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He’s got a degree in economics
Maths, physics and bionics
He thinks that I’m a cabbage
‘Cause I hate University Challenge
Even at the age of ten Smart boy
Kevin was a smart boy then
He always beat me at Subbuteo
‘Cause he ‘flicked to kick’
And I didn’t know
Oh, my perfect cousin
What I like to do he doesn’t
He’s his family’s pride and joy
His mother’s little golden boy
Michael Bradley / Damian Stephen O’Neill – The Undertones
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As a rule of thumb I average around four starter questions and something like six follow up questions per episode of “University Challenge” a UK quiz show. Since watching a lot of re-runs I have memorised answers by accident. I would be an asset to most teams.
But should I go for a job interview and they asked me, “where would you see yourself in five years?” I would not get the job. The answer I would give, would not comply with expectations.
It comes back to something I have been toying with over the last few days which might be termed “layers of understanding”. There is a tendency for people to imagine they know best and to try to enforce their ideology on others. Lettuce Liz Truss was adamant and certain; the financial markets had less confidence. There is little you can do to persuade one with adamant and often ill-founded confidence in their own omniscience, otherwise.
Everybody’s understanding stops somewhere and some level of faith creeps in. Not everyone needs to ask deep questions; their interest can wane quickly.
At the moment peer acceptable science invokes the big bang as the “in” explanation of the manifested universe. It provokes an obvious question, “what was before the big bang?” The answer is we don’t know and can’t know using electromagnetism as a basis for our observational understanding.
This is a pretty big hole in understanding, a whopper even. But it does not seem to bother people who feel free to soap box and speculate on the nature of deity. Some might argue that you can’t see God so can’t be sure he is there.
What was/is there before the big bang? Have we seen that?
People evoke it as the birth of space-time. So which language tense is suitable for before the big bang?
Tenses do not exist.
If you follow pretty much any line of questioning you come upon some philosophical brick walls, thou shalt not pass…
It does not exclude theories and religions from having wide and evangelical acceptance.
There are unknowns for all of us and the extent to which we fret about these varies. I’ll hazard a guess that I am more comfortable with the notion of death than most…
My layers of understanding differ from the sort of person who says “mum is up there looking down on us” after her death from cancer. “Mum will be proud of what we are doing.”
Where is “up there?”
For a human being it is difficult to envision a complete void, an utter void, which by reference to the dimensions of matter must be dimensionless. Which prompts the conceptual question how “far” does the void extend? In the absence of dimension the notion of extent is invalid.
The pre-matter universe is conceptually very difficult.
Invoking any matter whatsoever prompts the question, “where did that come from?”
Implicit here is a notion of space. Where.
In the absence of manifest universe we are very quickly in conceptual quicksand and circular argument.
A humanist might argue that we only have one life, one consciousness and when snuffed out, that is that. Game over.
A Buddhist might speak of transmigration though be a tad vague as to what exactly transmigrates.
An Abrahamic might speak of heaven or hell though there are no Trip Advisor reports on the dwellings therein. No customer feedback.
This leads to the logic that we are in fact placing a bet on what we think happens after death and selecting from among speculations how we view the origin of the world and the universe.
The observation based conclusion from electromagnetic astronomy is that were a God responsible for universe it would be way more cosmic than the anthropomorphic version hitherto presented in art and myth. Endowing such an entity with genital based gender is probably not a good framing. On the basis of astronomy God must be way more vast and abstract than the familial “god in our own image” hagiography current in our times. The geezer on a cloud pointing his finger is in all likelihood badly wrong.
The logical question might be, “where did God come from?”
The glib answer of God just is or was, is dogmatic.
Where your layers of understanding end is personal. How far you can be arsed to question is up to you.
Pretty much all of our understanding hits a brick wall sooner of later, a cop out of sorts…
« Pourquoi ? » « Par ce que !! »
OK maybe we don’t need to understand. It is OK to live with a level of ignorance suited to our temperament and ability. There is a risk associated and one which we may not have deeply considered.
If we stick with the more human as opposed to the cosmic, then the questions most apt pertain to life and by the definition inherent, death.
It is in our local interest to get this one as accurately as possible. What goes on near Sirius is not of direct personal application.
It is interesting to note that research funding into life and death, spirituality and consciousness, is not high. I imagine it difficult to obtain. Asking for a government funded grant into reincarnation is probably a fool’s errand.
In a sense though it is much more important to us than understanding the universe 14 billion years ago. The problem is that this would cause job demarcation disputes with clergy of all kinds who currently have the monopoly in things spirit and deity based.
There are some who do not want our layers of understanding to extend beyond current crowd control based models of God. Fire and brimstone is good PR to enforce behaviour and compliance…
We may not be aware nor all that fussed about where our layers of understanding stop…
After all “Strictly Cone Dancing” will have some new hosts soon…
I may paraphrase “the internet is the new opium of the people”.
There comes a time and a place when inquiry ceases and a dull acceptance pervades.
Creature comfort and convenience stops people seeking…
Why bother?
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“Religion is the opium of the people. It is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of our soulless conditions.”
Karl Marx
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Dreamyoga 