Thinking and
Eternity
Thinking (an/d) Eternity¡
I
Thinking, (or
writing) from ¡®the point of view of eternity¡¯/ (sub specie aeternitatis)
does not mean, as with Benjamin¡¯s utopian or messianic (so¡ religious) thought,
from the purview of first or last things, of the ¡®All¡¯ or ¡®Everything¡¯ ¨C an
ambition also found in the thought of Levinas ¨C this would be the point of view
of the heavens, the downwards stoop of the gods at play. Yet nor does it mean
thinking with ¡®Nothing¡¯, as in Heidegger and those who have followed him down
this shadow-ridden, forest path, secular or sacred (or where both have become
indistinguishable, now read as ¡®the Absolute Other¡¯). Nor again does it mean
¡®the Sublime¡¯, whether restricted, literary, aesthetic, experiential (Burke) or
general, moral, intuitive (Kant); nor Nature worship nor essentialist intuitive
religion (much the same thing). Nor finally does it mean ¡®universal¡¯ (to return
again to the inclusive ¡®all¡¯), as in the formal use of this term, axiom, first
principle, the ever-useful (but entirely fictional), logical ¡®All¡¯. Or it may
mean all of these things (or ¡®no-things¡¯), places (or ¡®no-places¡¯). And
¡®no-times¡¯¡
If we read
¡®eternity¡¯ and its synonyms and substitutions as the mark of a function, as the
historical, textual trail of a psychological organ, whether of biological or
cultural evolution, of our evolution into the human (animals too are frightened
by fire, only we have seized it¡). Persistent trace of an insatiable human
desire for the absolute, of the fusion of feeling and the largest possible
imagining; our neuro-cultural ¡®met-set¡¯ empty and awaiting fulfillment, filling
out with a suitable candidate, even (sic) personified, a guru, ¡®teacher¡¯ or an
anthropomorphic god or goddess, a genius loci (supporting a religious
cult or philosophical system). A tool: witness its fecundity in the history of
religion, or post-religion (Romanticism, Natural Law Ideologies) as in reason
and logic in the guise of the universal or a-priori axiom (again as ¡®Nature¡¯
writ large or ¡®Natural Law¡¯). A human tool, a thought-tool. Which we
nevertheless think of as other, as an other¡¯s, as others¡¯; as Other; something
coming from another place (the ¡®Other Place¡¯). And how intuitive it is (and how
logical) to use capitals to describe
it - to¡ name it¡ Yet, in order to grant the efficacy of the operation, the
usability of the tool, we must believe that it is coming from ¡®elsewhere¡¯¡
somewhere ¡®real¡¯ ¨C but inaccessible. For this operation is more than just a
mental prop, a convenient place holder; it quickly becomes the indisputable,
unavoidable, irrevocable, and indestructible (because unlocatable) foundation
of all we that believe and feel...
II
In everyday life¡
Nature-first
philosophies, religions, belief systems, ideologies or just plain doxa or
public opinion (¡®everybody knows that¡¡¯), are an attempt to return to Nature
(always written in ideology exposing capitals), and to ¡®Eternity¡¯ as cause and
proof, as first cause and last guarantor, the stability (illusory) of first and
last things¡(if a godless religion, often called a ¡®Natural Law¡¯ religion, effectively
functioning like a Nature-first ideology or metaphysics). And always this is
done by confusing, replacing, covering over¡ cultural, human-made things or
processes with natural, that is putatively, eternal, universal, biological,
genetic processes (¡®Nature¡¯). Such that (for example); garden, parks and
plantations are deemed ¡®Nature¡¯ even though man-made; many modern mountains are
deemed natural, even if crisscrossed with highly managed, paths¡ in effect
National Parks. The former of course are examples of ¡¯Nature-tamed¡¯; designed
and executed by human labour, mental and physical, in
design and formation. Likewise the self, the individual cast as ego, the
essential, natural, genetic, and so ¡®authentic¡¯ self, which one must at all
costs find, preferably by ¡®going back¡¯ to Nature (to escape from urban life, a
wholly cultural, social, animal, we still believe we can ¡®find ourselves¡¯ in
nature), or by doing as one wishes, ¡®unalienated¡¯, ¡®liberated¡¯, no longer
¡®in-authentic¡¯, but acting according to ones (¡®true¡¯) instincts, or feelings¡
the concept of ¡®freedom¡¯ reduced to unreflective whim. Whether in the
(re)making of our environment, our ¡®second nature¡¯, as culture (from cities and
architecture, our urban environment to farmland, parkland, what we usually deem,
¡®Nature) or in the (re) making of ourselves. Our selves: notoriously fickle,
dependent, like words and sentences, on context for meaning and mood; evolving
and ever bending to the winds of desire, of and for others, the promise or lure
of satisfaction or distinction, whence the persistence of dissatisfaction; the
seeking of the recognition of others, an incurable addiction, founded on self
as other; our dependency on our intersubjective ¡®recognition¡¯ organ, the need
for others¡ the mirror of life ¨C ¡®the tain in the
mirror¡¯). So it is that our identity, belief, stability, consistency, and, in
all likelihood, our world-view, are all bought at the cost of truth, of
reality; the stubborn denial -in the face of all physics- of how things are
made¡ ourselves included. Heraclitus¡¯ river is nowhere more in evidence than in
the self itself; our self as this river¡of whose flood we are often
unconscious, as riding the current, and whose never-ending denial makes up so
much of belief, reason, ideology, philosophy, metaphysics and religion¡ For
secularized, ¡®Nature-first¡¯, quickly reverts to a re-sacralised,
¡®Heaven-first¡¯.
In their popular
forms: conservative thought (already finding the market as Nature ¨C despite it
being a specifically human, social, way of apportioning goods and services ¨C so
moving away from simply grabbing or stealing what one is strong enough to grab)
at its most populist rapidly rediscovers religion (or rather the worst aspects
of feudal religion); left populism quickly reveals itself as a Nature First
ideology, whether in the quest for the authentic, un-alienated in primitive
tribal forms, the hippie commune, or in the historicised,
teleologised, version of this as ¡®Communism¡¯. In all
cases ¡®moving forwards¡¯ by moving back¡ the future lines of evolution are
refused in favour of a more comfortable, and more
convenient, subjunctive fantasy, in which we all return to a prior state
¡®before the Fall¡¯, to ¡®the Good Old Days¡¯¡ (just as in the first Nature-first
philosophies, East and West, Mohism in China or in Plato in Greece). Moderate
conservatives together with liberals and social democrats also have a model of
what ¡®natural man¡¯ is (needless to say usually more reliant on a belief in
universals than in science) and adjust their dogmas accordingly. Also in
everyday life, gender roles, sexuality, various clich¨¦s about various ¡®other¡¯
religions, races and cultures, and the ¡®inherent¡¯ goodness and innocence of
children (since the 19th century), all rely on the blind belief in
the foundation of these in ¡®Nature¡¯ ¨C despite all experience to the contrary.
So just like the
use of the concept of ¡®All¡¯ in logic and mathematics, which also find use for
this evasion of cultural constructedness and local
practice¡ But what a useful one¡ If provisional: for these strategies, the
strategic use of the absolute ¡®All¡¯ or unreal numbers (infinity after the
decimal point curtailed) is pragmatic, subject to referral, to empirical
verification, to testing (and dependent on what we want¡ on desire). True of
all formal languages; as with speculation with reason alone. This later we
often classify as metaphysics ¡®in the good sense¡¯: ¡®in the bad sense¡¯, we have
¡®Nature-first¡¯ as post-religious, neo-rational, stopgap, or reactive crutch¡
rational twin to the neo-romanticism of Nature-first dogmas in other walks of
life¡).
And part of
popular science as pseudo-science; as in the periodic returns of (the ¡®turns
to¡¯) Nature as coeval with the Universal, as in ¡®Bio-sociology¡¯ (the 1970s) and
its return via genetics, where anything desired to be above changeable cultural
habit is simply classified as ¡®universal¡¯, must be found to be ¡®natural¡¯ and so
requiring genetic origin (the 2000s in the wake of the new genetics). The idea
is that anything that looks general (that we want to be universally true), must
therefore be due to Genetics, to Evolution as choosing the best or resulting in
the actual, and so to (¡®human¡¯) Nature¡ By these means all manner of cultural
arrangement are ¡®only natural¡¯ (one can only marvel at such a ¡®tautistic¡¯ methodology¡(sic)).
III
Ideas flow in
cycles¡ a cycle that imitates our (micro) poles of belief and feeling, the ebb
and flow of enthusiasm, inside and outside, feeling and manifestation, as well
as the (macro) twists and turns - in effect, reversals - of the history of
ideas¡
From science and
objectivity via empiricism we have the dominance of facts and reason. But
values need more to sustain them; feeling and belief, the subjective pole, then
comes into operation; and we are into metaphysics and on the edge of religion,
producing dogma (superstition or worse). We then have the contrary motion
through suspicion to critique via reason and facts, and ultimately, back to
empiricism and science¡ Objective and subjective poles of the human experience,
alternate, one seemingly in need of the other, providing what the other cannot
(which is what you would expect from this ¡®other-kind¡¯ of ¡®torn halves¡¯ or
binary division of a supposed whole ¨C in this case ¡®the whole¡¯ of human
knowledge). As do their frameworks, contexts or supports, history and
experience, and so too ¡®eternity¡¯, the ¡®no-place¡¯ that grounds - grounds all we
use to think and understand, from universals to gods. A mini-cycle in our lived
temporality, as we swing from one to the other depending on moment or need; and
a mega-cycle, in which intellectual fashions constitute our intellectual
history by alternating, or remixing (or reconceptualising)
in turn. The history of ideas may be seen as this cyclic ¡®return¡¯, or periodic
¡®swing¡¯, as each is found lacking and the opposite pole turned to for succor,
for correspondence or cohesion, and for ever-fleeing completion¡ (the ever-desired
¡®whole¡¯). If our knowledge is self-contradictory, constituted as such, over the
subject/object divide (or some other parallel or similarly functioning
opposition that represents a real abyss in our being) then thinking is as a
succession of ¡®moments¡¯ in a process oscillating around this divide¡ As the
awareness of the fictionality of ¡®eternity¡¯ (its truth-function) is put aside
for its use-function: its requirement to underwrite our most general and most
fundamental of concepts, intuitions and starting points¡
IV
And then there is
the reliance on eternity for foundations, beginnings, for concepts¡ As we see
in the avoidance of everyday lived time, or temporality, in Heidegger and
Bergson/Deleuze, in the lurch to metaphysical time... (again, not human
temporality nor scientific time: but one other, ¡®another time¡¯, deeper, more
fundamental¡). In effect a rational, or rationalised,
theory of time, beyond mere experience, so ¡®universal¡¯, the result of the
process; so ¡®real¡¯, ¡®eternal¡¯¡ Like the truths of Structuralism¡ and Plato¡¯s
forms (and like Romanticism and modern-day Nature First ideologies¡).
Temporality is elided for its shadow, brain function, ¡®eternity¡¯¡ so that all
may be ¡®put outside¡¯ as ¡®eternity¡¯ based¡ the shadow of temporality reversed¡ a
function of the brain projected ¡®outside¡¯ - this operation as definitive of
metaphysics. Perhaps all metaphysics (in the bad sense) is eternity based¡ (via
the necessary detour of reason¡). Religion is the direct appeal to belief in
Eternity and the entities dwelling ¡®there¡¯. Also (again via rationalism) all
ideology may be read as eternity-based (as appealing to ¡®what is natural¡¯, to
¡®Nature¡¯). Again, part of the role of ¡®Nature First¡¯ in intellectual, cultural
life; its history in all cultures and all philosophies.
Also found in
¡®the metaphysics of presence¡¯, as universal in implication, as best foundation,
as authentic, etc., complement to ¡®the rhetoric of eternity¡¯. Both part of the
excessive extrapolation from the sense of the present (the ¡®eternal present¡¯)
into ¡®eternal verities¡¯.
V
Below, some graphs
to help visualize the relationships discussed above.
First the place of
eternity in human temporality: on the left to right axis of the default global
arrow of time:
¡®Eternity¡¯ (outside/no-place)
>
Past (semi-present)
> (Eternal
Present/inside) > Future (semi-present) >
Dreams
(in and out)
Or in the format
of a semiotic square:
A B
present
past/future (in)
~A ~B/~~A dreams (in/out) eternity (out)
Or again in truth
table, format¡
The
four key terms of human temporality appear to fit neatly into the truth table
format¡ with their logical¡ equivalents?
From: ALL / / 1
SOME / x -
SOME x / -
NONE x x 0
If
EP (the Eternal Present) neither past, nor future. But containing both: f(x):
EP (pvf: if p, ~f; if f, ~p). Then:
To¡
Set
0 All EP ¡
Element1
2 Some past x
Element2 2 Some future x
¡®Out¡¯
(O) None ~T
Or¡ 0 / / z (such that¡
(2)
(2) 1b - / y(z) =in z
X - - ¡®out Z¡¯ =in z
Or¡
p f (past, future)
Presence
(P):
P P
All or 0 / / x^ y inclusive
(p/semi-presence) ~Px p1 Some 2 / x xvy
~Py p2 Some 2 x / yvx
~~P ~p None ~T x x ~x,~y
Plus
¡®Dream¡¯ (art and literary genre = Surrealism):
P >P ~P
(P=presence)
IN All in and ¡®out¡¯
P f,p ~P
(p=past)
¡° Some
} {ALL ^~
EP
f,p ~T
(temporal parts)
¡° Some ~~P
¡®out¡¯ None/~T = ~(~~P)
Such
that; ¡®out¡¯ (like ~T)
is
found IN (P).
*
Copyright Peter Nesteruk, 2020