Open Minds

Several times I said to myself, ‘But perhaps I have overlooked something, or failed to understand something? It cannot be that this state of despair is common to all men.’ And I searched for an answer to my questions in all branches of knowledge acquired by man. I sought long and laboriously. I did not search half-heartedly, or out of idle curiosity, but tormentedly, persistently, day and night, like a dying man seeking salvation, and I found nothing.

I searched all branches of knowledge and not only found nothing, but was convinced that all those who had searched the realms of knowledge like myself had likewise found nothing. Not only had they found nothing, but they had plainly acknowledged the same thing that had led me to despair: the meaninglessness of life as the only indisputable piece of knowledge available to man.

If only poor Tolstoy had read ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’, or simply asked Google. Hee Hee. It is interesting to me how some people can get so stuck on finding meaning in their life, while other could care less. Even more interesting on how the search for meaning can so consume some of the more intelligent folk around. I think that my day job keeps me from falling into this particular black hole. Instead I hover near the event horizon.

Chapters 5 and 6 are kind of boring as he keeps harping on the meaninglessness of life and his futile search for meaning. Still, he mentions some relevent truths about the nature of science and philosophy, religion being a subset of philosophy.

The most important thing was that my own personal question, the question of what I am with all my desires, was left completely unanswered. I understood that these studies are very interesting and attractive but that their precision and clarity are inversely proportionate to their applicability to questions concerning life: the less applicable to the questions of life, the clearer and more precise they are, whereas the more they try to provide solutions to the questions of life, the more obscure and unattractive they become.

This quirky relationship reminded me of the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics, and is why my main blog is named ‘Quantum Theology.’ Interestingly, I think a big reason why 7 day creationism still holds sway is the fact that this is required to maintain precision and clarity withing the construct of Christianity. What I mean by this is that a very key foundation to Christianity is the assertion that the Bible is without error. This was an error discovered by Galileo back in the early 17th century when he went toe to toe with the inquisition regarding the ‘unbiblical’ notion that the earth orbited the sun. Galileo introduced the very practical notion that the Bible was authoritative in the matters of ‘faith and morals’ only and should not be made authoritative in matters of science. Sadly, his advice was not heeded for centuries. The need for precision and clarity is also a motivating factor in the differences that ‘modern’ Christians have with ‘post-modern’ Christians. Modern Christians have issues with the obscurity of the relativistic and ‘wishywashy’ philosophy of post modern Christians.

Now, more on science and religion.

If we turn to those branches of knowledge that attempt to provide solutions to the questions of life, to physiology, psychology, biology, and sociology, we encounter a startling poverty of thought, extreme lack of clarity and a completely unjustified pretension to resolve questions beyond their scope[...]

This is the same point Stephen J. Gould makes in his book ‘Rocks of Ages.’ Science cannot answer questions like ‘Why do I live?’ or ‘How should I live?’ Neither can philosophy, or religion, answer the questions pertaining to the natural world. This does not stop them from trying.

You are a randomly united lump of something. This lump decomposes and the fermentation is called your life. The lump will disintegrate and the fermentation will end, together will all your questions. This is the answer given by the exact side of knowledge, and if it adheres strictly to its principles, it cannot answer otherwise.

However, the truth is that this answer does not reply to the question. I need to know the meaning of my life, and the fact that it is a particle of infinity not only fails to give it any meaning, but eliminates any possibility of meaning.

The experimental side of knowledge vaguely compromises with the speculative side in saying that the meaning of life lies in development and in the encouragement of this development. But owing to the inaccuracies and obscurities these cannot be regarded as answers[...]

[...]There is the same mistaken approach to the understanding of development and perfection, with the only difference that in one instance we have the development of everything, and in the other the development of peoples lives. This mistake is identical: development and perfection can have no purpose or direction in infinity, and as far as my question is concerned, no answer.

This compromise between the speculative side and the experimental side is the tact taken by prominent atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. Tolstoy hit the nail on the head with the problem with this approach. It’s like trying to use a compass in the absense of a magnetic field.

Chapter 4 is a very dark chapter, in which Tolstoy contemplates suicide. His problem was that he discovered that Soloman was right when he said that life was meaningless. I would skip over this chapter, but here lies a key to the rest of the book.

There is an old Eastern fable about a traveller who is taken unawares on the steppes by a ferocious wild animal. In order to escape the beast the traveller hides in an empty well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its jaws open, ready to devour him. The poor fellow does not dare to climb out because he is afraid of being eaten by the rapacious beast, neither does he dare drop to the bottom of the well for fear of being eaten by the dragon. So he seizes hold of a branch of a bush that is growing in the crevices of the well and clings on to it. His arms grow weak and he knows that he will soon have to resign himself to the death that awaits him on either side. Yet he still clings on, and while he is holding onto the branch he looks around and sees that two mice, one black and one white, are steadily working their way round the bush he is hanging from, gnawing away at it. Sooner or later they will eat through it and the branch will snap, and he will fall into the jaws of the dragon. The traveller sees this and knows that he will eventually perish. But while he is still hanging there he sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the bush, stretches out his tongue and licks them. In the same way I am clinging to the tree of life, knowing full well that the dragon of death inevitably awaits me, ready to tear me to pieces, and I cannot understand how I have fallen into this torment. And I try licking the honey that once consoled me, but it no longer gives me pleasure. The white mouse and the black mouse - day and night - are gnawing at the branch from which I am hanging. I can see the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tastes sweet.

More later.

This speaks to my personal experience in church studies. It’s probably influenced by my personality type and others will no doubt have a different take.

I seems to me now, even if it didn’t at the time, that bible studies are conducted much in the same manner that historians study history. Gaining knowledge and understanding is important, but at some point it becomes very important that you discover something new. The old truths are boring and you need to show your spirituality or justify your tenure, by finding something new. This is usually accomplished by making small things important,important things small, and by altering the lighting to make things look different.

A few weeks ago I asked a bombshell of a question, that probably went over many peoples heads. It was the type of question that called into question the whole leaning of the discussion and the whole manner in which some elders conducted their spiritual walk, which is what we were being instructed on. I didn’t get a satisfactory answer, and I really didn’t expect one. It was one of those questions that just might not have an answer. Unfortunately, the answer really is important to me personally.

Last week, I had multiple strangers come up to me to congratulate on my question. It appears that I ’scored’ points by being able to find something original (to them) to ask. Similar to finding some new truth when none really exists. The fact that the answer I got didn’t make sense didn’t register to people. It was ‘The Question’ that was killer. One guy emailed me about ‘The Question’, and I had a very very frank reply which laid out exactly what the answer wasn’t really an answer and why the answer was so important. I didn’t hear back.

The simple truths are enough to keep me occupied for the rest of my life, and questions that don’t have answers will keep my head spinning for quite some time. I just don’t have the patience for things that distract. Pretending to have answers when you don’t is one of those things that distract.

I should tie this in to Tolstoy. I had saved this post and was just flipping to chapter 4 when the closing part of chapter 3 jumped out. So appropriate.

The questions seemed so simple, stupid, and childish. But the moment I touched upon them and tried to resolve them I was immediately convinced, firstly, that they were not childish and stupid questions but were the most important and profound questions in life, and secondly, that however much I thought about them I could not resolve them. Before occupying myself with my Samara estate, with the education of my son, or with the writing of books, I had to know why I was doing these things. While I did not know why, I could not do anything. Amidst my thoughts concerning the farm, which at the time kept me very busy, a question would suddenly come into my head: “Well fine, so you will have 6,000 desyatins in the Samara province and 300 horses, and then what?” And feeling completely taken aback, I would not know what to think next. Or, beginning to reflect on the education of my children, I would ask myself, “Why?” Or deliberating on how the peasants might achieve prosperity I would suddenly ask myself, “What concern is it of mine?” Or thinking about the fame my own writing brought me, I would say to myself, “Well fine, so you will be more famous than Gogol, Pushkin, Shakespheare, Moliere, more famous than all the writers in the world, and so what?” And I have absolutely no answer.

This was a dark time for Tolstoy, because he had questions to go around, but no answer that seemed like it might be true. The path to those answers turned out to be the road less traveled and placed him on the fringe. So it will be with me, for better or worse.

I took a week long business trip / vacation, and a couple of weeks to recover, but I am now back in blog-action! Without further ado, Chapter 3!

Chapter 3 is quite short, but the gist of it is that Tolstoy is quite lost.

Living as I was then, like any individual I was tormented by the problem of how to live a better life. I did not yet understand that in answering ‘live in conformity with progress’, I was speaking exactly like a person who is in a boat being carried along by the wind and waves and who when asked the most vital and important question, ‘Where should I steer?’ avoids answering by saying, ‘We are being carried somewhere.’

…

In reality, I was still confronted with the  same insoluble problem of how to teach without knowing what I was teaching. In the higher circles of literary activity it was apparent to me that I could not teach without knowing what it was that I taught, for I saw that everyone taught differently and that in our arguments we only concealed our own lack of knowledge from each other.

At this point he only knew that he was missing something important. I suppose some might wonder how you can teach without knowing the subject matter you teach. This is something that very smart people are aware of. A high school physics teacher may teach on the theory of relativity, and I can guarantee you they do not understand it. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be teaching high school physics. I learned calculate things with the quantum wave function, but I did not understand it. I was simply performing the mechanical mathematical steps that I was told to do and I forgot them shortly after I walked out of the final exam.

Interestingly, I got a version of that question evasion that Tolstoy mentions in the first portion. At church they were discussing how to discern the voice of God and how to develop that personal relationship. It was suggested that you need to listen to that inner voice, consider scripture, and seek the council of others. To be sure these are all good things, but there is a more complex question. How do you avoid the group think herd mentality that has ensnared others in the church in the past? How was it possible for so many Christians to hate and treat their black brothers as sub-human? Where was the voice of God in them? How could they be so wrong? I’m sure the inner voice was nothing other than the bigotry they were raised in, and considered only the portions of scripture that might be twisted to support that bigotry, and consulted with others with equal amounts of bigotry. The answer I got from the guys with white hair was nothing more substantial than “we are being carried somewhere.” I suppose I didn’t expect a satisfying answer because a substantial answer would have to consider the reliability of the thing they were teaching. I suspect that they do not know that they do not know what they teach. I suppose that is why they are sane and why they sleep at night.