What is interesting to me is the origin of the prefix Geo. It comes from Gaea.
Geography
Geology
Geometry
These words all have to do with earthly facts.
Gaea gave birth to Chaos. That is how our earth was formed. It's a f****d up myth that best describes our situation here on earth.
Faith in Chaos
Last year, director/writer Darren Aronofsky released the film Pi: Faith In Chaos (
http://www.pithemovie.com). This film took the prestigious Sundance Movie Festival by storm. Pi tells of a genius mathematician named Max Cohen (played by actor Sean Gullette) seeking to uncover the patterns underlying all natural chaotic systems.
Max, believing the stock market is a non-linear, dynamic, chaotic system, applies the principles of number theory to determine the workings behind the apparent random nature of market prices. What Max eventually uncovers almost destroys him. In the end, he rejects this knowledge and (believe it or not!) takes a drill to his brain. The movie concludes with him living in ignorance-- mildly content.
The Parthenon Max is a true disciple of Greek philosopher Pythagoras (circa 600 BC). This philosopher suggests mathematics is the language of the universe. One can see the influence Pythagoras had on this ancient culture by simply looking at the emphasis Greek architecture placed on developing mathematically perfect structures, such as the Parthenon.
This fascination with mathematical perfection came, in part, as the Greek philosophers struggled with understanding a world of change and stagnation, of motion and rest, of unity and diversity. Today, these questions of order and chaos have found a new voice in growing field of "chaos theory." Chaos theory is the study of forever-changing complex systems. This study bases its conclusions on the concept that beneath the things we call "random" patterns actually appear, implying order.
Pi can be understood as a critique on modernism. The modern period (from 15th century until the first half of the 20th century) attempted to understand the world through empirical observation and the power of reason. As science made incredible advances with Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, the theme was to "make the world knowable." This theme was largely based on the assumption we live in an ordered world created by an orderly God. As René Descartes suggested, the world was a clock, a mechanical system managed by God the Clock-Maker.
With this metaphor in mind, conclusions about the world had to fit an orderly system. During this era, all fields of knowledge were systematized: biology, chemistry, sociology, psychology, logic, and even theology. The goal for rational perfection peaked during the first half of the 20th century. This summit can be seen in the cold efficiency of logical positivism, international architecture, and the artwork of Piet Mondrian.
Likewise, in Pi, Max Cohen seeks to make the world knowable, to destroy the mystery and take apart the clock. But by the end of the movie, he fully embraces the pain of knowledge and the consequences of this pursuit, despite its rewards. He does the irrational to cope with his quest for rationality: Max takes a drill to his brain.
What happens when the clock runs down? (Chaos Theory)
Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the first philosophers to completely reject modernity, understood the end of this pursuit was nihilism. The quest for a perfect system of knowledge would collapse on itself. In his words: "There are no facts, only interpretations." Nothing we can place our faith in, except maybe the creation of our pursuit. But this creation is a beast. Like Frankenstein’s monster, it will and has turned against us.
The best example of how our science turned against us would be the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb was the ironic last "tick-tock" of our modern dreams for a well ordered utopian society. By the beginning of the Cold War, this hope disintegrated into entropy and chaos. We lived in fear of our own science. We developed the ability to destroy ourselves on mass scale with atomic weapons. Our technology and knowledge made us less human, not more so. The clock ran down. And our trust in science as an unquestioned authority went with it.
With the postmodern condition, people are skeptical of absolute knowledge to truly solve the world’s ills. In this condition, the orderly God is not conceivable or receivable. There is simply too much out there. Descartes’ mechanical metaphor does not comfort us. As Isaiah 59:14 states, "Truth has stumbled in the streets." Now truths are seen as something that can only be socially constructed and locally relevant. Universals are observed with skepticism and indignation. There is only chaos, no order.
24 Feb 2009, 2:20 am
. Our concepts of pizza exist as subjective ideas, but there is an objective reality where the thing that is pizza exists. At least, I presume so, because it is the most practical 
