A reviewer of James Plaskett's book on the meaning
of life, "Coincidences" dismissed it as "tosh"
and "tripe". But it is an interesting book,
full of curiosities and pleasing factlettes
(honestly, who has ever heard of an oarfish,
a giant serpent-like creature of no fixed address,
that has only been seen by mortal eyes either
dead, or distinctly off-colour)? It is well
written, courageous, thought-provoking, and
distinctly eccentric in the grand British tradition.
That it should provoke blimps to throw it into
the fire is hardly surprising, then. Whether
or not coicidences are a sort of guide or trail
leading toward a higher mystery isn't important:
this is an interesting man, trying to present
a complex, highly idiocyncratic world view.
Like anyone who has experienced odd or uncanny
juxtapositions of events or referents, Plaskett
was struck by the sense that there must be some
meaning beyond mere blind expression of the
laws of probability, in the coincidences that
he describes. Unlike most people, who might
vaguely shrug coincidences off as karma or a
quirk of human perception, Plaskett takes an
active approach, and expects the universe to
reciprocate. So he treats things that "chime"
for him as if they were clues in a puzzle, placed
there by an active principle of some kind (perhaps).
And then is not surprised if some further coincidence,
against impossibly long odds, pops up in that
new avenue of inquiry.
There is some theory sprinkled around the book
- "synchronicity and all that" - but it isn't
really an argument, and Plaskett isn't really
a theorist ( or the book would be far duller
). He is bound, though, by the feeling that
it all ought to mean something; that it suggests
an arrangment of phenomena contrary to cold
science. And this, in turn, leads him to rail
briefly and on the whole cogently against reductionism,
specifically neo-Darwinism, which he regards
as tosh, tripe, and tarradiddle.
An editor might have gently prised the anti-Darwin
pages from out of the clenched fists of their
author after he got done banging on the table
and saying what nonsense it all was, and tucked
them away for a separate publication. But that
editor would have had to impose some more rigorous
scheme on the entire book. As it is, the book
is full of things that don't quite fit, and
loose ends. But that is a significant part of
its charm. If Plaskett was intent on cramming
Jung and Koestler down the readers' throats
and set about it in a ruthlessly orderly fashion,
one might feel more compelled to resist. But
given his more personal, uncertain, and generally
good-humoured approach to his material, one
can argue a bit, more or less reflexively, before
turning the page to see what comes next. He
doesn't insist that you accept the necessity
of some new mode of science or perception, as
espoused by him: he only tries to support his
strong intuition that something doesn't quite
line up, that causality isn't quite as staid
and placid as it seems, although it looks very
respectable when it's all dressed up for work
in a suit and tie.
In addition to his assault on causality, reductionism,
and reification, Plaskett sketches the meaning
of his own meaningful coincidences for us. Briefly:
the universe is telling Plaskett that he may
be Parsifal, the One Righteous Dude who is able
to perceive and thereby somehow complete or
resolve the Holy Grail. It would be easy to
poke fun at this, to roll one's eyes and make
a circling motion with one's forefinger beside
one's temple. But of course, any serious person
is on a mythical quest of some sort. That's
how myths got to be myths, after all. Plaskett
doesn't believe he "really is" Parsifal. But
he has the courage not to reject his own driving
myth for as crappy a reason as self-consciousness,
or to hide the poetry revealed to him by the
concatenation of a-causal echoes for fear of
being laughed at.
In addition to the main themes of the book -
that there are connections between things other
than strict causality and probability, that
the universe has its eye on James Plaskett,
that neo-Darwinists are malign or deluded -
there is a great deal of simple human interest.
One aspect of the book is autobiographical,
and it's an amusing, if only very partial, autobiography.
On one page Plaskett might be attempting to
catch the giant octopus on film off the coast
of Bermuda, and on the next dining with someone
whose name works nicely for name-dropping. Who
have you known, who was on "Who Wants to be
a Millionaire"? And how on earth does that fit
with being a Grandmaster?
It's not very difficult to dismiss Plaskett's
book as nonsense - a clever child could probably
say "But if there were telepathy, or precognition,
then this or that coincidence wouldn't be a
coincidence at all, would it, so you're really
just talking about 'something that seems odd',
and the idea of coincidence is a needless constraint.
And besides, I couldn't even see half the things
you were calling significant coincidences".
There is no need to defend Darwin, either: all
that matters about any scientific theory is
that it poses soluble puzzles which lead to
improved understanding. "The truth" is still
a long, long way off, and it is truly nonsensical
to abandon a fruitful progression toward it
simply because our present degree of understanding
is incomplete.
This is by no means a perfect book. Plaskett
is dealing with Metaphysical Truth - an awkward
beast, like the oarfish, that is only seen knotted
up in agonal contortions when it is hauled to
the surface. His overall scheme for the book
is rough, and he falls, sometimes, to the temptation
to write about what he wants to write about,
rather than what the book demands. But ... so
what? The point of Plaskett's book, in my view
at least, is not to arrive at some substantiated
truth about the nature of coincidence (or whatever)
but rather that one may, as Plaskett has, actively
seek meaning, rather than simply assuming, without
any evidence, that there is none, or that what
meaning there is, is obvious, simple, and easy
to explain from any pulpit or op-ed page. Listen
carefully - the universe may be trying to tell
you something. And if you hear something odd
in the basement, contrary to the message of
fear taught by horror movies, you should by
all means go and see what it is.
Catdoc
08 April 2001
Thanks go to Catdoc
Please
send
me (Jim) a your review or a coincidence
that happened to you.
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