Section 57 (first updated 03.15.2021)

The composition of consciousness—the composition or the make-up of the all-encompassing subject we call consciousness—is a difficult thing to describe. We call consciousness an all-encompassing principle because consciousness has a fullness within itself that is not always directly recognizable. It often exhibits only an indirect effect, yet the effect is also direct at the same time.

For example, if we look at how we observe things directly, such as when I am looking at an object in front of me, there is a spectrum or gradient that positions where I am in relation to what I am looking at. Between these relations there exists a kind of gradual continuity of reality, a gradient that stretches between the observer and the object. In between these reactions is the gradation of all reality as it appears to us.

However, all of this reality is also in some sense an assumption, an abstract mental assumption. This is not to say that it is not true, but rather that the structure through which we interpret reality is something that arises within the mind. In fact, it may be even more true that the continuous coexistence of variables, entangled through time and space beyond the observer, becomes something that we must assume as part of the structure of the world.

Yet despite this assumption, the observer is still directly looking at a thing. That direct act of looking is disclosed by the observer’s awareness. Through that awareness the observer enters into a state of consciousness.

Ironically, consciousness is not necessarily a default state that comes before everything else. Instead, it appears to come after a developmental process. Life itself seems to be a developmental process that moves toward this principle of self-actualization, toward the emergence of conscious awareness.

Whether consciousness appears before or after in some absolute sense may not ultimately matter. What matters is that existence nevertheless exhibits a hierarchical structure, where certain stages or conditions combine and unfold before others. There is a sequence of development in which one level gives rise to another.

This sequence unfolds within what might be called a state of temporal uncertainty, because time itself organizes these developments into a progression of before and after. Within this progression, consciousness emerges as the point at which the organism becomes aware of itself and of the relations that compose the world around it.

Thus the composition of consciousness is not merely a simple substance or isolated entity. It is instead a complex unfolding of relations, where awareness arises through the interaction of observer, object, development, and time, forming a hierarchical structure that gradually leads toward the self-recognition of consciousness within the broader field of reality.

1. Distinction Between Matter and Consciousness
2. The Paradox of Magnitudes
3. Elements of Nature and Functions for Consciousness
4. The Composition of Consciousness

The distinction between consciousness and matter is actually not as distinct as we might first fathom. What appear to us as two fundamentally different things may instead be artificial distinctions produced by our ways of thinking and describing the world. Where one is not the other is not necessarily a contradiction, but rather a feature of their coexistence. In other words, the fact that they appear separate may itself be the condition under which they interact and are understood.

For instance, matter is commonly described as lifeless—a substrate whereby things are moved, shaped, and organized by consciousness. Consciousness, in contrast, is often said to be a localized capacity of advanced organisms, a feature that arises in beings that are able to notice themselves in the world and operate according to the conditions required for their subsistence.

However, once we begin to analyze this distinction more carefully, a difficulty appears. How is the organism that supposedly hosts consciousness related to the matter that is supposedly different from it? For the organism itself is first a material object. It has a material body, composed of tissues, cells, and organic structures. Furthermore, consciousness obviously operates through neurological activity, which itself is rooted in organic substances and physical processes. Thus, if consciousness depends upon these material processes, the strict separation between matter and consciousness becomes questionable.

At the same time, matter itself does not appear for itself, but rather for another—namely the consciousness of an observer. Objects are phenomena for observers; they appear within experience. A stone, a tree, or a star is known only insofar as it appears within the awareness of someone who observes it. From this perspective, matter seems to be that which appears to consciousness, while consciousness is that which apprehends appearances.

When we look at natural elements—fire, air, earth, water, and other basic materials—we call these “matter” because they appear as separate compositions within consciousness. They appear as distinct phenomena, distinguishable from each other within our perception and understanding. In this sense, one might say that they are manifestations within consciousness, forms that appear within the field of experience.

Yet this claim quickly risks sounding like mystical or even nonsensical talk. We usually insist that there is no scientific fact demonstrating that inanimate objects are literally composed of consciousness. If we claim that matter is somehow a manifestation of consciousness, we must ask: what exactly does that mean? Does it mean that objects depend upon consciousness for their existence, or only for their appearance? Does it imply that consciousness produces matter, or merely that matter becomes meaningful only within conscious awareness?

The answer, perhaps, is not as complicated as it may initially seem. Modern science often takes very simple intuitions and elaborates them into highly complex systems of explanation. These systems are extremely useful and powerful, yet they can sometimes obscure the basic ideas underlying them. The ordinary observer may feel that only specialized experts can understand the structure of reality, because the language used—particularly in physics—is often highly technical and abstract.

However, aside from the specialized language we have created to describe the mechanics of nature, many of the underlying ideas are actually intuitive. Anyone can grasp them at a basic level, because they are rooted in simple observations about how things appear and relate to one another.

For example, consider the idea of magnitude. At the most basic level, magnitude refers to scale—how large or small something is relative to something else. When we look outward from an object, there appears to be an external space, an “outside” that continues to extend further and further. This outward extension seems potentially infinite, containing larger and larger structures and ever more numerous variables.

Conversely, when we examine the interior of an object, we encounter the opposite direction of magnitude. Instead of larger structures, we discover smaller and smaller components. A solid object can be divided into molecules, molecules into atoms, atoms into subatomic particles, and so on. Yet even in these smallest spaces, the process does not appear to terminate absolutely. The interior of matter seems infinitesimal, meaning that further divisions and structures can always be imagined or discovered.

Thus space reveals a kind of double infinity: an outward infinity of ever greater scales and an inward infinity of ever smaller structures. Between these two infinities lies the world of ordinary objects that we perceive and interact with.

From this perspective, our distinction between matter and consciousness may arise from the scale at which we examine reality. Matter appears as the external structure of things—the measurable forms and relations that extend outward and inward through space. Consciousness, by contrast, appears as the internal field within which these forms are experienced. The two therefore may not be completely separate substances, but rather different aspects of a single relational structure, one describing the appearance of things and the other describing the awareness in which those appearances occur.

Footnotes

1. Substrate – A foundational layer or underlying substance that supports other processes or structures.
2. Phenomenon – Something that appears within experience; an object as it is perceived by a conscious observer.
3. Magnitude – The size or scale of something, especially in relation to other things.
4. Infinitesimal – Extremely small quantities that can theoretically be divided further without reaching a final smallest unit.
5. Double infinity – A philosophical way of describing how reality appears to expand infinitely both outward (cosmic scale) and inward (microscopic scale).

To explain the reaction between matter and consciousness furthermore, we can look at the paradox of magnitudes mentioned above. When we go outside an object, per se—external from it—there is always more and more space. That additional space hosts more objects greater than itself, and eventually the field becomes an infinitely large macrocosm, composed of vast aggregates of nature.

Yet if we inverse this process, we notice that there is also more and more space contained within the object. This internal space equally holds an infinite number of microscopic objects, which we call the smallest aggregates of nature. However, the scale becomes indiscernible, because after a certain point our perception can no longer clearly distinguish the structures that compose the object.

If both inverse magnitudes contain infinite space that holds infinite objects, then in a certain sense they approach the same point. The infinitely large and the infinitely small both lead toward an abstract limit. They become abstract because, at a certain distance away from the observer—whether extremely far outward or extremely deep inward—the idea of size itself becomes conceptual.

In this sense, size is not something purely absolute; rather, it becomes relative to the observer. Magnitude appears as something determined by the position of observation, not as something fixed independently of every standpoint. Yet at the same time we can still describe an objective and universal process of magnitude, where reality unfolds both outward into larger scales and inward into smaller ones.

The observer therefore stands at the center point between these extremes of magnitude. From that standpoint, consciousness encounters the world as a field that extends infinitely in both directions. The essential idea, then, is that consciousness is always at the forefront of this extension. It is the point from which the expansion of magnitude—both outward and inward—becomes meaningful, measurable, and conceptually grasped.

In this way, the paradox of magnitude illustrates something fundamental about the relation between matter and consciousness. Matter presents itself as an endless structure of scales and aggregates, while consciousness appears as the perspective through which these scales are organized and understood. The world therefore unfolds between these two poles: the material extension of nature and the conscious standpoint that interprets and situates itself within that extension.

Another way to describe the indivisible relation between consciousness and matter is to examine how the elements of nature—which are supposedly said to exist objectively in themselves, standing alone as factors outside of anyone—are themselves actually functions for life and for observers.

For example, air immediately invokes the idea of respiration. When an animal breathes, they are sustaining consciousness. Air therefore contributes intimately and directly to consciousness. When an organism stops breathing, it only takes a few minutes—or even seconds—for them to lose their consciousness. The dependence is immediate and undeniable. Without the circulation of air through respiration, the conscious activity of the organism collapses.

Yet we do not usually look at air, as materialists do, as an element of consciousness. Instead, we remove consciousness from the element and treat air as if it were an independent factor, standing alone in nature. We speak of it as merely an element that moves things around, circulates in the atmosphere, and produces weather and motion in the environment.

But if we remove the observer from the element of air, then air becomes nothing more than a certain type of motion. It becomes a structural movement of particles that cannot ultimately be distinguished, in its most abstract description, from other types of motion in nature. Fire, for instance, can also be described as motion—only a more rapid motion of atoms and particles. When scientists describe these elements independently of the observer, they tend to explain them simply as rates of motion.

Thus, air and fire are often described as more rapid motions of atoms and molecules, which can therefore become destructive to objects. Meanwhile water and earth are described as slower forms of motion, more stable aggregates of matter whose internal movements are less intense or less energetic.

However, describing these elements purely as rates of motion does not fully capture what they truly are as functions of nature. The rates of motion alone do not explain their full significance. Only when they are related back to the observer do they appear in their full and true light.

For example, light is not merely the byproduct of heat or energetic motion. Light is for seeing. It has a functional relation to vision and perception. Likewise, heat is not merely rapid atomic motion—it is for touch, for sensation, for the bodily awareness of temperature. When we remove these experiential relations and describe them purely in mechanical terms, something essential about them disappears.

If we take away the experience of heat and light, what remains is merely a form of kinetic motion—vibrations occurring throughout nature. At the most basic level, nature appears to consist of vibrations of energy, patterns of movement and oscillation that form the basis of all material structures.

Modern physics often attempts to describe this fundamental level in increasingly abstract ways. For example, theories such as String Theory propose that the most basic components of nature are not particles but vibrating strings of energy. These ideas sometimes appear extremely complicated, but the underlying intuition is actually very simple: when we examine nature at its most basic level, we encounter vibration.

What appears as solid matter at our ordinary scale dissolves into oscillation, motion, and energy when we look deeply enough into its structure. The apparent stability of objects becomes a pattern of dynamic processes.

When we reach this most basic level of analysis, we encounter what seems like an inexhaustible and unstoppable rate of vibrations. We call them vibrations because that is the closest word we have, but the reality may be something even more fundamental. It is almost like a crack or passage within nature itself, through which energy continually emerges and emanates outward.

In this sense, the basic level of nature may not be static matter at all, but rather a continual emission of energy, a dynamic process that underlies everything that appears. Matter then becomes a kind of organized pattern within this continuous vibration, while consciousness becomes the standpoint from which these patterns are perceived, interpreted, and related to life.

Thus the relation between matter and consciousness cannot easily be separated into two independent domains. The elements of nature—air, fire, water, earth, light, and heat—are not merely mechanical structures of motion. They are also conditions for experience, conditions through which life and consciousness emerge and sustain themselves within the larger field of nature.

What is Consciousness?

(Using inversion geometry)

What is consciousness? The inquiry into the nature of consciousness has been a difficult question in the course of science, not only because the subject matter is in and of itself difficult, but also because modern science has started to look for an answer in the wrong place.

One way to approach the question is by considering inversion geometry, where relationships between inner and outer positions are reversed, revealing structural relations that are otherwise hidden.¹ By applying this conceptual method, we may reconsider the relation between consciousness and matter, not as separate substances, but as inversions of one another within a larger structure of reality.

Another guiding idea is that form can exist separate from matter. For example, the form of feces is clearly determined by biological processes of digestion, but the shape itself is not identical to the matter composing it. The form can change even if the matter remains part of the same biological cycle. This suggests that form and material substance are not identical, even when they appear inseparable in ordinary observation.

The Influence of Monotheistic Thought

This lack of guidance in modern science is partly the influential remanence of the monotheistic idea that sees the human being as alien from God. The idea that the human being is a lost consciousness whose aim is to find God is not, by its own merit, wrong. It does, for instance, point to the process of enlightenment that human consciousness undergoes throughout life.

The human being begins, it seems, ignorant, and through the intercourse of life develops knowledge of the divine whose purpose seems more profound and clear at the end than when it was first sought at the beginning.

However, this idea errs in formulating a scientific understanding of consciousness, because it asserts that the human mind is in its inherent nature detached from God without providing an adequate explanation for why this is the case. Nor does it properly define what “God” actually is, which is the position from which consciousness is supposedly detached.

For example, the story of Adam and Eve and the snake provides metaphorical significations representing certain truths about human nature. But it fails to enter into the language of logic to provide direct demonstration of that truth. It explains human nature indirectly rather than directly—although even this assumption might itself be questionable.

Adam, Eve, and the Symbol of the Apple

Adam and Eve use the motive of an “apple” as the object wherein truth is disclosed. The truth that the apple signifies is a moral principle common in many monotheistic traditions: knowledge begins with knowing wrong.

When the human mind develops consciousness of categorizing actions as “wrong” and “right,” the mind must have developed detachment from the observation being interactively played out before it.

Human beings therefore developed an aspect of consciousness that divides them from animals. Humans are not fully consumed and subsumed within the total number of events occurring in their moment of observation.

An animal is one with the events of the moment, such that it directly acts on every impulse and determination as if its conception is identical with it. There is no separation between “me” and something other—like another object or a moment in time disclosing those objects.

The animal is fully reactive to everything life throws at it.

The human being does, in part, share this nature, where consciousness is sometimes fully consumed with the specification of what the organs of sensation pick out as the moment. Sometimes, for example, we “get lost in time.” Months may pass, and suddenly we realize that time has passed without us being fully aware of each moment making it up.

It is as if human consciousness developed an “autopilot” observation of life, where awareness extends over longer durations of time rather than noticing every abrupt instant called an event.

Primitive Consciousness

Adam and Eve, as the first humans, are fully consumed in their every moment directly perceived at the present. They have no general notion of time beyond the present moment. In other words, they have no concept of future.

They supposedly eat some kind of fruit—an apple—because that is a familiar object to modern people. We recognize an apple as food that provides nutrients to the body.

But another interpretation is possible.

If we replace the apple with another object performing a similar function, then we must consider the historical development of the human mind.

Historically, humanity is usually considered to have recorded history beginning around 600 BC. Before that time, human existence is described as prehistoric, meaning a time without written records.²

Over time, the idea of what counts as “man” seems to change. Today we often define man as a “rational animal”—a being capable of reasoning about actions before performing them. This capacity includes the ability to think about the future, about something not directly present.

But if this ability defines humanity, then prehistoric people must also be human. Yet modern perspectives sometimes deny them this status simply because they lacked written history.

Despite this, there is an obvious continuity in history between prehistoric people and recorded civilizations. There has been an upward trend in development, where human life gradually increases in complexity and self-awareness.

Our definition of primitive people is therefore defined by being before a certain time period in history. Before a certain time, we call them prehistoric, and these people are said to be primitive. However, for the same reason, the issue of time can represent the opposite conclusion.

Because time has taken its toll on the leftover remains of these people and their technology, it may simply be that much of it has degenerated and disappeared. Distorted by the length of decay throughout thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years, the artifacts we find that are still intact may demonstrate not a lack of development, but rather, to the contrary, a higher development.

The Apple as Food for the Mind

When humans took the “apple,” this may symbolize a prehistoric moment when humans ingested something that did not merely feed the body but also fed the mind.

Ancient people may have discovered natural substances—what we today call psychoactive plants or drugs—that alter perception and expand awareness. These substances are not merely chemicals; they are passages of nature through which the mind experiences altered states of consciousness.

If this interpretation is correct, then the apple symbolizes the awakening of reflective consciousness.

In Christianity, the apple is commonly understood as the symbolic fruit from the Book of Genesis that was eaten by Adam and Eve after being tempted by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Although the biblical text itself does not specify that the fruit was an apple, later Christian tradition came to represent it as one. The fruit comes from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and its symbolic meaning is deeply connected to the idea of self-awareness and the awakening of human consciousness.

Before eating the fruit, Adam and Eve are described as living in a state of innocent unity with God and nature. They exist without shame, without reflective self-awareness, and without moral conflict. Their condition can be understood as a kind of immediate harmony between the human being and the world. In this state, human beings do not yet stand apart from reality to judge it, analyze it, or compare themselves to it. They simply exist within it. In this sense, the state of Eden represents a pre-reflective consciousness, where the individual has not yet separated themselves from the total order of creation.

When Eve eats the fruit and Adam follows, the text says that “their eyes were opened” and they became aware that they were naked. This moment symbolizes the birth of reflective self-consciousness. Suddenly the human being sees themselves as an object among objects. They become aware of themselves as separate individuals who can judge, choose, and act independently. In philosophical terms, the human being becomes self-reflective: they do not merely live, but they become aware that they live.

Within the Christian framework, this awakening is described as sin rather than virtue. The reason is not simply that knowledge itself is evil, but that the knowledge gained from the fruit represents the desire to determine good and evil independently of God. In other words, humanity moves from living within divine order to attempting to define reality according to its own judgment. Self-awareness therefore introduces a separation between the human being and the divine source of truth. The individual now stands outside the original unity of creation and must struggle with freedom, responsibility, and moral uncertainty.

This interpretation explains why the story associates self-awareness with shame and exile. After gaining knowledge, Adam and Eve hide themselves and are expelled from the Garden of Eden. The exile symbolizes the fact that once self-consciousness appears, the human being can no longer return to the earlier state of simple unity with nature. The awareness of oneself as an independent subject permanently alters the relationship between humanity, nature, and God.

Yet paradoxically, Christian theology also suggests that this fall becomes the beginning of the path toward redemption. The separation created by self-awareness introduces the conditions for moral struggle, spiritual development, and eventually reconciliation with God. Humanity must now consciously seek the truth that it once possessed immediately. In this sense, the story of the apple is not only about the fall of humanity but also about the beginning of human history, where the development of consciousness unfolds through conflict, error, and the search for restoration.

Misconceptions About Ancient Humans

Modern people often imagine prehistoric humans as “cavemen.” But this image is likely a poor abstraction. It reflects our attempt to understand the distant past by comparing it to something familiar—our own childhood development.

We imagine ancient people as if they were underdeveloped versions of ourselves, almost like adults with the mentality of children. This is likely inaccurate.

Ancient people organized themselves in tribes, constructed shelters, and positioned themselves strategically within nature.

For example, early civilization emerged in Mesopotamia, particularly between the Tigris River and the Euphrates River, a region located in what is now Iraq.

Today Iraq is considered politically unstable, yet historically it was the center of early civilization.

Historical Transitions of Civilization

Centuries later, the intellectual traditions of the Islam preserved enormous libraries of ancient knowledge. Islamic scholars translated and preserved the works of classical philosophy and science during periods when Europe was experiencing intellectual decline.

This civilization extended across large territories, including parts of Turkey, India, and regions of Central Asia.

Later, the Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire expanded westward across Asia. During this period, historical accounts suggest that major libraries—possibly including those connected to the legacy of the Siege of Baghdad 1258—were destroyed.

Over centuries, these conflicts exhausted the major civilizations of the region, after which European powers influenced global development, including the rise of the Catholic Church.

Time at Different Scales

Time in history behaves very differently from time experienced at the level of individual observation.

At the particle state, where objects exist as discrete individuals, events happen so rapidly that the connection between moments is difficult to perceive. Each millisecond follows another so quickly that it becomes impossible to see how one leads to the next.

But at larger scales of time—such as astronomical scales measured in light-years—time unfolds differently.

Stars, for example, exist for billions of years. Their life cycles fill both time and space in ways completely different from the scale of human perception.

Distance, Geometry, and Observation

From one point of view, objects that are very far apart require enormous travel distances to reach one another. A spaceship might travel for years to reach another planet.

From a purely linear distance, one object may be diagonally external to another, forming the longest possible path between two points on the circumference of a circle relative to its center—an idea related to the mathematical constant π.³

But from a first-person point of view, distant objects appear smaller. Their energy becomes thinner, lighter, and blends with other objects closer to the observer.

In altered states of perception—such as those produced by psychedelics—the boundaries that normally separate objects become less distinct. Objects blend together into a continuity that appears as a single event.

Objects therefore exist in relation to each other through extreme quantitative measures of distance, mass, and energy, and these relations ultimately produce the phenomenon we call time.

Footnotes

1. Inversion Geometry – A mathematical concept where points are mapped relative to a circle or sphere, effectively reversing inside and outside relations. Philosophically, it can be used metaphorically to describe transformations between internal and external perspectives.
2. Prehistory – The period before written records. Archaeology and anthropology reconstruct this period through artifacts, fossils, and geological evidence.
3. π (Pi) – A mathematical constant representing the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, fundamental in describing circular geometry and spatial relationships.

Region

From a mental dimension, future moments in time may perhaps be the conceptions of previous people in time. Events that, from a linear point of view, are separated by vast spaces between them may, from the first-person point of view, overlap with each other, constituting the same space.

We see an example of this when someone looks toward the sun over the horizon, where some trees are located. The trees and the sun are separated by vast distances in physical space. Yet from our conception they come together within the same reference frame, occupying the same dimension in space.

The line of common simultaneity is therefore the reference frame of the observer.¹

Religious Language

The language of religion indirectly depicts truth by using objects of sensation immediately familiar to us in order to conceptualize fundamental principles of the world. The language of logic, on the other hand, attempts to directly outline these principles by representing them through modes of thought.

Even though religious language does not explicitly do this, the idea of religion nevertheless recognizes that modes of thought are inherent principles in the objects themselves.

There remains an unsolved question in monotheistic religions: how is the world detached from its creator?

In one sense it is true that the creator and the creation remain distinct, as in the case of a piece of art that is a distinct object from the artist who brought it into existence. Yet to say that the creator and the creation are distinct does not explain their relation.

If they are different, what exactly is their relation as different things?

Moreover, the fundamental problem of evil remains in religion.² If evil is something distinct from God, what is the source of the creation of evil?

If evil is any form of divergence from God, then God must be the source from which that divergence occurs. Yet if evil has no effect on God, what effect does God have that keeps evilness astray as something which has no effect?

This latter question assumes that if evil has no effect on God, then God must nevertheless have an effect on evil—at least the effect of not being affected by it.

The Doctrine of Original Sin

In the Christian religion specifically, the human being is born sinful, and only through the acceptance of Christ is the individual “saved” into the Holy Spirit of the Lord and Father.

From this doctrine the human being, being the creation of God, falls into sin. Therefore evilness has an indirect effect on God through affecting His creation.

There is something deep about the idea that humans are “born sinful,” or what is called original sin.³ It suggests that any divergence away from God is itself a sin, and therefore that aspect of human existence which deviates from divine unity is already a condition of fallenness.

Thought and Object

Modern science has made the considerable achievement of formulating modes of thought into the understanding of physical objects. Yet the following question still remains unsolved:

What is the essential relation between thought and objects that makes them both distinct and related?

In other words: how is thought material?

The scientific ontology that attempts to understand the physical nature of thought begins by adopting the principle of consciousness as a universal element of the universe.

This assumption arises not only because consciousness is itself a phenomenon available for objective study, but also because evidence of consciousness exhibits shared conceptions between peoples and epochs.

However, contemporary science often makes the same error in this claim that religion makes when describing the relation between God and man.

When science treats consciousness as a universal principle, it often views it as detached from particular things, meaning consciousness becomes merely the observer of particular phenomena.

This view is asserted for the sake of objectivity in empirical study. By separating the observer from the observed, science attempts to achieve universality by removing subjective bias from analysis.

This methodological principle is known as fallibilism.⁴

However, fallibilism alone does not explain how consciousness is a universal function of matter. It merely preserves the possibility of correcting errors without explaining the underlying reality being studied.

Put simply, the method maintains the universality of consciousness but does not explain why consciousness is universal.

What use is fallibilism without first the aspiration for truth?

The Problem of Universality

Contemporary science focuses so much on avoiding mistakes that it risks making the first mistake: failing to offer substantial claims about the essential substance that empirical facts are meant to illuminate.

In this way, strict fallibilism risks failing to satisfy the essential definition of universality.

A universal principle cannot be classified in the same way that particular objects are. Something universal is not merely one object among others. Rather, it is the single activity capable of producing an infinity of unique individual objects.

This is why universality underlies each and every object regardless of their differences. It is their common ground.

Consciousness, as a universal principle, is different from particular things because it is not limited in the same way particular things are.

First, we must ask: what is the limitation of consciousness, even if its limitation is that it is unlimited?

Second, what effect does it have on particular things?

If consciousness is not limited by any one object yet somehow limits each object individually, then consciousness must be something distinct from particular things yet present within them.

This leads to an important question:

In what sense can consciousness be inside each thing while remaining external to it?

This idea may seem difficult, but the logic of something being separate yet present inside a thing can already be seen in composite physical objects.

Composition

The very nature of physical reality involves composition.

Composition is generally understood as the way in which a whole is made from its constituents. In physics, composition can be described as the resultant of multiple forces interacting together.

When we examine composite things microscopically, we find that any particular object contains within it distinct parts. These parts form relations with each other that produce the whole object.

Yet each part is itself another particular object, containing within it its own set of relations among smaller parts.

Thus the whole constitutes the particular in that it is the relations between the parts that define what the object is.

But at the same time, that very whole is also present in each constituent part of the relation.

In this way the whole and the parts are mutually implicit in each other, and it is this structure of relation that allows the object to exist as the kind of specific thing that it is.

Footnotes

1. Reference Frame – In physics, a coordinate system relative to which observations of space and time are made.
2. Problem of Evil – A philosophical and theological problem questioning how evil can exist in a world created by an all-powerful, all-good deity.
3. Original Sin – A Christian doctrine asserting that humanity inherits a fallen condition from the first humans.
4. Fallibilism – The philosophical idea that human knowledge is always subject to revision and possible error.

• geometry of perception
• theology
• philosophy of science
• physics of composition

The contradiction between the whole and the part was already recognized in the philosophy of the Parmenides, Heraclitus, and later more systematically in Aristotle. Greek thinkers noticed that when we analyze any object, we inevitably divide it into smaller components, yet the object itself is not simply identical with the sum of those components. The parts exist only as parts because they belong to a whole, yet the whole cannot exist without the parts that compose it. This produces a conceptual tension: the parts seem logically prior because they compose the whole, yet the whole is also logically prior because it defines what the parts are.

For example, consider a living organism. An arm or a heart is a part of the body, yet that arm only functions as an arm because it belongs to the living whole organism. If separated entirely from the body, it ceases to be what it was. The Greeks recognized that a part therefore has meaning only through its relation to the whole. In this sense, the whole appears to be prior to the parts because it determines their identity and function.

Yet the opposite also seems true. The organism cannot exist without the organs composing it. The body depends upon the parts that make it up. This creates the paradox that the whole depends on the parts, while the parts depend on the whole. Each appears to ground the other.

In the philosophy of Plato, this tension often appears in the distinction between the unity of a form and the multiplicity of its manifestations. A form represents the unified principle that makes many particular instances recognizable as the same kind of thing. Yet these instances are the concrete expressions through which the form becomes visible in the world.

Later Greek philosophy attempted to reconcile this contradiction by proposing that the whole is not merely the sum of parts, but the organization of relations between parts. In this view, the unity of the whole arises from the structure of relations among its constituents rather than from a simple accumulation of pieces.

This insight directly connects to the broader question of consciousness and matter discussed earlier. Just as a physical object is not merely a collection of parts but a structured unity, consciousness may likewise be understood as a principle of unity organizing many particular experiences into a single field of awareness. Individual sensations and perceptions are like parts, while consciousness is the whole that integrates them into a coherent experience.

Thus the ancient Greek problem of the relation between whole and part foreshadows the modern philosophical problem of the relation between mind and matter. In both cases, the contradiction arises because the same reality can be viewed from two different perspectives: as a multiplicity of discrete elements or as a unified structure that organizes those elements into a meaningful totality.

The ancient paradox between parts and whole is resolved if we stop seeing this dichotomy as one of matter, or rather if we stop seeing matter as the fundamental substance. Instead, if we see consciousness, reason, or abstract substance as the essential principle, then the paradox begins to resolve itself.

First, we can say that “parts” are actually abstractions from the observer’s consciousness. The observer, being a part himself, only sees the world in a finite and partial way. Because of this limitation, he abstracts from the whole certain instances that appear partial. These abstractions are what we call “parts.”

Yet at the same time, consciousness discloses the world as if it is a whole. Even when the observer focuses on a single finite part, that part still points beyond itself. Within any finite part that the observer abstracts, there remains the element of infinity—either extending outward from it into larger and larger relations, or inward within it infinitesimally into smaller and smaller relations.

Thus consciousness reveals that every part is never simply isolated. Each part is always situated within a continuity of relations that lead beyond it in both directions of magnitude.

In this way, consciousness first discloses a whole, and only abstracts that whole into parts. The parts therefore do not precede the whole in reality; rather, they arise as conceptual distinctions made by consciousness within an already unified field of experience.

Consciousness and the Object

Consciousness is external from the object in that it is the examination of it. Yet for that same reason, consciousness is also internal to the object, in that it conceives it, or that the object itself becomes the expression of that conception.

In the compository sense, the object contains consciousness because it expresses it, while at the same time consciousness examines the object from the inside out. Consciousness vicariously lives through the object in order to examine its function, which is its expression.

The evidence for this is demonstrated by the mere perception and understanding of the object. When we look at an object and identify it as the kind of thing that it is, we base the identity of the object on its function.

When we see an object, we first see its function.

For example, we come to understand a chair made out of wood with four legs because we recognize its function—to be sat on—and its form, the shape and structure that support this role. The material content and arrangement become meaningful only after we recognize the function.

Whereas if someone were suddenly thrown into an Amazon Rainforest, the perception of the numerous types of wooden trees could confuse and cause fear in that individual. The unfamiliarity of the environment prevents the immediate recognition of their functions.

However, if the individual were a native to the forest, then such a person would immediately see the function of the tree, such as eating from it or using it for shelter, in the same way a modern person would immediately see the function of a chair as something to sit on.

Thus it is the function of the object in the initial sense that develops the understanding of the details making it up. We see first the function, and only afterward do we analyze its material composition.

The Familiarity of Consciousness

We have to stop thinking of consciousness as something detached. It is in fact the most familiar concept to us because it is always present.

Yet the difficulty arises from the paradox that something so familiar can be so difficult to comprehend.

Consciousness is always present in every act of perception and thought, yet because it is the condition of experience itself, it is rarely examined directly.

Self-Consciousness

The ultimate experience of mind is the knowledge of itself—the consciousness of consciousness, or self-consciousness.

On its own, this may seem like a superfluous or empty claim.

When we think of knowledge of the self, we often assume that we already possess such knowledge. We identify particular forms—our bodies, our thoughts, and certain experiences—and we say that these compose the self.

We are to a degree aware of our bodies, our thoughts, and other objects, and we call the union between our mind and body our self.

It is true that knowledge of our thoughts, bodies, and objects constitutes some identity of a consciousness capable of conceiving these things.

Yet the knowledge of these things and the being capable of that knowledge are not essentially the same claim.

We often take the knowledge derived from what we perceive as evidence for the self that is perceiving.

In some sense this is correct, because we only identify certain things as ourselves. We do not say that all bodies constitute our self. Instead we identify with the body that is most approximate to our consciousness.

Likewise, we do not identify with objects that we do not know exist. We identify only with the objects we know to exist through direct or indirect perception.

Beyond this basic sense of identity, however, we cannot really say that we possess full knowledge of the self. What we possess is only the knowledge that our conceptions constitute the self.

The deeper question still remains unanswered:

What is this self—the consciousness that derives knowledge in the first place?

Even knowledge of the body containing the thought about it is already determined before the awareness of that fact. This idea is close to the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, who argued that the mind and body are two expressions of the same underlying substance.¹

Development of Self-Knowledge

During childhood, for example, a child derives knowledge of their own body through acquaintance with other bodies.

The child learns what their own body is capable of doing by observing similarities and differences between themselves and other individuals.

Even the senses themselves produce knowledge through a process similar to induction.² The knowledge of one individual object already involves the knowledge of other objects within its approximate scope.

The knowledge of many objects therefore invigorates the knowledge of the individual object. Each new perception refines the understanding of the whole field of experience.

Individuality and Substance

The difference between my self and every other self, and between this object and all other objects, appears obvious to us.

Yet this difference points to a deeper feature of the essential substance of reality.

The fact that such distinctions appear so clearly suggests that there is a common ground within which these distinctions arise. Individual things appear separate, but they do so within a shared structure of reality that makes these differences intelligible.

The Question of Rationality and God

A similar philosophical problem appears in the dialogue Euthyphro, where Socrates asks whether something is good because God commands it, or whether God commands it because it is good.

In one sense this question can be reformulated as:

Is God what is rational, or is what is rational determined by God?

In the first case, if God is rationality itself, then there is no distinct feature or character separating God from reason. God would simply be identical with the principle of rational order.

In the second case, if what is rational is made by God, then God becomes a separate character who decides what counts as rational. In this case there is a separation between God and rationality, and rationality becomes something arbitrarily determined from an external point.

This dilemma illustrates the deeper philosophical problem of whether reason is fundamental to reality or whether it is imposed upon reality from outside.

Footnotes

1. Spinoza’s Parallelism – In the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, mind and body are not separate substances but two attributes of the same underlying reality.
2. Induction – A method of reasoning in which general principles are derived from repeated observations of particular cases.

A composite body is an object that exists as a whole formed from the relation of multiple parts. It is not merely a single indivisible unit, but rather a structured unity in which distinct elements combine together to produce a specific thing. The identity of the composite body therefore does not lie in any one individual part, but in the organization and relation of the parts that together form the whole. When we examine any ordinary object—a chair, a tree, or a human body—we discover that each of these objects consists of smaller components arranged in a particular structure. The composite body is thus the result of composition, the process through which many parts become one unified entity.

Composition in its most basic sense refers to the arrangement and interaction of parts that produce a whole. The parts themselves may be distinct and capable of existing in other arrangements, but when they come together in a specific relation they generate a new unity. For example, wood arranged in a certain structure becomes a chair, yet the same wood arranged differently could become a table or a door. The composite object is therefore not identical with the material alone; it is the form of organization that determines what the object is.

In natural bodies the same principle applies. A living organism is a composite body composed of organs, tissues, cells, and molecules. Each of these parts performs a function that contributes to the operation of the whole organism. The heart circulates blood, the lungs exchange gases, and the nervous system coordinates activity. None of these parts alone constitutes the organism; the organism exists only through the coordinated functioning of the parts together. Thus the composite body is not simply a sum of parts but a functional unity, where each component contributes to the activity of the whole.

At a deeper level, composition extends throughout the structure of physical reality. What appears to us as a single object can always be further analyzed into smaller components. Molecules are composed of atoms, atoms are composed of subatomic particles, and those particles themselves may be understood as configurations of energy. Each level is a composite of more fundamental relations. In this sense, physical reality forms a hierarchy of compositions in which every whole becomes a part within a larger system.

The concept of composition therefore reveals an important philosophical insight: the identity of an object is relational. A thing is what it is not merely because of the material it contains but because of the pattern of relations among its constituents. The whole determines the role of the parts, while the parts simultaneously sustain the existence of the whole. This reciprocal relation between parts and wholes is what gives a composite body its structure and stability.

Understanding composition also clarifies how consciousness relates to objects. When we perceive a composite body, we do not immediately notice every individual component that forms it. Instead, we first perceive the unified function of the whole, and only afterward analyze the details that make it possible. The mind therefore apprehends composition as a unity before recognizing the multiplicity of its parts. In this way, the concept of a composite body reflects both a physical structure in nature and a structure of perception within consciousness.

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Compound Bodies

A compound body is a fixed determination—or a consistent state of energy. A compound body may be defined as any given determination of inverse magnitudes compelled by another inverse determination of those magnitudes to remain in the same rate of motion so that their mutual movements preserve a certain fixed relation.

An individual body is therefore distinguished from other bodies by the fact of this union of relations. This definition, however, is dense and requires careful dissection.

(1) Determination of Inverse Magnitudes

First, a “determination of inverse magnitudes” means that the fundamental state of energy is an action of causation.

The nature of any cause logically presupposes that any action is signified only through effort against an opposite action. This is why even in physics energy is defined as the property of matter that manifests the capacity to perform work, such as in the interaction of molecules.¹

In other words, energy is the power applied toward activity, and an activity involves the exertion of actions against each other—one object exerting itself upon another.

The inverse properties of a determination therefore point to the necessity that its action requires energy to perform activity. For example, if we take the determination of locomotion to go upwards, the energy required to move upward is based upon effort against the tendency to go downwards.

Thus the very action of going upwards presupposes the inverse action of going downwards. In this way, going upwards is only an activity insofar as it presupposes the inverse action of downward motion.

(2) Inversion as the Definition of Determination

Second, the inversion itself is what defines a determination.

The two parts inverse to each other are not separate determinations on their own. Rather, their exertion against each other constitutes a single determination.

Going upwards is therefore not its own determination independently. It is a determination only insofar as going downwards is presupposed, and their tension against each other constitutes the two as opposite actions within the same activity.

There is therefore no determination existing in isolation abstracted from its inverse determination. This principle can be described as the law of composition.

If the composition of a determination consists of inverse forces, then a question arises: how can a determination perform one action rather than another?

One might make the logically erroneous argument that the union of inverse forces cancels itself out, producing a null relation where both forces become inoperative. But if this were true, determination would cease to involve the exertion of energy toward activity.

Yet included within the definition of determination is the freedom to alternate between forms of energy usage.

A determination is therefore not only the exertion of energy but also the production of form. The energy of determination takes on structure and produces what we conceive as physical objects. This interpretation resonates with the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, who argued that physical bodies are modes expressing the power of a single substance.²

(3) Second Determination and Composite Motion

In the same way that the first determination is only a cause insofar as it is the effort of inverse forces, this determination—its own energy—exists only because it is compelled by another inverse determination of magnitudes.

This means that there is a second determination, possessing its own magnitudes inverse to the first determination.

For example, if the first determination consists of the relation upwards and downwards, then a second determination may consist of the relation left and right.

The inverse magnitudes belonging to this second determination compel the first determination to remain within its own inverse relation of upwards and downwards.

The energy required for one relation to involve inverse actions leaves available the energy for the other relation to involve its own opposite inverse actions.

(4) Fixed Relations and Qualities

The energy required for one determination therefore leaves room for the necessary energy of another determination. Taken together, these relations maintain a fixed relation with a certain rate of motion.

In our example, the relations up–down and left–right combine to form a fixed structure in which every possible motion uses the available energy.

This fixed relation also produces qualities.

For example, something is described as hard when the inverse determinations expand away from each other. This expansion requires the energy between them to become greater and more resistant.

Conversely, a body is described as soft when the determinations move closer together, requiring less extensive energy between them.

Bodies whose surfaces contact each other over large superficies we call hard bodies. Bodies that contact each other over small superficies are called soft bodies. Bodies whose motions occur freely among one another are called liquid bodies.

These physical qualities therefore arise from the relations of motion between determinations, not merely from isolated pieces of matter.

Determination and Consciousness

The reason why determination involves inverse properties may ultimately be based upon the nature of consciousness itself.

Consciousness is itself a substance structured through inverse relations—such as being and non-being, subject and object, form and content.³

The relation between the universal and the particular outlines the essential magnitudes of consciousness involved in knowledge of the self.

Consciousness can be understood in two ways:

1. The knowledge of itself as capable of producing knowledge.
2. The knowledge that constitutes consciousness itself.

This distinction can also be expressed as form versus content.

The Universal and Particular in Consciousness

The paradox between the universal and the particular forms the totality of the nature of consciousness.

The universal magnitude of consciousness produces knowledge of itself by creating objects that express the operations of thought that gave rise to them.

Yet this universal side of consciousness becomes alienated from its objects, because it cannot directly perceive them; it can only produce them.

Thus the universal side of consciousness produces the object without itself possessing knowledge of it.

If it possessed such knowledge immediately, the object would simply reflect the knowledge that created it, leaving no distinction between the creator and the created.

But if consciousness were to directly perceive its object in that way, it would discover that it existed before knowing itself, which would contradict its purpose of producing objects that reveal its own nature.

Therefore consciousness in its universal form must forsake immediate knowledge of itself in order to maintain its activity.

Instead, it transfers the possibility of possessing that knowledge to the objects it produces, which represent its knowledge.

Particular Objects and Indirect Knowledge

Consciousness therefore retreats into particular magnitudes, the objects that represent aspects of its knowledge.

Each particular object represents a particular determination of universal consciousness.

When particular objects interact with each other, their mutual contact produces direct knowledge of their relation.

However, from the perspective of each particular object, knowledge remains limited. The knowledge of one object is knowledge of another object, but not yet knowledge of the underlying nature common to both.

The deeper nature of both objects remains only indirectly known, standing behind their immediate interaction.

When two particular objects recognize their mutual relation, they approach knowledge of their shared nature. Yet this knowledge is still mediated by the perception of one object by another.

Thus the universal side of consciousness, which produces objects, remains distinct from those objects even while it seeks knowledge through them.

Union of Universal and Particular

Consciousness ultimately arises from the union between the universal and the particular.

The universal side creates the object of knowledge, while the particular side situates itself within objects to express that knowledge.

Together they constitute consciousness as a living being capable of self-knowledge.

Yet these two sides continually contradict each other. The universal produces objects but does not directly know them; the particular experiences objects but does not initially understand their universal ground.

Their contradiction maintains both sides in activity. Each challenges the other to remain what it is, and through this tension consciousness gradually develops what it can become.

Footnotes

1. Energy in Physics – Energy is commonly defined as the capacity to perform work or produce change in physical systems.
2. Spinoza’s Concept of Modes – In the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, individual bodies are “modes” expressing the power of a single infinite substance.
3. Dialectical Oppositions – Philosophers such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel described reality as structured through oppositions that generate development through tension and contradiction.

Inversion Geometry and the Development of the Atom

Inversion geometry can be understood as describing the internal relations involved in the development of the atom. The concept suggests that the structure of physical reality emerges through relations that invert or oppose each other, forming stable patterns that appear as particles and bodies.

Like all elementary particles, photons are currently best explained by quantum mechanics and exhibit wave–particle duality, meaning they display properties of both waves and particles at the same time.¹ For example, a single photon may be refracted by a lens and exhibit wave interference with itself, while it can also behave as a particle with definite and finite measurable position and momentum.

The photon’s wave and quanta qualities are therefore two observable aspects of a single phenomenon and cannot be completely described by any simple mechanical model. A representation of this dual property of light that assumes certain points on the wavefront to be the seat of energy is not fully possible. The quanta in a light wave cannot be perfectly spatially localized. Nevertheless, some physical parameters of a photon—such as its energy, frequency, and momentum—can be defined and measured.

This means that the wave property can interconnect with itself in such a way that it produces what appears as a particle. In this interpretation, a particle can be thought of as something spherical in structure, formed by the interference of waves and the concentration of energy that results from this spherical wave formation.

Quantization and the Form of Energy

Quantization can be understood as the categorization of the form that energy takes. In modern physics, energy does not vary continuously in all situations but instead appears in discrete units called quanta.²

In physics, a field is a physical quantity—often represented as a number, vector, or tensor—that has a value at every point in space and time.³ Examples include the electromagnetic field, gravitational field, and other fields used in modern physics.

Field quantization refers to the process of converting a classical field into a quantum field. A well-known example is the quantization of the electromagnetic field, where photons are understood as the quanta of that field, sometimes called light quanta.

This procedure forms the basis of several important areas of modern physics, including:

• particle physics
• nuclear physics
• condensed matter physics
• quantum optics

Quantization converts classical fields into operators acting on quantum states within field theory. These operators describe how energy and particles appear and interact within the field.

The lowest energy state of a quantum field is called the vacuum state.⁴ Even though it is called a vacuum, it is not completely empty but instead represents the minimum possible energy configuration of the field.

The reason for quantizing a theory is to deduce the properties of materials, objects, or particles by computing quantum amplitudes that describe the probabilities of different physical outcomes. These calculations can become extremely complicated, but they allow physicists to predict the behavior of matter and energy at very small scales.

Footnotes

1. Wave–Particle Duality – A principle in quantum mechanics stating that particles such as photons and electrons exhibit both wave-like and particle-like behavior depending on the experimental conditions.
2. Quantum (plural: quanta) – The smallest discrete unit in which a physical quantity such as energy can exist.
3. Field (Physics) – A quantity defined at every point in space and time that describes how forces or energy are distributed in a region.
4. Vacuum State – The lowest energy state of a quantum field; even in this state, fluctuations of energy can occur due to quantum effects.

The Post-Modern Paradox

In the post-modern tradition, our contemporary age, truth is obscured in the following way.

When writing research, the thinker must explain the truth of their philosophy as if it is independent of all other philosophies, and yet at the same time as if it is equally true to all other philosophies. This is the post-modern paradox: the thinker must show how their truth is unique yet also the same.

In showing that it is unique, many thinkers conclude that therefore there is no universal continuity, and the so-called standard of “truth” halts at that point. Yet others, by showing that their truth is the same across all other truths, conclude that there is no uniqueness, and therefore everything has already been said.

This type of style obscures direct and objective facts. This tendency can be observed in many contemporary universities, where an essay is often treated not as a pursuit of scientific truth but as rhetoric.

History as Dialectical Dialogue

The aim of the essay is to show how history, as a vast dialogue, is itself the dialectic.

The development of human thought first existed as a simple unity, then became a complex diversity, and ultimately will become a complex unity.

Human truth first appeared as a simple unity, is becoming a complex diversity, and will eventually become a complex unity.

Two historical checkpoints in this process are Aristotle and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

From the time of Aristotle to Hegel, philosophy and religion constituted the principal forms of human thought, addressing the most general questions about reality.

Among the answers produced during this period, some were mistaken. Religion often functioned as a negative dialectic, producing contradictory explanations of reality and resulting in stalemates regarding truth.

The positive dialectic, however, appeared in the philosophies of thinkers such as Aristotle and Hegel. These philosophers attempted to provide comprehensive and systematic understandings of reality. Yet their systems lacked the empirical data available today because their historical period did not yet possess the scientific instruments necessary to gather such evidence.

The Rise of the Natural Sciences

After the period of Hegel, the term science became defined primarily by the natural sciences. During this period, knowledge became divided into disciplines such as physics, biology, and chemistry.

Although this division fragmented knowledge, it also allowed for deeper empirical understanding of natural phenomena.

The development of the natural sciences therefore represents a positive dialectic, because it advances concrete knowledge of the world.

However, alongside the natural sciences there also developed a negative dialectic, expressed in certain forms of post-modern philosophy and scientific materialism. These traditions produced claims such as:

• all truth is equal
• truth is ultimately subjective
• reality is entirely material

These claims often lead again to a stalemate about truth.

The Next Stage: Synthesis

The next historical stage of human thought must therefore involve a synthesis.

This synthesis will unite:

1. the fundamental metaphysical insights found in the philosophy of Aristotle and Hegel
2. the empirical discoveries produced by the natural sciences

It is therefore time for inquiry to synthesize metaphysics and science.

Hegel’s idea that reason governs the world may be further supported by modern discoveries about the universe, including phenomena such as dark matter and dark energy.¹

In this interpretation, dark matter may eventually be understood through the dynamics of dark energy, while the missing link between cosmic rationality and physical reality may be fully developed rational beings capable of understanding the universe.

This would represent the complete work of Reason.

Sublation

The word sublation is extremely important in the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.² It refers to a process that both preserves and cancels what came before.

Sublation occurs in two ways within the dialectic:

1. The positive dialectic develops by building upon previous stages.
2. The negative dialectic introduces contradiction and negation.

This negation then becomes resolved, and the resolution sublates the contradiction into a new identity.

Each stage of positive dialectic eventually becomes self-sufficient and no longer requires the negative dialectic to define what it is not.

Once that happens, the negative dialectic becomes independent, generating new contradictions and new developments. This process continues throughout history.

However, this is ultimately a developmental process.

In the final stage, the dialectic reaches absolute positive dialectic, meaning absolute quality.

Since the negative dialectic represents the negation of quality, there can no longer be negation of absolute quality, because such negation would contradict its very definition.

This logical structure represents the ultimate movement of reality itself.

Evolution of Reason

This process is the evolution of human thought, or conscious Reason.

Just as animals evolve physically over thousands of years, acquiring new traits necessary for survival, the human mind as a species evolves through the development of knowledge.

But this development goes beyond mere survival. The human mind seeks to grasp ultimate Being.

According to this interpretation, human history unfolds in three stages:

1. Universal stage – foundational unity
2. Particular stage – diversity and analysis
3. Resolution stage – synthesis of the universal and particular

The final stage represents the union between the individual and the universal.

In this sense, science will ultimately demonstrate metaphysical truths about the universe.

The individual “I” becomes universal because the individual represents the species as a whole.

The End of Historical Dialogue

The end of historical dialogue is the full development of the human being as individuals, where each individual becomes representative of every other individual.

In this condition, the content becomes the form of the whole.

History moves in a straight line—though within a larger circle representing all reality—toward the perfectibility of humanity as freedom.

This movement is filled with events, struggles, and developments.

The negative dialectic explains the negative aspects of spirit. Hegel did not overlook these aspects of history.

Because spirit develops through struggle, most of history appears negative. Yet these negative elements are necessary because positive aspects are defined by what they are not.

Thus the positive exists in contrast with the negative.

This negation is not merely logical reasoning imposed by thinkers but rather the actual force of development within reality.

As the positive dialectic progresses toward its telos (goal), contradictions cancel themselves out.

Reality moves from the real to the actual, until eventually the actual becomes the real.

Being, Nothing, and Becoming

The reason the negative and positive dialectics ultimately merge is that each is defined by its opposite.

They are defined by what they are not.

In the ultimate sense, what is not becomes what is.

Being and nothing appear as opposites, yet they are the same in their indeterminacy.

This contradiction is resolved through becoming, which represents the movement between them.³

The Circle of History

Human history can be represented as a circle existing within the Whole of reality.

The direction of this circle moves forward in time, meaning history never repeats in exactly the same way. Yet it moves inward in space, meaning reality continually discloses itself.

Within this circle exist two smaller circles:

1. A smaller circle representing the positive dialectic
2. A larger circle representing the negative dialectic

The smaller circle develops through the conflict of opposing philosophies, while the larger circle represents broader social conflicts and mistaken ideologies.

Both circles also conflict with each other.

As human consciousness develops, the smaller circle grows and eventually overwhelms the larger one.

This occurs because the development of consciousness arises through the positive dialectic.

The final stage occurs when the smaller circle becomes the whole circle.

At that point human history constitutes the actualization of rational laws through consciousness.

Without consciousness, the universe contains rational laws unconsciously.

With consciousness, those laws become self-aware.

The Early Development of Truth

This process is already visible in the early stages of philosophy.

In Ancient Greek thought, truth develops through the work of:

• Socrates
• Plato
• Aristotle

These thinkers brought together and systematized earlier philosophical insights.

At the same time, the majority of humanity struggled with mistaken ideologies that produced negative consequences such as religious wars.

A similar situation appears in the modern age after the philosophy of Hegel, although the conflicts are less violent due to the development of knowledge achieved during earlier stages.

Three Stages of History

Human history can therefore be understood in three stages:

1. Foundation of truth – primarily Aristotle and Hegel
2. Analysis of truth – the modern scientific age
3. Synthesis of truth – the future union of science and metaphysics

Each stage corresponds to a particular form of consciousness within society.

In Ancient Greek society, individuals were primarily social beings whose desires harmonized with reason, though without a strong sense of individuality.

In Protestant Europe, individuality became dominant, as seen in events such as the French Revolution.

In the final stage, individuality and society will become fully unified.

This unity will make possible the complete synthesis of metaphysics and science, representing the full realization of the Idea.

God can be understood as the unity of the individual and the universal.

While this unity exists as a potential within every human being, it becomes actual only in fully developed rational beings.

This would represent the actualization of the whole of reality.

Dialectic of Being

In the Science of Logic, Hegel describes the dialectic as consisting of three stages:

1. Beginning
2. Development
3. Resolution

What was implicit in the beginning becomes explicit in the resolution, while the development provides the driving power of the process.

This elaborates the distinction made by Aristotle between potentiality and actuality.⁴

The beginning of the dialectic is Being, the concept in its implicit form.

Being contains two sides:

• the immediate content of sense experience
• the rational structure underlying that experience

Human history itself becomes the ultimate expression of Being, because it represents the progressive realization of rational consciousness.

Aristotle and First Principles

Aristotle’s philosophy of nature represented the beginning of natural science.

His analysis of first principles attempted to identify the most basic foundations upon which all knowledge is built.

Whether or not Aristotle is explicitly referenced, the search for first principles remains the essential structure of knowledge itself.

Aristotle’s explanations represent a conscious affirmation of truths that underlie all scientific investigation.

Footnotes

1. Dark Matter and Dark Energy – Hypothetical components of the universe inferred from gravitational effects and cosmic expansion, believed to make up most of the universe’s total mass-energy.
2. Sublation (Aufhebung) – A concept in Hegelian philosophy meaning a process that simultaneously cancels, preserves, and elevates earlier stages of development.
3. Being–Nothing–Becoming – The opening dialectical movement in Hegel’s Science of Logic.
4. Potentiality and Actuality – Aristotle’s distinction between what something has the capacity to become and what it has already become.

last updated 3.13.2026