Blind, pitiless, indifferent...
Saturday April 10, 2010
Over the last few days, in what spaces I have had between working on a couple of chapters for an introduction to philosophy, I have found myself thinking about the idea that crops up again and again in contemporary writing. The idea is this: that we live in a blind, indifferent and pitiless universe. Here’s Richard Dawkins, in his article “God’s Utility Function”: “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” Dawkins is not, of course, the first to argue this – he goes on to quote Housman’s Tell me not here, it needs not saying, which ends like this:
For nature, heartless, witless nature,
Will neither care nor know
What stranger’s feet may find the meadow
And trespass there and go,
Nor ask amid the dews of morning
If they are mine or no.
Many might argue that to attribute “pitilessness” (or, indeed “witlessness”!) to the universe as a whole is nothing but sober truth-telling. Capacity for pity is, after all, simply not a property of the universe as a whole, because the universe is not that kind of thing. After all, in saying that the universe is “pitiless” we are not saying that the universe is out to get us, only that our purposes are our own purposes, our hopes our own hopes, our stories are our own stories, and that these hopes, purposes and stories are not written up there in the stars.
There is something fishy going on here, however. Firstly, why is “pitiless” an interesting thing to say about the universe as a whole? After all, we could equally well say that the universe as a whole is “humourless” or that it is “chinless”, but these don’t seem interesting, or perhaps even sensible, things to say about the universe.
“Pitiless”, when we use it in an everyday sense, is not simply saying that something lacks a certain property, the property of “pity”. To describe something as “pitiless”, and to do so interestingly, is to suggest that the thing described should be capable of feeling pity, but that, because it has its own purposes, it chooses not to. To usefully deem something indifferent or pitiless, in other words, we might want it first to have the capacity for partiality or pity. This is perhaps why it would seem fairly odd to say that my toothbrush is pitiless even though, technically, we could argue that it is.
To call the universe as a whole “pitiless” (or, for that matter “indifferent” or “meaningless”), it seems to me, is both unreasonable and unhelpful. It is not that the universe is indifferent or pitiless, so much as that to talk about indifference or partiality, pitilessness or pity, in relation to the universe as a whole is to take these concepts and to apply them in places where they do not belong.
#2 · Marcus
12 April 2010
Hi Zeke, may I respond to your comment?
I don’t know about having to do what anyone says, but certainly there is pity in Buddhism. All I need to is call upon it. The Bodhisattva hears every cry, and the Buddha’s compassion is limitless.
Marcus
#3 · Dave
14 April 2010
I feel compelled to agree with Mr. Buckingham. To, “…talk about indifference or partiality, pitilessness or pity, in relation to the universe as a whole is to take these concepts and to apply them in places where they do not belong.”
Are we (those communicating amongst ourselves in this cyberspace) not of this universe?
I imagine that we must include ‘contextually’ our own evolving intelligence and abilities to conceive of difference as a property of ‘universe’ (multi-verse?). And in this instance, context is partial, not the whole cloth.
Yet I wonder if Ken Wilber’s notion of holons is correct? The universe we are ‘talking’ about is also the universe that includes us, this life-force of which we are animated. Some Buddhist schools refer to this as jivitindriya, an expression of curiosity and interest.
Perhaps this complexity is, conceivably, of the uni-multi-verse as a whole?
#4 · Curt
17 April 2010
Where were the Bodisattvas in 1850 as we began to go down the road of industrialization. If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure it would have not taken much pity to give humans a little early warning on the dangers of global warming.
That is one reason why I call for a revolt against the Buddhas and the Bodisattvas. There are plenty of humans with more compassion and intelligence than the “other powers”. They have shown by their deeds that they are either evil or incompetent.
I will end my revolt when these powers, whether they be Buddhas or the Gods on Mount Olympus prove to those of us who are revolting against them that their rule has not been evil or incompetent. They must also agree to take no punative action against the revolutionaries and recognize that the revolt was justified based on what the what they knew and when they knew it. Of course to defend themselves from these charges they will have to speak to us.
Some people may charge us with arrogance for insisting that the Gods (or Buddhas) must answer our summons and answer our charges. I say that it is the Gods themselves who are guilty of extreme arrogance. We are only doing what any reasonable citizens of a republic should do under the circumstances.
TO THE BARRICADES!!!!!
#5 · Curt
18 April 2010
A reasonable person might ask how we mere mortals can successfully wage a revolt against the Gods. Yes it is true they can see everything that we do. Yes they even know what we are thinking. They are at this point always at least two steps ahead of us. That means that they even know are strategy. Our strategy is to get to know ourselves and our environment so well that they are no longer always two steps ahead of us. Fortunately, even though they know who we are, they can not just strike us dead with lighting bolts or with an earthquake to make it look like an accident. It would be suspicious. It would make the Gods look weak, or vindictive.
That would inspire further resistance.
Our G-2 has uncovered a certain tactic that can be used to harass the Gods. It is not much but do not forget it is only a beginning. This tactic is when you are dealing the cards in a card game to deal them as randomly as possible. Now a skeptical person would say, but hey the cards are already random once you shuffle them the randomness can not be increased. Well once the cards are shuffles they may seem random to us but they are not random to the Gods. They know exactly what the order of the cards are. They can use such knowledge to manipulate the game. Even more importantly the Gods can manipulate the shuffle to manipulate the game. But if the cards are then dealt again in a random fashion that will eliminate the manipulation of the Gods. Well at least for a few moments. If the Gods are evil that will cause them to need to work just a little bit harder to carry out their evil schemes. If the Gods are incompetent then a little more randomness in the universe is not going to do any damage in the big scheme of things.
Now it is true that a single card game is not going to have much influence on the public policies over the next 5 years. But when you think about the accumulated effect of billions of people changing the history of their card games over a life time or even over many life times such small effects can start to add up. The Gods will become somewhat more fatigued. Their decision making ability will suffer.
Their moral will suffer. Finally in the end we will be victorious.
TO THE BARRICADES!!!!!
#6 · Valerie
24 April 2010
Marcus, in response to your comment: “I don’t know about having to do what anyone says, but certainly there is pity in Buddhism. All I need to is call upon it. The Bodhisattva hears every cry, and the Buddha’s compassion is limitless.”
… Buddha means the one who is awake, so we are really talking about the potentiality of each one of us. The same with the Bodhisattvas who have the qualities to which we aspire. This means that you, I, everybody are the ones who are to hear the cries, and have limitless compassion. Neither the Buddha nor Bodhisattvas are “out there” somewhere.
#7 · Curt
29 April 2010
Valerie,
Did you get my message of victorie? I thought that I had posted it but now I am not sure if I dreamed it or if it got deleated.
Kurtz
#8 · Rin'dzin Pamo
29 April 2010
Dear Will,
Your point rang true to me. The idea that the universe is “nothing but pitiless indifference” is a product of a culture still shocked by the notion that God doesn’t exist. Indifference and lack of pity are normally attributes applied to sentient beings who are somehow failing or inadequate in their sentience. It seems like reactive projection to apply them to The Universe. Like; the universe is somehow failing to live up to what it ought to be. So describing the universe as pitiless and indifferent is really just another recycling of samsara.
Rin’dzin
#10 · Curt
19 May 2010
Yesterday I was thinking about the absurdity of the modern human situation. We can not live with fossil fuels we can not live without them. Then this morning I was thinking about the series of extremely violent and absurd dreams that I had before I woke up.
In one dream, well never mind. Then it hit me. We, the human race, are being punked. The Gods are the ones doing the punking. When Candid Camera was new no one could figure out what was going on before they were told. But after it had been out for a while people often would say, OK where is the camera, before they were told they were being filmed.
Few people understand that we, as a planet can be in a situation of being punked because we have no planetary historical precednet. (But I think the mermaid on Mars was a clue.)
Well it could be that violent dreams that I have frequently had over the years have led me to suffer from PTSD which has effected my judgement. There is of course no scientific evidence that I am aware of to support my accusation but I think that there is a cerian grimm symbolism.
How many men on this planet have said at one time or another, Women you can not live with them and you can not live with out them? I wonder if women say soemting equivilant about men.
So to be taught a karmic lesson the Gods said, let show them what it means to become acquainted with something that one can not live with or without. Then they went about cooking up fossil fuels which they cleverly disquised as being created through a process which takes a really really long time and cleverly put it in to places where we would think that we were very lucky to have discovered it. It was the perfect intelligence coup.
But no intellegence operation can last forever. Eventually the enemy will figure out that they have been punked. We have now figured it out. The first thing to be done is to determine what damage has been done. I do not think that it will take much investigation to determine that operation fossil fuels has caused incredible damage.
So, how do we counter it. Well we now know that we are being punked. Yet we can not simply walk off of the set.
What have the people done in the past? They have started shouting, you can come out now you can come out now you can come out now. I would like to believe that if everyone all over the world stops what ever they are doing and starts shouting that we would be able to win a decisive victory over the enemy. Yet my experience has taught me that the enemy is has always been 2 steps ahead of us so I do not think that this step will be sufficient. But is it neccessary? I hope that someone can answer that question.
Curt
#1 · Zeke
11 April 2010
Fascinating post. Thank you. I am one who tends to the view that the universe is “indifferent.” I think the reason people feel upset by its character is that they feel as if it SHOULD take pity on us. And because many major religions preach that we can find pity somewhere if we will only do as they say we should.