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June 15, 2006
Amatuer Metaphysics
I have been intellectual paralyzed lately, unable to gain a firm footing on what exactly this universe is, who I am and why I possess a capacity to ask such large questions. The sheer size of existence absolutely boggles me from the vastness of space down to the infinitesimal quark. I saw this BBC program, called 'Most of our Universe is Missing' on dark matter and it destroyed me, intellectually speaking. Basically they described what is known as the 'standard model of cosmology' which states that things made of atoms (i.e. everything we can know, see and observe) only fills 4% of our known universe and that there must be something else occupying the galaxy that keeps it together. That 'something' has been separated into two distinct 'things' known as dark matter (filling 20%) and dark energy (which fills the remaining 76%). I don't even know where to begin there, I mean...my mind can't get around that. Not only that but there is no physical proof that it exists, I mean, it is unlike matter in every way so how does one go about measuring it? The only thing I took away was the understanding that human beings are wrong, perpetually wrong. We are wrong about everything really and we build wrong theories that are proved wrong by other wrong theories and so on and so forth.
I mean there was this other guy who thinks that the whole dark matter theory is rubbish and that instead Newton must have been wrong citing that the laws of gravity deteriorate when getting down to the very small so why not with the very large? Basically that gravity works for things that we can wrap our minds around (from pennies to planets) but, not much else. What?! Sir Isaac Newton was wrong?! What was it that I was learning in school, didn't people tell me it was 'fact'? What do you mean he's wrong?! If Newton was wrong than what I am? What have I been doing? What about that coffee table notion of science I had been sharing with friends over glasses of wine all this time? What is fact anyways? Can anything be asserted? What of those other important (and equally nebulous) things we call emotion, love, religion and God?
I guess that is what makes human understanding wonderful, amazing and frivolous all at the same time: the blatant fact that it is perpetually wrong.
Stephen Hawking often talks of a 'universal theorem' which, when discovered, will sum up the meaning of life. I am unhesitant in saying that, judging by the history of science, he is wrong. I just don't think that such a thing could be discovered quantitatively. But what of my assertions that he is wrong? If I am right about all human understanding being wrong than my assertions of his errors are in fact wrong rendering my argument invalid because it is self defeating. What, then, does it mean to be right?
It is here where atheists and believers in God stand on an identical stage in front of undifferentiated podiums facing opposite sides of a homogenous crowd, crowing out the same message. That the utter incomprehensibility of the universe beguiles or outright denies the existence of an all powerful Creator being. I mean, how INSANE is that that I can understand my recognition of utter inscrutable truths yet still seek to discover them? Believers in God say that he cannot be proven because the necessary, intelligent, being that is needed at the end of a contingent chain can't be proven through the processes inherent in the chain while atheists assert that a necessary being isn't necessary and that 'god' is simply the currently imperceptible mortar between the perceptible bricks that make up a finite, fully discoverable, universe.
And why do we care? Why do we care if people kill one another, or rape or steal or plunder? Why does what Lewis calls 'right conduct' matter to our minds and why do we feel pain or remorse when someone's actions violate our morality? And why have I been so concerned with what I am to do in this life?
I know this is old fashioned philosophy here but the very fact that those questions exist shows me that there is something, somewhere that wants me to think about those things and discover answers. Something that wants me to preserve my life in the face of knowing that (cosmically speaking) it will end almost as instantly as it began. Yet my inner striving tells me I am destined for something else, something larger and bigger and in the end my own perception is all I can trust. Descartes said, 'I think therefore I am' and Lewis said that just as with the sciences, the instruments you use are external to yourself that the instrument you see God with is your whole self so, again, I am given cause to look inward. But Christ tells me to look outward, to put myself in everyone else's shoes and to concern myself with helping solve other peoples problems all while seeking to know Him more while simultaneously remembering to take heed of the wise words of those who came before me.
I think it will take me a long time to get this whole thing right, an eternity even.
I can't help but think we are destined for another plane of existence beyond what we understand; where harmonious actions as well as good thoughts are a prerequisite for sustaining life, whether it be physical or not. It is the next stage in evolution and just like the fish who first pulled itself onto dry land, getting there is going to be a long, arduous journey. As the Dread Pirate Roberts told Buttercup, "Life is pain, anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something."
But underneath the mask of this seemingly eternal mystery is there a love which will erase these eons of separation? I guess that is where the choice of faith comes in.
Posted by Jon at June 15, 2006 08:20 PM