Cologne, 2005-02-18

Foreword

I've been working on this piece for awhile; the previous time I called it On Faith, and then withdrew it because I was too unhappy with it; I wanted to make it larger, encompass more points, reflect on various stances philosophers have taken on it over time. This still holds, and yet, after some months of reading, working on the revised edition, I find I have to start over and try a smaller approach. I found that I could not find the quietness needed to fill the bigger template I had in mind, could not find the time to edit it to my satisfaction. It works out considerably better for me if I divide my thoughts into pieces which I can flesh out faster, while the heat of emotions has not yet left me; I simply have a fulltime job to fill which does not allow me to hide a couple of weeks in my study. With this in mind, I'll try to break this work up into bite sized pieces again, and maybe one day find time to bring it all together once more. If you can stay with me to the end, you will find some topics I could see for future work or open questions which still concern me; and I don't expect that list will ever be empty.

Now, on to what I want to say this time.

Looking back

Looking back at my heated essay The Abyss at the End of Reason - written right at the edge of it -, I would like to offer another perspective. At the time I wrote this, I was drawn down into this very abyss (by events which are too personal to elaborate here), deep, deep down, right to the ground, from which I almost did not recover, and I still feel its pull. I wanted and want this to show in that essay, and editting it out to achieve a calmer position would not do justice to the desperate battle I fought.

I still maintain that what I said is true, and want to briefly summarize it as it is the foundation on which this article builds - however, the summary will be considerably less heated, as far as my feelings on this matter allow. And add a new perspective, which is not quite as negative, even though it does not bring the answers I'm looking for yet.

If one is faced with something which shatters whatever worldview one has, an intelligent human being may turn to reason to seek an answer, a sense of direction and motivation. But our rationality, when turned loose, is a traitor - it destroys everything under the pretense that it ``just'' wants to find answers. Questioning and skepticism is an eternal recursion, which leaves nothing whole, and will consequently reach and destroy any reason one might have seen in one's life. No emotional motivation will survive the endless inquiries, nothing will stand against this tireless assault.

I also find that when I turn to philosophy, many, many greater minds than I have run into the same: Descartes, Kant, Pascal, Saint Augustine, to name just a very few. I won't expand on this too much here though; maybe I'll discuss my position relative to a specific philosopher in separate comments.

The point I want to make here is that none of them succeeded in building there world on rationality alone, even though some tried. For to answer the question of meaning in life, every single philosopher has strayed from it eventually. Even Kant (along many others before and after him) could not succeed to provide a truely consistent unquestionable proof. After having provided one of the most excellent treatments of the limits of rationality in history, he sought to transcend it using its own rules - arguably he did not succeed. Convincing to some, maybe, but not provably correct.

Augustinus, in his amazing de utilitate credendi, argued with ratio the unavoidable necessity of faith versus the Manichean promise; and it is clear that Pascal has followed this lead, and I have to admit that Augustinus argument is compelling.

I am forced, by experience, to agree with this. Philosophy which proclaims ratio to be the only source of knowledge and the only permissible tool of human reason is deeply flawed, for it shuts its eyes to the fact that ratio can only work from axioms, not define them. Philosophy which still falls into this trap after thousands of years falls prey to self-adulation and stupidity.

The bottom of the abyss

I can still very clearly recall the day I hit the bottom, and it was soft and felt like a void. I was laying in my bed, exhausted, phlegmatic, tired, totally disinterested in everything and anything. Not even suicide appealed to me at all - why change anything? I recall the phone ringing, and knowing that it was a friend of mine, who worried that I might be doing something just as stupid, and briefly wondered about whether I ought to get up and answer it. But then, what difference would it make? Just why do anything? Eventually, the phone stopped ringing.

But I've come back, writing, so obviously something roused me again from this sleep.

What did I find at the bottom of said abyss? After my ratio has torn everything it found to pieces, nothing was left, except for itself. Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte, der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht, ist wie der Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte, in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht... I was circling myself, in a space which became tighter and tighter.

Just why was I asking the questions?

And I found I could not answer this. When I tried questioning this question, it proved to be recursive; asking the question on itself yields itself once more.

So what was the driving force asking this question? I have no idea, and still do not. I realized then that ratio would not pull me out of this pit again. So why was I trying? What was this tiny little force which tried to find a reason for living? I have no idea. I realized further that I could abandon my questions and stay down there - starving and dieing in the more dramatic visions, but more likely, being put under supervision in an asylum.

Or I could pull myself back out, for whatever reason I was asking that question, and go on living.

It was my decision. That was what it boiled down to. No answer could claim any provable advantage.

Hoc volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas! What was meant as satire by Iuvenal turns out not to be. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. (Luke 6:31, King James version), Do what you will as long as it harms none (Wiccan Rede), Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. (Crowley), the Golden Rule, don't they all express the very same concept - although most of the time relating to ethics and morale, not so often dealing with the question of why?

Decisions can transcend rationality

So, obviously I decided to go on living, or else you would not be reading this.

This is a very powerful tool: we can decide on an answer to any question, even if rationality cannot provide it. Or, to make this an even stronger statement and paraphrasing von Foerster, it is only the undecidable questions we can decide. All others are pre-determined by ratio from preceding axioms (which some might call religion) or previous decisions, and deciding them differently causes inconsistencies - which at least to me would be an unappealing weakness.

Let me stray for some time and briefly touch on the various modes of decision; for reference, these different kinds have already been differentiated by Augustinus in de.util., but they still hold:

If we reach a decision based on all axioms, facts, and rules being available (for example, when evaluating a mathematical equation), we can prove our answer - with respect to the axioms it is based on - true or false.

If we make a decision because we do not yet have all data available, time being too short or other constraints prohibiting us to fully research it, but in the full knowledge that such constraints exist, we establish a hypothesis, or make an educated guess. Those can eventually be revised as more data becomes available. These are powerful and needed tools, but not the concern of this rather brief essay.

If however we make a decision fooling ourselves into believing we have all the data needed, and thus believing we reached a statement of truth. This case is the most dangerous of all, and many prejudices are based on this. Mistaking beliefs and assumptions for facts is a great fallacy, and truely despisable in intelligent beings, and if there ever has been a sin, it is this.

But we can also make a decision in response to questions which cannot ever be answered, because they transcend rationality, in the full knowledge that this is so. In said heated previous essay, I called these lies; and yes, to rationality alone, they are, or might as well be. They are unproven, cannot ever be proven, and are bound to be subjective and clash with those made by others, with little or no ability to arbitate who is right and who is wrong. The question about the meaning of life is exactly one of these, and probably the most fundamental one.

However, they are a way to bridge the abyss and continue living. These decisions provide the framework for rationality to operate in; they are the axioms on which rationality builds the world.

Some of these axioms seem unquestionable to us; causality (as exemplified in Schopenhauer's thesis on The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason), the fact that 1+1=2 and others. However, all of these can be questioned; it is true that the reality resulting from such criticism may not be compatible with ours and thus not ''sane'', but it is possible nonetheless. I believe this is the point Pirsig struggled to make in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: that our concept of sanity and science indeed is nothing but just another arbitary set of axioms, and ultimately just as vain; just it appears to be helpful in everyday life.

This is the realm of metaphysics. Hypothesis is too weak a word for capturing the full scope of the consequences of such a decision; a hypothesis is what we build on top of it. The only word I found which truely captures the essence is Faith.

The meaning of life

Thus, we can decide on an answer to the question of the meaning of life and chose to believe it for ourselves; we place our faith in it, and from this we draw our strength and motivation in life.

Other questions for which the same holds are the existance of God's existance, whether everything is pre-determined, what is good and what is bad, et cetera. We can choose to believe or not, but we cannot prove.

Ultimately, what and how we choose thus does not matter; I cannot give you rational reasons for choosing one above the other which could be proven beyond doubt. But this is an important question to ponder, and I would not chose my answer lightly. Some possible aspects of the answer seem to please me more than others, some I find utterly revolting and beyond insanity. Whether this points to a 'resonance' with the laws and principles of the universe or whether I feel God's spirit I do not know, and claiming such would be pretentious; I will leave this to less scrupulous organizations and individuals.

To myself, it strikes me prudent to try and minimize these arbitary decisions, and try to deduce the rest from a limitted set of axioms, which are logically consistent; playing Nomic with my life. Less rules means more flexibility within them, and realizing they can be changed. I have no moral highground to those who choose differently, either knowingly or unknowingly though; let them be. In this, I have mellowed quite a bit, and I can only thank the one being who brought to my attention that contradictions could be the spice of life, too, even though or rather exactly because they are not consistent, and do not need to be unified always.

Choosing our faith and religion

Churches and religion are one way of institutionalizing faith, and to tell the truth, I am personally not overly in favour of them. For it is true they provide the shelter for their lambs, and if you grow up in their herd, you might never know the despair of questioning the very essence of your life. But they have too often been abused as cheap ways to control the masses - not only to provide guidance, but to control, but to subdue. This is a cheap and despisable exploitation.

But what is more important to me is that I believe that what we believe is what defines us; we should consciously choose it. Growing up in the herd of a church may be a provisional answer, as good or bad (whatever that might imply) as any other, and I have no issue with this or people who choose to stick with it.

Yet, I feel this decision and awareness is the true turning point in life, when one passes from child-hood to adult-hood, the true initiation rite. (And it saddens me to say that many grown-up people seem to have managed to avoid it; but then, did I not manage to not face it myself for years?) I also believe this is fairly related to Kant's concept of autonomy.

But at the same time, having grown up surrounded by a given faith may provide one with a position to accept even if one does not want to make said decision, and one which is shared with one's community. This can clearly be beneficial, and weight in to stick with our heritage and traditions, for a clash in belief and fundamental assumptions is a harsh thing to overcome, if at all.

Alas, I think it is a choice one should make, and not one to be protected from. If I had my way, I would make education in philosophy mandatory, trying to faciliate a free decision by every one; both for their beliefs and faith, but also whether or not they want to live or not. By this decision we accept responsibility for our actions, and also for our beliefs, for our success and for our mistakes.

Augustinus, as briefly mentioned above, argues in de utilitate credendi that faith and beliefs are unavoidable. We have no choice as to whether we have them, they are the very basis of any life, and even more so of any social interaction (for we have to have expectations, faith, and trust in others and the world to interact with it at all); we might remain unaware of them, accepting them implicitly and unquestioning like children, or pretending that we can rationally know them (and fall into the trap). Or we can try to consciously choose, and even then be painfully aware that there are many assumptions and implicit beliefs we will never discover.

By rejecting every belief, life would become unlivable, to which I will testify. You pays your money, and you takes your choice.

In adapting the famous law set forth in Catch-22, one could argue that to live a rational life, one has to be irrational. The only impossible decision is not to decide., for this is a choice.

Abuse of faith - in defense of rationality

This essay is not meant to attack the usefulness and the value of logic and rationality. They are very useful assets indeed, and likely some of the greatest human gifts. They have helped many great advancements, but unfortunately also caused much harm. But then, so has misguided faith; it seems they play well together.

Believing what could be known can only be described as one word: Superstitution. And I do not approve of it, I despise it.

Faith is too important to be wasted on questions of whether the earth is flat or round or whether thirteen is a lucky number or not.

We should use rationality and logic where applicable; to deduce and prove mathematical formulas, to gather empirical data in science, to construct a rational model of the world in physics. We may choose to make a guess about areas where we simply do not have all data, but we should always be willing to revise it.

But when man tries to prove the unprovable, man makes a fool of himself, and wastes his gifts, and does not make any progress.

The absolutism in faith

One should also not confuse one's own faith with absolute truth. It is true that we have to believe it to be true for ourselves; but just as we have chosen to believe so, someone else might have choosen to believe differently. It is inherently impossible to reach provable agreement on one position here, for each side is just as entitled to their choice.

However, too often each side will fiercely defend their own position - it is the core of their world, afterall! - ignoring that it is just an arbitary decision on their part, and try to enforce their beliefs and faith on others. This has caused many tragedies, both small and great.

I also believe this is somewhat inherent to many monotheistic religions; I may be wrong, but this is my feeling and looking at history, I believe that it is closer to truth than to error. A monotheistic religion claiming to be the one true faith and setting forth the one true set of rules for life, revealed by the one and only God, by that very claim it belittles others and denies them true respect. It divides the world into good and bad, a simplicity appealling to many, but revolting to me.

Even quite certainly highly intelligent Pascal fell deep into this one when he abandoned philosophy for Christianity. The decision itself I do not argue at all; however, to defend his new found refuge, he began to attack all others. This I can only despise, with all due respect to his great mind.

Tentatively I would suggest that it may be helpful to choose to put your faith in something which does not require everybody else to share it.

On the other hand, 'judging' someone by their beliefs is the only way to judge them - as everything they do will stem from these. I believe this is not harmful, as long as this does not mean we belittle them.

There remains the question of ultimate arbitation: If worlds collide, which set of morales and ethics and laws takes precedence? Force seems brute; a pure majority vote diminishes the right of smaller groups who are quite happy the way they live. I have no final answer, and I refuse to reduce this to a simplistic decision. Personally, I would stick to Voltaire, as long as noone tries to enforce their beliefs on me, in wish case I reserve the right to defend mine by all means at my disposal. I believe it is right to intervene and help others in achieving the same, if they ask for help - and making them aware of the possibility of help if they do not know it. But I am straying too far.

Future work

If I may be so bold, I find that this is the base for individualistic ethics and morale. It places a high responsibility and power in the individual for the decisions made consciously or intentionally unconsciously, ie for the areas where the individual did not take the chance to educate and reflect themselves.

Just to be show how broad this scope could be, let me point out that even the RACK versus SSC clearly raises the same issues, of responsibility taken for risks aware and unaware, even though it deals with a much less fundamental question.

Stepping one level up again, one could say this leads to radical constructivism being applied to faith and religion, which I find a very interesting concept to play with. As Hugh puts it in his Hughtrain manifest (even if it is again from quite a different background), the market for something to believe in is infinite.

As hinted at above, the mere question of arbitating between such obviously totally relative personal choices when they interact and interfere with eachother alone could fill volumes; from mere two humans's love up to the laws and wars governing international politics.

Love and partnership are particularly interesting, as they had great influence in getting me to think about this topic; which is why I dare bore you with one long paragraph about them: love can be said to be reflecting the other(s) in our own self. As no two people are ever one hundred percent aligned in their beliefs, this must lead to inconsistencies, contradictions, and thus friction, be it great or small, is unavoidable. Yet, each position is entitled to the very same respect by the other, otherwise how could there be love? And yet again, this very respect can cause the friction to grow; because we understand the 'conflicting' position to be just as important to us than our own, and strive with all our might to solve this conflict - thereby making it worse, which in turn requires more effort to be spent on it. I at least have spent countless hours and days discussing this, and 'wasted' many a tear. I hope that one day I will be able to strike the balance between accepting the enrichment of differences and the required 'base alignment' needed to make it all work. I also wish I had fully realized this much earlier; but here I am, and not the sincerest apology can change the past, it is the future only which we can shape.

In summary

After all these theories, where does this leave me? I feel it left me stronger than before; less rigid, more flexible, less egocentric, more accomodating, less sure of myself and my world; and without a need to be.

I still don't have any good answer as where to turn. Here, I am still looking for inspiration; for something to kindle this fire, and to motivate me to get up every morning, how to shape my relationships, who will be by my side, what to strive for in my life and what to ignore.

I have never felt unable to achieve whatever I set my mind and soul to; now I have set them to question of what I want to set my mind and soul to. Of course, this is only an interim answer, but as good as any other.

Sometimes, I still have flashbacks to the depths of the abyss; I guess this will never leave me. But I have set my mind to it that I will not be defeated, least of all by myself. Why? It does not matter, and yet, it is the only issue that matters at all.

This will require more time; I have not abandoned the wish to shape my own life, and to have directions for it. I do not wish to just flow along; this is just as tempting as deciding against it all or succumbing to some prepackaged faith, but it is not in my nature.

I would rather have plans and have them fail to drift along with no resistance ever; only by comparing the difference between our dreams and reality we can fully appreciate them both. Without eachother, they become meaningless; and even though they are, that is entirely my own decision.

I have handed the lead over to my whimsical will, made up of my passions and soul. Ratio is the advisor and still has a veto, but ultimately it's just a tool to think of a strategy for satisfying our passions within the constraints we call the world and our ethics; likewise, our body by its fingers, its voice and senses is the tool which ultimately has to put the rubber to the road. Getting all of these players together seems to be the eternal spiritual quest.

I'm not yet sure where that road will lead me. Life remains interesting.