Once & For All

Introduction-

The strange affliction known as philosophy has fevered the minds of many otherwise decent people throughout the ages. Philosophy 101 has driven many a beginning college student to wonder whether ideas might not after all be bad for your health. And the most miserable of all of philosophy's victims are those sad souls who think that ideas are important, and that it matters what the right answers are to the basic questions pondered by philosophers.

The problem, you see, is that philosophy never answers anything. It just punctures the other guy's ideas. Throughout the long history of philosophical thought, not a single question has ever been definitively answered. Lots of people have tried. But philosophers always manage to find the flaws in the arguments, and if there's a flaw, well then, the answer isn't acceptable. In philosophy the only ideas which are acceptable are those which are unassailable. But all ideas are assailable, and philosophers are those people who never tire of pointing this out. Indeed, the professional modus operandi of philosophers is to expend their time and talents pointing out the holes in other people's ideas.

To the extent that philosophers actually believe that their occupation has anything to do with finding the truth, their model of this process is the Coliseum, in which ideas do battle with the lions of criticism and the last idea alive is declared the victor. But there is never a last idea. All ideas are mortal.

Beginning students hate philosophy because they also think it's about finding unassailable answers, and when they see that there are no such ideas this gets them all heated-up, or it puts them to sleep, depending on their temperament.

But the trick is not to find impregnable ideas. The trick is to find ideas which are true--or at least closer to the truth than their competitors. And even the truth is fully assailable--if that's how you get your kicks.

The real business of philosophy is not about punching holes in other people's arguments. The real business is about getting high. It's about the exquisite intoxication which comes from playing with highly-refined ideas. It's about the joy which comes from the play of abstract thoughts as they flirt with the Truth. It's about communing, through the intellect, with the nature of things. It's about tweaking God's beard.

People think philosophy is about finding the Answers, which it might be, if you have the wisdom and humility to understand that answers come when you petition respectfully and listen patiently. Answers are never found in the Coliseum.

And since people will persist in thinking that philosophy is about finding the Answers, in this little ditty I intend to do nothing less than provide the Big Answers to the eternal Big Questions of philosophy. If you are looking for help in figuring some of these things out, perhaps this will help. On the other hand, if you are looking to see if I have a tidy little set of unassailable ideas, then you will without doubt find the self-satisfaction of discovering these ideas are no more water-tight than any others.

A word of warning however. I will not attempt to persuade you that these are, after all, the right answers. I intend instead to simply assert them, with bald-faced audacity. The way I figure it, it ought to be enough that I am tipping you to the Big Answers. I shouldn't have to prove it besides.

Q1: Does God exist?

A1: Yes.

Q2: How do we know?

A2: Certainly not through any process of reasoning or any gesture of "faith" or "belief." Everyone inclined to belief in God, from Aristotle to Mortimer Adler, has confidently asserted their irrefutable proof of God's existence. And everyone disinclined to belief in God has confidently resisted these "proofs."

We ought to catch on after awhile, don't you think?

You can't reason your way to God.

The other silly idea is that by believing such-and-such one somehow comes into God's grace. But of course you must believe just such-and-such and not this-and-that. Unless of course, you belong to another religious tradition, in which case you must believe this-and-that and never such-and-such. But then if you are a so-and-so you know that neither this-and-that nor such-and-such is right, only this-that-and-the-other will do.

We ought to catch on after awhile, don't you think?

Let me make the heresy clear: Belief is absolutely and utterly irrelevant to knowing God. You can believe anything you like, or nothing at all, and it makes no difference. Faith, likewise, is just cover for our deep-seated alienation from a direct communion with the divine.

You know that God exists by direct and immediate experience and by the reports of others with direct and immediate experience. So if this question is of interest to you, stop wallowing in the muck of cynicism and skepticism and stop consoling yourself with the warm dung of belief and faith, and start cultivating the pursuit of this direct experience.

But don't get all tense and despairing about this question. Be of good cheer. God is real, and can you imagine how wonderful that is.

Q3: If there is a God, why is there evil?

A3: First we need to try to get a grip on God, so to speak--- on what that means, and what it doesn't mean.

To say that there is a God is to say that all of creation is a vast, conscious, vital, blissful, loving, divine presence. At least that's what it means when I say it. God is not a person-- not even a REALLY BIG person. Whatever God is, we have to be a little bit less egocentric and anthropomorphic in our conception of it. So it is not as if God was present in some corner of the universe but absent is some other, as might be possible if God were a being of some sort, a person or individual. I can put it most economically by saying: God has being but is not a being. (See, I can talk like a philosopher!)

Under the metaphor of God as a REALLY BIG PERSON, the classical problem of evil is a big deal. And it has been a big deal for most of western philosophy for most of western history. Mainly, I suspect, because most theistic western philosophers have secretly believed in a God who is a REALLY BIG PERSON. The problem of evil is a problem for this model since the image of a God loitering somewhere in some corner of the universe, and evil running rampant in many other corners, suggests God isn't doing a very good job of Universal Cop, and what's a God for, after all, if not to enforce some righteous order on things.

Under the model of God as the universe, things are a little more flexible. The best analogy I know for the nature of God is that of a complex dynamic system. If you examine any large dynamic system, you will see it is a huge grouping of interacting forces and vectors all tending toward some kind of dynamic balance. So within this dynamic system, lots of differing forces are in play. A healthy dynamic system is not necessarily one in which only "good" forces exist. A healthy system is one in which a vital and positive balance exists among the interplay of forces making up that system.

Now, if you're still with me, God is a dynamic system. The universe, everything in the universe, without a molecule of exception, is part of an unimaginably vast dynamic system. This system is a mind-blowing interplay of unimaginably many forces, some of which are "good"and some of which are "bad." To say the universe is a healthy dynamic system is just to say that a positive balance is generally obtained. And to say that there is a God, is just to say that the nature of that positive balance is such that it can accurately be described as a vast, conscious, blissful, loving, divine presence. Not as an article of faith, or as a necessary outcome of some process of reasoning, but as an empirical, experiential fact about the actual dynamic system in which we find ourselves.

And so, to say that there is a God is not to say that the universe must be perfect. It is only to say that the universe must be a dynamic system tending toward a positive dynamic balance. And evil is just those parts of the system that add "noise" or negative forces to the dynamic interplay. So evil is kind of like arthritis in a distal joint. If you have arthritis in your left index finger, does that in any way diminish you as a moral agent? Are you any the less a child of God? Of course not. It does mean, perhaps, that you are not perfect; but perfection is not required. So, evil is just a little arthritis in the body of God. No big deal.

Q3: Why is there something rather than nothing?

A3: Beats me. Beats everyone else too. There are lots of second-hand ideas around, but I wouldn't buy any of them if I were you.

Q4: Is there life after death?

A4: Depends on what you mean..........

Q5: Is reincarnation real?

A5: Probably yes, possibly no.

First off, let's just take note of the fact that some folks want to believe in reincarnation as a backdoor way to rescue their personal identity in this life. But just as life after death does not mean that the YOU YOU ARE NOW will survive your death, so too, reincarnation does not mean that the YOU YOU ARE NOW has lived before. The YOU YOU ARE NOW is a singular event, never to be seen again in any universe in any time. But there may be something that is somehow associated with you that predates the YOU YOU ARE NOW and will survive the disappearance of this you. Whatever that is, and whatever the nature of its association with you, it is THAT which we are claiming reincarnates, and not the YOU YOU ARE NOW. Got that?

The probably yes part is that many people have had experiences in which they appear to remember past lives, and so, the most simple and straightforward explanation is to conclude that these experiences are precisely what they appear to be.

Let me tell you my own small set of experiences of prior lifetimes--just for the hell of it.

Once in the late 1960s I was riding around early one night with my friend Chris as we cruised the back streets of my little hometown in his Volkswagen. I was sucking on the business end of some flaming cannabis sativa leaves (as I used to do much too frequently in that era) and chattering on about some nonsense which I am sure at the time seemed the very essence of profundity itself. All was proceeding as per usual, when all of a sudden I fell through some crack in awareness (I don't know how else to describe it). I found myself in another life. I was an officer of some kind (not necessarily the captain) on a paddlewheel steamer on the Mississippi, in what I assume was the nineteenth century, although I don't know for sure--but it was clearly an earlier time.. I was standing on the left side of boat (is that leeward or starboard?) late one night, leaning on the railing on the second deck and looking out over the river. It was me, not Larry DeWitt, but me nonetheless. I was a mature white male, with a black beard and black hair, wearing my uniform, and looking wistfully and reflectively at the dark presence of the river and listening to the familiar sounds of the riverboat and the rushing water. As soon as I realized what was happening, that I was somebody else, I jerked and with a start found myself back abroad the Volkswagen in the 1960s. Hmmm...

The second experience happened several years ago (look after I had given up the Demon Weed). I was falling asleep one night and I was in that half-awake, half-asleep state (the psychologists call it the hypnogogic state) when I fell through another crack in consciousness (I fall through lots of cracks its seems). I found myself in another body in another time; it was in the past, but I don't know how long ago. I was a young female child; and I was genetically deformed. I was confined to a crib and I was seriously impaired, probably mentally retarded. I noticed that the fingers of my hands had webbing in them, and my head seemed huge and hydrocephalic. Despite my condition, I was clearly aware of myself and my surroundings and saw my predicament I was keenly aware of myself as an aware being stuck in a defective body through which I had only the most limited ability to communicate or express myself, but I was in there as an awareness, a prisoner in my own body. Again, this damaged little girl was definitely me, not Larry DeWitt, but me nevertheless. This identification with my past life lasted for several seconds, until my mind (my Larry DeWitt mind) started to notice that something was amiss and I awoke with a start.

The third, and last, time this happened to me was again when I fell through some odd crack in awareness quite by accident as I was falling asleep (several years after the first experience). This time I found I was a young girl of four or five, in England, and I was standing outside in the country near a big old tree and holding my father's hand as he stood beside me. I remember how small I felt and how big my father seemed and how old the tree looked, and how safe and secure my father's presence made me feel. Again, it was me, but not the me I know today. Some prior me, but me nonetheless. Again, it lasted for only a few seconds, and WHAM, I awoke with a start.

Now if you are keen to deny the reality of such experiences, then of course you can do so. Self-deception, overheated imagination, demon weed, or wishful thinking, are all possibilities. And so, if you are intent on finding a flaw, there are plenty of opportunities. If, instead, you are more interested in getting to the bottom of the matter, you might want to consider these reports as pointing you in the direction you should look. As always, the best evidence is to cultivate these types of experiences for yourself, and then you can be the judge (various meditation practices seem to increase the probability of such experiences).

One alternative explanation of these experiences, one that I think has some potential, is that they are not experiences of our own past lives, but are instead a kind of psychic experience of the mindstream of some other person's actual life. That is, they are mind-reading across time. The noted teacher and healer Patricia Sun has suggested this interpretation, and since she is a lot smarter than I am, she may well be right.

So take your pick. I prefer the simple interpretation, but again, cultivate your own experiences, then you be the judge.

Q6: What is truth?

A6: Truth is that condition which is in harmony with how things are. (Bear with me, this one's a little tough.)

Q7: How do we know the truth when we see it?

A7: It bites you on the butt. (Just kidding. Just checking to see if you're still paying attention after that last question.) (Levels of harmony.........Mud of the earth.......)

............In other words, it bites you on the butt.

Q8: How ought the good man to act? (Forgive the archaic form of expression. Plato used to put it this way, and if it's good enough for Plato, it's good enough for me.)

A8: In deep harmony with the way of things.........Work toward it using things such as the Golden Rule as pointers to keep you heading in the right direction, and as forms of consensual validation. (You will have to work at this one--it ain't gonna be easy.)

Q9: What is beauty?

A9: That which taps into the deep harmony. A kind of momentary flash of that deep harmony.

(Is art the same thing as beauty? Of course not. E.g., beauty can be a spring day-- art may be a Jasper Johns mish-mash.) Art is just that enterprise which seeks to cultivate beauty as its primary product of commerce. So, just by shear luck if nothing else, artists are more frequently associated with beauty than are sausage makers, since artists are fishing in the right waters more of the time.

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? No. Beauty is in the deep harmony of things. But it takes "eyes" to behold this beauty. And different "eyes" see different pieces of the harmony, and no one piece is the preferred one. If that's what you mean, then o.k. But if what you mean is that beauty is only a matter of opinion, then that's not so o.k.

Conclusion-

Those are the answers to the basic questions of ontology, epistemology, ethics and esthetics. That concludes your advanced study in the fundamental questions of philosophy. You are now entitled to forget all about this stuff if you like.

But do me a favor. I have several friends who teach philosophy for a living, and I would hate to see them have to take up heavy lifting. So please pretend, if you will, that these fundamental questions of philosophy are still open. Don't let on that we have solved them once and for all.