APLer
December 25th 07, 09:20 PM
war with Eastasia. Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford were guilty of the
crimes they were charged with. He had never seen the photograph that
disproved their guilt. It had never existed, he had invented it. He
remembered remembering contrary things, but those were false memories,
products of self-deception. How easy it all was! Only surrender, and
everything else followed. It was like swimming against a current that swept
you backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to
turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. Nothing had
changed except your own attitude: the predestined thing happened in any
case. He hardly knew why he had ever rebelled. Everything was easy,
except--!
Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense.
The law of gravity was nonsense. 'If I wished,' O'Brien had said, 'I could
float off this floor like a soap bubble.' Winston worked it out. 'If he
thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do
it, then the thing happens.' Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage
breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: 'It doesn't
really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.' He pushed the thought
under instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or
other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world where 'real' things
happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of
anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind.
Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.
He had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he was in no
danger of succumbing to it. He realized, nevertheless, that it ought never
to have occurred to him. The mind
crimes they were charged with. He had never seen the photograph that
disproved their guilt. It had never existed, he had invented it. He
remembered remembering contrary things, but those were false memories,
products of self-deception. How easy it all was! Only surrender, and
everything else followed. It was like swimming against a current that swept
you backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to
turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. Nothing had
changed except your own attitude: the predestined thing happened in any
case. He hardly knew why he had ever rebelled. Everything was easy,
except--!
Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense.
The law of gravity was nonsense. 'If I wished,' O'Brien had said, 'I could
float off this floor like a soap bubble.' Winston worked it out. 'If he
thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do
it, then the thing happens.' Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage
breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: 'It doesn't
really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.' He pushed the thought
under instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or
other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world where 'real' things
happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of
anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind.
Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.
He had no difficulty in disposing of the fallacy, and he was in no
danger of succumbing to it. He realized, nevertheless, that it ought never
to have occurred to him. The mind