The Metaphysics of Love .Auto-hyperlinking Our problem is similar to that of Einstein’s attempting to explain light without the ether. We are trying to explain thought without mind. We could simply predicate a primal mind of God, but that is too easy. God could know his creatures, but how would the creatures know each other. There would have to be mind within mind or multiple ethers.
There must be a primal relational empathetic process. If intersubjectivity were not pre-existent, it would have to be invented. It is the same stuff as intrasubjectivity. It is one thing to posit a virtual experiential chaos, but how do we arrange for these experiences to organize themselves into coherence? If somehow there arise spontaneous foci of coherence, then we must arrange for these foci to interact meaningfully.
Clearly there is some discrepancy between the idea of a primal chaos and the principle of relational existence. There must be a means by which the chaotic elements can become internally related. We now suppose that this happens only within preexisting minds.
Perhaps we can use the present chaotic state of the Internet as a metaphor for the primal chaos; the idea being that the ontogeny of the Internet will recapitulate its metaphysical phylogeny. Effectively facilitating this outcome is the strategy of the Aquarium. To exist on the Internet is to be internally related or hyperlinked. Hyperlinking also acknowledges the Identity of Indiscernibles. Each website is a focus of coherence that also generates novelty. The II, or ‘auto-hyperlinking,’ then mandates relationality in the oxymoronic event of redundant novelty.
Let us consider the mechanism of generation within the experiential chaos. Alternatively we could posit the virtual preexistence of every possible experience, but where would we go from there? We would be faced with cosmic stasis. The primal need not be atemporal, but it should be transtemporal.
The generative process must be non-central and malleable. It would be non-random with aspects of intelligence. There would be latent coherence. We suppose that there would be generative foci that would become associated with selves. The selves would aggregate functionally.
What is the mechanism for sharing experience? How would the foci multiply? These problems may be related along with the issue of perspective.
Perhaps the primordial state does not have the above distinctions, but rather a range of related multivalent and multifunctional entities. Structure would arise out of these states through functional aggregation.
We need to characterize the primal generators. Each felt meaning would be integrated with its own generator. We should say that each felt meaning is necessarily generative. Does this then create a population problem? No, because the relational requirement and the II will minimize randomness and redundancy. An overall coherence is mandated. It is probable that the focus of coherence will shift on occasion, but that should not disrupt the overall structure.
The minimal possible existence appears to be a self-generating society of felt meanings. This is nice, but how do we account for ourselves, we being the microcosms of this cosmic society of meaning? Right now I am more concerned with the how than the why, although these two questions may be closely connected in an immaterial schema. Our existence is closely related to the fact of the space-time manifold and the eschaton. The AXO schema is in our blood.
Does not our population explosion threaten to run afoul of the II? The II may be our ultimate limit to growth, but what would be the purpose of pushing that limit? Numbers are not the issue at hand, which is the possibility of a microcosm. Perhaps we are the solution to the problem of cosmic self-knowledge. The cosmos is able to comprehend itself through us, and this may constitute the fulfillment of a metaphysical requirement to the effect that an idealist cosmos must be omniscient. Ultimately self-knowledge entails the participation of others, and in the cosmic case most of the participants must be microcosmic.
Why would the cosmos put so many of its eggs in the microcosmic basket? How great is this risk? I would suspect that, in point of fact, the microcosmic strategy is actually a move to reduce the overall risk, even though it may not appear that way to us.
We should see if we can get any clues from nature on the microcosmic strategy. We need look no further than our own bodies, which we know are societies of microorganisms. In our case the strategy serves several indispensable functions. However, I do not believe that we can put much stock in this analogy in attempting to solve our ontogenetic puzzle. In the case of the cosmos the organism is logically prior to the microorganism. However, it is possible that we might somehow be the lineal descendants of the proliferating foci of generative meaning introduced above. This possibility would bring us into closer alignment with the organismic analogy. In that case there would be less distinction between the cosmic and microcosmic level since there would be a multi-layered hierarchy of the foci of meaning. Each of us struggles to bring the meaning of our own lives into alignment with the cosmic meaning of love. We could do worse than this by way of understanding.
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rev. 8/31/98