Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Pecking at the Inside of the Cosmic Egg

It just now popped into my head that perhaps there's a connection between unity/totality and Gödel's incompleteness theorems, which prove that an intellectual system can be consistent or complete, but not both. Unity would go to consistency, while totality would go to completeness. Therefore, we could say that a human life can be consistent or complete, unified or total, but not both.

"Does this make any sense?" -- a question he probably should have asked himself before springing it on an unsuspecting public. Only one way to find out: keep writing until it either makes sense or goes off the cosmic rails.

What does it mean to love God with all one's mind, heart, and strength? These three are intellect, heart, and will, respectively.

It seems to me that intellect goes more to the quality of absoluteness and consistency, while heart would go more to unity and completeness, while the will is that antsy thing in us that won't rest until it rests in the absolute unity-totality that is God, for God is the one being who escapes Gödel's logical straitjacket.

You could say the straitjacket necessarily exists because under terrestrial conditions, God bifurcates into unity and totality at our end of the bargain.

In his Spiritual Perspectives & Human Facts, Schuon says "Metaphysical knowledge is one thing and its actualization in the mind is another," which right away puts it on a different plane than ordinary knowledge for which there is no such distinction.

But metaphysical knowledge is always mindful of that gap between man and God: no matter how absolute our knowledge, it is never absolute per se, only a reflection of it herebelow.

Here again, this would be consistent with Gödel, who was really trying to prove the meta-truth that just because we can't prove something logically, it doesn't mean it isn't true. He just wanted to place appropriate limits on logic, not invalidate it, for if everything were subject to logic, then man would be condemned to an absurcular tautology. But just because we can't attain unity and totality, it hardly means they don't exist. That's what you call an unwarranted leap, only a leap down, off the cosmic telovator.

Which is why, as Schuon says, "All the knowledge the brain can hold is as nothing in the light of Truth even if it is immeasurably rich from a human point of view."

Substitute "complete" for "immeasurably rich," and you get the idea: no matter how complete our knowledge, it is as if nothing compared to the nonlocal object of all knowledge, which is precisely what Thomas Aquinas meant when he made his famous crack about everything he had written being "so much straw" compared to the soul-shattering experience of infused grace. In the end, God shatters all speech. A word is like an egg, inside which there is always a bit of life pecking at the shell to get out.

Or, "Metaphysical knowledge is like a divine seed in the heart; thoughts represent only faint glimmers of it." If thought were to fuse with divinity, it would turn from a glimmer to an explosion of light. Contact between the two is necessary to get anything done, but you don't plug your toaster directly into the nuclear reactor.

At the other end, failure to plug into the cosmic grid at all necessarily results in Error, whether trivial or grandiose, human or tenured. Why? Because without the divine rocket boost -- AKA the free launch of grace -- "the ascending curve of a circle changes imperceptibly to a descending curve." Remember, just because you don't recognize Gödel, it doesn't mean he doesn't recognize you.

Nevertheless, here lies "the whole tragedy of philosophy," which either breaks out toward God or is a manmode tautology: it is like stamp-collecting instead of sending and receiving letters. Ever see a complete stamp collection? First of all, who would want to? Second of all, no.

Or, as Schuon puts it, "Modern man collects keys without knowing how to open a door." Ho! Even worse, like the politically and academically correct left, he is like "a child who, after having burnt itself, wants to abolish fire." But if you don't burn baby burn, you can't learn baby learn, because where there is Light there is Heat.

This is why everything about Obama is not only dark but frigid. History shows that the two always go together when conjoined with Power. It's why this particular historical passage is so gloomy.

With preluminaries out of the way, let's get back to Lings, who relates all of this to Genesis 3, for "the eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree was the attachment to a symbol for its own sake apart from its higher meaning."

Again: the symbol is "thrown across." The postmodern posthuman will stipulate this, except to say that all throwing is only horizontal in nature, such that symbols point only to other symbols, such that we are forced to participate in this bootless linguistic circle jerk. Which is why it is absolutely the case that liberals throw like girls.

Instead of setting us free, this leftward truth imprisons us. Which I would refuse to believe even if it were true, just for the joy of questioning authority. For even if there is no truth, there is still fun, and what's more fun that tweaking our leftist prison wards?

Remember: man is the "mediator between Heaven and earth." In our unfallen state, you could say this is the "end of the story," in that the Bible would abruptly end at Genesis 2:24, with man and woman naked and happy. What could go wrong?

The short answer: history.

Yes, yes, history is one long chronicle of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of our post Gen 3 exile in the bewilderness. But that's not all it is. For we insist there is nevertheless a vector, an inscape hatch from the egg, a path of return, a lifeline. The way forward is more or less an I witless foggus, but, like an airplane pilot, we may nevertheless novelgaze forward with the use of our God-given instruments:

"The clouds of the macrocosm are never permanent; they come only to go, the luminaries still shine, and the directions of space have lost nothing of their measurelessness" (Lings). Our primordial calamity veils the firmament but doesn't sever the link nor void the promise. God is still God, even if man will always be man.

31 comments:

Gagdad Bob said...

Wonderful piece on Why Progressives Resent Reality So Much. I don't mind the resentment, only the attempt to codify their resentment into law.

Gagdad Bob said...

Speaking of consistency and completeness, offensive stuff you can buy online. In order to be consistent and complete, the left would have to ban pretty much everything.

Gagdad Bob said...

Link.

julie said...

The Federalist has had some good posts lately.

This is why everything about Obama is not only dark but frigid.

I was reading somewhere earlier today about his utter lack of interest in the goings on in Charleston, once it became obvious that the hoped-for rioting didn't pan out and the families of the shooting victims have in fact publicly spoken of forgiveness and grace for the man who was trying to start a race war. Not much you can do to politicize a situation when the folks refuse to bitterly take up their guns, and instead simply hold up their Bibles. Charleston gives me hope for the US.

julie said...

And wow, that stuff is insanely offensive. Which isn't to say they don't have a right to sell it.

Actually, all the Nazi and Che branding is helpful, inasmuch as the folks who use it are thus all the more easily avoided...

Gagdad Bob said...

Most psychology is such PC BS, but when it is sound, it is both sound and essential. This person nails the whole liberal victim cry-bully complex in a couple paragraphs.

Gagdad Bob said...

New rule: no new post unless we hit 10 comments on the previous one!

John said...

I've been doing my best to drum up comments!

John said...

How about this: Did you know that Lings was a Muslim? He also wrote an amazing book called, The Book of Certainty.

julie said...

Heh - and here I was keeping quiet just to give other people a chance to speak!

If you're serious about the comment rule, you should put it on the front page....

And have a little mercy; some people are off on summer vacation!

Rick said...

Haven't missed a post (TM)

son of a preacher man said...

Is it safe to assume unity is feminine and totality is masculine?

Gagdad Bob said...

I would say so.

John Lien said...

There

John Lien said...

is

John Lien said...

always

John Lien said...

a

John Lien said...

workaround.

julie said...

lol John, I was thinking of doing something similar. Like in the future, making my comments one sentence at a time.

Rick said...

Julie and John, you're not gonna believe this, but...
Mirrored thoughts.

Rick said...

I'm not a robot -- ha!

Rick said...

John, thanks for takin one fur the team.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"Or, as Schuon puts it, "Modern man collects keys without knowing how to open a door." Ho! Even worse, like the politically and academically correct left, he is like "a child who, after having burnt itself, wants to abolish fire." But if you don't burn baby burn, you can't learn baby learn, because where there is Light there is Heat."

Keys are useless if one doesn't know what they are for or how to use them.

Liberals: If you can't stand the heat, outlaw the kitchen.

Skully said...

"New rule: no new post unless we hit 10 comments on the previous one!"

Would that be a new post for every 10 comments or just one new post if the minimum of 10 comments is tallied.
Just askin'...for a friend.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Every notice that lefties are always on a banrage?
Today it's anything southern, tomorrow it will be deodorant. Then we'll have stinky, outraged leftists hopped up on outrage whoremoans.
Well, to be fair, most of them already stink, but still.

Skully said...

It is stinky that the scallywags wanna ban Gone With The Wind, while they are Breaking Bad wind.

Which they deny, of course.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

It's no coincidence that tenure ryhmes with manure.

Skully said...

Just like that song, Achy Breaky Fart.

Barrack "Ban Ban" Obama said...

Only by banning all the things can we stop racism.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Some people think John Roberts is being blackmailed.
I think he's just plain evil.
Harriet Myers ain't looking so bad now.

Van Harvey said...

(You can't make Me comment)

Theme Song

Theme Song