Hope, Truth And A Dose Of Something That Might Be, But Probably Isn't, Quantum Physics
I've been reading Rob Riemen's Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal and today I came across a passage where he quotes Camus, who wrote to a friend,
Only one thing on earth seems to me to be a greater good than justice—and that is, if not truth itself, the pursuit of truth. We don't need hope, we just need truth.
I'm not so sure I agree. Can hope and truth exist without one another? Or no: better to say, can we as human beings exist without both? That is, exist in a way that does honor to what we are? Although even as I write that, I hear Jesus' words in my head, when he said to the disciples once, "You know not what manner of spirit you are of." So that leads me to the question, what are we anyway? Can we find out the truth without hope? I would think that hope provides the motivation to seek out and pursue truth. But what if we do find truth, and it teaches us that there is nothing to hope for?
Ouch, my brain hurts.
On a tenuously related note, I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day on Gchat. We were talking about God and he was telling me about how his idea of God is inspired somewhat by his understanding of quantum physics (and here I'm pretty sure I'm about to mangle both my friend's understanding of God and whatever quantum physics is really all about, so I apologize in advance to my friend as well as any scientists who might, however improbably, be following this blog); that is, that God, existing outside of time in the realm of infinity, thus contains everything that not only has happened but that could happen. Every conceivable possibility is in God. So when I responded to that with, "My head just exploded," my friend said that somewhere, I guess in a parallel universe or something, that really happened and that in that parallel time and place, he felt bad about making my head explode and then HIS head exploded. Which made me laugh, in this universe.
Quantum physics is nothing if not very strange. And somewhat entertaining, at least if it's anything like the way I understand it, which I admit is highly doubtful. But anyway, I just hope I'm always living in the universe in which my head remains firmly attached to my body, intact. And that's the truth.
Only one thing on earth seems to me to be a greater good than justice—and that is, if not truth itself, the pursuit of truth. We don't need hope, we just need truth.
I'm not so sure I agree. Can hope and truth exist without one another? Or no: better to say, can we as human beings exist without both? That is, exist in a way that does honor to what we are? Although even as I write that, I hear Jesus' words in my head, when he said to the disciples once, "You know not what manner of spirit you are of." So that leads me to the question, what are we anyway? Can we find out the truth without hope? I would think that hope provides the motivation to seek out and pursue truth. But what if we do find truth, and it teaches us that there is nothing to hope for?
Ouch, my brain hurts.
On a tenuously related note, I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day on Gchat. We were talking about God and he was telling me about how his idea of God is inspired somewhat by his understanding of quantum physics (and here I'm pretty sure I'm about to mangle both my friend's understanding of God and whatever quantum physics is really all about, so I apologize in advance to my friend as well as any scientists who might, however improbably, be following this blog); that is, that God, existing outside of time in the realm of infinity, thus contains everything that not only has happened but that could happen. Every conceivable possibility is in God. So when I responded to that with, "My head just exploded," my friend said that somewhere, I guess in a parallel universe or something, that really happened and that in that parallel time and place, he felt bad about making my head explode and then HIS head exploded. Which made me laugh, in this universe.
Quantum physics is nothing if not very strange. And somewhat entertaining, at least if it's anything like the way I understand it, which I admit is highly doubtful. But anyway, I just hope I'm always living in the universe in which my head remains firmly attached to my body, intact. And that's the truth.
posted by grackyfrogg @ 11:40 AM
1 Comments:
At 10:56 PM ,
Carl G. said...
Hope and truth- how could we ever pursue truth without having hope that such a venture might prove fruitful?
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