A Tribute for Nagarjuna : Around the Truth of Anti-Time Solipsism
↓ 日本語版 : Japanese version ↓
I'll leave the argument about “time” that I wrote 8-9 years ago, though I don't know if it's correct or not. The reason I'll do it is because I was so moved while reading “Mūlamadhyamakakārikā” by Nagarjuna and the works of Carlo Rovelli that they said something similar to what I thought at that time.
That argument about time began with Gregory Bateson's definition of information, “difference that makes a difference.” People relate to the world through "information." We perceive the external world by corresponding the stimuli and reactions (difference) in our sense organs to differences in the external world. "Difference" is what weaves the relationship between the world and humans.
However, what I would like to think about is where does "difference" exist? "Difference" means "something in the world changes." When something “changes,” it means “something which is something in the world changes into something other.” So, the existence of change means that the world itself is changing, and once a change occurs, because it is a change, therefore the world as it was before disappears. In a change, what it was before disappears and only what comes after remains.
“Change” does not exist in “before change” nor in “after change.” If there is only one of them, then “nothing has changed.” If there is after in before, or if there is before in after, it would be impossible to distinguish between the two in the first place. Change exists only in the “perspective” that overlooks the “before and after.”
But does “before” exist? In “change,” “the world itself” changes. “Before” is the “assumed past world” before change, and is only a representation from memory; it is no longer “the world itself.” “Before” does not exist in the world itself.
“Before” can only be found in a “comparison” with something that is treated as a trace— which is observable and used as record media to make distinction between “before” and “after” change. And the “information = change” obtained through “comparison” between traces and the present is no longer “the world itself.” In other words, "change" does not exist in the world itself.
By the way, “before and after” of a change is the most basic unit that makes up “time”*1*2. However, “change” does not exist in “the world itself.” Therefore, “time” does not exist in “the world itself.” Information and perception are constructed based on change and time,—their root is no other than "comparison”—which do not exist in the world itself *3.
*1...Some readers may say that "past/present/future" is more fundamental, but within "past/present/future" there is a distinction between "before and after" as a more basic unit. So, past is before the present, present is after the past and before the future, future is after the present.
*2...I don’t discuss the "direction" of time. Whether entropy increases or decreases, it is a "change".
*3...I only discuss "differences (changes) over time." However, non-chronological "differences" also fundamentally exist only in information and comparison. Non-chronological differences are differences that exist in the “relations” between one “individual” and another “individual,” but it does not exist only in one “individual'' itself. If there is only one individual, there can be no difference. If there is strictly only one individual object, no “relation” exists. The difference lies only in the perspective from which we look at them.
In other words, strictly speaking, "the world itself" only has "now." However, "now" that I mention here is not the "here and now(Dasein)" of phenomenology. This is because the phenomenological "here and now(Dasein)" is an "appearance" that is being reconstructed in consciousness, and that "appearance" occurs due to the effect of "change." "Here and now(Dasein)" of phenomenology is a different thing from “now” which has no “change.”
“Now” which has no “change” never “appears,” though it means “the world itself.” In other words, when we try to see only “what really exists,” “before and after,” “time,” “change,” and “information” disappear, so everything disappears from our cognition, and cognition itself disappears. In terms of the theory of relations, this would be expressed as the “truth of existence,” and I think it would be safe to call it “emptiness(Śūnyatā )” of Nagarjuna.
In such a “world which has only now,” there is no causal relationship. This is because there is no state transition in the first place. There is no information or relationship in that world. This is because everything never represents anything else, everything exists as itself, and there can be no opportunity for communication by information. It is the fulfilled world of Spinoza's God, but the world of “emptiness(Śūnyatā )” of Nagarjuna, the world of “thing in itself,” a world that is contrary to the cognition itself, a world which we never reaches, but the world in which we live.
And if the above is true, it follows that a certain type of solipsist cannot be refuted. The solipsist who argues that “the world is always the same.”
Suppose I refer to something as a trace (it could even be a memory) to prove the existence of change for someone who claim that “the world is always the same” and deny the existence of change, but my persuasion is meaningless because they stubbornly deny the existence of the difference of “before/after,” “before/after change,” and deny the “act of comparison.” That's because they would not recognize what I refer to as a "trace" as a "trace."
When we consider something as a “trace,” we differentiate this world as the present and the past (or the “before/after” of change), and see the influence of the past on that “thing” that exists in the present. We call this ”difference.” Those who see traces and differences in something see both the distinctions before and after differentiation and the sameness in it at the same time.
However, those who claim that “the world is always the same” see the sameness, but do not see the existence of change. According to them, the claim that there is the difference simply selects arbitrary binaries—which is evidently different from the world in itself, means the distinction of before and after, information—and force them to believe it, that is no different from relying on force to distort the existence of the world and bring them to knees.
As I have already mentioned, if we see them in comparison with assumption that we can distinguish it, people who hold the above claim do not have a distinction between past, present, future, before, and after, do not have the concept of "time."
For such people, the “past” is nothing more than an uncertain memory, the “present” is nothing more than an illusion presented by the senses, and the “future” is nothing more than an uncertain prediction. The same goes for “before and after.” Or perhaps those who truly live by that statement would not even think of such a thing. Because they reject all kinds of “comparisons,” they never “think,” “see,” or “feel” at all. Moreover, we cannot help but say that “the world is always the same” is “true.” In fact, change is only information and does not exist in the world itself.
And those who accept the proposition that “the world is always the same” and do not acknowledge the existence of differences, completely deny the acquisition of information through any sensory organs, and deny the organizational nature of their own bodies.
This is because all information, including sensory information, can always be obtained by comparing differences. In other words, if they admit “the world is always the same” is true, they have to treat their sensory organs as they do not represent any change in the senses, nor do they represent anything about the body itself or its relationship with the outside world, and in the first place, they must treat the “body” which is an independent organization to the outside world as if it does not exist.
This is because the “body,” its physical organization, is established through the metabolism of unnecessary substances as a result of the comparison of differences, processing information. Those who believe that “the world is always the same” deny that there is a “difference,” “relation” between the “world” and the body.
To put it in the extreme, if they consider the proposition that “the world is always the same” to be true, no matter whether I strike the person who asserts it on the cheek or whether that person's body is completely destroyed, the world remains the same,and is treated as if no difference has occurred.
And this claim that “the world is always the same” is truly solipsistic. This is because people who make such a claim deny the reality of change, difference and relationships, the reality of those who are different from themselves, the reality of others—for everything is the same as a world.
However, if this proposition were to be true, they would no longer be able to use language, or more precisely, "information" at all. Because they are premised on change and difference.
You may think that it is unrealistic and pointless to describe an attempt to consider such a postulated argument. However, there were probably quite a few solipsists of this kind throughout history, and I believe that there was a search for something similar in medieval theology. I think that Nietzsche describes in detail in “The Antichrist” what kind of world such a person lives in.
But if there is anything essentially unevangelical, it is surely the concept of the hero. What the Gospels make instinctive is precisely the reverse of all heroic struggle, of all taste for conflict: the very incapacity for resistance is here converted into something moral: (“resist not evil!”—the most profound sentence in the Gospels, perhaps the true key to them), to wit, the blessedness of peace, of gentleness, the inability to be an enemy. What is the meaning of “glad tidings”?—The true life, the life eternal has been found—it is not merely promised, it is here, it is in you; it is the life that lies in love free from all retreats and exclusions, from all keeping of distances. Every one is the child of God—Jesus claims nothing for himself alone—as the child of God each man is the equal of every other man.... Imagine making Jesus a hero!—And what a tremendous misunderstanding appears in the word “genius”! Our whole conception of the “spiritual,” the whole conception of our civilization, could have had no meaning in the world that Jesus lived in. In the strict sense of the physiologist, a quite different word ought to be used here.... We all know that there is a morbid sensibility of the tactile nerves which causes those suffering from it to recoil from every touch, and from every effort to grasp a solid object. Brought to its logical conclusion, such a physiological habitus becomes an instinctive hatred of all reality, a flight into the “intangible,” into the “incomprehensible”; a distaste for all formulae, for all conceptions of time and space, for everything established—customs, institutions, the church—; a feeling of being at home in a world in which no sort of reality survives, a merely “inner” world, a “true” world, an “eternal” world.... “The Kingdom of God is within you”....
……
What the “glad tidings” tell us is simply that there are no more contradictions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to children; the faith that is voiced here is no more an embattled faith—it is at hand, it has been from the beginning, it is a sort of recrudescent childishness of the spirit. The physiologists, at all events, are familiar with such a delayed and incomplete puberty in the living organism, the result of degeneration. A faith of this sort is not furious, it does not de nounce, it does not defend itself: it does not come with “the sword”—it does not realize how it will one day set man against man. It does not manifest itself either by miracles, or by rewards and promises, or by “scriptures”: it is itself, first and last, its own miracle, its own reward, its own promise, its own “kingdom of God.” This faith does not formulate itself—it simply lives, and so guards itself against formulae. To be sure, the accident of environment, of educational background gives prominence to concepts of a certain sort: in primitive Christianity one finds only concepts of a Judaeo-Semitic character (—that of eating and drinking at the last supper belongs to this category—an idea which, like everything else Jewish, has been badly mauled by the church). But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no work is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all. Set down among Hindus he would have made use of the concepts of Sankhya, and among Chinese he would have employed those of Lao-tse—and in neither case would it have made any difference to him.—With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call Jesus a “free spirit”—he cares nothing for what is established: the word killeth, whatever is established killeth. The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He speaks only of inner things: “life” or “truth” or “light” is his word for the innermost—in his sight everything else, the whole of reality, all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as allegory.—Here it is of paramount importance to be led into no error by the temptations lying in Christian, or rather ecclesiastical prejudices: such a symbolism par excellence stands outside all religion, all notions of worship, all history, all natural science, all worldly experience, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all books, all art—his “wisdom” is precisely a pure ignorance of all such things. He has never heard of culture; he doesn’t have to make war on it—he doesn’t even deny it.... The same thing may be said of the state, of the whole bourgeoise social order, of labour, of war—he has no ground for denying “the world,” for he knows nothing of the ecclesiastical concept of “the world”.... Denial is precisely the thing that is impossible to him.—In the same way he lacks argumentative capacity, and has no belief that an article of faith, a “truth,” may be established by proofs (—his proofs are inner “lights,” subjective sensations of happiness and self-approval, simple “proofs of power”—). Such a doctrine cannot contradict: it doesn’t know that other doctrines exist, or can exist, and is wholly incapable of imagining anything opposed to it.... If anything of the sort is ever encountered, it laments the “blindness” with sincere sympathy—for it alone has “light”—but it does not offer objections....
33.
In the whole psychology of the “Gospels” the concepts of guilt and punishment are lacking, and so is that of reward. “Sin,” which means anything that puts a distance between God and man, is abolished—this is precisely the “glad tidings.” Eternal bliss is not merely promised, nor is it bound up with conditions: it is conceived as the only reality—what remains consists merely of signs useful in speaking of it.
The results of such a point of view project themselves into a new way of life, the special evangelical way of life. It is not a “belief” that marks off the Christian; he is distinguished by a different mode of action; he acts differently. He offers no resistance, either by word or in his heart, to those who stand against him. He draws no distinction between strangers and countrymen, Jews and Gentiles (“neighbour,” of course, means fellow-believer, Jew). He is angry with no one, and he despises no one. He neither appeals to the courts of justice nor heeds their mandates (“Swear not at all”). He never under any circumstances divorces his wife, even when he has proofs of her infidelity.—And under all of this is one principle; all of it arises from one instinct.—
The life of the Saviour was simply a carrying out of this way of life—and so was his death.... He no longer needed any formula or ritual in his relations with God—not even prayer. He had rejected the whole of the Jewish doctrine of repentance and atonement; he knew that it was only by a way of life that one could feel one’s self “divine,” “blessed,” “evangelical,” a “child of God.” Not by “repentance,” not by “prayer and forgiveness” is the way to God: only the Gospel way leads to God—it is itself “God!”—
……
The “kingdom of heaven” is a state of the heart—not something to come “beyond the world” or “after death.” The whole idea of natural death is absent from the Gospels: death is not a bridge, not a passing; it is absent because it belongs to a quite different, a merely apparent world, useful only as a symbol. The “hour of death” is not a Christian idea—“hours,” time, the physical life and its crises have no existence for the bearer of “glad tidings.”... The “kingdom of God” is not something that men wait for: it had no yesterday and no day after tomorrow, it is not going to come at a “millennium”—it is an experience of the heart, it is everywhere and it is nowhere....
35.
This “bearer of glad tidings” died as he lived and taught—not to “save mankind,” but to show mankind how to live. It was a way of life that he bequeathed to man: his demeanour before the judges, before the officers, before his accusers—his demeanour on the cross. He does not resist; he does not defend his rights; he makes no effort to ward off the most extreme penalty—more, he invites it.... And he prays, suffers and loves with those, in those, who do him evil.... Not to defend one’s self, not to show anger, not to lay blames.... On the contrary, to submit even to the Evil One—to love him....
I don't know how accurate Nietzsche's interpretation of Jesus is compared with the real historical Jesus. However, I believe that this description itself describes a psychological truth of a particular type of religion that touches on what I call the “outside of relations,” the “truth of existence.”
And when I read “Mūlamadhyamakakārikā” by Nagarjuna this time, I thought that it might say something like what I mentioned above, that “time does not exist.”
The world which has only "now" is not a place for adults to return to, but a mature society knows its place. I think it's something like that.
I dedicate this essay to Nagarjuna.