David Conte – “God for all intents and purposes is an equal sign, and at least up until now, something humanity has always been able to believe in is that the universe adds up.”
A+B=C
Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Rutherford, Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg or even more fundamentally Judaism, Daoism, Buddhism…they all set out for one thing, explain the unexplainable. That’s what we do as people, we explain the uncanny; we give what is “not-at-home” a home. The quest of figuring out the universe is simply to eliminate the things in or lives we cannot explain. That’s the driving force behind science and religion. Any thing not at home is homeless, and to be homeless is to be uncanny. This is the reason for Navidson’s obsession; he had to give the homeless a home. His case is of course special though. The existential mode of the “not-at-home” for Navidson was not the behavior of the electron or the motion of the planets, it was his home, and it demanded explanation.
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For Navidson explanation could only come from experiance, from Expeditions. What’s interesting though is insight never comes from an Expedition, it only comes from an Exploration. The first four Expeditions are only that, Expeditions. They are thought out, planned, and goal orientated. Of course they all end with the same conclusion, nothing. Expedition 5 is the first attempt at honest exploration. Navidson is even quoted saying “I am in no hurry.” This is the first time that someone goes into the hallways and enters the existential mode of not-at-home. This time he is on a journey, a journey for comprehension, but the only way to achieve this is for Navidson is to strip it all way. Day by day (or night by night, which every you prefer) Navidson begins to give him self up. Finally when his body is in a state of dehydration and starvation and his batteries are spent and his last match is burned he gives up, and he gives him self over to the house. |