I logged into IRC this morning to see this message:
“Don’t take this the wrong way but does anyone else find Joshua Blais’ blog posts and twitter feeds a rabbit hole?”
I had a laugh and then thought about a response (my friend that wrote this: come setup a bouncer and idle in the channel!)
Here is my reply:
When I first installed Linux on my machine in 2017, I did not know where that would lead - only that I knew nothing about computers and that it was the next “leap of faith” into understanding. I knew simply that truth existed, and that the first step on the journey was to find a way to pursue it.
Almost a decade later, I think it was one of the pivotal moments in my life and has created so many more interesting connections, brought really cool people into my life, and built a foundation on rock instead of sand. I don’t think we know where anything we do will ultimately lead, but I do believe that if Truth exists, it is worth giving everything up for in the pursuit of it.
It was writing a book in emacs that led to seeing that the lisp machine is the ultimate form of computing. That there is no boundary between data and code - they are one in the same. Reality becomes comingled in this truth - and all the false dichotomies fall away. What a computer becomes then is self expression, a way to think and continually pursue Truth. Windows/Mac/GUI interfaces/abstractions are the Platonic cave, and all you had to do was turn around and walk out.
It was computers and the binary logic of True/False statements that led me back to the Catholic Church - The computer cannot operate in ambiguity. A statement is true or false - and any falsity in a statement means that that statement is FALSE. A bit is 1 or 0. There is no “my truth” in assembly language - the processor executes or it doesn’t. This relentless clarity, this law of non-contradiction made manifest in silicon, was recovering something the culture of the world had tried to teach us to forget: that truth exists objectively.
You can’t simultaneously believe that “2 + 2 = 4” is objectively true and that “truth is subjective” without intellectual dishonesty. I had been dishonest my whole life until that slap in the face.
I think that the vast majority of people live a life on the surface, and are completely oblivious to the infinite depth that exists. Why? Because it is easier to live a lie than to have the realization that you’ve been living that lie.
If Truth exists, then it is an infinite rabbit hole - and it is the only thing worth pursuing, for Truth is with God.
Faith and reason are not diametrically opposed. They compliment eachother. As one builds, so too does the other, ad infinitum. As you gain understanding, your faith is built, and as your faith is built, understanding seems to pour down from without.
The question of “is this blog a rabbit hole” has only one answer: Yes.
But - so too is this life, is all that is Good, is this very moment in which you read this post. It is an all consuming rabbit hole, if you allow it to be.
Here is your permission to go all the way down.
As always, God bless, and until next time.
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