Ignorance is Bliss

While reading Cat’s Cradle as well as your posts I started to think about the saying “ignorance is bliss” and what this really means.  I always disagreed with this because I have always thought the world to be such a rich place that not taking advantage of anything there is to learn would be a shame.  How could anyone be happy not knowing?  It never seemed fulfilling to me.  However, Vonnegut made me question my logic.  The world is inherently a place of uncertainty where almost nothing is ever really true.  So, in a sense, we are all living in ignorance. 

Furthermore “ignorance is bliss” has almost the same meaning as “living by the foma that make you…happy.”  However, I think there is a key difference.  Living by a certain set of foma involves choosing to live by them, constructing your own reality in which to live.  Choosing to live by a set of lies requires a deep awareness, not ignorance. 

Relative Necessity

“I was grateful to Newt for calling it to my attention, for the quotation captured in a couplet the cruel paradox of Bokononist thought, the heartbreaking necessity of lying about reality, and the heartbreaking impossibility of lying about it (Vonnegut 284)”.

I do not think that the premises of this paradox are necessarily true, nor that both halves of this paradox are necessarily heartbreaking.

If the first half is true, then the second half must be. If I must lie about reality, there is a lies layer, and a “reality” layer; however, the reality layer is also subjective, as humans cannot know objective reality. Thus, assuming the first half is true, I am contriving beliefs atop other convictions. Therefore, moving into the second half, it IS impossible for me to lie, because I am telling myself things while knowing that contradictory things are true. The coexistence of contrary realities in my mind renders complete self-deception impossible.

However, at least theoretically, the first half of the paradox is not necessarily true. I could have perfect conviction of a reality. In such a case, there would be no contrivance atop a subjective reality, but only a subjective reality. This state of belief would undo the second half, because lying about reality would be possible, because the lie is exactly the reality.

While I can conceive of this exception to the Bokononist paradox, I submit that certain scientific and/or religious “facts” are inculcated to us so powerfully that we all live in primarily involuntary subjective realities. Therefore, when we decide to integrate beliefs into our realities, they are bound to be contradicted by elements of our pre-existing “knowledge”. This entails a co-presence of “lies” and “reality” which renders the Bokononist paradox subjectively true.

As to whether both halves of the paradox are heartbreaking, I assert that the “necessity of lying about reality” is heartbreaking, as long as “reality” is inherently heartbreaking. If my reality is that the world is “objectively” meaningless, it is heartbreaking for me to try to convince myself otherwise, because the second half of the paradox determines that I cannot lie completely. However, the “impossibility of lying about” reality is not, at least in my case, heartbreaking. “Reality”, or what I have come to believe is fact, sets a baseline plane of existence, a mundane paradigm of life, which enables me to transcend something via my “lies”. I can feel that the world is objectively meaningless, but that my life has meaning, and the relative stature of my existence fulfills me. I can only be fulfilled when I feel above, special, magical, good, honorable, important: all of these sensations are relative. There must be something less for there to be something more. My subjective reality is less, my uplifting lies are more, and that is not heartbreaking, rather, it is why I am an extremely happy person.

There it is: extremely happy person. Relative to whom? I suppose it the conceptual beings in my reality whom I lie myself ahead of.

Busy Busy Busy

According to Bokononism, life is propelled by the interaction of both people and their histories to an eventual, predetermined end. Despite this perception of an interconnected and ongoing system, perhaps it is a fallacy to believe that events are anything other than separate occurrences. Furthermore, maybe even the connection of individuals is a lie- the idea of a karass is entirely based on the thought that human beings live interconnected lives, but, while our lives may be affected by those of the people around us, who is to say that we don’t remain independent of each other? I’ll admit that this theory seems hard to substantiate in a book full of suggestions of an overwhelmingly connected system. 

One scene in which the idea that things are less interconnected than they might seem arises as Angela and Jonah interact on the plane. As Angela shows Jonah the photos of those she loves, he says that “she had trapped [them] like fossil beetles in amber.” (“Cat’s Cradle” 114) Though this comment may pass without seeming important, it is more meaningful when considered in the context of Vonnegut’s larger body of work. The comparison of human beings to bugs trapped in amber is not unique to Cat’s Cradle and more famously arises within Slaughterhouse- Five. One example of this is found as a Tralfamadorian says, “All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.” (Slaughterhouse- Five 86) As Vonnegut uses the image of bugs in amber, he suggests that human beings live separate lives, contained within their own experiences, and that each of these experiences can be teased apart. Furthermore, it is only when a string of events is taken apart that meaning can be found within each moment. Finally, the image of bugs in amber within Slaughterhouse- Five clearly evokes the idea of fate; although meaning cannot be derived from all time, it is what must always occur, even without explanation. These ideas can also be applied to the game cat’s cradle, the apparent image of a system at work found within Cat’s Cradle. Although cat’s cradle is a systematic and two person game, meaning can be found only when it is looked at move by move, otherwise is is only an on going system, working without explanation. Furthermore, for the game to progress only each individual move matters- while the moves before must have been done properly, once a move has been made it becomes a part of that which has occurred; it’s irrelevant to how the game goes on. Additionally, even though cat’s cradle as a game depends on the input of at least a pair of people, they need not converse or truly interact to move the game forward- each participant needs only play his part and make his move for the system to continue. The application of fate to the game cat’s cradle is especially clear- for the game to continue, each move is inevitable.

While Bokononism hinges the interconnection of people and events, maybe this is simply another lie we tell ourselves to try and find comfort. In reality, these connections don’t exist- we each exist in our own spheres, not truly interacting, acting only as we must to keep playing.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat's Cradle. New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 1998. Print. 

- - -. Slaughterhouse-five, Or, the Children's Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death. New York: Dell, 1991. Print. 

Truth Within Fiction

The best fiction, in my opinion, is not written simply to entertain. It's supposed to tell us something about ourselves or the world around us, some little truth that's easy to miss on our own. The stories might be made up, the characters might not exist in the physical world, but the truth within fiction applies to us.
The Things They Carried contains a lot of these little truths. I thought it was true the first time I read it, until I hit the part that says he made it all up. I thought O'Brien was telling his readers what war was really like, illustrating it with these crazy true stories; but once I got over the initial shock of realizing it was fiction, it didn't matter. The emotion is real, the sentiment is real. Is that what matters? That we feel something when reading a story, that it makes us realize the truth of the world?
It's like the discussion we had about the pretext in Cat's Cradle... "Nothing in this book is true." For me, it's not about the fact that Vonnegut's story is fiction, that it came from his head. It's the realization that there might be no truth in the story. You go into reading with the thought that you'll learn nothing about the world around you. "All fiction is a transmission of the truth," is a brilliant sentence I heard in Tuesday's discussion. The stories themselves are lies, but what's beneath them--emotion, the author's intent--that's real. That matters. And when Vonnegut says "Nothing in this book is true," he discounts that. He makes it seems as if he had no reason to write this book other than to entertain, when really--although Cat's Cradle fulfills that purpose--it also tells us a deeper truth about religion and science, just as The Things They Carried tells us about war.

Science vs. Reality

Despite our discussion in class on Tuesday, I am still convinced that most scientific theory is indeed fact, or at least supported enough to be considered fact. Just because a person believes that the world is flat, does not mean that that person is correct, or even sane. Facts cannot be simply refuted like an opinion, and they are by definition the truth. Vonnegut’s point in Cats Cradle is not to say that different realities contain different facts, but that individual realities are unaffected by fact. This is exemplified in Dr. Hoenikker’s interest in the string that binds the pages of 2000 A.D. rather than the book itself. He constantly plays with and manipulates the technical end of the book, the string, while completely ignoring the actual content, which can be seen as humanity. Jonah himself notes that the book he intends to write is meant to “emphasize the human rather than technical side of the bomb” (7). Here, Vonnegut introduces the separation of the content of humanity from the truths of science. This is an important distinction because it separates reality from fact without having to make such rash statements like, “science is not fact.”

Many theories are yet to be proven, and science is, of course, not perfect. We are always improving the limits of our knowledge. However, Vonnegut does not aim to question the truth of science in Cat’s Cradle. Rather, he poses a question: does it even matter?

Religion vs. Science

The point that was brought up in class yesterday that "science is not facts" threw a lot of us for a loop. I think that was the first time in my life that I have ever considered science as a theory rather than hard facts, and it was hard for me to comprehend the idea but after embracing the idea it made a lot of sense. In the seventeenth century, people were positive that the world was flat. It was a concrete fact. Today, we know that that "fact" is not true and we are positive that the world is round. In 300 years there will probably be some new kind of information that is positive that the world is                  . Whatever that new fact may be doesn't matter. What matters is that these facts, although they are facts, can turn out to be false. And just because a fact is published in a science magazine or the Smithsonian doesn't necessarily mean it is and forever will be 100% true.
Religion, in my opinion, is kind of the same. Although there are not hard facts, no concrete evidence of events or ideas, people still believe in it. Like science, religion changes day to day. People reinterpret ideas from the Bible or other Holy books, just like facts continue to change in textbooks. Either way, the two "theories" are upheld because people believe in them. Religion is upheld because people believe in some higher power. Science is upheld because people believe in scientists. I believe the two opposites are much closer together than we think.

Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right, But Do Two Books of Lies Make a Truth?

It boggles my mind that we can find "truth" in the layers of meta-textual lies that the reader is told throughout Cat's Cradle. Taking a step back from my easily manipulated reader-self, I realize that I am constantly reminded that what we are reading is "false". The first text that we read is that "Nothing in this book is true,"(Vonnegut, pre-text) and then we continue to see that also on the title page of the Book's of Bokonon it reads, "Don't be a fool! Close this book at once! It is nothing but foma!"(Vonnegut, 265). How can we still draw meaning and find truths from the multiples levels of lies that are explicitly stated to be untrue?

I think there is meaning in the double negative that exists in the multiple layers of falsehood. If you think about technically, if the pre-text states that everything is untrue and the Book's of Bokonon (inside the false setting of Cat's Cradle) state that everything in that book is lies, then shouldn't the Book's of Bokonon actually be the opposite of lies? If a lie is in a lie is it inherently true?

This reminds me of the classic where you reach a fork in the road and there are two brother that one always tells the truth and one always tells a lie, and you can only ask them each one question to figure out the correct way to go. The answer is that you ask each of them what their brother would answer, therefore the truth telling brother will give you the lie and the lying brother would also give you the lie, and you go the other direction. It's in this double lie that we are given the right path, similar to some of the meta-textual double lies that end up revealing truths in Cat's Cradle. 

I think this is where Vonnegut puts a lot of meaning in the satire in this work, as the layers of lies, in which the reader thinks are false, actually are revealing a deeper layer of truth in which the reader can choose to accept or deny. I think Cat's Cradle is a clever way of blurring the line between true and false because in the end, isn't "our world" a lot closer to the world in Cat's Cradle where seemingly "nothing in [it] is true."

Distorted Views

As children we all grow up learning certain things, accepting most of them to be true. We rarely question what we are being taught, and seldom try to come up with our own radical ideas. We accept the accepted and move on. So many beliefs and ideas in our society rely on our acceptance and faith to exist. This idea of reliance became clear to me while analyzing Cat’s Cradle.

The story Vonnegut wrote primarily deals with the topic of religion: the idea that religion is constructed to make us happy. We, as humans, need to have something to believe in. We use religion to define good and bad, right and wrong, when really how do we know any of what we believe in is actually true? It would be impossible to prove that each religion is right, so instead we have faith that what we think, is correct. We are satisfied believing what we have been taught. Consequently, without this devotion to the unknown, religion would be nonexistent.

“Little Newt snorted. ‘Religion!’ ‘Beg your pardon?’ Castle said. ‘See the cat?’ asked Newt. ‘See the cradle?’” (Vonnegut 183)

If we, as people, don’t believe in something, then it doesn’t necessarily exist: in our own world at least. This holds true for the metaphor of the cat’s cradle. If you are unwilling to try and see the cat’s cradle in the string, then there is no way you will ever believe that it is there. On the other hand, if you have been told to look for a cat’s cradle, then it becomes easier to distort what you are looking at into what you now view as the “right answer”.

How to do Cat's Cradle AND the next move we couldn't figure out

http://www.wikihow.com/Play-The-Cat's-Cradle-Game

Mud

In Cat's Cradle, mud is both man's downfall and its origin. Looking back, it's easy to pinpoint the initial idea that ultimately ended the world: "The absence of mud. No more mud" (Vonnegut 43). The marines asked for a way to turn mud solid, and Hoenikker's mind went off like a shot. This short-sighted request from a general is what sparked Hoenikker's imagination and led to the creation of ice-nine.

When I first read that passage, I thought the "stinking miasma and ooze" (47) that the general complained of would be mentioned only once. I figured it was a one-time symbol of man's carelessness,  a tongue-in-cheek comment about how any seemingly inconsequential thing can mean the end of the world. But Bokonon incorporates mud into the fundamental mythology of his religion. Bokononism has no Adam and Eve. Instead, "God said, 'Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done'" (265). We are the mud. By destroying the mud, ice-nine destroys humanity.

In class, we talked about how a cat's cradle represents the dynamic tension between science and religion, with each half needed to uphold the other. Mud is yet another way in which Vonnegut weaves this idea into the book. It creates a closed loop: the world began in mud and ended because of its absence. Bokononism's origin story fits neatly into place beside science's apocalypse. And so, in typical Vonnegut fashion, life on planet Earth comes to a screeching halt with perfect poetic justice.

Eat Protein at Every Meal

…“He [Dr. Breed] said science was going to discover the basic secret of life someday,” the bartender put in. He scratched his head and frowned. “Didn’t I read in the paper the other day where they’d finally found out what it was?”

            “I missed that,” I murmured.

            “I saw that,” said Sandra. “About two days ago.”

            “That’s right,” said the bartender.

            “What is the secret of life?” I asked.

            ”I forget,” said Sandra.

            “Protein,” the bartender declared. “They found out something about protein.”

            “Yeah,” said Sandra, “that’s it.”

*Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle, page 25.

“The basic secret of life.” We all seek the answer to that question when pondering about our world. We make speculations, doubt common “truths” and attend college to become “critical thinkers” and learn to analyze everything that comes our way. Some people even dedicate their entire lives looking for an answer, apparently hoping to reach some deeper understanding of their existence as human beings, seeking for meaning. And here, in Vonnegut’s book Cat’s Cradle, there is an answer, protein. Simpler and more concise than what one might expect but still an answer to what is probably one of the most sought out answers and the presumed basis to revealing all that is unknown. Yet, the bartender and Sandra mention this discovery offhandedly, days after they have learned of it, and our protagonist has not even heard of it.

Not only do the characters disregard this discovery but so too does Vonnegut. He chose to include the basic secret of life as a side note in the plot. The bearers of it are a bartender (who’s name we do not even know) and a prostitute named Sandra, who deliver it at a hotel bar in Ilium, a secondary checkpoint in the plot. The chapter ends abruptly with this one-time ‘side note’ and carried by characters who will not reappear in the novel. Shouldn’t the basic secret of life be a main piece in the plot line? Shouldn’t it be acknowledged or brought to us by a main character? Does Vonnegut suggest that we dismiss even the things that we value, by dismissively uttering this “basic secret of life”?

How can this supposed greatest discovery be disregarded so easily? It can be presumed that once you find this answer you are able to lay back and ‘enjoy the ride’, move on. No more questions, no more doubts, no more research (no more college.) All resolved, so just be present (like the pre-orientation mantra be here, now). But then, you might ask, what is next? Does Vonnegut imply that as human beings we are doomed never to find satisfaction in our lives because if we did we would lose our purpose and wander around aimlessly? That our nature prohibits us from acknowledging this “truth”? 

A Work of Art

Vonnegut argues that religion and science are both needed to maintain “dynamic tension” in the world.  He uses the image of the child’s game cat’s cradle to illustrate this concept.  In class we talked a lot about the word “tension” and how vital it is to keep the strings tight to keep the game alive (and the world together).  But for me, the key word is “dynamic.”

To play cat’s cradle, there needs to be two hands.  Continuing the parallel, there needs to be both science and religion to create balance in our world.  Science is often associated with the truth (and most people take it to be true), and according to Vonnegut, religion is harmless lies.  In cat’s cradle, since each hand relies on the other, that then suggests that truth depends on lies, and vice versa.  This creates a paradox.  How can a truth be based on a lie and still be true?  For the other side, if we lie about the truth, what is the point of knowing the truth in the first place?

This leads to the question of what it means to find the truth.  Vonnegut writes a book that starts with declaring itself untrue, and then tells a story about Hoenikker—a man who dedicates his life to the truth.  What does this say about the quest for truth?  That it is not only unnecessary, but also futile.  After all, if we are going to lie to ourselves about the truth eventually anyway, why know it?  Because we have to have something on which to base our lies.  There’s the paradox.

This is why “dynamic” is the key word.  What is true and what false is not clearly defined, and our fleeting definitions are always changing.  The tension comes naturally when we have two such opposing forces.  As Jonah puts it, “life [becomes] a work of art” (175) as we as individuals create our own realities to cope with the dynamic uncertainty.