Towards a Philosophy of Magick, Pt. 10: Metaphysics

Then, over time, metaphysics began to ask many more kinds of questions, some of them useful and some of them ultimately found to be empty of meaning. I don’t wish to go through a history of philosophy, at least not in this work. Instead I wish to talk about the system of metaphysics I will be using in this work, explain and justify my positions, and introduce a new idea to the system our friend the alien has begun devising.

The alien has figured out how to think, and is now laboring to discover what to think about. They discover, upon analysis of their experiences and the intuitions they have within their minds, the notions of objects, properties, and relations. How does the alien get from a list of what exists to a complete philosophical system capable of dealing with a phenomenon as complex and bizarre as human existence? What we need is a way of talking about how what exists fits together to give rise to reality as we experience it.

What do we experience? We experience space…we can physically move around, and we can move around in ways that express distances. These distances can be measured as a way of understanding their extensionality in space and, upon experiment, the alien finds that there are three apparent dimensions of spatial extension: length, width, and height. Soon our clever alien, who of course has access to all the same books, artifacts, and websites as we do, realizes that the same concepts they have been using to refine their intuitions of space also apply to time. An event can take place over a split second or a long duration, showing that time has the same sort of extensional nature as space, by which I mean that durations of time are analogous to distances in space.

The alien considers that, if they wished to locate any concrete object in the universe completely, they would need to say when the object existed just as much as where that object was. They also realize that every concrete object they experience is extended in space and time simultaneously…all physical objects have a particular length, width, and height, and all physical objects come into existence at some point in time, persist over time, and then cease to exist at some point in time. The alien observes that no physical objects exist in space but not in time or vice versa. Thus the alien comes to the conclusion that space and time are actually two sides of a single phenomena, which we will call space-time. The alien further explores this space-time, and finds that it is continuous…no matter where or how finely they cut distance, there is always more distance, more space, and no matter how finely they try to cut time, there is always more time. Just like the real number line in mathematics, any two arbitrarily chosen units of space-time, no matter how closely together you try to get them, always have a unit between them. This means space-time is continuous.

The alien also observes that while all concrete objects seem to exist at some place and time, this is not at all the case with abstract objects. Abstract objects such as numbers, abstractions like “the government”, and concepts like “justice” are all clearly objects in the sense that they are possible bearers of properties (numbers can be even or odd, a government can be large or small, justice can be blind or swift, etc) and possible members of relations (5 is greater than 2, the US government is allied with the Canadian government, justice is meted out by the jury, etc). These abstract objects clearly exist, because things that don’t exist can’t be bearers of properties and members of relations. It doesn’t make sense to say “Oh, here comes Uncle Walt! He’s 64, tow-headed, 6’5” tall, 230 lbs, and oh, by the way, he doesn’t exist”. It might work as a piece of comedy, but it’s not good philosophy. Only things that exist can be bearers of properties and members of relations.

So we’ve shown that abstract objects exist, just as much as concrete objects. But how do they exist? What sort of being, considered as such, does the number 2 have? Some philosophers would argue that there is actually no such abstract object as 2 (poor 2) as such, that what we know as 2 is merely a name for the resemblance relation across all sets with two members. I find this unconvincing, because when I think of 2, I think not of the number of coffee cups on my shelf or any other concrete example of two objects, but I think of the entire notion of a dyad, I think twoness in all its glory. And 2 has properties and lays in relations that the coffee cups, even if there are two of them, do not. 2 is even, 2 is a factor of four and six, 2 is prime…it makes no sense to say that pair of coffee cups on the table is even, or a factor of four, or prime. Only the number of the coffee cups can be even or odd or prime; to say of the the coffee cups themselves that they are even or prime is nonsense.

Thus it cannot be the case that what we mean by “2” can be cashed out completely in terms of just “all actual sets of 2 objects in the world”. A pair of coffee cups can be clean or dirty, full or empty, but they cannot be odd or even or prime. Only numbers can actually bear those properties, thus numbers and—since this argument applies for similar arguments about abstract objects of any kind—abstract objects in general exist. I hope that by this argument I have proven that abstract objects exist and have just as valid an existence ontologically as concrete objects.

Now, by my arguments, the number 2 is just as real as your left shoe. It bears properties that concrete objects cannot bear such as primeness and evenness, it lays in relations like “less than 3” and “half of four” that concrete objects cannot lay in. It exists. It means something. It’s there. It’s an object.

So where is it?

No, I mean it. I know it sounds like a stupid question, but where does 2 exist if it exists enough to bear ontological freight like bearing properties and laying in relations? The answer can only be that 2, and by extension all abstract objects, exists in a different sort of fashion than physical objects. For example, abstract objects exist in a way that is non-local in space-time. 2 was 2 in ancient Sumer, 2 will be 2 in whatever far future exists (with or without humanity), and 2 would be 2 if there were no minds to recognize it. In fact, 2 has no relation to time whatsoever…it existed before the Big Bang and will exist after the end of time. 2 is also everywhere and nowhere at once, instantiated the moment I associate two objects and gone the moment I remove that association. So therefore 2 is eternal and omnipresent. And how do I learn about 2? I look at a pair of objects in the world and infer from my mathematical intuitions that the abstract object “2”is being instantiated in that pair of objects. But again, 2 is everywhere I need it and nowhere that I don’t, 2 is every when and no when, so even when instantiated in that pair of coffee cups, 2 is present but its existence is not exhausted by instantiation. We can have as many instances of 2 as we need; the thing, the idea, that 2 actually is is never exhausted. Clearly this is not the case with concrete objects, of which the instantiation completely exhausts the object; all of an apple is there in the apple, and when that apple is eaten or otherwise destroyed, that apple is gone. So it is clear that abstract objects exist on their own plane of existence, follow their own rules, and we learn of them through the use of our minds. We recognize when they are instantiated in the world via our senses, but their actual existence is explored via the mind. 

What does this imply? If abstract objects are a unique sort of object with unique categories of properties and relations which can be inferred to from concrete existence but which can only be truly explored via the mind, then they exist in their own sort of realm, a realm of the mind. A realm of ideas.

Now, the astute readers among you might be saying to yourselves “This sounds familiar!”, and you should, because what I’m arguing for is idealism. In my system, both abstract particulars (numbers, concepts, etc.) and universals (categories, relations, etc) are considered just as “real” as concrete objects. They bear ontological freight and do metaphysical work to help build reality into what we actually experience.

Of course, our astute readers will continue on to say “But in idealism, if the physical realm is considered real at all, it’s ontologically dependent on the ideal realm!” To which I reply, with no embarrassment or caveat whatsoever: “Yes.” I know that will give some people pause. Since the rise of the logical positivists at the beginning of the 20th century and the school of analytic philosophy that has more or less ruled the anglophone world ever since, idealism has been looked at with deep skepticism. A fashion for hard-nosed materialism and empiricism has ruled much of anglophone philosophy, dominating departments and defining the questions, answers, and methods considered acceptable in philosophy. But I am afraid that I must flout that fashion and leave the realms of “analytic” philosophy…at least to a certain degree. I am an idealist.

But why am I an idealist? Why do I believe that not only abstract particulars and universals are real, but that the concrete world is ontologically dependent upon the ideal world? For two reasons, both empirical.

1. Let us observe the physical universe, the myriad of concrete objects and the time-space continuum in which they lay. What do we see? We see the same thing that the alien observed way back in chapter one: regularity. Phenomena are related to each other in regular patterns and structures. We see similarity and difference, which would not be able to exist without categories, a type of abstract universal. We see quantities, singletons and multiples of similar and different things, which would not be able to exist without numbers, a form of abstract particular. We see relations, such as “object A is to the left of object B”, “that woman is my mother”, “that ray of light is being projected on that screen”, etc, and relations are universals. And most of all, mathematics, a field of study and knowledge which uses simple abstract particulars like numbers and basic logical intuitions to build sophisticated arguments that come to definite conclusions can be used to successfully map, measure, and predict physical reality. Mathematics is ridiculously successful at predicting contingent events in physical reality, and we can even simulate—with increasing degrees of fidelity—portions of physical reality with mathematics, do experiments within the simulation, and then do the same experiment in physical reality, and (more often than not) get the same results. None of this would be possible if mathematics—the concepts of numbers and the relations between them—weren’t in some fundamental way the foundation of physical reality. Physical reality, from the quantum level on up, can only have the structures it does, with the myriad of complex concrete objects that arise from those structures, because it is ontologically dependent on mathematical relations. Math makes reality something other than the primal chaos of the beginning. Math is doing the metaphysical work of holding reality together at the seams. And math is all about abstract particulars and universals. Now, either I have to believe that mathematics, just by wild chance, happens to map onto and accurately deduce and predict facts about the physical universe and its very formation, or I have to believe in idealism. It seems to me that idealism is more reasonable than the belief that the intellectual structures of mathematics accurately mapping onto and predicting physical reality is a mere coincidence.

2. Let us observe the common details of the  pursuit of magick. Mages, operating under various paradigms and within various traditions, cause changes in themselves and the world around them through symbolic manipulation and the energetic engagement of the focused will. How is this possible? How can symbols such as the pentagrams, hexagrams, sigils, divine and infernal names, barbarous words, and so on interact with the will of the mage to produce changes in the world? Well, what is a symbol? A symbol is a sign that denotes and/or connotes meaning. The classical magickal example is the pentagram, a five-pointed star. Many western schools of magick see the pentagram as a symbol denoting the five elements of fire, water, spirit, air, and earth and the relations between them while also connoting the notion of the microcosm, the human being as a whole. A mage can, by tracing the pentagram in different ways and focusing their will in a particular fashion familiar to mages, invoke or banish any element, and through this simple magick one may cause simple contingent effects, such as manipulating a flame by invoking air and earth to fuel it while banishing water to keep it strong, or, inversely, banishing air to choke it while invoking water to dampen it. But the pentagram is just a symbol which stands for a set of ideas, the elements and the relations between them, which are also abstract particulars, just like numbers. So what has to be true about the universe in order for this idea, invoked by the focused will of the mage and the manipulation of a symbol, to be able to actually affect reality, as most of my audience will have experienced personally? Many, if not most, mages have played with making a candle flame bend or a current of water twist according to their will using various techniques. Who among us practicing mages hasn’t whistled up a cool breeze while walking home on a hot afternoon, or called fire into damp wood on a cold night to help it light? We know, empirically, that we can use our ideas about the five elements and their relationships to actually manipulate the physical world. Thus our ideas must actually have causal power in the world…we observe it happening every time we do a successful spell. But if the physical world is ontologically primary and the ideal world is ontologically dependent upon it, then changes in the physical world should cause changes in the ideal world. But that is not what we observe. Even if all the fires in the world were to go out, elemental fire as a concept would still exist, unaffected, just like if there were no physical objects to exist in pairs the concept of 2 would still exist, eternal and unchanged in any way. But if we change our ideas in the right way by impressing symbols upon our consciousness and push a little with our wills, behold! There is an accompanying change in the world soon enough. This means that since magick works and works the way that it works, physical reality must be ontologically dependent on ideal reality. Therefore idealism is true.

Now, assuming that you, dear reader, agree that I have established a good case for the theory of metaphysical idealism within the philosophy of magick, what else can we say about reality? What about those pesky objects?  I’ve used a great deal of electronic ink going on and on about abstract particulars and universals, but what about the objects that arise from the structures provided by those abstract particulars and universals? Here things are going to get a little wilder.

What is an object? It is, essentially, the sort of thing which falls under the linguistic category “noun”. An object is a bearer of properties (a sort of abstract particular, which like a number is “instantiated” or “present” in the concrete objects in the world which possess those properties) and a member of relations (a sort of universal, instantiated when objects lay as relata within them). I want to offer two hypotheses here:

1. There are no “naked” objects, by which I mean that there are no knowable objects which do not have properties. I believe this to be the case because “knowable” is a property.

2. There are no “lonely” objects, by which I mean there are no knowable objects which do not lay in any relations. I believe this to be the case because “is known by” is a relation.

Notice that I am making a metaphysical claim but again I am basing it on an epistemological claim. I am saying that I can’t, in principle, know about any “naked” or “lonely” objects (much less a naked, lonely object!), and that, as Wittgenstein (1921) put it in the “Tractatus”, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”. We can’t, in principle, know if there are naked or lonely objects, so we should not include them in our system of thought. Another reason that there are most likely no naked or lonely objects is because “is the cause of” and “is the effect of” are also relations, which means a lonely object could be neither the cause or effect of anything. But all concrete objects that we are aware of came into being at some point in time as the result of some causal process. So while, in principle, a naked or lonely object could exist, we can’t, in principle know about it and it can’t act as a cause on anything and can’t be acted upon by anything else. A naked/lonely object would be entirely outside of our sensory or causal universe.

So given that there are no naked or lonely objects, it seems to be clear that anything we can know, in principle, about objects is derived by their relations first, because “is observable by” is a relation and I have to be able to observe something before I can know about its properties. So, on these purely empirical grounds, I want to argue for a relation-centric metaphysics because I have no grounds for arguing for anything else. Again, as will please my professors, I am basing this on an empirical claim: I never see an object that doesn’t first need to lay in relation to me for me to interact with it in any way. I can’t be affected by or affect such an object, I can’t know about or be known by such an object…it seems that one is forced to ask the question of how can a lonely object be said to exist at all. Thus existence seems to depend first upon laying in relation…existence begins with relationship. Any object, abstract or concrete, lays at the center of a nexus of relations that define its ways of being with the rest of the world and the other objects within it, and what I’m saying is that this nexus of relations defines the possible ways of existing for the object, thus defining the object itself, or at least the way the object appears to and interacts with the rest of reality as we know it. What any object is “in and for itself” is something upon which I cannot comment at this time.

And with that I will end this unfortunately dense and long chapter. I deeply apologize. Next chapter we will discuss the metaphysics of time.

Works cited:

1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, translated by C. K. Ogden, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, (Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1922)