I always wondered why I act in such a manic way. Constantly jumping topics, adding cynical remarks, saying stupid things, interjecting anything off the wall, ferociously arguing politics, and mediating these spurts of activity with long silent listening sessions. There is no particular reason why I act the way that I do, or at least I thought.
I recently came to the realization that nothing exists. It started with one of Zeno's paradoxes: the one that shows that movement is impossible. Here goes: To get from point a to a second point, point b, an object has to get to point c, where point c is half way in between point a and point b. But to get to point c, one has to get to point d, which is half way in between point a and point c. And so on and so on to infinity. It follows that for anything to move, it has to cross an infinite amount of points in space. This is impossible, therefore nothing is able to move. That's messed up.
But what does that mean? It means that what we can perceive is an illusion. I let that one stew for awhile. Then I read the end of Plato's dialogue, the Parmenides. It is an argument that concludes with the statement that "if the one is not, nothing is." From the best I can tell, the argument has no flaws. This is odd, it means if everything is not ultimately one thing without differentiation, then nothing exists. Incidentally, everything being one thing is impossible, at least in my view.
Let's come at it in another way, For the materialist, I suppose I'm still a materialist in some sense, all that exists is matter, energy, and nothingness. That seems right, there is absolutely no real proof for immaterial entities except nothingness itself. But, what is matter? It's frozen energy. What is the big bang? A lot of energy moving from a massive and un-caused explosion of space and time. All that really exists, then, is energy: a giant mistake of cosmic imbalance. The universe is a big mistake, it's a negatively charged void. Nothing, ultimately, exists.
But what does this mean for us? We don't exist, nothing that we know as our loved ones exist, nothing we know exists. Is that disturbing? I used to think so, but I've come to reject that conclusion. What is more special than being able to live an illusion that is real? The reason that everything seems the way it is is by an un-caused mistake. That's quite special, in fact, miraculous one might say. A hell of a lot more miraculous than being God's creation. God can kill us at any moment, and create and destroy anything God wants. How boring.
I now know why I act the way I do: I'm afraid if I stop acting the way I do, people will realize that there is nothing to me, that I don't exist. I think I've finally come to accept that conclusion, that I don't exist. What's so wrong with it, to be part of a really messy, imbalanced miracle? Nothing, I think. So here I am, in print on a blog, and I don't exist. That's pretty cool.
Until next time,
Josh
I'm no philosopher, but I'm more interested in the confines and the 'rules' of the illusion we're living in than the concreteness or legitimacy of its existence. Our reality can take on whatever label suits it, but my concern is with how I can interact with or within it. Food for thought perhaps.
ReplyDelete-Kevin
I could write a book in response, probably because it takes a book to properly respond, but I will try to be brief. There is a simple Buddhist reply: in Buddhism one begins with an apple, after some training the person realizes the apple is actually nothing, and then at the highest level of training we return to the apple as something in front of us against the background of the void. The difference between the first and the third realization is minimal, but crucial. This is what Hegel called a determinate negation, a negation of negation, where the subject alienates itself from itself and returns to itself in its otherness. The complicating catch is that for Hegel, and something that Lacanians and Buddhists know all too well, we have to "traverse the fantasy," to use a Lacanian term, we have to go through the Buddhist process insofar as without the return to otherness we never really have the selfsame (the apple) as it is in and for itself, we have nothing from the beginning. That is to say, if we simply focus on the stupid reality of everything, we have nothing, but if we realize that there is nothing, we really have something (double entendre intended). The simple shift in perspective from one to three makes the thing something that is more than the thing has in itself, it illuminates the miracle of anything existing at all even if ultimately everything is meaningless. The most meaning is found in meaninglessness itself.
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