Everything That Rises Must Converge

As @necktietied says, this song has the same name as a Flannery O'Connor short story. But I don't think it's a reference to that story; rather, I think they're both references to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

Teilhard (a Jesuit priest and philosopher) believed that, if the universe is evolving toward more complexity and more consciousness, at some point in the future, it must reach perfect conscious complexity. This future Omega Point, is, like Christ, a representation of the Greek Logos. And we should all strive ever upward to reach that Omega Point, because "At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge."

So, it's inevitable that we will all merge, because everything that rises must converge. But to Teilhard, just counting on that happening automatically "one day soon", rather than striving for it, is a dereliction of your human purpose.

That's what the story is referencing, but I think Shriekback references two later responses.

I can't remember which philosopher wrote the existentialist response, but the argument is simple: What's the point of having a "human purpose" if all it does is get us to the same place will inevitably reach anyway? That seems to fit the feel and theme of the song pretty well.

Meanwhile, physicist Frank Tipler had a scientific version of the Omega Point, which I'll summarize briefly: First, In a closed universe with a fixed arrow of time, there's a final event, in the future of every other event. Tipler argues that if sentience ever arises, it must persist to the end of the universe., and that the increased processing power that you get as the universe shrinks means at some point, it will be possible to simulate every possible path of the entire history of the universe before the universe ends. And therefore, someone is bound to simulated perfected versions of every sentient life form that ever existed in a perfect environment (i.e., Heaven). That point is the Omega Point, and that simulation is Aleph.

I'm not sure how Tipler's idea expands on the point of the song, but I do think Shriekback read it. For one thing, he first published it in a pop-science article in 1984, while they were writing the album. (And it wasn't clear until his 1986 book and the storm of negative reviews that the idea relied on fundamental misunderstandings of probability and combinatorics.) And it sheds some light on some of the other lines. For example…

The infinite "blue blue blue" shift as you approach the final convergence is why you eventually get infinite processing power.

"Why do we do this?" Part of what makes Aleph Heaven is that everything has a purpose, and all purposes are retroactively visible from the Omega Point—so you will finally learn the answers to all those "why" questions that drove you crazy during your lifetime.

"Spoil a pattern in the sand." This one is more of a stretch, but… No matter what you do, it cannot stop the complexity of the universe from increasing toward the Omega Point. And, in fact, any complexity that you obscured from yourself in life (you can't actually destroy it) will be revealed at Aleph. Which raises the same question the existentialist raised to Teilhard: if the final purpose of everything is Aleph, and Aleph is inevitable, why does anything we do matter?

"Everything That Rises Must Converge" is a short story by Flannery O'Connor about hypocrisy, morality and racism, and "ai no corrida" means "bullfight of love" in Japanese. But I'm still not sure what this song's about.

@falcotron That is a wealth of information and something I wish we could see more of on this site. Thank you!

I read at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_No_Corrida (song): "The title of the song was taken from the French-Japanese film In the Realm of the Senses, originally titled Ai no Korīda (愛のコリーダ), and means "Rope of love" in Japanese."

I've been meaning to watch In the Realm of the Senses for a few years now. Maybe someday I'll be back to say if the film clarified anything about this song. I'm not expecting it to help however.

Catchy song. Great lyrics. What the hell do they mean?