I was intrigued by something to which I heard only passing reference on the radio one afternoon. It was so intriguing that I have been trying to extend the idea – but, it is deceptively difficult.
On the radio the question was asked as to what stories might be told if narrated by non-human objects. What, for example, would an electric toaster or a copy of Newton's Principia make of things we humans take for granted, or take very seriously? Then a more specific question was asked: 'What is the notion of love as experienced by an advancing column of tanks?' This, even I find to be a quite bazaar juxtaposition of ideas, although on reflection one can see something of what must be going on in the mind of the composer of the question. An advancing column of tanks is something bent on warfare which stands in contradistinction to 'the concept of love'. Tanks – as inanimate objects – cannot think up concepts or experience love, but they are driven by those who can. We do not usually associate tanks with their human occupants – they are hidden away. But, who is it that wages war, the tanks or their occupants? Or those back in the comfort and safety of Head Quarters.
Although a seemingly absurd juxtaposition of ideas poses the listener with an unanswerable question, it is not the production of an answer that matters. Here, an answer would prove to be quite superficial if not counter productive. Rather, it is exploration of the question – the use of the absurd to bring what is otherwise hidden to light – that is important. In so doing, the absurd becomes useful and, in becoming useful, the absurd becomes less absurd - it even becomes practical!
Having set the scene, here are some examples of bazaar and absurd questions with some comments.
Q. How does a sewer understand a human?
A sewer is buried away underground. It does not have a direct view of the world above-ground where humans live. A sewer can have no concept of wide open spaces - a sewer is a confined space within the solid ground. A sewer may never have had direct contact with a human being. All a sewer may know of humans is what humans put into them. How then does a sewer gauge the quality of human beings from what human beings put into them? Can a sewer tell that what goes through them is waste? The rats that live in sewers make a good living out of what can be found there, so how can one say that the contents of sewers aren't good?
In this question, there is perhaps more than a hint of Plato's allegory of the cave. Instead of seeing shadows of another world cast onto the wall of the cave, the sewer must analyse that world using what that world sends through it i.e. what the human world above parts with.
Interestingly, some of what passes through a sewer is also used for clinical testing. Whereas such a test is done only intermittently on individuals in need of examination, a sewer knows the state of what regularly passes through it and how this changes from day to day and with the seasons – not that a sewer has any knowledge of days or seasons; it has no concept of time (presumably). All a sewer can say is that what goes into it is not constant in volume or constitution.
Q. If the parts of the body were likened to words, what would be the meaning of the words taken as a set?
and,
Q. Would this set of words make a whole sentence? If so, could only one sentence be made from those words?
In relation to the latter two questions, see also Human Being, Biology And 'Text'.