Cogito Ergo Sum

Is God a Taoist?

2006-10-31T10:26:00.000+05:30

Its been a long time since my last post.. and the forum's still inactive.. :p ..

Below is a very tasteful dialogue between God and a mortal taken from "The tao is silent" by raymond smullyan .. it reflects on how we have been deluded into believing that moralism is the final verdict and tht there exists an absolute concept of good,bad,sinning,etc... brilliant piece of work..

***

Mortal:
And therefore, O God, I pray thee, if thou hast one ounce of mercy for this thy suffering creature, absolve me of having to have free will!

God:
You reject the greatest gift I have given thee?

Mortal:
How can you call that which was forced on me a gift? I have free will, but not of my own choice. I have never freely chosen to have free will. I have to have free will, whether I like it or not!

God:
Why would you wish not to have free will?

Mortal:
Because free will means moral responsibility, and moral responsibility is more than I can bear!

God:
Why do you find moral responsibility so unbearable?

Mortal:
Why? I honestly can't analyze why; all I know is that I do.

God:
All right, in that case suppose I absolve you from all moral responsibility but leave you still with free will. Will this be satisfactory?

Mortal (after a pause):
No, I am afraid not.

God:
Ah, just as I thought! So moral responsibility is not the only aspect of free will to which you object. What else about free will is bothering you?

Mortal:
With free will I am capable of sinning, and I don't want to sin!

God:
If you don't want to sin, then why do you?

Mortal:
Good God! I don't know why I sin, I just do! Evil temptations come along, and try as I can, I cannot resist them.

God:
If it is really true that you cannot resist them, then you are not sinning of your own free will and hence (at least according to me) not sinning at all.

Mortal:
No, no! I keep feeling that if only I tried harder I could avoid sinning. I understand that the will is infinite. If one wholeheartedly wills not to sin, then one won't.

God:
Well now, you should know. Do you try as hard as you can to avoid sinning or don't you?

Mortal:
I honestly don't know! At the time, I feel I am trying as hard as I can, but in retrospect, I am worried that maybe I didn't!

God:
So in other words, you don't really know whether or not you have been sinning. So the possibility is open that you haven't been sinning at all!

Mortal:
Of course this possibility is open, but maybe I have been sinning, and this thought is what so frightens me!

God:
Why does the thought of your sinning frighten you?

Mortal:
I don't know why! For one thing, you do have a reputation for meting out rather gruesome punishments in the afterlife!

God:
Oh, that's what's bothering you! Why didn't you say so in the first place instead of all this peripheral talk about free will and responsibility? Why didn't you simply request me not to punish you for any of your sins?

Mortal:
I think I am realistic enough to know that you would hardly grant such a request!

God:
You don't say! You have a realistic knowledge of what requests I will grant, eh? Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do! I will grant you a very, very special dispensation to sin as much as you like, and I give you my divine word of honor that I will never punish you for it in the least. Agreed?

Mortal (in great terror):
No, no, don't do that!

God:
Why not? Don't you trust my divine word?

Mortal:
Of course I do! But don't you see, I don't want to sin! I have an utter abhorrence of sinning, quite apart from any punishments it may entail.

God:
In that case, I'll go you one better. I'll remove your abhorrence of sinning. Here is a magic pill! Just swallow it, and you will lose all abhorrence of sinning. You will joyfully and merrily sin away, you will have no regrets, no abhorrence and I still promise you will never be punished by me, or yourself, or by any source whatever. You will be blissful for all eternity. So here is the pill!

Mortal:
No, no!

God:
Are you not being irrational? I am even removing your abhorrence of sin, which is your last obstacle.

Mortal:
I still won't take it!

God:
Why not?

Mortal:
I believe that the pill will indeed remove my future abhorrence for sin, but my present abhorrence is enough to prevent me from being willing to take it.

God:
I command you to take it!

Mortal:
I refuse!

God:
What, you refuse of your own free will?

Mortal:
Yes!

God:
So it seems that your free will comes in pretty handy, doesn't it?

Mortal:
I don't understand!

God:
Are you not glad now that you have the free will to refuse such a ghastly offer? How would you like it if I forced you to take this pill, whether you wanted it or not?

Mortal:
No, no! Please don't!

God:
Of course I won't; I'm just trying to illustrate a point. All right, let me put it this way. Instead of forcing you to take the pill, suppose I grant your original prayer of removing your free will -- but with the understanding that the moment you are no longer free, then you will take the pill.

Mortal:
Once my will is gone, how could I possibly choose to take the pill?

God:
I did not say you would choose it; I merely said you would take it. You would act, let us say, according to purely deterministic laws which are such that you would as a matter of fact take it.

Mortal:
I still refuse.

God:
So you refuse my offer to remove your free will. This is rather different from your original prayer, isn't it?

Mortal:
Now I see what you are up to. Your argument is ingenious, but I'm not sure it is really correct. There are some points we will have to go over again.

God:
Certainly.

Mortal:
There are two things you said which seem contradictory to me. First you said that one cannot sin unless one does so of one's own free will. But then you said you would give me a pill which would deprive me of my own free will, and then I could sin as much as I liked. But if I no longer had free will, then, according to your first statement, how could I be capable of sinning?

God:
You are confusing two separate parts of our conversation. I never said the pill would deprive you of your free will, but only that it would remove your abhorrence of sinning.

Mortal:
I'm afraid I'm a bit confused.

God:
All right, then let us make a fresh start. Suppose I agree to remove your free will, but with the understanding that you will then commit an enormous number of acts which you now regard as sinful. Technically speaking, you will not then be sinning since you will not be doing these acts of your own free will. And these acts will carry no moral responsibility, nor moral culpability, nor any punishment whatsoever. Nevertheless, these acts will all be of the type which you presently regard as sinful; they will all have this quality which you presently feel as abhorrent, but your abhorrence will disappear; so you will not then feel abhorrence toward the acts.

Mortal:
No, but I have present abhorrence toward the acts, and this present abhorrence is sufficient to prevent me from accepting your proposal.

God:
Hm! So let me get this absolutely straight. I take it you no longer wish me to remove your free will.

Mortal (reluctantly):
No, I guess not.

God:
All right, I agree not to. But I am still not exactly clear as to why you now no longer wish to be rid of your free will. Please tell me again.

Mortal:
Because, as you have told me, without free will I would sin even more than I do now.

God:
But I have already told you that without free will you cannot sin.

Mortal:
But if I choose now to be rid of free will, then all my subsequent evil actions will be sins, not of the future, but of the present moment in which I choose not to have free will.

God:
Sounds like you are pretty badly trapped, doesn't it?

Mortal:
Of course I am trapped! You have placed me in a hideous double bind! Now whatever I do is wrong. If I retain free will, I will continue to sin, and if I abandon free will (with your help, of course) I will now be sinning in so doing.

God:
But by the same token, you place me in a double bind. I am willing to leave you free will or remove it as you choose, but neither alternative satisfies you. I wish to help you, but it seems I cannot.

Mortal:
True!

God:
But since it is not my fault, why are you still angry with me?

Mortal:
For having placed me in such a horrible predicament in first place!

God:
But, according to you, there is nothing satisfactory I could have done.

Mortal:
You mean there is nothing satisfactory you can now do, that does not mean that there is nothing you could have done.

God:
Why? What could I have done?

Mortal:
Obviously you should never have given me free will in the first place. Now that you have given it to me, it is too late -- anything I do will be bad. But you should never have given it to me in the first place.

God:
Oh, that's it! Why would it have been better had I never given it to you?

Mortal:
Because then I never would have been capable of sinning at all.

God:
Well, I'm always glad to learn from my mistakes.

Mortal:
What!

God:
I know, that sounds sort of self-blasphemous, doesn't it? It almost involves a logical paradox! On the one hand, as you have been taught, it is morally wrong for any sentient being to claim that I am capable of making mistakes. On the other hand, I have the right to do anything. But I am also a sentient being. So the question is, Do, I or do I not have the right to claim that I am capable of making mistakes?

Mortal:
That is a bad joke! One of your premises is simply false. I have not been taught that it is wrong for any sentient being to doubt your omniscience, but only for a mortal to doubt it. But since you are not mortal, then you are obviously free from this injunction.

God:
Good, so you realize this on a rational level. Nevertheless, you did appear shocked when I said, "I am always glad to learn from my mistakes."

Mortal:
Of course I was shocked. I was shocked not by your self-blasphemy (as you jokingly called it), not by the fact that you had no right to say it, but just by the fact that you did say it, since I have been taught that as a matter of fact you don't make mistakes. So I was amazed that you claimed that it is possible for you to make mistakes.

God:
I have not claimed that it is possible. All I am saying is that if I make mistakes, I will be happy to learn from them. But this says nothing about whether the if has or ever can be realized.

Mortal:
Let's please stop quibbling about this point. Do you or do you not admit it was a mistake to have given me free will?

God:
Well now, this is precisely what I propose we should investigate. Let me review your present predicament. You don't want to have free will because with free will you can sin, and you don't want to sin. (Though I still find this puzzling; in a way you must want to sin, or else you wouldn't. But let this pass for now.) On the other hand, if you agreed to give up free will, then you would now be responsible for the acts of the future. Ergo, I should never have given you free will in the first place.

Mortal:
Exactly!

God:
I understand exactly how you feel. Many mortals -- even some theologians -- have complained that I have been unfair in that it was I, not they, who decided that they should have free will, and then I hold them responsible for their actions. In other words, they feel that they are expected to live up to a contract with me which they never agreed to in the first place.

Mortal:
Exactly!

God:
As I said, I understand the feeling perfectly. And I can appreciate the justice of the complaint. But the complaint arises only from an unrealistic understanding of the true issues involved. I am about to enlighten you as to what these are, and I think the results will surprise you! But instead of telling you outright, I shall continue to use the Socratic method.

To repeat, you regret that I ever gave you free will. I claim that when you see the true ramifications you will no longer have this regret. To prove my point, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I am about to create a new universe -- a new space-time continuum. In this new universe will be born a mortal just like you -- for all practical purposes, we might say that you will be reborn. Now, I can give this new mortal -- this new you -- free will or not. What would you like me to do?

Mortal (in great relief):
Oh, please! Spare him from having to have free will!

God:
All right, I'll do as you say. But you do realize that this new you without free will, will commit all sorts of horrible acts.

Mortal:
But they will not be sins since he will have no free will.

God:
Whether you call them sins or not, the fact remains that they will be horrible acts in the sense that they will cause great pain to many sentient beings.

Mortal (after a pause):
Good God, you have trapped me again! Always the same game! If I now give you the go-ahead to create this new creature with no free will who will nevertheless commit atrocious acts, then true enough he will not be sinning, but I again will be the sinner to sanction this.

God:
In that case, I'll go you one better! Here, I have already decided whether to create this new you with free will or not. Now, I am writing my decision on this piece of paper and I won't show it to you until later. But my decision is now made and is absolutely irrevocable. There is nothing you can possibly do to alter it; you have no responsibility in the matter. Now, what I wish to know is this: Which way do you hope I have decided? Remember now, the responsibility for the decision falls entirely on my shoulders, not yours. So you can tell me perfectly honestly and without any fear, which way do you hope I have decided?

Mortal (after a very long pause):
I hope you have decided to give him free will.

God:
Most interesting! I have removed your last obstacle! If I do not give him free will, then no sin is to be imputed to anybody. So why do you hope I will give him free will?

Mortal:
Because sin or no sin, the important point is that if you do not give him free will, then (at least according to what you have said) he will go around hurting people, and I don't want to see people hurt.

GOD (with an infinite sigh of relief):
At last! At last you see the real point!

Mortal:
What point is that?

God:
That sinning is not the real issue! The important thing is that people as well as other sentient beings don't get hurt!

Mortal:
You sound like a utilitarian!

God:
I am a utilitarian!

Mortal:
What!

God:
Whats or no whats, I am a utilitarian. Not a unitarian, mind you, but a utilitarian.

Mortal:
I just can't believe it!

God:
Yes, I know, your religious training has taught you otherwise. You have probably thought of me more like a Kantian than a utilitarian, but your training was simply wrong.

Mortal:
You leave me speechless!

God:
I leave you speechless, do I! Well, that is perhaps not too bad a thing -- you have a tendency to speak too much as it is. Seriously, though, why do you think I ever did give you free will in the first place?

Mortal:
Why did you? I never have thought much about why you did; all I have been arguing for is that you shouldn't have! But why did you? I guess all I can think of is the standard religious explanation: Without free will, one is not capable of meriting either salvation or damnation. So without free will, we could not earn the right to eternal life.

God:
Most interesting! I have eternal life; do you think I have ever done anything to merit it?

Mortal:
Of course not! With you it is different. You are already so good and perfect (at least allegedly) that it is not necessary for you to merit eternal life.

God:
Really now? That puts me in a rather enviable position, doesn't it?

Mortal:
I don't think I understand you.

God:
Here I am eternally blissful without ever having to suffer or make sacrifices or struggle against evil temptations or anything like that. Without any of that type of "merit", I enjoy blissful eternal existence. By contrast, you poor mortals have to sweat and suffer and have all sorts of horrible conflicts about morality, and all for what? You don't even know whether I really exist or not, or if there really is any afterlife, or if there is, where you come into the picture. No matter how much you try to placate me by being "good," you never have any real assurance that your "best" is good enough for me, and hence you have no real security in obtaining salvation. Just think of it! I already have the equivalent of "salvation" -- and have never had to go through this infinitely lugubrious process of earning it. Don't you ever envy me for this?

Mortal:
But it is blasphemous to envy you!

God:
Oh come off it! You're not now talking to your Sunday school teacher, you are talking to me. Blasphemous or not, the important question is not whether you have the right to be envious of me but whether you are. Are you?

Mortal:
Of course I am!

God:
Good! Under your present world view, you sure should be most envious of me. But I think with a more realistic world view, you no longer will be. So you really have swallowed the idea which has been taught you that your life on earth is like an examination period and that the purpose of providing you with free will is to test you, to see if you merit blissful eternal life. But what puzzles me is this: If you really believe I am as good and benevolent as I am cracked up to be, why should I require people to merit things like happiness and eternal life? Why should I not grant such things to everyone regardless of whether or not he deserves them?

Mortal:
But I have been taught that your sense of morality -- your sense of justice -- demands that goodness be rewarded with happiness and evil be punished with pain.

God:
Then you have been taught wrong.

Mortal:
But the religious literature is so full of this idea! Take for example Jonathan Edwards's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." How he describes you as holding your enemies like loathsome scorpions over the flaming pit of hell, preventing them from falling into the fate that they deserve only by dint of your mercy.

God:
Fortunately, I have not been exposed to the tirades of Mr. Jonathan Edwards. Few sermons have ever been preached which are more misleading. The very title "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" tells its own tale. In the first place, I am never angry. In the second place, I do not think at all in terms of "sin." In the third place, I have no enemies.

Mortal:
By that do you mean that there are no people whom you hate, or that there are no people who hate you?

God:
I meant the former although the latter also happens to be true.

Mortal:
Oh come now, I know people who have openly claimed to have hated you. At times I have hated you!

God:
You mean you have hated your image of me. That is not the same thing as hating me as I really am.

Mortal:
Are you trying to say that it is not wrong to hate a false conception of you, but that it is wrong to hate you as you really are?

God:
No, I am not saying that at all; I am saying something far more drastic! What I am saying has absolutely nothing to do with right or wrong. What I am saying is that one who knows me for what I really am would simply find it psychologically impossible to hate me.

Mortal:
Tell me, since we mortals seem to have such erroneous views about your real nature, why don't you enlighten us? Why don't you guide us the right way?

God:
What makes you think I'm not?

Mortal:
I mean, why don't you appear to our very senses and simply tell us that we are wrong?

GOD:
Are you really so naive as to believe that I am the sort of being which can appear to your senses? It would be more correct to say that I am your senses.

Mortal (astonished):
You are my senses?

God:
Not quite, I am more than that. But it comes closer to the truth than the idea that I am perceivable by the senses. I am not an object; like you, I am a subject, and a subject can perceive, but cannot be perceived. You can no more see me than you can see your own thoughts. You can see an apple, but the event of your seeing an apple is itself not seeable. And I am far more like the seeing of an apple than the apple itself.

Mortal:
If I can't see you, how do I know you exist?

God:
Good question! How in fact do you know I exist?

Mortal:
Well, I am talking to you, am I not?

God:
How do you know you are talking to me? Suppose you told a psychiatrist, "Yesterday I talked to God." What do you think he would say?

Mortal:
That might depend on the psychiatrist. Since most of them are atheistic, I guess most would tell me I had simply been talking to myself.

God:
And they would be right!

Mortal:
What? You mean you don't exist?

God:
You have the strangest faculty of drawing false conclusions! Just because you are talking to yourself, it follows that I don't exist?

Mortal:
Well, if I think I am talking to you, but I am really talking to myself, in what sense do you exist?

God:
Your question is based on two fallacies plus a confusion. The question of whether or not you are now talking to me and the question of whether or not I exist are totally separate. Even if you were not now talking to me (which obviously you are), it still would not mean that I don't exist.

Mortal:
Well, all right, of course! So instead of saying "if I am talking to myself, then you don't exist," I should rather have said, "if I am talking to myself, then I obviously am not talking to you."

God:
A very different statement indeed, but still false.

Mortal:
Oh, come now, if I am only talking to myself, then how can I be talking to you?

God:
Your use of the word "only" is quite misleading! I can suggest several logical possibilities under which your talking to yourself does not imply that you are not talking to me.

Mortal:
Suggest just one!

God:
Well, obviously one such possibility is that you and I are identical.

Mortal:
Such a blasphemous thought -- at least had I uttered it!

God:
According to some religions, yes. According to others, it is the plain, simple, immediately perceived truth.

Mortal:
So the only way out of my dilemma is to believe that you and I are identical?

God:
Not at all! This is only one way out. There are several others. For example, it may be that you are part of me, in which case you may be talking to that part of me which is you. Or I may be part of you, in which case you may be talking to that part of you which is me. Or again, you and I might partially overlap, in which case you may be talking to the intersection and hence talking both to you and to me. The only way your talking to yourself might seem to imply that you are not talking to me is if you and I were totally disjoint -- and even then, you could conceivably be talking to both of us.

Mortal:
So you claim you do exist.

God:
Not at all. Again you draw false conclusions! The question of my existence has not even come up. All I have said is that from the fact that you are talking to yourself one cannot possibly infer my nonexistence, let alone the weaker fact that you are not talking to me.

Mortal:
All right, I'll grant your point! But what I really want to know is do you exist?

God:
What a strange question!

Mortal:
Why? Men have been asking it for countless millennia.

God:
I know that! The question itself is not strange; what I mean is that it is a most strange question to ask of me!

Mortal:
Why?

God:
Because I am the very one whose existence you doubt! I perfectly well understand your anxiety. You are worried that your present experience with me is a mere hallucination. But how can you possibly expect to obtain reliable information from a being about his very existence when you suspect the nonexistence of the very same being?

Mortal:
So you won't tell me whether or not you exist?

God:
I am not being willful! I merely wish to point out that no answer I could give could possibly satisfy you. All right, suppose I said, "No, I don't exist." What would that prove? Absolutely nothing! Or if I said, "Yes, I exist." Would that convince you? Of course not!

Mortal:
Well, if you can't tell me whether or not you exist, then who possibly can?

God:
That is something which no one can tell you. It is something which only you can find out for yourself.

Mortal:
How do I go about finding this out for myself?

God:
That also no one can tell you. This is another thing you will have to find out for yourself.

Mortal:
So there is no way you can help me?

God:
I didn't say that. I said there is no way I can tell you. But that doesn't mean there is no way I can help you.

Mortal:
In what manner then can you help me?

God:
I suggest you leave that to me! We have gotten sidetracked as it is, and I would like to return to the question of what you believed my purpose to be in giving you free will. Your first idea of my giving you free will in order to test whether you merit salvation or not may appeal to many moralists, but the idea is quite hideous to me. You cannot think of any nicer reason -- any more humane reason -- why I gave you free will?

Mortal:
Well now, I once asked this question of an Orthodox rabbi. He told me that the way we are constituted, it is simply not possible for us to enjoy salvation unless we feel we have earned it. And to earn it, we of course need free will.

God:
That explanation is indeed much nicer than your former but still is far from correct. According to Orthodox Judaism, I created angels, and they have no free will. They are in actual sight of me and are so completely attracted by goodness that they never have even the slightest temptation toward evil. They really have no choice in the matter. Yet they are eternally happy even though they have never earned it. So if your rabbi's explanation were correct, why wouldn't I have simply created only angels rather than mortals?

Mortal:
Beats me! Why didn't you?

God:
Because the explanation is simply not correct. In the first place, I have never created any ready-made angels. All sentient beings ultimately approach the state which might be called "angelhood." But just as the race of human beings is in a certain stage of biologic evolution, so angels are simply the end result of a process of Cosmic Evolution. The only difference between the so-called saint and the so-called sinner is that the former is vastly older than the latter. Unfortunately it takes countless life cycles to learn what is perhaps the most important fact of the universe -- evil is simply painful. All the arguments of the moralists -- all the alleged reasons why people shouldn't commit evil acts -- simply pale into insignificance in light of the one basic truth that evil is suffering.

No, my dear friend, I am not a moralist. I am wholly a utilitarian. That I should have been conceived in the role of a moralist is one of the great tragedies of the human race. My role in the scheme of things (if one can use this misleading expression) is neither to punish nor reward, but to aid the process by which all sentient beings achieve ultimate perfection.

Mortal:
Why did you say your expression is misleading?

God:
What I said was misleading in two respects. First of all it is inaccurate to speak of my role in the scheme of things. I am the scheme of things. Secondly, it is equally misleading to speak of my aiding the process of sentient beings attaining enlightenment. I am the process. The ancient Taoists were quite close when they said of me (whom they called "Tao") that I do not do things, yet through me all things get done. In more modem terms, I am not the cause of Cosmic Process, I am Cosmic Process itself. I think the most accurate and fruitful definition of me which man can frame -- at least in his present state of evolution -- is that I am the very process of enlightenment. Those who wish to think of the devil (although I wish they wouldn't!) might analogously define him as the unfortunate length of time the process takes. In this sense, the devil is necessary; the process simply does take an enormous length of time, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. But, I assure you, once the process is more correctly understood, the painful length of time will no longer be regarded as an essential limitation or an evil. It will be seen to be the very essence of the process itself. I know this is not completely consoling to you who are now in the finite sea of suffering, but the amazing thing is that once you grasp this fundamental attitude, your very finite suffering will begin to diminish -- ultimately to the vanishing point.

Mortal:
I have been told this, and I tend to believe it. But suppose I personally succeed in seeing things through your eternal eyes. Then I will be happier, but don't I have a duty to others?

GOD (laughing):
You remind me of the Mahayana Buddhists! Each one says, "I will not enter Nirvana until I first see that all other sentient beings do so." So each one waits for the other fellow to go first. No wonder it takes them so long! The Hinayana Buddhist errs in a different direction. He believes that no one can be of the slightest help to others in obtaining salvation; each one has to do it entirely by himself. And so each tries only for his own salvation. But this very detached attitude makes salvation impossible. The truth of the matter is that salvation is partly an individual and partly a social process. But it is a grave mistake to believe -- as do many Mahayana Buddhists -- that the attaining of enlightenment puts one out of commission, so to speak, for helping others. The best way of helping others is by first seeing the light oneself.

Mortal:
There is one thing about your self-description which is somewhat disturbing. You describe yourself essentially as a process. This puts you in such an impersonal light, and so many people have a need for a personal God.

God:
So because they need a personal God, it follows that I am one?

Mortal:
Of course not. But to be acceptable to a mortal a religion must satisfy his needs.

God:
I realize that. But the so-called "personality" of a being is really more in the eyes of the beholder than in the being itself. The controversies which have raged, about whether I am a personal or an impersonal being are rather silly because neither side is right or wrong. From one point of view, I am personal, from another, I am not. It is the same with a human being. A creature from another planet may look at him purely impersonally as a mere collection of atomic particles behaving according to strictly prescribed physical laws. He may have no more feeling for the personality of a human than the average human has for an ant. Yet an ant has just as much individual personality as a human to beings like myself who really know the ant. To look at something impersonally is no more correct or incorrect than to look at it personally, but in general, the better you get to know something, the more personal it becomes. To illustrate my point, do you think of me as a personal or impersonal being?

Mortal:
Well, I'm talking to you, am I not?

God:
Exactly! From that point of view, your attitude toward me might be described as a personal one. And yet, from another point of view -- no less valid -- I can also be looked at impersonally.

Mortal:
But if you are really such an abstract thing as a process, I don't see what sense it can make my talking to a mere "process."

God:
I love the way you say "mere." You might just as well say that you are living in a "mere universe." Also, why must everything one does make sense? Does it make sense to talk to a tree?

Mortal:
Of course not!

God:
And yet, many children and primitives do just that.

Mortal:
But I am neither a child nor a primitive.

God:
I realize that, unfortunately.

Mortal:
Why unfortunately?

God:
Because many children and primitives have a primal intuition which the likes of you have lost. Frankly, I think it would do you a lot of good to talk to a tree once in a while, even more good than talking to me! But we seem always to be getting sidetracked! For the last time, I would like us to try to come to an understanding about why I gave you free will.

Mortal:
I have been thinking about this all the while.

God:
You mean you haven't been paying attention to our conversation?

Mortal:
Of course I have. But all the while, on another level, I have been thinking about it.

God:
And have you come to any conclusion?

Mortal:
Well, you say the reason is not to test our worthiness. And you disclaimed the reason that we need to feel that we must merit things in order to enjoy them. And you claim to be a utilitarian. Most significant of all, you appeared so delighted when I came to the sudden realization that it is not sinning in itself which is bad but only the suffering which it causes.

God:
Well of course! What else could conceivably be bad about sinning?

Mortal:
All right, you know that, and now I know that. But all my life I unfortunately have been under the influence of those moralists who hold sinning to be bad in itself. Anyway, putting all these pieces together, it occurs to me that the only reason you gave free will is because of your belief that with free will, people will tend to hurt each other -- and themselves -- less than without free will.

God:
Bravo! That is by far the best reason you have yet given! I can assure you that had I chosen to give free will, that would have been my very reason for so choosing.

Mortal:
What! You mean to say you did not choose to give us free will?

God:
My dear fellow, I could no more choose to give you free will than I could choose to make an equilateral triangle equiangular. I could choose to make or not to make an equilateral triangle in the first place, but having chosen to make one, I would then have no choice but to make it equiangular.

Mortal:
I thought you could do anything!

God:
Only things which are logically possible. As St. Thomas said, "It is a sin to regard the fact that God cannot do the impossible, as a limitation on His powers." I agree, except that in place of his using the word sin I would use the term error.

Mortal:
Anyhow, I am still puzzled by your implication that you did not choose to give me free will.

God:
Well, it is high time I inform you that the entire discussion -- from the very beginning -- has been based on one monstrous fallacy! We have been talking purely on a moral level -- you originally complained that I gave you free will, and raised the whole question as to whether I should have. It never once occurred to you that I had absolutely no choice in the matter.

Mortal:
I am still in the dark!

God:
Absolutely! Because you are only able to look at it through the eyes of a moralist. The more fundamental metaphysical aspects of the question you never even considered.

Mortal:
I still do not see what you are driving at.

God:
Before you requested me to remove your free will, shouldn't your first question have been whether as a matter of fact you do have free will?

Mortal:
That I simply took for granted.

God:
But why should you?

Mortal:
I don't know. Do I have free will?

God:
Yes.

Mortal:
Then why did you say I shouldn't have taken it for granted?

God:
Because you shouldn't. Just because something happens to be true, it does not follow that it should be taken for granted.

Mortal:
Anyway, it is reassuring to know that my natural intuition about having free will is correct. Sometimes I have been worried that determinists are correct.

God:
They are correct.

Mortal:
Wait a minute now, do I have free will or don't I?

God:
I already told you you do. But that does not mean that determinism is incorrect.

Mortal:
Well, are my acts determined by the laws of nature or aren't they?

God:
The word determined here is subtly but powerfully misleading and has contributed so much to the confusions of the free will versus determinism controversies. Your acts are certainly in accordance with the laws of nature, but to say they are determined by the laws of nature creates a totally misleading psychological image which is that your will could somehow be in conflict with the laws of nature and that the latter is somehow more powerful than you, and could "determine" your acts whether you liked it or not. But it is simply impossible for your will to ever conflict with natural law. You and natural law are really one and the same.

Mortal:
What do you mean that I cannot conflict with nature? Suppose I were to become very stubborn, and I determined not to obey the laws of nature. What could stop me? If I became sufficiently stubborn even you could not stop me!

God:
You are absolutely right! I certainly could not stop you. Nothing could stop you. But there is no need to stop you, because you could not even start! As Goethe very beautifully expressed it, "In trying to oppose Nature, we are, in the very process of doing so, acting according to the laws of nature!" Don't you see that the so-called "laws of nature" are nothing more than a description of how in fact you and other beings do act? They are merely a description of how you act, not a prescription of of how you should act, not a power or force which compels or determines your acts. To be valid a law of nature must take into account how in fact you do act, or, if you like, how you choose to act.

Mortal:
So you really claim that I am incapable of determining to act against natural law?

God:
It is interesting that you have twice now used the phrase "determined to act" instead of "chosen to act." This identification is quite common. Often one uses the statement "I am determined to do this" synonymously with "I have chosen to do this." This very psychological identification should reveal that determinism and choice are much closer than they might appear. Of course, you might well say that the doctrine of free will says that it is you who are doing the determining, whereas the doctrine of determinism appears to say that your acts are determined by something apparently outside you. But the confusion is largely caused by your bifurcation of reality into the "you" and the "not you." Really now, just where do you leave off and the rest of the universe begin? Or where does the rest of the universe leave off and you begin? Once you can see the so-called "you" and the so-called "nature" as a continuous whole, then you can never again be bothered by such questions as whether it is you who are controlling nature or nature who is controlling you. Thus the muddle of free will versus determinism will vanish. If I may use a crude analogy, imagine two bodies moving toward each other by virtue of gravitational attraction. Each body, if sentient, might wonder whether it is he or the other fellow who is exerting the "force." In a way it is both, in a way it is neither. It is best to say that it is the configuration of the two which is crucial.

Mortal:
You said a short while ago that our whole discussion was based on a monstrous fallacy. You still have not told me what this fallacy is.

God:
Why, the idea that I could possibly have created you without free will! You acted as if this were a genuine possibility, and wondered why I did not choose it! It never occurred to you that a sentient being without free will is no more conceivable than a physical object which exerts no gravitational attraction. (There is, incidentally, more analogy than you realize between a physical object exerting gravitational attraction and a sentient being exerting free will!) Can you honestly even imagine a conscious being without free will? What on earth could it be like? I think that one thing in your life that has so misled you is your having been told that I gave man the gift of free will. As if I first created man, and then as an afterthought endowed him with the extra property of free will. Maybe you think I have some sort of "paint brush" with which I daub some creatures with free will and not others. No, free will is not an "extra"; it is part and parcel of the very essence of consciousness. A conscious being without free will is simply a metaphysical absurdity.

Mortal:
Then why did you play along with me all this while discussing what I thought was a moral problem, when, as you say, my basic confusion was metaphysical?

God:
Because I thought it would be good therapy for you to get some of this moral poison out of your system. Much of your metaphysical confusion was due to faulty moral notions, and so the latter had to be dealt with first.

And now we must part -- at least until you need me again. I think our present union will do much to sustain you for a long while. But do remember what I told you about trees. Of course, you don't have to literally talk to them if doing so makes you feel silly. But there is so much you can learn from them, as well as from the rocks and streams and other aspects of nature. There is nothing like a naturalistic orientation to dispel all these morbid thoughts of "sin" and "free will" and "moral responsibility." At one stage of history, such notions were actually useful. I refer to the days when tyrants had unlimited power and nothing short of fears of hell could possibly restrain them. But mankind has grown up since then, and this gruesome way of thinking is no longer necessary.

It might be helpful to you to recall what I once said through the writings of the great Zen poet Seng-Ts'an:

If you want to get the plain truth,

Be not concerned with right and wrong.

The conflict between right and wrong

Is the sickness of the mind.

I can see by your expression that you are simultaneously soothed and terrified by these words! What are you afraid of? That if in your mind you abolish the distinction between right and wrong you are more likely to commit acts which are wrong? What makes you so sure that self-consciousness about right and wrong does not in fact lead to more wrong acts than right ones? Do you honestly believe that so-called amoral people, when it comes to action rather than theory, behave less ethically than moralists? Of course not! Even most moralists acknowledge the ethical superiority of the behavior of most of those who theoretically take an amoral position. They seem so surprised that without ethical principles these people behave so nicely! It never seems to occur to them that it is by virtue of the very lack of moral principles that their good behavior flows so freely! Do the words “The conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the human mind” express an idea so different from the story of the Garden of Eden and the fall of Man due to Adam's eating of the fruit of knowledge? This knowledge, mind you, was of ethical principles, not ethical feelings – these Adam already had. There is much truth in this story, though I never commanded Adam not to eat the apple, I merely advised him not to. I told him it would not be good for him. If the damn fool had only listened to me, so much trouble could have been avoided! But no, he thought he knew everything! But I wish the theologians would finally learn that I am not punishing Adam and his descendants for the act, but rather that the fruit in question is poisonous in its own right and its effects, unfortunately, last countless generations. And now really I must take leave. I do hope that our discussion will dispel some of your ethical morbidity and replace it by a more naturalistic orientation. Remember also the marvelous words I once uttered through the mouth of Lao-tse when I chided Confucius for his moralizing:

All this talk of goodness and duty, these perpetual pin-pricks unnerve and irritate the hearer – You had best study how it is that Heaven and Earth maintain their eternal course, that the sun and moon maintain their light, the stars their seried ranks, the birds and beasts their flocks, the trees and shrubs their station. This you too should learn to guide your steps by Inward Power, to follow the course that the Way of Nature sets; and soon you will no longer need to go round laboriously advertising goodness and duty. . . . The swan does not need a daily bath in order to remain white.

Mortal:
You certainly seem partial to Eastern philosophy!

God:
Oh, not at all! Some of my finest thoughts have bloomed in your native American soil. For example, I never expressed my notion of “duty” more eloquently than through the thoughts of Walt Whitman:

I give nothing as duties, What others give as duties, I give as living impulses.

********

Chew on it.. ;)

Chemical Conscience..

2006-10-06T22:59:00.000+05:30

I was recently going thru my file of report cards and certificates, when i chanced upon my primary school report cards. Lots of memories were brought back from tht time. I remembered how the teachers used to hate me for being very slow and dull. Part of the reason for tht was tht i had a habit of regularly dozing off on the last bench, and its of course human to take some time to awaken from ur deep mid-morning slumber; ya even when the teachers shouting at u at the top of her voice jus trying to wake u up. This , my regular daydreaming bouts and my answers which were completely alien to my school teachers resulted in my landing into the school counsellor's office almost every week. The counsellor it seems realized my "true potential" and called my mother for a visit. "Mrs. Chinoy, ur child is extremely brilliant, but he just doesnt apply himself..". Ya rite.. as if i were some kinda paint..

***

One of my statements in the post Illusion... didn't go down too well with some readers. The statement was something along these lines -

" the modern skeptic would however refute Descartes' definition of thinking saying even tht was a set of chemical reactions..massively complicated but just that..chemical reactions; and thus even thoughts can be decieved"

The cause of discontent was the fact tht i had called thinking,perception,comprehension,etc "just" a set of chemical reactions and nothing "more".. Whereas infact we being "living " beings with a conscience should have some kind of a soul or subconscious or something which transcends the physical.This debate is again a very interesting one with a few amusing consequences.

The first signs of life on earth were in the form of certain organic molecules , which slowly combined to give progressively higher "life forms" , and here there is no doubt that these "life forms" were nothing but rudimentary chemical reactions which were self supporting. Thus slowly over the centuries and millenia, these fundamental life forms gave way to algae, then bacteria, then sea life which in turn evolved into land roaming creatures and so on.

The final step in the human evolution was the transition from basic primates to the advanced form that we are today. Now, the question arises, is there any one point of time in this evolutionary history of billions of years, where we can point and say- "okay heres where we developed a conscience, or soul" ?? Evolution is just the process of increasing the complexity(Generally..though its not a rule.. the term evolution is assumed to encompass 'devolution'..so increasing complexity is just a trend and not a rule.) of the rudimentary reactions that all life started off with. and so all developments or advances that a species makes are just certain basic chemical changes in the way the substances in the body react. So this leads to the conclusion that even if we did develop a "soul" or "conscience" in the process of evolution.. it is purely chemical.

Why do we attribute life with "divine" properties? Isnt everything we do just a set of chemical reactions? Why is that "something-more-than-just-physical" required? Every thought,every action,every emotion, every desire is the byproduct of a set of chemical reactions. We are no different from a group of molecules reacting in a test tube; its just that we undergo a trillion differnt reactions every moment and are self sustaining. but u wudnt call an active electrolytc cell "living" wud u?? after all it cant emote, cant express, commuicate or show any properties tht are synonymous with our definition of life. But what is our definiton of life?? expression and feeling of emotions?? motion??... all these are reproducible chemically.. happiness can be induced using endorphins, passion using aphrodisiacs, excitement and energy using steroids.. thus even the basic defining feature of life-emotions can be simulated with chemicals.. is a soul really required now? an extraneous metaphysical entity which could be cited as the cause of these emotions? If we still insist on a soul or a conscience, then it wud have to be of chemical origin to explain the above observations.

We are nearing the creation of perfect AI - Artificial Intelligence. A piece of coded hardware given a power source, would be able to think as intelligently as any of us and independently. It wudnt be programmed to think in a particular way- it wud just be given a "brain" with which it wud be able to think independently from scratch, learning via observation,just as a baby would. If this "robot" would now learn to express emotions, we wud still not accept them as "true" emotions. after all how can a lifeless piece of junk running on electricity emote? The question here is how are these emotions different from our own? they are induced by certain electronic circuit variables, while ours by a certain set of chemical reactions. Why are our emotions "true" while the robots' "unreal"? Why do we not accept the robots movements and emotions as signs of life? even the robot would learn to defend itself against any form of danger.. even the robot would learn to react to various situations like us..and thus show all the characteristics we attribute to life. but we would still refute the argument saying that the robot lacked a conscience which we humans possess.

Is artificial different from natural? how? In the future if research on cloning,stem cells, etc makes us sufficiently technologically capble of producing entire living beings.. would these have a conscience? if yes then again it wud have to be chemical as it is artificial and wud lack the "divine touch".. but then these living beings would behave in exactly the same manner that we do, how then wud we differentiate between 'artificial' and 'natural', 'divine' and 'chemical'??(of course w/o using the belly buttons!)

The debate i have presented above is pretty speculative and a little on the vague side. This is partly because i lack enough background in biology and related matters. But the entire essence behind the debate is philosophical in nature and thus i have attempted to put it forward.

*Since this post is getting a bit too long, it shall be followed up with a subsequent post in a couple of days..till then chew on this..*

Cheers

Humour exists. Indeed.

2006-09-28T12:40:00.000+05:30

Illusion...

2006-09-20T12:34:00.000+05:30

 "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people

     very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

****

I think theres a little clarification required as to why i chose 'Eddy' to be the name of thecritic and not something else.. and NO it doe not have anything to do with eddy currents
which are circular and never ending and all tht..lol.. the name is probably coz of myfascination with the Iron Maiden mascot "Eddy" and the erstwhile cartoon "ed,edd and eddy"..
no symbolic mysticism here..lol

****

Well this is in continuation to one of my previous posts (Relative??Absolutely).. I had ppl telling me tht it's so obvious that things remain unaffected by our perception..

"y in the world wud a chair stop existing if i wasnt there to see it?Duh.."

The deal here is that the matter is not so easily done away with.. to those who think its pretty obvious..i ask - prove the existence of the chair wen u r not percieving it.. it may seem very 'obvious'.. but thts just yrs of indiffernce speaking.. we take too many things for granted.. existence being one of them..

What is a mirage?.. I am driving on a very hot day and i suddenly see that the road in front of me has turned into water.. having no past experience of such an occurence.. i am led to believe it actually is a pool of water..and there is no way tht i can jus sitting in the car make out tht the water is 'actually' an illusion... and so i wud firmly believe tht the pool of water on the road 'exists' and until i shift my position and see from a difernt point of view..i wudnt realize its an illusion.

What if everything we percieve is exactly just tht.. an illusion which our common sense forces us to believe as things actually existing.. so perception is surely not a test for existence.. then what? Perception and Comprehension are my only tools to analyzing evrything external.. perception fails as a sure shot test as it can be decieved easily..wat about comprehension.. my thoughts are purely mine and cannot be decieved.. influenced? sure.. but not decieved..

Here steps in Rene Descartes.. and his tool of methodological skepticism ('Doubt everything which can be doubted')

He was puzzled by the very same questions which i have raised above..and came up with a brilliant line of argument.. -

"If i am being Decieved, then I must surely Exist.... my memories? well they can also be decieved..so only my present thoughts can be trusted as proof of existence.. i think therefore i exist.. but in wat form?? the body that i percieve to be mine is also through my senses which are unreliable. Then the only undoubtable fact here is that I am a 'Thinking Thing'.. Thinking is my essence..But then wat is thinking?It is what happens in me such that I am immediately conscious of it, insofar as I am conscious of it.

If i have a piece of wax, my senses see a block of white material.. and wen i hold the wax in front of a fire, it melts into a liquid which i know is also wax. How did i reach this conclusion? only my senses wud have told me that they are 2 different things.. but my resoning helps me realize and connect the 2.Thus what I thought I had seen with my eyes, I actually grasped solely with the faculty of judgment, which is in my mind"

Thus Descartes believed only in deductive reasoning and thought sensory perception was unreliable.
The modern skeptic would come up with many arguments.. and i m picturing eddy again. He would refute Descartes definition of thinking saying it was nothing but a set of massively complicated chemical reactions but jus tht- chemical reactions. therefore if senses can be decieved, so can thoughts. For example, if thoughts and deductive reasoning were to be the test of existence.. then the 'popular brain in a vat' argument is put forth.. it says suppose a brain were to be put in a vat and connected to a sufficiently capable supercomputer which feeded the brain with illusions( ya the matrix scenario basically ), the brain and thus its thoughts would be decieved. The counterargument here is tht even though this might be the case, then tht is proof of the existence of such a vat..or basically something which creates the illusion.. Descartes in his time referred to this illusion creator as a 'vicious demon' or 'diabolus'.. Thus even if all this is an illusion.. we can be rest assured of the fact tht sum1 or sumthing is definitrly there who is creating ths illusion.. The lil painter in the pic exists for sure..

* I am outta thoughts now..so i ll have to think up some more.. till then chew on this..:D*

Cheers

Hey Raghu, thanks a lot.

2006-09-20T01:32:00.000+05:30

First ever link to this blog :) .

http://animewalls.blogspot.com

Relative??Absolutely..

2006-09-20T00:56:00.000+05:30

Hey, I ve been having quite some time lately(lol). One experience I recently had brought back a recent debate to my mind. Its a very engrossing one and there are conflicting views as usual.. so wen i am writin this piece, im picturing a mild critic who's asking me questions about every statement i make. I ve also thot up a name for him. I call him 'Eddy' (lol. ya it may sound stupid. but thts how i think lol ). I think i am at one side of the argument.. but my gut tells me tht the solution lies midway. Maybe some of my thoughts are not actually 'my own' as in the idea may have been conjectured numerous times before...but i ll put forward my point of view.Some ideas which i find difficult to convey..i shall try to express in the form of conversations with eddy.

Wat is the nature of reality? What quality differentiates illusions and dreams from reality?Is there a concrete real world 'out there' at all?
Well before i even get to these.. the most basic question is the definition of existence. This is where the debate stems from. We all know intuitively wat existence is right? try putting the idea forth explicitly.. u ll realize the no. of shortcomings any definition will have. Is it tht our language doesn't have enough flexibility to be able to express it explicitly or is it tht our minds cannot encompass its real quality? Well the question boils down to, even though we may not be able to express the nature of so many things such as space, time, life, etc explicitly.. are our minds broad enough to understand the 'whole' truth? unfortunately no. Kurt Godel, a prominent logician came up with the incompleteness theorem which approximately states tht any axiomatic system is not free of contradictions.. and as far as i can think, our brains are capable of thinking up many new things, but theres always something at the bottom of the ladder which we have tacitly assumed. Thus its natural for us to always base our theories on certain assumptions.Can those assumptions be justified? Can we get rid of them? Can there be a theory without axioms? I donot know. And thts a completely different story altogether.

How do i know anything exists? Some would say that if i can perceive anything..it exists. This means tht when i am looking at a chair, it exists. Or in other words, it has a certain no. of properties of which existence is one. It sound pretty convincing, doesn't it? Well then if i turn around so tht i cannot see the chair or perceive it in any way.. Does it mean tht the chair ceases to exist? Well it is a possibility. Lets consider it for a moment. Now i call in eddy into the room and he stands so tht he can see the chair. Now the question arises- I cannot perceive the chair, but eddy can. So does the chair 'actually' exist or not? Heres where the opinion divides into the relativistic and the absolute. I shall endorse the absolute point of view while Eddy shall subscribe to the former. Here Eddy says tht the chair has relative existence. It exists for him and doesnt for me. I find tht pretty absurd initially. He tries to convince me by saying tht since i can not perceive the chair.. i cannot confirm its existence and hence it is as gud as nonexistent for me. Though i may choose to believe it exists, he says, its purely a matter of personal belief. I donot like this point of view. How is the chair affected by my perception? Wat change have I induced by my act of perception that endows the chair with existence. If a camera captures the chair in a photograph while eddy and me both stand outside.. Does the chair exist then.. Eddy would refuse because he says he didn't perceive it. My question is then tht how are we different from the camera? Are we not organic cameras too in a way? or is consciousness a necessity? Eddy fails to answer. He just says tht if anything has to exist for him in 'his' universe.. He must perceive it.. or else it is doomed to remain in a state of doubtful existence.

The chair can either exist or not exist. There are no two ways about it. Maybe we cannot confirm its existence from outside the room as we cannot perceive it. But, i repeat, Why does the chairs existence have to do anything with my conscious perception and acknowledgement of it. I choose to believe tht the moon exists even though i am not looking at it. True i cannot confirm its existence right now and it may be getting sucked into a black hole for all i know.. but i just wish to say that it will continue with its natural order of events even when i am not looking at it and have no knowledge of its present. Fermat's Last theorem was proved in 1994 by Andrew Wiles. It had ben conjectured about 250 or 300 years ago. My question is was it true or not before it had been proved to be true? Eddy would say he could not know. But Wasnt it already True or False irrespective of when it was proved?? It had to be either true or false and we found out in 1994 that it was true. Which means it was true all that time in the Absolute. Eddy on the other hand would say it had equal probability of being proved true or false before 1994. Isnt that absurd? Its a very convincing example where i think eddy fails to provide an adequately convincing argument.

Eddy says that an object starts existing for sure the moment u perceive it. Suppose i ask Eddy to put a chair in a room. Now i enter that room with my eyes shut and position myself according to where Eddy told me he would put the chair. Then i open my eyes and see the chair. Eddy says that the chair assumed the property of existence for me in my particular universe after i saw it there. Now i ask.. How did i see the chair? For me to see it.. photons scattered by it have to enter my eyes. Which means tht i can talk of an 'it' even before i have seen it or perceived it.Which in turn implies tht the 'it' existed before i saw it somewhere. Where? Eddy is unable to answer. He says he will have to think. But looking from the absolute point of view the explanation is immediate. The chair had already been there indifferent to my perception and hence i saw it when some of the photons from it chanced to enter my eye. Simple isnt it?

This is why i choose to endorse an absolutist point of view. I dont like giving undue importance to our consciousness as it is nothing but a chemical coincidence in the turn of events of the absolute cosmos. A relative universe which centers around evry1s individual consciousness and where existence of objects, and occurring of events depends on conscious perception may sound flattering. but it is too complicated.
An absolute one for all universe where things happen and objects exist and go about their respective events without being dependant on conscious observers is what i believe in.Our conscious perception is not reason enough to decide the fate of the numerous things in the huge cosmos.with this and eddy swearing.. i sign off

Chew on it..
Cheers.

Life..

2006-09-20T00:32:00.000+05:30

"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, and you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating... you finish off as an orgasm. "

George Carlin

lol...

Cogito Ergo Sum..

2006-09-16T03:30:00.000+05:30

..For the uninitiated, here i am going to briefly summarize the essence of the key words that inspire my Blog.. Cogito Ergo Sum..

Mentioned famously by the 17th Century Mathematician and Philosopher(or rather Thinker) Rene Descartes, Literally translated the words mean "I think Therefore I am" but a more accurate and meaningful interpretation would yield " I am thinking, Therefore I exist"..
Although both the interpretations appear similiar superficially, there is a key difference which I shall address in the due blogs. The whole deal here is that these words underline a powerful method of approach at dealing with the seemingly convoluted and unanswerable questions such as "What is the meaning of existence?" , "What is consciousness?" and so on. This powerful device of analysis is called "Methodological Skepticism". It proposes to arrive at a set of axiomatic principles via a logical analysis where a basic thumb rule is always followed - Doubt Any Idea which can be Doubted.

The axioms arrived at via this process are conjectured to be known as True Without Any Doubt. Of course the basic assumption here being that such a set of principles do exist and that the meaning of "a doubtless and true argument" is understood as "an argument without any contradiction(or self-inconsistency)". These basic set of principles would be Self-Existing i.e they would'nt require any thing other than themselves to exist.

Although this discussion may seem pointless or just the regular philosophical mindtalk, it has many important repurcussions. I was personally drawn into this discussion while discussing Relativity and Quantum physics with a friend. I am a staunch believer in the concept of the absolute. A simple universe which is the same for all and does not centre around everyone's individual consciousness appeals to me. In short there is an absolute universe which is entirely independent of my existence. I am too insignificant to affect the proceedings of the cosmos or 'my cosmos' as my dear friend would prefer to call it. All of us humans are merely coincidences in the various proceedings of the vast cosmos and our 'consciousness' is too feeble a reason in my opinion to control the causes and effects of everything and their numerous ramifications in the universe. Then of course my friend would argue that the universe, causes, effects,etc are nothing but my perceptions. Does my perception of a thing qualify it as being real, or endow it with the property of existence? I think not. (More on this argument later,I have gone a bit astray from the main discussion, so i ll continue now from where i left - how i entered this discussion). Now Quantum physics describes a world full of uncertainty and probability. One of the basic assumptions is that a particle exists as a probability wave before any of its properties is measured. But the disturbing thing is that, as soon as the measurement is made, this probability wave collapses and the particle assumes its properties which have been measured. The perplexing elements here are many - How does the particle 'know' that it is being measured??What qualifies as an act of measurement?? Is a device registering the presence or position of a particle measuring it??Or is a sentient observer required??Is not the notion of 'cause and effect(causality)' being violated??We are measuring a certain property of the particle, and the particle then, 'after' being measured, assumes those particular properties and hides the others in a veil of uncertainty.But if the particle assumes those properties to a particular level of accuracy (or uncertainty) 'after' we measure them at that accuracy, the question now arises - What were we measuring then (note the two 'after's refer to differnt instants..)??.. The quantum theory answers none of these questions concretely. But day after day it is vindicated by increasingly and fantastically accurate predictions.

But then how are we to explain the above mentioned shortcomings?Are we to forever live in this world shrouded in an eternal quantum limbo? or is there a way out?

The answer to these questions, my friends, is what I seek.

Chew on it..

(Edit- 12/2/2008 : Very very naive post, in hindsight.)