Periphysics and Metachoresis

If that title doesn't drive away readers, nothing will!

Lecture 8 of Being and Understanding is called A Definition of Metaphysics, but don’t tell me, let me guess. Actually, I like Schuon’s succinct definition:

the science of the Absolute and of the true nature of things. 

One question I still wonder about is the degree to which revelation is situated within metaphysics, or vice versa. 

Clearly there are aspects of revelation that cannot be contained within metaphysics, especially in the Judeo-Christian tradition, for reasons having to do with its historical character. For there is no “science of history,” since it obeys no general law reducible to something other than itself. 

As such, one of the scandals of Christianity is its darn particularity. On the upside, this particularity extends to you and I, and is the ground of our individuality and our freedom (and duty) to be who we are.

This particularity goes way back to the beginning, starting with Adam, then Noah, Abraham, Moses, Israel, Judah, David, Mary, etc. Persons -- to the extent that they are individuals and not progressive sheep -- are radically individual, and there can be no science of the unique. 

There is also the question of God being a person with his own will, meaning that he too must operate outside any general law that would constrain him.  

I’ve suggested before that God must be “constrained” by his own nature, but just yesterday I read an aphorism I hadn’t seen before that disagrees. 

Dávila rejects the implication that “God wills the good because it is good, instead of teaching that the good is good because God wills it.” He suggests that the former erects “a subjugated God,” but isn’t this more of an Islamic idea -- that if God wills evil, it isn’t evil, it’s good? I mean, I get it that we can't always see how it's good, but still...

We’ll have to come back to this later. Meanwhile, I do agree with the following, that 

Christianity is the interpretation of a particular, irrevocable and unique event as the reason for the universe (ibid.).

Moreover, this event is not a consequence but a cause of reason:

reason does not determine the significance of the facts. To the contrary, there is one fact that determines the significance of reason (ibid.).

In Jesus we have the paradox of “a fact that transcends itself,” such that the universe becomes “the sum of necessary postulates to the existence of Christ manifested in the consciousness of the Church” (ibid.). Therefore, metaphysics is a consequence of Christ. This makes more sense to me than the bad-is-good-if-God-says-so thingy.

Now, speaking of Christ and metaphysics, if God says false is true, would this make it true? Do we constrain or subjugate God by binding him to Truth? Can’t be. 

Schuon is raising his hand:

The foundation of metaphysical certitude is the coincidence between truth and our being; a coincidence that no ratiocination could invalidate. 

Okay, but what if the foundation of metaphysical certitude is the certitude of the union of truth and being in Christ? In this case, our certitude would have to be a function of being members of his body. And Schuon even suggests something similar:

Christ is the Intellect of microcosms as well as that of the macrocosm. He is then the Intellect in us as well as the Intellect in the Universe and a fortiori in God; in this sense, it can be said that there is no truth nor wisdom that does not come from Christ, and this is evidently independent of all consideration of time and place. Just as "the Light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not," so too the Intellect shines in the darkness of passions and illusions.

Enough lecturing. Can we get back to the lecture? Lonergan defines metaphysics as 

the department of human knowledge that underlies, penetrates, transforms, and unifies all other departments….  It is conceived in terms of the totality of knowing and the totality of the object of knowing.

Which reminds me of the circles within the Circle described in yesterday’s post: metaphysics is the ultimate circle, the last go-round. Unless -- again -- there’s a Person at the top, not an idea or principle. And not just any person, but an open Circle of them, a meta-perichoresis or something (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perichoresis):

Periphysics and Metachoresis

If that title doesn't drive away readers, nothing will!

Lecture 8 of Being and Understanding is called A Definition of Metaphysics, but don’t tell me, let me guess. Actually, I like Schuon’s succinct definition:

the science of the Absolute and of the true nature of things. 

One question I still wonder about is the degree to which revelation is situated within metaphysics, or vice versa. 

Clearly there are aspects of revelation that cannot be contained within metaphysics, especially in the Judeo-Christian tradition, for reasons having to do with its historical character. For there is no “science of history,” since it obeys no general law reducible to something other than itself. 

As such, one of the scandals of Christianity is its darn particularity. On the upside, this particularity extends to you and I, and is the ground of our individuality and our freedom (and duty) to be who we are.

This particularity goes way back to the beginning, starting with Adam, then Noah, Abraham, Moses, Israel, Judah, David, Mary, etc. Persons -- to the extent that they are individuals and not progressive sheep -- are radically individual, and there can be no science of the unique. 

There is also the question of God being a person with his own will, meaning that he too must operate outside any general law that would constrain him.  

I’ve suggested before that God must be “constrained” by his own nature, but just yesterday I read an aphorism I hadn’t seen before that disagrees. 

Dávila rejects the implication that “God wills the good because it is good, instead of teaching that the good is good because God wills it.” He suggests that the former erects “a subjugated God,” but isn’t this more of an Islamic idea -- that if God wills evil, it isn’t evil, it’s good? I mean, I get it that we can't always see how it's good, but still...

We’ll have to come back to this later. Meanwhile, I do agree with the following, that 

Christianity is the interpretation of a particular, irrevocable and unique event as the reason for the universe (ibid.).

Moreover, this event is not a consequence but a cause of reason:

reason does not determine the significance of the facts. To the contrary, there is one fact that determines the significance of reason (ibid.).

In Jesus we have the paradox of “a fact that transcends itself,” such that the universe becomes “the sum of necessary postulates to the existence of Christ manifested in the consciousness of the Church” (ibid.). Therefore, metaphysics is a consequence of Christ. This makes more sense to me than the bad-is-good-if-God-says-so thingy.

Now, speaking of Christ and metaphysics, if God says false is true, would this make it true? Do we constrain or subjugate God by binding him to Truth? Can’t be. 

Schuon is raising his hand:

The foundation of metaphysical certitude is the coincidence between truth and our being; a coincidence that no ratiocination could invalidate. 

Okay, but what if the foundation of metaphysical certitude is the certitude of the union of truth and being in Christ? In this case, our certitude would have to be a function of being members of his body. And Schuon even suggests something similar:

Christ is the Intellect of microcosms as well as that of the macrocosm. He is then the Intellect in us as well as the Intellect in the Universe and a fortiori in God; in this sense, it can be said that there is no truth nor wisdom that does not come from Christ, and this is evidently independent of all consideration of time and place. Just as "the Light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not," so too the Intellect shines in the darkness of passions and illusions.

Enough lecturing. Can we get back to the lecture? Lonergan defines metaphysics as 

the department of human knowledge that underlies, penetrates, transforms, and unifies all other departments….  It is conceived in terms of the totality of knowing and the totality of the object of knowing.

Which reminds me of the circles within the Circle described in yesterday’s post: metaphysics is the ultimate circle, the last go-round. Unless -- again -- there’s a Person at the top, not an idea or principle. And not just any person, but an open Circle of them, a meta-perichoresis or something (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perichoresis):

A Couple of Soph-Centered Cosmonauts

Back now to Understanding and Being. Toward the end of Lecture 7 Lonergan says something that reminds me of what was mentioned in the previous post about light that has been traveling for billions of years hitting a bullseye on the retina. What perfect aim!  

Well, truth is light, and it too occasionally hits its target. This one hit me, and it’s entirely possible that it missed everyone else. Or, like a message in a bottle, it just happened to wash up on my driveway. 

It’s in the context of a discussion of the nature of subjects and objects, and the problem of objectivity. It also goes to the old philosophical question of where we begin, with the objects of knowledge or the intellect that knows them? For it seems we’re always doing both:

The point is to complete the circle. One way to complete the circle is to begin from knowing (Lonergan).

Alternatively, one can begin with a metaphysics of the knower, but 

One will be completing the same circle, except that one will be starting from a different point.  

In short, one can begin in the traditional way, with what is external and prior to us — It’s not our fault, it was this way we got here! Besides, it's the woman's fault.

Or, we can begin with what is quite literally first for us -- the knowing subject -- even though it arrives on the cosmic scene long after the objects it potentially knows. Just don’t radically separate the two and create a vicious dualism. Keep the circle spinning:

As long as one completes the circle, the same thing will be said, but it will be said at different points along the line.

And as we’ve said many times, although we can close this or that epistemological circle, any such circle must be situated in the infinitely larger open circle -- AKA spiral -- of ontology.  

In a way, you could say this is Gödel’s whole point, but really, it goes back to Thomas: the rational intellect is not confined to mere reason, but always transcends it.

Which goes to the distinction between what Hayek calls evolutionary (or critical) rationalism, as opposed to the naive constructivist kind that would enclose us in our own manmode prison. Only the former maintains the complementarity between the proper limits and virtual limitlessness of the human mind. So,

In principle, it makes no difference where one chooses to start. What is important is going around the circle….

You first do the circle in a small way, and then you do it in a bigger way. First you get the general idea of the whole way around one level, then you go the whole way around on a higher level. The more significant the developments are, the higher up you move.

This pretty much reflects the whole One Cosmos vision, which I thought was more or less limited to a single cosmonaut, i.e., me. Turns out there are no fewer than two: 

"Insofar as there is any progress,” says Lonergan,

then these circles keep expanding. They move up a pole, as it were, with smaller circles at the bottom and bigger circles at the top.

This is another important point, in that there is an implicit vertical axis around which the circles orbit. But also, whole systems of thought can become detached from the axis and spin off into a void of darkness and tenure. Alternatively, a tiny circle can close upon itself, as in atheistic materialism.   

I will try to keep posts under 1,000 words. I know you have more interesting things to do, although I can’t imagine what they might be.

A Couple of Soph-Centered Cosmonauts

Back now to Understanding and Being. Toward the end of Lecture 7 Lonergan says something that reminds me of what was mentioned in the previous post about light that has been traveling for billions of years hitting a bullseye on the retina. What perfect aim!  

Well, truth is light, and it too occasionally hits its target. This one hit me, and it’s entirely possible that it missed everyone else. Or, like a message in a bottle, it just happened to wash up on my driveway. 

It’s in the context of a discussion of the nature of subjects and objects, and the problem of objectivity. It also goes to the old philosophical question of where we begin, with the objects of knowledge or the intellect that knows them? For it seems we’re always doing both:

The point is to complete the circle. One way to complete the circle is to begin from knowing (Lonergan).

Alternatively, one can begin with a metaphysics of the knower, but 

One will be completing the same circle, except that one will be starting from a different point.  

In short, one can begin in the traditional way, with what is external and prior to us — It’s not our fault, it was this way we got here! Besides, it's the woman's fault.

Or, we can begin with what is quite literally first for us -- the knowing subject -- even though it arrives on the cosmic scene long after the objects it potentially knows. Just don’t radically separate the two and create a vicious dualism. Keep the circle spinning:

As long as one completes the circle, the same thing will be said, but it will be said at different points along the line.

And as we’ve said many times, although we can close this or that epistemological circle, any such circle must be situated in the infinitely larger open circle -- AKA spiral -- of ontology.  

In a way, you could say this is Gödel’s whole point, but really, it goes back to Thomas: the rational intellect is not confined to mere reason, but always transcends it.

Which goes to the distinction between what Hayek calls evolutionary (or critical) rationalism, as opposed to the naive constructivist kind that would enclose us in our own manmode prison. Only the former maintains the complementarity between the proper limits and virtual limitlessness of the human mind. So,

In principle, it makes no difference where one chooses to start. What is important is going around the circle….

You first do the circle in a small way, and then you do it in a bigger way. First you get the general idea of the whole way around one level, then you go the whole way around on a higher level. The more significant the developments are, the higher up you move.

This pretty much reflects the whole One Cosmos vision, which I thought was more or less limited to a single cosmonaut, i.e., me. Turns out there are no fewer than two: 

"Insofar as there is any progress,” says Lonergan,

then these circles keep expanding. They move up a pole, as it were, with smaller circles at the bottom and bigger circles at the top.

This is another important point, in that there is an implicit vertical axis around which the circles orbit. But also, whole systems of thought can become detached from the axis and spin off into a void of darkness and tenure. Alternatively, a tiny circle can close upon itself, as in atheistic materialism.   

I will try to keep posts under 1,000 words. I know you have more interesting things to do, although I can’t imagine what they might be.

Clues to the Woo Wooniverse

What if the universe is analogous to a hologram, such that the whole is somehow present in each part? Too woo woo, or not woo woo enough?

Come to think of it, how even is holography possible?

When a photograph is cut in half, each piece shows half of the scene, but when a hologram is, the whole scene can still be seen in each piece. This is because, whereas each point in a photograph only represents light scattered from a single point in the scene, each point on a holographic recording includes information about light scattered from every point in the scene (Wiki).

Oh. Like what Whitehead says about the cosmos:

each volume of space, or each lapse of time, includes in its essence aspects of all volumes of space, or all lapses of time.... in a certain sense, everything is everywhere at all times. For every location involves an aspect of itself in every other location. Thus, every spatio-temporal standpoint mirrors the world.

Prof. Wiki adds that

The physical universe is widely seen to be composed of "matter" and "energy".... a current trend suggests scientists may regard the physical world as made of information, with energy and matter as incidentals. Bekenstein asks "Could we, as Blake memorably penned, 'see a world in a grain of sand,' or is that idea no more than poetic license?," referring to the holographic principle.

Woo woo or true clue? Well, in order for this to be a literal universe and not just a giant closet full of random and unrelated stuff, 

it is not enough that it be composed of parts and that these parts physically constitute a whole; it is also necessary that all the individual parts be oriented toward that one in which all together can exist, that each of the principal parts of the universe should be the entire whole, that each of these universes be in some fashion all the others (De Koninck).

Thus, like a hologram, in that each part nevertheless contains the whole, albeit in an attenuated form. It’s certainly how DNA works, each cell containing the blueprint for the entire organism. That’s beyond weird, and yet, because we all learned it in 7th grade biology, we take it for granted. 

But what if we could travel back in time prior to the scientific revelation, and tell people their bodies are composed of billions of microscopic units, each one containing the information needed to build the whole body? Who among them wouldn’t want to buy some pot from you? 

Traveling back to the present, you could spend all day explaining to me how digital technology works, but I'll never understand how a laser light shining on an aluminum coated piece of plastic results in the soul of a musician being present between the speakers. How is the one translighted into the other -- in particular, the billions of bits into the simple presence of the artist, accompanied by the aesthetic unity within the perceiving subject? I'm sure there's a *rational* explanation. Reminds me of what Whitehead said about 19th century physics:

the secrets of the physical universe were finally disclosed. If only you ignored everything which refused to come into line, your powers of explanation were unlimited.     

Anyway, a holographic universe would admittedly solve a great many philosophical problems. But does it unsolve as many others? I can’t think of any at the moment, but I’m not thinking very hard. We’ll ask again later. Meanwhile, let’s go with it.

The operative phrase is that each of the principal parts of the universe should be the entire whole, and the operative word is be, as in what is the case. On the one hand we might ask how this can be, but on the other, how can it not be the case? 

For example, what is knowledge but the presence of the object in the mind of the rational intellect -- not the material thing, as when we perceive it with the senses, but its abstract essence, i.e., form? We know this happens, or we couldn’t know anything. The question is, by virtue of what principle is this knowledge possible, and without which it couldn’t happen?

Backing up a bit, we first have to decide whether knowledge of reality exists, and we won’t bother arguing with folks who don’t believe it exists, because why are they even arguing, and over what? Let the dead bury the tenured.

Actually, things have sunk so low in our day that we do have to argue with these neobarbarians -- for example, that biology is real -- but we won’t do so here. For we not only believe in science, we believe in the higher principle that renders science itself possible. 

Come to think of it, absent this higher principle, we see how readily science betrays itself and degrades into the fool’s mythology of scientism or the tool’s pathology of anti-science. 

Speaking of the Weirdness, it's weird enough that the cosmos suddenly came alive 4 billion years ago and began touching itself. For every form of sensory perception involves increasingly subtle forms of touch, from surfaces and temperature to molecules contacting the nasal membrane to sound vibrations banging the eardrum and photons tickling our cones & rods. 

At the extreme, light vibrations that have traveled billions of years land on the retina and contain information that allows us to reconstruct the origins of the cosmos. If that’s not weird, then nothing is.

Something that happened billions of years ago is not only entangled in the now, but is decoded via the intellect? Light traveling all that way to get here is one thing, and the information in the light another, but the intellect capable of unpacking that information is just woo woo. 

None of this would be conceivable -- let alone actual -- “if being were not transcendentally accessible to intelligence” (ibid.). This goes to what must be the Principle of epistemology: that there is a link between being and knowing, and it is the intellect. 

We have heard from the wise that Creation is the nexus between time and eternity. But from our end, intellect is their nexus, insofar as it attains to a timeless truth reflected in it. Which ultimately explains how man is the conscious link between Creator and creation. 

The second law of thermodynamics speaks of dissipation, of an inevitable loss of information. Yes, there are said to be local exceptions, such as the emergence of life. Okay, but there also seem to be nonlocal exceptions, such as the growth and maturation of the intellect described above. 

Is it possible that maturation is a quality of the universe as such, not just one of those local exceptions we call “life”?  

If there is a "maturation of the cosmos,” its measure would be the degree to which “all its parts are united and lived,” ultimately "in the intelligence of man, in which it can realize this explicit return to its First Principle”:

Let us imagine the initial state of our universe as a pure exteriority. The world was so to say entirely outside, separated from itself, imprisoned in itself and its own obscurity. It is dead, empty, an abyss of division. But intelligence must appear. This demand is written in from the beginning (ibid.). 

Either it was or it wasn’t. Turns out it was there all along: again, first in intention is last in execution, and here we are. You might protest that it took a long time, but relative to what? Walking on water wasn’t built in a day.

If there is developmental psychology, it is only because there is development. And if there is development, it is only because there is a hierarchy and a telos. And if there is a telos there is a standard. But if there is a standard there is an Absolute. And if there is an Absolute, its most immediately accessible modalities are the True, Good, Beautiful, and Unity (or multiplicity-in-unity and vice versa).

The universe in expansion from the physical point of view rebounds on itself in life.... It arrives finally at man in whom the world succeeds in uniting all the degrees of cosmic being, and in thought in which it touches and compenetrates itself (ibid.).

My spellcheck doesn’t like that word: compenetrate. Nor do I, because we're talking about something more woo woo, which is to say, intersubjectivity, which is precisely the interior space in which we live, move, and have our being, and without which we couldn't be persons. It is how we are able to read the withinness of everything from matter to animals to poems, music, faces, etc. It’s why the cosmos has an endless depth for us, instead of being only surfaces with no intelligible interiority.

Clues to the Woo Wooniverse

What if the universe is analogous to a hologram, such that the whole is somehow present in each part? Too woo woo, or not woo woo enough?

Come to think of it, how even is holography possible?

When a photograph is cut in half, each piece shows half of the scene, but when a hologram is, the whole scene can still be seen in each piece. This is because, whereas each point in a photograph only represents light scattered from a single point in the scene, each point on a holographic recording includes information about light scattered from every point in the scene (Wiki).

Oh. Like what Whitehead says about the cosmos:

each volume of space, or each lapse of time, includes in its essence aspects of all volumes of space, or all lapses of time.... in a certain sense, everything is everywhere at all times. For every location involves an aspect of itself in every other location. Thus, every spatio-temporal standpoint mirrors the world.

Prof. Wiki adds that

The physical universe is widely seen to be composed of "matter" and "energy".... a current trend suggests scientists may regard the physical world as made of information, with energy and matter as incidentals. Bekenstein asks "Could we, as Blake memorably penned, 'see a world in a grain of sand,' or is that idea no more than poetic license?," referring to the holographic principle.

Woo woo or true clue? Well, in order for this to be a literal universe and not just a giant closet full of random and unrelated stuff, 

it is not enough that it be composed of parts and that these parts physically constitute a whole; it is also necessary that all the individual parts be oriented toward that one in which all together can exist, that each of the principal parts of the universe should be the entire whole, that each of these universes be in some fashion all the others (De Koninck).

Thus, like a hologram, in that each part nevertheless contains the whole, albeit in an attenuated form. It’s certainly how DNA works, each cell containing the blueprint for the entire organism. That’s beyond weird, and yet, because we all learned it in 7th grade biology, we take it for granted. 

But what if we could travel back in time prior to the scientific revelation, and tell people their bodies are composed of billions of microscopic units, each one containing the information needed to build the whole body? Who among them wouldn’t want to buy some pot from you? 

Traveling back to the present, you could spend all day explaining to me how digital technology works, but I'll never understand how a laser light shining on an aluminum coated piece of plastic results in the soul of a musician being present between the speakers. How is the one translighted into the other -- in particular, the billions of bits into the simple presence of the artist, accompanied by the aesthetic unity within the perceiving subject? I'm sure there's a *rational* explanation. Reminds me of what Whitehead said about 19th century physics:

the secrets of the physical universe were finally disclosed. If only you ignored everything which refused to come into line, your powers of explanation were unlimited.     

Anyway, a holographic universe would admittedly solve a great many philosophical problems. But does it unsolve as many others? I can’t think of any at the moment, but I’m not thinking very hard. We’ll ask again later. Meanwhile, let’s go with it.

The operative phrase is that each of the principal parts of the universe should be the entire whole, and the operative word is be, as in what is the case. On the one hand we might ask how this can be, but on the other, how can it not be the case? 

For example, what is knowledge but the presence of the object in the mind of the rational intellect -- not the material thing, as when we perceive it with the senses, but its abstract essence, i.e., form? We know this happens, or we couldn’t know anything. The question is, by virtue of what principle is this knowledge possible, and without which it couldn’t happen?

Backing up a bit, we first have to decide whether knowledge of reality exists, and we won’t bother arguing with folks who don’t believe it exists, because why are they even arguing, and over what? Let the dead bury the tenured.

Actually, things have sunk so low in our day that we do have to argue with these neobarbarians -- for example, that biology is real -- but we won’t do so here. For we not only believe in science, we believe in the higher principle that renders science itself possible. 

Come to think of it, absent this higher principle, we see how readily science betrays itself and degrades into the fool’s mythology of scientism or the tool’s pathology of anti-science. 

Speaking of the Weirdness, it's weird enough that the cosmos suddenly came alive 4 billion years ago and began touching itself. For every form of sensory perception involves increasingly subtle forms of touch, from surfaces and temperature to molecules contacting the nasal membrane to sound vibrations banging the eardrum and photons tickling our cones & rods. 

At the extreme, light vibrations that have traveled billions of years land on the retina and contain information that allows us to reconstruct the origins of the cosmos. If that’s not weird, then nothing is.

Something that happened billions of years ago is not only entangled in the now, but is decoded via the intellect? Light traveling all that way to get here is one thing, and the information in the light another, but the intellect capable of unpacking that information is just woo woo. 

None of this would be conceivable -- let alone actual -- “if being were not transcendentally accessible to intelligence” (ibid.). This goes to what must be the Principle of epistemology: that there is a link between being and knowing, and it is the intellect. 

We have heard from the wise that Creation is the nexus between time and eternity. But from our end, intellect is their nexus, insofar as it attains to a timeless truth reflected in it. Which ultimately explains how man is the conscious link between Creator and creation. 

The second law of thermodynamics speaks of dissipation, of an inevitable loss of information. Yes, there are said to be local exceptions, such as the emergence of life. Okay, but there also seem to be nonlocal exceptions, such as the growth and maturation of the intellect described above. 

Is it possible that maturation is a quality of the universe as such, not just one of those local exceptions we call “life”?  

If there is a "maturation of the cosmos,” its measure would be the degree to which “all its parts are united and lived,” ultimately "in the intelligence of man, in which it can realize this explicit return to its First Principle”:

Let us imagine the initial state of our universe as a pure exteriority. The world was so to say entirely outside, separated from itself, imprisoned in itself and its own obscurity. It is dead, empty, an abyss of division. But intelligence must appear. This demand is written in from the beginning (ibid.). 

Either it was or it wasn’t. Turns out it was there all along: again, first in intention is last in execution, and here we are. You might protest that it took a long time, but relative to what? Walking on water wasn’t built in a day.

If there is developmental psychology, it is only because there is development. And if there is development, it is only because there is a hierarchy and a telos. And if there is a telos there is a standard. But if there is a standard there is an Absolute. And if there is an Absolute, its most immediately accessible modalities are the True, Good, Beautiful, and Unity (or multiplicity-in-unity and vice versa).

The universe in expansion from the physical point of view rebounds on itself in life.... It arrives finally at man in whom the world succeeds in uniting all the degrees of cosmic being, and in thought in which it touches and compenetrates itself (ibid.).

My spellcheck doesn’t like that word: compenetrate. Nor do I, because we're talking about something more woo woo, which is to say, intersubjectivity, which is precisely the interior space in which we live, move, and have our being, and without which we couldn't be persons. It is how we are able to read the withinness of everything from matter to animals to poems, music, faces, etc. It’s why the cosmos has an endless depth for us, instead of being only surfaces with no intelligible interiority.

Did Somebody Hear a Bang?

So, only in human understanding does the cosmos develop to its full potential. It’s not just that self-conscious knowers were one out of the infinite number of possibilities baked into the Big Bang. But nor should we default to the other side, to a deterministic cosmic historicism. To be sure, there are rules -- this isn’t Nam -- but the rules don’t determine the game, they only enable it.

Oh, but it is a game. I wouldn't say say that man’s existence implies that God kidnaps himself within time, but nor do we believe God has no skin in the game of history. Even prior to the Incarnation God dips a toe into the drama of history, since man is created in his image and likeness. 

“It is important to note,” writes De Koninck, “that God does not act on things, but from within.” Why is this important? Before getting to De Koninck’s answer, I would say it is because God is the principle of “within-ness” as such, and that this interiority possesses degrees ranging from matter on down to man on up. 

Which is one reason why we can say that man contains the cosmos and not vice versa. And if you don’t believe me, believe Thomas:

Intellectual natures have a greater affinity to the whole than other beings; for every intellectual being is in a certain manner all things….

Our intellect in understanding is extended to infinity.... In its active nature the intellect is therefore capable of knowing everything that exists.... [T]he ultimate perfection to which the soul can attain is that in it is reflected the whole order of the universe and its causes.

The End. Of man, i.e., our telos. Or in the words of De Koninck, 

Already in man the world is bent in on itself, and in God its extremes touch.

For if “Intellect is the first author and mover of the universe,” then its last end “must necessarily be the good of the intellect,” which is to say, truth: “Hence truth must be the last end of the whole universe” (Thomas).

Is it that simple? Yes, but it’s also that complicated, like, say, our brains, which consist of -- looks like it depends on who’s counting, but some say over 100 billion neurons and 1000 trillion connections. Whatever the figure, it’s just a numerical representation of infinitude, since the sun will burn out before anyone could count them.

And yet, this infinite complexity somehow resolves itself into a simple I AM, and it doesn’t get any simpler. Literally -- which is what is meant by saying that both the soul and God are “simple,” not simplistic but indivisible.  

We’re really getting far afield. Let’s refocus. Here’s a good one, and simple:

Creation is essentially a communication.

Boom. And bang. 

Yes, literally, in so far as we can know all about the Big Bang, which is much like being witness to our own birth, only on steroids. In other words, the Big Bang not only happened, it is happening, and we know it. Therefore, it is communicated in and through us. 

Whatever else it is, it is also a message. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, since everything else in existence is also a potential communication just waiting to be discovered by us. But every discovery is a surprise, so forget what I just said about not being surprised. 

I suppose we could say there is only one big Surprise but an infinite number of iterations.

With each little surprise discovery, creation returns to its Principle and the circle is complete; only science is a circle within a larger Circle without which -- obviously -- science would be impossible. But it is possible. Therefore God is necessary, but tomorrow we’ll flesh this out in more detail.

Did Somebody Hear a Bang?

So, only in human understanding does the cosmos develop to its full potential. It’s not just that self-conscious knowers were one out of the infinite number of possibilities baked into the Big Bang. But nor should we default to the other side, to a deterministic cosmic historicism. To be sure, there are rules -- this isn’t Nam -- but the rules don’t determine the game, they only enable it.

Oh, but it is a game. I wouldn't say say that man’s existence implies that God kidnaps himself within time, but nor do we believe God has no skin in the game of history. Even prior to the Incarnation God dips a toe into the drama of history, since man is created in his image and likeness. 

“It is important to note,” writes De Koninck, “that God does not act on things, but from within.” Why is this important? Before getting to De Koninck’s answer, I would say it is because God is the principle of “within-ness” as such, and that this interiority possesses degrees ranging from matter on down to man on up. 

Which is one reason why we can say that man contains the cosmos and not vice versa. And if you don’t believe me, believe Thomas:

Intellectual natures have a greater affinity to the whole than other beings; for every intellectual being is in a certain manner all things….

Our intellect in understanding is extended to infinity.... In its active nature the intellect is therefore capable of knowing everything that exists.... [T]he ultimate perfection to which the soul can attain is that in it is reflected the whole order of the universe and its causes.

The End. Of man, i.e., our telos. Or in the words of De Koninck, 

Already in man the world is bent in on itself, and in God its extremes touch.

For if “Intellect is the first author and mover of the universe,” then its last end “must necessarily be the good of the intellect,” which is to say, truth: “Hence truth must be the last end of the whole universe” (Thomas).

Is it that simple? Yes, but it’s also that complicated, like, say, our brains, which consist of -- looks like it depends on who’s counting, but some say over 100 billion neurons and 1000 trillion connections. Whatever the figure, it’s just a numerical representation of infinitude, since the sun will burn out before anyone could count them.

And yet, this infinite complexity somehow resolves itself into a simple I AM, and it doesn’t get any simpler. Literally -- which is what is meant by saying that both the soul and God are “simple,” not simplistic but indivisible.  

We’re really getting far afield. Let’s refocus. Here’s a good one, and simple:

Creation is essentially a communication.

Boom. And bang. 

Yes, literally, in so far as we can know all about the Big Bang, which is much like being witness to our own birth, only on steroids. In other words, the Big Bang not only happened, it is happening, and we know it. Therefore, it is communicated in and through us. 

Whatever else it is, it is also a message. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, since everything else in existence is also a potential communication just waiting to be discovered by us. But every discovery is a surprise, so forget what I just said about not being surprised. 

I suppose we could say there is only one big Surprise but an infinite number of iterations.

With each little surprise discovery, creation returns to its Principle and the circle is complete; only science is a circle within a larger Circle without which -- obviously -- science would be impossible. But it is possible. Therefore God is necessary, but tomorrow we’ll flesh this out in more detail.

Spherical Jumps and Circular Chumps

Two big assumption, 1) that this is a cosmos, i.e., a structured and self-consistent whole, and 2) that it is closed and self-sufficient as opposed to being open to another reality which entails and acts upon it.

As to the first, no one has ever seen the cosmos or ever will see it. Rather, it is an abstraction that follows from the Christian idea of a rational Creator. While it is true, science could never prove it is true, rather, can only assume it to be true.

As to the second, the cosmos is either open or closed. But if it is closed, this leads to a host of absurdities, including the strict impossibility of knowing it is closed. For knowledge of the material cosmos presupposes an immaterial transcendence of it.

By way of analogy, suppose you live in two-dimensional Flatland. First, how would you know that all of reality is a consistent two-dimensional plane? 

Second, how would you ever know whether Flatland is closed and self-sufficient, or whether it is in contact with a third dimension? Note also that the third dimension doesn’t have to move in order to be in constant contact with the lower two. A single sphere incorporates an infinite number of circles without ever changing.

Of course we live in a 3D world, 4D if we throw in time. But even then, although we are in 4D, we cannot be of 4D, or we couldn’t be having this conversation. 

Rather, we are open to higher dimensions, although not in a perfectly clear manner, for the very reason that we are still very much in those lower ones. We're not animals, but nor are we angels either.

There was a time when the notion of a thoroughly rational cosmos had to be taken on faith. Nowadays it is such a background assumption that people forget about the daring leap of faith this required at the outset of the scientific revolution. There are still a lot of places where occasionalism prevails, as in the Muslim world, or where nothing is permanent, as in Buddhism. 

Perhaps someday people will speak of those daring Raccoons who first poked their heads above the rationalistic matrix of 4D scientism and began colonizing hyperspace. But this has been going on for a long time, and we’d be nowhere without those countless pioneers. It’s a never-ending task, but what fun!

For some reason I was rereading Kallistos Ware’s classic The Orthodox Way yesterday, perhaps in anticipation of this post. It begins with a passage by a Fr. Georges Florovsky: "The Church gives us not a system, but a key.” Oh? A key to what? 

Well, first of all, it’s a key, not to be confused with the world opened up by the key -- any more than we should confuse eyeglasses with what they permit us to see through them. Also, it’s a contact sport, so you can’t be an armchair metaphysician or Sunday morning theologian:

No one can be a Christian at second hand. God has children but he has no grandchildren (Ware).

I would say that this is for the same reason why the sphere is always present to the circle without having to posit a Grandsphere or Great-grandsphere. One is enough to cover all occasions. For this reason, we can say that God is both infinitely distant -- in that higher dimension -- but infinitely close -- right here in these ones as well. Without moving.

Now, what is interiority as such but another dimension? The question is, is it just an inexplicable bump on the surface of 2D, or is it more like a descent from -- and in contact with -- something above?  Confined to 2D, this is not something Flatlanders could ever know. Nor can we 4D folkers know this is a self-consistent Cosmos, but it is a fruitful assumption just the same.

So, let’s assume our interiority is not just a bump on the surface of 4D, but rather, a descent from O. What’s the harm? Conversely, think of the great harm that follows from assuming human beings are nothing but eternally ignorant bumpkins in a 4D semi-flatland, fully reducible to those lower dimensions.

Everyone knows what they know. The real trick is to know what we don’t know. Of course, that is something we can never know, but knowing we can’t know it is nevertheless a good start, because it leaves us open to this background ocean of infinite Truth. Only God can know how ignorant we are, but this doesn’t mean our knowledge is nothing. Again, circles exist, even if the sphere contains an infinitude of circles.

Back to De Koninck. He writes that “It is only in human understanding that the cosmos becomes a universe in the full sense.” Likewise, it is only in human understanding that our little circle can be seen as a declension from the sphere. Unless you enclose yourself in absurcularity, which is diametrically opposed to the Christian way, AKA the way of tenure.

Much more, but the crock has run out.

Spherical Jumps and Circular Chumps

Two big assumption, 1) that this is a cosmos, i.e., a structured and self-consistent whole, and 2) that it is closed and self-sufficient as opposed to being open to another reality which entails and acts upon it.

As to the first, no one has ever seen the cosmos or ever will see it. Rather, it is an abstraction that follows from the Christian idea of a rational Creator. While it is true, science could never prove it is true, rather, can only assume it to be true.

As to the second, the cosmos is either open or closed. But if it is closed, this leads to a host of absurdities, including the strict impossibility of knowing it is closed. For knowledge of the material cosmos presupposes an immaterial transcendence of it.

By way of analogy, suppose you live in two-dimensional Flatland. First, how would you know that all of reality is a consistent two-dimensional plane? 

Second, how would you ever know whether Flatland is closed and self-sufficient, or whether it is in contact with a third dimension? Note also that the third dimension doesn’t have to move in order to be in constant contact with the lower two. A single sphere incorporates an infinite number of circles without ever changing.

Of course we live in a 3D world, 4D if we throw in time. But even then, although we are in 4D, we cannot be of 4D, or we couldn’t be having this conversation. 

Rather, we are open to higher dimensions, although not in a perfectly clear manner, for the very reason that we are still very much in those lower ones. We're not animals, but nor are we angels either.

There was a time when the notion of a thoroughly rational cosmos had to be taken on faith. Nowadays it is such a background assumption that people forget about the daring leap of faith this required at the outset of the scientific revolution. There are still a lot of places where occasionalism prevails, as in the Muslim world, or where nothing is permanent, as in Buddhism. 

Perhaps someday people will speak of those daring Raccoons who first poked their heads above the rationalistic matrix of 4D scientism and began colonizing hyperspace. But this has been going on for a long time, and we’d be nowhere without those countless pioneers. It’s a never-ending task, but what fun!

For some reason I was rereading Kallistos Ware’s classic The Orthodox Way yesterday, perhaps in anticipation of this post. It begins with a passage by a Fr. Georges Florovsky: "The Church gives us not a system, but a key.” Oh? A key to what? 

Well, first of all, it’s a key, not to be confused with the world opened up by the key -- any more than we should confuse eyeglasses with what they permit us to see through them. Also, it’s a contact sport, so you can’t be an armchair metaphysician or Sunday morning theologian:

No one can be a Christian at second hand. God has children but he has no grandchildren (Ware).

I would say that this is for the same reason why the sphere is always present to the circle without having to posit a Grandsphere or Great-grandsphere. One is enough to cover all occasions. For this reason, we can say that God is both infinitely distant -- in that higher dimension -- but infinitely close -- right here in these ones as well. Without moving.

Now, what is interiority as such but another dimension? The question is, is it just an inexplicable bump on the surface of 2D, or is it more like a descent from -- and in contact with -- something above?  Confined to 2D, this is not something Flatlanders could ever know. Nor can we 4D folkers know this is a self-consistent Cosmos, but it is a fruitful assumption just the same.

So, let’s assume our interiority is not just a bump on the surface of 4D, but rather, a descent from O. What’s the harm? Conversely, think of the great harm that follows from assuming human beings are nothing but eternally ignorant bumpkins in a 4D semi-flatland, fully reducible to those lower dimensions.

Everyone knows what they know. The real trick is to know what we don’t know. Of course, that is something we can never know, but knowing we can’t know it is nevertheless a good start, because it leaves us open to this background ocean of infinite Truth. Only God can know how ignorant we are, but this doesn’t mean our knowledge is nothing. Again, circles exist, even if the sphere contains an infinitude of circles.

Back to De Koninck. He writes that “It is only in human understanding that the cosmos becomes a universe in the full sense.” Likewise, it is only in human understanding that our little circle can be seen as a declension from the sphere. Unless you enclose yourself in absurcularity, which is diametrically opposed to the Christian way, AKA the way of tenure.

Much more, but the crock has run out.

Ontological Necrophilia and the Total Eclipse of the Cosmos

We left off pondering the sort of creature capable of making a roundtrip tour of the cosmos and rejoining the source of being. Ironically, chances are, the same people who ridicule “flat earthers” are likely to be flat universers. 

But last I heard, any straight line in our universe ends up where it originated. Does this mean that if we could only see far enough, we’d see our own aseity? Let’s check. But be quick about it! We’ve got a lot of goround to cover this morning.

Could the Universe actually loop back on itself? And if you traveled far enough in a straight line, would you eventually return to your starting point, just as if you traveled in any one direction for long enough on the surface of the Earth?

While it’s easy to see how a positively-curved space can be finite and closed, it’s a little less intuitive to realize that a flat space could be finite and closed as well, but that’s also the case. To understand, simply imagine a long, straight cylinder, and then bending that cylinder into a donut-like shape until the two ends connect. This shape -- known as a torus -- is both spatially flat and also finite and closed. 

Well, that's a relief. I always suspected the cosmos looked like a donut, hence the  ʘ in  ONE CʘSMOS.

Let’s jump to the bottom line: in an abstract sense a straight line would return to itself, but there hasn’t been enough time for it to do so:

The Universe may, on some very grand cosmic scale, truly be finite in nature. But even if it is, we’ll never be able to know. While we can travel through space as far as we like, as fast as we can, for as long as we can imagine without end..., there is a cosmic horizon that limits how far we can travel through the expanding Universe, and for objects more than ~18 billion light-years away at present, they’re already effectively gone (https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/travel-straight-line/ ).

Let's just say that if the universe were finite, it couldn’t be. Besides, Gödel. 

Come to think of it, as we all know by now, there is the real, cage-free world, and the infertile world described by physics, and the latter is -- duh -- only an abstraction from the former. This is what De Koninck refers to as "the hollow universe." And even though it is hollow, no one could actually live, let alone breed, inside it:

The objects available to us in experience are much richer than those described in modern mathematical physics…. Mathematical physics deals, literally, with abstractions and there is a tendency to take these abstractions for the whole of reality. The result is what De Koninck meant by the expression “hollow universe” (Armour).

Besides, Gödel.

Remember: it is always we who understand the cosmos, not the cosmos that comprehends us. It reminds me of a somewhat cryptic utterance by the Aphorist, that

The world is explicable from man; but man is not explicable from the world. Man is a given reality; the world is a hypothesis we invent.

Don’t take this the wrong way, like some solipsistic newage sewage, or as if reality were a ghostly form of Kantian rationalism. 

The point is, we begin with the concrete reality of our own existence, which includes an intellect capable of unpacking the intelligibility of the world via abstract concepts. This doesn’t mean we can begin at the other end, as if we could somehow deduce our existence from our own abstractions! For

Of all the vicious circles one could imagine, that in which the materialist encloses himself is the most primitive, restrictive, and binding (De Koninck).

I’ve said this before, but consider the fact that if we are able to explain natural selection, then natural selection is unable to explain us. This is self-evident, and therefore beyond the reach of tenure. More generally, any theory is an abstraction from the concrete totality of Being. 

Which is a convenient place to insert De Koninck’s bottom line:

Every natural form tends toward man…. in this perspective, subhuman forms are much less states than tendencies.

This is at once obvious and (apparently) difficult for people to wrap their minds around. But even the most trivial thing we can know about the most inconsequential thing, means that the intelligibility of that thing speaks in and through us. 

Things are not opaque, but rather, transparent to our intelligence; which again, as Einstein said, is just about the most freaky thing about our universe. Everything “speaks,” but only with the arrival of man is it “heard.” 

For example, the universe was shouting about how E = mc²!!! for billions of years before Einstein came along and heard it. For that matter, it was raving about Gödel’s theorems before Gödel took the time to listen.

So, the universe literally tends toward man, i.e., has the homosapiential tendencies mentioned in yesterday’s post. We literally complete a circle that otherwise makes no sense without us, for the message presupposes a recipient. 

This is the concrete (not abstract) and dynamic (never static) circle in which we always find ourselves -- and I want to say, in which God finds us, and no, I’m not trying to be cute:

the cosmos is open to another world which acts on it. And this cause can only be a living being; it is necessarily a pure spirit, a transcosmic being.  

Much more, but this is a good place to pause and enjoy the vista before resuming our ascent tomorrow. 

Ontological Necrophilia and the Total Eclipse of the Cosmos

We left off pondering the sort of creature capable of making a roundtrip tour of the cosmos and rejoining the source of being. Ironically, chances are, the same people who ridicule “flat earthers” are likely to be flat universers. 

But last I heard, any straight line in our universe ends up where it originated. Does this mean that if we could only see far enough, we’d see our own aseity? Let’s check. But be quick about it! We’ve got a lot of goround to cover this morning.

Could the Universe actually loop back on itself? And if you traveled far enough in a straight line, would you eventually return to your starting point, just as if you traveled in any one direction for long enough on the surface of the Earth?

While it’s easy to see how a positively-curved space can be finite and closed, it’s a little less intuitive to realize that a flat space could be finite and closed as well, but that’s also the case. To understand, simply imagine a long, straight cylinder, and then bending that cylinder into a donut-like shape until the two ends connect. This shape -- known as a torus -- is both spatially flat and also finite and closed. 

Well, that's a relief. I always suspected the cosmos looked like a donut, hence the  ʘ in  ONE CʘSMOS.

Let’s jump to the bottom line: in an abstract sense a straight line would return to itself, but there hasn’t been enough time for it to do so:

The Universe may, on some very grand cosmic scale, truly be finite in nature. But even if it is, we’ll never be able to know. While we can travel through space as far as we like, as fast as we can, for as long as we can imagine without end..., there is a cosmic horizon that limits how far we can travel through the expanding Universe, and for objects more than ~18 billion light-years away at present, they’re already effectively gone (https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/travel-straight-line/ ).

Let's just say that if the universe were finite, it couldn’t be. Besides, Gödel. 

Come to think of it, as we all know by now, there is the real, cage-free world, and the infertile world described by physics, and the latter is -- duh -- only an abstraction from the former. This is what De Koninck refers to as "the hollow universe." And even though it is hollow, no one could actually live, let alone breed, inside it:

The objects available to us in experience are much richer than those described in modern mathematical physics…. Mathematical physics deals, literally, with abstractions and there is a tendency to take these abstractions for the whole of reality. The result is what De Koninck meant by the expression “hollow universe” (Armour).

Besides, Gödel.

Remember: it is always we who understand the cosmos, not the cosmos that comprehends us. It reminds me of a somewhat cryptic utterance by the Aphorist, that

The world is explicable from man; but man is not explicable from the world. Man is a given reality; the world is a hypothesis we invent.

Don’t take this the wrong way, like some solipsistic newage sewage, or as if reality were a ghostly form of Kantian rationalism. 

The point is, we begin with the concrete reality of our own existence, which includes an intellect capable of unpacking the intelligibility of the world via abstract concepts. This doesn’t mean we can begin at the other end, as if we could somehow deduce our existence from our own abstractions! For

Of all the vicious circles one could imagine, that in which the materialist encloses himself is the most primitive, restrictive, and binding (De Koninck).

I’ve said this before, but consider the fact that if we are able to explain natural selection, then natural selection is unable to explain us. This is self-evident, and therefore beyond the reach of tenure. More generally, any theory is an abstraction from the concrete totality of Being. 

Which is a convenient place to insert De Koninck’s bottom line:

Every natural form tends toward man…. in this perspective, subhuman forms are much less states than tendencies.

This is at once obvious and (apparently) difficult for people to wrap their minds around. But even the most trivial thing we can know about the most inconsequential thing, means that the intelligibility of that thing speaks in and through us. 

Things are not opaque, but rather, transparent to our intelligence; which again, as Einstein said, is just about the most freaky thing about our universe. Everything “speaks,” but only with the arrival of man is it “heard.” 

For example, the universe was shouting about how E = mc²!!! for billions of years before Einstein came along and heard it. For that matter, it was raving about Gödel’s theorems before Gödel took the time to listen.

So, the universe literally tends toward man, i.e., has the homosapiential tendencies mentioned in yesterday’s post. We literally complete a circle that otherwise makes no sense without us, for the message presupposes a recipient. 

This is the concrete (not abstract) and dynamic (never static) circle in which we always find ourselves -- and I want to say, in which God finds us, and no, I’m not trying to be cute:

the cosmos is open to another world which acts on it. And this cause can only be a living being; it is necessarily a pure spirit, a transcosmic being.  

Much more, but this is a good place to pause and enjoy the vista before resuming our ascent tomorrow.