DAVID BIRNBAUM METAPHYSICS
DAVID BIRNBAUM PHILOSOPHY
To our readers:
Summa Metaphysica proposes the concept of Extraordinariation.
This concept is proposed and elaborated upon in
the chapter
Mu: Cosmic Tool Kit- Shelf #2 above
(in the first section of this book, Cosmic Womb
of Potential)
The following is a finalé commentary piece on the theme.
by D. N. KHALIL:
EXTRAORDINARIATION
To say that the feeling in the listener’s soul at the climax
of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is ‘perfect’ is drastic
and degrading understatement. The meta-emotional human response to this piece of art (and it is not alone)
is outside of perfection as it is outside of language.
It is transcendent, extra, extraordinary.
It has been said that God is the ultimate artist,
creating a world-dynamic with all the idiosyncrasies of complex art. To praise His work as being merely ‘perfect’ or ‘efficient’ is to miss its creative essence. It is to embrace the engineer while neglecting the artisan. This is a neglect bolstered by science and mathematics, disciplines whose unique understanding of the universe’s exactitude has been used to turn the focus from its delicate elegance. The cold progression of evolution engenders an appreciation for the lion’s strength, for the cheetah’s speed; the precision of physics provides a window into the flawlessness of
our cosmos; but there is more.
Darwinian evolution need not have yielded the frail butterfly, the vulnerable dove; the Earth’s orbit need not have yielded the grace of changing seasons, snow-decorated forests. Indeed laws of nature and principles of physics need not have yielded complexity at all. Nevertheless, complexity permeates our world from subatomic particles to cosmic galaxies. It is this complexity that allows for the sophisticated beauty that stands in wait of our perception daily.
Yet the paradox of this complexity surfaces as we probe it more deeply. Structural biologists have shown that fundamental biology depends on predictable chemistry. Quantum mechanics has shown that chemistry, in turn, can be dissected into the physics that underlies it. Einstein showed that even within physics separations are an illusion. His special theory of relativity (1905) revealed that the division between
space and time is artificial. His subsequent general theory of relativity (1915) showed the same of the distinction between space-time and matter.
Thus, the broad perspective reveals our world’s complexity while the deep, penetrating perspective reveals its unity. Stepping back, we appreciate worldly complexity, stepping close we are astounded by its unity. Such is the paradox. Complexity and unity challenge one another as they each thrust forward expanding their respective scopes simultaneously. New species are discovered as unified theorems are developed. This duality teases us with its plainness: we can only watch, spellbound, as our cosmos’ singularity and its nuance develop and unfold, hand-in-hand, before us. Herein lays the irony of our world’s progression: a relentless trajectory towards unbounded extraordinariation.