So, Then, Why Horoscopes?
Oct. 18th, 2008 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fiat_knoxI was asked in an earlier post to explain why I post horoscopes whilst, at the same time, going around denying the existence of God and pushing rationality.
I'd like to point out something to my f'list that some people might not like, and then add something that might piss off some of the rest. A few won't get pissed off because they'll understand my meaning - this is for them.
(i) The universe operates according to a whole bunch of natural processes. What goes up comes down only because gravity exerts a force upon it; 2 + 2 = 4; and pi is a transcendental number measuring the ratio between a circle's diameter and its circumference. Now, those natural processes can be observed, and their mechanisms roughly deduced through the process we know as the scientific method. Through this method, which is a skill which can be acquired and learned like walking and talking, any human being can discern the nature of the universe. It doesn't take a genius mind to learn science: without the white lab coats and sterile equipment, scientific method is just simply that plain old common sense and nous that most smart yet ordinary people take for granted.
And, as if in stark contrast to the above,
(ii) The Universe ... makes no sense whatsoever. It isn't doing anything. It isn't going anywhere. It, in fact, doesn't have any rational purpose. Not only that: the Universe is not a rational place either. Things exist here which contradict what people know. Hot gas giant planets race madly in tight orbits around stars; planets have huge ring systems, fine as dust, which don't look to be going away, and perfect hexagonal storms raging at their poles. Planets rotate counter to their orbital direction, or on their side. Stars which ought to be black holes due to their mass, aren't. Creatures we think of as dumb are known to use tools, to communicate, to think, to plan, to dream, and to mourn the dead. Hell, they even know when they're looking at their reflections in the mirror.
And so, we come to faith.
Inasmuch as many people need a faith to cling to, that gives them hope that they won't cease to be when death comes upon their mortal bodies and that an afterlife exists for them, that same faith gives people a sense of, well, sense. The Universe is here for a reason. We are here for a reason. In this faith, we don't know what that reason is - and when the stirrings of Faith began more than 2000 years ago, we didn't even have a clue how we came about - but we can posit that the reason does exist, and that reason is known only to God.
Somehow, this absolution from having to worry about the universe making no sense offers people a grounding of stability, of what people call "sanity," to cling to. We are sane only because we know that worrying about things like this are somebody else's problem. By this means, we brush the fundamental irrationality of this stable, predictable universe under the carpet - and all we then see is the comforting ticking clockwork. For some, Science works, bitches. For others, maybe a little fearful of the fact that it's skirting the forbidden truth, only Religion works. The religious sink deeper into their fluffy clouds. The scientists work out in the cold. Everybody else is somewhere in between, and they only have their TV, job, sex, beer, money and status to keep them happy.
But step outside of these cotton-stuffed cosy little boxes, for just one moment, and look around you at the stark, cold, weird universe. Everything works. If you climb up to the roof and drop an apple, it isn't going to fly off straight up and hit the ISS. It's going to bounce off the floor, or even some poor passer-by's noggin.
You go anywhere else on Earth and climb up to a high place, and drop the apple - and like the fabled apple that supposedly inspired Newton, it'll head down. Straight down to the earth. Every time.
Like I said. Known; measurable; predictable. You can even swap your Granny Smith for a Golden Delicious, or even a banana or a pocket calculator, and get the same result.
(Oh, and if you throw yourself off that roof ... no angels will come along and break your fall either. So don't try this at home or anywhere else for that matter).
But you have got to ask yourself, despite the fact that everything happens, everything works ... does it work for a reason?
Honestly? You really can answer "no."
As much as science can explain how things work, how things came to pass and how things will end, the scientists themselves are just as perplexed and baffled by the lack of purpose of the Cosmos as the theists. Whether you believe in God or in Science, deep down when you ask the question "Why?" you're both equally as flabbergasted when no voice comes back to you with a "Because" or "Why not?" - (i) because there is no voice; (ii) because, even if there was a voice, it wouldn't be able to answer your question.
But if you step outside the box: if you concede that the universe doesn't need for there to be a God, or a Higgs particle, to make it come into existence (and in fact, we could have come into being through a process called spontaneously broken symmetry, meaning our very existence and these very thoughts' existence is as arbitrary as the thought of a God): if you concede, furthermore, that we alone are responsible for making any kind of sense out of our lives; don't be surprised if you start to feel a little weird inside.
Don't worry. You won't be going crazy.
You'll just be becoming as sane as I am.
I'd like to point out something to my f'list that some people might not like, and then add something that might piss off some of the rest. A few won't get pissed off because they'll understand my meaning - this is for them.
(i) The universe operates according to a whole bunch of natural processes. What goes up comes down only because gravity exerts a force upon it; 2 + 2 = 4; and pi is a transcendental number measuring the ratio between a circle's diameter and its circumference. Now, those natural processes can be observed, and their mechanisms roughly deduced through the process we know as the scientific method. Through this method, which is a skill which can be acquired and learned like walking and talking, any human being can discern the nature of the universe. It doesn't take a genius mind to learn science: without the white lab coats and sterile equipment, scientific method is just simply that plain old common sense and nous that most smart yet ordinary people take for granted.
And, as if in stark contrast to the above,
(ii) The Universe ... makes no sense whatsoever. It isn't doing anything. It isn't going anywhere. It, in fact, doesn't have any rational purpose. Not only that: the Universe is not a rational place either. Things exist here which contradict what people know. Hot gas giant planets race madly in tight orbits around stars; planets have huge ring systems, fine as dust, which don't look to be going away, and perfect hexagonal storms raging at their poles. Planets rotate counter to their orbital direction, or on their side. Stars which ought to be black holes due to their mass, aren't. Creatures we think of as dumb are known to use tools, to communicate, to think, to plan, to dream, and to mourn the dead. Hell, they even know when they're looking at their reflections in the mirror.
And so, we come to faith.
Inasmuch as many people need a faith to cling to, that gives them hope that they won't cease to be when death comes upon their mortal bodies and that an afterlife exists for them, that same faith gives people a sense of, well, sense. The Universe is here for a reason. We are here for a reason. In this faith, we don't know what that reason is - and when the stirrings of Faith began more than 2000 years ago, we didn't even have a clue how we came about - but we can posit that the reason does exist, and that reason is known only to God.
Somehow, this absolution from having to worry about the universe making no sense offers people a grounding of stability, of what people call "sanity," to cling to. We are sane only because we know that worrying about things like this are somebody else's problem. By this means, we brush the fundamental irrationality of this stable, predictable universe under the carpet - and all we then see is the comforting ticking clockwork. For some, Science works, bitches. For others, maybe a little fearful of the fact that it's skirting the forbidden truth, only Religion works. The religious sink deeper into their fluffy clouds. The scientists work out in the cold. Everybody else is somewhere in between, and they only have their TV, job, sex, beer, money and status to keep them happy.
But step outside of these cotton-stuffed cosy little boxes, for just one moment, and look around you at the stark, cold, weird universe. Everything works. If you climb up to the roof and drop an apple, it isn't going to fly off straight up and hit the ISS. It's going to bounce off the floor, or even some poor passer-by's noggin.
You go anywhere else on Earth and climb up to a high place, and drop the apple - and like the fabled apple that supposedly inspired Newton, it'll head down. Straight down to the earth. Every time.
Like I said. Known; measurable; predictable. You can even swap your Granny Smith for a Golden Delicious, or even a banana or a pocket calculator, and get the same result.
(Oh, and if you throw yourself off that roof ... no angels will come along and break your fall either. So don't try this at home or anywhere else for that matter).
But you have got to ask yourself, despite the fact that everything happens, everything works ... does it work for a reason?
Honestly? You really can answer "no."
As much as science can explain how things work, how things came to pass and how things will end, the scientists themselves are just as perplexed and baffled by the lack of purpose of the Cosmos as the theists. Whether you believe in God or in Science, deep down when you ask the question "Why?" you're both equally as flabbergasted when no voice comes back to you with a "Because" or "Why not?" - (i) because there is no voice; (ii) because, even if there was a voice, it wouldn't be able to answer your question.
But if you step outside the box: if you concede that the universe doesn't need for there to be a God, or a Higgs particle, to make it come into existence (and in fact, we could have come into being through a process called spontaneously broken symmetry, meaning our very existence and these very thoughts' existence is as arbitrary as the thought of a God): if you concede, furthermore, that we alone are responsible for making any kind of sense out of our lives; don't be surprised if you start to feel a little weird inside.
Don't worry. You won't be going crazy.
You'll just be becoming as sane as I am.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-18 09:57 am (UTC)The fun thing recently has been trying to reconcile my gf's more pagan beliefs and my, what would I call it? Scientific Spirtualism. Basically we've found the hermetisicm has acted as a good meeting point and that what I call and electron is just what people in ages past refered to as Thor, Zeus or Raidan.
What has been interesting though has been explaining platoism to her as that fits neatly with both quantum mathemaics and with hermeticism.
We've already discussed how we are going to explain christmas to our kids when we have them. Simply put we're going to say that Jesus was just a good man and mroe than likely some kind of wizard/wise man of his age, and we will just go for a pure pagan celebration of Yule and more than likely I just be the scientist dad who will want his kids to watch the christmas lectures.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-20 11:21 am (UTC)Right now our challenge has been creating vows for our forthcoming handfasting ceremony, I already have a few ideas so it's fairly balanced, such as citing the stars and universe as opposed to particular gods, as magic and science are both integral parts of the universe, if they are not one and the same thing.
P.S. And I would add that I believe in faeries, but they're not at the bottom of the garden, they exist somewhere else and again represent said energies.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-18 10:04 am (UTC)Oh and by the way, Faith (a belief in something) is not synonymous with Religion. Faith is what you and I have albeit in different things, Religion is a formalised (and for me incomplete) manifestation of an aspect of that Faith.
And there's no reason...
Date: 2008-10-18 04:17 pm (UTC)And yes, that goes for people and their love of science and math and rationality as well as myself with Rimble. I don't have to have him here, but I like him to be, so my choice is to have faith.
And...I also know he'd walk in and fix himself a cup of fucking tea whether I wanted him to or not. The Wily One works in whatever way he chooses.