Status, Truth, God and Self-Reference (summary point)

A simple situation seems to bring a lot of this blog together.

My mother is trying to save electricity. We had the TV plugged into an adapter with a light on it. She would switch the adapter off at the mains, and therefore the light, each night. Since the switch was behind a dressing table it was tricky. So when I came home I switched to an adapter without a light and turned the TV off instead. But, she persists in turning it off t the mains. I explained to her that no electricity was travelling through the wire when the TV was off so there was no need to contort around the dressing table. She does not listen.

Now what is interesting is the way the discussion has progressed and karmically I am well familiar with this one because it is identical with arguments at Biointeractions and untimately identical with arguments held over Iraq.

I explain what I see as my mothers own desires and the reality of the situation. The solution to me is simple.

My mother however dislikes not having her own way. So her argument procedes that this house belongs to her and therefore we should do things her way.

I return the argument that what she wishes for doesn't change the reality.

She then gets tired and stops discussion.

I return on this point of silence that it is this attitude of ignoring reality which is where the problem is arising. And she will respond that I am insolent and should respect her elders.

So there it is: the two positions that I have argued at length in this blog laid bare. How can a world succeed where there are two opposing attitudes: the truth and status. They are not exclusive since one would hope that people with status would speak the truth, but if this were true then we would only have truth. It is precisiely because they are not identical that gives us the two worlds.

So what is truth then and how do we know when people with status are wrong? A doctor for example has a medical status because of their training. We would be foolish to offer our own medical opinion as correct in contradiction of a doctor.

Firstly however both the doctor and the layman know that their judgements will be tested by God. It is not the doctor's status that makes him correct, but his knowledge of reality which is not of mans creation but of God's. A doctor gains his status because of accordance with Reality. The status a doctor has is bestowed upon them by God because they have taken a great deal of time out to listen to God and find out how the body is. But the lay person can listen to God also and they may know things the doctor doesn't know. The commonest is the case where a doctor fails to diagnose something and the patient persists in seeking treatment. Eventually if illness is found then indeed the doctor is shown to be wrong. If the continue to be wrong then their status will be questioned.

So status in this sense is short hand for truth. I am the first the respect expertise and practice and humility in the face of a discipline develop expert people. But what I question is the ontological notion of status - that there really is such a thing as status which exists by itself. All people with status only have this status by virtue of their qualities. If they do not possess these qualities then there is no longer status.

In aristocratic circles one does not gain aristocratic status arbitrarily. One is educated and refined so as to fit into such circles. The aristocracy will identify a phoney instantly but as Pygmalion illustrates to fake it would require intensive training. (Shaw is testing exactly the same conceit I am questioning, but to do so illustrates never-the-less that there are skills and qualities involved). And the qualities extend far beyond superficia like accent, they involve the profound notion of Gentleman which is the British version of the originary notion of Noble (Arya in Sanskrit). Primarily Buddha teaches both Europeans, the Indians and the Asians in between, how to be Gentlemen; this is why he teaches Noble (Arya, Gentlemanly) Truths.

However one would hope that the aristocracy would protect themselves from pollution by rejecting even the highest figures who proved of lower quality. And, it is here where the world has over the centuries has run aground. For actually people think that status runs in the blood and once it has been acquired it cannot be lost. And they believe this because, especially with American values, capital has become the measure of status. It follows in American circles that a murdering child rapist of no respect or decency who wins the lottery suddenly has the same status bestowed upon them as a good person of equal capital - as has happened. This absurdity alone dispells the myth of money and status. Yet that very myth is the foundation of the new world (brave it has too be).

When we respect someone of status we are admiring the qualities which we take on faith they have been acknowledged to possess. We may not have the skill or judgement to determine this for ourselves, so we take on faith their status. But and enormously important this status has no standing outside God - the Reality whose rule and measure will judge those who pronounce truth as correct or incorrect, and those who claim status as worthy or unworthy.

In the Olympics recently it is easy to see. God is the distance of the 100m, the time of the clock, that which puts limits on human strength and endurance. When the athetes train they are obeying God, they are undertanding the nature of the bodies and the world in which they live so that they can master them. When they win it is the measure of God which enables them to win and claim their status as champions. If God did not measure each person with the same rulers then maybe I could win and then what meaning is fastest person! We have put names upon the rules (meters, seconds) but we have not made the rules. And the winners can claim status today, but if they wish to remain the fastest they must continue to train. Fastest does not last forever, God makes sure of that.

So we return to my mother and myself. My mothers claim that this house belongs to her and therefore gives her the right to have her way is a claim to status. My claim that this is not "my" way but "the" way is maybe also a claim to status. Her way I note here is what I call "fascism" because it operates in an impersonal way without regard for reality. So what is the foundation of her fascism? My approach is fascist also if I impose it upon her, but the significance of truth is that she can be correct also. Doing things her way only she has authority, it is antisocial and egotistical and individualistic. Not enough said unfortunately to complete this so I must say some more.

Now many people claim to know God and fantically believeing that they are right and in accordance with the one true reality they feel justified in persecuting the infidels. This is identical to the status approach that I am questioning. However this is where the as yet incomplete anti-self-reference argument steps in because there is one thing you cannot do and that is determine your own correctness! Correctness is bestowed upon you by God. If you are a scientist you research by looking very carefully and patiently at phenomena to see how they work. Indeed you will fashion an idea of how they work from your research, but that idea only has value if you have listened hard enough to what Reality was telling you. You are a prophet of God. And it is the Reality which determines the value of your idea, not you or the idea itself. Now people gain status when God bestows correctness upon them - this is one of the appeals of research and of listening to God. It is interesting in reflection why some scientists argue against God since it will be God who determines if they are correct or not! Scientists do however have a problem in explaining their theories to those who are unwilling to listen either to them or nature. Global warming would be an example. Evidence has mounted in favour of scientific theory. God has bestowed the listeners with correctness. Amazing however that non-listeners ever thought that they might be correct! Now are the religious fanatics listeners of non-listeners to God? They have learned lots of stories, and listened to people who talk a lot about God - but have they listened to God themselves? Have they actually been silent and looked at the world and listened to God's creation? I suspect that the answer to that is "no", and this is the failure of fanaticism. And what of the status their teachers have? The very fact that the West so easily rejects the status of Jihadist clerics goes to show how shallow status is without Real qualities. This is why they reject the status of secular leaders so easily for what qualities do our leaders really have in the eyes of God and Truth? Give me a chancellor who is an expert in economics seems to be an obvious start!

So maybe my mother misunderstands my claim of truth as a claim to status, and there lies the problem - maybe there really are people who don't understand the different between reality and illusion, between truth and falsehood. I always say to my mother that if she says that the sky is green it makes no difference who she is, it remains blue (on a cloudless day obviously) - the lesson of King Knut. And, she must realise that to put her hand in fire is foolish not because she disobeys authority but because the fire is hot. Maybe, and I'll experiment with her to find out, she really doesn't understand. On the other hand my alleged boss who calls himself an "eminent scientist" has no excuse to be making this error!

Quickly on self-reference. in Pygmalion he says:

Eyes, and their objects, never must unite;
Some distance is requir'd to help the sight.

It is for this reason that we cannot be both object and subject. We cannot examine or know ourselves. The imposibility of this loop is how we know that God exists. And let Mr Dawkins get off his seat because whatever he says I will ask him why he did not say the opposite. And he will say because what he said is true, and the opposite is false. And I will say, and what made the difference? That we find ourselves up against a measure, a gigantic ruler which enables things to be true and false, correct and incorrect is itself beyond our own enquiry because our enquiry cannot examine itself. And why cannot it examine itself? because of God. Its not satisfying though, I want a solid argument... I want that up against a ruler... and where is such a ruler going to be found? That is why God can't be tied down, he is the rule we are using to straighten things out in this world out. I guess Dawkins has been standing so close to God for so long he can't see the spectacles on his own nose!

Right off the see if there is a way to resolve this otherwise quite trivial issue of the TV switch :-)