On the Possibility of Ontological Prisonhouse Conversions

It is impossible to engage with the simpleton who imagines that because one is religious one is somehow "anti-science," because the simpleton in question inhabits a vertically closed world, and therefore cannot speak of what goes on outside its walls. The assertion itself is profoundly anti-science -- if by science we mean something based upon logic and evidence -- but this is another of those ironies lost on the vertical amnesiac.

The distances of the physical universe are those of a prison (NGD).

As anyone who gives it a moment's thought realizes, the practice of science rests upon a specific metaphysical framework that isn't disclosed by the scientific method. Nature is always supernatural; if it isn't, then knowledge of it is strictly impossible.

I'd like to complete our journey From Big Bang to Big Mystery before getting back to Voegelin. Bearing in mind what was said in the first paragraph, Purcell references a remark by Wittgenstein, who, in a lucid moment, observed that "even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, our problems of life remain completely untouched.... One keeps forgetting to go right down to the foundations. One doesn't put the question marks down deep enough."

Completely untouched

Is this an exaggeration? Polemical? "In a manner of speaking?"

I don't think so. Nor do I think this makes us "anti-science." Rather, "pro-human person."

Why deceive ourselves? Science has not answered a single important question.

Rather,

As long as we do not arrive at religious categories, our explanations are not founded upon rock (NGD).

Notice that this is no less true of scientistic rockheads who attempt to found their metaphysic on nothing more solid than the relative opinions of a radically contingent primate. In other words, they absurdly claim that contingency and relativity are absolute.

Science can only cope with existence in the context of a "beingness" that is simply given, and cannot be explicated with the tools of science. Existence is a "special case" of being, and science, in order to operate at all, must take being for granted.

Conversely, metaphysics begins with the principle of being; it is higher up the cosmic food chain, so that nothing that occurs in science can violate it, say, the law of non-contradiction, or of sufficient reason, or of the greater being derived from the lesser.

The other day we spoke of spiritual and intellectual wet and dry rot, which occur as a result of a conflation of being and existence. Scientism, for example -- which is a quintessential form of dry rot -- confuses what it can affirm about reality with all that can be affirmed of reality, which is why it is anti-intellectual to the core.

For one of the first things the scientistic worshiper must jettison is the intellect per se, which of necessity (for him) reduces to something less than itself, on pain of a self-refuting contradiction. And in the absence of the infused intellect, no higher realities can be perceived at all, so the result is a closed circle of ideological fantasy; the resultant world is not surreal but sub-real, and the person who lives in it is in denial of his own personhood (for person is another irreducible category that is beyond the reach of science, but which science requires in order to operate).

Conversely, wet rot occurs when existence is confused with being, so that things that pertain to the vertical are mindlessly transposed to the horizontal. In this regard, Voegelin points out that we have indeed seen a beneficial differentiation within the Ground over the centuries, in which science plays a vital, albeit subordinate, role.

In other words, man first awakens to a kind of compacted realm of being, and our journey through history allows us to unpack and map its dimensions and coordinates, both horizontally and vertically. Things were pretty jumbled at the start of history, for the same reason that things are pretty jumbled for an infant.

One doesn't have to travel too far back in time to see a conflation of science and religion to the detriment of both. For every kooky religious idea there was an equally kooky scientific idea, say, the theory of blood-letting that for so many centuries made a visit from the doctor a deadly gamble.

Probably the most detailed map of the totality of reality was drawn up by Thomas Aquinas. Naturally, parts of it are now obsolete because of the state of 13th century science, which has evolved so dramatically since then.

But nothing that has occurred in science has posed any fundamental challenge to Thomas's metaphysics, given some tinkering at the edges. To the contrary, something like the Big Bang would be a necessary consequence of his metaphysics (although he also allowed for the possibility that the cosmos has no horizontal boundary, so long as one bears in mind the priority of atemporal, vertical creation).

One might say that science can only take a view from "inside" the cosmos, whereas metaphysics is able to take the wider view from the perspective of being as such. Now granted, few people are metaphysicians, hence the necessity of revelation, which conveys the essential truths to those who are open to them. These truths resonate on a level much deeper than the conscious ego, which is why they evoke (and deserve) our faith. Truly, faith involves a re-cognition that is really a recognosis, i.e., intuitive perception of trans-empirical truths.

You might say that being pertains to the Center, science to the periphery. Now, everywhere we look, we see signs of the Center poking through the periphery, and one might even say that it is our duty to be aware of this phenomenon as much as possible, for it is the essence of maintaining an open and wide stance to the queerness of reality.

Again, for Voegelin, all forms of pneumopathology involve spiritual and intellectual closure. To put it the other way around, our task is to maintain noetic and pneumatic openness to the world and to experience (for there is no unexperienced world; or, it won't "ex-ist" until someone ex-periences it).

I remember back in grade school, learning about biology. I don't know if it is still true today, but back then photosynthesis was still a mystery; biologists knew it existed, but couldn't understand how. This is no mere peripheral concern, because photosynthesis is the very engine of life.

"Photo," of course, is light. Does anyone really understand how light is converted to the energy and information that powers the whole biosphere? I mean, I fully realize that there are scientific explanations, but do they bring the question marks all the way down to the foundation? Because I personally find it peculiar beyond words that sunlight can be transformed into plants, animals, symphonies, poetry, darkness, stupidity, everything.

At any rate, if we transpose this mystery to the level of man, we see something analogous, which I call pneumosynthesis and logosynthesis, or the transformation of spirit and reason, respectively. However, we could also just call it photosynthesis, since both of these organic mechanisms -- just like their biological cousin -- involve transformations of Light, i.e., spiritual and intellectual Light.

One problem -- and this is addressed by Voegelin, just as it is by Schuon -- is that we no longer have proper words for these higher human functions, since they have been conflated with, and eclipsed by, lower ones. As Voegelin put it, we can no longer use words such as "intellect," or "spirit," or "reason" in the manner of a Plato or Thomas.

For which reason I developed those abstract symbols for them, so we wouldn't imagine we know what we are talking about just because we have words for them. Sometimes the letter kills, but it is still capable of liberating spirit from matter. Poiesis is noesis, and vice versa.

Note that this linguistic pathology is the result of a devolution, which, instead of taking us from compaction to differentiation, takes us in the opposite direction, back to compaction. Someone like our troll William lives in a compacted and de-differentiated world, which again accounts for the breezy confidence he has in his own brazen stupidity.

Obviously, in order to describe reality we need words, but if these words become corrupted, then the ability to perceive reality is compromised.

For example, on a mundane level, if you confuse "liberal" with "leftist," you will lose the ability to perceive political reality. Likewise, if you fail to understand the distinction between male and female, sexual reality is lost to you (or you will only exist on a quasi-animal sexual level).

The question is, is this attack on language intentional or just a result of stupidity? Hard to tell, but I suggest we judge them by their fruits. I do sense a kind of deep malevolence behind the attacks from elites, but the rank-and-foul leftist often has a decent-to-middling spirit that has just been manipulated by elites and hijacked by bad ideas. Such people are educable and correctable, and grateful for the heads-up.

I suppose that would be the key: the non-malevolent person can be helped, because deep down he remains open to reality in all its fulness, and hatred hasn't yet completely supplanted love (for one who doesn't love truth will never know it). Upon contact with truth, such a person will experience a flood of vertical recollection which then sends them on a path back to themselves and back to reality. I've got the letters and emails to prove it. Better yet, I have myself to prove it.