The unforgettable fire

“Unity can only be manifested by the Binary.
Unity and the idea of Unity are already two.”
 ~ Siddharta Gautama

 

A word, before we delve into the very simplest sort of numerology, about my avatar. I fell in love with this design many years ago because of its symbolism. It may not be immediately apparent, but the avatar depicts a fiery phoenix, wings outspread, against a backdrop of flame. To me, at least, with the eye of faith, it also depicts the taijitu of the Taoists. These are both symbols of unity and opposition; Cusanus would recognize his coincidentia oppositorum and be glad. That the symbols are themselves the products of wholly different cultures, using wholly different representations, yet conveying the same meaning, makes this synthesis of the phoenix and the taijitu especially pleasing to me: a coincidence of coincidences, and therefore a Gateless Gate.

For me, the expression ‘Gateless Gate’ has a particular meaning associated with transcendence as I defined it before. I’d suggested that the subjective realm is essentially ‘walled off’ from the objective realm, but that two subjectives can be connected by an intersubjective ‘bridge’ – it follows, although this was not stated, that the intersubjective entity makes not only a bridge but a doorway at both ends: it opens the mind it reaches, but only in a limited fashion and only into the objective realm. Nevertheless, such doorways in this model afford us an analogy to the qualitatively different doorways that must connect all realms within the transcendent, which relates to the ideal in the same way as the objective relates to the subjective. The Gateless Gate is the opening of the ideal – of the extrapolation of the intersubjective appreciation of the property-relation matrix – upon the transcendent.

It is very important to understand that Gateless Gates, in this model, are the only links to the transcendent. It is impossible to pass into transcendence save through a Gateless Gate. We should also note that the Gateless Gate is strictly abstracted from either property or relation – our idea of the Gateless Gate, necessarily tethered to property and relation and so to the world, cannot be the Gateless Gate itself. Indeed, the Gateless Gate cannot in any way partake of any property of Gate as we understand that term, neither can it bear any relation to Gate as we understand it: this is why the Gate is Gateless, and why we cannot approach it from within the edifice of our Reason. Nevertheless, the Gateless Gate is universal: the transcendent is perpetually immanent upon the subjective.

The Phoenix recounted in legends by Herodotus and Ovid was a mythical firebird: a creature born in flames that lived 500 years and then immolated itself only to re-emerge from the flame. Herodotus tells us that the newborn Phoenix conveyed the ashes of its father to Heliopolis; Ovid remarks that the newborn Phoenix, uniquely among all the Earth’s creatures, is its father remade. It can be seen from these expressions of the Phoenix that it represents both the unity of Life and Death, and the unity of Self with Other.

The Taijitu (which, roughly translated into English, means “diagram of ultimate power”) originated in China, and represents the twin forces of Yin and Yang. Formed by the exact division of a circle into equal parts black and white, entwined around one another like two fishes, the taijitu shows us that there is light in darkness; and, in darkness, light. The complementary elements are necessary and essential to the whole, but inviolate. Yin is never yang, and never without yang; yin without yang would be a mirror without reflection. From the interactions of yin and yang emerge the Five Phases of qi: fire, earth, water, wood, and metal.

Within the context of a symbol that unites the Phoenix and the Taijitu, it may or may not be interesting to observe that there exists within Chinese mythology a bird analogous to the Phoenix: the Fenghuang is itself a unity of the male Feng bird, and the female Huang bird. Moreover, it Is a union of all birds in one bird, and so a representative restatement of Borges’ Argumentum Ornithologicum. It is considered the feminine counterpart to the masculine Dragon in Chinese mythology: the All-in-One, as opposed to the One-in-All.

Bridge to nowhere

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion
that it has taken place.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

 

A word is a representation. Our language has syntax and grammar, and a lexicon of defined words which are themselves ordered arrangements of representative letters; this is a very flexible representative construct, but we can more generally identify a class of entities which exist not only as things-in-themselves but also as representations of other things. These symbols may exist subjectively or objectively, but they are translatable from the subjective to the objective realms and back again. They therefore have the capacity to transcend subjectivity, to communicate the subjective world of one mind-artist to that of another mind-observer. They are intersubjective.

What I am writing here, with these words, is an expression of my subjective world. Every word I use has an objective existence as pixels on a screen, and you can observe them with your eye; but every word you read and understand generates within your Cartesian theater some subjective entity, and the arrangement of all of the words allows you the freedom to arrange your own subjective version of the world I'm expressing. Your world may not be the same as mine - indeed, I'm about to argue below that it cannot be, and we'll later develop that argument into a powerful teleological principle that I call parasimplicity - but it exists for you the way mine exists for me, and the words we're sharing now are the bridge between those worlds. Intersubjectivity expresses the connection between two subjective realms, and makes explicit the relation between Artist and Observer alluded to before. In this formulation, communication is literally an Art.

The expression that "communication is an art," in ordinary parlance, connotes a certain degree of skill incumbent upon us when we intend to share some aspect of our subjective reality with some other objective being. It draws our attention to the real risk that what we convey when we produce some intersubjective expression is not, after all, what we intended to convey. The old parlor game "Chinese Whispers" demonstrates how this risk arises at both ends of the communicating 'bridge' - indeed, the more people there are intersubjectively sharing an idea, the greater this cumulative risk becomes.

We can posit a maximum number of observers who can effectively share an idea without corrupting it for at least one of the group, but for right now let's leave that to one side - another unconsidered trifle, so to speak. Let's instead consider what is going on when we establish the intersubjective connection: when, for example, you read something I have written.