Transcendence of Systems and Views: Ineffability and Enlightenment

Before I embark on this essay, I want to take a short detour and suggest a pat answer to that most difficult of questions—how does one define the self? I consider the self to be defined by our perceptions, ideas, and explanatory systems that we use to organize those ideas. In this way of self, we are quite literally identical to our worldviews—the ego, self, “I”, or self-consciousness is identical to a way, however simple, of seeing the world, along with all related biases, incites, superstitions, deductions, etc. To put it another way, observer and the observer’s perception are one. I am not going to further any argument to say why you should accept this definition of self—the definition is merely offered in hopes that it can make some of the claims about ego later in the essay more understandable.

I think that one of the biggest obstacles to our understanding of the world is that, to put it simply, the world is bigger than we are. What do I mean by this? Since we are considering “we” and “I” to be identical to our particular ways of observing the world, I mean that the real world contains more information than the systems that we use to explain and describe it. It seems to me, at least, that no matter what way I look at the world, I find out that the world is not, in fact, quite the way I looked at it. A question immediately comes to mind. How can one find out what the world is really like then?

One way that people attempt to find out what the world is really like is by allowing their worldviews (i.e. explanatory systems) to “expand”, or increase in generality without loss of accuracy. One can “expand” one’s world through reason, reading, conversation, etc. I realize that what I mean by “expanding” a world is still very very vague, and I will have to rely in part of your intuition on what it means to have a “big” view of the world. Again, I consider a “bigger” view of the world to be a view that is more general, but without loss of accurately. So, a world could be expanded by philosophy or science. In the case of science, one comes up with ever more general rules describing patterns we perceive in events. In the case of philosophy, one comes up with different ways of organizing and interpreting our knowledge of the world. Philosophers start with observation of the physical world, and come up with general logical relations between different facets of the world. For example, philosophy may examine the relationship between mind and body. Are they the same substance (Materialism, monism)? Different substances (substance dualism)? Are mental properties merely a byproduct of the physical (epiphenomenalism)? Even if one never does figure out the way that mind and body relate to one another, I think that one’s worldview is expanded by philosophy just by virtue of knowing the different alternatives.

The problem is that no matter how much one expands one’s world; there are still elements that do not mesh with that worldview. For an example of how even an extremely complex and sophisticated worldview can fail to reflect the world in all its complexity, consider the example of Einstein. I consider Einstein to have had one of the “biggest” views of things of any human who ever lived, insofar as he realized deep scientific truths and had some fascinating perspectives on philosophy of religion as well. Yet, the real world proved to be even stranger than this intellectual titan imagined it to be. While Einstein supposed that the world was entirely deterministic, that all events of past, present and future were suspended in an infinite and unbroken chain of cause and effect, the developing field of quantum mechanics flatly contradicted his worldview with results just as conclusive as those that supported relativity. Einstein was most likely wrong in thinking the universe to be entirely deterministic. So, regardless of how smart one may be, it seems to be true that one cannot apprehend reality with complete accuracy

What would it be like to really know reality? Perhaps know is the wrong word. “Know” seems to presuppose a system, a particular vantage point of perception, and I believe that systems are, by their explanatory nature, different than the things that they describe. To really “get” reality would be to reach out and grasp the thing itself, so to speak. One would have to transcend all systems and all ways of seeing things in order to grasp reality directly. Does this sound familiar? You guessed it—Zen Buddhism; the abandonment of all ways of thinking in order to grasp the world intuitively.

If one were to transcend all systems, I believe it would naturally follow (as Buddhists would most likely agree) that one would need to abandon the ego. The ego, or self, consists of part of the world standing in a certain relation to the whole. According to the definition of self I offered in my first paragraph, the ego is identical to its view of the world, and is thus itself a system. I don’t believe that anything like a self can exist without a system, vantage, or viewpoint from which the world is perceived. It is, of course, contradictory to say that there is a system which transcends all systems, and if my definition of the self has any truth to it, then it is contradictory to say that an ego can transcend all systems. To transcend all systems, becoming “enlightened” so to speak, one would need to transcend the ego as well (whatever that means).

Ha! As long as I’m indulging myself in pseudo-philosophy, I might as well make my night complete and indulge in pseudo-mathematics while I’m at it. I sometimes think of systems and their transcendence to be analogous to the search for totality in mathematics. A result in set theory discovered by a mathematician named Cantor is that there is no set of all sets. It’s also true that there is no set of all groups, and no set of all mathematical structures. If my definition of ego is correct, then I think that the ego can be considered as analogous to a set. In the same way that a set is completely defined by its elements, the ego is completely defined by its constituent ways of viewing the world. In the same way that set’s are ill equipped to handle totality, I believe that the ego is ill equipped to transcend all ways of viewing the world to intuitively grasp reality.

I associate the ineffable with the fact that the transcendence of all systems is not something that can be talked about, strictly speaking. To talk about something, one must use words, and the function of words is to outline systems, ways of seeing the world. The transcendence of all systems is not something that can be talked about with tools that can only be used to describe things that have not transcended systems. There are places that you cannot go with language. Of course, one now runs into a paradox similar to one found in Wittgenstein’s work Tractatus Logico Philosophicus—despite the fact I say that one can’t talk about the transcendence of all systems, I do seem to be talking about the transcendence of systems an awful lot, don’t I? Personally, I feel that the fact that this paradox arises exemplifies what I’m trying to get across—that words have limits, especially as concerns efforts to transcend all particular ways of viewing the world.

I’m done with my essay now. Some comments on my own essay—I’m not convinced. I created this and shared it because I thought it was interesting and hoped it would provoke discussion, but I wonder if it isn’t too vague to have any truth to it. It’s quite possible that my definition of the self is unsatisfactory (as I said, I didn’t consider any arguments for or against adopting this definition). Things also may begin to go awry at the very moment that I start talking about “transcendence of systems”—I’m not sure that the concept is coherent. In any case, even if you didn’t completely understand it (I know I don’t!) I hope you find this essay of some interest.