A straightforward title for a change, for the sake of some lonely future reader who will search those terms and, to his surprise and delight (or annoyance), end up here.
Seems to be a popular book: #1 on amazon in metaphysics, #3 in religious philosophy, and #4 in consciousness and thought, some of our favorite subjects.
No real reviews yet. Ours began a couple of posts back, and is an open ended process that will go on for as long as it takes to get the job done. We're up to part one, chapter III, called Fallacies of Method. It begins precisely where we left off in the previous post:
I take it as axiomatic that the quantitative by itself cannot explain the qualitative.
This is a point we've been belaboring for nearly two decades, only without ever reaching #1 in religion & philosophy, although we are presently bubbling under the top 2,500 in that category.
Yesterday we spoke of the literally infinite gap between man and animal. There is a similarly infinite one between the largest quantity and the teensiest quality:
The difference -- the abyss -- separating these realms is, well, qualitatively absolute, and no increase in third-person knowledge can close that abyss.
Think about it: you can add multiples of one forever, but it will never add up to a single first-person experience of subjective interiority, of I am. No amount of math adds up to the mathematician who understands math. Why pretend otherwise?
Oh, a lot of reasons that we'll no doubt be getting into.
Now listen closely: an infinite distance can never be bridged by any number of finite steps. By definition, infinity is not something that can ever be reached, and it is a fallacy to imagine otherwise, for this constitutes
the error of thinking that an infinite qualitative distance can be crossed, or even diminished, by a sufficient number of finite quantitative steps.
Here again, pay attention: "The distinction between objective physical events and subjective episodes" represents "an infinite, untraversable distance." And no amount of mindless steps or mechanical processes "would ever be enough to add up to even the most elementary of mental powers."
True, but where then does this leave us? It awakens us from the dream of materialism, but what do we put in its place? Yes, you could say "religion" or "spiritualism" or some other vague idealism, but we demand specificity.
In a way, we want to be every bit as rigorous and precise as the quantitative approach, but is there such a thing as a rigorously qualitative approach? Or is this a job for the poetry department?
Come to think of it, I did once write a post called Precision Poetry. Let's have a look down there and see if anything is salvageable.
Back in 2017, it was, and it touches on precisely what we're presently discussing,
the mystery of how subjectivity enters the cosmos and existence becomes experience -- or, how mere existence starts to experience itself.
Nor can we properly speak of subjectivity "entering" the cosmos, or of existence "becoming" experience. Neither of these can be accurate; they are loaded with preconceptions that will lead us astray if taken at face value. It is
similar to the mind-matter dualism, which is just a conclusion masquerading as a premise. The one is defined in terms of the other, but neither is defined in terms of itself. In other words, to say "mind-matter" is a way to conceal the fact that one has no earthly idea what mind (or matter) is. The terms are just placeholders for certain properties.
Another reminder that we -- human beings -- are always already situated between immanence and transcendence. The state is permanent and ineradicable, but the content changes.
We also suggested that truly productive religious writing
must always navigate between two shores, dogma or doctrine on one side, and a kind of indistinct cloud on the other. Geometry and music. Default to the former, and language becomes dead and saturated; veer toward the latter, and one is reduced to deepaking the chopra.
We also made the claim that "Precision poetry is not only possible, it is necessary. This is because truth and beauty converge and are ultimately two sides of the same reality."
About this unity, Hart objects
in principle to all dualistic answers to any question. Every duality within a single reality must be resoluble to a more basic unity, a more original shared principle, or it remains a mystery.
As we have often argued, what look like dualities turn out to be complementary aspects or modes of a deeper or higher reality -- for example, immanence-transcendence. However, in all such complementarities, one must be ontologically prior.
Thus, for example, no amount of immanence could ever add up to transcendence, but transcendence implies immanence. Likewise, no amount of inanimate matter adds up to Life, but Life is obviously present in matter. The same applies to time and eternity, subject and object, or even wave and particle. "If body and mind," for example,
are distinct and yet interact, then there's some ground of commonality that they share, more basic and encompassing than the difference between them....
[T]here must be some broader, simpler, more encompassing unity in which they participate, some more basic ontological ground, a shared medium underlying both and repugnant to neither.
This is true, but again, can we be more precise?
We'll get there -- I think -- but for now it is precisely clear "that all our quandaries begin with the mechanical philosophy" that simply reifies "one dimension of the real" while pretending to eliminate the other.
It reminds me of what Robert Rosen says, that the rejected dimension of the real always returns through the back door, e.g., subjectivity, teleology, meaning, etc., leading to metaphysical contradiction and incoherence.
Hart keeps making the same point in different ways, e.g., "whatever the nature of matter may be, the primal reality of all things is mind," which cannot possibly -- in principle -- arise "from truly mindless matter."
But here again, the converse is eminently possible, that "mind can become all things," such that "infinite mind" is "the ground and end of all things."
Certainly this was the premodern view, but we know better.
Do we? Not to go all Hegelian on you, but there is a kind of thesis (spiritualism), antithesis (materialism), and synthesis going on, but what is the synthesis?
The unification of Matter, Life, Mind, and Spirit?
Someone ought to write a book. Or start a blog. Call it One Cosmos.
End of Chapter III.
3 comments:
Every duality within a single reality must be resoluble to a more basic unity, a more original shared principle, or it remains a mystery.
He is not wrong of course, but his prose is on the heavy side.
He's a ponderous man. One longs for the fleet-footed Schuon or Dávila, who waste no words.
An enjoyable post! Thank you.
The prose from this author that you displayed did not seem heavy or ponderous to me; rather, it seemed quite precise.
From the post: "The unification of Matter, Life, Mind, and Spirit? Someone ought to write a book. Or start a blog. Call it One Cosmos."
Do we think a synthesis and unification has not already been accomplished? I can think of a half-dozen adequate or even brilliant works which do this very thing. What about the work done by Tolle? Does it not spear the thing through the eye? What about a slim volume by Fr. Causade, "Abandonment to Divine Providence?" Does this not nail down the issues to the satisfaction of all?
Or even Carl Sagan's work, Cosmos? Or how about the book by yourself, Good Dr. Does it lack completeness?
So you see. The feat has been accomplished redundantly. Now, on to the meat and potatoes problem of how to divinize this tormented world. Suggestions? Animal therapy perhaps?
Regards, Trench
Post a Comment