JC said, quoting from "Humiliation ..." "My certainty is false as far as exact reality is concerned, but this certainty allows me to live."
Exactly ... which is one reason I point out that any good living philosophy (like the MoQ) must involve an element of "faith" - certainty in something that you actually understand is not real. In fact, it is good empirical experience that says this faith is necessary ... to live. Ian On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 7:51 AM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > Further readings from the Humiliation of the Word: > > "At this point we find ourselves in the presence of a strange and happy > contradiction. The reality around us changes and flows constantly. > Everything flows: *panta rhei*. The river I see is never the same. The > water I am looking at races away and will never return. At every level, > reality is unstable and fleeting. > > I am aware that this rock I am looking at is essentially a vacuum with atoms > whirling around it. The more physicists progress, the less able we are to > grasp reality. In the last analysis, only mathematics can assure us that > reality exists. > > Reality is present and yet nothing is there. What I think I grasp is not > only transitory and changing, but imperceptible in its "substance" (if one > can still use the word in the light of theoretical physics). Is everything > then an illusion produced by our senses? This old question needs to be > brought up again because it leads to an astonishing contradiction. I > perceive reality around me because of sight and touch. That is, I grasp it > by means of my most reliable and indisputable senses. I cannot doubt what I > see. Yet we know for a certainty that what is see is not what I see. But > what difference does that make? My sight gives me certainty concerning > reality and I need nothing more. > > Here is the other side of the matter. Truth remains truth in relation to > and in spite of everything. It is firm, stable, hard, and irrefutable. We > must not relativize it just because science has changed. We must not say > that yesterday's truth becomes today's error. We must not become so > extremely liberal that we say everything is relative, so that one person can > be just as right as the person who says the opposite. If truth is truth > even beyond the limits of our grasp and our approximation, it *exists*. And > that settles it. Heraclitus says something that does not vanish, and his > statement falls within the scope of truth. > > Truth is the absolute or eternal. We are not able even to approach its > outskirts. We do not construct truth out of bits and pieces added to one > another, so as to enable us remove them and dismantle the construction. By > means of language we transmit and understand this truth that is as tightly > closed and solid as a dot, reliable as a map, translucent as a crystal, but > hard as diamond. We transmit it and even discern it only through language. > Truth is connected to the word and communicated by it. That is, truth is > communicated by the most uncertain means, the one most prone to variations > and doubt, as have seen- by the word, that fragile thing that does not last, > evaporating as soon as it has been said. Thus what we are surest of is > connected with the most uncertain thing in existence; our most changeable > means has to do with what is most certain. > > Now here is the amazing thing: this is a godsend for us. How could we live > if our senses advise us that the reality in which we live doesn't really > exist in the final analysis, that it is only a tangle of whirlwinds and > illusion? How could I walk if my senses showed me nothing but emptiness in > front of me? How could I eat if my senses showed me the utter unreality of > what I am eating? > > My certainly is false as far as exact reality is concerned, but this > certainty allows me to live. > > > The opposite is just as true. What would become of us if we could grasp > truth with unvarying precision and express it without the slightest > imperfection or without any uncertainty? What would happen if the means > were perfectly adequate for expressing truth? Such a situation would be > dreadful and completely unlivable We would be pinned down once and for all > in a butterfly museum. We would be there in all our splendor, unable to > move any more, because everything would be said, closed up, and finished: > perfect. > > We have seen the horror that has resulted in the course of our history every > time a person or group has claimed to express truth in its entirety, > believing their word to be identical with the truth, or that truth could not > be "elsewhere" or "other". This attitude has given legitimacy to all > dictatorships, oppressions, falsehoods, and massacres. One person's word > against another's is the only possible fragile pointer to truth, like a > compass quivering in its case. In order to live, we need truth to be > expressed by the most fragile agent, so that the listener remains free. The > uneasiness which enables us to keep going involves knowing that we will > never be able to grasp truth in its entirety, or be able to bring our > adventure to a close by identifying our life with truth." > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
