Truth, Kierkegaard, and a Little Bit of Tao

When he who hears doesn’t know what he who speaks means, and when he who speaks doesn’t know what he himself means – that is philosophy.  - 

Voltaire

I mostly avoided philosophy in college.  It would be years before any formal study of the field caught my interest.   I did take one course my freshman year in which we were assigned The Myth of Sisyphus, the Greek legend, as interpreted by Albert Camus.   The central figure rolls a heavy rock up a hill, repeatedly, only to have it roll back down each time.  Sisyphus is condemned to repeating the cycle for all eternity.  I read the central story and judged it to be completely pointless, blithely unaware that this determination was an intellectually valid viewpoint.  My conclusion was couched not in any deep contemplation of Camus’ eisegesis but rested instead upon the relative unimportance of academics to me at the time.   My attention focused more keenly on sports, fraternity parties, and alcohol consumption.   So, the course was a tough go.  The lexicon of academic philosophy is off-putting, to say the least. Terms such as “relative positivism,” “epistemology,” “tautology,” “dialetheism,” (one could go on quite a while) are enough to stifle a zealous intellect right out of the gate, so my tepid interest was no match.  

My post-collegiate forays into philosophy were fueled by the recognition that pondering life’s big questions, a habit I adopted as a child and never relinquished, is … well, doing philosophy.  So, I started reading, and my explorations soon brought to light another realization - the conclusions I’ve drawn as a result of my life-long pondering have all been subjects of speculation by some professional philosopher at one time or another.  In other words, my contemplation on life’s big questions has never broken any new ground.  Whatever insight I may have gleaned along the way, someone else has already come up with and examined six ways from Sunday. 

My latest efforts to rectify my lack of philosophical underpinnings is a recent download of Philosophy For Dummies, the Kindle version, with the optimistic ambition of sorting out my Humes and Hobbes from my Sartres and Spinozas.   This text was my first go-to when a friend of mine sent me the following,

Subjectivity is truth.
                              - Kierkegaard

Now, here was a tender little morsel I could sink my philosophical teeth into, nosh upon, digest, and ruminate over.  But clearly some background and context were needed.

It’s “Soren” with a little slash through the “o” 
that my keyboard can’t produce

The only knowledge nugget I possessed regarding Kierkegaard that I’ve ever applied heretofore is his first name, “Soren,” which has proved useful once or twice in completing the Sunday Times crossword.  I wanted a bit more to go on, so I visited my “Dummies” book and sampled the Internet.  My research revealed the following:  

1.      Soren Kierkegaard was a brilliant intellect who was armed with a devastating wit that he strategically employed to neutralize rivals.  

2.      Kierkegaard suffered from guilt and melancholy (of course he did, he’s a freakin’ philosopher!), inherited, it would seem, from his father.

3.      He spent not a little time skewering one George Hegel, recognized to be the great philosophic mind of the time.  

4.      Kierkegaard never married due to a mysterious secret about himself that he never divulged to anyone, including his one great love, Regina Olsen.   K. determined he could not reveal his secret but realized marriage would be impossible without her knowing, so he broke off the relationship. 

Previous work that must be considered but I will ignore …

I also discovered that this quote, “Subjectivity is truth,” has been the focus of more than a few treatises of students of philosophy, including a 54-page work by one Katherine Schuessler as an honors thesis at the University of Sydney.  I sampled some of these writings, including Schuessler’s, and quickly realized that this endeavor would involve quite a bit of tedious spade work that I really just didn't feel up to.  So, I opted, instead, to comment on the quote simply as I received it, at face value, bypassing diligent but dreary reading and research.  Any quick perusal of Facebook or other online social media platform reveals that this approach is very much in fashion nowadays.  

My slap-dash investigation did reveal one other fact about Kierkegaard that must be considered:  He was steeped in Christianity and his thoughts were focused and illuminated through that lens.  He came up with, if an unsourced Internet reference is to be believed, the phrase, “a leap of faith.”  Learning this gave me pause, for having unburdened myself of Christian dogma years ago, I tend to shy away from writings/studies based upon its tenets, but this quote seems safe enough ground.  

Back to the question at hand …

Let’s dig into the quote.  Kierkegaard’s idea of “subjectivity” I will define (as I said, without the encumbrance of much research) as data gathered through intangible impressions, feelings, and personal inclinations.  This definition stands in contrast to “objectivity,” which I would describe as data obtained through direct, measurable observations, available to one’s own, commonly recognized, senses.   

Truth in the Universe

Thirty-seven years ago, one August day, my wife, very young daughter, and I moved to the town of Flicksville, Pennsylvania.  The moving day was ferociously hot and our next-door neighbor, whom we had not previously met, kindly introduced himself and implored us, upon the completion of our drudgery, to avail ourselves of his swimming pool, an offer I enthusiastically accepted.  Dennis Collier’s reputation had preceded him – he was a wood carver of some renown, and something of an arm-chair philosopher as well.  I was very anxious to get to know him.  That evening, I stood with Denny, waist-deep, in the cooling waters of his pool about to embark on the first of hundreds, maybe thousands, of conversations that would ensue between us over the coming decade.  After brief, desultory greetings, Denny’s first words to me were exactly these, “So, how do you find truth in the universe?”  I have no recollection of what reply I stuttered out, but this analysis of Kierkegaard’s quote will serve as my answer, albeit nearly four decades late.  

I have found resonant truth in two ways.  First, by the synthesis of objective data – deductive reasoning utilizing logic and employing the so-called empirical method.  I may have gleaned the data on my own or it might have been gathered by another and imparted to me, but its veracity is supported by physical evidence or confirmation by independent observers.  The second way I discover truth is through subjective experience.  Experiential understanding emerges as I immerse myself in nature or occasionally through deep meditation.  A similar phenomenon occasionally strikes out of the blue, while I am involved in some mundane enterprise.  For instance, once when I was making the short drive between the towns of Bangor and Wind Gap, Pennsylvania, I chanced to focus my gaze through the windshield on the mountains before me.  There occurred a sudden realization that the universe, including me, exists all of a piece and works perfectly just as it is.  A mysterious "knowing" washed over me.  This has happened occasionally, but not often, during my life.  There is an ineffable joy that accompanies these transient experiences.  More accurately, the joy is the event itself.  Reflection upon these scintillating episodes brings to mind C. S. Lewis’, Surprised By Joy, albeit absent the Christianity.

Objectivity, subjectivity, and the way you think it is.

Science has revealed much to me about the nature of the universe, matter, and how matter and consciousness are related.  The tools of science reveal truths that belie, astoundingly, what the universe presents superficially.  Some examples:  

1.  Matter and energy are one and the same and dissection of matter down to its fundamental elements reveals that there is nothing (no thing) there!   Yet, gather those ephemeral elements together and they somehow constitute what we perceive as solid stuff.

2.  The movement and behavior of so-called “particles” of matter are profoundly influenced by consciousness as demonstrated in the famous “double slit experiment.” 

3.  The phenomenon of time, which seemingly flows uniformly for all elements of the universe really does nothing of the kind.  

4.  So-called “entangled particles” that become separated, influence one another at a distance, any distance it seems, instantaneously.  Change a vital parameter of one and its partner changes at precisely the same moment, even if miles (and presumably light years) separate the two.

These fundamental characteristics of the universe, and others as well, fly in the face of human intuition and could never have been brought to light without the tools of science.  Nothing quite tickles my fancy nor sparks fascination and awe as when I encounter a paradigm-changing fact or concept and, as a result, some fundamental assumption I long held is turned on its head.  According to Celtic legend, Oran, about 536 CE, emerged from three days buried in the foundation of a chapel under construction on the isle of Iona, dazed, yet transformed with enlightenment.  He had been buried, of his own volition, in the belief that his interment would allow the newly built walls to remain standing.  Upon his emergence, Oran gazed into the eyes of his leader, Columba, and softly intoned, “The way you think it is may not be the way it is at all.”  Columba, unappreciative of such wisdom, had Oran promptly reinterred.  When I am enlightened by a new concept that fundamentally changes my map of reality, I feel like Oran is whispering to me.  

Enough about objectivity.  What about subjectivity, the focus of Kierkegaard’s statement that he equates with truth?   Here I find I must split hairs.  Subjective inspiration, such as that which I described above through meditation, nature, or as the experience of spontaneous joy, is powerful and revelatory, but it’s also very personal.  It is direct experience, my direct experience.  I am moved when someone else relates a transforming experience of their own, especially if it’s someone I know and trust.  I am moved … but not convinced.  And I am especially leery when subjective data arrive in the form of human proselytizing, for there are charlatans about, in many different stripes.  Some are motivated to separate you from your dollars, some revel in a bogus, ego-driven “spiritual power”.  Some even deceive themselves, and these, by their sincerity, are most adept at deceiving others.  

Seth and “second-hand subjectivity”

The same fellow who sent me the Kierkegaard quote recently brought to my attention the so-called “Seth Material”.  This consists of the output of a disembodied, ancient entity who spoke through a woman named Jane Roberts when the latter entered a trance state.  Seth and Roberts corroborated in many sessions between 1963 until the latter’s death in 1984.  The information was dictated during these sessions by Roberts to her husband, Robert Butts, who recorded it.  Roberts and Butts organized Seth’s revelations into many published books.  I sampled the Seth material by way of the book, The “Unknown” Reality, Volume I.  The overarching concept – reality is created out of consciousness – may very well be true.  in fact, I believe it is true.   But, the source, Seth, can’t be independently verified and the data is imparted by a person whom I don’t know and have no reason to trust.  I call this “second-hand subjectivity.” 

Other authors argue the validity of the primacy of consciousness much more convincingly, to my mind, through deductive reasoning utilizing empirical data and the powers of astute observation.  Robert Lanza in his book, Biocentrism and Peter Russell in his book, The Global Brain and a lecture entitled, The Primacy of Consciousness are cogent examples.  I prefer this logical approach over the claim of Jane Roberts that she is channeling a disembodied entity.  She might well be, but her account is second-hand, uncorroborated, and I have no access to the source.  There is no way that I could possibly disprove her assertion.  

“I’m a little teapot” and leave your dogma at the door …

Religions that have subverted human thought for eons are built upon claims that cannot be disproven.  Bertrand Russell exposed this hoax and dispelled it with his teapot analogy.  It goes as follows:  If one were to contend that a china teapot circles the Sun somewhere between the orbits of the Earth and Mars, too small to be detected by any available technology, no one would be able to disprove his assertion.  On the other hand, few would embrace the concept at face value.  However, if the presence of such a teapot were instilled in ancient texts, taught as undisputed fact each Sunday to brainwashed children, and extolled in sacred songs, then any individual who doubted the teapot’s existence might be considered an infidel and face estrangement from the community.  Even in the face of no extant data, religious dogma might convince the parishioner to accept the teapot’s presence as a matter of faith, especially if such faith is extolled as a great virtue.    

 Non-falsifiable contentions, such as Seth-channeling or orbiting tea pots, must be viewed very cautiously, for they depend upon a “leap of faith” and such blind leaps have misled human societies for millennia.  Fundamentalist Christians would have me believe that their Holy Bible is the inerrant word of God, even though, tucked among some apt parables and lessons, reside contradictions, preposterous tales, and lascivious characters passed off as heroes.  Christian churches, Catholic and Protestant alike, have depended upon the “leap of faith” to hold sway over millions of malleable, gullible victims for hundreds of years.  Religious priests, seers, imams, and church governments have employed the device of faith to line their own coffers, amass power, and influence people to suit their own desires.  

The ruse is as old as human society – attribute the origin of some abstract idea not to one’s self but rather to some higher entity – God or a channeled being for instance – and use the idea to create followers and “convert souls”.  Perpetrate the notion that one’s salvation and identity as a group member rests upon him or her discarding logic to take that “leap of faith”.  This cements allegiance to the group and keeps the idea front and center.  Very few ever realize they’ve being hornswoggled.  But here is the tell:  mass belief in the idea always greatly benefits those who promote it.   Also, deeply held faiths are in conflict, one faith can’t abide the beliefs of another.  Hence the Muslims attack the Christians, the Christians lead crusades against the Muslims, and everyone attacks the Jews.  Human blood is spilled in wars perpetrated for the purpose of restoring the faith, each antagonist convinced that their faith is the only valid one.  

Atheistic writers such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins have unmasked this fraud much more eloquently than I ever could.  Their writings are a huge service to humankind, or at least they would be except most people don’t read books and stopped educating themselves immediately upon matriculation from formal education, which was itself more of an indoctrination than any liberal learning.  Popular culture (TV, entertainment news, craze of the day, etc.) and phantom threats (immigrants, vegans, pacifists, etc.) distract most people from ever exploring a vast universe of possibility.  But there’s another side to the Hitchens/Dawkins coin - these eloquent atheists are militant materialists, eschewing any notion that an immaterial realm exists at all, let alone as the fundamental entity out of which the material world, through consciousness, might arise.  They throw out the baby with the bathwater.  Despite their blindness in this regard, I hold the atheistic authors in high esteem for exposing the detrimental effects of institutionalized religion, perhaps the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on humankind.  

“My sources say no.”

Objectivity couched in the empirical method serves a specific purpose.  To paraphrase M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled, the empirical method is employed to overcome the natural human inclination to want to deceive ourselves.  Human beings, upon receipt of new information, instinctually embrace that which confirms their existing beliefs or a desired outcome.  What’s more, we gravitate toward sources that are likely to generate confirmatory data, hence conservatives watch FOX, liberals get their news from MSNBC.  Left to our own inclinations, we turn the Magic 8-Ball until we get the answer we want.  

To expand our circle of understanding, existing beliefs must be challenged, and eclectic sources must be accessed.  Enter the empirical (or scientific) method.  The first step is to form a hypothesis that contradicts existing belief.  The hypothesis must be tested experimentally.  This is done by gathering information (data) pertinent to the hypothesis.  In the process variables must be limited so that we can interpret results based upon a single test parameter.  

An example:  Experiments have demonstrated to my satisfaction that some persons possess psychic ability.  I don’t happen to have access to a proven psychic; however, because I am curious I would very much like to consult one.  But many people with no mystical abilities pass themselves off as psychics for profit or an ego-driven “spiritual power.”  Such imposters will take advantage of my enthusiasm, lead me to believe in their abilities, and happily collect a nice fee.  A common method employed by these imposters is called “cold reading” and it’s very effective.  The fake psychic reads “tells” such as clothing, hair style, physical fitness, body language, facial expression, and any other cues from which information about the subject can be gleaned.  Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes used this technique, in conjunction with brilliant deductive reasoning, to win the confidence of visitors who came to his rooms to consult on a case.  

The so-called psychic then asks questions that are structured in such a way as to lead the subject to unwittingly provide more information.  The material gathered allows the “psychic” to make observations that the subject, eager for confirmation, perceives as astoundingly accurate.  The subject, influenced by his own confirmation bias, believes that the medium has psychic abilities, when in fact she doesn’t.  If you don’t believe such a ruse could be foisted on anyone, check out Derren Brown performing a cold reading on numerous subjects, convincing all of them.

How do we combat such ingenious cunning?  Conduct an experiment employing the empirical method.  In the case of visiting a “psychic” one asks the tacit question, “Does she have psychic abilities?”  To gain an accurate answer, you need to limit variables (i.e., eliminate the possibility of cold reading) so you might do the following:  When setting up the appointment, provide no clues that the medium might utilize to glean information.  Upon your visit, dress in a way contrary to your usual manner.  Respond to queries with vague, non-committal answers, volunteering no information.  If the reader has true psychic abilities, then your manipulations should prove no hardship.  When the medium makes a declarative statement about you, consider it critically – would another person, chosen randomly, also believe the assessment is relevant to him or her?    

What you have done is limit the variables so that if you receive accurate information, and if that information is unique and personal, then it just might come from a paranormal source.  Keep in mind that some cold readers are so good at what they do that they might overcome your obstacles and utilize clues that you never considered.  Or they couch their reading in language that seems specific to you but is generally true of nearly anyone.  For an example of rigorously conducted experiments on psychic abilities consult Leslie Kean’s book, Surviving Death. 

Conclusion:  Truth and the Tao

Exploration of the universe by objective methods provides enough astounding conclusions to satisfy even a spiritual adventurer like me.  What’s more, I can confidently embrace those findings as something approximating truth, one that is always open to reassessment when new data arrive.  Subjective truth is encountered along the journey in experiences that strike at the heart of knowing, deep within the soul.  It is an understanding that defies and supersedes language.  It is the ineffable nature of subjective “gnosis” that suggests its place at the heart of what is, what Paul Tillich describes as “ground of being.”  

Objective truth is comprised of facts and concepts that can be named, listed, debated, perhaps disproven.  Subjective truth is timeless and unassailable.  It can’t be debated because it can’t even be spoken and therefore it is “non-transferable”; it cannot be imparted by another.  We can’t describe what it is, only what it is like – an imperfect representation.  An Eastern adage cautions, “The finger that points to the moon is not itself the moon.”  I interpret objective data and concepts as pointers, while the subjective gnosis is the moon itself.  In this light Kierkegaard’s quote is accurate, “Subjectivity is truth.”  The best rendition of this idea that I have come across, and therefore, what will serve as my conclusion on this subject, is the opening verse of Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching,

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.  The name that

can be named

is not the eternal name.

The Tao is both named and nameless.  As nameless it is the

origin of all things;

as named it is the Mother of 10,000 things.

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery;

ever desiring, one sees only manifestations.

And the mystery itself is the doorway

to all understanding.