Weltanschaung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Category: The Creative Cosmos

  • Why I doubt my Existence

    Why I doubt my Existence

    I believe that I am merely a “program” and that similar programs run every animal and living thing on earth.

    I have originated, like everything else, in a complex “program” not so very different conceptually from that on my computer which can evolve cellular automata: 

    “a set of units in a mathematical model which have simple rules governing their replication and destruction, used to model complex systems composed of simple units such as living things or parallel processors.”

    Buddhism has considered such deep philosophical questions for over two and a half millennia and science is beginning to lead us to the same conclusions as this ancient thought system.

    Put simply, to the Buddhists reality is an illusion and so is our sense of self. The concept is remarkably similar to Stephen Wolfram’s ideas. 

    The world and everything in it is mere deterministic cause and effect. An endless series of chemical reactions which has woven the fantastic complexity we see all around us from a few basic and simple rules. 

    The Buddha’s Anattalakkhana Sutta states: 

    “Every consciousness is to be seen as it actually is with right discernment as: ‘This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am.’”

    Researchers in consciousness such as Giulio Tononi are coming to the conclusion that consciousness is simply what you get when something, some object is sufficiently complex.  His Integrated Information Theory seeks to measure such complexity.

    So I may feel that I am “me”. I may feel I have a soul, some separate existence from you or that rock over there. But evidence seems to be mounting that the only difference between myself and that lump of rock is complexity – the way “my” particular atoms are arranged. 

    And you and I? Similarly arranged atoms of sufficient complexity to have attained the ability to witness the universe. Perhaps Carl Jung’s concept of universal consciousness has legs after all.

    My conviction was emphasized recently when “my”personality changed dramatically and most definitively following the ingestion of medicine.   I had been on too high a dose and began to feel  an abnormal, generalized and most unusual fear.  I was a different person, its that simple. My consciousness was different, my outlook, views  on life, attitude to everything and everybody were, simply put, different.

    And then I cut back on the dose and its frequency and this other “person” disappeared and was replaced by a more recognizable persona.

    So there is little in me which is permanent or unchanging. Chemicals can re-arrange my consciousness and replace person A with person B. Probably permanently, given enough persistence, by re-arranging the “code”, the DNA, whatever.

    Quite clearly my subjective experience counts for very little except in my own mind. But for what it is worth, I am ever more convinced that we humans are merely collections of matter arranged and re-arranged programatically. As a matter of “faith”,  my belief is that as science advances we will be able to rearrange our matter and our program to become whoever or whatever we want. 

    I will leave aside questions of determinism and free will. We don’t seem to be much further forward on that question than we were in the times of the ancient Greek philosophers.  One day at a time?

  • Isness

    Isness

    Happiness is only attainable once you recognize that everything just “is”.

    Despite what we humans would like to believe, we are nothing special and nowhere special. Nobody designed us, nobody is looking out for us and we have no purpose or particular meaning.

    Which is not to say that we can not create meaning for ourselves. Merely that meaning does not exist in the abstract.

    Let me explain. Everything we see around us simply “emerged”. Emergence is a scientific term which means that all we see around us, in all its baffling complexity, emerged from a few basic rules and a few basic properties of “nature”.

    In conventional terms, we say that humans and all flora and fauna on planet earth arose from the laws of physics via the laws of chemistry and biology. Humans are an emergence from far, far simpler properties. Our atoms are mostly carbon, hydrogen and oxygen which, left to their own devices, do little. But we are a particular and extremely complex coupling together of these simple chemical elements. Complexity “emerges” from extreme simplicity.

    In the beginning there was nothing. And then it seems that something happened. John 1.1 puts it wonderfully:

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

    If you consider “god” as a few basic rules, rather like those of a computer program or  network, then you are probably really onto something. You probably understand who and what we all are.

    Stephen Wolfram puts it wonderfully well in an article entitled What is Spacetime Really?  Time and space could well have emerged from a simple rule based network, whose simple rules fed back on each other in an infinite loop, to provide the baffling complexity we see all around us.

    A very simple example of this sort of emergence can be seen in the flocking of birds. I can program my computer to imitate the flocking of birds (all the beauty of those spectacular patterns) using three simple rules:

    1. avoid crowding neighbors (short range repulsion)
    2. steer towards average heading of neighbors
    3. steer towards average position of neighbors (long range attraction)

    In a similar fashion, the simple mathematical rules governing fractals and cellular automata  show how trees and insects and coastlines can be drawn with trivial ease on a computer.  Which is doubtless similar to how they emerged in nature.

    And this, it is said, is evolution. Blind, unthinking evolution has, by a few simple rules and many eons of applying those rules, given us the universe and everything in it.

    So how does all this equate to happiness? How can it?

    Acceptance, pure and simple. By accepting that we emerged from a few “knots in the ether” we can perhaps learn to stop striving. To stop competing, to stop fighting. We “are” – and that is all there is to it. We should “be”. We should accept that the world just “is”.

    This may be a great disappointment to some who cling to visions of holy purpose, of heavens and pure lands. Of Islamic paradise.

    If we need a theory, a creed, then Eastern philosophy provides it for us very neatly. In eastern philosophy there is no beginning, no end, just a continuum, a never ending flow. “Knots in the ether”, forever tying and untying, winding and unwinding. A giant 3 D cellular automaton, working forever and creating the very fabric of time and space.

    And to achieve happiness all we need do is to go with that flow. To recognize that all there is just “is”. That we should just stand by and watch, or rather let it all roll over us knowing that we too are simply “knots in the ether”.

    There is nowhere to go, nothing to do, no-one to be. Just exist. Create beautiful patterns in your life or ugly patterns (assuming “beauty” and “ugliness” have any meaning) but don’t fight “isness”.

    Are you disappointed perhaps that there is no god and that the non-existent god has no purpose for us?

    You should not be. You are in the midst of all the wonder you could ever imagine, all the beauty and all the ugliness. You are in a giant playground where knots in the ether writhe and turn and you should bend and twist with them.

    Consciousness itself has arisen out of those few simple rules. Incredibly, the simple program which led to all you can see around you, also led to self awareness of that program by that program.

    We are a program, a set of instructions. We are the universe and some are lucky enough to feel and witness that directly.

    As the vast complexity grows all around us, our consciousness grows with it, part of it. Consciousness is more, becomes more inch by inch, second by second.

    And so at the end of the incredible dance perhaps even “god” emerges from this infinite computer program. This infinite network. Perhaps that is what the mystic sees.

    So, purpose? Perhaps not. But emergence of something incredible, mighty, complex, magnificent.  Yes, most certainly. We are something from nothing. We will become more and more something and less and less nothing as the recursive, complex system weaves and warps, twirls and twists and turns.

    And that, surely, is something to be happy about?

     

     

  • A Gospel for the 21st Century Pagan

    A Gospel for the 21st Century Pagan

    If we 21st Century pagans were to write our own book of “Good News” what would it contain?

    For a start it would do no harm to look at the etymology of the word “pagan”.  Because its origins explain much that has gone wrong with our world. It was a word of “us” over “them”. It was a word invented by a cocky cult to derogate any who did not bend to their world view and their will.  And they had their own “Good News” which would indeed have been very good, did they ever mean a word of it.

    And in today’s mostly godless world, how should we re-write those words of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John?  Well there was nothing wrong with the words really, just with our human race in general. And in our lack of application of those words.

    If we could have our Utopian dream, free of seemingly inevitable dystopian horror, what should we aim for?

    I would not consign the likes of Mugabe and Gaddafi to the gas chamber or the firing squad (much as, arguably, they might deserve it) but I would rewrite the rules of our race (genetic and otherwise) to breed out such horrors.

    I would not hunt and illegally execute bin Laden as we in the “civilized” West saw fit to do but I would aim to eradicate the conditions which lead to the atrocities of 9/11 and beyond in the first place.

    It boils down to “hearts and minds” and, in the longer term, genetic engineering. And the eradication of poverty and the spreading of health. And freedom from pain, physical and psychic.

    In the short term if the ex colonies feel aggrieved, well perhaps we should stop milking their oil and natural resources for our own benefit. And we certainly shouldn’t be selling them arms at vast profit to our rapacious manufacturers and at equally colossal detriment to their ethnically and otherwise cleansed populations.

    But it is also a question of the physician healing himself, of glass houses, of smiting beams from our own eyes.  Before smiting motes in theirs.

    These are ghastly, horrible people but they are only human. They are merely 21st Century versions of William the Conqueror who wiped out the north of England. Are they worse that horrible Ghengis?  And why is Alexander called “great”when he was merely a successful thug?

    So the gospel we might preach could be one of practical change.  For a start it might help if we ceased to glorify war and the military.  It would also help if we ceased to allow one form of prejudice to be replaced by another in the guise of “correctness”, political or otherwise.  There are some true pigs in this world and they should be named and shamed.

    We should move away from the deification of competition and materialism and realize that economic growth does not equate with universal happiness.  That “co-operation” and “sharing” might be words to replace concepts which have dominated our species since the day we were conceived in some muddy swamp or deep ocean smoker.

    No one wants to live in crumbling sub-standard social housing (let alone on the streets) , no one wants a post code dependent health system.  And no one deserves poverty, despite the outdated view, still held by many in our more brutal capitalist systems, that they deserve it because they don’t get off their arses and work.

    No Mr Trump, the world does not work like that and it never has. Too little understanding is granted to the  fortunate that their well being and the lack of it in others is often a matter of circumstance and pure random chance.

    Right place and right time. Right idea at the right time, pursued admittedly with ruthless vigor.

    I’m not looking for a socialist paradise, the very concept is oxymoronic. Well, just plain moronic really.

    But I am looking for a modern gospel of a different sort. In the long term, philosophers such as those in the transhumanist movement reckon greed and general shitty venality can be bred out of us.

    But in the meantime we should do our best to make words such as “kindness” and “decency” objects of greater veneration than “money” and “power”.

    I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth; my bum in the butter if you insist on cruder language. Without that random lottery win, I doubt I would have had the drive to climb the greasy pole; I simply lacked the ambition. I too may have crawled in the gutter.

    So yes, actually, I would like to expand and improve the welfare state and cut the salaries of its administrators. I would like to slash red tape and wasteful, stupid, computer says no bureaucracy.  I remember reading a year or so ago of a Devon county Councillor who was paid £500,000 a year.  What sort of idiocy allows that?

    And I would like to simplify the tax system so drastically and dramatically that we could dispose of three quarters of the civil “servants” who live there.

    Oh, and thanks very much but I would like to place basic utilities back in common ownership rather than let the provision of the basics of life be subject to big biznizz and highly paid sharks.

    And then I would like, above all, to encourage and fund science. The sort of science which can make us better humans, which could let us escape our animal origins by letting us choose our behavior. Better behavior for all! Now there is a slogan. We really don’t have to let evolution continue its brutal and hateful domination.

    Thus speaks the Gospel of the 21st Century Pagan.

  • How to be Human in an indifferent Universe

    How to be Human in an indifferent Universe

    How damaging we are to each other. How grim the human condition can become, and it does not take war or physical conflict to make it so.

    The most important thing any of us can do is to behave decently but how difficult that is when push comes to shove.

    Is it when we are threatened that we become vicious? Is it when our kin are threatened? Both, I suspect. How easy it is to get sucked into conflict.  War on a personal level, then elevated to nations.

    Looking back over the years, I realize there are many, many occasions where I have been “wrong”. Behaved the wrong way, drawn erroneous conclusions, been less than honest with myself or others. Or rather not less than “honest” but not wise or experienced enough to know when I have been the architect of my own distress.  When problems fell squarely within my own domain and I did not realize it. When I and only I had the power to fix things without blame or recrimination but where I chose, consciously or otherwise, to blame others or the world itself for my plight.

    Honesty is not easy. I am still puzzling over life and wondering why, when and how it went wrong.  And I know that it is I who must bear the sole responsibility.

    “Wrong” is a silly word to use really.  It has not gone “wrong” if I were being objective. But who can be subjective about their own life? Considered in the light of a world population of nearly 8 billion people, the vast majority of whom live in conditions which Hobbes would recognize only too readily, such a claim is absurd.

    Wrong only in the sense that I could have done it better, could have lived better. Still can.  Wrong in the sense that I could have lived a life in which I could have taken more and better direction. But it is never too late.

    At heart I believe the problem lies in the fact that we are born into a universe which, if not cruel, is nevertheless indifferent, not only to our individual fate but to that of our species; and to that of every species and to our planet as a whole.

    We are born with minds which may, if some are to be believed, be the most complex thing in the known universe but which are also profoundly unfit for purpose.

    Unless that purpose is mere “survival”. The pursuance of the objectives of Richard Dawkin’s “selfish gene”.

    As a tool to ascertain meaning, purpose the brain is almost useless in its current form. It is a car over-revving in neutral.  A bicycle turned upside down with its wheel spinning – no purchase on the road. Nowhere to go, no traction.

    And as to the universe itself, once you realize it has no “up” and no “down”, no “right” and no “left” you can hardly be surprised that any part of its matter “gifted” with consciousness is bound to feel a little lost.

    The universe as such has no meaning; let alone the multiverse.

    So, what are we to do? We, that tiny part of the universe, those specks of matter which have somehow evolved the awareness to contemplate our surroundings. Our predicament, if you like, is that it is difficult to accept we are accidental. That conscious awareness is an illusion. An illusion in the sense that we “matter”, that we are somehow different from the rest of the metaphorical pebbles on the beach.

    For millennia, for ever, we have told ourselves comforting but misleading stories. We are the center of the universe, we were created by a god to sit at the pinnacle and thereafter at his right hand.

    We have invented laws and morals.  We have fabricated concepts of “right” and “wrong”.  Without those we could not survive but we must not pretend that they are part of the universe.

    We have created our own reality.  Our own creed. And we need it because we have consciousness and must give ourselves a purpose even though the universe has not.

    Even though the multiverse has no “up” and no “down” we must pretend that at least it has a “right” and a “wrong” and we must live our lives accordingly.

    Not because some supernatural god or alien will punish us if we do not or reward us for good behavior if we do.

    But because we want to. Because we have created a small corner of the cosmos where we have decreed that this shall be and that shall not.

    Only the most active of us will seek to minister to the poor, to give comfort to the heathen. No one has “sent us to heal the broken-hearted”. No one has asked us to “preach the gospel to the poor”.

    And yet like Pascal we should behave as if they had. Not because (like Pascal) we have some sneaking suspicion that there is a mysterious creator. But because, in the plain knowledge that the universe is an uncaring and insentient infinity, we choose to so act.

    Because, if we count for anything at all, we should make something where there is nothing.

     

  • Wittgenstein’s ladder: to climb or not to climb?

    Wittgenstein’s ladder: to climb or not to climb?

    The happiest are those who have never heard of Wittgenstein’s Ladder.  If asked, they assume it’s something you buy in Homebase.

    As with the existentialists, I am way past caring what the sad fellow meant by it. It has become part of my own lore; I have interpreted it as I  see fit and in a way I find useful.

    My own interpretation is as follows. I have spent my entire life questioning, worrying, looking for answers which do not exist.  Recently I have decided to kick the ladder away as Wittgenstein recommends, realizing that most of what I had learnt was useless, peripheral nonsense.

    The question therefore is should I have begun the climb in the first place or should I have burnt the ladder and not bothered?

    I have engaged in a search for meaning in a sea of random noise. A search for pattern where none exists. A master of arts in history from a venerable English university, a qualification in the law.  And endless study, even after those few initial years. The philosophers, from the ancient Greeks to David Chalmers and those who ponder consciousness. Religion and the charming tales of the ancient desert Jews, who believed they had found the one true god. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Confucius, the Tao.  The Odyssey.  The Bhagavad Gita, the Christian mystics.  And more latterly a serious if uninformed interest in science.

    Here is what Wittgenstein said:

    My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.)   He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.

    6.54

    Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

    Most of what I have read has turned out, on reflection, to be unhelpful at best.  The world, and in particular the human condition does not have to be seen in terms of absurd complexity.

    We do not have to ponder our origins or that of the universe and most spend a lifetime not doing so. They are the clever ones, even if they do not know it.

    Despite the acceleration of science in my own lifetime, we are still an infinity from the sort of questions I would like to have answered. Progress seems glacial for those with a finite lifetime.

    The cure for cancer never quite comes in time. The Higgs Boson, while eventually unearthed, does not actually do very much for my sense of well-being or understanding.  The New Scientist contains almost identical articles week after week which are mostly questions rather than answers.

    The answer is to avoid the questions.  Ludwig was right all along.

  • Could Adolf have chosen to behave differently?

    Could Adolf have chosen to behave differently?

    We assess animal behavior better than we do that of humans. We are more realistic where we can analyse with objectivity.  Our own behavior remains largely a mystery to us.

    As does the question of changing that behavior. On an individual or species wide basis.

    Pavlov’s dog aside we do not expect, largely, to change the nature or behavior of an animal. Why should we expect to change our own?

    Animals have basic needs. They are coded to survive, they have evolved to compete. They seek food and they seek mates. Perhaps they have a desire (conscious or not) to welcome pleasure and to avoid pain. Perhaps some are more sociable than others, some more conscious, some less, depending on the complexity of their brains.

    But you would not expect much mercy from a hungry wolf, you would certainly not expect it to feel any guilt or shame when it rips your throat out.  Not today and not tomorrow.  The Big Bad Wolf is not going to change.

    Change, if it does occur takes place over many thousands of years. Or longer. Sometimes no change occurs even  through millions of years – take the cockroach as an example, or the shark.

    As a counter example take the wolf’s distant offspring – the dog. Trained  by humans over thousands of years dogs have become (by and large!) a little less violent, a little more friendly.  Over thousands of years!

    Yes, yes I am aware of experiments where rats are encouraged by trick or treat tactics to press one button or another, but I am interested as ever in the possibility of human change. Redemption even.

    Do we have the power to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps in our own lifetime? As an individual or a species?

    No, I would venture most definitely not. Nurture and nature yes, spout the phrase all you will. But my strong (and yes, subjective) suspicion is that our behavior is largely endogenous.  Built in.

    Mother Teresa’s are born not fashioned. Adolf was born a murderer and tyrant, albeit his behavior may have been accentuated by his time in the trenches and his failure as an artist.  That he got where he did was a matter, largely, of chance.  Had his luck been less blatant he may have remained a small time nutter in some lowly Austrian town.

    In many thousands of years’ time we may have trained ourselves to behave better because we want to.  Or we may crack our own code and achieve improvement sooner.

    But this week, this decade, my firm belief is that we are stuck with who we are. Collectively and individually.

  • Discarding the Irrelevant

    Discarding the Irrelevant

    In recent years I have found it increasingly beneficial to narrow my focus.

    Lampmagician published a fascinating article Carl Jung and a Brief Overview of Satan.

    It contains information I was vaguely aware of and might have found somewhat “useful” in past decades.  It is interesting but I do not need the information.

    Perhaps it is because of age – I increasingly hurry (while my brain remains functional) to fill in the many gaps in my limited achievements and marginally less limited knowledge.

    I have no doubt that the study of history is vital. As Ecclesiastes reminds us, “there is nothing new under the sun” and if we do not learn the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat the same tedious and unnecessary mistakes for ever. Greed, war, materialism, cruelty to name but a few.

    But do I need now, today, to know what the medieval and earlier church thought about two fictitious deities, Satan and Christ?

    In my own case most assuredly not. While I concur wholeheartedly with the Beatitudes, much of the rest of it is backward superstitious nonsense.   Fine for the historian who can summon the interest but not for me thanks.

    The interest in such topics must remain purely historical, academic. Or perhaps “should remain” is more pertinent. The mind must filter out what is not useful to it so that it can focus on what is.

    In earlier days I may have attributed some importance to this esoteric information, other than as a mere record.  Long ago I may still have been influenced by my Judaeo christian upbringing.  These days I tend to remain focused on what I find useful in my daily life and have abandoned “belief” in deities. I mostly prefer to spend my time on more modern and forward looking endeavors.

    Hence for instance I find reading about the nature of consciousness and scientific advance of greater concern and utility,  more worthy of my attention than nonsensical medieval church doctrine. Changing tastes over the decades perhaps. Or perhaps a need to concentrate on what I find important while I have the sentience so to do.

  • If God could be killed, it’d be dead already

    If God could be killed, it’d be dead already

    I have been following  Qualia Research Institute and Qualia Computing.  My attention was recently caught by an article on  personal identity views.

    I quote from the Abstract:

    Personal identity views (closed, empty, open) serve in philosophy the role that conservation laws play in physics. They recast difficult problems in solvable terms, and by expanding our horizon of understanding, they likewise allow us to conceive of new classes of problems. In this context, we posit that philosophy of personal identity is relevant in the realm of ethics by helping us address age-old questions like whether being born is good or bad. We further explore the intersection between philosophy of personal identity and philosophy of time, and discuss the ethical implications of antinatalism in a tenseless open individualist “block-time” universe.

    I believe that you may well have to have a tendency towards existential anxiety to be interested in such matters. I have that and I am interested. However I am also wary of endless thinking, endless philosophy.

    I have no qualm with “thought experiments” per se ( which have lead to many scientific breakthroughs) but I believe the matters contained in this article are fruitless in terms of speculation unless they can be tested and acted upon.

    I like these guys, I like what they have to say. But I would like to see some action. I would like to see some progress towards the “Abolition of Suffering“.

    I therefore responded as follows on their website:

    While I am interested in your article and indeed in your website as a whole, has the time not come to cease to speculate and to actively progress and investigate how to measure and improve qualia?

    You and I and everyone around us (or most of them) are living as “closed individuals”. I do not believe anyone other than a mystic or tripper has witnessed any other type of existence.

    And once the meditation or psilocybin trip is over, even those individuals return from unified consciousness back to the state of “closed individual”.

    So what needs to be done to eliminate suffering?

    Can the beneficial effects of psilocybin be prolonged indefinitely? Can some other method of increasing our joy and decreasing our pain (permanently) be found?

    I am not sure that any of the theories you describe above represent any law of physics. I am not sure that any such theory gets us any further forward.

    We need to take practical steps and hope that these will confirm or refute such theories.

    I am done with theorizing. I want progress.

    Perhaps I should become a psychonaut.

  • Out of my Skull

    Out of my Skull

    What does it mean to be out of your skull? Is it a detrimental term or may it have hidden meanings and use?

    I have been thinking recently about collective delusion.  Where society or a segment of society comes to believe something to be true which is in fact false.

    There are many examples. I have “faith” that religion is a collective delusion. It is a series of stories we tell to explain our own origins, to find our place in a fearful world. It has no basis in fact but whereas we collectively agree that Father Christmas is a fiction, woe betide those who dare to say the same about [insert your favorite deity/prophet].

    Getting out of your skull is not about mindless drug or alcohol abuse. Or at least not the way I mean it. It is about distancing yourself from your own ego. It is about questioning every thought you have ever had about god, the universe and everything.

    It is about deciding whether the answer really is “42” or something else entirely.

    It is about questioning every aspect of yourself, your thoughts your behaviour and the reality you believe you see around you.

    To some extent this can only be the realm of science. Maths and the microscope, maths and the Large Hadron collider, maths and the cosmic background radiation.

    And yet science can be aided surely by getting “out of your skull”. By abandoning dull convention, by thinking new thoughts, by daring to challenge the many collective delusions we have invented for ourselves.

    It may be that the Doors of Perception can only truly be opened by mystic experience. Or by dreams or the mind travels of the shaman. Or the deep meditation of the experienced monk.

    Those of us less brave or determined might achieve a shift in perception by letting go. By renouncing old ways, thinking new thoughts, daring to do new things. By shaking ourselves up, by refusing to bow to convention and collective delusion.

    Few would wish to experience the Dark Night of the Soul and yet we must achieve at least some view through the doors of perception if we are to grow.  To escape the wheel of existence, we must seek to free ourselves from dull mundanity.

  • “Objective truth” is an illusion.

    “Objective truth” is an illusion.

    Unqualified objective truth can not exist.  Heavily qualified objective truth probably does.

    According to Wikipedia :

    a proposition is generally considered objectively true (to have objective truth) when its truth conditions are met without biases caused by feelings, ideas, opinions of a sentient subject. A second, broader meaning of the term refers to the ability in any context to judge fairly, without partiality or external influence.

    If you consider just this universe that we inhabit, the nearest you can get to objective truth seems to be the very low level basic laws of physics.

    The “law” of gravity suggests that whoever drops a marble from shoulder height to the floor, at sea level on planet Earth, can expect that marble to be attracted to the centre of the earth by gravity. And thus drop to the floor.

    And yet, despite Einstein, we do not yet really know what gravity is.  And what is a “graviton”? Scientists are still looking.

    Whatever it is, it seems reasonably certain to most of us that gravity exists, whatever it is.  But the qualification (and a heavy one) is: “in this universe”.

    Many scientists posit that we are in fact living in an infinitely large multiverse and that there will be universes where the physical laws are completely different from those which attain here.

    “Objective truth” is supposedly something on which we all (or the great majority of us) agree.  The basic sciences contain many such apparently objective truths: the constancy of the speed of light, the number of atoms in a molecule of hydrogen and so on.

    And yet even in many of these basic laws we seems to come across exceptions or revisions of interpretation. Leaving aside the complication of alternate universes where such laws do not apply at all.

    But then consider the “emergent” sciences: biology, psychology, systems theory for instance.  This is where objectivity really begin to disappear down its own throat.

    Aristotle said that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” meaning the “whole” has properties its “parts” do not have.  A human being is made of a few basic elements from the periodic table: largely hydrogen, oxygen and carbon.

    It is difficult to understand a human being by reference only to these three elements.  The “whole” (human) is unimaginably more complex than its constituent “parts” (carbon, oxygen and hydrogen).

    Once these three elements (and a few others) get combined and grow into a human, there are a few “truths” about that human which may be called “objective”.  But again, objective in a qualified sense. At present for instance most humans are born with a fairly standard set of organs and none of us can exist without breathing air and drinking water.

    But who knows what life may evolve into.  The “objective truth” that humans mostly have two legs must be qualified by “at present”.

    But now take human behaviour and physiology. And in particular think about drug trials for instance or PTSD.

    Does x drug cure y condition? Does Prozac cure depression? Does cisplatin cure cancer of the bladder?

    Suddenly you are into statistics and probability.  Far from objective truth.

    Or take a complex adaptive system such as the weather or the stock market.  Are they deterministic or random? Predictable or not?

    Now pan out again to the multiverse: will we ever know much that is “objectively true” about the multiverse? Except perhaps that it is big.

    Nothing is certain except uncertainty. Perhaps that is what stops us getting bored.