The Rabbit Hole

That’s Logic!

   I always find it curious when a person makes an absolute statement.  How a person that is restricted by boundaries, limited in knowledge, information and reason in every possible way, can be an authority on anything!  The very idea of saying something is or is not true is essentially saying they have access to infinite knowledge.

Almost all the information we rely on daily is based on knowledge that is extracted or derived from other extracted or derived data.  It is the same with science.  There is no absolute data.  There is no provable information in our world that is not limited to human methods of collection and interpretation, and therefore limited and subject to error.  Science has not had the benefit of a true control subject because that would require an infinite scope of variability.  We may be able to use tools to measure beyond our human reach, but that does not set a basis for absolute information.  There are many factors that can change the state of matter, different environmental causes that alter both how data is measured and how it appears, and who knows what other factors we are not aware of.

Have you ever stopped to wonder if there is anything you can imagine that could not have a molecular transformation through either passing of time, extreme environmental conditions or perhaps just in how it is perceived?

Let’s say for example, “That desk is green.” is an absolute statement. We would not be taking into account what that desk may look like in thousand years or after a fire or a chainsaw changed it into something else completely.  Or maybe we should say, “That desk is green right now.” but even that doesn’t account for altered perception, lighting, or how the categories are classified.  With no perfect categories classification is largely a system of assumption.  The color green has thousands of different variations and desks come in all shapes and sizes.  Even the idea of right now could be interpreted to mean any number of things like this century, this era, or this second, all of which have entirely different implications.

So we can choose to accept this or not.  We can take the information around us and we can trust in it, believe that it has qualities that are absolute,  believe that it cannot change or that the world around us will continue as it always has.  Two plus two will always be four, right?  We know certain things transform but overall we can measure that, we can learn enough to determine constants.  Anything that doesn’t fit into the constants can simply be interpreted metaphorically, or allegorically.

Have you ever heard anyone say? ” I only believe in what I can hear, see or touch.”  Basically they are saying they only believe in themselves.  They will be the deciding authority on the information around them.

The other side to the coin is to have an authority outside of yourself.  To acknowledge we are limited in every way and that we may have the ability to ascertain certain things, they are always subject to forces outside of ourselves.  Two plus two does equal four using our form of logic and reason but we know that is variable.  We did not create ourselves or the world in which we live.  So therefore the only source of truth or absolutes that we can rely on must come from something infinite, something that cannot change, something omniscient.  That everything we see around us is temporal and could cease to exist.

Now those who choose the path of the things seen tend to rely on the natural world around them.  Ideas replicate balance, hot and cold, order and chaos, light and dark, life and death.  Good and evil are just the polarity of nature, forever present.  Nature is neutral and consistent, setting a cyclical, seasonal harmony that brings continuity.  With that comes randomness, things don’t happen for a reason, it’s all just cause and effect, action reaction.  No one knows why anything happens.  It is just chance, random, it just is.   Sometimes the authority for empirical knowledge ends up in a physical representation of a King, a common viewpoint ,democratic majority or the state.  Truth is determined by a monarchy or the will of the people. If there is a natural chain of being all things from the most insignificant to the most powerful can become one.  The hope for truth and power comes from the top of the chain, embodied in the state, king or democracy.  The consequence of this as history has shown is without a standard of transcendental authority a majority rule can be influenced in any direction, as a result we have had wars, slavery, and even genocide to show for it.  Obviously the same is true for a monarchy or state.

As a reaction to the pitfalls of fallible authority came Humanism.  Accepting all actions as a just the nature of being and determining truth relative to ones individual perspective.  This viewpoint is also random and if things don’t happen for a reason, it only follows that you can be the only one that creates purpose.  Life is what you make of it.  All aspects of reality end up in a relative state dependent on each individual situation.  Both viewpoints are inevitably essentially religious.  A faith in science, state, reason or perception.  Of course you may say you believe in god, but it is really an abstraction.  A form to fit the unknown, an abstract being that is always neutral, perhaps with a random nature for wrath and need for placation, sometimes gentil like the seasons.  It may be a force, spirit, mother nature or cosmos. It may be polytheistic.  Or often it is the God of the Bible, but reinterpreted to fit into an ideal neutral box.  A god that would not judge so therefore is likely to be either dormant and uninterested, or mostly metaphorical.

That is why so many people do not believe the Bible is inspired by God, it’s too disruptive.  It challenges everything that they believe to be true. Miracles would mean something could disrupt the physical absolute world around them.  They would be more likely to believe anything written by man because it would be much less threatening to their viewpoint.

2 Peter 3: ^{3 “}knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, ⁴ and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” ⁵ For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, ⁶ by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. ⁷ But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
⁸ But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ⁹ The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us,^[b]not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

Now those who choose the path of the things unseen,  trust not in the world around them but in who controls it.  They believe that the world as they know it is at the mercy of its creator.  That things have a purpose, there is a reason why things are the way they are.  Each cell, structure and molecule has an intricate design that is not random but reveals the character of its creator.  There are specific truths that eliminate any form of relative perspective.  The only absolutes are in the character of the creator.

So while we all rely on our surroundings to give us clarity on life, and we all proclaim our belief’s, the difference is in the authority.  It really boils down to two perspectives, are we going to interpret and define our existence with a human, limited viewpoint either collective or personal, or submit to an outside authority that is infinite and in control of everything we know and see.  Of course the real problem is believing in an infinite transcendental authority means being accountable to it as well.  That is why we all have the tendency to hide in the darkness of our perceived reality, it is our only protection from exposure.

So the next time you catch yourself stating something as a fact, ask yourself, “How do I know what is truth? Who makes it true? and What is the purpose?”