Beyond Nothing – The Empirical Dilemma of Being

Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider
questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the
mind. It falls into this difficulty without any fault of its own. – Immanuel Kant from Critique of Pure Reason – Preface to the First Edition, 1781

The gods have reserved to themselves the most important events, into which men of themselves can in no wise penetrate. – Xenophon from The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates

For nearly 250 years now anyone seeking to address and formulate a modern metaphysics has been required to wrangle with Immanuel Kant and his watershed masterpiece, Critique of Pure Reason. It is a monumental work with wide-ranging and shattering implications within the realm of philosophy and is admittedly far beyond my scope to fully and authoritatively delineate here. However for the purposes of my metaphysics I felt deeply compelled to understand, as best I can, and to address, in some measure and fashion, Kant’s claims and perceptions. Thankfully for me, it would appear they fit rather squarely within my own metaphysical endeavors. For those interested, and with free time on their hands, you can find a free pdf copy of Kant’s great work here.

At a basic and elementary level, Kant is saying that we cannot know anything truly. We can of course know many things however we are unable to know if our knowledge is real or simply subjective to humans. In other words, what we “know” is bound and limited to the ways in which we are able to perceive our empirical experiences, and then those perceptions are further bound and limited to the categorical ways in which we structure, understand, and organize those perceptions in our mind. We are limited then by the fact that we are human. Our sensory bodies and our mental capacities force us to only see the world and consider the world in a finite set of possible ways unique to humans. We cannot perceive or comprehend anything purely as it is for we ourselves are already molded and formed in particular fashions that naturally relegate us to perceive and conceive of all things according to those molds. Kant refers to these mental and sensual molds as “a priori,” that is they exist in all of us as human constants that are fundamental building blocks to who we are. We cannot avoid or escape these a priori grids. Humans are trapped within our a priori frameworks of being. We are that which we are, and there is simply no way out. And so because of this we may perceive and think something is true, and it very well may be true for us, but we cannot know if it is true in and of itself beyond our a priori molds of perception and understanding. And since we are forever bound to these a priori molds we can never know of anything beyond ourselves as we know it. Here is a quote from Kant explaining this process.

The effect of an object upon the faculty of representation, so far as we
are affected by the said object, is sensation. That sort of intuition which
relates to an object by means of sensation is called an empirical intuition.
The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon.
That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its
matter; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be
arranged under certain relations, I call its form. But that in which our
sensations are merely arranged, and by which they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be itself sensation. It is, then, the matter of
all phenomena that is given to us a posteriori; the form must lie ready a
priori for them in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately
from all sensation.

For Kant then there is a form inbred into the mind which arranges our sensations and likewise there is also an inherent structure in our minds which automatically organizes and seeks to understand those arranged sensations. These two inbred forms of sense and understanding are a priori, and they form the basis by which we perceive and conceive of the world around us. The ability to separate out and isolate these a priori forms from all our empirical experiences and sensory data Kant refers to as “transcendental.”

The science of all the principles of sensibility a priori, I call transcendental aesthetic. There must, then, be such a science forming the first
part of the transcendental doctrine of elements, in contradistinction to
that part which contains the principles of pure thought, and which is
called transcendental logic…there are two pure forms of sensuous intuition, as principles of knowledge a priori, namely, space and time.

Kant then is arguing that the human condition is limited and that space and time are in fact human constructs which we simply cannot extract ourselves from. For Kant the “transcendental aethetic” and the “transcendental logic” are the processes of isolating and discriminating between how we perceive and understand empirical data inputs from what we perceive and understand. He is differentiating the process from the content of knowledge. What we know and experience can be valid and true, however it is not clear at all that it is the truth. Unlike the classical Newtonian science of his day, Kant is arguing that space and time are not objective realities but rather subjective human constructs which we place upon the empirical universe. Remove our human a priori constructs and space and time may or may not exist at all as we know them with those a priori forms. Either way we will not know simply because we cannot know for that is the nature of the a priori. We are bound to our a priori forms of perception and understanding.

By making these powerful philosophical assertions Kant simultaneously rejected and neutered the two most renowned and prominent philosophical schools of his time namely rationalism and empiricism. He attacked rationalism on the basis that we cannot know anything truly through logic or reason, and he attacked empiricism on the basis that we cannot in fact know what it is that we are actually perceiving empirically. This double edged critique elevated Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason above all his predecessors’ methodologies and ushered forth a new age in modern philosophy and human understanding. In fact Kant is largely responsible for the birth of many movements such as German Idealism, the English Romantics, 19th century nationalism, American Transcendentalism, romantic irony, 20th century existentialism, modernism, and even post-modernism. In these ways Kant fundamentally altered our relationship to the truth, the role of the human imagination, and the nature of the self which all still greatly influence and frame philosophical and poetic approaches to this day.

And so where does this place us as metaphysicians now in the 21st century? Where can we go from here? It seems to me we can either attempt to reject Kant or we can accept it and incorporate it into our metaphysical framework. The problem we have had for so many centuries now is that metaphysics has suffered greatly from Kant, because he effectively reduced discussion and exploration in what he termed “synthetic a priori”, that is a truth statement which can be independent of any other truth statement and is justified through empirical evidence. Since all human understanding is limited, how can we know God? How can we know truth? No matter what we find or discover it shall always be bound and limited to our a priori grids. This distinction led to a major shift away from combining classical metaphysics with measured science as had always been done and can be seen in the methods and modes of Descartes, Aristotle, and many others. Instead philosophy and science began to detach from each other more and more which was in fact a trend that had already begun with Newton, Galileo, and even as far back as Francis Bacon. In fact within nearly 50 years of Kant’s writing, the term “scientist” was used for the first time to describe those studying science rather than the term “philosopher” as had been the custom for centuries up until then. Science and philosophy were then both officially redefined and metaphysics was the great price both fields of study had to pay for it. As a result the last 200 years have allowed science (as we think of it today) to make astounding progress while philosophy over the same period has arguably made a proportional decline and growing degradation. Now please understand to any and all modern philosophers out there, I mean no insult or charge against you, but the field of philosophy as a whole has seemingly fallen into intellectual recesses and highly specified niches of study which have seemingly little relevance to our natural, common, everyday life as we know it in contrast to the ways science and even arts and letters are more applied today and certainly in contrast to the ways philosophy was so vital and relevant to the ancients, medieval, and early modern ages. This perceived irrelevance of philosophy, along with a corresponding downturn in theology today as well, is a dire, tragic loss indeed, and is a direct result both of Kant’s metaphysical critiques as well as the thorough development of the Newtonian sciences. As we will see in later sections of my own metaphysics, the development and further exploration of Quantum Physics beginning in the early 20th century and its corresponding recalibration of classic Newtonian physics, has reopened the possibilities for science and philosophy to be once again realigned and intimately intertwined together, as they most naturally and surely are and always have been, even if we refused to consider it as such for the past couple hundred years.

Indeed this is to some degree precisely what my metaphysics is advancing. If you recall the previous post, which you can find here, we spoke about the nature and being of consciousness and how it resides in the nothingness of creation. If we are to further this discussion of consciousness and consider that we are in fact nothing (no-thing), then we can begin to see that Kant’s metaphysical understandings dovetail seamlessly. Our brains and bodies are ironically in fact not equipped to contain or understand or comprehend who we truly are. For as we reside within the nothing what brain or sense organ can detect no-thing? We don’t in fact even know ourselves, perhaps in some cases because we don’t want to know ourselves, but in all cases because we simply cannot. And this inability to know ourselves in an empirical or scientific manner coincides with Descartes’ dilemma of how the human soul interacts with the human body which led to his philosophical blunder with the pineal gland. Here again the assertion that we are found within the nothing resolves itself seamlessly both with Descartes as well as with Kant. The mystery of our beingness lies beyond our perception and understanding. Our biological and neurological a priori forms are still limitations even when turned upon ourselves to investigate who we truly are for we live and reside within the nothing.

I must admit that Kant’s claims were rather frustrating for me to consider, because there is something deeply disturbing about the idea that we cannot know truth. Such a claim simply does not seem right or accurate or complete to me. But when I considered that Kant is really saying we cannot know the complete truth I realized he was stating more or less what theologians and philosophers have been saying for thousands of years – we simply cannot know ultimately – that is God’s domain. We are limited and constrained as humans. Even Jesus himself stated neither the angels nor the Son of Man knows the hour and the day, but only the Father. (Matthew 24:36). To be human is to be limited. This limitation is essentially the basis for all the great literature and history the world over. Kant embraces and elucidates these human limitations and parses them out in brilliant detail and genius. And unfortunately for us, we may desire deeply to perceive into and know all things, but ultimately we are simply unable to see clearly and fully all the way through.

And yet if we cannot see all the way through – how then can anyone offer any real or valuable contribution in metaphysics? What can we actually say? This is the real challenge Kant unearthed by illustrating and delineating these a priori human constraints. It becomes almost impossible to make a claim, no matter what it is, without having to wrestle with Kant’s a priori forms and finding ultimately that there is no where to go. Everything is bound by human perception and understanding. In fact this is a very similar dilemma we find in Descartes and mind-body dualism. Both scenarios place philosophers into a conundrum with seemingly no exit. In fact it seems that Jean Paul Sartes’ macabre existentialist play called No Exit, written nearly 200 years later in 1944, is also still struggling with these same Kantian dilemmas and ultimately finds some sort of recourse, no matter how weak and diluted, in the final lines of the play “Eh bien, continuons…” (Well then, let’s get on with it…). This same desperate recourse can be said for many philosophical metaphysicians since Kant too. But just as we found a resolution to Descartes’ mind-body dualism through the nothingness, can we also find safe harbor here with Kant as well? If we are nothing or more precisely, if we reside within nothing, then does it not seem perfectly appropriate and reasonable to embrace Kant’s a priori forms and agree wholeheartedly that we cannot understand or perceive ourselves truly for they reside within a realm devoid of perception and empiricism. This also quickly becomes the same angle used to discuss or prove the existence of God – God, as well as we ourselves, reside within the nothing. And therefore there is no actual empirical evidence for God’s existence just as there is no empirical evidence for ourselves. The only physical evidence we can legitimately point to that has not been debunked is the nothing – the most pervasive, unique, and astounding aspect of all of creation.

Our brains and our bodies, indeed all forms of any kind, can only approach and climb to certain heights of this great mountain of nothingness; eventually all our faculties give out, collapse, and become completely inoperable. They cannot scale to the ultimate heights of who we are let alone who God is. In other words who we are is bridging between two states of being – the form and the formless. We are truly and always within the formless state of being, the nothingness, but while we exist in nothing we also exist, at least while our bodies and minds are alive, in the physical, materialized forms. And it is these forms which we can measure, test, study, and think about albeit in limited ways. Our bodies and our minds are only so equipped to perceive ourselves in the formless; eventually as we peer into the abyss, we simply can see no further. Only in the nothingness do we find refuge, resolution, and cohesion beyond the limitation of all perception, understanding, and human frailty.

Kant’s philosophical explanations regarding the limitations of perception and understanding are precisely what Quantum Physics, nearly 150 years later, elucidate, prove, and replicate time and time again in the laboratory. Just as Kant reduced both empiricism and rationalism in philosophy he also simultaneously leapt ahead 150 years in science by reducing and bracketing down Newtonian physics. Quantum Physics in the early 20th century finally caught up to Kant and was able to scientifically and mathematically prove that classical Newtonian physics was not universal and therefore was not in fact true and complete. As such Quantum Physics finally caught up to Kant, proving once again that science and philosophy are not and simply cannot be separated or parsed apart. An entire new physical realm of possibilities, which Kant had already begun to explore philosophically in the late 18th century, is now more accessible than ever before thanks to the scientific explorations finally made in Quantum Physics. In this way metaphysics is once again able to emerge with more resounding, unique, and intriguing possibilities than have been presented for centuries. In future posts regarding my metaphysics – Beyond Nothing: A Modern Metaphysics – I will discuss various discoveries in Quantum Physics which coincide with nothingness and how they relate to our philosophical inquiries.

Ultimately we must accept the unsatisfying fact that we cannot know anything completely or truly. As infuriating, unreasonable, and even despairing such an admission may be, it is nevertheless the predicament we find ourselves as humans. How then can we proceed? Or more accurately, how can we conclude anything of true and ultimate importance? How can we know God? How can we know ourselves? And how can we prove them distinctively for all to see and bear witness? We all know authoritatively that we ourselves exist and many also know with equal authority that God exists, and yet why can we not prove it more easily and readily? Such is the empirical and logical dilemmas of beingness. Kant explains for us why this conundrum keeps reiterating itself upon us, our studies, and our inquiries. Here in my metaphysics, I seek to ground all philosophical concepts to something physical for whatever it may be – Truth, God, or ourselves – there must be a mechanism by which it functions in these forms. As such the only form I can find lies in the nothingness. It is incredible and perhaps the most dynamic form in existence. It belies the speed of light as well as the laws of Gravity, it is immeasurable and seemingly infinite, it’s everywhere in all things and at all times, and it even has direct relationships to the creation of the universe and all life as we know it. As we approach nothingness we lose all that we thought, felt, or perceived of ourselves and of others, and yet strangely, simultaneously, we appear to awaken somehow to a new sense of self and a greater sense of being. A larger, more expansive plane of existence presents itself to us out of the nothing; an event horizon from which we cannot look back, cannot turn from, and once crossed, we are transformed forever, never to return quite the same. From this side of the nothing it appears to be just that – no-thing – and yet as we encounter it, who we truly are, we find there to be so much more, even if we cannot conceive or perceive it exactly. In ways perhaps beyond our capacities, yet always within reach of our being, something truly is on the far side of nothing.