Dear Tricky,
It is not the things which can be divided – things can be divided ad infinitum – but their relationship to the Universe which cannot. No matter how much we divide, all things in the universe still retain their relationship to the Universe as a whole.
I disagree. The relations to the universe
can be divided. There are many ways that individual parts of the universe "relate" to the universe. There is mass, composition, location... really all sorts of things, and each can be described as a separate relationship.
No matter how much we divide, all things in the universe still retain their relationship to the Universe as a whole.
I don't see any evidence for this statement. It sounds like a statement of blind faith.
Analogously, my heart may be divided from my body, but remains a heart in conceptual relationship to my body as a whole.
Your heart can be removed and put into another body. Or your body can have the heart removed and replaced by another real or artificial heart. So this is a very bad analogy.
The idea is the important thing here, not the endless divisibility of created things. It adds to our understanding that the laws of the universe which we adduce are mere reflections of a single Law expressing itself as the relationship between the One and the Many;
I cannot see that it adds anything to our understanding. It adds nothing but a layer of mysticism which adduces nothing useful.
i.e. each particle’s pairwise relationship with another particle is but a secondary feature of the particle’s relationship with the universe as an indivisible whole. The utility of this concept, at least, lies in reinforcing our ability to operate in the realm of classical art and science, rather than in “anything goes” art and “we can never know truth” science.
Again, I see nothing useful in this concept. Yes, there is but one universe and it comprises may parts. That's all you can say. To get anything useful, you have do break it down to the parts. While there are many complex relationships between some of the parts (for example the ecology of the earth), they may have no significant impact on the universe as a whole.
I have no idea what you mean by "anything goes" art. You don't like Picasso?
As for science, it is the best tool we have for determining truth, but certainly we can never know everything.
Explaining Learned Ignorance to an attentive six-year-old is a challenge I hope to pass, perhaps not today, but some day. I remember first coming to these matters and feeling the way I felt when I was a child, learning about the mysteries of Number for the first time. In essence, these things should be explicable to children, if only the adults involved are sufficiently “ignorant” in the proper sense.
It is certainly true that it is easier to get children to believe things than adults, which is why so many religions try to indoctrinate the children as soon as they are able to communicate. But children are also quite naive in their beliefs. The use of critical thinking has to be taught as they grow up, so that they don't grow up still believing in the Easter Bunny. To get an adult to believe in the Easter bunny would require a "sufficiently ignorant" adult.
I understand your reluctance to add to your reading list: I am very much likewise – but if nothing else I would suggest reading the passage describing how an infinite line is an infinite circle, to get a sense of how apparently different concepts begin to merge at the highest level.[1]
Did you provide a link somewhere? I don't see it.
A circle is one kind of line, and yes if you travel along it, you will cross the same points again and again. A vector, however, is a unidirectional line and it never crosses the same points twice even if it approaches infinity. I seriously doubt that any spiritual reading will convince me to abandon my basic knowledge of geometry.
On truth, beauty, and goodness, two people may disagree but that speaks nothing to the truth of the matter. Two fools may disagree as may two wisemen. The intolerability of oneness, equality, and unity you mention is entirely the case: Cusa would probably agree that the Truth is to the unprepared eye as a consuming fire.
I am unconvinced that you are able to speak for Cusa. But your symbolism of consuming fire is quite old. In Greek mythology, you could not look upon the gods (unless they had taken earthly form). But, like all myths, there is no evidence this exists. I do not believe Cusa knows capital-T Truth any more than I do. If you wish to convince me, you need to use evidence and logic, not legend and metaphor.
We as created beings cannot tolerate it and must dwell in the shadows called Creation.
How do you know? Have any tried? I mean really, not in legend.
Their disagreements, indeed their highest expressions of truth etc., must be discordant due to its lack of perfection. Without discord, there is no conflict and so no progress, for if all is perfect, whence cometh discord and conflict?
Um... is this just a circumlocutory way of saying "we don't know everything"? If so, I agree. Each question we answer asks even more questions. I kinda like that. It means we will never be bored.
My judgement on what is good is of small worth, but not worthless. In essence, and Cusa would agree with this were the terms explained to him, good is that which advances human mastery over the universe in terms of potential population density per square kilometre.
Again speaking for Cusa? Can't he speak for himself?
But we each have a moral code on what is good and what is not. They may differ significantly. I believe they tend to be most alike when they regard things which cause humanity to prosper, such as not killing each other, which is similar to what you seem to be saying. Things like "which God to worship" vary widely.
But humans hardly have mastry over the universe. They don't have mastry over one of nine planets in circling one of a hundred billion stars in one of a hundred billion galaxies. Let's not get too cocky.
. That is, that fulfills the injunction of Genesis to “be fruitful and multiply” without the onus on us to senselessly fill the planet with people, but rather to increase the species’ power to exist.
Here we are in agreement. Multiplying is overrated. Sustaining is what is important.
Accomplishing this means specifically cultivating the uniquely human (as far as we know) faculty of creative mentation (cognition) powered by agape (love of reason, aka “divine love of man”), which is present in germ in the child in the form of curiosity and delight in creation. Those things, and developing those things, are good.
Or perhaps love, cognition and curiosity are simply techniques that have evolved as a strategy for a strand of DNA to make a copy of itself. Perhaps it is true that a chicken is just an egg's way of making another egg. I see no need to ascribe it to any mythological higher power.
The war for this, as opposed to the modern slide into fundamentalism (bibliolatry) and frightened, herd-animal responses like the US public’s implicit assent to invading Iraq, is holding ground. The American Republic is hanging in there – it’s a tough old bird – but no true rout has been achieved; the population is still not on board.
I tend to agree with this. Would write more, but got to run. Talk to you more later.
