Thursday, August 03, 2023

Dots in the Matrix and I-Popping Metaphors

So, we must begin our philosophy not only with a tangible means of communication, but with a defense and justification of the very possibility of communicating. Again, answers are one thing, but how are there questions -- especially fruitful ones?

Communication is certainly possible; if not, then philosophy itself is impossible, because reality couldn't communicate itself to us, nor we to others. The question is, is this communication necessary? In other words, is it just a contingent accident, or bound up with the very nature of being? 

Here again, if communication is only contingent, it is difficult to conceive of how it could know the Absolute, or any principle, really. For the Absolute is necessary being; indeed, to know of it even implies our own immortality, since only transcendence can know the transcendent.  

Let's rummage through our secret stockpile of illegal aphorisms for epistemic backup. Good morning, Nicolás. Whaddya got for us?  

This one from yesterday is worth repeating:

Metaphor supposes a universe in which each object mysteriously contains the others.

And which are in turn contained by the "Absolute container" (or better, Container <--> Contained, but that's getting ahead of ourselves). In any event, 

The real “double truth” is the simultaneous placement of the consciousness in the world and of the world in the consciousness

I want to say "triple truth," but that's again getting over our skis as we glide up the magic mountain. But that is a Verigolinian way of expressing it, i.e., that we are always conscious of a world out of which consciousness arises, so the miracle is that we are not thereby enclosed in a contingent absurcularity.  

Which is touched upon here: 

The world is explicable from man; but man is not explicable from the world. Man is a given reality; the world is a hypothesis we invent.

No, this does not imply any kind of mere subjectivism or Kantian deformation of being. Rather, it highlights the fact that man qua man is the existent who transcends his own existence, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. 

Conversely, "the world" is always a symbolic expression in the luminous space between immanence and transcendence.   

This one touches on the same principle from a different angle:

Subjectivity is a straight line between the knowing subject and the interiority of the known object.

Or, knowledge takes place in the subjective space between intelligence and intelligibility, which mirror each other herebelow, but are united in the Principle above. 

And even up there it is a dynamic unity, but once again we are getting ahead of ourselves. But since we're up there anyway, let's bring down a nugget:

Jesus Christ is the sole point in history where axiology and ontology are fused.

Or, we might say the very intersection of vertical and horizontal as such; not just in the vertical but of verticality, and the Incarnation thereof, i.e., as if to say "the vertical becomes horizontal that the horizontal might become vertical." 

'Nother aphorism, 'nother angle:
[Man the citizen] lives in the thickness of time, in the landscapes of ravines and barricades of contingencies and determinisms of history. Homo spiritualis [Man of the spirit] lives in this atemporal time of the values emerging in the course of millennia.

There aren't "two men" in us, except maybe literally, in that the one can be split off from the other, which is one way of looking at the Fall. Fallenness doesn't just depend upon verticality, it proves it. We might even say that 

To believe in God is not to believe in God; it is not possible not to believe in Him.

If that's a difficult pearl to swallow, just substitute "Absolute" for the G-word, for it is not possible to not partake of it and still be a knower, except in the cosmically onanistic sense. 

Orderly thinking is that which has a secret center, even when it does not have a secret articulation.

The "secret center" is none other than Celestial Central, and without it there would be no centers anywhere. Your own I AM -- obviously a kind of center -- is a reflection or re-verberation of the Center (or center at the periphery). 

Unless you have a better idea, which I can assure you you do not. Rather, if it's better it's worse, because 

He who is not resigned to the fundamental asymmetry of the world ends up falsifying his measurements.

And 

I merely desire to draw an ellipse that has for its foci the absolute contingency of being and the absolute gratuity of value. The consciousness of being a creature and the experience of grace.

From your ellipse to God's ear!

The Creator-creature dualism is at the same time a perfect dualism and a transcendent dualism.

Making it a trialism, but that's a future post. Put it this way:

Briefly, religious history ascends to a point from which it descends.

But 

We leave the synthesis to God.

About this synthesis. None of the above should be taken literally, but nor should it not be so taken; rather, a kind of 20/ vision should begin to emerge, in the sense that

My brief sentences are touches of color in a pointillist composition.

Like those magic eye paintings, which look random, but if you stare into them while relaxing your gaze, the 3D image pops out. 

Boo!

26 comments:

Nicolás said...

In the coherence of certain systems, a vision is articulated; others systems result from the mere inertia of an idea.

Nicolás said...

God is the transcendental condition of the absurdity of the universe.

Nicolás said...

What marvelous insolence any empirical verification has!

Nicolás said...

We call abstract truths the dry channels through which the waters of any rain flow.
To be a rationalist is to renounce the universal reason of things, so as to impose on it the ephemeral historical configuration of our reason of a single day.

Nicolás said...

Mathematics is the poetry of the identity principle.

Nicolás said...

The world is a system of equations that stir winds of poetry.

Nicolás said...

To please the determinist we say that there is no action without a cause. To annoy him we say that there is no cause without an action.

Petey said...

Discovery of the laws of physics implies their abrogation.

Nicolás said...

Man believes he is lost among the facts, when he is only caught in the web of his own definitions.

Nicolás said...

The modern mentality believes it is traveling out to the nebulae while it is orbiting around the Encyclopedia.

Nicolás said...

Law is from the verse and Grace is from the poetry.

Gagdad Bob said...

Z Man:

A paradox of the modern age is that the average person in the West knows more about the natural world than the most learned man of prior eras, but people remain as superstitious and irrational as ever.

Anonymous said...

The problem with magic eye paintings is that not only do you have to look at them cross-eyed, you have to paint them cross-eyed. I gave up my career as a magic eye painter after my opthamologist prescribed heavy masturbation to help relieve my eye pain. For me that was just one yank too far. (*rimshot*)

I’ve been wondering. What if we got Nicolás together with Oriental Jazzman? They could do-wop about scientism.

Nicolás said...

Among interlocutors of unequal intellectual stature what is hilarious is the pretense with which the tiny one raises himself up.

julie said...

Nicolas, master of the shiv.

To believe in God is not to believe in God; it is not possible not to believe in Him.

Just so; once you know, you know, and there's not a dang thing you can do about it.

Gagdad Bob said...

It's hard to think of a great wit who isn't a great insultainer. Nor of an imbecile who isn't a lame one.

Gagdad Bob said...

I can think of so many better insults to myself than what is on offer here.

Anonymous said...

I had a reality-based therapist once. She used a variety of techniques to get me to accept reality as it is (reasonable) and take advantage wherever possible (okay, but I do have certain moral limits), while at the same time reprogramming the abuse I took at the hands of my parents into self-love (encouraging my survival instinct).

I then read the text accompanying material she’d provided. One of the tenets was to take full personal responsibility for anything bad that had ever happened to you. Sadly, I could only go so far as take full personal responsibility for how I reacted to any of the bad, while also looking into why the bad had been done to me as objectively as possible to try and avoid such people in the future.

Reading further, I got the epiphany that the author was unwittingly promoting sociopathy. This is because unlike in times past, our current culture rewards sociopathic behaviors far more than it does merit, humble intelligence, work ethic, or even intellectual adaptability. Follow Elon Musk on X for examples.

And plus I think she was Jewish.

Now, I know as a cold hard fact that our very own Nicolás was a silver spooner, a child of privilege. And so too was Oriental Jazzman. That’s why there’s no practical advice coming from Nicolás and no “Oriental Bluesman” visiting here. They have no way to perceive anything which they’ve been so immersed in that they were drowning. They seem a bit stupid to me. Even a bit Dunning-Freddy Kruger.

Sometimes bad shit is just evil. And so you’ll need to decide between forgiveness, revenge, a belief in Karma, or many other possible things which our freedom affords us.

And so I’ve been wondering. Is there a resource for finding a good therapist who specializes in dishes served cold? I'd take full personal responsibility, as long as I also got away with it.

Nicolás said...

Let us be careful not to disrespect the one who possesses the stupidity necessary for the correct functioning of institutions.

Nicolás said...

Today there are an abundance of intellects without intelligence, intellects that adopt imbecilic principles.

Nicolás said...

He who rejects obvious truths infuriates us until we discover that he is a simpleton.

Nicolás said...

In some men it is not only the intellect that brays but also the soul itself.

Nicolás said...

Very few carry themselves with the discretion befitting their insignificance.

Nicolás said...

Only opaqueness seems mysterious to the fool.

Anonymous said...

Whenever you write, whatever you write, never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are.

Seeing does not always believe.

If you need drugs to be a good writer, you are not a good writer.

I don't feel, God dictated that I should write.

Some people possess talent, others are possessed by it. When that happens, a talent becomes a curse.

Someplace between apathy and anarchy is the stance of the thinking human being; he does embrace a cause, he does take a position, and can't allow it to become business as usual. Humanity is our business.

This highway leads to the shadowy tip of reality: you're on a through route to the land of the different, the bizarre, the unexplainable...Go as far as you like on this road. Its limits are only those of mind itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, you're entering the wondrous dimension of imagination. . . Next stop The Twilight Zone.

Nicolás said...

In the carcass of the idea proliferate the larvae of imbeciles.

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