The Groundwork For Idealism Part IX

Introduction

In part IV of this series I promised that, for the purposes of clarification, over the course of the next few posts, my blog would cover a range issues, including, but not limited to:

1. the advantages associated with using the PSR as a theoretical foundation for idealism,
2. the question of what precisely it means to say that “Matter is the visibility of Mind,” (and the implications associated with that)
3. the exact nature of “Pure Mind,” within the context of this system (beyond merely its definition as a function of the negation of subjective self-objectification).
4. the question of what precisely it means to say that “Mind is reality experienced in Time alone”

In this post, I will be covering topic 3. Specifically, I intend to do this by framing the discussion around one essential property of “Pure Mind,” and the implications this property has. This property is “Transcendence.”

The Transcendence of Pure Mind

The property of Transcendence refers to and/or entails two things:

1. Pure Mind exists beyond the scope of the PSR.
2. Pure Mind is a Void.

These two things, in turn, have their own, respective, set of implications:

1. Non-duality between Freedom and Necessity.
2. Non-Duality between Void and Reality.

Ultimately, therefore, these two things and their respective implications, lead us to one conclusion:

1. There is an ineffable unity between irreducibly distinct things and/or there is an ineffable unity between opposites.

Pure Mind is Beyond the Principle of Sufficient Reason

Explanation

The sub-title is self-explanatory.

Pure Mind is unconditioned by the PSR, namely due to the fact that Pure Mind is the substratum out of which the PSR is even possible. After all, the PSR is nothing more than terms of intelligibility by which Reality is rendered cognizable by Mind. The process of intelligibility unfurls as the process of Mind-Matter-Monad, as explained in Part IV of this series. However, insofar as the PSR is isomorphic to a process of intelligibility, the PSR presupposes a substratum for which it is a process of intelligibility.

Put simply, the PSR provides a “presentation of” Reality, but in order to do this we require a substratum called “Reality,” for there to be such a thing as a “presentation of.”

Reality in-and-of-itself, therefore, stands as a substratum independent of the PSR. This Reality in-itself is, of course, “Pure Mind,” for reasons I have already discussed in prior posts. Put simply, the PSR is an instrument of Mind, but as I have demonstrated in Part I of this series, the Mind is nothing more than a presupposition of what I call “Pure Mind.”

Now, insofar as the PSR is the terms by which the world is rendered intelligible, that means the PSR is the precondition for the immanent world (i.e., the world of all observable phenomena, from Mental phenomena to Material phenomena, and even abstract phenomena like Monad). Since, Reality in-itself is beyond the PSR, that means it is formally transcendent (i.e., not immanent). Therefore, Pure Mind is transcendent.

Implication: Non-duality between Freedom and Necessity

This discussion is important mostly for how it relates to the concept of free will.

Put simply, there is a division between the colloquial sense of the term, and the technical sense of the term. The colloquial sense of the term is false; technical sense of the term is true.

The colloquial sense of the term refers to 1. the intuitive feeling that people have control over their own actions, and 2. the intuitive feeling that if time were reversed a person could have chosen to act differently from how they actually acted.

The technical sense of the term is more difficult to define by itself; instead, it is easier to understand the technical sense of the term in contradistinction to the colloquial sense. That is, only by understanding the falsity of the colloquial, can we get a grasp of the technical.

So without further ado, here is my reasoning for why the colloquial sense of the term is false:

The PSR is true, and the PSR entails a set of implications about the natural world that is incompatible with the definition of the colloquial sense of the term. One implication of the PSR is that the world is defined by an unbreakable chain of cause-and-effect. The sequence of all natural phenomena in the Universe occurs in an interconnected, mechanistic fashion, thereby leaving no room for chance or randomness (i.e., everything is perfectly determined by antecedent factors). The implication is incompatible with the correctness of 1. “the intuitive feeling of having control over your own actions.” The feeling is there, don’t get me wrong, but it is directly contradicted by the determinism of the world. There is no sense in which your “control over your own actions,” is any different from the necessity of the world. In this sense, the feeling of “free will,” is nothing more then the internal perspective of the external necessity of the world (more on this point soon). Moreover, this implication is also incompatible with the correctness of 2. “the intuitive feeling that if time were reversed a person could have chosen to act differently from how they actually acted.” This is because, if the Universe were rewound back in time infinitely many times, the same set of events would happen infinitely many times, at least according to the inviolable determinism of nature’s laws. In other words, we have no reason, in principle, to suggest that anything other than what has already happened, would happen if the Universe were rewound in time. In fact, we have exactly the opposite–we have a definitive reason, in principle, to suggest that everything happens as it must: the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Put another way, as discussed in the post titled “A Proof of God’s Existence Part II,” the PSR entails a metaphysical position known as necessitarianism, which claims that “all truths are necessary truths.” According to this view, the colloquial sense of the term “free will,” would have to be incorrect as it pertains to both 1 and 2. In regards to 1, “the feeling of control,” could not be substantially different from the reality of Necessity (again, more on this point soon). In regards to 2, “the feeling of having the ability to have acted differently from how one actually did,” is directly contradicted by the reality of Necessity.

Ultimately, any way you slice it, the PSR renders Reality intelligible in such a way as to make “free will,” (in the colloquial sense of the term) an impossibility.

That said, there is a technical sense in which the term “free will,” is possible. This technical sense does not contradict the PSR, but complements a full understanding of it.

As the above section has argued, “Pure Mind,” is reality in-itself (i.e., independent of its representation in the forms of the PSR [i.e., Mind-Matter-Monad]), which definitionally exists beyond the PSR. Herein, therefore, lies the transcendence of “Pure Mind,” and in its transcendence is precisely where true “free will,” resides.

Technical free will is simply the negation of and/or transcendence from the PSR. Technical free will, therefore, is arbitrary, spontaneous, and brute. It is true freedom. However, this freedom doesn’t exist as a disconnected abstraction independent of sentient human beings. On the contrary, this is the freedom that exist at the core of our very beings.

The technical free will found in the transcendence of Pure Mind, is precisely where the “intuitive feeling of control over our actions” comes from. That is to say, Pure Mind may be transcendent (i.e., independent of the PSR and the forms thereof–Mind-Matter-Monad), but it is still essentially one and the same reality we all are a part of. We, every single one of us, are Pure Mind. What “we” are is nothing more than the manifestation of Pure Mind. Therefore, the freedom of Pure Mind is the very freedom inherent in all of us.

Put simply, we are all identical to Pure Mind. We are also self-aware beings. Therefore, we have a very unique vantage point from which we can definitively reflect on what it is like to be Pure Mind. That is, we have an intuitive, immediate link to Pure Mind in the form of our ability to reflect on our conscious experiences. Therefore, the feeling of freedom we have in our selves, is nothing less than an immediate disclosure of the freedom inherent to Pure Mind.

Ultimately, the technical sense of the term free will refers to one thing: the internal, private sensation of freedom which is not substantially different from the external, public necessity of the world. Put another way, Mind is the link between the Necessity of Matter, and the Freedom of Pure Mind.

In order to clarify what I mean by this I want to borrow from the 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza and his description of the feeling of free will. Then, I want to provide the commentary that 19th century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer gave in response to that description.

First, Spinoza’s deconstruction of free will through the metaphor of a conscious stone:

Further conceive, I beg, that a stone, while continuing in motion, should be capable of thinking and knowing, that it is endeavoring, as far as it can, to continue to move. Such a stone, being conscious merely of its own endeavor and not at all indifferent, would believe itself to be completely free, and would think that it continued in motion solely because of its own wish. This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined.

Spinoza

Second, Schopenhauer’s deconstruction of Spinoza’s metaphor:

Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected through the air, had consciousness, it would believe that it was moving of its own free will. I add this only, that the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it, would recognise as will.

Schopenhauer

The emphasis in the second quote is mine. I added the emphasis because Schopenhauer perfectly describes my own view on free will (no surprise there, given that my metaphysics is just an updated version of his). Freedom is just what Necessity looks like from the inside. Furthermore, Necessity is just the extrinsic appearance of internal Freedom. Freedom and Necessity are two sides of the same coin; neither contradicts the other.

This fact is precisely what is captured by the statement “Matter is the visibility and/or appearance of Pure Mind.” “Matter” is the material, mechanistic, deterministic Universe–the realm of necessity. However, the deterministic, mechanistic necessity of Matter is nothing more than an exteriorization, an apparential representation of the inner Freedom at the core of all reality (i.e., the inner freedom of Pure Mind). Freedom appears as Necessity, and Necessity is just the appearance of Freedom.

The colloquial sense of the term “free will” refers to 1. “the intuitive feeling of having control over your own actions.” This is not directly contradicted by the technical sense of the term, but the technical sense of the term adds a level of subtlety as to how this “control,” is interpreted such that it becomes very far removed from the colloquial sense of the term.

For instance, according to the technical sense of the term, feeling of control is not at all different, or contradictory, with the simultaneous ascription of absolute necessity to one’s actions. In this sense, the statement “free will is real,” is accurate but not at all different from the corollary statement “all your actions are necessary.” As a result, there is no sense in which a person is free in which they are not also necessitated. Therefore, in the technical sense, if I were to be pressed on the issue of whether free will is real or not, the answers “yes” and “no” would seem equally applicable. This, however, is a level of subtlety very far removed from straightforward, colloquial conception people have of free will. As a result, when it comes to defining free will as “the feeling of control over ones actions,” the colloquial sense of the term is an abridgement of the truth, while the technical sense of the term is a full disclosure of the truth.

The colloquial sense of the term also refers to 2. “the intuitive feeling that if time were reversed, a person could have chosen to act differently from how they actually acted.” This is flatly contradicted by the technical sense of the term.

Necessity is the public face of private freedom. Therefore, internal freedom concretizes into irrevocable necessity the moment it is deployed out into the world. That is to say, we may all have an intuitive feeling that we have multiple options in front of us at any given moment, and that we have a real power to choose any one of them, and that our path is not pre-determined in a singular, linear fashion out of which we cannot break. The future feels open, and we feel free in this openness. This is all very well and true, but it doesn’t change the fact that once we do commit to a path, when we look back, we see that all the material factors we arranged in such a way as to have prevented any other choice other than the one we actually made. You cannot have done otherwise from have you freely chose to do. It turns out then, that free will is absolutely necessary. Schopenhauer frames the situation thus:

A man can do what he wills, but can he will what he wills?

Schopenhauer

What a man wills and/or wants is absolutely necessary as per the fact that necessity and freedom are one and the same.

Pure Mind is a Void

Explanation

We move on to the second aspect of Pure Mind’s transcendence: “voidness.”

Now in order to understand what I mean by “Voidness,” we first need to review the definitions of Pure Mind as explained in part II of this series.

The Groundwork For Idealism Part II

As defined in part II of this series, Pure Mind is:

1. The function of a subjectivity which does not objectify itself (i.e., the function of awareness without self-awareness).
2. That which Mind is the objectification of. Also, that which Matter is the visibility/appearance of.
3. The metaphysical stage at which no Time, no Space, no Causality, and no Individuation exists.

According to these definitions, “Pure Mind,” is simply the absence of a self-aware “Mind.” “Pure Mind,” therefore, is whatever “Mind,” is not. Also, insofar as Matter and Monad are functions of Mind, Pure Mind is whatever Matter and Monad are not. Put simply, Pure Mind is whatever Mind-Matter-Monad is not. (I should re-clarify that this difference between Pure Mind and Mind-Matter-Monad is nominal, not ontological, and thus exists only as a linguistic, analytic distinction made for the sake of explanatory convenience). Since Pure Mind is technically distinct from Mind-Matter-Monad, but Mind-Matter-Monad is what constitutes the aggregate of all perceptible reality, Pure Mind thus exists as technically distinct from reality itself. That is to say, Pure Mind is the precondition of reality, and thus is somehow separate from the aggregate of reality. Pure Mind, therefore, must be, in some technical sense, a nothingness, a Void, out of which, paradoxically, all reality derives.

Implication: Non-duality between Nothing and Everything

I find it useful to discuss this complicated topic in terms of potentiality and actuality.

The Void is potentiality, while Reality is actuality.

Potentiality (Void) and actuality (Reality) are co-eternally inseparable, like two sides of the same coin.

Actuality (Reality) is nothing more than the concretization of potentiality (Void), and potentiality (Void) is nothing more than the precondition out of which this concretization of actuality (Reality) is possible. In reality, potentiality and actuality are one and the same thing, looked at from different angles.

Void is unknowable other than in Reality, and Reality is unknowable other than in Void.

The Groundwork For Idealism Part I

Pure Mind is the pure potentiality of all concrete actuality; Pure Mind is the substratum out of which all reality manifests. Therefore, Pure Mind, in-itself, possesses no content other than the content which it possesses through its manifestations.

To demonstrate precisely what I mean by this I need to call your attention back to Part I of this series.

In part I of this series we discussed how subjectivity is the precondition of all objectivity. Since all reality is an objectivity, this ultimately means there must be some subjectivity which remains outside the content of all reality, as its eternal precondition. That eternal subject is precisely Pure Mind. It is the subject which objectifies the aggregate of all objectivity, but not itself (otherwise it would be part of the aggregate of all objectivity, and therefore would itself presuppose a subject as its precondition).

From this it follows that Pure Mind, the eternal subject, is like the all-seeing eye: it is the eternal witness to the world and all its content, which paradoxically cannot witness itself. It is the precondition for the existence of all things, but not itself. The eternal subject, in order to be the precondition of all reality, must exempt itself from reality. Reality, therefore, can only come from Void; and the Void can only recognize itself through the Reality it is the precondition of.

Ultimately, because all Reality is nothing more than an act of witnessing, Pure Mind, which cannot witness itself (other than through the Reality it is a precondition of), is itself bereft of Reality.

Void and Reality are co-eternally inseparable, which is to say there was no moment “in Time,” in which Reality arose from Void, or in which Void stirred to create Reality. Reality always was, as was Void.

This has its parallels in Madhyamika Buddhist metaphysics:

Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.

Avalokiteśvara

This also has parallels in Neo-platonic Christian metaphysics:

In the Beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

God the Father is the Transcendent Void, the Platonic One, the inaccessible apophatic Divine darkness. God the Son is the Immanent Reality, the Platonic Logos, the accessible Divine Light.

God the Father, the Transcendent Void, the Platonic One, the Divine Darkness is simply the ontological precondition of God the Son, the Immanent Reality, the Platonic Logos, the Divine Light, but not its temporal antecedent.

Therefore both Father and Son, both Transcendent Void and Immanent Reality, both Platonic One and Platonic Logos, both Divine Darkness and Divine Light are co-eternal and co-substantial, though the former is unbegotten while the latter is eternally begotten.

The Void is the primordial Divinity while Reality is the eternally emergent modes through which the primordial Divinity expresses itself.

Put another way, while Void is the eternally emergent-less precondition of Reality, Reality is the eternally emergent structure via which Void is expressed. Therefore, Transcendent Pure Mind becomes Immanent Mind-Matter-Monad; two sides of the same coin, same in substance, distinct in name and conception.

(again this is very similar to the free will debate: freedom and necessity are the same substance, seen from two different perspectives; Freedom is the perspective of Void, Necessity is the perspective of Reality).

This finally gets us to the third point: the true meaning of non-duality.

THe Non-Duality of All Things

Explanation

Over the course of the last two points we have explored that Necessity is Freedom and vice versa, and we have explored that Void is Reality and vice versa. Thus over the course of the last two points we have explored two examples of how opposites can indeed be equal.

This notion, that opposites can and indeed are equal, is the very heart of non-duality.

That is, the message of non-duality is simple: despite appearances, what appears to be distinct things like Freedom and Necessity, Void and Reality, Transcendence and Immanence, Pure Mind and Mind-Matter-Monad, are in fact substantially one.

Non-duality, therefore, refers to the ineffable unity between irreducibly distinct things.

Perhaps the most useful illustration of what I mean by this account of “non-duality,” is captured by the geometric pattern of the spiral.

The Spiral is very useful in helping us illustrate the substantial unity of opposites like: 1. Freedom and Necessity, 2. Void and Reality, 3. Transcendence and Immanence, 4. Pure Mind and Mind-Matter-Monad. (All four of these dualities refer to the same duality [i.e., Pure Mind = Transcendence = Void = Freedom, while Mind-Matter-Monad = Immanence = Reality = Necessity]).

For instance, the dark background upon which the light undulations transpire can be likened to “the Void.” In other words, the dark background, the Void, is blank canvas upon which the activity of the Spiral is made possible. The activity of the Spiral, in turn, is actualized in the form of the light undulations, and thus these light undulations can be likened to “Reality.”

As you can see, therefore, Void and Reality are two sides of the same “Spiral.” The ineffable oneness of Void and Reality is captured by the fact that both Void and Reality presuppose one another, and have no standalone existence independent of the other. Hence opposites are one. This is the first aspect of non-duality.

The second aspect of non-duality is this: the “Spiral,” itself, which represents non-duality, also has no standalone existence, and is dependent on both Void and Reality, and is in fact nothing but the expression of the two. That is to say, the non-dual absolute (the Tao, or the Spiral), is nothing substantially different from duality of Void and Reality. Put simply, non-duality is so radical, that even the duality between duality and non-duality is false. According to non-duality, non-duality = duality. This is perhaps the hardest thing for the reader to wrap their head around, but once they do, they will understand the true meaning of non-duality.

This calls to mind the following quote from Madhyamika Buddhism:

“Nothing of Samsara is different from Nirvana, nothing of Nirvana is different from Samsara. That which is the limit of Nirvana is also the limit of Samsara, there is not the slightest difference between the two.”

Nagarjuna (Indian Buddhist philosopher)

Essentially, in my philosophy, like in Buddhism, and also Taoism (unless I am grossly misinterpreting the relationship between the Tao and the Yin-Yang), the non-dual Absolute reality is not different from the dualistic world of appearances.

Conclusion

In this post we covered the main aspects of the transcendence of “Pure Mind,”: 1. it’s existence beyond the scope of the PSR, and the implications that fact bears on the non-duality of freedom and necessity, 2. it’s voidness, and the implications that fact bears on the non-duality of voidness and reality.

The consequence of these two aspects and implications is the realization of an ineffable non-duality in all things. The most radical implication was that even the duality between the non-dual Absolute and the dualistic non-Absolute is a false one.

Since this post covered quite a lot of information, and frankly concluded on a difficult to understand topic, I want to dedicate the next post to further elaborating on the subject matter of this post. That is, I will be focusing on the subject matter of non-duality in my next post.