Dialogue ~ 32

What did the Ionian and Eleatic schools embark upon when they set out to discern the fundamental nature of the world (or the one) and of the nature of being and becoming?

Isn’t our ability to discern what is, that is to say, the constructing of our world view, something that we are doing, in every moment and whether we are consciously aware of it or not? We are here. We are being. The question remains of course, of what is it that we are being?

If you were to draw a circle and put a dot in the middle of the circle, would you identify yourself as being that dot looking out at the world, as picking and choosing your values, perspectives, relationships and even your location in the world?

Or are you the world (as the circle) that is expressing and seeing itself through the unique perspective of the dot?

How does your perspective change the nature of your relationship and of the determining of your values? More importantly, how does that make you feel?

What is difficult to write about is space. I don’t mean ‘outer space’ as in referring to the cosmos, but the space in which all things exist as a body, an idea, a happening. We have created the concept of one’s private space and have extended that notion to having ownership of the space in which something can occur. Isn’t this my thought? Isn’t it ‘myself’ that is tapping on this keyboard and constructing these sentences? Well maybe and maybe not. Can I ever be certain, other than to suggest that clearly I have some volition as to what I write and what I choose to do next, but is it completely out of the question that I could still have that and be an expression of something which is far larger than any notion of myself?

Perhaps what discourages us not to stray beyond any boundaries of having a private sense of self (or space) is that we are taught from an early age that we must take personal responsibility for our actions (and it’s slightly difficult to do that if we are taking responsibility for everyone else’s actions as well). It is often instilled in us that it is a virtue to be humble, which sometimes becomes confused with making ourselves small so as not to encroach upon or take more than we are entitled.

How does a young adult make any sense of the conflicting programs, which on the one hand tells them they are small but on the other hand encourages for them to reach their potential? In what direction are they being encouraged to ‘grow’? How do they navigate through life? We’re back to a sense of space again or perhaps this has more to do with geometry.

From an abundance of ideas as to the fundaments of ‘what’ or ‘how’, how did the early Greek thinkers regard the nature of what is being? How did they reconcile the presence of the one and the many? How did that enable them to discern between order and chaos and to establish any concept of virtue and of justice? I can’t 'jump into their sandals' as it were, but I can be willing to explore the world afresh.

Observing the natural world can reveal much about cycles and the notion of time in relation to being. It can reveal forces at work through their synergies and relationships. It can also reveal the dimensions of what one is observing and how.

This is a short extract from ‘Auguries of Innocence’ by William Blake. Let these words sweep through you: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour.”

We have devised an idea of microcosm and macrocosm as a means of enabling us to perceive a world in which all things fit but what does it assume to be true? The Greek philosopher Protagoras said, “man is the measure of all things: of those that are that they are, and of those that aren’t that they aren’t”

Is it possible to discern the nature of ‘what is’ from our ‘opinion of such things’? How related is this to the will? I spoke of the ‘will to become’ in an earlier writing, as that which is the movement of being in the world. What must be asked of course is this: does being know what it is? Why would one need to know what one is? Experience of self would be transitory but what then, are we to make of truth?

Is truth simply an experience of reason? Does the ‘one world’ refer to that in which everyone is an individual or collective and has freedom to their view within consensus (the material world is the construct)? How do we reconcile truths (and worldviews) without resorting to force (or is force a necessary ‘evil’ to triumph over the reasoning of others)?

When an individual uses force (which includes coercion) against another, what does it preclude, aside from the potential for reconciliation or of ‘agreeing to disagree’? Is it possible that both sides could be viewing what is happening from a flawed perspective, even if their reasoning is sound?

Returning to the ‘space’ of which I spoke earlier, what is the ‘kingdom’ of which Jesus spoke? Where indeed is Heaven or is it only a blank slate? Is it representative of some Utopian ideal of all of humanity getting along? Is it a technologically sophisticated marketplace and whoever holds the algorithm has the throne? Jesus implied ‘knowing’ as opposed to seeing the ‘kingdom’, so perhaps trying to build it for ourselves (however we go about that) is not what he was suggesting? How though, do we go about knowing, given as the mechanism which we use is reasoning?

Is it possible that applied mathematics (or modelling) underpins all of the properties of the physical world, which in turn can be immanently realised, as Aristotelian realism suggests? Galileo seemed to agree, as in his essay ‘The Assayer’ (1623) he claimed that the ‘book of nature’ was written in the language of mathematics.

Is reasoning itself subject to remodel? If this is true, what is the congruence which gives reason its increasing coherence? Perhaps we are so immersed in an experience of perception that we can’t actually see what is shaping our perception? A play on words here, but is it that ‘being is becoming’ or is it that ‘becoming is simply being’?

If though, we are subject to some ‘as yet to be determined’ influence which is pulling our faculties of reasoning and perception into increasing coherence within itself, why did Jesus speak of a kingdom as that which his disciples could choose? Is this action of congruence voluntary or is it simply that it is happening regardless, but at a pace which is according to any obstacles that we throw in its way, such as our own will and of persevering with building our own models of reality, mathematical or otherwise for example?

Then too, there is something to be asked here. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is reputed to have said, “This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. During the days when you ate what is dead, you made it come alive. When you are in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one, you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?”

Perhaps we can think of this concept of ‘space’ to which I was alluding to earlier, as ‘light’? Not light as in the way we discern between ‘light and day’ but as an illumined space of being? As that which ‘knows’ (or becomes) itself? How does even entertaining a space of possibility for that within our current model of reality offer fresh insight into geometry and mathematics and the constructs of language for that matter?  Ah, if only Pythagoras were here, but perhaps what is illuminated is present beyond what we conceive of as time and space and is the one being and the many.