Wow! I wonder where human civilisation would end up if it recapitulated
an entire Heyting lattice.
Peter Wilkinson
pwilkin…@cix.compulink.co.uk
31
Dec
Re: The Second Coming of Q
The Second Coming of Q
(C) Copyright 1995 by Joseph Kerrick
All of Western culture is based on Aristotelean logic, which holds
that:
A is A; A is not non-A.
However, by adding two further possibilites:
both A and non-A; neither A nor non-A,
we create a form of thought that can revolutionize this civilization —
and just in time, since it’s ready to go down the apocalyptic tubes at any
moment.
The flaw in Aristotle’s postulate is revealed by its title: "the law
of the excluded middle". It makes the distinction between ‘A’ and ‘non-A’
totally absolute, without even space for a scale of gradation between
them. If ‘non-A’ is ‘B’, this may seem eminently plausible; but if it’s
‘C’, then it becomes apparent that something is missing, and even more so
if ‘non-A’ is ‘Z’.
And now we get down to hard reality. Though in the first blush of
common sense it may seem apparent that an object is simply itself and not
something else, or that two objects are themselves and not each other, in
the complexities of actual existence this is not always the case ~ or at
least not in the absolute, black-and-white terms demanded by the
postulate. For indeed, the blackest black in real life contains some
white, and vice versa. Even the dead "void" of deep space contains a wild
atom or two per cubic meter. Nothing is ever really completely ‘A’
without a little ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, or ‘Z’ mixed in — i.e., non-A. The
"middle" (viz., the quantum of otherness) arbitrarily excluded by
Aristotle’s law is substantial indeed — yet the whole of Western
mathematics and science is founded upon the fantasy that it does not
exist.
The idea of a QUATERNARY instead of a BINARY system of reasoning is
not a new idea; in fact, it originated in the dim mists of prehistory, in
what is called the Aryovedic culture. It became the foundation for the
most advanced culture of its time, that of Hindu India. The eclipse of
quaternary thought later occasioned the fall of this civilization.
Let us now lay out the four points of thought in a mathematical form,
changing the ‘A’ to an ‘X’:
Point 1: X.
Point 2: not-X.
Point 3: both (X and not-X).
Point 4: not (both (X and not-X)).
Western civilization came to a collective discovery of Point 3 at the
time of the Renaissance, and began to implement it culturally even though
it did not yet understand it intellectually and scientifically — and
still doesn’t. To understand what this means, it’s first necessary to
explain the operation of Points 1 and 2.
The first two points of thought are the basic dualism with which
primitive humanity confronts the world. It’s the final binary fulcrum of
all existence: life or death, friend or foe, help or hurt, fight or
flight, good or evil, eat or be eaten, to be or not to be. Point 1 is
‘X’: us, the absolute positive entity, the _ne plus ultra_, the only group
of souls that would exist, if things were as they should be. Anybody else
is Point 2: ‘not-X’; i.e., THEM, the enemy, the negation of our very
being. They must be killed, annihilated — it’s the right thing to do.
The enemy can be dispatched with absolute moral certainty and unity of
will. There is tremendous power in this primal law, for it is the
mechanism of survival for all living things, including humanity — up to a
certain point in humanity’s development.
That point is the moment when a human society reaches the stage at
which it engages a higher dyad: the more complex dynamic of Points 3 and
4. This is the moment when the society transcends the merely primitive.
It begins to develop a culture able to apprehend the world in more
sophisticated terms than either-or. The kicker is that this causes the
society to lose its primitive self-certainty, its consensus
of belief, its unity of spirit — for all these things are rooted in the
primal dynamic of binary thought. This accounts for the phenomenon, noted
by Oswald Spengler, that at the very moment when a culture truly begins to
flower, it has already begun to decay.
Interesting things happen in a society when it develops Point 3. The
leading lights of the culture make the stunning realization that the
peoples of other countries and other societies are not truly alien but are
rather human beings like themselves. And even should the foreigners make
war on the subject culture, the Point 3 mind is able to see them not as
devils from hell but simply as opponents. The enlightened ones will be
able to entertain the heretical notion of "both (X and not-X)". That is,
they will be able to conceive of both themselves and the enemy in a single
inclusive category, which is usually referred to as "human".
And indeed, if the culture survives beyond the first blush of Point
3, it develops a very historically specific mode of thought which in our
own society has been labelled "liberal humanism". Beginning with the
Renaissance, people on the cutting edge invariably adopted this
perspective, and it evolved to become the dominant purview of our
now-global society. In its youthful hubris, this new collective awareness
egotistically assumed that it was a fresh evolutionary stage in human
development, and that it had never existed before; but as the culture
developed further, its own discoveries forced it into the painful
awareness that it was but another repetition in the endless cycle of
recurrence. Spengler in particular, in _The Decline of the West_, showed
that every high culture in recorded history had developed its own
variation of liberal humanism at the appropriate stage. And, if we may
redundantly remark, subsequently went down the tubes.
So liberal enlightenment, in any or all of its guises, is not the
solution to the planetary malaise, but can fairly be charged with being
the cause of it. But if at the same time it is a true awakening to a
higher mode of thought, how is it that we are hoist on this ironic petard?
Is existence after all a tragedy, and we but foredoomed pawns in a game
played by sadistic Fates and Furies? It has seemed that way to every
civilization and mega-culture that has preceded us on this planet, for
every one of them succumbed to the fatal dynamic, in which God — or the
Devil — seemed to be playing with loaded dice. Is there no solution,
then, no way out of the predestined doom?
There is, but it’s very tricky. Or rather, it’s so painfully obvious
that all of our predecessor cultures have overlooked it. The solution to
the conundrum, the means of our planetary and species salvation, the final
answer to the riddle of the cosmic Sphinx, is Point 4.
"Not (both (X and not-X))." In the context of a global civilization
on the verge of collective self-genocide, what in the name of God does
this mean? Here is a formula. What is its significance?
The first crucial piece of information about Point 4 is that Point 3
can neither function nor exist without it. Points 3 and 4 are a mutually
self-creating dyad, just as are Points 1 and 2. You can’t have ’1′
without ’2′ nor ’3′ without ’4′, just as you can’t have light without
dark, up without down, or good without evil. . . or a one-sided coin or a
mirror without an image. Every civilization in the history of the world
has collapsed because it has attempted to implement Point 3 without Point
4, which is impossible.
How and why does this happen? Consider the mental state of a very
young child, which has not yet awakened to the knowledge that it can’t
have Point 1 without Point 2. When things are good, they’re very, very
good: there’s Mommy, and warm milk, and endlessly fascinating new
discoveries. When things are bad they’re horrid, but quickly forgotten —
the baby does not yet have the mental continuity to compare the two states
in any meaningful way. Thus in the moments when it’s happy, the child
"believes" that this Point 1 condition is all there is — certainly all
that there ever should be, which is why it gets so angry whenever that
perverse and inexplicable Point 2 shows up. And indeed, children who fail
to attain emotional maturity may never become fully reconciled to the
necessity of negative experience, and grow up to be neurotics and even
psychotics.
This in fact is the condition of civilization in its "liberal
humanist" phase. It has grown up with a collective mental disability: it
believes it can create a society in which all of the old primitive evils
are eliminated, a utopia that is totally good, meaning that everyone is
happy there, or at least free to pursue happiness. The whole body of law,
the form of government itself, the beliefs and expectations of the
citizens — indeed, the total thrust of the culture is fixed upon this
false ideal.
Where do we begin in our search for a true ideal? Let’s start with
that elite who first developed Point 3, being able to see their own people
and the enemy as "both (X and not-X)". Fortunately for this fledgling
high culture, the common lot of its soldiery is still in binary thought;
otherwise, it would quickly be overrun by its more primitive opponents
before it had a chance to fairly explore the further ramifications of
Point 3. The few enlightened intellectuals and mystics will wisely stay
behind the lines, for they will lack the raw primal force of Point 2,
which is what gives primitive humans the power to marshal their total
being and pit it ruthlessly against a deadly opponent.
Gradually, however, if the culture is successful and grows into a
civilization or an empire, the Point 3 perspective (under whatever name)
comes increasingly to dominate the life, thought, and action of the whole
citizenry. Of the multifarious aspects of Point 3, we are here using one
as a characteristic example, viz. the loss of nerve for mortal combat, the
waning of the will to war. In our own culture in our own time, we were
able to witness in stark and dramatic fashion what can fairly be
…
read more »
joseph…@aol.com (JosephQHQ) wrote:
> {previous lines not included}
> If they stand their ground and promulgate the dharma, they
> will proliferate, and ultimately the ignorant and corrupt
> elite will be replaced by a truly enlightened Elect, who can
> guide the planet to its salvation.
This last concluding sentence sounds like the law of the
excluded middle. What happend to:
> both A and non-A; neither A nor non-A,
that is:
Both (ignorant and corrupt elite) and (truly enlightened Elect);
neither (ignorant and corrupt elite) nor (truly enlighted Elect).
Neil Nelson