Intentionality: Transforming the World

O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be.

            (Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)

In this and the next few posts I will explore the theme of Intentionality, using the above quote from Baha’u’llah to guide the discussion.  Intentionality is much in vogue in many places as the ability to manifest one’s desires.  I believe there is both scientific and scriptural—from all scriptures—support for this belief.  The Bahá’í Writings actually have a great deal to say about it, but give it an added dimension to those from science or new age thought.

           

The philosophical thought growing from the physics of the last one hundred years has been built upon two startling observations.  First, in the words of one of astrophysics’ most eminent practitioners, Sir James Jeans, “The universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.”

The second observation, from quantum mechanics, is that the subatomic foundations of the physical world are pure potential, a kind of boiling cosmic broth that, nevertheless, responds in predictable ways to human thought.  Put these two theoretical observations together and one can suggest that all things are imbued with intelligence, since, if the universe is a thought that thought must also embrace and infuse the subatomic particles of that universe.

The idea that the foundation of the physical world is a dance of transient, impermanent forms, a world of pure possibility whose parts are constantly being reorganized, is not new to human thought, only new to modern scientific thought.  The Buddhists called this potential “nothingness”, the Hindu philosophy termed it “maya”, and the mythic traditions of many peoples named it, among other things, Chaos, void, or the primordial ocean.  But science has experimentally rediscovered this plasmatic foundation and rediscovered, too, that it must possess intelligence because it responds to human intelligence.  Nature is a boiling sea of potentials organized by consciousness.

For example, quantum physics says that the sub-atomic particles of physics (it may be better to call them quanta or packets of energy) by themselves exhibit only tendencies to exist.  Oh, the energy definitely exists, but any form that energy may take can not be known until someone defines it.  That someone is called the observer.  Thus quantum theory tells us that the act of observing a particle manifests it, for example, either as a wave or a particle.  The quantum not only responds to the presence of a conscious observer but actually manifests itself as the observer chooses—either as a wave or a particle.  Different observers with different intentions bring about different states of actuality.  For quantum physicists, nothing “exists” until it is observed—at least nothing exists for the observer.

Some quantum physicists go further and say that the quanta of physics are neither things nor just formless potential, but “patterns of potential”, because “particles” exist in several different probability states simultaneously.  They can only say probability states because the traits that define any given quantum are, again, waiting for an observer to make a decision that gives them those observable traits.  But if quanta can manifest as either waves or particles, for example, then they must already possess the qualities of both wave and particle.  That is, they must already BE both wave and particle.  The quantum is both at once, both here and everywhere.  Theoretically, it could be anything, only awaiting an observer’s intention to determine what.  The observer decides what he or she will observe by reducing a multi-faceted potentiality into a single actuality.

When physicists say that at the quantum level all seems to be possibility until an intention is directed toward it, they are saying that the properties we observe in the “external” world are enmeshed in our perceptions.  Physics and the physicist, the laws of nature and the laws of mind, so to speak, unite in any close, intentional observation.  Thus, in quantum mechanics the observer is really a participator.  The mind both observes and creates, because intention is a creative act.  The observer can never be an indifferent observer.  As participator the observer is creating or at least influencing the universe to manifest what he wishes to see.  Other disciplines are coming to the same conclusion, but with respect to larger objects than those of subatomic physics.

That is, moving from subatomic physics to the everyday, or what some call Newtonian physics, pure energy gets composed and ordered by the laws of nature into atoms, molecules, tissues and so on until they reach the level things and objects perceivable to our physical senses.  Even these may be influenced.  For example, in his highly interesting book, The Hidden Messages of Water, author Masaru Emoto says: “I also have the impression that the act of looking at water crystals is an act of creating life.  This is because when we look at crystals, the water changes its appearance moment by moment.  Your gaze has a special energy of its own, and while a gaze of good intentions will give courage, an evil gaze will actually take it away.” (The Hidden Messages in Water: 64)  And The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Thompkins and Christopher Bird is an extended discussion of how plants respond to human intentions.  That animals have a consciousness with which humans communicate can not be doubted. 

I go further than those physicists who say the properties of the universe are enmeshed in our perceptions and say they are enmeshed in our being.  Why?: Because all the qualities of God are both diffused throughout the universe and localized in every human spirit.  Baha’u’llah states: “Likewise, reflect upon the perfection of man's creation, and that all these planes and states are folded up and hidden away within him.  Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form, when within thee the universe is folded?” (The Seven Valleys: 34) 

Recall that Baha’u’llah also states of Socrates that: “He it is who perceived a unique, a tempered, and a pervasive nature in things, bearing the closest likeness to the human spirit, and he discovered this nature to be distinct from the substance of things in their refined form.” (Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh:146)  I interpret that phrase “bearing the closest likeness” to mean, as I have repeated before, alike in form but not in nature.  The forms of the qualities of God in the universe and the forms of these same qualities in the human reality are alike, so there is homology thus recognition AND manifestation in both places. “Even as He hath revealed: "We will surely show them Our signs in the world and within themselves." Again He saith: "And also in your own selves: will ye not, then, behold the signs of God?" (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah:177) 

More in next post.

           

            

Intelligent Design

When ye consider this matter with care, it will become apparent that this is according to a universal law, which one can find at work in all things: the whole attracteth the part, and in the circle, the centre is the pivot of the compasses.”

(Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 62)

Science makes much of ideas such as spontaneous evolution, order out of chaos, of properties that emerge from the union of what were separate things, and the like.  This view is called epigenesis.  It does not acknowledge any basis for preformation or design.  Higher properties just emerge as needed from previous things or conditions.  But how can a whole that comes into being only gradually from its parts be the cause of the properties of those parts?  It cannot, of course, unless the whole precedes its parts: i.e. it is the more fundamental reality, the parts being manifestations of this fundamental reality.  That is my view.
       In creation, the spiritual whole, which ‘Abdu’l-Baha says is “created perfect and complete from the first” (Some Answered Questions:198), has its stages of material manifestation that build into a manifest perfection called maturity.  But the manifestation is, too, an arena of spirit.  There is no “Spirit” as special hermetically-sealed category of existence so different from matter that there is no possible relation.  That is the Descartian, materialist split of Reality into the eternally separate spheres of thought and extension.  Though there are degrees and kingdoms, levels and limits, of spirit there are basically three conditions: Spirit, spirit as mind, spirit as matter.

 Arguing in favor of preformation, rather than epigenesis, is also a teleological argument (the connection between formal cause and final cause) because intention has implications for intelligent design and what some exponents of that principle call irreducible complexity. This is more of the religious view of things.  I am not arguing in favor of either preformation or epigenesis.  Either is only one half of the structure and process.  For me, intelligent design works through both preformation and epigenesis.  Intelligent design is the whole (the essence) preceding its parts spiritually, but epigenetically the parts precede the whole into existence, so that more of the essence emerges into manifestation—the whole attracteth the part.  That is, the whole exists as both formal preformational cause and as complete image of itself that attracts the epigenetic building process to its full materially mature expression.
        Reality is irreducibly complex: i.e. all of it must exist at all times.  This is the complete and perfect from the first statement of ‘Abdu’l-Baha.  Yet all of Reality is not physical.  In fact, most of Reality is not physical.  Yet the manifestation of Reality on the plane of material existence where life is governed by time evolves in scale, scope and complexity.  Guiding that emergence into manifestation are things I call spiritual templates, the largest of which are Revelations, which can be grasped as vast fields of potential that human beings can actualize into knowledge, social structures, technologies, and symbol systems.

Ervin Laszlo explains that: “A system is irreducibly complex…if its parts are interrelated in such a way that removing even one part destroys the function of the whole system.  To mutate an irreducibly complex system into another viable system, every part has to be kept in a functional relationship with every other part throughout the entire transformation.  Missing but a single part at a single step leads to a dead end.  How could this level of constant precision be achieved by random piecemeal modifications of the genetic pool?” (Science and the Akashic Field: 86-87)  Baha’u’llah states: “I recognize, moreover, that were any of the revelations of Thy names and Thine attributes to be withheld, though it be the weight of a grain of mustard seed, from whatsoever hath been created by Thy power and begotten by Thy might, the foundations of Thine everlasting handiwork would thereby be made incomplete, and the gems of Thy Divine wisdom would become imperfect.” (Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 325)

Again, though Reality is irreducibly complex, increased manifest complexity over time, (i.e. the emergence of new phenomena and creations) is also true.  The laws governing living things have produced through great stochastic processes (stochastic means random purposefulness—e.g. trial and error) increasingly complex forms over vast scales of time.  But these processes are not entirely random.  If they are purposeful this also indicates some kind of plan.  This is progressive revelation, the bringing forth and actualizing of potential into the plane of manifestation.  Thus, creation is both irreducibly complex and infinitely complex.  The whole cannot collapse into a state of less complexity, but it can evolve in manifestation.

Those who see all causality as efficient causality will never grasp the idea of intelligent design, or see emergence as qualities and principles emerging from somewhere into here.  Nothing is self-emergent.  It does not come out itself.  Marx, I believe, said: “Man makes himself, but not by himself.” When something is needed from the self a signal from the environment is needed to bring it forth.  We call these signals tests, opportunities, challenges and crises.  Something in the environment must trigger the emergence of a latent quality or ability.  And if most of Reality is non-physical, then most of our environment is, too, non-physical.  Changes in the spiritual environment are the origin of most of the challenging life-triggers that bring forth our potentials.

The more awareness we have of our total environment the better the chances of not just survival but evolution.  When cells band together, their awareness increases exponentially.  Likewise, the more humans band together in cooperation and unity the better awareness they have of their natural, mental and spiritual environments, and the more their life is enhanced.  The sharing of information and awareness speeds up evolution of all kinds, including mental and social evolution. 

Genes have been described as the “physical memories of an organism’s learned experience.” (Lipton The Biology of Belief: 45)  Instead of individuals laboriously forming into a community, perhaps the community, the archetype, the human whole, is first and it guides individuals into manifest community from an existing spiritual model—the Kingdom of God.  In this view, the template “Human” was first and every individual is the physical representative of that collective singularity.  Each cell in the body possesses the functional equivalent of all the bodily processes, a kind of physical hologram of the whole.  Thus an entire body can, theoretically, be generated from a single cell.  Baha’u’llah asserts: “Verily God is fully capable of causing all names to appear in one name, and all souls in one soul.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah:183)

Intelligent design has associations with formal causality, which has, in turn, associations with spiritual causality.  Intelligent design is not mechanical.  It is not a blueprint to build a house or machine.  It is organic design, like that of a tree or flower which has a great number of choices to make as it unfolds its potentials into actualities and realizes its evolutionary purpose.  Organic things interact with an environment at every step and sequence, filling its forms with the content of what it encounters, assimilates and gives forth.

Similarly, with the fields of potentials I am calling spiritual templates—for they are both information and energy: i.e structured, intelligent energy.  Human beings can to a large extent choose which potentials to manifest and use the energy of the field to do so.  The Master explains: “Now the new age is here and creation is reborn. Humanity hath taken on new life. The autumn hath gone by, and the reviving spring is here. All things are now made new. Arts and industries have been reborn, there are new discoveries in science, and there are new inventions; even the details of human affairs, such as dress and personal effects—even weapons—all these have likewise been renewed. The laws and procedures of every government have been revised. Renewal is the order of the day.

And all this newness hath its source in the fresh outpourings of wondrous grace and favour from the Lord of the Kingdom, which have renewed the world. The people, therefore, must be set completely free from their old patterns of thought, that all their attention may be focused upon these new principles, for these are the light of this time and the very spirit of this age.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha:252-253)

Orders of Knowledge

What a penetrating vision into philosophy this eminent man had! He is the most distinguished of all philosophers and was highly versed in wisdom. We testify that he is one of the heroes in this field and an outstanding champion dedicated unto it. He had a profound knowledge of such sciences as were current amongst men as well as of those which were veiled from their minds. Methinks he drank one draught when the Most Great Ocean overflowed with gleaming and life-giving waters.

(Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Baha’u’llah:146)

            These words, written by Baha’u’llah about Socrates, indicate not only the eminence in the field of philosophy achieved by Socrates, but also, for our purposes, indicates that the knowledge of creation is as vast as creation, and most of this knowledge is hidden from us.  I mean that the part of the quote that I bold-faced states that there were sciences in Socrates time which were hidden, but that Socrates penetrated to them, or was informed of them.  Either way, they were there, but other minds were veiled from them.  Where were they hidden?

            There are orders of knowledge still waiting to be discovered by us.  Witness to this is all the knowledge that has been discovered in the last century and a half.  This knowledge explosion shows no signs of slowing down.  But where did all this knowledge come from?  We can not say that humans invented it.  I believe it was always there, waiting for the right time and kinds of insight to unlock it.  Until it is discovered, the human mind is veiled.

           Being veiled can occur for several reasons.  Perhaps the sciences are hidden until the proper mental maturity has been achieved, like a small child veiled from algebra.  One can be veiled because one does not have the proper mental vision, like, for example, how the proponents of Newtonian physics could not see Relativity.  One can be veiled because one lacks the proper context, such as being veiled from the meaning of cultural practices different from one’s own.  A new creation requires a new epistemology, and this in turn means new faculties of knowing, heretofore latent and dormant, are awakened and made manifest.  Perhaps the answer to the question of where is knowledge hidden lies in Baha’u’llah’s statement: “Likewise, reflect upon the perfection of man's creation, and that all these planes and states are folded up and hidden away within him.” (The Seven Valleys and The Four Valleys:34

No doubt new properties emerge: But from where?  New properties cannot emerge that were not there in the first place. Though they may have been hidden or the mind was veiled, discovery can only mean discovery of something that already exists.  We can invent, but we cannot invent knowledge.  We can only discover and communicate it.  The creation is whole and complete and we gradually discover the vast interconnections of principles and laws, insights and experiments that reveal what was there, and that discovery is also self-discovery.  Any new property is not absolutely new, but only new to human awareness.  The last couple of posts explored the theme that all creation, from nature through material civilization, was incomplete and education was the process of gradually completing it.  But it is a never-ending process, though any one stage of it has a beginning and an ending.  But, spiritually, the creation is whole and complete, unimaginably complex, potentially infinitely deep with innumerable levels.  But it must be created whole and complete, or there is no good answer to the question: How can a whole that comes into being only gradually from its parts be the cause of the properties of those parts?

 I am not arguing in favor of preformation rather than epigenesis.  Preformation is a spiritual principle; epigenesis is a material one. Both are necessary.  What emerges in time already existed in spirit.  Guiding that emergence are what I call spiritual templates.  Spiritual templates are found in the Revelations. 

We are moving toward such a conception, but our minds must slog through the veils of materialist science.  The principles of quantum mechanics, for example, emphasize the primacy of energy fields in their influence over matter. Consequently, the universe's matter is organized by information, represented as knowledge patterns.  But where are such patterns? Again, I say, without being able to empirically verify, that the templates for the unfolding of knowledge are contained within the field of Revelation. These were/are the spiritual creation itself unveiled by the Revelators.  With every new Revelation new templates by which to interpret the universe are given.  We have the potentials within us to grasp them, and we will eventually.  But we can do so more quickly should we do as Socrates did and drink one draught when the Most Great Ocean overflowed with gleaming and life-giving waters.

Perhaps by way of example of spiritual templates, historians have noted times in human history that were especially fertile in bringing new ideas and principles to light, often in many fields and places simultaneously.  Such times have come to be called Axial Ages.  “Axial Age” was coined by the German philosopher, Karl Jaspers, in his groundbreaking work: The Origin and Goal of History.  Axial Age (meaning a pivot) denotes the period from 800 to 200 BC, during which, according to him, similar and revolutionary thinking appeared in Persia, India, China, and the Occident.  In addition, the philosopher, Eric Voegelin, referred to this same period as The Great Leap of Being, constituting, he felt, a new spiritual awakening and a shift of perception from societal to individual values.

Jaspers identified a number of key Axial Age thinkers, Socrates was one, as having had a profound influence on future philosophies and religions, and identified characteristics common to each area from which those thinkers emerged. Jaspers saw in these developments in religion and philosophy a striking parallel without any obvious direct transmission of ideas from one region to the other, having found no recorded proof of any extensive intercommunication between Ancient Greece, the Middle East, India, and China.  Jaspers held up this age as unique, and one to which the rest of the history of human thought might be compared.  Jaspers claimed that during the Axial Age: "the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently in China, India, Persia, Judea, and Greece. And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today." 

 He said such far-reaching innovations in thought and social life arose in these seemingly diverse places as a response to similar political circumstances: each comprised multiple small states engaged in internal and external struggles.  He is correct in his social analysis, but for me the real origins of these revolutionary advances were due to the revelations of Zoroaster (Persia) Buddha (India and influencing China, but also Confucius and Lao Tzu) and to the fertile influence of the Jewish faith on the leading thinkers of Greece.  These divine thoughts provided the templates for philosophers and thinkers to generate new thoughts, and so did not need to have any contact with each other to do so.  But Jasper’s Axial Age was not an unique event, except in its particular developments.  Rather it was but one of several Axial Ages, all of them having a common Source yet each having its own characteristic advances.  (I am currently studying these ages.)

Jaspers believed that the Axial Age gave birth to philosophy as a discipline.  I would agree, as it represents the collective awakening of humanity’s left-brain functions of abstract thought.  That is its special virtue, and a very powerful one it was.     

Renovating the Conditions of Existence

The glorious maturity of this world depends upon the realization of two things: the establishment of Universal Peace, and the discovery, or appearance of that hidden science which shall renovate all the conditions of existence.

(I Heard Him Say: Words of ‘Abdu’l-Baha as recorded by his Secretary Mirza Ahmad Sohrab: 38)

Last post (my, my, a month ago!!!) examined the idea that the work of human beings is the perfecting of Nature.  Education helps achieve that purpose by informing us of the laws of Nature, so that we may transform Nature into human form--i.e use nature as raw material for human construction in all its form.  In the quote above ‘Abdu’l-Baha says there exists a science—seemingly hidden or forgotten—that will renovate the conditions of existence.  To renovate means not only to restore to a former and better state, but also to impart new vigor.  It is the process of creating and regenerating the forms of existence, not just renewing, restoring or cleansing them.  It is to bring more of the essence of a thing out, so that it moves closer toward perfection.  Renovation is needed because creation is not complete materially, though it is a perfect spiritual creation.  Renovation is the process of completing creation.  It is summed up in Baha’u’llah’s statement: “That which hath been in existence had existed before but not in the form thou seest today.” (Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh:140) 

This purpose of renovating the conditions of existence goes back to the dawn of human culture.  Peoples of archaic cultures believed that their end of year rituals and songs renovated the conditions of existence by replenishing the spiritual power in the universe.  The culture myths describe these songs and rites, as noted, for example, by Mircea Eliade in such works as The Myth of the Eternal Return.  But for those people every end of year, end of cycle, epoch or era, or even, as today, a whole order of life, (i.e. the end of time) must be periodically renovated to make the end and the beginning one.

This principle was also the real purpose of the alchemists, whose teachings, known as Hermetic literature, stem from Hermes the Manifestation. (See Baha’u’llah’s Tablet of Wisdom)  It is commonly thought that the alchemists were interested only in turning baser metals into gold—a process that Baha’u’llah says can happen and which is one of the signs of the maturity of the human race.  They were not.  They were carrying on in new form what was even then an ages-old tradition of renovating the conditions of existence—work which we are engaged in today.

The true alchemist believed that the alchemical literature gave the symbols and principles for transmuting the human soul, what Baha’u’llah calls transmuting satanic energy into heavenly strength.  That is to say, true alchemy was a spiritual discipline, and its essential principles are all traceable to Hermes and his Emerald Tablet—which was probably actually chrysolite.

Alchemy sprung up during the ages of metals—iron, bronze, etc.— with the ancient smiths, who believed that metals were produced by the gestating of natural processes in the womb of Nature. (Baha’u’llah alludes to this in His discussion of copper to gold in the Kitab-i-Iqan.)  The true alchemist saw his work as aiding and perfecting the work of nature by accelerating and nurturing her processes of bringing baser metals, symbolizing the natural human soul, into precious metals, symbolizing the transformed soul.  Alchemy has a spiritual foundation, as do most of our arts and sciences. 

All these are examples of humans perfecting and completing Nature, for Nature is incomplete and imperfect.  The natural perfection of any thing is its mature form, but the spiritual perfecting of all things comes from them serving a higher purpose and being transformed in the process.  For human beings, transformation cannot happen independently of the Revelations, for, as we have seen, from the remotest mists of history the revealers of perfection, the Perfect Beings, have given the teachings to achieve that purpose for their time and invited humanity into Their work.

Humanity in nature and the Manifestation within humanity are the “representations” of something higher within these realms, and the source of their advancement.  The human soul is a supernatural entity and the Manifestation is a superhuman Man.   The higher is required for the lower to progress, and the higher form of the lower order is formed in response to the promptings of the higher principled energy which was always renewed “but not in the form thou seest today.”

Now the same principle, purpose and process hold for our relation with civilization.  The Master tell us: “Bahá'u'lláh teaches that material civilization is incomplete, insufficient and that divine civilization must be established. Material civilization concerns the world of matter or bodies, but divine civilization is the realm of ethics and moralities.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 375)

Divine civilization, too, cannot be accomplished save through the application of the Divine Word and spiritual principle.  Thus as our human work is the perfection of nature, the bringing forth of garden from jungle, building structures from stones, accelerating the processes of the maturation of metals, replacing wilderness with pasture, so the work of the Manifestation is the perfection and completion of human nature, that vast millennia-long process of bringing out the best of humanity from the womb of nature.  This uplifting of humanity by the Manifestations drives the building of civilizations and the encoding of laws, the establishment of education, science and art, and the promulgation of government, so that humanity under the moral and intellectual guidance and spiritual energy of the revealed Word builds on earth in imitation of the divine order in “heaven”. 

Thus, as the essence of nature is the human soul, and the essence of humanity is the Manifestation, or Perfect Man, so the essence of civilization is divine civilization, and the essence of all things appears last to renovate the whole of the preceding order.  Baha’u’llah remarked of His Revelation: “The highest essence and most perfect expression of whatsoever the peoples of old have either said or written hath, through this most potent Revelation, been sent down from the heaven of the Will of the All-Possessing, the Ever-Abiding God.” (Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh: 87)

A transformational process that began in and with Nature ends in civilization, for every created thing, every thing in this World of Being,  is on the return trip to God.  The Master said: "From this same God all creation sprang into existence, and He is the one goal, towards which everything in nature yearns.  This conception was embodied in the words of Christ, when He said, 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end'—Man is the sum of Creation, and the Perfect Man is the expression of the complete thought of the Creator—the Word of God." (Paris Talks:51)  

Radical changes in society and thought are associated with radical changes in human character.  New qualities emerge that redefine the true individual and humanity in general, for both the growing person and society are always redefined according to those emergent qualities that both create and reflect new moral and social environments and choices.  Today we are witnessing the emergence of a new paradigm of human nature and human society.  Thus the meaning in this new statement of the age-old paradigm is deeper, its parameters wider, its implication more far-reaching than any mere restoration of ancient thought might lead one to believe.  But we will be lead to the deeper meanings.  

For is it not often true, whether in science, philosophy or art, that when trying only to extend the resources of certain ideas or techniques the mind, in order to meet novelty, is forced to introduce conceptions which lead to profound intellectual and technical revolutions?  Humanity must build a civilization such as has never before been seen on earth.  It will require the fully matured capacities of all people to do so.  We cannot accomplish this task unaided; we cannot find our way along this dark and deep road using the rapidly fading lights of the past.  We must be lead by the light of greater intelligence, by light up ahead not behind, from an above and a beyond that is within.  It is there that we will discover, or from there will appear that hidden science which shall renovate all the conditions of existence. 

A direct link to my book, Renewing the Sacred is http://tinyurl.com/cndew5a It is also in Kindle

Complete Incompleteness

The materialists hold to the opinion that the world of nature is complete. The divine philosophers declare that the world of nature is incomplete. There is a wide difference between the two. The materialists call attention to the perfection of nature, the sun, moon and stars, the trees in their adornment, the whole earth and the sea—even unimportant phenomena revealing the most perfect symmetry. The divine philosophers deny this seeming perfection and completeness in nature's kingdom, even though admitting the beauty of its scenes and aspects and acknowledging the irresistible cosmic forces which control the colossal suns and planets. They hold that while nature seems perfect, it is, nevertheless, imperfect because it has need of intelligence and education. In proof of this they say that man, though he be a very god in the realm of material creation, is himself in need of an educator. Man undeveloped by education is savage, animalistic, brutal.  Laws and regulations, schools, colleges and universities have for their purpose the training of man and his uplift from the dark borderland of the animal kingdom.

    (Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 329)

The whole or transcendent is immanent in every part.  Thus formal cause, which is environmental cause, when it is glimpsed through the interstices of being and thought, is the appearance of the whole behind the flux of its moving parts, a quick perception of the coordinating principle itself, the one organizing its manifold appearances.  Because the whole is immanent in all the parts, in any closed, formal, finite system, everything is both self-referential and each element refers to all others.  The universe is like a hologram, each part of it, no matter how small, reflects every other part simultaneously. For, the basic substance of the universe is the qualities of God and these are everywhere and in everything, each with its own frequency, each diffused throughout the entire creation.  There are the particle/wave states of the subatomic energy packets, each individualized particle holds all the qualities of the universe but its defining character, what makes each particle itself and not any other, is one of these qualities.  Wave and the particle are complementary states of the photon, both its focal point and the energy pulsing in waves out from it: wave and particle are the same yet different, neither is separate from its medium but, rather, different manifestations of it.  

Said another way, all the qualities of the higher, which is the same as the essential, are diffused throughout the lower, so that the lower is the generalized version of what is altogether in the higher order reality—all the qualities of God are in each of His Manifestations and in all of Them; all the qualities of the Manifestations are in every soul and in humanity; all the qualities of man are in Nature, for each is made in the image and likeness but not the nature of the higher order reality.  But a part of the essence of the higher reality is within the lower order reality.  Baha’u’llah, speaking of the creation of man, writes: “With the hands of power I made thee and with the fingers of strength I created thee; and within thee have I placed the essence of My light.” (The Arabic Hidden Words #12)

 The higher aspect within a lower system is its essence, center and pivot.  It is what completes the lower order reality as a structure of being, and what drives it toward ever more complex manifestations of its qualities for it brings higher order energy and intelligence into the lower order system.  The Yin/Yang symbol is a useful but not quite accurate picture of what I mean.

The whole of the spiritual world surrounding the creational world manifests in a focal point, a Manifestation, Who appears at its “mid-most heart” and radiates out via His Words the powers of that spiritual world to transform this lower one.  This relationship is a universal law: “When ye consider this matter with care, it will become apparent that this is according to a universal law, which one can find at work in all things: the whole attracteth the part, and in the circle, the centre is the pivot of the compasses.  Ponder thou upon the Spirit: because He was the focal centre of spiritual power, the wellspring of divine bounties…” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha:62)  Thus, the whole manifests in the center; rather, it manifests as the center of a lower order, coordinating its actions, organizing its powers, driving its development.  It completes the lower order by linking it with a higher order, and its influence radiates out over the entire lower order, diffusing simultaneously throughout the entire lower order because the whole is within every part.

How does the lower order develop toward greater complexity?  We can use Godel’s proof to speak on this point.  It rests on the principle of mapping.  That is, Godel proved incompleteness when he gave metaarithmetical statements themselves—i.e. statements about arithmetic—numbers.  By doing this he showed that arithmetic can encode metaarithmetical statements and higher order metaarithmetical statements can be mapped into the language of arithmetic.  But, though encoded and expressed arithmetically, the truth or falsity of these metaarithmetical statements can’t be proved

Now, logically, it is impossible for infinite Mind to communicate its knowledge to finite minds.  Human thought can never capture the truths of Revelation, or prove by our standards of rational thought the truth or falsity of many of them.  Nevertheless, communication does occur.  His Truths are analogies of truths that we can grasp.  Some of the truths of revelation can be “mapped” via figurative language, metaphors, similes, analogies, etc. into human language and thereby expressed to test their truth.  But their truth or falsity often cannot be proved logically.  This requires faith and action and in this way transform human thought into a higher kind of human thought and, then, we may then “see” their truth. 

This communication can occur in some measure because, again, we are made after His image and in His likeness—not His nature--so He may communicate with us and we understand something of what He says—i.e. the image and likeness of His thought and meaning in our own world of understanding.  The Creative Word is just this process of mapping higher, more complex meanings into human thought so that greater complexity of understanding and better coordinated action can be released.  New meanings are encoded into our life, and this leads to breakdown and breakthrough.  Baha’u’llah warned, “the world’s equilibrium hath been upset” and this occurs from trying to assimilate higher truths into our current level of understanding.

From my point of view, every Revelation is a mental field, or expression of the universal Mind.  Each revelation patterns into a unique configuration the essential properties—the qualities of God—inherent in the realities of things.  These configurations are logically-related to each other and over vast cycles of time these grow in complexity because Revelation Itself is progressive.  In other words, no Manifestation reveals the whole of reality, but reality as a whole, each whole more complex than the one before, all approaching but never reaching the complexity of the whole of Reality. 

Within the realm of human knowledge we also strive for consistency, because that is the basis of rational thought.  Every science has its own consistency, i.e. its approved methods of inquiry and verification; its shared assumptions and paradigms.  Each of the sciences is a kind of language that yields particular knowledge of creation.  By putting the yield of these sciences together into a sort of cross-correlation a more comprehensive picture of reality is obtained.  Science is the revelation of nature and of all objective reality.  Human intelligence and knowledge completes nature.

‘Abdu’l-Baha says: “It is evident, therefore, that the world of nature is incomplete, imperfect until awakened and illumined by the light and stimulus of education.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace:309)  It may seem strange that human education is necessary for nature to be complete, but, as the opening quote said, without intelligence nature is incomplete.  “If the world of nature were perfect and complete in itself, there would be no need of such training and cultivation in the human world—no need of teachers, schools and universities, arts and crafts. The revelations of the Prophets of God would not have been necessary, and the heavenly Books would have been superfluous.  If the world of nature were perfect and sufficient for mankind, we would have no need of God and our belief in Him. Therefore, the bestowal of all these great helps and accessories to the attainment of divine life is because the world of nature is incomplete and imperfect.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace:310)

Inherently Incomplete

It has now been proved by rational arguments that the world of existence is in the utmost need of an educator, and that its education must be achieved by divine power. There is no doubt that this holy power is revelation, and that the world must be educated through this power which is above human power.

            (Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 11)

This series of posts are attempting to bring together insights from science and religion to show how they ultimately point to the same higher truth.  Last post presented the thesis that Godel’s proof provides a logical foundation from which to argue the inherent incompleteness of all formal systems of thought.  There is something within every formal system that is not “of itself’ but is the representation of a higher entity in the system.  Paradoxically, this something else is what makes the system a system, for it stands in opposition to it.  Consistency is not within any system, but only as part of a richer system, which is also only fully consistent within yet another, higher system.  Yet consistency is essential, especially in thought.  For, once one accepts a logical contradiction, one can prove anything, and that is the end of rational thought.  The key point of this concerns self-referencing statements which cannot be proved within any formal system of thought. 

So, what possible conclusions and implications can be drawn from Godel’s work in support of the lead quote above?

The first conclusion we can draw is something like this: The whole is complete, consistent and perfect by itself.  Any part of that whole, by itself, is not complete or perfect, though it may be consistent in itself.  But its consistency cannot be proved or known by itself.  It can only be known as it is part of the whole. 

An implication of this conclusion is that: many seem to think that the humanity is a kind self-enclosed, self-referencing system, sufficient unto itself, with no higher authority to appeal to.  This is a modern-day hubris described by sociologist Daniel Bell as the belief that ‘I come out of myself.”  But in thinking this way we sacrifice a sense of completeness and when a creative advance is required, for challenges always occur, we often prove inadequate and become lost.  We get away from our real nature when we try to define ourselves, as the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel shows (Book of Genesis 10:10), for we have no objective standpoint from which to do this.  Hence in all cases self-referring becomes self-subverting.  How?

Because humanity is not a self-contained system, the truth or falsity of our self-referential statements—i.e. statements we make about our essential nature—are often unprovable, remaining purely matters of belief.  However, in matters of belief, such as fundamental moral principles or interpretations of reality, the process of knowing their truth is highly problematic, because they cannot be proved logically or rationally in a way that can not be subverted by a logical or rational proof of a belief that is contrary.  Moral intuitions are highly subjective and hard to generalize to others, and interpretations of reality are almost as many as people.  Too, some problems seem intractable. 

Human thought can be consistent when formalized, as in a syllogism.  Consistency is the basis of rational thought.  But even wrong ideas and interpretations can be grounded on rational assumptions and “proved” using logical arguments.  Hence sound logic and consistent rational thought do not, by themselves, enable us to avoid dangers and pitfalls, like racism, sexism, and all those other isms that divide humanity and which help create a toxic moral and intellectual environment.  We are not the final arbiter of most matters of conscience and reason, and human thought should not be closed upon itself, no matter how rational and firmly based upon “reason.”  Rather, we, each individual and all humanity, are open systems, having access to richer thought than human because the Manifestation and His Words can teach us what is right and wrong about our self-understanding.  He makes humanity complete.  His Revelation completes human thought.  He and His Message bring forth from us powers and capacities which we can not bring forth from ourselves.

 Human thought, then, is inherently incomplete and must appeal to higher thought to advance beyond the conundrums that thought brings forth in its movement over problems.  This is what Einstein meant when he remarked that problems can’t be solved using the level of thought that generated them.  Some believe that humanity’s creative powers will bring forth those insights, inspirations and creative leaps that solve the problems. That is true for many problems.  But this is still to keep human thought within the bounds of human thought, and, as I have argued, human thinking is inherently incomplete and inconsistent.  So some problems may be forever beyond our ability to solve using only our own thinking. 

Baha’is believe that we can turn to the richer thought of divine Revelation to solve our problems.  But even here the same cautions about completeness and inconsistency hold.  There are no absolutes, even within Revelation.  I mean that, as Shoghi Effendi stated: “The fundamental principle enunciated by Bahá'u'lláh ... is that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is a continuous and progressive process, that all the great religions of the world are divine in origin, that their basic principles are in complete harmony, that their aims and purposes are one and the same, that their teachings are but facets of one truth, that their functions are complementary, that they differ only in the nonessential aspects of their doctrines, and that their missions represent successive stages in the spiritual evolution of human society.” (The Promised Day is Come: Preface)

The messages of the great Spiritual Luminaries are the fundamental truths of the human reality, the basis of all moral intuitions, and the most complete and accurate interpretation of Reality.  But, as Shoghi Effendi statement points out, each divine Message is neither final nor complete in Itself, but must be completed by another and more comprehensive Message to come after It. Together They are the unfoldment in more complete and complex form of a single divine Impulse.  The most recent Message is the most comprehensive and complete. It represents not the whole of Reality, for that can never be communicated, but is, rather, reality as a whole, adequate and comprehensive, complete and perfect, for its time, but not for all time.  But these Divine Revelations are the source of human development, of new sciences and of new stages and kinds of civilization.  I will discuss some of these implications in the next post. 

Mapping Truth: Godel and Incompleteness Part I

Yet one can’t do any mathematics at all, not even basic arithmetic, without referring implicitly to the infinite.

(Rebecca Goldstein, Incompleteness: 186)

In 1931 a young logician, Kurt Godel, transformed the study of logic, especially mathematical logic, and epistemology, by proving that all formal systems of human thought are inherently incomplete.  His groundbreaking, paradigm-busting, work was titled: On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems. It yielded two famous theorems, called Godel’s incompleteness theorems.

The Principia Mathematica was a work of mathematical logic by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead that attempted to set forth a complete and consistent formal, logical foundation and the essential principles of mathematics.  They claimed that they had done so, but upon closer examination it was found that to achieve consistency Russell and Whitehead had introduced some ad hoc principles.  A formal system, in mathematics at least, is one that is divested of all appeals to intuition.  It is a closed, axiomatic system of reasoning with primitive givens, stipulated rules of inference and proved theorems.  Because it is closed, it is finite.  There can be nothing ad hoc about it.

An axiomatic system is consistent when employing the rules of the system generates no contradictions, and consistency itself is one of the propositions of the system.  Thus, every axiom, or true statement, must be derived from the basic principles and rules of the system.  Too, no statement can be both true and false at the same time.  It is a real left-brainer construct.  Godel discovered and proved that neither the truth nor the falsity of some propositions of any formal system of thought can be proved.  That is, a proposition may be true, contextually, but it can’t be proved to be true.  It can only be proved to be unprovable.  Thus, to prove the truth of these formally undecidable propositions requires another, richer kind of thought-structure.  Thus the formal system is incomplete.  

Mind can never embrace the totality, because as Hamlet told Horatio: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Hamlet 1:5)  If any contradiction arises, or if a true proposition or statement cannot be proven using only the rules of the system, then the system is inconsistent (a bad thing for formalists) and incomplete (that’s OK, so long as a higher system of thought can complete it).  How to get out of this?  Think—go right-brained.  The problem comes with self-referential statements.  These operate at the limits of formal systems, defining their boundaries of truth, sort of like the complexity or chaos sciences.     

For example take the famous liar’s paradox: This statement is untrue.  Taken by itself, with no reference to anything else, if it is true, then it is a contradiction, because it says that it is untrue.  If it is untrue, then it is also a contradiction because that would mean that it is true.  Consistency is broken, and the only way out is to introduce something new into the system of thought, or to refer outside to the system to a context.  Godel proved that no axiomatic system can be sufficiently rich to formally capture even arithmetic. All formal systems are incomplete, deriving their consistency from appealing to a richer formal system. 

He proved this for all formal systems by showing how the truth or falsity of some propositions is not formally decidable using the rules of the system.  That is, the question, can a particular proposition be proved within the system sometimes yields the answer that it can’t be proved.  How? 

A particular proposition (A) is unprovable in the system if the negation of A is another proposition: A is provable in the system.  But if A were provable then its negation—which says that A is provable—would be true.  But if the negation of a proposition is true, then the proposition itself is false.  So if A is provable then it is false.  But if A is provable, then it is also true.  So, assuming the consistency of the system, if A is provable then it is both true and false—a contradiction—which means that A is not provable.  But that is exactly what A said in the first place: that it is not provable.  So A is true.  Therefore, A is both unprovable and true and this is expressible within the system.  The final conclusion is that the formal system is either inconsistent or incomplete, which are the two-sides of one coin.  The proof rests on the method of assigning a number to statements so that a blending of voices—arithmetical and metaarithmetical—is accomplished such that arithmetical statements are also making metaarithmetical statements: i.e. statements about arithmetic made in numbers, each statement assigned a number.  This is possible because language and number are both symbol systems--i.e. numbers can be assigned letters and letters numbers, as in numerology.

In using the same language of arithmetic, i.e. the map, to express both meanings and metameanings, two different sorts of descriptions will be collapsed into one another.  It is introducing an element of the organization of events on the level of events itself, as if the thoughts organizing your physical behavior were themselves part of your physical behavior.  In arithmetic, arithmetical descriptions setting forth relationships between numbers are, of course, expressible within the formal system e.g. 2+2=4.  But if, as Godel did, you assign a number to a metastatement about arithmetic (e.g. the rule that the sum of two integers is another integer could be given the number 5) then metadescriptions about the logical relationships holding between numbers (i.e. the syntax of the language) can be described within the formal system itself.  Metastatements are purely syntactic, i.e. rules about rules.  They can not be proved to be true or false using the rules of the system.  They are simply unproveable.  That is, it is not about the truth or falsity of any statement, but about its proveability to be one or the other.  Rebecca Goldstein sums up the results: “Godel’s first incompleteness theorem tells us that any consistent formal system adequate for the expression of arithmetic must leave out much of mathematical reality, and his second theorem tells us that no such formal system can even prove itself to be self-consistent.” (Incompleteness: 192)

That is, the syntactic features of formal mathematical systems (e.g. the rules of combining numbers in arithmetic) can’t capture all the truths about the system, including the truth of its own consistency.  Consistency, which defines the system, transcends the grasp of the system itself: consistency is not completeness.  Completeness is something else.  There is something within all formal system that is not “of itself’ but is the representation of a higher entity to the system: paradoxically, what makes the system a system by being something else.    This "something else" completes the system, or, at least, is the means of its completeness.  Consistency is not within any system, but only as part of a richer system, which is also only fully consistent within yet another, higher system. 

In any universe of discourse, whether language or number, this kind of confusion of realms that arises with self-referencing—where the metasyntactic and the syntactic statements collapse into one another, so that the logical relations that hold between units of meaning (e.g. numbers and their relations) in the formal system themselves become relations expressible in the language of the system—is the mechanism of encoding complexity, for it allows an entity of a higher level of reality to exist in some form in a lower level of reality.  Potentially, infinite meanings can then be expressed in finite language if they become self-referential in a higher sense.  OK, so what?  

The implications are terrific. But that is for next post.