A Note on Religion
Specific beliefs in specific religions come down to faith, and as I have said it is not my desire to advocate for a specific faith. My criticism of science stems from its insistent confusion of specific religious tenets with larger metaphysical questions: Is reality-in-itself wholly material? And if not, then what is it? Given the uncertain ontological state of subatomic particles, this is a valid question.

With regard to religion and mythology, the issue of echoes is more pertinent to my discussion than faith. The idea of an impersonal transcendental dimension (call it God or not) emerges in some world religions. I argue this perception is the result of our space/time dilemma, and that the mere existence of value undercuts the notion impersonality (and even personality) aptly describe the indescribable. In this world we are separated from the Thing-in-Itself. It is directly unknowable to us, even as we strive in all cases to have a personal relationship with it. (Read Omar’s letter in Chapter Twenty-seven.) This dilemma is illustrated in such religious concepts as “original sin” and “redemption.”

Most religions and mythologies perceive humankind as being fallen in some fundamental sense. At the very least, we are junior partners to the god or gods with whom we feel an affinity. A few religions look to Nature for metaphors to understand this unequal relationship, while others look to transmogrify Nature, or dispense with it altogether in favor of an image-less deity. I do not wish to be an anthropologist in pointing this out. Need for rational explanation is hardwired in us, and everything encountered in this world cries out for it. I offer my observations only to see how it is we arrive at our impasse with questions still to answer; and why, having reached this precipice, we do not  despair of it.

We do not want complete answers to what we seek simply to end questioning, but rather we seek to end our transcendental separation. Whether in religion, art, or science, this is our goal.

The Nose That Spites The Face
Paradoxes, from infinity to sorites, are dealt with in highly paradoxical ways, especially in science. It is like someone who is occasionally distracted by their nose appearing in their line of sight. Scratching their head, they remark upon the enigma, laugh at it, and then cut it off so the debate may be rejoined in earnest. Paradoxes are conversation killers: nonstarters that, if taken seriously, would end any academic career vested in the proposition that reality-in-itself is finite, wholly rational, and nothing more.

On the other side of this coin are those in science who openly embraced paradox, not as a check on what they can know with certainty in a finite world but as what they can apply to a finite world without check. Infinity cannot be shown to exist as an actuality in finite experience, yet people like superstring guru, Brian Greene, speculate on the “mathematical” possibility of their being a near infinite number of Brian Greene clones on distant worlds engaging in exactly the same behavior as him at precisely the same time. Truly, black holes are passé, and dark energy is so last year. So to overcome the collective yawn resulting from wow fatigue, Mr. Greene crunches celestial bottles of beer on the wall in the name of science, and with barely a syllable of objection from the media or scientific community. (Read Omar’s letter in Chapter Four on the limits of mathematics.)

It is because we do not respect paradox, because we are not humbled by it, that we are overloaded with information that is increasingly meaningless to us.

According to some in Superstring theory, this point signifies an actual physical infinity. In fact, it can signify all-possible physical infinities in a tenth dimension. Yet like infinite sets in mathematics, this is something of a trick, or as Kant would say, "a mere idea." An infinity in mathematics is like a black box, where you can put things into it and take things out of it, or you can check it in relationship to other black box constructions, but you can never say what exactly the black box is or demonstrate in non-abstract terms what it contains. The difficulty in theoretical science now is there is no differentiation between things that can be represented in mathematical equations and things that can be demonstrated to exist in empirical scientific terms.

 

Many Worlds and Many Questions: Physics Jumps the Shark
Wave function collapse, where indeterminate light waves become specific particles on observation, is objectively true, if only by means of a subjective experience. This bait-and-switch may well be empirical (what is seen), but it is hardly scientific by any satisfactory definition of causation; and this riles many material reductivist physicists. To get around this indeterminacy, some physicists propose that every quantum particle exists in all-possible states at all-possible times, and when it is forced into a single state by an act of observation, those other possible states split off into alternative worlds and universes in different dimensions of space. (Yes, this last part sounds like science fiction, and were it not for nifty math it would not be taken seriously.)

This brings to mind the concept of pseudo-demonstration (aka pseudo-percisionism). Pseudo-demonstration was first attributed to philosopher and Schopenhauer rival, Hegel, though was more masterly perfected by a self-styled disciple of his, Marx. Pseudo-demonstration begins simply and cogently by connecting closely related facts, of which few would dispute. From there, these connections move further and further afield until, sucked in, ones ends with an absurd conclusion and an absurd degree of conviction about its rightness. If B follows A, then, volumes later, pineapple upside-down cake must follow Z. Physicists, who mostly would not give Hegel the time of day, out-Hegel Hegel in the outlandish way they grab the tail-end of their hypotheses and wave them about like finely finished swords. Their scenarios generate endless discussions that resemble Dungeons and Dragons play dates, where grown men in cubicles game around analogies: For example, Schrodinger’s famed cat, with its fate tied to the fate of an altered subatomic particle, never dies in an act of observation, it simply continues on, infinitely and immortally, in another universe where the subatomic particle has not changed.

One outcome of this bizarre thinking is to say people never die. They exist in each phase of their existence infinitely in altered quantum states, including (if applicable to their situation) lingering on the edge of death. Yet like many of the thought experiments generated by Many Worlds, I find this scenario tunneled and highly unimaginative. It assumes infinity can be pared down to a linear construction, like a road, where it only moves in one direction with one idea at a time. Or it is analogized to a branching tree, as to placate our needs for logical order and forward-moving narrative.

This complete lack of seriousness is underscored in the idea among some Many Worlders that when we choose between two choices, the choice not taken by us is taken by our doppelganger in an alternate universe. First, there is the assumption we choose between distinct options in distinct events at distinct times. At momentous occasions in our life, we may indeed choose between two things, but it is perhaps the gift (or curse) of autism that I routinely game dozens upon dozens of calculations in such moments—not only of options, but options within options, and options within options within options. Is there a doppelganger created with each twist and turn of my restless mind? And what about the plethora of microorganisms living in my body, whose combined weight (I am told) outweighs the remainder of me? What of the choices they make within me, as to whether to turn up or down, or toward my liver or toward my small intestine? Do microorganisms rise to the level of having fates, making choices, or meriting doppelgangers? And how do you separate their distinct choices from one another since microorganisms are constantly moving? For that matter, how do you do the same for me? Does raising my elbow five centimeters as oppose to five and a half centimeters constitute me choosing between two calibrations? Or choosing one calibration from a virtual infinity of calibrations? Is there a distinct elbow in a distinct universe for each of these calibrations across the seconds and microseconds of my life? As with so many ideas, this whole scheme falls apart in the realm of language, for Many Worlders allow the ill-defined word "choice" to dictate the narrow confinement of their thinking. Update (4/23/09)

Lets look at this another way: If everyone who exists exists in infinite variety with other outcomes elsewhere, including lingering on the edge of death, then everyone who will ever be born in this or any universe already exists, even if they do not presently exist in our universe. Mothers in alternate universes are in various states of conception and labor, and even as individuals themselves are yet-to-be conceived and born. Still, birth is different than death. Whereas death is seemingly subtractive, birth is seemingly additive. With each birth another set of infinitely numbering universes are created or potentially created, and there is no end to this creation as long as babies are being born. One can grasp that energy, which cannot be created or destroyed in-itself, is conserved when someone appears to die: By Many Worlds, they still exist elsewhere. But each new baby violates the conservation of energy by this scheme. There is no reason to suppose babies will ever stop being born, and so in what sense are all-possible realities all?

The only thing that can end these scenarios is exhaustion, for infinity, lightyears beyond our imagination, is never exhausted. Nothing physical can infinitely exist, as Kant told us. Infinity is not physical but transcendental. It is the part of reality that cannot be made to fit in reality as we understand and experience it.

Schopenhauer argued that the insight is in the question, and the answer is a mere formality. This follows on an idea by Fichte: facts do not generate theories, but, rather, theories generate facts. Many Worlds is no exception to this. It is a testimony to the human mind, as Omar alludes to in the Chapter Five letter, that it can infinity reinvent reality without once touching reality. (3/26/09)

Note: On hearing Many Worlds enthusiast, David Deutsche, talk about multiverses and quantum computing that draws on alternate dimensions, I could not help but once again hear the God Voice pop up in his glowing endorsement of an all-possible, all-knowing, all-benevolent multiverse. Again, the God-quest in all men is the same, regardless if they name what they revere as God or not. Indeed, Deutsche uses several arguments used by theists to attack Reductivism's soullessness and appetite for absurd faith in fluke accidents, only the special-ness Deutsche attaches to human existence is the result of a universal quantum identity. In acknowledging the intellectual bankruptcy of science's default position of a pointless universe that cannot account for itself, he at least moves the debate forward. Galileo and Copernicus were perhaps wrong by this new scientific thinking: Man, quantumly speaking, is the Center of the Universe after all.

Second Note: It is amazing to me how these men, who spend their days in cubicles huddled over glaring computers screens, have little if any room in their equations for art, music or poetry—let alone religion. These things are of no consequence or value in mathematical equations, even though math, ironically, is itself an art form. If they could but see how reality is not only about explanation but also about experiences that defy explanation, then perhaps they would see the utter incompleteness of their schemes to reduce everything down to surface and fact. (It is also interesting to note that scientists such as Martin Gardner, who is dismissive of Many Worlds and describes himself as a theist in the school of Kant and others, has a passionate interest in art and literature.)

Scientific Method: The Overplayed Card
The broad scope of science lulls many into believing that the deeper conflicts inherent in individual scientific disciplines need never be collectively addressed as a philosophical concern. Philosophers of science such as Popper, Kuhn, and Lakatos, who made this overview their business, are largely taken with a grain of salt by most scientists; and perhaps this dismissive attitude is merited since philosophy essentially relegated itself to being a servant to science in the Twentieth Century. Scientific philosophy, like analytical philosophy, bought into the myth that science was the answer to every question, and so mostly abandoned its long tradition of metaphysics for the shaky foundations of materialism.

What is seen, it is believed in materialism, is all that is needed, even though, at the quantum level, what is seen is only what the observer needs to see—and not what actually exists! Superposition, as with quantum entanglement, is more in line with Kantian metaphysics than with scientific methodology: a subatomic particle exists in-itself in a way that can never be experienced in empirical space/time experience. This should not only give materialistic scientists pause, but materialistic philosophers, too!

The boilerplate argument made against Intelligent Design is that I.D. is not science: It does not adhere to scientific methodology where theories can be weighed and discarded for better theories. Science, we are told, is always a work-in-progress. Perhaps Intelligent Design is not science where traditional scientific methodology is concerned, but then—neither is a lot of science these days. Perhaps one should differentiate between practical science in the laboratory and theoretical science. Unfortunately, the latter is always using the former to hide behind, as if the one naturally becomes the other. This is less and less true. Scientific theories are like government programs: once they are created they can never be destroyed. New scientific theories never completely replace old scientific theories. They simply join the shouting match.

Reasonable doubts about scientific claims exist in the scientific community, and really good science journalists are dutiful in exercising this doubt. Yet periodic skepticism of this kind, practiced on a given scientific pursuit in a given magazine article, is as close as fragmented science will come to philosophical reflection about itself. And owing to the fragmentation, such skepticism rarely makes the jump from the particular to the whole. (8/02/09)

From the Dark Ages to the Enlightenment to the Dark Ages
Certain factions of the Enlightenment were committed to the idea that the world was wholly phenomenal in nature, and that we can have certain knowledge of it without appealing to innate mental concepts or a transcendental God. At the time, many philosophers believed the mind was a blank slate upon which experience wrote: matter (the external world) shaped mind. Bishop Berkeley drove the first nail into the coffin of this enterprise by arguing the mind could have no certain knowledge of anything beyond its own thoughts. David Hume drove the last nail in when, doing Berkeley one better, he extended the argument to say that what the mind knew was hardly certain itself.

Hume’s great insight was this: though phenomenon A and phenomenon B are assumed to exist by observation, the necessary connection between them in a cause and effect relationship cannot be shown to be a phenomenon by observation. In other words, unlike object A and object B, necessary connection is not itself an object C for inspection: something we can see and touch with our fingers. When object A strikes object B and object B rolling away is judged to be the resulting effect of object A and object B being in close proximity, we are only assuming this as a mental exercise. We see only two objects on the table—nothing more. That rolling away should follow striking is only an idea in our brains: a habitual assumption we insert between the objects that is not a property of the objects themselves.

With this, the curtain came crashing down on the Enlightenment.

Kant, wanting to rescue certain knowledge for science and certain faith for religion, took up Hume’s challenge, and what he proposed was something so profound that science has yet to catch up with him, even though science has, in a roundabout way, generated plenty of evidence that is consistent with his argument if not conclusive proof for it.

Kant argued that concepts like necessary connection were not habitual assumptions but in fact wired into the mind. More than that, not only was causation wired in the mind, but so were space and time: both of which are required to make causation intelligible. He went so far as to conclude that, outside our mental acts of perception, space, time, and causation could have no intelligible purchase. Though this may sound counterintuitive on first pass, one need only turn over the paradoxical riddles of first cause and boundless space and time to grasp the absurdity of these concepts when trying to divorce them from our immediate point of view. The Enlightenment strove to remove the transcendental dimension from the debate, and Kant had shown that without a transcendental dimension (an uncaused, nontemporal, non-spatial place from which to start), there could be no debate of any kind.

Most scientists believe Einstein solved the riddle of space and time, but the ontological reality of space and time is far from settled. Given the disconnection between quantum mechanics and the Theory of Relativity, one can readily grasp why the former gave Einstein fits. For example, with quantum entanglement, subatomic particles can instantly bond across vast distances of space, in clear violation of the speed of light, which is the only absolute constant in Einstein’s scheme. If this is true, and not an error in calculations (as Einstein believed), then it can possibly mean one of two things: either Many Worlds is right about parallel universes, or Kant is right about space and time having no true existence outside perception. Since Many Worlds explains nothing about the underlying nature of ontological reality beyond building suburbs onto suburbs, Kant’s subtler, simpler explanation meets the threshold of Ockham’s Razor. Update (4/22/09)

Indeed, some theoretical physicists, like Julian Barbour, are willing to meet Kant halfway by arguing time does not exist. Still, Kant is rarely given credit for his insights, which anticipated not only Einstein’s Theory of Relativity but also much in quantum mechanics. I believe this is because, like their forbearers in the materialistic Enlightenment, many scientists see metaphysics as a check on what science can know. Furthermore, a transcendental dimension is too much like God. It is easier for theoretical scientists to propose unverifiable, unfalsifiable science-fictiony ideas like “many worlds” and superstrings than it is for them to entertain a diminished role for man’s intellect in the cosmos. Though many of these people never tire of trivializing man as a speck on a speck in infinity, they nevertheless have an exalted opinion of their own minds to know this with certainty.

Being Skeptical of Skepticism
Skeptic used to have a broader meaning, but many of today’s “new skeptics” are not so much skeptical in the authentic sense of the word as they are outright advocates for “scientific truth.” As I have said, it is easy to beat up on religion (as well as UFO believers and everything else) because it does not meet the mimimum threshold for empirical scientific proof, but what the new skeptics fail to do is to differentiate between different types of mythologies and their purposes. Needing to believe in something is not only human but it is also hardwired in us. If ultimate reality is transcendental, as I believe, then all mythology is a need to supply a narrative to an open-ended experience that cannot be demonstrated (at least in cold factual terms) to have meaning. Our need to believe is transcendental, even though what we believe differs significantly from one person to the next.

Science is the one mythology that relies more on impartial evidence than partial faith, but it is no less a mythology for all its extra care. Science, at least at the meta-level most "skeptics" need science to be true, is Swiss Cheese. Even by its own methodology, nothing in science is carved in stone since any new theory can theoretically replace an old one. This being the working hypothesis, at any given point what is on the table as a viable scientific theory and a “body of evidence” to support it is in flux; and perhaps at some point in the future what is now deemed to be true will be shown to be untrue; and what was a body of evidence to support it will be shown to be irrelevant. Since this is always a possibility, should not some skepticism be allocated for science itself? If only to pay lip service to science’s own self-critical methodology?

And should not skeptics be smart enough to know that people (including themselves) believe in things for reasons that lie outside the realm of “factual” reasonableness? Facts are nothing without their theories. They are soulless pieces of information that have no meaning-in-themselves. More to the point, theories are necessarily weaker than their factual evidence, because their “factual” evidence is necessarily self-excluding. The question is never: “What more evidence is needed to make this theory absolutely true?” But rather: “Is there another way of looking at this that accounts for something that has been missed?” Do you always look for the right answers because you always believe you generate the right questions? Again, it comes down to believing in something not after-the-fact, but before it. This should at least engender a degree of humility, if not doubt.

Additionally, Should not an empathetic understanding of human nature be a prerequisite for questioning anything? Simply calling people stupid because they believe in God (or Bigfoot) misses the whole point of belief itself. Belief, again, is about finding meaning first and facts second. If we are going by strict scientific criteria, then some facts are surely stronger than others. But not every theory that generates facts is a matter of science. Sometimes it is only a matter of needing to believe in something bigger than yourself, no matter how flimsy the evidence is to support it. (8/05/09)

Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory
At the bottom of every conspiracy theory lies a truism: Famous people cannot die un-famous deaths, and the more famous the person is, the more infamous their death must be. This can even be applied to infamous events.

I remember the horrific day of Nine/Eleven, and, when not agonizing over the pictures on my TV screen, wondering to myself how long it would be before someone cooked up a conspiracy theory to explain the inexplicable. For some people it was inconceivable Muslims could be smart enough to pull off something like Nine/Eleven. (Muslims, I might add, that gave as good as they got for three centuries during the wars of the Crusades.) Predictably, it was a year or two before I encountered the first of the Nine/Eleven “Inside Job” theories.

Every event presents two ways to connect dots. One way follows the semblance of a paper trail where conclusions are reasonably drawn from facts, even if all the facts of an event can never be completely known—and as an unequivocal matter all the “facts” of an “event” can never be completely known. (I use parentheses around both facts and event because words too often encourage us to believe we possess or understand more than we actually do. Language is vague. Again, space. time, and causation may belong to the phenomenal realm, but, as an objective matter, they are not phenomenal themselves. They provide context for facts and events, but, as language underscores, they do not provide objectivity for anything. Objectivity is the exclusive domain of the transcendental realm.)

This caveat being duly noted, the second way of connecting dots between "facts" in an "event" is to first view the dots as random. That is, ignore the first set of connections. (In the case of Nine/Eleven, the first set of connections would surely include the now-famous video released shortly after the tradegy where Bin Laden not only took credit for the World Trade bomings but also explained how it was planned.) Next, believing the dots have no preexisting narrative, one is free to create a new narrative. This could be likened to finding and then drawing a face in said random dots with a pen. Any set of dots, given a degree of dogged determination, can be made into at least one face. (The easiest conspiracy theories routinely involve the government since the government is supposed to possess unchecked power and resources—unchecked power and resources that, I hasten to point out, if applied to a less-sexy set of circumstances would be roundly doubted as existing. [I digress.]) Now, there is no reason to look for faces in dots unless extenuating circumstances compel you to do so, as with the death of a celebrity or a national catastrophe; and to find a face in dots because one is compelled to look at dots for the sole purpose of finding a face must be viewed as nothing less than miraculous. In other words, there can be no accidents when it comes to dots.

Unless the set of dots is a deliberate puzzle in a puzzle book, discovering a face in any set of random dots falls under the heading of psuedo-demonstration. (See definition above.) Yes. You have found a face where none before was known to exist. You have connected disparate, far-flung “facts”  and factoids with six degrees of separation. Your imagination is as vivid as your reason is impervious to more immediate bodies of evidence that draw very different conclusions.

Again, theories generate facts and not the other way round. What people believe is of less importance as to why they need to believe it. No event is conspiracy theory proof from the resourceful conspiracy seeker, and the proof of this assertion lies in looking at where conspiracie get made: namely, around significant people and events of our common culture.

I will say with little doubt that all conspiracy theories are essentially untrue, but this is neither here nor there for people who need to believe in them. Where our points of reality intersect as individuals is only at the level of needing myth as a way to define each alone as being both a part of the world and as something quite alien to it. Conspiracy theories fall on the alien side of the ledger. (9/20/09)

 

Note: Finding faces in rocks is a little more difficult than finding faces in dots, but it does happen given enough rocks. This Martian rock is well known, but its significance lies more in us than it. This rock face is less about proving life exists on Mars than about us finding identity in the Universe. We can be told that we share molecules with this or any rock, but what we truly want is the layer of reality that lies beneath the formation of molecules, for even at this basic level we are already estranged from our essence. A commonplace face is more awe inspiring to us than any science lesson, because a face is personal where molecules-in-the-abstract are not. As the narrator relates in An Aversion to Ladders:

"It was something an astronaut once said about being exposed to the vacuum of deep space for the first time in an airlock, and how it smelled like an old fireplace. For all the wonders of the Universe, this was the one detail about the Cosmos that touched Michael most deeply. It was a sense memory of a personal event: an event that cut to the heart and meaning of everything. The world was personal, and in no other way could it be quantified, qualified, or truly understood."  (9/12/09)

A Word on Coincidence
“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” ~Albert Einstein

Having said all I have said about mythologies and their sliding scale of factual support, I should like to add a note on coincidence.

Coincidence does pop up frequently in conspiracy theories, and though much of its occurrence can be accounted for by mathematical probability and chance, it nevertheless possesses an undeniable mystique. Since reality by my measure is transcendental, there can be no such thing as accident when you exclude space, time, and causation from the Big Picture. Everything at a cosmic level is intended, because there can be no space, time, and causation to separate the Thing-in-Itself from itself in any dimension. Reality, whatever it is, was, or will be, is always finished and complete in the transcendental dimension. This is understood by us at a primal level, which is why we go looking for grand designs in all things: We are always searching for the personal in the seemingly impersonal.

Even when finding faces in rocks, random dots, or (in my book) clouds, coincidence reveals something value-positing about the structure-seeking mind. Therefore, coincidence is not only mysterious in-itself but also indicative of something valuable-in-itself. Or, to put it in the widest possible context: coincidence is never completely coincidental. This does not in any fashion bolster conspiracy theories in their nefarious designs, but, because a particular coincidence can have a personal dimension, it underscores our connection to the part of our non-spatial/non-temporal Cosmos that transcends impersonality and even randomness. Coincidence, in short, touches our heart as much as our logic, because it alludes—against all evidence to the contrary—to an Unseen Hand. (1/07/10)

(I discuss personal examples of coincidence in the companion notes at this site. See a more recent example at Blenderkitty.com.)

A Note on Moral Coincidence: Some call it karma, but it is something everyone has experienced, or has understood in hindsight as an ethical coincidence. It is, for example, the case of finding money that is not rightfully yours and keeping it, only to lose the near exact amount at a point in the future. It works in the other direction as well. You give back the money only to come into a windfall of equivalent value some point later on. Cynics and materialists dismiss such experiences as inevitable chance occurrences, but, again, it is the structure-seeking mind and the value-positing heart that collude in piecing together the two events over a span of time, as though some part of our unconscious brain is keeping notes on crucial details it can later connect at a crucial juncture in our lives, even as we have no compelling reason at the time to remember these details. This feat of connectivity arising from a supposedly randomly evolved brain is most mysterious and telling.

The Transcendental Nature of Truth
Will Durant once said “great philosophers seldom disagree,” and one need only look at any given sampling of wise sayings, and even wise sayings that contradict other wise sayings, to begin to grasp the puzzle presented by the obscuring lens of the transcendental dimension. Philosophical thinkers intuitively (and in common) understand this dilemma from different directions, and this dilemma is reliably couched in universal versus specific terms, with the first trumping the second:

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.” ~Andre Gide

“Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.” ~Aesop

Note: One could easily turn this proposition on its head by saying only the concrete has substance and not what is not seen. Ambiguity of language notwithstanding, this flip only reinforces the general idea: Either the forest is lost for the trees or the trees are lost for the forest. Again, the fact that paradox ensues from our attempts to objectify truth and value is a further clue that objectification is not ours to be had. And yet, reality in some sense must objectively exist, and if our efforts to prove it are doomed to failure, then this means the whole, equal to or greater than its parts, is something better grazed by our intuitive sense than as a logical concept.

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” ~Niels Bohr

The Truth in a philosophical truth is always more in spirit (principle) than in concrete application (practice). Hence, contradiction can only point out what is deemed to be inconsistent between assertions, not what is untrue. The following two statements are understood to be true, even though they contradict each other:

Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.

He who hesitates is lost.

Given this, being a seeker of truth supercedes the notion of actually possessing the truth. This does not mean truth with a capital T does not exist, only that, like value with a capital V, it is completed in the transcendental dimension. From this conflict, all earthly politics is born.

“Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.” ~Georg Hegel

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