Principium II: Nihil procedit in Omnia

 
Nothing proceeds into the Whole.

Following the first principle, the Whole is self-contained.  This would seem to imply the presence of some kind of definitive boundary that one could trace around the Whole, thus distinguishing it from any object not-of-the-Whole. 

On the one hand, the Whole, being self-contained, requires nothing external to it in order to thrive and sustain itself.  On the other hand, the Whole possesses no metaphysical boundary with which to contain its contents.  But this apparent contradiction lies in the use of prepositional concepts, which is not entirely adequate for comprehending the Whole.

The common assumption that an existent  ‘comes into existence’ arises because of the use prepositional concepts which are inappropriately applied to existence itself.  And this is due to treating existence as if it were a reified existent. 

It must be remembered at all times that prepositional concepts in reference to the Whole is strictly provisional.  What is being sought in ontological inquiry is an understanding of the nature of the Whole as the Whole—not seeking knowledge of one select reified portion within the universal Whole (i.e., any particular existent). 

Prepositional language cannot provide an ultimate description of the Whole, but rather it serves as a penultimate stage in gaining insight into the nature of the Whole.  In this context, prepositional concepts may be asserted provisionally, but only in order to be negated later (dialectically), in order to bring one face-to-face with the absolute irreducibility of the Whole.

Though existent and existence are intimately interrelated, the ontological order of the two are radically different.  Existence itself cannot be reified—rather, existence is the ontological field in which the reification of (and the thinking about) each and every existent is made possible. 

Thus, figurative language can only describe the Whole to a certain point before the analogy necessarily breaks down—no existent can ever serve as a perfect analogy to adequately represent the Whole.  And yet the Whole can be described in no other way but by imperfect analogy (there is no other mode of description).

Within this self-contained Whole, no existent ‘comes into existence’ from something not-of-the-Whole.  There is no boundary that demarcates the difference between the Whole and a hypothetical not-of-the-Whole—against what could the Whole be distinguished, since the existence cannot be a reified existent?  

The material and activity contained within the Whole is not injected from beyond the Whole and into it.  To assert this is to be misled by prepositional language and concepts which mask the radical irreducibilty of the Whole.  

As stated earlier, the Whole is the sum of all forms (spatial and temporal).  Just as for the Whole there is no creation ex nihilo, so also no form is created ex nihilo.

It is far too simple to think of causality as a sequential chain of reified events.  Instead, the Whole is comprised of an intricate web of interconnected events that all mutually support one another.  Human beings, out of necessity, must reduce causality into a smaller number of sequential causal ‘chains,’ relying on reification to gain some small degree of knowledge about the world around them. 

Reification in and of itself is not a false way of gaining knowledge of the myriad forms within the Whole (in fact, it is often necessary for everyday events), but ‘meta-physical problems’ crop up when we misapply the reification of the existent to existence itself.

If the objects within the Whole do not come from ‘elsewhere’ (as there is no object that is not-of-the-Whole), then from where do they come?  The things that comprise the Whole are forms, traceable (to the extent that the rational mind is able) within the dense web of causality.  Material and energy are transformed and transferred, and, from this perspective, each existent is inseparable from the remainder of the Whole—like an ecosystem, but on an entirely different scale and order.  Not one element can be removed from the Whole without resulting in the entire collapse of it.

Thus, there are two equally true perspectives that correspond to two different ontological orders:  [1] The view from form, from which one may inquire into the existent, i.e. the empirical world, and [2] the view from the Whole, which cannot be approached in the same way as a reified object of empirical study. 

The method of ontological inquiry is not as straightforward as empirical investigation.  It requires a dialectical approach, by positing and negating assertions (here, in the positing and negating of prepositional concepts).  This process is not merely to lead to a new assertion that represents a ‘third way,’ bringing one to a supposedly closer understanding of the Whole, but rather to eventually bring one to the shock of an existential real-isation the Whole—the absolute irreducibility of existence itself.

In the view from the Whole, the inquiring individual is not understood as separate from the Whole, but as an integral expression arising from the Whole itself.  It is in this sense that the individual is the Whole (this will be discussed much later).

From the view from form, one can speak of being born, but only nominally.  But, ontologically speaking, ‘being born’ is not a matter of ‘coming into existence’ but of being formed from the web of the Whole—the same web from which a person’s parents and their parents, and so on were also formed.  And this is just to delineate only one simple strand of causality out of many others that led to the formation that particular individual.  And so from the view of the Whole, no one is ever ‘born’ in the sense of ‘coming into existence.’ 

 

This points to the radical, seamless ontological inseparability of each and every form from the Whole, and also of each and every form to one another.  The various implications of this ontological inseparability will be further explored by continuing to inquire into the principles that will follow.