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That Fourth Frame of Mind
Address by Lars-Erik Wiberg
for Sunday, July 15, 2001
Scripture: (Old Testament) Leviticus 19:1-2,15-18, (New Testament) Matthew 5:38-48
To set the scene for today's address, a bit of personal history gives a bit
of orientation. My first attendance at worship service in this Chapel came
about because of Ray Guiu. I had been attracted to Emanuel Swedenborg
through the reading of Wilson Van Dusen's book entitled The Presence of
Other Worlds. As a result, I had looked up our bookstore in Boston and
bought from Ray some books by and about Swedenborg. My dear wife Betty was
ahead of me in wanting to attend worship service, and Ray had already told
us that there were churches in Boston and in Cambridge. We chose Cambridge
because, having been a Harvard graduate student, I was so familiar with
this area. However, Betty attended worship services before I did. Have I
heard someplace that the affections always come first?
Betty was soon baptized into the Christian Church by The Rev. Wilfred Gould
Rice and became a member of the Cambridge Society. I followed her
excellent example several years later with Rev. Rice and our then recently
appointed pastor, The Rev. F. Robert Tafel officiating - - yes both of
them. Soon after, I was elected President of the Church Council and, by
way of indoctrination, Ray, in his capacity as Treasurer, showed me the
names of those whose contributions had provided our endowment. One name
stuck out dramatically. It was that of Walter L. Whitehead who, Ray
explained, was a professor of Geology at MIT.
Well, I knew that because, roughly forty years previous, Professor
Whitehead had been my faculty advisor. I hadn't known him to be a
Swedenborgian, but on reflection, it was apparent that he certainly acted
as one. For example, his guidance didn't consist so
much in handing out answers, but rather of providing us with excellent
professional guidance and lots of his personal time yet always encouraging
us to make up our own minds It was the natural balance between freedom
and rationality such as one would expect from a professor who was a
Swedenborgian. Awhile back I asked Elizabeth Wisdom where Whitehead sat
here in the Chapel and she replied, "Oh he sat right behind us where you
sit." Such a meaningful coincidence!
Whitehead's best friend in the MIT Geology Department was Professor Robert
Rakes Shrock. Whereas Whitehead was an arguable genius in oil exploration,
(he was a key scientist in discovering the oil fields of Venezuela) Shrock
was a sedimentologist of international repute and author of that
discipline's definitive text at that time entitled Sequence in Layered
Rocks. With due respect to Whitehead, Shrock was the best teacher I ever
had. And his reputation was so legendary that once, while visiting the
paleontology laboratory at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, I was
offerred a job in the Geology department on the spot for no other reason
than that I had studied with R.R. Shrock.
Shrock spoke in class of different ways of knowing, what I recall him
referring to as "Four Frames of Mind." They are an interesting glimpse
into the clarity of his thinking. He would not have been comfortable
discussing the fourth frame of mind, as does this address, because when I
knew him at MIT, he was recognized as an agnostic. I saw him some years
after I had left MIT when we met by chance on Newbury street outside my
office in the Library. When I told him I had become a Swedenborgian and
had recently discovered that Whitehead had been one too, he remarked that
Whitehead, then deceased, had bequeathed all of his Swedenborgiana to him,
and that he had read it. Knowing Shrock as I did, this means he had read
all of it, and with understanding. He
volunteered that he had willed the books to his alma mater, the University
of Indiana. The Writings must have made a significantly positive
impression on him otherwise he would never have done such a thing.
So here are four frames of mind as a group, just he wrote them on the
blackboard.
"We can: Know that we know; Know that we don't know; Not know that we do
know; and Not know that we don't know." A quick word here to set your own
minds at ease. We are not treating knowing in the philosophical sense
which is to say the theory behind what it means to know something. This
isn't Epistemology 101 but rather the simple, garden variety, dictionary
meaning of the verb "to know" which we use in communication that is routine
for us. Nothing more fancy than that.
The first knowledge, knowing that we know, is by far the most advantageous.
It is an easy-to-understand knowledge that consists of our credentials,
what we are good at comprehending, the fruits of our experience and our
education. It's what we do. It's what's in our resume. It is the clearest
and most easily understood frame of mind and need not be elaborated here.
The second knowledge, knowing that we don't know, certainly does have its
own advantages. It goes beyond an obvious lack of knowledge or skill in a
subject or activity, and implies a bit of experience, a few humbling
lessons, and a resulting informed wariness about overextending ourselves
much beyond our chosen turf. This knowledge can be quite agreeable when we
can express it in confidence. Who is it who does not admire those souls
who, with perfect candor and comfort, can say with a smile "I don't know
much about that." We are on firm ground here too. We are aware enough of
the content of the endeavor in question to be able to disqualify ourselves.
These first two knowledges are actually highly positive because they both
involve knowing. The next pair are actually rather negative in that they
involve not knowing.
Indeed the third knowledge does look strange. Not to know that you do
know? Can such happen? Think of the problems posed by disuse. We grow
away from knowledge of which we once had command. It isn't our fault so
much as it is time marching on, and we along with it. While we accumulate
new knowledges we neglect old ones. Now and then we come up against a
problem that requires us to put our memory and thinking to the task, and we
surprise ourselves with how much we remember of past masteries. Maybe it's
not so strange after all. One innocent example of a general nature lies in
remembering poetry. We don't even think about this or that verse for years
on end, and then when it unaccountably comes to mind it turns out that,
much to our astonishment, we can remember much of it. Probably we can all
conjure up personal examples of this curious frame of mind in which a long
abandoned knowledge turned out to be rather readily accessible.
Now the great problem, that fourth frame of mind, not to know that you
don't know. What an intellectual never-never land! There we are
responsible for responding to this or that circumstance, to which knowledge
applies of which we are utterly unaware. We may be in authority, be
expected to possess familiarity with knowledge of whose existence we are
ignorant. We have experienced the resulting problem when others blithely
chime in with confidence, unaware of what is actually going on. Some
gratuitous problem solvers "solve" problems for us with solutions that were
explored and rejected long ago. Others, for want of crucial knowledge,
critique our efforts when they don't realize that they haven't the facts.
We have all seen this sort of situation , and it always produces amazement
if not frustration.
Are we amazing or frustrating anyone? How can we tell? How can we know
what we don't know? We have to be told, that's how. And we have to
believe the person who has the knowledge, and along with it the assurance
and gumption to tell us. We need reliable and trusted associates for this
valuable intellectual protection.
So one thing we know that we do know is that the only way out of the
intellectual trap of not knowing that we don't know is through the help of
people we trust and who trust us. They fill us in regarding the material
that is missing, unbeknownst, from our store of knowledge. How would we
ever know if they didn't tell us what we didn't know? We need their good
will so that they will be inclined to help us out. See how we edge ever
closer to that wellspring of material in which both the Word and the
Writings are so fluent! See what a bonus is returned to us when we love
and respect our neighbors! They can be neighbors at work, in our
avocations, in our community, in our churches, anywhere.
When I checked to see whether Swedenborg had anything to say on this
specific matter, my investigation didn't turn up anything that applies to
this peculiar intellectual trap. But why should he bother? We have an
injunction from the Lord that we love our neighbors as ourselves, and
certainly our co-workers and those who otherwise share responsibilities
with us are among our neighbors. There is an intriguing twist here. It
involves the trouble that we can get into if we don't treat others with
concern and decency. We will find that they will neglect to protect us
from that pesky fourth frame of mind. Neighborliness, friendliness, care,
and concern for others all beget the same level of reciprocal
consideration. In its universality and prevalence, that fourth frame of
mind can produce for any and all of us embarrassments of considerable
impact if nobody bothers to make the effort to fill us in and help to set
us straight.
Is it not obvious how that fourth frame of mind is utterly neutral - - that
it is independent of any formal affiliation of any kind - - that it makes
absolutely no difference whatsoever whether this or that religious
denomination or persuasion is involved? In Swedenborgian terms, it is of
no consequence through which gate this or that soul tries to enter the New
Jerusalem; all souls happen to be equal, not only in respect to not knowing
that they don't know, but also in having to live with the consequences.
Isn't it wonderful to find a universal problem that affects every single
one of us in such an equalitarian way that we all come out even in the end
irrespective of sex, race, religion, color, or intellect? And isn't it
just as wonderful that the universal solution, the one and only way we can
acquire reliable protection from that fourth frame of mind, is to follow
the second of the Lord's two great commandments which enjoins us to love
our neighbors?
We must never allow ourselves to forget, for even a fleeting moment, that
we are, all of us, the Lord's workers with plenty of jobs to do in this
incomplete world of ours, one especially crucial job being that of helping
each other whoever we are?
Amen
Copyright 2001 by Lars-Erik Wiberg
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