Down the Rabbit Hole and Into the Prop Room
The following was written in response to a question that my friend The Mouzer had asked on Maddowblog regarding the Right To Life position. Mouzer is an expert debater, but her mind was unsettled on why Pro-Lifers are mostly sanguine on the acceptability of Capital Punishment but viewed the unborn as something they were willing to kill for in its defense. She had written off not having come to any conclusions she found acceptable silly. In truth, she had nailed the incredible hypocrisy and illogic of a political party that wants to prohibit abortion [yes, this is a new addition. 4/19/2014] while giving lip service to the concept of "small government" and "personal liberty." To which I had written the following:
This kind of "silliness" is what led Einstein to make his discoveries. Socrates knew he knew nothing and would canvas people for their opinions, discuss the implications and lead them to contradict themselves. More concisely, Joseph Heller who wrote Catch-22 (one of my bibles as you know) wrote the following in its sequel, Closing Time: "Winning arguments as a nihilist is easy. Everyone makes the mistake of choosing a position."
The question becomes WHAT makes sense to YOU? To get super-philosophical about it, all of reality as we know it is a shared consensus of symbols and their interaction. It is a game we all enter in the middle of, with is own rules we try to learn, but with the freedom to create our own rules as well. Or a walk on part in the play where the roles are to some extent assigned by accident of birth, by circumstance and by the identities and expectations that others force upon or bequeath to you. But in this play, you get to choose - to some extent - the plot you follow. And the lines are yours alone. I love this particular train of thought. The Dramaturlogical School of Sociology. Symbolic Interaction.
In pursuit of your own plot line and in mulling over your choice of lines...you may find that there are no clear answers and that the easy answers are often wrong. The highest authorities may not be able to answer your questions to your satisfaction, so ultimately you have to go with what makes the most sense to you. Subjective? Sure. As prone to error as anything else anyone can come up with? What isn't?
Whatever makes sense to you is all that matters. Especially if it doesn't make life any harder for a young woman up late one night wrestling with a dilemma that would make angels weep.
I justify my own position in that in the Bible, Adam did not live until God filled him with the breath of life. Nothing that never breathed was ever alive. Fish don't count. To kill anything after that first breath is murder. It makes sense to me. And while it would not improve the lot of said young woman - it allows her the freedom to make her own choice without me judging her. Sometimes ugly painful choices are absolutely necessary. Anyone over twenty should know that. Yet many don't.
#3.22 - Wed Nov 23, 2011 11:48 PM CSTThis kind of "silliness" is what led Einstein to make his discoveries. Socrates knew he knew nothing and would canvas people for their opinions, discuss the implications and lead them to contradict themselves. More concisely, Joseph Heller who wrote Catch-22 (one of my bibles as you know) wrote the following in its sequel, Closing Time: "Winning arguments as a nihilist is easy. Everyone makes the mistake of choosing a position."
The question becomes WHAT makes sense to YOU? To get super-philosophical about it, all of reality as we know it is a shared consensus of symbols and their interaction. It is a game we all enter in the middle of, with is own rules we try to learn, but with the freedom to create our own rules as well. Or a walk on part in the play where the roles are to some extent assigned by accident of birth, by circumstance and by the identities and expectations that others force upon or bequeath to you. But in this play, you get to choose - to some extent - the plot you follow. And the lines are yours alone. I love this particular train of thought. The Dramaturlogical School of Sociology. Symbolic Interaction.
In pursuit of your own plot line and in mulling over your choice of lines...you may find that there are no clear answers and that the easy answers are often wrong. The highest authorities may not be able to answer your questions to your satisfaction, so ultimately you have to go with what makes the most sense to you. Subjective? Sure. As prone to error as anything else anyone can come up with? What isn't?
Whatever makes sense to you is all that matters. Especially if it doesn't make life any harder for a young woman up late one night wrestling with a dilemma that would make angels weep.
I justify my own position in that in the Bible, Adam did not live until God filled him with the breath of life. Nothing that never breathed was ever alive. Fish don't count. To kill anything after that first breath is murder. It makes sense to me. And while it would not improve the lot of said young woman - it allows her the freedom to make her own choice without me judging her. Sometimes ugly painful choices are absolutely necessary. Anyone over twenty should know that. Yet many don't.
Don Quixote,
Some of your ideas struck me a very close to views expressed by many individuals examining the relationships between quantum physics and many religions.
The main theme is that we are all just expressions of a universal consciousness. Another main concept is that the universe is created by us the observer. It disputes the primacy of matter. Materialism says that everything consists of matter. Quantum theory suggests that everything consists of probabilities that only become real when we observe and collapse the probability wave function.
I find the ideas intriguing and consider them to be as likely as any thing else that I have studied. From what I read in your post you may find it worth looking into. I do urge caution though, the very common reaction to researching it is called, "Going down the rabbit hole, How far do you want to go?" It is seriously strange stuff.
A suggested starting point may be a video "What the bleep do we know?"
Some of your ideas struck me a very close to views expressed by many individuals examining the relationships between quantum physics and many religions.
The main theme is that we are all just expressions of a universal consciousness. Another main concept is that the universe is created by us the observer. It disputes the primacy of matter. Materialism says that everything consists of matter. Quantum theory suggests that everything consists of probabilities that only become real when we observe and collapse the probability wave function.
I find the ideas intriguing and consider them to be as likely as any thing else that I have studied. From what I read in your post you may find it worth looking into. I do urge caution though, the very common reaction to researching it is called, "Going down the rabbit hole, How far do you want to go?" It is seriously strange stuff.
A suggested starting point may be a video "What the bleep do we know?"
Yes, I own that video, though I've watched it only once.
I've thought about this at great length. And, as I've said, it makes sense to me. What would it matter that God created the universe in all of its multisplendiferous wonder and complexity if there was no one to witness it? Were there no consciousness and viewer to perceive it, would there even be a universe? Oh sure a wondrous confection of galaxies suns planets dust atomic reactions supernovas the whole bit...but it absolutely would not MATTER. On this score Frederick Nietzsche, for all of his creepy ego centrism, was absolutely right.
Here's a story, a true one. The best friend of my ex-wife was a gay man who had died of AIDS. He was honestly one of the most beautiful souls I had ever known. Something wonderful and unique had gone out of the world and it never even knew it. At his funeral, my ex-wife was treated as though she were his widow, which was fair enough. It was during the service that I had this flash of insight. This was maybe 10 years before I saw What the Bleep Do We Know:
God is Eternal Absolute and Infinite. God is like an ocean. Our universe and what we call Reality are an island of relativity bounded by space, time and causality. In this time and place, the Absolute, the Eternal, and the Infinite are all confined to the closet, in a manner of speaking. These things are not found here except in the mind - I won't even say human consciousness. We may not be the only ones, not even on Earth. What I can do is give you this formula. Humans, and perhaps others, are the Infinite Eternal and Absolute potentially realized while encapsulated in flesh (for a time) moving through an Island of Relativity (space/time/causality+whatever crap we throw in the game or make up as we go along.)
Years later I considered the possibility that we are all pieces of God divorced from those qualities for the purpose of having CONTEXT and knowing Himself (masculine gender for sake of convenience...it really doesn't matter) by the ABSENCE of those cardinal qualities. The Soul is the growth of Godseed, the Holy Spirit in which we are all made in the image of God like DNA from a parent, in this ABSENCE. If you know where to look and have an open mind, the signs are everywhere. For instance, DNA and the technological phenomenon of Holographic images, both expressions of the fact that the fraction contains the whole. That little gem [fraction contains whole]came to me while I was sitting in a stone shoebox of a cell when I was in prison (2* Burglary, time served in full; no rape or prison sex,) long before I met my ex-wife.
I guess I don't much fear the Rabbit Hole. They have cake and oysters.
I discovered an echo of all of this in College Math in the Multiplicative Property of Zero. When you multiply by Zero you are Dividing by its inverse which invokes Infinity. The specific article is Nothing. Absence. "Nothing" is the the backdrop against which Everything is projected. It is the stage upon which the play of Life is acted out. And when the play ends (as it does for each of us) the props are put away and Nothing, the stage, remains. God the Infinite, the Eternal, and the Absolute is the Prop Room and ultimate Audience.
So what does all this mean? It means we take a look around at what we do to ourselves and each other. We consider why. And then you weep with despair. We really could be doing so much better.
I've thought about this at great length. And, as I've said, it makes sense to me. What would it matter that God created the universe in all of its multisplendiferous wonder and complexity if there was no one to witness it? Were there no consciousness and viewer to perceive it, would there even be a universe? Oh sure a wondrous confection of galaxies suns planets dust atomic reactions supernovas the whole bit...but it absolutely would not MATTER. On this score Frederick Nietzsche, for all of his creepy ego centrism, was absolutely right.
Here's a story, a true one. The best friend of my ex-wife was a gay man who had died of AIDS. He was honestly one of the most beautiful souls I had ever known. Something wonderful and unique had gone out of the world and it never even knew it. At his funeral, my ex-wife was treated as though she were his widow, which was fair enough. It was during the service that I had this flash of insight. This was maybe 10 years before I saw What the Bleep Do We Know:
God is Eternal Absolute and Infinite. God is like an ocean. Our universe and what we call Reality are an island of relativity bounded by space, time and causality. In this time and place, the Absolute, the Eternal, and the Infinite are all confined to the closet, in a manner of speaking. These things are not found here except in the mind - I won't even say human consciousness. We may not be the only ones, not even on Earth. What I can do is give you this formula. Humans, and perhaps others, are the Infinite Eternal and Absolute potentially realized while encapsulated in flesh (for a time) moving through an Island of Relativity (space/time/causality+whatever crap we throw in the game or make up as we go along.)
Years later I considered the possibility that we are all pieces of God divorced from those qualities for the purpose of having CONTEXT and knowing Himself (masculine gender for sake of convenience...it really doesn't matter) by the ABSENCE of those cardinal qualities. The Soul is the growth of Godseed, the Holy Spirit in which we are all made in the image of God like DNA from a parent, in this ABSENCE. If you know where to look and have an open mind, the signs are everywhere. For instance, DNA and the technological phenomenon of Holographic images, both expressions of the fact that the fraction contains the whole. That little gem [fraction contains whole]came to me while I was sitting in a stone shoebox of a cell when I was in prison (2* Burglary, time served in full; no rape or prison sex,) long before I met my ex-wife.
I guess I don't much fear the Rabbit Hole. They have cake and oysters.
I discovered an echo of all of this in College Math in the Multiplicative Property of Zero. When you multiply by Zero you are Dividing by its inverse which invokes Infinity. The specific article is Nothing. Absence. "Nothing" is the the backdrop against which Everything is projected. It is the stage upon which the play of Life is acted out. And when the play ends (as it does for each of us) the props are put away and Nothing, the stage, remains. God the Infinite, the Eternal, and the Absolute is the Prop Room and ultimate Audience.
So what does all this mean? It means we take a look around at what we do to ourselves and each other. We consider why. And then you weep with despair. We really could be doing so much better.
Post Script: As the author of this blog, I'm able to see how many hits any given post receives and how many viewers I have from the country they are reading from. Because of this I am able to see that this particular post receives an unusual number of hits or views from Russia.
ReplyDeleteTo my readers in Russia, I would first like to say Thank You. It feels great to be an ordinary man and still touch someone half-way around the world, possibly several someones.
I'm also curious able what has captured so much interest and would like to discuss it.
Comments can be made here, though you may need to start a blogspot account to do so. Its okay, Its free.
Or you can contact me at donquixokie@yahoo.com. Just title the subject line "Re: Blogspot."
I would love to hear from you.