Amerika

Many of us wander into the metaphysical realm through transcendence. That is, we look at this world of war and death, disease and pain, and note also that somehow it ended up being quite beautiful with a type of spiritual joy at the center of our experience, once we filter out the glitches and boredom.

That means that life has, well, a beauty at its core, which implies that something is organizing that beauty from afar, as if our world was one manifestation among many. I like to think of the old “Model-View-Controller” model from CS/IT where you have data, it can be viewed through multiple models, and there is a logic shared between all of those.

In other words, you have Platonist monism. Somewhere out there is a wider reality, our reality is one view of that data, and all of it obeys the same rules. This clashes with materialism, which denies the metaphysical, and dualism, which asserts different logical rulesets for the physical and metaphysical.

As Plato pointed out, causes tend to be complex patterns that produce effects that are simpler than that pattern; for this reason, what we see in our physical reality is likely the result of a far more complex pattern that is invisible to us, which suggests that it exists in the realm of logic, idea, or the metaphysical (and perhaps, these are one).

German Idealism found the same thing: reality seems to have a ground which is thought-like or thought-correlative, more than purely physical “randomness” of the properties of substances interacting. Something existed before matter that created a situation where matter makes sense and is necessary, and matter exists in parallel to that something.

Why might this model be helpful? Pure data or thought would tend to branch rapidly with conjectural offshoots and experiments, so it needs to have various areas where it can be instantiated and tested, sort of like physical reality does with natural selection or even experimental science.

In other words, not only is this a possible model, but it is the most logical optimum model and therefore, the most likely model for the universe. Setting aside the absurdities of Buddhism and Abrahamism, the pagan monist model provides the most comprehensible explanation for both a metaphysical existence, and physics itself!

Our hearts are bitter because we live in fear. First we fear as small mortal animals, next as egos battered by social situations and the ultra-tedious procedurism of modern existence. We find it hard to accept that the beauty that seems hidden under the rotting leaves might in fact be the dominant principle of our universe.

But if you close your eyes for a few minutes and think of nothing, feel nothing, and react to nothing, you can sense an inner balance and center to existence. There is a joy there in existing, making choices, being alive… and nothing can compare to this.

Consider with your new eyes how amazing our physical existence is. The multiplicity of plants and creatures, the natural beauty of our world, the amazing things we can think and create, even the perfection of simple joys. When you peel back our human negativity, this world stands revealed as amazing and even motivated toward excellence and beauty.

Now ask yourself… if this world is so mindblowing, once we get past our negativity, is there any reason to think the excellence stops at the limits of physicality? That would implicate a divinity, or at least benevolence, to the universe and the possibility (at least) of some continuation in another form after death.

When you key your mind to the negativity of life, you see more negativity; when you key to the positive, you see the possibility and in fact likelihood that things are better than you think. Since life is a balance between the positive and negative, it makes sense to key into neither, but to ignore neither either.

Our world betrays however a commitment in its balance of negative-positive. It aims to produce a final result of goodness, and the product of this is a mindblowing, beautiful reality. We have no logical reason to assume that this is the end of the beauties of life or its possibilities.

Tags: german idealism, materialism, metaphysical dualism, metaphysics, model view controller, monism, plato, platonism, transcendental idealism