How Things Work: A Brief History of Reality
#39. Knowledge, Understanding, and Meaning: Accessing Book Two
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Tuesday, July 12, 2022
“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”
– Nelson Henderson
CONSIDERATION #39: “Knowledge, Understanding, and Meaning”
PREFACE
Welcome Everybody!
The original idea behind the “How Things Work” series was to incorporate and synthesize the critical things necessary for understanding the long evolution of human reality into three books. Book One, Dualism, was originally written to be the introduction of the first book. However, after reaching more than eighty pages I realized the undertaking was a little more ambitious than I had first thought. I decided to break up the “first book” into three books. Therefore, Book One, Dualism, is really the introduction for the next two books. It provides the necessary background for moving into the more elaborate and complex questions we are about to encounter and consider. All three books are now available in One Volume, as originally intended.
“In Hegelian terminology, Book Two provides the foundation for synthesizing the thesis of religion, with its antithesis, science.”
The Second Book, The Power of Three, is essentially the “meat and potatoes” of Volume One. It is the second, and largest section, of the three part Volume. It follows the development of modern science through Einstein’s Relativity Theories and Quantum Mechanics, while also exploring the Biblical Narrative responsible for manifesting the West’s Judeo-Christian tradition. In Hegelian terminology, Book Two provides the foundation for synthesizing the thesis of religion, with its antithesis, science.
Book One focuses on reason and recognition. Recognition representing the first step toward knowledge. Book Two focuses on reason and understanding. By the end of Book Two you will be able to recognize the knowledge behind both arguments, understand the reasoning behind both arguments, and begin to see the possible unity, or synthesis, between the apparently incongruent arguments.
CONSIDERATION #39 – Knowledge, Understanding, and Meaning (Transition to Book Two)
“Life is without meaning. You bring meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.”
– Joseph Campbell
It seems somewhat ironic to use the introduction of Book Three, The Enigmatic Mystery, as a transition into Book Two, The Power of Three. However, it appears very appropriate to where we are at this point right now. It helps to establish where we are going in the next phase of our odyssey, by introducing the essential triad of human experience. It helps to establish a roadmap for exploring the possible highways of enlightenment leading to our final destination, Unity.
Introduction to Book Three: “The Enigmatic Mystery – Transcending the Duality of Science & Religion”
Human beings have often been described as “meaning making machines” by psychologists and others who study human behavior. We recognize patterns and want to understand why they occur. We come to understand those patterns and want to know how we can use them to make predictions about the world. We combine thought with those predictions to produce complete systems of understanding based on logic and reason. This obsession with gaining more knowledge, more understanding, and more meaning in our lives has led to the creation of science and technology far beyond the imagination of our ancestors.
“Recognition is the foundation of knowledge.”
The first step in gaining meaning is recognition. Recognition is connected to the question “what?” What is this? What are its characteristics? What makes it different, or unique, from other things? Duality represents this first step. Human beings are capable of recognizing patterns of existence that become the foundation for inquiry and investigation. What are these patterns? What patterns are consistent and what patterns are not? Are there connections between these patterns? What are these connections? Is there a pattern between these new connections? Recognition is the foundation of knowledge. Duality makes recognition, or distinction, possible. Seeking to gain more knowledge leads to the next question, “how?”
“As we begin to think and reason about the patterns of existence it brings us a greater understanding of how the process of existence works.”
Once something is recognized as a pattern, we want to know how that pattern works. What is the mechanism causing these patterns and how does it work? Once we recognize something of unique interest, we want to understand it. We want to know more about it. However, this kind of knowledge requires a new perspective that allows for an expansion of inquiry involving reason, or what we sometimes call thinking. As we begin to think and reason about the patterns of existence it brings us a greater understanding of how the process of existence works. We can even change, or become part of, that process if we want to. Understanding how patterns work is the essential purpose of science. How does gravity work? How do atoms combine to form matter? How can light have the qualities of both waves and particles? How did the universe begin? These questions lead to the ultimate question related to meaning, “why?”
“Ultimately, God reflects the experience of our relationship with the universe.”
Once something is recognized and understood, we naturally move to the existential question of why it is the way it is. Why do things exist and why do events occur? Why was the universe created? Why was I created? These are the questions of purpose posed by theology and religion. They are questions related to meaning. Meaning infers relationship. Traditionally, God has been considered the First Cause in this relationship. Ultimately, God reflects the experience of our relationship with the universe. This divine recognition of meaning transcends our understanding of the universe into a mystical experience of becoming one with the universe. Meaning is not an answer to a question, it is an experience that transcends the question. Meaning surpasses knowledge; meaning is existential.
POSTSCRIPT
We are now at a point where both Science and Religion are essentially competing to give us that meaning we have always been searching for. Both now offer a transcendental view of what we historically have considered to be our “ultimate” reality. Is the meaning they both seek possibly the same? Are they essentially attempting to achieve the same goal? Are science and religion merely two different fingers pointing at the same moon? How did the two most influential systems of thought, originally based on the same physics and metaphysics, become such bitter enemies? Is the chasm between Science and Religion really as wide as it appears? Can Science and Religion be synthesized into a new understanding of meaning? These are some of the main considerations in Book Two: The Power of Three.
From one, two. From two, three. From three, one again.
From duality and trinity; to unity.
From God; to God.
Next week we begin Book Two: “The Power of Three – Transcending the Duality of Science & Religion.”
P.P.S.
Excerpt from Tomorrow’s Final Free Podcast!
“The starting point for understanding physical reality is the five senses that interpret that Reality. Our “physical” senses serve as the doorways to our perceptions, which we have traditionally interpreted as the “real” world. This is important to understand. The consequences of misinterpreting or misunderstanding our perception of the “objective” world is a matter of life and death. Our physical senses were designed to warn us against the dangers in the physical world, which are definitely very real. The five senses of taste, touch, sight, hearing, and smell represent the essential tools of survival in the “real” world. To ignore them risks being immediately ejected from the physical world of Reality. Our relationship with the world of the senses reflects our first, and primary, relationship with what we would come to call Reality.
In addition, the five physical senses manifest a common experience of Reality for essentially all human beings. Baring a physical disability, I see the same thing you do. We generally agree on things like “blue and red” “sweet and salty,” “pain and pleasure,” “solid and liquid,” “heavy and light,” “cold and hot,” “visible and not visible,” etc. In fact, if you do not see what “everybody else” sees it is generally considered a sign of mental instability. It is our five senses that allow us to agree on things related to the physical world. Our senses verify the validity of an objective physical Reality. They are what allow us to interact with it, and each other. They are the essential factors that enable us to recognize the water, or reality, that we are swimming in.
Recognition is the first step in understanding. The recognition of patterns, such as opposites, is made possible through the five senses. The ability to share this commonly recognized reality is also a by-product of the five senses. The process of recognizing patterns, sharing that recognition, considering what it means, and then testing those considerations through the discovery of additional patterns that support them, is the foundation of empirical science. Science is the inevitable result of our investigation into the reality of the objective physical world as interpreted and understood through the five senses. It reflects the reality we encounter and confront through those physical senses. Commonly known as, the Real world.
To deny your physical senses, is to deny physical reality. And there are severe consequences for such denial.”
Excerpt: “Untangling the Knots of Reality” Podcast Four: The Physical World of the Five Senses (Final Free Download Tomorrow)
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