We've been discussing epistemological assumptions, about which the Aphorist has this to say:
The scientific encyclopedia will grow indefinitely, but about the very nature of the universe it will never teach anything different from what its epistemological assumptions teach.
It may be coherent, but it will never be complete:
In the coherence of certain systems, a vision is articulated; others systems result from the mere inertia of an idea.
So, science will keep rollin' on forever, but it confers a false vision upon itself if it conflates this with "eternity," much less "eternal progress." This is because science takes place, and can only take place, within the horizons of a transcendence it can never reach. Or in other words,
Creation is the nexus between eternity and history.
Thus, science can never explain creation, because creation -- the verb and principle -- is the very link between vertical and horizontal. A reminder that
There are a thousand truths and only one error.
And the answer is...
Hmm. Late again. Looks like we're on our own.
The One Error is like a... like a multifaceted disco ball. It has no light of its own, but if we shine our light this way or that, a different facet is illuminated. Here are some of the facets I see: relativism, nominalism, empiricism, existentialism, materialism, scientism... What is the substance?
Properly speaking they have no substance, for they are the substance of nothing, so to speak: nada. Nihilism. Bupkis. The Shadow of O.
The Big. Mistake., however, must be relativism, with nihilism as its first and last entailment. The phrase just popped into my head, The Dark Trinity. What could that be? Relativism-Becoming-Nominalism.
Which is at antipodes to, and parasitic on, our true cosmic situation, which is something like Absolute-Being-Transcendence (these also being interrelated). Or Absolute-Infinite-Perfect. Or perhaps Beyond Being-Infinitude-Existence. Or Transcendence-Immanence-Consciousness. This side of the veil, there's more than one way of skinning the catechism.
If all this seems a bit abstract, let's bring it down a notch or two. In fact, let's make it so concrete that any person of average intelligence and good will can grasp it and agree that Bob is correct.
This is my short morning, so I hope my eyes haven't bitten off more than I can stomach.
Philosophy is one endless argument. Can I really end it in the 30 minutes remaining?
Eh, I think so. I suppose it comes down to an initial bifurcation:
Truth --> consequences.
Or how about Intelligence <--> Intelligibility. You could say that this complementarity forms the space in which we live, move, and have our being, everywhere and always. And if you disagree, and you wish to be both scrupulously honest and rigorously consistent, you must STFU! at once.
Still too abstract?
Philosophy begins in wonder, the wonder of the eternal WTF?! In this the Aphorist agrees, more or less:
Any civilization flourishes in the hands of an astonished man.
Still too abstract.
There he is! Little help?
Yes, pull out that little book you referenced yesterday, Philosophy of Science in the Light of the Perennial Philosophy. Open to p. 1.
You mean where it asks, "How do we know if anything is true?"
Correct. Keep reading.
[B]efore we can begin to look for the criterion of truth, we have to ascertain that there is such a thing as truth. Now, unless one accepts that there is indeed such a thing as truth, nothing holds: remove truth and everything collapses. Nothing can get around this: "there is no truth" cannot be taken as true since it would ipso facto refute itself.
That's about all the time we have this morning, but I will pour some more concrete tomorrow.
Meanwhile, this post is dedicated to my son on his 18th birthday, an occasion so utterly surreal that there are no words. Here my meager skills come up against a wall of babbling inarticulacy. Compared to Ultimate Reality, trying to describe him or my feelings for him is beyond my capacity.
Which, of course, I can't help thinking is another Big Hint about Ultimate Reality. Help us out here, Nicolas!
To love is to understand the reason God had for creating what we love.
15 comments:
To love is to understand the reason God had for creating what we love.
I don't think it could be explained any better.
I hope your son is having a fantastic birthday!
As cliche as it is to say, those years went by quick. Happy birthday to him! May he thrive in interesting times.
The whole thing is surreality itself. Try as you might, you just can't wrap your head around the mystery of the person. Starting with oneself and moving out from there.
It's why my main hobby is silence.
I always say what I do best is to shut the f*ck up.
But then I'm told silence = violence, so some arsehole puts me in my place.
Mystery is less disturbing than the fatuous attempt to exclude it by stupid explanations.
Even in the immensity of space we feel caged. Mystery is the only infinity that does not seem like a prison.
In order to abolish all mystery, it is enough to view the world through the eyes of a pig.
Aw, look how much he has grown!
Re. silence, this past weekend I met up with a relative so our kids could play together at the park. He's a monologuer; all anyone else has to do is smile and nod. Even if you get a word in edgewise, if it doesn't fit with his worldview he won't hear it. Then we met some friends from church on the way home, and had an actual conversation.
A fool is he who thinks that what he knows is without mystery.
Amen, Nicolas.
Truth is a person.
To mature is to transform an increasing number of commonplaces into authentic spiritual experience.
"To love is to understand the reason God had for creating what we love."
Truth.
Happy Birthday to the time flyer 🎂!
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