Comments on the comments

the path
Originally uploaded by versionz.

Yeah, my little article on Nothingness stirred up a few comments. And they’re all valid. I wrote the thing 2 years ago, and if I wrote it today it would be different. At that point I was a budding freelance journalist and goal number one was to incite controversy, as controversy usually ensures high readership (ah, the UN-ethics of Journalism…)

In fact, besides the “errors” that were pointed out, my whole argument could be totally slaughtered by hard, cold logic alone. But I’ll leave you guys to work that one out lest I embark on a 1000 word diatribe.

Anonymous: You are quite correct in your definition of atheism. In its strictest sense it has nothing to do with the “afterlife” debate. As you say, it simply rejects a belief in God. You are more articulate than I was at the time.

*I’ve got no agenda here, but I’d just like to say that Buddhism is not a theism. The Buddha was an ordinary human who awoke from the deluded slumber we are all born into. Any of us can achieve that state. The subsequent Buddhist rituals (some of which could appear as “worship”) is a man-made creation. Inevitable.

Joel: Yes, you are correct too my man. The Buddha declined to comment on an afterlife. Indeed the Buddha’s point of view on an afterlife was not dissimilar to Socrates stance (see original post) before he was put to death.

The concept of “Nothingness” as I said, shares much with the concept of “infinity”. In fact, I would even stick my BiPolar neck out and propose that the two concepts actually refer to the same thing.

Infinity,
By definition,
Cannot be defined

Nothingness,
By definition,
Cannot be spoken about.

The Tao that can be told
Is not the eternal Tao
– The Tao te Ching

Whereof one cannot speak,
Thereof one must remain silent
- Wittgenstein


As always:

“There are no answers. Only choices”

Dogmatic atheism?

Seeing as I've been talking about metaphysics a lot lately, I thought I'd share an article I wrote 2 years ago for our Daily Newspaper (one of the few freelance articles I was paid for...)

It is incredible what rational and intelligent humans place their faith in. Millions, especially in the Western world, have the utmost faith in an entity that has never been proved by science, whose existence defies all logic and which not one being has ever witnessed. So steadfast is their belief that they live out their short lives on planet earth guided by this intuitive certainty.

What am I talking about? God? Religion? No, I am talking about nothingness – the holy grail of the millions of atheists in our secular midst. Ask an atheist what awaits them upon their death and they will invariably reply “Why, nothing of course, we will fertilise the flowers.”

But let’s take a closer look at this slippery “nothingness” concept. Right up front I must say that a distinction needs to be drawn between “nothing” and “nothingness”. “Nothing” as a term in everyday language is a most useful concept. If I remove a solitary jar from a shelf, I can say “Now there is nothing on the shelf”. Indeed it was this pragmatic quality of absence that inspired the ancient Indian mathematicians to invent the zero. This latecomer to the family of numerals was greeted with misgivings right from the start. “How could this symbol represent both something and nothing at the same time?” leading thinkers challenged. For if zero was really something, it couldn’t be nothing; if nothing then not something. It’s difficult to get your head around. As John Cage once quipped “I have nothing to say and I am saying it.”

Despite the paradoxes, the usefulness of this new mathematical entity secured it a permanent position amongst the other numerals which we use today. Even attacks by the Christian church during the Middle Ages failed to dislodge the “Devil’s number”. (No coincidence that the word “naughty” shares its etymological roots with the enigmatic nought.)

So let us accept that zero is an indispensable mathematical tool, just as the horizontal eight figure of infinity (equally paradoxical) is an essential mathematical tool. And that “nothing” is an extremely useful term in everyday language. But what about nothingness? Surely this is what the atheists are alluding to when they consider the afterlife. It is one thing to say that there is now nothing in Mr Joe Bloggs’ bed, the good man having being lowered six foot into the earth at his funeral the day before. But where does the consciousness that was Mr Joe Bloggs go? Into nothingness?

Send a team of the top hundred scientists with a billion dollar budget out into the world for ten years to search for nothingness and what would they come back with? Nothing. But not nothingness! Not surprising then that the nothingness concept has been left to the philosophers to grapple with. But it was only at the turn of the nineteenth century that nothingness made any real impact on philosophy. The German philosopher Heidegger expounded on how short and meaningless our lives are, born as we are into a random set of circumstances not of our choosing (“throwness” he called it) only to slip back into the void after a paltry three score and ten years. The Frenchman Sartre picked up on the theme, his seminal work “Being and Nothingness” pioneering the school of Existentialism. Man, according to the existentialists, is a meaningless creature living in a meaningless world, perpetually riddled with profound angst about his impending demise into nothingness. With nihilism like this it is no wonder we are living in such anxiety ridden times.

There were, however, a few philosophers that challenged Heidegger’s conception of nothingness. One such thinker was Levinas, a Lithuanian Jew, settled in France (whose work was translated into English by an Italian and lectured to me at the University of Stellenbosch in Afrikaans). Heidegger had taken Being (existence) and Non-Being (nothingness) as his starting point and in good philosophical fashion Levinas questioned this dualistic premise. He posited a third entity, the “ilya” from which both existence and nothingness were derived. An even more obscure term, the “ilya” is the fundamental condition of the universe, a condition that “not even death can escape”.

World religions have always pointed to an afterlife. Both Christ and Mohammed preached that the afterlife is the essential reason for living on earth. The Hindus and Buddhists believe that we are trapped in an eternal cycle of birth and rebirth. How unbelievably lucky the person who escapes their misdemeanours on earth to the sanctuary of pure and eternal nothingness. Indeed, how different would eternal nothingness be from the almost-impossible-to-attain state of Buddhist Nirvana?

“But we were born from nothingness”, the sceptics cry, “so surely that proves that nothingness exists.” Does it? Do you remember the day you were born? No? Then how can you remember what came before that?

But best we dismiss the speculative afterlife of the religions. Who after all, would place their faith in such unfounded, unproved and inconceivable gibberish? Only fools would buy into such dogma.

Maybe it was Socrates that had the best take on the whole situation. Socrates was another man who was put to death by the authorities of his day for “inciting the crowds” with his unwavering beliefs. He philosophised thus: “To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils. And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know.”

Convergent universes

Yes, this blog is still about BiPolar. It's just that I have this HUGE appetite for philosophical speculation which I locked up in a back room a few years ago for fear that I would sit thinking for 10 hours a day instead of my current 4. But now it has been re-IGNITED, and although i am well aware that I will need to reign it in again sometime soon (before it wreaks total havoc in my professional life) I'm desperate to run with it for a bit. (Could even be a bit of hypomania involved... but shhhh don't tell anyone) Maybe I'll start a new blog sometime just for ontological speculations. "Lost & Profound" Like the name?

I took the pic above on Sunday morning where we went to breakfast at one of my favourite restuarants - Olympia Cafe. Whilst Mrs M and friends used the front entrance, BPG had to skulk through the side one. Dang!

Now to convergent universes:

In yesterday's comments Willbefine said:

"Breaking down anything to its smallest part there is always a finite limit"

I disagree. Finding a smallest part is like finding a smallest number. No can do. They swore that the atom was the smallest part. Then the electron. Then the whatever has come after (at least another 5 steps). Draw me a point on a page to respresent the smallest element. I'll take it, blow it up 10 times, cut the page in half - and hey presto, you've got a smaller one.

"I can propose a theory based on BPG’s infinite regression that within each of these particles contains an alternative universe. Who is to say that I am wrong?"

No, you are not wrong. You are totally right. Anyone who can't see the similarity between the solar system and the atom is just plain blind. "The earth is round, It moves in circles."

So yes, there are universes within universes within.... All on different scales. But have you ever considered that there might be universes right here and now, that are the same size as ours? And in the same space?

This is how: In much the same way as we divide space into smaller and smaller bits and then propose that these bits could contain universes of their own that we wouldn't even know about (YET!), we can do the same with time.

Maybe what is 50 billion years to us, is one zillionth of a millisecond to another universe. RELATIVITY remember. So that universe could have come and gone in the time that I've typed this right here, right now, right in the same space, without us even knowing. Hey presto - Convergent Universes.

And as to the proposition that a Ratio could be the divine force in the universe, it's not so far fetched. See below an excerpt from Mario Livio's excellent book "The Golden Ratio" about Phi. Here is why one dude said the ratio was "God":



So maybe god has gone digital too...

Man, I'm gonna have to stop this runaway horse soon.

The God Placebo

PREFACE:
- participants in the infinite debate please scroll down
- readers that have arrived at this blog with an interest in BiPolar Disorder – don’t fear. This last week has just been a little diversion into hypometaphysics, but the daily grind will soon return.

In yesterdays comments Raine said:

“I came to the conclusions that mankind has a need for "god"… “A superior being, a reason for existence, accountability, hope.... wether God exists and in what form is irrelevant.”

Exactly. Thanks for GETTING IT Raine. So often when I chant my “God is irrelevant” mantra, people get their backs up. They seem to think I am some hell-bent atheist at best, or maybe even Satanic at worst. What they fail to see is that I am not attacking FAITH. Yeah, faith is a very strong power in millions of people’s lives around the world. Without their faith life would be unbearable. But it’s exactly their FAITH that empowers them not “God”.

Let’s say for a moment that God DOES NOT exist. Who is better off? The person who erroneously clutches onto an undying faith in God that gives them strength, peace and happiness? Or the genius who knows the truth about God’s non-existence, and lives in angst, despair and meaninglessness?

So: Whether you’re Catholic, Muslim, Hindu or a Pavlovian, if your faith is working for you – you’re on the right path. Don’t even question whether your God exists or not. It is irrevlevant. Yeah maybe it’s just a placebo effect. But if it cures you. SO FREAKING WHAT??

***

And now onto the infinitely regressing infinity argument:

INFINITY withIN FINITY

To get up to infinite speed on this debate I’d suggest you go here (first) and here (second)

Willbefine very shrewdly pointed out the Moebius Strip. Not sure if you noticed WBF, but the pic I had in my post yesterday was in fact a Moebius Strip, albeit a pretty sophisticated one. So here’s a more simple rendition.

The Moebius strip (from which, incidentally the mathematical symbol of infinity borrows it’s shape) is really just a sleight of hand. It satisfies the “no beginning, no end” requirement of infinity but it fails to address any quantative quality of infinity. It is simply a geometric representation of infinity, but does not prove or disprove real infinity.

And just as you say Infinity might be finite, I propose, that on a quantative level Finity always contains Infinity. Here goes:

Suppose we take a “finite” amount of time – 24 hours lets say. How much time is contained therein? 24 hours you say. Ah, but hours is simply a man-made unit of measurement. What about if we divide the time into minutes, seconds, milliseconds. Still finite right. But let’s carry on, lets divide the milliseconds into a million parts, and those million parts into another million parts. No matter how small those parts – they are still “quantities of time” right? And where does it end? Every part we cut up, we can cut into more, on, and on, ad infinitum.

And there you saw it: BPG’s INFINITY withIN FINITY.

To Amanda and z0tl : You guys have got a totally irrational God. I can live with that. But you’re barking up the wrong tree. Throw an H into the middle of your pie, and then you’re really talking divinity. Phi - The divine proportion.

Lemme tell you a little secret. Saint John said : “in the beginning was the word”. But “word” is just our English translation. The original term used by said John was in fact “logos”, which has a myriad of meanings. One such meaning can be clued from “logarithm”. Yeah, ratio.

“In the beginning was the Ratio”

And whilst we are in biblical lands it might be timeous to point out that the 666 number is also based on a ratio. 2 thirds. And guess what, like Pi and Phi, it also has no ending. Divide 2 by 3 and the 666s just carry on going. Maybe it’s fortunate that the devil is also irrelevant (even if he might be in the details)

James: The doing of non-doing, the knowledge on no-knowledge, stillness in motion. The Extreme Middle Path.

If everything is 100% different, then actually it’s 100% the same.

One Taste.

Kodeureum: Yep, I always knew you were a good Buddhist.

Joel: Where does infinity begin? Simple - in the end.

Lastly to z0tl (again): I’m really surprised that someone of your intelligence can buy into that amateur philosophical piece of crap you cited. Their argument for existence of foreknowledge is about as lame as your president’s intellect.

The future is ENTIRELY in our own hands

(and I’m not talking palmistry)

The logic of limits

Willbefine left the following comment about yesterday's post (response to z0tl can be found at the end):

"What if either God or Infinity does not exist? For instance infinity might be in fact finite! Does that mean God does not exist too?"

Ah Willbefine, thank you for this... nothing more I love than an ongoing philosophical debate. Here are some of my viewpoints:

• If God or infinity does not exist then there exists only one option to explain the coming about of life on earth. Chance. Mathematical probability suggests this is very, very remote - about as remote as a monkey sitting at a typewriter and typing out Shakespeare's 4th sonnet. But yes, it could have happened by chance, otherwise it would not be a probability.
  
• "Infinity might be finite". Can't do I'm afraid. Mutually exclusive by definition. Either that or we don't speak the same language.
  
• Furthermore, arguing the non-existence of infinity is not logically possible. An All-encompassing Finity will always be undone by a process called "infinite regression". For example, if the universe is finite in dimension - then what's on the other side? And if the thing on the other side is finite - what's on the other side of that? Neverending...
• As to God's existence without infinity, yes, my argument may have had a hole in it. It depends totally on your definition of God. If I believed in a "God", I would maintain that a finite God would not be a "God". So for a God to exist, infinity must exist.
  

But does all of the above prove anything? Not neccessarily. Rather than proving the limits of God or infinity, it may just prove the limits of logical argument.

My personal take on the whole thing?
GOD IS IRRELEVANT

Nietzsche famously announced that "God is Dead"

BPG announces that "Dead or alive, finite or infinite, God's existence or non-existence is irrelevant."

And that is not out of synch with my "spiritual" beliefs. Although I refuse to be boxed into any "religion's" dogmatic category, I would probably be most aligned with Buddhist thought. Unlike other "religions" Buddhism's sole validation does not depend on the existence or non-existence of God. In fact, it's not a religion. Not even a philosophy. It is a METHODOLOGY.

A HOW to live your life.

A WAY, rather than a WHY.

And at the end of the day that's all that matters.

RESPONSE to z0tl

Hey Zaruthustra, sorry I'm only getting to you now, but the truth is I was so excited about the prospect of an ongoing metaphysics debate that I wrote the above before you had even commented.

You're saying: Because there was no time before the big bang infinite time does not exist.

Firstly, the Big Bang is also subject to infinite regression, no matter what Rog Penrose and mates have to say.*

Secondly: I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that because time had a beginning, infinity does not exist. What about if it doesn't have an ending? Does infinity have to have no ending AND no beginning to exist? where would that leave time with a beginning but no ending?? It is certainly not finite.

*The best synopsis of the Big Bang that I ever heard was given by the Dalai Lama. When asked if he believed in the Big Bang, he answered:
"Which one?"

"God" and infinity

WARNING: heavy philosophical shit ahead.

So my Dad has just read this book about how incredibly, spectacularly, inconceivably miraculous the creation of life on earth is. In fact, according to the rocket scientist who wrote the book (and I mean this genuinely - the man knows his shit), the mathematical probability of this happening by chance is something like 10 to the power of 60 billion. The logical conclusion: that it is highly likely that some form of supreme design had a hand in it.

This was my Dad's argument. But being the philosophy grad that I am, i had to take up the cudgel. "But what about infinity, Dad?"
"What about it?"
Well if time is infinite then mathematical probability becomes meaningless. Here's why: If something can happen (and by definition anything with a probability of of occurring, no matter how small the probability, can happen) will eventually come to pass. It's got infinite time to try infinite permutations, so in the long run, every possible probability will "probabalize".

By now the argument was clear cut. Dad: life came about with the help of a "God". BPG: life came about because of infinity.

But my Dad is a pretty sharp dude, and he had all sorts of arguments that nullified mine. Like: before the big bang time was not a concept. Me, on the other hand, stuck to my infinity theory, like, what then became before the Big Bang???

So the argument went to and fro, to and fro, getting nowhere.

And that's when BPG was struck with his most powerful insight of the last 12 months.*

"You know Dad, we're actually arguing on the same side, because "God" and "Infinity" are really just the same thing."

And they are. Us mortal earthlings have such a meager understanding of both the concepts "God" and "Infinity" that they only remain separated, through semantics.

"God" = "Infinity"

*Spot the trumpet