Neoplatonism
is an important school of thought that formed to resolve enigmas in Plato and
Aristotle’s philosophies, Plato in particular. Indeed, Neoplatonists claimed
that they were only explaining Plato in more detail, fleshing out what he
really meant. The quote today is from the Roman philosopher Plotinus, who lived
from 204 – 270 AD, and was one of the founders of Neoplatonism (though at the
time, they just claimed to be Platonists). The quote is one of my most
favourite ones in all of…well, everything, so be prepared for a long blog post!
From
Plotinus’ Ennead V (~ 250 AD):
“We must turn our power of apprehension
inwards, and make it attend to what is there. It is as if someone was expecting
to hear a voice which he wanted to hear and withdrew from all other sounds and
roused his power of hearing to catch what, when it comes, is the best of all
sounds which can be heard; so here also we must let perceptible sounds go
(except in so far as we must listen to them) and keep the soul’s power of
apprehension pure and ready to hear the voices from on high.”
Such
a beautiful quote, though to know exactly what Plotinus is talking about
requires us to know a bit about the metaphysics of Neoplatonism. Neoplatonists
view the world in terms of three hypostases,
or levels of reality. This includes the One/God/Tao/Ain Soph/Brahman,
Intellect/Nous/the Divine Mind/Atzilut, and Soul/Psyche/Universal Soul/Beriah&Yezirah.
There’s also Body/the World/Nature/Physicality that comes after the soul, but
it isn’t a real hypostasis (we’ll see it at the end). I’m listing various names
for all these just to show that they correspond to many other religions and
philosophies, but the first terms are those that Plotinus uses, so I’ll stick
with those.
At the base of all existence, subsuming all other
hypostases, is the One. It is the
source of everything, transcending “being” as we know it. We usually think
of the verb “to be” as determining something qualities. A dog is a dog because
it has a specific form, a particular code of DNA, and so on. This is
determinate being, but the One is infinite and indeterminate, containing all things, so it can’t be described in
this way. If you describe it as one thing, you’ll leave something else out. Determinate
things can be described because you can say they are “x” rather than “y.” Toto
is a dog, not a cat, or a duck, or a hippo, etc. Yet the One is everything. Just like the Tao, it cannot
be described: we can only gesture to it in metaphors and perhaps glimpse it in
insights that go beyond our reasoning mind. The human mind can only grasp
determinate things, so the One will remain out of our grasp unless we go beyond
seeing things in sequences and in time.
So the One is both everything and nothing: it
doesn’t lack anything, it gives rise to all things, but it also is nothing in
particular, not possessing any determinate qualities. Plotinus says that “The One is all things and not a single one
of them: it is the principle of all things, not all things, but all things have
that other kind of transcendent existence…the One is not being, but the
generator of being.” Yet you can
describe the One as perfect, or fully actualized. One of the most important
Neoplatonic ideas is that a fully actualized being will create an external
reflection of itself, also known as a second actuality. Plotinus says that “All things when they come to perfection
produce.” This production is an expression of the One, an image of it that
isn’t as perfect because it is more restricted.
The best analogy for this is the dispersion of
white light by a prism (which I described in a few other posts): the white
light of the One splits into various colours upon entering the prism, so there
is more variety in what is further down in the hierarchy. However, the One is
undiminished, for like the white light from which the colours arose, it remains
pure and simple, even though its dispersed beam appears to be multiple. This
process continues down to much more complicated levels of existence until the
physical world comes into being.
An analogy Plotinus uses is that of fire, snow, and
perfume: “fire produces the heat which
comes from it; snow does not only keep its cold inside itself. Perfumed things
show this particularly clearly. As long as they exist, something is diffused
from themselves around them, and what is near them enjoys their existence.”
The One gives rise to infinitely many things, particular
beings unlike the source from which they arose. This first expression of the
One is the second hypostasis, Intellect.
This is also known as the Good in Plato, the highest Form. All other Forms
exist within the Good.
This process of creating Intellect is called emanation. The first step is when the
One sends out a reflection of itself, which is less perfect and so is multiple
rather than unified: “The One, perfect
because it seeks nothing, has nothing, and needs nothing, overflows, as it
were, and its superabundance makes something other than itself.” The next
step occurs in Intellect, which is when Intellect actualizes itself as a
distinct level of existence. The nature of Intellect is to think, and by thinking,
it strives to return to the One. This doesn’t occur in time, because time only
enters into existence in Soul (as we will see below). Intellect strives to
return to the One, its perfect source, though because it is limited, it is
never able to reach the One by thinking. It is Intellect’s nature to think, yet the One cannot be thought
since it is not a determinate being.
Yet this failed attempt to grasp the One
actualizes Intellect as its own level of existence: it becomes perfect as a
reflection of the One by thinking of itself—the only thing it can think of. In thinking itself, the
Forms are generated, and so although Intellect doesn’t return to the One, it
actualizes itself by creating a system of Forms that each express different
aspects of being. These are infinite aspects of the One that exist in a
hierarchy with the Form of the Good closest to the One and more specific Forms
that derive from it further down. They are all connected, and each Form derives
its nature from all other Forms. It is a lot like Hua-yen Buddhism (see my previous post),
where each dharma (or in this case, Form) is defined in terms of the whole
system of Forms. One cannot exist alone. Each Form is a partial grasp of the
One: a different aspect of it. Returning to the dispersion analogy, the
different Forms, represented by the colours of the rainbow, are generated when
the white light of the One is dispersed through a prism (which is in this case
the act of Intellect thinking).
You’ve probably heard of Platonic Forms before:
really anything you can think of has a Form that it’s modelled after (though
not perfectly). The Form of the Good, Beauty, Number, Colour, Motion, Rest, and
even specific things like Dog, Grass, and Table (note that I’m referring to
Forms in capital letters, so the Form of Dog is in Intellect, while specific
dogs are physical creatures that imperfectly partake in the Form “Dog”). Yet in
Intellect, these Forms are unchanging objects of thought and not physical
things that grow and change.
Likewise, Soul actualizes itself by trying to
unite with its source, Intellect. Soul, however, can only think discursively, which is the kind of thinking
we usually talk about. It is thinking one thing after another using a chain of
reasoning. Intellect, however, thinks noetically,
which is more of intuition: an immediate insight that can grasp all Forms at
once. Such thought is only possible, however, when one is outside of time, so
Soul can never fully reach Intellect. It tries to grasp the relationships
between the Forms, but is only able to think of them sequentially, for it is
“ever-moving,” so misses the interconnectedness of the Forms. For instance, if
you imagine the Form of Beauty and try to understand it, you will be thinking
of certain qualities rather than others, and so will necessarily leave parts
out. Even if you were to think of all aspects of Beauty sequentially, that
would still not be grasping it as a whole, and it would also be missing its
position in relation to the other Forms. This fragmented way of thinking is
intrinsic to Soul’s nature, and it must be transcended in order for Soul to return
to Intellect. Yet Intellect is still at the centre of Soul. It is its essential
nature, just like the One is the essential nature of Intellect.
Soul does, however, actualize itself as a distinct
level of existence in its act of thinking about the Forms. So, as Neoplatonism
dictates, it produces an external reflection of itself. And thus, we reach the physical
world, Body. Soul “looks to its source [Intellect] and is filled,
and…generates its own image.” As time was introduced at the level of Soul, space comes into being at the level of
Body, so we now possess space and time (space-time).
Body is not really a hypostasis in itself, though
it does emanate from Soul like Soul came from Intellect and Intellect from the
One. The difference is that although Soul actualizes itself in thinking and can
return to Intellect if it transcends its discursive thinking, Body is unable to
overcome the limitation of physicality and so can never actually return to
Soul. It is not conscious, but rather consists of material things that can’t
think, called logoi spermatikoi, or
seminal reasons. Materiality cannot be overcome, and so Body is not really
another level of existence like Soul and Intellect are from the One, because it
does not have the One as its ultimate nature.
As a whole, Soul is also known as the Universal
Soul, yet within Soul are also individual souls, centres of consciousness. Like
the Universal Soul, the primary purpose of souls is to contemplate Intellect in
order to ascend to a more perfect level of existence. There is a hierarchy of
souls within Soul: those more enlightened tending toward Intellect, and those
more tied to the material world toward Body. Yet a secondary purpose of souls
is to incarnate in the material world, to form living beings like humans, which
means that we are a combination of two worlds: Soul and Body. Yet since every
soul has at the innermost centre of its being the Universal Soul, each soul can
be said to have made the physical world. Plotinus says, “Let every soul, then, first consider this, that it made all living
things itself, breathing life into them…it grants life to the whole universe.”
This can be understood in two senses: the first is that souls incarnate into
the material world directly, giving life to it, and second is that they are in
essence the Universal Soul from which the world emanated.
Higher souls do not get caught up in the material
world that they animate, yet lesser ones can easily get distracted by it and
fail in their primary purpose of contemplating the Forms. Souls are supposed to
govern the body, not become attached to it, a doctrine we see in many other
philosophies. The soul suffers when it identifies itself with the body, because
everything in this world is transitory and far from the true source of
existence. It is just a reflection from Soul, an “illusion,” and so placing
importance on it and treating things here as permanent only leads to suffering.
In order to ascend back up the ladder of being,
Plotinus gives us two ways: “One shows
how contemptible are the things now honoured by the soul…the other teaches and
reminds the soul how high its birth and value are, and this is prior to the
other one.”
This
is all a simplified version, because within Intellect, Soul, and Body are many levels
that make it clearer how one hypostasis gives rise to another other. If we look
at these, we can see a correspondence to the Kabbalah, since in the Kabbalah
there are many Sephiroth within each level of existence. The Neoplatonic scheme
of existence is also a good way of understanding mathematics and physics. Numbers
themselves, as well as mathematical laws based on them, exist as Forms in Intellect.
In order for mathematics and physics to describe the world we live in, there
must be some fundamental physical laws that exist: otherwise, the world would
just be chaotic. Since these laws obviously don’t exist physically (you don’t
find the number 4 floating around), they must be nonphysical, and hence, exist
in a nonphysical realm above ours (“above” being a higher level of existence). A
law only presides over that which is below it, so the laws in Intellect don’t
affect the One, its greater source, though they do affect Soul and Body. There
is a hierarchy where more specific laws are subsumed by more general ones that
are closer to the One. The further down something is in the hierarchy of
existence, the more restricted it is, being subjected to a more laws that
restrict its movements or thoughts. Thus, if one transcends the physical world,
through purifying their soul and attending to that which is above it, they will
transcend some of the limitations of the world around them. This is how some
people have, through meditation or other practices, appeared to transcend the
common-sense laws that govern the world. Walking on water, perhaps? Telepathy? This is just speculation, but it
could certainly be explained in this way. Of course, this is common in Buddhism, but even
Greek philosophers such as Plato and Pythagoras were said to have certain
powers.
Even
if we don’t know what the ultimate laws are that govern the world, we already
understand physics in terms of a hierarchy of laws that are applicable in more
specific or general situations. For example, Einstein’s theory of gravity is a
general theory that applies to the universe on a large scale as well as the
world around us. Newton’s theory of gravity works well for things on Earth and
much of the solar system, but it fails on larger scales. Thus, it is a subset
of Einstein’s theory that is applicable in more restricted situations. An even
more general theory would include both quantum mechanics and general relativity
(see picture below from the physicist Max Tegmark). This law would be a higher
Form that more specific laws are derived from. But this law, ultimately, will
arise from even more basic principles: Number, Symmetry, Order, etc. For
instance, Max Tegmark said that “all mathematical structures are abstract,
immutable entities. The integers and their relations to each other, all these
things exist outside of time.” Existing outside of time doesn’t correspond
to the world around us, or even Soul, but to more basic principles in Intellect.
Additionally, they are not mere fictions that we have created to describe the
world. I won’t get into that here, but see my previous post.
 |
| Diagram from Max Tegmark |
Another physicist, Roger Penrose, believes that
Platonism is a correct description of reality. For example, in an interview,
he said that “mathematics has to have
been there since the beginning of time. It has an eternal existence.
Timelessness, really: it doesn’t have any location in space, it doesn’t have
any location in time.” He also explains how there are three different kind
of existences: the physical, mental, and mathematical worlds, which would
correspond to Body, Soul, and Intellect (the One doesn’t “exist”: it is beyond
existence). Likewise, our access to the world of mathematics, the fact that we
can understand things as basic as numbers and addition to more complicated
things like differential equations and general relativity, is only possible
because, as Plato said, it is already within us. Within the core of our souls
is Intellect, providing the laws that created us and govern our existence.
Now,
the laws that govern the physical world (quantum mechanics, general relativity,
electromagnetism…everything), although they derive from the Forms within Intellect,
are “filtered” through Soul and so exist in the Universal Soul rather than Intellect.
As I quoted in my previous post, the physicist John Spencer said, “All
the laws of physics are partial reflections of the one eternal mathematical
law, which is a kind of super-law, the foundation of all the mathematical laws
in the universe.” This law exists
in Soul, the “?” in the diagram of yellow boxes above, and all laws that derive
from this exist in Soul below it. If a soul transcends above this level, it
will no longer be subjected to these laws, and so may appear to do miraculous
things.
This
eternal law, which describes how the physical world works, partakes in higher Forms
of Symmetry, Number, etc. Plotinus says that “Even in seeds it is not the
moisture which is honourable, but what is unseen: and this is number and
rational principles.” Thus, physical laws (rational principles from the
eternal law) and number (mathematics in Intellect) form the basis of everything
in the world around us. More specific laws arise when the eternal laws is applied
to, say, the microscopic realm with quantum mechanics, or the macroscopic realm
with gravity. But if you could understand the greater laws above it, you would
be able to describe both quantum mechanics and gravity with a single law, and
even more generally, both souls and bodies.
Thus,
the metaphysics of Neoplatonism can help us understand all sorts of aspects of
existence from souls to time to mathematics and physics. Like many other
philosophies that include a hierarchy, or even those like Hua-yen Buddhism, it
describes a universe that is united and tells us that even though the world may
see chaotic and disconnected, everything derives from the One, and we all can
return to it, for it still exists as an invisible core within us. Listen, and
you may hear “the voices from on high.”
~~*~~
Click here for more posts in my Quotes of Wisdom series.
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