There is of course no universal answer to this but in the Poe story there are hints.
Poe starts with a quote from the seventeenth century English philosopher Joseph Glanville:
"The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways; nor are the
models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and
unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well
of Democritus."
What on earth does this mean? One way of thinking about this is that it suggests something important about the substance of the story as well as a lesson that is to be learnt by the person to whom the story is told. Nature involves a different process to us, that is to say our commonplace modes of understanding are not appropriate to the complexity of the natural world. Furthermore the models we use to make sense of the natural world are just not appropriate to the intricacy of nature.
Democritus again:
"Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well [lit. in an abyss]."
And this has been interpreted by Charles Francis Richter as follows:
'According to Democritus truth lies at the bottom of a well the water of which serves as a mirror in which objects may be reflected. I have heard however that some philosophers in seeking for truth to pay homage to her have seen their own image and adored it instead'.
What on earth does this mean? One way of thinking about this is that it suggests something important about the substance of the story as well as a lesson that is to be learnt by the person to whom the story is told. Nature involves a different process to us, that is to say our commonplace modes of understanding are not appropriate to the complexity of the natural world. Furthermore the models we use to make sense of the natural world are just not appropriate to the intricacy of nature.
Democritus again:
"Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well [lit. in an abyss]."
And this has been interpreted by Charles Francis Richter as follows:
Vague though this is it does suggest something important about the way in which the sailor avoided being sucked into the vortex. It might have to do with the difference between information and knowledge. The sailor initially gives up, he decides to 'hope no more' and realises that there is no rational way out. So in a way he becomes detached from what might otherwise be a situation of utter dread. In this case giving up is not the same as giving in. It is almost as if at the point of extreme danger he notices what is going on around him in an almost aesthetic way. And it is in this state of mind or rather in this state of body and mind that he is able to notice that some things were floating and thus found the barrel and held on to it. He perceived the beauty of the whirlpool and the perception saved him.
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