call them what one will(s)
The Thesis
A four hundred year old taboo on regarding
active intelligent agents as legitimate
theoretical elements of the natural sciences
is nearing the end of its useful life.
The author does not intend to present or to argue a claim that
angels[-1] exist, nor to present
evidence for their existence, nor is it his intention to present a review of
the literature[0], but as the
usefulness of one of the initial, foundational concepts of science fades and
we experience an end to a historical period[1], the topic may hold some relevance[2].
It seems as if an agreement[3] was
entered into during the course of the seventeenth century[4] that in effect said we would no longer
allow disembodied beings to be among the primitive notions, the undefined
terms, the fundamental concepts[5], in
our investigations of Nature[6].
Reference to them was no longer to be thought to have explanatory value. The
time-honoured explanations of antiquity were to be discarded[7]. Mythic, pre-theoretical notions of minds
and wills embedded in natural phenomena were not to be taken up into the new
venture. We began to mathematize phenomena, while treating their causes as
inanimate.
We have kept to that presumptive constraint for some four hundred years.
Beginning with intuitive notions of: spatial location, ordered moments in
time, and various perceptions of force, we have conceived, elaborated and
refined physical instruments, conceptual tools, and our understanding of
portions of Nature.
During this period we have increasingly regarded as forbidden[8] the thought that there might actually be
active intelligent agents hidden in, under, or behind[9] the phenomena of Nature[10]. We have become familiar with a few of
the friendly lanes in our parametric neighbourhood. Science itself, however,
has in its foundations the premise that all other paths, wherever they may
lead, whatever they may contain, are not to be explored. (Some scientists
have been known to say no other paths exist.) This premise, that Nature is
at root disanimate, is not science, is not a scientific view. It is,
literally, pre-scientific.
In hindsight it is plausible to suppose that such agents, whether called
nature spirits or archangels[11], were
conceptually set aside for two[12]
interrelated reasons, associated with superstition and testability. There
had accumulated over many centuries, continents and cultures a great mass of
disordered speculation, of superstitious belief[13] concerning the operations of Nature and
the notion of causality[14]. As
reference to angels was treated as out-of-bounds for explanatory purposes,
this great mass of traditional folklore, untested, unverified, perhaps
unverifiable, but increasingly seen as irrational, was excluded, allowed to
lapse, set aside[15]. There was a
problem with Superstition[16].
More importantly, how was one to make predictions[17], test propositions or reach reliable
conclusions, if there existed unobservable minds of some grade of
intelligence and perhaps a degree of free and possibly ill will hidden in
natural phenomena? As we came to reject the seemingly untestable[18] we came to reject statements about
disembodied spirits.
In the beginning of our scientific era angels et al[19], were only gently set aside. Now, three to
four hundred years later, we have forgotten that Copernicus, Brahe, Bacon,
Galileo, Kepler, Harvey, Mersenne, Hobbes, Descartes, Boyle, Locke, Hooke,
Leibniz and Newton[20] (and many
others[21]) found no need to cease
believing in angels[22], but only a
pragmatic need to stop using them as explanations[23] for natural phenomena. The effort of
maintaining this fine distinction has been too much for many of us who have
gone from mechanistic theism to materialistic atheism; from not using them
for explanatory purposes to believing they don't exist. This is, generally,
an unexamined belief[24]. They are
only supposed or thought, not known, to be fictitious, mythological. Whether
they exist or not is a problem that few scientists have addressed.
Although the presentation of evidence for the existence[25] of angels may be premature[26] at this stage, with the appropriate and
inevitable refinements[27], the concept
of active intelligent agents in (or as) natural phenomena will be found to
have significant theoretical utility. Perhaps it is no longer appropriate
that we continue to regard this topic as forbidden, meaningless, without
potential merit, too difficult or undecidable.
It was the dream of Copernicus that one could uncover “a scheme for
the movements of the machinery of the world”. Bacon wrote that
“The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, the secret
motions of things, the enlarging of the bounds of human empire to the
effecting of all things possible ... until the mind shall arrive at a
knowledge of causes in which it can rest”. Barrow wrote that the aim
of the new philosophy was to “search Nature out of her concealments,
and unfold her dark Mysteries”. Galileo proposed “a new
science of motion”. Newton wished “to establish the true
motions from their causes, effects and apparent differences”, ... to
“demonstrate the frame of the System of the World”. A search
for order behind the irregular facades of Nature continues to motivate many.
Some scientists today seem to be suggesting that they are finding more
order in the world than they can account for within the (now fading) system
of traditional disanimate scientific explanations. While natural systems may
appear to be built solely from inanimate components, the degree of order or
functionality contained in the components does not appear to be sufficient to
account for[28] the degree of order or
functionality displayed by various wholes. How can (disanimate, mechanical)
systems as complex as biological organisms or ecological systems possibly
exist?[29] These systems sometimes
demonstrate far more resilience (creativity) than can be accounted for
presently. The usual cybernetic concepts of communication and control don't
appear to be sufficient. The pathways which have been found are too few,
their bandwidth is inadequate, and there is no evidence of the type of
messages necessary for the amount of inter/intra-process co-ordination which
is required, to say nothing of traffic volumes. Something (cybernetic) is
missing[30].
There are also those who, limited by the animate/disanimate taboo, yet
perhaps unaware of the constraint they allow it to exert, are turning to
increasingly convoluted (vibratory, recursive, chaotic, fractal) explanations
for the phenomena they are encountering. (Many of these have this form: a
sufficiently complex arrangement of inanimate phenomena may result in a
reduction in entropy.) Here is one widespread (pseudo) explanation favoured
by students[31] of “complex
adaptive” or “almost conscious” systems: additional
order “emerges from complexity”, out of chaos, by means of
disorder, through fluctuations, assisted by noise, (invigorated by reduced
funding and widespread misunderstanding?)
This is not an explanation[32]. It
is an evocation of the difficulty, a sketch of the problem being mistaken for
a solution, an attempt to conjure an explanation out of a
description in advance of an intuition. To say that additional system-wide
order[33] “emerges from
complexity” is to say no more than saying that when natural systems
become complex, extra functionality peeps out through the system components.
One might as well say that when a mineral-microbe-mushroom-plant-insect
ecosystem gets really diverse, interactive, and complex, mammals begin to
poke their heads out from between the leaves, and then accept that as an
explanation for the origin of mammals[34]. (If one is essentially in kindergarten,
that may be an acceptable explanation.)
Science, our almost four hundred year old programme, can be seen as an
exercise resting on a single supposition. While one may feel a little
disoriented at the (unkind and unnecessary) thought that we have been asking
the wrong question, perhaps we will not have to start from scratch. A
mid-course correction may be sufficient. Intelligent agents in Nature[35] may have been under scientific observation
for some time, in many disciplines, under many names, without our being aware
of the true nature of what was being observed. Entire collections of
observational data may be relevant[36],
although some (habitual disanimist) working methods may need rethinking.
We have reached a point in the development of scientific practice[37] where the taboo of long-standing against
supposing that there might be intelligent agents “behind” the
phenomena of Nature is nearing the natural end of its usefulness. (It was
useful for a time.) We are well into a zone of diminishing returns[38] and headed for a region where it will be
increasingly counter-productive for this taboo to be unconsciously
retained.
Once unable, with our young, undeveloped minds, to examine Nature
objectively, impersonally, without hypothesizing that there were no minds in
natural phenomena, no minds in physical, chemical, biological or ecological
systems, we have arrived some four centuries later at a point where what was
felt at the time to be a necessary initial condition, a developmental
requisite[39] for the very possibility
of scientific work, has hardened into a denial, a “suppressed and
suppressing premise”, the handling of which in some instances tests
positive for dogmatism (often inflated, masked and presenting as a smooth
cool schooled, foolproof skepticism). Let[40] us in appreciation set this dogma gently
aside. Let the adventurous freely conjecture that there may be minds in (or
as) the physical structures of Nature. Let the serious go on to test[41] this.
1. the thoughtful technician
A strong objection, the question that seems to raise serious
technical difficulties for the view that Nature may be “of minds
inhabited, of minds constructed”:
“Where is the hardware? There isn't evidence of a plausible
(requisite) biophysical substrate to support minds in
‘inanimate’ natural phenomena, neither in earth, air, fire,
or water, nor in the quantum vacuum, or zero-point field”.[42]
Indeed. There doesn't seem to be any plausible candidate. We
commonly recognize two possible substrates for “mind”:
carbon/protein (C,N,O,P,S) assemblages (“neurons”) in living
organisms, and silicon (Si) logic gates in electronic devices. These two do
not appear to touch the problem of a “substrate” in Nature for
active intelligent agents. (It would, presumably, have to be something
underlying, ontologically anterior to the 92 chemical elements.) The
consideration of this objection may reward the persistent[43].
2. the occasionally fearful
“We risk calling[44] back upon
ourselves that great mass of superstition and so great a variety of
‘hysterical emotions’ which we put behind us some four
hundred years ago. There might be some risk of a ‘collapse into
prescientific modes of thought’. Our standards of rigour, our
refined fundamental concepts, our control of Nature, science as-we-know-it
would be under threat”.[45]
It is a matter for some considered judgement as to which
superstitions, active or potentially active, from whatever source, are in
fact latently capable or actively productive of the most harm. There are
issues here of the greatest importance for the welfare of humanity.
It is possible to dissolve harmlessly superstitious beliefs,
taken either one at a time or collectively at their root, with an open
hearted, clear minded, dispassionate exploration into their origins,
examining relevant facts, subjective and objective. Hasn't this been an
essential part of the curriculum for the last four hundred years?[46] Finally, we didn't successfully
“put behind us some four hundred years ago so great a variety of
hysterical emotions”. We excluded them from concern partially on
the presumptive assertion that their causes were fictions. They were not
studied.
3. the tree-dwelling
Darwinist
“If genuine animism were possible (or probable) it would be obvious,
as the consequences, evolutionary advantages conferred through natural
selection, would be evident”.
This is a relatively unevolved objection. Its core, the first
eleven words, gains no advantage from a decorative twelve-word tail. Yet
underneath this objection lies a fairly deep philosophical question,
neither dumb nor trivial: Why isn't the possible or probable obvious?, or,
in another language: Why didn't the Universe come with a menu, context
sensitive help, "Esc", unlimited depth undo, a system properties browser, and
perhaps an intelligent compiler which, when individuals, families,
institutions, organizations and civilizations know failure, refers us back to
our own source code, with a cursor quietly blinking on the offending
intention? If the universe is so equipped, why isn't that obvious, or at
least suspected?[47]
variants:
“If our brains had not given us a fairly reliable
picture of the world as it really is, we would probably have been eliminated
by natural selection in favour of a species possessing brains that
did” (give such a picture).
“If telepathy and psychokinesis are possible, why
are they not widespread and evident?”
“You would think, if the supernatural really plays
the powerful and pervasive role in our lives so many people claim, its
existence would have been obvious to all of us by now[48], as obvious as the fact that the sun
lights the sky during the day”.
Or as obvious as the fact that the earth rotates about its
polar axis?
The least-evolved objections, coming often perhaps from
reincarnates from Amsterdam in the 1690s, are those which use the word
“dualism” as if its meaning were single and obvious. For
example: “Accepting dualism is giving up!” or more to
the point: “Get thee behind me, Dualism!” One is
sensitive to the evident frustration and pain, presumably due to the concern
that a buried-as-solved problem has returned in a contagious form, but until
there is an articulation of the usage by the user that shows some sign of
contact with the real problem, one is unable to prepare a helpful
response.
“Dualism The Perceived” is always inevitably a
function of the instrumentation, the “perceptive capacity or
functionality or talent”. The solution (which in modern terminology
amounts to an upgrade), is in the literature (Matthew 25:15–28).
“Dualism The Cosmological Reality” is a fictitious object. As
long as one doesn't distinguish the two in one's model of Actuality, there is
a standing potential for a degree of confusion.
4. the practical bureaucrat, type
1
“If we are to fit in, learn and profit, where are the new analogies,
exemplars, paradigm instances, examples, precepts, types and specimens, the
warrants, images, models and metaphors? They seem neither to hand nor
obvious nor immanent”.[49]
Wherever they “are”, their detection and
identification would seem to require, as a prerequisite, the acknowledgment
and relaxation of what has been called “two Great Denials; the
restriction of ordinary faculties as sympathy and intelligence to humans and
to a remote Deity, and the relegation of the extra-ordinary faculties to the
realms of the nonexistent or insignificant”.[50]
Relaxation may not be enough. A disciplined cessation may be
necessary. (It is a matter for experiment.) Then when the student is ready,
perhaps exemplars and precepts are abundant, visible when the conditions
governing what can be perceived (and described) in nature,
change[51].
5. the taxonomist
“The laboratory practice of science is not concerned with ideas
that, a priori, cannot be experimentally confirmed”.[52]
While there exist incoherent and foolish ideas, it is doubtful
that there exists any working scientific method / instrument / algorithm /
goddess of the “A Priori” that is able to
distinguish broadly what can be experimentally tested and what cannot. To be
successful, such would have to incorporate a comprehensive list of possible
tests. No such list is presently in the possession of the scientific
community. A claim that such a method exists might interest those who have
produced results on Turing's “Halting Problem”.
6. the thin-lipped explainer
“Ockham's Principle of Parsimony[53] says Chance is a simpler explanation
than Intelligence for any natural phenomena, including the origins of the
Universe, Life, Mind, and Consciousness”.
One's reply to this objection must partially depend upon the
objector. If the objection expresses the feeling of being unable to cope
with the richness, perceived as complexity, of multiple minds and wills
behind natural phenomena, one grants its personal appropriateness. In such a
situation its content is little more than “Hey, please stop. I can't
cope with as many variables as I'm imagining there are in Nature. I'd really
rather pretend that the only relevant wills are human, something I am already
having sufficient difficulties with, thank you”. While the objection
has therefore psychological and humanitarian relevance as a plea against
cognitive, or emotive, overload, its reliability otherwise as a
methodological principle cannot be assumed[54].
Should the objector claim no feeling of cognitive distress but
instead express an aesthetic or logical distaste, then several points seem
worthy of note:
that Ockham himself used his Principle of Parsimony to
dispense with: “relations, which he held to be nothing distinct from
their foundations in things; with efficient causality, which he tended to
view merely as regular succession; with motion, which is merely the
reappearance of a thing in a different place; with psychological powers
distinct for each mode of sense; and with the presence of ideas in the mind
of the Creator, which are merely the creatures themselves”.[49b]
that Ockham, as doesn't seem to have been widely recalled,
found no need to use the Principle of Parsimony to dispense with angels:
“For a multiplicity of Divine agents does not involve any incongruity
or impossibility”.
Ockham's Principle is widely used as a Standard Issue Animist
Swatter; when the annoying buzz of a pro-animist idea or assertion is
detected one swats it with the Ockham Swatter. This step is thought to be
superior to thinking about the question. Can one safely presume that Chance
is a better explanation than Intelligence as an explanation for the common
usage of the Ockham Swatter?
One wonders how in the context of Ockham's Principle one ought
to define the concept of “Natural”?
7. the angelicly challenged
“What Literature?”
If one took the question seriously, with less
‘attitude’, one would be more likely to find it.
“It's probably anecdotal, vague[55], unreliable, spurious, incoherent,
unintelligible, uncorroborated assertions, fantasies, untested, porous,
sparse, diffuse, vacuous, logically inconsistent, largely false. The
signal-to-noise ratio is probably appalling”.
Yes, it is often appalling: degenerate, deteriorated,
corrupt, deformed, petrified, confused, a caricature, with little remaining
operational articulation; coarse grained and getting coarser with each
unthinking cynical or gushing repetition. If its existence upsets you,
perhaps you also find upsetting the existence, at the earth's surface, of
large bodies of metallic oxides and sulphides (ores is what economic
geologists call them) ? However, as with ore bodies, the s/n isn't zero. To
imagine that it is zero is to start with a self-imposed handicap; for it can
readily be partitioned into signal-rich and signal-poor sets, with a little
practice.
“But you wouldn't call it hypothesis-testing literature, would
you?”
No, one wouldn't. Nor would one stand on a great undeveloped
mineral deposit of silicon, selenium, iron, nickel, copper, titanium, cobalt
and chromium and say “Look at all the sensitive laboratory equipment
and delicate surgical instruments in the ground just waiting to be picked
up!” Nor would one readily call Bacon, Blake, Boehme or Bruno's works
hypothesis-testing literature. Everything that has ever been written is just
ore; without the mind's fire it remains no more useful than rubble. (Don't
undergraduate T-shirts say “Text is Ore” (philosophy student)
and “Ore is Text”? (earth sciences student)?
8. the disappointed
enthusiast
“If science has been wrong on this issue, how could it have been so
eminently successful?”
variant:
“How could science work if its methods and
procedures were not about the real world, independent of mere beliefs about
it?”
See Kant's “maxims of inquiry” [56]
9. the socialite
“But how can one become actively interested in such a subject, write
up proposals, receive grants, submit for publication, without risking peer
respect, reputation, career, prospects, tenure ... ?”
Little hope of it. One is either seriously interested in,
perhaps dedicated to, Truth or one is fodder for the social canons. If you
wish a deep answer to a Question, master the material on your own. Wasn't
that the original point of higher degrees?
10. the practical bureaucrat, type 2,
devotee of the principle of least action
“Thy views disturb and unsettle our slumber (... while our repose is
tabooed by anxiety). The proper and accepted procedure is to do as we do,
to assume their nonexistence, (spirits, angels, whatever) with the
expectation that someday it will be found, by someone, that this null
hypothesis is insufficient[57]. We
shall be told if this happens”.
Odd; that isn't how pioneers, reformers, explorers,
humanitarians, inventors, artists, prospectors, activists, statesmen or poets
of the first order are known to proceed.
“We are none of the above. What action we take is primarily to
guard what we have already gathered for ourselves. There does not seem to
be sufficient evidence to warrant action, nor is it evident what
possibilities for action would cause us the least discomfort. You have not
convinced us. In any case we take the absence of evidence to be evidence
bordering on near certainty of non-existence”.
One is reminded of a remark by Newton: “These are
things that cannot be explained in a few words ...”
11. the blindfolded night creeper, the
epistemically undeveloped
“We have looked. There are no gaps, no niches. The interstitial
spaces of Nature are fully booked”.
variants:
“If there were in nature a progressive force, an
eternal urge, chemistry would find it. But it is not there”.[58]
“We don't detect angels”.
Perhaps the spectral bands they frequent are outside the
present operational capability of your instruments; or if slightly within,
perhaps unsuspected in the incoming signals. What wavelengths have you
searched with angels in mind?
The non-scientist would have more trust in your conclusions if he could rely
on the idea that you aren't filtering out relevant data as noise or
re-labeling it as a mechanical effect, or as an artifact of the apparatus.
“Our multispectral anomaly thresholds are set for the best
compromise between missed detections and false alarms”.
Yes, one can describe some simple detection arrangements in
that manner. About other, more complex arrangements, one might choose to say
that programmatic presumptions (and taboos) are significant in determining
when a signal is treated as affirming an erroneous expectation or correcting
a misunderstanding.
12. the lazy historian
“We have already tried that way of looking at the world”.
No, we haven't. Animism as a hypothesis, as
best as I can gather European history, wasn't tried on any significant scale,
nor was it supported by any public institution. The institutionalized
Christianity of the middle ages wasn't given to genuinely hypothesizing about
this aspect of Nature[59a]. The
question of the existence of disembodied spirits wasn't a question for
pondering. Nature was animate (or disanimate) by received tradition. (The
superstitions of the uneducated bothered the early Christian Church then as
they bother Scientists now; Clerical Christianity did prepare many for the
coming Scientific Revolution.) Whether or not Nature was animate has never
within recorded history been a question that Tribe, Ruler, King, Church,
State or Science has regarded as an open question for the members. There
exists a taboo[59b]. (There may have
been historical exceptions. If so, the author has missed them in his
studies.)
13. the keen young scientist or
graduate student
“But our model says nature is inanimate, and our data shows that it
is. Right?”
Not quite. The incumbent model says nature is
inanimate-mechanical (the two thoughts are seldom separated, but they are
separable) and our data only shows it to be mechanical (up to the relevant
quantum mechanical constant). We have neither looked to see if it is animate
appearing as inanimate, nor do we have any data that shows that it is (at
root) inanimate. (If any scientist currently imagines that he has data that
conclusively shows that Nature is ontologically inanimate, one certainly
wishes him well with his studies.)
New ideas are constrained by their assumptive base. The new
idea of four hundred years ago was mechanical order in nature. The assumptive
base was that it was inanimate order[60]. (That Descartes wrote (Sebba 1985) of
receiving this mechanical hypothesis from a “spirit” is
probably taught laconically in Humanities and Theological courses, while
being forgotten or actively suppressed in Engineering and Science.)
14. “But how could it (Nature) be
animate and produce mechanical effects, regular, precise, measureable, to
many decimal places of space, time and intensity?”[61]
Good question. Rare question. Is this a question you want
another person to answer for you?
15. “Can you show me one? Show me
one and I'll believe (in them, in you, whatever), reconsider, study, repent,
throw my hands up in exasperation, take a holiday”.
If you mean, show you an apparently inorganic phenomenon in
Nature, with either a will or mind at its root, there are two difficulties.
Firstly, it is likely that what you mean is this: you'll believe if you can
be presented with an object. Yet we may be talking about subjects[62], and (secondly) they may not (choose to)
be subjects to you.
16. “But you offer no proof. At
no point in either your thesis or in the following 67 chapters do you provide
a specific reference to nontrivial experimental facts”.
Iwis, alas, indeed[1.53
Proof] Otherwise, what is known about spontaneous reduction in
entropy?
Every body continues in its state (of rest or of uniform
motion) unless compelled (or motivated by information) to change that state.
{Newton}
Change of motion is proportional to the applied force, (but
not proportional to the impressed information.) {Newton}
All nontrivial theories are underdetermined[63] by data.
All nontrivial evidence is a matter of "DIY". There is no
such thing as a “pioneer sheep”.
Reasons?
Reasons?!
Mark, I feel it in my Water!
Rutherford qby Oliphant
17. “A significant proportion of
the theoretical results and the practical outcomes of science are essentially
insensitive to the choice of assumption re animate/inanimate matter. One is
tempted to think a switch to an animate matter assumption would make little
difference to the science on which the engineering disciplines, for example,
are based”.
That is an interesting thought, and a testable one.
18. “Why wings?”
The iconography of the disembodied is not simple. While
portrayed in European art as winged, other “markers” can be
found in Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Far Eastern and aboriginal religious
iconography. As students of captionless cartoons know, there is some
possibility for amusement in the likelihood that a given angelic
representation, from any tradition, may in fact have been rendered from a
description; between the artist and the object stands an encoding. This
textual detour, while it may be humorous, is thought to be of little
scientific value. There are mixed cases where a final graphic is composed of
some observational elements and one or more textual detours. Iconization may
be in the eye of the beholder; more precisely, may be a function of the
preconceptions (ideas) through which the “objects” are viewed.
There are iconographic traditions from non-western cultures in
which angels are represented as having other distinguishing features than
wings. In the cases that the writer knows of, most such graphic elements
represent “stream flow”: “maqor chay mayim”
(Jeremiah 2:13 - “fountain of living waters”) is no mere poetic
fiction.) Given the assignment – with some powdered mineral pigments,
a botanic resin, an appropriate solvent and a brush – to represent on
a cloth surface torrents of streaming, likely multi-coloured
“force”, and limited perhaps more often than not to secondary
source material (to a text or a visionary's sketch) rather than a vision of
one's own, it is understandable that many artists have chosen to draw
”wings“ as an indirect symbolization, and
“scarves” or “ribbons” or “floating belts
of light” as a less indirect representation, and
“flames”*, to name the five most common.
(* Descartes: 5th Objection to the Third meditation: “But when I
think of an angel, what comes to mind is an image, now of a flame, now of a
beautiful child with wings”.) (see Closing Note .2. in the Glossary)
19. “Under a rational
epistemology, conservatism with regard to established theory is highly
desirable. Even replicable data that fail to fit established theory do not
and should not call for theoretical modifications”.
Newton's Sleep[51.56]
and Cultural Relativism do not exhaust reality. Take your time,
20. “It seems appropriate that
scientists refuse to acknowledge a field of potential research if it is
thought that entry into such a field would be almost inevitably
misunderstood, regarded as tampering with the sacred, opposed by ones
colleagues, or likely to lead to public disquiet, social confusion, or civil
disorder”.
No one wishes inadvertently to elicit either injury or
laughter.
21. the n dimensional omnivorist
pausing between feeds to survey his n+1 dimensional estate from his
high-chair
“If there were an approach, a method of thinking or discovery
superior to that now in use by Science, my fellow High-Chaired associates,
Science would incorporate it.”
(His mother was looking for his copy of The Mosquito who
tried to Drink the Ocean Dry when she noticed he had fallen asleep.
Perhaps tomorrow would be a happier day for him.)
