Yesterday's post touched on the neuropsychological integration that facilitates the release of human potential, for example, the integration of brainstem, midbrain, and cortex, or human, mammalian, and reptilian brains. Being human transcends but includes the latter two.
In addition to this front to back organization, there is also the side to side distinction of left and right cerebral hemispheres. In order to be a fully functioning human, there must be a harmonious integration of the two.
But now that I'm thinking about it, this obviously cannot be a one-and-done integration, rather, a kind of ongoing dynamic. That is to say, we're always falling apart and putting ourselves back together, as is true of any living system. We don't fall apart completely, i.e. dis-integrate, because that would be death. Rather, it is more like the catabolism (breaking down) and anabolism (building up) that constitute metabolism.
For example, supposing we encounter a New Fact, we have to somehow integrate it with the rest. In short, some disassembly will be required. What is the alternative? Repelling and resisting the New Fact in order to preserve our present rigid organization?
Enough about the left.
Almost enough. Let's just say that an ideological superstructure may be imposed upon experience, such that the New Fact becomes a threat to the system. Which is precisely what we are seeing in the left's hysterical reactions to the revelations of DOGE. Who are the reactionaries here?
Now, metaphysics is the ultimate superstructure. Except that its purpose is to account for all facts while repelling none. Supposing it is correct, then it cannot be threatened by any fact or theory, for it is universal and timeless. It is not afraid of facts, rather, eats them for breakfast.
These thoughts were provoked by a fine little book simply called Saint Thomas Aquinas. For example,
the Thomist world-view is not an end but a beginning: it means not that there is no further need of thought but that thought can begin without fear of sterility.
It is how not to be a provincial and timebound infertile egghead enclosed in an ideological superstructure.
Conversely, Thomas "does not oppose or fight shy of knowledge however new or startling, but on the contrary seeks to assimilate it." The more truth the better, and from whatever department or discipline. Truly truly, it's all good.
No power, not even that of God, could produce the contrary of what reason apprehends under the direct influence of evidence.... To proclaim the truth is to render a person invincible no matter who his adversary may be.
Besides, treason against truth is "treason against God, the living Truth." Be assured that
All truth, no matter by whom it is spoken, comes from the Spirit. That quality of heart that can receive truth even from an adversary is the necessary complement of openness of mind.
Maybe he was missing something, but Aquinas "failed to see how the study of God's handiwork, in itself, and as reflected in (profane) writers, could possibly harm our knowledge of God." In short, "having found the Centre he could turn without fear to the circumference."
For "he was not a rationalist. He was an intellectualist." In other words, supposing we want to circumnavelgaze the whole existentialada, with what shall we gaze, and what shall we gaze upon? We shall gaze upon everything, with the transpersonal eye of the Intellect -- which Eckhart says is both uncreated and uncreatable.
How so?
We'll leave that claim for a subsequent post, but suffice it to say that to know a timeless truth is to participate in timelessness. The point is, "Thought and reality are not set in opposition," for "The actually intelligible and the actually knowing are one," and this oneness is mirrored in the intellect, which in turn mirrors the Absolute:
the realm of the intelligible and intellect are co-terminous; the world of extramental reality is intelligible, the world of intellect is real, and the highest form of reality, of life.
Back to psychic integration and human potential,
In the case of man, perfection is reached through the actualization, in unity and hierarchy, of all the potentialities of his many-levelled life...
Which is to say,
If we want to know the answer to the riddle of life and of the universe, if we want to achieve wisdom, if we want to be fully alive, we must discover a view of reality as a whole in which the answers to individual problems will find their functional place in the organic unity of the whole.
So, one truth-woven cosmos under the living God, and a dynamic vertical hierarchy in between.
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