Sin boldly

It makes no sense to ask if the metric system is true or the old systems of measurements are false, or if Cartesian coordinates are true and polar ones false.  One geometry cannot be more true than another: it can only be more convenient. 

Jules-Henri Poincare

The universe is derived from an ultimate principle of spiritual consciousness, the one and only existent from eternity.  Accepting this, you become an affirmer of The Void, which is to be understood as the Primordial Nothingness: that is, the raw stuff out of which all is created as well as the background against which every creation can be discerned.

                                                Frank Herbert, Destination: Void.

Because emergence is essentially saying the Creative Force is driving forward and upward, rather than pulling from up above, it is important to get a sense of what that Quality is and when and how it manifests itself as a driving force.  Personally, I believe that developing the faculty to recognize Quality, that sixth sense that “sniffs” out the reality behind the structures, is what becoming a fuller human being is all about.  And I don’t think of this as a separate sacred category that is accessible primarily through the mind.  Just the opposite.  This faculty, I believe, instructs the mind and is applicable as easily (perhaps even more easily) when working wood, maintaining a motorcycle, or raising animals, than it is in some academic or religious arena.  

As Poincare points out, it is in the extremes, whether macro or micro, where we usually get discrepancies of a paradigm.  I often think of these as the margins, or the edges, so that the same principle can also be applied in areas other than the material world.  If I understand Poincare right, he says the pursuit of knowledge and principles is about finding experiments or cases where the theory will fail.  In the subsequent discrepancies, we are forced to find more universal, more encompassing theories.  But Poincare is also very aware that there is some other process going on within the scientist that is guiding her to know where these margins are, where the discrepancies might show up.  Same for the inventor who has an instinct of what to try and what not to bother with.  What guides the scientist or mathematician is at times labeled “beauty”.  In other words, that sixth sense of recognizing the pre-intellectual Reality is a faculty of aesthetics.  

The history of science is precisely this story of great men and women pushing our understanding to new heights by means of following their sense of aesthetics.  The rest of us are eventually won over, but again not because of logic, but because we too, sense the alignment of the new structure with reality.  I like the example of Keplar.  Astronomers had long noticed the “wandering stars”, eventually called planets, which broke from the normal pattern.  There were geocentric formulas, though extremely complex, which were mathematically true in that the paths of the planets could be plotted, even predicted.  Keplar, building on the Copernicus revolution, came up with a relatively simple formula based on elliptical orbits.  At this point in history, it was all abstraction; no image-taking spacecraft had documented anything outside our atmosphere.  Both the geocentric and the heliocentric formulas worked.  The difference was in simplicity.  Particularly that kind of simplicity that we feel when a piece of the puzzle fits just right.  When the interrelationships of things, such as planets and suns, are explained well, we recognize that sort of simplicity or even efficiency in the pattern.  We have participated, perhaps fractally, in these efficient interrelated patterns before and recognize it when the convoluted is compared directly with the simple.

Even though I point to great scientists and historical breakthroughs, I still maintain that this sixth sense is something we should practice constantly in ordinary life.  We may not be choosing between geo- and heliocentric models of planets, but we make hundreds of choices daily that require, what was called as I grew up, discernment.  Whether you are doctor, carpenter, mechanic, professor, accountant, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, you make aesthetic choices.  Personally, I hate doing our business’ accounting.  Quickbooks was not made with our business model in mind and when doing data entry I always feel that discord of patterns.  Cramming numbers into categories that just don’t quite reflect the reality.  So I do my best to make the ‘truest’ choice, but in the end it lacks the integrity of the puzzle pieces making a clear whole.

If you are good at what you do, or have been doing your job well for a long time, your choices are made so fast you no longer become aware of them.  And when you find a system that works, 95% of the time it’s smooth sailing.  But we still run into the margins at times.  Someone in tune to Quality, will recognize these edges immediately and reassess.  In fact, for a great deal of our life, we work under “untrue” paradigms because they function better.  Scientifically we know better, but there is no reason not to work within the framework of sunrise and sunset.  Scientifically we know better, but Newton’s laws are much more applicable to ordinary life.  Yes, sure, time and space are relative, but when you’ve got a business meeting to attend it doesn’t pay to act like it.  

Morally, I believe it holds true as well.  It’s a good principle not to lie and to live honestly.  But when the Nazis knock on your door looking for Jews…  I don’t think I’m the only one who has had a discussion with a fundamentalist who insists that you should still not lie in these situations.  God told us not to lie, so if you obey him, He’ll take care of the rest.  It is a very logical conclusion.  My rejection of it is an aesthetic one.  First, it does not resonate with my own experience, and second, it sounds like the passing of the buck for a hard situation.  I have even heard it argued that telling the truth nonchalantly would throw the Nazi off and the soldiers would probably leave not expecting anyone to admit in such a fashion.  This individual refused to see the irony in that they were advocating a proper way of deception by holding fast to the rule that one should not lie.  A convoluted way to appeal to the spirit of the law as a way to uphold the letter.  That puzzle piece came from an entire puzzle altogether and no matter how it was argued, it was not going to fit in with the interrelating pieces.

Another way to rephrase the issue is to say that when Truth and Goodness seem at odds, it is important to remember which proceeds from the other.  On the Truth side, moral law tells me not to lie.  So if I believe that Goodness proceeds from Truth, I am good when I don’t lie, even to Nazis.  However, if Truth proceeds from Goodness, then it leads me to ask why I am told not to lie.  Personally I think it has something to do with honoring your fellow person.  Once I understand the spirit, or have a feel for the pattern of what’s behind the law, it is a simple, straightforward moral obligation to lie, and to lie as best as I can, because that too, has something to do with honoring my fellow person.