.
I was talking with a friend yesterday about an article he is writing with another colleague that focuses on the impact of Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition that was here at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science over the winter. Some of the ideas they are examining put a sharper point on some thoughts on mortality that have been bouncing around in my head over the last year. Well, maybe longer, but the last six months have added to the sharpening. Among the "sharpeners" was, of course, my second stem cell transplant, and a colleague's first run through that procedure. Then my wife, Christine, walked away from an accident that could well have been fatal. All that, added to my father's 100th birthday, about which you have already heard, lured me into further musing about mortality, and im-, and how those notions fit into a harmonic view of life.
The primary realization is that the first casualty of any traumatic event - whether it threatens us, those close to us, or strangers in an event that somehow becomes personal - is our own sense of immortality.
Watch the Winter X-Games. Check it out on YouTube if you haven't seen them. It should come as no surprise that most of the top performers are children. OK, we're not talking toddlers, but we are talking teenagers with the "aging icons" topping out in their mid to upper twenties. Look at what they do. No one in their right mind does that kind of stuff. But actually, it is not a question of a "right mind." It is a question of a "different mind," a mind in which they are still immortal. Other people get injured, other people die. Not them. They walk with the gods - until they don't. In our sports fixated popular culture we have all heard the somber commentator note: "He [or she] is certainly 100% physically, but how are they mentally? Have they been able to forget that terrible day when, well, let's just watch the tape." And we watch some horrific moment in a "game" when a human body bends or bounces in ways never intended.
When that body is our own and it suffers insult, physical or biological, we are forced to consider that there is not necessarily always another tomorrow. Hopefully our body returns to reasonable competence, but our notion of immortality may well be forever gone. And that is not necessarily a bad thing - harmonically speaking.
"Slacker," Google's Ngram tells us, is a word that has become increasingly popular over the last decade. The Urban Dictionary defines it thus: "Someone who puts off doing things to the last minute, and when the last minutes comes, decides it wasn't all that important anyways and forgets about it." Slacker is used most often to describe young people - age-mates of the X-Games participants. That should not surprise us. Like flinging yourself into the air over a sheet of ice on concrete, the slacker's laissez-faire approach to life demands the assumption of endless tomorrows: Should something meaningful actually happen to come along, there will always be a tomorrow in which to engage it.
Once some trauma disabuses us of the notion of immortality in this life, the inclination to "put it off until tomorrow" goes into a deep spiral. The preciousness of the moment takes on new meaning. I find myself editing "truths" both trivial and significant. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" becomes "Today could be the rest of your life." Not a shift of many words, but certainly a shift in focus.
I find that the most significant change resulting from my own loss of presumed immortality in this life has been a steep decline in my attention to external authority. What is "expected" of me by others becomes far less important than the transcendent quartet of foster harmony, enable beauty, distill complexity and oppose harm that we talked about a few posts ago. Interestingly, that shift seems - in my mind anyhow - to have resulted in me being a better teacher, writer, artist, husband, father and friend. Less traditional in many ways, which often confuses those I contact in those various guises - but in the long run, better - more honest.
For those of you paying close attention, let me briefly touch on the textual shift from "immortality" to "immortality in this life." Yes, the difference is intentional. And yes, my strange blend of physics and metaphysics demands an existence that transcends our current existence. It is a matter not of an afterlife as depicted in many traditional faiths - a land of hedonistic indulgence or a recreation of the family Thanksgiving dinner we always wanted, but never quite managed to pull off. My conception, rather, is a continuation of life demanded by supersymmetry and the inherent nature of the universe. Immortality - OK, yes, but you're still never going to see me attempting a fakie ollie at the Winter X-Games.
.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Revisiting Father
.
OK, I'm willing to admit that my post "The Idea of a Century" was a touch dark. But I really can only report what I see at the moment, and the moment was dark. Fortunately, the story didn't stop there. A series of bizarre events, too complex to report here, kept me up in Chicago for a few weeks longer than anticipated. But those days contained some delightful exceptions to the idea of a century, replacing that idea with an affirmation of harmony.
First, Dad's 100th birthday party itself went off far better than any of us could have anticipated. It was held in a neighboring building, necessitating a wheelchair ride of maybe 30 yards. Father hadn't left "his building" in several months, and balked at the idea of such long distance traveling. But the staff helped my sister Margaret get him comfortable in his wheels. He brightened perceptively when Margaret rolled him into what must have appeared to be a sea of smiling faces. We have come to realize that Margaret is really the only person he consistently recognizes. Last night my older daughter Andrea, who bears a striking resemblance to her aunt, pointed out to me that Margaret still looks very much as she did when Dad was in his far more focused early nineties. That, and the fact that he sees her regularly, may well keep her "gentle on his mind." So Margaret stayed at his shoulder as the line of grandchildren, spouses, and his sole great-grandchild filed by in small, non-threatening groups. He seemed to enjoy being the center of attention and, as usual, had no trouble feeding his sweet tooth on cake and ice-cream. All in all it was as good an outcome as we could have wished for.
However, even more comforting was the visit on the day just before Christine and I returned to Raleigh. Margaret and I agree, the party notwithstanding, that Dad does best with small groups of particularly precious people. So we seek to protect him from unwanted intrusions and overwhelming numbers. It is interesting that social complexity, once his academic speciality and delight, is now simply a source of anxiety. Perhaps it is because he thinks he should understand, but just doesn't. Anyhow, on this day there were only four of us. Margaret and her husband Bill, the family he sees most often, and Christine and me. Bill served as primary photographer, while Christine floated off my shoulder - in sight but not "crowding." Margaret perched by Dad's "good ear," while I knelt on the other side of his chair. What resulted was what Margaret and Bill report as his best day in months, if not longer. The conversation was fascinating, albeit only tangentially related to reality. On this day he recognized me several times - and as several different people. As we looked at the video later we agreed that most often I was his youngest brother Calvin. Margaret and Bill report that he often gets us confused in photographs.
He looked at me for a moment, and then his eyes lit up, "It is so good to see you! Your long hair had me confused there for awhile." Well, my hair, still returning post-chemo, remains far shorter than it has ever been - but no doubt longer than his memories of Calvin's even shorter locks. Still, there were some moments when I seemed to be a blend of Uncle Calvin, also a university professor, and myself. Dad patted my arm and told the audience - Christine, Margaret and Bill - "This young man needs to realize that his teaching years, well, they will be . . . well." He teared up a bit, still smiling, overcome with the memories of his own years in the classroom.
But then, dum ba dum, - "And there was your brother Si - he was very tall."
We're back to basketball in South Dakota. OK, I'm game.
"Yes, my brother Si was very tall." I replied.
"Well, I was almost as tall." Dad asserted. [The difference was at least 6 inches] "So I had to play like the dickens!"
Long pause. "We're going to go over there and play those boys at Marion High School . . . we'll show them."
And so we drifted along as he recalled his teaching days, playing baseball against the traveling team from the House of David, remembering his three kids reading on the couch by the Christmas tree. He faded in and out for another ten minutes or so; not unlike a radio on scan, sharing this, remembering a scrap of that. But finally he noticed that dinner was being served in the next room and we lost out to the promise of dessert. The staff helped him into his chair to roll over to dinner. I leaned down to give him a hug.
"I love you, Dad."
"I love you too, Rob."
I have written before about a place I imagine called Alternia. It is a place, I choose to believe, to which those afflicted with the broad range of maladies we define as dementia retreat when the world is too much for them. I choose to believe that on the bad days, when Dad is somewhere far away, that he is romping around in Alternia, hitting two-handed set shots against Marion High School, rapping out a double against The House of David, and sharing with decades of students the products of a truly remarkable mind.
.
OK, I'm willing to admit that my post "The Idea of a Century" was a touch dark. But I really can only report what I see at the moment, and the moment was dark. Fortunately, the story didn't stop there. A series of bizarre events, too complex to report here, kept me up in Chicago for a few weeks longer than anticipated. But those days contained some delightful exceptions to the idea of a century, replacing that idea with an affirmation of harmony.
First, Dad's 100th birthday party itself went off far better than any of us could have anticipated. It was held in a neighboring building, necessitating a wheelchair ride of maybe 30 yards. Father hadn't left "his building" in several months, and balked at the idea of such long distance traveling. But the staff helped my sister Margaret get him comfortable in his wheels. He brightened perceptively when Margaret rolled him into what must have appeared to be a sea of smiling faces. We have come to realize that Margaret is really the only person he consistently recognizes. Last night my older daughter Andrea, who bears a striking resemblance to her aunt, pointed out to me that Margaret still looks very much as she did when Dad was in his far more focused early nineties. That, and the fact that he sees her regularly, may well keep her "gentle on his mind." So Margaret stayed at his shoulder as the line of grandchildren, spouses, and his sole great-grandchild filed by in small, non-threatening groups. He seemed to enjoy being the center of attention and, as usual, had no trouble feeding his sweet tooth on cake and ice-cream. All in all it was as good an outcome as we could have wished for.
However, even more comforting was the visit on the day just before Christine and I returned to Raleigh. Margaret and I agree, the party notwithstanding, that Dad does best with small groups of particularly precious people. So we seek to protect him from unwanted intrusions and overwhelming numbers. It is interesting that social complexity, once his academic speciality and delight, is now simply a source of anxiety. Perhaps it is because he thinks he should understand, but just doesn't. Anyhow, on this day there were only four of us. Margaret and her husband Bill, the family he sees most often, and Christine and me. Bill served as primary photographer, while Christine floated off my shoulder - in sight but not "crowding." Margaret perched by Dad's "good ear," while I knelt on the other side of his chair. What resulted was what Margaret and Bill report as his best day in months, if not longer. The conversation was fascinating, albeit only tangentially related to reality. On this day he recognized me several times - and as several different people. As we looked at the video later we agreed that most often I was his youngest brother Calvin. Margaret and Bill report that he often gets us confused in photographs.
He looked at me for a moment, and then his eyes lit up, "It is so good to see you! Your long hair had me confused there for awhile." Well, my hair, still returning post-chemo, remains far shorter than it has ever been - but no doubt longer than his memories of Calvin's even shorter locks. Still, there were some moments when I seemed to be a blend of Uncle Calvin, also a university professor, and myself. Dad patted my arm and told the audience - Christine, Margaret and Bill - "This young man needs to realize that his teaching years, well, they will be . . . well." He teared up a bit, still smiling, overcome with the memories of his own years in the classroom.
But then, dum ba dum, - "And there was your brother Si - he was very tall."
We're back to basketball in South Dakota. OK, I'm game.
"Yes, my brother Si was very tall." I replied.
"Well, I was almost as tall." Dad asserted. [The difference was at least 6 inches] "So I had to play like the dickens!"
Long pause. "We're going to go over there and play those boys at Marion High School . . . we'll show them."
And so we drifted along as he recalled his teaching days, playing baseball against the traveling team from the House of David, remembering his three kids reading on the couch by the Christmas tree. He faded in and out for another ten minutes or so; not unlike a radio on scan, sharing this, remembering a scrap of that. But finally he noticed that dinner was being served in the next room and we lost out to the promise of dessert. The staff helped him into his chair to roll over to dinner. I leaned down to give him a hug.
"I love you, Dad."
"I love you too, Rob."
I have written before about a place I imagine called Alternia. It is a place, I choose to believe, to which those afflicted with the broad range of maladies we define as dementia retreat when the world is too much for them. I choose to believe that on the bad days, when Dad is somewhere far away, that he is romping around in Alternia, hitting two-handed set shots against Marion High School, rapping out a double against The House of David, and sharing with decades of students the products of a truly remarkable mind.
.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Naming God in the Hubble Calendar
.
You're sharing time with close friends. The kind of friends who really defined the word until Facebook stole it. The conversations drift, nobody seems to feel the need to dominate with a "better" story in the same genre. And so eventually you get there. It may take most of the night and some sort of mind altering activity or substance - Madeira, medication or meditation - but talk turns to God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha - Wikipedia has a list of 101 names for God. Someone says something as innocent as "God only knows," or "Let's leave that in God's hands," and suddenly there it is, the elephant in the room: God.
Ask a "person of the cloth" about God and they will most likely provide you with the acceptable response vetted by their faith. But more truthfully, I think most of us see "the deity" more clearly in a paraphrase of a well-known American president: "Well, Senator, that depends on what you mean by 'God.'" I doubt that there has ever been a time in the history of sentient humankind when we have not agonized over what we mean by God. To attempt a comparative presentation would be foolhardy, since it would necessarily imply that I know what others mean by God. So, my discussion must begin with my first definitional assumption: god is in both definition and relationship uniquely personal. (And, yes, the drop to lower case is intentional. Since God is only one of the myriad names for god it seemed that continuing to use the predominantly western Christian version would get the discussion off on an unintentionally constrained footing.)
So back to the elephant. Our relationship to a deity is personal because, despite any shared liturgy or prayers spoken in unison, those words take unique meaning deep within us. Unique because, as I have written elsewhere, we are an N of one, utterly unique in the universe. That inescapable scientific fact, embedded countless times within our DNA, mandates a unique experience of any stimulus, and that includes our relationship to and/or definition of a deity. As we are unique in the universe, so our relationship to the deity must also be unique.
Now, if you were paying attention, you realize that science a.k.a. DNA, just pulled a chair up to the table. And how could it not? Most of the sacred writings of the world's dominant faith's were written long before the periodic table of elements. The theistic faith expressed in those early texts sometimes, for "believers," trumps science. Often that is the case not because "sacred texts" are demonstrably more legitimate, but simply because they were earlier, seemingly authoritative, stabs at answering the same perplexing questions with which science still struggles. The fundamentalist argument seems to run that if science doesn't have all the answers, well, then we can ignore those it does provide. I can empathize with that inclination, but not the conclusion. One of the most daunting challenges for any scholar, scientist or theologian is admitting that you were wrong. The earth was not created in six days, nor does it lie at the center of the universe. Those are painful admissions for both the authors of the ancient texts and the users of the earliest telescopes.
Still those shared disappointments reveal that the mystic and the mathematician are kindred spirits, that science and theology stalk the same prey: Why does the world work the way it does? How do I reconcile what I observe around me with what I feel inside me? From where does life spring, and where does it go when it leaves here? Are we alone in the universe? And, as Lieber and Stoller wrote for Peggy Lee, "is that all there is?" The fact that we articulate the questions raises this perplexing issue: from whom do we expect an answer?
The faith-based assertion was often that the primary prophet of the faith had, with the help of the deity, indicated the general direction for the best guess at the answers. Science tends to believe that, at least, it has rejected the obviously erroneous conclusions. And then we stumble upon the "earth was created in six days and sits at the center of the universe" dual theology/scientific fallacy, and it seems that both lines of investigation may have led us astray. But probably not.
The fallacies are, for the most part temporary, the result of a transient hubris born of the fleeting belief that our particular niche of existence is somehow exceptional. Consider the calendar that is most likely displayed by the device through which you access this text. Mine defines the year as 2013. Through whose eyes? Well, Christian eyes. The eyes of admittedly biased scholars who assert that their prophet was born roughly two thousand years ago. 2013 AD, After the Death of Jesus of Nazareth. Is the currently politically correct 2013 BCE, "before the common era" any more accurate? Whose common era? Different lenses yield different results. It is the Jewish year 5773, Muslims, Hindi, Chinese - all draw a theological or cultural line in the sand that asserts from this moment the calendar begins, often because, for their faith, at that moment truth became visible. Those are faith-based delineations, drawn from millennia of theological assumptions that occasionally reflect constrained science.
Constrained how? In the most pragmatic sense, constrained by what we could see and measure. We thought ourselves the center of the universe because we could see no further than the objects in the night sky discernible by the unaided human eye. Anything smaller than a grain of sand or pollen became mere conjecture. However, as we devised tools to see further past each end of our experiential spectrum, both faith and science revised their conclusions and commentaries to avoid the inevitable collisions with the evolving empirical evidence. It is in the spirit of that inevitably flawed yet necessary demarcation of the human interaction with existential reality and the passing of time, that I would like to propose a new line in the sand: The Hubble Calendar. It would give dates using BH and AH - Before Hubble and After Hubble. And I mean the telescope. That makes this the year 24 AH. Why pick the launch of the Hubble Telescope as the calendrical set point? Because it was the day when, in very important ways, truth became visible. Work with me here.
At their core, most religions assert that they draw two central truths from their conception of the deity: First, a definition of the universe that the deity has created, and, second, rules or guidelines that define how you are supposed to live in that world. My estrangement from organized religions grows from an inability to accept the legitimacy of either truth as presented by the world's established faiths. The stumbling block for the first truth comes from the fact that the early theologians were utterly ignorant of the nature of the universe in which they lived. Mind you I did not say the world in which they lived. I am as amazed as anyone by the growing evidence of the depth knowledge reflected in the artifacts from ancient civilizations - the math of Stonehenge, what appear to be ancient electric batteries in the pyramids. Fascinating and mystifying. But those are tiny mysteries when compared to the new celestial and quantum data that seem to greet us daily to interpret and reinterpret the nature of the universe. Hence, if the ancients were babes in the woods when it came to the nature of the universe in which they lived, how can we place any faith - big and little f - in their assertions regarding how we live a moral and ethical life in that world? Mind you, I'm not saying that the ancient works must reach flawed conclusions, but I am saying that there is no data to support the conclusions that they do reach.
Let me also point out that I don't propose Hubble as a demarcation of certainty - actually the opposite. Hubble and all the other remarkable advances of Big Astronomy and Little Quantum Mechanics, keep us aware of how much we do not know, not only what we can see, but what we still cannot see - maybe Hubble Humility? Remember that a vital element of "truth" is realizing that it is always hedged by "doubt." Theology encourages us - in times of incomprehensible trauma - to accept "god's plan." Science gives us "levels of significance." Truth is hedged by doubt. Let us consider for the moment the following thought: perhaps the Hubble telescope brings us no further to the 'edge of all things' than did the telescopes of Galileo's time. Perhaps we are, relatively speaking, equally ignorant of the actual nature and limits of the universe as were the ancient scholars whose views we now find quaint. It is certainly possible. So, aside from the visible and the still hidden, what does the BH/AH line in the sand divide?
Two important answers spring to mind. First the line should divide arrogance (BH) from humility (AH). It is like the standard scene in many films and videos: The protagonist for some reason or another picks a fight with a seated stranger. The stranger ignores the protagonist for as long as possible, but then stands up revealing that he is two or three times the size of our protagonist. Before Hubble (BH) we, at least most of us, thought we knew about the universe. "Come on, guy! Wazza matter? Ya chicken? Come on!" Then Hubble stands up and removes the scales from our eyes revealing a universe of inconceivable, unimaginable vastness (AH). "Oh, my! I thought you were someone else. Can I buy you a drink?" So, as we consider the universe from an AH perspective we should attempt to remain humble regarding the scope of our knowledge and understanding.
Humble, yes - but not foolishly so. It isn't a case of "we're not worthy, we're not worthy!" It is more a case of "we're not certain, but here is an intriguing guess . . . ." For me the intriguing guess comes not from the "monstrously large" revealed by Hubble, Kepler, and their swiftly multiplying telescopic kin, but rather from the mind-blowingly microscopic world of string theory and particle physics. As I address the details of these issues in mind-numbing detail in The God Chord (search for Robert Schrag on Feedbooks.com or email me at robert.schrag@gmail.com for a free copy) let me simply give you the Twitter version here: String theory implies that the universe, however large, is made of tiny vibrating strings, of music, and that the particles that construct all existence are attracted to, or repealed from, each other by the song they sing. Supersymmetry implies that this celestial harmony goes on forever and ever, from inconceivably tiny to the unimaginably humongous, throughout the multiverses - song without end.
I believe it is this unending harmony that we are trying to identify as we craft our endless names for god. It is a pointless endeavor. The harmony is - there is no point in naming it, in limiting it, or in claiming it. There are more intriguing issues to consider. And those are, of course, the second major piece of every theology or secular philosophy; knowing the nature of the universe - super-symmetrical harmony - how are we to behave in that universe? Again, I would refer you to earlier posts for my answer: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity and Oppose Harm. If we can accomplish at least one of the four everyday then we can rest somewhat humbly assured that we are moving along the path of being in tune with the universe.
And why bother? Who cares? That leads to . . . what is it by now? The mastodon in the room? The most intriguing question: Is the universe sentient and self-aware, and do we eventually become contributing, sentient, self-aware portions part of that entity? Do we eventually become part of a universal soul?
Ridiculous! Absurd! Heresy! Theologians will seek to dissect or dismiss the science that nudged me to the question and scientists will decry the lack of evidence or data that even suggest the hypothesis, let alone ways to test it. Poppycock!
Maybe, maybe not. Let's save that for another time. I've claimed your eyeballs enough for today, July 27, 24 AH
.
You're sharing time with close friends. The kind of friends who really defined the word until Facebook stole it. The conversations drift, nobody seems to feel the need to dominate with a "better" story in the same genre. And so eventually you get there. It may take most of the night and some sort of mind altering activity or substance - Madeira, medication or meditation - but talk turns to God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha - Wikipedia has a list of 101 names for God. Someone says something as innocent as "God only knows," or "Let's leave that in God's hands," and suddenly there it is, the elephant in the room: God.
Ask a "person of the cloth" about God and they will most likely provide you with the acceptable response vetted by their faith. But more truthfully, I think most of us see "the deity" more clearly in a paraphrase of a well-known American president: "Well, Senator, that depends on what you mean by 'God.'" I doubt that there has ever been a time in the history of sentient humankind when we have not agonized over what we mean by God. To attempt a comparative presentation would be foolhardy, since it would necessarily imply that I know what others mean by God. So, my discussion must begin with my first definitional assumption: god is in both definition and relationship uniquely personal. (And, yes, the drop to lower case is intentional. Since God is only one of the myriad names for god it seemed that continuing to use the predominantly western Christian version would get the discussion off on an unintentionally constrained footing.)
So back to the elephant. Our relationship to a deity is personal because, despite any shared liturgy or prayers spoken in unison, those words take unique meaning deep within us. Unique because, as I have written elsewhere, we are an N of one, utterly unique in the universe. That inescapable scientific fact, embedded countless times within our DNA, mandates a unique experience of any stimulus, and that includes our relationship to and/or definition of a deity. As we are unique in the universe, so our relationship to the deity must also be unique.
Now, if you were paying attention, you realize that science a.k.a. DNA, just pulled a chair up to the table. And how could it not? Most of the sacred writings of the world's dominant faith's were written long before the periodic table of elements. The theistic faith expressed in those early texts sometimes, for "believers," trumps science. Often that is the case not because "sacred texts" are demonstrably more legitimate, but simply because they were earlier, seemingly authoritative, stabs at answering the same perplexing questions with which science still struggles. The fundamentalist argument seems to run that if science doesn't have all the answers, well, then we can ignore those it does provide. I can empathize with that inclination, but not the conclusion. One of the most daunting challenges for any scholar, scientist or theologian is admitting that you were wrong. The earth was not created in six days, nor does it lie at the center of the universe. Those are painful admissions for both the authors of the ancient texts and the users of the earliest telescopes.
Still those shared disappointments reveal that the mystic and the mathematician are kindred spirits, that science and theology stalk the same prey: Why does the world work the way it does? How do I reconcile what I observe around me with what I feel inside me? From where does life spring, and where does it go when it leaves here? Are we alone in the universe? And, as Lieber and Stoller wrote for Peggy Lee, "is that all there is?" The fact that we articulate the questions raises this perplexing issue: from whom do we expect an answer?
The faith-based assertion was often that the primary prophet of the faith had, with the help of the deity, indicated the general direction for the best guess at the answers. Science tends to believe that, at least, it has rejected the obviously erroneous conclusions. And then we stumble upon the "earth was created in six days and sits at the center of the universe" dual theology/scientific fallacy, and it seems that both lines of investigation may have led us astray. But probably not.
The fallacies are, for the most part temporary, the result of a transient hubris born of the fleeting belief that our particular niche of existence is somehow exceptional. Consider the calendar that is most likely displayed by the device through which you access this text. Mine defines the year as 2013. Through whose eyes? Well, Christian eyes. The eyes of admittedly biased scholars who assert that their prophet was born roughly two thousand years ago. 2013 AD, After the Death of Jesus of Nazareth. Is the currently politically correct 2013 BCE, "before the common era" any more accurate? Whose common era? Different lenses yield different results. It is the Jewish year 5773, Muslims, Hindi, Chinese - all draw a theological or cultural line in the sand that asserts from this moment the calendar begins, often because, for their faith, at that moment truth became visible. Those are faith-based delineations, drawn from millennia of theological assumptions that occasionally reflect constrained science.
Constrained how? In the most pragmatic sense, constrained by what we could see and measure. We thought ourselves the center of the universe because we could see no further than the objects in the night sky discernible by the unaided human eye. Anything smaller than a grain of sand or pollen became mere conjecture. However, as we devised tools to see further past each end of our experiential spectrum, both faith and science revised their conclusions and commentaries to avoid the inevitable collisions with the evolving empirical evidence. It is in the spirit of that inevitably flawed yet necessary demarcation of the human interaction with existential reality and the passing of time, that I would like to propose a new line in the sand: The Hubble Calendar. It would give dates using BH and AH - Before Hubble and After Hubble. And I mean the telescope. That makes this the year 24 AH. Why pick the launch of the Hubble Telescope as the calendrical set point? Because it was the day when, in very important ways, truth became visible. Work with me here.
At their core, most religions assert that they draw two central truths from their conception of the deity: First, a definition of the universe that the deity has created, and, second, rules or guidelines that define how you are supposed to live in that world. My estrangement from organized religions grows from an inability to accept the legitimacy of either truth as presented by the world's established faiths. The stumbling block for the first truth comes from the fact that the early theologians were utterly ignorant of the nature of the universe in which they lived. Mind you I did not say the world in which they lived. I am as amazed as anyone by the growing evidence of the depth knowledge reflected in the artifacts from ancient civilizations - the math of Stonehenge, what appear to be ancient electric batteries in the pyramids. Fascinating and mystifying. But those are tiny mysteries when compared to the new celestial and quantum data that seem to greet us daily to interpret and reinterpret the nature of the universe. Hence, if the ancients were babes in the woods when it came to the nature of the universe in which they lived, how can we place any faith - big and little f - in their assertions regarding how we live a moral and ethical life in that world? Mind you, I'm not saying that the ancient works must reach flawed conclusions, but I am saying that there is no data to support the conclusions that they do reach.
Let me also point out that I don't propose Hubble as a demarcation of certainty - actually the opposite. Hubble and all the other remarkable advances of Big Astronomy and Little Quantum Mechanics, keep us aware of how much we do not know, not only what we can see, but what we still cannot see - maybe Hubble Humility? Remember that a vital element of "truth" is realizing that it is always hedged by "doubt." Theology encourages us - in times of incomprehensible trauma - to accept "god's plan." Science gives us "levels of significance." Truth is hedged by doubt. Let us consider for the moment the following thought: perhaps the Hubble telescope brings us no further to the 'edge of all things' than did the telescopes of Galileo's time. Perhaps we are, relatively speaking, equally ignorant of the actual nature and limits of the universe as were the ancient scholars whose views we now find quaint. It is certainly possible. So, aside from the visible and the still hidden, what does the BH/AH line in the sand divide?
Two important answers spring to mind. First the line should divide arrogance (BH) from humility (AH). It is like the standard scene in many films and videos: The protagonist for some reason or another picks a fight with a seated stranger. The stranger ignores the protagonist for as long as possible, but then stands up revealing that he is two or three times the size of our protagonist. Before Hubble (BH) we, at least most of us, thought we knew about the universe. "Come on, guy! Wazza matter? Ya chicken? Come on!" Then Hubble stands up and removes the scales from our eyes revealing a universe of inconceivable, unimaginable vastness (AH). "Oh, my! I thought you were someone else. Can I buy you a drink?" So, as we consider the universe from an AH perspective we should attempt to remain humble regarding the scope of our knowledge and understanding.
Humble, yes - but not foolishly so. It isn't a case of "we're not worthy, we're not worthy!" It is more a case of "we're not certain, but here is an intriguing guess . . . ." For me the intriguing guess comes not from the "monstrously large" revealed by Hubble, Kepler, and their swiftly multiplying telescopic kin, but rather from the mind-blowingly microscopic world of string theory and particle physics. As I address the details of these issues in mind-numbing detail in The God Chord (search for Robert Schrag on Feedbooks.com or email me at robert.schrag@gmail.com for a free copy) let me simply give you the Twitter version here: String theory implies that the universe, however large, is made of tiny vibrating strings, of music, and that the particles that construct all existence are attracted to, or repealed from, each other by the song they sing. Supersymmetry implies that this celestial harmony goes on forever and ever, from inconceivably tiny to the unimaginably humongous, throughout the multiverses - song without end.
I believe it is this unending harmony that we are trying to identify as we craft our endless names for god. It is a pointless endeavor. The harmony is - there is no point in naming it, in limiting it, or in claiming it. There are more intriguing issues to consider. And those are, of course, the second major piece of every theology or secular philosophy; knowing the nature of the universe - super-symmetrical harmony - how are we to behave in that universe? Again, I would refer you to earlier posts for my answer: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity and Oppose Harm. If we can accomplish at least one of the four everyday then we can rest somewhat humbly assured that we are moving along the path of being in tune with the universe.
And why bother? Who cares? That leads to . . . what is it by now? The mastodon in the room? The most intriguing question: Is the universe sentient and self-aware, and do we eventually become contributing, sentient, self-aware portions part of that entity? Do we eventually become part of a universal soul?
Ridiculous! Absurd! Heresy! Theologians will seek to dissect or dismiss the science that nudged me to the question and scientists will decry the lack of evidence or data that even suggest the hypothesis, let alone ways to test it. Poppycock!
Maybe, maybe not. Let's save that for another time. I've claimed your eyeballs enough for today, July 27, 24 AH
.
Friday, July 5, 2013
Heading Home to Harmony
.
I have mentioned to some of you my intention to do a sort of 2nd edition of the God Chord. It is beginning to feel like it will be a whole new book, maybe Finding Harmony or Home to Harmony or something like that. Either way there will be numerous drafts, outlines, ruminations, etc. And while I do not have much faith in crowd sourcing, I do put trust in "small group sourcing," and you are the small group I trust. So here are some initial thoughts on what will be four of the major sections of "that Harmony book" Feedback, as always, is welcome :-)
===============================================
Heading Home to Harmony
There is a hierarchy to the construction of a harmonic life. The four principles are, in order:
Foster harmony.
This means that in every human interaction seeking harmony, seeking a mutually beneficial path, is our first obligation. The difficulty inherent in this first mandate is obvious in the fact that many common synonyms for seeking harmony, such as compromise and win-win solutions, are often read as code for weakness. The cultural roots for this strange moral inversion are many and deep. Anthropologically speaking they probably reach back into the mists of time, to our earliest ancestors, for whom dominance over stronger creatures meant food, clothing and survival. I find it most ironic that as species we have managed to forget that successfully hunting the mastodon hinged on cooperation. Yet, as Aesop's fox taught us long ago, we disparage those grapes which seem beyond our reach. Hence we paint our most difficult task with derision: Seeking harmony, pursuing the mutually beneficial path is a sign of weakness. Wimp. Geek. Chicken. Nothing could be further from the truth since nothing is quite so difficult as finding in your heart the solution that benefits your antagonist as it benefits you. So if you would truly reveal your strength, foster harmony.
Enable beauty.
Similarly it seems currently déclassé, artistically speaking, to represent beauty. Angst, alienation and a healthy dose of self-loathing seem to be all the artistic rage these days, as is rage. I will be the first to admit that I am something of a traditionalist when it comes to art. I lean toward representational works, and ones that make me happy, slow the pulse rate, calm the soul, infuse me with harmony.
Hence, you can understand my concern when I walk into an upscale gallery or a more informal installation and encounter a ten-foot tall rusted metal construction, splashed with lavender paint entitled #432. Mind you, I have no objection to abstract art per se - I dabble in it myself on occasion. But it strikes me as only fair to let the observer know, via a title, which corner of the universe you are playing in. So I looked at #432 for awhile, making sure that others were looking at it too. It is important to appear hip at these kinds of installations, and I remain haunted by the memory of the time in the National Gallery when I spent ten minutes gazing thoughtfully at what appeared to be a pile of trash. Then the maintanence staff came and swept it into a trash can. I need to trust my first impressions.
But there seemed to be a fair sized crowd looking at #432, and some were still there - as was #423 itself - when I left awhile later. So the current adage still seems to be if you do representational work keep it edgy and uncomfortable. And if you can't manage that, create something abstract that is angular, jarring and discordant and name it as ambiguously as possible. Numbers work, but words like Encounter, Leaving, and Adage are good too.
I find this current fascination with the ugly interesting because it requires the artist to work in an incredibly limited focal plane. A peek at the Orion Nebula through the Hubble telescope, or at a butterfly's wing through a telescope reveals the universal dominance of beauty. Yet many of our current artists seem obsessed with the discord reflected in the narrow experiential plane of humanity's inhumanity. Of course that reality exists - but do we resist or confront it by relentlessly representing it? It seems more likely that our excessive representation of the discordant only draws our attention away from the overwhelming, transcendent beauty of existence. It also defies the first, preeminent mandate: foster harmony. There is no harmony in the ugly, so enable beauty.
Distill Complexity
This is the concept that I have been calling the fourth pillar, but only because it occurred to me after the three original principles. Yet, it goes here in third place. Foster Harmony and Enable Beauty predominant because they are "all in a day's work." Everyday we can do something to foster harmony and reduce discord even if it something as simple as putting your dishes in the dishwasher, or telling the people you love that you love them. Enable beauty as well need not entail hours before an easel or pushing images around in photoshop, agonizing over the perfect poem. A $3.00 stem of flowers from the grocery store, a $1.99 track from iTunes, a haiku on a napkin, all these enable beauty.
Distilling Complexity, though, is a bit more difficult. As you know I often fall back on similes, analogies and convenient paraphrases to make my points. Today is no different. Aristotle is credited with the phrase I will distort today. In Metaphysica 2 he says "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." Since he is not around to disagree, I am going to stand that on its head and assert that "the meaning of the whole is less than the sum of its parts."
Let's begin with an analogy. Consider a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. You open it up and dump it out on a table. But the table must be three times as big as the final puzzle you wish to construct since the pieces spread out higgeldy-piggeldy across the table. It is only after you figure out how the pieces are designed - how they fit together - that you can distill the complex chaos of those thousand pieces and place them so as to construct an image that makes sense. And, low and behold, the image is less than, smaller than, the undistilled, complex, spread out, sum of its parts.
It has, of course, to do with the process of distillation. Distillation reduces complexity to its essential core. Despite my own inability to mimic Hemingway's sparse prose, I have always distrusted the philosopher, sage, prophet or scientist who requires a library the size of Alexandria's or a specialized language to reveal truth. I am always suspicious that there really are devils lurking down there in the details. There are movements in a variety of notoriously arcane areas - the law and medicine to mention two of the worst offenders - to "speak real English." They are distillation movements to be praised and supported.
In our own lives we need to seek articulations, expressions of our own beliefs, that do not hide behind rituals and inflexible generalities. We need to parse our worldview precisely: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity - and, Oppose Harm.
Oppose Harm.
You may find it strange that I leave this for last as it is the rallying cry that has sent us off to kill each other for millennia. And that is precisely why I leave it for last. In his work Foundation, Isaac Asimov asserts that "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." It is a glorious pronouncement and I wish it were true. However, violence is also the first choice of the desperate, the disenfranchised, and those who have fallen for the devil words in the undistilled complexities of their "great books."
Harm must be opposed or the bullies, at home and abroad, will destroy the world through armed conflict, environmental neglect, or unimaginable greed. Still I place it fourth. Why? My reasoning is hopefully distilled and not merely simple: If we can, in significant numbers, bring the first three principles into the world: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty and Distill Complexity; we will create a world that is increasingly toxic for those who turn at first blush to violence. A world that rests firmly on the first three principles will undoubtedly be called upon to Oppose Harm; but hopefully less often, and with less virulent results.
A concluding passing fancy: We have read much in the past few weeks about how governments - our own and others - can seemingly eavesdrop on our most private conversations at will. Still at night we glance up at the myriad of stars above, and realize that that myriad is but a tiny fraction of the stars that inhabit the multiverses. Any notion that we are the best and the brightest kid in the room swiftly falls away. And it doesn't take an Asimov to imagine entities out there with skills far beyond the NSA's, monitoring our behavior. Maybe a prerequisite for contact with those advanced cultures that live beyond our feeble glances toward the stars, is the ability to demonstrate - like a mentally ill patient - that we are no longer of any danger to ourselves or others.
.
I have mentioned to some of you my intention to do a sort of 2nd edition of the God Chord. It is beginning to feel like it will be a whole new book, maybe Finding Harmony or Home to Harmony or something like that. Either way there will be numerous drafts, outlines, ruminations, etc. And while I do not have much faith in crowd sourcing, I do put trust in "small group sourcing," and you are the small group I trust. So here are some initial thoughts on what will be four of the major sections of "that Harmony book" Feedback, as always, is welcome :-)
===============================================
Heading Home to Harmony
There is a hierarchy to the construction of a harmonic life. The four principles are, in order:
Foster harmony.
This means that in every human interaction seeking harmony, seeking a mutually beneficial path, is our first obligation. The difficulty inherent in this first mandate is obvious in the fact that many common synonyms for seeking harmony, such as compromise and win-win solutions, are often read as code for weakness. The cultural roots for this strange moral inversion are many and deep. Anthropologically speaking they probably reach back into the mists of time, to our earliest ancestors, for whom dominance over stronger creatures meant food, clothing and survival. I find it most ironic that as species we have managed to forget that successfully hunting the mastodon hinged on cooperation. Yet, as Aesop's fox taught us long ago, we disparage those grapes which seem beyond our reach. Hence we paint our most difficult task with derision: Seeking harmony, pursuing the mutually beneficial path is a sign of weakness. Wimp. Geek. Chicken. Nothing could be further from the truth since nothing is quite so difficult as finding in your heart the solution that benefits your antagonist as it benefits you. So if you would truly reveal your strength, foster harmony.
Enable beauty.
Similarly it seems currently déclassé, artistically speaking, to represent beauty. Angst, alienation and a healthy dose of self-loathing seem to be all the artistic rage these days, as is rage. I will be the first to admit that I am something of a traditionalist when it comes to art. I lean toward representational works, and ones that make me happy, slow the pulse rate, calm the soul, infuse me with harmony.
Hence, you can understand my concern when I walk into an upscale gallery or a more informal installation and encounter a ten-foot tall rusted metal construction, splashed with lavender paint entitled #432. Mind you, I have no objection to abstract art per se - I dabble in it myself on occasion. But it strikes me as only fair to let the observer know, via a title, which corner of the universe you are playing in. So I looked at #432 for awhile, making sure that others were looking at it too. It is important to appear hip at these kinds of installations, and I remain haunted by the memory of the time in the National Gallery when I spent ten minutes gazing thoughtfully at what appeared to be a pile of trash. Then the maintanence staff came and swept it into a trash can. I need to trust my first impressions.
But there seemed to be a fair sized crowd looking at #432, and some were still there - as was #423 itself - when I left awhile later. So the current adage still seems to be if you do representational work keep it edgy and uncomfortable. And if you can't manage that, create something abstract that is angular, jarring and discordant and name it as ambiguously as possible. Numbers work, but words like Encounter, Leaving, and Adage are good too.
I find this current fascination with the ugly interesting because it requires the artist to work in an incredibly limited focal plane. A peek at the Orion Nebula through the Hubble telescope, or at a butterfly's wing through a telescope reveals the universal dominance of beauty. Yet many of our current artists seem obsessed with the discord reflected in the narrow experiential plane of humanity's inhumanity. Of course that reality exists - but do we resist or confront it by relentlessly representing it? It seems more likely that our excessive representation of the discordant only draws our attention away from the overwhelming, transcendent beauty of existence. It also defies the first, preeminent mandate: foster harmony. There is no harmony in the ugly, so enable beauty.
Distill Complexity
This is the concept that I have been calling the fourth pillar, but only because it occurred to me after the three original principles. Yet, it goes here in third place. Foster Harmony and Enable Beauty predominant because they are "all in a day's work." Everyday we can do something to foster harmony and reduce discord even if it something as simple as putting your dishes in the dishwasher, or telling the people you love that you love them. Enable beauty as well need not entail hours before an easel or pushing images around in photoshop, agonizing over the perfect poem. A $3.00 stem of flowers from the grocery store, a $1.99 track from iTunes, a haiku on a napkin, all these enable beauty.
Distilling Complexity, though, is a bit more difficult. As you know I often fall back on similes, analogies and convenient paraphrases to make my points. Today is no different. Aristotle is credited with the phrase I will distort today. In Metaphysica 2 he says "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." Since he is not around to disagree, I am going to stand that on its head and assert that "the meaning of the whole is less than the sum of its parts."
Let's begin with an analogy. Consider a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. You open it up and dump it out on a table. But the table must be three times as big as the final puzzle you wish to construct since the pieces spread out higgeldy-piggeldy across the table. It is only after you figure out how the pieces are designed - how they fit together - that you can distill the complex chaos of those thousand pieces and place them so as to construct an image that makes sense. And, low and behold, the image is less than, smaller than, the undistilled, complex, spread out, sum of its parts.
It has, of course, to do with the process of distillation. Distillation reduces complexity to its essential core. Despite my own inability to mimic Hemingway's sparse prose, I have always distrusted the philosopher, sage, prophet or scientist who requires a library the size of Alexandria's or a specialized language to reveal truth. I am always suspicious that there really are devils lurking down there in the details. There are movements in a variety of notoriously arcane areas - the law and medicine to mention two of the worst offenders - to "speak real English." They are distillation movements to be praised and supported.
In our own lives we need to seek articulations, expressions of our own beliefs, that do not hide behind rituals and inflexible generalities. We need to parse our worldview precisely: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity - and, Oppose Harm.
Oppose Harm.
You may find it strange that I leave this for last as it is the rallying cry that has sent us off to kill each other for millennia. And that is precisely why I leave it for last. In his work Foundation, Isaac Asimov asserts that "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." It is a glorious pronouncement and I wish it were true. However, violence is also the first choice of the desperate, the disenfranchised, and those who have fallen for the devil words in the undistilled complexities of their "great books."
Harm must be opposed or the bullies, at home and abroad, will destroy the world through armed conflict, environmental neglect, or unimaginable greed. Still I place it fourth. Why? My reasoning is hopefully distilled and not merely simple: If we can, in significant numbers, bring the first three principles into the world: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty and Distill Complexity; we will create a world that is increasingly toxic for those who turn at first blush to violence. A world that rests firmly on the first three principles will undoubtedly be called upon to Oppose Harm; but hopefully less often, and with less virulent results.
A concluding passing fancy: We have read much in the past few weeks about how governments - our own and others - can seemingly eavesdrop on our most private conversations at will. Still at night we glance up at the myriad of stars above, and realize that that myriad is but a tiny fraction of the stars that inhabit the multiverses. Any notion that we are the best and the brightest kid in the room swiftly falls away. And it doesn't take an Asimov to imagine entities out there with skills far beyond the NSA's, monitoring our behavior. Maybe a prerequisite for contact with those advanced cultures that live beyond our feeble glances toward the stars, is the ability to demonstrate - like a mentally ill patient - that we are no longer of any danger to ourselves or others.
.
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