The first part of this essay is Jazz: Time-Wreckers, Part I of V (002)
Part II: Time and Prophets
But could I consider a man like Robertson, who was eventually found dead on the floor of an Atlantic City hotel room with drugs in his system, a prophet?
Like most, I consider a prophet to be a fortune-telling sage. The fulfillment of the prophesied event requires not only proof it occurred but, even more so, proof the unlikely was told in advance without advanced indication of the data. And if both are proven, the title sticks.
And if it can meet the world-defining merits of a Black Swan event, even better. (For more information see Essay #1: Unraveling the Intricacies of Black Swans: A Statistical Perspective )
Looking up the word ‘prophet’ I discovered it is a transliteration of the Greek – from pro (beforehand, towards, or proceeding) and phēmí (to tell or proclaim over and against another idea).
So throughout history, it has been assumed that those who could foretell the unexpectable could also bestow divine guidance as well. But, I don’t immediately see that in a man like Robertson in his life or writings.
The unfalsifiable process of publication and dissemination may prove the foretelling of such an event, involving a yet-to-exist force, in indisputable detail. To deceive, Robertson, despite being dead for decades, would have had to visit the thousands of homes of all purchasers of his stories to edit them all to align with the historical events. The changing of a single manuscript is possible by a dead man (or his followers), but the changing of a million volumes in a million unknown locations is always improbable.
And so I am left in the lurch with a man who died in the most unholy of places, incontrovertibly predicting the details and nature of two of the most important unthinkable events of the 20th Century by named not-yet-existent parties.
Maybe, though, might I glimpse a little divinity even from the profane?
Maybe, may I learn something about the relationship between divine causation and timed meter?
If so, I had to suspend my judgment for a moment to allow me to ask the outlandish question.
Could Robertson’s writing have not only foretold of these events, but when he wrote of the events, his connection with the divine was so real, that it necessitated the future obey his pen?
He would be the story’s author to be played out within history, as my surgeon only arrived after my surgery was already complete.
Our recording mere reporting.
His writing more righting.
If I don’t subscribe to this, I would surely agree (beyond foolish claims of chance) that the historical events at least went back into the future to elevate Robertsons’ writings to prophecy.
For only that guess which has been successfully foretold, can be renamed prophecy.
Prophecy, never resting alone, requires a pair of events.
Prophets, always retroactively anointed in actuality, require a second anointing.
Irrespective of my choice, time has been enhanced in a way to do something it could not before:
Time may turn back to rewrite itself.
Perhaps my tumor knew a surgeon was coming and corrected itself.
Perhaps prophecy has a causal relationship with history, usurping time;
revealing a smidge of the divine.
Prophecy, if ever divinely defined, makes it feasible that
Divinity, never awakening alone, requires a pair of times.
The “logical” sciences taught me this, after all.
My surgery taught me facts sometimes are the opposite of reality. Those facts, of the tumor and the surgical risks, led to my fear. But now, my scared neck would no longer put itself on the line, but will only take facts as suggestion, never for complete truth again.
I now believed the world is moved, not by facts but by relevance.
Not by smart men, but by imaginatively courageous lads.
Not by causality, which requires a surgeon for surgery, but by dis-causal events separated by their effects.
If you wish to believe the unfathomable with me, perhaps you shall when I share Part III next week.
