The true nature (thought 426)

Nature is a computer.

If we think, in philosophical depth, of what nature is, with the DNA code that programs the living, this code itself being modulated by the environment and history, epigenetics, then we can only observe that machines are mimetic of nature, and therefore part of our contemporary nature. It’s this intellectual agility that Blaise Pascal invites us to in this sentence, it seems to me, as he navigated the clash between science and belief. Mark Alizart made me understand this in his book “Heavenly Computing” (Paris, PUF, 2017), responding to Blaise Pascal from four centuries away, from our time when computing is, this computing of which Pascal built the first stone, with his invention of the calculating machine.

For me, this tiny sentence is of immense depth, because it calls for a change in posture: accepting unacceptable disappearance as a condition for opening up to the source of life. A cycle, which is that of nature.

In this film, the pixelation of the clouds and their jerky movement reveal in negative what is hidden in the shapes and movements of the grasses, which seem natural and yet are not, but it is in their nature not to be. For me, the point is to illustrate that machines have become part of our nature. On the other hand, in order to think, I believe we have to accept that we have lost everything, so that we can rebuild from the ruins. This is undoubtedly life itself, emerging from death, integrating it.

Text of Blaise Pascal’s “Thought 426”

Text located on page 193 of the original manuscript.

True nature being lost, everything becomes its nature; as, true good being lost, everything becomes its true good.