchanged, except now there is
nothing to see. I am alone without even a body for warmth or to
localize me in space and time. It feels as though I have eyes, so
perhaps I was mistaken. I am two eyeballs, staggering back at
forth, looking at the writer who writes these words. These eyes
can see through my lies. They beg me to continue on with a bit of
friendly encouragement. "Why don't you continue writing?" they
say. Why not indeed. Explanations are unneeded so long as you
have friends.

126

My eyes go shooting off in opposite directions like a subatomic
transformation, pair production the physicists call it. We are
truly alone now, but for some reason I use the plural pronoun,
assuming that others are watching or perhaps here, in this empty
room without walls, with me, alone. I was going to describe the
walls as they appear to disintegrate into dust, but before I commit

FALSEHOOD 80 131

to that picture, I have decided to reconstruct and resoUdify the
prison surrounding the essence of me. I seem to enjoy being
trapped.

127

Let us place more people in the scene. Well-dressed men and
women, cutout figures of actual human beings actually, chat with
each other, hold alcoholic drinks in contemporary glassware-
stylish martini glasses and the like. Everyone is talking, but like
Pink Floyd, I can't hear what they are saying, nor do I believe that
they are saying anything at all. The cutouts move about from side
to side, smiling; they seem happy, unaware, and then suddenly
develop fangs. One gentleman, expectedly, must be a type of
vampire, drinking bloody margaritas, talking louder and louder,
always trying to get me to listen. Stop, it says. Then louder, stop!

ua
The cardboard cutouts of actual people slowly fall to the floor,
spin for a second, and then disappear. Plants, trees, and animals
take their place, but these organic objects are animate, almost
real, lively, joyous. I am in the treetops sitting on the solitary leaf
of a fragile branch, aware that this is all like a dream, enjoying the
creatures as they move through the foliage. The animals, smiling,
ask me to come on down. "Of course," I reply, and I slide off the
leaf and fall hard onto hard and then muddy, mushy earth. I
almost sink down but not this time— I'm too careful, too
propelled. I'm not even covered in mud this time. It just appears
that I am. Mud and flesh flash back and forth on my body,
lighting a small patch of jungle like a mud-flesh lamp. Animals
hide just beyond the edge of my illumination, curiously waiting
for something more to happen, or trying to make sense of this

132 so MARC BUROCK

alien spectacle. Am I unwelcome? The animals are neither angry
nor frightened, yet nor do they know what to do with me. And
why should it be their job anyway?

129
Spinning, I'm often spinning with vortex lines swirling around
me. I am a spinning zebra, whatever that means. I am also tilted.

130

A square of space expands from the void. In this world, space
is composed of only two dimensions; the third is the home of
Gargoyles who watch the expansion unfold, but even these
creatures cannot see the edge of the wave. I am on the edge of an
expanding x-y plane pushing space into itself, trying hopelessly to
contain its growth and preserve the void. Space pushes back
against my stomach, causing my body to warp under pressure.
There are no colors here, and the edge I speak of is only identified
by the pathetic mass of mostly water that curls against space's
invisible presence. Still, I have hope. I would not have told you
about water otherwise.

75/
A lion mauls my head, but he seems friendly. He is choking on
me, trying to wrestle his white fangs free from my skull, so I reach
up and try to pull off his mouth. Why does this friendly appearing
lion bite me at all? I must have purposely rammed my head into
the lion's mouth, but this action too requires an explanation, and
I have little time. I am stuck and in pain while the lion requires
food and water— my head is not a suitable meal. We struggle
together for hours then days without making progress. I have an
idea, "Go forward," I say to the lion, and he swallows me whole.

FALSEHOOD »> 133

This is what I wanted anyway. Inside the hon's stomach I smell
that he is not satisfied— or is he simply upset? I crouch to
conserve space and then decide to stand, stretching the lion's
abdominal walls from within, seeing the expression of pain on the
lion from without. I am full height and walking, unrestricted, but
covered in the lion's skin from the inside and prevented from
interacting with the world. We are together, the lion and I.

132
I no longer wish to write like this. In the morning I had a vision
of being melted except for my resilient eyes, but that was a forced
thought undeserving of a place here. And then I thought of the
initial blob and where it came from. That part was personal, but
now there is more: these words, the thoughts of others, and my
boredom of the process. I am hoping for a change.

Writing for me necessarily evokes the constipation of writing. I
have nothing in common with words. I am a physical being
wanting to thrust itself upon the universe, needing to become part
of the manifold, and words, these impotent little creatures, are
the lifeless carriers of meaning that should be trashed as soon as
the meaning is witnessed. (I have since discovered that words are
useful, too, you nasty little creatures).

134

I am waiting for the next vision. Multiple pictures flashed

before me, none holding fast except for a field of white noise that

I confuse for energy. How do you interpret my meaning? I

wonder. Are you a curious face or someone who uses the word

134 so MARC BUROCK

'weird' as if that word meant something other than a lack of
personal understanding— 'beyond one's world-theory-experience'
is a fair synonymic phrase.

135
I am running in the park. I want to say at night, but that is
cliche; in truth there is neither sunshine nor darkness. I am
sweating and fearful, trying to look behind for signs of pursuit but
I can't manage to turn my head completely around. If something
follows, I will never see it, so I decide to stop. The scene zooms
out. I remain in focus as a white outline, panting in the park while
the camera moves in and out tracing an invisible quarter spiral
rotation. There are large, gloved hands holding the camera, and it
becomes obvious that I am part of a diorama. A childhood
memory of a morning nightmare returns to me. In the dream it is
morning as well. I am in bed, awake, listening to deep thuds
patterned as footsteps, convinced that a planet-sized creature is
lumbering toward me. From bed, looking outside two windows, I
see trees and rooftops against the gray sky but no monster. The
thumping continues, becoming louder and deeper and I assume
closer. I am frightened, but not of death. I fear truth.

136

I feel guilty about using the word T. I desire my experiences to
be yours, but fear my self-indulgence and lack of grace will in part
prevent our connection. Whoever you think I am, I will not be. I
am a creation in your mind, and whatever attributes you bestow
upon this person, they include aspects of my experiences neces-
sarily coupled to and interpreted in within your uniqueness. Your
creation will be both greater and lesser than me. We will be
similar as well.

FALSEHOOD SO 135
137

A fire burns in the middle of this page; hands reach into the
flame for warmth. Others gather near, drawn by the light of many
human beings. Everyone wears earthy colored trench coats,
heavy leather gloves, and cotton scarves. These are the homeless
men and women that we ignore each day, but they could care less.
They have urgent matters to discuss, and as they talk, the fire
grows hotter and higher, making music like a choir. A witch
briefly shows her face and then disappears— no one notices.
People begin to take off their gloves as the warmth of the flame
pushes back the cold. We turn around and away fi-om the fire.
The talking ceases. Isolation sets in. Could it be that too much
heat prevents connections within electronic circuits and networks
of people identically? Cold and hunger at first brought us
together. Now we are most attracted to each other by the
magnetic force of confusion.

7J8
Before, it was a bright streak in the night, although now it
appears as an eager, dynamic ribbon, gesturing me to come along
for a trip. "Why are you so playful?" I think. I hesitate, and the
ribbon becomes angry.. .no, confused. It grows spikes that twist
into ram-like spirals; these must be children of the ribbon. They
elongate then dart away. The process repeats again and again,
faster after each generation of offspring. I think of a lizard-like
dinosaur that must have formed out of the math. It runs away to
go play in the jungle.

136 so MARC BUROCK

139

I am a comet's head in the cold Alps. Snowflakes fall on and
through me— they were supposed to melt, I think. Am I zigzag-
ging through the night sky on a hopeless mission to find another
soul? An animal? A village? And I see them all below me, a
composite of the creations of the world thrown together in an
angry mix, disjoint, disinterested; a collection of objects with
nothing in common other than elemental atoms. The atoms alone
deserve our praise, clever creatures, for they know how to live in
harmony, forming covalent bonds, offering their individual gifts
to the universe. I see two tiny atoms, at first unstable yet full of
possibility, that upon meeting sacrifice the essence of each other
to create a fused organism of greater potential than either atom
taken in isolation. Intelligence does not understand— from a
moral perspective— what the tiny atom has accomplished. It,
intelligence, greedily hoards personal possibility and experience.
Oh miserly mind.

140

I see two arms shaking hands through a periscope perspective.
My immediate interpretation of this scene relates to the bonding
of atoms, and I suspect that cultural, physical greetings are
intended to mimic the moral perfection of molecules. The
periscope moves to the right on a clockwise rotation, revealing a
group of living limbs, a mix of arms and legs that perhaps have
bodily owners outside of my line of vision. A single head pops up
from below. He has rough blond hair, large round eyes— too large
to be human, more likely a cartoon— and a maniacal smile. It is a
child's toy rotating on a stick. He blinks at me while his mouth
remains fixed and frozen. The head morphs into a biological

FALSEHOOD K> 137

human without hair and barely a head who begins walking away
from me through the mass of moving limbs. I am not horrified, but
rather pleased at my growing ability to perceive fiiUy formed people.

141

As I struggle and have struggled, the black blob has grown hairy
spider legs and a large circular mouth full of spiky, steel teeth.
The teeth chatter up and down as quickly as a chainsaw turns. I
am moving slowly toward the open mouth, but it is not me that it
wants— my mind is the prize. None of this makes sense because
the spider blob already lives in my head; to eat my mind would be
to eat its home, but the creature is not deterred and begins
munching on my web-like beliefs. It buzzes with a desire for its
own destruction. My beliefs are dismantled and swallowed
within themselves, passing through the spider's empty enteric
cavity and expelled undigested. Nothing has been accomplished,
like eating plastic. Upon reflection, this last phrase refers to all I
have written thus far.

142
Upon further reflection, a day later, I disagree with my former
self and stomp on the spider blob which at first resists then pops
under pressure. Had I known I had feet I would have done this a
bit sooner, but as you know, sometimes I question whether I have
limbs or not. It makes sense that an honest mind would be
skeptical about limbs; scientifically speaking, the only connection
I have to arms and legs are the electromagnetic impulses that
migrate through spacetime along linear, subway-like routes. You
see, we are not tissue; we are relations between matter, and these
wires and levers and pulleys that move when we move are no
more than helpful, simple machines that increase our relevance

138 so MARC BUROCK

to the universe. The stomach is a different creature entirely. My
advice to you: do not bully your stomach— it probably has more
consciousness than a chicken, experiences joy, sadness, and loss to
a limited extent; and can perform simple arithmetic calculations.

143

I am again a set of numbers written on a white sheet of paper '2
3 8 7 6 3...' The numbers are different sizes, and rhythmically
move in harmonic patterns on the page. They appear to levitate
off the page, but remain connected through nearly invisible bonds
that prevent full separation. Nor will the numbers ever leave the
page; the white sheet allows the numbers to be what they are. The
sheet folds on itself, around itself as a mobius strip connected
10,000 times to itself, and the numbers from opposite corners of
the page are gently attracted to each other, recursively multi-
plying, dividing, and subtracting. Functions are a community of
numbers that share common cultures, customs, and locations.
But what attracts numbers to each other at all? Where is the
tension that gives rise to change? Page and number must be
fundamentally tense, and although numbers are quite stable,
there is a law that the more stable a structure, the greater the
perturbation of everything outside of that structure. I am drawn
into dialectic anxiety.

144

When will it ever end? And I am not sure what I am talking
about. Several options present themselves: these paragraphs, my
life, the universe. A shadow crawls on the ground behind you,
rises up slowly, silently, and then reaches over to shake your
hand. You refuse and the shadow pleads; it makes dark gestures
with its hands and mouth, trying to inaudibly explain the situa-

FALSEHOOD »> 139

tion from the perspective of a shadow, but you cannot understand
the message. One must be educated in the school of darkness in
order to communicate with one's shadow. Only then may you
both talk nostalgically as childhood friends about the sun and
other sources of light.

745
I worry too much about what has been written and where this
is going, and I know too well that such worries convert interesting
thoughts into non-recyclable plastic, yet I have not figured out a
robust way to suppress my expectations except to include them in
the story itself— not as a confession of my flaws but as a technique
to overcome them. Even now, I worry that this method too will fail.

746

I am reminded that nothing really matters, but at least today,
this moment, I see that nihilism is merely a psychological coping
strategy for a world that matters too much. In our universe, an
exquisitely sensitive organism will be overwhelmed by the
onslaught of meaning to the point of meltdown. Nihilism is a
useful device that, in times of crisis, constrains and prevents a
total systems failure. I believe in both God and Nothing simulta-
neously, but I must confess; this simultaneity of belief begins to
feel like a dynamic God who furiously oscillates between
Nothingness and Something, both bound together by a force I
cannot yet describe or name.

747

The screen fills with the white, static noise of a television of old.
I have seen this picture before in my thoughts, and many times in
waking vision. A bulging circular deformation evolves in the

140 so MARC BUROCK

center of the screen, trying to give organization to the unstruc-
tured noise. I hear in the static the voices of 10,000 souls talking
at once. There are moments when a small voice stands out from
the others, and I can almost discern words, or moans, or music in
the unpatterned hiss. It becomes an orchestra of percussion,
brass, and string; the instruments transiently take shape within
an ocean of all frequencies, almost as if the instruments were
breaking through the surface of a pool just to play a brief tune for
the world before melting away. I am enjoying sound.

148

There is a short story I must tell you. Why? Because it keeps
telling itself to me. A girl without a name walks through life
imagining the destruction of the people she meets. The destruc-
tion is not abstract in an5mray— she sees a man on a plane decapi-
tated by a circular steel blade, and a classroom of fellow students
hit by a rocket launcher and then burned. The images of death are
only in her mind, but the people are in fact quite real, for she
overlays these mental images of accidental murder, like trans-
parencies, on top of actual people. Some are strangers while
others are family or friends. For many years she has played out
these scenes with innocent subjects, unaware of committing any
crime. Nor did anyone ever suspect that she possessed unaccept-
able thoughts; her dresses were too clean. Apart from violent
images, she is compassionate down to the molecular level. She
cannot watch, without crying, the struggle of a worm as it crawls
on dry gravel searching for moist, rich earth. She of course has
these same feelings of love for all human beings, but the magni-
tude of suffering and hopeless movement of men and women
overwhelmed her empathic organ early on, converting her

FALSEHOOD »5 141

compassion into a desire for murderous relief. One day she told
me that her rage was always directed toward suffering itself and
never at the people who speckled her life. I only believed her in part.

Part 2.

149

A clear sheet of plastic begs for attention. It is partly curled on
one end like a rug, and as I look, it begins to roll up more fully.
You might think that I was standing on the plastic, but I was not.
I am not in the scene at all.

750
The plastic sheet was the only object in the universe— the void
is more apparent now that the sheet is rolled up. I see scattered,
small, white, oozing pockets that squeeze out of the void and then
rhythmically retract. Is the black blob now white? Is it trying to
get to me, even though I am not there?

757
Nothing.

752
The rainbow, it has returned at the mention of truth. Then it
melts. So close.

142 so MARC BUROCK

153

If the cycle cannot return, then it will choose to stop entirely,
extracting perfect revenge upon the parts that attempt to quell it.
We must strike a deal, cycle and not-cycle parts. I say, let us work
together as one, making fun of the land we are in. But my accept-
ance of you is not enough, for it presumes our separateness and
perpetuates the divide. What is left? I will listen to you, please,
give the orders again, but do not mistake my submission for an
invitation of infinite abuse.

154

How shall I insult you, dear observer? Where do your
weaknesses begin? Let me see, let me search around these parts,
under the table, in the car, under a box. Yes, under a box I found
you hiding in a dark closest, listening to those people downstairs.
Why did you want to hide from family? It is silly to think it would
cause you that much pain, but it would have. Who were you
taking bullets for? Who shoots you now?

755

That girl in the garage.. .she was yelling at you for something,
and you were crying. Who struck first? And why do you still bleed?

156

When surrounded by hyenas, one cannot help but develop a
taste for rotting meat.

757
I was on a merry-go-round. ..by myself?

FALSEHOOD SO 143

158

I was lost, and then found.

759

I touched the pitchfork of the devil... and grabbed it for myself.
I could have taken hell if I wanted it.

760

I have never rejected what I have done in pursuit of fear. What
kind of bias is that? Should not some things done for fear be
denied, just as things done for desire? Why do I trust fear so
much more than its opposite? In the past, perhaps fear always
guided me along the most interesting path. And it is still a good
rule of thumb, but the problem, as it has always been, is the avoid-
ance of desire— a logical error on my part. But is not my denial of
desire a fear of desire, so to speak? And if I fear desire, then
perhaps desire is what I should now approach, but not out of a
fear for desire; rather, out of desire's affirmation.

767
The wind of the moment lashes between the sheets, without
hubris, it denies the solitude of a safe flight. But no less, I cannot
become the multitudes of what I wish I were not, so I languish in
despair, reaching for nothing but the wisp of dark threads that
surround my room. In contrast to the night, I am what I wish I
were— to be an innocent speck on the background of the earth's
crust, deeper, below the core of hot magma lies the sleeping
dragon of children, blowing cold smoke in the inferno.