Hitchhiker's Guide to the Apocalypse pt. 1

The dissolution of objective methods

Let’s not waste any time and just get straight to it..

The Nature of Statements

The world is spinning faster.

That is a statement. To approach the meaning of the apocalypse, we need to consider what this statement means and how we are to relate to it. Because the apocalypse has everything to do with our relation to meaning. Such a statement, that the world is spinning faster, can be equally obviously wrong or right depending on how it’s approached. In one sense, you know what  I mean by it.  The speed at which things are changing. Definitions and meanings of concepts, political polarization, the rapid increase of technology and the advent of AI, new rules and norms to adhere to that no two persons seem to have the same idea of just how they’re to be understood. Digital currencies, social media, self-driving cars, pandemics, vaccine passports… While I could go on listing things to strengthen my claim by referring to the novelties of our age, I don’t think I need to. I think it’s already a prevalent enough feeling in the world we’re living in that you can connect the statement to a sense of how the unfolding of the human civilization is reflected in experience.

In another sense, it is wrong. “The world is spinning faster” makes a claim about an increase in velocity. There are countless of ways, some more precise than others, by which you could get an estimate of the speed with which the earth is rotating around its own axis. And by comparing the result to earlier data, you could prove to me that the world is in fact not spinning faster with some scientific accuracy. This wouldn’t be a wrong of you. But it would miss the point. Because it deals with the statement in terms of facts rather than in terms of meaning. I’m not really going to make an argument here in the proper sense of the word, more of an exploration. And in that exploration, I will try to show how the “spinning faster” of the world – when that statement is interpreted through the lens of meaning – has something to do with the discrepancy between fact and meaning and how that discrepancy is affecting our experience of the world. And, as promised by the title, this will take us to the apocalypse. But not necessarily in the cataclysmic sense. The word apocalypse is understood in terms of meaning rather than in terms of fact.

A is for Apocalypse

The Greek root of the word Apocalypse comes from the prefix Apo-, which indicates a reversal or undoing, and Kaluptein which means ‘to cover’. It means, literally, an uncovering. To reveal. The book in the Bible which deals with the apocalypse is called ‘The Book of Revelations’. I’m not bringing this up in order to go full on bible thumping doomsday prophet here, I just want to bring some nuance to the word. So that you can put it away in your back pocket for the remainder of the article and just carry it with you. The apocalypse means an uncovering. That the veil which has hidden something is drawn back. An unveiling, a revealing. What we’re interested in this little hitchhiking trip we’re going on isn’t to draw the veil back, but to understand more about what the veil is. And how we can find it just resting there in the language we use if we’re attentive. So keep this in the periphery as we delve a bit further into the world of facts.

Our statement about the world spinning faster doesn’t in itself say how it should be understood. But the two different ways of approaching it – by meaning or by fact – would lead us to understand it in quite fundamentally different ways. Let’s deconstruct how the scientific approach arrives at the facts of the matter. We’re not as interested in the answer itself here, but rather how it is arrived at. There’s a propositional statement – “The world is spinning faster” – and then there’s a research into whether the facts of the physical world corresponds to the proposition. If the facts correspond to the proposition, then there’s reason to assume that the statement is true until new facts come along and show us why it isn’t. And if the facts to not correspond then there’s reason to doubt its validity. And that is how we move forward scientifically, by questioning and doubting while connecting theories to empirical ground. It is how we arrive at Truth. How we understand what is the case and what is not. It is the method by which we evaluate how our assumptions of reality correspond to reality itself. And it is this method that we have to thank for the advancement in technology over the past couple of hundred years, the increased social justice and notion of the inherent value of every human being. It is a method that has freed us from the fetters of superstition and turned us into masters of reality, capable of creating and imposing any meaning we see fit upon the world of indifferent objectivity that lies beneath our feet. Did you catch the slowly increasing irony? Maybe that is a bit of a grandiose claim made by a strawman I’ve made up. But I’d argue that the modern zeitgeist sort of implies such a claim. However, it would sort of beg the question if I were to try to use the scientific method in order to show the claims of the scientific method. They would be rather obscured. Instead I’m going to try to circle around some patterns of it. For now, however, I’m just asking you to entertain the hypothesis that the ideals of reason from which the scientific method has grown assumes that meaning is something that we humans impose on a cold and indifferent universe rather than something we discover as an inherent part of reality.
Dis-cover. Hmm..

An Interesting Something

We’re going to venture on a little epistemological adventure here. And we’re doing it together. While our communication, dear reader, is rather one-sided, it is still with you in mind that I write this. I’m not preaching you the facts but discovering the path to where this is going as I write. Not to waste your time on meandering reflections. I still have a goal in mind. But I need to approach it in a certain manner to make sense of it, reporting what I see in the landscape as we move through it.
Let’s set the stage for the epistemological adventure we’re heading out on. Something, a Something interesting enough to capitalize the first letter of, appears on the horizon. We don’t need to make to much of an assumption of what that Something is. It’s about the journey, not the destination. And when I say that it appears on the horizon, I mean the metaphorical horizon. Don’t go looking out the window and try to discredit me. That’s not what I mean.

One way to ascertain the understanding which we feel we need would be to just begin working our way towards the Something. The straight line is the shortest path. No unnecessary steps. We just head towards what we want to find out, formulating and reworking theories about what it is until we get close enough to it to actually see it. Then we describe it in the most accurate and rational way we can and our description functions as a scientific representation of the Something. After we formulate our theories, we study and measure the Something and compare our empirical data to our theories. When we take this approach to Something, we come to have an understanding of the facts of it.

Another way of going about things when the Something which we find ourselves compelled to understand more about appears on the metaphorical horizon is to move around it. We can circle it and steadily make narrower circles and approach it that way. In this manner, we’re not really interested in the facts about the Something. Rather, we keep it in mind as we move around it. We may encounter new landscapes and we may encounter old ones. But when we move into territory we’ve visited before, we do so with the Something in our periphery and we notice how it changes the tone and vibe of the landscape. Thoughts and feelings arise when we circle the Something and we tend to them with the Something in mind. We don’t look directly at the Something. Rather, we come to know it by how it affects our perception of other things by its peripheral presence. We don’t analyze it by putting it into our frame of reference, but rather keep it in mind and see how it affects our frame of reference. By doing this, we don’t move towards the facts of the Something. We rather circle around the meaning of it.

What we’re doing together here is circling. We’re interested in meaning rather than fact. So, we need to find the proper path that allows us to circle it, not just analyze it and be done with it. The “how” is more significant for us here than the “what”. That’s the thing about the world spinning faster, we spin with it and forget to just stay put for a while and reflect. We get a notion of where we need to go and then we try to find the shortest path to get there. With the increased tempo, we need to become faster, more effective, and straight to the point. If you can’t fit it in a TikTok, then it’s not worth saying. And the same thing applies to the written word, you want the article to quickly convey what is the point of it so that you can make up your mind about whether you agree or disagree. This meandering pseudo-meta thing isn’t helping you with that. But I do think there’s a ‘but’ to be added to your rightful indignation towards this distracting and seemingly pointless paragraph. Sure, effective writing and not wasting the readers time is a good thing – BUT – to consider something deeply requires stillness and reflection. Not just a barrage of sensory impressions and information. Now, I don’t want to portray this text as a hallmark of deep thought. But I think that in order to make up one’s mind about what is to follow – whether one agrees or disagrees – some “deep” reflection is required. If we just rush to it, straight to the point, that which needs reflection will not even be seen. So don’t assume the meaning by rushing to the facts. It is in what we’re moving around. While I can’t promise you anything, I hope that we both will get a better vision of it as we continue to move. But I can promise you, we do not move arbitrarily. However (and this may cause some discomfort), we move somewhat irrationally.

A Redemption of the Irrational

“Isn’t to call something ‘irrational’ enough to dismiss it?”, you may think. Or not. As I said, this is a rather one-sided way of communicating. And the ‘you’ I’m speaking to here isn’t really a set person, but rather whomever fills that role by reading this text this far. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that the accusation of irrationality is enough to put you off. Then I’d want to call some attention to how this came to be, this irrationality’s fall from grace. Not to switch subject, but to move. We’re still circling a Something. A Something we’re not analyzing and defining, but rather trying to find the meaning of. Keep some attention to the periphery and try to “feel” it by the centrifugal force it exerts on us as we move around it.
Irrationality has come to be something close to a curse word. If you can prove your opponent in an argument to be irrational, well, you’ve won the argument. But how did this come to be? It wasn’t by way of deeming irrationality bad unto itself, but rather that irrationality came to mean the negation of an ideal that was good unto itself. The badness of irrationality doesn’t imply something substantially bad, but rather the privation of a good ideal. As St Augustine would put it, where he to find himself an Enlightenment era pseudo-atheist: “For irrationality has no positive nature; but the loss of rationality has received the name ‘irrational’”.
By the transformation of ideals in the Enlightenment era, rational thought and reason became the unquestionable ways of relating to and gaining an understanding of reality. It constituted a paradigm shift in how we construe the meaning of ourselves in relation to the world we inhabit. Today we take this for granted, that a rational understanding of the world holds more explanatory force than an irrational one. But let’s just consider the fact – and try to not peak behind the curtains of where the pointing out of this fact is leading us, but just see it – that there is no rational reason why an argument based in rationality and reason should hold more weight than one that isn’t. Now, really, no peaking behind the curtains here, no “What is this meant to imply?”. We’re still moving. But right now, we’re here. So let’s keep our focus on the here and now rather than guess what is hiding behind the hills towards where this path leads us.

For a rational argument to hold weight, rationality must be understood as something that gives weight. And while I’m not trying to argue that rationality doesn’t give weight to argument, I’m trying to point out that it isn’t a given that it does. The weight of rational arguments follows from a belief in an ideal. The supremacy of rationality can’t be arrived at by rational deduction. Because such deduction would already presume that rationality gives weight to the claim that the deduction arrives at. It would beg the question and we’d fall into a circular argument. And circular arguments offend rationality as they are not logically valid. The premise of the weight given by rationality is already assumed at the outset of applying the method. What gives weight to the method that we’re trying to find the answer to the question already presumes an answer to that question. That rational arguments hold weight must, paradoxically, be proven irrationally to be logically sound. This isn’t what we’re going to do here, however. It is just the landscape we encounter in our movement. We’re not interested in proving nor disproving the rational method of arriving at truth. But we approach a place as we circle around Something that reveals to us that – in one manner, not necessarily in all aspects – rational arguments gain weight due to a belief in an ideal rather than due to some objective fact of reality. And, perhaps more importantly, that rationality as the subject of that belief veils itself as an ideal.

Avoiding Rationality

We keep moving. The landscape changes. The question of rationality is still present, as trees are in a forest. But we’re in a different part of the forest. The trees take on different characteristics, the topography changes and other plants grow here. Maybe there’s like a little creek or something. Some pretty animals or something, that gets the imagination going, doesn’t it? Little fairytale critters in cartoon colors dare themselves out of the thick vegetation, humming and chirping in perfect pitch. Lovely, isn’t it? The distance between the trees becomes wider and we soon find ourselves standing in a meadow. There’s a sweet and pungent smell that has confused the scientific community for ages. But we recognize, don’t we? It is of course the smell of irony. While the smell may be heavy, like incense, we won’t let it confuse us from the fact that we’re circling around Something.
Oh yeah, that metaphor isn’t wearing thin at all, it’s sooo heuristically useful.

The scientific method has a glorious track record of improving the world. The way we today, as opposed to our superstitious (and frankly rather stupid) ancestors who were like pigs wallowing in the soil of superstition, have a method for finding the Truth is because we’ve come to a point where we can gaze out upon the totality of reality and see it in totality. The scientific method allows us to abstract ourselves from the human experience to a realm where the world is perceived through pure logic, and by opening magical portals to that realm we can order our perceptions of the natural world into the pure logical forms we’ve made contact with. The scientific method wins us elections, it gives us erections, it removes unwanted lipstick from the collar, it cures your sobriety and your hangover. There ain’t no mountain high enough, nor a valley low enough that the scientific method can’t find the TRUTH of it. And if you can’t accept its gospel, it’s because YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH. Oh, it sure is a fine method. By scientific questioning, we’re led out of uncertainty and arrive at conclusions that provide us with stable ground from which we can safely formulate theories about the reality we inhabit. And we can rest safe that while the theories themselves may have faults, the continual use of the scientific method will, undoubtedly, lead us to a place of understanding where our theories encompass the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth, about everything that is, that has been and that will be. Yeah, that’s just gonna work itself out without any kinks at all. Why think twice about the method?

Ok, let’s stop inhaling irony fumes for a minute before we become completely unhinged. There are other ways, with our minds sober from irony that we could look at this meadow. The ideals of reason and rationality leads to a certain assumption of the world. By belief in them as an underlying reality, our perceptions are structured in a manner that make sense according to those ideals. What is obscured by the belief in reason is that the ideal itself isn’t derived from a way in which things make sense, but that the sense things make is contingent on the ideal that has already been presumed. Reason itself isn’t a problem as far as it is pragmatically useful, but as an ideal it becomes problematic precisely because it obscures itself from being an ideal and makes claim to be an inherent part of the natural world. It supplies us with a rational model of the world, which isn’t a bad thing. But the problem is when the model makes a claim to be an unskewed and undistorted objective representation of the world. It is a problem because the world as it is, the world that we make faulty and imperfect representations of in our best attempts to understand it, becomes something hostile to the model of it. The apocalypse is not the end of the world, but the end of a world. The end of a model of representing it that has been assumed to encompass all of reality. More on what that entails will come in the next part. Thanks for reading all the way here, please do leave an argument or criticism if you’re so inclined. Keep your thumb extended and I’ll catch you in the next part.