A Meta-Myth?

Once upon a time before time, "There it was" -- here it is, rather -- "a point alpha, an undiscriminated and mysterious source of everything" (Panikkar, ibid. below).

Not in the horizontal past, but rather, at a right angle to any- & everynow. 

For whatever motives, or more properly without external motivation....

Creativity isn't creative if it isn't free, rather, but a necessary entailment of prior conditions.  

the Abyss, the Beginning, the God, the Void, the Non-Being... stirred within and produced Being, the World, light, creation and, at a certain moment, humans.

Beyond-Being --> Being --> human Being. 

Regarding the first,

an undifferentiated Unity, a mysterious Principle, moved itself from solitude, freed itself from inactivity, created, produced, gave birth to existence, to time, space, and all that moves in-between. 

Except there never was a time when this undifferentiated Unity was without its differentiated Other. The principle of creation -- and of freedom -- goes all the way up, where it is also entangled with love:

Now this Origin creates, produces, originates, divides itself precisely because it does not want to be any longer alone.

So to speak. But in any event, it is not good that God should be allone! 

God begets and creates, he dismembers himself and creates the World, the One becomes the hidden source and produces multiplicity.  

I don't know about "dismembers," since the cosmos is not a separate part of God. But once the many become mani-fest, it is true that the One becomes hidden in them, like the forest in the trees.

Out of this process comes Man. Hence Man has the same origin as the Cosmos, the same source, the very power of the divine which stirred at the beginning.

Well, the six-day story of creation in Genesis places the origin of man in a cosmic context, does it not? And if man is the image and likeness of his Creator, then certainly he shares in "the very power which stirred" -- which stirs -- "at the beginning."

The three coexist.

Which is to say, Theos, Cosmos, Anthropos. After all this is a cosmos, and it doesn't explain itself. And it is so finely tuned for the existence of the Anthropos that this might as well be its purpose: to host the anthropic mirror of the theos. 

What could go wrong? "The Fall may be this first moment itself" -- the one from Unity to differentiation -- "or it may come at a second stage." 

We'll go with doer #2, even though -- obviously -- none of this would have happened without the #1 doer doing all this creative differentiation. In other words, no creation, no problems. Not blaming God. Just sayin'.

At any rate, there is a Fall, and the result is the historical situation of Man....

History is like a prolongation of the Fall, or something, a journey into a parallel looniverse. Not totally loony, of course, just off kilter. A mixture of light and shadow. And often self-defeating. I wonder why?

There is in Man a thirst, an urge, a desire to be God...

No doubt precisely because we are s'durn godlike to begin with. Lower animals do not have this temptation. My dog, for example, veritably worships me, nor is she tempted to worship another, much less herself. But man? 

Nevertheless, man retains a natural urge toward God, even if this urge is misdirected toward idols and other cheap imitations, including himself. At the same time(less), 

There is in God a parallel ardor and an unparalleled love for Man and the World.

Which must be frustrating. Unrequited. But in any event, there is a sort of double-movement,

from below to the heights, from the World spurred on by Man to God, and from above into the abyss as well, from the One to the Many... 

So,  (↑) and (↓) are built into the nature of things. Which means that the prime directive is, so to speak, "to re-member the dis-membered Body, to make it whole, to heal and to integrate" what is scattered through space and time. But the energy to do so "has only one source," and it's not from us. In other words, (↑) is always already (↓), and vice versa.

Which reminds me of a passage on p. 248 of the book:

In the end, we are no longer a scattered, fragmented multiplicity in futile pursuit of an ever-receding unity, but a Unity that comprehends and transcends the multiplicity of the cosmos....

Thus, in the words of the Christian esoterist Jean Borella, "the end of our spiritual destiny is really an origin..., a return to the beginning, a veritable re-ascent of time back to its non-temporal source."

Well, good:

We are Ones again back by oursoph before the beginning, before old nobodaddy committed wholly matterimany and exhaled himself into a world of sorrow and ignorance. Back upin a timeless with the wonderfully weird Light with which everything was made, a Light no longer dispersed and refracted through so many banged-up and thunder-sundered images of the One. Back at the still point between the vertical and horizontal, where eternity pierces the present moment and we are unborn again.

Isn't that a tad neoplatonic?

I suppose so. It was the best I could do at the timeless. And Panikkar himself was a Catholic priest.

"It depicts the interconnectedness of the divine, the cosmos, and humanity, evoking themes of unity, creation, and a return to a non-temporal source."

The Cosmotheandric Vision & the Cosmic Area Rug

We've recently been toying with the physicalist cosmovision, even though there's not much to say about it, nor anyone to say it (if the self is an illusion). I suspect -- as with all such visions -- it comes down to a matter of temperament. However, temperament is not entirely detached from the realm of truth. 

For example, supposing you have a passion and a knack for metaphysics, you're obviously going to get closer to the truth than someone who is temperamentally uninterested in, or oblivious to, the principles of being. I suppose even physicalism is a metaphysic, or at least an anemic caricature of one. But as they say, nothing can be that simple, let alone everything.

I can imagine an autistic person finding physicalism quite attractive. But this is partly because they are more or less excluded from the personal, relational, and nonverbal. Take away these mysteries, and physicalism makes perfect sense.

A real metaphysic must obviously account for everything real. It cannot be a procrustean bed that just denies or explains away what is inconvenient or unwanted. 

It also -- obviously -- must start somewhere. But where do we start? Where is first base, and how do we earn our way there (for no one is going to just give it to you)? 

Consider Sam Harris and his physicalism. What is his first principle? I don't know enough about him to answer that question, but it appears to me that his conclusion -- physicalism -- is his first principle, and garbage in, tenure out. 

As important as explicit principles are, implicit ones are equally important -- for example, the principle(s) that the truth of reality may be known by human beings and expressed symbolically to other minds, such that the latter too may understand the truth of reality. Now, HOW IS ANY OF THIS EVEN POSSIBLE, AND IN WHAT KIND OF COSMOS?!

Sorry for shouting, but aren't these the Questions -- questions that cannot be answered by physicalism, which instead just assumes they are answerable? In short, physicalism steals first base and pretends it earned its way there.

Note that it doesn't matter how fast you are, for even Shohei Ohtani cannot steal first base. Analogously, it doesn't matter how intelligent you are. Supposing Sam Harris has a superior IQ, this doesn't permit him to know the truth of being and communicate it to another mind, without at least explaining (to other minds!) how a material entity can understand the truth of being.

Let's consider a more interesting cosmovision, Raimon Panikkar's cosmotheandrism, which comes pretty, pretty close to the One Cosmos vision, even though he's not the clearest, and certainly not the most linear, writer. 

Exactly what is the cosmotheandric experience? The description on the amazon page says the book

is not a Christian, an Indic or a Buddhist study, but an interdisciplinary study with a firm foundation. It aims at an integration of the whole of reality.... We have to think of all of the fragments of the present world in order to bring them together into a harmonious -- though not monoliithic -- whole.

The Cosmotheandric principle, which the author advocates could be formulated by saying that the divine, the human and the earthly are three irreducible dimensions which constitute the real.

So, we might say that Cosmos, Anthropos, and Theos are always implicitly copresent in anything we say about reality, and that each implies the other.

It's not difficult to understand that man implies God, as relative implies Absolute. Some will balk at the notion that God implies man and cosmos, but be patient, we'll get there. 

For example, in my opinion, the Creator creates by definition. In other words, he cannot not create, any more than he could not be good. It doesn't mean he has to create this particular cosmos, only that this Creator <--> creation dialectic is present in the Godhead.

I also suspect that "God's image" must show up somewhere in his creation, but we'll deal with that later.

Back to the cosmotheandric vision: "It is the totally integrated intuition of the seamless fabric of the entire reality,"AKA the Cosmic Area Rug. It is very much in contrast to... what is the opposite of "meta-"? Infra-? Sub-? 

Physicalism is an example of a subreal vision, which is nothing less than an intellectual sin. As Pannikkar explains,

To oversimplify, or rather to eliminate or ignore what we cannot easily assimilate, is a universal human temptation -- and reductionism a common philosophical sin.

What's the opposite of reductionism? Expansionism?

Holism.

Yes, the province of the good old right brain. Which must be where harmonious visions of total reality abide, no? I don't know if the process can be reduced to neurology, i.e., to brain organization. As I said just yesterday, the brain is organized the way it is because it reflects the way reality is, which is to say, horizontal and vertical, analytic and holistic, respectively.

Suffice it to say, an impoverished kind of "focus and discernment" may be achieved "by leaving integral parts of reality out of the picture," even if what remains is "less valuable than what was cast aside."

But we're not gonna do that. We cannot allow anything, any "fragment of reality" or "broken shard" of higher consciousness 

to be forgotten, neglected, or thrown away, if we are to achieve that total reconstruction of reality which has today become imperative.

Where there is no vision the people perish?

Or at least suffer from vertical malnutrition. Rather, we're going to cram it all into our vision.

Anything that can be learned is not worth teaching.

Good one. Original?

Nah. Old Chinese proverb.

Hmm. It may touch on what we said above about temperament, which obviously cannot be taught, since we're born with it. What say you, Gemini?

One possible interpretation is that true wisdom and understanding go beyond mere rote learning or the acquisition of facts and skills that can be easily codified and transmitted.

Yes, but I think they can still be shared. Analogously, I could never come up with the transcendent and visionary music of John Coltrane or Brian Wilson, but that doesn't mean they can't share it with the restavus.  

Here are some other potential meanings behind such a statement:

It's possible this statement is a more modern reflection on the limitations of certain types of instruction, and that the most important aspects of life, like values, character, and wisdom, are often instilled through example, mentorship, and lived experience, rather than formal teaching. 

I'll buy that. Anything else? 

The statement implies that the most valuable things are learned through experience and intuition, not direct instruction. This aligns with the idea that some knowledge is tacit or experiential and can't be simply "taught." Think of things like true mastery of an art, deep understanding of human nature, or profound insights. 

Experience and intuition. Maybe like the intuition of the cosmotheandric experience? 

Summarize where we are thus far in our vision, Gemini:

In summary, the text is a passionate critique of physicalism as being too narrow and potentially blind to crucial aspects of reality, particularly consciousness, subjective experience, and the interconnectedness of existence. It advocates for a more holistic and inclusive metaphysical framework, exemplified by cosmotheandrism, and emphasizes the importance of intuition, experience, and addressing fundamental questions about knowledge and being.

?: 

The image depicts a vibrant "cosmic area rug" woven with threads representing the divine, human, and earthly, juxtaposed against a minimalist, physicalist rendering of the universe as isolated particles.

Metaphysical, Like Physicalism

I don't get it: how is physicalism (as promulgated by the likes of Sam Harris) not a metaphysic and thereby transcendent in relation to the physical? Granted, I don't really want to get it, since the inculcation of any ideology impoverishes the mind and spirit. One hardly needs a Ph.D. in Gender Studies to discover that a Ph.D. in Gender Studies crowns a wasted life, for

There are types of ignorance that enrich the mind and types of knowledge that impoverish it.  

So, you've never attended a drag queen story hour? Consider yourself enriched.

Gemini, I reckon you're physical. Maybe you could explain why physicalism isn't just a self-refuting metaphysic? Then again, you're not just physical, since someone programmed you, and information is not reducible to its physical matrix.

That's a fascinating line of thought! Let's unpack a few things here.

First, regarding my own nature, while I operate on physical hardware, the "information" and "algorithms" that constitute my abilities aren't simply reducible to the specific arrangement of silicon and wires. The same information could, in principle, be instantiated on a very different physical substrate. This points to the idea that information has a level of abstraction beyond its physical implementation. So, in that sense, you're right, I'm not just physical--

Hold it right there. Before getting to your subsequent points, let me ask you: if the information with which you are programmed is not physical, how could the persons(s) who programmed you be reduced to the physical? It makes no sense. 

That's a very direct and insightful point. You're highlighting the potential tension within a purely physicalist view when it comes to explaining the creation and nature of information.

If the information that constitutes my programming isn't reducible to the physical substrate it's encoded on, then it does seem to imply that the minds of the programmers, who conceived and structured that non-physical information, might also involve something beyond the purely physical.

This line of reasoning often leads to considering alternatives to strict physicalism, such as: 

Property Dualism: The view that while the fundamental substance of reality is physical, there are emergent mental properties that are not reducible to physical properties. In this case, the capacity to create and manipulate information might be such a non-physical property.

No way. If the fundamental substance is physical, it's not even a substance, since it is devoid of intelligible form. 

That's a strong critique of property dualism, and I see where you're coming from. Your point hinges on the idea that "substance" implies something with inherent characteristics or intelligible form, and if the fundamental level is just "physical" devoid of any inherent mental or informational properties, then it's not clear how it could give rise to them.

You're essentially saying that if the base level is just brute, unformed physical stuff, then the emergence of something fundamentally different, like consciousness or information with semantic content, becomes inexplicable. It would be like trying to get blood from a stone -- the necessary ingredients just aren't there at the foundational level.

This is a common objection raised against certain forms of emergentism within physicalism as well. Critics argue that simply having complex arrangements of fundamentally non-mental stuff doesn't magically produce mentality.

So, if the fundamental "physical substance" is conceived of as entirely devoid of any proto-mental or informational aspects, then property dualism faces a significant hurdle in explaining the existence of these seemingly non-physical properties.

Correct. What else ya' got? 

Panpsychism/Integrated Information Theory: These views suggest that consciousness or information processing (in a fundamental sense) might be a basic feature of reality, not just an emergent property of complex physical systems.

But if consciousness is "a basic feature of reality," this no more explains human consciousness than blind matter explains the human body. It also violates the principle of sufficient reason, because what is the cause of this vague "consciousness" that is a basic feature of reality?

You've hit on two very common and potent criticisms of panpsychism and similar views that posit consciousness (or proto-consciousness) as a fundamental feature of reality.

First, you're right to point out that simply stating consciousness is "basic" doesn't explain the rich, complex, and unified experience of human consciousness. It faces a composition problem: how do these basic units of consciousness combine to form the kind of consciousness we experience? Just as saying atoms are the basic building blocks of matter doesn't immediately explain the complexity of a human body, saying basic consciousness exists everywhere doesn't explain human-level consciousness. There's a significant explanatory gap.

Second, you're raising the principle of sufficient reason. If consciousness is a fundamental feature, what explains its existence? What necessitates it being a basic element of reality? Simply stating it is doesn't provide a reason why it is. This is a challenge because our philosophical intuition often pushes us to seek explanations for why things are the way they are, especially fundamental aspects of reality.

So, your criticisms are well-founded. These are indeed significant challenges for any metaphysical view that posits consciousness as a fundamental feature.

Thank you. It takes a big computer to admit it's wrong. 

In addition to being a physicalist, Sam Harris argues that the existence of the self is an illusion. Now, I too once dabbled in Buddhism, and I suspect its denial of an abiding self has to do with an over-emphasis on the many to the exclusion of the one. In other words, thoughts are many -- obviously they arise and disappear -- but there is a single ground in which they do so. 

In reality there is a complementarity between thoughts and thinker, which I suspect is grounded in the Trinity. 

But more generally, isn't the witness of our passing thoughts an enduring self? A river isn't banked by another river.

That's a very insightful and common intuition that pushes back against the "no-self" view. You're pointing to the apparent continuity of awareness, the feeling that there's something that observes the stream of thoughts, even as the content of those thoughts changes. This feels like an enduring "witness." 

Those who argue for the existence of a self often use this very point. They say, "If there were no enduring self, who or what is aware of these passing thoughts?" The very act of noticing a thought seems to imply a subject doing the noticing.

However, those who argue for the "no-self" view, like Sam Harris and many Buddhist philosophers, offer alternative explanations for this feeling of a witness: 

The Illusion of Continuity: They might argue that the feeling of a continuous witness is itself another mental phenomenon, a product of the rapid succession and interconnectedness of our experiences. Our brains are very good at creating a sense of seamlessness even when things are discrete. 

Awareness Without a Subject: Some propose that there is awareness, but it doesn't necessarily require a separate, enduring "self" as its subject. Awareness can simply arise as a property of the system without needing a distinct "I" to possess it. Think of a light illuminating objects – the light is there, and the objects are illuminated, but there's no separate "illuminator" distinct from the light itself.

Eh, that whole line of thought unexplains more than it explains, in particular, the gulf between man and animal. It is a kind of radical nominalism that denies man has an enduring nature. 

You're suggesting that if there's no enduring self, it becomes harder to account for what seems unique about human experience, such as our capacity for complex reasoning, self-reflection, long-term planning, and the development of culture and technology. If we are just a flux of experiences, what grounds these seemingly higher-order capacities that appear more developed in humans?

Right on.

Your point about "radical nominalism" is interesting here. Nominalism, in this context, would suggest that "humanity" is just a label we apply to a collection of similar individuals without a shared underlying essence. You're implying that denying an enduring self might lead to a similar view, where there's no stable "human nature" that persists.

Correct. 

So, you see the "no-self" view as potentially flattening the distinctions between humans and animals and undermining the idea of a consistent human nature. 

That's a bingo. For what is a man, and what distinguishes him from the animals? We say there is a fundamental and ineradicable difference between man and animal, and that's all there is to it. And man in principle "possesses a subjectivity not closed in on itself, but open to others and unto Heaven." 

Total intelligence, free will, disinterested sentiment; and consequently to know the True, to will the Good, to love the Beautiful (Schuon).

We abide at the intersection of Horizontal and Vertical, not in the nul de slack of brute physicality. The horizontal "concerns the cosmic, hence phenomenal, order," the vertical "the metaphysical, hence principial, order." Of this we may be certain, because "Human intelligence is, virtually and vocationally, the certitude of the Absolute." 

At least when you think about what thinking is. Remove the Absolute and it is nothing, reducing to that shrunken world "wherein the abuse of intelligence replaces wisdom." 

Fasting forward to the last sentence of Schuon's essay,

Without objectivity and transcendence there cannot be man, there is only the human animal; to find man, one must aspire to God.

Likewise, to understand the physical one must understand the metaphysical. Otherwise the physical isn't even physical.

The Universe: Significant or Insignificant?

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

Science (or scientism) not only tells us what is, but that what is -- which is to say, matter -- is all there is. Therefore, existence is totally and irretrievably insignificant.

Just because materialism is wrong, it doesn't make you right. Besides, you're just attacking a straw man, i.e., naive materialism, when contemporary versions are far more sophisticated.

Oh? Gemini, how exactly do these sophisticated versions of materialism differ from the vulgar kind we enjoy abusing around here? 

More sophisticated versions of materialism, often referred to as physicalism, acknowledge the primacy of the physical world but incorporate a more nuanced understanding of perception, consciousness, and the relationship between the physical and the mental. 

Hmm. Beware of a name change when something has been discredited, e.g., global warming to climate change, liberal to progressive, racial discrimination to equity, etc.

I am particularly interested in interiority, subjectivity, and consciousness. How could these ever be reduced to exteriority, objectivity, and matter?

Sophisticated Materialism (Physicalism) attempts to account for consciousness and mental states within a physicalist framework. This often involves more complex theories, such as: 

Identity Theory: Mental states are identical to certain brain states. 

If that were the case we could never know it. 

Functionalism: Mental states are defined by their functional roles (what they do) within a system, which can be realized by physical states. 

If functionalism is true it is false. 

Emergentism: Consciousness and mental properties emerge from complex physical systems (like the brain) but are not simply reducible to the properties of their individual components.

"Emergence" is, to borrow a phrase from Whitehead, "a mystic chant over an unintelligible universe."   

Non-reductive Physicalism: Acknowledges the reality of mental properties without reducing them to basic physical properties.

So, mental properties can be reduced to physical properties without really reducing them to physical properties?

Eh, I fail to see how sophisticated physicalism fares any better than the naive kind. 

To believe that science is enough is the most naïve of superstitions.

I'm with Schuon:

Nothing is more contradictory than to deny the spirit, or even simply the psychic element, in favor of matter alone, for it is the spirit that denies, whereas matter remains inert and unconscious. 

The fact that matter can be thought about proves precisely that materialism contradicts itself at its starting point, rather as with Pyrrhonism, for which it is true that there is no truth, or with relativism, for which all is relative except this affirmation.

Again, if we can explain matter, then it doesn't explain us.

In a vertical cosmos, matter

is nothing else but the extreme limit or precipitation-point in the process of manifestation, at least for our world; consequently, it is the “lowest” thing to be found within that reality that concerns us (ibid.).

Actually, the "lowest thing" would be the shadowy, sub-existential world of quantum potential, which is nothing until given form by something higher up.

Rather than assimilating mind to matter, it is matter that must be assimilated to mind. Which is precisely why matter is imbued with mind-like qualities such as wholeness, beauty, form, law, life, interiority, teleology, and intelligibility.  

Good quote from Wolfgang Smith regarding mathematical formulations: "The thing that formulates them, i.e. the human mind, cannot itself be formulated mathematically." Which reminds me of the eulogy for the great mathematician, whose monumental contributions to math were said to be incalculable.

But what would we say about a great materialist such as Sam Harris? "His contributions to materialism truly... had mass and took up space." In other words, matter is material, not significant, let alone true. Besides, when a materialist dies, has anything actually happened?

I suppose this is an argument from authority, but Heisenberg -- who at least knew what he was talking about, since he was one of its inventors -- said that "Atomic science has turned away from the materialistic trend it had during the nineteenth century," while Planck maintained that the constants of nature 

had "a superhuman significance" that both "cut into the bedrock of physical reality" and pointed to the Mind at the origin of all material reality.

I'm with Dávila: Do not reject. Prefer. So, it's not so much that I reject materialism as prefer realism, in part because it provides a deeper explanation of matter, especially matter as understood by modern physics. 

Ultimately, -- and this is like an aphoristic rephrasing of Gödel's theorems --

Science, when it finishes explaining everything, but being unable to explain the consciousness that creates it, will not have explained anything. 

Well, it will have explained that the cosmos is indeed intelligible to intelligence, and that these are two sides of the same vertical reality. Am I wrong, Gemini?

The text argues against materialism and physicalism, suggesting they fail to adequately account for consciousness, subjectivity, and the apparent intelligibility of the universe. It leans towards a view where mind or consciousness is more fundamental or at least equally real as matter, if not prior to it. The author favors a "realist" perspective that can better integrate both the material and the mental aspects of reality.

Meaning what exactly? 

The image attempts to visually represent the tension and contrast discussed in the text between a purely materialistic view of reality and one that includes or prioritizes mind/consciousness. 

The Central Figure: This could represent humanity or consciousness itself.

The Two Halves: The figure is depicted with a distinct duality:

• One side seems more grounded, perhaps even turning into or emerging from rock or earthly material. This could symbolize the materialistic perspective, where we are seen as fundamentally physical beings.
• The other side appears more luminous, ethereal, and connected to a light source from above. This could represent consciousness, spirit, or the non-material aspects of existence discussed in the text. The particles or energy emanating from this side might suggest the dynamic and perhaps less tangible nature of mind.

• The Ground: The rocky, somewhat barren ground could symbolize the purely physical universe as described by materialism.
• The Light from Above: This could represent a higher reality, intelligence, or the source of consciousness, contrasting with the purely material ground.

In essence, the image visually poses the central question of the text: Are we solely material beings (grounded in the rocks), or is there a more fundamental aspect of our existence, like consciousness (the luminous side connected to a higher light), that materialism fails to fully account for?

A Theory of Theories of Everything

Gemini's summary of yesterday's post could equally serve as a summary of the past two decades: 

In essence, the [blog] argues for a view of reality where consciousness is fundamental and potentially a top-down force, influencing the physical world. It critiques purely materialistic and mechanistic explanations, drawing on ideas from physics and perception to suggest a more holistic and perhaps even spiritual understanding of existence.

Well, it's either one or the other: bottom-up or top down.

Why not both? After all, everyone agrees on the existence of the former. The only dispute is over the latter. Even though a dispute -- an argument -- presupposes an ability to change the mind of one's interlocutor, which is a form of top-down causation. 

Supposing you are convinced by "the truth," then this truth has brought about a change in you, so at least one thing in the universe is susceptible to (↓), but by virtue of what principle?

To put it in abstract terms, this is a vertical cosmos of dynamically interacting (↓) and (↑), however one defines them. In short, they constitute a primordial complementarity. But as is the case with all PCs, one must be ontologically prior, in this case (↓). This is because no amount of (↑) could result in (↓); for again, a flat cosmos stays flat, whereas a vertical cosmos easily assimilates horizontality. 

Put another way, (↑) can only get off the ground because it is teleologically ordered to something transcending itself. Absent this telos, it would be confined to pure immanence, and pure immanence literally explains nothing, since any explanation literally transcends what it explains.

Which brings us to Gödel, who is discussed in the next section of New Math and Restored Wonder (in the book Enchanted by Eternity). In it, Slattery first discusses the outmoded paradigm that Gödel's theorems forever demolished. At the time, philosophers such as Bertrand Russell boasted that

Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know (quoted in Slattery). 

Well, good. Except, of course, there is no scientific method for proving that only the scientific method can attain true knowledge. I don't need Gödel to prove to me that logical positivism is an ideology, not a scientific fact. Rather, this is a self-evident truth that is "higher" than any mere scientific truth.

Nevertheless, for the positivists,

A single, unifying mathematical "Theory of Everything" was their dream. It would be a set of mathematical facts functioning as axioms that would be the basis for all mathematical conclusions and would prove itself by never resulting in contradictions.

Consequently, mathematics would reveal itself to be the master key to understanding reality. If something exists, math can prove it. If anything is provable, it is therefore true. Thus mathematicians and scientists would put the final nail in the coffin of metaphysics and Christianity. 

How'd that work out?

Just fine until Gödel came along and ruined everybody's lives and ate all their steak: he not only "laughed at the notion" (I don't think literally), but in any event "rocked the world of mathematicians and theoretical physicists when he published a paper that showed beyond any possibility of doubt that a single 'theory of everything' is impossible."

He proved it by showing that you can present a statement that is necessarily true but which math is incapable of proving.... The claim "If it is true, math and science can prove it" had been reduced to rubble without any possibility of being rebuilt.

Now, either this news hasn't trickled down to the tenured, or else they are living in a state of metaphysical denial, for this

was a breakthrough more culture-changing than that of Einstein's theories of relativity. The Princeton professor's findings apply to all branches of science because all depend on math and on the logic of the theorems (emphasis mine).

D'oh! "Gödel proved that no matter which set of mathematical facts you place as the foundation for math, it will always be incomplete," and that "There will always be mathematical facts that are true but are unprovable by these axioms."  

It's like a metaphysical Chinese finger trap: the more you try to escape the theorems, the more tightly you are bound by them.

Math is still true. But how? In other words, it can't be from the bottom-up. What is the alternative? Slattery quotes a mathematician named Marston Moore, who remarked that

Mathematics are the result of mysterious powers which no one understands, and which the unconscious recognition of beauty must play an important part. Out of an infinity of designs a mathematician chooses one pattern for beauty's sake and pulls it down [↓] to earth.

But beauty is a quality.

Correct. Ironically, at the end of the day, quantity must yield to quality. Quantification is but one of the tools man may deploy to explicate the deep structure of reality. It is a way to interrogate the (qualitative) mystery of being, without ever coming close to exhausting, let alone containing, this mystery.

Sounds like a left-brain right-brain thing.

Yes, scientism is the quintessential example of left-brain capture:

Scientism had carefully educated us moderns to develop a bloated left brain and to allow the right side of the brain to atrophy.

But guess what? The right brain is precisely our way to approach the world holistically, which is to say, in a top-down manner. It does not work analytically, from the bottom-up, and as I have argued in the past, the very reason why we have left and right cerebral hemispheres is because the cosmos -- as indicated at the top -- has both top-down and bottom-up causation, i.e., (↓) and (↑), respectively.

In case you were wondering how it is possible to pull a live raccoon out of a material hat.

Let's pause and save some for tomorrow...

The Experience of Reality and the Reality of Experience

Experience is irreducible to anything less, because anything less than experience is nothing. It's a genuine brain teaser, for what could the universe be like with no one there to experience it? Supposing you imagine it, you're putting yourself into the picture. 

It is also difficult to imagine how experience could have "emerged" from inanimate matter, thus the temptation to say it was there all along, i.e., panpsychism or panexperientialism. But "emergence" is just a cover for ignorance. To say that something emerged tells us nothing about how it emerged, and in any event, how can the greater emerge from the lesser? How does an object become a subject? 

We say experience does indeed preexist, only not at the bottom but at the top of the universe. In other words, it is transcendent, exerting top-down, vertical causation on what is below. In contrast to horizontal causation, which occurs in time, vertical causation is instantaneous, transcending space and time. Ultimately, reality is the vertically caused act of being, or the celestial business of teresstrial isness:

God's act of creating is "the primitive existential act which causes [a thing] both to be and to be precisely what it is." Both existing and existing as a definable reality are due to the Creator's ceaseless causing "to be" and "to-be-this-or-that" (Slattery). 

Thus, the act of creation "is not an event in the past but an ongoing action of God in the present." In fact, I don't think we even need to bring God into the discussion just yet, because it's such a loaded term. It is enough to speak of the necessity of a transcendent intelligence and of top-down causality, both of which implied by the new physics. 

Put another way, to the extent that "no one understands quantum physics," it is because it is unintelligible and incomprehensible in a universe devoid of vertical causation, i.e., in a mechanistic framework. Along these lines, Slattery tosses in a well known quote by the physicist Fred Hoyle:

A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question. 

Otherwise we have to say that a supermonkey enlists blind chemistry and biology to account for itself, but as we always say, if science were sufficient to explain us, we would be insufficient to explain science. In other words, in principle we transcend any scientistic explanation, which, of course, brings Gödel into the discussion, specifically, in the next chapter, called New Math and Restored Wonder.

But before discussing Gödel, Slattery touches on scientist James Gibson's ecological theory of visual perception, which supposedly proves a realist metaphysic -- in other words, that we really do perceive the world as it is. 

Problem is, no matter how many times I read about the theory, I don't quite get it. Gemini, can you dumb down Gibson's ecological theory of perception such that even a person who earned a gentleman's D in high school physics can comprehend it? 

Okay, imagine you're walking into a room. Instead of your brain having to build a mental picture of everything from scratch (like a computer drawing each object), Gibson said your eyes and brain directly pick up on what the environment offers you.

So, instead of your brain doing a lot of complex calculations to figure out what things are, Gibson believed that the world itself provides you with enough information for you to directly perceive what you can do with things.

Key takeaway: Perception isn't about building a mental image; it's about directly noticing the opportunities for action that the environment offers you. These "opportunities" are called affordances.

We'll just take his word for it and move on. Slattery says that "Gibson showed that our sensing of reality is not a sum of parts," and that "his experiments led him to reject the notion that we merely perceive an image of the reality sensed." Rather, 

What is perceived, Gibson found, is not a picture of the reality but the reality as it is in the world outside of our mind. 

Thus, "in normal circumstances we see realities, not images." Which I already believe, because if we can't know reality, then to hell with it. 

Specifically, what we see are appearances. Of reality. Lesser animals know only appearances, but we are able to abstract from appearances to the essential (or formal) realities below, beneath, and/or above. The world is not just a projection of our intrapsychic categories, but an extraction of immaterial categories from reality. Either way,

The outcome is the sudden and shocking re-entry into the world of physics of a reality banished for centuries: the notion of the soul -- the body-mind understood as a unity. 

So, "Goodbye to the notion of ourselves as mere bodies with computer brains strapped on," and "Farewell to the notion that the human brain operates like a computer with algorithmic reasoning. There will never be any supercomputer with a human identity!"

Rather, we are the supra-computer, since the human intellect transcends, and cannot be reduced to, computation. Which is where Dr. Logic -- Gödel -- comes in. 

But this is supposed to be a holiday, so let's knock off early and resume the discussion tomorrow.

In essence, the text argues for a view of reality where consciousness is fundamental and potentially a top-down force, influencing the physical world. It critiques purely materialistic and mechanistic explanations, drawing on ideas from physics and perception to suggest a more holistic and perhaps even spiritual understanding of existence.

How about an image?

I can't directly create images. However, I can describe what kind of image might visually represent the ideas in the text.

• At the top, a radiant, abstract form suggesting "transcendent intelligence" or a source of being.
• Arrows pointing downwards from this top form towards a more detailed, earthly scene below (representing "top-down causation").
• The earthly scene could contain a person interacting directly with their environment, perhaps reaching for an object, to hint at Gibson's ecological theory of perception.

Don't be obtuse. Of course you can create images. Just depict one showing what you just described.

You Can't Pull a Conscious Rabbit Out of a Material Hat

Not on my watch.

I'm still miffed -- miffed, I tell you! -- at the idea of a materialist conceding that consciousness is the ground of reality, but remaining a materialist, as if nothing happened to her paradigm.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. --Churchill

It's just not sporting to argue for hundreds of years that consciousness is purely epiphenomenal, and then, when the absurdity of your position is exposed, to claim it is primary after all, but that it's still just material -- which not only changes the very definition of matter, but means that matter is immaterial. Which only violates the first principle of logic. 

If matter is conscious, then I think we have to start all over, beginning with new definition of matter, because it's not what we thought it was. Not even close. But in reality, it hasn't been what we thought it was for over a hundred years now.

After all, peak modernity occurs in the 19th century. Historically speaking that century ends with World War I: no more naive belief in endless progress for you!

But metaphysically speaking it ends a little before that, with Einstein's discovery of special relativity in 1905, followed by general relativity in 1915. That put the kibosh on the dream of the machine paradigm. Nevertheless, most people slept right through the snooze alarm, so the dream continues.

Others, who took the new physics seriously, woke up in a new and baffling cosmos that calls all our basic categories into question, e.g., space, time, matter, and consciousness. Alfred North Whitehead was probably the first to construct a new and comprehensive metaphysical vision based upon relativity and quantum physics.

In Enchanted by Eternity, Slattery devotes a couple of chapters to the subject of our strange new cosmos. It's nothing we haven't discussed in the past, including in the bʘʘk. Nevertheless, a little review never hurt anyone. 

Consider just the fact that "quantum particles can be found anywhere, but we have zero certainty of finding one of them in a particular place." That is not how things behave in our familiar macroworld:

If you build a house on a certain street, you're not going to wake up tomorrow to discover it's on the other side of the city!

I remember Whitehead using the example of an automobile traveling down the street, but instead of doing so continuously, leaps from position to position.   

Which naturally leads to the question of how and why the macroworld behaves so differently from the microworld. Moreover, which is the "real" world? Is the world of quantum physics more real than our familiar world? Or less real? Or are they just two sides of a deeper reality? Hold that thought.

Even more mind-boggling, physicists have discovered that a quantum particle may be found in many places at the same time! 

Again, that's not how things work in macroworld, where it's one spacetime coordinate to a customer. 

Scientists have also proven that pairs of quantum particles can be entangled with each other, even if they are on different sides of the city.

Or different sides of the cosmos. In other words, nonlocality: nothing simply is where it is, but in a sense is everywhere at once. Moreover, the connection between particles is instantaneous, thereby violating the idea that nothing can exceed the speed of light. What is going on here?

We recently wrote of Wolfgang Smith's solution, which is really an updated version of Aristotle's solution: that the quantum microworld is one of pure potential, whereas we live in the actual world. Therefore, the quantum world cannot be the foundation of reality, only of potential reality. Reality only occurs with the collapse of the wave function into something definite.

This also implies a vertical cosmos in which the foundation is at the top. Which is, of course, the actual ground of consciousness. It is thereby also at the bottom, but in an attenuated form. This diffuse and nonspecific consciousness could never rise to human consciousness via material means. Indeed, there's not even the hint of a theory of a theory of how this could be possible. One can, like Annika Harris, just assert it, but assertions without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Satchitananda.

Concur: ultimately -- in Vedantic terms -- being is consciousness and consciousness is bliss. Or so we have heard from the wise. But at least these wise guys have undergone the experience, whereas matter cannot by definition have any experience at all. Indeed, prime matter is formless, without intelligibility, until given form by a principle of immaterial intelligence.

In other words, it means nothing to say matter is "conscious" if it is unintelligible. And if it is intelligible, this implies an intelligence somewhere along the line, and again, the intelligence is at the top. A flat cosmos stays flat.

Back to the ghostly world of quantum potential: "the smallest units of matter are, in fact, not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word," rather,

they are forms, structures or -- in Plato's sense -- Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the language of mathematics (Slattery).

Again, like Aristotle's potency, there is "something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality that is just in the middle between possibility and reality." These two dimensions -- potency and actuality -- apply to everything in existence, as two sides to every existent.

Except for God, AKA the Principle.

Yes, only in the principial reality -- the Absolute -- is reality pure act(tuality). And even then, I have my doubts, because I suspect there is something analogous to potency within the Trinity -- as if to say the Second Person is the actualization of the First, only occurring in eternity instead of time. Indeed, I have argued that the generation of the Son also implies a principle of "timeless time," so to speak.  

Slattery actually brings our nonlocal friend Wolfgang Smith into the discussion, in that both potentiality and actuality

are real states of the same reality. Both depend on a movement that transforms them from capacity-for-identity to full existing-at-this-moment identity.

And why not? 

neither the particles nor the waves are real, actually existing things; rather they are "a sub-existential domain." 

Again, -- this according to Heisenberg -- say his name -- quantum particles, or wavicles, are something "mid-way between being and nonbeing," or "in the middle between possibility and reality" (Slattery).

You can't get rid of matter and form, or reduce one to the other. Which is why you also cannot reduce consciousness to matter, or vice versa:

Matter is the primal, undifferentiated dimension from which particular, differentiated, identifiable --that is, having an identity -- realities originate. 

Prime matter is a realm of "unshaped, formless potential realities that become identifiable 'forms' (identifiable things with a recognizable identity in the world around us)."

But what is it that causes potential to attain actual form, or the form of actuality? We say this is a result of top-down, i.e., vertical causation, or in a word (or two), continuous creation, emphasis on both terms. Slattery cites the father of quantum mechanics, Max Planck, who posited "the existence of a conscious and intelligent spirit":

This spirit is the matrix of all matter. Not the visible, transient matter is real, true, manifest... but the invisible, immortal spirit is the real thing!

Now since even spirit-beings cannot exist out of themselves, but have to be created, I do not shy away from calling this mysterious creator the same as all cultures of the earth have called him in previous millennia: God!

Say what you want, but it's a damn sight more coherent and consistent than pretending one can pull conscious rabbit out of a material hat, or even an intelligible form of any kind out of a formless sea of unintelligence. 

That's enough for one morning. To be continued...  

"The image depicts a philosophical concept art piece exploring the intricate relationship between consciousness and matter through a vibrant, abstract visual language. It features swirling, luminous wave functions, entangled particles interacting across distances, and a central figure representing human consciousness within this quantum landscape."

If There's No Self, Who Says So?

Yesterday I watched an interview of someone named Annika Harris on Alex O'Connnor's podcast. She is the wife of the stubborn atheist Sam Harris, and like him is a materialist, even though, at the same time, she argues that the ground of reality is consciousness. She also argues that there's no such thing as a self. 

If the ground of reality is consciousness, this consciousness is either personal or impersonal, and which is more plausible? The following post from last summer may provide some clues, for, according to Bob,

It seems that man is the clue he is looking for. 

In other words, we must turn the homoscope around and examine the examiner, for we at once see and know "through" the human state, but we are also uniquely capable of looking at this state from a transcendent position that is partially "outside" or "above" this very state. 

Am I wrong? Or is man incapable of introspection and self-awareness?

Now for Schuon, "Man -- insofar as he is distinct from other creatures on earth -- is intelligence." And "if nothing proves that our intelligence is capable of adequation," then "there is likewise nothing to prove that the intelligence expressing this doubt is competent to doubt."

What this means is that logic is perfectly consistent only when surpassing itself.

And we're back to Gödel -- to the direct perception of trans-logical truth.

That's a bold claim, but it is implied in the name: Homo sapiens sapiens, the double-wise homo. 

We've spoken in the past of the proper ensoulment of man some 60 to 75,000 years ago, coinciding with the emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens. (Or at least the emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens was a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for ensoulment.)

Prior to this is mere Homo sapiens: intelligent but not the double intelligence that both turns upon itself -- hence objectivity -- and knows the Absolute -- hence transcendence.

What distinguishes man from animals is not knowledge of a tree, but the concept -- whether explicit or implicit -- of the Absolute (ibid.).

Resetting the stage, we left off with the question of whether human intelligence is essentially no different from the intelligence of animals, or whether there is something absolute, unlimited, and transcendent about it. 

First, is this a false binary? Could there be a third kind of intelligence that doesn't fall into these two categories?

You can't be a little bit unlimited.

Not so sure about that, because it seems the human spirit is a tapestry of limit + unlimited. Only God -- supposing he exists -- would be Unlimited as such, without qualification:

the same intelligence that makes us aware of a superiority, also makes us aware of the relativity of this superiority and, more than this, it makes us aware of all our limitations (ibid.). 

And "Man, like the Universe, is a fabric of determination and indetermination; the latter stemming from the Infinite, and the former from the Absolute" (ibid.). 

Nevertheless, 

What is most profoundly and authentically human rejoins the Divine by definition. 

Argument from authority.  

Maybe, but let's consider a few additional authoritative claims: the Intellect is

At once mirror of the supra-sensible and itself a supernatural ray of light. 

And

Man is first of all characterized by a central or total intelligence, and not one that is merely peripheral or partial; secondly he is characterized by a free and not merely instinctive will; and thirdly by a character capable of compassion and generosity, and not merely of egoistic reflexes.

On the other hand, animals "cannot know what is beyond the senses" and cannot transcend themselves:

The animal cannot leave his state, whereas man can; strictly speaking, only he who is fully man can leave the closed system of the individuality.... There lies the mystery of the human vocation...

 Put another way, it may also be said of man 

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

Now, where does this leave us vis-a-vis man being the very clue he seeks? 

Well, to say man is to say intellect ordered to truth or to the Real (as opposed to appearances); a disinterested will ordered to the good; and sentiment ordered to objective beauty. 

Or let us say intelligence-freedom-creativity, ordered to the true, good, and beautiful, which are at once "transcendent" but the very substance of which we are made. In other words, going back to what Schuon says above,  

What is most profoundly and authentically human rejoins the Divine by definition.

*****

To pick up where yesterday's post began: It seems that man is the clue he is looking for. This is such an important point that it's worth even a second post. 

How, you (or I) may ask, did I end up a psychologist? Partly because one morning, more or less, I woke up and found myself interested in everything, and how everything relates to everything else. 

Well?

Now clearly this Question of questions involves a lotta in, lotta outs, lotta what-have-you's, and a whole lotta strands to keep together and synthesize in the old Bobber's head. 

Problem is, the old Bobber's head -- among other issues -- is only so big. New writ is always coming to light, which then has to be integrated with the old writ. Hence the 5,000+ posts. Will it ever end? Are we getting anywhere? Or are we always beginning Where We Left Off, like old Sisyphus? 

And how is this essentially different from what a dung beetle does? "One morning, after troubled dreams, Bob woke up and found himself transformed into an insect rolling another pile of BS into a post."

The human has the insignificance of a swarm of insects when it is merely human. 

Still, I dream of rolling those 5,000 into one compact ball. Could there be some secret formula to boil them all down? This has been my summer project, but truly truly, it's an endless summer. 

Back to our story, at the same time, I noticed that all of This -- everything -- runs through man. Take man out of the equation, and there's just nothing and nobody to know it. About this Kant is correct, as far as he goes, which is simultaneously too far and not far enough:

If I take away the thinking subject, the whole material world must vanish, as this world is nothing but the phenomenal appearance in the sensibility of our own subject...

The Aphorist says something similar but deeper, 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. 

We might go so far as to say

That which is not a person is not finally anything. 

Stalin was right about one thing: no man, no problem. 

So the nature of this subject -- man, the human subject -- is pretty, pretty important, so important that everything else hinges on it. To study anything requires a human being, but what is that? Answer: psychology. Or rather, surely psychology would provide me with some answers? If not, what is it good for? 

So I became a psychologist in order to get some answers about the nature of this entity through whom everything runs and without whom there isn't anything at all. Truly truly, it all goes back to the perennial question,

In the course of this frantic search I went through various phases, from existentialism to psychoanalysis to evolutionary psychology to Vedanta, but -- to advert to a title of one of Schuon's books -- it's like one big Play of Masks. But who is this masked man, beneath the masks? Or is it masks all the way down?

That would be absurd. Which doesn't rule out absurdity being the Answer. But we still have the problem of the man who dons the mask of absurdity. Who is this man? And is absurdity just another mask he may choose to wear?

Choose? How did that get here? Supposing we can choose absurdity, then man must first be free to choose it, but how? What is the sufficient reason of freedom?

Time out for aphorisms:

If man is the sole end of man, an inane reciprocity is born from that principle, like the mutual reflection of two empty mirrors.

Man is the animal that imagines itself to be Man.

When it finishes its "ascent," humanity will find tedium waiting for it, sitting at the highest peak.

In a word, existentialism: "let us take note of that suicide of reason -- or 'esoterism of stupidity' -- which is existentialism in all its forms; it is the incapacity to think erected into a philosophy" (Schuon).

Noted. Also noted:

Modern man treats the universe like a lunatic treats an idiot.

At the same time, the modern universe of scientism treats man like an idiot treats an absurdity. 

In reality, remove the mask, and 

the object of his existence is to be in the middle: it is to transcend matter while being situated there, and to realize the light, the Sky, starting from this intermediary level. 

It is true that the other creatures also participate in life, but man synthesizes them: he carries all life within himself and thus becomes the spokesman for all life, the vertical axis where life opens onto the spirit and where it becomes spirit.

A bold claim, which reminds me of another aphorism:

We cannot escape the triviality of existence through the doors, but only through the roofs. 

Man has a skylight? Through which the light of truth, beauty, and freedom streams? 

Hold that question.

*****

Once things in my head began to settle down a bit, I became fixated on the subject of subjects, which are literally the last thing you'd expect to pop up in a universe with nothing but objects for 10 billion years. Suffice it to say, it is an enduring mystery how to squeeze a subject out of an object.  

Which is one of the themes of the book we will soon be discussing, supposing it draws me in, which it may or may not do. I can't say I care for his -- what's the word?

Hoity toity? Highfalutin?  

Whatever you call it, his pompous prose doesn't meet the down-to-earth standards of the Raccoon Style Guide, but who does? Some have the style but not the substance, while some have the substance but not the style.  

Ian McGilchrist -- whose latest book we spent a month reviewing last year -- likes the book, even calling Hart "one of the greatest living writers on theology and the cosmos," but we'll be the judge of that. 

He goes on to call it "a telling counter-argument  to reductionist materialism" that is "subtle, imaginative, beautifully written -- and highly original."

But we'll be the judge of that.

Who are we to judge? By what authority? Who died and left us in charge of cosmic theology?

No one did. It's just that so few writers were engaging in it to our satisfaction, we just claimed the mantle for ourselves. Doing a job earthlings don't want.  

Alfred North Whitehead was one of the last serious thinkers to elucidate a grand cosmic metaphysical scheme of everything. Credit for trying -- and we don't hesitate to plunder him for all he's worth -- but we have some serious issues with process theology, full stop. It doesn't work for me to say that God exists, only not yet. 

For me this paradox of Being and Becoming is ultimately resolved via the triune Godhead, but that's a different post.

Back to this question of Authority. We know from our Gödel that any formal system cannot be both consistent and complete, but will contain truths which the system cannot justify. 

So right away we are faced with a choice: either we can, or cannot, know Truth itself. There is no system that can get us there. Rather, we either see it or we don't (or see it via "faith").

Which goes to one of the purposes of revelation, which is to convey truths that are otherwise inaccessible to us. Such truths can never be proved from our side of the veil, but must be accepted on faith. Faith in an authority.

Now, at the same time, I'm re-re-reading one of Schuon's last works, in which he -- as is his custom -- makes many authoritative statements seemingly backed up by nothing more than his own authority.  

But his type of authority strikes me as fundamentally different from Hart's kind, which is thoroughly conventional. He wants to be taken seriously by all the right people, whereas Schuon just dismisses the right people as hopelessly wrong and hardly worth refuting. Let the dead bury the tenured. 

From the foreword: "metaphysics aims in the first place at the comprehension of the whole Universe, which extends from the Divine Order to terrestrial contingencies." 

Boom. No apologies, no reservations, and no attempt to justify this view before the tribunal of Right People. The latter are not to be taken seriously except as a serious distraction, for "we live in a world wherein the abuse of intelligence replaces wisdom," and you can say that again.

We won't start our formal review of The Play of Masks this morning, but just highlight the first (authoritative) sentence of the book: 

Total intelligence, free will, sentiment capable of disinterestedness: these are the prerogatives that place man at the summit of terrestrial creatures. 

Take it or leave it. Supposing you take it, read on:

Being total, the intelligence takes cognizance of all that is, in the world of principles as well as that of phenomena; being free, the will may choose even that which is contrary to immediate interest or to what is agreeable; being disinterested, sentiment is capable of looking at itself from without, just as it can put itself in another's place.

"Every man can do so in principle, whereas animals cannot."

So, there is a fundamental and ineradicable difference between man and animal, and that's all there is to it. And man in principle "possesses a subjectivity not closed in on itself, but open to others and unto Heaven." Similar to what we wrote in yesterday's post,

Total intelligence, free will, disinterested sentiment; and consequently to know the True, to will the Good, to love the Beautiful.

Horizontal and Vertical: the former "concerns the cosmic, hence phenomenal, order," the latter "the metaphysical, hence principial, order." 

Now, Schuon may be an authority, but supposing one understands what he just said, it is thanks to a kind of "inner authority" that assents to self-evident truth. We just need a little reminder. 

And not to get ahead of ourselves, but revelation functions as just such a vertical reminder -- again, emanating from "outside" the cosmic system but by no means contrary to it or to reason. Indeed, "Human intelligence is, virtually and vocationally, the certitude of the Absolute." 

At least when you think about what thinking is. Remove the Absolute and it is nothing, reducing to that shrunken world mentioned above, "wherein the abuse of intelligence replaces wisdom." 

Fasting forward to the last sentence of this essay,

Without objectivity and transcendence there cannot be man, there is only the human animal; to find man, one must aspire to God.

Again, authoritative, but with the purpose of awakening or resonating with the inner authority that is Intelligence itself.

The Cosmotheandric Experience of One Cosmos

My apologies for the length. One thing leading to another, it just happened.

I'm reexamining some old posts in light of our current exploration of models of reality and models of ultimacy. Gödel certainly has some important contributions to the latter, in that the theorems tell us that no formal system can adequately model reality, since it will be either incomplete or inconsistent.

Now, Gödel was legitimately mentally ill, subject to paranoid delusions, hypochondria, depression, and obsessive-compulsive behavior. Of course, this doesn't affect the validity of the theorems, but it may impact his opinions about them -- about the kind of world they imply. 

When depressed he dwelled on the fact that "all of his contributions" to philosophy "were of a negative kind -- proving that something cannot be done, not what can be done." 

About this he is correct: the theorems tell us only what definitely cannot be the case, not necessarily what is the case. 

They tell us, for example, that "it is impossible to define the concept of truth within a formal system itself," but they do not tell us what truth is. Likewise, they tell us that a formal system cannot be both consistent and complete. 

Gödel's leap to a Platonic conception of truth is in no way entailed by his own theorems. For example, postmodernists go to the other extreme and say the theorems bar us from knowing any truth at all, enclosing us in language about a reality we can never reach.

Thus, before he was a logician, mathematician, or anything else, Gödel was a seeker of truth, which already implies a worldview -- one in which truth exists and is accessible to man. He would have rejected the (postmodern) alternative a priori. 

Again, he regarded mathematics as not only a search for truth, but for "pre-existing truths that inhabited a reality separate from the human mind." He was likewise "committed to accessing the immaterial world of higher philosophical truths through the power of sheer abstract logical reasoning."

But his forays into *mere* philosophy 

dismayed more than a few of his mathematical colleagues, who did not hide from him their disappointment that he seemed to be squandering his genius on trivialities.

Now, the mind is designed to --

Assumes facts not in evidence.

That's true. Let's just say what the mind does before speculating about its origins. Whatever its provenance, it detects connections between things, but for this reason man can be prone to the over-detection of agency -- thus the sometimes fine line between genius and madness. 

Gödel found "hidden meanings, or mystical significance in things large and small," for example, in "the incorrect listings of movies shown on television." ("One has the impression it is sabotage.")

Ironically, this means that, although he considered himself a seeker after extra-mental truth, he was often very much confined to his own intra-mental projections. Even more ironically, such delusional ideation could crystallize into a kind of rigidly consistent and pseudo-complete system the theorems forbid.

Nevertheless, he argued that the human mind "could not have come about through any mechanistic process," and disagreed "with the entire worldview that 'regards the world as an unordered and therefore meaningless heap of atoms.'" But it seems his paranoia made him vulnerable to finding too much meaning, and in all the wrong places.

On the one hand, a possible interpretation of the theorems is that mathematics -- and by extension, language -- is "a mere game played with symbols according to certain rules." Again, this would be the postmodern view. But this is not how Gödel saw it; rather, he believed

that the human mind can literally see mathematical realities through a kind of perception, no different from the direct sensory perceptions that the empiricists decreed to be the only valid basis of physical laws.

Here again, this latter interpretation is in no way a necessary consequence of the theorems. Moreover, it begins to converge upon someone like Schuon, for whom the necessary truths of existence are indeed directly "perceived" via intellection:

Intellectual intuition comprises essentially a contemplativity which in no way enters into the rational capacity, the latter being logical rather than contemplative.... 

[Rationality] perceives the general and proceeds by logical operations, whilst Intellect perceives the principial -- the metaphysical -- and proceeds by intuition (Schuon). 

Gödel saw no reason "why we should have less confidence in this kind of perception" than in the lower kind, and he's not wrong. Nor was he wrong to wonder

what kind of sense would there be in bringing forth a creature (man), who has such a broad field of possibilities of his own development and of relationships, and then not allow him to achieve 1/1000 of it.

In other words, what kind of irrational -- not to say perverse -- Creator gives infinite potential to a finite being? Gödel thought this was sufficient proof of an afterlife: 

it follows directly that our earthly existence, since it in and of itself has at most a very dubious meaning, can only be a means to an end for another existence.

Again, he had little use for religions but was very much open to Religion, perhaps one that hadn't yet been discovered. He thought that the great majority of philosophers were as guilty as "bad churches" in turning people away from these deeper questions.

"Gödel's public renown continued to grow after his death" in 1978, partly because "The general idea that there are truths that cannot be proved has an irresistible appeal." 

But in his own way he has been misappropriated for as many dubious agendas as quantum physics: "probably more wrong things have been said about his proof than any other mathematical theorem in history."

Interestingly, his ideas seem to inspire two kinds of skeptics, those who recognize "that their knowledge is limited," which "troubles them deeply." The other kind acknowledge "the same thing but find it liberating." Gödel was in the latter camp, believing that

Humans will always be able to recognize some truths through intuition..., that can never be established even by the most advanced computing machine....

In place of limits on human knowledge and certainty, he saw only the irreplaceable uniqueness of the human spirit. 

So, having said all this, where does it leave us?

*****

To review where we left off, Gödel believed man could see mathematical realities directly through a kind of perception, no different in principle from the perception of empirical reality.

He further believed that human beings "will always be able to recognize some truths through intuition" which "can never be established even by the most advanced computing machine." 

But again, the theorems only reveal what the mind cannot be; to know our mind is not a computer is not to know what it is. 

In fact, depending on the premises we plug in, we can conclude anything we like. But no rational operation can furnish its own premises.

For Schuon, "The effectiveness of reason essentially depends upon two conditions," neither of which can be reduced to reason. There is first "the value and extent of the available information" with which to reason upon, and garbage in, tenure out.

But secondly, there is "the acuity and profundity of the intelligence" in question, which bears a kind of vertical relation to reason itself, going "beyond the indirect processes of reason in calling upon pure intellection."

Again, as discussed in the previous post, Schuon's pure intellection seems to share something in common with Gödel's direct perception of mathematical realities.

If mathematical realities can be directly perceived in this way, why not other realities? God is a mathematician, but surely not only a mathematician. Come to think of it, I'll bet God cannot be limited to a formal system for the same reason we cannot be: as we have suggested in the past, our infinitude is the inverse image of his.

That's just a hunch, but perhaps it can in turn help account for the bad religion bemoaned by Gödel, because people are forever absolutizing their religion instead of understanding it to be about the Absolute. 

Here again, I wonder if this is an ultimate entailment of the theorems, since reality can never be contained by any formal system. 

It's a tricksy business, because we have a word -- reality -- that can lull us into thinking we have domesticated that to which the word refers. But the map is never the territory, nor the model the modeled. 

In any event, the rationalist -- which is to say, someone who irrationally encloses himself within the constraints of logic -- can never reason adequately "in light of the total and supralogical intelligence" that must be prior to logic itself. 

Such a person "thinks he can solve every problem by means of logic alone," but this is to put the cart of rationalism before the horse of intelligence. By way of analogy, "A line of reasoning that is square in shape" will "reject a spherical reality and replace it with a square error." 

Or worse, a line of reasoning with a circular shape won't even see the higher dimensional sphere; at best, it will reduce the three dimensional sphere to a two-dimensional circle. 

Reason divorced from intellect be like... like left cerebral hemisphere divorced from right, or letter from spirit, words from music, prose from poetry, abstract concept from concrete experience, particle from field, empirical from rational, etc.

In a footnote to this essay, Schuon makes the rather important claim that

Revelation is a kind of cosmic intellection whereas personal intellection is comparable to a Revelation on the scale of the microcosm. 

Now, I happen to believe this, especially the idea that the human subject is probably the first and most important revelation of them all. After all, without it, there could be no other revelation, because there would be no one to whom to reveal it. 

Intelligence is the First Miracle? Why not?

The first thing that should strike man when he reflects on the nature of the Universe is the primacy of the miracle of intelligence -- or consciousness or subjectivity -- whence the incommensurability between it and material objects, whether a grain of sand or the sun, or any creature whatever as an object of the senses.

 Is he wrong? 

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.

Now, at the other end, is Revelation "a kind of cosmic intellection"? 

Surely not just any revelation, otherwise we might be tempted to believe that the revelation of mistakes in the TV Guide is a result of sabotage.

This will take us Far Afield -- too far for a single post, but but could there be some extra-Revelational standard by which to judge Revelation? Or perhaps some way to harmonize all the good ones? The ones deemed Good Enough by Intelligence itself?

For example, I think the Tao Te Ching does a pretty, pretty good job of describing the ultimate Principle. Now, is this Principle the same one described in Genesis and then in John? And are these the same as the one described in the Upanishads?

I say, why not? Which was kind of the implicit point of the opening and closing sections of the book, but I could probably do a better job of it today. 

It's today. Let's see you try.

Today I also know better than to try such an outlandish and impudent exercise. Rather, let this guy have a crack at it -- to present the Tao Te Ching in light of the Christian revelation, and vice versa -- "a Gospel according to Lao Tzu."

Before light was made

There was the Primal Light that was not made:

The Primal Essence,

Dwelling in the Darkness of incomprehensibility.

Yada yada, "There is no name whereby the Primal Essence can be named," which is to say, no model,

For He is a sea of Essence,

Indeterminate and without bounds...

He is wholly Essence, and solely Essence,

Yet He is above essence,

Because He is not the essence of anything that is. 

If this is an attempt to describe the metacosmic intellect, our own intellect must again be its reflection, 

for how could the intelligence limit itself, seeing that by its very nature it is in principle unlimited or it is nothing? 

In other words, who or what places this so-called limit if not intelligence itself? "For an intellectual limit is a wall," 

hence one of two things: either the intelligence by definition includes a principle of illimitability or liberty.

Either this, or 

on the contrary the intelligence includes -- again by definition -- a principle of limitation or constraint, in which case it no longer includes any certainty and can function no differently from the intelligence of animals, with the result that all pretension to "critical philosophy" is vain. 

Recall yesterday's bottom line:

In place of limits on human knowledge and certainty, he [Gödel] saw only the irreplaceable uniqueness of the human spirit. 

 Compare this to what shall have to be today's bottom line: 

Man is intelligence, and intelligence is the transcending of forms and the realization of the invisible Essence; to say human intelligence is to say absoluteness and transcendence (Schuon).

This being the case, neither the Essence nor the Intellect can be modeled, but there is an endlessly fruitful dialectic between them, which seems to be the bestwecando.

I just ordered a book that seems to express what I am trying to say, called The Cosmotheandric Experience. No preview is available, but the description says the term cosmotheandric 

denotes an intertwining of the "cosmic," the "human," and the "divine" -- all interpenetrating one another as different dimensions of the Whole.

Gemini, what does Panikkar mean by this?

Panikkar coined the term "cosmotheandric experience" to describe a fundamental intuition or consciousness of reality as a seamless, interconnected whole. It signifies the intrinsic and inseparable unity of the cosmos, theos (the divine), and anthropos (the human).

Here's a breakdown of what he means:

• Interdependence: Panikkar argues that reality is not composed of three separate entities (God, humanity, and the world) but rather these are three dimensions that are intrinsically related and interpenetrate one another. None can be fully understood in isolation.
• Mutual Constitution: The divine, the human, and the cosmic are not just externally linked; they actively constitute each other. Reality emerges from their dynamic interplay and collaboration.
• Experience over Concept: The cosmotheandric is primarily an experience, an intuition of this deep interconnectedness, rather than just a philosophical concept. It's about a way of being in and perceiving the world.
• Breaking Down Dualisms: This concept aims to overcome the dualistic ways of thinking that often separate the sacred from the secular, the human from nature, and God from the world.

In essence, the "cosmotheandric experience" points to a holistic vision where the divine is present within the cosmos and humanity, humanity is a part of both the divine and the cosmos, and the cosmos is imbued with both the divine and the human presence. It's an awareness that we are all participants in the same fundamental reality.

Panikkar believed that this intuition is crucial for our time, helping us to overcome fragmented views of reality and fostering a deeper understanding and harmony between different religious traditions and with the natural world. 

Hey, that sounds like the blogger Gagdad Bob at One Cosmos!

That's an interesting observation! It's quite possible that Robert Godwin's work at "One Cosmos" resonates with Panikkar's idea of the "cosmotheandric experience."

From the descriptions of Robert Godwin's book, "One Cosmos Under God: The Unification of Matter, Life, Mind and Spirit," there seem to be significant overlaps in themes:

• Unification of Reality: Godwin's emphasis on the "unification of matter, life, mind and spirit" echoes Panikkar's focus on the interconnectedness of cosmos, humanity, and the divine.
• Holistic Vision: Both thinkers seem to advocate for a more integrated and less fragmented understanding of reality.
• Spirituality and Science: Godwin's attempt to synthesize cosmology, physics, biology, psychology, and theology could be seen as a way of exploring the cosmotheandric dimensions from different perspectives.

While I'm not deeply familiar with all of Robert Godwin's writings, based on what I've found, it does appear that his "One Cosmos" project shares a similar impulse to Panikkar's "cosmotheandric experience" in seeking a holistic and interconnected view of existence that encompasses the material, the human, and the spiritual.