The very act of searching for answers in a linguistic puzzle is the same motive that Clark wants his audience to approach in understanding the word ‘apple.’ One may even find themselves searching the Internet for further clues about something intriguing as a result of encountering the various links. Whether one knew the story of the hoax or not, it is a story that is linked to the Beatles, which is linked to Apple records, which is ultimately linked to the word “apple.” One can trace this set of links in a confusing yet intricate site map of the project. The story of Paul is only one of many micro-networks of stories that one may or might have not known about in relation to ‘apple’. “Hidden” then, does not mean so much as ‘secretive’, ‘concealed’, or assumed truth. Rather, it denotes as an enigma, a potential discovery of truth and knowledge.

So what meanings does one find when looking up the word ‘apple’? In one sense, there is no (definite) meaning of the word apple, in another, infinity of meanings. This is the dichotomous paradox that surrounds the relativist theory and post-modernist theory. Relativism suggests that “knowledge, truth and morality exist in relation to culture, society, or historical context, and are not absolute,”8 thus we can only understand the word ‘apple’ in looking at how it is placed in different contexts. This is what Wittgenstein calls “language games” in which we learn the set of rules of a language and learns how each part, such as a word, plays their role in the game, in order to understand what that part means9. He proposed that there is no universal language because each language has their native rules despite the fact that they might have some resemblances. Thus the word ‘apple’ may mean “the rounded fruit of a tree of the rose family with green or red skin and crisp flesh”10 in regards to food or agriculture, but does not evoke the same meaning when we speak of technology or when using another language all together. Therefore although there is a plethora of meanings associated with ‘apple’, there is no definitive definition. The question in anticipation now arises, how can one actually know the true meaning of apple if there isn’t one?

The consequence of having a relativist approach to knowledge is that our tendency to unify our understanding of the world becomes increasingly more chaotic to the point that it may actually be a futile effort. Under the influence of several factors, in particular globalization and increasing communication innovation, our sense of the world can no longer exist on an objective level because we have to accept the fact that there are different people in this world offering different perspectives. There is no longer a centralized system of beliefs that people can follow. Centralized systems are what Lyotard calls ‘grand narratives’ such as religion and language, that were once stable, constant and omnipotent now become outdated, local and exclusive11. ‘Grand narratives’ can also be understood as “Regime of Truth” termed by Foucault, in which discourses of each society are accepted and functions as ‘truth’ the legitimized by established power such as the government or church12. The constrained “truths” becomes a regime that rules over a society in thought, ideas, and speech. Today, however, the ‘grand narratives’ have disintegrated and the power has shifted to the public due to the democratization of modernity.

Footnotes:
8Pearsall, Judy. The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Tenth Edition. Oxford University Press, 1999.
9Beaver, Elijah. “Wittgenstein’s Anti-essentialism in Philosophical Investigations.”
10Pearsall, Judy. The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Tenth Edition. Oxford University Press, 1999.
11On “grand-narratives” see Jean-Francois Lyotard and Postmodernism.
12Walsh, Brian J.. “Regimes of Truth and the Rhetoric of Deceit: Colossians 2 in Postmodern Context.” Interface: A Forum for Theology in the World 2.1 (May 1999)
Best, Steven and Kellner, Douglas. “Chapter 2, Foucault and the Critique of Modernity.” Postmodern Theory, Critical Interrogations. 1991.