An essay elaborating on the necessary but empty concept of "I-ness", the genesis of the perception of soul, and the obliteration of the synthetic Self in favor of the opaque but all-embodying World.
1.
We do not reject the inner workings of the soul, but only deny
of the phantasy of an inner-world capable of inference and deduction.
2.
The world as we perceived can only be under of sensible
qualities, instead of intellectual. And it is from these sensible qualities, a
unity that we call as body can be deduced. And only from this united
convergence [body] can divergences in reference to it can legitimately drawn upon.
3.
The faults of psychological inner world is by at least two ways;
1) its belief that it can gain knowledge (and thus forming deductions) from
intellectual qualities, or 2) it believed that it possessed an inner
convergence where it can draw inferences from.
4.
But, as the only way for us to know our body is only through
sensible qualities, instead of intellectual, the inner workings of the psyche
in forming an inner-body is indubitable false.
5.
Inference can only be drawn from perceivable data that our
sensibility can pick up, and for this it requires a fixed border and
demarcation from one specific data to another.
6.
If such border were not present, than everything would fall into
a discordant unity and then inevitably, nothingness. For, it is the border between
data that give rise into specificities, and it is from these specificities our
sensibility can pick up the existence of one or more existence.
7.
The inner-workings of mind, utilising only the after-images of
sensible pictures from outside can yield no knowledge, but only circular
ruminations. It tried to expand itself from an empty yet necessary concept of
“I” into an individual and dynamic “I”. But this individual ego, as we said,
can only be realised from the specificities born from the external world. In
other words, the “I” as soon as it escaped the boundaries of material world,
precipitated into a universal and united “I” with no borders and identity. The
only way for this “I” to at least attach new colours to it is by appealing to
memories, and memories are after all, a mere repository of sensible datum. Thus
the best way to understand the heart of a serial killer is not a probing inside
his mind, but at the traces he left in his wake.
8.
This “I”, as we said, is a necessary concept but empty.
Necessary, in terms that; it provides form and a pole for the content to flow
into. Without form, no material can register upon our sensibility. For an
example, a sentence without “I” vaporised into nothingness, without aim,
hanging in air. It has no pole to latch into, and escaped into nothingness it
originated. Yet, this I, for an example, the “I” used by the narrator in novels
stand firstly for the narrator, yes, and so display an individual character.
But if this “I” of the narrator is so individual and unique, no one can
understand the passage, or even understand the content of the sentence. But,
nevertheless, this “I” can also be understood by everybody who is literate; it
displays an illusion of uniqueness by appealing to the one who writes, but at
the very fundamental, this I is the only way he can use to make himself
comprehensible to everyone, and ironically, also to himself. And so, it is also
empty for anybody can fit into this “I”, in terms of understanding its
function. Descartes’ “I” which he claimed to be the sole existence of the
concreteness of experience of the individual is false and contradictory. For the
“I” is a necessary concept in understanding, but not necessarily in actuality.
We can also imagine the Martian, the sloth, the Devil spoke with their own
“I”-ness, but this doesn’t add even an iota to their actuality. Descartes’ “I”
can only be both actual and existed, if this “I” can somehow obtain physical
datum which this “I” can latch into. In other words, the "I" is an illusion of the universal playing to be individual.
9.
And so, the “I” is a necessary concept. To deny this is to be
absurd. But we have explained that this “I” is neither unique nor specialised.
The only way for this “I” to be me, you or anybody specific is if it can appeal
to physical datum that converged into the pole of the “I-ness”.
10.
And so, what of the colourful inner world we framed around this
“I-ness”? It is a beautiful world indeed, but nevertheless useless in forming
inferences or new knowledge. It is not even capable of producing analytical
knowledge for itself, for analytical must be of itself, and this “I” has
already achieved complete analytical knowledge when every sane man pick it up
knowing it as an essential concept. Why the fact that it is empty escaped from
many people mind, I know not. But there can be no further extension analytical
knowledge of the “I” other than itself. The “I” is the most complete analytical
knowledge we can ever have. It is opaque and itself circular upon itself.
11.
What’s left for the function of this “I”? Is this “I” is in fact
the soul? This I know not. The expansion and fallacy of bestowing this empty
“I” with extensions has muddled everything. Scepticism running rampant and can
only be countered by unfortunately radicalism, for the proponent of psychological extension
cannot appeal from anything other than, paradoxically the analogy of the
external world. I have heard one who tried to explain the Prophet’s ascension
by using the analogy of a fish who had spent his lifetime in the river but one
day are transported outside in a water bowl. He was brought to explore the other
world and then returned to its habitat. It tried to explain all those wonderful
things he had seen but inevitably, no one believed him. While this narration
certainly wonderful, but it shows nothing other than a chimera in trying to
prove the existence of [an individual] soul, one is even prepared to transpose the entire world
with it. It demanded for a water bowl to able to infer an immortal soul capable
of knowing other worlds/ sensible qualities while retaining its individuality.
This duplication of world, or imagining of multiple world, only make thing
worse by instilling doubt to the existence of the external world. If this world
can be transposed into another one by a Creature, than is this world even real?
Not only it failed to explain why the soul remain individual (it only showed
that as long as there is possibility of physical datum, the convergence still
can occur), it now raises doubt to the very foundation one being is at first to
be known! Aren’t the Holy Book expressed these conflicts by an express
proclamation, that only He understood the business of the soul?
12.
Is it possible for this empty concept of to be expanded, forming
what we called as personality? Personality betrays a flavour of fundamentality in
its application, but from where we know of this personality? I know that I am
lazy because I do nothing to complete my work. I do not know that I am lazy
from an essential supra-natural urge of laziness, for this is absurd. This
personality then is synthetic rather than essential knowledge. It is a
synthesis of physical datum converged and process upon the pole of convergence.
It then materialise synthetically to form this nuclei of individuality, the
cognizant cogniser. The "I" then advances from an essential yet nonindividual
concept to a personalised concept, that is the cognizant cogniser. When we read
out loud the passages of a novel that uses a first point of view narration, all
of the audience can sympathise and understand that this I fit into everybody
who listened, but when the reader called upon a name, say, Ali, then this
unique Ali answered the call. This Ali, is what we call as a cognizant
cognizer. What makes a cognizant cognizer? First, it requires to be placed in a
world that he can gain cognition, i.e only in a physical world which this
cognizer can be cognizant of the inputs impressing upon him. Secondly, it
requires a convergence of physical datum that it can gain peculiarness distinct
from other distinct objects. Thirdly, it requires a synthesis to set this
pattern of convergence fixed into its cognition space, i.e. consciousness. This
consciousness that we always call upon our essence of being, is an essential
concept for a convergence to become a materialized nuclei. Without this
synthesis, there would be no convergence and thus no subject. The cognizer is a
cognizer because it have the power of synthesis. It is cognizant for it is
placed in a world that it can gain cognition of the impression. Without these
three requirements, everything would break apart into a silence and total
obliteration.
13.
How can this transcendental "I" advanced into a unique cognizant?
In other words, how could we gain consciousness? This would be a ridiculous
question as equal in asking how the soul inserted into the body. Both
consciousness, I, soul, body is a plethora of synthetic concept, that is
essential in gaining any cognition. It is a priori knowledge that already set
in place for one to be here at all. The same as we can answer that the ball
falls down to earth due to gravity, but what is gravity we can never answer at
all. But observe that the difference between "I" and this cognizant cognizer is
the presence of the process of synthesis. The "I" in the public reading was left,
in a way, hanging in the air, registered in sensibility but lack the synthesis.
We are not capable of synthesising this transcendent "I" into an individual
cognizer for it would be redundant. In registering the phenomena of public
reading as conscious, we already had performed the synthesis, resulting in the
context of the World, a planting in the World. And that is why, the synthesis
is not and are not required to be performed at the "I", for the World has already
planted.
14.
The World, or the context, the planting is the immediate result
of the synthesis. Rather than providing a material pole of self, the synthesis
would instead produce a World. And that is why, we gain cognition of the world
as in-World, rather than out-World. We are here inside the world, in perfect
unity with it rather than gaining cognition form it form outside of it, like an
astronomer gain cognition of the sky through the lens and the distance of a
telescope. The sense of traditional self is totally obliterated/absent in our
cognition of the world, a total integration has occurred. The constellation pf
physical datum is set fixed in place by synthesis, as the firmament stood
silent and the world became calm, the World is then formed.
15.
I am conscious of all of this philosophizing would not dissolve
the notion of soul inside all of us. Kant said that whenever he closed his eye
and try to search for this concept that we called as soul, he only stumbled
upon something but he can’t get anything else from it. The notion of soul, so
sharp , crisp and all embodying a concept is so appealing to us. Our demonstration of the highest
peak of individual consciousness, i.e. the World is after all ended with a
broad base, an opaque end. This of course is not satisfying for the enterprising
soul. From 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 then there must be a 1, this exasperation of a
single and sharp end of infinity is innate in every of us. After all, this
force of unity might be one of the many laws of nature. But whether an
individual soul existed or not, in the form of material, we can never
determine. It is wholly a metaphysical debate, and if there’s any advantages
from the debate, we can never gain for it, for the goods of metaphysical hold
value only in the metaphysical world, like a currency of one nation only
possess value in that country not from other. In this physical world, the
culmination of what can we call as the soul ends with the conception of the
World. To march further, where can we go? And more importantly, for what?
