On Lights

Hi guys,

As most of my current writings focused on book reviews, I'm thinking to upload posts of the better ones here. Algazel's "the Niche of Light" still sent shivers in me every time I think about the book. It is a single book which beauty could only be matched by the likes of Spinoza's Ethics. Nevertheless, this is a special post requested by my lover to elucidate more on the concept of Platonian ideas. We had a deep discussion regarding divine will and predestination (qadha and qadar) yesterday night and we stuck in a rut regarding my statement in "ON REALITY". So, here's hoping a more orthodox elucidation by Algazel can help us more in our discussion. 

p.s. To my lover (you're basically the only one who visits this blog), I appreciate our late-night discussion on things. With you, I love both the sweet, and the heavy stuffs too. 

To tell you the truth, all the time I was reading or even contemplating upon the subject of the book, my heart flutters. The heart flutters to and fro, between the sad realisation of ignorance and the excitement for discovering something new. Algazel's Misykat al-Anwar is one of his best writings, set to expound a verse in the Quran that so dense, it perplexed everybody who read it.

Now, aside from the pretty shite printing quality (but I have to opt for the cheapest edition, so the fault's on me) and the (high-browed) Orientalistic introduction, I have no qualms whatsoever with this book. The book set to expound a verse from the Quran, from the Chapter of the Light;

"Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth; a likeness of His light is as a niche in which is a lamp, the lamp is in a glass, (and) the glass is as it were a brightly shining star, lit from a blessed olive-tree, neither eastern nor western, the oil whereof almost gives light though fire touch it not – light upon light – Allah guides to His light whom He pleases, and Allah sets forth parables for men, and Allah is Cognizant of all things."

Now as you can see the verse is so dense with symbolism and what not, it almost impossible to make sense of it in the first read. And here's where Algazel came into the spotlight.

He started of by expounding what is really meant by Light. He gave us three cases; 1) the things which aren't visible to themselves, nor they make other visible, these are the dark bodies, 2) the things that are visible to others, but they do not make other visible, these are the luminaries such as stars and 3) the things that are both visible to others and make other visible themselves, and this is what is meant by Light, in the truest sense.

Now even this definition of Light is held by the Many. Even among the Many, they still confused. When they saw a meadow full of green, they said "That is nothing but the color green". But think for a moment. Does green visible by itself? Surely not. It was made visible by the Light, which we already agreed are those that it itself is visible and make others visible too. And this understanding that there can't be anything visible without the one who sees, is what Light means among the Few.

But think again. Algazel gave us 7 defects of the light as understood by physical sign, which is not present in the Intelligence. Intelligence, by Algazel term, is also a type of Light, as we shall see why. The eye perceives the exterior part of a thing, but the intelligence breaks through its mold and frame; it discovers the thing's secrets, elicit their causes and laws, their origin, their formation, their characteristics, so on and so forth. Think of how a cube nevertheless seem to be made by one surface, while the Intelligence can know that it is not thus; it is a three dimensional item with 4 sides (which the physical sense alone can never grasp). These are what the Light means, as understood by the Few of the Few.

Now, we are ready to understand on where causality ends. To offer an example by Schopenhauer, scientific knowledge could offer us description, but never the origin. It somehow resembled the comic scene where an uninvited group of guests came visiting for a party. When asked who are they, they replied that they are this-and-that family, living in this village, this is my wife, and this is my children, so on and so forth. Alright, that is all fine and dandy, but who really they are? Science or knowledge of causality as we know in the realms of physics are equivalent to this comic lot of visitors. They offer us processes and descriptions, but never their origin. So did Algazel wants us to contemplate that the physical causality of everything existents are not as simple as we perceived them to be, nor they are as opaque as we believed them to be.

He offered a metaphor where, even the knowledge of causality produced by the Intelligence is just a mere step from the higher order. The floor which is illuminated in the night, was reflected by the mirror on the wall, which in turn was shined by the light of the moon form the window, and even this light of the moon owed its source from the Sun. Now, most people would not even think the Sun as the source of the Light; most would halt the order up to the moon. But everything has its ultimate source, and to Algazel, the source of the Light, is the Light of Light, which is Allah.

We have seen being, which its existent can be known, and by contrast we know of the non-being, which its existent cannot be known at all. And without Light, can anything be known? If none, is there anything aside from the Light? Everything contingent cannot be perceived aside from its state of perishing; they owe its existent-state as existing only from the Light that give its knowability in the first place. Even then, it cannot be said to exist by themselves; its existing state merely retained by the flowing of Existence from the Prime Reality. And it is thus what it seemed from the eyes of the Gnostics, that there is no existent aside from Allah. And in their passion and intoxication, they said certain incomprehensible words, heretical even. But upon their Descent, they knew what they felt is not of Identity, but of something resembling to identity. Aren't we in the throes of passion, we spoke our self and our lovers as one, while it is all impossible in and out? So did these Gnostics, who a poem line described them best, "The glass is thin, the wine is clear! The twain are alike...For 'tis as though there were wine and no wineglass there...".

And so, after reached this pinnacle of ecstacy, Algazel pulled us with firm hands back to the topic. It is of dangerous paths to go beyond without proper rites and understanding.

We have seen all along what is truly meant by the Light, and the graded order of Light. And now, to arrive for a clear exegesis of the Verse of the Light, Algazel proceeded to grade the faculty of the human soul.

There are generally 5 graded order of the human soul. The first is the sensory, the second is the imaginative/mnemonic spirit which able to retain the form of the sensory (the Pavlovian dog), the third: intelligential spirit, which can arrives to eternal truths and axioms. The fourth is the discursive spirit, ever possessing the capability to expand such axioms ad infinitum, perhaps akin to Kantian's synthesis. And the fifth, is the transcendental prophetic spirit, which its character is obvious to be described.

Returning back to the symbols in the verse; there are 5 of them. The Niche, the Glass, the Lamp, the Olive tree, the Oil. Now, perhaps it clear enough to hazard the guess. The Niche is the sensory spirit, the Glass is the imaginative spirit, the Lamp is the intelligential spirit, the Olive tree is the discursive spirit (it able to deduce eternal truthful axioms, free from any infection by space and time; thus the "neither eastern nor western". Last but not lest, the olive oil, which obviously can only came from the blessed olive tree, is the transcendental prophetic spirit. It gives light though fire touch it not. Yes, my brothers and sisters, we have reached the end of a journey.

I write this in a flurry of haze and daze, recalling every tiny bit I can remember and understand. It is a mere, based and meagre effect to reflect the jewels contained in this short work, I implore everybody, Muslim or not, to have a go at this treatise. It would not hurt you, it would give you wonders, as it did to me.

On Life

Young Parents- Francois Antoine de Bruycker

It has been a while I juggled my mind to produce such heavy system. This peace must be conceived as according to the Qayserium thoughts framework, and consistent with my other thoughts. It is largely still in an unstately and unfurnished state, but for the sake of moving forward, I have to write and prepare something.

This essay focuses on the "Yes" to life, follows Schopenhauer, that is to leave another generation. Read away...

I wish to demonstrate a few things in this essay: first, that man possesses real impulse or force towards life and death. Secondly, that life is a question that must be answered by us taking responsibility to shape life according to the impulse above mentioned. Thirdly, just like the ultimate answer to life in the negative means suicide, that is extinguishing yourself without leaving any remains (except dark remains), the ultimate answer to life in the positive way is to persevere in this world and despite all of its perennial shortcomings and curses, we leave marks in this world. There are many marks that can be left, but the greatest of all of them is children.

Next, a disclaimer. This is not a mere statement of Lilliputian optimism, nor you can found here a Nietzschean sighes for life poorly spent. man is essentially a paradoxical human being; he is thrown into the world he has to decide himself for everything without his own decision etc...and so, it is only logical that even in the saintliest of the saints, or even in us the fated backdrop characters of all that is shining far brighter than us would have ambivalent feelings in life all the time, or most of the time. Each of us can recall where the contradiction (or the lay people would call, hypocrisy) of the world slapped us hard in the face, throwing us into the familiar humid marshes of despair. And so, here's the disclaimer: we are not to prescribe an antidote for all the faults of the world, we would not judge you for your weakness. In fact, we would like you to embrace the beautiful scars all along the way and learn from the random scratches the meaning of life. Aren't the essence of chaos theory is that random system seems chaotic because of insufficient data to analyze it? So do our life. It is a system created by us, lived by us and it is up to us to carve meaning into it. Humans are feelers: thoughts are sweats from apprehending those feelings...the feeling of despair, suicidality and its opposite: creativity and resounding "Yes" to life is just opposite sides of the coin. When you get the bad ones doesn't mean everything has ended; you just have to flip it one time more. I observed suicide is caused by refusing to flip the coin once again rather than the system itself has defeated us. The system itself is a cheat, it provided too much leeway that a man can create himself over and over again from the virtue that his essence, his "I" and his soul is yet to be formed, an essentially undiscoverable entity. 

Moving on to that life is a state that's stretched infinitely to two ways. One can argue life is a state that's stretched infinitely to three ways, i.e. beyond time but let us keep in mind the rare anger of Buddha once for a while in this matter. Sartre might argue, as he had already in his Transcendence of Ego, that the feeling of hatred or disgust is an impure reflection, because it stretched infinitely while it has not the right to compute so. But i wanted to add, how if a person rather than reflecting infinitely, he commits into the world, invaginates into it infinitely? Would it be as absurd as infinite reflection? I say no. Because there are actions that leave it marks forever, and was done with the very intention so. In the negative sense, when one commits suicide, while his disappearance is a one time event, him disappearing is an infinite one. Not because it infinitely impacts the people around him. (I remember how when a batchmate of ours jumped and shattered her head, two weeks down, even the witnesses can laugh it off and made jokes about it. (we are not as significant as we like to think)). What i mean  by the disappearance of the suicide is committed infinitely is that his disappearing is eternal and infinite, stretched beyond the certain present window of time. Phenomenologists tried very hard to disapprove whatever that is convinced to happen beyond the immediate state of reflection, but as typical of starry-eyed philosophers, they failed to see the glaring examples right before their eyes! The disappearing of a suicide person is one example that an action can be committed infinitely. one might recall Nietzsche's dictum about eternal recurrence. Why it is recurrence rather than reincarnation? Reincarnation implies an absolute leaving of a state to another and then return to it back, but in recurrence no such leaving occurs! One simply recur his action eternally. 

And so we have proved that infinite states beyond what senses can give actually exists, now we want to prove that the infinite stretched two ways i.e. it stretched holistically. Time moves unidirectionally they said, yes of course because time is a single moment of action in life. I define life or the world as the complete field of every actions possible. And what i mean by actions is both physical and mental actions. Physical actions is what limited by what the body appendages can do, while mental actions are ruminations of the products of bodily movements. Just like how a mere bodily movement can branch off to transmitting force to other objects (hitting a ball) or start off an automatic system (building and then turning on the engine), so does the mental ruminations exists in many form. If it concerns directly to bodily movements is called memory and retrospective in nature. What concerns to potential of bodily movements is sublimation, prospective in nature. We cannot escape from these definitions nor there are anymore other than them, except in few selected cases and exceptions are not profitable in the discussion regarding the masses. 

So time of course moves in its preordained way, forward because it merely a single moment or event in the world. It would contradicts the law of the world if time could move backwards, because that is memory. And memory is a purely mental action. Time traveling if it should exist should only happen in a teleportation in an alternate world with the same backdrops yet with attention to different things, so two overlapping memories (one that has been went through, and the other which is going through) would then united to become a merely single, unified memory.

Thus, us throwing the ball forward is one event of the world, but looked holistically it is an event that can be depicted as throwing the ball holistically (in all directions). So does the world, or the tradeoff between potential and actual. what we faced with realizing it is the plane that is realized in actual, but what that more and more repressed (invested in more potentiality rather than actuality) is also exists. Man can then, or must, exist in two infinitely stretched plane; plane in actuality and plane in potentiality. We must not confuse life and death and equate for an instance, life as the potential plane, because we have seen so many people which his eventual path to suicide is the plane that is being actualized rather than the life direction. the planes are neutral, but its specific manifestation is not. A man is free to act in favor of life or death to be its plane of direction. The many examples of a life going through the path of death or live is numerous and aptly depicted in so many instances, so i would exclude from including it here.

But what I would like to emphasis is while the plane is infinite but there is finite distance the world or life can be stretched before it snapped and rebounded onto itself. Thus the very moment of suicide is when the self snapped and rebounded onto itself, life flashed in his mind and only after that out-of-the-world experience one really decided to kill himself or not. Moments prior to that is merely ruminations of memory and sublimation. And so, if the actualizing plane of direction is in the path of life what would a person find? He would not find himself in successful times or in other grand instances, but in the moment of intercourse aimed to produce another life. Because in that act of sensual, there is a background angst happening where one really rummaged his mental repository to seek an answer to a question: is this life truly worth it that i must leave another person to live through it? This angst is a question that even great philosophers shy away from it, it explains why most of the time, the moment of conception occurs out from this reflective frame, because man would shook in terror. He would be frozen in terror even though in his high moments of euphoria, knocking on the doors of that heavenly cornucopia, where something completely new is formed somewhat ex nihilo (a person producing another person). I would then answer in unison with Schopenhauer, that the greatest answer, a resounding "Yes" to life is to produce (or wanted to, if we can't) another life. An eternal recurrence.