We consider here the thesis that the impossibility of life is what gives life possibility.
That is, contradiction, as we may have observed with frustration to be unavoidable in our lives, is in fact not a problem, but the source of possibility. For a thing to be contradictory, true and false, is exactly that act of making many of one. That a thing both “is” and “isn't” creates multiplicity, by making us distinguish in that thing where it is true and where it is false—it becomes parameterized. This is the building block of life. Applying that building block in every and any way gives rise exactly to reality. It is the source of detail and variety in life, and can be identified clearly with our own consciousness, our own acts of distinction.
The most basic understanding of nature is that it is all, every bit of it, simply that which we distinguish, and every seeming fixed external fact we see is just the implication of one of our own distinctions. One thinks of having choice over his or her distinctions, but really, once one distinction is made, further subdivisions are subject to the restrictions of the first, unless we choose to contradict ourselves, creating choice—choice of how to resolve the contradiction. Impossibility is embraceable. And how can we not embrace it, with life itself an inescapable impossibility, creating the very ambiguity of distinction? Is a thing with distinguishable parts one thing or many things? It might seem we can get around calling that a contradiction, and that's exactly what choosing and distinguishing is: getting around it.
Since anything goes, contradiction included, anything one can conceive is just as real as anything else. Where our conceptions are nonsensical, that's where ambiguity, change, choice and the border from one thing to another is found. Every last retinal cell, synapse, electron, law of physics, law of spirituality, law of conception is implicit in our present distinction. That we can conceive at all, that we are conscious and draw a distinction between ourselves and everything else, is what draws those boundaries of our observed selves. This is how our own distinction can appear as fixed and unchosen. We find ourselves with a set of distinctions that we did not consciously distinguish but appear to have been dealt. That this is a contradiction (our distinguishing something we didn't personally distinguish) just reflects the contradiction of distinction in the first place: that a single thing is in fact many things. Our discovered place, current distinguished reality, is just as much everything as any other though, as every possible distinction can be found somewhere within any other with a little search.
How many have despondently observed that asking the big question seems to have no answer that isn't directly at odds with reason—“where is the universe, where is that, where is that?”, “Who created what, and out of what, and who created them?”. What religion doesn't call for straight out acceptance of contradiction or faith and acceptance of miracles? Those who reject supernatural can do the same. They don't have to relinquish reason in so doing, and seeing a reasonable way of doing so may just ease the tensions between those across opposing borders of belief.
tags: science distinction contradiction philosophy inasmuch strange spirituality meaning choice