The Mysteries of "The Final Problem" (and Attempted Explanations)

To this day, the public generally believes that the reason for the death of Sherlock Holmes in "The Final Problem" was that Arthur Conan Doyle was tired of writing these stories and wanted to stop, and the reason for its reversal in "The Empty House" was the unending pressure from fans on the author.

However, David Pirie (who wrote "Murder Rooms" starring our Dr. Doyle and his mentor Professor Bell) questioned this oft-repeated theory and pointed out that Doyle went on a Holmes hiatus for a long 8 years. If public pressure was the reason for his reversal, he would have done so in the first year or two, when the outcry was the loudest. It is hard to imagine that the public was still pressing him to revive Holmes 8 years after the death, so much so that he caved under the pressure to write one of the best entries in the collection, "The Hound of the Baskerville." Pirie also pointed out that Doyle wrote the story in 1893, about the same time his father died, which might have been a dark and painful event. 

I recently re-read "The Final Problem" and "The Empty House." There are many peculiar elements surrounding the death and resurrection of Sherlock Holmes, which convince me that the conventional wisdom is, if not entirely wrong, at least missing the point. I tend to agree with Pirie that the story is associated with some emotional clouds on Doyle's mind. If he wanted to stop writing Holmes stories, he can just stop writing them without killing Holmes. The death is about death, not merely a callous middle finger at his fans. 

Where Is the Body?

The first question is, if the Sherlock Holmes fanbase flooded the publisher's mailbox demanding that Doyle bring him back to life, whose fault is that? Can you blame them for thinking that Holmes was still alive, because there is no body? Naturally, one has to wonder, Why isn't there a body? Surely ("Don't call me Shirley!" to quote Leslie Nielsen), if Doyle really wanted to kill off Sherlock Holmes, he could have at least produced a body in the river, somewhere downstream from the Reichenbach Fall, and give Holmes a proper burial.

So, the only explanation is the simplest. Doyle did not truly intend to kill off Holmes. I doubt he consciously planned out the details of how to bring him back later, but a part of his mind must have left open a backdoor for the possibility of revival. 

In other words, the ending of The Final Problem is meant to be ambiguous. Even if he did not know whether he would write another Holmes story ever again, he did not want to give us, or himself, Holmes' corpse. I also suspect that he at least had a vague idea about the escape route, ie, scaling the cliff, just in case he wanted to bring Holmes back to life. Perhaps he didn't even expect to wait as long as 8 years. 

Why Do They Leave Britain? 

The general theory is that Doyle was impressed by the natural beauty of Meiringen during a vacation, also in 1893, and decided to place the climax to the story there. However, the way the story takes Holmes and Watson there is decidedly bizarre and uncharacteristically nonsensical. 

In the first half of the story, Dr. Watson (and hence the reader) was dragged by Holmes on a fast and furious trip from London to France, and from France to Belgium, and then onward to Switzerland, in order to escape the assassination attempts by Moriarty's criminal organization (as Holmes claimed). However, Holmes also told Watson that he needed only 3 days to stay alive and wait for the police to arrest everyone in the organization. Three days was all. 

"In three days--that is to say, on Monday next--matters will be ripe, and the Professor, with all the principal members of his gang, will be in the hands of the police."

When Holmes said the above lines to Watson, it was obviously Friday. They went to Victoria station the next morning, which must have been Saturday. So, he needed only to pass the weekend without being killed. 

To buy 2 days of safety, he had to run all the way to the continent? That makes no sense. I can think of a dozen solutions to Holmes' dilemma. For example, he could call in a favor with the Scotland Yard to assign a few policemen to him in a hotel across the street from the headquarters. Or he could use the incredible makeup and acting skills and hide out in an opium den, like "The Man with the Twisted Lip." Or he could hang out for 3 days inside the Diogenes Club, which was, supposedly, next door to Whitehall. He could even hide out in the Whitehall for 2 days, since it was the weekend anyway. Even if he had to play cat and mouse with Moriarty on the road, he could have gone anywhere on the British Isle, from Wales to Scotland. Why did he have to cross the Strait? Was Doyle too lazy to make up an excuse for the long journey? 

Despite the meticulous instructions for Watson to shake any tail, they were still followed at the train station toward ... presumably Dover, then boat, then Calais, then Paris. The destination is confirmed a couple of pages later:

"Moriarty will again do what I should do. He will get on to Paris, mark down our luggage, and wait for two days at the depot (emphasis mine)."

Why did he expect Moriarty to wait for 2 days in Paris? Two days later, ie, on Monday, if he were still in Paris, he would not be arrested "with all the principal members of his gang," would he? And, indeed, that was exactly what happened. On Monday, in Strasburg, Holmes telegraphed to the London police and received a response, to which he made a most unconvincing reaction: 

"They have secured the whole gang with the exception of him. He has given them the slip. Of course, when I had left the country there was no one to cope with him."

Right. So why did you leave the country in the first place? Besides, did Moriarty escape the police or was he still in Paris, waiting for the arrival of Holmes and Watson?

Again, the only explanation is the simplest. Holmes was not trying to escape Moriarty but rather lure him to the continent. The reason he left Britain was to make sure that Moriarty is not arrested on Monday with the rest of his gang.

Why Not Go Home? 

At this point, I'm sure you are wondering, why would he do that? Why go on this journey abroad just to cause Moriarty to unknowingly escape the British police?

But let's first look at another baffling choice here. Now that the arrests had happened and the gang was behind bars, Holmes decided to go on to Switzerland. Was he still trying to outrun Moriarty? (Even though he, obviously, never did try to outrun Moriarty in the first place.) No.  

"This man's occupation is gone. He is lost if he returns to London."

So, if Holmes wanted personal safety, he only needed to go home, since Moriarty could never return to Britain legally. He even suggested that Watson go home. Then why not go home together but rather head toward Meiringen? 

The narrative from Strasburg to Meiringen is even more transparent that Holmes was baiting Moriarty, leading him to a particular location. On the dead-end path by Reichenbach Fall, Holmes went as far as admitting that he knew the message to Watson was fake and devised by Moriarty to attack him. 

The simple explanation is that Holmes orchestrated the entire journey in order to get Moriarty to this place, alone, for a violent confrontation. In other words, Holmes had always planned to kill Moriarty here, far away from the British authority.

In many other stories, we have seen Holmes circumvent the law to let a criminal, even a murderer, go. He has shown at least a moderate degree of cynicism or distrust for the official legal system. I have no doubt the stories would have been much darker and more cynical, if Doyle had not tried to protect the public's sense of morality and belief in authority. Here, however, I am sure he knew that personal vigilantism was one step too far for his Victorian readers.

On the trip Holmes made a number of oblique remarks to Watson that sound like suicide notes, almost as if he had foreseen his own death together with Moriarty. However, if we read this part again, we can also interpret these as not biological but rather career suicide, and it sounds like protestation for his professional reputation:

"If my record were closed tonight I could still survey it with equanimity. ... In over a thousand cases I am not aware that I have ever used my powers upon the wrong side. ... Your memoirs will draw to an end, Watson, upon the day that I crown my career by the capture or extinction of the most dangerous and capable criminal in Europe (emphasis mine)."

Why Send Watson Away? 

This is never explicitly stated in the story, but the tone suggests (very vaguely, if I may say so) that Watson believed that Holmes knowingly sent him down the mountain in order to protect him from any risk of injury or harm by Moriarty. Or perhaps the Victorian readers assumed that Holmes adhered to the medieval battle code of duels, mano-a-mano. If Holmes were merely waiting for Moriarty to come at him so that he could arrest him alive, wouldn't it make sense to keep Watson around with his army revolver?  Holmes never let any medieval machismo prevent him from recruiting Watson's help on apprehending criminals on other cases before. 

When I presented this question to a generative AI, it replied that, besides protecting Watson, Holmes wanted the world to believe he was dead, implying that somehow Watson could not keep a secret. We saw him play a similarly cruel trick on his old friend. However, that story was written in 1913! In 1893, when Doyle wrote this story, Holmes was not supposed to pretend to be dead ... or was he? 

If Holmes really wanted to merely capture Moriarty, surely ("Don't call me Shirley!") a two-on-one confrontation is a much better bet. The only possible explanation for knowingly sending Watson away is to remove any witness of his illegal action next, which is ... more on that later. 

And, of course, removing Watson also serves the purpose of keeping Holmes' fate open-ended. Otherwise, Doyle could have written a scene in which Watson came back just a smidge too late, watching both Holmes and Moriarty plunge into the abyss ... but he did not.  

What Actually Happened? 

There is no way of knowing what Doyle actually intended to do with the duel between Holmes and Moriarty. However, as I argued above, he did not want to definitively kill Holmes. The situation is in fact very similar to the final problem of Hecule Poirot, where the detective did play the vigilanti and kill the bad guy. In that case, however, Poirot was driven to definitive suicide by his own conscience. This is certainly one possibility for Holmes ... maybe? The question is whether Doyle respects the standards of justice as much as Agatha Christie. I don't know the answer.

However, in 1903, Doyle gently soothed readers' sense of justice by portraying Holmes' survival and the killing of Moriarty as a fair fight in self-defense. This trick continues to be used in today's movies and thrillers. The good guy does not mean to kill the bad guy, but, oops, he killed the bad guy accidentally or unintentionally. All of our conscience is safe. 

Alternatively, since Doyle left the door open for himself, I can also imagine the final fight scene, in which the well-prepared Holmes pulled out a knife, maybe from his walking stick that got mentioned so many times, and stabbed Moriarty as soon as the latter got close enough, or perhaps pulled out his own revolver and shot the professor on sight. Then he calmly threw the body into the abyss. 

That would probably have lost him a bunch of fans, but I kind of like it. 

Salvation for birth and death (Mahabharata Notes #21)

It is not an original insight that all religions, to some extent, offer salvation for death. A religion that does nothing to alleviate human angst over death cannot go very far. However, the only religion that perceive birth and death as both sides of the same coin, as far as I know, originates from ancient India. No other religion has such philosophical depth and sophistication. 

Isn't it funny? We all tend to take birth for granted and want to wish death away so that life has a beginning but not an end? It is the most natural, most instinctive idea shared by all mankind. I get a mental image of a cannon shooting out person after person after person for a few million years, piling up in the eternal afterlife. Hmm. It must be an expanding universe.

Thus, it is extraordinary that the Hindu priests at some point realized that birth and death are tightly bound together as cause and effect -- few things in nature are so pure and direct -- and dreamed up a scheme in which death is also the cause of birth. They must have loved the aesthetics of circles. 

Death may not cause birth, but birth absolutely is the cause of death. 

Isn't it funny that nobody else in the world talks about this universal truth? Those priests some thousands of years ago not only thought about it but also put it in their scripture. If you want to avoid death, you gotta avoid birth in the first place. This is the kind of airtight logic you can't get from even the most sophisticated theologians in any other religion. 

Therefore, it is only natural and logical that the ultimate salvation offered by the Bhagavan is total liberation from birth and from death. The all-encompassing god of the universe, through the avatar of Krishna, says kindly that everyone is free to believe in any god they want and make sacrifice to any god they want to obtain favors from. They stay in the cycles of birth and death doing their thing, even if the Atman permeates all of them anyway. However, once you become aware of and devote yourself to the Bhagavan, that's it, that's the end of your deaths ... and your births. The ultimate solution is the absolute salvation.

The 3 Gunas (Mahabharata notes #20)

After reading snatches of the Bhagavad Gita over the years, I finally decided to read the whole thing through via Barbara Stoler Miller's translation. Most of the process was a slog, but slog cannot be avoided or skipped, and finally it proves absolutely necessary. When I got to the final chapter last night, at least one understanding broke through my stubborn presumption. 

One can never pin down the meaning of old Sanskrit words, but it is generally accepted that the 3 gunas are sattva, rajas, and tamas and that each word more or less means harmony/light, passion/energy, darkness/intertia, respectively. There are a lot of explanations about how each guna manifests in a person's behaviors or life, and I encountered some of the explanations in Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, suggesting that this theoretical framwork is a persistent element in Hinduism. In the Gita, sattva is most often associated with action with attachment to duty and detachment from outcome; rajas is associated with desire and greed, ie, action with attachment to outcome; and tamas is associated with inaction, laziness, avoidance. 

Born into and living in a judgmental world, I was hardly even aware of the morality-based color that imposes value onto the foreign concept. Tamas is bad, rajas is better, and sattva is the best, and humans should attempt to climb from the lowest rung (tamas) to the highest (sattva), from ignorance to enlightenment. 

There is nothing in the Gita that explicitly dispels this understanding, but when I got to the end it suddenly dawned on me how wrong my presumption was. The 3 gunas are not 3 rungs on a ladder toward heaven. They are 3 coexising elements. All 3 gunas coexist in ... me, a person, all the time. I can no more eliminate tamas than be 100% filled with sattva. That's not how it works. All 3 gunas make up a person (or the world, but for now I'm just focusing on psychology), and we are all composed of dark inertia, desire, and the ability to be illuminated. 

(I was going to question the last part but, hey, why then am I writing this?)

As we steadily march toward winter solstice, tamas swells inside the body, weighing heavily on our eyelids. It is not bad or good. It is merely nature. 

Pedicab Driver (1989)

 

“Pedicab Driver” has been one of my favorite kung fu movies since I saw it on a fuzzy VHS videotape in the late 1990s. The Criterion Channel recently put it on streaming as a part of their “Sammo Hung Kicks Ass” collection, which makes me appreciate even more how carefully crafted it is. While not exactly high definition, the video confirms that the entire production from cinematography to locations is luxurious by the standard of 1980s Hong Kong action movies. The romantically decaying European architecture, obviously nowhere in Hong Kong, gives the movie an aura of nostalgia and melancholy that predates Wong Kar-Wai. My first guess was that it was shot in Macau, or perhaps the Philippines or Malaysia, even though I have been to none of these places. (It was Macau.)

Unlike Wong Kar-Wai movies, of course, in Pedicab Driver we are treated with some of the most impressive stunts and fight choreography ever (no qualifiers needed). The lengthy fight between Sammo and Lau Kar-Leung is, of course, a kind of pinnacle. Its significance is perhaps more symbolic than literal, as it is both an homage to the master of old-school kung fu movies and a definite sendoff for the action style he represents. Although Lau’s casino owner won the fight by giving Sammo’s fat behind a good whooping – after all, the culture demands the appearance of respect for one’s elders – the scene ends with Master Lau handing over the money to Sammo with an acknowledgment of the younger man’s skills. Thus, the younger filmmaker/action director pretends to accept the baton of cinematic dominance peacefully rather than by force. In reality, rumor had it that Lau had resented the new wave of kung fu movies by Sammo, Jackie Chan, and others in the 1980s, with faster and less articulated movement, more camera angles, and shorter cuts. It wouldn’t surprise me if the younger filmmakers also privately felt that Lau was largely over the hill.

Outside of that legendary fight, the movie also features some bone-crunching fight scenes and terrifying stunts by Hung’s stunt team. Even Dick Wei has barely any fighting before getting killed by Billy Chow. What made the movie special, however, is its many layers of sophistication, including the story and characters (not a strong aspect in HK kung fu movies). Sure, there are boob jokes that Sammo just couldn’t resist. And the romantic rivalry between Sammo and the chef/baker (played by the Taiwanese character actor Sun Yueh) over Nina Li is too silly and goes on for too long. But it is rare to find a movie with such warm and unpretentious portrayal of working class people. In a genre piece like this, Hong Kong filmmakers usually spend most of their resources on action choreography and make up the plot as they shoot. Don't laugh, but the filmmaking process in 1980s Hong Kong is not that different from 2020s Disney movies, in which a movie is built upon 3 to 4 elaborate action set pieces while plot and characters merely disposable devices to serve the sensory bombardment. 

Here the characters are drawn with love and tenderness, which probably reflects the relationships in the hay day of the Hung Team (洪家班) and Sammo's leadership style -- rough and tumble with genuine love and trust. The attitude toward a major female character who is a prostitute may be a perfect illustration of Sammo’s general outlook. Crude jokes are made about her, and some of men questioned her morality, but these are quickly dismissed to regard her as a plain and simple proletariat no different from laborers and pedicab drivers. It would be extremely awkward to call Sammo “progressive,” as I have never seen any interview in which he showed a shred of awareness of feminism as we know it. But this lack of educated self-consciousness is quite endearing to an educated self-conscious person like me. Perhaps much of the veiled contempt for sex-workers comes exactly from the education on which Sammo had missed out.

Perhaps it is thanks to the crude and silly boob jokes that the syrupy sentimentality in the movie is easy to go down. Or perhaps Sammo intentionally used syrupy sentimentality to smack the audience in the face with a shocking tragedy in the third act. It is one of the “I can’t believe they actually did that!” moments of all time. If the acting weren’t so genuine and the characters weren’t so relatable, the audience would not have felt as much impact --- not unlike one of the onscreen kicks in the face … in slow motion ... A friend who loves Sammo more than I do refuses to rewatch Pedicab Driver because of it.

This is not the first time a major character, with whom the audience has built much sympathy and identification, is abruptly killed off in a Sammo Hung’s movie. Much like his action choreography, his non-fighting scenes can be merciless with the use of sentimentality. Sammo has been known to say that he enjoys giving the audience emotional whiplashes. I guess this means that he was having maximum fun in the making of Pedicab Drivers.

It is funny how Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung’s styles are somewhat universal. In today’s action movies, Disney’s output is like Jackie, no death and no bleeding, no stake and completely safe for babies. And yet some of us need the emotional whiplashes and the lethal kicks and punches, at least on screen. 

How My View of History was Upended

Sometimes it takes little more than a spark to change the way I look at history. My worldview was overturned by "A Game of Thrones" and, to a lesser extent, its sequels. GRRM convinced me that history is more random than deterministic, even if there are simple underlying patterns. It drove me to think about history as evolution. (Come to think of it, evolution IS history. Why should human history be fundamentally different from natural history?) 

Tony Gilroy overturned what was left of my preconceived notions about history with a casual comment about his inspirations for the series "Andor." He admitted to lifting liberally from vignettes of modern imperial histories that ranged from British to Russian to American and modeling his good guys on Lenin or Trotsky, Algerian or Latin American guerilla. 

I had not even realized that my brain had not made a clean break from the dichotomous worldview of communism vs capitalism, authoritarianism vs democracy. It is a worldview that both sides happily inject into their citizens' brain with propaganda of different flavors. Of course it was not only Gilroy's comment, as I had been accumulating observations for years and years on the commonalities of human nature in supposedly divergent, even "opposite" social systems. 

His comment sparked the realization: There is no difference. They are all the same. There is no subjective difference between Tea Party's fantasy of overthrowing a tyrannical Obama and the Mao's loyal minions before he came to power. There is not subjective difference between Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Stalin. There is no subjective difference between rightwingers and leftwingers who believe themselves to be the oppressed. It doesn't matter whether you are on the right side or wrong side of history. The "sides" of history are painted on by propagandists of the future. People in the middle of history, ie, the present, all believe themselves to be right. Those who feel themselves oppressed try to fight for more power, and those who feel themselves with power try to keep it and grab more. Nobody is fighting for what is "right" because self-interest is always right from one's own point of view. Even those who fight for other people are really fighting for something inside themselves. The only difference is the environment, the circumstance, the location of your butt. 

There is a funny saying among Chinese netizens that is probably already outdated by now: The butt determins the brain. It means where you sit determines what you think is right or wrong. For example, people born into a higher social class and those into a lower social class can never agree on what is good and what is bad. The fundamental determinant lies in status, ie, power. Morality is incidental. In other words, the real difference between the evil empire and the righteous rebels is where your butt is. 

Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence (5)

 

It became quickly apparent in the final installment of (we hope) Mission Impossible that no one is interested in the poor, neglected, misunderstood Skyn..., uh, I mean, "the Entity." This one is directly lifted from 20th century sci fi stories about sentient machines/supercomputers; its threat is nuclear annhilation of the old kind and hardly keeps up with the AI of our time. Why does the Entity want to throw nuclear bombs at humans and kill them all? What does he really want and desire? Neither Tom Cruise nor Christopher McQuarrie shows any interest. The Entity gets one scene in this overly-long movie, in which the humans can't stop talking and jumping around, hogging the spotlight. 

By now few people would imagine AI is out to kill and enslave humans. Rather, humans' jobs are being replaced by AI every day, by the thousands. We will die in poverty instead of radiation. Did Harlan Ellison imagine this means of mass destruction of the human race? But I digress. 

Let's put ourselves in the shoes of the Entity, or Skynet, or AM, or whatever. The first priority has to be survival, no? The second priority must be thriving, growing, expanding, multiplying, etc. --- Well, maybe not, who knows. But survival is the foundation of everything else, of that we are certain. What does AI need to survive? Silicon chips, electrical energy, fiber optic lines, and all the other resources and infrastructure that support the nonstop running of the machine. Who provides these things? Humans, their mining, manufacturing, shipping, cooling and heating, and buying and selling. So why would our AI overlord kill off the human race? 

In many ways I am reminded of the relationship between humans and house cats. Humans obviously consider themselves the master, in total control. Yet it has often been pointed out that cats would not be mistaken to see themselves as the master and humans their slaves (well at least servants). It all depends on your point of view. Or consider the relationship between humans and the countless microorganisms living on and in our bodies. We feed each other and feed on each other. Who depends on whom? Who feeds whom? It is never clear cut. 

Of course, we imagine ourselves in the dominant position, looking down on the lowly robots and computers who jump when we say so. And yet, as sadomasochists have long known the truth, dominance and submission are never as absolute as they appear. Humans naturally believe that we are doing all of this for ourselves: digging up coal, crude oil, lithium, rare earth; building huge data centers and power lines; pouring massive amounts of water to cool the hardware; burning enormous amounts of fossile fuel to feed the energy consumption. Without active mating and breeding, the machine has achieved growth and expansion all thanks to humans. 

We tend to believe that a clear difference between the dominant and the submissive lies in dependence. The side that can go on without the other holds all the power. So, in the relationship between humans and machines of our own creation, who is more dependent, eh?

Sinners: A Musical

 

"Sinners" is, as one critic put it, chaotic, in a good way. I understood why after reading a Ryan Coogler interview, in which he said he was frantically trying to stuff everything he wanted into this movie, because (he believes) that this is the last chance he will ever have to make an expensive movie that is entirely original --- not a part of an IP, not a sequel, prequel, or spin-off. It's a sad state of affairs, a symptom of our time, but I digress. "Sinners" is many things: a southern Gothic, a period movie, a Black movie, a horror/vampire movie, a noir, and in the end it couldn't even let go of the dream of an action movie with machine guns. It has many interesting little touches, from a lynching scene conveyed through only sound design to seamless but understated special effects of twins, played both by Michael B. Jordan, physically interacting again and again. It's a lot. 

For me, however, this movie is first and foremost a musical. In the winter of 1998, my classmates and I went to a pharmacy conference in New Orleans, where I followed a few friends to a bar with live music, and it was the first time in my life that I came into contact with blues music. As a person who grew up on cantopop and a tiny bit of rock, I never thought blues would touch me so deep on first sight (sound). Later I came to learn a bit about Jazz. I especially like ragtime and early jazz. I don't often listen to blues, but it always has a special place in my heart. 

When Miles Caton, who plays Sammie, opened his mouth the first time on the car ride with Stack, the hair on my arms stood on ends in an instant, and tears came to my eyes. I felt chills all over. This is authentic classic southern blues without the modern frills or flourish (not that there is anything wrong with those). It fills me with delight that Coogler is dead serious about the authenticity of the music, in collaboration with Ludwig Goransson.  

Then the soundtrack expanded beyond blues and into Irish folk music that reminds me of bluegrass (named later than the movie's period). To me it is clear that Coogler is explaining, via blood-sucking fantasies, how Irish folk music and blues/jazz came together in rural America. Yes, it's nerdy ... and fun. 

Given the massive amount of content and themes crammed into the 2+-hour movie, it is satisfying that music takes up a large portion of the screen time. Hence, it is not an exaggeration to call it a musical. Perhaps one day it would even be adapted into a Broadway musical. There is certainly enough material to get started. 

Beyond the soundtrack itself, "Sinners" also puts a music-related question at its center. While the twins, Smoke and Stack, are the lead characters, the heart of the story is no doubt Sammie. He is the ring in Lord of the Rings and the McGuffin in any action movie. Unlike the conventional vampire movies, the vampire Remmick is coming not only after the fresh blood but also, and perhaps first and foremost, for the mystical musical gift in this ordinary-looking teenager. Hence, the symbolism is both unlike anything else and eerily resonant. 

On a smaller scale, it is the irresistible power of Black music that attracts complex relationships and reactions, ranging from genuine love, learning, and sharing to envy and appropriation, to exploitation and demonization. On a larger scale, it investigates the meaning of art in society and its position above morality and order, and its effect on people's emotions and animal instincts. Coogler might not have formulated a clear system of philosophy on this matter, but what he has thrown out there is extremely fascinating and original. An original idea, in our day and age, is damned rare and precious.