A Beetle in a Box

In his Philosophical Investigations [1953], Ludwig Wittgenstein uses this analogy. Imagine, he says, that everyone has a small box in which they keep a beetle. However, no one is allowed to look in anyone else’s box, only in their own. Over time, people talk about what is in their boxes and the word “beetle” comes to stand for what is in everyone’s box.

How clever! Even while I don’t pretend to understand all the ins and outs of Wittgenstein’s private language argument, the analogy he used to explain it does resonate with me.

Imagine a group of people sitting around a table. Each of them has a box. In each of their boxes is something that that person calls a beetle. The catch is that no one can see what is in another’s box, so they have no way of knowing that the other person’s beetle resembles their beetle in any way. The only way they can find out anything about the other person’s beetle is by listening to what the other person says. Eventually the group will develop a collective understanding of what a beetle is through the conversation of the participants about their beetle.

Now instead of a beetle, what if what each person had inside their box is ‘god’ [or their idea of god]. You can’t see in my god box. And I can’t see in yours. I can describe to you what is in my box and I can listen as you describe to me what is in yours. I can’t tell you what your god is like, I can only echo with respect what I hear you telling me. Just as you can’t tell me what is in my box. The groups’ understanding of God then becomes an amalgamation of what is in everyone’s box.

And what should this tell us??? That we can only describe with authority what is in our box because that is what is truth for us. We need to listen when others tell us about what is in their box, because that is truth for them.The collective understanding is no one’s whole truth but rather the census of agreement between all the box holders present in the discussion.

(By using the word ‘beetle’ for what is in each box, instead of the word ‘god’ below, it is easier to get around the language and see what is actually happening.)

I can only talk about what is in MY box, not what is in yours, or in anyone else’s. Therefore my statements must start from that perspective. Listening is very important. What are you saying about what is in your box that I can also say about what is in mine? What is different? Are your ‘beetle’ and my ‘beetle’ the same, or similar or are they very different? If they are indeed different then perhaps one [or both]of us need to call what is in their box by a different name.

Imagine a church service where each person present had their box with them containing their ‘beetle’. Indeed according to Wittgenstein, you don’t have to imagine this scenario. This is actually what is going on. Some of what you hear might resonate with what is inside your box, and some doesn’t. But when nothings resonates with what is inside your box and there is no conversation happening or about to happen that is when you have two choices. You can either change what you call a 'beetle’ to match the ‘beetle’ being presented or you can go somewhere else where your ‘beetle’ fits more closely into the collective understanding.

For those Canadians today who say they are spiritual but not religious, are they are really saying that the ‘beetle’ in their box doesn’t resonate with the ‘beetle’ in the box of organized religion? Can you describe your ‘beetle’?

Comments

"The Sadness of Geography"

“Do you understand the sadness of geography?” I have to admit that when I first read this quote by Michael Ondaatje, a Sri Lankan-born Canadian writer, my immediate response was ‘What sadness?’ Geography is all about climate, geology, topography, the names of lakes, rivers, mountains and seas, isn’t it? It is about things, about memory work. It is not about emotions! At least no geography course I ever took was. But then I started to think….. What are those things that divide us? What are the causes of people being unhappy, persecuted, denied their basic human rights and freedoms, being ostracized in society? Those causes are the things that make people different; things like the colour of their skin, their customs and religion, how they dress, the language they speak. These things for the most part are decided not by who they really are, but by the geography of where they are born. And they persist ‘unto the fourth and fifth generations’ no ...

Ash Wednesday Musings, 2018

‘By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ Genesis 3:19 Most scholars agree that the texts found in Genesis began to be written down sometime in the 10th century BCE and were based on oral and written traditions. It is this verse that is referenced in the Book of Alternative Services during the Ash Wednesday service, ‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return’. A few years ago now we attended an Ash Wednesday Service where the words had morphed to ‘Remember that you are stardust and to stardust you shall return’ moving into the cosmology of the 21st century, connecting our bodies with the whole universe. These express the beliefs of a different world view. They both call us to remember that life on this earth is impermanent and fleeting. They call us to pause and to ponder our lives. Which one resonates with you doesn’t matter. What does matter is that...

"Nudgement"

As we progress through the season of Lent, we are urged by the lectionary aa well as by the words spoken from the front of the churches to consider how we live and what we do with our lives. Many of us take up a new spiritual practise perhaps denying ourselves something we enjoy or adding something to our daily routine that we think will benefit our spiritual growth in the long run. What we can seen to be doing is in fact judging our lives and then trying to make them better by doing ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’. Quite a while ago I received a note from one of the readers of this blog and it has stayed with me over the time since it landed in my inbox. ‘I just coined the term "nudgement" for myself this morning. I was thinking of how EFM interprets "judgement" as something that surprises you or that you weren't expecting, which is a gentler notion of "judgement" than some of us grew up with, something that is enough out of the ordinary to urge us ou...

There's Nothing New Under the Sun

‘…and there is no new thing under the sun’ Ecclesiastes 1:9 [KJV] I imagine most of you already recognize this saying as being from the bible when you hear hear it repeated as “There is nothing new under the sun”. It came to mind again for me recently when in conversation I happened to mention a magic lantern that had been use in my Sunday School days to project words onto a screen and was met with a blank look. Now when you go into a modern church, you might well see the words still being projected on a screen at the front, with the only change being in the method projection. But I bet you will hear people saying, “I don’t like the words projected up there. Why can’t they do it the old way!” My answer would be “They are.” What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? It has already been, in the a...

Moments of Happiness

“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them…“ Matthew 6:26 NRSV Right now the colouring app that I use daily is running a series of pictures called ‘Moments of Happiness’. What are these pictures about you might wonder. Celebrations? Family gatherings? Attending a concert? All things we have missed over the last two years. The answer would be NO, NO, NO! The pictures to date have shown instead getting a good night’s rest, enjoying a morning cup of coffee, making time for some self-care, cooking, and for today, exercising at home. All things that were part both of our lives both before and during COVID… and will be afterwards as well. I was once told as an adult that not only could I not sing, but that I never would be able to. Immediately I stopped singing (even in the shower). For the most part conductors in the various choirs I had sung in over the years had left me alone. So I had had that!...

An apple a day...

I’m sure we all have heard the old adage “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. The original phrase ‘‘Eat an apple on going to bed, and you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread” had its first recorded use in the 1860, but the concept is quite old going back to Roman and Anglo-Saxon times. I know I heard it many times during my growing up years. And I must admit that in late years I have tended to relegate apples to an occasional rather than a daily fruit. That, however, is about to change! The following landed in my inbox not long ago and made me rethink my relationship to the lowly apple. Any one of these claims is certainly a reason to add apples back into my daily diet. “Did you know that –according to Medical News Today, which ranks apples as the Number One healthiest food based on research studies– apples can potentially: * Have the same effect as statins in preventing vascular deaths… * Improve neurological health… * Prevent dementia… * Reduce risk of st...

Great Joy

“Repeat the sounding joy, repeat the spending joy Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy” I was thinking this week of that well-loved carol, “Joy to the World” and in particular the refrain at the end of the verse 2 where nature is called upon to ‘repeat the sounding joy’. I think that joy is missing in a large part from my Christmas preparations. As Christas Day draws ever nearer, the list of things that ‘need’ to be done grows longer instead of shorter. Tempers are short as we try to fit too many things into too short a time, worried that we won’t get it all done. The Christmas cards might not be delivered by the post office in a timely manner, especially with the rotating postal strikes that have been ongoing all fall! Did I choose the right Christmas gift for everyone? Did I spend too much on that gift … or maybe not enough? Will everything be perfect on Christmas Day? Then I have the memory of my childhood when my mother would wash the kitchen floor on Chris...

Look After Yourself!

“Look after yourself!” Oh those words, so well meant and heard so often this past summer! Words that I have used often in the past myself. They are well meant words, said by those who are concerned and want to show that concern. I know that! But after hearing them said so often, in so many difference voices over the last 8 months, I find myself reacting differently on hearing them. At first I was stunned, then dismayed by my reaction. I felt ungrateful. What was wrong with me? Why was I beginning to resent hearing these words? But then I took some time to think about just why I was feeling the way I did, and also why, if this was such good advice, why did no one ever take it - or so it seemed. To me, these words “Look after yourself’ deny the basic principle not only in Christianity but all the major world religions. Christians call it the Golden Rule - to do unto others what you would have them do to you, or ‘To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all y...

A Choice...

I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. - Genesis 9:11 If you were in church on the first Sunday of Lent this year, you probably heard this read from the lectern and maybe even preached on. This covenant between God and God’s people was so important to the writers of the Old Testament that there are actually two stories of the flood both intertwined in Genesis 9. Martin Luther King Jr. took this story and updated it to his time, the 1960s, a time of racial unrest in America. “ It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence” He saw that the threat of violence had become overwhelming. If anyone tried to meet violence with more violence, they would in all likelihood be killed. And so the choice for violence would lead to nonexistence while the choice of nonviolence had a greater cha...

Dark with Mystery

‘There is no science in this world like physics. Nothing comes close to the precision with which physics enables you to understand the world around you. It's the laws of physics that allow us to say exactly what time the sun is going to rise. What time the eclipse is going to begin. What time the eclipse is going to end.’ Neil deGrasse Tyson - an American astrophysicist , author, and science communicator I drove out of the parking lot in the mysteriously reduced sunlight during the recent solar eclipse. I knew why everything was looking different, why the light was muted, having that eerie glow. Yet still it bothered me. When we reached home and turned on the television to watch what was happening elsewhere, the full majesty and mystery of this natural phenomenon became clear. I can well understand why there are people who travel great distances each time a total eclipse cones around, just to experience it again and again. The pictures of this ev...

NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

Search This Blog