{"id":52044,"date":"2016-08-19T03:27:32","date_gmt":"2016-08-19T03:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=52044"},"modified":"2016-08-19T03:27:32","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T03:27:32","slug":"no-mans-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=52044","title":{"rendered":"No Man\u2019s Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron <\/strong>— a quick blog letter to Chris Bateman, and more broadly to the global God NoGod argument ]
\n.<\/p>\n

Warning:<\/strong><\/p>\n

This post may or many not be of interest to individual ZP readers, so here\u2019s what\u2019s up. The philosopher-game-designer-blogger Chris Bateman<\/strong> gets into blog-with-blog discussions, the rubric with his articles on his own iHobo<\/strong> and Only a Game<\/strong> blogs being \u201call replies at other blogs will be promoted here to keep the conversation going<\/a>\u201d \u2013 and this ZP post of mine is in response to his No Man’s Sky Roundup<\/a> post today, and the pieces about the game of that name<\/a> he led me to.<\/p>\n

It is also an attempt to put the basic insight of that branch of theology called \u201capophatic\u201d (\u201cother than speech\u201d) theology into, well, written speech. And in a way, it is also my challenge to the entire \u201cGod vs NotGod<\/strong>\u201d debate that tiresome long books are written about, since the God described by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa<\/strong> strikes me as the \u201cdefinition of God\u201d that any worthy attempt to attack the \u201cGod\u201d concept on philosophical grounds should be tackling \u2013 not such local and verbal matters as whether God prefers seven days to universe completion or a little longer, burkas or bikinis, gays married or chaste, or being embodied or otherwise, three, one or both.<\/p>\n

It’s also written in a language you might term poetico-philosophical<\/strong> or vice versa, you have been warned. <\/p>\n

If that sounds like something you\u2019d be interested in, have at it!<\/em><\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

No Man\u2019s Sky<\/strong><\/p>\n

Words drag their whatevers with them into some form of presence, which with \u201ctable\u201d is not an issue, the table idea is both transparent and vague as clouds, it sits as easy in mind as I sit in a chair \u2013 wait, at my desk, a form of table, the word \u201ctable\u201d brought table to mind, table brought chair.. <\/p>\n

Or was it, \u201ctable\u201d brought \u201cchair\u201d and \u201cchair\u201d brought chair, I myself embodied being also enchaired, one might think \u201centhroned\u201d as I write this.<\/p>\n

At my desk I read these words describing the books in Borges<\/strong>\u2019 Library of Babel<\/em>, \u201cevery variation of the 22 letters of the alphabet (as well as the additional three symbols of the comma, period, and space\u201d \u2013 I read them as illuminating for me the planets, fauna, flora, perils and perceptions players find in the trans-galactic game, No Man\u2019s Sky<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And words drag their whatevers with them. <\/p>\n

It is the mystery. It is the moon at which the zen finger points, it is the, a, God, whole system, the One and All I wish to speak of \u2013 the ineffable \u2013 here.<\/p>\n

So it is that the words \u201cthe comma, period, and space\u201d drag with them first a tailed dot, a tadpole, a jot, yod in the Hebrew, a tongue of flame, tongue here being fire, language and insight, that descended on certain disciples of someone, arguably, then the dot without tail, a speck, point, blackness minimal \u2013 and then, like the zoom from space station window to deep space outside, space.<\/p>\n

In the game, No Man\u2019s Sky<\/em>. Or at your window, seen perhaps from your desk, imagined at mine. Or dragged, somehow, for I and later, you, with or from these words.<\/p>\n

So: zero to galaxy via a simple \u201cand\u201d less than a second long, short in the life of humans, long enough, it would seem, for some previously unknown game galaxy. Or \u201cgalaxy\u201d \u2013 game or otherwise.<\/p>\n

The marks, the comma and period, I am habituated to. They are articulation points among the bare bones of the letters, bodying them out into words, langue, langue<\/em>, language \u2013 again, fire and insight, but also scratches, pecked out with pen, keyboard or chisel \u2013 but space.<\/p>\n

And I was reading about this game, No Man\u2019s Sky<\/em>, this game gaming space, deep space, as the books within Borges\u2019 book, within Borges and now shared out among us, game all possible verbal coherences with all possible incoherences, all partials, wholes, and almost nothings, an \u201ca\u201d that may be word or mark, an \u2018o\u201d that may close the book, galaxy, universe, be zero, lack sound or howl fury.. and those illimitable periods, commas, spaces.<\/p>\n

Thus: \u201ccomma\u201d drags its micro-tadpole with it, I squint, \u201cperiod\u201d drags it\u2019s point \u2013 where is my jeweler\u2019s loup? \u2013 and \u201cspace\u201d __ I am flung far enough that I stop to take stock, look back from vague, vast imagined space at imagined period and comma, see how far how fast I have come, gasp.<\/p>\n

Now the great mystery, the unknowable more than human mind as human mind is more than speck, galactic cluster more than planetary spack with us specks on it, the whatever the \u201cmoon\u201d in \u201cfinger pointing at the moon\u201d was, is, pointing at, the stuff and substance of what the word \u201cGod\u201d drags in, neither stuff nor substance but, per the good catholic Cardinal, Cusanus<\/strong>, well —<\/p>\n

When we attempted to see Him beyond being and not-being, we were unable to understand how He could be visible. For He is beyond everything plural, beyond every limit and all unlimitedness; He is completely everywhere and not at all anywhere; He is of every form and of no form, alike; He is completely ineffable; in all things He is all things, in nothing He is nothing, and in Him all things and nothing are Himself; He is wholly and indivisibly present in any given thing (no matter how small) and, at the same time, is present in no thing at all. \u2013<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— That!<\/p>\n

The \u201cThat\u201d in \u201cThou art That\u201d with \u201cart\u201d the link connecting them, us, if you\u2019ll allow me to digress into a pun, puny beside that immense No Thing at All.<\/p>\n

You drop the word \u201cspace\u201d into an unremarkable remark about \u201cthe comma, period, and space\u201d and space, the deep, the trans-galactic space is dragged into mind \u2013 mine, anyway, and perhaps now yours \u2013 and we ignore it, \u201cspace\u201d we know here meaning what \u201cspace between letters\u201d would drag with it \u2013 we ignore it as though shutting a window, the space station window, the window of mind.<\/p>\n

And God, But God. <\/p>\n

We foreclose the window on God with undue haste, because it is rubbish, garbage, nothing. Or because it is that someone with disciples end of conversation, agree or be damned. Because we\u2019ve got it, we know, we affirm, “I believe”.<\/p>\n

But peer closer at that creed, the longer one, Athanasius<\/strong>\u2019 Creed, skip a few lines and what they drag with them, you\u2019ll find..<\/p>\n

Incomprehensible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To be specific:<\/p>\n

The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible .. as also there are not three .. incomprehensible, but .. one incomprehensible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or in short:<\/p>\n

Incomprehensible, three one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— which drags a certain amount of sense with it, and the someone, and the entire ineffable.<\/p>\n

And that word, struck like repeated blows of a Thor<\/strong>-sized hammer of mind, \u201cincomprehensible .. incomprehensible .. incomprehensible .. incomprehensible .. incomprehensible\u201d.<\/p>\n

There is no whatever, it says, no thing or person or process our mind can think or process that this word or these words, \u201cincomprehensible\u201d, drag with them. Such a thing, or process, or person \u2013 \u201csomeone\u201d included \u2013 is not subject to mind, cannot be crammed, cannot be cabined, cribbed, confined, into mind, into your, my, or some \u2013 any \u2013 high priest philosopher\u2019s mind. Or book.<\/p>\n

Of whom or which or whatever it is said —<\/p>\n

He is not one who is ashamed to show his strength,
\nand buffets proud folk about like leaves in a gale.
\nHe upsets those that hold themselves high and mighty
\nand rescues the least one of us. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2013- of which water is exemplary, which \u201cnourishes all things without trying to\u201d and \u201cis content with the low places which people disdain.\u201d <\/p>\n

Humility, then. And to erect a hurdle, you might call it \u201cepistemic humility\u201d \u2013 <\/p>\n

But make no mistake: <\/p>\n

Humility <\/strong>is the game. “Humility” is the name <\/em>of the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron — a quick blog letter to Chris Bateman, and more broadly to the global God NoGod argument ] . Warning: This post may or many not be of interest to individual ZP readers, so here\u2019s what\u2019s up. The philosopher-game-designer-blogger Chris Bateman gets into blog-with-blog discussions, the rubric with his articles on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321,526,497,529,630,751,840,218,533,523,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogosphere","category-charles-cameron","category-christianity","category-games","category-language","category-mystery","category-paradox","category-philosophy","category-religion","category-theology","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52046,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52044\/revisions\/52046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}