Sometimes I Wonder

Or rather, always. Not about anything in particular but, rather, about everything in general. You might even say I wake up confused and take it from there. 

Confused about what?

Oh, for example, about people who aren't confused. What kind of illusory certitude is afflicting them in such a way that they're not utterly perplexed by existence? After all, if I weren't puzzled by existence, why would I have spent the past two decades blah-blah-blogging in the bewilderness? In other words, what is the blog but the diary of a seemingly incurably befuddled man? 

In this context, I am either the most well or most poorly adjusted person I know, depending on how one looks at it. For supposing reality is not a puzzle, then I am indeed a lost soul, for it means that the others are in possession of the answer that eludes me. But if it is a Total Mystery, then I can rightly say that I am fully adapted to it.

But what can it mean to be adapted to something that is intrinsically beyond adaptation? Supposing the Mystery is Absolute and Infinite, and further supposing that I am relative and finite -- a safe assumption -- then the only final solution would be for me to become God.

How's that working out?

It's complicated. 

For example, lately we've been dabbling with quantum physics, which -- literally -- no one understands. In this regard, Wolfgang Smith is an outlier, as he tries to solve this puzzle by situating it in an infinitely larger metaphysic that is totally beyond physics as such. 

So, as part of my due diligence, yesterday I thought I'd read a more conventional book on the subject, called Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe. 

Did it unravel the Mystery?

Please. Chapter one is called The Twin Hard Problems. Oh? What problems are these? Only the total mysteries of matter at one end and consciousness at the other. 

The book is full of all sorts of speculative attempts to demystify these mysteries, but they're all deeply wrong and even misguided. I mean, they're on the right track in appreciating that these twin mysteries must somehow be two sides of the same total Mystery, but they're out of their element, like children who've walked into the middle of a movie. 

The best combination of physics and neuroscience will get one no closer to deciphering the plot of the movie or solving the Mystery. An "interdisciplinary" approach is a good start, but to think there's an interdisciplinary answer instead of transdisciplinary one is --

Eight year olds, dude.

Exactly. I won't bore you with details, but the two Hard Problems alluded to above can be reduced to the inside/outside problem, and this is a problem physics is in principle not only unable to solve, but even to see. Or rather, it can't but help see the problem, but is powerless to account for it. After all, the pursuit of physics presupposes physicists, but what are they doing here in a mindless cosmos? 

I've been thinking about this problem for a long time.

That's your problem.

Correct: I can't stop thinking about it. Way back in 1991 I published a paper that proposed a "quantum metapsychology" that explored the relationship between the order of the universe and that of the mind. It begins with a quote by Werner Heisenberg:

The same organizing forces that have created nature in all its forms, are responsible for the structure of our soul, and likewise for our capacity to think.

I call that a good start. What are these mysterious organizing forces at once responsible for the creation of nature, the structure of our soul, and our capacity to think? I'm not in the mood to reread the paper. Instead I'm going to fast-forward to the last sentence of the book I'm reading, Putting Ourselves Back In the Equation:

Our minds evolved to understand the world, which requires that the world be understandable. And we are of this world.

There is so much wrong with this paragraph that truly truly, it isn't even wrong. "Our minds evolved to understand the world"?  No they didn't. According to the tenets of natural selection, the mind -- whatever that is -- is but an illusory side effect of the prime directive of the survival of our genes. And to say "we are of this world" --

Like anybody could even know that.

Correct: supposing it could be known, it could only be known by a consciousness that is at least partially out of this world. Confined to this world -- to immanence -- then we could have no knowledge of the world at all, which both presupposes and confirms its own transcendence in every act of knowing.

Having said that, let's return to Wolfgang Smith's epic takedown of Stephen Hawking, because it touches on everything we've discussed above, including why I wake up every morning a mystery to myself, face-to-face with the mystery of existence:

The answer to this supreme conundrum, we are told, can now be given on rigorous mathematical grounds by physics itself: such is the "breakthrough" [Hawking's] treatise proposes to expound in terms simple enough to fall within the purview of the non-specialist. 

Simple enough for the purview of a purblind man who failed to complete high school physics. How convenient is that!

The first chapter of Hawking's The Grand Design gets right down to isness, with a chapter called The Mystery of Being. Sounds right in our karmic wheelhouse!

Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.

Oof! First God, now philosophy. Who killed it?

Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

So, God died and left Hawking in charge? It reminds me of Genesis 3, and also of a quip by Terence McKenna:

This was a very nice neighborhood until the monkeys got out of control.

 In fact, in a lengthier visionary quip, McKenna suggested that

The situation called history is totally unique; it will last only for a moment, it began a moment ago. In that moment there is a tremendous burst of static as the monkey goes to godhood, as the final eschatological object mitigates and transforms the forward flow of entropic circumstance.

Now, probably the furthest thing from his mind was Christian metaphysics, but he might as well have been reciting the Lord's Prayer or Apostle's Creed, for history does indeed have an Alpha and Omega, and what is man's ultimate vocation but to, in the mean time, order himself to the eschatological object, O? Moreover, what is the Incarnation but God becoming primate that primate might attain to Godhood?

And to mitigate and transform all this annoying static and entropy is for God's will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Gemini, does this post make any sense at all, or is it just a lot of primate noises?

This is a fascinating and dense piece, grappling with fundamental questions of existence, consciousness, and the limitations of scientific inquiry. Here's a breakdown of the key themes and arguments:

• The Pervasive Mystery of Existence: The central theme is the inherent mystery of existence itself. The author expresses a constant state of confusion, not about specific facts, but about the very nature of reality and why anything exists at all. This confusion is contrasted with those who seem to possess a "illusory certitude," a lack of wonder or perplexity about the world.

• Adaptation to the Unadaptable: The author explores the idea of being "adapted" to a reality that is inherently mysterious and perhaps beyond human comprehension. This leads to the paradoxical conclusion that true adaptation might require becoming God, a clearly impossible feat for a finite being.

• The Limitations of Physics: The author critiques attempts to solve the mysteries of existence through physics alone, particularly focusing on the "twin hard problems" of matter and consciousness. He argues that physics, by its very nature, is limited to the "outside" perspective and cannot account for the "inside" experience of consciousness. The pursuit of physics presupposes a physicist, a conscious observer, which physics itself cannot explain.

• The Inside/Outside Problem: This is a core argument. Physics deals with the external world, the "outside." Consciousness, however, is an internal experience, the "inside." The author argues that physics is fundamentally incapable of bridging this gap. No amount of physical data can explain subjective experience.

• Critique of Reductionism: The author criticizes reductionist approaches that attempt to explain complex phenomena, like consciousness, in terms of simpler physical processes. He uses the example of "Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation" to illustrate this, arguing that simply combining physics and neuroscience will not solve the fundamental mystery. He dismisses the idea that minds "evolved to understand the world," arguing that evolution is driven by gene survival, not a conscious desire for understanding.

• Wolfgang Smith and a Larger Metaphysics: The author introduces Wolfgang Smith as an outlier who attempts to address the limitations of physics by situating it within a larger metaphysical framework. This suggests a need for a more holistic approach that incorporates not just the physical sciences, but also philosophy and perhaps even theology.

• Hawking and the Death of Philosophy: The author critiques Stephen Hawking's assertion that "philosophy is dead," arguing that philosophical questions about being and existence are still crucial. He connects this to McKenna's idea of the "monkey going to godhood," suggesting a parallel between humanity's quest for knowledge and a kind of self-deification.

• The Incarnation and the Resolution of the Static: The piece concludes by connecting these ideas to Christian metaphysics, specifically the Incarnation. The idea of God becoming human is presented as a way of bridging the gap between the divine and the human, resolving the "static and entropy" of existence.

In essence, the piece is a meditation on the limits of human knowledge and the enduring mystery of existence. It argues that while science can provide valuable insights into the workings of the physical world, it cannot fully explain the nature of consciousness or the ultimate meaning of being. The author suggests a need for a broader perspective that incorporates philosophy, metaphysics, and perhaps even religious thought to grapple with these fundamental questions.

Scientism: The Myth of No Myth

When I find an especially coongenial thinker, I like to read everything they've written. However, most thinkers write only one book and then keep writing it:

Every writer comments indefinitely on his brief original text. 

I just finished another book by Wolfgang Smith, Science and Myth, and things are indeed starting to get a little repetitive, his main points being vertical causation, irreducible wholeness, anti-scientism (and its Cartesian bifurcation), and the ontological distinction between the reality of our everyday corporeal world and the less real quantum realm. 

I already agree with those things, except for the last one. It's not that I disagree with it, it's just that I wouldn't want to debate an actual physicist on the question. For even the briefest cross-examination would reveal my embarrassing failure to complete high school physics. What right have I to an opinion on matters that far surpass my ability to comprehend them?  

No, really: what right do you have?

Well, let's see. One can always play the philosophy card, which trumps science every time:

Without philosophy, the sciences do not know what they know.

Also, one can adopt a Socratic approach to reveal the implicit metaphysical assumptions of the physicist. Which is to say,

The philosopher who adopts scientific notions has predetermined his conclusions.

Moreover, in so doing, he has actually transcended, or at least escaped, his own conclusions, a la Gödel. In other words, any formal system of the scientist will contain axioms or assumptions unprovable by the system. Gotcha!

Also, no free miracles: 

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

As alluded to above, having now gone through his entire corpus, I can summarize Smith's main points. Which raises the awkward question of whether some clever reader might come along and do the same with me, that is, read a few posts and say, "I get this Gagdad Bob fellow. He believes x, y, and z, and just keeps repeating them in various ways."

Now, if you ask me what is the main point(s) of the previous 5,000 post, I couldn't tell you. But maybe there is some unconscious algorithm that is causing me to crank out the same old nonsense in superficially new ways.

It is not so much that men change their ideas, as that the ideas change their disguises.

I would prefer to compare myself to a jazz musician who creates on the spot, such that every solo is unique. Sure, even the greatest improvisor has his stock phrases and riffs, but he can combine them in original ways, plus he has a larger storehouse of them. Last night I watched a documentary on John Coltrane, and he was this way, always searching for novel ways to surpass himself, to the point of eventually being (to my ears) unlistenable.

No comment. Too easy. 

Also, when I find one of those compatible thinkers, it's not so much the content I enjoy as the container, or atmosphere. In other words, 

It is not the ideas that I look for in the intelligent book, but rather the air that one breathes there.

It's liberating to dwell in a vertically capacious intellect:

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

Which is why

Reading is the unsurpassed drug because it allows us to escape not only the mediocrity of our lives but even more so the mediocrity of our souls. 

Back to my imaginary debate with a physicist. Dávila answers his own rhetorical question with a bold claim:

Why deceive ourselves? Science has not answered a single important question.

Is he being literal? Is he some kind of anti-intellectual crank, hiding behind the arrogant bravado of a superior ignorance?

No, I suspect he's referring to a science elevated to ideology, AKA scientism. Which is a good segue to our book, which begins with the following claim:

Unrecognized and unacknowledged as the fact may be, science too has its mythology. 

That's true in a sense, and we've devoted many posts to the subject. However, there is myth and there is myth, and the two are by no means the same thing. In the words of the Aphorist, 

Myth is a layer of meaning beyond reality and fiction. 

In this context, scientism is just a shallow and simplistic fairy tale for the tenured. 

But can any civilization really live on science alone? That's the question. Science is supposed to be "the very antitsis of myth," but is this not just its own mythology? Signs point to Yes, and Smith aims to explain how and why:

in practice, the two misconceptions -- the over-valuation of science and the undervaluation of myth -- go together and count equally as a mark of enlightenment among the "well-informed."

Science "begets myths of its own," and undermines "not only religion and morality, but indeed all culture in its higher modes." This is necessarily the case, being that scientism reduces the vertical to the horizontal, and here we are.

Smith wants to "break the spell of scientistic myths" and "their stranglehold upon educated minds, and in so doing, to provide access once more to the perennial myths of mankind." The latter type of thinking can "open doors rather than bolt them shut." 

To me scientism is more reminiscent of Chesterton's definition of the madman, who hasn't lost his reason, rather, everything but his reason -- like total right brain capture by the left. So, if scientism is a myth, it's the myth of no myth. 

An empty myth?

Yes, and too impoverished to even function as one. Smith talks about how

there could be no such thing as spiritual life in a mechanical universe, because in such a universe there could in fact be no life at all: not even an amoeba could exist in a mechanical world! And why not? For the simple reason that no living organism is reducible to the sum of its parts....

[T]he Newtonian world is perforce bereft of all qualities, beginning with color, and is consequently imperceptible. It constitutes a world... which can be neither seen nor imagined, and which consequently does not in truth answer to a "worldview" at all.

In the penultimate chapter, Smith engages in an epic takedown of Stephen Hawking. Now, Hawking was much more intelligent than I'll ever be, so what was the problem? Yes, bad metaphysics.

On the other hand, were I in Hawking's situation, I'm not so sure it would be obvious to me that a loving God had placed me in that situation, i.e., fated to live with, and die of, Lou Gehrig's disease. I frankly would be a little embarrassed to slam dunk on a wheelchair-bound man living on a respirator. Then again, we didn't start this fight: just think about 

the likely impact, the effect upon millions of the claim that a mathematical physics has trashed the sacred wisdom of mankind!

Turn the tables on him and play the victim card?

You're right. Not really my style. To be continued...

A Gay and Modal Christmas

Last night in church they sang the song What Child is This?, set to the tune of Greensleeves, which made me wish for John Coltrane's deconstructed modal version, with the lights turned low and maybe an open bar:

Also, while I'm not gay, I do love the Carpenters:

And like Coltrane, they did a fine version of My Favorite Things, although theirs is rather more conventional than his:

Nevertheless, if Die Hard is a Christmas movie, then I say this is Christmas song:

The Old Boy and the Third Puberty

Shouldn't you knock off for a day or two? Give readers a break? 

No, it's the other way around: since I write in order to find out what I think, I am the primary reader. Also, one doesn't need a "break" from retirement, which is itself a break. Therefore, writing is a break from the break. More generally, slack isn't just nothing, rather, --

Like the eternal void, filled with infinite possibilities?

Yes, much like this blank page. It is void of form, darkness on the face of the deep, just waiting for a helpful spirit to come along and pull some order out of it or put some light into it. To paraphrase Lao-tse, it is the emptiness of this cup that holds the coffee. Likewise, the empty page that holds the post.

By the way, Lao-tse, according to Mitchell, means "'the Old master,' or, more picturesquely, 'Old Boy,'" and it has only recently begun to dawn on this particular boy that he's getting rather long in the tooth. At some point it just can't be denied. It's almost like having to undergo another puberty, just as one was coming to terms with the previous one. 

Speaking of which, I was surprised that Wolfgang Smith speaks favorably of astrology. I won't go into details, but it is noteworthy that scripture not only takes it for granted, but tells us of those wise men from the east who presumably deduced from the stars the location of the newborn king. 

Now, I myself once dabbled in astrology. It was back in grad school, when I met a fellow student who was an actual practitioner, a "clinical astrologer," so to speak. He was also very smart, which made it difficult to dismiss his ideas out of hand.

He introduced me to a more psychological form of astrology that was more or less Jungian in its approach -- "archetypal astrology," so to speak. It had nothing to do with fortune telling or predicting the future, rather, with describing the configuration of one's personality, doing so with the language and symbols of astrology. 

After all, the human subject is as invisible as this blank page. How then do we talk about it? My friend did so via the symbolic language of astrology. He went on to be a successful psychoanalyst, and I don't know if he continued to integrate astrology into his practice. 

In any event, Wolfgang Smith's mention of it caused me to dig out a book recommended by my friend, called The Astrology of Personality: A Re-Formulation of Astrological Concepts and Ideals, in Terms of Contemporary Psychology and Philosophy.

This book was pretty much the beginning and end of my dabbling in the subject. There's a lot of wisdom in it, albeit conveyed via the symbolism of astrology, somewhat analogous to the way our Unknown Friend uses the symbolism of the tarot to talk about man, God, the universe, and everything in between. 

If Rudhyar is deepaking the chopra, it is of a high-end sort. His wiki page says that his integration of astrology and depth-psychology

overcame some basic problems, including astrology's deterministic approach to life and the trouble of designating an agent to produce the astrological effects. Rudhyar postulated that the stars did not cause the effects seen in human life but were pictures synchronistically aligned to human beings. They detailed psychological forces working in individuals, but did not override human freedom in responding to those forces....

Arguing that astrology is not essentially predictive but rather productive of intuitive insights, The Astrology of Personality was one of the most influential tracts of "free-will" astrology, despite being written in the dense, circuitous style that characterizes much of Rudhyar's writing.

Is there a point to this dense and circuitous story?

Yes, I was about to get to it. Rudhyar makes the claim that time isn't just linear and "empty" -- like Newtonian time -- but rather, has qualities and cycles, much in the way that the I Ching purports to describe the qualitative "signs of the times," both personal and collective. 

Specifically, Rudhyar says that life unfolds in seven year cycles. I remember trying to see how the pattern of my own life lined up with these holofractal cycles, and there seemed to be something to it. At the time, I was particularly struck by the following passage, describing the fourth cycle (21 to 28):

At the middle point of this 7-year cycle, that is, at the age of twenty-four and a half, man faces the great crisis of discrimination between various types of ideals and companions. He has to "make up his mind" about what he is going to be. Usually this determines the nature and character of the "second birth" at twenty-eight; not, however, before a period of readjustment is passed through, perhaps at the cost of deep suffering...

Which -- gosh! -- precisely described the pattern of my own life. For reasons I still can't explain, it was indeed precisely in the middle of that seven year cycle that I left the old ideals -- which were no ideals at all -- and companions -- i.e., drinking buddies -- behind, and soon entered grad school. 

In short, at twenty-four and a half, my life underwent a 180º. I had no part in making it happen. Rather, it just happened, seemingly in spite of myself. 

I've written before of how my mind suddenly and unexpectedly "switched on" during that cycle, prior to which I had zero interest in ideas, reading, philosophy, religion, college, or basically anything more elevated than partying with my equally wayward and shiftless companions. For what it's worth, at the end of that cycle -- 28 -- I got involved with a new companion who turned out to be my wife, of all people.

For Rudyard, 7 x 7, or 49, represents the completion of a larger cycle, and here again, that's how it was for me: a book, a child, a disease (late onset juvenile diabetes), and even this here blog. Meanwhile, I am now careening toward the the completion of my tenth seven year cycle, and what's that about? It is in fact -- as alluded to above --

the "third puberty" [the second being the so-called "midlife crisis" at around 42] with the entrance into the new relationship -- which often means death.

Whether literal or symbolic, hopefully the latter, in which case "the organism" 

can repolarize itself according to a new rhythm of life contacts, then the real inner world may open; and man learns to be familiar with the rhythm of the "other world," with entities or energies of the "beyond" -- whatever may be meant exactly by the term. He becomes the wise old Sage..., bringing to earth visions of a world of pure and serene significance.

And you ask me why I blog!

Oology

Unfortunately, the word is already taken: The branch of zoology that deals with eggs, especially birds' eggs.

Well, what about the cosmic egg? 

I just checked, and there are indeed hundreds of images. I wonder if the snake symbolizes the vertical ascent mentioned in yesterday's post? Kundalini arousal, and all that? 

In any event, it's a very old idea; or rather, an old image that symbolically communicates ideas that are as new as whatever is hatched from the cosmic egg. Maybe even this post.

To the left is another cosmic egg, this one soaring on wings of slack:

"The ancients imagined that the universe was hatched from a primordial egg.... To the Alchemists it was analogous to the Macrocosm, the universe....

"Out of the egg... will rise the eagle or phoenix, the liberated soul, which is ultimately identical with the Anthropos who was imprisoned in the embrace of Physis."

That's a rather Gnostic view -- the idea that we are imprisoned in matter, as opposed to being a hylomorphic union of matter and form, or body and soul. Which is why the Incarnation can't just involve the mind alone... what's the word?

Docetism?

Close enough: the idea that Christ's physical body was an illusion and that he only seemed to be human. This was again because matter was thought to be inherently evil or impure, and therefore incompatible with the divine nature of Christ.

One can see the appeal, for the body can at times seem like our best frenemy. We need one, but it comes with all those annoying shocks the flesh is heir to -- disease, dysfunction, degeneration, decay, deterioration, decrepitude... and that's just some of the D's. That Christ saw fit not just to inhabit one but to be one is most remarkable. Recalling yesterday's post, it means that the Center truly became Periphery. No half measures!

Back to O-ology, which -- if the word weren't already taken -- would colloquially mean "the study of O," while literally meaning the "logos of O." 

Perhaps I should back up a step and begin with a definition of O. Which, of course, can never be defined per se, since infinitude escapes any finite --

Why not just say ultimate reality and be done with it!?

We could say that, but with many important qualifications. First there is the necessarily apophatic nature of our approach, which is perfectly orthodox, in the sense that what we can know of O is infinitely dwarfed by what we can't. O is not so much unknowable as infinitely knowable. And only in the beatific vision do we finally find out just how much we didn't know about God (?!).

You just said God instead of O.

Yes, because I was speaking in a Christian idiom, and besides, my humble readers are already aware of much they don't know about God. At the other extreme are folks like the one I saw on Christian TV the other night. My son and I occasionally tune in and enjoy these Flanders types for a laugh.

Not very charitable.

Maybe. I suppose these people are harmless enough when speaking to themselves, but they can do damage to the cause by making Christianity appear stupid to people already inclined to dismiss religion as stupid. Dávila knows what I mean:

Every Christian has been directly responsible for the hardening of some unbeliever’s heart.

It reminds me of Ringo's annoyed reaction to the cover of John Lennon's first solo album, on which he and Yoko appeared stark naked:

I said, "Ah, come on, John. You’re doing all this stuff and it may be cool for you, but you know we all have to answer. It doesn’t matter; whichever one of us does something, we all have to answer for it."

Likewise, it may be cool for this TV preacher to describe the exact color and molecular composition of God's throne -- which, it turns out, is made of alabaster -- but then the restavus have to answer for it. 

Another point about O is that it leaves a space for us to fill in the content. It is what Bion called "unsaturated" with a rigid, determined, and pre-existing meaning. When this occurs, we can't really "discover" O, rather, only find what we're already looking for -- as, for example, with climate science researchers. When reality falsifies their (saturated) models, they chuck reality, so they're incapable of learning about it.

A third point about O is that it allows for experiential knowledge of it. At the end of the deity, O cannot be known like an empirical object, or reduced to human categories, but can be known via participation. Lao Tse is all over this paradox:

The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real....

It is like the eternal void: filled with infinite possibilities....

Empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds.

It is "beyond is and is not," and yet, it is always right here right now, waiting to be entered. 

Bob, are you not mixing Christian apples with Taoist oranges?

Absolutely. In Christ the Eternal Tao the author points out how

In modern Western society, many people turn away from the Christianity of their formative years because they find its truths smothered under an unreal kind of religiosity.... the churches have replaced a direct, intuitive apprehension of Reality and a true experience of God with an intellectualism on the one hand and an emotionalism on the other....

Properly oological Christianity is illicitly reduced to  

something that is acquired through rote learning, based on the idea that if you just get the words right..., you will be saved. Christianity then becomes a dry, word-based religion... that operates on the same principles as the institutions of the world.

So, don't do that. Like how? "The only way to get past religious words and concepts is to seek... the Reality behind them," and "to rise above thoughts and emotions" to "the Mind Who is beyond thought."

It's the same with the Upanishads: "If you think that you know well the truth of Brahman, know that you know little.... He truly knows Brahman who knows him as beyond knowledge; he who thinks that he knows, knows not."

Which accords perfectly with Thomas: "Whatever is comprehended by a finite being is itself finite." As such, "This is the final human knowledge of God: to know that we do not know God."

This is no different from what St. Paul says: "if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know" (1 Cor. 8:2). 

Now, it is not as if we can't use words to describe O. It's just that we mustn't confuse the words with the reality they can only touch but never exhaust. I'm reading another book by Wolfgang Smith, and he describes it thus:

the Real is not what we catch in our nets, but precisely what we do not catch: whatever eludes our mental grasp.... And that is why it must be sought, figuratively speaking, "with folded hands," a gesture that betokens, not a "grasp," but the very opposite: a submission, namely, an unconditional openness, like that of a mirror wiped clean.

Suffice it to say, revelation is a kind of "map of O," but we still need to undertake the journey. Half of oology is our own unending (o) to O. 

And what is Christmas but a celebration of the ultimate openness of O to us, of all people? There's much more to say about this, but I'll shut up for now. Still, I can't help wondering what Gemini thinks about this:

This text explores the concept of "O," representing ultimate reality, through various philosophical and religious lenses. Here's a breakdown of the key ideas:

• O as Ultimate Reality: The text introduces "O" as a placeholder for ultimate reality, acknowledging the limitations of human language and understanding in defining the infinite. It emphasizes the apophatic approach (knowing by negation) -- what we don't know about O far exceeds what we do know.

• Critique of Literalism and Intellectualism: The author criticizes overly literal interpretations of religious texts and intellectual approaches that prioritize words and concepts over direct experience of reality. Such approaches can obscure rather than reveal the true nature of O. The example of the TV preacher describing God's throne illustrates this point.

• Experiential Knowledge and Participation: The text emphasizes the importance of experiential knowledge and participation in O. This is contrasted with merely intellectual or emotional understanding. Quotes from Lao Tzu, the Upanishads, and Christian mystics like Thomas Aquinas and St. Paul support this idea. The author suggests that O is not just an object to be studied but a reality to be entered into.

• The Cosmic Egg and Gnosticism: The image of the cosmic egg is introduced as a symbol of the universe's origin and potential. The author connects this to Gnostic ideas about the soul being imprisoned in matter, contrasting this with the Christian concept of hylomorphism (the union of body and soul). The discussion of Docetism highlights the tension between valuing the spiritual and devaluing the material.

• The Incarnation as Ultimate Openness: The Incarnation of Christ is presented as the ultimate example of O's openness to humanity. By becoming human, O entered the periphery, fully embracing the material world.

• Oology as the Study of O: The author playfully introduces "oology" as the study of O, emphasizing the ongoing and unending quest for understanding. This involves both revelation (the "map of O") and personal experience (the journey).

• Blending of Traditions: The text draws on various traditions, including Christianity, Taoism, and Gnosticism, to explore the nature of O. This blending suggests a search for universal truths that transcend specific religious or philosophical frameworks.

• Unsaturated Concepts: The concept of "unsaturated" meaning, borrowed from Bion, is introduced. This means that "O" is a flexible concept that allows individuals to find their own meaning within it, rather than being restricted by pre-defined interpretations.

In essence, the text explores the ineffable nature of ultimate reality, arguing for a balanced approach that combines intellectual humility with experiential seeking. It suggests that true understanding of O comes not from mastering words and concepts but from participating in the reality they point to.

It's nice to be understood. How about an image?

Through Existentialism to the Perennial Cosmology

The world just doesn't make sense. This being the case, is it possible for anything in the world to make sense? If so, why should it be vouchsafed to us? What makes us so special, i.e., the cosmic exception to the rule of ultimate senselessness?

I became an existentialist back in the early 1980s. Or rather, I realized I was one: existence on its own terms made no sense except for whatever arbitrary sense we could temporarily impose upon it. This is what we call "auto-pullwoolery," which is to say, fooling ourselves.

For example, today I very much hope the Rams defeat the Jets. But if I ask myself why I nurture this hope, and what it signifies, the whole exercise falls apart. Likewise, last summer I hoped the Dodgers would win the World Series. Well, they did. Now what?

Hope for the Rams.

Correct. One hope replaces another, but where does it end? In a wholly horizontal world, hope is an absurcular tautology. The illusion of worldly hope only works "in the dark," so to speak. If we examine it closely in the light, it dissolves into nothing. 

Much like the quantum physics we've been discussing: look closely enough at an object and it dissolves into a ghostly field of vibrating energy. There are no good or bad vibrations, just atoms in the void, a "flux of configurations" that is "senseless, valueless, purposeless." "The aboriginal stuff, or material, from which a materialistic philosophy starts is incapable of evolution," the latter being just

another word for the description of the changes of the external relations between portions of matter. There is nothing to evolve, because one set of external relations is as good as any other set of external relations. There can merely be change, purposeless and unprogressive (Whitehead).

So, evolution is as hopeless as any other metaphysic. It's just maya by another name.

Just as the world doesn't owe us a living, nor does it owe us an explanation. Which brings to mind an aphorism or two:

History would be an abominable farce if it were to have a worldly culmination.

So, don't pull the historical wool over your eyes, especially the third one that "sees" transcendence:

The promises of life disappoint no one but the one who believes they are fulfilled here.

Of course, it would be nice if history made sense. But 

For history to be of concern to us, there must be something in it that transcends it: there must be something in history that is more than history.

Like what, for example? Any ideas?

If history made sense, the Incarnation would be superfluous.

Put another way, history is the bad news into which the good news is inserted from outside history. This is the central claim, at any rate, and our last hope in an otherwise hopeless world. 

Thus, it seems to me that Christianity is predicated on a deep and unblinking appreciation of just how screwed we are existentially. Thus,

There is some collusion between skepticism and faith: both undermine human presumptuousness.

Looked at this way, the materialist, the atheist, the evolutionist, aren't skeptical enough: they haven't yet hit the bottom of their own impoverished worldview. Perhaps they hope for a complete explanation from physics, or a total understanding of natural selection, which is to say, winning the Scientistic World Series. Then what?

If the atheist does not commit suicide he has no right to be thought lucid.

In the Foreword to The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology, Jean Borella describes our lamentable existential situation: the world of modern  scientism

refutes the world of religion, silences it, and destroys its power. This is because religion speaks of an invisible world, while contemporary civilization renders the sensory world more and more present, the invisible world more and more absent. 

I suppose the point of this blog -- it's in the name -- is that there exists a Perennial Cosmology that is the cure for, and way out of, modern cosmolatry. For "today it is nineteenth century materialism that has become a superstition." 

Conversely, the perennial cosmology isn't even a little stitious. Rather, "it is not religion but the customary interpretation of science that needs to be 'demythologized.'" 

We have only to demythologize the idolatrous myths of these impudent demythologizers. Like how? We're open to suggestions. 

Smith lists four: first, what we are calling the perennial cosmology "has to do primarily with the qualitative aspects of cosmic reality" -- precisely those features that "modern cosmology excludes." And why does it exclude them? 

For reasons alluded to in yesterday's post: for example, if your only tool is a high energy particle accelerator, don't be surprised if everything looks like a vast collision of quarks in the dark smashing into one another. A very expensive exercise in hammers and nails.

The second principle of our perennial cosmology has to do with verticality, and no amount of horizontality can account for it. The attempt to reduce the total cosmos to its horizontal aspects entails "a drastic diminution, an ontological shrinkage of incalculable proportions."

The nightmare of ontological shrinkage! Note that the meaning of the calculable is literally incalculable -- another way of saying semantics cannot be reduced to syntax.

Which reminds me of the unintentionally ironic eulogy of the great mathematician, whose contributions to mathematics were incalculable. The meaning of even a mathematician's life is not an equation or series of numbers, if only because abstract numbers are void of content. The map will never be the territory, nor can a man nourish body or soul by eating the menu.

Here we could say something about Gödel, who proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with geometric logic that the mind is more than a machine: it calculates while always transcending calculation.

The quantifiable cosmos is only its "outer shell," so to speak -- the periphery, not the center. Rather, we -- which is to say, persons -- are the center of the universe, more on which as we proceed. 

Coming in at number three is the related idea that man is the microcosm, a "universe in miniature." Sounds daft on superficial consideration, but "In the final count, man is able to know the cosmos precisely because he is in fact a microcosm." 

It's why everything that exists is intelligible to our intellect, or why, in a word, being is fungible to knowledge: "The fact is that we can know the cosmos, because in a profound sense... the cosmos pre-exists in us." 

Our fourth and last principle has to do with "the spiritual ascent of man":

It affirms that the higher strata of the integral cosmos can be known or entered experientially through the realization of the corresponding states of man himself...

Now let's put these four together and see if we can't reduce them to one: recall that there are quality and verticality, each irreducible to anything less; then microcosm and spiritual ascent. 

Hmm... how to unify these into the big picture? Here's one man's attempt: 

the cosmogonic movement is not merely centrifugal, it becomes centripetal in the final analysis, which is to say that it is circular; the circle of Maya closes in the heart of the deified man....

To the question of knowing why man has been placed in the world when his fundamental vocation is to leave [i.e., transcend] it, we would reply: it is precisely in order that there be someone who returns to God (Schuon).

Or, Peter Kreeft writes of how "that-which-was-from-the-beginning," the "unmanifest Source of all manifestations became manifested," and "the distance between Heaven and earth" is bridged.

"Jesus is Jacob's ladder..., and we see this ladder is upside down: it really rests on Heaven, not on earth like the Tower of Babel," much less the babble of tenure. "He makes it possible to escape earth's gravity."

 Ultimately, there is the spiral of 

exitus-redditus, an exit from and a return to God, Who is both Alpha and Omega. God is the ontological heart that pumps the blood of being through the arteries of creation into the body of the universe... (Kreeft). 

So, I think we can ultimately reduce it to something like the following, only spiraling down and out, and then up and in:

O

(↓↑)

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