Gentle reader,
Here is some philosophy, and here is a message.
I am a great appreciator of Christopher Nolan’s films in general – many of them are masterpieces in their own right. But Interstellar stands above in a high and lonely place.
A masterpiece among masterpieces.
People think it is simple story of space travel… This is a shallow interpretation!
Interstellar is about the illimitable human spirit, divinely ordained. The Faustian will-to-power that burns within each man and woman’s heart, which is the urge to conquer infinite time and infinite space.
And it’s about Love. How love is, for all intents and purposes, the quantum “glue” that can transcend all known laws of nature and boundaries of physics. Casual moviegoers and some people who fancy themselves scientifically minded derided the conclusion of the film, which I won’t spoil for you if you haven’t seen it, but basically involved capital-L Love being the key to getting our protagonist Cooper to the end of his hero’s journey.
Is this woo-woo? Is this unscientific? Hardly.
All science is founded upon a set of assumptions about metaphysics, metaphysics being the study of what is the basis of reality. Why is there something rather than nothing? What is reality made of? And what is the nature of the substance, or substrate, underlying reality?
How can we be sure that our models of reality (for that is all our mighty edifices of knowledge ultimately amount to – models) accurately transmit reality to us?
The true scientist as investigator of the cosmos, of the Logos, acknowledges the existence of Transcendental principles.
There is a severely under-appreciated and under-studied philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, who came close to accurately transmitting the essence of the metaphysical principles. Following in Plato’s footsteps he believed that there are patterns of creation and reality that exist outside of time, and therefore can exist throughout all of time. He called them “eternal objects.”
And part of the process in which they come into our universe, or the way they achieve manifestation in Reality, is through prehensions, a simultaneous-and-everywhere grasping or awareness of all that exists in the present moment, as well as the antecedent moments leading up to that moment. At risk of grossly simplifying, prehensions are what Gen Z readers would refer to as VIBES, colour-feelings among which is love.
So the key characteristic of this universe is Personal; which is to say that this universe has feelings. One could go as far as to say the universe is nothing but emotion, awareness, consciousness, feelings. OK, so the universe has feelings and it cares. It cares a lot about you. It loves you.
This has implications.
Gentle reader, you do not live in a dead and uncaring universe.
We are the mind of God contemplating His own creation and existence.
Imagine that. I know some of you are skeptical. Maybe you do not believe in God or the gods. Maybe you have become convinced that you are nothing more than a pound of electrically charged grey matter trapped in a cage of bone, controlling a meat puppet. That the universe is cold and uncaring and that blind idiot fortune put you here. There’s certainly evidence for that, if that’s the working hypothesis you set out with in the first place.
I have no doubt you’ll have happy moments and sad moments in life too.
But how cold! How bland and lifeless – how nihilistic – that sort of existence must be. It is somewhat shocking and breathtakingly silly to sell yourself short like that. And that’s why nihilism and atheism (the two always go together, like apple and pie) represent one of the greatest shams ever. For this is how you rob yourself of the capacity to realise your true nature and therefore your highest potential.
If you are a nihilist, you are adrift in the cosmos. You’re untethered. You have nowhere you came from save your mother and father, and you have nowhere to go. Nowhere great, or grand, or meaningful. You cannot truly love, because nothing has meaning or import. No one has actual value, it’s all nominal and subjective, and it doesn’t matter anyway. In the final analysis, the nihilist annihilates God and divinity and love purpose and adventure and meaning… until finally he ends up annihilating himself.
This is not what I want for you. I do not know you personally but I know what is inside you.
It is time to awaken to your grand promise, Man as Imago Dei.
Your essence is love, not just any mere creature-love, but love capable of being a bridge that transcends the infinite and the divine.
I want to know: Will you keep on living as if you are a speck of dust?