This page in one paragraph
This page asks: is Dost's ending his arrival at knowledge not with "I understood" but with bewilderment something like physicists saying "we do not understand"? The closest thing is that on both sides "we understand" is not said; but we note this not as a pairing but as a shared stance greeting each other from a distance. The farthest is where they part: the physicist's "we do not understand" is a finding in which the calculations work and the interpretation is open; Dost's bewilderment is the station of the knower, even a state with delight in it. We did not look at the other themes such as the identity of the agent, blindness, time and containment, or left them to other pages, so most of Bewilderment's Dost side has not been paired with physics. What remains open is whether, if one speaks of a deficiency and the other of a station, the two can be called by the same word; and since the two sayings on the physics side are second-hand, we built nothing on them.
What is this form?
Most of the time we think of learning something like this: first we do not know, then we learn, and at the end we say "I understood". The road ends in understanding. In Dost's account, however, at the end of the road there is often no "I understood" but bewilderment. And this is not said as a deficiency; bewilderment is described as the place where the knower stands.
Its name is Bewilderment (hayret). Its difference from the other forms on this site is this: in them we said "this sentence does not fit in reason" and looked in physics for a similar not-fitting. Here there is no single sentence that does not fit. The not-fitting is said as the end of knowing itself: the knower, the more he knows, sees better that he "cannot know". The 146 hard items we read carried this air; the most crowded groups are bewilderment itself, the interweaving of knowing and not knowing, and leaving open who performs the act.
Let us be honest from the start: this form is the ground this work is already walking on. That neither side says "we understand" is the starting point of this side-by-side reading. So here we will not say that we found a resemblance with physics; we will note a shared stance, no more.
What does Dost say?
«Consequently, to arrive at bewilderment in the Real is the very arrival at Allah.» (c15k174)
Here Dost says bewilderment not as a stop on the road but as the place reached itself. Arriving at astonishment before the Real is held equal to reaching Him.
What to notice: the word "reaching" is filled not with knowledge but with bewilderment. Bewilderment sits where understanding was expected.
«So there is only the one who is bewildered, and the one who holds the judgment is only bewilderment. The one who exists is only Allah.» (c16k222, p. 210)
At the place of this sentence it is described how all roads return to one center in the religion of bewilderment. The one to judge is not reason; the one with the say is bewilderment.
What to notice: the last word is said not as a "conclusion" but as a state. The sentence gives no explanation; it describes a stance.
«To know Allah is the very not knowing Him / Not to know Allah is the very knowledge, think» (c10k126, p. 85)
Dost interweaves knowing and not knowing. Both are said truly, and the sentence stops the reader with "think".
What to notice: two opposites are said at once, but the aim here is not to defend a contradiction. It is for knowledge to show its own limit as knowledge. Because this sentence says two opposites together, it also belongs to the Both-and form; here we took only its bewilderment side.
«Upon this the person's bewilderment increases. But in this bewilderment there is a delight.» (c2k25, p. 327-328)
Before this sentence it is described how after every self-disclosure another self-disclosure comes with a different ruling. The person sees that reality has no limit to stop at, and his bewilderment increases. Dost says this bewilderment is not a dark astonishment, that there is a taste in it.
What to notice: as knowledge grows, the feeling of "I understood" does not grow, bewilderment grows. And this is described not as a loss but as a flavor.
«Thus intellects, senses and imagination remain incapable of perceiving the Real, and the Real remains in perfection (having cast into) bewilderment» (c8k110, p. 88-89)
Dost counts reason, sense and imagination one by one; all three say they cannot grasp the Real. In place of grasping, bewilderment remains.
What to notice: the incapacity is counted in three separate faculties at once. It is not only said "our reason is not enough"; perception and imagination stand at the same door. Not in a single place like the limit of a measuring device or a theory in physics, but in all the ways of knowing.
«The Lord is the Real, the servant is the Real / Who is obligated? Would that I knew.» (c4k50)
This couplet leaves unanswered to whom the act and the obligation belong. The one who says "would that I knew" does not try to solve the question; he leaves it open.
What to notice: the question here is not asked in order to arrive at an answer. It is left as a question standing where knowledge ends. In physics we did not come across a question of the type "who performs this act"; for this reason we recalled this couplet only on its bewilderment side.
What is there in physics?
Here, while looking for an experiment or a theory, we find a stance. So our list is short and made of four sources: two are sentences attributed to the masters of the theory, two are on the measurement problem. Two of the sources are second-hand; we write this openly.
Feynman 1965 — The "nobody understands" sentence
This is neither an experiment nor a theory article. It is a sentence in Feynman's book "The Character of Physical Law", in the sense of "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics". We know it not from the book itself but from a quotation collection called Wikiquote, that is, second-hand; this has to be taken into account. What Feynman says is not that the theory does not work: quantum theory gives some of the most precise predictions known. What is missing is a story fitting our everyday intuition about why these calculations work as they do. That is, he means "there is calculation, there is no understanding". This is not a physics finding; it is an honest statement by a physicist about his own field. What stops one is that one of the masters of the theory said it. [Feynman 1965]
A saying attributed to Bohr — "One who is not astonished has not understood" (relayed by Barad 2007)
This too is not an article; it is a saying attributed to Niels Bohr: one who is not astonished before quantum theory has not understood it. Barad 2007 relays the saying; its exact source is uncertain and there are different forms of its telling. For this reason we cite it not as Bohr's definite word but as a saying attributed to him. What is uncertain is this. The saying is neither an experiment nor a theory; it is an attitude saying that the founders of this field counted looking at the work with astonishment as a criterion. We see the same stance in similar sentences attributed to Feynman. Astonishment is mentioned here not as a deficiency but as a sign of having understood. But because its source is not solid, we build nothing on it. [Bohr 2007]
Schlosshauer 2005 — The measurement problem and decoherence
According to quantum theory, before being measured a system can be in a state in which several possibilities enter the account together; this is called superposition. But when we measure, we always see a single outcome. This disagreement is called the measurement problem. Schlosshauer's article is an assessment piece on the phenomenon called decoherence and how much it helps with this problem. Decoherence is this: a small system inevitably interacts with its environment, that is, with air, light, heat, and because of this the trace of the possibilities' being together, interference, is erased very quickly. This is a matter of experiment and calculation and is well understood. The article also asks whether this explains why a single outcome emerges, and takes up the main interpretations (Copenhagen, many worlds, hidden variables and others) one by one in this frame. The point it arrives at is this: decoherence explains why outcomes look classical, but it does not by itself close the question "why only one"; that part still depends on interpretation. [Schlosshauer 2005]
SEP 2024 — Philosophical issues in quantum theory
This entry of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a general introduction to the philosophical questions quantum theory gives rise to. The main topics: the measurement problem, what the wave function represents, non-locality and how different interpretations (many worlds, Bohmian mechanics, collapse theories) approach them. The entry is not an experiment or a report of findings; it is a map of the field of interpretation. What stops one is that, despite the theory's great success in calculation, there is no common answer about what it says. [SEP: Philosophical Issues in Quantum Theory]
Looking side by side
The first and main closeness is this: on both sides "we understand" is not said. So it is most correct to call it "greeting each other from a distance"; but let us say one thing from the start, this is not a pairing, it is a resemblance of stance.
- What is common: Dost ends his arrival at knowledge in bewilderment. In physics too, the sayings attributed to those who know the theory best (Feynman's second-hand, Bohr's in addition of uncertain source) say "we did not understand" or "one who is not astonished has not understood". The measurement problem too is a real question that stays open [Feynman 1965; Bohr 2007; Schlosshauer 2005; SEP: Philosophical Issues in Quantum Theory].
- Where they part: The physicist's "we do not understand" is a statement placed beside a calculational success: the formulas work, the interpretation is open. Dost's bewilderment is the station of the knower; it completes knowledge, it is the very arrival at it. One says "there is no interpretation yet", the other says "the place of interpretation is bewilderment". And there is this too: the physicist goes on looking for understanding; Dost describes this looking as arrival at bewilderment. These may not be the same stance.
- From where one who sees could notice a difference: one can look at where the physicist's astonishment and Dost's bewilderment part. In one, bewilderment is a problem, in the other a state. If this distinction becomes clear, it may be seen how much of what we call common ground is really common. We could not separate this; one who sees could.
- Open question: is saying "we do not understand" the same as saying "we are in bewilderment"? If one speaks of a deficiency and the other of a station, do we call them by the same word?
In everything else, that is in the other themes, we did not look for a closeness with physics or left them to other pages. Let us list them honestly:
- Imagination, the impossible and the union of opposites; the saying of opposites together: we did not look at this door here; it was taken up on the Reason and Both-and pages.
- Time, the now and duration: we did not look at this door here; it was taken up on the Time page.
- Containment, body, direction and the measure of station, spirit and barzakh: we did not look at this door here; it was taken up on the Containment page.
- The identity of the agent left unresolved; the common act of the Real and the servant: we did not look at this door. In physics we did not come across a question of the form "who performs this act"; it was mentioned in one line on the Both-and page.
- Blindness and the place of the beginning; the state before creation: we did not look at this door. Cosmology in this area is still highly speculative today; putting them side by side would have led us to something "tempting but unfounded".
- Meaning taking form and body; dream and imagining: we did not look at this door. We could not find a counterpart as a physics category.
This too is a result: most of Bewilderment's Dost side was not paired with physics; what remained is a shared stance.
Questions we are left with
- Are the physicist's "we do not understand" and Dost's "bewilderment" close enough to be called by the same word, or does one speak of a deficiency and the other of a station?
- Should this common ground remain as the method of this work, or should Bewilderment be counted as a separate form?
- Does the second-hand nature of the sayings attributed to Feynman and Bohr lower the value of this ground, or should we wait until they are verified from the book and the first source?
- Is the measurement problem's remaining open a computational shortfall, or the limit of knowing itself?
- Between the "delight" in Dost's bewilderment (c2k25) and the physicist's astonishment, is there a difference in feeling, or is it only our reading that separates them?
What did we not do?
We did not compare the words of Dost on this page with the Arabic original; what we read is the site's Turkish section summaries and the quotations taken from them. We did not look at the translation's own text either. Without going down to the weight of the word hayret in Arabic, this page should not be read as knowledge. On the physics side there are two second-hand sayings and we built nothing on them.
This is not a reading summary, it is our reading frame; we do not understand Dost, and we do not give up trying to understand.