Details = Devils

The more you learn about other life forms on this planet, the more you begin to suspect we don't know very much yet.

Even though there's been an explosion in human knowledge in the sciences in modern times, everything scientists learn seems to open up new questions, as opposed to providing more answers.

For example, it is quite clear that some plants act in ways that we would have to call "intelligent," and it is equally clear that some small and presumably simpler animals than us possess knowledge about certain scientific principles we have only recently perceived ourselves.

Examples of these are given in the book What Technology Wants.

Furthermore, our ability to comprehend what we call the universe is becoming complicated as some scientists suggest that our universe is only one of many universes.

In other words, just as we've gradually come to realize, as a species, that we are not the center of life on our planet, and that our planet is not the center of life in our universe, we gradually may be peeling back a very large onion as we seek to understand what exists out there in the vastness of space.

As I was listening to a scientist and author talk about this today on NPR, I started thinking in the other direction -- microscopically -- imagining that inside our bodies may be the equivalent of multiple universes, if only we could "see" the ever-tinier structures and life forms that live inside of us.

In that case, we may each turn out to be a perfect microcosm of the cosmos. What, then, would prevent us from perceiving that our entire universe is simply a small creature inside a much larger creature?

Maybe this, finally, would be God.

I've long known that the outer edges of physics and philosophy tend to merge. I was a "philo" major for a while in college, and was deeply affected by the writings by all of the major philosophers. I still am.

When you allow your world view to be expanded both in the outer and the inner directions, and take into account the latest findings reported by scientists, you can't help but feel frustrated at just how little we actually know about these ultimate questions.

***

From the abstract to the concrete. No one can exist only by thinking; we also have to keep our physical and emotional beings engaged if we are to be healthy. I've slowly discovered over my lifetime how important the art of conversation is to my own well-being.

Part of this has to do with story-telling. Talking inevitably turns into story-telling of one sort or another. And stories bring us comfort when we most need it.

Even in the routine, mundane details of our daily lives, stories keep forming and unfolding. The issue is whether and at what stage we recognize them.

Some stories remain invisible to us, and this can cause us great harm and great pain. Imagine that you thought you knew somebody really well; that you had touched his or her consciousness so intimately, and he/she in return had touched yours, that there were no secrets left between you.

Then, imagine that you receive a psychic shock that calls all of these assumptions into question.

What are you to do with that kind of experience? Go crazy? Stop trusting your deepest instincts and insights? Stop trusting other people at all? Blame him/her for your error of judgment?

We have a cliche in this country that goes like this -- "what you don't know won't hurt you."

Most cliches seem to have some basis in reality, but this particular one has always seemed to me to be patently false.

Maybe that is the result of being a journalist, spending a lifetime devoted to discovering what is usually considered as the "truth," including learning how to peel back layers of onions built of lies and distortions to reveal truths not previously known, that leaves me unsettled by the above scenario.

Reporters are good at finding bits of information, and often also good at recognizing patterns in information. I know I am.

Informational patterns emerge in a number of ways, one of which is pure math. The numbers of anything will tell a story, once you do the necessary translation.

I'll give an example. Years ago, while researching my first book, I found out that the World Health Organization estimated that 500,000 people a year at that time were poisoned by pesticides.

I translated that into the rough equivalent of one per minute.

From that point on, in countless articles written by others, I noticed the "one per minute" reference about the scale of global pesticide poisonings. (Actually, that number was a slight exaggeration; an accurate figure would have been one poisoning every 63 seconds, but who was counting?)

The point is that by recognizing and documenting patterns, we journalists strive to reveal "truth." The reason I use quotes around that word is that I've long since learned that there rarely is a single truth about anything, but a range of truths, depending on your perspective, experience, and belief system.

So, back to the imaginary scenario where a person who thought he knew someone else finds out that the best evidence suggests he didn't know him/her at all. What can any of us make of that? How do we incorporate this new realization into our sense of self and go forward?

This is truly a dilemma, one that any number of us face at some point in our lives. And it may well be, just as is the case often in the best of our fictional writings, that there is an essential ambiguity at the center of everything we do, think, and feel.

Maybe we never can know the answers to some questions. But the journalist in me protests -- surely someone somewhere knows the "truth!" If only I dig, I will too.

But that raises another cautionary tale, one that perhaps comes closer to confirming that old cliche -- beware of finding what you are looking for.

There are plenty of facts about anything or anyone, but just because you collect those facts does not automatically translate into any greater quantity of "truth" than you had before you started looking.

I know what I am saying here is heresy for a journalist, and I do not mean to in any way undermine the basis of journalism, which I love and respect above all other trades.

And in my own life I have chosen, again and again, to know rather than not know.

But, I now find myself no longer wanting to know all sorts of things. Some things, even though they could be discovered, may better be left unknown. That way, I can continue to think and feel the way I wish to, based on my own imperfect knowledge.

That way, I can continue to nurture that most fragile of traits -- being able to trust others.

That's a choice.

Which is another way of saying that that old cliche -- what you don't know won't hurt you -- may have finally, at least partially, won me over.

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