Demiurge ex machina page 1
Demiurge ex machina: A Metaphysical Novel Part 1
Marek Wojnicki
"I existed before time,
Before the universe came into being,
When reality emerged from chaos and nothingness,
And consciousness created order."
Demiurge ex machina
Motto: "The boundaries of imagination are the boundaries of my world."
PhiloSophist
The Greatest Weight - And what if one day or night a demon crept into your loneliest solitude and said to you: "This life, as you are living it now and have lived it, you will have to live once more and countless more times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every pleasure and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small and great in your life must return to you; and everything in the same order and sequence – just like this spider and this moonlight between the trees and just like this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again – and you with it, speck of dust!"
Nietzsche, "The Joyful Science"
Introduction: Immanent Transcendence, or the Philosophy of the Absurd
What is absurdity? Is asking about absurdity itself an absurd question, or perhaps a rational one? In everyday life, the world seems rational, or in other words, it is rational but not in every aspect. When do we face the problem of the absurdity of the world? Isn't the world depicted by Franz Kafka, dominated by an all-powerful bureaucracy, the embodiment of absurdity? Doesn't existential philosophy, as seen in the works of Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, or Martin Heidegger, address the issue of absurdity? However, let us start by looking for a definition of absurdity so that we know what we are dealing with. In the "Dictionary of Philosophy," edited by Jan Hartman, we read: "Absurd (Latin absurdus – ridiculous) – an internally contradictory expression, nonsensical or leading to contradictions, e.g., 'a square circle,' 'John attends a school that no one attends,' etc. Also an action or command that is contrary to an accepted goal. In philosophy, the concept of absurdity is also connected with the idea of what is impossible, contradictory, and devoid of sense, e.g., a world where the principles of logic do not apply." (M.U.).
Meanwhile, Simon Blackburn writes in his "Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy": "Absurd (English: absurd) Any belief that is obviously untenable (see also reductio ad absurdum (Latin: reduction to absurdity). A process of reasoning in which a contradiction is derived from a set of premises, and then it is stated that the entire set is untenable and that at least one of the premises must be rejected (…) (C.C.)"). In existentialism, the absurd is often referred to as the meaningless or purposeless nature of human actions and life. (P. Dz). Quoting a fragment of Albert Camus' work: “A world that can be explained, even with inadequate arguments, is familiar. But in a universe suddenly deprived of illusions and light of reason, man feels like a stranger. There is no way out of this exile, for there are no memories of a lost homeland or hope for a happy land. This gap between man and his own life, the gap between this actor and his setting, truly is - his sense of absurdity."
As the philosopher rightly points out, we occasionally experience absurd phenomena in life, such as war, which disrupts the rational order of human life and reduces it to absurdity, depriving it of meaning and rationality. War is an example of absurdity in an existential dimension (e.g., genocide, like the Holocaust or the mass killings in Rwanda). Another tragic example of the absurdity of war is the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In everyday life, we also encounter absurd situations, such as in politics, government offices, or ZUS (Polish Social Insurance Institution), which is an example of legalized theft by the state from its citizens. Should paying into ZUS not be voluntary? Is paying into ZUS in a democratic state not contrary to the constitution?
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