Meditation 70: Conceptual Outer Space

Philosophers have always wondered about the limits of our understanding. How far does our comprehension of the universe extend? Is there some Being that exists in itself independently of any description we might give of it? Is there a non-conceptual reality that exists beyond our words in conceptual outer space?

Philosophers have approached conceptual outer space in different ways. Plato had a two-tier view in which the world of becoming is not fully real, and the world of Pure Forms is true reality. And yet these Forms escape formulation in words. Aristotle distinguishes Pure Actuality (the Unmoved Mover) and Pure Formless Materiality (Prime Matter), neither of which can we fully understand. St. Augustine puts God in a timeless world of Eternal Truth, while we exist in time. There is the temporal world and the Timeless World of the Mind of God. We cannot comprehend the Mind of God. Our minds are finite, God’s is infinite. Words fail us. Finally, in a less theological vein, Kant splits the conditioned phenomenal world off from the unconditioned Noumenal World, which we can never know, but about which we endlessly speculate. As we get further from the practical contexts in which it is used in communication, the grip of language weakens.

Think about the earth and its environs. With a massive core of liquid iron, dense rock reaches to a thick band of waters and lands. The surface is intricately carved by the work of wind, sun, water and ice. It teems with life. Many species and myriads of individuals creep, crawl, and fly on the planet. They all have their different shapes, colors, physical abilities and reproductive habits. Here, earth’s complexity is manifold.

Leaving the surface of the earth, we enter a thin shell of atmosphere. As we travel outward, the density diminishes. The air thins out, and after escaping the gravitational pull of the earth, we enter outer space. This ‘empty’ space may not be a complete vacuum, but compared with the density of the earth, outer space is very empty indeed.  However, even if we travel to the far reaches of intergalactic space, we will never leave the universe that contains the earth and all its bustling inhabitants. There is a continuum that links outer space with the earth. We can look out from the earth toward outer space, and we can look at the earth from outer space, giving us a larger view or ourselves and the universe.

This is analogous to the world of concepts in which human beings live and have their being. The densely packed web of concepts we use to think about things is like the intricate surface of the earth with its many varieties of things and life forms. Our language is nearly as complex and subtle as the world we face. It is a very flexible instrument, dense with concepts arranged in structured semantic and syntactic systems. Most of these concepts are quite thick and provide the context of linguistic meaning in which we live. Of course, life is bigger than language, and not all experience can be put into words, or structured like a language. How are we to think about this?

Strip language and concepts from my mind, and it ceases to be differential. There are no distinctions, no recognition of kinds of things, and no analytic thought. It is hard to say exactly what exists for a mind without concepts.  The world appears to consciousness when distinctions arise. Self is not other. Day is not night. Life is not death. Waking is not sleeping. We cannot help thinking in opposites and contrasts. All discursive and analytic thinking depends upon discriminating differences.

Following the analogy, as we ascend from the surface of the conceptual earth, we find the concepts thin out. The areas of dense concept populations are closest to the conceptual earth. These thick concepts describe the phenomenal world of perceptual objects, as well as moral and aesthetic experiences. As we move away from the surface of the conceptual earth, the concepts thin out and become emptier and more abstract. In this way we distinguish ‘thick’ from ‘thin’ moral concepts. Examples of the former are being ‘courteous’ or ‘boorish,’ and of the latter, ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ Out in the conceptual stratosphere, we find the ideas of mathematics and logic.  Beyond that is the bare concept of ‘being’ itself, which is supposed to contain everything, but is actually empty of content. Being becomes indistinguishable from nothing at all. At this point, the thought of ‘what is’ enters conceptual outer space. 

As in the case of the earth, we do not enter another universe when we venture out into the great vacancy of conceptual outer space. We just come to the end of our concepts. Beyond that, there are only wordless experiences. This is not the fault of the universe or of ourselves, but a reality with which we must come to terms. The limits of our concepts point in two directions.  Looking back from conceptual outer space to the dense world of meanings shows us that our conceptions are always partial and limited. Looking out from the world of meaning, we see conceptual outer space as the permanent horizon of our thought and discourse. We do not have to divide reality into two. We can recognize the continuum that leads from here to conceptual outer space and back again.