Over at The Splintered Mind, Eric Schwitzgebel has posted an interesting sketch of what he calls idealist pantheism. And when I say "interesting," I mean to congratulate myself for having sketched out a similar idea many years prior as an undergrad, but under a different nomenclature more consonant with solipsism. Many thanks to Carlos Brocatto for instigating that idea, at once utterly ridiculous and compelling, one sultry night in Riverside as we sat outside of an inexplicably trendy hookah lounge.
But whereas Eric works out his idea from the outside in, starting with God as the universal postulate, the supreme cosmic unity or highest species of being, and then parsing out individual human subjects as modules of divine cognition, circumstances dictated that I work out my own idea from the inside out, starting with the individual human subject and expanding outward to infinity. First, supernatural agents affecting the subject's conduct, angels and demons and so forth, are interiorized as so many parts of his unconscious. Then, having thus abolished the utility of exorcism, the utility of defending personal space is also abolished by interiorizing other people. Thenceforth, the subject continues his outward expansion to include all the nations of the earth, all the stars and planets, and all the galaxies and beyond. In the end, the subject is all there is, and he is a solipsist, that is to say, God.
Except there is no end, and there are any number of starting points for expansion. So if there is a God, he is neither unitary nor singular, but unbound and multiple, an endless expanse of overlapping solipsists.
But whereas Eric works out his idea from the outside in, starting with God as the universal postulate, the supreme cosmic unity or highest species of being, and then parsing out individual human subjects as modules of divine cognition, circumstances dictated that I work out my own idea from the inside out, starting with the individual human subject and expanding outward to infinity. First, supernatural agents affecting the subject's conduct, angels and demons and so forth, are interiorized as so many parts of his unconscious. Then, having thus abolished the utility of exorcism, the utility of defending personal space is also abolished by interiorizing other people. Thenceforth, the subject continues his outward expansion to include all the nations of the earth, all the stars and planets, and all the galaxies and beyond. In the end, the subject is all there is, and he is a solipsist, that is to say, God.
Except there is no end, and there are any number of starting points for expansion. So if there is a God, he is neither unitary nor singular, but unbound and multiple, an endless expanse of overlapping solipsists.
No comments:
Post a Comment