Leo Tolstoy and The Silent Universe

[Philosophy Now]

Frank Martela relates how science destroyed the meaning of life, but helps us find meaning in life.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/139/Leo_Tolstoy_and_The_Silent_Universe

[Nick_A]

The mechanical devolution of objective meaning from the human awareness of its source into the idolatry of the workings of the Great Beast. From this perspective I can see why suicide seems like such a logical alternative

"Idolatry comes from the fact that, while thirsting for absolute good, we do not possess the power of supernatural attention and we have not the patience to allow it to develop." Simone Weil

[PeteJ]

The mechanical devolution of objective meaning from the human awareness of its source into the idolatry of the workings of the Great Beast. From this perspective I can see why suicide seems like such a logical alternative

"Idolatry comes from the fact that, while thirsting for absolute good, we do not possess the power of supernatural attention and we have not the patience to allow it to develop." Simone Weil

Nice comment. I suppose we could see materialism and realism as idolatry.

[Nick_A]

The mechanical devolution of objective meaning from the human awareness of its source into the idolatry of the workings of the Great Beast. From this perspective I can see why suicide seems like such a logical alternative

"Idolatry comes from the fact that, while thirsting for absolute good, we do not possess the power of supernatural attention and we have not the patience to allow it to develop." Simone Weil

Nice comment. I suppose we could see materialism and realism as idolatry.

The Golden calf replaces our Source or what provides objective meaning.

Matthew 6:24

No man can serve two masters: for either he. will hate the one, and love the other; or else. he will hold to the one, and despise the other, Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

This doesn't make money evil. Money is fine but shouldn't be the dominating factor for anyone in search of objective meaning.

[owl of Minerva]

A person can have an existential crises when the question 'who am I' is asked' not by the ego but of the ego. If I remember correctly from 'My Confession' Tolstoy's dream gave him the answer. The dream showed that when everything that a person has identified with; a philosophy or a religion etc., is stripped away; is seen as meaningless, what is fundamental to life is still there. That was the message of his healing dream and that is what saved him.

[attofishpi]

Frank Martela relates how science destroyed the meaning of life, but helps us find meaning in life.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/139/Le ... t_Universe

What a fantastic and well researched article.

Carlyle’s protagonist goes through the classic steps of an existential crisis. First came loss of religious faith: “Doubt had darkened into Unbelief… shade after shade goes grimly over your soul… Is there no God, then?” Without God, the universe becomes cold and silent: “To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition: it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb.” In a mechanistic universe void of any transcendental values, nothing seems to matter any more.

I love atheists, I love science in which there clearly is NO conflict with my gnosis, but...what a sad git an atheist can be!!

I would venture to say that the key force behind the existential crises of Carlyle, Tolstoy, and others was the emerging atheistic worldview encouraged by science.

Science encourages nothing of the sort. Atheist scientists perhaps, but certainly not 'science'.

Similarly, as regards Tolstoy, it seems no accident that just a few months before writing in his diary that “life on earth has nothing to give” while plunging head-first into existential crisis, Tolstoy had been reading about physics, pondering the concepts of gravity, heat and how a ‘column of air exerts pressures’. In understanding more about the cold laws of nature, he lost his faith in the transcendent. He notes how he “sought in all the sciences” but “far from finding what I wanted, became convinced that all who like myself had sought in knowledge for the meaning of life had found nothing.” In a world governed by the mechanistic laws of nature, there was no longer room for purpose.

Physics! The language of God - did Tolstoy delve into the quantum level and still see no plausibility to there being a God behind its construct, indeed the construct of reality!? Rather short-sighted on his part.

More than a century after the deaths of Carlyle and Tolstoy, the atheistic worldview has penetrated our way of seeing the world to an even greater degree.

Not sure in what way Martela is insisting there is a greater degree of 'seeing the world' from the perspective of atheism? I do hope he is not falling into that common misconception that perpetuates throughout atheism these days, that you either have science OR you have theism - that is RUBBISH.
Simulation or Divine Reality? https://www.androcies.com

Nick_A - shove your buy_bull mumbo jumbo where it belongs - the RELIGION AREA.

[Nick_A]

A person can have an existential crises when the question 'who am I' is asked' not by the ego but of the ego. If I remember correctly from 'My Confession' Tolstoy's dream gave him the answer. The dream showed that when everything that a person has identified with; a philosophy or a religion etc., is stripped away; is seen as meaningless, what is fundamental to life is still there. That was the message of his healing dream and that is what saved him.

I think you will like this excerpt from Meister Eckhart. The essence of reality is beyond our interpretations.

"The mind never rests but must go on expecting and preparing for what is yet known and what is still concealed. Meanwhile, man cannot know what God is, even though he be ever so well of what God is not; and an intelligent person will reject that. As long as it has no reference point, the mind can only wait as matter waits for him. And matter can never find rest except in form; so, too, the mind can never find rest except in the essential truth which is locked up in it--the truth about everything. Essence alone satisfied and God keeps on withdrawing, farther and farther away, to arouse the mind's zeal and lure it to follow and finally grasp the true good that has no cause. Thus, contented with nothing, the mind clamors for the highest good of all."

[owl of Minerva]

Eckhart's description appears to be similar to a labyrinth where the seeker has to traverse many paths, forwards and backwards, with many twists and turns, to reach the center. The center does not come to the seeker.

The mystics pursue an inner course to the singularity; discounting the senses. The scientist pursues an outer course through inferences based on sense data.

The mystic, in unity, appears to be in a better place in relation to the singularity, when it is reached, than the scientist, who remains subject to, and limited by, the relativities of duality.

In relation to the singularity the scientist can infer its existence but not relate to it scientifically, as ordinary calculations break down.

[Impenitent]

silent universe...

are the sound waves from the big bang still rippling through the infinity of space?

-Imp