How Thoughtless of Me!

Not much time. Picking up where we left off yesterday, Schuon was explaining the difference between thought and intellection, or what I symbolize in the new testavus for the rest of us as (k) and (n). I employed these "empty categories" so that they might attract meaning based upon personal experience, since a word such as "thinking" is so saturated with meaning that people imagine they know what it is just because they have a word for it. But they don't know what thinking is, nor what thinking about thinking is, let alone thinking the unThinkable.

Even worse, people who think they know what thinking is, also assume it is identical to intellection, since they don't even allow for the latter anyway. This is why, when atheists talk about "God," they are actually talking in their own private language about nothing. Yes, it is nonsense, but give them credit: it is strict nonsense.

As we have said many times (that's the royal pain-in-the-ass "we," meaning Petey), there is no problem with reason so long as it is limited to its own domain. But the problem with all forms of "terminal rationalism" is that they illogically foreclose any reality that transcends mere reason. As Schuon explains, rationalism "seeks the culminating point of the cognitive process on its own level," which is ultimately as illogical as searching "for a word that is entirely what it designates."

Here again, we see the problem between the abstract and the concrete, as if abstract words could ever completely exhaust the concrete without remainder. But thinking is like pi in sky, which goes on forever. Or as Jethro Bodine once said, "Pi are round. Cornbread are square."

So in order to "think the unthinkable," so to speak, we require "mental forms fitted to serve as vehicles for intellectual intuition and therefore truth," since "poorly posed questions no more attract the light than they are derived from it" (Schuon).

Now, Truth in itself is inexhaustible, and no mental formulation could ever "contain" it. However, there are metaphysical formulations rooted in revelation that can adequately do so, and that is all we need or ask: O Petey, the merciful, the compassionate, but more often severe, please feel free to throw us a bone down here in 4D so that we might catch a glimpse of hyperspace, okay?

Forget Petey, let's ask Schuon. First of all, this blog is essentially about intellection, not thinking. Therefore, when a thinker comes along to try to start an argument, there's not much to say except "woof." And Dupree says "woof" to drive home the idea that human thought is to animal thought as intellection is to thought. It's no use to get into a... a thought fight with a thinker, because you're both going to end up covered in thought, the only difference being that the thinker will enjoy it. Look, I didn't make up the rules here: Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine.

If truth exists, we are obliged to believe it, no? But there is no secular philosophy that can account for truth in a way that isn't ultimately circular, nor can it provide any reason why one should believe it, since rationalism can never legitimately get from the is to the ought. At the very least, as Schuon writes, no philosophy engenders sanctity, except for the false sanctity of the secular politically correct. Which admittedly is a lot of false sanctity, thus demonstrating once again the destruction wrought by leftist religious fanatics in the absence of religion.

In fact, we could probably use a new symbol to describe this phenomenon, (-R) (negative religion), or perhaps (-n), which would refer to all the false mysticism (e.g., environmental mysteria) that permeates leftist thought (and which is so well explained by the philosopher Eric Voegelin... well, maybe not so well by him, since he was pretty obscure. But this book does a good job of translating his ideas into plain english).

One of the major differences between (k) and (n) is that the former is static while the latter is transformative, altering the being of person who internalizes it. This is not to criticize (k), as it obviously has its place, even a vital one. Our Islamic enemies, for example, parasitize our Western (k) in the service of their insane (-n), the latter of which creates a context that prevents the independent acquisition of (k) to begin with. Which is why the Islamic world produces nothing but misery, poverty, and stupidity.

Well, I'd better go get my bloodwork done, since I'm fasting. To be continued. But I do wonder how Islamists can use and covet so much (k) discovered by Jews, such as nuclear physics, just as I wonder how leftists can respect a constitution written by Christian men and embodying so much (n). Then again, one way to reduce the Constitution from (n) to (k) is to appoint elitist, activist judges who know better than the rest of us.

*****

Adam! Where are you?!