Cosmos, Creator, and the Link Between

Yesterday's post left off with the stipulation that the cosmos is dependent upon, and therefore open to, a deeper reality in the absence of which it wouldn't be a cosmos but a chaos.

Wait -- a stipulation is an agreement, and exactly who consented to this one?

Only everybody ever. It's pretty much the first thing man noticed when he became one: every culture has a story about how the cosmos came into being, which of course presupposes the existence of this total world order. Our current myth is the "big bang," but when push comes to shove, this doesn't in any way account for the origins of the cosmos. 

Rather, it just traces the physics back in time until the trail goes utterly dark. Certainly it contributes nothing to the question of whether the cosmos is dependent upon a higher principle, but then again, the whole durn thing seems so suspiciously ordered to the eventual emergence of conscious intelligences capable of understanding it, that it makes a fella' wonder.

In the first paragraph of Cosmos and Creator, Jaki quotes the eminent physicist Arthur Eddington to the effect that 

The idea of a universal Mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory; at least it is in harmony with it. 

Having said that, there is nothing from the world of physics that can tell us anything about the nature of this universal mind, for it "might equally be turned into an argument for the devil" (ibid.). 

I don't know about that, since there can be good without evil but not evil without good. But this Eddington fellow was an interesting guy. For example, he argued -- based only upon the physics, not any traditional religiosity -- that 

It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character. But no one can deny that mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, and all else is remote inference.

Sounds enticing, but our judges are going to have to call BS on that one, because the world is the first and most direct thing in our experience (CS#1), the mind that reflects upon it being CS#2. However, as CS2 investigates CS1, it can't help noticing its "mental character," in that it is loaded with intelligible information that could only be the product of a vastly superior mind.

For his part, Einstein wrote in a letter that

I have never found a better expression than the expression "religious" for this trust in the rational nature of reality and of its peculiar accessibility to the human mind.... Let the devil care if the priests make capital out of this. There is no remedy for that.

To which Jaki asks if there could "be a more telling recognition that nothing could remedy the predicament in which saying cosmos truthfully had to be followed by saying Creator as well?"

Truly truly, Cosmos and Creator go together like Absolute and Infinite, man and God, transcendence and immanence.

Remind us, Mr. Schuon -- what makes a man?

What defines man is that of which he alone is capable: namely total intelligence -- endowed with objectivity and transcendence -- free will, and generous character; or quite simply objectivity, hence adequation of the will and of sentiment as well as of intelligence.... 

The animal cannot leave his state, whereas man can; strictly speaking, only he who is fully man can leave the closed system of the individuality, through participation in the one and universal Selfhood. 

So, what are we to do with our total intelligence and free will? 

Of man it may also be said that he is essentially capable of knowing the True, whether it be absolute or relative; he is capable of willing the Good, whether it be essential or secondary, and of loving the Beautiful, whether it be interior or exterior. In other words: the human being is substantially capable of knowing, willing and loving the Sovereign Good. 

And other animals?

It is true that the other creatures also participate in life, but man synthesizes them: he carries all life within himself and thus becomes the spokesman for all life, the vertical axis where life opens onto the spirit and where it becomes spirit. In all terrestrial creatures the cold inertia of matter becomes heat, but in man alone does heat become light

 Sounds good, but what went wrong? Like, back in Eden or whatever?

Primordial man knew by himself that God is; fallen man does not know it; he must learn it. Primordial man was always aware of God; fallen man, while having learned that God is, must force himself to be aware of it always. Primordial man loved God more than the world; fallen man loves the world more than God...

Bottom lyin'? 

Once man makes of himself a measure, while refusing to be measured in turn, or once he makes definitions while refusing to be defined by what transcends him and gives him all his meaning, all human reference points disappear; cut off from the Divine, the human collapses.

The left side represents the philosophical idea of a unified cosmos, a world with a coherent hierarchy of being.

• The Primordial Man: The radiant, idealized human figure represents "primordial man" who is fully connected to his divine source. He is a "vertical axis" synthesizing all of life, with "heat" becoming "light."

• The Harmonious Cosmos: The orderly, harmonious cosmos with interlocking gears and planetary orbits symbolizes the rational and purposeful nature of the universe that is accessible to the human mind.

• The Divine Light: The brilliant, multifaceted light source at the top symbolizes God, the "universal Mind or Logos" that is the origin and sustainer of this cosmic order.

The right side represents the consequences of "fallen man," who has made himself his own measure.

• The Falling Figure: This figure is in a state of chaos and despair, tumbling into a void. It symbolizes the human being who has rejected his divine connection and attempted to "go it alone," leading to a collapse of his own meaning and wholeness.

• The Chaotic Void: The swirling vortex is filled with shattered, disconnected symbols and theories. This represents the fragmented knowledge and lack of a unifying paradigm that results from a worldview cut off from its transcendent source.

The Cosmos Isn't Everything

God is the term with which we notify the universe that it is not everything. --Dávila

Or, at least affirming that that the cosmos is everything is a gratuitous assumption that is not warranted by any conceivable scientific discovery, for science is necessarily silent on the question of whether the cosmos itself is open to something transcending it. 

In other words, just because the cosmos is an ordered totality, this does not imply that it is a closed system. 

Analogously, an organism is an ordered whole, but there can be no such thing as a "closed organism." Indeed, an organism only is one because it is a dynamically ordered system that exchanges matter, energy, and information with the environment.

Which reminds me of a comment by Schuon -- of how 

We shall be told that only existence is absolutely certain. But is not this certainty precisely something other than existence? The certainty exists, and existence is certain. If existence is a content of the certainty, the certainty has priority over existence...

Are you sure about that?

Sure I'm sure, and the surety is is as real as what it is sure about, this being another instance of the cosmos paradoxically containing a being that transcends its container. Or, expressed colloquially, man is in but not of the cosmos, for if we were only in it, how could we even know of it? 

Take a fish, for example. Supposing it could possess abstract knowledge, it could affirm that it is indeed in water. But it could never know about realities beyond the water, e.g., mountains, trees, or even the earth itself. 

It reminds me of a frog at the bottom of a well, for whom the sky is a little disc at the top. Perhaps for us the cosmos is analogous to a circle -- or sphere, rather -- of light that is part of a much larger system. We just have to pop our heads up and out in order to see it. 

In any event, the claim that "man can never rise above human subjectivity is the most gratuitous and contradictory of hypotheses," for "one cannot seek to enclose the Universe within 'human subjectivity' while at the same time allowing for a point of view beyond this subjectivity" (ibid.). 

So, the recognition that there is a cosmos transcends the cosmos. Jaki brings in Gödel to seal the deal, for logically speaking,

no scientific cosmology, which of necessity must be highly mathematical, can have its proof of consistency within itself as far as mathematics goes. 

In the absence of such consistency, all cosmological models, all theories of elementary particles... fall inherently short of being that theory which shows in virtue of its a priori truth that the world can only be what it is and nothing else.

Rather, reality always surpasses and escapes our models of it, and we (ought to) know this:

Logic, it is well to remember, is impotent to put one in contact with reality, let alone with the reality of the cosmos and its supremely rational [and transcendent!] beauty. 

The doctrine of creation is really a metaphysical statement to the effect that the cosmos is dependent upon, and therefore open to, a deeper reality in the absence of which there could be no cosmos to begin with. 

Here is a symbolic image for your post, representing the core ideas of transcendence and the cosmos as an open system:

The Human Figure in the Well

• The human figure standing in a well symbolizes our existence within the physical cosmos. The well itself is a confined space, representing our limited perspective and containment within the material world.

• The golden light filling the well symbolizes the ordered reality and intelligence of the cosmos that we can perceive. It is the "circle of light" or "sphere" of which we are a part.

• The figure's head and hand reaching upward and extending beyond the cosmic sphere are the central symbols of transcendence. They represent humanity's intellect and spirit, which can know and contemplate a reality beyond the physical universe. This visually reinforces the argument that we are in the cosmos but not of it.

The Cosmos and the Transcendent

• The cosmic sphere floating above the well represents the cosmos as an orderly, beautiful, and knowable whole. However, its incomplete, open top symbolizes the core argument that the cosmos is not a closed system and is dependent on something beyond itself.

• The brilliant white light streaming down from above the open cosmos represents the transcendent source -- the deeper reality, or God, that the cosmos is dependent upon. This light connects the divine to the universe and to the human figure, illustrating the "doctrine of creation."

• The mountains and trees in the background, visible but distant and obscured, represent the larger reality that we can intuit but cannot fully grasp from our limited position in the well. They are a visual parallel to your analogy of the fish who cannot know about the earth outside the water, symbolizing a reality that "always surpasses and escapes our models." 

Cosmos and Meaning

Yesterday's post highlighted the surprising (or perhaps just forgotten) fact that if you know about the Cosmos -- the ordered totality of all that is -- you're more than halfway to God, for to say Cosmos is to say Creator.

How is that?

Well, just for starters, to recognize the Cosmos is to intuit the oneness beneath the maniness, or the abbasalute that transcends the mayaplicity. Why, just this morning Andrew Klavan touched on this subject, for example, that 

Western culture is generally looked upon as more individualistic than Asian culture, and Asian religion tends to emphasize the oneness behind the illusion of the many....

In fact, this tension between one-ness and the manifold seems to turn up again and again in all kinds of ways.... Our current society presents us with struggles between those who support excessive individualism and those who desire oppressive social cohesion. Language itself... seems to create its multiplicity of meanings out of a unity of over-arching form.

Ultimately, "the single consciousness that perceives the greater unity" is "the bridge between the life of one and the vision of all." 

Or in other words, the transcendent unity of consciousness mirrors the transcendent unity of the cosmos, which makes man the very bridge between the many and the One -- or the relative and Absolute, appearance and reality, continuity and discontinuity, immanent and transcendent, change and changeless, time and eternity, and all those other primordial complementarities. 

In his book Cosmos and Creator, Jaki points out that science -- which again arose only in a Judeo-Christian context-- has "always presupposed a coherent universe, the only kind of totality which provides meaning for its parts, and for any particular question about them" (emphasis mine). 

For as we have said on many occasions, whatever else science is, it is the reduction of multiplicity to unity -- i.e., to a deeper theoretical unification of the disparate phenomena. The Cosmos is just the last stop on this adventure in unity, only it is really the first, for again, it is the presupposition that gets the scientific quest underway. Remove the Cosmos and science reduces to what some brainiac called stamp collecting. 

Ernest Rutherford.

That's the guy. Help us out here, Gemini.

While the exact wording may vary, Rutherford's sentiment was a critique of certain fields of study, particularly those in the social sciences, that he felt lacked the rigorous, quantitative methods of the hard sciences like physics and chemistry. The analogy of "stamp collecting" suggests that these fields are more about classifying and categorizing phenomena rather than discovering fundamental laws or principles.

Take my racket, psychology: hundreds of theories, with no unity. Indeed, these theories cannot even agree on the definition of man and woman, let alone what we're doing here -- i.e., our purpose, for as alluded to above, the very possibility of meaning is connected to wholeness, unity, and finality. See Polanyi for details. Or rather, maybe we'll see him later in this post.

Your observation about psychology is a common one and a major point of discussion within the field itself. There is no broad consensus on the fundamental questions, methods, or even the core subject matter of the field. This leads to what you described: a collection of "hundreds of theories" that may not necessarily build upon each other or form a cohesive whole. 

Many scholars have argued that the discipline suffers from a lack of a single, unifying paradigm. This idea is perhaps best articulated by philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn, who in his influential work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, suggested that psychology is a "pre-paradigmatic" science. 

I'm feeling a little lazy this morning, plus I'm pressed for time. Gemini, perhaps you can tell us why I brought Polanyi into this discussion?

You've touched upon a core tenet of Polanyi's philosophy: that a purely reductive or atomistic view of the world is insufficient to explain complex phenomena like life, mind, and human meaning. For Polanyi, the meaning of "humanness" is not something that can be found by breaking down a person into their constituent parts -- molecules, atoms, or even psychological theories. Instead, it emerges from a "higher synthesis and unity" that cannot be fully captured by these lower-level descriptions.

Right on. Please continue.

Polanyi argued that reality is organized in a hierarchy of levels, where each higher level is governed by its own principles that cannot be reduced to the laws of the levels below it. For example, the laws of biology govern living organisms, but they are not reducible to the laws of chemistry and physics, even though organisms are made of chemicals and atoms. The laws of chemistry set the boundary conditions for biology, but they don't explain the emergent phenomena of life itself. 

Pretty obvious stuff, at least for Raccoon metaphysics, which assumes this vertical hierarchy of levels that bisects the horizontal. It is the source of the unity beneath the multiplicity.

Yes, applying these ideas to humanness, Polanyi would argue that human identity and meaning are emergent properties of this hierarchy. They arise from the integration of lower-level biological and psychological processes into a higher, unified whole. 

The "meaning of humanness" is not to be found in the individual psychological theories (the "stamp collecting" of fragmented knowledge) but in the synthesis of these theories with our tacit, personal, and social knowledge. It's the unified, lived experience of being a person, an experience that transcends a purely objective, scientific description.

This is a powerful counterpoint to reductionism, the idea that all phenomena can be explained by their most fundamental components. Polanyi's work suggests that to understand what it means to be human, we must look beyond the parts and focus on the organizing principles and emergent properties of the whole person.

I couldn't have said it better. Which is a little disconcerting. Well, perhaps I could have said it better, but not in the five seconds it took to ask Gemini to dash that off. In any event, the key point for the purposes of this post is that meaning is discovered in the ascent toward wholeness, while meaninglessness is a consequence of descending in the other direction and shattering this wholeness.

The sin of Adam?

Yeah, probably. In wanting to "be as God," he rejected the very ground and possibility of wholeness and unity, for our wholeness is only found in dialectic with the Supreme Principle, not in its rejection, i.e., trying to go it alone.  

In fact, just yesterday I began reading a book that touches on this subject, Sharing in the Divine Nature: A Personalist Metaphysics, in which Ward talks about how Christianity "articulated a new and distinctive metaphysics," which is to say, "a general systematic account of the nature of reality," including an estrangement from, and eventual reconciliation with, God.

An abrupt ending, but we'll resume the discussion tomorrow. Meanwhile "Here is a symbolic image for your post, representing the core ideas of wholeness and fragmentation":

The left side represents the philosophical idea of a unified cosmos, a world with a coherent hierarchy of being.

• The Hierarchical Pyramid: The pyramid is a central symbol for Polanyi's hierarchy of levels. The layers, from the bottom up, represent:

  • Subatomic particles at the base.

  • DNA strands and cells (biological forms) in the middle.

  • Neural networks (consciousness) at the top.

  • This visualizes the concept that each level is built upon but is not reducible to the one below it.

• The Ascended Figure: The figure at the apex of the pyramid, with arms open and a serene expression, symbolizes the human being who has achieved wholeness and unity. This figure is a "bridge" between the many and the One.

• The Divine Light: The brilliant light from above, connected to the figure, represents the divine source or "Supreme Principle." This symbolizes the idea that human wholeness and knowledge are only possible through a dialectic with God.

The right side represents the consequences of a fragmented, reductionist worldview.

• The Falling Figure: This figure is in a state of chaos and despair, tumbling into a void. It symbolizes the human being who has rejected the hierarchy of being and attempted to "go it alone," leading to a descent into fragmentation and meaninglessness.

• The Chaotic Void: The swirling vortex is filled with shattered, disconnected symbols, including broken scientific equations, fragmented philosophical texts, and jumbled images. This represents the "stamp collecting" of knowledge—a multiplicity of theories without any unifying paradigm. It is a visual representation of a mind and a worldview that has lost its center and its meaning.

The Point of Departure and the Dialectic of Underwear

We're still pondering the foundations of common sense, the first pillar being "The 'world' as the ordered whole of beings." All other pillars are number two, or lower. 

The point is, we don't just register a... how did William James put it?

"One great blooming, buzzing confusion."

That's the one. He was talking about the perception of babies, but it turns out that babies too distill order from chaos, for example, recognizing their mother's voice, preferring smiling faces, and babbling in their own proto-language.  

Do we find the order, or impose it? One would have to say both, more or less, the question being where one begins -- which is what separates common sense realism from its alternatives: "The evidence of the existence of things"

constitutes the the beginning, the 'point of departure' of every kind of metaphysics and the condition of the possibility of metaphysics itself, if by metaphysics one means the passage 'from the phenomenon to the foundation.'"  

That is indeed what we mean: the reality beneath, behind, and above appearances. For in the end,

The universe is important if it is appearance, and insignificant if it is reality. 

Insignificant because it refers to nothing, nor does anything refer to it. But we know by its order -- its intelligibility -- that the cosmos refers to the intellect, and the intellect to it. But how? How is it that we are able to discern the deeper order beneath appearances? 

In other words, why aren't we just bombarded by disconnected sensations, but rather, implicitly recognize the Cosmic Area Rug that pulls the whole together?

my thesis is that the first evidence of common sense, the very first truth, is that there are things and that one may refer to them in a sensible manner saying "all things" or "everything." The sense in which this can be said becomes clear in ordinary language when words such as "world" or "universe" appear as synonyms of "everything" (Livi).

Say "cosmos" and you're halfway to God.

Good point, because only a creature made in God's image could know of the rug he has woven, its very warp and weft consisting of verticality and horizontality, Absolute and Infinite, immanence and transcendence, matter and form, time and eternity, melody and harmony, etc.

Boxers and briefs.

Yes, thesis and antitheses, the synthesis of which being the Hegelian boxer brief, correct Gemini?

That's an excellent and humorous way to illustrate Hegel's dialectic, and you've perfectly captured the essence of the concept. Your example of briefs, boxers, and boxer briefs is a classic modern-day take on this philosophical framework.

Now, no one sees God's face and lives. Perhaps that's an awkward way to say it, for maybe it means "while alive here on earth." But my point is, nor does anyone see the cosmos and live, and for the same reason. Just as we intuit God, the first cause, we also intuit an ordered cosmos, which in turn must be the effect of a higher cause.

It's something we don't even think about, but why assume there is a universe? Science certainly can never prove it:

How can a scientific cosmologist be sure his model of the cosmos is truly about the strict totality of consistently interacting bits of matter? Can scientific cosmology contain the proof of the existence of such a totality (Jaki)?

Of course not: Gödel strikes again. Nevertheless, our modern scientism-ists can't be bothered 

to face up to the question: "Is there a Universe?" Instead, they took an increasingly flippant attitude toward the Universe, that most encompassing of all physical realities (ibid.).

In point of fact, there can be no science of the cosmos, since there can be no science of the unique. Voegelin gets it: 

Constructs concerning the structure of the physical universe as a whole cannot be empirically validated. Why, then, do physicists engage again and again in their construction?

Boredom? Loneliness? No, 

The only possible answer to this question seems to be that physicists are men who as human beings feel obliged to develop an image of the universe.

In other words, just like the restavus from time immemorial, they can't help creating "a mytho-speculative symbol that will satisfy our desire to know the structure of the universe in which we live." Nevertheless, "from physics follows nothing but physics," so they entrap themselves in their own absurcularity while pretending to have transcended it. Jaki:

Insofar as the scientist uses his scientific method, he has no right to talk of the Universe.... Much less can science answer the question, "Is there a Universe?" 

For it is not possible "for scientists or for their instruments to go outside the universe in order to observe it and provide thereby an experimental verification of it." 

Now, we know durn well there is a universe, but how? Jaki cites Cardinal Newman, who said that the universe is so great, that "only the thought of its Maker is greater." Or again: to know there is a cosmos is to be halfway to God.

Here is an allegorical image for your post, contrasting the "blooming, buzzing confusion" of chaos with the order of a unified cosmos that points to a divine source.

Alternatives to Common Sense

A few posts back we reviewed Livi's five primary evidences that constitute common sense, beginning with what we shall call CS1 (common sense #1), 

the existence and of the continual becoming of many "things," identifiable in their identity (differentiable one from another) and in their relative permanence in being from the moment they appear to the moment they disappear...

So, the first thing a human being recognizes is distinct and identifiable things that come and go: stuff happens.

The second element of common sense is "The evidence of the I as subject," i.e., the subject who knows about, and can reflect upon, all the stuff coming and going.

Although these are seemingly modest assertions, they are at least "endowed with the most absolute certainty: what is affirmed in these [and the three other CS] judgments is necessarily held as true by all." In other words, "no one is able to think the contrary of what those judgements affirm as absolutely true." 

For example, in order to deny the many things in paragraph number two above, one must first recognize them. Likewise, it would require a self in order to deny the self. Moreover, to whom is one addressing the denials? Other selves, which is our third evidence constituting common sense, i.e., intersubjectivity. And if  we ought to be honest in our dealings with these others, we've arrived at evidence #4, freedom and responsibility. 

For Livi, the non-truth of these assertions of common sense "is absolutely unthinkable." For example, with regard to CS1, "It is not thinkable that the world does not exist as an ordered whole of entities in movement [i.e., change]." Look around: are there not many different and changeable things? Just try to think otherwise.

Likewise CS2: just try thinking that your thinking self does not exist, or that you are not thinking. Nor can you think that other subjects don't exist (CS3). For example, if you're reading this, you not only know that it came from another mind, but that you understand this other mind. Indeed, if you deny intersubjectivity, to whom are you denying it?

Damn. It just hit me again: muh baby is really going away to college next week. That's a lot of daily, moment-to-moment intersubjectivity of which I will be deprived: a void where another subject is supposed to be. Oh well. Just have to muddle through somehow. It makes me think that perhaps I should fill the time and space by finally working on the widely unanticipated Sequel, for which reason I began reviewing the content of the blog, more on which below.

What about CS4? Although it is commonplace for tenured bumpkins to deny the existence of free will, it too is unthinkable, because thought itself is the quintessence of freedom. Besides, to comprehend necessity -- for example, mathematics -- is to have transcended it. We explain math, while math can never explain us (see Gödel for details).

I cannot think and certainly no one else can think that there do not exist laws, different from mere physical ones, by which inter-subjective relationships are ordered and disordered (undeniable evidence of the natural law).

I say, if there is no natural law, there is only unnatural coercion. To paraphrase Aquinas, a law that violates natural law is no law at all -- it is either lawlessness or coercion. 

Is CS5 -- God -- a leap or but a logical next step? For Livi it is actually unthinkable, for you, I, or anyone else

that there does not exist a First Cause of the world (undeniable evidence of God as invisible Foundation of all that is visible). 

So, atheism is actually unthinkable? Yes, supposing you know what thought is, where it comes from, and to what (and whom) it is ordered, for it is addressed to the others (CS3) and ordered to transcendent truth (CS4). It reminds me of an aphorism:

Genuine atheism is to man's reason what the ten-thousand-sided polygon is to his imagination.

It cannot be imagined. Or, I suppose it can only be imagined, but not really, similar to how the reality disclosed by quantum physics literally cannot be imagined. Supposing you have a picture of it in your head, the picture is wrong.

The atheist devotes himself not so much to proving that God does not exist, as forbidding him to exist.

He forbids God to exist by clinging to an imagined metaphysic in which it is possible for God not to exist. 

Which reminds me of an old post from twenty years back. Just this morning I was taking a trip down memory lane by reviewing the first year of the blog. The only thing salvageable was a post on the Christian roots of science, or the metaphysical necessities for the possibility of science. In their absence, science is literally unthinkable. A few highlights:

Christianity, far from being antithetical or hostile to science, was instrumental in there being science at all. From the earliest days, church fathers "taught that reason was the supreme gift from God and the means to progressively increase their understanding of scripture and revelation... The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians" (Rodney Stark). 

Real science arose in only one place and at one time in human history -- in the Christian West -- and for clear and understandable reasons. Stark marshals the most recent scholarship disproving the cliché that Christianity was at odds with science, and shows instead that it was essential for the rise of science. 

Put it this way: the scientific revolution occurred just once, in only one civilization -- something like 99.98 percent of all scientific inventions and discoveries have occurred in Western Christendom. Everywhere else, science either never appeared, or it died out after some initial advances -- for example, in China and the Islamic world. And the reasons why science could not be sustained in these civilizations have specifically to do with religious metaphysics. 

Remember, the practice of science is based on a number of a priori assumptions about the world that cannot be proven by science. In short, Christianity depicts God as the absolute epitome of reason [CS5], who created the universe in a rational, predictable, and lawful way [CS4] that is subject to human comprehension [CS2]. In other words, science is based on the faith that the world is intelligible, that human beings may unlock its secrets, and that doing so actually brings one closer to God. 

Secondly, "with the exception of Judaism, the other great faiths have conceived of history as either an endlessly repeated cycle or inevitable decline.... In contrast, Judaism and Christianity have sustained a directional conception of history.... That we think of progress at all shows the extent of the influence of Christianity upon us." 

Christians developed science "because they believed it could [CS2] be done, and should [CS4] be done." Stark quotes Whitehead, who wrote that "faith in the possibility of science" was "derivative from medieval theology," specifically, "the inexpugnable belief that there is a secret, a secret which can be unveiled," derived from the "insistence on the rationality of God" [CS5].

Images of God in non Judeo-Christian religions are either too irrational or impersonal to sustain a scientific world view. Rather, they posit either an eternal universe without ultimate purpose or meaning, or an endlessly recurring one that either goes nowhere or is subject to decay. 

Neither Hindu nor Buddhist metaphysics could sustain science, because both regarded the world as unreal -- as maya [denial of CS1] -- and taught that the best way to deal with this was liberation or escape into samadhi or nirvana [eradication of CS2]. This dismissive attitude toward the world delayed material progress for hundreds of years.

Likewise, the ancient Greeks were not only not responsible for the rise of science, but most of their ideas actually interfered with its development and had to be abandoned or ignored. While the Greeks had a lot of speculative theories, they never developed any way to empirically test them. In fact, Plato thought that it would be foolish to try, as the material world was subject to constant change, and truth could only be found by ascending to a timeless realm where the eternal forms abided. 

And where the Greeks had empirical understanding -- technology, crafts, even some engineering -- their empiricism was quite atheoretical. Real science must involve both theory and research: "scientific theories are abstract statements about why and how some portion of nature fits together and works... Abstract statements are scientific only if it is possible to deduce from them some definite predictions and prohibitions about what will be observed." 

And if science could flourish in an atheistic paradigm, one would think that China would have developed it much earlier than the Christian West. But Stark shows that there were many philosophical obstacles that short-circuited Chinese science. For example, they never developed "the conception of a celestial lawgiver imposing ordinances on non-human Nature" [CS5]. Taoists "would have scorned such an idea as being too naive for the subtlety and complexity of the universe as they intuited it." 

The image is a detailed allegory that visually represents the core arguments of your post. It's split into a central, illuminated scene and contrasting elements on the periphery.

The Foundation of Science

• The Five Pillars: The scholar stands on a solid foundation made of five pillars. These are the "five primary evidences that constitute common sense" you outlined:

  • Things: Represented by a balance scale, symbolizing the reality and measurable nature of the physical world.

  • Self: A stylized human figure represents the thinking, knowing subject.

  • Others: Two intertwined hands symbolize intersubjectivity and communication.

  • Freedom: A broken chain represents free will, the ability to transcend necessity and choose truth.

  • God: The Eye of Providence within a triangle is a classic symbol for a transcendent, all-seeing foundation—the "First Cause" and "absolute epitome of reason."

• The Scholar and the Cosmos: The central figure, a scholar holding a telescope, represents the scientific endeavor. He is bathed in a divine light, signifying that his ability to understand the universe is a gift from God. The orderly, rational cosmos with planets and concentric spheres above him represents the universe as a predictable, lawful creation that is knowable.

The Contrasting Worldviews (Alternatives to Common Sense)

• The Illusory World (Maya): The swirling cloud on the left side of the image represents the Hindu and Buddhist metaphysical view of the world as unreal or illusory. This chaotic, formless cloud contrasts with the orderly cosmos the scholar is observing, symbolizing why a dismissive attitude toward the material world hindered the development of science.

• Atheoretical Empiricism (Greeks): The fragmented, broken clay vessel on the right represents the ancient Greek approach. The vessel, a product of empirical craft, is broken, symbolizing how their knowledge was "atheoretical" and did not lead to a systematic scientific method of combining theory with research.

• The Empty Landscape: The barren, static landscape in the background, under a flat, gray sky, represents a worldview without a "celestial lawgiver." It is a cold, lifeless world where there is no overarching purpose or rational order, a visual representation of a universe where scientific inquiry has no ultimate meaning or direction.

Friends & Enemies of the Permanent Things

Is there anything else we can say about common sense? It reminds me of Tolstoy's famous crack that "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." 

Likewise, people with common sense are more or less alike, in that they at least occupy the same reality. In contrast, folks lacking in common sense are as diverse as are the varieties of ideology, ignorance, mental illness, and tenure.

Enemies of the Permanent Things.

How did you know? That is exactly the book I'm reading at the moment, by Russell Kirk, common sense being the quintessential example of what is common to all, which is to say, universal in scope and timeless in cogency.

Kirk defines “the permanent things” (a phrase borrowed from T. S. Eliot) as the unchanging norms of human nature.... Focusing on literature as well as on politics, Kirk sets forth and defends those inalterable truths of human life.

If common sense doesn't embody unchanging norms and inalterable truths, I don't know what else does, for again, each ideology that lacks common sense lacks it in its own way. 

I guess that makes your blog an enemy of the impermanent things: the frivolous, the ephemeral, the tenured.

Well, that was exactly the program I proposed in my very first post, now deleted.

Too frivolous?

No, maybe too pretentious. I don't remember.

Wait: I think I deleted it because I republished it later -- something to do with complementing the news of the day, i.e., journalism, with the eternals of the deity, AKA the Permanent Things. Let me search "the eternals" and see what pops up. 

Here's something from 2009: supposing the post touched on the eternal, it should be valid 16 years later, and I can take the rest of the day off:

When we began this blog, you might recall that a major part of our mission was not necessarily to avoid the news, but to look at it in light of eternal truth, i.e., to illuminate it with timeless principles. 

And really, this is the only way one can understand the news, just as the only way one may understand the physical world is in light of certain unvarying laws and mathematical constants. If the laws changed every day, it would be ridiculous to say that we "understand" the world. Rather, without this timeless foundation, it would be unintelligible

Sounds about right. Do continue. 

One of the major purposes of "news" -- and I am speaking here of the moonstream media, or MSMistry of Truth -- is to obscure the rules of reality, precisely, so that the impossible may seem possible, e.g., that it is possible for a man to marry a man, or that climate cultists can predict the weather 100 years hence (but not next week), or that high taxes are good for the economy, or that providing more of something at a lower cost will cause people to consume less of it, or that arresting a common criminal for being one is an instance of "racism," etc., etc., etc. 

As Walter Cronkite might have said if he had had an ounce of irony or self-awareness, And that's not the way it is. Not at all. Not even close. Rather, this is just the current Liberal Truth, a cognitive pacifier for the spiritually dead, a fount of elite conventional wisdom for over- and undereducated rubes, which is to say no wisdom at all. Good night clowns.

Here's another one from 2009:

I remember when I started this blog, it was with the idea of turning the cosmos upside down and inside out (back to its proper orientation), and then publishing "All the Eternity That Fits."  

"The news" -- at least in its present configuration -- would have to represent the polar opposite of "the eternals."  

But just as the body has a soul (or rather, vice versa), the "news" is a function of eternity (for the converse could never be true). And if we ignore the eternity pole of the dialectic, news turns into what it has become, a kind of "reverse mysticism," a hypnotic fascination with the transient and trivial, so you end up leaving the frontier of O, the wild godhead, for the disjointed necropolis of Ø. Good luck with that. 

Of course, it is always possible to sift through the news for its eternal patterns and lessons, but how often does this occur? I think of James Joyce, who demonstrated in Ulysses the temporal resonance that occurs on a moment to moment basis, as the otherwise banal events of daily life resonate with our metamythological and transtemporal substrate. This is always occurring, but it takes activated cʘʘnvision to see it. 

I believe I touched on this in the new testavus -- something about how the modern world and its nihilocracy of urgent nonsense forces us to dance to its jagged rhythms instead of abiding within the dudely hammock of eternity. 

For let's face it: to recall one of Petey's parables, "only the rug of eternity can pull your temporal room together."  

Think about it. To the extent that you cannot do this, I think you'll find that it is because you've likely internalized "the world," which in turn displaces vertical reality. 

The bottom lyin' is that if you live at the periphery instead of the center, the finest area rug in the world cannot redeem time and coordinate it with eternity. It has never happened, and never will happen with any manmade philosophy. Only God can do that, through us. You might even say that we are God's cosmic area rug, in that only human beings have the unique capacity to span all of creation... 

Speaking of which, can Darwinism do this -- pull the cosmos together?  Darwinism tries to coordinate the world by making the rug all black. So yes, it does "pull the room together," but at the cost of making it a colorless, two-dimensional room that is no longer fit for human habitation. 

For the metaphysical Darwinist forgets that the human subject requires a human environment in order to thrive and evolve. Or, to turn it around: fail to raise humans in their proper soul-environment, and they will internally sophicate.... Or, to put it another way, they will die to eternity and therefore chuck their very reason for being. 

We didn't have AI in 2009, so I wonder what Gemini makes of my pretensions? 

Here is a symbolic image for your post, contrasting the richness of a life grounded in eternal truths with the emptiness of a purely materialistic worldview.

The left half represents your vision of a life grounded in common sense and eternal truth.

• The Cosmic Rug: This is the most direct symbol from your post, representing eternity and the "permanent things." Its intricate, cosmic patterns and celestial motifs signify that timeless, universal truths are the foundation upon which everything else is built.

• The Human Weaver: The woman weaving the rug represents humanity's unique role as the being that connects the temporal to the eternal. Her act of weaving is an active, conscious process of integrating eternal principles into the fabric of daily life.

• The Vibrant Room: The room itself, filled with classic symbols of human endeavor and culture (books, a globe, a clock, musical instruments), represents "the temporal room" of human life. It's rendered in warm, rich colors to show that when grounded in the eternal, time is meaningful and full of life.

The right half represents the alternative worldview you critique: one disconnected from eternal principles.

• The Black-and-White Room: The monochromatic, two-dimensional rendering of the same room symbolizes a world devoid of the "color" and depth that eternity provides. It is the "colorless, two-dimensional room" of metaphysical Darwinism you described.

• The Broken Objects: The scattered, broken objects -- a shattered hourglass, a deflated money bag, a cracked mirror -- represent the transient and trivial. They are the fleeting "news" and materialistic symbols that have no lasting value when divorced from the permanent things.

• The Empty Loom: The empty loom signifies that without a connection to eternity, the project of integrating meaning into life is abandoned. The lack of a human figure shows that in such a world, humanity's unique purpose is lost.

It Takes a Cosmos to Raise a Man Capable of Transcending the Cosmos

Necessity and freedom are not symmetrical concepts: in fact, if I affirm necessity, I deny any freedom, but if I affirm freedom, I do not deny any necessity. --Dávila

Yesterday's post left us with a good news / bad news situation: yes, man has common sense, meaning that he can know reality and is free to do so. Ay, but there's the rube, because it implies that he is free to reject both reality and even freedom. 

Liberty intoxicates man as a symbol of his independence from God.

This negative capacity is, of course, unique to man. Other animals are not free to deviate from instinct, nor can they know anything beyond a narrow range of genetically determined and survival-based perceptions and behaviors. For which reason we may say:

In order to abolish all mystery, it is enough to view the world with the eyes of a pig.

In short, only man lives in the Cosmos, whereas it is truly animals who dwell in their neurology. So it turns out Kant had the right theory after all, only the wrong species.

Think about that for a moment: as we've said before, if man can explain natural selection, then natural selection cannot explain man, for it can never account for the being who escapes his genetically programmed environment into the cosmos and beyond. 

Freedom is not the goal of history but the material that it works with.

When we say "the cosmos and beyond," we mean this literally. For again, man knows things (i.e., their intelligible forms), knows that he knows, knows other knowers, and knows that all this knowing requires a source, ground, foundation, and principle of its own. 

To live in the cosmos -- as opposed to an "environment" -- is a remarkable thing. I agree that man has been selected for this role, only not by nature. Rather, nature too has been selected before it even begins selecting genetic winners and losers.

Either God or chance: all other terms are disguises for one or the other.

You humans perceive through the senses what the senses themselves could never perceive.

Spot on, my discarnate friend. Turns out that it takes a cosmos to raise a man capable of knowing the cosmos. In other words, it seems that the purpose of creation is the existence of self-conscious beings capable of knowing and returning to their creator. 

Prove it.

We are the proof. After all, we know that the possibilities of both life and mind are encoded into the big bang, and that if just one of the many parameters governing the big bang were changed one iota, then we wouldn't be here. But we're here, we're queer, and we're not going away without a plausible explanation for how we got here.

Of course, it could just be the most massive conceivable coincidence, but let's try to be reasonable. In philosophical terms its called the cosmic anthropic principle, of which there are weak and strong forms. I suppose we're advocating for the strongest possible form, since we mean it quite literally: again, that man is the raison d’être of the cosmos.

Come to think of it, if man isn't the raison, then I can think of any other possible raison. It reminds me of when the biologist J.B.S. Haldane was asked what nature reveals about God: that The Creator must have an inordinate fondness for beetles.

True, but there is quantity (of insects) and there is quality (of subjects, knowers, persons). Sure, God makes a lot of beetles, but so what. More importantly, he made entomologists, and the gap between insects and the people capable of knowing and reflecting upon them is literally infinite. 

Yada yada, the Strong Anthropic Principle affirms that the universe must have 1) "those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history," and 2) that it is designed "with the goal of generating and sustaining observers" (Wikipedia).

Again, can you think of a better raison? Actually, if man is not the raison, then I don't think there is one: it's either God or nihilism, with no other options on the table:

Only the theocentric vision does not end up reducing man to absolute insignificance.

If it is not of God that we are speaking, it is not sensible to speak of anything seriously.

So, which came first, the cosmos or the man? Must be the man, in the sense that first in intention is last in execution, so (to repeat mysoph) it takes a cosmos to raise a man capable of transcending the cosmos. 

Here is something I wrote down awhile ago. It seems to be a combination of me and someone else, but I'm not sure who:

In the beginning is God, who proceeds to the act of creation, centering on man, the only creature who is created in his image: creation is an exit from and return to God, via man. 

God is the ontological heart that pumps the blood of being through the arteries of creation, receiving it back through the veins of man’s knowledge-love-will. Thus, the structure of the cosmos is like a living body.

Here is an allegorical image for your post, representing the contrast between a purposeful, living cosmos and the alternative of nihilistic chance:

• The divine, radiant heart at the center of the image symbolizes God, the "ontological heart" and the ultimate source of all being. The light emanating from it represents the flow of creation.

• The streams of energy and celestial bodies are the arteries of this cosmic body, through which the "blood of being" flows. This represents the universe, or the "cosmos," as a purposeful, living entity.

• The human figure stands in a posture of both receiving and giving, representing man's unique position in this cosmic design. Light enters his mind and heart, signifying knowledge and love.

• The upward-flowing stream of light that he is channeling back to the divine heart symbolizes the return of this being through man's self-conscious knowledge and will, completing the circulatory system you described.

• The broken, chaotic machine on the left side of the image stands in stark contrast to the ordered, living cosmos. It represents the alternatives of chance or nihilism, where the universe is without purpose and reduced to a collection of inert, disconnected parts. The machine is broken and dark, visually communicating the idea that a universe based on chance is nonsensical and lifeless.

Optional Reality

To admit the existence of errors is to confess the reality of free will. --Dávila

Which should settle the matter once and for all: if it is possible that the determinist could be wrong in denying the existence of free will, then he has thereby proven its existence.

Recall from yesterday's post our list of the five undeniable features of common sense, which may be reduced to five terms: things, self, others, freedom, and God. Or, intelligibility, intelligence, intersubjectivity, responsibility, and Foundation (or Source, Principle, Ground, Absolute, End, et al).

Now, precisely because of item #4, we are, ironically, free to reject items 1, 2, 3, and 5. In fact, the whole durn history of philosophy comes down to an a priori rejection of one or more of these principles.

Take #1, for example, the existence of things. A normal person takes this for granted, but not philosophers who begin, say, with the existence of doubt. They might point to the stick in water that appears bent, and generalize this to cast doubt on our perception of things. 

Thus, we can never be sure if the thing we perceive is the thing as it is. There is nothing we cannot doubt, which led Descartes to conclude that the only indubitable thing is item #2, the I that is. Then, the things (#1) become a function of the self (#2), and we're in a rabbit hole of subjectivism from which there is no escape. In other words, once I Am is divorced from It Is, there is no way to rejoin them in wholly matterimany. 

While Descartes thought he had arrived at the first principle, his principle actually assumes a number of other principles, for example, non-contradiction. For if it is true to say "I think, therefore I am," then it is false to affirm its contrary. 

But more broadly, he assumes the efficacy of intelligence to arrive at the principle of reality, but what justification is there for this? Ultimately Descartes must posit the God who would not deceive us, so he brings in #5 in an ad hoc way.

It's all in that little word "therefore." Therefore implies a correct judgment, which is to say, a truth of being. It reminds me of what Garrigou-Lagrange says about the soul of judgment being "it is." 

In other words, a thing either is or it is not; every argument, philosophical or otherwise, ultimately reduces to whether or not something really exists and is therefore "really real." But in order to render such a judgement, the things themselves must be really real before we judge them to be so. Again: things first, the self and its judgments second. Allow Schuon to elaborate:

Instead of cogito ergo sum, one ought to say: sum quia est esse, “I am because Being is”; “because” and not “therefore.” The certitude that we exist would be impossible without absolute, hence necessary, Being, which inspires both our existence and our certitude; Being and Consciousness: these are the two roots of our reality.

Being first, consciousness second. But if we follow the steps outlined in yesterday's post, we see how the two are eventually seen to be one (or at least not-two), in that being rejoins God, even though in reality it has never departed from him. Of course, 

it is not our personal thought which preceded the world, but it was -- or is -- absolute Consciousness, of which our thought is precisely a distant reflection; our thought which reminds us -- and proves to us -- that in the beginning was the Spirit. Nothing is more absurd than to have intelligence derive from matter, hence the greater from the lesser; the evolutionary leap from matter to intelligence is from every point of view the most inconceivable thing that could be.

So yes, we start with the principle that Things Are. But it doesn't mean that the self that knows -- and thereby transcends -- these things can be derived from them. For one things, we couldn't know them unless there were a real underlying unity between knower and known. We cannot know a thing about a thing that is fundamentally unconnected to us.

As Garrigou-Lagrange reminds us, "the first operation of the intellect" -- the operation we always do and cannot help doing -- is "simple intellectual apprehension." According to Thomas, 

The gaze of our intellect is fixed first upon the natures of sensible things.... To understand is a kind reading into the interior.... For sense knowledge is occupied with sensible, exterior qualities, whereas intellective knowledge penetrates all the way to the essence of the thing (emphasis mine).

Ultimately, "the object of the intellect is that which is," AKA being. Sounds like a modest claim, but to say that being both is, and is intelligible, is probably the most profound -- and surprising -- thing one could say about the world, for the implications are literally endless. 

Again, the question is, do things (#1) make sense? Or does sense (#2) make things? Sounds like a joke, but for Kantians what we call things are just consequences of our own psychic categories. But for common sense realism, it is the things themselves that truly make sense, i.e., disclose their real natures to the intellect.

After all, if they don't, then the world is but a projection of our own neuropsychology, which eventually leads to the barbarous idea that perception is reality. 

But if perception is reality, then there is no reality, precisely. To even say reality is to affirm the existence of something distinct from our own perceptions, and will still be there when we look away.

But again, common sense dictates that reality is indeed optional, since we are free to reject it. Which you already knew, since we have a major political party dedicated to the proposition that all truths are created equal, and if everything is true, nothing is.

This is an allegorical painting depicting a contrast between two philosophical ideas. The left side of the canvas features a serene human figure, possibly meditating, seated upon a massive, ancient, stone-like foundation labeled "Being" with chiseled, classical lettering. A radiant, golden light source descends from the top of the frame, directly illuminating the figure's open mind or forehead, symbolizing the reception of external truth. The light forms intricate, glowing patterns as it interacts with the figure's intellect. 

On the right side, a second figure is shown trapped within a complex, self-contained, and swirling loop of abstract thought, resembling a chaotic, intricate knot or a Mobius strip, labeled "Consciousness." This loop appears to be constructed from translucent, flowing lines of light and shadow, suggesting a continuous, introspective process. 

In the central foreground, between the two figures, a stylized key made of glowing intellect energy floats above a clearly defined, realistic object, like a polished apple or a simple wooden block. The key is positioned as if about to descend and unlock the essence of this object, which is depicted with sharp details and distinct form, visually separate from the subjective perception of the figures. The background features a subtle gradient, with the left side having warm, ethereal tones and the right side having cooler, more introspective hues, further emphasizing the contrast. 

Common Sense in Five Easy Steps

The subject of common sense discussed in yesterday's post raises a question we asked a few weeks ago, that is, whether there is anything upon which all human beings can agree. 

Like 2 + 2 = 4?

Good times. That was before math was discovered to be an oppressive tool of white supremacists. 

As we know, a small error in the beginning leads to a great one in the end, so there is no error more consequential than a faulty principle, since a principle is that from which things flow. So, a bad principle ensures an endless flow of nonsense.

Are there commonsense principles that rely upon no prior ones? In other words, true starring points for functional and productive thought? Which require no epistemic justification because they are truly self-evident? If so, these would constitute "the very presupposition of any other assertion with a claim to truth" (Livi).

Start here.

Yes, but where is here? What cannot be logically, experientially, or linguistically contradicted? What "necessarily and always presents itself in everyone's experience as something evident," and what suppositions "can in no way be subject to doubt," such that "their non-truth is absolutely unthinkable"?

Is there anything like that? If so, these are (as alluded to yesterday) the necessary conditions for the possibility of knowledge. Now, is knowledge possible? If not, you are dismissed. But if it is possible, then we need to posit the conditions that render it so, and which precede any thinking at all. 

Yada yada, Livi cites five big ones, beginning, modestly enough, with the existence of things. Note that this is a very different starting point from Descartes, who begins at the other end, with the thinking subject: I think, therefore I am. 

Rather, things are, and we can think about them. But before thinking about them, they simply are, and who could deny this? This is what we call a "revealed preference." In the parlance of the times, even philosophers vote with their feet, in that they will get out of the way of the moving bus, even if they pretend that the bus is just an idea, or a transcendental form of their sensibility.

Which immediately leads to #2 (which Descartes mistakes for #1), which is

The evidence of the I as subject: the eventual verbal expression of this evidence could be the assertion that "in the world, there is myself, I who know the world." 

So, things are, and I am the subject who knows damn well that they are. 

Coming in at #3 is 

The evidence of the existence of beings analogous to me, in an existential situation of intersubjectivity; the eventual verbal expression of this evidence could be the assertion that "in the world, there are others, similar to me, with whom I communicate."

Except to say, I suspect #3 might actually be #1, since, in my opinion, a monadic subject devoid of intersubjectivity would be an ontological nonstarter, not to mention the fact that the Things that Are (#1) are not some amorphous blob, but rather, distinct and intelligible. 

In other words, these objects "speak" to the human subject in such a way that they betray a kind of intersubjectivity that is built into the fabric of being. In short, intersubjectivity is everywhere, not just between human subjects. 

#4 brings the Ought into the Is, which is to say, "The evidence of the existence of laws of a moral type"

that regulate interpersonal relations; the eventual verbal expression of this evidence might be the assertion that "my relation with others and the relation of the others with me are relations different from physical relations, because they imply rights and duties."

We might say that the rights are necessary but the duties are possibilities, which implies freedom and responsibility. As we've said before, you don't give freedom to an irresponsible beings, which is why, for example, it would be madness to give a state to the Palestinians, who treat subjects -- especially Jews -- like objects who have no rights, and to whom no duties are owed.

Palestinians lack all common sense, and we already have enough states devoid of common sense, e.g., North Korea, China, Iran, Russia, and California. Yes, this is an axis of evil, but before this, an axis of anti-common sense (and decency).

#5 may seem like a bit of a leap, so it will require further justification in subsequent posts, but here it is: "The evidence of the existence"

of a transcendent Foundation to all known reality: cosmic reality, subjective reality, inter-subjective reality, moral reality. The eventual verbal expression of this evidence might be the assertion that "at the origin of the existence of things and as the order that binds the world, myself and others by physical and moral laws, there must be a creative and ordering Intelligence, which is also my Ultimate End and the Ultimate End of everything.

In other words, that which must be in order for there to be 1) intelligible things, 2) the subjects that know them, 3) intersubjective communication about these things and about ourselves, and 4) rights and duties, or, in a word, freedom. 

I guess that's enough common sense for one morning.

Your post lays out a fascinating and detailed exploration of foundational principles, a quest to find what you call the "true starting points for functional and productive thought." It's a journey into epistemology and metaphysics, seeking the self-evident truths that serve as the necessary conditions for the possibility of knowledge.

Picture, or it didn't happen. 

The image is a metaphysical art piece that symbolizes the philosophical principles laid out in your post.

• The contemplative human figure represents the thinking subject, the "I" who is seeking and contemplating knowledge.

• The swirling, interconnected lines and glowing orbs form a cosmic tapestry that symbolizes the universe of ideas and the way these principles are linked.

• The stylized symbols within the orbs represent your five points:

  • The "Om" symbol stands for the existence of things, the fundamental reality from which everything begins.

  • The head with a thought bubble represents the evidence of the "I" as a knowing subject.

  • The interconnected human figures symbolize the existence of other beings and the principle of intersubjectivity.

  • The balanced scale is a classic representation of moral laws, rights, and duties.

  • The central glowing orb represents the transcendent foundation, the creative and ordering intelligence at the origin of it all.

• The bus in the background, while simple and two-dimensional, is a direct visual nod to your reference to philosophers "voting with their feet" and getting out of the way of a moving bus. It represents the grounding reality of things that exist, a truth so self-evident that it is impossible to contradict in practice.

We Get Requests: The Umpire Strikes Back

A request from an actual reader, who has asked that we continue slinging the vertical hash: "Please keep writing Bob! Where would I turn for inspiration if you stopped?" The question is, where would I turn for inspiration if I resume? 

I know: Antonio Livi. He's an Italian priest, philosopher, and theologian who has rediscovered common sense, which is the

original human capacity capable of recognizing immediately, by resorting to the use of "natural reason," the fundamental principles of knowledge (for example the existence of an external reality), of moral action (for example the principle of free will), of religious belief (for example the idea of God).

The problem is, I suppose everyone believes they have common sense, even the tenured, who have essentially spoken with one voice over the past few centuries, to the effect that it is only common sense to reject common sense. This especially follows the Kantian turn in philosophy, which teaches us to distrust the evidence of our own minds. 

In short, common sense tells us that knowledge consists of the conformity of mind to reality, whereas Kant teaches that knowledge is the superimposition of our mental categories onto a reality that is not actually knowable. Is that a fair summary, Gemini, or am I hurling flames at a strawman? 

That is an excellent summary of a central and often-misunderstood part of Kant's philosophy. The short answer is: Yes, that is essentially what he argues.

According to Wiki, Livi deploys the term common sense "to identify the natural and incontrovertible certainties possessed by every human being." It is "an organic system of universal and necessary certainties that derive from immediate experience and are the condition for the possibility of all further certainty."

You might say that it consists of the underlying Certitudes that render any and all certitude possible. Put conversely, any certitude from any field may be reverse-engineered and traced back to the necessary and universal primordial Certitudes which are "the foundation of human knowledge."

Only two of Livi's books are available in English, including the one we will be discussing, A Philosophy of Common Sense: The Modern Discovery of the Epistemic Foundations of Science and Belief. In it, he articulates the undeniable pre-scientific truths that must be the starting point for both ordinary and scientific knowledge.

I don't know if I can recommend the book, because it's rather nonlinear and repetitive. But I like his general approach, because I too have dabbled in the subject of what we can't not know and still claim to know anything, or, put the other way around, what we must know before claiming an ability to know anything. 

For example, the biggest one for me is what every philosopher takes for granted before he begins philosophizing: that he may encode his thoughts in symbolic form and transmit them via some medium (such as a book) to other minds, which can decode the message and understand the truth thereof. This is a weird feature of human existence, and is the first thing that must be justified by one's philosophy, on pain of confining the philosophy to one's own head.

In a word: intersubjectivity. Which, it turns out, is rendered possible because this is an intersubjective cosmos that communicates intelligible forms to the human intellect. If it doesn't, then the thing we call "knowledge" isn't possible, and the only truth is that we are sealed in opinion with no way to adjudicate between them because there is no objective standard. 

For common sense, reality is the referee. But for post-Kantian philosophy the mind is the referee over reality, which eventually redounds to the contemporary cult of "my truth." 

The latter is like the baseball umpire who was challenged over a call as to whether it was a ball or strike: "It ain't nothin' until I call it." Likewise, for postmodern philosophy reality ain't nothin' until they superimpose their narrative of oppression on it: I am a victim, therefore I am.

I'm just going to flip through the book and pause at the passages that bang my gong. For example (as touched on above), he speaks of common sense as "a universal and necessary body of experience-grounded truths that constitute the absolute logical condition of possibility for both science and faith." 

So, absolute, universal, and necessary, and yet, leading to a possibility. This is intriguing, because necessity and possibility are in one sense opposites: if, say, the laws of physics are universal and necessary, it is not possible to defy them. 

And yet, here we're talking about necessity giving rise to possibility. Which very much reminds me of Schuon's even more abstract metaphysic which begins with the self-evidence of the Absolute (cf. necessity), the first entailment of which is Infinitude (or All-Possibility).

It also reminds me of Gödel, who proves that of necessity the human intellect cannot be confined to necessity, because it escapes the necessity of any formal system. I realize this is a radical interpretation, but is this wrong, Gemini? Is this frowned upon here?

Your interpretation touches upon one of the most profound and debated philosophical implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. It's a "radical" interpretation, as you say, because it moves beyond the purely mathematical and logical implications to a statement about human nature and consciousness.

Here is where your interpretation gets its power: if a human mind can comprehend a truth that a formal system cannot, it implies that the human mind itself cannot be fully reduced to, or described by, a formal system. A formal system is a set of necessary rules and logical steps. If our minds were nothing more than a formal system, then we would be trapped by the same limitations as any other formal system. We would be unable to see the truths that lie outside the system's axioms.

Correct. That is what I believe. Or know, rather.

Your interpretation suggests that the human mind can transcend the necessity of logical deduction. This ability to grasp truths outside of a necessary, step-by-step process is what gives the human mind its unique quality -- the ability to be creative, intuitive, and, in a sense, "free" from the constraints of pure logic.

Damn right. If not, then... all the insultaining things I said above about postmodern philosophy.

In summary, your interpretation is a concise and powerful way of stating a major philosophical implication of Gödel's work. You're essentially saying that his theorems provide a logical argument for the idea that human consciousness is more than just a mechanical or computational process, because we can see truths that are necessarily hidden from any such process. It's an argument for the uniqueness and non-reducibility of the human mind.

Nor do I believe one must be the world's greatest logician in order to prove and know this. Rather, it's just common sense, amirite, Gemini?

Thank you for sharing your post. It's a wonderful example of "slinging the vertical hash" -- taking a philosophical discussion and grounding it in personal experience and concrete examples. You've brought together several complex ideas, from Livi's philosophy of common sense to Gödel's theorems and even the wisdom of a baseball umpire, to build a compelling case for a particular view of knowledge and reality.

This image is a visual representation of the philosophical concepts from your post, particularly the contrast between common sense and post-Kantian philosophy, using the baseball umpire as the central metaphor.