765
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_86
Chapter 86
The Paradox of Prayer
86.1 Confession and Evolution (Fig. 86.1)
To be conversant in truth valuation—multi-valued logic infinitely more nuanced than
zero (0) or one (1), true or false, in Boolean algebra—is to grasp that set of non-numbers
which have come to represent the endless, elastic, ambivalent span that is the life of the
mind. It is instinct with prayer to the extent that its life is a paradox of all that remains
unrealized in consciousness, the gaps filled in by faith. As with any ecosystem and the
processes therein, no single science, social science, or aesthetic revelation can help the
mind to reduce the irreducible. Nature is obviously impervious to our chorales, pieces of
paper and canvas, bronze worked into a hallowed likeness. The most ruthless concision
does not approximate time in real time. Authentic reflection is only a mirror of prayer,
the longing for something certain, like a tree. Our ecological ideations are pretexts for
paradoxical prayer, because we utter those words and intentions while we are in the act
of both living and dying. Yet, instinct guides us toward something better, not worse. The
paradoxical nature of such solemn oaths and objects of beseeching cushions the square
root of 3, riddling our most sincere hopes and efforts with an endless multiplicity of
other coordinates, enumerative combinatorics and kissing numbers, as they are called.
All of these quanta are elusive. In the heart of everything, we sense nothingness,
and since these two extremes form an equality (the equal sign earlier discussed) that
is biochemical, our best guess pertaining to our species’ pertinacity forms the basis
for our prayers: infinite dimensional function space. Our confessions are the basis
for that quixotic effort to strike some balance, offer up a reconciliation between
variables, Boolean operators, dream-like crucibles reflecting unrecognizable or forgotten perceptions with constants or boundaries, such are the coordinates of human
orisons. In quantum mechanics, we might be speaking of a harmonic oscillator, with
a very attractive graph that begins and ends nowhere. In quantum optics, that
nowhere might be an instant of squeezed light. In mathematical ambiguities, a
Necker or Impossible Cube. A species “mysterium tremendum et fascinans” as
German theologian Rudolf Otto (1869–1937) described our obsession
1
. At the conclusions of our fidelity to the pew, we turn our backs and move into impermanence,
relativity, volatility. Somehow improbably, we move toward the aftermath.
1 See also Goldstein, Laurence (1996). “Reflexivity, Contradiction, Paradox and M. C.
Escher”. Leonardo. 29 (4): 299–308. https://doi.org/10.2307/1576313. JSTOR 1576313.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_86
Chapter 86
The Paradox of Prayer
86.1 Confession and Evolution (Fig. 86.1)
To be conversant in truth valuation—multi-valued logic infinitely more nuanced than
zero (0) or one (1), true or false, in Boolean algebra—is to grasp that set of non-numbers
which have come to represent the endless, elastic, ambivalent span that is the life of the
mind. It is instinct with prayer to the extent that its life is a paradox of all that remains
unrealized in consciousness, the gaps filled in by faith. As with any ecosystem and the
processes therein, no single science, social science, or aesthetic revelation can help the
mind to reduce the irreducible. Nature is obviously impervious to our chorales, pieces of
paper and canvas, bronze worked into a hallowed likeness. The most ruthless concision
does not approximate time in real time. Authentic reflection is only a mirror of prayer,
the longing for something certain, like a tree. Our ecological ideations are pretexts for
paradoxical prayer, because we utter those words and intentions while we are in the act
of both living and dying. Yet, instinct guides us toward something better, not worse. The
paradoxical nature of such solemn oaths and objects of beseeching cushions the square
root of 3, riddling our most sincere hopes and efforts with an endless multiplicity of
other coordinates, enumerative combinatorics and kissing numbers, as they are called.
All of these quanta are elusive. In the heart of everything, we sense nothingness,
and since these two extremes form an equality (the equal sign earlier discussed) that
is biochemical, our best guess pertaining to our species’ pertinacity forms the basis
for our prayers: infinite dimensional function space. Our confessions are the basis
for that quixotic effort to strike some balance, offer up a reconciliation between
variables, Boolean operators, dream-like crucibles reflecting unrecognizable or forgotten perceptions with constants or boundaries, such are the coordinates of human
orisons. In quantum mechanics, we might be speaking of a harmonic oscillator, with
a very attractive graph that begins and ends nowhere. In quantum optics, that
nowhere might be an instant of squeezed light. In mathematical ambiguities, a
Necker or Impossible Cube. A species “mysterium tremendum et fascinans” as
German theologian Rudolf Otto (1869–1937) described our obsession
1
. At the conclusions of our fidelity to the pew, we turn our backs and move into impermanence,
relativity, volatility. Somehow improbably, we move toward the aftermath.
1 See also Goldstein, Laurence (1996). “Reflexivity, Contradiction, Paradox and M. C.
Escher”. Leonardo. 29 (4): 299–308. https://doi.org/10.2307/1576313. JSTOR 1576313.