If the Entire Universe Were Invisible, How Would We Know We Exist?

A Boltzmann brain, named for physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, is a hypothetical, self-aware entity that manifests itself out of random fluctuations in a state of chaos. To put this more simply, suppose you existed, with all of your memories, in a void -- in nothingness made real. You could remember things that had happened to you, but without anything around you it would be unclear how these things happened. You would be a Boltzmann brain. But, what happens if we take the "brain" out of the void? How would it change? We can say that life remains fairly constant in some ways and wouldn't change someone more than they would change themselves. For example, there is an ocean between the Americas and Eurasia, it is hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and when it rains and the water hits my window just right I think someone is at my door; but these things don't impact me psychologically. By this logic, we can imagine a singular person walking around an Earth similar to ours without drastic change in their makeup. And we can fill in other, less predictable things; dogs tend to act in a way that we like, and mosquitoes tend to act in a way that we don't. So now, our "brain" is walking around an Earth that matches ours biologically as well. Likewise, can we add in people too? Or are their actions unpredictable enough to change our "brain"?

To constrain Ellison's idea of invisibility to merely his narrator in Invisible Man, or even black people in general, is a dastardly misunderstanding of several of his points in the book. The vet himself points out how Mr. Norton and the narrator are both invisible to each other in different ways. But, does this mean that we all exist invisibly to each other, no more than the simple "brain" walking around our biologically similar Earth with only caricatures of each other to share it with? The answer, of course, is no -- we share ourselves with a choice few of these caricatures (calling them such odd terms as "friends" and "family") and, in so doing, lose our invisibility. However, it's important to remember that everybody is invisible to somebody. At times, lives can even depend on this. Let me explain.

In chapter fifteen, the narrator's antics trying to rid himself of his package reminded me of a story my mother occasionally tells. Back when she was only a wee lass in high school, she dated a boy who, for simplicity's sake, we'll call Johnny. Johnny was a good kid himself, but his father had a few ... quirks. Johnny's father didn't like it when people walked behind him or when he otherwise couldn't see them around him, and so he'd always let them pass. Occasionally, Johnny's father disappeared for a while, and neither Johnny nor the rest of his family ever talked about it. Once a month or so, a man would drive up to Johnny's door, drop off a paper bag, and drive off. Johnny's father would come out and pick up his cash (for that, and not flaming fecal matter, was what lied inside every time). But, when my mother saw this happen, she was warned to not tell anyone about it, just as Johnny's family didn't. You see, Chicago exerts its power even down in Danville, where they lived; Johnny's father was connected with the mafia. His entire existence hinged upon his ability to stay invisible. Should the feds or anybody who would do him and his family harm discover him (or any member of the mafia), he would have to flee. So, letting others fill in their own images of him instead of shouting the truth from the rooftops was the easiest way to survive.

Still, going back to our original question, does adding humans invalidate our Boltzmann brain? Would they somehow intrinsically change it? And here is where "invisibility" truly comes into play. Just like our dogs and mosquitoes could be considered relatively constant above, the cardboard cutout of the man we don't see doesn't change. That is, what we see of them stays the same until we go back and actually see them. Real live humans are all over the place psychologically. The odds are small that one random person will perfectly match up to another random person ideologically. Due to this, our "brain" will start to be influenced by all of these different people. Without any other people, to the "brain," an empty room as no different intrinsically than a vibrant forest. The "brain" fills it in with ideas it comes up with itself, yet this is nothing more than it confirming its own ideas. On the other hand, even with other people, only the people we actually see matter, like our friends and family. And this is where the narrator in Invisible Man gains his total invisibility from; nobody knows the true him anymore. When the Brotherhood assigns him a new name, he dies to his family and the few people he could call friends; now he has only colleagues and responsibilities. While his personality was earlier defined by what he thought others wanted of him, it was also what he wanted. Now, what he wants and what others demand of him are not necessarily the same, and he is beginning to disappear behind this new persona because of it. And as this happens, he becomes more like the Boltzmann brain; walking around where nobody even knows his name, the people around him become a canvas on which he can demonstrate his emotions and feelings, but doing nothing to him in return.

You Can't Handle the Truth

In Invisible Man, we see an interesting commentary on the nature of freedom in the vet. He, after becoming a doctor of great skill in France, came to the States and was soon after beaten for the idea that he could have dignity. Eventually, he was put into the asylum to be forgotten about, his words discounted as only those of a lunatic. But, despite his complete lack of physical freedom -- he can't even get himself transferred between hospitals until Dr. Bledsoe influences the hospital to move him as far away as they can -- he has a form of mental freedom. The thought that he is to be overlooked allows him to think and say many things he otherwise would not. By being labelled insane, he becomes very invisible, allowing him to think freely about whatever he desires.

Interestingly enough, Native Son has a parallel character, although he is touched upon much more briefly. When Bigger is in the jailhouse after the inquest, another prisoner is put into his cell. All the new guy does is scream and rant about his papers, and talking to the President, but the prisoners in the cells around Bigger explain the situation to him. They say that the man had been studying at a nearby university to write a book about how black people live, and went nuts. According to them, he said somebody stole all his facts, so he went to the post office in his underwear to get an appointment with the President to tell him directly why black people were being treated so badly. At this point, the man starts yelling specific details: "I'll tell 'im you make us live in such crowded conditions on the South Side that one out of every ten of us is insane! ... I'll tell 'im you tax us, but you won't build hospitals! ... I'll tell 'im you hire us last and fire us first! ..." As he goes on, the other prisoners start to holler and shout so that the guards will move him away. But, what they label as crazy are valid ideas that just are not typically voiced. For example, as Bigger is hiding from the police, he overhears a conversation wherein one person has been fired from his job due to the hype around Bigger's crime, and the other tells him that his white boss was just looking for an excuse to fire him. Additionally, Bigger himself comes to similar conclusions about the artificial divide between the South Side where he lives and Hyde Park where Mr. Dalton lives. Yet, the one person to speak up and voice his concerns gets thrown in jail and treated as if he is speaking in tongues.

Of course, with both of these characters the authors are trying to get a point across. In a nutshell, they are saying that nobody can handle the existence of the problems at hand, let alone how bad they all are. While the "crazed" prisoner in Native Son certainly did more to deserve his incarceration, he didn't deserve to lose the right to be listened to. Likewise, the vet was thrown into the asylum for the dangerous notion that he deserved dignity like any other man. In fact, when he yells at Mr. Norton for the invisibility he gives to and receives from the narrator, Norton simply brushes him off, saying, "Hurry, the man is as insane as the rest." Even the main characters of both books ignore them at first. Bigger promptly forgets about the "crazed" prisoner after he is carted away, and the narrator goes along with Mr. Norton and decides the vet's words do not need to be acknowledged. However, as the narrator realizes his invisibility, he does eventually open up to the vet's ideas. That is, as reality starts to click for him, he begins to understand what the vet was saying. Perhaps Wright and Ellison were hoping their books would click reality into place for the reader, so they could understand the depth of the mental restriction placed onto those like the narrator in the opening chapters of Invisible Man.

The Question of Suffocation

So, I'll admit I'm a bit late to the party, but hopefully it's not to late to go back briefly to Native Son. Something bugged me about the scene in which Bigger killed Mary even from my first reading. In it, Mary starts to mumble as Mrs. Dalton comes in, and Bigger is afraid of being discovered in the room. This much is plain and simple. However, his response particularly intrigues me. You see, he pushes a pillow on her mouth, trying to stop her from speaking. Now, the reader will, of course, recognize this as suffocation, but my question is, did Bigger? Elsewhere in the book it is referenced that Bigger has only had an eighth grade education. To say that Bigger only knows what he learned in school is ridiculous; he is also drawing from some twenty years or so of life and pop culture and other miscellaneous things. However, was it possible that Bigger didn't even realize that he could kill Mary by keeping the pillow on her too long? While he was gripped with terror in the action of the scene, the reader should note that being caught in that room would most likely receive a (slightly) lesser punishment than being caught having killed her. Wouldn't trying to hide have a better outcome than killing her, even if it ran the risk of his discovery?

Furthermore, the fact that he didn't realize that she was dead seems to suggest this notion as well. After Mrs. Dalton leaves, the furthest Bigger dares to think to himself is "Had he hurt her?" He seems to interpret the fact that she had clawed at his hands trying to remove the pillow merely as her trying to speak and giving up, not as her trying to live and failing. It does not even occur to him that she could be dead until he looks closely at her for some time. And why doesn't it occur to him? Because he didn't even realize the possibility of death resulting from his actions.

 "But Tristan," I assume you are now saying for the purpose of this post, "what you are saying sounds alright, I guess, but why does it matter? It's just some inconsequential detail; you're reading way too far into this." While you may have a point -- this could be unintentional on Wright's part, after all -- the truth is that it's there now and we might as well argue about it. But not only that, it ties into Bigger's self-deception about Mary's death as well. Now, to anybody reading the book, it is quite clear that, whether or not Bigger knew the outcome was possible, he did not intend to kill Mary. Despite this, later on in the story, he attempts to trick himself into believing that he had killed her purposefully; he laments that he should have gotten more money out of it and says that her murder gives his life a purpose (which I do not intend to debate outside of the "murder" bit). If we take into account the possibility that Bigger did not only not intend to kill Mary, but did not know that she could die, it only magnifies the level of self-deception that Bigger must be practising here. And that, even in its small way, is why this scene seems so important to me.

So, those of you who have read this, I suppose I should thank you. Since this post will be taking my blog virginity, I guess if you want to say something you just make a little comment doodad under here and it'll be dandy? My point is I have no idea what's going on. In any case, a most formal thank you is now extended. Get it while it lasts!