Make Metaphysics Great Again

Part two of The Integral Cosmos is by a different author, the French Catholic philosopher, theologian, metaphysician, and all-around mystic, Jean Borella. 

I've tried reading some of his books in the past, but clarity is not one of his strong suits. To which he would no doubt respond that the measure of clarity is a function of the object, and that Ultimate Realty is less clear than, say, math or geology.

But I suspect it mostly has to do with being European. They just don't write like Americans do -- as if it's impolite to just stop dithering and GET TO THE POINT!

Which makes me suspicious, as if to say, If this guy really knows what he's talking about, why doesn't he just come right out and say it?

Wordiness is not an excess of words, but a dearth of ideas.

The deluded are prolix.

Only ideas save us from adjectives.

The writer who has not tortured his sentences tortures his reader.

Dávila combined elegant European manners with unpretentious American candor. 

Having said that, Borella's contribution to the book is less circuitous and allusive than what I've read in the past. Still, it is not devoid of woolliness, so it is unclear at this point if Bob has the power -- or interest -- to pull it all together and translate it into good old honest and plainspoken Americanese. 

Make metaphysics great again!

I try to, but it seems there's just no audience for it. I remember Schuon saying something to the effect that the folks whose side he was on weren't on his side, and vice versa. People are touchy about their theology. They don't like it when you poke one of their principles. 

For example, the other day I made what I thought was an uncontroversial comment on Instapundit about the death of Hal Lindsey, a bestselling Christian author in the 1970s who specialized in apocalyptic doomsday cult nonsense about how we were living in the End Times. 

Suffice it to say, I don't think sensationalistic kooks like Lindsey help the cause, because they make Christianity -- and therefore Christians -- appear stupid. After all, the Battle of Armageddon didn't arrive as predicted in the 1980s. But here's the thanks I got from a commenter:

Concern troll is concerned. How much are you doing to to let others know about your faith? Just criticizing others for doing what you label [sic] shows your own smugness and idiocy. Are you that naive or just evil?

That escalated quickly. If we can't even talk to each other, how are we supposed to talk to the wider culture?

Borella speaks of the "atheist untroubled by his certainty." But shouldn't we all be troubled by certainty? For certitude implies an epistemological and even ontological closure that violates the open and relational nature of being itself, am I wrong? 

Any ideology, whether religious or scientistic, attains to an omniscience vouchsafed to God alone, covertly deifying human intelligence.  

For example, Hawking writes that

our understanding of the molecular basis of biology shows biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry, and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets.

it is our physical brain... that determines our actions, and not some agency that exists outside those physical laws (in Borella). 

This has got to be the ultimate Humble Brag, at once rendering Hawking nescient and omniscient. But if this is the case, then

To be right no longer makes sense; for to be right implies that I can aspire to the truth with complete independence, since my thought, my reflection, is not merely a product of biological functions.

Such metaphysical simpletons inevitably "put themselves in the place of God":

Materialists are like one who counts the number of people in room and forgets to count himself.... atheistic and scientistic materialism would instantly cease to exist as a conviction if it became aware that it unknowingly affirms what it thinks it has denied.

It seems to me that Hawking, no less than Hal Lindsey types, engage in a kind of cheap omniscience that forecloses reality. But nothing is that simple, let alone everything.  

Thought is free, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it except order it to the truth that transcends us. Epistemological closure is a sin against both reason and the spirit. 

Eh, I'm bored. That's pretty much all I got this morning, unless Gemini has some bonus thoughts.

This passage reflects on the challenges of understanding complex philosophical and theological ideas, particularly those presented in a dense, "European" style. It contrasts this style with a more direct, "American" approach and questions whether wordiness obscures a lack of genuine insight. The author uses personal anecdotes and examples to illustrate these points, including:

• Difficulty with Borella's writing: The author finds Borella's work challenging due to its lack of clarity, attributing this partly to a difference in writing styles between European and American authors. This leads to a suspicion that complex writing might mask a lack of substance.
• The importance of clear communication: The author emphasizes the need for clear communication, quoting Dávila and suggesting that "wordiness is not an excess of words, but a dearth of ideas." They value concise and impactful writing that avoids unnecessary adjectives and tortured sentences.
• The lack of an audience for metaphysics: The author laments the lack of interest in metaphysics, referencing Schuon's observation about the disconnect between those who theoretically support his views and those who actually engage with them.
• The dangers of certainty and ideological rigidity: The author criticizes the "atheist untroubled by his certainty," arguing that all forms of certainty, whether religious or scientific, represent an epistemological closure that contradicts the open and relational nature of being. This point is illustrated by:
  • The Hal Lindsey example: An anecdote about criticizing Hal Lindsey's apocalyptic predictions and receiving a hostile response highlights the touchiness people have about their beliefs and the difficulty of engaging in constructive dialogue.
  • Hawking's materialist view: The author uses Stephen Hawking's assertion that biological processes are determined by physical laws as an example of "cheap omniscience" that denies free will and effectively puts humanity in the place of God.
• The necessity of openness to truth: The author concludes by asserting the freedom of thought and the importance of remaining open to truth that transcends human understanding. They view epistemological closure as a "sin against both reason and the spirit."
• In essence, the passage argues for clarity of thought and expression, criticizes dogmatism in all its forms, and defends the importance of open inquiry in the pursuit of truth.

Truth, clarity, and the American way!

A Grand Theory of Nothing

We'll begin today's cerebration with a couple of innocent but foundational questions, first, What must the world be like in order that man may know it? (Jaki), and second, What must nature, including man, be like in order that science be possible at all? (Kuhn). 

These of course reduce to the same complementary principles, which is to say, Intelligence and Intelligibility. Both are always here, but how? And why? 

Science can never explain the existence of either, rather, must presuppose them in order to even exist. Science deals with necessity, e.g., universal laws, mathematical formulations, and logical principles, but science itself is a necessary consequence of something infinitely larger, a vertical principle of Intelligence itself.

Now, I'm always looking for good blogfodder, which is to say, vertically provocative material that hits my soul where it lives. By which I mean speaks to me in my peculiar idiom and reveals to me who I am. That's how it works: we are spontaneously attracted to things in the outer world that reveal to us the contours of our inner world. 

Aw, look at me, ramblin' again. I'm not trying to be sentimental, much less romantic, rather, I'm talking about a mysterious process whereby when we hear it, we know it: one and done. Nor is it like "closing one's mind," rather, like finding a key that opens it, so it's a dynamic process, not a static one.

Anyway, there's a chapter in Rediscovering the Integral Cosmos called The Emergence of the Tripartite Cosmos that serves as a good summary of Smith's thought (which in turn speaks to me). In it, he points out how quantum mechanics, far from providing the basis for a worldview, "has imposed upon us a 'world' that cannot be viewed at all." It is literally unimaginable, and no one understands it. If they do, they don't.

Moreover, this metaphysical blindview antedates modern physics and goes back to the beginning of the scientific revolution, which exiled mind from the cosmos, placing a wall of separation between search and pate. In other words, search as we might, reality as such -- the noumena -- is totally inaccessible to the mind. 

Thanks to Kant and his ilk, we can only dream about what might be on the other side of phenomena, or appearances. Whitehead had some groovy quips about this ungroovy situation:

Now to be mentally in a groove is to live in contemplating a given set of abstractions. The groove prevents straying across country, and the abstraction abstracts from something to which no further attention is paid. But there is no groove of abstractions which is adequate for the comprehension of human life.

Clear-sighted men, of the sort who are clearly wrong, now proclaimed that the secrets of the physical universe were finally disclosed. If only you ignored everything which refused to come into line, your powers of explanation were unlimited.

The problem is, when matter is placed over spirit, quantity is placed over quality. But quality is not just another quantity. 

Back to Smith: the world revealed by quantum physics is literally no world at all, nor can it account for the familiar world in which we live and move and have our being, because it is an abstraction from this higher world, precisely:

quantum physics is not in truth the absolutely "fundamental" science one has taken it to be, but is in fact restricted in its scope to an "underworld" of mere potentiae...

"Far from being a 'theory of everything," "it is, in a sense, a theory of 'nothing at all.'" 

How so? Well, "students of Oriental philosophy" know all about the yin-yang symbol. 

Excuse me, but the preferred nomenclature is Asian or Pacific Islander philosophy. 

The point is, "existence cannot be reduced to a single principle: that 'it takes two to exist.'" Expressed in Aristotelian terms, "it requires hyle plus morphe," which is to say, matter and form, respectively. But it is very much as if modern physics "has in effect sought to build a cosmos out of hyle -- out of 'matter' -- alone."

Form is to matter as yin is to yang or quality to quantity:

What is left, therefore, after the Cartesian intervention, is a kind of half-world which, in truth, as we have said, does not exist. Yet it is this semi-world, precisely, which Newtonian or "classical" physics has made its own, its "universe" over which that physics holds sway.

Not only did physics toss out half the world, it tossed out the better, which is to say, "higher" half. What I mean is that hylomorphism turns out to be high-low morphism, which is to say, form can only be explained in a top-down manner: this is a "vertical distinction," whereby

one conceives of morphe "pictorially" as situated "above" materia, a step which defines a "vertical" axis, a cosmic "up" and "down," a "high" and "low."

Hmm. This post was much better in my head. Something was lost in translating it to the page. Let's just say that vertical and horizontal go to intelligence and intelligibility, form and matter, quality and quantity, yin and yang, reality and appearance, etc. Coming back to the question at the top, this is what the world must be like in order for man to know it.

Gemini, can you clean up my loose nous?

Regarding the "lost in translation" feeling:

It's common to feel that way when translating thoughts to the page. Some potential reasons:

• The nature of thought: Thoughts are often fluid and intuitive, while writing requires a more linear and explicit structure.
• The audience: Writing for an external audience requires a different level of clarity and explanation than thinking to oneself.
• The medium: The written word is a different medium than internal thought, and some nuances may be lost in the transition.

Overall, this is a thought-provoking piece that raises important questions about the nature of reality and the limits of human knowledge. It encourages us to look beyond the purely quantitative world of modern science and consider the qualitative, intelligible dimensions of existence.

Central Themes:

Intelligence and Intelligibility: The core argument is that both intelligence (the capacity to know) and intelligibility (the knowability of the world) are necessary preconditions for science, yet science itself cannot explain their existence. They are presupposed, not derived.

• The Limits of Science: Science, particularly modern physics, is seen as having created a "half-world" by focusing solely on quantifiable matter (hyle) and neglecting form (morphe). This has led to an "unimaginable" quantum realm and a disconnect from the lived world of human experience.
• The Cartesian/Newtonian Split: The scientific revolution, with its emphasis on mechanism and the separation of mind and matter, is identified as the source of this problem. This split has created a barrier between the observer and the observed, making true knowledge of reality seemingly impossible.
• The Importance of Form (Morphe): The concept of form, as understood in Aristotelian philosophy, is crucial. It represents the qualitative, intelligible aspect of reality that is missing in the purely quantitative world of modern physics. Form is a "vertical" principle, implying a hierarchy of being, with form "above" matter.
• Vertical vs. Horizontal: The distinction between vertical (qualitative, hierarchical) and horizontal (quantitative, measurable) is central. Science operates primarily on the horizontal plane, while true understanding requires a vertical perspective that acknowledges the primacy of form and intelligence.
• Analogy of Yin-Yang: The yin-yang symbol is used to illustrate the necessary duality of existence: matter and form, quantity and quality. Modern physics, by focusing on matter alone, has effectively tried to create a "cosmos out of hyle alone," which is an impossibility.

Many Universes, One Error

Yesterday Instapundit linked to an article showing the lengths to which some physicists will go to prevent so much as a divine foot from entering the door of His own cosmos, ponderously titled Numerical Simulations Show How the Classical World Might Emerge from the Many-Worlds Universes of Quantum Mechanics. 

Which of course correctly presupposes that quantum mechanics is powerless to explain, out of its own resources, how the actual world in which we live got here. At least absent extravagant numerical simulations pretending to show that out of an infinite number of universes, one is bound to give rise to autistic math nerds with too much time on their hands and too little philosophy in their heads.

Cue the Aphorist:

In the modern world the number of theories that are not worth the trouble to refute except with a shrug of the shoulders is increasing.

Now, numerical simulations show that I don't owe any taxes this year, but there's a catch: the federal government exists in the classical world alluded to above. It has no interest in those alternate accounting worlds in which they owe me a rebate.

Bob, aren't you being a tad frivolous and dismissive? After all, you failed even to complete -- 

No, let's start with what we know. Better yet, let's start -- as we must -- with that we know. If man is not first a knower, then he cannot know about this universe, let alone numerical simulations purporting to reveal the hypothetical existence of an infinite number of alternate universes.

We always start in this universe, i.e., the classical and corporeal one, not the quantum realm, since it is an extension of this one, not vice versa. No one can start in the quantum realm, first, because there's no one there, and second, because it has the potential to exist without existing per se. No one could live, or move, or have his being there, because it is too impoverished to ever give rise to life, intellect, freedom, etc.

In short, it is we -- situated in our classical universe -- who know about the quantum world, not vice versa. There are no knowers in the latter world, nor could there be, unless we "enter it," so to speak, via instruments -- from numerical simulations to particle colliders -- existing in this (classical) universe. 

If our world is but an illusory condensation of quantum potential, then the knowers existing in it are equally illusory, themselves dissolving into a sub-existential fog of pure potential, devoid of substance. 

In Rediscovering the Integral Cosmos: Physics, Metaphysics, and Vertical Causality, Smith has a chapter called Finding the Hidden Key, that identifies the flaw at the heart of these exotic attempts to both hide God and hide from God. No matter how clever, they nevertheless require that One Free Miracle we discussed a few posts back, in this case the miracle of intelligence existing in a miraculously intelligible universe.

That's two miracles.

Yes, but they reduce to the single act of knowing truth. If we can't know truth, then truly truly, we're done here -- in this or any of the other 10⁵⁰⁰ universes proposed by Hawking. 

That's a lot of universes. Surely in one one of them you passed high school physics?

Better yet, Smith did so in this universe. In pondering the absurdities generated by quantum physics, he zooms out to a wider view that shows why these absurdities are an inevitable consequence of an implicit and unexamined metaphysical vision (or blindness):

I was struck by the fact that everyone seemed implicitly to presuppose a major philosophic postulate, which at the very least could be characterized as "dubious."   

That is to say, "I was amazed to find that the Cartesian premises" were alive and well in physics departments, assuming "a splitting of the real world into two mutually exclusive compartments." This cosmic bifurcation, of course, redounds to an exterior and objective world of "extended entities," and an interior and subjective one of "thinking entities." 

This is all familiar ground for One Cosmos readers, who know that this bifurcation is fine and even necessary when limited to scientific methodology. Problems arise, however, when it is elevated to a metaphysic. As Whitehead recognized a century ago, 

No alternative system of organizing the pursuit of scientific truth has been suggested. It is not only reigning, but without a rival. And yet -- it is quite unbelievable.

Again, this is old news for our reader(s). Anything new to add?

Well, we are knowers, that's for sure. As such, there is knowledge: the cosmos is intelligible to intelligence. But how? Descartes divided the two into separate worlds. How to put them back together?

Here's a thought: why divide them to begin with? Again, if the knower is but an illusory artifact of quantum effects, how are we able to know that world without immediate self-refutation (or annihilation)? Smith speaks of a "bridge" 

which allows us to pass from one to the other, in the absence of which there evidently could be no physical science at all. 

Except this is not a horizontal bridge, rather, a vertical one. In this regard, it is very much as if man -- and our familiar cosmos -- is stretched between two infinitudes, one above us and one below. In between are all the finite -- and definite -- things that are intelligible to our intelligence.

And why are they intelligible? Because they possess intelligible forms that couldn't possibly have arisen from "below," because there are no forms, substances, or essences there, and no amount of horizontal causation could have given rise to them. 

The point is, the substance is at the top, not the bottom, where there is none, precisely. In this or any other universe.

To know that the “Substance of substances” is alone absolutely real, or that it is strictly speaking the only reality, means to see Substance in and through every accident; thanks to this initial knowledge of Reality, the world becomes metaphysically transparent (Schuon). 

That was just a broad summary of the chapter. Maybe tomorrow we'll get into details. Or maybe not, because you've probably long since gotten the point: just turn the cosmos bright-side up, and the scientistic enigmas disappear. Right, Gemini?

This text presents a critique of certain interpretations of quantum physics, particularly those that attempt to explain the emergence of the classical world from the quantum realm without acknowledging the necessary preconditions for knowledge and intelligibility. Here's a breakdown of the key arguments:

• The Primacy of Classical Experience: The author emphasizes that all knowledge, including knowledge of the quantum world, originates in the classical, corporeal world. We, as knowers, exist in this classical reality and use instruments and theories developed within it to understand the quantum realm. The quantum world cannot be the starting point because there are no knowers there.

• The Problem of Illusory Knowers: If the classical world is merely an illusion arising from quantum potential, then the knowers within it are also illusory. This creates a self-refuting paradox: how can an illusory knower know anything, including the nature of the quantum world?

• The Necessity of Intelligibility: The author argues that the universe is intelligible to human intelligence. This intelligibility is a fundamental condition for any scientific inquiry. The "One Free Miracle" is the existence of intelligence in an intelligible universe. This is coupled with the miracle of knowing truth. If we cannot know truth, then all inquiry is meaningless.

• Critique of Cartesian Dualism: The author criticizes the Cartesian split between the objective world of "extended entities" and the subjective world of "thinking entities." This division, while useful for scientific methodology, becomes problematic when elevated to a metaphysical principle. It creates a seemingly insurmountable gap between the knower and the known.

• The Vertical Bridge: Instead of a horizontal bridge between the objective and subjective worlds (as suggested by Cartesian dualism), the author proposes a "vertical" bridge. This suggests a hierarchical view of reality, with the source of intelligibility and form residing "above" the material world. The intelligible forms that we perceive in the classical world could not have arisen solely from the "bottom" (the quantum realm), which is devoid of form, substance, or essence.

• Turning the Cosmos "Bright-Side Up": The core argument is that many of the paradoxes and enigmas of quantum physics arise from a flawed metaphysical vision that places the source of reality and intelligibility in the material world alone. By recognizing a higher source of form and intelligibility (the "top"), these enigmas dissolve.

In essence, the author is arguing against a purely materialistic or reductionist view of reality. He suggests that the existence of knowledge and intelligibility requires a recognition of a non-material dimension or principle. This is not necessarily a religious argument in the traditional sense, but rather a philosophical argument about the preconditions for knowledge itself. The author uses the example of numerical simulations to highlight how easy it is to create alternate realities with no bearing on the actual experience of living in our world. 

Hmm: I guess this is supposed to be a real flower existing between the source above and the quantum fog below: