i'm currently reading "shantaram," by gregory david roberts. it's a fascinating book about a fugitive's life in india, first living in a slum, then working with the mafia. however, there are many times in the book when he waxes philisophical and it just annoys me, usually because it's not quite how i view the world.
but in one conversation they discuss the meaning of the universe and how you define good and evil. i couldn't believe how much it seemed to sum up my thoughts these days about evolutionary extinction and how nothing in the universe is random. i will insert those passages here when i have time, but basically since the "big bang" the universe has been expanding and forming more complex, moving towards an order. it is the "tendency toward complexity," and maybe "god" is the ultimate complexity.
i haven't wrapped my mind yet around the good and evil aspect of it; that good is anything that helps the universe along toward the ultimate complexity, and evil is anything that holds it back.
i'm looking forward to exploring this further!
1 comment:
having had time to think about this some, striving toward complexity seems counter to my taoist thinking of simplicity being the goal. it makes perfect sense that the universe gets infinitely more complex - just look at nature and all the repeating patterns of nature that are microcosms of the universe. they get more complex as they grow. but they ultimately die away to make room for the even more complex. maybe my resistance to this complexity isn't evil, but survival.
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