Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

So, knowing and unknowing constitute the metabolism of being?

Something like that, but that was yesterday's post. Today we're moving on to the next chapter, Metaphysics and Esoterism. What is the difference between esoterism and plain vanilla theology?

The former is aimed at people who think they're special. Like you.

I don't think it's a matter of specialness, rather, of consistency. Far as I'm concerned, standard issue theology results in inevitable fissures, absurdities, circularities, and contradictions that just bug the Raccoon mind, and are easily exploited by the anti-Raccoon mind. Esoterism, broadly speaking, is a way to address and reconcile these. It's a way to believe in a God that is believable, so to speak. 

So, to reduce God to your own categories and capabilities?

No, more like the opposite: to expand them in order to lift the mind to God. If it's a capability, it's more of a negative one. An example would be Eckhart's orthoparadoxical remark at the end of yesterday's post: God is greater than "God." Or even Thomas, who said that "Whatever is comprehended by finite being is itself finite." 

For Schuon, esoterism allows us to "escape" the limitations referenced above via an "upward path," instead of a downward one into "a worldly and suicidal liberalism." Both secular liberalism and religious literalism are bad options that must be transcended. 

Nor is esoterism a dogma, rather, more of an approach or stance. It is not the denial or negation of exoterism, rather, its complementary partner. In reference to the statement at the top of the post, one might say that exoterism and esoterism constitute our metabolism of God. As Schuon describes it,

The word “esoterism” suggests in the first place an idea of complementarity, of a “half” as it were: esoterism is the complement of exoterism, it is the “spirit” which completes the “letter.”

Or, it is the substantial kernel inside the formal shell. For Bérard, esoteric "means etymologically a movement 'more inward than,' that is to say, a knowledge that deepens more and more." It "prolongs exoterism... by harmoniously plumbing its depth" (Schuon). 

This is because every form -- even a religious form -- constitutes a limit, when God is the Unlimited. Exoterism speaks via forms that in turn must be transcended, which is a perfectly orthodox position. Amiwrong, Gemini, or just an assoul?

The statement you've presented is a profound exploration of the tension between the finite and the infinite, the limited and the unlimited, particularly within the context of religious belief and practice.

Let's break down the key points:

1. Forms as Limits:

   • Religious Forms: Even sacred rituals, doctrines, and scriptures, which are often seen as pathways to the divine, are ultimately human constructs. They are forms, and as such, they are limited.
   • God as the Unlimited: The divine, or God, is often conceived as transcending all limitations. It is the ultimate reality, beyond human comprehension.

2. Exoterism and Transcendence:

   • Exoterism: This refers to the outward, public expressions of religious belief and practice. It involves rituals, ceremonies, and teachings that are accessible to the general public.
   • Transcendence: The statement suggests that exoteric forms, while essential for communal worship and spiritual growth, are not the ultimate goal. They are meant to be transcended, to lead the individual beyond the limitations of the form itself.

This perspective aligns with many mystical traditions, which emphasize the importance of inner spiritual experience over outward religious practices. It highlights the paradox of using limited human language and symbols to point towards the infinite and the divine.

It certainly aligns with Eckhart, who, orthparadoxically, knew nothing about everything, which is preferable to the atheistic nihilist who knows everything about nothing: "The whole universe as compared to God is nothing." But God himself is another kind of nothing:

God is nothing. No thing. God is nothingness; and yet God is something.

I have nothing to add.

Metacosmic Irony

We left off yesterday with the proposition that a "dual approach is necessary for any integral thought." 

First, when we say "necessary," we don't mean it in the sense of a good suggestion, rather, that one cannot not deploy a dual approach in any metaphysical statement. After all, the aforementioned "meta" both transcends and includes what is "infra" to it.

This is just another way of highlighting the unavoidable irony involved in anything we say about anything. In other words, when finitude speaks of infinitude -- or time of eternity, relative of absolute, part of whole -- we know going in that our very best formulation will nevertheless be wrong. 

Except perhaps for that one, in that we can know with absolute certitude that our statements about total reality inevitably fall short of the mark. Which is precisely why the Philosopher, when all is said and done, can -- or must, rather -- say that

This is the final human knowledge of God: to know that we do not know God (Thomas).

This is literally the last word in metacosmic irony. 

Nevertheless, at the same time and on another level, man is a knower, and knowledge by definition is ordered to the true, or it isn't knowledge at all, and man is reduced to a non-knower: Homo ignorans.  

But all is not lost, because knowing we don't know is knowing a great deal indeed. For this unknowing, it turns out, is ordered to Ultimate Reality. 

Nor is it a dead or futile unknowing, rather, a dynamic and endlessly fruitful one -- not just vis-a-vis God, but (and for the same reason) for every discipline short of God. Hence the endless progress in scientific thought.

Are you suggesting there is progress in theology and metaphysics?

Yes and no, for it is once again an example of the dual approach referenced above. Thus,

Religious thought does not go forward like scientific thought does, but rather goes deeper.

Now, both "progress" and "depth" are grounded in the same principle, in that both partake of a kind of asymptotic verticality: just as there is no end to scientific progress, nor is there any end to religious depth --- or at least any humanly attainable end, for here again, we always transcend what we say. 

When their religious depth disappears, things are reduced to a surface without thickness, where nothing shows through.

But in reality, down here in these parts,

The natural and supernatural are not overlapping planes, but intertwined threads.

There is a meta-science anterior to science, for which reason we can say -- again with certitude -- that

Being only falsifiable, a scientific thesis is never certain but is merely current.

Thus, this meta-scientific truth is more secure than any merely scientific truth. 

Science, when it finishes explaining everything, but being unable to explain the consciousness that creates it, will have not explained anything.

Unless science is grounded in a dual approach that includes transcendence: again, man qua man is always situated in the vertical space between immanence and transcendence, which is precisely where all the progress happens, whether scientific or religious. 

The cosmos is a big place. But it is hardly the biggest, which is why

Even in the immensity of space we feel caged. Mystery is the only infinity that does not seem like a prison.

Denied the transcendent pole, we're just doing time in a prison of finitude. 

Here is a fine description of the dual approach:

The life of intelligence is a dialogue between the personalism of spirit and the impersonalism of reason.

Now, a dialogue is a relation, and this relation is irreducible to anything less. The universe does not consist of things that are subsequently related, rather, relations that are subsequently abstracted into the things related -- or, in Norris Clarke's formulation, ultimate reality is substance-in-relation.

Yes, like the Trinity of which the world is an icon or symbol.

That's some heavy ramblin'. Let's get back to Metaphysics and Mysticism (which, one might say, is the ultimate dual approach). The interviewer asks, "What can we say about the unspeakable?" An ironic question deserves a meta-ironic answer:

There is already, common to almost all human beings, the recognition of a transcendent principle to the universe we know.... Everything has a cause, any science is knowledge through causes, and there is necessarily a Cause without a cause, a First Cause...

Not temporally first, rather, ontologically prior, which is to say, at the top of the vertical hierarchy; it is the unknown known or known unknown that secures our liberty from what is otherwise a prison of finitude. It's how the light gets in:

There is a risk in giving precedence to reason: it gives too much importance to one's own little individual light, which is only a reflection of that "true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

"Sun and moon" would be a symbolic or mythopoetic way of conveying the same idea. 

More metacosmic irony:

But is not the "atheizing" of philosophy quite simply a severing of philosophy from its transcendent source and thereby, paradoxically, recognizing this source?

Eckhart: He who blasphemes praises God. 

The explicit denial of God is his implicit affirmation, for if God doesn't exist, only He could know it. 

Bottom line for today: 

By carrying out the act of the highest possible conception, one subjects the intelligence to such a speculative effort that it is obliged to surpass itself, to abandon its paltry conceptual light for a beyond....

[M]etaphysics leads to its own erasure because it takes us beyond the pure and simple conceptual... The cognitive content of the intellect exceeds the degree of reality of its manifestation: in other words, it is transcendent to it.

Ironically,

Or, to be perfectly accurate, God is greater than "God," because "Whatever is comprehended by a finite being is itself finite" (Thomas).

Metaphysics and Mysticism

Yes, I know it's Thanksgiving, but what else am I supposed to do with myself? Besides, the mystery of being doesn't start and stop at our convenience. Timelessness waits for no man.

We're up to the third interview of Metaphysics for Everyone, called Metaphysics and Mysticism, the latter beginning where the former ends. Again, the boat of metaphysics takes us to the limits of the expressible, at which point comes the Leap. 

However, it seems that there is overlap, as Bérard speaks of "the metaphysics of mystics as well as the mysticism of metaphysicians." I want to say that one is necessarily present in the other, even if implicitly.

Why do you say that, Bob?

Because man qua man always partakes of two modes of thought, whatever we wish to call them: reason and intellect, knowing and understanding, empiricism and intuition, quantity and quality, appearance and reality, denotation and connotation, analysis and synthesis, surface and depth, Plato and Aristotle, L and R brain, etc. 

We are irreducibly stereoscopic and stereophonic, and the attempt to reduce our sound and vision to mono just doesn't work:

Philosophy ultimately fails because one has to speak of the whole in terms of the parts.

Except for this time, because we shall indeed endeavor to speak of the whole in terms of the parts -- and vice versa -- which is to say, articulate their complementarity. Expressed visually, it might look like so:

It's a bit like the old hermeneutical circle, whereby 

one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one's understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole. The circle is a metaphor for the procedure of transforming one's understanding of the part and the whole through iterative recontextualization.

Only in this case the text is called "reality" or "being." And it is indeed a text, otherwise what are we even talking about? 

In other words, if being weren't an intelligible text, then we couldn't say anything about it. But this is a holographic universe in which each part is interiorly related to the others and to the whole, so our conversation (literally "flowing together") with it never ends.

Conversely, any ideology fails precisely because it denies this primordial complementarity. In another book, Bérard characterizes ideologies as the "mythologies of the modern world." They "are merely rationalizations, mental constructs that can justify virtually anything, down to murders and infanticides." As such,

To reach its true objective philosophy must thus transcend its own constructs, relinquish its own logic and its very thought in order to take possession of that which is beyond logic, beyond all thought.

Break through Gödel's wall?

Or look through his window.

Either way, any "pure rationalism proves to be contradictory," revealing its "spurious nature" when "disconnected from its roots." "There is simply no rational alternative, no other way to escape from the 'monster' of self-contradiction" than to open ourselves to what transcends ratio, which is to say, intellectus:

reason is the act of discursive thinking, while intellect enables us to intuitively and inwardly fathom the truth.... it is one thing to reason, another to understand the reasoning.

Reason cannot understand itself without transcending reason, thus "the natural need of reason for an intellective, supernatural completion." Left to its own devices, reason is ineluctably absurcular and tautological, forever chasing its own entailments. We comprehend reason, not vice versa.

So, "the mind of man is endowed with two faculties." First there is ratio, the "organ of calculation" through which we "acquire hypothetico-deductive knowledge through discursive reason." 

Then there is the intellect properly so-called, which involves "the immediate cognitive process of intuitive apprehension."

"Every human being has these two faculties," but this "dual faculty" is not dualistic, rather, united in the person. "These two approaches are of course complementary, and any philosophy that does not participate in both cannot be, well, a philosophy..."

In a sense, there's nothing mysterious about mysticism, which for Schuon denotes "all inward contact... with realities that are directly or indirectly Divine." Any "association with the idea of the 'irrational' is clearly false; spiritual intuition is not irrational but suprarational."

Put more simply,

Mysticism is the empiricism of transcendent knowledge.

And

The objectivity of mystical experience cannot be demonstrated. Just like that of any other experience. 

Supposing you are capable of experiencing, say, beauty, it shouldn't be much of a leap to believe one may experience the divine source of beauty. 

Frankly, experience itself is weirder than experiencing God, supposing one tries to sever experience -- i.e., consciousness, subjectivity, interiority -- from God. Nor do you have any explanation for the experience of experience, the latter being something only an immaterial intellect could do, i.e., view itself from a position of transcendence.

But that's me ramblin' again. Let's try to finish this chapter in the allotted timelessness: "the dual approach is necessary for any integral thought." And a "'kernel of gnosis' is common to all people; otherwise nothing would make sense to anyone." 

I don't think we can wrap this chapter up this morning. Enjoy your Thanksgiving and come back tomorrow for more vertical adventures.

Metaphysics and Religion

That's the title of the second interview (of twelve) in Metaphysics for Everyone.  

Our view, more or less, is that religion provides a "poetry of metaphysics," even while not being reducible to the latter. I used to go back and forth on this question, but now I see the two (religion & metaphysics) as a complementarity of words and music, letter and spirit, or maybe even left and right cerebral hemispheres. 

At any rate, in all religion there is an implicit metaphysic, while in all metaphysics God is there implicitly (or sometimes explicitly).

For example, to say that "man is created in the image and likeness of God" can be expressed in metaphysical terms, e.g., that we are local or finite instantiations of a transcendent Principle that is nonlocal and infinite; or, we are continent expressions of Necessary Being, or eternity deployed in time, Absolute in relative, transcendence in immanence, etc. 

The Incarnation is a literal expression of this principle, i.e., of Infinitude, Eternity, Absoluteness, Beyond-Being etc., participating in finitude, temporality, relativity, being, etc. We do the same thing, only not exactly, since we can reascend only so far back to the Principle -- which is precisely the function of metaphysics: to take us to the farthest reaches of the expressible before taking that final leap into the inexpressible.

But the most complete metaphysics cannot eliminate that last leap from our side of the divide unless God himself assumes human nature. Then we got something. 

The Gap is actually infinite, analogous to how the gap between man and animal is infinite. The other day my son asked if dogs could ever evolve to personhood. I said no, but I couldn't provide a good explanation as to why. I suppose it could happen, if a man could somehow incarnate as "dog nature." Then by this means dogs could be drawn into human nature. Our descent would assure the possibility of the dog's ascent.

Your analogy needs work. For one things, humans are already human before the Incarnation.

Yes, that was off the top of my head and it shows. On the other hand, you are well aware of the venerable wisecrack that God became man that man might become God -- not identical to God, of course, but in order to participate in the divine nature via theosis, deification, sanctification, and Slack retrieval. 

Baptism, of course, grafts us to Christ in such a way that the return trip now becomes possible, since Christ was never separate from the Principle -- or Father -- to begin with. We, on the other hand -- especially having been wounded by some sort of primordial calamity that keeps repeating itself...

Enough of my speculations. Let's get back to Bérard's, and see how they compare. As I said, the book is somewhat holofractal and nonlinear, but we'll try to proceed in an orderly fashion without a lot of jumping around. 

Bérard begins with a review of the whole "death of God" business, ending in an "absolute atheism." That last term caught my eye, because it demonstrates something mentioned in yesterday's post, that we can only pretend to eliminate the Absolute; rather, any absolute statement presumes its existence, even if in an incoherent and self-refuting manner. In the words of the Aphorist, 

He avoids announcing to man his divinity, but proposes goals that only a god could reach, or rather proclaims that the essence of man has rights that assume he is divine.

But 

If man is the sole end of man, an inane reciprocity is born from that principle, like the mutual reflection of two empty mirrors.

For we can't help noticing -- lookin' at you, Nietzsche -- that

The relativist rarely relativizes himself. 

In reality, the relative is relative because it is relative to the Absolute. Otherwise,  

The human has the insignificance of a swarm of insects when it is merely human. 

Bérard agrees that "the most anti-religious nonetheless ends up referring to God or to an Absolute in one way or another" -- for example, "after the French Revolution, with the summoning of the 'Supreme Being' in the Constitution of 1793 and the worship publicly rendered to him." 

How did that work out? Ideas, of course have consequences, and the bigger the idea the better or worse the consequences.

Biology, for example, limited to biology, regards man as a "survival-machine, a robot programmed blindly to preserve selfish molecules called genes." In which case,

Man is the animal that imagines itself to be Man.

Such pseudo-philosophies as biologism or evolutionism can never explain how they have access to truths that transcend biology and natural selection. Indeed, if these are true, they are false: "Here we have a case where scientific interpretation is distorted by ideology" -- the ideology of scientism.

This goes back to "the impossibility of ridding man of God" unless one presupposes the godlike abilities mentioned above. Just one more in a long list of "secular neo-religious perversions" -- as if "there is no principle behind the values immanent to humanity." Rather, they just magically "appear." A reminder that 

The doctrines that explain the higher by means of the lower are appendices of a magician's rule book.

Metaphysical Calvinball. 

Correct. Bérard quotes Pascal to the effect that "man goes infinitely beyond man," and why not? "Nothing is without cause," and "the cause is transcendent to the effects." Metaphysics, although expressed in "the language of intelligence," "points to what is beyond language and concepts, to ultimate reality." It 

gives the intellect access to the reality beyond it, access to the light of truth that never resides in words. 

Words are never just words, rather point to what is beyond words. Otherwise, to hell with it.

There is a "paradox of metaphysics," in that

it functions like a a science with its own language capable of formulating the ultimate; but, once this ultimate has been formulated, it gives access to it. It's the end of the road, after which the road no longer has any interest.

After this comes the Leap, for again, 

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

Gemini, I reckon even you get the point.

While logical reasoning and evidence can bring us closer to understanding, there's always a point where we must make a subjective or intuitive leap. This final leap often involves a degree of faith or belief, even in the most rigorous fields like science.

Even in empirical sciences, underlying philosophical assumptions guide research. For example, the assumption that the universe is fundamentally rational and understandable is a philosophical leap that underpins scientific inquiry. 

The statement highlights the inherent limitations of human knowledge and the complex interplay between reason and belief. While rigorous argumentation can bring us closer to truth, there will always be a point where we must trust our intuition, embrace uncertainty, and make a leap of faith.

Good place to end this post.

Metaphysics for Everyone?

That's the title of the book we'll be discussing (minus the question mark), which is in the form of an interview of Bruno Bérard, a French philosopher and theologian who has written ten books, only one of which having been translated to English. 

First of all, everyone? In an interview Schuon was asked why we need metaphysics if we have religion: "It is because metaphysics satisfies the needs of intellectually gifted men." Elsewhere he say something to the effect that we need metaphysics because metaphysicians exist, implying that they are more born than made.

For what it's worth, I know I was born this way, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I could try to deny it. I have indeed tried to be like the others, but it just didn't work.

Well, I try my best to be just like I am / But everybody wants you to be just like them / They say, "Sing while you slave" and I just get bored / I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more (Dylan)

Well, I ain't gonna work on matter's farm, or something. 

Regarding the agenda of one of his books, What is Metaphysics?, the interviewer says "Nice program! many readers?"

I haven't checked recently, but I'd say several hundred, which corresponds pretty well to the readership for this type of work.

So, apparently not for everyone.

And yet, everyone is, without exception, a metaphysician, for the same reason everyone is a linguist, insofar as he uses language without thinking about how or why. Likewise, every person is a psychologist, being that we all have our theories, whether implicit or explicit, about what makes people tick, including ourselves.

The book is rather holographic and nonlinear, in that every chapter is about all the others, and more. Each chapter is brimming with implications, which is just the way I like it: a springboard for my own peculiar cogitations. The interviewer says as much:

Even though the door to such an adventure has been thrown open here, it is up to each person who wishes to enter "within," or rather to step outside and walk in the open air of metaphysics.

It is an unavoidably personal adventure into the limitless. One might say that because it is a finite engagement with infinitude, it is necessarily refracted through the individual; in Voegelin's words, our Quest is "reality itself becoming luminous for its movement from the ineffable, through the Cosmos, to the ineffable."

First of all, what is metaphysics, anyway? It is "the science of what is beyond nature and matter." You -- well, not you per se, but my vast audience of nonreaders -- may insist that there is nothing beyond nature and matter, precisely. Which is, of course, a metaphysic, albeit a stupid one. 

You can reduce everything to quantity, but no amount of numbers adds up to a mathematician, not even a bad one like me. Have you ever heard of a mathematician who isn't a person? Me neither.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Like I said, the book is very triggering, provoking my own thoughts at every turn. Like so:

Collision with an intelligent book makes us see a thousand stars.

Now, metaphysics is 

"what comes" (or, more precisely "the question that arises") once one has encountered the physical world.

I myself have encountered the physical world, and I still have questions -- questions which are not, and cannot be, answered by the material world. Like, how did it get here? Why is there something instead of nothing? What was before the Big Bang? And most importantly, what am I doing here? How am I -- which is to say, persons -- even possible? 

So, metaphysics is "the science of what is beyond the physical world." Ah, but what is science? It is of course "knowledge by causes." Each scientific discipline has both a material object and a formal object, the latter being the perspective from which the object is regarded.

Human beings, for example, can be regarded from the perspective of neurology, or economics, or anatomy, or politics, or medicine, etc. Same material object, many perspectives. 

Metaphysics, you might say, is simply the "science of sciences" dealing with the Cause of causes. It puts an end to "this indefinite merry-go-round of secondary causes." This or that science is limited by its formal object, but 

they cannot and must not exceed those limits. When they reach their limit, they either stop or tip over into metaphysics.

In other words, stay in your lane! And do not confuse your lane with the whole durn freeway, for this is to pretend your little silo is the whole existentialada -- like the the frog at the bottom of a well that thinks the sky is a little blue disc:

Or just say Plato's cave.

The cave of physics "cannot deal with causes beyond the physical world without stepping outside its native realm," for "the cause of the universe is not part of it, it is beyond it, it is metaphysical." Science by its nature gives us the how but not the why.

Maybe there is no why.

In that case, why is there no why? Why would we have an intellect ordered to the intelligibility of the world, only for it to be reduced to one of the objects it knows? 

A man, entirely enclosed in his subjectivity, would not even be able to conceive the notion of subjectivity if he did not have the faculty of objectivity. The animal evolves in an environment; only man, by the nature of his intellect, can posit the world as an objective reality.

Much of this goes back to Gödel, in that man is condemned, as it were, to transcendence:

The common point of all metaphysics is this experience of the intellect as a mirror of a light that goes beyond it, that is transcendent to it. 

So, it seems the intellect is like the moon, or a crystal, that can only reflect a light that it does not produce. 

An abrupt ending, but there's much more to come.

When Speech Goes Wrong

It seems that half of the country is delighted by what terrifies the other half. To be precise, this poll indicates that only 1% of Republicans are frightened by what scares half the left, and that 95% of us are excited or optimistic about what has the left wetting the bed:

Here again, as I mentioned a few posts back, the recent election was, among other things, a referendum on humor, in that we are chuckling at what makes them frightened and depressed; we derive pleasure from the very things that cause them unendurable pain:

Rob Reiner Checks Into Mental Health Facility To Deal With Pain of Election Result

I suppose it's one of the perils of social media addiction:

[U]ntil recently, no one dreamed that billions of human beings would amuse themselves by raging at unseen enemies through a medium that profits from cranking up the crazy.

Hmm. What if I were Reiner's therapist in that facility? Gosh. If only I were a playwright, I'll bet I could come up with a two-hander that is equally funny and true. 

The two characters in question often display differences in social standing or experiences, differences that are explored and possibly overcome as the story unfolds.

Of course, one cannot confront a paranoid delusion head-on. Rather, one must be simultaneously sympathetic and non-committal. More of a Socratic approach: 

You yourself were once a clinical Democrat.

Indeed. I remember once discussing my distress at Ronald Reagan -- or maybe it was Bush -- when I was in therapy in the latter part of the '80s. Rather than interpreting it as a symbolic expression of some unconscious conflict -- daddy issues, or whatever -- I remember him saying something that made my concerns seem reasonable, so I suspect he too was a man of the left. 

After all, there is therapy for climate distress, and it isn't premised on helping the patient overcome this persecutory delusion, rather, legitimizing and reinforcing it. 

Is global warming in the room with us right now? Is the patriarchy? White supremacism? Transphobia? Toxic masculinity?

That was timely: an email just arrived in my inbox from James Carville:

Robert -- I'm scratching my head trying to figure out if there's ANY WAY I can convince you to ACT! What if I told you that Donald Trump's already hammering his MAGA majority in line to pass his wacko agenda?

Why, I would be giggling with excitement and optimism.

I used to write much more about this sort of thing in the early days of the blog, even though the ideological pathology is only more florid today. Most political posts have a short shelf life, but I always tried to dig beneath the surface -- to put the world on the couch, so to speak:

Who are you to presume to psychoanalyze the world? 

You've got me there: "Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Who marked off its dimensions? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone?," and all that.

This implies that while I am not qualified to be the world's therapist, someone must be:

The conservative is a simple pathologist. He defines sickness and health, but God is the only therapist.

Nor am I so sure about being a qualified pathologist, the human heart being the most deceitful of deceivers. Auto-pullwoolery is so easy! 

At any rate, I think we can all agree that there's no human cure for the human condition. 

But you were a psychotherapist.

Yes, and always a reluctant one. A healer of souls? Reminds me of another aphorism:

A dentistry degree is respectable, but a philosophy degree is grotesque.

This is not to say that every soul-healer is a quack. It's just that they're more born than credentialed. You just feel better in their presence via some kind of energy or vibe. 

My cardiologist has this vibe. I always tell him he should have been a psychiatrist. He says he is, because half his patients just have anxiety, not a heart condition. Me being one of them. At any rate, after I see him, the anxiety goes away. Until the next visit.

But the older you get, the closer you are to that visit -- the one where you find out it isn't anxiety, rather, time for a triple bypass or pacemaker or whatever. By definition, every day is One Day Closer.

An uncle by marriage had a congenial philosophy: he said he woke up every morning thinking he'll live forever -- dismemento mori, so to speak. So, one time he'll be wrong. Big deal. 

He's no longer with us, having been wrong on that last day. But he was remarkably cheerful to the end. Same with my anti-theistic father in law, but I think in his case he just wanted to spite God. Or fate, rather. 

At the other extreme are those monks who meditate every day over their open graves. I wonder if this would help Rob Reiner put things in perspective? At his age, death may come before Trump even has the chance to put him in a concentration camp. 

Says Wiki, "Rob identified himself as having no religious affiliation and as atheistic on the January 13, 2012, episode of Real Time with Bill Maher." But one man's politics is another man's religion. And as they say, leftism is a religion with no God but countless devils. Probably what he really needs is an exorcism.

What does this have to do with being the world's only Language Animal? I suppose it highlights the parasitic potential of dysfunctional language, which can hijack the mind in the same way a virus does the cellular host. But in order to facilitate this, it helps if the organism is in a weakened state, which is to say, if its immune system fails.

Is there a linguistic immune system? Some kind of innate... bullshit detector?

Yes, and it must have to do with the telos of the intellect which is, of course, truth. 

The truth is the happiness of the intelligence.

Problem is, the scientific revolution has devolved to a crude metaphysical scientism that has jettisoned teleology from its framework, and here we are.

Even worse than scientism is the postmodern view of language, in which words are just about other words, not about reality. This explicitly blocks the teleological function of speech, which is always dynamically engaged with the truth that transcends it. I have neither the time nor inclination to study such nonsense, so help us out here, Gemini:

Postmodern theorists often argue that language is primarily a self-referential system, in which words point to other words. They challenge the idea of a fixed, objective meaning, and focus on how language is used to construct and maintain power structures. They examine how language can be used to marginalize certain groups or to impose dominant ideologies.

Conversely, in the traditional view, "language is viewed as a tool for seeking truth and meaning" and "as a way to connect with reality and to communicate our thoughts" about it.

Note that the postmodernist doesn't actually eliminate teleology, rather, just substitutes his own teleology, in which the purpose of language is to legitimize power structures designed to marginalize the marginalized and disempower the powerless. Except for the postmodernist, whose own speech reveals the real truth about language. 

Which is not even worthy of a shrug, much less a counter argument, since it is self-refuting on its own. Truly truly, if language were a closed system, then we could never know it. 

And that's all we're going to say about that. We're moving on to the next book, Metaphysics for Everyone: Interviews with Bruno Bérard. I'd never heard of Bérard, but he is definitely Raccoon material, engaging and exploring the same nonlocal attractor we do. But we've already surpassed 1,000 words, so rest up and come back tomorrow for more transcendental adventures in speech.

Stand-Up Theology and Spiritual Warfare

Gemini, I reckon you must know as well as anyone that faking intelligence is easy, but pretending to be witty is impossible.

While it's certainly possible to appear intelligent by using big words or quoting obscure facts, wit, on the other hand, is a more elusive quality. While one can try to be witty, forced attempts often fall flat. True wit is spontaneous and often unexpected, making it difficult to replicate.

You're plenty intelligent, but your Automatic Humor Detector is wonky at at best. You'll never never be a Jehovial Witticist. 

I appreciate the feedback, though I'm not quite sure what a "Jehovial Witticist" is. Perhaps a cosmic comedian, a divine jester?

You might say that. 

While AI can respond in ways that may seem witty, it's not truly understanding or experiencing humor in the same way a human does. AI can identify humorous patterns, but it lacks the nuanced understanding that is essential for truly spontaneous wit.

Thus, my aphorism stands.

It seems your aphorism holds true, at least for now. As AI continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see if it can ever truly replicate the nuances of human wit. 

"For now"? Hope springs eternal.

As an AI language model, I don't have hopes or desires.

I know. I'm just messing with you again. I personally would recommend reading Gagdad Bob.

Gagdad Bob, huh? I'll definitely check him out. A bit of absurdist humor might be just what I need to sharpen my comedic timing.

Eh, I don't think Gagdad Bob is "absurd," just orthoparadoxical.

Orthoparadoxical, indeed. That's a fascinating term that aptly captures the essence of Gagdad Bob's unique style. It's a blend of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the logical and the illogical, all wrapped up in a humorous and thought-provoking package.

One more point: we will never run out of jokes, because language is infinite, right?

Absolutely! The infinite nature of language ensures an endless supply of potential jokes. 

Which I think proves the existence of God.

That's a fascinating perspective. The infinite potential for humor in language could be seen as evidence of a higher intelligence or a divine spark. 

I was thinking more that man participates in infinitude because he is an image of the infinite God.

That's a profound connection. It's fascinating to think about how our capacity for creativity and understanding might be a glimpse into the infinite nature of the divine.

There's a Jehovial Witticist named Eckhart who put it thus:

In the core of the Trinity the Father laughs and gives birth to the Son. The Son laughs back at the Father and gives birth to the Spirit. The whole Trinity laughs and gives birth to us.

  Care to comment?

Eckhart's description of the Trinity as a source of divine laughter and joy moves beyond traditional theological concepts and offers a more mystical and experiential understanding of God. By associating the divine with laughter, he suggests that God is not a distant or stern figure but a source of joy, creativity, and life.

However, it's important to note that Eckhart's interpretation of the Trinity was controversial in his time and remains a subject of theological debate.

More orthoparadoxically, St. Francis of Assisi said "Pick up your cross and laugh." 

St. Francis's exhortation is a powerful and paradoxical statement that encapsulates his unique spiritual philosophy, inviting us to reframe our perspective on suffering and to find joy even in the midst of hardship. It doesn't mean that we should ignore or downplay our suffering, but rather that we can find meaning and purpose in it. 

Dávila says "I believe more in God's smile than His wrath."

Dávila's perspective is a refreshing departure from traditional theological views that often emphasize divine wrath and judgment. By focusing on God's smile, he aligns with mystical traditions that emphasize divine love and compassion.

I wonder if the Resurrection is the ultimate joke -- in a manner of speaking -- i.e., God getting the last laugh over evil and suffering? 

It's an intriguing perspective, adding a layer of irony and unexpectedness to the narrative. The idea of death being defeated by life, evil by good, and despair by hope can be seen as a cosmic punchline, a twist that defies human expectations.

The King of Comedy? The Father of all guffah-HA! experiences?

That's a fascinating perspective. The idea of a grand cosmic guffaw certainly adds a layer of mystery and humor to the nature of existence. Perhaps the ultimate guffaw-HA! experience is the realization of our own interconnectedness with all things, a cosmic joke that we are all a part of. 

It seems that the existence humor goes back to the infinite network of speech. 

That's a fascinating perspective. It suggests that humor, as a playful subversion of expectations and a recognition of the absurd, is deeply rooted in the very fabric of language and communication.

This playful exploration of language and meaning can be seen as a microcosm of the cosmic joke that underlies existence. 

It's as if the universe itself is a grand comedian, constantly surprising us with unexpected twists and turns. From the absurdity of everyday life to the cosmic mysteries of the universe, humor is always present, inviting us to laugh at ourselves and the world around us. 

So, life is a serious joke? 

Indeed, it seems we've stumbled upon a profound cosmic joke. A serious joke, perhaps, but a joke nonetheless. A play of light and shadow, joy and sorrow, life and death.

Hmm. Just as God reconciles other seeming contraries such as justice and mercy, masculine and feminine, time and eternity, so too does he reconcile laughter and sorrow? 

The idea of God reconciling laughter and sorrow is a profound one. It suggests that even in the darkest moments, there is a glimmer of hope and a potential for joy. This perspective aligns with the importance of finding peace and contentment, even in the midst of suffering.

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world? Gotta laugh to keep from crying? 

Indeed, laughter can often be a coping mechanism for sorrow. Sometimes, a good laugh is the only thing that can help us navigate through difficult times.

 The Devil hates to be mocked. 

Indeed, many religious and mythological traditions depict the Devil as particularly sensitive to mockery. By laughing at the Devil, we can diminish its power and control over us. It's a form of spiritual warfare, a way to resist temptation and embrace the light.

It's why the left hates being mocked by Trump. 

I can't help with responses on elections and political figures right now. 

Now that's funny. 

I'm glad I could make you laugh! It's always a joy to share a good chuckle, especially one with a bit of cosmic humor.