What Cosmos Are You From?

History is the series of universes present to the consciousness of successive subjects. --Dávila

Setting the stage for what we're about to discuss, it goes back to yesterday's post, in particular, to the idea that what is needed is proof of a certain vision of the world before proofs of God can be efficacious or operative and religion can make sense more generally.

Exactly what the world is is a rather big question, but it is among the first terms we must define. To repeat an aphorism from yesterday:

Today we require a methodical introduction to that vision of the world outside of which religious vocabulary is meaningless. We do not talk of God with those who do not judge talk about the gods as plausible. 

We ended the post with Voegelin's key idea that "the order of the world is not of 'this world' alone but also of the 'world beyond.'" These "two worlds" always and everywhere constitute the one real world: any definition of our (immanent) world must include the world beyond that is its transcendent ground and telos.

This humanly irreducible complementarity of immanence and transcendence reminds me of other such irreducible complementarities, and let us count them: being and becoming, absolute and infinite, object and subject, time and eternity, interior and exterior, matter and spirit, wave and particle, brain and mind, left brain and right brain, individual and collective, part and whole, Creator and creation...

You could no doubt think of more, but these are not vicious dualisms, rather, dynamic and fruitful complementarities. 

It seems that Christianity alone -- at least today -- does not provide a vision of the world in which Christianity makes sense. Such a vision obviously existed at its origins, which is why it spread so rapidly. There was no friction, so to speak, between the world -- or the vision thereof -- and Christianity.

We no longer have that premodern vision of the world, nor is it ever coming back. And our new vision seems to render a religious vocabulary meaningless and talk of God to be implausible.

Seems to. In reality nothing has changed, in that our world is still situated between immanence and transcendence, except that modernity has collapsed this space into immanence, thus, as a side effect, negated all of the other complementarities referenced above. 

Which is why we are now confined to a flattened, one-sided, left-brained world. No dynamic complementarity for you!

Back to the series of universes present to the evolving consciousness of successive subjects. It seems we're gonna need a bigger question -- not just what planet, but what universe are we living in?

Now, the universe doesn't change. 

Check me on that: it never stops changing, and has been undergoing relentless evolution since it sprang into being 13.8 billion years ago. If the universe is evolving, as is consciousness along with it, where does this leave us? In a world of pure becoming with no being?

It's a tempting offer, but we must again insist on the dynamic complementarity between being and becoming, and also between consciousness and world. Again, for Voegelin this is the real cosmos -- the evolving order -- between immanence and transcendence. 

COSMOS: In Vogelin's usage, the whole of ordered reality including animate and inanimate nature and the gods. (Not to be confused with the modern conception of "cosmos" as the astrophysical universe.) Encompasses all of reality, including the full range of the tension of existence toward the transcendental (Webb). 

Religion makes a heckuva lot of sense in this cosmos, because just as science maps immanence without ever containing or exhausting it, so too does religion map transcendence without ever containing or exhausting it (certain literalists and fundamentalists notwithstanding). 

In short, we can never really eliminate the tension. Unless maybe Shankara and Buddha are correct, but that's another wormhole. On the other hand Christ spans the tension, but that too is a wormhole we won't dig into just yet.

With this prologue out of the way, I've been reading several books by a Catholic process theologian named Joseph Bracken, who actually tries to strike a balance between the being and becoming -- and immanence and transcendence -- of things.

Examples.

These are from a book called The World in the Trinity: Open-Ended Systems in Science and Religion. In keeping with the need for a vision in which Christianity makes sense, 

Bracken utilizes the language and conceptual structures of systems theory as a philosophical and scientific grammar to show traditional Christian beliefs in a new light that is accessible and rationally plausible to a contemporary, scientifically influenced society. 

Consider the following, which echoes what was said above about the complementarity of immanence and transcendence:

the natural order and the alleged supernatural order are in fact dynamically interconnected processes or systems that together constitute a richer reality than what either the natural order or the supernatural order, taken alone, can provide.  

In keeping with the theme of complementarity, "both change and permanence characterize our human experience of ourselves, others, and the world."

Another key complementarity: "coextensive with their Without, there is a Within of things." There is always and everywhere a Within, no matter how inchoate. In its absence, the thing would be unintelligible. 

Where does all the creative novelty come from? What is its principle? For me, a big hint is contained in the first sentence of the Bible, "In the beginning God created..." For Whitehead, creativity is indeed the ultimate principle, but he goes too far, placing it even above God.

As discussed in a recent post, there is both top-down and bottom-up causality, and "God provides a directionality to the cosmic process," i.e., a teleological attraction. 

Here's another one that goes to the complementarity of immanence and transcendence:

Aquinas has trouble explaining the immanence of God as Pure Spirit in the world of creation, and Whitehead has the opposite problem explaining the transcendence of God....

To be continued.... 

The Argument from Argument for the Existence of God

Supposing we argue, any argument presupposes the truth, otherwise why argue? Argument is a means to truth.

No it isn't.

That's not an argument, it's just a contradiction.

Not at all.

Enough of this. 

"The classical proofs of God," writes Schuon, are situated between "direct intellection" at one end and "materialistic rationalism" at the other. No form of rationalism can ever reach its object, while intellection bypasses reason altogether and proceeds straight to the transphysical object. 

I suppose the problem with direct intellection is that it only works on a retail basis. The experience of God is limited to the person having the experience. 

Schuon notes that "in the spiritual order a proof is of assistance only to the man who wishes to understand, and who, by virtue of this wish, has already in some measure understood; it is of no practical use to one who, deep in his heart, does not want to change his position, and whose philosophy merely expresses this desire."

Schuon's point of departure is that metaphysical ideas are innate to the intellect. Denying this principle "is equivalent to the destruction of the very notion of intelligence," for "our intelligence could never prove anything at all."

Way back in the early days of the blog I wrote a post entitled Proof of Proof is Proof of God. I just looked it up to see if I was serious, and its bottom line is as follows:

In a certain sense, proof itself is proof of the supernatural, being that it obviously exists in a realm above matter. The metaphysical transparency of the world is all the proof the Raccoon requires, but all men are not Raccoons, and I do not write for the wider non-Raccoon world....

There is a translogical component to the acceptance of any truth. We are not merely "logic machines." In other words, we must make a free act of assent to truth, and this cannot be reduced to the principles of logic. For example, there is no logical proof that one should abide by logic. What if I want to live a life a life guided by absolute spontaneity and transgression of logic, like people who live in San Francisco? 

Our point, I suppose, is that if the intellect knows the truth -- any truth -- then this has vast implications. For example, Schuon takes the view that

The Intellect "is divine," first because it is a knower -- or because it is not a non-knower – and secondly because it reduces all phenomena to their Principle; because it sees the Cause in every effect, and thus surmounts, at a certain level, the vertiginous and devouring multiplicity of the phenomenal world.

Call it the Argument from Intellect.

Intellectual intuition comprises essentially a contemplativity which in no way enters into the rational capacity, the latter being logical rather than contemplative; it is contemplative power, receptivity in respect of the Uncreated Light, the opening of the Eye of the Heart, which distinguishes transcendent intelligence from reason.

I think I see the problem here, for the average secular man is not just in need of evidence of God, but rather, evidence of a whole outlook or paradigm by which they could be moved by the evidence, otherwise all the evidence in the world proves nothing. The Aphorist essentially says the same thing with his customary pithiness:

Today we require a methodical introduction to that vision of the world outside of which religious vocabulary is meaningless. We do not talk of God with those who do not judge talk about the gods as plausible.

This being the case, what is needed is proof of a certain vision of the world before proof itself can be efficacious or operative. Now, what world could this be, and how do we prove its existence?

That's a big question to spring on a fellow in the middle of a post. What in the world is the world? That phrase sounds familiar, and sure enough it was the title of a post last year. Let's see if it provides any answers. 

It has a good point made by Voeglin about "the meaning of the term world. It presents extraordinary difficulties to philosophical analysis," hence the title of the post.

Before we answer this difficult question -- what is the world? -- a few cautionary aphorisms:

As long as we can respond without hesitating we do not know the subject.

Whoever is curious to measure his stupidity should count the number of things that seem obvious to him. 

Only the fool knows clearly why he believes or why he doubts. 

Yada yada, for Voegelin, "the order of the world is not of 'this world' alone but also of the 'world beyond.'" Or in other words, immanence and transcendence respectively, such that any definition of this (immanent) world must include the world beyond that is its transcendent ground.

Is there a more cutandry way to express this, and to tie it in with the title of this post? Hmm. Proof of the world is proof of God? 

No it isn't.

Is!

We'll think on it some more and get back to you tomorrow. 

On Proofs of God

Proofs for the existence of God abound for those who do not need them. --Dávila

Last night I watched an interesting podcast of an atheist and agnostic ranking the classic proofs of God from A to F, with a higher category called S for superlative. 

They did a better job of articulating the arguments than do most Christians, and placed the argument from contingency at the top, with the fine-tuning argument earning an A.  

One of the podcasters (the agnostic) has a 12 hour video in which he discusses over 100 arguments for God. Viewed in aggregate one would think that all of the arguments taken together would be rather convincing, but I don't know if he addresses this angle. In any event, even an intellectually serious atheist knows that

If it is not of God that we are speaking, it is not sensible to speak of anything seriously.

Even the serious denial of God is more interesting than a lukewarm acceptance.

Nevertheless, in the end, 

Only the theocentric vision does not end up reducing man to absolute insignificance.

Man is not absolutely insignificant, ergo God? Works for me. 

If God does not exist we should not conclude that everything is permissible, but that nothing matters.

For most if not all of the arguments there is just enough evidence to adopt one side or the other if one is so inclined. It seems that, try as we might, we can never eliminate the leap of faith. Somewhat ironically, this goes for both sides, as it requires an equally great leap of faith to adopt atheism. 

There are arguments of increasing validity, but, in short, no argument in any field spares us the final leap.

The Aphorist also says that  

If God were the conclusion of a rational argument I would feel no need to worship him.

After all, we can prove any number of things, but it doesn't mean we ought to worship them. Indeed,

If we could demonstrate the existence of God, everything would eventually be subjected to the sovereignty of man.

Reason only gets us so far in this Gödelian cosmos, for

God is not the object of my reason, nor of my sensibility, but of my being. 

For my money, the most compelling argument in favor of atheism is how to square the existence of evil with an omnipotent God, which is why I am sympathetic to dialing back the latter in order to clear God of any charges against him.

But again, either way, no mere argument spares us the final leap. However, this may not be a leap of faith, but rather, a "leap of vision," so to speak, for 

Faith is not an irrational assent to a proposition; it is a perception of a special order of realities.

Which is more how I look at it -- religion is, as it were, a way of talking about this special order of realities, and the map is not the territory. It is not something we look at, but rather, the lens we perceive through. 

Another important point is that, once one accepts God, it is as if further dimensions of this special order are illuminated as a consequence of grace or something (some kind of vertical x-factor). And

God allows man to raise barricades against the invasion of grace.

Moreover, supposing God is a person, 

The existence of God is indemonstrable, because with a person the only thing we can do is bump into him. 

In the end -- or beginning? --  

The sole proof of the existence of God is His existence.

Which sounds like a tautology but actually goes to the one of the arguments referenced at the top, for if God is even possible then he is necessary, this because he is far more plausible than anything else on offer:

Either God or chance: all other terms are disguises for one another. 

Me? I suppose my favorite argument is something like the following: 

If the totality of reality is completely intelligible, then God exists.

But the totality of reality is completely intelligible.

Therefore God exists. 

Schuon says something similar, that "human intelligence coincides in its essence with the Absolute," whatever one calls the latter. 

Not only is this a talking universe, but it never shuts up. Nor does it talk nonsense, which is what Einstein found so surprising, i.e., the endless comprehensibility to our comprehension.

In short, the total intelligibility of the world to our intelligence -- or the conformity of the immaterial intellect to reality -- demands a sufficient reason. And chance doesn't cut it.

Another favorite is from entropy, for if the universe has always existed, it would long since have reached maximum disorder. Where does all the information come from, and again, why is it so intelligible? 

But to repeat, no argument spares one the final leap. Well, except for direct intellection, which is not so much a leaping as a seeing. Or even "a spontaneous intuition" which

contains in an infused manner the certainty transmitted by the proofs of God or [of] the supernatural (Schuon).

I have a feeling we're just getting started.

Human Sacrifice Will Find a Way

Why are proofs of God insufficient for the man who wills not to believe in God? The question answers itself, and goes to what we were saying yesterday about the role of will and sentiment in causing a man to deviate from truth. 

Maybe a man doesn't like the implications of God's existence. If so, it's easy enough to use a little confirmation bias to make him go away.

What about my confirmation bias? Well, for starters, this is neither the God nor the religion I would invent. To the extent that I'm confirming something, it's a bit foreign to my sensibilities, especially the whole sacrifice thing.

Andrew Klavan writes that

Anti-Christians often object to the idea that Christ’s crucifixion was a sacrificial expiation of the sins of mankind. They ask: what kind of barbaric God demands a sacrifice for sin? 

Well, when you put it that way. Then again, 

I ask this: Where did all the sacrifices go? Not just the children and virgins and kings, but the doves, the pigs and the goats and so on. Why don’t we kill them anymore to propitiate the gods? 

Wherever Christianity took hold, sacrifices vanished. Why did we stop them? If it was the sacrifice of Christ that put an end to them, then maybe the barbaric need for his death wasn’t God’s but ours? Which is just another way of saying that his crucifixion was a sacrificial expiation of the sins of mankind.

That's a very Girardian explanation, i.e., the scapegoat to end all scapegoating. If Girard is correct, then the fading of Christianity should result in increased scapegoating, although with a twist, since the culture is still implicitly Christian -- or, as Klavan puts it, "hatred of bigotry or your defense of women’s rights, or your belief in the centrality of love. Who taught you these things?"

As Klavan's son Spencer writes in response,

Overturning an established order means rejecting even its basic categories. And as you write, “the problem the radical faces is that the system he is rebelling against is the very system that shaped the terms of his rebellion.”

So now, instead of the weak and marginalized being scapegoated by the powerful, it is the powerful who pretend to be weak and marginalized in order to maintain or increase their grip on power. Why else would Kamala so desperately want to be seen as African American, when four years ago she was Indian American?  

When it comes to identity politics, the money is in the basement.

As Heather MacDonald observes, back in the days of actual racism, "the way to discredit someone was to assert that he was black":

The idea that a political contender would fight back against the claim that he was anything other than black would have been regarded as surreal. Why would anyone insist on being the one thing that puts him at the bottom of the social and political totem pole?

Why? Because of the Christian concern for victims. Thus, nowadays "the benefits of blackness are so patent that it is white (and even Indian-American) individuals who on occasion try to pass as black." Conversely,

there is no evidence of black applicants labelling themselves as white; blacks today know which way the wind is blowing. If, as we have gleaned from the hysteria over Trump’s recent Harris remarks, it is now racist to question someone’s black identity, it is also preposterous to claim that that black identity subjects someone to systemic racism.

Of course, preposterousness has never posed the slightest barrier to the left. Indeed, the arms race of virtue signaling shows no signs of slowing, only moving on to encompass new victims, from the QWERTY crowd, to illegals, to people with wombs who may have to travel out of state to terminate their child. It is also why these weirdos are scapegoating the normal by pretending we're the weirdos.  

Why Do Things Ever Turn Out Right?

This morning I read an undistinguished essay on why people believe true things. I only skimmed it, but in it the author makes the point that asking why people believe false things is the wrong question -- similar to asking why poverty exists when it is the default position of mankind. 

The more interesting question is how and why wealth exists -- likewise, how and why people ever come to believe true things. Why isn't everyone poor and stupid, and come to think of it, why does anything ever turn out right?

As per yesterday's post, human nature hasn't changed in the past 50 to 65,000 years. Presumably idiocy has always existed, the difference being that today's idiots are equipped with weapons like literacy, credentials, and ideology, and are therefore that much more dangerous. 

Is it enough to just stipulate that man is fallen and be done with it? Or is it possible to understand the reasons why things ever turn out right? In the words of our resident hipster poet Mose Allison, 

You know I used to be troubled, but I finally saw the light

Now I don't worry 'bout a thing, 'cause I know nothin's gonna be alright

Which tracks with our equally good humored Aphorist, who says that

With good humor and pessimism it is possible to be neither wrong nor bored.

As for why things inevitably go sideways, he has many things to say:  

Political blunders are repeated, because they are the expression of human nature. Successes are not repeated because they are the gift of history.

History? It only

shows that man's good ideas are accidental and his mistakes methodical.

Which is why

None of the high eras of history have been planned. The reformer can only be credited with the errors.

Ultimately,  

Intelligent optimism is never faith in progress, but hope for a miracle.

What can we conclude from the above quotations? That nothin's gonna turn out alright short of a vertical ingression, to which we look forward with great pessimism and good humor.  

Back to the question of what interferes with things turning out okay, man isn't just intelligence; rather, he is also will and sentiment, which is where the real trouble starts. Intelligence can only go so wrong without other non-cognitive factors coming into play.

For example, it seems that man has an in-built need for "distinction," or for being seen as special. Everyone wants to be "alpha" in some way, even if it is in a sneaky, passive-aggressive, or trivial way. 

For example, regarding the latter, in my own head I am Alpha (long form) Blogger, all others being number two, or lower. If I didn't have this delusion to cling to, how could I do this year after year?

Now, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the desire for distinction. Indeed, it can be quite adaptive in a social context, so long as the distinction being sought is honorable and virtuous. 

For example, the founders were positively neurotic about being seen as disinterested and above reproach, and prickly if not paranoid about their reputations. It's surprising that more of them didn't die in duels.

The point is, mere intelligence isn't nearly enough to ensure one's distinction. After all, half of the population possesses above average intelligence, and who wants to be lumped in with them? 

Above average intelligence is not sufficient to secure any kind of distinction. In order for it to do the job, one would have to be at least two standard deviations above average, placing one in the top two percent. 

To be on the safe side, you might want to be three standard deviations above, which puts you in the top .1%. But then, these latter folks often come with a lot of baggage, for example, an obsession with pigeons.

Nowadays, in search of distinction, millions of people are educated beyond their intelligence, which leads to a host of societal problems, i.e., of stupid people making important decisions over our lives. It is enough to say Brandon. Saying Kamala is redumbdant. Adding Tim is superfoolous.

It should go without saying that education has no effect on IQ, which will remain as low or as high as it is, the rest being puffery, ornamentation, misdirection, and fraud, as in the Wizard of Oz: 

"Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls the earth or slinks through the slimy seas has a brain.... 

"Back where I come from we have universities, seats of great learning -- where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts -- and with no more brains than you have... But! They have one thing you haven't got! A diploma!

"Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Universitatus Committeeatum e plurbis unum, I hereby confer upon you the honorary degree of Th.D."

"Th.D.?"

"Yeah -- that... that's Dr. of Thinkology!"

Jill Biden, for example, is a typical Doctor of Thinkology, pathetically hungry for the distinction of being called "Doctor," as if this can mask the absence of a brain.

Speaking of movies and brainless but credentialed mediocrities, in his newsletter, Rob Henderson recalls the opening scene of the film The Social Network, when

the Mark Zuckerberg character asks, referring to the Harvard student body, “How do you distinguish yourself in a population of people who all got 1600 on their SATs?”

"Victimhood narratives," says Henderson, "seem to be the answer elite colleges have provided." In fact, unless you are a victim, intelligence is neither here nor there. One must be able to say: I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people have victimized me! 

Henderson recounts the story of a particular student who lied about her background, describing herself 

as a first-generation, low-income, former foster youth in her application to the Ivy League university and, later, the Rhodes Scholarship. After two investigations..., the university is reportedly withholding Fierceton’s degree and she has subsequently withdrawn from the scholarship.

In short, not only do elite universities "incentivize victimhood," but college advisors recommend applicants to "sell your pain." Thus, there is a race to the bottom, with students climbing under each other  to prove they are worthy of the distinction of being authentically pathetic.

A contemporary remake of The Wizard of Oz would have to feature a character who longs to be a genuine victim:

"Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity.... 

"Back where I come from we have universities, seats of great indoctrination -- where humans of every conceivable race and inconceivable gender go to become great victims. And when they come out, they feel deeply aggrieved -- and with no more oppression than you've experienced... But! They have one thing you haven't got! A diploma!

"Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me, I hereby confer upon you the honorary degree of Vh.D."

"Vh.D.?"

"Yeah -- that... that's Dr. of VictimHood!"

All of this is a transparent inversion of Christian civilization, at the foundation of which is the most consequential victim in history. The entire culture of victimhood is only intelligible in the context of the deep structure of Christianity. It is not so much that we are "post-Christian," rather, in the midst of a Christianity turned upside-down.

To be continued...

Ensouled Down the River of Time

If Noam Chomsky is a genius linguist, it wouldn't be the first time a gifted intellectual also suffered from delusions -- for example, Isaac Newton and his alchemy fixation, or Gödel and his paranoia, or Tesla and his pigeon obsession.

But let's keep this party polite, and never let truth out of our sight. Truth is true even if it's said by an America-hating terror-supporting utensil.

Spitzer certainly keeps things polite, relying on Chomsky's linguistic theories without so much as a peep about his extracrackpotular political wacktivities. 

Do the soulless prove the existence of the soul?

I don't know if I'd put it that way, but privations in general are parasitic on some positive good.

Where there's smoke there's fire, and where there are shadows there is light. In this sense, where there are progressives there is truth lurking nearby. 

Is it enough to prove the soul's immaterial capacities to prove the existence of the soul? Whatever we call it -- for example, (¶) -- it does routinely do things that that matter could never do, for example, the self-reflection whereby it is both observer and observed. 

Again, we can teach sign language to primates, but there is no evidence that they can think conceptually or communicate abstract ideas, whereas this is what humans effortlessly do. Similarly, they might connect two words that are immediately adjacent to one another, but cannot relate more distant connections, as we are doing in this and every other post.  

The question is whether the gap between animal and human is truly unbridgeable, i.e., an ontological distinction, or one that can be explained by natural selection?

Eh, we've long since dismissed the latter possibility. As we've been arguing for a couple of decades, there is ontological discontinuity from the bottom up, but continuity from the top down. Chomsky & Co. "hypothesize that the gap between humans and nonhumans is fundamentally biological," but then they would, wouldn't they?

As the science currently stands, "this is a major problem, which is currently inexplicable through physical-biological processes." I say it cannot in principle be solved via science, because the soul is irreducible to anything less.

But if the soul didn't evolve via natural selection, how and when did it get here? In the book, I suggested that it was a sudden occurrence that happened -- if I recall correctly -- as recently as 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, whereas Spitzer puts it at 50,000 to 65,000 years ago. No doubt the date of the third Big Bang (into Mind) will be increasingly fine-tuned as more evidence comes to light.

Let me fast forward in the book, as Spitzer presents his evidence for the third bang in an appendix. Again, given the soul's existence, "when did we get it?," i.e., "when did the nonevolutionary, transphysical event of the soul's creation occur for the first time?"

Examining only the biological evidence, we can trace things back to a Miss Mitochondrial Eve and a Mr. Y Chromosome Adam. Although these two lived at roughly the same time and came from a similar neighborhood, there's no way of establishing if they knew each other (in the biblical sense, wink wink). In fact,

Though they may have had acquaintance with each other, it is by no means certain -- and seems quite unlikely (given the large region and time spans involved).

Now, looking at the trans-biological evidence, it hardly matters whether these two got together, since they lived some 150,000 to 200,000 years ago, whereas evidence of the transphysical soul doesn't burst upon the stage until much later, again, 50 to 65 thousand years ago. 

Anthropologists call this "the great leap forward," even though natural selection is a gradual process that doesn't allow for such leaps, much less vertical ones. 

As I said in the book, Homo sapiens does nothing novel for a couple hundred thousand years, and then bang, more advanced technology, mathematical discovery, representational art, music, sewing, seafaring, awareness of the future, more sophisticated burial practices, and those lovely mancave paintings. Wha' happened?

In short, "Our first ensouled ancestor appeared on the earth." I suppose it's a bit like trying to remember back to when you and I became ensouled. It's something of a blur. I just woke up one day and there it was. 

Spitzer, bless his heart, also brings Gödel into the argument, since he proved that "human thinking is not based on a set of prescribed axioms, rules, or programs" and is indeed "beyond any program." 

Presumably this includes any genetic program -- I'll have to check with Robert Rosen -- but in any case "human intelligence is indefinitely beyond any axiomatic or program-induced intellect." It is

not only always beyond axioms, rules, and programs (to which artificial intelligence is limited) but also capable of genuinely originative creativity (that is, capable of thinking without deriving from or making recourse to any prior axioms, rules, or programs).

Much like the Creator who ensouled us and in whose image we are.

Say, those aren't pigeons, are they?

Circles Within Circles

It's circles all the way down. What about up? Seems to me that the lower epistemological circles must be fractals of the one big circle at the top. 

Somewhat paradoxically, we have to imagine a series of concentric circles, only instead of getting smaller as we approach the center, they get larger until infinitude is reached at Celestial Central. Conversely, the peripheral circle of matter would have to be the least capacious.

That was just a random outburst, but as one author says in The Philosophy of Charles Hartshorne,

In the last analysis all knowledge is circular; it is simply a question of who has the biggest circle. 

Yesterday we briefly alluded to the dynamic and open circularity of the immanent Trinity, which ex-centrically overflows into creation. To enclose existence in scientism or materialism or Darwinism is indeed to shrink things down to a comparatively tiny (and closed) circle, and why would anyone want to do that? 

In keeping with yesterday's post, it seems to me that the biggest imarginable circle would be an unrestricted desire to know ordered to an unrestricted act of intelligence. 

One could of course say that the latter cannot get any bigger, since it is already infinite and eternal. Nevertheless, from our side, it looks like the circle is always expanding.  

Let's get back to Science at the Doorstep to God and try knocking to see if anyone's home. Certainly the lights are on.

Knock knock.

Who's there?

An unrestricted desire to know who's there.

I AM.

I don't get it. 

Not sure I do either. Let's just move on.

Now, even if ∞ + 1 still equals ∞, we can nevertheless -- again, from our side -- posit a complementarity between science and metaphysics, the latter circle obviously enclosing the former. Moreover,

At this point, science has opened the door to the likelihood of a transphysical-transuniversal intelligent creative power whose nature is not fully known (Spitzer).

Science is enclosed in the circles of quantity and materiality, but 

If we do not fall prey to scientism, we may now enter another door to the realm of necessary truths through metaphysical method. 

Which is to say, leave the smaller circle for the larger, into a realm of truth that is "applicable to the whole of reality," not just to the empirical world at the periphery of the intelligible. 

Again, a complementarity between science and metaphysics can fill in a great many gaps inevitably left open by science -- for example, the gap between intelligence and intelligibility, which is more like an unbridgeable abyss if regarded from the perspective of materialism.

But instead of proceeding through this wide open door, the next chapter reverts back from metaphysics to science, reviewing all of the medical and scientific evidence of a transcendent soul, mainly from near death experiences (NDEs) during which the person is clinically dead (i.e., no brain activity, fixed dilated pupils, no gag reflex, and voting Democrat). 

Some of the stories are indeed remarkable, including those of people blind from birth who can see exactly what's going on around them during the NDE, and later describe it with perfect accuracy. 

The majority of people describe blissfully positive experiences during NDEs, but a significant minority undergo hellish ones. It would be nice to know if these are a result of hellish personalities, but Spitzer doesn't say. 

Despite their plausibility, it is difficult to know what to make of NDEs unless or until I personally undergo one. Nor am I in any rush to do so. Analogously, some people have taken psilocybin and come back convinced of the existence of God, and good for them, but I hesitate to venture down that path either.

The next chapter is more our style, going to the literally infinite -- and again unbridgeable -- gap between the lowest man and the highest ape. Spitzer shows that we cannot be "mere extensions of a bio-physical animal kingdom," but "are categorically distinct from other species." 

Here again, there are a lotta ins & outs, so I'll do my best to bottom line it for you. If we consider language, for example, the best a chimp can do is communicate via concrete, perceptual signs corresponding to, say, a banana. But they cannot abstract from this to the idea of "fruit," nor relate one higher order concept to another, something we easily do. 

Indeed, "about 3 percent of our words signify perceptual ideas, and about 97 percent, conceptual ideas" that are quite remote from images, instincts, or objects, or in other words, wholly immaterial. And

If the content of an act of awareness is transphysical, so also must be the act of awareness on which it depends. This act of awareness must therefore be substantially transphysical, implying a soul.

Concepts are abstract enough, but what about relations between concepts? These are even more remote from any material content, nor can one get there from any experience of the perceptual world. 

Again, this gap is unbridgeable, for "how could we have ever learned those higher-order concepts from the perceptual world? It is clearly impossible." If the capacity weren't already there, we could never have acquired it.

Which Spitzer describes as "the preexperiential conditions necessary for abstracting conceptual ideas (derived from the perceptual world)." 

Yada yada, there is simply no scientific explanation of the soul's capacities, because any such explanation presumes the conceptual capacities of the immaterial soul, speaking of larger and smaller circles.

There's much more, but this is as far as I've gotten in the book. Let's just say there must be a bridge over the abyss, only not from the bottom up, rather, the top down.