On Medium: The Nightmare of God
Read on to discover the nightmare at the root of the world's major religions, the hell of being God that would trigger his creation of universes and of organic vessels as so many escape-hatches into divine ignorance, which saints, messiahs, and mystics spoil to complete the satanic irony of enlightenment.
Very good! Have you read Phillip Mainlander? His philosophy seems to be based on just this premise. I have a partial english translation of some of his work in pdf format if you are interested.
ReplyDeleteThe Pythagorean Illuminatii believe that we are all destined to become 'God'. Though they are monadists & hence maintain that our individuality is immutable, an infinite number of enlightened monads would still effectively constitute a single God since their very rationality & omniscience would compel them to will the same thing: divine suicide. In their cosmology, the entire universe is destined to become God, but then immediately forget itself through another big bang ad infinitum! On this basis, they sell themselves as the most optimistic religion ever; but to me it just seems frustrating & pointless...
Nathan of Gaza believed that the divine was actually split in two between the Thoughtful Light which he identified with the Creator God & the Thoughtless Light, a sort of anti-god, but, unlike the Christian Satan, equally divine. As a loyal Jew, Nathan of course sided with the Thoughtful Light of Creation but recognized that the Thoughtless Light wasn't intrinsically evil, it just wanted to restore the original divine unity which, unfortunately for us, meant undermining all of creation.
I actually really like Nathan's cosmology because it explains why the unknown God of the Gnostics hasn't just destroyed the demiurge & his fallen creation already. It also offers a solution to an otherwise intractable problem. As you pointed out in your essay, the demiurge must loose itself in its creation to escape the agony of its omniscience. But this isn't really a solution, since, as we all know, nescience is its own form of suffering. If the Thoughtful Light/Demiurge seeks to loose itself in creation & multiplicity, the Thoughtless Light seeks know itself, not as creature or creator, but as that unconscious unity that preceeded both.
I think I first heard of Mainlander some years ago through an early draft of Thomas Ligotti's book, The Conspiracy against the Human Race. I wrote about Mainlander's view (link below), but I've been waiting for a translation. From what I've read, I'm not sure how compelling his arguments are. It might be more his core idea that matters as a parody of classic theism.
DeleteIs that just the Illuminati you're talking about? I didn't know they thought of themselves as Pythagoreans. Mainlander also thought suicide was fitting, given the overall predicament we're in (God's suicide by his transformation into a material form that could be extinguished).
Hadn't heard of Nathan of Gaza, but his Thoughtless Light does sound like John Milton's Lucifer, a nobler view of the demonized devil. I'm not sure whether it would be the Demiurge that hides in Creation. I think the idea would be that the transcendent God becomes inert when Creation is playing out and the Demiurge or Satanic ruler is dominant, or else the Thoughtful Light turns into the Demirge, as in Mainlander's view, but somehow God and Creation are redeemed and the cycle repeats itself instead of there being a permanent divine suicide or murder of God. The movie Mother! features this kind of cycle.
Yeah, these are spooky ideas, which explains why mainstream religions whitewash them for mass consumption. Even Hinduism hides the more plausible dark ideas with its eclectic absorption of all kinds of philosophies.
http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.com/2012/09/divine-creation-as-gods-self-destruction.html
I have so much on my plate right now that I haven't actually gotten around to reading Mainlander's book so I don't know how complete the translation is that I've sent you.
DeleteThe Pythagorean Illuminati claim to be the real illuminati that Adam Weishaupt allegedly founded in 1776 - though they aver to be much older than that & recognize Pythagoras as their 1st grand master. I have no idea if either of those claims are true, though their politics do seem to be in line with Weishaupt's & they do have a fanatical devotion to mathematics that borders on worship - which is what peeked my interest in them. I can't say I agree with all of their conclusions, but whoever wrote their 'God Series' of books is unquestionably a brilliant mathematician. They are also very philosophically literate & claim Leibniz as another secret 'grand master'. They have a website at:
https://armageddonconspiracy.co.uk
Spooky indeed! Google 'Liber Falxifer'. Gnostic religion is undergoing a renaissance & with the demise of Christian hegemony it can finally remove its white robe & reveal itself for what it really is: the worship of death.
Wow, the author of that God series (Mike Hockney is the given name) has certainly written many intriguing books.
DeleteIt's interesting how he contrasts the Pythagorean, math-centered view of nature with what he calls the scientific, more empirical and pragmatic one. He takes the scientist in this case to be the true mystic who "magics" nature into being from nothingness, chaos, or randomness.
Unfortunately, the preferred math-centered view assumes the principle of sufficient reason, as the author makes explicit. And that principle is anthropocentric, which seems to conflict with the gloomy, Gothic mystique the author wishes to conjure for his brand, as far as I can tell from his dark website. But the books are intriguing; I suppose they're meant to answer the need for what I've called an "unembarrassing postmodern religion." Have you read many of them?
Did you mean to email me the translation? I don't believe I've received it.
For anyone interested, here's a link to some interesting info on the authors of that God series of books:
https://www.quora.com/Who-is-Mike-Hockney
I sent the book to your blog's gmail account which was the same one we used to communicate for our discussion we had last year. But it may not have gotten through for a number of reasons so I have re-sent it.
DeleteI'm still working my way through the God series (3 books in) but find myself stopping for long periods & then starting up again. As you said, they contain some intriguing ideas & the author has synthesized many divergent strains of thought (he even mentions de Chardin at one point) but all those interesting ideas are interspersed with lengthy polemicals against Abrahamic religions, capitalism & scientism. It isn't that I don't appreciate the polemics, but I wish he had kept them in a separate series books (they also have an anti-god series & anti-capitalism series).They are excellent books, but they are also in serious need of editing.
Yes, they seem to be very old school rationalist so not everyone is going to find them palatable; they might have had wider appeal had they been published a century ago before quantum mechanics & postmodern thought started to go mainstream. But for all the disagreements I have with some of their conclusions, I basically agree with their premises. I'm curious to know what mathematical secrets they've accumulated over the centuries assuming there is some truth to their claims. But it seems like you have to give to get in the Pythagorean Illuminati & while I do have some original work on number theory that I haven't published anywhere, I wonder if a secret society of mathematicians could possibly be impressed by my trifles. Well, it's worth a try.
After doing a little more digging, I see that the work of these "Illuminists" is an instance of mathematicism, meaning that they take mathematics to suffice for ontology. This strikes me as wrongheaded, and just judging from the summaries of their God Series books, some of their ideas seem crankish and nonsensical. This can happen when scientists or mathematicians venture into philosophy. Of course, their books themselves may vindicate their ideas and prove the authors' genius.
DeleteThey take Leibnizian optimism very seriously. But the problem with equating mathematical ideas with ultimate reality is that someone has to choose which mathematical ideas to make real. After all, the solution to Wigner's mystery of the unreasonable effectiveness of math is that most mathematical formalisms are garbage, meaning they don't correspond to anything real. Math flows from the imagination, and only a tiny slice of what we can imagine is relevant to nature.
This is why Plato says the Forms are encompassed by the Good, which means he makes mathematics subordinate to the moral, the aesthetic, and perhaps to the psychological. If a divine mind chooses which mathematical forms are best or which to realize as a universe, we've moved from math to psychology, to puzzle over this deity's character and decisions.
Perhaps the Illuminists can overcome this problem by appealing to a multiverse or to something like Leonard Susskind's string theory landscape. But what they actually appeal to, it seems, is Euler's Formula, of all things, which they call the Prime Mover. But why that formula or mathematical relationship rather than some other one? The Illuminist can have no answer, but has to treat that formula as a primitive fact.
It's like asking why God is eternal; the theist just has to trust their god is fundamental, even though the more concrete and contingent you make your god or your mathematical idea, the more arbitrary your faith has to be. In reality, our character is shaped by our choices which are based in part on our limited freedom from the environment, but that simple explanation makes no sense when applied to a monistic absolute. Likewise, some of our mathematical ideas make for useful models of reality, while others don't, and that happens largely by chance. Taking some math as ontologically primary requires a leap of faith. This is why, according to Susskind at least, the Theory of Everything physicists, who wanted to wrap the universe up in a set of simple, self-evident equations are forced to consider the more evolutionary multiverse view, to avoid admitting that their theoretical physics amounts to faith-based theology. Mind you, Susskind’s evolutionary string theory landscape seems to offer no help, since some equations must govern the evolution of universes.
I should probably write something on this contender for a science- or rather math-friendly Illuminist religion.
I received the translation. Thanks very much. (My antivirus program tells me the file had a script built into it, which it had to disable.)
The Illuminists take Euler's formula to be the standard for judging what aspects of mathematics are ontological because it figures into their six dimensional model of space-time. They believe that the horizontal axis of real numbers measures space while the imaginary axis measures time, making every space-time coordinate a complex number. The left side of Euler's formula is e ^(ix). By multiplying e (exponential growth) by i, you obtain a 90° rotation on the real number axis, which puts you on the imaginary axis (and vice-versa). Euler's formula, by including complex numbers, constitutes (among other things) an algebraically closed field - meaning that no operation (plus, minus, square, etc) on it could ever yield any numbers that aren't already implicit in its structure*. Hence, Euler's formula would represent the entirety of everything existing within space-time which, it seems, gives it ontological status in their eyes. The special case of the formula when x = pi gives us e^(iπ) + 1 = 0, would seem to imply that the universe has a net energy of zero, which explains how something (or everything in this case) could come from nothing.
Delete* Imaginary numbers alone wouldn't be algebraically closed since we could square i to get a real number or take the root of a negative real to get an imaginary.
But this is one of my points of departure with them. They think time must have 3 dimensions because space does. They see no sufficient reason for there to be only 1 dimension to time when space has 3; but I see no sufficient reason for there to be 3 dimensions to time when 1 dimension would obviously suffice. I'm actually a firm believer in PSR but as you've just seen, it can be applied in mutually exclusive ways if it isn't subordinated to another principal of Leibniz's: that the best of all possible worlds is that which is richest in phenomena but founded upon the simplest of premises. One or even no temporal dimension would be simpler than three, hence I think we can safely dispense with 3D time; and that in turn implies that Euler's formula, as beautiful & pregnant with potential as it is, may not be the last word in the ontology of mathematics. Never mind that it seems a little biased to give ontological status only to numbers that can be used to measure space-time. That just seems like a narrow definition of what constitutes reality to me.
Any rebuttal you make to the Illuminists would have to attack their basic premises like PSR or their reliance on Euler's formula unless you want to read the entire God series because, believe me, if you don't they'll just shrug it off as an uninformed critique by someone who hasn't taken the time to read all 32 volumes of their magnum opus.
I'm a little distressed to hear that the file had a script in it. Do you know if it is malign? I don't have an antivirus program because I don't trust the companies that make them.
Thanks for the summary. I think you hit on an important point when you said the Illuminists would be the ones choosing which bit of math to make ontologically primary. That was my point: some human math seems to model natural reality, but most doesn't, so that should leave the Illuminist with the question of what divine force selects from all possible math the principles with which to create universes. The answer seems to be that the Illuminists themselves take up that divine position, which of course is absurd.
DeleteYes, I'd criticize Leibniz, the principle of sufficient reason, and the idea of ontological math.
The antivirus program didn't say whether it was malign, but it did remove the script because of the potential for it to be misused. I don't know how you operate on the internet without an antivirus program. Seems hazardous unless you're a programmer.
I know you are right about the antivirus. I'm just (somewhat justifiably) paranoid & I convinced myself that as long as I stayed away from porn & bootlegged movies I wouldn't have to worry about viruses, worms or scripts; obviously I was wrong.
DeleteI look forward to your article. You should consider getting in touch with Mike Hockney. I'd love to see you two dialogue like we did last year.
It looks we could have a fascinating dialogue, if those Illuminists were to agree to it. (Hockney isn't a real person, right? He's the name of a trio of so-called Illuminists.) It doesn't seem so easy to contact them, as you'd expect from a secret society.
DeleteIn starting to read through that long introduction on the website to which you linked, I'm noticing some over-the-top boasts that the authors take either seriously or with a sense of humour and irony. (I hope it's the latter, because the former would be unbearable.)
For example, the website says, "This website is now entering the land of myth and legend. People in the future will wonder at the amazing secrets it revealed in its heyday. These secrets have now been distilled into the hundreds of books listed on the website, the greatest library of knowledge ever created. For the first time, humanity can now see what it is like to be God.
"The God Series, comprising 32 epic books, will in future times be regarded as an astounding and almost unbelievable gift to humanity. In this series, humanity was given its pathway to solve ALL PROBLEMS."
If the authors really believe that, they're probably cranks with gaping blind spots. I noticed one sophomoric inference they draw just prior to that quotation, where they dismiss most Western philosophy as being a series of rationalizations of the various character traits of the philosophers (the second-rate intellectuals). Thus, Schopenhauer the bitter pessimist produces a philosophy that justifies his failures and grim attitudes. Nietzsche, the sickly fellow, dreams of being "Superman."
I'd have been more impressed if the authors addressed the possibility that they've reversed cause and effect in this case. Maybe the philosophical perspective comes first and the failures and bitterness and character traits come afterward to suit that perspective. If you see things philosophically, especially from an early age, you're likely to be a social outsider, so you'll have difficulty succeeding in conventional terms.
So that was an amateurish appeal to relativism on the website's part. Maybe they address the rejoinder elsewhere, but it looks like the relativism is meant only to elevate math above philosophy and science and everything else. Math alone is abstract enough to get at the objective truth, they say.
The tactics here may be closer to a religious fundamentalist's than to a genuine philosopher's. But I'll keep reading, though, and see what I can come up with.
Well, I've assumed that Mike Hockney is a pen-name for a particular individual; but who knows? I've read some of the other books by 'Adam Weishaupt' & 'Michael Faust' & must admit that they are very similar in style to Hockney, though not in content. In any case, the only way to contact him would be through the AC site.
DeleteI'm not sure how serious they are in their presentation. The boasting may just be them trying to sell themselves to a public that puts more confidence in certainty than humility. These guys hold Christianity, capitalism, & scientism in contempt, so you already have enough common ground to allow for some mutual respect.
I think there is some merit in reading a philosopher as an apologist for their own failures, but it would be wrong to limit oneself to that perspective. Even if Schopenhauer used pessimism to justify his personal failures, that wouldn't refute his philosophy. We need to keep the fact/value dichotomy in mind. I think it's possible to agree with Schopenhauer's metaphysics & yet reject his pessimism just as a Zen Buddhist could be an enlightened but merciless killer (most Samurai practiced Zen!). In your dialogue with Sender Spike you asked why an enlightened person should feel bliss instead of despair or compassion rather than contempt. I'll assume you were being rhetorical. Enlightenment is just a special kind of (non-conceptual) knowledge & individuals will react to it each in their own individual ways. Schopenhauer saw life as a tragedy because he was idealistic & prone to pity. But a more pragmatic, less empathic person could just as easily see comedy where he saw tragedy. In Sade's Juliette the minister Saint-Fond shares his philosophy over dinner with the protagonist & as I read it I couldn't help but be struck by how closely it resembled Schopenhauer's: the world & everything in it is animated by a malevolent will & when we die we are simply reunited with the essence of all evil. Juliette dismisses Saint-Fond's philosophy as merely a raison d'être for his cruelty & maybe she was right, but it still didn't mean the minister was wrong.
Philosophers' views should be consistent with their lifestyle; otherwise, they're hypocrites. But that doesn't mean their philosophy is just a rationalization or a crass exercise in self-defense, since they can use their experience to discern larger truths. Ultimately we have to write what we know, and we know ourselves best of all. Philosophers aren't like scientists in focusing on empirical details that have little relevance to our deepest interests. Philosophers address the big questions in life that are crucial to our well-being.
DeleteThe sin in philosophy is small-mindedness. It's possible that a pessimist like Schopenhauer was ultimately talking only about himself, so that his pessimistic philosophy reflected only his idiosyncrasies. But it's also possible his pessimism tapped into a broader critique, into Buddhism and the other Eastern traditions, and that his pessimism made him antisocial which forced him into a deeper objectivity, into an extreme case of Thomas Nagel's "view from nowhere."
From where should we expect deep philosophical insights or perspectives to come, from social insiders or outsiders? From those who protect social norms or from those who have nothing to lose? This goes for art, too, as it went for old-school "prophecy" or social critique. The critics are outsiders so they're not beholden to the system they're seeing through. Of course, if the philosopher is such an outsider that he lives in a cave, he won't know what he's talking about. So philosophers (and artists and other social critics) live a double life.
Again, the Illuminists' appeal to relativism at that point strikes me as sophomoric, as do their personal attacks against their apparent critics. Don't they thereby seem juvenile (not to mention bitter) rather than enlightened? In this case, the amateurishness isn't due to their age, but to the fact that they likely have an academic background outside the humanities, in the maths and sciences. So they're dilettantes. That's just a hypothesis, though, and it's not relevant to what I'll say about their worldview.