Incense Before You

A robin said to me, “You watch the sunset and you will be free.”

But a tower blocks the view of it all.

“The purple and the red gotta be in view,” the robin said.

So she whistled for her friends and they took me up.

I believe that I was free. Was it a dream? I’ll never know.

While breathing in the air, I felt the sunset begin to repair

My state of loneliness, which held me to the ground. 

Now the clouds in front of me begin to stretch out like a Joshua tree.

And then the robin and her friends take me high! 

And the mountains sang from a distance a tune so timeless it makes you cry.

Oh the sunset can make you regret all the time spent closing your eyes.

I believe that I was free. Was it a dream? I’ll never know. 

A robin said to me, “You watch the sunset and you will be free.” 

I remember hearing Salmon Rushdie at Emory University several weeks ago. He talked about a book he wrote which meant to explain the state of the United States in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He said that it was a time of great comfort and abundance. The publishing date of his book, which talked about “the good life” in America, was September 11, 2001.

Though this is interesting, I liked what he said about memory more. He wanted to write something about current affairs which would one day be longed for again by people. The golden age, before 2001, is now missed, I feel.  

The point is this: I think it is important to write about the current state of the world, as if it will one day be a time memorialized, or remembered as “the good old days.” 

I thought of this while driving to school, listening to NPR. The news made me think what it would be like to read the things going on now in, say, three hundred years. Will someone read a letter of mine and think, “Oh now this person was probably [whatever] in the 2000s.” I find that very interesting. I don’t know if this makes sense. 

-Andrew

It is too big of a topic to describe all of the things transcendental philosophy presents. But it is enough to comment on the idea of self-reliance, as Ralph Waldo Emerson famously presented in his essay entitled “Self-Reliance.” 

“Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron sting. Accept the place divine Providence has found for you; the society of your contemporaries, the connexion of events.” 

Ben and I were talking about this section in “Self-Reliance” this morning. Emerson was right: it it is very easy to trust yourself. But simply because it is easy to do doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the right thing to do. For most of us, as an example, it would be very easy to eat a bunch of candy, cake, or ice-cream, or any other sweet thing that we like to eat. We could eat and eat and eat. However, that does not mean that it is good for us. Similarly, just because we feel comfortable trusting in and relying only on yourself doesn’t mean it is always good. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself,” Emerson says. I do not believe that at all. 

I could go on, but I don’t have time. 

-Andrew

I was thinking in my car today, while eating and watching Carl Sagan on the classic T.V. show, Cosmos, about something he said.

He said this:

“If the general picture, however, of a big bang followed by an expanding universe is correct, what happened before that? Was the universe devoid of all matter and then the matter suddenly somehow created? How did that happen? In many cultures, the customary answer is that a God or gods created the universe out of nothing. But if we wish to pursue this question courageously, we must of course ask the next question, where did God come from. If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question. Or, if we say that God always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe always existed? There is no need for a creation, it was always here. These are not easy questions. Cosmology brings us face to face with the deepest mysteries, with questions that were once treated only in religion and myth.”

The way Sagan said this in the show was more sincere than anything I’ve ever heard from Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens combined, while it is essentially the same thing being said.

I was thinking about this and I wondered if something could really always exist. Could the universe always have been around? Well, Cosmos was made in 1980 and so a lot of things have happened in 30 years. We know that there was a beginning of the universe. What this means is that at one point it did not exist. So we are left with the other option: the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question since we cannot conclude a creator created the universe. But scientifically this doesn’t make any sense. Every observable thing must be explained in some way. I may be wrong in thinking this, but who would disagree if we say that if some object fell from the sky there was an explanation for its plummet? The object falling at our feet, whatever it might be, must have some explanation for its appearance. This question is not unanswerable. Likewise, the origin of the universe must be answerable in some way.

Dawkins would say, “We are working on it.” Well until then, they must accept the multiverse hypothesis. (This is the idea that there is a multitude of other universes that are like cells that kind of emerge from one another. Each universe would have to have different physical laws. Ours happened to be one fit for life. Think of it as a slot machine: after so many tries, you are bound to win.)

But does this violate the principle in logic, Occam’s razor? This principle states that when we are given a problem, go with the solution that makes the fewest assumptions? With the multiverse hypothesis, we are making millions, maybe billions, if not infinite assumptions. Right away, if we have to make infinite assumptions, I’d rather not accept that hypothesis. Obviously the multiverse hypothesis is violating Occam’s razor because it makes so many (possible infinity) assumptions.

Sagan said that we should “save a step” and go with the easiest answer. Ah, that would either be that the universe has always existed (which we already discussed) or that there are billions and billions of universes. I am not even including that the universe just poped out of nothing as a possible answer. That makes absolutely no logical sense. Out of nothing, nothing comes. So it seems to me like whatever conclusion we come to for explaining the beginning of the universe, we are making pretty large claims. If we say that there are infinite universes (which there is no evidence for at all) as an explanation for the beginning of the universe, or if we say that God created the universe, either way we are making big claims.

However, I’d rather make one assumption than a billion or more. What is one step?

-Andrew

I did a little calculation. According to the internet, the most viewed video is (sadly) Justin Bieber’s song, “Baby”. I never really thought I would every write about Justin Bieber, but I find this really interesting, and rather ridiculous. 

This video of his has roughly 511,000,000 views on Youtube. That is about, 1,762,950,000 minutes (3:45 minutes times 511,000,000). If you multiply 1,762,950,000 minutes by 60 seconds you get 105,777,000,000 seconds. There are 31,556,926 seconds in a year. If you divide all the time spent watching this song-105,777,000,000 seconds- by the amount of seconds in a year-31,556,926 seconds- you get 3,352 years.

What this means is that it would take 3,352 years to consecutively watch that song 511,000,000 times. In other words, if we were going back in time as we watched “Baby” 511,000,000 times (the thought is exhausting), by the time we were FINALLY done with all of those views we could witness Moses receive the Ten Commandments. 

Thats insane.