Erwin Schrödinger (‘n gedeelte uit Maria Popova se “The Marginalia”)
Spesiaal vir my vriend Hennie wat lank gelede vir my dieselfde vraag gevra het as wat Schrödinger hier vra, net om te wys dat groot manne ook met dieselfde probleem stoei.
“Facing you, soaring up from the depths of the valley, is the mighty, glacier-tipped peak, its smooth snowfields and hard-edged rock-faces touched at this moment with soft rose-colour by the last rays of the departing sun, all marvellously sharp against the clear, pale, transparent blue of the sky.”
Schrödinger is vir die meeste mense meer bekend vir sy kat-in-die-boks storie as vir jy morele filosofie of metafisika. Maar hier deel hy met ons belangrike insigte wat vir alle mense geld.
“According to our usual way of looking at it, everything that you are seeing has, apart from small changes, been there for thousands of years before you. After a while — not long — you will no longer exist, and the woods and rocks and sky will continue, unchanged, for thousands of years after you.”
‘n Gedagte wat ons maar net nie aan gewoond kan of wil raak nie, die idee dat ons sterflik is. Ons weier halsstarrig om selfs maar daaraan te dink.
“What is it that has called you so suddenly out of nothingness to enjoy for a brief while a spectacle which remains quite indifferent to you?”
Soos Schopenhauer dit stel: “for the will conducts the great tragedy and comedy at its own expense, and is also its own spectator” Arthur Schopenhauer: “World as will and idea”
“The conditions for your existence are almost as old as the rocks. For thousands of years men have striven and suffered and begotten and women have brought forth in pain. A hundred years ago, perhaps, another man sat on this spot; like you he gazed with awe and yearning in his heart at the dying light of the glaciers. Like you he was begotten of man and born of woman. He felt pain and brief joy as you do. Was he someone else? Was it not you yourself? What is this Self of yours? What was the necessary condition for making the thing conceived this time into you, just you and not someone else? What clearly intelligible scientific meaning can this ‘someone else’ really have? If she who is now your mother had cohabited with someone else and had a son by him, and your father had done likewise, would you have come to be? Or were you living in them, and in your father’s father… thousands of years ago? And even if this is so, why are you not your brother, why is your brother not you, why are you not one of your distant cousins? What justifies you in obstinately discovering this difference — the difference between you and someone else — when objectively what is there is the same?” (Schopenhauer en Emmanuel Kant se ‘thing-in-itself’)
Schrödinger, wat net soos Schopenhauer Hindoe filosofie bestudeer het, trek ‘n parallel tussen quantum fisika en die filosofie van Vedanta en lig raakpunte tussen die twee denkrigtings uit.
“Inconceivable as it seems to ordinary reason, you — and all other conscious beings as such — are all in all. Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole.”
Anders as Schrödinger wat in hierdie aangehaalde gedeelte versigtig sinspeel op “this life of yours … is in a certain sense the Whole” verklaar Schopenhauer (die self verklaarde ateïs wat sê dat die Upanishads en sekere geskrifte van die Christendom die hoogste wysheid waartoe die mens in staat is bevat) onomwonde dat: “there is but one and the same entity really existing, which is present and identical in all alike”. In sy “The world as will and idea” sê hy dat ‘n mens “recognises directly and without reasoning that the in-itself of his own manifestation is also that of others, the will to live, which constitutes the inner nature of everything and lives in all.”
Vir die finale antwoord op die vraag van Schrödinger oor: “why are you not your brother” sal ons moet gaan kers opsteek by Ken Wilber se sisteem van “Integral Philosophy”, die mees omvattende uiteensetting van menslike ontwikkeling beskikbaar vandag. Maar dit is ‘n lang storie vir ander dag. Vir nou sal ons volstaan met die bevestiging uit die Chandogya Upanishad : “Tat tvam asi – That thou art!”
Iris Murdoch
“The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself… to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is.”
Hallo Louw, baie dankie vir die stukkie ek voel al klaar beter omdat daar ander is wat ook oor dieselfde dinge wonder.[ gedink die ou koppie kap n bietjie aan]
Die naaste wat ek aan n antwoord kan kom is dat God ons geskep het as n ewige wese en ons dan op sekere tyd na die aarde stuur om as n mens gebore te word en te leef. Ek dink al die dinge daar rondom is vir my ou benewelde verstandjie te groot om te verstaan, maar dit vat nie die wete weg dat daar baie groter en wonderliker dinge om ons en met ons aangaan as wat ons ooit kan dink nie.
Baie dankie,
Hennie
Jy is reg Hennie, daar is wonderlike dinge wat om en in ons aangaan. Soos Richard Rohr en Jung ook hier onder bevestig:
“A Great Story Line connects our little lives to the One Great Life, and even better, it forgives and uses the wounded and seemingly “unworthy” parts (1 Corinthians 12:22), which Jung would call the necessary “integration of the negative.” What a message! Like good art, a Cosmic Myth like the Gospel gives a sense of universal belonging and personal participation in Something/Someone much larger than ourselves.”