History always

History always, in the end, trumps fiction. Ultimately I became convinced of this, in the light of the inept conundrum we live in in this still young century, but also reading about the convulsions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

There are few events in history that someone, at some time, did not predict. This is true of all major events, from the Mongol invasion to the explosion of the first nukes, writers, philosophers, magi, have spoken, written, preached about what was to come, sometime in veiled terms, sometime in full light. 

Yet reality, and then history, the record of events as they are “remembered”, often trumps these predictions, or twists them round. Think of the First World War, the Great War to end all wars, or the Napoleonic debacle. In the fullness of time, what had been fiction may indeed turn into reality, but most of the time in a different colour or shape, even the opposite of the predictions, or expectations. Thus it was about flying, the paradox of objects heavier than air, about nuclear fusion, about space travel.

Books have been written

Books have been written, films have been produced, there is no bound to imagination. But is it natural to think that somehow what is imagined may turn into reality, but this is exceptional, the result of chance, a low probability of transformation? Simply too much is imagined, without basis for realisation, or breaking the laws of nature. Is this so? 

I think the truth may be subtly different. Einstein thought that God did not play dice. He thought that what is for us uncertainty, quantum undecidedness, is due to our limited view of the Creation, in other terms our poor understanding of physical laws. Nonetheless the “turn of events’ often goes beyond what was imagined. This is because our dreams, intimate reflections, and, again, expectations are shaped by the boundaries of our understanding of the Creation. There is no limit to human imagination, except for the fact that our minds, as our vision, see only a small part of the “spectrum” of reality.

History repeats itself

It is often said that history repeats itself. But this is a mere appearance: history may be thought of as an helix: there are similarities, but the facts are never repeated, time, and physics laws are the only constant. Everything else is subject to change, in ways we perceive almost always in the wrong, because past, light. “One never bathes in the same river.”

Why did it take me so long to understand this? I am very much into fiction, even of the historical variety. Think of Alexandre Dumas writing both “Louis XIV et son siècle” and the “Vicomte of Bragelonne”, both accounts of the same period of French history.

In one Dumas sets out to draw the historical reality of the period, in the other he tels us a story, based on many of the same events (the early part of the reign of Louis XIV) but using his fictional characters of his previous novels, the cycle of the Mousquetaires. So in this work, fiction and historical truth live in parallel, feeding each other. The insights of Dumas the historian acts as the basis for the charm and convincing powers of Dumas, the novelist.

This duality is a little as the wave-particle theory in particle physics: the photon, the “grain”of light, exists both as a small element of matter, and as a wave, with its electro magnetic properties. Fiction draws from history, and in turn predicts its future. 

I suppose recognising this truth leads to some disappointment. Reality always trumps fiction, although the latter may well convince us, for a while, until it is proven well off the mark. Our minds travel, prosaic life continues on paths drawn but the Creator, who sees all of it, always.

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