All philosophy, all thought, all human endeavour is the forlorn attempt to close the gap between the invisible and the infinite on the one hand and the hard reality of real existing conditions on the other. It cannot succeed, however, because the ground of the real is constantly shifting and our limited grasp of it is constantly trying to catch up and make up (in both senses of the word) the distance and the difference. But it is the very impossibility of success that makes the gap so creatively powerful. This gap is what all of the ‘masters of suspicion' in human history have been wrestling with. Indeed, I would argue that the fight with the gap is precisely what human history consists of. If the subsets of human existence are made up of stone, bronze, iron, plutonium and information ages, then the overarching set is that of the conscious age.

Think of it in terms of the expanding universe: How do we know that the universe is expanding? Precisely because we cannot see 98 per cent of it. The light from the stars which are rushing headlong and ever faster into dark matter, thereby becoming part of and helping to creating dark matter, cannot reach us because the universe is expanding at too great a rate. But the very proof and therefore truth of the expanding universe lies in the fact that most of it is not observable. If the universe were not expanding then all the light from all the stars in the universe would have already arrived here and it would never get dark at night. We would be living in a wonderfully bright but terribly static snow globe of a universe - and of course that universe would contain no life, bombarded as it would be with relentless light and radiation with no escape. It is the very darkness of our universe which is proof of constant dynamic movement and change and thus the proof of life and process.

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By Peter Thompson / 06 April 2011 / 3 comments