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Tuesday, June 04, 2024

A Crock in the Cosmic Egg

Cold opening:

Subject and object must in some manner be related if we are not to lose our grip on reality. Related they certainly are.... But separated, too, they must be, if existence in the intentional order is different from existence in the real order (Brennan).

Little artificial assistance? 


So, the subject joins together what materiality has put asunder?  

On the one hand, everything is what it is. On the other, nothing is what it appears to be. There is reality; and there are appearances.

However, we only ever experience reality in terms of the appearances in which it is clothed. Animals too only have contact with appearances, except they don't know it. Nor do they not know it. Rather, they only know what they know, in a closed neuro-instinctual loop.

How did human beings ever exit this loop? Some people insist we never did. If that's the case, how do they communicate the idea to us? Kant? Anyone?

In any event, it seems -- no, it is the case -- that there is a kind of breach or crack in the cosmic egg, and that this crack is everything. We can't deny it without reverting to animality, but nor can we ever fill it without usurping divinity. 

Truly truly we are in always between. Hence this pervasive ambiguity -- through a glass darkly and all that -- and the temptation to make it go away via some ideological shitecut or vertical wankaround.

Supposing we do manage to escape, we don't become better than human, rather, like a human only worse, 32 feet per second per second, redounding to a world that excludes the possibility of vertical adequaton, which, after all, is what it's all about, or so we have heard from the wise:

The worth of man lies in his consciousness of the Absolute.

Man is made for what he is able to conceive; the very ideas of absoluteness and transcendence prove both his spiritual nature and supra-terrestrial character of his destiny (Schuon).

Nature and Destiny. Every nature has a formal deustinotion -- a form -- oriented to its telos or attractor. The cosmos itself is oriented to Celestial Central, which is why all the groaning and suffering with earthpangs even until now.


Now, this crack in the cosmic egg is both spatial and temporal. This latter is what we call "history," and here again, it's not something we can ever stop, or from which we can ever disembark -- the old nightmirror from which we can't awake, except when we can:

There is only one birth -- and this birth takes place in the being and in the ground and core of the soul. This birth takes place in darkness. And not only is the Son of the heavenly Creator born in this darkness -- but you too are born there as a child of the same heavenly Creator.... And the Creator extends this same power to you out of the divine maternity bed located in the Godhead to eternally give birth (Meister Eckhart).

This real human world is full of irony, not to mention humor, ambiguity, and play. Which is why ideologues and other naughtlight comedians are never funny, except unintentionally.

They say history was discovered by the Jews, hence the enduring hostility. They formed an ongoing relationship with the one transcendent God, thus exiting the cyclical goround of being.

Gemini, paint me a picture of where we are so far in this rambling post:

Let's reset:

The intellect of man has nothing to start with, yet it is potentially a whole creation. It reaches out and conquers the world by the process of becoming the world (Brennan).

Wonder what that looks like to the right brain?

Turns out that knowing and being, or epistemology and ontology, are very much linked; in fact, if they're not, then there's nothing to talk about except our own neurobio-psychology.

The philosophistry of materialism makes no sense, because it cannot make sense; it is literally the denial of intelligibility, of intelligence, and of any real relation between them:

the singular does not resist understanding because it is singular, but because it is material, since nothing is understood except immaterially (emphasis mine).

A single tree, for example, isn't understood as a tree, because doing so requires the abstract concept of treeness. "The essences of corporeal things are opaque rather than translucent, so far as our ability to understand them is concerned."

In fact, it is impossible for us to imagine such a world of absolute singularities, because we would be reduced -- literally -- to psychosis. The psychotic person lives in a world of terrifying novelty, with every object in each moment de-linked, so to speak, from the others; one exits any meaningful narrative and enters a catastrophic kalleiderescape from which there's no escape from the constant collisions:


Ogden describes it well: "symbol and symbolized are emotionally indistinguishable since there is no interpreting self to mediate between" them. "Thoughts and feelings" become "palpable objects and forces that appear, disappear, contaminate, transform, destroy, rescue, etc." Such a person

may shake his head to get rid of tormenting feelings, may literally put his thoughts into a letter and send the letter to the person who should hold these thoughts, or may request x-rays in order to be able to see the things inside of him that are driving him crazy.

I wonder what this looks like: Gemini? Anyone?


Or, he may put his disturbing thoughts and feelings into President Trump, which solves one problem only to create another: the unending torment of Orange Man Bad!

Beneath the conviction that politics can solve one's problems is the fantasy that politics is responsible for one's problems. So, hating President Trump is every bit as sensible as putting one's sins into an animal and killing it. It even works. For awhile, at which point a new sacrifice is necessary. This is why the News Cycle was perfected by the Aztec. See Bailie for details.

There's much more, but this has gone on long enough. Even gemini can't create an image, only describe it:

Left Section:

  • A human brain reaching out and transforming into a world (representing the intellect's potential to create and understand).
  • A swirling vortex with a crack splitting it open, symbolizing the "crack in the cosmic egg" and the concept of history.
    • A dark cavern with a womb-like shape radiating light, representing the "birth in the ground and core of the soul."

    Right Section:

    • A single, isolated tree with sharp edges, contrasting with a vibrant forest scene (representing the material world vs. the world understood through concepts).
    • A figure in a chaotic world of disconnected objects, experiencing the "catastrophic kalleidescape" of psychosis.
    • A person holding a letter with dark, swirling thoughts inside, and another person consumed by an image of President Trump (representing emotional projection and political scapegoating).

    The overall image conveys the complexity of human existence, caught between the limitations of the material world and the yearning for meaning and transcendence. It highlights the tension between reason and emotion, the challenges of understanding reality, and the dangers of ideological extremes.

    1 comment:

    1. I think the cosmic egg is my favorite today.

      In fact, it is impossible for us to imagine such a world of absolute singularities, because we would be reduced -- literally -- to psychosis. The psychotic person lives in a world of terrifying novelty, with every object in each moment de-linked, so to speak, from the others

      The irony is that at some level, even a materialist can't deny that everything is connected. We breathe out, we breathe in, parts of us become part of the world and the world enters in and becomes part of ourselves. A true world of absolute singularities would be incompatible with life, as life is the very definition of an open system. To be de-linked would be to starve and suffocate, both literally and metaphorically.

      ReplyDelete

    I cannot talk about anything without talking about everything. --Chesterton

    Fundamentally there are only three miracles: existence, life, intelligence; with intelligence, the curve springing from God closes on itself like a ring that in reality has never been parted from the Infinite. --Schuon

    The quest, thus, has no external 'object,' but is reality itself becoming luminous for its movement from the ineffable, through the Cosmos, to the ineffable. --Voegelin

    A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. --Wittgenstein