Thursday, June 15, 2023

The More Weird Cannot Come from the Less Weird

Yesterday we spoke of the material world and the senses that conform to and reveal it. For a strict Thomist all knowledge begins in the senses, but for a lax one like me it begins at either end, with the miracle of subjectivity or with the miracle of objectivity. 

After all, every object or fact presumes a subject, and every subject an object (or objectivity, which is to say, distance and detachment between two terms).

Of course, if I begin in the subject, by no means is this referring to the closed Kantian ego, rather, to the vertically open subject (or self) that is ultimately a kind of prolongation of the metacosmic Subject. 

All subjects -- or rather subjectivity as such -- are intersubjective, just as all objects are "interobjective." By the latter, I am referring to the nonlocality by which, in the words of Whitehead,   
in a certain sense, everything is everywhere at all times. For every location involves an aspect of itself in every other location. Thus, every spatio-temporal standpoint mirrors the world. 

Yes, weird, but weird enough? 

At any rate, if the objective world of physics is this weird, then surely the subjective world must be at least as weird, no?

What I mean is, subjectivity is without question the weirdest thing in all of creation, but to leave it at that is to posit a weird effect without a weirder cause; but how could the more weird ever emerge from the less weird? Call it a violation of Petey's Law.

I am permanently struck by Schuon's observation that 

The first ascertainment which should impose itself upon man when he reflects on the nature of the Universe is the primacy of that miracle that is intelligence -- or consciousness or subjectivity -- and consequently the incommensurability between these and material objects, be it a question of a grain of sand or of the sun, or of any creature whatever as an object of the senses

If the miracle of subjectivity or consciousness or intelligence is the first, what's the second ascertainment? Again, that would have to be the miracle of objectivity, intelligibility, or form (for we never encounter matter without form).

Now, all of the above surely is, but its isness isn't self-explanatory. Rather, it must be anchored in a principle that is its ultimate cause. 

In other words, every science, to the extent that it is one, is an investigation into causes; knowledge of anything is knowledge of causes, which is why theology used to be regarded as the queen of sciences, because it was an investigation into the First Cause, or even Cause of Causality.

It still is, except theology has been narrowed down and displaced into science, such that science itself is the crossdressing queen of its own theology, and that's just perverse -- literally an intellectual perversion, since any perversion involves a disruption of teleology, i.e., of the proper end of something.

Thus, just as human sexuality is ordered to its complementary other, human intelligence is ordered to Being. Detach it from Being, and what perversions result! Everything from Kantianism to Marxism to the Tyranny of Relativism and Sum of All Heresies more generally.

Really? The perverted and tyrannical Sum of All Heresies? 

Yes, because, just as there is such a thing as cosmic objectivity, there is (and must be) such a thing as cosmic perversion, which is (returning to our cosmic flowchart), a consequence of the very first decision in the tree, which is: Absolute. Or Relative. Pick one, but live with the consequences, entailments, and prolongations herebelow.

Or just say Genesis 3 All Over Again.

12 comments:

julie said...

Thus, just as human sexuality is ordered to its complementary other, human intelligence is ordered to Being. Detach it from Being, and what perversions result!

Never thought of it that way, but of course the two are complementarities are absolutely related. Thus certain kinds of sexual perversion are so heavily pushed on the populace and seem so often to be tied in with the various flavors of communism and other perversions of what is good, true & beautiful.

Gagdad Bob said...

I never exactly thought of it that way either, but pathology of any kind must be a consequence of dis-order, i.e., failure to reach the end to which something is ordered, and since intelligence is ordered to intelligible being, then anything short of this is an intellectual perversion.

Gagdad Bob said...

For Kant, for example, intelligible being is ordered to our own categories, which is a complete inversion and perversion of the intellect. Besides, like anybody could even know that, assuming he is enclosed in his own neurology!

Immanuel said...

I am some nobody!

ted said...

I had a discussion with someone recently who said there was nothing normal (ordered) when it came to sexual identity. I then cracked the egg in 10 seconds when I said do the thought experiment of taking your anomaly all the way to its full extent. What if 100% of the populous was gay or trans... how would that work out for all of us? It definitely hit a note he never considered.

Gagdad Bob said...

Nothing about sex is ordered. Except for everyone of his ancestors going back to the dawn of sexual dimorphism, without whom he wouldn't be here.

julie said...

It's bizarre they don't even consider that. Then again, we have come to a point where it seems as though the majority of the culture has no idea what a human being is or is for, so why not try every combination of behaviors except the one that was intended?

ted said...

That's also why the transhumanists/leftists are groping for artificial wombs! Then they can argue, we don't need any stinking sexual dimorphism anymore!

Gagdad Bob said...

Ironic that natural selection poses no threat whatsoever to a traditional view, but absolutely demolishes the left.

Randy said...

"...by no means is this referring to the closed Kantian ego..."

EXACTLY!!! KANT SCREWED UP EVERYTHING!!!

Van Harvey said...

"It still is, except theology has been narrowed down and displaced into science, such that science itself is the crossdressing queen of its own theology, and that's just perverse -- literally an intellectual perversion, since any perversion involves a disruption of teleology, i.e., of the proper end of something."

Boom + LOL.

Van Harvey said...

"Thus, just as human sexuality is ordered to its complementary other, human intelligence is ordered to Being. Detach it from Being, and what perversions result!"

You kant be serious.

As a heart attack.

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