Murmurandoms from the Future

Well, the virus made a bit of a comeback over night, so this post will be… best I can do. Maybe we can at least knock down some preliminaries. I think I can manage that.

First, some confirmation of our suspicions about temporal symmetry in the book Transfiguring Time: "eternity is enmeshed with time so that there is a simultaneity of time and eternity at every moment,” and “the future is integral to nature’s becoming, or better yet, nature’s transformation." 

We might say that in the Word becoming (not merely became!) flesh, the future becomes now so that the now might realize its futurity, its fulfilled potential. 

Likewise, the otherwise grammatically nonsensical “Before Abraham was, I am,” makes perfect nonsense in the context of temporal symmetry. After all, the Alpha is the Omega, and vice versa. Ultimately, "The Incarnation breaks open this profound reality of time" and reveals “the capacity for radical transformation in God”:

The destiny of the cosmos is entwined with time so that just as the cosmos is oriented toward fulfillment in God, so too time is oriented toward fulfillment in eternity.

There’s even some good insultainment that is similar to what we’ve said about the left being simply an unconscious inversion (and perversion) of Christianity: 

The modern myth of progress is a naive secularized form of the biblical expectation of the Messiah…. the Hegelian dialectic, inherited by Marxism, is merely a degraded form of Trinitarian theology.

Still, even I didn’t predict the emergence of trannies as their new messiah, so give them credit for progressing all the way to the bottom of the cosmos. 

Back to From the Dust of the Earth, Ratzinger writes that 

From the standpoint of the Christian faith one may say that for history God stands at the end, while for being he stands at the beginning. 

Therefore, we must always be In Between. I suppose we could say that with the Incarnation, being reaches its destination via our “becoming” with Christ. 

Which again very much reminds me of Voegelin, who characterizes “open existence” as “the mode of existence in which consciousness is consistently and unreservedly oriented toward the transcendental pole of the tension of existence.”

And this tension is pricisely that which abides “between poles of immanence and transcendence, finite and infinity, imperfection and perfection, and so on.” A Christian would say between image and likeness, with progress toward the latter being measured in increments of divination or theosis. 

So, that is where we are and always are: In Between. But not between two nothings, especially now that the telos makes house calls. In other words, 

Christ the Last Adam is also the “Final Adam” in the sense of creation's final cause: last in the order of execution, yet first in the order of God’s intention.

Which is what I meant yesterday about the fall being regarded symmetrically and seen as a consequence of its remedy, so to speak. Traditionally we tend to regard the timeline of salvation history in the same way we do secular history, which shouldn’t be surprising. But

Ratzinger places the accent on the telos of humanity in Christ and from there looks backward to gain insight into man’s origins. 

It occurs to me that the moment of hominization some 70,000 years back must coincide with a sense that something is wrong, with the world or with man, i.e., outside or inside. I don’t want to necessarily equate this with the fall, but suddenly awakening to the tension of existence isn’t all fun and games.

Murmurandoms from the Future

Well, the virus made a bit of a comeback over night, so this post will be… best I can do. Maybe we can at least knock down some preliminaries. I think I can manage that.

First, some confirmation of our suspicions about temporal symmetry in the book Transfiguring Time: "eternity is enmeshed with time so that there is a simultaneity of time and eternity at every moment,” and “the future is integral to nature’s becoming, or better yet, nature’s transformation." 

We might say that in the Word becoming (not merely became!) flesh, the future becomes now so that the now might realize its futurity, its fulfilled potential. 

Likewise, the otherwise grammatically nonsensical “Before Abraham was, I am,” makes perfect nonsense in the context of temporal symmetry. After all, the Alpha is the Omega, and vice versa. Ultimately, "The Incarnation breaks open this profound reality of time" and reveals “the capacity for radical transformation in God”:

The destiny of the cosmos is entwined with time so that just as the cosmos is oriented toward fulfillment in God, so too time is oriented toward fulfillment in eternity.

There’s even some good insultainment that is similar to what we’ve said about the left being simply an unconscious inversion (and perversion) of Christianity: 

The modern myth of progress is a naive secularized form of the biblical expectation of the Messiah…. the Hegelian dialectic, inherited by Marxism, is merely a degraded form of Trinitarian theology.

Still, even I didn’t predict the emergence of trannies as their new messiah, so give them credit for progressing all the way to the bottom of the cosmos. 

Back to From the Dust of the Earth, Ratzinger writes that 

From the standpoint of the Christian faith one may say that for history God stands at the end, while for being he stands at the beginning. 

Therefore, we must always be In Between. I suppose we could say that with the Incarnation, being reaches its destination via our “becoming” with Christ. 

Which again very much reminds me of Voegelin, who characterizes “open existence” as “the mode of existence in which consciousness is consistently and unreservedly oriented toward the transcendental pole of the tension of existence.”

And this tension is pricisely that which abides “between poles of immanence and transcendence, finite and infinity, imperfection and perfection, and so on.” A Christian would say between image and likeness, with progress toward the latter being measured in increments of divination or theosis. 

So, that is where we are and always are: In Between. But not between two nothings, especially now that the telos makes house calls. In other words, 

Christ the Last Adam is also the “Final Adam” in the sense of creation's final cause: last in the order of execution, yet first in the order of God’s intention.

Which is what I meant yesterday about the fall being regarded symmetrically and seen as a consequence of its remedy, so to speak. Traditionally we tend to regard the timeline of salvation history in the same way we do secular history, which shouldn’t be surprising. But

Ratzinger places the accent on the telos of humanity in Christ and from there looks backward to gain insight into man’s origins. 

It occurs to me that the moment of hominization some 70,000 years back must coincide with a sense that something is wrong, with the world or with man, i.e., outside or inside. I don’t want to necessarily equate this with the fall, but suddenly awakening to the tension of existence isn’t all fun and games.

Madam I'm Adam

What's that supposed to mean? Just that it's an example of a Spoonerism palindrome, i.e., perfectly symmetrical.

Yesterday I spent all afternoon thinking hard about the doctrine of original sin. Which is unusual for me, since I’m usually more inclined to randomly seed the head and harvest whatever pops out of the ground. 

But this one has bothered me for a long time, because while I don’t doubt its existence, the traditional explanation just doesn’t cut it. I have no reservations about the what, it’s the how -- and, to a lesser extent, the why -- of it that annoy me.

But it’s also troubling for reasons of evangelization. Obviously there was a time when people found Augustine’s explanation to be sufficient, basically from the fourth century to the Enlightenment. That’s a good run, but not only does it not speak to modern ears, it repels them. 

Is there a better way to get the point across without vitiating the deeper point of the doctrine? What is essential and what is merely symbolic? What is at the center and what is at the human margin?

Let’s briefly review what the Catechism teaches, and find out exactly how much wiggle room we have. Already on p. 97 there’s a hint of how to approach the subject, where it implies that man’s fall cannot be understood outside the context of his redemption. You could even say that the fall is a kind of backshadow of salvation: man minus redemption = fallenness, and Genesis 3 is just a way to symbolize it.

I’ll have more to say about that, but I was immediately reminded of Rodney Bomford’s The Symmetry of God, which has a lot of ideas about nonlinear logic that I couldn’t do without (https://www.amazon.com/Symmetry-God-Rodney-Bomford/dp/1853434388/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3B65GQNZ88SPC&keywords=rodney+bomford&qid=1673034532&sprefix=rodney%2520bomford%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-1). 

Backing up a bit, the book is based on the ideas of a psychoanalyst called Ignacio Matte Blanco, who essentially formalized the logic of the unconscious, which operates along very different lines than the usual Aristotelian logic. 

Dreams, for example, may appear illogical, but Matte Blanco showed that they merely obey a different kind of logic whereby, for example, your boss can suddenly turn into your father, or your wife into your mother. I hate when that happens. (I wonder if this is the basis of people imagining they're the opposite sex?)

Anyway, Bomford came along and applied Matte Blanco’s theories to the vertical dimension, or at least made a first stab at it. I don’t agree with everything he says, but it is undoubtedly a fruitful avenue for a host of otherwise insoluble problems. Indeed, what if certain parts of scripture are more like a dream than a documentary? If it’s the latter, then we will find ourselves mired in unthinkability at some rather key junctures.

Note that, among other things, we are trying to talk about the eternal and infinite within the constraints of time and finitude, which is bound to generate paradox if we limit ourselves to the asymmetrical logic of Aristotle:

If we take these literally we distort them into a kind of false fact. If we treat them as mere fictions we undercut their seriousness. There is a way of respecting the truth of the myth that falls into neither error.

Moreover, it’s not a matter of either/or but both/and: the combination of symmetrical and asymmetrical logic is called bilogic.  

I wonder if Bomford addresses Adam and Eve? Yes. For example, he suggests that Adam naming the animals symbolizes the acquisition of asymmetrical logic, as he essentially makes the transition from a kind of ontological fusion to “becoming aware of the distinctions of the many.” 

But at the same time, Adam -- like anyone else -- longs for a return to that happy and conflict-free world of symmetry. There’s no way back (short of a heroic dose of LSD), but there is a way forward into a higher unity:

The longing of Adam for one with whom he may be one is the longing of the particular for a return to the unity of the One. This return is not a direct return to the One, but a return to the One through another -- for their mutual harmony will be expressive of the symmetry of the One, while at the same time their particularity will not be done away with.

Which sounds suspiciously like what goes on in the Trinity, but let’s not jump to a different subject. This is blogging, not dreaming. Or rather, both.

Now, Adam and Eve are situated in “paradise,” and

This unimaginable perfection has to us a dream-like quality. We are still in a world dominated by symmetry. There is one discordant note, however: God has issued a very clear and asymmetrical command, one which in no way incorporates its opposite. [In symmetrical logic, opposites can coexist in the same object; for example, think of how things like justice and mercy are perfectly reconciled in God, indeed, because they were never "de-conciled.”] 

Man disobeys and yada yada, he falls into

a hostile world of real things. From this point on, the conflicts between the dream of harmonious symmetry and the reality of struggle between the particulars of creation will haunt humankind.

Now, in the atemporal world of symmetrical logic, what we call “past” and “future” can be copresent or even reversed, as can causality. Therefore, the present can be caused by the future, and back to what I said at the outset, it is possible to look at our “past" fall in light of our “future” redemption.

We’re just getting started, so don’t jump to any conclusions.

Madam I'm Adam

What's that supposed to mean? Just that it's an example of a Spoonerism palindrome, i.e., perfectly symmetrical.

Yesterday I spent all afternoon thinking hard about the doctrine of original sin. Which is unusual for me, since I’m usually more inclined to randomly seed the head and harvest whatever pops out of the ground. 

But this one has bothered me for a long time, because while I don’t doubt its existence, the traditional explanation just doesn’t cut it. I have no reservations about the what, it’s the how -- and, to a lesser extent, the why -- of it that annoy me.

But it’s also troubling for reasons of evangelization. Obviously there was a time when people found Augustine’s explanation to be sufficient, basically from the fourth century to the Enlightenment. That’s a good run, but not only does it not speak to modern ears, it repels them. 

Is there a better way to get the point across without vitiating the deeper point of the doctrine? What is essential and what is merely symbolic? What is at the center and what is at the human margin?

Let’s briefly review what the Catechism teaches, and find out exactly how much wiggle room we have. Already on p. 97 there’s a hint of how to approach the subject, where it implies that man’s fall cannot be understood outside the context of his redemption. You could even say that the fall is a kind of backshadow of salvation: man minus redemption = fallenness, and Genesis 3 is just a way to symbolize it.

I’ll have more to say about that, but I was immediately reminded of Rodney Bomford’s The Symmetry of God, which has a lot of ideas about nonlinear logic that I couldn’t do without (https://www.amazon.com/Symmetry-God-Rodney-Bomford/dp/1853434388/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3B65GQNZ88SPC&keywords=rodney+bomford&qid=1673034532&sprefix=rodney%2520bomford%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-1). 

Backing up a bit, the book is based on the ideas of a psychoanalyst called Ignacio Matte Blanco, who essentially formalized the logic of the unconscious, which operates along very different lines than the usual Aristotelian logic. 

Dreams, for example, may appear illogical, but Matte Blanco showed that they merely obey a different kind of logic whereby, for example, your boss can suddenly turn into your father, or your wife into your mother. I hate when that happens. (I wonder if this is the basis of people imagining they're the opposite sex?)

Anyway, Bomford came along and applied Matte Blanco’s theories to the vertical dimension, or at least made a first stab at it. I don’t agree with everything he says, but it is undoubtedly a fruitful avenue for a host of otherwise insoluble problems. Indeed, what if certain parts of scripture are more like a dream than a documentary? If it’s the latter, then we will find ourselves mired in unthinkability at some rather key junctures.

Note that, among other things, we are trying to talk about the eternal and infinite within the constraints of time and finitude, which is bound to generate paradox if we limit ourselves to the asymmetrical logic of Aristotle:

If we take these literally we distort them into a kind of false fact. If we treat them as mere fictions we undercut their seriousness. There is a way of respecting the truth of the myth that falls into neither error.

Moreover, it’s not a matter of either/or but both/and: the combination of symmetrical and asymmetrical logic is called bilogic.  

I wonder if Bomford addresses Adam and Eve? Yes. For example, he suggests that Adam naming the animals symbolizes the acquisition of asymmetrical logic, as he essentially makes the transition from a kind of ontological fusion to “becoming aware of the distinctions of the many.” 

But at the same time, Adam -- like anyone else -- longs for a return to that happy and conflict-free world of symmetry. There’s no way back (short of a heroic dose of LSD), but there is a way forward into a higher unity:

The longing of Adam for one with whom he may be one is the longing of the particular for a return to the unity of the One. This return is not a direct return to the One, but a return to the One through another -- for their mutual harmony will be expressive of the symmetry of the One, while at the same time their particularity will not be done away with.

Which sounds suspiciously like what goes on in the Trinity, but let’s not jump to a different subject. This is blogging, not dreaming. Or rather, both.

Now, Adam and Eve are situated in “paradise,” and

This unimaginable perfection has to us a dream-like quality. We are still in a world dominated by symmetry. There is one discordant note, however: God has issued a very clear and asymmetrical command, one which in no way incorporates its opposite. [In symmetrical logic, opposites can coexist in the same object; for example, think of how things like justice and mercy are perfectly reconciled in God, indeed, because they were never "de-conciled.”] 

Man disobeys and yada yada, he falls into

a hostile world of real things. From this point on, the conflicts between the dream of harmonious symmetry and the reality of struggle between the particulars of creation will haunt humankind.

Now, in the atemporal world of symmetrical logic, what we call “past” and “future” can be copresent or even reversed, as can causality. Therefore, the present can be caused by the future, and back to what I said at the outset, it is possible to look at our “past" fall in light of our “future” redemption.

We’re just getting started, so don’t jump to any conclusions.

Garage Metaphysics

What an aimlessly self-indulgent load. We'll try again tomorrow. 

As we near 4,000 footnotes on our implicit theory of everything, perhaps it’s an appropriate time to reassess and determine if we’ve gotten any closer to it. 

I suppose this is like asking a musician at the end of his career, How did it go? Did you get any closer to Music? "Yeah, there was this one time in Vancouver when the band almost touched it, but then we fell back down to the bandstand."

A reminder of Theolonious Monk’s 25 tips for musicians, for example, #10 Let’s lift the band stand!!,  #15 What you don’t play can be more important than what you do, #17 A note can be small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination, and #24 A genius is the one most like himself. 

But the real answer is that the reaching is the playing (and vice versa), at least for a genuine artist who is most like himself, as opposed to the mere entertainer who is like most anyone else. 

That may sound trite, but it’s weirder than you might think, because a musician will know when he’s reached the goal, but how? It’s not a matter of mere execution or avoiding mistakes. Rather, some sort of meeting takes place in the vertical space where music is created and perceived. 

It reminds me of something Schuon says, that beauty is an adequation. Obviously, this is antithetical to the postmodern view that it is solely a matter of subjectivity, opinion, and taste. In fact, there can be no such thing as good or bad taste, in case you were wondering about our culture’s unending celebration of tastelessness.  

I’m also reminded of Keith Jarrett, who can be a bit pretentious, but then again, he’s earned it. He says the master musician

goes onto the stage hoping to have a rendezvous with music. He knows the music is there (it always is), but this meeting depends not only on knowledge but openness.

There's no doubt that it's a spiritual practice, but you can't find what you're not looking for: 

It [music] must be let in, recognized, and revealed to the listener, the first of whom is the musician himself. 

The structure -- the basic form of the composition -- only

provides a layer of substance above or beyond which the player intends to go. It's also possible to do this by going deeper into the material.

While looking for that quote I also found this from an old post on the African Orthodox Church of St. John Coltrane:

Our primary mission at the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church is to bring souls to Christ; to know sound as the preexisting wisdom of God, and to understand the divine nature of our patron saint in terms of his ascension as a high soul into one-ness with God through sound. In our praises we too seek such a relationship with God. We have come to understand John Coltrane in terms of his sound and as sound in meditative union with God.

No doubt wacky, but it sure beats the Church of Ghostface Killah.

Before moving on, and more to the point, I also found this quote by Schuon:

Everything is in reality like a play of alternations between what is determined in advance -- starting from principles -- and what is incalculable and in some way unforeseeable (syncopation mine).

For "principles" substitute chordal structure, and for "incalculable and unforeseeable" say improvisation, AKA spontaneous composition, and here we are: jazz blogging. Except I'm not a credentialed philosopher, a trained theologian, or a certified writer. Well what is this then? Punk metaphysics?

Hmm. Not bad. At least in the early stage of punk, when it was all about heart and simplicity, not rebellion and fashion. Which only lasted about six months. 

However, that combination of love and simplicity is always at work somewhere in the musical world. It motivates the whole genre of garage rock, the ranks of which are filled with basically untalented groups that could nevertheless record one perfect tune, but never expand it into a whole career. 

These primitive peoples played with a naive enthusiasm. But as Schuon says,

If to be naïve is to be direct and spontaneous, to know nothing of dissimulation and subterfuge and also no doubt nothing of certain experiences, then unmodernized peoples certainly possess -- or possessed -- that kind of naïvety...

Moreover, 

there is naïvety everywhere and there always has been, and man cannot escape from it, unless he can surpass his humanity…. 

[What matters is] the fact that the sage or the saint has an inward access to concrete Truth; the most unpretentious formulation -- doubtless the most “childish” in some people’s eyes -- can be the threshold of a Knowledge as complete and profound as knowledge can be. 

If the Bible is naïve, it is an honor to be naïve. If the philosophies that deny the Spirit are intelligent, there is no such thing as intelligence. A humble belief in a Paradise situated among the clouds has at least a background of inalienable Truth, but it has also and above all the background of a merciful reality in which is no deceit, and that is something beyond price. 

I'll take three chords and the truth over mere virtuosity in 17/14 time.

Garage Metaphysics

What an aimlessly self-indulgent load. We'll try again tomorrow. 

As we near 4,000 footnotes on our implicit theory of everything, perhaps it’s an appropriate time to reassess and determine if we’ve gotten any closer to it. 

I suppose this is like asking a musician at the end of his career, How did it go? Did you get any closer to Music? "Yeah, there was this one time in Vancouver when the band almost touched it, but then we fell back down to the bandstand."

A reminder of Theolonious Monk’s 25 tips for musicians, for example, #10 Let’s lift the band stand!!,  #15 What you don’t play can be more important than what you do, #17 A note can be small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination, and #24 A genius is the one most like himself. 

But the real answer is that the reaching is the playing (and vice versa), at least for a genuine artist who is most like himself, as opposed to the mere entertainer who is like most anyone else. 

That may sound trite, but it’s weirder than you might think, because a musician will know when he’s reached the goal, but how? It’s not a matter of mere execution or avoiding mistakes. Rather, some sort of meeting takes place in the vertical space where music is created and perceived. 

It reminds me of something Schuon says, that beauty is an adequation. Obviously, this is antithetical to the postmodern view that it is solely a matter of subjectivity, opinion, and taste. In fact, there can be no such thing as good or bad taste, in case you were wondering about our culture’s unending celebration of tastelessness.  

I’m also reminded of Keith Jarrett, who can be a bit pretentious, but then again, he’s earned it. He says the master musician

goes onto the stage hoping to have a rendezvous with music. He knows the music is there (it always is), but this meeting depends not only on knowledge but openness.

There's no doubt that it's a spiritual practice, but you can't find what you're not looking for: 

It [music] must be let in, recognized, and revealed to the listener, the first of whom is the musician himself. 

The structure -- the basic form of the composition -- only

provides a layer of substance above or beyond which the player intends to go. It's also possible to do this by going deeper into the material.

While looking for that quote I also found this from an old post on the African Orthodox Church of St. John Coltrane:

Our primary mission at the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church is to bring souls to Christ; to know sound as the preexisting wisdom of God, and to understand the divine nature of our patron saint in terms of his ascension as a high soul into one-ness with God through sound. In our praises we too seek such a relationship with God. We have come to understand John Coltrane in terms of his sound and as sound in meditative union with God.

No doubt wacky, but it sure beats the Church of Ghostface Killah.

Before moving on, and more to the point, I also found this quote by Schuon:

Everything is in reality like a play of alternations between what is determined in advance -- starting from principles -- and what is incalculable and in some way unforeseeable (syncopation mine).

For "principles" substitute chordal structure, and for "incalculable and unforeseeable" say improvisation, AKA spontaneous composition, and here we are: jazz blogging. Except I'm not a credentialed philosopher, a trained theologian, or a certified writer. Well what is this then? Punk metaphysics?

Hmm. Not bad. At least in the early stage of punk, when it was all about heart and simplicity, not rebellion and fashion. Which only lasted about six months. 

However, that combination of love and simplicity is always at work somewhere in the musical world. It motivates the whole genre of garage rock, the ranks of which are filled with basically untalented groups that could nevertheless record one perfect tune, but never expand it into a whole career. 

These primitive peoples played with a naive enthusiasm. But as Schuon says,

If to be naïve is to be direct and spontaneous, to know nothing of dissimulation and subterfuge and also no doubt nothing of certain experiences, then unmodernized peoples certainly possess -- or possessed -- that kind of naïvety...

Moreover, 

there is naïvety everywhere and there always has been, and man cannot escape from it, unless he can surpass his humanity…. 

[What matters is] the fact that the sage or the saint has an inward access to concrete Truth; the most unpretentious formulation -- doubtless the most “childish” in some people’s eyes -- can be the threshold of a Knowledge as complete and profound as knowledge can be. 

If the Bible is naïve, it is an honor to be naïve. If the philosophies that deny the Spirit are intelligent, there is no such thing as intelligence. A humble belief in a Paradise situated among the clouds has at least a background of inalienable Truth, but it has also and above all the background of a merciful reality in which is no deceit, and that is something beyond price. 

I'll take three chords and the truth over mere virtuosity in 17/14 time.

3,980 Footnotes on a Total Explanation of Reality*

I was thinking about some of Sam Harris’ criticisms of organized religion, and he’s not entirely wrong, rather, only that he gives up too easily. 

True, there are plenty of contradictions and implausibilities in any big box religion, but that’s no reason to embrace a philosophy that is equally or more contradictory and implausible, such as scientism or astrology. 

In general, this is precisely the role of esoterism, which seeks the deeper truth (or substance) beneath the forms without in any way undermining or negating the fundamental message. 

Taken at face value there is much about religion that doesn’t add up, and may even be repugnant to our reason. 

Two things about that: first, being confronted with such doctrinal assertions forces us to grapple with them for a deeper understanding. This reminds me of, say, poetry, which forces the poet to express himself within the constraints of a certain structure, rhythm, or rhyme scheme, resulting in something deeper and more beautiful than the same thing expressed in prose, hopefully without sounding totally gay.

Similarly, it’s easy enough to look at the world and conclude that it is filled with evil and suffering. However, Christianity affirms that the Creator is pure good. How then to reconcile the one with the other? 

This is the role of theology, but even then, theology may only be sufficient within the bounds of principles and doctrines that are already accepted by the theologian. In other words, Christian theologians don’t appeal to Buddha or Shankara to extricate themselves from a metaphysical jam.

Anyway, it’s easy enough to spot the fissures and anomalies in religion. What about science? As everyone knows, it is a fantastic method for exploring the natural world but quickly beclowns itself when elevated to a philosophy or metaphysic. 

It occurs to me that both science and religion are in need of an “esoterism” to help them get beyond their own limitations. Indeed, it is precisely here that we will discover their unity. If we’re on the right track.

In other words, what is needed is a religious esoterism and a scientific esoterism, both unified in a higher esoterism as such. 

Except I don’t like that word, “esoterism.” Too loaded a term. For one thing, I don’t think it’s all that difficult to understand the principles we are proposing. It’s just that people become so accustomed to seeing things a particular way that it’s difficult to get out of the rut. 

Back to science for a moment. Last I checked, there is no way to reconcile quantum and relativity theories, but does this mean we should just give up because science is hopelessly contradictory?

Of course not. Likewise, in grad school I learned all about neurology and brain anatomy in addition to purely psychological theories, but with no earthly idea of how to connect the two. There are obviously stupid ways to do it, but these are analogous to the theologian who can only explain things with recourse to his own theology. The same is true of a neurologist who explains subjectivity with recourse to neurology.

Let’s cut to the chase: is there such a thing as a View From Nowhere, or pure objectivity, a total metaphysic in which to situate everything, encompassing those realties which both science and religion try in their own ways to explain? 

The other day while on a walk, a good title occurred to me for The Book That Will Never Be Written: 3,980 Footnotes on a Total Explanation of Reality. Okay, but where is this explanation? Oh, that? It doesn’t exist. Best I can do is all these footnotes.

But is this the best we can do? What if there is some implicit unity beneath these 3,980 fragments? What is it?

*I’ll put it in the hopper and come back with #3,981 tomorrow. 

3,980 Footnotes on a Total Explanation of Reality*

I was thinking about some of Sam Harris’ criticisms of organized religion, and he’s not entirely wrong, rather, only that he gives up too easily. 

True, there are plenty of contradictions and implausibilities in any big box religion, but that’s no reason to embrace a philosophy that is equally or more contradictory and implausible, such as scientism or astrology. 

In general, this is precisely the role of esoterism, which seeks the deeper truth (or substance) beneath the forms without in any way undermining or negating the fundamental message. 

Taken at face value there is much about religion that doesn’t add up, and may even be repugnant to our reason. 

Two things about that: first, being confronted with such doctrinal assertions forces us to grapple with them for a deeper understanding. This reminds me of, say, poetry, which forces the poet to express himself within the constraints of a certain structure, rhythm, or rhyme scheme, resulting in something deeper and more beautiful than the same thing expressed in prose, hopefully without sounding totally gay.

Similarly, it’s easy enough to look at the world and conclude that it is filled with evil and suffering. However, Christianity affirms that the Creator is pure good. How then to reconcile the one with the other? 

This is the role of theology, but even then, theology may only be sufficient within the bounds of principles and doctrines that are already accepted by the theologian. In other words, Christian theologians don’t appeal to Buddha or Shankara to extricate themselves from a metaphysical jam.

Anyway, it’s easy enough to spot the fissures and anomalies in religion. What about science? As everyone knows, it is a fantastic method for exploring the natural world but quickly beclowns itself when elevated to a philosophy or metaphysic. 

It occurs to me that both science and religion are in need of an “esoterism” to help them get beyond their own limitations. Indeed, it is precisely here that we will discover their unity. If we’re on the right track.

In other words, what is needed is a religious esoterism and a scientific esoterism, both unified in a higher esoterism as such. 

Except I don’t like that word, “esoterism.” Too loaded a term. For one thing, I don’t think it’s all that difficult to understand the principles we are proposing. It’s just that people become so accustomed to seeing things a particular way that it’s difficult to get out of the rut. 

Back to science for a moment. Last I checked, there is no way to reconcile quantum and relativity theories, but does this mean we should just give up because science is hopelessly contradictory?

Of course not. Likewise, in grad school I learned all about neurology and brain anatomy in addition to purely psychological theories, but with no earthly idea of how to connect the two. There are obviously stupid ways to do it, but these are analogous to the theologian who can only explain things with recourse to his own theology. The same is true of a neurologist who explains subjectivity with recourse to neurology.

Let’s cut to the chase: is there such a thing as a View From Nowhere, or pure objectivity, a total metaphysic in which to situate everything, encompassing those realties which both science and religion try in their own ways to explain? 

The other day while on a walk, a good title occurred to me for The Book That Will Never Be Written: 3,980 Footnotes on a Total Explanation of Reality. Okay, but where is this explanation? Oh, that? It doesn’t exist. Best I can do is all these footnotes.

But is this the best we can do? What if there is some implicit unity beneath these 3,980 fragments? What is it?

*I’ll put it in the hopper and come back with #3,981 tomorrow. 

Intelligent Stupidity

Back to Hawking's question of who breathes fire into the equations, of who puts the poetry into the metaphysics.

On the one hand, you can’t know and can never know. On the other hand, c’mon, man: who else could it be? What does it take to convince you that physics is not, and can never be, complete or consistent, let alone self-explanatory. The cosmos is not -- word of the day -- autochthonous. Universes don’t just spring into existence out of nothing. Nevertheless,

It is easier to convince the fool of what is disputable than of what is indisputable.

No one says you have to believe in the Christian God, but at least acknowledge that massive God-shaped hole in your metaphysic. 

Last night I caught a bit of a conversation between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, and even he turns out to be a poor excuse for an atheist -- rather, more of an unaligned vertical dabbler who is intelligent and affluent enough to go it alone without getting into too much trouble. For example, his wiki page says 

Harris holds that there is "nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion, and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have.

However,

Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence.

Really? Show me all those radically anti-theist saints, civilizations, cathedrals, and works of art. Our universities have all descended into theophobia. How’s that working out? Art has become drained of divinity. Must be fantastic!

Or maybe not:

When religion and aesthetics are divorced from each other, we do not know which is corrupted sooner.

And

We do not know whether in another world the devil punishes an irreligious society. But I see that here it is soon punished by aesthetics

I didn’t know much about Harris prior to hearing him last night, but like most popular atheists, his favorite debating tactic is to compare the worst of religion to the best of science, and also detach science from its Christian roots. The other tactic, like all liberals, is to hold religion responsible for things that result from human nature. Which is in turn a consequence of the denial of our fallenness, and of the rather pathetic material with which religion and grace have to work with.

Now, I myself have issues with some of the ins & outs of original sin, and we will hopefully straighten this out in the coming weeks. But irrespective of its cause, the empirical evidence is overwhelming that there is something wrong with human beings which they themselves cannot cure. Imagining otherwise has resulted in catastrophes that dwarf anything caused by "religion." 

For example, imagine if all those secular monsters of the 20th century had based their political philosophies on a conception of man’s fallenness instead of an insane pride. 

This is very much in contrast to America’s founders, who were all extremely skeptical of man and his works, to such an extent that they designed a government that would frustrate him at every turn. This is, of course, the very government the left has been undermining and trying to get around for the past 110 years.

Harris suggests building a civilization based on tangible things upon which we can all agree, which ends up being only those things immediately accessible to the most vulgar among us. Reptiles unite!

Just imagine, if you can stand it, if we were to hold a constitutional convention today in order to frame a new government. The horror. Being devoid of wisdom, the left does not know that  

Political wisdom is the art of invigorating society and weakening the state.

Conversely, the political tyranny of the left is the ceaseless project of invigorating the state and abolishing man, the family, and civilization. For which reason my son has never set foot in a government indoctrination center.

But it’s remarkable how intelligent one can be and not know that

Men are divided into two camps: those who believe in original sin and those who are idiots.

Yes, intelligent idiots. Like ice cream with only a tincture of rat poison. 

Modern history is the dialogue between two men: one who believes in God and another who believes he is a god.

Going back to what was said at the top, one needn’t even say “God,” rather, just recognize that one is displacing that God-shaped variable and attributing it to oneself, which is cosmic narcissism on stilts made of steroids. For in reality -- speaking of empiricism --

Mysticism is the empiricism of transcendent knowledge.

But

Man calls “absurd” what escapes his secret pretensions to omnipotence. 

Naturally, Harris also doesn’t recognize the existence of free will:

the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent. Harris writes that neuroscience "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet.”

But he’s a leftist, and as we all know by now,

Determinism is the ideology of human perversion

Intelligent Stupidity

Back to Hawking's question of who breathes fire into the equations, of who puts the poetry into the metaphysics.

On the one hand, you can’t know and can never know. On the other hand, c’mon, man: who else could it be? What does it take to convince you that physics is not, and can never be, complete or consistent, let alone self-explanatory. The cosmos is not -- word of the day -- autochthonous. Universes don’t just spring into existence out of nothing. Nevertheless,

It is easier to convince the fool of what is disputable than of what is indisputable.

No one says you have to believe in the Christian God, but at least acknowledge that massive God-shaped hole in your metaphysic. 

Last night I caught a bit of a conversation between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, and even he turns out to be a poor excuse for an atheist -- rather, more of an unaligned vertical dabbler who is intelligent and affluent enough to go it alone without getting into too much trouble. For example, his wiki page says 

Harris holds that there is "nothing irrational about seeking the states of mind that lie at the core of many religions. Compassion, awe, devotion, and feelings of oneness are surely among the most valuable experiences a person can have.

However,

Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence.

Really? Show me all those radically anti-theist saints, civilizations, cathedrals, and works of art. Our universities have all descended into theophobia. How’s that working out? Art has become drained of divinity. Must be fantastic!

Or maybe not:

When religion and aesthetics are divorced from each other, we do not know which is corrupted sooner.

And

We do not know whether in another world the devil punishes an irreligious society. But I see that here it is soon punished by aesthetics

I didn’t know much about Harris prior to hearing him last night, but like most popular atheists, his favorite debating tactic is to compare the worst of religion to the best of science, and also detach science from its Christian roots. The other tactic, like all liberals, is to hold religion responsible for things that result from human nature. Which is in turn a consequence of the denial of our fallenness, and of the rather pathetic material with which religion and grace have to work with.

Now, I myself have issues with some of the ins & outs of original sin, and we will hopefully straighten this out in the coming weeks. But irrespective of its cause, the empirical evidence is overwhelming that there is something wrong with human beings which they themselves cannot cure. Imagining otherwise has resulted in catastrophes that dwarf anything caused by "religion." 

For example, imagine if all those secular monsters of the 20th century had based their political philosophies on a conception of man’s fallenness instead of an insane pride. 

This is very much in contrast to America’s founders, who were all extremely skeptical of man and his works, to such an extent that they designed a government that would frustrate him at every turn. This is, of course, the very government the left has been undermining and trying to get around for the past 110 years.

Harris suggests building a civilization based on tangible things upon which we can all agree, which ends up being only those things immediately accessible to the most vulgar among us. Reptiles unite!

Just imagine, if you can stand it, if we were to hold a constitutional convention today in order to frame a new government. The horror. Being devoid of wisdom, the left does not know that  

Political wisdom is the art of invigorating society and weakening the state.

Conversely, the political tyranny of the left is the ceaseless project of invigorating the state and abolishing man, the family, and civilization. For which reason my son has never set foot in a government indoctrination center.

But it’s remarkable how intelligent one can be and not know that

Men are divided into two camps: those who believe in original sin and those who are idiots.

Yes, intelligent idiots. Like ice cream with only a tincture of rat poison. 

Modern history is the dialogue between two men: one who believes in God and another who believes he is a god.

Going back to what was said at the top, one needn’t even say “God,” rather, just recognize that one is displacing that God-shaped variable and attributing it to oneself, which is cosmic narcissism on stilts made of steroids. For in reality -- speaking of empiricism --

Mysticism is the empiricism of transcendent knowledge.

But

Man calls “absurd” what escapes his secret pretensions to omnipotence. 

Naturally, Harris also doesn’t recognize the existence of free will:

the idea of free will "cannot be mapped on to any conceivable reality" and is incoherent. Harris writes that neuroscience "reveals you to be a biochemical puppet.”

But he’s a leftist, and as we all know by now,

Determinism is the ideology of human perversion

Who Breathes Fire into the Equations and Who Pours Water on their Metaphysics?

That first question was famously asked by Stephen Hawking ("What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”), while the second was asked by me when out walking yesterday. 

Before trying to answer them, let's see what Hawking came up with, since he was a genius and I'm only a Subgenius, albeit a member of the priesthood. I have the same business card:

Hawking posed the question in his A Brief History of Time, which I never got through. Too bad, because on the last page he suggests that “if we do discover a complete theory” of the universe, then 

it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we would know the mind of God.

However, "Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations”:

The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence?

But in a later book he went wobbly and speculated that  

the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.

Okay, but on a purely logical basis, what is more reasonable, creation from nothing or… creatio ex nihilo? 

It indeed looks like he’s echoing Christian metaphysics except for the logical contradiction that anything can be the cause of itself. 

In reality, nothing can be the cause of itself, let alone everything. If this were the case, then it would undercut one of the top five or so principles that permit the existence of logical thought. It would be as destructive to intelligence as denying the principle of identity, and for what? Just to save your atheism? Why is that so important, and why would anyone want to base his metaphysic on the destruction of thought? Oh well:

What some call religion hardly astonishes us more than what others call science (Davila).

This principle of creation is certainly “the reason why there is something rather than nothing.” We can remove God from the principle, but this merely elevates the principle to God, which is just a semantic evasion, i.e., the same meaning in a different — and less adequate — word. 

Which is why we always say that the most literal-minded creationist is infinitely closer to the truth than the flat- and narrow-souled individual who denies the Creator --  just as the person who literally believes God formed man out of the dust is infinitely closer to the truth than the one who pretends man may be reduced to animality. 

In one of his 10,000 aphorisms, Davila says that If laws of history existed, their discovery would abrogate them.

And truly truly I say to my readers that if a law of evolution existed, its discovery would abrogate it. 

Well, I just googled it, and you'd better believe there's a law of evolution. One result proclaims it "as well substantiated as any other natural law, whether the Law of Gravity, the Laws of Motion, or Avogadro's Law.” 

I'll bite: Avogadro? “Equal volumes of all gases, at the same temperature and pressure, have the same number of molecules.” Okay. That checks out. But it sounds pretty much like the identity principle: "When A belongs to the whole of B and to C, and B also belongs to all C, it is necessary that A and B should be convertible.”

Now, regarding “laws of history,” it turns out that Marx didn’t go nearly far enough, because every law, insofar as it is a law, is a law of history. 

In other words, we now know that our cosmos has been evolving for 13.8 billion years, long before biological or psychological evolution arrived on the scene. What we call “history” turns out to be Everything, just in different phases.

Which, as it so happens, is one of the points of this so-far excellent book called From the Dust of the Earth: Benedict XVI, the Bible, and the Theory of Evolution. I didn’t intend to blog about it until finishing it, but what the heck. It begins with a quote by Dawkins that 

Before Darwin came along, it was pretty difficult to be an atheist…. Darwin triumphantly made it easy to be an intellectually fulfilled and satisfied atheist.

It’s too easy to bag on Dawkins, but the truth is rather the opposite of what he says, minus the fulfillment, satisfaction, and triumphalism, which we should put to the side when discussing Truth. After all, there are hard truths that I wish were otherwise, but they are what they are regardless of my personal satisfaction.

In any event, Darwin actually makes it impossible to be a metaphysical atheist for the reason given above: our discovery of the law of evolution abrogates it. Conversely, if we are fully explained by and confined to this law, then we could never explain it. 

It’s late again, and maybe I should resolve to wrap things up by noon...

Who Breathes Fire into the Equations and Who Pours Water on their Metaphysics?

That first question was famously asked by Stephen Hawking ("What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”), while the second was asked by me when out walking yesterday. 

Before trying to answer them, let's see what Hawking came up with, since he was a genius and I'm only a Subgenius, albeit a member of the priesthood. I have the same business card:

Hawking posed the question in his A Brief History of Time, which I never got through. Too bad, because on the last page he suggests that “if we do discover a complete theory” of the universe, then 

it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we would know the mind of God.

However, "Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations”:

The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence?

But in a later book he went wobbly and speculated that  

the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.

Okay, but on a purely logical basis, what is more reasonable, creation from nothing or… creatio ex nihilo? 

It indeed looks like he’s echoing Christian metaphysics except for the logical contradiction that anything can be the cause of itself. 

In reality, nothing can be the cause of itself, let alone everything. If this were the case, then it would undercut one of the top five or so principles that permit the existence of logical thought. It would be as destructive to intelligence as denying the principle of identity, and for what? Just to save your atheism? Why is that so important, and why would anyone want to base his metaphysic on the destruction of thought? Oh well:

What some call religion hardly astonishes us more than what others call science (Davila).

This principle of creation is certainly “the reason why there is something rather than nothing.” We can remove God from the principle, but this merely elevates the principle to God, which is just a semantic evasion, i.e., the same meaning in a different — and less adequate — word. 

Which is why we always say that the most literal-minded creationist is infinitely closer to the truth than the flat- and narrow-souled individual who denies the Creator --  just as the person who literally believes God formed man out of the dust is infinitely closer to the truth than the one who pretends man may be reduced to animality. 

In one of his 10,000 aphorisms, Davila says that If laws of history existed, their discovery would abrogate them.

And truly truly I say to my readers that if a law of evolution existed, its discovery would abrogate it. 

Well, I just googled it, and you'd better believe there's a law of evolution. One result proclaims it "as well substantiated as any other natural law, whether the Law of Gravity, the Laws of Motion, or Avogadro's Law.” 

I'll bite: Avogadro? “Equal volumes of all gases, at the same temperature and pressure, have the same number of molecules.” Okay. That checks out. But it sounds pretty much like the identity principle: "When A belongs to the whole of B and to C, and B also belongs to all C, it is necessary that A and B should be convertible.”

Now, regarding “laws of history,” it turns out that Marx didn’t go nearly far enough, because every law, insofar as it is a law, is a law of history. 

In other words, we now know that our cosmos has been evolving for 13.8 billion years, long before biological or psychological evolution arrived on the scene. What we call “history” turns out to be Everything, just in different phases.

Which, as it so happens, is one of the points of this so-far excellent book called From the Dust of the Earth: Benedict XVI, the Bible, and the Theory of Evolution. I didn’t intend to blog about it until finishing it, but what the heck. It begins with a quote by Dawkins that 

Before Darwin came along, it was pretty difficult to be an atheist…. Darwin triumphantly made it easy to be an intellectually fulfilled and satisfied atheist.

It’s too easy to bag on Dawkins, but the truth is rather the opposite of what he says, minus the fulfillment, satisfaction, and triumphalism, which we should put to the side when discussing Truth. After all, there are hard truths that I wish were otherwise, but they are what they are regardless of my personal satisfaction.

In any event, Darwin actually makes it impossible to be a metaphysical atheist for the reason given above: our discovery of the law of evolution abrogates it. Conversely, if we are fully explained by and confined to this law, then we could never explain it. 

It’s late again, and maybe I should resolve to wrap things up by noon...