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.