Breaking The Galilean Spell

Stuart Kauffman writes about the shortcomings and ultimate failure of reductionism in science.

If no natural law suffices to describe the evolution of the biosphere, of technological evolution, of human history, what replaces it? In its place is a wondrous radical creativity without a supernatural Creator. Look out your window at the life teeming about you. All that has been going on is that the sun has been shining on the earth for some 5 billion years. Life is about 3.8 billion years old. The vast tangled bank of life, as Darwin phrased it, arose all on its own. This web of life, the most complex system we know of in the universe, breaks no law of physics, yet is partially lawless, ceaselessly creative. So, too, are human history and human lives. This creativity is stunning, awesome, and worthy of reverence. One view of God is that God is our chosen name for the ceaseless creativity in the natural universe, biosphere, and human cultures.

Because of this ceaseless creativity, we typically do not and cannot know what will happen. We live our lives forward, as Kierkegaard said. We live as if we knew, as Nietzsche said. We live our lives forward into mystery, and do so with faith and courage, for that is the mandate of life itself.

[...]

Across our globe, about half of us believe in a Creator God. Some billions of us believe in an Abrahamic supernatural God, and some in the ancient Hindu gods. Wisdom traditions such as Buddhism often have no gods. About a billion of us are secular but bereft of our spirituality and reduced to being materialist consumers in a secular society. If we the secular hold to anything it is to “humanism.” But humanism, in a narrow sense, is too thin to nourish us as human agents in the vast universe we partially cocreate. I believe we need a domain for our lives as wide as reality. If half of us believe in a supernatural God, science will not disprove that belief.

We need a place for our spirituality, and a Creator God is one such place. I hold that it is we who have invented God, to serve as our most powerful symbol. It is our choice how wisely to use our own symbol to orient our lives and our civilizations. I believe we can reinvent the sacred. We can invent a global ethic, in a shared space, safe to all of us, with one view of God as the natural creativity in the universe.

via aldaily.com

Catholics - cf. CCC, 31-35. This is interesting writing. As a Christian, of course, I also believe that it’s seriously deficient, but interesting nevertheless. A god of strictly vegetative spirit is no god at all, but rather instead a convenient shorthand. A spirituality centered on it worships the painting at the expense of the artist. Prof. Kauffman gets a little close to Anselm’s ontological proof, but this is still a long way from the idea of Emmanuel, God-with-us. Still, he is to be commended for continuing to seek and knock. The section at the end about the “four injuries” bears particular scrutiny.

Painters, short-time and books.

We’ve had painters in the house for…days. They’re almost done, which is good. Our rooms have been discombobulated for over a week, stuff piled up everywhere. They’re nice guys, and they’ve done a great job, but it’s time for them to wrap up and get out. Now.

In other news…just kidding. There is no other news. I’m still wrapping things up at my old job, which means that I go to an odd meeting now and then for something called “knowledge transfer.” This sounds like I ought to be strapped to a table, with Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman hovering nearby. In reality I play 20 questions and try to stay interested, since the projects we’re covering will be completed in the After-time, when I’ve moved into the Great Beyond.

I wrapped up Lewis’ OHEL last night, after a short detour through Shakespeare’s sonnets, which he wrote about at length. I will probably renew my attack on the plays soon, though I’ve been seriously looking at starting Children of Hurin. I got it as a gift awhile back, but had just finished reading The Silmarilion and The Book of Lost Tales and needed a breather from Tolkien. Enough time has passed, I think. For big-kid bedtime reading, I’ve started Watership Down. Talking rabbits? Grand adventures? Fighting? There’s a little something in there for everyone.

Movies inbound from Netflix: The second part of Gormenghast and Pan’s Labyrinth.

New job

So, the thing that was cooking is this: I’m starting a new job in a couple of weeks. This represents somewhat of a career change for me, so I’m a little nervous but still very excited. I’ll be based out of a home office and traveling a little around the region as a “field service engineer”, which basically means that I accompany an account executive and answer technical questions about the products. I can do this with a minimum of hassle because we used quite a few of these products at my current-soon-to-be-former employer and know full well how great they are, albeit a little on the pricey side. In any case, it’s the first time I’ve ever worked in a sales-type of role.

Luckily, the AE I’m working with is pretty seasoned so I can concentrate on technical stuff for now. He’s a strong believer in minimizing the amount of overnight traveling, which is another bonus. Our location puts us within about a 4 hour drive of most of our territory, so we should be able to do day trips throughout the middle of the week, reserving Mondays and Fridays for office days.

I’m pretty stoked. A couple of former co-workers have already moved over to this company, so I’ll already know some of the folks on the team. I haven’t worked from home in several years now, but thoroughly enjoyed it when I did. We’re having to rejigger some of the rooms in order to clear enough room for an office, but everyone seems to be taking it in stride. The sleeping arrangements were going to change anyway, so they’re just changing a little ahead of schedule.

Anyway, it’s been brewing for a couple of weeks, but for obvious reasons I had to keep mum.
Having given notice at work, I can talk about it now with no small amount of relief.

Oh, and: W00T!

House stuff

A couple of months back, we bought a new dishwasher to replace the one that came with the house. The old one just sort of stopped working one day, so we took that as a sign that, you know, it needed replacing. As it happens, I’d replaced a dishwasher once at our old house. There’s really not that much to it, since you’re only connecting three things: power, water supply and waste. Simple. I could have done easily done it.

But no.

Instead, I let the place we bought it from install it. I paid for this privilege. You know what happened next? It leaked. In fact, it leaked for a week. We didn’t know it was leaking because the hardwood floors in the kitchen did not extend all the way under the dishwasher. The water pooled there, then seeped under the planks and spread into a large, Africa-shaped stain that only became visible after a week. We called the installer, who declared that a “faulty part” was to blame, and this so that he could file an insurance claim for the repair of the floor.

That’ll teach me.

As it turns out, the floor couldn’t be fixed. It had to be replaced, in toto. This was fine by us for two reasons. First, we weren’t going to be paying for it. Second, the floor was dinged hard in a few places anyway. Sorting out the claim, estimates and ordering of the new floor stuff took many weeks, but the Flooring Guy showed up yesterday and will probably wrap up today. At least, we hope he’ll wrap up today so we can get our kitchen and dining area back.

While the Flooring Guy is working downstairs, the Painter is working upstairs and downstairs. The previous owners of our house had…attempted to paint. By “attempted”, I mean that drunken orangutans painted the walls. There were smears all over the trim, the ceiling and baseboards. Big ones, too. After we moved in, E. and I tackled the MBR and then I swore I’d never paint another room again. I lack the patience and, frankly, the attention span to do it right, so it takes us forever. You pay someone to come in, and he knocks out an entire room in a day - with razor-sharp trim and not a single spot on the floor anywhere.

The bummer is that I have to drain and move the aquarium so that he can get to the wall behind it. Ugh. Not looking forward to that. We’ll probably just house everyone temporarily in big rubbermaid tub for the day, then transfer them all back to the tank in the evening. Fingers are crossed that we don’t have any casualties in the process.

Still here.

Last week was pretty busy, thus my relative silence. Some things are cooking that I can’t talk about quite yet. Stay tuned.

We were supposed to go camping with the scouts last weekend, but punted at the last minute because the weather was looking pretty sketchy. Severe thunderstorms and whatnot. I’ve had two rainouts on camping trips and they’re about as miserable as it gets. Everyone was very understanding, and more than willing to wait a few weeks until it warms up just a wee bit more and the weather is a bit more cooperative.

So, instead, we got a lot of stuff done around the house (including a long-overdue reorg of the garage). As a small compensation for missing the camping trip, I took most of the kids on a 2-mile hike at a nearby state preserve. We did the loop late last summer, and wanted to return in the spring to see the wildflower populations. It was a nice walk, and we’re betting that another month will have the flowers in full swing.

Movies: Elizabeth: The Golden Age and first episode of the BBC’s miniseries version of Gormenghast.

Parent Hacks takes on the crock pot.

Discussions ensue. There will probably be some good things posted here, so check the thread from time to time.

Pinewood Derby, more camping gear and Shakespeare’s sonnets.

The Pinewood Derby was a great success - our car placed second among the dens, so Pancho left with a nice little red ribbon and a certificate for “Shiniest Car”. Unfortunately, the ribbon, car and certificate got left behind in a bag. Luckily for us, our packmaster found the bag and is holding onto all of it for us. Afterwards we hit DQ to celebrate, then rounded off the day with some final camping-gear shopping.

The dollar store, incidentally, is God’s gift to the family getting started with gear. We bought all the kitchen untensils we could possibly need, along with things like plastic tubs for dishwashing and clean-up towels for just under $40. I spent the afternoon packing all of the kitchen stuff into a single, large Rubbermaid tub and it fit perfectly. Some time this week - maybe tonight, actually - I need to fire up both the lantern and the stove. I don’t think that sundown at the campsite is the best time to figure these things out. Lastly, I practiced-packed Clifford (The Big Red Van) and it looks like things will fit, but it will be tight. We’ll need to use floor space under the wee ones for clothes and such. I was afraid we were going to need a hitch and platform for extra storage, but I think we’ll be in good shape without it. For now, anyway.

For movies this weekend, it was Oceans 13 (lightweight but fun) and Serenity (dark and exciting). We think we will probably buy the series and movie before too much longer. I’m almost done with Lewis’ book on sixteenth century poetry and prose, having completed the section covering Shakespeare’s sonnets. His plays are evidently covered in a separate volume by somebody else, so Lewis concentrates on the poetry alone: Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and the sonnets of course. I’ve gone back to my Riverside edition and started to re-read them all in sequence, as Lewis says we ought to do occasionally. Who am I to argue?

Foodish things: we found a hole in the wall Japanese/Thai place up the road that makes pretty good yakisoba and katsudon. Huzzah! We used to make yakisoba at home quite a bit before the kids came along, and had considered trying our hand at katsudon. But now it’s right up the road! And cheap!

Lastly, and I scarcely dare write this, for fear of waking up and finding it all a dream: TRADER JOE’S IS COMING TO TOWN. Yup. Saw it in the paper the other day. It’s not exactly close to our house, but it’s a whole lot closer than Atlanta.

Loss of Faith

Dr. Hutchens writes about the loss of faith at Mere Comments, the blog for Touchstone magazine, which I highly recommend to any and all.

At the base of the religion of mediocrity, I came to believe, was our church’s doctrine of “security” in which the admonition, found in numerous forms in the New Testament, to “be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall . . . .” was so heavily discounted. We did not, in fact, believe in striving or zealotry in confirming one’s call or election, for these things were assured once we had prayed to accept Jesus. Along with this came the option of doodling away one’s life in the belief that hard-won accomplishment among Christians was presumptive evidence of infidelity.

RJN on MLK

Father Neuhaus remembers the Rev. Dr. King, who was assassinated on this day in 1968.

This is a week of remembering. Wednesday evening I celebrated and preached the Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral recalling the death of John Paul the Great three years ago April 2. This Friday, also at St. Patrick’s, I will concelebrate–Edward Cardinal Egan celebrating and Father George Rutler preaching–the memorial Mass for William F. Buckley Jr. In 2005, April 2 was the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday, and John Paul’s last words were, “Let me go to the house of the Father.” In the issue of First Things that subscribers will be receiving this week, I have an extended reflection on my friendship with Bill Buckley. In our last conversations, it was evident that he heard the Master calling and readily went.

And then there was the killing of Dr. King on April 4 in that apocalyptic year of 1968. For all the horror and heartbreak of the time, there were sustained moments in which one thought with Wordsworth, “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive / But to be young was very heaven.” For those of us who were there, it not easy to recognize that, had he lived, Dr. King would now be seventy-nine years old. Not to mention that John F. Kennedy, killed in 1963, would be ninety-one, and Robert, also killed in 1968, eighty-three. But the memories still break out of amber and renew the luster of a liberalism that was.

Remembering, and Misremembering, Martin Luther King Jr. 

Language, and our responsibilities to it.

I place a great deal of stock in precision in language. Words and how they are used, after all, are a direct manifestation of our thoughts. Once upon a time, I’d wanted to teach English, but a quarter in the College of Education cured me of that. I didn’t even finish it out, dropping the classes and immediately applying to the Journalism school. I never worked as a journalist, but have nevertheless found that a command of language is an invaluable tool regardless of the field of work. It was very common for me to, over time, acquire the additional role of copy editor/wordsmith for whoever my manager happened to be at the time. Frankly, I was happy to do it. Few things give a grammatical nitpicker pleasure like ruthlessly editing a poorly-written press release, e-mail or customer communication.

I’ve occasionally considered returning to school to study literature, perhaps with an eye towards teaching it when I get older and have more time and fewer responsibilities. Usually, a brief chat with a friend of ours who actually is a college English teacher is enough to bring me back to reality. So I press on - slowly picking my way through the Canon and brushing up on usage and style whenever I can. Curiously, the improving ability to clearly express myself has also resulted in a…I’m not sure how to put this…greater sensitivity to what I hear when I’m listening to others. Here is a person, expressing their thoughts. What I do not hear - the pauses, omissions, brief reflections - tell me almost as much as the words themselves. It’s worth the time to carefully listen to the other person, to reflect on the totality of their expression.

This, I think, is a great gift, and one that I hope we can pass along to our children. I think anyone can attain it. Take up and read. Find things that are difficult and try them. Revisit the things you read in high school and college - you will doubtlessly find that a few years of life experience since graduation will bring these books back into clear focus. You will be surprised - don’t be. They are classics for a reason. Themes and symbols that utterly escape the average teenager will come into clear relief after you’ve spent some time in relationships, getting married, starting a family, building a career, struggling and so on.

The plan, inasmuch as we have one, looks something like this:

• Increase their exposure to good books, teaching them to read as soon as they are ready, and make a library card an important rite-of-passage.
• Eliminate the presence of the television in our home. There is no cable or satellite connection.
• Carefully monitor their use of other visual media - we have a room just for movies, and they are allowed to watch things from a small library we keep.
• Associate, as much as we can, with others who share similar views
• Emphasize the role of communication and text in terms of our relationship with God, through participation in the Liturgy, study of the Scriptures and acquaintance with the Fathers.
• Set the example by continuously improving and learning on our own. We don’t stop learning until we die and we know as we are known.
• Seek wisdom in the received texts of our western patrimony
• Utterly reject of the modern method of criticism. Strive to understand the works on their own terms and in their own contexts. The dead, too, deserve a vote.
• Encourage an intense curiosity in (and appreciation of) the natural world around us, which hopefully leads to further reading and research.

The fruits, I think, are already evident. Glossing over things isn’t as easy as it used to be with our oldest children, and the younger ones are hot on their heels. The four-year-old will probably start her reading lessons this summer. Our youngest progresses daily in talking. The baby…well, she’s still just crawling around. Let’s not go crazy here.