Physicists argue there must have been a tiny bit more matter than anti-matter at some point in the Great Cycle*. Because if there hadn't, we wouldn't be here talking about it. If matter and anti-matter had ever been present in exactly the same quantities, they would have totally consumed each other in a great big explosion (according to the Laws of Physics / so they say).
Maybe the same principal applies to every thing.
Maybe Good and Evil could or even should have cancelled each other out at some point in the Great Cycle.
But we're here so they didn't. Therefore the relative quantities of each must not have been in the proportions required for cancellation to take place. There must have been a tiny bit more Good than Evil somewhere along the line. (The concept of "original sin" suggests that Catholics think there must have been, and is, more evil than good. Whatever. The main thing is the imbalance, not the question as to which is the heaviest.)Maybe there is a free lunch after all: the entire Universe is one.
Quantum Physics offers an all-you-can-eat free buffet banquet. "Nihilo nihil fit" notwithstanding, it seems things can and do emerge from nothing, but very quickly. Sub-atomic particles such as quarks and electrons wink in and out of existence at dazzling speed all the time, in no time at all, virtually and otherwise. (The technically minded can check this all out -- I think I've got it mostly right.)
The fact that anything exists at all is a basic and universal endorsement of existence over non-existence, a bias towards being, you might say, an arrow of actuality. There's no reason anyone can think of, so far, why the Universe MUST exist. It's not required, it's not necessary. Yet the existence of existence is a feature of existence. The German philosopher Leibniz talks about this stuff: the necessity or otherwise of/for Reality.
Luckily, existence does exist: you can bet on it.** Existence is. There is Free Lunch. And that simple fact is an endorsement of Being over Nothingness. And thence and thereby, of good, white, light, etc over evil, black, dark etc., respectively.
In other words, the fact that the Universe exists suggests it is highly likely to be a nice place, where some bad shit happens, but ultimately Everything works out well in the end, at the beginning, and in the middle.
Does that mean there is cause for optimism and positivity? Possibly but not necessarily! Before anyone rushes out to tell the nearest evil person, "I told you so!", remember that all of these things -- "good", "evil", "joy", "sorrow", "dark", "light" etc -- are our own constructs, our own "mental elaborations" and have no absolute meaning. They reflect only the relative, limited and often culturally determined meanings we create ourselves. Given that we define "happy" and "bad", it's entirely unremarkable that feeling happy makes us feel happy, that being bad makes us feel bad.
The Universe is generous, and abundantly abundant. In fact, She is so generous she gives every thing she has, all the time. But to ensure that greed does not take abundance as a licence to waste and destroy, the Universe is very careful with her assets: she manages herself prudently, preserves and conserves herself and her parts so that she never runs out of stock.
As a going concern, the Universe relies on the so-called "conservation laws" to keep going. The Law of the Conservation of Energy, for example, states that Energy can't be created or destroyed, but can only change into another form (eg into matter per Einstein's equation). Or to put it another way: The total amount of matter-energy in the Universe can't change, is always the same, but there can be small, local, temporary change/s, as long as those small changes cancel each other out universally.
And for similar reasons, bad things happen to good people and good things to bad people, but overall the balance of justice/fairness across the Universe can't change, is always the same. There can be and are plenty of instances of local, temporary imbalances of justice involving specific individuals and circumstances, but those imbalances ultimately cancel out, thus maintaining the overall quantum of Justice across the Universe.
In other words, when a bad thing happens to a good person, more than likely an absolutely wonderful thing also happens to that person somewhere along the line, thereby maintaining the balance. Likewise, when a good thing happens to a bad person, more than likely an absolutely horrifically terrible thing also happens to that person somewhere along the line, thereby maintaining the balance. It's just another conservation law: the Law of the Conservation of Karma.
The Universe is fundamentally fair and just, but that doesn't mean it always seems that way to us. Sometimes a bad thing happens to a good person first, and the absolutely wonderful thing -- the balancing item -- happens after. Other times, the sequence is reversed. Sometimes the balance is achieved by virtue of more than one balancing item. Sometimes we see good things happen to bad people throughout their misbegotten lives; but we may not see the absolutely horrifically dreadful balancing item/s emerging in future or past lives of those bad people.
There's no escape, for good or for bad, for better or for worse. You can run but you can't hide. The accumulation of past actions is a necklace worn around the neck of all free agents. As Newton's law states: to each action is an equal and opposite reaction.
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* "Great Cycle" points toward
- the eternal return concept in some schools of metaphysics, in which Reality has no start, end or direction, and to
- dynamically unbounded cosmological models with more than two singularities [;D), eg multiple "big bang" / "big crunch" cycles, multiple phases of inflation, instantaneous multiversal branching, spawning of baby universes per Lee Smolin, etc.
** Much to Einstein's disgust, according to mainstream quantum thought, dice are in fact played by, with and within the Universe.
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I never considered seeing good and evil as matter and anti-matter, and that being said, it is interesting that they didn't cancel each other out. I'm glad to have this to ponder. I've been struggling to stay out of the dark place as I keep thinking of my father at the time of his passing. He died alone and the look on his face was not one of peace. It has been bothering me very much since last night.
Whew! Whooooweeee!
Faycin, I'm very happy if the post helped you in any way. I believe your father is in peace, and that he is not alone. I believe we are all in peace and none of us is alone. Thanks for your commments. Regards, MM.
Hi Antares, the post seems to have made an impact, if your comment is anything to go by! Thanks for stopping by and come again soon! MM
COMMENTS? Come on... gimme your best shot!