It worked
I think this might work. I have just started Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig, and it is presenting some interest. I spoke to a girl who said that you could sit and think about each paragraph for a while. Anyways it does seem to be a good book, but one part stuck out to me. The selection is kind of long, but it works.
Its about a dad and a son, and a couple traveling on motorcycles. The dad is the narrator. They are at a motel when Chris, the son, says;
"Let's tell stories then," Chris says. He thinks for a while. "Do you know any good ghost stories? All the kids in our cabin used to tell ghost stories at night."
"You tell us some," John says.
And he does. They are kind of fun to hear. Some of them I haven't heard since I was his age. I tell him so, and Chris wants to hear some of mine, but I can't remember any.
After a while he says, "Do you believe in ghosts?"
"No," I say
"Why not?"
"Because they are un-sci-en-ti-fic."
The way I say this makes John smile. "They contain no matter," I continue, "and have no energy and therefore, according to the laws of science, do not exist except in people's minds."
The whiskey, the fatigue and the wind in the trees start mixing in my mind. "Of course," I add, "the laws of science contain no matter and have no energy either and therefore do not exist except in people's minds. It's best to be completely scientific about the whole thing and refuse to believe in either ghosts or the laws of science. That way you're safe. That doesn't leave you very much to believe in, but that's scientific too."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Chris says.
"I'm being kind of facetious."
Chris gets frustrated when I talk like this, but I don't think it hurts him.
"One of the kids at YMCA camp says he believes in ghosts."
"He was just spoofing you."
"No, he wasn't. He said that when people haven't been buried right, their ghosts come back to haunt people. He really believes in that."
"He was just spoofing you," I repeat.
"What's his name?" Sylvia says.
"Tom White Bear."
John and I exchange looks, suddenly recognizing the same thing.
"Ohhh, Indian!" he says.
I laugh. "I guess I'm going to have to take that back a little," I say. "I was thinking of European ghosts."
"What's the difference?"
John roars with laughter. "He's got you," he says.
I think a little and say, "Well, Indians sometimes have a different way of looking at things, which I'm not saying is completely wrong. Science isn't part of the Indian tradition."
"Tom White Bear said his mother and dad told him not to believe all that stuff. But he said his grandmother whispered it was true anyway, so he believes it."
He looks at me pleadingly. He really does want to know things sometimes. Being facetious is not being a very good father. "Sure," I say, reversing myself, "I believe in ghosts too."
Now John and Sylvia look at me peculiarly. I see I'm not going to get out of this one easily and brace myself for a long explanation.
"It's completely natural," I say, "to think of Europeans who believed in ghosts or Indians who believed in ghosts as ignorant. The scientific point of view has wiped out every other view to a point where they all seem primitive, so that if a person today talks about ghosts or spirits he is considered ignorant or maybe nutty. It's just all but completely impossible to imagine a world where ghosts can actually exist."
John nods affirmatively and I continue.
"My own opinion is that the intellect of modern man isn't that superior. IQs aren't that much different. Those Indians and medieval men were just as intelligent as we are, but the context in which they thought was completely different. Within that context of thought, ghosts and spirits are quite as real as atoms, particles, photons and quants are to a modern man. In that sense I believe in ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too, you know."
"What?"
"Oh, the laws of physics and of logic -- the number system -- the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real.
"They seem real to me," John says.
"I don't get it," says Chris.
So I go on. "For example, it seems completely natural to presume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity."
"Of course."
"So when did this law start? Has it always existed?"
John is frowning, wondering what I am getting at.
"What I'm driving at," I say, "is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed."
"Sure."
"Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere...this law of gravity still existed?"
Now John seems not so sure.
"If that law of gravity existed," I say, "I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me that law of gravity has passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistence that that law of gravity didn't have. Or a single scientific attribute of existence it did have. And yet it is still `common sense' to believe that it existed."
John says, "I guess I'd have to think about it."
"Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense.
"And what that means," I say before he can interrupt, "and what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads! It's a ghost! We are all of us very arrogant and conceited about running down other people's ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious about our own."
"Why does everybody believe in the law of gravity then?"
"Mass hypnosis. In a very orthodox form known as `education."'
"You mean the teacher is hypnotizing the kids into believing the law of gravity?"
"Sure."
"That's absurd."
"You've heard of the importance of eye contact in the classroom? Every educationist emphasizes it. No educationist explains it."
John shakes his head and pours me another drink. He puts his hand over his mouth and in a mock aside says to Sylvia, "You know, most of the time he seems like such a normal guy."
I counter, "That's the first normal thing I've said in weeks. The rest of the time I'm feigning twentieth-
century lunacy just like you are. So as not to draw attention to myself.
"But I'll repeat it for you," I say. "We believe the disembodied words of Sir Isaac Newton were sitting in the middle of nowhere billions of years before he was born and that magically he discovered these words. They were always there, even when they applied to nothing. Gradually the world came into being and then they applied to it. In fact, those words themselves were what formed the world. That, John, is ridiculous.
"The problem, the contradiction the scientists are stuck with, is that of mind. Mind has no matter or energy but they can't escape its predominance over everything they do. Logic exists in the mind. Numbers exist only in the mind. I don't get upset when scientists say that ghosts exist in the mind. It's that only that gets me. Science is only in your mind too, it's just that that doesn't make it bad. Or ghosts either."
They are just looking at me so I continue: "Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Laws of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts. The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn't a human invention. The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It's all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed world we live in. It's run by ghosts. We see what we see because these ghosts show it to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and Plato, and Descartes, and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Isaac Newton is a very good ghost. One of the best. Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past. Ghosts and more ghosts. Ghosts trying to find their place among the living."
John looks too much in thought to speak. But Sylvia is excited. "Where do you get all these ideas?" she asks.
I am about to answer them but then do not. I have a feeling of having already pushed it to the limit, maybe beyond, and it is time to drop it. "
What interests me, is that while i was reading I obviously thought about religion and the idea of God. I was wondering how could this idea be disproved or at the least how could God not be a simple discovery that isn't really true. But I soon realized that it was the wrong approach. I feel that this selection should and does prove or encourage the idea of such a being, idea, as God. I might have a hard time articulating but, what I enjoyed was the fact that all the things were of or in the mind. So our perception and understanding is from the mind. So when the Bible, jesus' life, or other things challenge our thinking we use our minds. The laws of nature he talks about are gravity, math, and maybe even laws of morality and thinking. However, I don't think God can be viewed in this context, as a document, or a simple statement or idea. He is constantly mysterious and draws us further in. And at least in the laws of physics people have found this out. Einstein's law of relativity is being challenged by modern physics with such ideas as the string theory. And yet in my small observation of these scientists they still proclaim that they may have the final answer. But anyways, we have seen in life that "discoveries" or answers really lead to more thinking, researching, living . . .okay i think i got most of this out. I guess my main point is that we don't have to defend God,Jesus, and maybe religion, in its truer form, as a law or a human invention, but rather that these things were always there and our interpretations, distortions, portrayls, and even names are the inventions. I should've made paragraphs. sorry first time. stupid.
Its about a dad and a son, and a couple traveling on motorcycles. The dad is the narrator. They are at a motel when Chris, the son, says;
"Let's tell stories then," Chris says. He thinks for a while. "Do you know any good ghost stories? All the kids in our cabin used to tell ghost stories at night."
"You tell us some," John says.
And he does. They are kind of fun to hear. Some of them I haven't heard since I was his age. I tell him so, and Chris wants to hear some of mine, but I can't remember any.
After a while he says, "Do you believe in ghosts?"
"No," I say
"Why not?"
"Because they are un-sci-en-ti-fic."
The way I say this makes John smile. "They contain no matter," I continue, "and have no energy and therefore, according to the laws of science, do not exist except in people's minds."
The whiskey, the fatigue and the wind in the trees start mixing in my mind. "Of course," I add, "the laws of science contain no matter and have no energy either and therefore do not exist except in people's minds. It's best to be completely scientific about the whole thing and refuse to believe in either ghosts or the laws of science. That way you're safe. That doesn't leave you very much to believe in, but that's scientific too."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Chris says.
"I'm being kind of facetious."
Chris gets frustrated when I talk like this, but I don't think it hurts him.
"One of the kids at YMCA camp says he believes in ghosts."
"He was just spoofing you."
"No, he wasn't. He said that when people haven't been buried right, their ghosts come back to haunt people. He really believes in that."
"He was just spoofing you," I repeat.
"What's his name?" Sylvia says.
"Tom White Bear."
John and I exchange looks, suddenly recognizing the same thing.
"Ohhh, Indian!" he says.
I laugh. "I guess I'm going to have to take that back a little," I say. "I was thinking of European ghosts."
"What's the difference?"
John roars with laughter. "He's got you," he says.
I think a little and say, "Well, Indians sometimes have a different way of looking at things, which I'm not saying is completely wrong. Science isn't part of the Indian tradition."
"Tom White Bear said his mother and dad told him not to believe all that stuff. But he said his grandmother whispered it was true anyway, so he believes it."
He looks at me pleadingly. He really does want to know things sometimes. Being facetious is not being a very good father. "Sure," I say, reversing myself, "I believe in ghosts too."
Now John and Sylvia look at me peculiarly. I see I'm not going to get out of this one easily and brace myself for a long explanation.
"It's completely natural," I say, "to think of Europeans who believed in ghosts or Indians who believed in ghosts as ignorant. The scientific point of view has wiped out every other view to a point where they all seem primitive, so that if a person today talks about ghosts or spirits he is considered ignorant or maybe nutty. It's just all but completely impossible to imagine a world where ghosts can actually exist."
John nods affirmatively and I continue.
"My own opinion is that the intellect of modern man isn't that superior. IQs aren't that much different. Those Indians and medieval men were just as intelligent as we are, but the context in which they thought was completely different. Within that context of thought, ghosts and spirits are quite as real as atoms, particles, photons and quants are to a modern man. In that sense I believe in ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too, you know."
"What?"
"Oh, the laws of physics and of logic -- the number system -- the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real.
"They seem real to me," John says.
"I don't get it," says Chris.
So I go on. "For example, it seems completely natural to presume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity."
"Of course."
"So when did this law start? Has it always existed?"
John is frowning, wondering what I am getting at.
"What I'm driving at," I say, "is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed."
"Sure."
"Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere...this law of gravity still existed?"
Now John seems not so sure.
"If that law of gravity existed," I say, "I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me that law of gravity has passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistence that that law of gravity didn't have. Or a single scientific attribute of existence it did have. And yet it is still `common sense' to believe that it existed."
John says, "I guess I'd have to think about it."
"Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense.
"And what that means," I say before he can interrupt, "and what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads! It's a ghost! We are all of us very arrogant and conceited about running down other people's ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious about our own."
"Why does everybody believe in the law of gravity then?"
"Mass hypnosis. In a very orthodox form known as `education."'
"You mean the teacher is hypnotizing the kids into believing the law of gravity?"
"Sure."
"That's absurd."
"You've heard of the importance of eye contact in the classroom? Every educationist emphasizes it. No educationist explains it."
John shakes his head and pours me another drink. He puts his hand over his mouth and in a mock aside says to Sylvia, "You know, most of the time he seems like such a normal guy."
I counter, "That's the first normal thing I've said in weeks. The rest of the time I'm feigning twentieth-
century lunacy just like you are. So as not to draw attention to myself.
"But I'll repeat it for you," I say. "We believe the disembodied words of Sir Isaac Newton were sitting in the middle of nowhere billions of years before he was born and that magically he discovered these words. They were always there, even when they applied to nothing. Gradually the world came into being and then they applied to it. In fact, those words themselves were what formed the world. That, John, is ridiculous.
"The problem, the contradiction the scientists are stuck with, is that of mind. Mind has no matter or energy but they can't escape its predominance over everything they do. Logic exists in the mind. Numbers exist only in the mind. I don't get upset when scientists say that ghosts exist in the mind. It's that only that gets me. Science is only in your mind too, it's just that that doesn't make it bad. Or ghosts either."
They are just looking at me so I continue: "Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Laws of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts. The whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn't a human invention. The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It's all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed world we live in. It's run by ghosts. We see what we see because these ghosts show it to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and Plato, and Descartes, and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Isaac Newton is a very good ghost. One of the best. Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past. Ghosts and more ghosts. Ghosts trying to find their place among the living."
John looks too much in thought to speak. But Sylvia is excited. "Where do you get all these ideas?" she asks.
I am about to answer them but then do not. I have a feeling of having already pushed it to the limit, maybe beyond, and it is time to drop it. "
What interests me, is that while i was reading I obviously thought about religion and the idea of God. I was wondering how could this idea be disproved or at the least how could God not be a simple discovery that isn't really true. But I soon realized that it was the wrong approach. I feel that this selection should and does prove or encourage the idea of such a being, idea, as God. I might have a hard time articulating but, what I enjoyed was the fact that all the things were of or in the mind. So our perception and understanding is from the mind. So when the Bible, jesus' life, or other things challenge our thinking we use our minds. The laws of nature he talks about are gravity, math, and maybe even laws of morality and thinking. However, I don't think God can be viewed in this context, as a document, or a simple statement or idea. He is constantly mysterious and draws us further in. And at least in the laws of physics people have found this out. Einstein's law of relativity is being challenged by modern physics with such ideas as the string theory. And yet in my small observation of these scientists they still proclaim that they may have the final answer. But anyways, we have seen in life that "discoveries" or answers really lead to more thinking, researching, living . . .okay i think i got most of this out. I guess my main point is that we don't have to defend God,Jesus, and maybe religion, in its truer form, as a law or a human invention, but rather that these things were always there and our interpretations, distortions, portrayls, and even names are the inventions. I should've made paragraphs. sorry first time. stupid.
posted by coemergentco at 9/24/2006 07:40:00 PM
4 Comments:
this part caught my attention:
"But anyways, we have seen in life that "discoveries" or answers really lead to more thinking, researching, living..."
so by this you (whoever wrote this)are saying that nothing in life is factual? that everything is really deeper than what we perceive it to be? or are you saying that its just everyone taking different perspectives on the matter?
(religious and everything else)
I believe lander is saying that science shows us a glimpse of God, because the more we discover in science, the more we find we don't know. For every answer, there are a hundred new questions. Same with God. God built mystery into the world and into how we perceive Him so that we would be constantly searching, praying, and finding Him out.
I think two distinctions should be made. One, the question of the passage is not really 'is ______ factual or not' but what make anything factual? how do we provide proof of these facts? and then how do we provide proof for the proof? in this case, how do we provide proof for the scientific proof of ______? I believe that, just like interpretation, the questions go all the way down and there really is no 'bottom' which we can firmly pound on as The Indisputable Truth. Yet there are many, many conversations inside this for even me to feel like I know what I'm talking about and with virtue to the argument convincing someone of this is less 'convincing' and more compelling one to see for oneself.
second, Ryan, I know your not saying this but I often fall into the God of the Gaps idea - the idea that where science fails is where we can see God. Doug Pagitt has a post on his blog about this that is interesting here:
http://pagitt.typepad.com/pagittblog/2005/11/nonlocality_and.html
"i'm a scientist, betty.
i don't believe in anything." that's from the lost skeleton of cadavra-- at one of its more redeeming moments, i think.
ryan, you post made me think of an analogy i came across somewhere... every answer is like a trap door in a floor which leads to more trap doors, and the next leads to a whole network of trap doors, ad infinitum, it seems... a path like the pathways of roots branching deeper and deeper into soil, growing with the plant? maybe.
this post brought to mind one of my favorite quotes by alisdair macintyre:
"Facts, like telescopes and wigs for gentlemen, were a seventeenth century invention."
This post seemed to indirectly have a lot to do with language and what it means to name something... also, lander, perhaps you would be interested in some epistemological (how we know what we know... nature of truth, etc.) reading.
in light of the comments,
the rest of that macintyre quote may be worth writing:
"In the sixteenth century and earlier,'fact' in English was usually a rendering of the Latin 'factum', a deed, an action and sometimes in Scholastic Latin an event or occasion. It was only in the seventeenth century that 'fact' was first used in the way in which later philosophers such as Russell, Wittgenstein and Ramsey were to use it...What is and was not harmless, but highly misleading, was to conceive of a realm of facts independent of judgment or of any other form of linguistic expression. -quoted in Whose Justice, Which Rationality, emphasis mine.
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