Two Hundred and Seventy Nine

I’ve started reading again.  Apparently I can read if the subject interests me.

The subject is suicide.  Specifically Boltzmann’s suicide.

Science in his day had arrived at an impasse, and couldn’t progress.  He found a way by reviving and revising Leucippus' atomic theory.  But it was out of fashion, so Boltzmann was ridiculed.  In despair, he killed himself.

We're finite beings with a finite repertoire of ideas.  We progress by reviving and revising old ideas.  From time to time we think we’ve outgrown one of them, only to discover new information that seems to confirm it.

Our ideas don’t change. Only the criteria by which we decide whether they’re relevant to us change.   

We’ve arrived at such an impasse now, the greatest in our history.  It began with the death of god. 

God was never an idea with explanatory and/or predictive power.  It had value for us because when every desire is gone, even the desire to live, we still ask why we live.  God saved us from driving ourselves mad asking questions we can’t answer.  Now we think there’s no question we can’t and won’t eventually answer, so we’re driving ourselves mad.