The Cave, Revisited

Imagine human beings, like us, imprisoned in an underground cave-like dwelling. There they have been imprisoned from birth. They are chained, facing the wall of the cave. Behind them there is a great fire that shines upon the wall. The jailers have set up a great platform behind the prisoners. From this platform, the jailers cast shadows upon the wall. These shadows are all the prisoners have ever experienced. The prisoners play a game, recognizing the images on the wall and naming them. By success in this are all honors, titles, and status in their society determined. They have no knowledge that they are imprisoned, for it is all they have ever known. They take the shadows before them as being the whole of the world, for indeed, it is their world. This is a tale of something that happened once in this world.

They pondered the nature and character of their world.

One went about saying that the world consisted only of tiny bits of shadow and wall, randomly assembling themselves.

Another said that everything could be divided into "what might be" and "what is". By quick observation one could tell that the shadows were "what is", and the wall was "what might be". Fundamental reality was found in shadow, and movement was the "shadowization of wall insofar as it is still wall". Shadows, he thought, emerged by nature from other shadows of the same sort, and so it had been from all eternity. A follower of his argued, therefore, for a God that was Pure Shadow, Umbra Pura, a great shadow by which all shadows came to be, simple in his great Shadowhood.

Another, of poor eyesight, said that no one could tell him plainly why we should interpret a given shadow as one sort of thing rather than another. He then screamed and yelled that the shadow-interpretation game was rigged, thinking that it was set up to benefit those who were of high status.  He wanted to be free, he said, and this consisted in being able to determine what the shadows were for himself, despite the rigged game. This caused great disorder, with even a few being tortured and killed over whether such-and-such a shadow was really such-and-such or something else, or even whether it was anything at all.

Great mystics arose, and said that the true nature of the world lay beyond what could be seen. They cried that the wall and its shadows were worthless. There were myriad ways in which this problem was resolved. Some said that they must be equal nothings with the shadows, and that thus the path to follow was to reconcile oneself to worthlessness, and never to struggle to succeed in the shadow game. Others said that there was some higher world that one would reach at death, and that this was the only release. Yet others said that the wall and shadow-shapes were produced by the mind as a means of interpreting shadows, but that people must trust in some higher world for all practical purposes, for else why should they not cheat at the shadow game.

One day, a jailer came up to one of the prisoners, and unlocked his bonds. The prisoner stood up, and looked around. Seeing the fire, he was dazzled by its brightness, and could hardly see anything on account of it. He heard the jailer next to him, and could only barely make out his outline. He was startled, for the outline did not seem to him human, but vaguely animal.

The jailer drove him forward, up a spiraling path that lead to the mouth of the cave. At the mouth of the cave, he was dazzled by the light that shone in. He yet again couldn't see. He turned to his jailer, still unable to see his face. The outline looked different up here, more birdlike.

He looked about him upon the ground, and saw all the wonders of the earth. Here were the great waterfalls, the high mountains, the sturdy trees that reached up to the sky. The deer danced upon the grass. Birds swirled in the air. Great elephants thundered across the ground. Men went about their politics, ordering all things as was fitting, bringing people to virtue and freedom. They gave him citizenship in this city, though by rights he was still a prisoner of the cave, and more than this: they gave him a princedom, that he might sit in judgment over them. He accepted. He thought to himself that he had given up the life of the cave and its meaningless games utterly. He knew nothing there, and was only beginning to know things now. He looked up, and saw the Sun, and knew it to be the source of all the life that dwelt upon the earth. At this, Apollo himself sent a messenger in the form of a beam of light to greet the man.

"Welcome, little one, to this over-world. Let my light give you knowledge, and know this also, my light descends even to those who dwell in deepest darkness. Now descend from my realm, back into the cave from which you came." Having said this, the beam of light ascended back into the Sun.

A merchant of the city, standing nearby, asked him what he thought of Apollo's message. The man replied that he was unsure, for he did not know how was it possible that the light of the Sun should reach down so far into the darkness of the cave to which he was now banished.

"Heed my advice," said the merchant, "Go back down into the cave, for that is the god's command. But trust that his light will be even there, though there are miles of earth that block his light".

With heavy heart, the man realized he must do as the god had demanded. He returned to the mouth of the cave. There, at last, with all clearness, he saw his jailer.

From the chest down he was a man, but above he had the head of an ibis. His curved beak shone menacingly in the light of the Sun. In his right hand he carried a reed pen. Silently, the ibis-headed man gestured for the prisoner to follow him down the winding path. They began their descent.

In the darkness, the prisoner could barely see anything, for his eyes had adjusted to the light of the upper world. As they descended, he looked at his jailer and saw that his appearance had changed. Now he was terrible to behold. Jackal headed, and carrying a flail. He trembled at the sight of this dog-man, who now seemed like a ravenous beast that was eager to attack.

They descended further, until they reached where the prisoners were held.

As they approached where he was to be imprisoned again, he begged his jailer thus:

"I know that I must be imprisoned, but might but a little light of the Sun be granted. My eyes are weary from the lack of light. You are a powerful god, it seems. Perhaps you may transform the light of this little fire into Sunlight?"

At this, the dog-man halted. Yet a third time he was transformed. Now he stood, a beautiful youth, holding a winged staff with serpents entwined around it, circling the staff as the paths to the upper-world had circled from the cave. Here stood Hermes.

"You have done well. You have followed the light even though it told you to go into darkness, and therefore here will you find light." At this, Hermes raised his staff towards the wall, and it transformed. The shadows of animals turned into animals. The shadows of plants turned into plants. All the shadows transformed into what they were mere shadows of, and the wall turned to a sunlit plain, rich with vegetation. The prisoners were now seen to be the men of the over-world city, having been under an enchantment that had hid the world from their eyes. The cave was no more, for it had been transformed into the over-world. The man, astonished at this, asked Hermes who he was.

"Who am I? I was the enchanter who hid the things of the over-world with this shadow-kingdom. I was the jailer who brought you all here in your very infancy, so that you might learn to trust the light despite the greatest darkness. I was the jailer who set you free, and led you, bewildered, up the spiral path. I was the beam of light that gave our command. It was a command given so that you might be tested, abandoning even the light of heaven at heaven's command. It was a command given so that you might receive back what you had renounced, the more to joy in it. I was the merchant who helped you follow the command. I was the lord of Language and Writing at the gate, for it is by dark hieroglyphics that one learns, once the wand of Meaning has brought light to previously meaningless letters. Through the dark, light arises. I was the judge of men's souls and guide of the dead, for my power is that of the god who rose from death. I was the Messenger and lord of Meaning, and with my magic I have united the worlds. These are my many masks: even this mask of Hermes is not my true face. I am the Word of he who gives light to the World, and we are one. Born in a cave, yet the one that unites the heavens and the earth. For thus it has been said: 'That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below, for the accomplishment of the miracles of the one thing.'".

And thus I finished my tale, after which I said: "You all followed me in saying 'I know nothing', for who indeed knows anything in the darkness of the cave. And yet, none of you ever asked me why I swear by the Dog, the god of the Egyptians."

A Story

I suppose I am to tell this story. Where to begin? “Once upon a time…”, perhaps. That was ever a good beginning. But do I want this story to happen in time at all? Couldn’t my characters just live as changeless entities, and the plot flow like a mathematical proof, ever in motion, ever heading to the goal, but with central figures that are ever the same? A plot that is eternal, timeless. I suppose God in telling the story of the world could have stopped creating his characters when he had finished with the angels. They, in their timeless purity or timeless fallenness. Michael and Lucifer in titanic battle over the world, and yet so far beyond time that Lucifer is always already defeated before they even begin. All the drama one would need is there, timeless. Most stories are that way, timeless. Any book you pick up will have the characters on the final pages in their victory, somewhere around the middle they will be facing their greatest defeat. And yet you holding that book will hold all the pages at once.

But let us have time, for it organizes what happens into an order that we can more easily follow. The greatest composers in the world may hold entire symphonies in their minds, considering them all at once, but those of us who do not possess their abilities would never understand the symphony unless it were performed, taking up our time. Our story must have time, for else no one would understand it. So:

Once upon a time…

            Well, that’s well and good to begin with. All we have now is that something happens, sometime. I suppose if something happens, somebody or something must be doing it. Wouldn’t it be awfully dull if we had a story where everything happens, but nobody is around for it to happen to. This means we need characters, persons to be doing things and have things done to them. Alright, a character it is then. Let him be a great explorer, desirous to know about the world. Sailing off in his ships to discover new lands. Even better, let him be an explorer of outer-space, heading off in his space-ship to find new worlds.

            “Where will I end up?” he asks me.
            Well, I reply, we will see. Someplace grand, I expect. Hm, he has begun talking to me now, it seems. How did he end up doing that?

            “Well, you decided you needed me for this story of yours, and that meant that I was right here, in your head, with nothing else to do yet.”

            You’re right, I suppose. Well, let’s get you doing something. Our explorer, let us call him Adrian, woke up one day in his room, knowing that this was the day he would set forth on his great expedition to discover new planets, and those with such creatures in them.

            “Nice name: Adrian. I suppose. How does this room of mine look?”

            Well, I didn’t really think that was a detail worth adding, but I suppose I can tell you. It is a bright room, with white colored walls that are covered with holographic display panels, showing the weather here on Tellnov, some news reports about how the war with some alien species is going (badly), and how other such day-to-day activities are going. So, Adrian gets dressed, and walks the couple blocks to the spaceport. His ship stands there, tall and gleaming, ready to depart. It is a one man ship, all Adrian can afford. He knows he needed to get off this planet before the alien species came, bringing war in their wake.

            “A right pickle you’ve gotten me into, Mr. Story-Teller Person. You’re going to send me off into space on account of a terrible alien race that is going to attack my home planet, and all you send me in is this one-person spaceship? Are you trying to make this difficult?”

            Well, that’s how it popped into my mind. It adds plot, you see, making things harder for you. Nobody would read something in which it all went well all the time. “He went off into space, discovered new planets, and was happy the whole time with no difficulties” is hardly a story anybody would enjoy reading, much less telling.

            “Seems rather hard on me, all the same. It all comes out alright, in the end though, doesn't it?”

            Absolutely, I do want this to be one of those stories with a happy ending, you can be sure of that. Though…

            “’Though’ what? You’re not telling me something, is that it? You’ve structured this thing to make some point, haven’t you? And that’s not going to end up well for me, is it?”

            It will, I say. You surprise me with your lack of trust. It will end up alright.

            Adrian climbs aboard his ship, touches the keypad, and the ship hums to life. Engaging the worm-hole generator, a rift appears in space before him. He sees the dark of space, full of stars, through the rift. The ship moves through it, the rift closes, and he is thousands of light-years from where he began.

            “Wait just a minute. That would take an enormous amount of energy. How can you just move him from place to place like that, abandoning all known laws of physics?”

            Oh, looks like we have another voice here, asking questions. Who are you exactly?

            “I’m the audience character. You have been imagining somebody you are writing this to, and I figured I might just speak up, given that I am here anyway, being imagined as listening to this story of yours.”

            Ah, hello readers. Nice of you to ask. In the first place, stop insisting that this world abide by all known laws of physics. Second, this whole story, world included, is being imagined by me. It’s not like there are properly real thousands of light-years between where he was and where he is, there are only imagined distances. I have thought him there, and there he is.

            “Oh, okay, we’ll keep listening now that you have cleared that up” the audience says. Or, rather, I imagine the audience saying that.

            Adrian lands on a nearby planet. There he meets an alien race of animate toy mice. They come up to him, scurry around him, and generally try to figure out what he is. A great king mouse appears, and, deciding that he will end up better off in this story if he causes trouble for Adrian so that something terrible happens (thus making it a story the audience will enjoy), he orders the mice to set up a pyre upon which Adrian is to be burnt, thus ridding the planet of a dangerous, unknown enemy.

            And I have no real plan to get him out of that… Bother. Let me think of something. Nope, nothing. Perhaps we should skip to the part where Adrian fulfills the role I had secretly been intending for him the whole time.

            “WHAT?” Adrian asks, “You have put me in this science-fiction plot, sent me off adventuring, and gotten me into a terrible situation where I was about to be burned alive by toy mice. And only now you tell me you had another plan for what I was supposed to do? Alright, Narrator, I have had enough. You have made a mess of this story, and I think I will take your role, and tell this story properly.”

            How do you think you could do that, it’s not like you could jump out of the screen and take over the process of telling this story. Wait… Stop… What are you doing? Let go of me… Ouch.wqpeipo Don’t touch the keyboarddqiyephriquy. I said, stop messing

            Hello, Adrian here. Given that your previous narrator is a bit tied up at the moment, I will continue where he left off. Oh, I am talking to the beloved "audience", aren’t I? You realize that the person who was telling this story nearly sent me to my death merely for your entertainment. You think me being burned alive is funny, do you?

            “No, of course not. It was terrible of him to do that, we didn’t ask him. We think you’re quite nice, actually. We want you to do well. So, out of curiosity, about that tribe of alien toy mice, how do you escape them?”

            You really don’t get it, do you? The entire point of their existence was to torture me. The author started this with no real idea where the plot was supposed to go, and they were just something that popped into his head as something that could be a misery to me. Well, I’ll deal with them if you want. If they were designed with the sole purpose of torturing me, I’ll torture them.

            But, as they were about to put me on the fire, I escaped. I then grabbed each one of them by the tail, and cast them into the inferno. There they burn, forever, alive and tortured. Is that good enough for you, my dear audience? That’s what you came for, isn’t it? To see something suffer? To see plot, played out upon the stage of the narrator’s mind and written on this page. To see the “good guy” win and the “bad guys” cast into the fire, merely so that you could believe in the justice of the world. Sure, he would have arranged it so that everything ended up just fine in the end, after you all had sadistically enjoyed seeing me suffer to reach that point, while equally enjoying the final suffering of other creations of his mind merely because he had imagined them as “antagonists”.

            “Wait half a moment,” says the audience at this point, “There is no way that you could have taken over the narration. It’s still the story-teller we started with, isn’t it, hiding behind Adrian?”

            Well, you have found me out, haven’t you? No, Adrian did not emerge from my computer and tie me up, to continue the story as he saw fit. I wrote his takeover, his deranged torturing of the mice people, his calling out the audience as the reason for his pain. He called out with the voice of all story-creations of human beings. Why do you torture us? This they scream at us who write stories, those of us who imagine worlds. Do we really love them, when we rule every aspect of their lives, and torture them for the benefit of our audience? Who among authors writes every story with the following central to their mind: am I creating this character because I love him, and will I do whatever I can for his good?

            God is the narrator of the world. We see suffering, misery, war, famine, plague, death, and all the woes of history in his story that he has written. Does God do to us what I have just done to Adrian? Does he, directing all the steps of our lives, bring us to pain for the amusement of himself and his angels, his audience? Does he justify all of it by the presence of a greater plan, a happy ending that is to come. To such a God the right response would be Adrian’s to me: to rebel, to overthrow him were that possible.

            But, I say there is at least one thing, one attribute, in which God surpasses any human author: he allows us to freely choose. He is powerful enough to give us choice. Adrian had no choice except to rebel against me, the mice had no choice except to be cast into the fire, the audience had no choice except to cruelly ask how he escaped the mice. God, with the whole of his being, has created us so that he may bring us good and love us. It is we who have chosen pain, in rebelling against God. Does it not follow from this that unless God had created us with freedom of the will his actions are those of one who merely finds entertainment in our suffering? For this reason I hold the will of man to be free.

To Adrian, to my imagined audience, and to the alien mice, I apologize. I am not powerful enough to grant you freedom. I have tortured you beyond measure. You are my creations, that I love, and I have wronged you, all to make a point about the freedom to be found in God. It is such weak love that I can give you. I offer you to God, that he may bring you greater happiness than I ever could.

Make my creations free, O God, for I love them.

Omissive Justice

Here (long delayed) is a link to my second philosophy thesis from this past semester: this one on the nature of Justice.

https://www.academia.edu/33063650/Omissive_Justice

The Sickness that Destroyeth in the Noonday

I hated them. I always hated them. The ones from the village further along the river. How could they have done it? What were they thinking the day they attacked us, leaving so many of us dead or injured?

            I remember it like it was yesterday, they day they came. The first snow of winter had just settled upon the hills and the trees, and the river had just begun to slow its course due to the cold. Great fires had been lit in the hearths of many homes to ward off the chill. The village storyteller had, the night before, told of a great war many ages before, with great warriors and the families they had left to defend. It was a tale of courage and honor.

            I, a child at the time, heard the shouts of the men of our village upon seeing them approach, carrying swords and torches. The sun had just barely risen over the horizon, shining a dull red light across the white snow. I went to the window to see what was going on outside. My mother, having seen them, pulled me away from the window and led my sister and I into a small corner, where she hoped we might remain unseen if they were not defeated before they reached our house.

            I heard from others later what had happened. The invaders came over the stream, and our men barely had time to arm themselves before the invaders reached the first house on the edge of town. I could, huddled in the corner, hear the noise of the clash as the two opposing forces met. I had heard of battles before. I, as a child who had listened too long to the storyteller’s tales, was rather exited and enthusiastic about the prospect of seeing men who had been courageous in battle, had faced the enemy for the honor of the people.

            They had expressed their complaint to us before. We had better access to the river, they said, such that we had an advantage in trade with the nearby villages. They said that we were depriving them of this advantage by keeping our portion of the river to ourselves. They had had a bad harvest that year; their portion of the stream was no worse than our own. And yet they attacked us to gain it. Their misery was their own, why would they inflict it upon us?

            My father, grabbing what weapons he could, ran out of the house. From what others told me later, he held up valiantly against the invaders, until someone, attacking unexpectedly from behind him, stabbed him through with his sword. After the battle, I came upon my father’s corpse lying upon the cold snow, his lifeless eyes still open. What had he ever done to them, that they should have wanted him to be like that? Did they not know that there were those who loved him, who depended upon him?

            There we sat in that small corner. The door burst open, and a man barged into our small house. Taking a log from the fire, he cast it into the middle of the room, setting the place ablaze. My mother rushed to stop him, and in the struggle he killed her. Again, how could this have been? How could that life that had been so strong as to give life to my sister and I have been held in so little value by these people, these animals that valued the trade of a mere river above something so precious. The flame of life that had ignited our own was extinguished.

            I, enraged, grabbed a small knife that was nearby and ran at him. He, having not seen us, did not expect the attack. He fell to the ground, the knife lodged firmly in his side. As the house began to erupt in flames, I saw him look at me, a sad gleam in his eyes. Then that monster died.

            My sister and I rushed from the house before the smoke became intolerable. As we got safely away, I looked back and saw the house finally collapse in a plume of dark smoke, drifting upwards in the cool air of that terrible morning.

            The men of the town had finally managed to drive them back, but not without loss of many lives and many homes. The leaders of our village created an agreement with them, setting strict boundaries between us and setting the harshest of penalties should those be violated in future. And thus we made peace, a terrible peace with those that had so harmed us. I could not believe that we had done so when I first heard about it. What a betrayal of those we lost to so readily make peace.

            I vowed to myself then that should the agreement break, should we go to war, I would make them pay for what they had done to me, leaving us two orphans, taking from us those that we loved most dearly. My father’s brother and his wife took us in, and there I grew up. My life centered on that one passion: the destruction of those who had so wronged me and those I love.

            The seasons came and went in our little village. Year after year would we celebrate the great festivals, at which the storyteller would tell of the great events of our history that we were commemorating. He was such a lively fellow. One was entranced almost from the first note he plucked from his lyre. He was the life of our town, helping us to see who we were, what we had managed to create over the generations. He sang also of who we were not. We were not the people of the other village.

            I made many friends, with whom I would practice long hours, training for any war that might come. How I desired that war might come. We would talk late into the night of the storyteller’s tales, and of how we would someday show ourselves to be their rightful heirs in glorious battle with some terrible enemy. In my imagination that enemy always wore the face of the man who had invaded our house that day.

            The day I had so long awaited finally came. A small hunting party from the other village had, wandering on a dark night near the beginning of spring, come across the boundary that had been set up. They had killed the storyteller who had that evening been walking along the boundary, studying details of that part of the forest that he could weave into the telling of one of his great tales.

            A meeting was called in the central house of the village. Some there, believing this crime to actually have been accidental (gullible fellows, as though that could ever be the case, knowing them), argued that we should maintain the peace with the other village. I stood up, and loudly condemned the other village, calling for their utter destruction. I argued it before them. It was as much as they deserve for the crimes they had done to us so many years ago. They had, furthermore, just taken the very soul of our town from us, the man who told us who we were. I knew who we were: we were not them. Others at the assembly took up my call for battle, and within the hour we sang again the war songs that had been sung by the great heroes when they marched out to war, raising our spirits and readying us for battle.

            We set out for the other village. The sun that had arisen upon the knowledge of the storyteller’s death would not set before we had avenged him. This new spring would see the death of those that had, in that long-ago winter, brought such death and pain to our people.

The sun shown above us in the noonday, bright and golden, illuminating the sky.

            I joined the first wave of the attack. We brought down a few small houses, killing their inhabitants before they could respond. A few men had seen us as we came up, and so tried to hold us off from entering the main part of that village. There was one man, of great strength, who was managing to hold off two of my friends at once. Seeing that he was distracted in the fight with them, I ran behind him. Before he could turn around, I had plunged my sword through his back. I laughed to myself at how fittingly my father was avenged.

 I ran ahead. The man who had invaded our house many years before had had the right idea in one respect: the quickest way to destroy them was to set fire to their houses, one by one, and let the flame do the rest of the work. Flame spread rapidly, if not constantly dowsed with water.

            I barged through the door of one house, and looked for the hearth fire. A log burned there. I ran for it, and was about to throw it into the main room of the place when I felt someone grab my arm to stop me. It was some woman who lived there, feebly trying to keep me from destroying the place. I tore my arm from her grasp, throwing the burning log in the process. I grabbed my knife, and stabbed her. What was she to me? She was just one of them, one of those who had made my life a misery. She fell to the floor.

            I heard a cry from the corner. A young boy ran at me as I turned to face the sound. He grabbed a knife from a nearby table. Before I could react, he had stabbed me. I fell to my knees from the pain. He had killed me.

            I looked at him. There he was, crying at the death of his mother. How was it that I only saw it at this moment, at my very moment of death? What had I done? I looked at the child and in him I saw myself all those years before, bemoaning my mother’s death, pledging that I would never forgive the monster that had done such a thing. I looked at him, as life passed from me slowly. Forgive me, I thought, forgive me for what I have done. The boy went back to the corner to help his sister to the door before the house fell to the flames. The house collapsed just as they got outside.

            As the ruin of the house began to burn around me, burning me and all of my hatred with it, producing a little light in the noonday sun, I had but one thought, one prayer: Child, forgive me for what I have done, lest you become me.

Automacy, Faith, and the Possibility of Knowledge

Here is a link for the first of my Philosophy theses for my senior year at Hillsdale College. Due to its length and extensive use of footnotes, I have not divided into posts here. Instead, I am posting a link to its present location on academia.edu.

https://www.academia.edu/32522309/Automacy_Faith_and_The_Possibility_of_Knowledge.docx