David's Blague

Memory tricks us humans into thinking like empirical beings.  We stumble around, babes in the dark, until we bump into a light switch.  Let There Be Light! and we see it, and it's good, and we remember.  The next time we stumble into it, when there is light, we remember, and we also recall.  We form a hypothesis, good scientists we are, and we test the hypothesis against the light switch.

Over time, the hypothesis becomes habit.  Memory, like a stream, carves out a groove, and the hypothesis itself is no longer needed.  Habit alone suffices to Separate the Light From the Darkness, and to call the light "on" and the darkness "off."  Habit outlives memory.  It persists even beyond life.  It is passed from person to person, from animal to animal, it is written on the world around us as paths and canyons and places, and even into our very genes.

Eventually, like Eve in the Garden, we ask why.  Memory persists to habit, now habit gives way to reason.  Patterns emerge.  We notice there is a pattern to the patterns.  These we call law.