On Existence

I don't remember what my first thought was, but if I were to be born again it would probably be something like "What the hell?"

I mean really, what? Existing? Why?? We come into this extremely strange world, made of four (or maybe 10) dimensional spacetime, permeated by a bunch of quantum fields that oscillate like strings and interact in such a way that minds with internal subjective perceptions form. And we are supposed to just accept this and move on?

I can't. I see my very being in this world as a challenge. From whom or what I don't know, but the objective is clear: Can you solve the riddle of your own existence?

Some would say it is impossible. Ever since Goedel we know that some truths can never be proven, some facts will stay forever out of our reach no matter how clever we are. And surely the most meta of all metaphysical questions, why does anything exist at all rather than nothing, has to be among them.

So is there no hope? Should we just live out our lives, not questioning the mechanics by which they have come to be? Not knowing the law that governs all laws?

To answer this I can only point to my favorite work by Franz Kafka. Here is an English translation by Ian Johnston.

Before the Law

> Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” The gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition. But take note. I am powerful. And I am only the lowliest gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the last. I cannot endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this first one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud; later, as he grows old, he only mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has also come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers up in his head all his experiences of the entire time into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the difference between them has changed considerably to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you want to know now?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is it that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.”

Source

Now I don't know what kind of law Kafka had in mind, or what kind of takeaway he intended, and I am not really all that interested in psychoanalytical interpretations by scholars. It feels meaningful to me personally.

We have one life. One chance to figure things out. We can wait for others so solve the mystery of being, try to find excuses for not doing so ourselves. But in the end the gate was only there for us alone, and it will close.

I have decided I want to enter and fight the gatekeepers. There might be hindrances such as the incompleteness theorem, lack of observable data, the impossibility of using logical methods to argue about the existence of logic itself. It can be said to be naive to think these can be overcome. But I think it is naive to declare with absolute confidence they can't.

The path I have chosen to get closer to the truth is physics. People often say physics is only concerned with the how and not the why, but I think there is not much difference between the two questions - or at the very least they are closely related. You can not do natural philosophy without empirical data and rigorous math - ancient greece has shown us what happens when you try. And you need philosophy in science or you will never know what your equations actually mean and in what areas your methods can be expected to be valid. So, step one on my to do list is to find a theory of everything. Once that is done I'll start thinking about the next one.

I don't know how many gatekeepers there are, or if I have even gotten past the first one, and I don't know for certain it is possible to succeed. But I'm determined I will not be contempt with waiting and bartering, I will try to fight until the gate closes.

Posted 2021-03-11

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2021-08-28 | eye opening