When three is not three

“Until now, science could arise only on this solidified, granite foundation of ignorance, the will to know rising up on the foundation of a much more powerful will, the will to not know, to uncertainty, to untruth! Not as its opposite, but rather — as its refinement!” - Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Part 2.

In class and discussion, we questioned if someone could learn a myth older, not only if they would remember it but if it would stick in their brain as something innately true, even in its untruth. I know D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths to be false — to be myths in both senses of the word —, but my parents put that book on tape so often that “In olden times, when men still worshiped ugly idols, there lived in the land of Greece…” still rings true to me. The cadence of the words still sounds in my ears as truth even in falsity. The music still compels me.

But how can something be both true and false at the same time? We also discussed the unchanging and objective quality of music: if it is made from math, how can it be wrong? Three is three is three… unless it’s not. In this quote, Nietzsche questions the very foundations of our epistemological claims. Take the example of music: we know a song to start on a three-count, but it will never really start there, there will always be a millisecond off, a certain impreciseness. Sounds will always be a little discordant, even if barely perceptible to the human ear. But if a music director were to narrow in on making sure that the notes begin at exactly three seconds, he would miss the human character of the music, the experience of hearing a song. To Nietzsche, it is impossible for life to exist except on the basis of subjective perspectival experiences. Either way, something is lost: three is not really three, at least in the way we’d like it to be.

To say three is so simple is belies a lie; it implicitly admits that the search for truth tacitly accepts not only ignorance but falsity. If the material world only ever approximates the world of forms, why must we insist on the forms themselves? Nietzsche would answer that we have a powerful call to ignorance, a weakness that prevents all but the most powerful from accessing reality, a new philosophy. I would say that this impreciseness is a symptom of the Fall but our good natures still allow us to access a certain truth, even if it is obscured. Our knowledge of good is like Plato’s remembrance; our past life is pre-lapsarian.

This brings me to another question we raised: can we perceive Melkor’s discord? If Melkor’s revolt is like Lucifer’s rebellion, if discord is evil, then we present the same problem that we have in Christian theology: the origin of this evil. Iluvatar/harmony/good/God/order exists first in this narrative — it is not the chaos of Hesiod’s Theogony. And thus, a departure from this good is not a separate thing, but a negation of the good itself [how does this happen? I am not satisfied with Augustine’s explanation and am deeply confused]. I don’t even think that it has to be a complete negation, as Iluvatar asserts that it still has an ultimate source in him (17) [thus can anything be truly evil? The Fall? Augustine’s unprompted thievery of the pear?]. However, I think that not only can we hear Melkor’s discord (if a hampered version), but in fact, all we hear is Melkor’s discord. Everything is built on this mix of unity and negation: three is never quite three.

To return to youth: other philosophers would answer that we are not able to believe myths in the same way as adults because we have a different relationship to truth and falsehood. In Plato’s Republic Book VII, Socrates suggests banishing everyone over ten from the city to create a “just city” out of an unjust one might be possible. Of course, this is patently preposterous: it is comical in the same way a city without meat can be called the “City of Pigs.” And yet we are primed to accept this preposterousness; we accept that a city must have both no adults and no families and yet must still have procreation for the creation of new citizens. There is something inherently illogical at the root of fallen societies. Put in sharp relief, we are not as likely to believe, but as children, we are lulled into a false sense of security — we are habituated into a certain self-delusion. Even as adults, we survive on this delusion, both because it makes us comfortable and because it is necessary to move through the world as functional beings. We are always in a cave, one of our own making. However, new myths don’t stick to adults in the same way they do to children because we have already been taught to accept a certain flavor of falsehood in our youth. In fact, we are so accustomed to this delusion that even the pursuit of knowledge involves a sort of tacit ignorance.

Art adds another layer of abstraction. As Plato says again in his Republic, artists are second-order liars — every move from Form to material to representation of material distorts it: every creation is a type of lie. Putting this in conversation with Tolkien’s sub-creation is practically impossible (yet another case of Neoplatonism being paradoxical). Perhaps putting the two together raises the question: how can sub-creation be possible among such fallen souls? How can we at once be likened to Iluvatar in our creative capacity and yet corrupted by Melkor’s discord in every facet of our minds? Perhaps Plato would have preferred creation remain unthought, a potentiality in Iluvatar's mind never quite reached.

- KW