At the Jorge Luis Borges Conference that I just attended and where I read a paper on "El sur," there was a presentation referencing Borges's great story(?) "Argumentum ornithologicum" which traced Borges's logic very closely. I kind of wandered in and out of listening to the ponencia and so I don't think I could come close to giving itjustice. "Argumentum," however, has not completely left my thoughts and so I reproduce it here below along with its Andrew Hurley translation:
"Cierro los ojos y veo una bandada de pájaros. La visión dura un segundo o acaso menos; no sé cuántos pájaros vi. ¿Era definido o indefinido su número? El problema involucra el de la existencia de Dios. Si Dios existe, el número es definido, porque Dios sabe cuántos pájaros vi. Si Dios no existe, el número es indefinido, porque nadie pudo llevar la cuenta. En tal caso, vi menos de diez pájaros (digamos) y más de uno, pero no vi nueve, ocho, siete, seis, cinco, cuatro, tres o dos pájaros. Vi un número entre diez y uno, que no es nueve, ocho, siete, seis, cinco, etcétera. Ese número entero es inconcebible, ergo, Dios existe."
"I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts a second, or perhaps less; I am not sure how many birds I saw. Was the number of birds definite or indefinite? The problem involves the existence of God. If God exists, the number is definite, because God knows how many birds I saw. If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because no one can have counted. In this case, I saw fewer than ten birds (let us say) and more than one, but did not see nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two birds. I saw a number between ten and one, which was not nine, eight, seven, six, five, etc. That integer--not-nine, not-eight, not-seven, not-six, etc.--is inconceivable. Ergo, God exists. (trans. Andrew Hurley)"
There is too much here for me to go into because I am a very impatient thinker and writer. I think that this is still stuck in my craw because of what I am studying at the moment. I’ve been trying to link visual culture to ecocriticism and I think that the doubt that comes through Borges’s argument is related to what we would call our “wonder” before nature. We stand at the top of a cliff at the edge of the Grand Canyon and we try in vain to absorb a whole image/idea of what we see before us. Later, when we try to share what we saw/experienced we often fall silent and we reduce our experience to the ineffable. Of course this won’t do so we use hyperbole or better yet we go prepared and we take a picture as if an image communicates better than words when it really is just another filter, perhaps.
Just like with our consciousness’s before the Grand Canyon, I think any encounter with the ‘other’ of nature, whatever the scale or location, is constructed in several spatiotemporal instances and that we constantly return to and playback. A poem or a photograph gives us something akin to what Benjamin calls “unconscious optics” with regard to our wonder before nature. Then again, it’s late and I should be working on something else.
"Borges's ruiseñor"
