Living on Lies and Logic
It was a beautiful day. As usual, Sarkon the Prophet was trying to understand the logic behind the making of the universe, and as usual he was not succeeding. As usual as well, General Kwar the Dictator, having nothing better to do, was criticizing Sarkon's endeavor with the most bewildering arguments.
"Stop wasting time thinking about something that you have no way of discovering!" lectured General Kwar. "All you can deduce will be flawed anyway!"
"Why would my deductions be flawed? With the right logical thought process, we can solve any problem and discover anything that exists or has existed but hasn't been discovered yet!" Sarkon argued haughtily. "If you don't want to participate in this exciting task some of us call philosophy because you think you haven't enough brains, so be it, and I can understand your inferiority complex well enough; but please let us thinking people solve the mysteries of the universe without interfering with your heretic doubts and obvious fits of jealousy!"
"Inferiority complex? Obvious fits of jealousy?! What are you babbling about?!" General Kwar eructed. "I just wanted to avoid you a total waste of time and efforts! And beware, Prophet," Kwar came dangerously close to Sarkon, "It is not every day that I choose to show useless people like you my humanitarian side!"
Sarkon backed away. "First time I hear that one," he commented. "Now leave me alone and go bully someone else!"
"I'm not bullying –" General Kwar rolled his eyes. "All I want to explain you is that you cannot discover how or why the universe was created!"
"And why that, please? Do you think I'm too dumb?" Sarkon crossed his arms defiantly.
"That wouldn't be the reason anyway," General Kwar insultingly answered. "You will never be able to find what you are looking for because you are lying!"
Sarkon was dumbfounded. "I? I, who am looking for the absolute Truth, lie? How dare you insult me this way, the worst possible way for a Prophet! I would never, never lie, and you know it –"
"I do not accuse you of lying, Prophet!" General Kwar explained. "I merely notice you are doing so because you cannot do otherwise, and to reassure you, I will tell you that I too am lying just as much as you do!"
"That you would lie wouldn't surprise anyone as long as power is at stake, but… Me? Why would I lie, Dictator?" asked Sarkon, disconcerted.
"Because the very universe you are living in is lying to you!" exclaimed General Kwar. "And because of these lies, you reach false conclusions and thus lie yourself!" he explained.
"The universe is lying to me? But the universe is Truth in itself! How could it lie to me?" asked Sarkon, wondering what kind of madness had overtaken the Dictator.
"The universe isn't exactly lying to us," admitted General Kwar, "but it is making us live in a lie because it doesn't allow us to understand it. Take the following historical example," General Kwar took a deep breath. "A few centuries ago, we believed that the world was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth. That's how the universe showed itself to people, that's how it appeared to be, and people believed it. How could someone discover anything worthwhile about the origins of the universe out of such biased premises?"
"Nobody did, indeed," Sarkon admitted. "But nowadays we know better –"
"Wait, I'm not finished," interrupted Kwar. "Here's another historical example. About a hundred years ago, people believed Newtonian physics was all there was, that time was a continuous, invariable flow independent of speed, and that the speed of light had nothing to do with the amount of energy matter could produce. That's how the universe showed itself to people, that's how it appeared to be, and people believed it. How could someone discover anything worthwhile about the origins of the universe out of such biased premises?"
"Nobody did, indeed," Sarkon admitted. "But nowadays we know better –"
"Sure, we know better – but do we know well enough? Do we really know better, or do we just know differently? What tells us that the relativistic view we have about the universe today is not just another illusion of 'how the universe looks like'? After all, we already thought we were right before! What tells us that in a few decades another theory won't come up, explaining things even better, telling us that relativity wasn't that right after all, because it couldn't explain this and that which the new theory does, and blah blah blah?"
Sarkon didn't know what to say.
"Well, since you don't seem to argue my point of view so much anymore," and to Sarkon's surprise General Kwar did not put on the air of superiority he usually plastered over his face whenever he was winning an argument, "let me tell you that such a theory will come, for the simple reason that relativistic physics is absolutely mute about the phenomenon involving perception and change of the universe by force of will through actions, ideas and inventions, namely consciousness. A science that explains only the material half of the universe is necessarily an incomplete and flawed science, and thus cannot explain it all. As a consequence, our perception of the universe is incomplete, flawed and wrong, and we are living in a lie just as our ancestors who believed the earth was flat did; so you better waste no time thinking about how the universe was created, because what you think it is, is wrong anyway!"
Sarkon was distressed. "But isn't there at least hope? Once we have this new theory, we could maybe try to deduce how the universe was created, and know at last…"
"Such a new theory would be just another illusion, seemingly explaining things better but still not completely. It would be just another lie. But if, by the greatest of tragedies, we somehow unraveled The Theory explaining it all, it would be the death of science: the human mind would have nothing left to discover, we would have no more reason to think anymore, and we would vegetate away in lives of boredom and passive distraction. Not that many don't do it already – let's just not have it to be all of us!"
"So we have to live in a lie or die? Is this the only alternative?" asked a disheartened Sarkon.
"The only one," General Kwar confirmed with the darkest of looks. "And believe me, I am as unhappy about it as you are, Prophet, because I know that I will never reach ultimate power from the midst of a shitty lie! And this, my friend," he waved a menacing finger under Sarkon's nose, "is bothering me very much!"
Then he turned and strode away, leaving an utterly dejected Sarkon far behind.
* * *
It was a beautiful day. Sarkon the Prophet was lost not in thought as he usually would be, but in a sad empty-mindedness. General Kwar had shattered away all the reasons he had to think, so he just sat there. It was a depressing sight.
Out of the far corner of his eyes, he noticed Dr. Qworm the Mad Scientist walking towards him, probably to further try to debilitate him with some wacky philosophical theory of his own.
Sighing, Sarkon broke off his non-thinking and turned to Dr. Qworm, who had an unusual look of self-satisfaction about him. He also carried an open box with him.
"Greetings, Mad Scientist," Sarkon welcomed Dr. Qworm grudgingly, wondering if he should start his vegetative life of passive entertainment right then.
"Greetings, Prophet," the Mad Scientist answered. "Have you discovered the meaning of the universe yet?"
"It seems I am discovering less and less of it," Sarkon admitted. "For the time being, I have to content myself with the Flight from Omnipotence theory[1]," he sighed. "But it supposes the existence of consciousness in the first place. It would be nicer to have a theory that starts from nothing… To make things worse, General Kwar just convinced me that we are living in a lie, and that depresses me…"
"Well – while you were wasting time trying to understand this universe, I created one of my own!" boasted Dr. Qworm.
"Please don't tell me you succeeded in starting your own Big Bang[2]!" Sarkon rolled his eyes.
"In a way, I did! It was shortly after my… Well, my Big Bang attempt that I got the idea for my universe. Here, check it out!" Dr. Qworm held out his box for Sarkon to see.
Carefully, Sarkon looked inside. It was empty.
"There's nothing," Sarkon said.
"That's the whole point," Dr. Qworm explained enthusiastically. "The story of my universe would be like this:
At the beginning, there was
nothing, and there never was anything ever after.
The End.
"The most logical universe one can think of!" marveled Dr. Qworm.
"And the most stupid, too," Sarkon commented dryly.
"Maybe. But if there was someone in my universe who wanted to reflect on it, he would think, 'Wow, there's nothing! That's perfectly normal!' and he wouldn't get depressed by not discovering how his universe was created like you do!" Dr. Qworm sneered.
"I must admit that philosophy would be easy in such a place," Sarkon agreed almost wishfully.
"No lies, no lapses, nothing but absolute logic!" Dr. Qworm remarked sarcastically, showing his empty box.
Sarkon the Prophet sighed. For once, the Mad Scientist had opened his eyes. "I guess I'll just go on living on lies, and try to put some logic into them," he concluded, shaking his head.
Smiling, he started thinking again. A lot of lies still needed explaining and understanding.