The Elusive Archimedean Point

Today we remember those who gave their lives in war. We do this surrounded by war. How do we make sense of a world that won't learn from history? 

In the previous note, I suggested that clarity requires us to assume the attitude of observer rather than participant, viewing the situation objectively and dispassionately from a distance, examining evidence rationally, being the scientist rather than the poet. 

This location from which we have an objective view has been named punctum archimedis, the Archimedean point or God's-eye view. If we could see the world from outside the story and not be troubled by emotion, instinct, affinities, proximity, familiarity, appetites, threats and promises, if we could only get to the Archimedean point, things would be clearer.

Or would they? In his book On The Origin of Time, Thomas Hertog, who collaborated with Stephen Hawking, argues that what we observe is dependent on our involvement as observers. The observer effect has implications in quantum mechanics and cosmology, leaving me thoroughly puzzled and dozy. It might be clearer when I finish the book. Wake me up and ask.

However, I am thinking that the observer effect also applies to life issues: wars, climate change, economic disparity, politics, philosophy, theology. As much as we learn by distancing ourselves from issues that arouse passion and angst, we see what we expect to see. Our opinions are like butterflies distracting us from the elusive Archimedean point and seducing us into chaos.

Every thought matters.

Whether we cheer for The Leafs
matters.
Whether we take sides in conflict
matters.
Whether we recognize
fear and aggression and xenophobia
and practice subduing them
with empathy, compassion, and reason
matters.

Everything
matters.

Listen to One of My Two Minds 

Speaking to the Other

This note has a point as you know.
So you do the science this time.
Then let's talk some more as we go.
I'll work on the meter and rhyme.

Because we're caught up in a mist
of passion and bias and lies,
those seeking for truth don't persist.
Objective reality dies.

Punctum archimedis awaits,
and when we arrive we will see
the shape of our imminent fates,
the measure of reality.

If Hawking and Hertog are right,
that point is elusive at best.

For we are the source of the light.
The quest is reality's jest.

There is no location out there

where God has an unobscured view.

God's wisdom is waiting in here,

my rhyming and rational you.

Stop moaning that life isn't fair.
That's all that we've got. So make do.