Misanthropy Resolved through Math

There is an eternal truth, a constant. And if there isn't a proof, then the mathematicians will search for it. No one will let Fermat's scribbles rest. They will search. And Andrew Wile found it. The misanthrope doesn't so much search for truth, but for a proof. Humanity fails the misanthrope. Humanity is the hypothesis. It is that almost knowing, but under conditions of doubt. There is nothing, nor can there ever be, anything absolute about an hypothesis.

A misanthrope requires a proof. A theorem. A perfect absolute. The misanthrope starts with an axiom. He takes on the belief that something is right, and then endeavors to find that which will serve him into infinity. It is the quest for a theorem. However, a misanthrope must be guarded. Or rather, becomes guarded, in fact, perhaps becomes a misanthrope, because it is the quest that made him a misanthrope.

Before he was a misanthrope, he was a humanist. He relied on the hypothesis of man, that is man. And like a poor physicist thinking that he had found finally the foundations of matter in the atom, failure deals a blow by the discovery of the subatomic particles. The physicist's hypothesis has crumbled. A misanthrope does not make that mistake. An hypothesis is not enough. He needs a theorem.

Math solves the problem. Or at least one problem. Reliability. Consistency. Pythagoras sought an absolute. He would not trust the number unless it yielded an explanation. He found his theorem. He denied irrational numbers (despite the discovery in his lifetime that irrational numbers do exist). The perfect. The imperfect. A humanist trusts the numbers with blind faith and a leap. The misanthrope savors and constantly searches. Why does 1+2+3 equal 6? Note the divisors. All three numbers used to reach the sum of six divide evenly into six. The number six is perfect, it is perfection. It is what the misanthrope seeks. It is obtainable. Rare, but obtainable. Take another perfection. The number 28 and its divisors, 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14, when added, equal 28. A perfect number.

Wile would not let the unanswered proposition rest. The math community would not let it rest. So too can the misanthrope find perfection, not in humanity, but perhaps in one person: that one rare person. It is this quest that haunts the misanthrope. An hypothesis will not do. I could guess today that a perfect person must exist because I have met scores of great ones. And for each great one I meet, behind him or her there has been an even greater one. A scientist would be content in believing that, following this pattern, one day the perfect person will be found. Such a leap leaves the misanthrope in a state of unrest and panic.

TO BE CONTINUED . . .