Loved this! And I don't think it's possible for our culture to have its own zero. We created a world in which man is the highest consciousness, and therefore the measure of all things, but our mathematico-empirical standard of accuracy tries as much as possible to be rid of the human, of the subjective; to find a perspectiveless perspective. Not only is the latter an impossible ideal to actually reach, it also contradicts the former. We have no way to reach a zero if I'm right about this.
Also, you hit on an important point in the section about trying to determine the birth-year of Christ: we moderns, so influenced by a materialist metaphysic judge all peoples of all times by that metric. When we find them wanting, we wag our tongues at their primitiveness and pronounce judgements from our supposed superiority. The problem, of course, is that we're making a fundamental category mistake: we treat the ancients as bad materialists, which is false;
they weren't materialists at all. It seems a triviality to point out that non-material approaches don't always yield material accuracy. Regarding the Gregorian calendar, created by Roman Catholics that took Jesus' birth as their zero, even Neil DeGrasse Tyson said he's fine using BC/AD because, even from a scientific perspective, it is an astonishing achievement in accuracy and stability.
BCE/CE is simply ridiculous. It amounts to burying one's head in the sand regarding the fact that the way we reckon time is based in Christianity. Just deal with it or come up with your own thing.
Wonderful. I have often wondered if Jesus was born on December 25th, was that year 0 or year 1? Might he actually have been born in 1BC? Or was the whole year before he was born 1AD?
Anyway, I feel there is a fundamental flaw with our linear concept of time, which you so beautifully describe here. We need to rediscover the light/dark yin/yang sense, and understand that each return is 'to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time', as Eliot said. Not so much circular as spiral, as Iain McGilchrist suggests.
"Maybe the best thing we can do is befriend a stranger, and together wonder aloud about the zero. Get a drink and start a conversation that leads to a world where the sacred is membered again. I don’t know. It’s complicated." I love this quote. But is it complicated?! Or is it simply more difficult to take the time and risk to sit with the stranger? And the zero part...I am gonna have to sit with that for a bit ;)
Maybe the calendar and Zero is a product of the fall... a gift from God to a fallen creature who without death will live in unredeemed hell for all eternity... Time is another garment of skin to protect us from the consequences of our malfeasance... the calendar matters but does the year? I'm not so sure... the year of your death matters but only God knows that and it only matters for personal motivation. The liturgical calendar is a beautiful cyclical tool to live one's life by but does it really need a year? I'm not so sure. Can we order our lives around Christ's birth, death and resurrection without knowing the year... I am inclined to think we can... "The calendar was made for man, not man for the calendar..."
One day we will discuss of these essays at the table... until then brother...
It would be interesting to think about the beginning of year 0, and thus every year, which of course before light people was not January 1st but, obviously!, March 25th. That's why you read dates like "March 1512-13" in olden letters.
Also, in physics time is very peculiar because many fundamental theories are reversible (ie everything could conceivably just be rolled back both in classical and quantum mechanics), but empirical observation is very much irreversible (from glass breaking to milk mixing with the coffee to people dying). How exactly this irreversibility emerges is a mystery (in quantum mechanics one school of thought is that it is related to measurement by an observer - ie if there's nobody there for all we know physics may be reversible, at least in certain contexts).
This is related to the previous discussion of thermodynamics obviously (ie irreversibility only ever happens spontaneously towards more disordered states).
Athens, I love your comments. They make me realize that the straw I make of the enlightenment (for purpose, not out of real hatred), is just that. Straw. But straw ain't nothing, and the thing that is the enlightenment is doing things to us. And you are always there willing to hear the thing "being done" while also willing to find the beauty in all that science offers. You seem healthy. And it's nice to have healthy people reading these things, thought that sentence demonstrates how hateful I can be to unhealthy people. Ugh. Let me say it like this: Balance is a thing we are in need of. You seem balanced. Thanks for helping me be more balanced too.
You are very kind. If I may extrapolate a bit, I think what you are saying is related to something along the lines "huh, not everyone who appreciates/does science is part of the Bertrand Russell-Neil de grasse Tyson-fauci complex". Which of course is true, and these guys' weaponization of science is (thoroughly unscientific, and furthermore) diminishing science and ultimately turning people away from it.
Despite all the spin, there are countless very accomplished scientists that very much "believe in science" (as in, they take the systematic investigation of things seriously) and also are very balanced and sophisticated on philosophical and metaphysical questions. Even in the current climate, some of them do speak up very successfully (John Lennox, James Tour come to mind, and of course Jordan Peterson is another example). In the one party state of academia, many more have to keep their heads down. This relative silence is used to create the "Dawkins cartoon" that "believing in science" means being an extremely naive and fanatical materialist. But it's not true.
Brilliant insight, John! The zero as sacred point of attention from which all understanding of future time/experience emerges makes me think of iconography and iconoclasm, and the divergence between orthodoxy and Protestantism; all the descent into materialism and meaninglessness in the West by neutralizing and abstracting the physical, tactile "place holders" that are "point zero" for religious engagement: the silent zeros (icons, rituals) in everyday life and worship that hold the holy mystery beyond the rational, and mark the points of divine connection on the journey towards theosis, like the stars in the constellations we draw.
I have just been reading about The Fool in tarot which is a Zero. The book suggests various words linked to The Fool include infinity, freedom, possibility, the beginning and the end. I feel a writing appearing before me - Thankyou.
I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. The holy zero... What a beautiful metaphor! We find ourselves in a culture obsessed with quantifying time, both scientifically and metaphysically, yet all the while a unifying thread stares at us patiently for eons, waiting to accept us in peaceful communion. Unfortunately, each day we spend with our eyes fixated on the rest of the numbers, the tide goes out; in its wake, "common time" washes away the infinite.
A sad state of affairs, to be sure. I was going to say that life in the West can be viewed as a constant battle to find "the zero" against the weight of materialist progress, but even that may be an overly optimistic view. It may be more accurate to say that most don't even know/care that the infinite exists. Is there a "peace" in ignorance itself? Maybe they're laughing at us over here, as we try to make sense of all this!
Poetry! "Unfortunately, each day we spend with our eyes fixated on the numbers... the tide goes out"
Maybe they are laughing at us. Let's laugh together, but not the laugh of a madman. Let's laugh together like people who have hope on the eternal zero. We could be crazy, but the hope makes us holy fools. Let's do that together!
Hello world! Do you see the light shining through the dusty window over yonder that’s coming from the East? It is The Christ who is the sun, moon, and stars! Let Him be your Prince of Peace, your lamp stand, your measure of time for all eternity and you will find rest for your weary soul. May God bless you and keep you forever and ever and ever, amen.
This is the not so funny part of this article and idea regarding "bad zero's". Man made zero's dominated by gods of power, gnosis and techne always end badly. In many ways, it might be better that the western zero has failed to materialize. I fear it will be a very ugly and awe filled zero indeed. Eyes peeled!
Loved this! And I don't think it's possible for our culture to have its own zero. We created a world in which man is the highest consciousness, and therefore the measure of all things, but our mathematico-empirical standard of accuracy tries as much as possible to be rid of the human, of the subjective; to find a perspectiveless perspective. Not only is the latter an impossible ideal to actually reach, it also contradicts the former. We have no way to reach a zero if I'm right about this.
Also, you hit on an important point in the section about trying to determine the birth-year of Christ: we moderns, so influenced by a materialist metaphysic judge all peoples of all times by that metric. When we find them wanting, we wag our tongues at their primitiveness and pronounce judgements from our supposed superiority. The problem, of course, is that we're making a fundamental category mistake: we treat the ancients as bad materialists, which is false;
they weren't materialists at all. It seems a triviality to point out that non-material approaches don't always yield material accuracy. Regarding the Gregorian calendar, created by Roman Catholics that took Jesus' birth as their zero, even Neil DeGrasse Tyson said he's fine using BC/AD because, even from a scientific perspective, it is an astonishing achievement in accuracy and stability.
BCE/CE is simply ridiculous. It amounts to burying one's head in the sand regarding the fact that the way we reckon time is based in Christianity. Just deal with it or come up with your own thing.
Without a beginning/ending that ties into meaning CE/BCE might as well be baseline chaotic entropy/ convoluted emptiness.
Wonderful. I have often wondered if Jesus was born on December 25th, was that year 0 or year 1? Might he actually have been born in 1BC? Or was the whole year before he was born 1AD?
Anyway, I feel there is a fundamental flaw with our linear concept of time, which you so beautifully describe here. We need to rediscover the light/dark yin/yang sense, and understand that each return is 'to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time', as Eliot said. Not so much circular as spiral, as Iain McGilchrist suggests.
Yes on the spiral! Indeed!
This was hilarious! I have no memory of why I subscribed to you, but I was obviously very clever to do so!
"Maybe the best thing we can do is befriend a stranger, and together wonder aloud about the zero. Get a drink and start a conversation that leads to a world where the sacred is membered again. I don’t know. It’s complicated." I love this quote. But is it complicated?! Or is it simply more difficult to take the time and risk to sit with the stranger? And the zero part...I am gonna have to sit with that for a bit ;)
Thank you so much for writing this. Wonderful!
Thank you Leah!
Or...
Maybe the calendar and Zero is a product of the fall... a gift from God to a fallen creature who without death will live in unredeemed hell for all eternity... Time is another garment of skin to protect us from the consequences of our malfeasance... the calendar matters but does the year? I'm not so sure... the year of your death matters but only God knows that and it only matters for personal motivation. The liturgical calendar is a beautiful cyclical tool to live one's life by but does it really need a year? I'm not so sure. Can we order our lives around Christ's birth, death and resurrection without knowing the year... I am inclined to think we can... "The calendar was made for man, not man for the calendar..."
One day we will discuss of these essays at the table... until then brother...
This is just spot on. We can live in the "inaccuracy". It's okay guys. We got this. Table time is coming Mr. Franky!
Great piece, like always.
It would be interesting to think about the beginning of year 0, and thus every year, which of course before light people was not January 1st but, obviously!, March 25th. That's why you read dates like "March 1512-13" in olden letters.
Also, in physics time is very peculiar because many fundamental theories are reversible (ie everything could conceivably just be rolled back both in classical and quantum mechanics), but empirical observation is very much irreversible (from glass breaking to milk mixing with the coffee to people dying). How exactly this irreversibility emerges is a mystery (in quantum mechanics one school of thought is that it is related to measurement by an observer - ie if there's nobody there for all we know physics may be reversible, at least in certain contexts).
This is related to the previous discussion of thermodynamics obviously (ie irreversibility only ever happens spontaneously towards more disordered states).
Athens, I love your comments. They make me realize that the straw I make of the enlightenment (for purpose, not out of real hatred), is just that. Straw. But straw ain't nothing, and the thing that is the enlightenment is doing things to us. And you are always there willing to hear the thing "being done" while also willing to find the beauty in all that science offers. You seem healthy. And it's nice to have healthy people reading these things, thought that sentence demonstrates how hateful I can be to unhealthy people. Ugh. Let me say it like this: Balance is a thing we are in need of. You seem balanced. Thanks for helping me be more balanced too.
You are very kind. If I may extrapolate a bit, I think what you are saying is related to something along the lines "huh, not everyone who appreciates/does science is part of the Bertrand Russell-Neil de grasse Tyson-fauci complex". Which of course is true, and these guys' weaponization of science is (thoroughly unscientific, and furthermore) diminishing science and ultimately turning people away from it.
Despite all the spin, there are countless very accomplished scientists that very much "believe in science" (as in, they take the systematic investigation of things seriously) and also are very balanced and sophisticated on philosophical and metaphysical questions. Even in the current climate, some of them do speak up very successfully (John Lennox, James Tour come to mind, and of course Jordan Peterson is another example). In the one party state of academia, many more have to keep their heads down. This relative silence is used to create the "Dawkins cartoon" that "believing in science" means being an extremely naive and fanatical materialist. But it's not true.
Brilliant insight, John! The zero as sacred point of attention from which all understanding of future time/experience emerges makes me think of iconography and iconoclasm, and the divergence between orthodoxy and Protestantism; all the descent into materialism and meaninglessness in the West by neutralizing and abstracting the physical, tactile "place holders" that are "point zero" for religious engagement: the silent zeros (icons, rituals) in everyday life and worship that hold the holy mystery beyond the rational, and mark the points of divine connection on the journey towards theosis, like the stars in the constellations we draw.
Silent zeros! The irony is amazing and the hint of humility in that phrase deeply Christic. Nice. Dawn! Peace sister... hope you are well!
I have just been reading about The Fool in tarot which is a Zero. The book suggests various words linked to The Fool include infinity, freedom, possibility, the beginning and the end. I feel a writing appearing before me - Thankyou.
Thank you sister!
I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. The holy zero... What a beautiful metaphor! We find ourselves in a culture obsessed with quantifying time, both scientifically and metaphysically, yet all the while a unifying thread stares at us patiently for eons, waiting to accept us in peaceful communion. Unfortunately, each day we spend with our eyes fixated on the rest of the numbers, the tide goes out; in its wake, "common time" washes away the infinite.
A sad state of affairs, to be sure. I was going to say that life in the West can be viewed as a constant battle to find "the zero" against the weight of materialist progress, but even that may be an overly optimistic view. It may be more accurate to say that most don't even know/care that the infinite exists. Is there a "peace" in ignorance itself? Maybe they're laughing at us over here, as we try to make sense of all this!
Poetry! "Unfortunately, each day we spend with our eyes fixated on the numbers... the tide goes out"
Maybe they are laughing at us. Let's laugh together, but not the laugh of a madman. Let's laugh together like people who have hope on the eternal zero. We could be crazy, but the hope makes us holy fools. Let's do that together!
Hello world! Do you see the light shining through the dusty window over yonder that’s coming from the East? It is The Christ who is the sun, moon, and stars! Let Him be your Prince of Peace, your lamp stand, your measure of time for all eternity and you will find rest for your weary soul. May God bless you and keep you forever and ever and ever, amen.
Steph! Bravo and peace to you.
I'm afraid a global Year Zero is coming. We caught a glimpse of it in Cambodia under Pol Pot.
This is the not so funny part of this article and idea regarding "bad zero's". Man made zero's dominated by gods of power, gnosis and techne always end badly. In many ways, it might be better that the western zero has failed to materialize. I fear it will be a very ugly and awe filled zero indeed. Eyes peeled!
Lord have mercy…….