Rimshots #14 “Equivalent”

The very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction…. The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. – Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929), French semiologist. Simulations, pt. 2, “The Hyperrealism of Simulation,” (1983).

I think this is the fundamental reason why those who claim atheism can find solace in science and the scientific method. God is not reproducible, therefore he is not real. However, this totally belies the possibility of uniqueness. The argument goes that if something happened once, it can happen again, laying aside any difficulties of reproducing the conditions. Despite this attempt at self-assurance, the one thing that this and all similar arguments can never deal with is the possibility of the existence of the prime of primes, the singular uniqueness, the first non reproducible–in other words, God.