The relationship between you and your hat

[Donnadogsoth]

A central question of philosophy is the relationship between unity and diversity. How can anything be one, and yet have parts? This can apply to the Universe or it could apply to a table lamp. What I'd like to address here is the relationship between you and your favourite hat, in these terms.

 

The first question is where does the hat exist? You have a mind, but your mind is not the entire Universe. Or is it? The hat exists outside of your mind. Or does it? All we know right now is that there is you, there is the hat, and there are questions revolving around that pair.

 

Let us propose that your mind is separate from the Universe, sovereignly separate in fact, and made in the image of the Creative Potency of the Universe. This we can know from science, which tells us man discovers laws which he can exploit to his advantage, making new technologies and new forms of society, unlike any beast. And the process of discovery of laws exists in a sovereign mind only, there are no committee geniuses. So in very very brief that's a human, a creative being distinct from the Universe, and yet a part of it.

 

In that case, the mind is not only distinct from the Universe, it's distinct from all other objects in that Universe. It's distinct from hats, table lamps, and laws, all of which exist in the Universe, too.

 

But the fact that you are aware of the hat, means that it is in some sense in your mind. A reflection of the hat, perhaps, is cast into your mind by the hat-itself. So the hat-reflection exists in your mind, and the hat-itself exists outside of your mind.

 

Now, a group of anything is greater than the sum of its parts, and we commonly call that “greater-than” a relationship. A lamp is composed of parts useless for illumination in of themselves, but when those parts are fitted together, we have a unity, a relationship, a distinct and useful thing called a lamp. So with any relationship, even a group of pebbles which may be only useful for counting.

 

The primary relationship between any individual thing in the Universe is not with any other individual thing in the Universe. Rather, the primary relationship of such a thing is between that thing and the Universe as a whole. The Universe is one thing, indivisible. You can't have half a Universe, any more than you could have half a hole. So the Universe is the sum of influencing factors which relate to any given individual thing.

 

Let's apply this to the mind/hat problem, by introducing Leibniz's Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles. This states that if two things are functionally and formally identical, then they are the same thing.

 

Now, again, we have the hat-reflection, and the hat-itself, but we also have a third thing, a relationship between the two, which make them together greater than the sum of their parts.

 

A question may arise, whether those three things, mind, hat, and relationship, don't themselves constitute a thing which has a relationship governing it. This is incorrect. For the mind to be in a relationship with its relationship, it would in effect be in a relationship with itself, which is redundant. As per the identity of indiscernibles, there is therefore no second or subsequent relationships between the mind and hat.

 

Next comes the tricky part. The hat-reflection in the mind, is a reflection of the hat-itself, and is a perfect reflection. This does not mean the mind perceives or understands it perfectly, because the mind itself is not perfect, but the reflection itself is not degraded or digitised in any way as it is cast from the hat-itself into the mind. In in the mind, the hat-reflection acts as though it really were the hat-itself present in the mind.

 

Just like the individual relates primarily to the Universe as a whole, the individual elements of a group relate primarily to that group as a whole, which determines their dynamic. In the mind/hat relationship, then, they both relate primarily to the relationship as a whole, which forms a dynamic of interaction between them. This, again, does not constitute a relationship distinct from the whole, because the whole is and includes both the mind and the hat.

 

The interactive dynamic between mind and hat are perfect, without deviation, existing in a preëstablished harmony. Thus, there is no difference between the activity and form of the hat-reflection, and the hat-itself. They are indiscernible. Consequently, they must be identical.

 

The hat remains not-the-mind. The mind remains not-the-hat. But the reflection (remember, reflection, not component) of the hat into the mind is identical to the hat-itself, which means that the hat is at one and the same time distinct from the mind, while being in intimate ontological intercourse with that mind at the same time.

 

The Universe is the ultimate relationship between parts. It is the One to the Many. And it embodies the same kind of dynamic between its parts, as the relationship between the parts of a lamp do its.

 

Since everything reflects everything else in the Universe, and those reflections are perfect, and therefore indiscernible from their external actualities, it means that the entire Universe is a unity, even as its components form a plurality.  This is not a contradiction, as you will see.

 

The individual things of the Universe exist, for they have differing natures, but their natures are reflected into one and all, in such a perfect way, that their reflection and their external reality are one. Thus the hat exists in the mind and outside of the mind simultaneously.

 

In other words, the mind and hat respectively relate primarily to the Universe, which relationships define them respectively. The mind's nature relates to the Universe on its own terms, the hat's nature relates to the Universe on its own terms, etc.. So even though the mind and hat exist mutually within each other—for the mind reflects into the hat even as the hat reflects into the mind—they have separate natures and are thus distinct, though in a species of communion, as though a ghost had come through the wall.  The absolute unification exists in terms of their relationship, just as the Universe's absolute unification exists in terms of itself as a relationship between all things.

 

The reason for the distinctiveness of all things, is therefore due to their imperfection of reflectivity.  For if two things reflected each other perfectly, from those things' respective perspectives, then they would be indiscernible and therefore identical.  Thus, the basis for individuality is ignorance.  The possibility or intuition of transcending this ignorance forms the basis for the pantheistic religions.