Modeling What Can and Can't Be Modeled

Truth has no history.

Excuse me?

If something is true -- say mathematical truth, or the first principles of logic -- it is outside time. Necessary truths are eternal, for there will never be a time when they are untrue. Nor do they "evolve." Rather, they just are.

Yes, but what happens to eternal truths on contact with time? For it is also eternally true that time exists. 

Truth is crossed by mystery. Indeed, its very existence is mysterious.

Which comes first, the truth or the mystery?

Easy: the latter.

How so?

Because of the distance between what Is and what we can say about it. What Is is true, but it cannot be reduced to any system, model, or formula. Any formal system will contain statements that are true but cannot be proven within that system.   

Well, we have to begin somewhere. For example, we can say with absolute certitude that the map is not the territory, the model the modeled, or the word the thing it represents. Therefore, we just modeled an eternal truth -- an apophatic truth, as it were, one that eternally says what cannot be said. 

So, let's begin with what we can't know?

It would certainly prevent a lot of mischief. 

Sounds like you read another chapter of Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities.

I did. Supposing we could model ultimate reality... well, first of all, how could we tell whether it is true? Moreover, if man has the capacity to model ultimate reality, then surely our model must account for this exceedingly mysterious capacity to model ultimate reality. 

This, of course, applies irrespective of whether the model is theistic or atheistic, secular or religious. In other words, where in your model is there a principle that accounts for man's ability to accurately model ultimate reality? It's the last thing you'd expect of a contingent and time-bound bag of genetic material. 

And what exactly is ultimate reality? How do we know when we've found it? Supposing we begin with a definition of ultimate reality, this implies that in some sense we've already found it, whether we define it as "matter," "spirit," or anything in between.

What is ultimate reality? And can it be modeled?

This goes back to why I deployed the unsaturated symbol "O" to designate ultimate reality. O exists necessarily, but what is it? History is littered with religious and philosophical models, most of which are hardly worth the effort to refute, since they refute themselves.

Maybe we can't model ultimate reality, but we can model what one author calls ultimacy.

Explain.

I'll do so in my own words, or symbols, rather. "Ultimacy" has to do with our ultimate situation, as it were, as opposed to ultimate reality per se. And what is our ultimate situation? I think Voegelin is on the right track in saying that it involves living in the "between," which is to say, between the poles of immanence and transcendence. We can never leave this between. 

Well, technically we leave it upon death, which is the return to immanence, precisely: our bodies decompose and return to their molecular/mineral state. But at the other end, some folks say we can actually reach the transcendent pole in this life, which is the point of mystical theology.

For remember, there are three books of God: the first two are more exterior, i.e., the books of nature and of revelation and scripture. The third book is interior, which is to say, consciousness itself making the vertical pilgrimage back to its own source. This one cannot be modeled or described, rather, only undergone. In other words, it is experiential religiosity, and we are the lab.

Back to my symbols, I think ultimacy can be modeled by the dynamic complementarity between O and (¶). That's where we ultimately live, and always live, in engagement with the known-unknown of ultimate reality. 

I suppose there's also a "penultimacy," so to speak, which is our engagement with immanent appearances, AKA material science, in which we investigate "the world" as opposed to O. 

But again, the fact that we can do science at all involves a lot of meta-scientific assumptions about man's capacity to know reality. To put it another way, science can be assimilated to O, but O can never be reduced to any scientific system. 

Truth is crossed by mystery.

Yes, you mentioned that. 

Another author in the book says that ultimate reality is indeterminate, whereas our models are determinate. How then do we model the indeterminate? Can't be done. Except it can be done, so long as we bear this distinction in mind: these models can serve as pointers to ultimate reality. Just like words themselves, which are never what they signify. 

It's a big help if we begin with the Christian metaphysical axiom that man is somehow the image and likeness of the indeterminate principle. One might say we are the indeterminate-made-determinate. At least that was the plan, before man decided to conflate his own determinations with ultimate reality. 

Now, even -- especially -- the atheist has determined that he is capable of determining the indeterminate. 

It also helps if we begin with a principle of creation, which is really just another way of formulating the ontological dependence of the determinate on the indeterminate, or the contingent on the necessary. 

Creation cannot be modeled, but it can be participated in. Hence man's endless creativity. If there is a model of this endlessly generative creativity, I suspect the best we can do is O --> (¶). Again, that's the infinite well of indeterminacy mysteriously becoming determinate. 

Thus in any temporal emerging there is also a non-temporal or eternal emerging of flow from nothing. The relation between the Ultimate of Non-Being and the Great Ultimate is a symbolic way of speaking of the ontological creative act whereby something determinate comes to be

Hmm. It's a little like Father and Son, the former being the ultimate ground and source beyond being, and the Son being the first determinate being. In the East, they model it as Brahman without qualities and Brahman with qualities. Appearances are always limited manifestations of the great Unlimited. 

The Tao Te Ching models it thus:

As Nameless, it is the origin of all things

As Named, it is the mother of all things.

Obviously, much more to follow... 

Meaning what?

"The image is an abstract representation of ultimate reality and human understanding. Swirling, vibrant colors depict the indeterminate (O), while sharp, geometric shapes represent the determinate (¶). The interplay between these elements symbolizes our ongoing attempt to comprehend the universe. A deep, cosmic black background represents the infinite unknown, with streaks of light suggesting knowledge and insights."