Sabertruth

Whence sounds the shout of Veritas

That all is black or white?

If Nature fails to fit this form,

Why dogma's wrong or right?

Could the neuron's all or none

Brood artifactual truth?

And binarize the networked mind,

Render grey scales uncouth?

And could behavior's need to act

When faced with prey or foe,

Have pressured fight or flight's response

And forced mind's go/no-go?

The swifter brains could think, could act,

With less time spent in thought,

Meant vict’ries seized, provisions won,

Without which thought's quite fraught!

With dripping fangs to govern mind,

Did Sabertooths lay our fate?

And carve their law upon our brains:

Thou shalt not hesitate.

And did they cause Platonic forms

To form within our brains?

Thus generalizing all from one

Helped expand our domain?

Did forms, when paired to an instinct,

Soon speed grey thoughts away?

Thus flight made black and white the right

At Sabertooth's foray?

Could instinct have birthed Veritas

Once brains grasped spear and quill?

A metonym for which instincts

Each sane mind should instill?

So what about my rock-stubbed toe?

I think and am and like Van Gogh.

Not instincts, truth—and plainly so!

While these I can't deny,

Delirium, stroke, and plaques that choke

Show within brain truths lie.

Could Veritas then be contrived,

Designed, forced by brain's loom?

Processed by pathways that evolved

To escape each day's doom?

Then if my neurons are the warp

For what I know, perceive,

What if these wefts and warps distort

The fabric thereon weaved?

And are my percepts likewise cropped

To what helped others thrive?

I see and think and want only

What's useful to survive?

Then I, then truth is blind to but

A second of the arc!

I ought then question Veritas,

Seek a more wise monarch.

To weave all threads, to see the arc,

To form a better way,

To overcome Sabertooth law,

To think objectively,

We count, we tally, plot and court

The Veritas of belled curves.

Her face, though, still reflects each brain

Who measures and observes.

So data, data everywhere,

No point beyond refute.

And percepts, percepts everywhere,

Nor any Absolute.

If Veritas, when verified

Is oft found incomplete

Why war for her? Her Sabertooth

Instincts are obsolete.

• © 2014 American Academy of Neurology