SUSPENDED IN THE SPACE OF REASON:
A SHORT THESIS
‘What I thought I had seen with my eyes, I actually grasped solely with the faculty of judgment, which is my mind.’
– René Descartes
Bats basically scream
until they hear their voices
echo off bugs and trees. Then they know
where they are and exactly what and how large
the thing is they are hunting. If we had
a precise stopwatch we could tell
how far it is to the other side.
In the middle of the night even my own
breath sounds loud. I’m not an expert
in echolocation so I just open the fridge
and use the little light. Half asleep, I eat
an entire jar of chipotle-lime mustard,
I’m not sure why. According to one health pamphlet,
asking questions is a roadblock
to real communication. Dennett says
we’ll do whatever it takes
to assuage epistemic hunger.
But my findings are inconclusive.
Yesterday I yelled at myself and
nothing came back at all.