Certainty
Looking at the flying chair in the Maximalism exhibition and thinking of the certainty that it will come down again, I started wondering - - what am I certain about?
The first thing that sprang to mind – and I’m not sure why – is my left and my right. Which might not seem too astounding a certainty, but I was brought up by a mother who hasn’t a clue which is which.
So she’s great at giving directions in the car.
“Turn right. No, RIGHT - - MY WAY! Not your way! MY WAY! - - Oh, LEFT then.”
How can you not know your left from your right? I have known it for as long as I’ve known anything.
In my mother’s case, I suspect the confusion springs from the fact that she was very probably left-handed, but was made to use her right hand at school, and so has ended up almost ambidextrous but completely confused over left and right.
My mother had a stroke about fourteen years ago – she made an astonishing, almost-complete recovery, probably because she was so fit before it. Further, and rather interestingly, the stroke puzzled the doctors because she had lost certain functions characteristic of a stroke on the other side, and retained various functions that she should have lost. So left and right are clearly hard-wired in her head in a tangle of wires.
Another thing I’m certain about is colours – always have been. That’s red. That’s orange. That’s blue.
But there’s a slight query about this. I’ve met people who seemed equally certain about their colours – but what they thought was turquoise, I thought was green, and what I thought was red, they thought was orange.
And it’s always been something I’ve pondered from time to time. Is is a question of naming, or one of seeing?
If it’s just a question of naming, then it’s simply that I call colours from that shade to that shade red, but you name them slightly differently, and you call my end shade of red, orange.
But what if it’s seeing? What if we all see colours slightly differently? Perhaps I can’t be certain about them at all. Everyone has a different view of the world - - perhaps they see it in different colours, too.
The first thing that sprang to mind – and I’m not sure why – is my left and my right. Which might not seem too astounding a certainty, but I was brought up by a mother who hasn’t a clue which is which.
So she’s great at giving directions in the car.
“Turn right. No, RIGHT - - MY WAY! Not your way! MY WAY! - - Oh, LEFT then.”
How can you not know your left from your right? I have known it for as long as I’ve known anything.
In my mother’s case, I suspect the confusion springs from the fact that she was very probably left-handed, but was made to use her right hand at school, and so has ended up almost ambidextrous but completely confused over left and right.
My mother had a stroke about fourteen years ago – she made an astonishing, almost-complete recovery, probably because she was so fit before it. Further, and rather interestingly, the stroke puzzled the doctors because she had lost certain functions characteristic of a stroke on the other side, and retained various functions that she should have lost. So left and right are clearly hard-wired in her head in a tangle of wires.
Another thing I’m certain about is colours – always have been. That’s red. That’s orange. That’s blue.
But there’s a slight query about this. I’ve met people who seemed equally certain about their colours – but what they thought was turquoise, I thought was green, and what I thought was red, they thought was orange.
And it’s always been something I’ve pondered from time to time. Is is a question of naming, or one of seeing?
If it’s just a question of naming, then it’s simply that I call colours from that shade to that shade red, but you name them slightly differently, and you call my end shade of red, orange.
But what if it’s seeing? What if we all see colours slightly differently? Perhaps I can’t be certain about them at all. Everyone has a different view of the world - - perhaps they see it in different colours, too.
posted by Daphne at 10:22 pm
2 Comments:
Linnea appears to have a good grasp of left and right, which is interesting, because neither I nor Rob are very reliable about them.
I wouldn't say the chair would certainly fall: it is merely very, very likely (I think in terms of probability very close to 1). An almost infinite number of things could happen: for example, a freak gust of wind could catch it and hang it neatly on a hatstand.
Now is my way of thinking related to the fact that I am not particularly handed (either left or right)? I had great difficulty learning left from right, and even now can do most things with either hand. Or is it more because I have always favoured the sciences rather than the arts?
I remember when Emily was very small she often wanted me to promise something or other would happen in the future. I really, really hated doing it, no matter how likely it was, because I knew that there is always a chance that something might crop up to change our plans. To me, certainty is a very rare thing.
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