Groundwork 2

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Spoon boy: There is no spoon.

Neo: There is no spoon?

Spoon boy: Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

The Matrix presents many great concepts that analogize reality, but this is not one of them.  The spoon conversation suggests notions that are built on Nihilism.  Do we exist?  If so, is reality just in our minds?  Do material things exist?  Are we just being lied to by some supreme being to believe that we exist?  It’s all very ironic because the very mechanism, i.e. thought and reason, one uses to conclude that Nihilism is correct, is itself discredited by the theory.

In high school, one of my favorite classes was Humanities, with Mrs. Zabilka.  Most of my teachers were dry and boring, but not her.  She engaged our group of presumptuous teenagers with insightful teaching, and challenging conversation.  One time she actually took us to an art museum.  What a profound experience.  We provided the gallery guards and Mrs. Zabilka with profound stress that afternoon.  The guards made sure to keep our mischievous eyes in view.  Mrs. Zabilka caught us smoking cigars behind the field trip school bus and didn’t turn us in after we promised to never do it again.  She was very gracious.

During the normal school day, we had her for split lunch, which meant, half of class was before lunch and half after.  We always beat her back to the room.  The door would be locked, so we would always present her with some type of crazy formation in the hall.  As she rounded the corner, we would all be laying on the middle of the hallway floor or doing handstands against the wall.  We would always get a great reaction of amazement and laughter as she would shew us into class.  The reason the door was locked was because we pulled some shenanigans in the room too.  One time, I got into her closet, put on her coat, and hid.  She returned to class without noticing that I was gone.  Suddenly, she stopped and said, “Where’s John?”  At that moment, I jumped out of the closet took her in my arms and danced with her.  She was a great sport!

Anyway, there was a kid in that class that bought into Nihilism.  He used to say, “I could walk through that wall if I wanted to."  We would defy him to do it, and of course he wouldn’t.  ‘Then you'll see that it is not the wall that bends, it is only yourself.’

A simple definition of Nihilism provided by the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy…

Many people may not realize they are influenced by Nihilism, but they operate under its premises.  Whenever a skeptic finds him or herself backed into a corner in a debate, he or she inevitably resorts to the safe haven of relativity and Chaos.  In relativity, one can never “know” and never be wrong.  The irony is why ever come out of chaos and relativity to argue at all?  In Chaos, there is no need for argument, because in that place there is no good or evil.  There, we may not even exist.

On the other hand, it is apparent that any time we are self-aware or interact with one another, we engage in rationality, certainties, and meaningfulness.  They are what separate humans from animals and the sane from madness.  You can’t have it both ways.  Either you accept existence and argue about it, or sharpen your claws and go hunt gazelles.  Why spend hours and hours of time philosophizing, writing books, and debating over the fact that we don’t really exist and that there is no meaning.  It’s an absolute contradiction. 

Of course if you are of the postmodern persuasion, absolute contradictions can comfortably come out of the same mouth.  I’ve done it.  As a matter of fact, at times, it feels like my native tongue.  It’s great.  You can have your cake and eat it too, for a while anyway.  Eventually, it catches up with you.  Much of the reason for postmodernism is double-mindedness.  People want money and power, but don’t want to work for it.  People want to get drunk, but not have a hangover.  People want to have illicit sex, but not be lonely.  People want to eat whatever they want, but not be fat.  Ask the people walking around with oxygen tanks if you can have it both ways.

Many embrace total contradictions because they are alienated from moral absolutes and restraint.  One reason why moral absolutes and restraint are so distasteful is because most everyone, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing, has had a destructive encounter with authority figures who absolutely abuse morality and restraint.  These authority figures twist so-called morality into a means of control and exploitation.  As it is said, “…you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”  It’s a disgusting sickness.  I digress.

In essence, Nihilism says we don’t really exist, or can’t know if we do or not.  It’s hard to even talk intelligently about it without immediately contradicting oneself.  Of course, for the Nihilist, if we are nothing and are nowhere, then there is no rational starting point from which we would leave in order to be contradictory.  For example, if we were all idiots, we would all be normal.  But because most people are “normal”, only the idiots are idiots, because you can compare them against “normal”.  So, Nihilists don’t contradict themselves because they believe that they have nothing against which to measure themselves.  It’s like they are in a vast expanse of nothingness.  No wonder it is “often associated with extreme pessimism.” But, if one has a starting point, if we exist, there is something to discuss.

But let me further point out, I just wrote, “It’s like they are in a vast expanse of nothingness.”  But that is even a contradiction.  A nihilist believes that we are not.  We can’t even inhabit the place called “nothingness,” because we aren’t here.  Do you see what I mean?  It’s very confusing.  Who’s talking?  Who’s trying to convince me we don’t exist?

In addition, how can the notion of  “third person” exist?  If this world is all a projection from your or my mind, how can you and I both think about something that is not apart of us?  How can we disagree on something?  Why do third parties affect us without our control?

It’s like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonder Land.  Alice keeps trying to change her reality because thinks she is just dreaming.  Not so.  Alice discovers that she is in fact in another world.  Other agents do not fall under her control.  They affect her without her permission.  So to, we find ourselves.  We are not in control of everything out there.  More accurately, we control very little “out there”.  If someone bends a spoon and jabs it in your eye, you won’t be able to think it away.  It’s not your dream.  At the very least, we’re in someone else’s dream, and there is no escaping it.

At the age of 7 or 8, I remember getting literally sick to my stomach trying to fathom eternity.  I got very little comfort from my mother’s dismissive comments.  I remember feeling trapped in my own skin.  My mouth started to salivate uncontrollably, and I had a sudden urge to run somewhere and throw up.  I couldn’t breath.  I wished I could get out side of it all.  (I wonder if Billy Corgan felt the same when he sang ‘Despite all my rage, I’m still just a rat in a cage.’)  As my brain raced through the various rabbit trails I remember thinking that there was only one solution in order to escape: to not ever exist.  But that wasn’t possible.  I was there, and I was nauseous.  I didn’t have control over things.  “I’m stuck here,” I thought.  I’ve had to either deal with this world or distract my mind.

Evidently, others look desperately for explanations too.  Many will defy the apparent reality of first principles to feel better.  Existence and or the lack of meaning may appear to be too painful.  Therefore, they look through rationality, defy their conscience, and enter chaos in order to derive comfort from losing all meaning.  But, ironically, it takes rationality to think your way into irrational chaos.  When a mind wakes up at that uncertain young age, it’s stuck here to figure it out.

Some unwittingly accept Nihilism as a viable principle.  Some are very purposeful about lodging it into modern minds.  Either way, it is utterly ironic that the ability to even think enough to come up with the notion, contradicts the belief.  Nihilism has to work really hard and dodge several bullets to make the theory work.

I think C.S. Lewis says it best.  But you cannot go on "explaining away" forever; you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on "seeing through" things forever.  The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.  It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque.  How if you saw through the garden too?  It is no use trying to "see through" first principles.  If you see through everything than everything is transparent.  But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To "see through" all things is the same as not to see.

It is apparent that we are here.  It does us no good to “see through” our ability to think in order to say that we have no capacity to think.

Other than the fact that Nihilism is irrational, there are other reasons to believe we exist.  Until next time…