Posts Tagged ‘evil’
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”*…
Reality is tough. Everything eats and is eaten. Everything destroys and is destroyed.
In a way that challenges lots of our deeply-seated conceptions (your correspondent’s, anyway), philosopher (and self-proclaimed pessimist) Drew Dalton invokes the laws of thermodynamics to argue that it is our moral duty to strike back at the Universe…
Reality is not what you think it is. It is not the foundation of our joyful flourishing. It is not an eternally renewing resource, nor something that would, were it not for our excessive intervention and reckless consumption, continue to harmoniously expand into the future. The truth is that reality is not nearly so benevolent. Like everything else that exists – stars, microbes, oil, dolphins, shadows, dust and cities – we are nothing more than cups destined to shatter endlessly through time until there is nothing left to break. This, according to the conclusions of scientists over the past two centuries, is the quiet horror that structures existence itself.
We might think this realisation belongs to the past – a closed chapter of 19th-century science – but we are still living through the consequences of the thermodynamic revolution. Just as the full metaphysical implications of the Copernican revolution took centuries to unfold, we have yet to fully grasp the philosophical and existential consequences of entropic decay. We have yet to conceive of reality as it truly is. Instead, philosophers cling to an ancient idea of the Universe in which everything keeps growing and flourishing. According to this view, existence is good. Reality is good.
But what would our metaphysics and ethics look like if we learned that reality was against us?…
Read on for his provocative argument that philosphers must grapple with the meaning of thermodynamics: “Reality is evil,” from @dmdalton.bsky.social in @aeon.co.
Dalton further explores these ideas in his book The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism (2023)
* Philip K. Dick
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As we wrestle with reality, we might send somewhat sunnier birthday greetings to Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA; he was born on this date in 1942. A theoretical physicist and cosmologist, he is probably best known in his professional circles for his work with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, for his theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation (now called Hawking radiation), and for his support of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
But Hawking is more broadly known as a popularizer of science. His A Brief History of Time stayed on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for over four years (a record-breaking 237 weeks), and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.
“We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.”
“What would your good do if evil didn’t exist”*…
What, Agnes Callard asks, is (literary) art for…
… There are many complex theories about the nature and function of art; I am going to propose a very simple one. My simple theory is also broad: it applies to narrative fiction broadly conceived, from epic poems to Greek tragedies to Shakespearean comedies to short stories to movies. It also applies to most pop songs, many lyric poems and some—though far from most—paintings, photographs and sculptures. My theory is that art is for seeing evil.
I am using the word “evil” to encompass the whole range of negative human experience, from being wronged, to doing wrong, to sheer bad luck. “Evil” in this sense includes: hunger, fear, injury, pain, anxiety, injustice, loss, catastrophe, misunderstanding, failure, betrayal, cruelty, boredom, frustration, loneliness, despair, downfall, annihilation. This list of evils is also a list of the essential ingredients of narrative fiction.
I can name many works of fiction in which barely anything good happens (Alasdair Gray’s Lanark, José Saramago’s Blindness, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Jon Fosse’s Melancholy are recent reads that spring to mind), but I can’t imagine a novel in which barely anything bad happens. Even children’s stories tend to be structured around mishaps and troubles. What we laugh at, in comedy, is usually some form of misfortune. Few movies hold a viewer on the edge of their seat in the way that thrillers and horror movies do: fear and anxiety evidently have their appeal. Greek and Shakespearean tragedy would rank high on any list of great works of literature, which is consonant with the fact that what is meaningful and memorable in a novel tends to be a moment of great loss, suffering or humiliation…
A fascinating case: “Art Is For Seeing Evil,” from @AgnesCallard in @the_point_mag.
And a case in point: Bob Dylan, demonstrating both Callard’s point and why he won the Nobel Prize in Literature:
* Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
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As we go dark, we might we might recall that it was on this date in 2000 that Charles M. Schulz published the last daily Peanuts strip- art that treated the dark with lots of light. (The final Sunday panel ran on on February 13 of that year.)
“Life could be horrible in the wrong trouser of time”*…
The challenge that the multiverse poses for the idea of an all-good, all-powerful God is often focused on fine-tuning. If there are infinite universes, then we don’t need a fine tuner to explain why the conditions of our universe are perfect for life, so the argument goes. But some kinds of multiverse pose a more direct threat. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physicist Hugh Everett III and the modal realism of cosmologist Max Tegmark include worlds that no sane, good God would ever tolerate. The theories are very different, but each predicts the existence of worlds filled with horror and misery.
Of course, plenty of thoughtful people argue that the Earth alone contains too much pain and suffering to be the work of a good God. But many others have disagreed, finding fairly nuanced things to say about what might justify God’s creation of a world that includes a planet like ours. For example, there is no forgiveness, courage, or fortitude without at least the perception of wrongs, danger, and difficulty. The most impressive human moral achievements seem to require such obstacles.
Still, many horrifying things happen with nothing seemingly gained from them. And, Everett’s many-worlds and Tegmark’s modal realism both seem to imply that there are huge numbers of horrific universes inhabited solely by such unfortunates. Someone like myself, who remains attracted to the traditional picture of God as loving creator, is bound to find such consequences shocking…
How scientific cosmology puts a new twist on the problem of evil. A theist wrestles with the implications of the “Many World” hypothesis: “Evil Triumphs in These Multiverses, and God Is Powerless.”
* Terry Pratchett
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As we calculate our blessings, we might send carefully-addressed birthday greetings to Infante Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu, better known as Prince Henry the Navigator; he was born on this date in 1394. A central figure in 15th-century Portuguese politics and in the earliest days of the Portuguese Empire, Henry encouraged Portugal’s expeditions (and colonial conquests) in Africa– and thus is regarded as the main initiator (as a product both of Portugal’s expeditions and of those that they encouraged by example) of what became known as the Age of Discoveries.
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