Clearing the Space Weeds & Time Junk from In & Around Your Headhouse

In the previous post we alluded to the principle that creation is the nexus between time and eternity; or creation is the principle that unifies them. At the same time, we might say that Intellect is the principle that unites intelligence to supraformal realities.

Backing up a bit (or coming down a couple of rungs), everyday garden-variety human intelligence accomplishes what exactly? It is the conformity of mind to reality, which results in knowledge of being, AKA a true judgment that something is. If knowledge can't even know that, then to hell with it.

But there are levels of being, whether you want to call them depths or heights. Let's say that science deals with the depths, penetrating from one level to another in search of the principles that account for appearances. 

As for the heights, these are the supraformal realities situated above the formal and material. Again, you could say there are only two degrees -- Creator and creation -- and that's technically true, but in positing such an impoverished model of reality, you're going to miss a lot of stuff in between. 

What? Where are we? Oh, we're still dabbling with the vertical flowchart. At the moment I'm just flipping through The Philosophy of Science in the Light of the Perennial Wisdom by Bina and Ziarani -- that and an essay by Schuon called The Five Divine Presences, seeing if we can nail down some of the ins, outs, and what-have-yous of our flowchart. We'll just see where it leads and hope for the best.

From our perspective,

the Divine Principle is hidden behind a number of envelopes, the first of which is matter. Matter presents itself as the outermost sheath, the shell or crust, of that invisible Universe whose main features are made known to us by both the Intellect and Revelation (Schuon).

The most remarkable thing about matter is undoubtedly its interiority and intelligibility. Over and above its sheer isness is the fact that it speaks to us. 

Of what? Of a lot of things, but in this case I'm thinking of form. Always and everywhere matter transmits invisible forms to our intelligence, and that is flat strange. And yet, it is so commonplace that even babies do it.  

Now, while it looks like we are surrounded by matter, this is not, and cannot be, the whole story. What I mean is that you can't really be enclosed in something that is totally transparent, or rather... how to put it... To the extent that we are enclosed, it's more like a house made entirely of glass. Yes, our head is a glass house.

But even then, that's an inadequate image, since there's a constant two-way flow between what's inside and outside your headhouse. Look out at the world and what do you see? Whatever it is, it is never formless matter, rather, forms everywhere -- trees, rocks, water, birds, chairs, a basketball hoop... weeds... 

Weeds are an interesting case, because they have a kind or moral and aesthetic connotation; they're there, but they're not supposed to be there. Sez who? Not the weeds, that's for sure. They're like the "homeless." Of course they have a home. It's just not where we want it to be.

I also see a big container of Round-Up. I suppose it's like the sherriff, or maybe the art critic. It promises to eliminate the unwanted forms from the scene. It stands there like a threat to the weeds, but the weeds aren't frightened, so it's a stand-off

Speaking of unwanted forms, now that I'm looking, I also see dirt on the window. Yes, I'm lazy, but it's more that I normally just don't notice it. The window is a form, but I don't typically look at this form, rather, through it. 

The point is, we are at once surrounded, but by a totally transparent material world, which is actively trans-lucent in two direction, toward us and vice versa. 

In a way, there are no strict nouns anywhere, since the nouns speak their way into our heads, and then they take on a new mode of existence inside us -- which is what knowledge is. 

In reality, however, it is the Principle that envelops everything; the material world is only an infinitesimal and eminently contingent content of this invisible Universe (Schuon). 

Above it was suggested that the earth circles the sun. But if I am not mistaken, they actually circle each other, or rather, the entire solar system is circling around its own axis, but that's not all, because our galaxy circles around another axis, on up to various superclusters and whatever comes after that. If there's a still point of the turning world, it is reflected in us. But we can't be it's ground, source, and principle.

Yesterday I was thinking about the two hands in Michelangelo's painting in the Sistine Chapel, of Adam and God. It was an Important Thought, but now I can't remember what it was.... something to do with that space in between and how it is everything, or rather, the relation between is everything...

Oh well. It will come to me. Just not in this post.

Starting from the material world that is in principle knowable to our senses, we perceive the first state of being, that is, the material state that surrounds us, encompassing the entire system of galaxies, however inaccessible to us they may be in fact. To some, this state represents all that is (Bina & Ziarani).

Sad! But even on its fact this is inadequate model, because a galaxy is an immaterial concept we can think about. 

Say, are there weeds in outer space? Things that are there but shouldn't be? There are now. 

Below, "A computer-generated image representing the locations of space debris as seen from high Earth orbit (HEO). The two main debris fields are the ring of objects in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) and the cloud of objects in low Earth orbit":

What about time junk? Or are we it? It depends, I guess.