Smallest System

I remember being interrogated by an old family friend and former babysitter. This eminent professor of the dark arts asked me, "Why is hydrogen so important for our entire discipline?"

At that time, I had no idea, so I blathered on for a while.

Eventually, he got frustrated enough to say this: "Because it's the simplest atom. Just one proton and one electron."

And thus did the young man of three decades gone become the old man of today.

Simplicity

If you cannot lean on your own understanding, then surely at least two things are out of reach: independence and knowledge. For if you cannot lean on what is your own, you must be supported by what is not; and if you cannot lean on understanding, then nothing that is known can stand.

Understanding is the basis of epistemology — that is, the answering of the question, "How do you know?" The word 'understand' itself means something like 'to stand close enough to grasp (what is true)'. But when what is true cannot be grasped, then being close enough is an impossibility, a striving after the wind.

That's not to say that there are no truths that can be grasped usefully enough, but that wisdom is not found in grasping such truths. I know I need to eat to live, but there is no wisdom in that bare fact that will tell me what exactly the best diet is, given all that I am and all that I can have. And so to are all the other things in life.

For a human to glory in the great accumulation of all the knowledge we have is like a person walking in a supermarket who has still not answered the question, "What do I need to live?" It might seem irrelevant in the midst of plenty, but if you cannot reach out your hand and take what is offered to you as life, you will starve.

The logic of salvation is simple. To be fair, it must be offered to all, and it must not be beyond anyone's reach. It must therefore be the simplest of things, so simple that formal reasoning (let alone theology!) cannot be required for it to be obtained.

Thus, the foolish things will confound the wise, the weak things will confound the mighty, and the things of no consequence and substance will confound those that are of consequence and substance. The wise scholar, the strong leader, the wealthy merchant, and others such as these — they will find that glorying in whatever gives them prominence does not bring them closer to the simplicity of the truth.

Simplified

'Simplify me when I'm dead,' go the words in one particularly memorable modern poem (which I've appended at the bottom of this post). At this time of year I think of the two-way simplification of the man named Jesus, son of God, son of Man.

There are indeed at least two ways to look at the person of Jesus Christ. The first is "Time's wrong-way telescope", which makes him look smaller, less distinct, a vague image which is conveniently distant and far from us all; the second is the simplification of death and aftermath, a cold but dynamic logic given to us by Paul the apostle.

In the first, we find it convenient to distance him by virtue of alien experience. He died for the sins of all the world, a thought so large that we can run around saying that we are too small, that it is so big, that we are not worthy, that there must be some sort of calculus that is beyond us. So we put it far away from us, and we bow down and sing hymns, and because of that well-known phenomenon called 'diminished responsibility (or sense of moral agency) due to being in a large group', we feel a lot better, marvelling from afar.

The second is terribly inconvenient. If the Christ is not dead and risen again, then you are still in your sins. If it didn't happen, you are pitiful because you believe it did. If Christ is not risen, your faith is in vain. And in this second model, the Christ walks up to you and very inconveniently tells you, as one man to another, "Do not be faithless, but believe.' Having provided the physical proof to Thomas the apostle, he turns round and says, "Because you have seen me (and stuck your hand into this big hole in my ribs), you have believed; blessed are those who haven't and yet believe."

It's easier to surrender far away from the battlefield, as it were. It is easy to sing hymns once a year, remember the death on Friday and the resurrection on Sunday. That can be a good thing. It's not so easy though to be forever standing witness (in all our own fallen glory of fallibility and shame) to something that you have not much rational evidence for. But there it is. Simplify your choice.

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Simplify Me When I'm Dead

Remember me when I am dead
Simplify me when I am dead.

As the process of earth
strip off the colour and the skin
take the brown hair and the blue eye

and leave me simpler than at birth,
when hairless I came howling in
as the moon came in the cold sky.

Of my skeleton perhaps
so stripped, a learned man may say
"He was of such a type and intelligence," no more.

Thus when in a year collapse
particular memories, you may
deduce from the long pain I bore

the opinion I held, who was my foe
and what I left, even my appearance
but incidents will be no guide.

Time's wrong way telescope will show
a minute man the years hence
and by distance simplified.

Through the lens see if I seem
substance or nothing: of the world
deserving mention or charitable oblivion

not by momentary spleen
or love into decision hurled
leisurely arrive at an opinion.

Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I am dead.

Keith Douglas
(died in France, 9th June 1944, under enemy mortar fire)

Reducing Complexity

Those of you who watched the Obama inauguration might have been listening to the elegant classical piece (Simple Gifts, by John Williams) played by that very talented quartet of Perlman, Ma, Montero and McGill. What struck me, besides the cinematic orchestration that is Williams's trademark, was the 19th-century 'Simple Gifts' theme, first used by the Quakers and popularised by Copland in his Appalachian Spring.

What's important about that piece is the beginning: the lyrics to that tune begin with, "'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free..."

The Quakers, unlike the usual stereotype of a stiff and humourless people, were a reactionary and revolutionary Christian sect who believed that a lot of Christians could do with a lot less 'stuff and baggage'. They had a lively sense of humour and a solid sense of being; this combination led them to the key philosophy (as opposed to doctrine) of simplicity. Simply put, they believed that life could be reduced to simple elements and everybody would be happier for it.

In a world that seems to be spiralling out of control in terms of its complexity and diversity, perhaps the antidote is to take a couple of steps back and realise that there are indeed certain fundamental truths, and a position taken based on fundamentals — consistency, decency, thrift, industry, the right to life and the maintenance of life — is very hard to diminish or destroy.

Simplicity

The ancients made a virtue of simplicity. Traces of this remain even in this age of complexity; when a scientist or mathematician says a solution is 'elegant', it might mean 'symmetrical', 'solves more problems than it creates', or 'easily understood'. Most often, 'elegant' is 'simple' of sorts – lacking complexity of form while containing depth of meaning.

Theology is a simple discipline in any religious context; if the faith is beyond apprehension, or beyond the exercise of simple reason, it necessarily discriminates against the simple and casts doubts on its own claim to universality. Christianity, with its priesthood of believers, can make at least that claim; Science, in that sense, can also do that. If the theological or logical complexity is too great, the body of practice must be too arcane to be universal.

This is a fundamental paradox that strikes at the heart of claims to perfection. If a body of practice or belief is perfect, it must be accepted completely by everyone – the Baldur principle. If it is not, it is not yet perfect. On the other hand, if it is universally accepted by any possible measure and by every possible adherent, it becomes axiomatic – and thus is no longer a justified body of belief or practice, but part of the system by which other things are justified.

The consequence of this situation is that all religion is flawed, unless a specific case of religion can be shown to meet the test of universality. If it does, it is no longer religion, but axiom. The only way to resolve this is to begin with axioms. The first axiom of a religious universe cannot be, "There is a God." We have to begin at the simplest level, by assuming that things exist, and that causation is possible but not necessary for all things.

But if we do that, then there is no necessary conclusion. Which means that if we live in a religious universe, we either have to accept God-who-is-not-axiomatic, or leave logic out of it. It all leads me to believe that God is impugned by atheists for the simple reason that He cannot be dealt with in a comprehensive way. He's beyond comprehension of any sort (although not apprehension in all its myriad ways), which is either a cop-out, or the greatest truth of all.

White Space

In the Annals of Arda, concerning the fate of Al-Istari, the Wizards, it is written that the one whom men called Gandalf the Grey travelled to the Tower of Isengard to meet Saruman the Wise, head of his order. In this part of the account, the Grey One converses with Saruman, and towards the end of their converse, the Lord of Isengard reveals his true thought and ambition:

"For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman the Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!"

I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.

"I liked white better," I said.

"White!" he sneered. "It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken."

"In which case it is no longer white," said I. "And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

Tolkien, J.R.R. (1966). The Lord of the Rings, 1:252. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

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Sometimes, it is necessary to think of white as white, and avoid the perils of both Newtonian optics and Sarumanic thaumaturgy. Simplicity has always been a virtue, despite the frequent mockery of the simple - and in this age of complexity and doublethink (or groupthink), it is an even more important and valuable one.