5 Realizing the Highest Good

1. 5 Realizing the Highest Good And the Power of Love

2. Two conceptions of God • “Postulate of God” • “And I couldn’t go on living if I didn’t feel with all my heart a moral structure, with real meaning, and … forgiveness. And some kind of higher power. Otherwise there’s no basis to know how to live.” Rabbi Ben • 1) An external power capable of saving humans • through a god-like Savior • 2) A power with which we ourselves are capable when we connect to one another

3. Neo as Savior? • Mr. Anderson: “Son of Man” • Choi: Hallelujah. You're my savior, man. My own personal Jesus Christ. • Cypher: Did he tell you why he did it? Why you're here. Jee-zus. What a mind job. So you're here to save the world. What do you say to something like that?

4. Two theories of Christianity • 1) Jesus saves a sinful humanity • 2) Jesus teaches us that we are all “sons of God.” E.g., “Our Father.” • Recognizing this, we become powerful • “The works that I do, shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” (John 14: 12)

5. Neo as Teacher • Neo (conclusion of 1st Matrix film) • “I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you, a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is possible.”

6. Who saves us? • Kid: • I want to join the Nebuchadnezzar … the more I think about it, the more I think it's meant to be. You know, it's fate. I mean, you're the reason I'm here, Neo. • Neo: • I told you, Kid, you found me, I didn't find you. • Kid: • I know, but you got me out! You saved me! • Neo: • You saved yourself.

7. We have already chosenNow we must understand • Neo: • But if you already know, how can I make a choice? • The Oracle: • Because you didn't come here to make the choice, you've already made it. You're here to try to understand why you made it. I thought you'd have figured that out by now.

8. Development of our understanding • Morality implies freedom to choose (free will) • The justification of free will requires critique of scientific materialism • The choice: duty versus desire • Stages of understanding (going down the rabbit hole) • 1) Free choice (red and blue pill): • 2) Understanding how it is possible

9. Approaches to the possibility of morality • 1) Critique of the objectivity of scientific laws. • --So morality is logically possible. • One can believe in one’s freedom (and other postulates of morality) • --Postulates of morality are possible. • But abstract logical possibility is a flimsy basis for making life choices

10. Beyond faith: experience • 2) Moral experience of duty: our connectedness with others • = The experience of being in contact with a power that transcends the sensible world: “personality” • Recall Kant’s “movie”: someone says he can’t resist sexual attraction … • 3) Power of imagination and beauty • 4) Power of love • 5) Teleology of history (evidence for Providence, Destiny)

11. 2nd Fomulation of Categorical Imperative • “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.” • = other people too act for their own ends or goals, and must be respected for this • What is involved in this respect for others?

12. Another kind of vegetarianism • Lisa: When will all those fools learn that you can be perfectly healthy simply eating vegetables, fruits, grains and cheese. • Apu: Oh, cheese! • Lisa: You don't eat cheese, Apu? • Apu: No I don't eat any food that comes from an animal.

13. Tolerance • Lisa: Ohh, then you must think I'm a monster! • Apu: Yes indeed I do think that. But, I learned long ago Lisa to tolerate others rather than forcing my beliefs on them. You know you can influence people without badgering them always. It's like Paul's song, "Live and Let Live". • Paul: Actually, it was "Live and Let Die".

14. Morality is for oneself • Morality is about one’s inner intentions, not external actions • => Be consistent with one’s own principles of action • Self-doubt: Are we ever sure we know even our own real motives? • Hence morality is not: impose one’s own principles on others

15. Variety of beliefs • People have different beliefs • which may be consistent with morality • Morality: 1) consistency, constancy in one’s beliefs—taking control of one’s beliefs • But this can lead to different moral standards for different people • Lisa’s vegetarianism v. Apu’s (deeper one?)

16. Kant’s “formalism” • 1) One formal principle: will your maxim as a universal law • Different possible contents of moral rules • Doesn’t this produce moral relativism, irrationalism? • 2) But respect for humanity is not relative, while allowing for our moral differences • And respecting others whose moral convictions differ from our own

17. Connectedness • This respect for humanity in ourselves and in others is the recognition of our connectedness with one another (even in our differences) • 1) This is the source of the moral experience of duty • 2) It is also the basis of the power of realizing the supreme duty, the Highest Good, creating a just society • I.e., the postulate of God

18. Appearance and Reality • Copernican revolution: what we see is appearance, not reality • E.g., the dome of the starry sky at night • Centering on the observer • The reality: • vast space in which our planet is a mere speck? • = “a pretty cold place” (Louis Levy) • Kant: But this too is appearance—a projection of time/space structures of the human mind

19. Kant’s critique of “knowledge” • Science gives us “appearance” for us • Our human way of organizing experience for purposes of knowledge • “methodological determinism” • Reality in itself is (scientifically) unknowable • And so it is possible that in reality we are free • We can believe in our freedom, and other postulates of morality: God and Immortality • Postulates of moral faith: • Universe is a field of potentiality on which we project fundamental choices: • Two fundamental choices

20. Two perspectives on the Universe • 1) It’s cold and indifferent • Perspective of cause-effect structured system of spatially separate entities evolving in linear time > fear-inspired • 2) It’s beautiful and sustaining • Look at the dome of the sky • The beauty of trees, animals … • Moral perspective: Which vision supports the ideals of duty?

21. From postulate of morality to new science: Quantum Mechanics • Giles: • “Of course! I’ve been investigating the mystical causes of invisibility when I should have looked at the quantum mechanical! Physics. It’s a rudimentary concept that reality is shaped, even created, by our perception.” • 20th century physics of indeterminism versus classical deterministic physics

22. Science presupposes free choice • “The freedom of experimentation, presupposed in classical physics, is of course retained and corresponds to the free choice of experimental arrangement for which the mathematical structure of the quantum mechanical formalism offers the appropriate latitude.” • Neils Bohr (1973)

23. The problem of choice • Neo: • Choice. The problem is choice. • Architect: • The first Matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art—flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. • Thus, I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature.

24. Implicit choice of humanity • Architect: • As I was saying, [the Oracle] stumbled upon a solution whereby nearly 99% of all test subjects accepted the program, as long as they were given a choice, even if they were only aware of the choice at a near unconscious level. • From 1st Matrix • (“perfect” world of happy people) • to 2nd Matrix • (dog-eat-dog world of 1999)

25. Conscious choice • Architect: • While this answer functioned, it was obviously fundamentally flawed, thus creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly, that if left unchecked might threaten the system itself. • Ergo those that refused the program, while a minority, if unchecked, would constitute an escalating probability of disaster. • Neo: • This is about Zion.

26. Neo understands his choice • Architect: • Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the anomaly revealed as both beginning and end. • There are two doors. The door to your right leads to the Source, and the salvation of Zion. The door to your left leads back to the Matrix, to her and to the end of your species. As you adequately put, the problem is choice. But we already know what you are going to do, don't we?

27. Architect on love versus reason • Architect: • Already, I can see the chain reaction - the chemical precursors that signal the onset of an emotion, designed specifically to overwhelm logic and reason - an emotion that is already blinding you from the simple and obvious truth. She is going to die, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. • Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness.

28. Two moralities • 1) Utilitarian calculation: how to save the greatest number of people at the expense of the fewest • Human beings have relative value • Mental calculation decides what to do • 2) Love: recognizing intrinsic value of one person • The heart over the mind

29. The needs of the many weigh more than those of the few • Spock: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 1982 • Bart: • Good Bart … no bad Bart … no good Bart • We determine good and bad by the consequences • Lisa: I don’t get it, Bart. • Intrinsic meaning of the action: It’s wrong to kill innocent animals …

30. Neo is reborn from love • “Neo, I’m not afraid anymore. The Oracle told me that I would fall in love, and that man, the man who I loved, would be the One. And so you see, you can’t be dead. You can’t be. Because I love you. You hear me, I love you.”

32. Implications of Allegory • Heidegger’s interpretation: • 1) This lower world of sensible experience is an illusion • (like the Matrix) • 2) Truth can only be found in a higher world outside of this lower one, • an ideal one beyond this material realm • 3) and so this lower material world, becomes disenchanted, • and open for technological exploitation

33. Return to the appearance • Heidegger’s critique of Plato, Christianity • Through technical intellect of science • instrumental rationality of modern science, • sensible reality is disenchanted, desacralized • i.e., it becomes a cold place for human exploitation • Before Plato: an enchanted world • Recall animism of hunter/gatherers

35. Heidegger’s critique of Plato, Kant and Christianity • Plato’s dualism (multidimensionality) creates basis for Western technology • Allegory of the cave: True reality is beyond the sensible world , and accessed by reason • Material world is “disenchanted” as mere illusion • Christianity is “Platonism for the masses.” (Nietzsche) • Seems to applies to Kant as well • Sensible world of appearances • Intelligible world of human connectedness

36. Reply to Heidegger • Kant’s reply: the Highest Good is not for another world • but a duty for this one • The disenchanted world is the result of the choice of egotism • Morality restores our sense of connectedness to one another • Beauty, art, love: restores the sensible world as permeated with beauty. • Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”

37. Are Plato’s and Kant’s philosophies rationalistic? • Plato • Philosophy = love of wisdom • Philosophical knowledge is a form and effect of love • Kant: • duty is not primarily a matter of rationality (how do we know what is our duty), but first of all an experience of shared humanity • Critique of science allows for a return to sensuous beauty as an image of higher truth • “Art is a symbol of morality”

38. Who taught whom? • ? > Socrates > Plato > Aristotle > Stoics >

39. Who was Socrates’ teacher? • Socrates: Diotema of Mantineia, a woman wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when the Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague, delayed the disease ten years. She was my instructress in the art of love . . .

40. Diotema’s Philosophy 101 • Diotema: “For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only -- out of that he should create fair thoughts;

41. Upper division philosophy • [210b] and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is one and the same!

42. How to overcome violence of love • And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form....

43. Love of the laws • So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle;

44. The sea of beauty • and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere. . . .

45. Absolute Beauty • He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty . . . -- a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, … but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things.

46. The ladder of love • He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth

47. and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.

48. 2) Plato’s Phaedrus: following the downward path of egotism • “Though all are eager to reach the heights and follow the gods they are not able; sucked down as they travel they trample and tread upon one another, this one striving to outstrip that. Thus confusion ensues, and conflict and grievous sweat. Whereupon, with their charioteers powerless, many are lamed, and many have their wings all broken, and for all their toiling they are balked, every one, of the full vision of being, and departing therefrom, they feed upon the food of semblance.

49. The upward path of duty leads to happiness here on earth • If the victory be won by the higher elements of mind guiding them into the ordered rule of the philosophical life, their days on earth will be blessed with happiness and concord, for the power of evil in the soul has been subjected, and the power of goodness liberated.”

50. Back to the earth:The presence of the divine • In a beautiful person, the morally guided lover of beauty “beholds a godlike face or bodily form that truly expresses beauty.” • For such a person, sensible experience is not a dark and distorted image of ultimate reality, but the very presence of heaven on earth. • In the presence of the beloved, the lover shudders in awe, experiencing “reverence as at the sight of a god.”