A MYTH FOR
THE 21ST CENTURY
An Artist's View of Reality
by Zoe Adorno myth21cent@aol.com
The following is a work in progress which began in the 1960's with
an insight into the relationship between 'man' and the 'world' and developed
along what I would describe as the meaning of 'the without' and 'the within'
for each human individual. The idea for the myth is based on a theory,
or hypothesis, as to what 'Truth' is.
In the early 60's while thinking about this 'without/within' idea, what
I'm calling a theory suggested itself as: "Truth is the Inseparability
of the Opposites, and, at the same Time, Their Very Oppositeness."
I.e. that the laws governing what I was then calling consciousness in the
individual correspond to, or find their counterpart in, the laws of the
physical universe. I haven't experienced anything that affected me as profoundly
either before or since then. About a year after that, I sent a letter to
a theological seminary asking them to evaluate the 'theory' and to consider
developing it. (I saw that the theory, if true, could affirm a God-centered
universe.) The chancellor wrote back that he regretted it very much but
that development of the theory was "beyond the purview of this university."
Believing the 'theory' to be unprovable, and yet thinking along the lines
of 'if True, then what would it mean', I was pleased to read what Richard
Feynman said, in one of his lectures: ".......It is 'Scientific' only
to say what's more likely and less likely and not to be proving all the
time whether something is possible or impossible."
Going on from there, I began thinking of how the Chinese had it right
with the Yin/Yang idea and the active and passive elements and the dual
nature of everything not only in science as it was being discovered and
developed but also in everyday life experiences. I wanted to find enough
ideas that could show this kind of polarity in the opposites of 'the without'
and 'the within' especially where scientists had already done the work
to establish certain laws of physics. By reading about these I could find
ways to illustrate the ideas graphically. The only place I could do this
was through my art. I was a mosaic artist from around 1955 to 1985 and
so I began to express my ideas in glass mosaics.
Some of the glass mosaics were exhibited and appreciated by the viewers
without my having the courage to say what they expressed on a deeper level.
One mosaic which I made around 1966 is called "Truth Type" (Figure
1) and suggests the relationship of the 
opposites
as 'inseparable', using the pattern created by the force field of a bar
magnet. It is a graphic design directly from nature which everyone is familiar
with and, in Physics 1, you learn that if you cut a bar magnet in two,
you don't get all the 'positive' charge in one of the pieces and all of
the 'negative' charge in the other piece... you get TWO magnets both of
which have the properties of the positive and negative charge. For me that's
a profound example of the interaction of opposites in this instance and
no one thinks anything about it.
This picture was in several art exhibits with the title 'Truth Type'
and if anyone thought I was thinking in terms of something more than making
metaphors with my mosaics, no one asked.
Being an artist and not a scientist I started thinking of other ways
the theory has meaning for the individual, like..... if 'Truth' is the
inseparability of the opposites... this thought is at once comforting and
sobering. It also gives him hope for the future, for if there has been
injustice in the past, the theory hints at a kind of equity in events...
or what you could call a kind of moral law of averages.
There is "Truth" which has to do with our existence...such
as our 'without'/'within'. Then there is 'Truth' as it relates to events
or occurrences that are happenings in time as are our actions and choices.
Truth of this kind isn't usually of opposites occurring simultaneously....
time is the variable.
Einstein said: "Two things ever fill me with wonder; the starred
heaven above us and the moral law within us." In thinking about our
choices or 'acts' as vector quantities, having both 'magnitude' and 'direction'
(toward good or evil) , several 'acts' of small magnitude, in the same
direction can equal one act of large magnitude, (force + force), and graphically
illustrates the importance of ones conduct in that each act counts, a kind
of 'all thy deeds written in a book' idea. I think this thought could have
an empowering influence on an individual... to know that by his or her
conduct it's possible to make a difference. I also wonder if this can be
the mechanism by which consciousness expands.
In thinking about the paradox of free will and pre-determination...
man's freedom of choice only affects the time it takes for the foreseen
to be realized. So each injustice in the world causes justice to 'well
up as the waters' in a degree of the same magnitude but opposite in kind.
You might ask then if evil or injustice can well up to balance out justice
and the good... but do you really think that we will ever run out of injustices
done to individuals in the past history of the world or collectively to
people as in war, any Eon soon? There will always be injustice in the world
but hopefully it will become less and less as the peoples in the world
change and wars become a thing of the past.
I want to say that the 'starred heaven' or the physical universe above
and all around us is opposite and yet inseparable from that which is within
us ... whether you want to call it the 'moral law within us' or consciousness
or whatever... it's made of stuff that doesn't have atoms or molecules,
at least not that we know about as yet. And to be related to this world,
as opposite to it and yet inseparable from it is good for our psyches.
(Ask any psychiatrist). It also affirms the brotherhood of all men as possessing
by their very being this same relatedness to the world and to each other.
Einstein said: "What really interests me is whether God had any
choice in the creation of the universe", ... like, in order for anything
to exist, there also had to be its opposite.
I don't know about space time, or quantum mechanics, or gravitation,
or string theories but by studying these , the physicists are discovering
wonderful things about the way the universe works . Ask Edward Witten,
theoretical physicist at Princeton University, about his mention of the
appearance of Symmetry in his work in the field of Superstring Theory.
Roger Penrose, in his book, " The Emperor's New Mind, Concerning Computers,
Minds and the Laws of Physics", writes in his chapter entitled "Where
Lies the Physics of Mind?", Chapt. 10, p. 431, "I have concentrated
on my suggestion that there is an essential non -algorithmic aspect to
the role of conscious action. Normally, the issue of free will is discussed
in relation to determinism in physics." " Recall that in most
of our SUPERB theories there is a clear-cut determinism, in the sense that
if the state of the system is known at any one time, then it is completely
fixed at all later (or indeed earlier) times by the equations of the theory.
In this way there seems to be no room for "free will" since the
future behavior of a system seems to be totally determined by the physical
laws. Even the U part of quantum mechanics has this completely deterministic
character. However, the R ' quantum-jump' is not deterministic and produces
a completely random element into the time- evolution." " My own
point of view, although it is not very well formulated in this respect,
would be that some new procedure, (CQG; cf.Chapter 8), takes over at the
quantum-classical borderline which interpolates between U and R (each of
which are now regarded as approximations), and that this new procedure
would contain an essentially non-algorithmic element. This would imply
that the future would not be computable from the present, even though it
might be determined by it."
After reading this I wrote to Dr. Penrose and sent him my theory about
the nature of Truth but, so far, he hasn't responded.
Encouragement has come, however, from Dr. John Archibald Wheeler, of
the Department of Physics at Princeton University with whom I have been
corresponding since January 1994. In my letter to Dr. Wheeler of March
18, 1995, I include part of the first page of that letter and Dr. Wheeler's
comments to me:
"Dear Dr. Wheeler: I have been thinking more about the issues which
you sent me from the thought of Herman Weyl, with your letter of February
1, 1994, i.e. "What is the machinery of existence"?, and I want
to suggest the following:" "Based on my theory: 'Truth is the
inseparability of the opposites, and, at the same time, their very oppositeness'
you will remember that I was focusing on "the without" and "the
within", i.e. the physical universe as opposite of the 'universe'
within each human being...human consciousness. Thinking just of the "Machinery"
and not how it operates, I think that the opposite of the 'without/within'
combination is what you could call the opposite of duality or the "one".
In other words, maybe God is part of his creation. Think of the declaration
from Judaism that "God is One".........Human consciousness is
inseparable from its opposite, the physical universe,and both together
(without/within) are inseparable from God."
Dr. Wheeler responded with his note: "How right you are!"
In this same letter to Dr. Wheeler I wrote: "As for the operation
of the "Machinery", I don't want to venture guessing about that
but I think that a scientist, like you, Dr. Wheeler,could make a creative
guess. I was going to say an 'educated' guess but it would have to be more
than that. Further on, in Dr. Wheeler's response to this letter, he included
the following : "Thanks also for the picture of (the mosaic) "New
Idea Meeting Resistance", (included here as figure #2), and he sent
me this joke:
"Question:
What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Answer:
It goes through without leaving a hole behind it."
Neils Bohr was fascinated by what he called "Complementarity"
and predicted that some day all elementary school children will be taught
about the complementary nature of science. In the book "Genius"
by James Gleick, Page 40, about the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, "A
Century of Progress", Bohr spoke on the unsettling problem of measuring
anything in the new physics. Before a crowd of visitors , he offered a
principle that he called "complementarity," a recognition of
an inescapable duality at the heart of things. He claimed revolutionary
import for this notion. Not just atomic particles, but all reality, he
said, fell under its sway. "We have been forced to recognize that
we must modify not only all our concepts of classical physics but even
the ideas we use in everyday life," he said, adding "We have
to renounce a description of phenomena based on the concept of cause and
effect."
With all that we are learning about the universe it is very likely that
before very long, life may be discovered on other planets. With knowledge
that 'every star is a sun', to quote Carl Sagan, it is very likely that
some of these suns have planets that can support life and maybe even intelligent
life. Even when these 'neighbors' are discovered, I don't think we would
need a new theory about the nature of 'Truth'. The laws of physics are
the same everywhere and I think that where the consciousness of intelligent
beings exists so will the 'moral law within' be part of us also. Together,
as the opposites 'The Without and the Within, they make up the whole of
Creation. The laws of physics being fixed and the laws of our 'within'
being subject to our free will and the choices we make in the circumstances
where it is possible for us to choose our actions.
This work then is being proposed as a "Myth for the 21st Century";
one that hopefully will fit our knowledge of science as it unfolds and
which also will add meaning to our lives.
© 1997 Zoe Adorno
Your comments are welcome. Send e-mail to: myth21cent@aol.com