"A human being is the only card in the universe that trumps itself." ~ Me
You can write the above down because its a truism I hope to explain. For starters, I love the card game Rook. If you've never played, it's much like Spades. The difference is in the suits (which are colors); the points (which aligned along face cards in spades, except with numbers); and the biggest difference of all -- the kitty.
The "kitty" (sometimes called 'nest') is a set of five cards dealt into the middle, all of them face down (but in some variations you can turn over the top card to get people interested). Bidding starts and with a total of 180 pts possible (meaning you win every hand), you work with your partner across the table to maximize your bid so that you can win the 'kitty.' Highest bidder wins the kitty, then gets to discard his/her five worst cards -- and most importantly, the high bidder gets to call a trump color.
The first time I played Rook, something amazing happened. I can look back on it now as an adult and know with all certainty that God was winking at me. My father, my uncle, my grandfather, and my aunt's husband, used to play this game together every visit to Southern Alabama. The place reeked of cigarette smoke and the game itself was played on a TV tray. None of that stopped me at age 7 from becoming highly interested in the game.
I watched, observed, and learned the rules. That's what we do first in this thing called life -- and the rules we learn are often hard-wired into us by the time we start grammar school. Once I felt like I knew enough to enter the game, I waited for my chance.
It finally came when one of regulars couldn't play, so I sat and took my cards one by one. I will never forget that first hand. I didn't know what to do with it, because I had never seen a hand dealt like the one I received. You see, I had been dealt a full hand of Green cards, plus the Rook.
Let's put this in perspective just a moment.
The odds of being dealt a Royal Flush in poker are .000154. Got that in your head? Now, some genius needs to multiply that out because a Royal Flush is only five cards. I got twelve cards dealt to me in succession, including the Rook.
So I didn't know what to do... I had no proverbial 'losers' in my deck... if I got to call trumps. My dad was my partner and he noticed the puzzled look on my face. Fearing that I truly wasn't ready to play Rook at the grown folks table, he asked for permission to help me. When I told them all that I didn't know how to bid my hand because it was all the same color, they laughed.
When I laid down my hand, they stopped laughing. It was an automatic 180 pts. The perfect hand from the first time Rookie playing Rook.
I know, I know ... you shoddy materialists out there are already working out the math to show its not impossible. You're right. It's not impossible. Just really freaky.
Welcome to the human experience on a much more incredible scale. I'm not even going to start with the Goldilocks syndrome of astrophysics and geology. Let the Intelligent Design crew wear out that motif at the expense of the taxpayer.
I'm going to head in a much different direction and let you know that I very much enjoy the paintings of Paul Gauguin. Now there are an estimated 100 billion neurons in my brain, and while they don't all even remotely serve the same purpose, there's still enough of them to keep us all pretty confused about what's going on with human consciousness.
I suspect that one day science will be able to give us mental 'propensities' for about anything -- from chocolate lovers, to the God spot, this sort of chap isn't going to stop until he's made P-Zombies of all of us. It is the dream of the physicalist to do away with anything deemed unquantifiable, but upon this point I'd love to issue him a dare:
I dare you to empiricize my love of Paul Gauguin.
Imagine a world in which every brain state could be captured and examined. Imagine that the minuscule amount of people out there who like Paul Gauguin could be contrasted enough times to remove the variables and produce the unquestionable Gauguin 'style' of collected neurons. Of course, you will need to imagine this for one simple reason: It won't ever happen.
But let's play dress up in the Emperor's clothes and pretend they do it. We now have the Gauguin signature in the brain. My perfect Rook hand has been coded, the trump cards all laid out to behold. The table "ooohs" and "aaaahs." Even I don't know what it means and I'm the kid holding the cards. The proverbial, ontological 'kitty' is mine whether I realize it or not. I could be a P-Zombie or I could be Dr. Frankenstein. Doesn't matter, I get to call the trump...
Now in spite of being dealt all Greens and given a perfect 180 pt. hand, suppose I choose Red instead? I can do that after all, I am the highest bidder. I am the Kwisatz Haderach! At least when it comes to Rook and Paul Gauguin.
If I choose Green, then it is impossible for me to NOT run the table and take every hand. But what if I choose another color?
For the naturalist, there would need to be some sort of neural representation for my switch, and indeed I have little doubt that the from the muck of humanity some piece of work wouldn't then attempt to go about mapping such neurons in order to try and prove his point. Of course, you need to imagine for the same simple reason: It won't ever happen.
But let's pretend it does. Since the Emperor is out of clothes (and he was swinging his junk in the wind last time we tried this), let's just remove his skin and send him out as an mass of sinew and bone. No better looking theory than this, for certain.
Now we're left with a set of neurons that not only determines exactly when and where I like Paul Gauguin -- a statistical probability, mind you -- we've moved on to the neurons that control those Gauguin neurons. We've discovered that when the Gauguin neurons are laid to bare and communicated to the Gauguin lover, a different set of neurons fire causing the hunk of flesh that they say that I am, to up and un-devote himself.
Well, crap. Someone went and told the talking meat that science had discovered the neurons controlling his neural switch from Gauguin to non-Gauguin, so the assembly of brain cells went and fired a different combination on us. Now he's all about loving Gauguin in rain, but not in the sun. Another set of computations will need to take place.
The lifeless, gutless, and altogether Spock-like scientist will start creating a whole other set of neural criteria to map out his lab rat. And every time that frog he wants to dissect-- the human soul -- stays one step ahead of him.
Why is this you ask?
It's a simple answer. This is my game. I was dealt the perfect hand. I get to call the trump. And no matter how much complaining comes from either end of the table, this won't ever change.
Humanity is more than the sum of its parts. We've been dealt a very special hand to play in this Universe. I learned this the very first time I played Rook. And anyone who says otherwise has never read Achilles and the Tortoise.
Man is the measure of all things... Goldilocks or not -- PZombie or not -- materialist or not. The reason seems simple enough to me:
Genesis 1:26
Welcome to the house of tautological mirrors. If you need a map, give me a call... at age 40, I am about half-way through.
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