A is for Absolute:
The Absolute was the ultimate reality according to the system of the German philosopher Hegel. Hegel continued a tradition, begun more than two thousand years ago by Greek philosophers like Plato, of using speculation to determine the ultimate nature of things.
Deductive reasoning will only allow you to deduce the proper relationship of the things you already know. Knowledge of new things requires the linkage of deductive reasoning to some kind of inductive hypothesis formation. There are basically four kinds of induction symbolized by Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.
Induction of the Earth type is tied to evidence and involves objective and measurable things of the sort studied by science. The other three forms of induction involve the immeasurable and the subjective. They extend our ideas from the finite realm of proof to the infinite realm of unproven possibility.
Air is metaphysical and involves speculations about the ideal, what Plato called “The Form of the Good.” Fire is artistic and involves the exploration of the novel and the revolutionary. Water is sentimental and involves fiction, drama, and romance. Between them lie the wild infinite, the aboriginal myths of dreamtime and the gods.
Our science based Western approach to the induction and deduction dance is quite on target with the finite.
B is for Becoming:
Science is a great set of techniques for exploring the public and particulate worlds of the finite and the statistical. It is worthless for exploring the infinite and infinitesimal, the subjective, the possible, the novel, the immeasurable depths of becoming that provide the wild ground in which the finite figures known to science emerge.
The Hindu “Darsanas,” the speculations of the Jains, the sutras of the Buddhists, Greek myth, Christian theology are all about the magic of the possible. The exploration of the possible requires techniques that are the exact opposite of those required for the inductive and deductive efforts used by science.
Science needs confirmation, experimental proof, accurate description. The exploration of the possible needs soaring imagination, creativity, speculation and conjecture, vision and dreams. Scientific truth is broken into local particles and space-time systems. The speculative magic is an unbroken dance of pure becoming. Its high gods are Yahweh (I become what I become), dancing Shiva, and the Yin-Yang Tao that generates the I Ching (Book of Changes from the Confucian canon).
It is my belief that Plato was correct in his vision of a “Form of the Good” that lights the way for all other patterns. It was my desire to capture this paradigm that could unite the untamed becoming of dreamtime with the tame becoming known to science.
C is for Cube:
I visualized a magical tetrahedron that converted itself to a cube and then to an octahedron and then combined the cube and octahedron in the form of a buried cube-pyramid that would emerge from the sands of time and becoming like the great pyramids of Egypt. The six sides of this cube would represent three axial oppositions of thesis to antithesis brought together in a cubic synthesis: infinitesimal or private or singular to normal or public or group, finite or part or many to infinite or whole or one, flux or fluid or energy to fixed or law or rule.
The center of this cube would represent the lowest level of organization. Gradually this cube would spread outward as it moved from quantum to proton to atom to molecule to cell to organism to tribe to civilization to industry to electronics to computers to robots to androids, to demons, to gods, to high gods that could begin the cycle all over with the generation of a new cube.
The magical cube is the ultimate pattern that orders all existence. It is the ultimate ideal that completes all other ideals. It is the ultimate whole that completes all other wholes. Because it is the ultimate whole, we can use it to see the hidden aspects of the visible world. By extending the cube from the visible that we can venture into invisible areas. We can discover the nature of the hidden possible that is the ground and source of the visible and actual.
By knowing the ideal, we can glimpse the ultimate, the completeness that is the holy.
D is for Dialectic:
Hegel believed that the ultimate synthesis possible could tell us something about the ground of being. The Hegelian dialectic was a vision of a series of progressive extensions of synthesis from thesis to antithesis to new and larger synthesis.
Plato believed that knowledge of the ultimate ideal gave us a vision of the “Form of the Good” that is the key to all other notions. The magic cube has elements of both Hegel and Plato.
Philosophies rooted in science reject the metaphysical theories of both Plato and Hegel. Science emphasizes the real world just as it is. Certainly the real world that emerges from the possible has nothing to do with the ideal and the ultimate. Knowledge of finite and measurable things must come through science.
Deductive reasoning is limited in what it can do. Inductive leaps must be made to generate the premises that deductive reasoning uses for its conclusions. Small leaps are appropriate when the subject is local and finite. Small leaps are not appropriate when the subject is the ultimate and the possible.
The local finite world must have a ground from which it emerges. The energy that winds down toward entropy in this universe must be wound up in something larger. Larger jumps are needed to develop notions of that entity.
F is for Finite:
A finite circle emerges from an infinity of infinitesimal sides that bend infinitesimally to emerge in one of many possible finite shapes. The average of these shapes gives us our common notion of a circle.
We measure the finite result of the infinity of infinitesimals, but the infinity and its infinitesimals cannot be measured outside of their finite shadows. The magic cube turns on its axis of the fixed at the antithesis of fixed (the flux pole). As it turns it moves from the infinite through the transcendent to the infinitesimal and the local. Then it moves through the points that are the antithesis of infinite, transcendent, infinitesimal, and local: the finite, the measurable, the public, the collective.
The infinitesimal is the singular, the private, the concentrated. Its polar opposite is the group, the public, the distributed. The infinite is the total, the whole, the final one. Its polar opposite is the quantum, the particulate, the broken, the finite. Each of these poles and their antithesis: fixed to flux, concentrated to distributed, finite to infinite, is one side of the magic cube. The ideal cube is the ultimate synthesis of these polarities of thesis to antithesis.
The basis thesis is given by science: quantum parts, relativistic space-time worlds, and thermodynamic flux. The antithesis of these is the infinite whole, the private infinitesimal singular (primary, private, essence), and the fixed (rule, law). This is the ideal synthesis.
G is for Good:
This ideal synthesis is the “Form of the Good.” It is extended into the magic cube along the private to public, whole to part, fixed to flux polarities. This ideal synthesis is one corner of the cube, one face of the octahedron that the cube converts into. The ideal is one face and the world of thermodynamic time and decay to entropy is its opposite.
Around the ideal are three subsidiary faces, or corners: order, analysis, and source. Around entropy are their antithetical opposites: open, mixture, and product.
This cube converts to an octahedron and to a tetrahedron. The tetrahedron has four faces: Air (ideal), Fire (open), Earth (product), and Water (mixture). It has four corners that are the opposites of the faces. Water to Salt (analysis), Air to Dust (entropy), Fire to Pottery (order), and Earth to Starlight (source).
This is the archetype, the tetrahedron, the octaheron-cube-burried pyramid that is the ideal of all ideals, the structure and system that begins all system. It is the pattern that unites all other patterns. It is the key to the law, the dharma, the li, the tao that lies behind all being and becoming.
According to this pattern, all things begin with the primitive monads of subjectivity, the jiva, the souls, the singular creative bits of nothingness that generate all visible things. These compound their own unique metaphysical systems that are source of all other metaphysical systems.
H is for Hypothesis:
Each kind of knowledge generates its own kind of deduction, its own kind of hypothesis: knowledge of the finite (science), of the infinite (religion and mythology), of the fixed (mathematics and logic), of flux (art and music), of the private (existential philosophy), of the public (sociology and education). The induction of the possible is not the same as the induction of the actual.
Science tells us about the world of fact. Religion and mythology explore the realm of the possible that is prior to the world of fact. Truths of the realm of the possible are all total and unbounded. The true God is a Yahweh-Elohim who becomes what he-she becomes: atheist, agnostic, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Neoconfucian, Animist, etc.
Artistic truth is all energy and motion just as mathematical truth is all reason and structure. Educational truth is public and social just as existential truth is private and lonely. No single pole can comprehend the whole. The whole is a Neoplatonic Hegelian Neotaoist Neoconfucian central harmony that is an ideal that is a synthesis of all antithetical extensions of the ideal.
The magical cube is a hypothesis about the an ideal whole that establishes rules and laws out of the primary essentials behind all being and becoming. It is a vision of a subjectivity that comprehends the infinite and the infinitesimal to generate an objectivity composed of the quantum and the space-time relative.
I is for Infinite:
Modern philosophy has used science as a means of exploring the infinite. That is a mistake. Scientific induction is about the finite and the finite alone. If you use parsimony to explore that ultimate you will discover only parsimony in the ultimate. If you examine the universe in a microscope you will see a microscopic universe.
Materialistic philosophy begs the question. To see the possible you must look for the possible. To see the infinite you must look for the infinite. Science Fiction provides a better window on the ultimate than actual science because it at least allows imagination into its hypotheses. In the end ancient mythology was a richer source of visions of the possible than any science based agendas of induction and experiment aimed at the endless whole (from which all local events emerge).
The problem with ancient mythology is that it became the tool of imperial religions. Imperial religions claim to be about holiness, but are actually about the extension and consolidation of imperial power. Imperial religions support imperial gods and dogmas. Catholic, Moslem, Confucian, Anglican, etc., their real goal is conquest rather than truth.
This is also true of the imperial Calvinism that supports the economic empire of Capitalist cities like Amsterdam and New Amsterdam (New York City).
Behind the imperial religions are personality disorders rather than the infinite: Borderline-Christian, etc.
E is for Evolution:
Evolution causes this cube to go through a progression: energy to particle to atom to molecule to cell to organism to tribe to city to industry to electronics to computers to robots to androids to biorobotic galaxies (demons) to supergalaxies (titans) to universes and universe complexes (gods-budhisattvas-creator-Elohim) that start new cycles of energy to particles. These titans and gods are finite beings. That is why the gods are always lower than the Buddhas of Buddhism and the Jivas of Jainism. Buddhas and Jivas may be infinitesimal souls, but these souls are rooted in the endless and infinite Nirvana-Sattva Guna.
Each soul is a creator, avatar god, demon, angel, bodhisattva, logos generating its own theology, its own unique metaphysics, its own mythology, its own subjective time system, its own eternity. There is an infinity of metaphysical systems, philosophical systems, mythological systems, magical systems, theological systems, immortal time systems because there are an infinity of Jiva monad souls. Each soul has its own eccentric way of attaching to the finite world, of tying its creative subjectivity to the quantum events and relativity of the thermodynamic world of evolution.
The high gods manipulate the metaphysical systems of the souls to control the quantum alternatives that materialize from quantum possibility, to control the universes that materialize in space-time relativity out of the potential of superspace and supertime. This results in astrology.
J is for Jiva:
The Jiva are concentrated subjectivity, concentrated creativity. The Jiva are infinitesimal. However, information is weightless. Hence, an infinity of infinity of infinity of information systems and complexes can be concentrated in an infinitesimal point. Through the eternity of its evolution, an infinitesimal singularity of creative subjectivity can concentrate the wisdom of an infinity of gods, can develop an infinity of ways of utilizing the endless possibilities from which it comes.
Materialistic philosophies that are tied to finite things that decay toward entropy, fail to appreciate the notion of the infinitesimal, fail to account for it, fail to understand that it cannot decay or die as finite things must die and decay, fail to comprehend that its ability to deform and pierce the endless makes it the logos, the creative agent, the prime mover, the only agent within the whole of the finite, infinite, and infinitesimal that is truly free.
The more powerful concentrations of information become the souls of humans or of demons, of gods. They attract other souls to their systems, causing eternal time threads to bend into quantum events and weaving relative space-time worlds out of quantum alternative possibility, just as the infinitesimal sides of the infinitely sided circle bend the circle out into a finite and measurable manifestation.
These systems generate astrological orders of soul attachment and detachment, of birth and rebirth.
K is for Karma:
“Karma” is a Sanskrit word meaning action. It is usually paired with the Sanskrit word “dharma” meaning law of justice. In Hinduism, the actions of an “atman” soul determine the karma it carries over from its previous life and where the dharma law of justice will cause it to be born in the next life. The Vedanta discipline of Hindu darsana (enlightenment) philosophies is based on writings called the “Upanishads” that teach that each atman soul is a piece of the greater “Brahman.” Buddhism calls this ultimate oneness “Nirvana, which the soul enters at the Buddha point, the enlightenment that causes it to discover its nothingness in the ocean of the beyond. Jainism calls the soul a “Jiva” and emphasizes different kinds of karma. Tamas guna is karma that attaches the jiva to the finite world. Rajas guna attaches the jiva to the endless flux that turns the wheel of dharma. Sattva guna frees the jiva from these attachments.
Each soul generates its own metaphysics, its own private time system. This system is its “karma.” The way a karma system attaches to the larger system of the world, the government established by the ruling souls of a world (or universe) complex, and the magical cube is its dharma, its relationship to the larger order. The result is the nativity, the horoscope, the astrology of a soul. Since each soul is unique, has a unique karma, astrology has a completely different meaning for each soul. Thus, there can be no public science of astrology, of karma, of dharma. There can be no perfect or complete religion, theology, etc.
L is for Life:
The infinitesimal endlessly attaches to the finite and is overcome by the finite and merges with the finite. Yet, the finite is mortal and breaks apart. It ages and dies and the soul is set free. The soul attaches to a body, lives a life, dies, attaches to a new life. The pattern it follows in doing this is determined by its karma and the way that karma interacts with the dharma order, the astrological order that underlies a universe.
There can be no science of astrology because the soul has existed for an eternity and has stored an infinite amount of information in its infinitesimal speck of subjectivity. The creative subjectivity of each soul is unique and generates its own utterly separate order of being that is unrepeatable and hence not available for public study or explanation.
Subjectivity is the reverse of objectivity. From the standpoint of the world of science, the soul is nothingness; it is an infinitesimal rip in the cosmology of the objective world. Because it is nothingness to the world, the Buddhists call it nonexistent. The enlightenment of the soul is its connection to Buddhamind, to Nirvana, its discovery that its power lies not in attachment to the finite but to infinite possibility.