The New World and the Old Made Explicit: Excursus on the Meaning of Life

Only through time time is conquered. 

- Burt Norton

Exploration leads to new cartography. (Americas appear on the European globe; experiments modify theory; relationships lead to words of promise)

New cartography to new questions. (The antique globe suggests possible trade routes; theory has sudden holes; promises suggest future joy or incongruences leading to fissures )

New questions to further exploration. (Poking around for the Northwest Passage; inventing the Hadron Collider; kindling of passion, searching for betrayal)

The only real satisfaction is an entire world understood; the entirety of the terrain traversed, the relations of the whole complete and coherent. The pulling together of all joys, facts, and accomplishments. In every world we are to explore, every world we are given, there is a world to be achieved so that greater satisfaction is to be had. And this is where we find ourselves. Human beings are to explore to achieve satisfaction.

To obtain achievement in this direction is to obtain greater satisfaction. As is stated in The Good Book, human being's purpose is to cultivate a garden for their own enjoyment. And this enjoyment is life. Life is nothing other than complete satisfaction.

But this cultivation is a pain. For we must abandon our old conceptions, abandon everything our self clings to in order to survive. And this is death.

Hence as poets have long known, death and life are inseparable. To achieve life, one must go by the way of death.

Hence also, the scientists. A cell divides. A tree degrades into nutrients for other trees. Theories give way to better ones.

Hence also, the religious. Self denial leads to self fulfillment. And further than this: complete death, leads to complete life: death in service to The Way, leads to Resurrection. And Resurrection is no metaphor, it is the fullness of this process itself.

Truth is an Amoeba

Truth is an amoeba. You might take this to be metaphor; but so taking, you would be only half-right. I mean it literally as well as metaphorically: truth is an amoeba. Still my seriousness will be in doubt; how can a simple-minded (or rather, no-minded) single celled organism be related to truth itself, let alone be it?

There are many apparent problems with my identification. Truth is thought to be an abstract concept, not a concrete happenstance, not a living, changing organism, and not a humble thing. But all should become clear in consideration and meditation on what truth is. In reflection and in surprise (perhaps), we will come to see that truth is indeed literally an amoeba.

Since truth is literally an amoeba, we can start on either end. We can consider truth and, under the microscope, discover that it is a little organism; or we can go the other way: see in the amoeba’s grasping its environment, eating its prey, the entirety of all qualities of truth. But for a full identification, it seems necessary for both ends to meet; otherwise, we might think one might be fooled into thinking that an amoeba is truth, but truth is not an amoeba.

Truth => Amoeba

Truth is something we strive for, yes. And we don’t strive for an amoeba, certainly. Nevertheless truth is something recognized: we notice it when we have it. When we make a discovery, learn how to perform an action, realize a relationship; a rush of satisfaction, saying that the pieces of our life’s puzzle has come together. And when the pieces fit in any puzzle, we say we have gotten things correct. Our satisfaction tells us we have achieved truth.

Reality is a big puzzle however, and so truth is something we always pursue. So in what way do we pursue the truth? We use our bodies to probe the world around us, taking in ideas to digest pieces of digestible environment to satisfy our hunger for truth. This process is very ameoba-like, suggestive that truth is like an amoeba’s striving for mastery of its environment.

Yet some would say that this is metaphor. Truth-seeking is an ameoba-like process. But truth isn’t an amoeba. And I would say “no.” Truth is literally an amoeba. The way we should think about it is this. Truth-seeking and truth should not be strictly differentiated. They are in fact the same. When we see this, we see that “truth is an ameoba-like process.” But then! We see that being amoeba-like is very much being an amoeba. Then we realize what I’ve been saying all along: truth is an amoeba.

If truth-seeking and truth are utterly different, then it turns out these two words no longer have any meaning. For then how can we say our truth-seeking is real truth-seeking if truth is not an experience: namely, the satisfaction of achieving coherence in one’s world of experience? Thus truth is an experience, and part of an action, the action of seeking-truth. And we cannot refer to truth-seeking without an idea of truth. And again, the idea of truth cannot be separated from truth seeking. For how do we think of truth, or how do we realize what it is? It is only by reflection upon our truth-seeking endeavors. Thus truth is an ameoba-like process.

But how is being an amoeba similar to undergoing amoeba like processes? Basically this can be said by turning the old phrase: “if it looks like an amoeba, smells like an amoeba, and talks like an amoeba, it is an amoeba.” Thus truth is an amoeba.

Amoeba => Truth

But literally? Ok, I exaggerated, in a sense. Truth isn’t literally that squishy single celled organism. But nevertheless truth is an amoeba, literally; and I do not speak out of both sides of my mouth in saying this. I am simply not using language in as strict a sense as you might like it. But my meaning is frank and clear, and though you may not like it, you know what I mean. And when language conveys meaning clearly, it is mere nitpicking and mere nagging to quibble over words.

And really, given the above, in what way is truth not an amoeba? In no significant sense. You might have the following objections. (a) Truth is disembodied, and an amoeba is embodied. (b) Amoebae are not sentient. Truth needs experiencers for it to be considered truth.

But we will see that each of these objections is ill-founded.

(a) We have seen above that truth is something we reach using whatever embodied faculties we have. And since truth-seeking is embodied, and since any strict demarkation between truth-seeking and truth is absurd, we must say that truth is embodied too.

Further if we see life as part of one big tree where what came before and what came after is all connected, where we are ourselves connected to the amoeba, our bodies are related to the amoeba, then even my “admission of exaggeration” was really unnecessary, and we really can say that truth is an amoeba. 

(b) A last objection would be this: truth is appreciated only by minds, and minds are not physical entities. Minds think. Amoeba don’t think in a meaningful sense; they don’t apprehend truth. In actual fact, this objection is the worst, and it has nothing going for it. For truth we have seen is an embodied affair,  and attempts to separate our minds from our bodies, our faculties of investigation, is futile. Sentience must then be seen as the purposeful investigation of the world. Both persons and amoeba do this, only at different levels and for different purposes.

In closing, I’ll repurpose an old proverb.

Go to the amoeba, you close-minded; consider its ways and be wise; which has no fixed position within its world, yet lives and dies, steadily gaining command over its world, striving to gain mastery, and not regretting its humble position.

EAIM: Can We Know Reality?

"Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality."
- T.S. Eliot in Burnt Norton

Let's suppose that we can't. This means we know something about reality.

Let's say we can't know whether or not we know something about reality. This means we're saying we know something about reality.

Looks like we're stuck knowing reality.