We want Truth only if it gives us Power, Power over Nature. If knowing the Truth made us weaker, more humble, simpler, less sure of our place as dominion-setters, then we would want nothing to do with that "Truth".

"Off with your head!" would surely be heard in response to a negation of the human will-to-power. For the will-to-power is our Manifest Destiny, our Divine Heritage. If we don't do it who will?

So, we end up getting the Truth that we look for. A Truth that relates to Power; this is the Truth that we have been looking for.

Nature is a bitch and we don't like her dictating to us how to live one bit!! So, amp up the power and we'll show Her a thing or two about who's who around here! Power. Control. Knowledge. Dominate the Other. More.

Science looks for ways to manipulate Nature, and when science does find those ways it is suddenly called the "objective truth". (Now talk about propaganda!) It is this "objective truth" that is swallowed hook, line, and sinker. Because we all want to overcome, right? We all have a hidden instinct for Power. We want to rule over Nature's fatal flaws as they are manifested in ourselves and the environment around us, don't we? We do not want to be ruled by --- we want to rule! We want not even to work with.... We want our way! So we search out and find what agrees with our "will to power" and then we call it "TheTruth".

Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers point out that "Any science that conceives of the world as being governed according to a universal theoretical plan that reduces its various riches to the drab applications of general laws thereby becomes an instrument of domination. And man, a stranger to the world, sets himself up as its master." Further Prigogine and Stengers state that "Newtonian science is indeed an active science; one of its sources is the knowledge of the medieval craftsmen, the knowledge of the builders of machines. This science provides the means for acting on the world, for predicting and modifying the course of natural processes, for conceiving of devices that can harness and exploit the forces and material resources of nature... modern science is a continuation of the ageless efforts of man to organize and exploit the world in which he lives."

There is no indication of an eternal divine rule that states "If you can control me and make me do what you want me to, for your own benefit, then you have the Truth and I do not." Yet, this is exactly what we tend to believe in relation to Nature. We have equated the power to manipulate with the discovery of ABSOLUTE TRUTH! And this is a fundamental assumption in most, if not all, of our conceptions and assumptions regarding the pursuit of knowledge; which increasingly borders on the verge of dissociation and species wide schizophrenia in relation to Reality.

The above statement may seem blasphemous and hyperbolic at first. My father looked dumbfounded when I first told him that. In fact, being an engineer himself, I think he thought I was full of B.S.! Yet if we examine the evidence, and the historical record, we come to find that not only is the above statement quite apparent, it is extremely insightful as well. For, we have equated the power to manipulate Nature with the Truth --- even unto the point of Absolutes! These are the ruling class assumptions that go unexamined; we have the ability to manipulate phenomena for our own gain --- so we must "know" the Absolute Truth as it pertains to our existence, right? But I am not so sure. I would not go so far as to equate the ability to manipulate and control forces for one's own gain as necessarily being a signifier of Absolute Truth. In fact, it may be quite to the contrary. In other words, not manipulating Nature may lead one to a more honest appreciation and understanding of Truth as such. For when has manipulation ever been understood as being a signifier of Truth? Yet that is precisely what is classified as being Truth by science and the technocratic arms of Culture.

Whenever we are attempting to manipulate forces for a certain end we are blinded by that goal of which we are attempting to manipulate our way towards. We become like a racehorse, a thoroughbred with blinders on that does not allow us any peripheral vision. We see only the terrain of the conceptual track we have designated as the Way. The consequences, the periphery is lost. The carrot of ideology dangles in front of salivating thoroughbreds.

Faster! Faster!
Onward, ho!
Crack the whip of more and more
Progressive manipulations.

Call it destiny.
No questions asked.
Because it is deemed as
Good... A true and noble pursuit.

Progressive manipulation.

Our goal has been the ability to manipulate, and not necessarily truth. When something is perceived as wrong, then we think that the truth will make it all right. So, we have equated feeling good with the Truth, even unto selfishness at the expense of the Wellness of the Community as a Whole.

Psychotherapy has as its goal the overcoming of psychic phenomena. Physics has as its goal the working with the fundamental forces of Nature so that a "better" and "brighter" world can be ours. Science, in general, sees "what is" as less than it could be, and thereby determines that a better way is possible; and that this better way is won by the active Truth. As has been stated just prior, the notion or assumption that being able to manipulate phenomena becomes for us a sign of the Truth. He who has the Truth has Control. She who knows the Truth is not victim to conditions; overcomes all.

We are all afraid. The Truth would make us feel safe. Find it. Search it out. Make sure that the "Other" knows it too. So they do not threaten us with the insecurities brought on by doubt.

But what if there is nothing to overcome. What if all of our overcoming is just "escape velocity"; a fleeing from the midst of? For we are very seldom content where we are at. Something or other is always irritating us. Desires are package-fed to us 24-7 via the Market. "As is" is never as we "should/would" want it to be. Ours is a distressed and disjointed psychological condition, an inner conflict, an irreconcilable difference born of false concepts that keep us tail-chasing and fleeing the midst of --- the midst of our own Primordial Presence and Pre-sense.

Even our education models are based on the assumptions fostered by the idealist left and right. A child's best education comes from living, from having the experience of Life modeled for them by the living sense-able world, not from abstractions born of seeking out a "not-yet-here-ness". The writer Ezra Pound cautions us to "Go in fear of abstractions...." Yet, from the moment of the dawning of self-conscious awareness, children are thrown into the world of abstractions, which subtly divorces them from the Life, the sense-able world. Abstractions come to supersede common sense, because common sense isn't glamorous, isn't exciting... common sense just works, it is sensible, and that is not enough for many of us raised on superstars and reflected mirages of lives that are "beyond" our wildest imaginings. Abstract indeed.

So, we weave a web of abstraction that is more and more becoming divorced from the sense-able life we had known for so long. (Don't forget our ancestors evolved a neo-cortex via the ability to sense.) Intelligence is first and foremost founded upon the ability to be impressed in a sensory fashion. Without the ability to sense there is no intelligence that makes sense out of the sensory data that we receive on a moment to moment basis. Making sense, intelligence, is fundamentally ordered on sensory phenomena. If there is no sense-ability, then there is no making sense, i.e., no intelligence.

The difficulty with our education models is that we ask children to start making sense before they have cultivated sense-ability. They are thrown into fields of abstraction before they have a fullness of understanding about what it means to be sense-able. In other words, children are asked to make sense --- be intelligent, in an abstract way --- before their sense-abilities have had an opportunity to fully develop and stabilize. The cost is one of diminishing returns, where children grow up with the ability to abstract but lack common-sense --- and it is that common-sense which is communal, of the community, is common, and increasingly becoming less and less so.

Jean Piaget, based upon experimental studies with children, was convinced that all development goes from the "concrete to the abstract". This is all fine up to a point. For there comes a time when the abstract must be placed back into a context, meaning the concrete. This is something that Piaget never discusses. After development, what then? Apparently we develop indefinitely, without reservation, forever and evermore? But doesn't development come to be grounded? What good is it to have an increasing ability to abstract when that ability becomes increasingly less and less grounded in the concrete where we eat, sleep, fornicate and defecate? Joseph Chilton Pearce from Evolution's End:

No later abstract language can form without the solid foundation of a concrete language. Children who are able to name and recognize the hundreds of plants around them are in a better position to grasp such abstractions as E=MC2 when the time comes, than children forced into such abstractions prematurely, with no concreteness on which to base them."

All of our abstractions have to be related, must be relatable; meaning context-bound. If our abstractions are not formed upon a foundation of concreteness then they border on the verge of becoming schizophrenic fantasy and dissociative dis-embeddedness. In the same way that our abstractions are formed from the concrete, so too must they return to the concrete as applicable and contextually interwoven, or else they are as vain as mere imaginings divorced from Reality.

The threats mounted against existence are those that abstract without relational consent. In other words, concrete relatedness becomes the truest signifier of the value and worth of any and all abstractions. First we immerse ourselves in the concrete and develop our sense-abilities, for only then do we have a "solid foundation" for any abstractions that may follow. Perhaps it follows, then, that we can ask ourselves one question in relation to all of our abstractions: "Do they apply, contextually speaking?"

Certainly our abstractions can be applied in many diverse ways. At the same time, the abstractions can become habitual; they become transgressive applications; unlawful replications. We "abstract" from one context a working hypothesis or function and carry it with us into new settings and expect it to work all the same. And even though a context may appear to be similar, contexts are never exact replicas; moments never are the same in toto --- not even in a scientific laboratory can a certain context be exactly replicated to the most minute of details. Thus abstractions have limits that define them as abstractions, as "acts of mental separation, apart from particular instances or material objects".

We all learn, grow, mature in concrete environments. Abstraction only appears to work because we still have concrete foundations wherein which to apply our abstractions... without that we would be shit-up creek with only an abstract paddle!

When children learn a new task, a concrete operation, they then go on to learn how to "abstract" that task and apply it in similar contexts. We "discover" what works, and then that working hypothesis we carry forth into new situations. In essence, all abstraction derives from concrete operations. It is when we become habituated to our abstractions that they tend toward a ruling of the concrete and the contextual. In other words, our abstractions appear to be so effective, that when they do not work in a new context, we tend to the view that there must be something wrong with the concrete environment --- the context --- and not with our abstractions themselves. We can see this in children who have temper tantrums when something doesn't go their way. For instance, I have seen a child of two open cupboards one right after the other and then the parents latch the cupboards and the child cannot open them. The context has changed, but the child does not know this. The child only knows that what worked before is not working anymore and the child doesn't like it one bit. The context changed; yet the abstraction of the child remained the same, so frustration ensues --- suffering results.

The same sort of scenario still applies to us as adults and adolescents. We expect what worked before to always work, we, in a sense, go blind into concrete situations, veiled by our hood of abstractions. And we can, just like the child, throw a fit when our abstraction doesn't apply in the new context. Joseph Chilton Pearce calls such "habituation" the greatest threat that is implied in our ability to "abstract", and "perturbation, or disturbance of established patterns, overcomes the tendency toward this inertia. The minute we establish a pattern we would tend to rest in it, were this variation impulse not built into the cycle."

A "variation impulse" is built into Creation. Call it Impermanence. Or, in new science parlance, Emergence.

Our abstractions can only apply temporarily, precisely because Creation chooses not to grow too comfortable with ItSelf. We, as a self, an ego, may not like this fact. But it is for our own good I would suppose. The "variation impulse" that is "built into the cycle" of Being-in-Existence ensures that our abstractions will always be impermanent. Abstractions work only in certain conditions under certain circumstances, and when those conditions are not present then our abstractions falter. Hence, it stands to reason that "abstractions" are finite and can never resemble an Absolute that is applicable in all spaces, at all times. This understanding, rather than leaving us in the Abyss of uncertainty, could instead resound with the Tone of Home and our implicit Freedom in Creativity as the "variation impulse" conspires to edge us towards ever greater vistas of novelty and creative emergence. For we are compelled as Nature conspires to drive us out of our habitual abstractions.

There is a conspiracy afoot after all.

 

8

We have conspired to call "true", that which results when our manipulations bear fruit. Once again, The Ability to Manipulate Conditions For Our Own Gain = for us The Truth. When a process does not bring about a desired alteration in conditions, then it must not be "True". The True, for us of the West most especially, is that which is Powerful, which alters, which can do. We, of the West, do not especially like to here the word or the idea that we "can't". It is blasphemous. It is heresy and is not what humanity is here for. "Can't" is the worst four-letter word that the West has ever heard.

In order to prop up our manipulations with some sort of quasi-religious tone, we have come to call our "will to power" by the more benign term --- "the pursuit for truth". A blatant "will to power" doesn't sound nearly as good to the general public, a public that finances and supports most all of the scientific manipulations that occur in just about every area of human endeavour. Yes, the "pursuit for truth" sounds much more benign. It is agreeable with the sentiments of the populace.

I am sure that there is a sense of dissonance as you read this. I dance with this dissonance as well. It is because I have been brought up in a culture that has told me that the pursuit for truth was exactly that. As I have grown in understanding it has become more and more apparent that the only "truth" that we want is the "truth" that allows us to manipulate Nature so it conforms with our oftentimes selfish desires and drives. Our fears also play a part. We do not rest easy with fear, so we attempt to manipulate conditions and communities so that they are not as fearful for us as persons and families and states. Again, the one thread that turns up in all instances is that our dominant "truth pursuit" is no more than a Nietschzean "will to power" in disguise.

If we plumb the unconscious (if we can, and if there is an unconscious), we might find lurking within that there is a great and terrifying fear of existence, along with the idea that we can do better --- that we can protect ourselves and our interests against this terrifying existence of ours. But we will need Power to overcome! So, we shall search for the Power to overcome and then call it the just a "Discovery of Truth".

This is what, collectively speaking, the West is accomplishing on many of its fronts (which are global now). The West is overcoming, and saying all along that this overcoming is merely a sign of its having grasped the Truth of the Nature of Existence.

We shall see that this is, in fact, far from the case, and that it may be more of a diversionary tactic imposed upon consciousness so as to build a fortress of control and manipulation through posited and iterative assumptions about what it all means to Be-human.

There is something inherently flawed in the Nature of Existence, right? And we are here to overcome, to polish that flaw out of Nature. It is our divine obligation, our moral imperative, and our responsibility to deal with these flaws and "manufacture" a better world for all through our increasing ingenuity. In order to do this we need to understand "how" the world works. In order to alter the "flaws" we see we need to understand how they came into being to begin with. So, we dive back into the order of causes where we can have the best chance at altering what to us is "not as it should be". Back in the realm of causes, this is where we suspect we will find the keys.

But wait!

The deeper we peer into the Nature of Existence we find that there is no origin, as we would expect to find. In other words, we are unable to uncover the Primal Cause of the flaws we "think" we see; only secondary causes can be noted, and it is these secondary causes that we have been toying with, thereby altering the fabric of Existence.

What I am saying, and what is being increasingly discovered, is that every layer of deeper causes reveals yet another layer of still deeper causes; that is, until we get to realms where there is no longer any object substance to measure as cause, but just traces of ghosts in the machine of Existence, wispy trails of what was and is no more here-now. For instance, in quantum mechanics quarks can be hypothesized as existing, yet no quark has ever been witnessed. There is no quark there --- just a wispy trace of something or otherness, a trail, a track, a remnant of a past tense presence.

In essence, there is no objective substance to measure as root cause of the Primal discord and irritation that we "think" we feel; and that we want to alleviate through ojective means. In the words of author Virginia Wolff, "There's no there there".

 

9

Imagine if you will two glass bottles. Now, take these glass bottles and smash them against another at high speed. What do we have but a bunch of glass fragments, some too small to see with the naked eye. These glass fragments are component parts of what the glass bottle used to be. Can we better understand the nature of a glass bottle by breaking it up into ever smaller and smaller fragments? Doesn't that sound ludicrous? Well, that is essentially what much of particle physics is all about. The nature of quarks is revealed by bombarding particles with other particles and then seeing, naming, and categorizing these fragments --- as if they tell us something "more" about Reality. It's hilarious!

The supercolliders that exist do exactly what our smashing of bottles together does. Smashing wholes into parts and expecting to find secrets in those parts. It is a fallacy of reduction, and one that is often seen as high science at it's best. It is more than ludicrous. It makes no sense whatsoever! Do glass fragments tell us anything other than that we have created glass fragments from what used to be a whole, a functioning whole at that? Do particle fragments tell us anything other than that we have created particle fragments through our supercolliding efforts? That is all that we find out! We can name and categorize, classify and draw distinctions, but this should not pass for knowledge. It is a fool's game. A high stakes, high cost fools game. What ends up happening is a deepening of complexity and a potential loss of the origins of our search in the beds of greater and greater complexification. The more distinctions we draw the more variables we have to take into account. And also the more that those variables will result in discontinuities that are by all intents and purposes irreconcilable. "Humpty Dumpty Dilemma", indeed.

For instance, our supercolliding bottle-smashing: It does create many fragments and pieces, and certainly it appears that there is more to classify now. But the crucial aspect is lost. THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE BOTTLES THEMSELVES! The bottle was a form that served a function; one that is omitted upon smashing that form into fragments. The same can be said for atomic particles --- they are Bodies; Forms whose functionality is omitted when smashed at near light-speed into fragments. It is inane, urbane, and could quite possibly be seen in hindsight as a peaking of insanity. To smash Bodies at high-speed, classify the resultant fragments, and call it a pursuit for the secrets of the Kosmos, well that might just be the crux of foolishness.

It also costs time and money. When there is so much concrete need being asked for, to smash atoms is a veritable joke.... It is sort of like an abstract-induced blasphemy of the Body of the One who is all bodies.

Atom-smashers.... and
Mosh-pits;

Colliding Bodies: a new sort of
Apocalypse.

But we just want to understand the configuration of the bottle, i.e., what makes the bottle tick? A thirsty man doesn't care --- he only wants to be sure that the bottle holds water.

Smashing atoms will tell us nothing about the functionality of the Kosmos, just as smashing bottles will tell us nothing about the functionality of a bottle.

We don't have to look far to see exactly how deeply ingrained the reductionistic mentality is. If we can smash, reduce, fragment, and manipulate then so be it. If we didn't have the power to smash, fragment, reduce, and manipulate then we wouldn't have been given it, right? As far as responsibility goes, well it is thrown out the window for the "will to power" once again. Let's get our grubby little prehensile fingers on the most fundamental elements and see what we can do! Genes, nanobots, subatomic particles and the new man. Consequences be damned. For we shall overcome!

 

9.9

When we notice, and see how merchandise is peddled and hawked in the free market, we note the same manipulative tendencies that reveal the "will to power" once again. Everything is commodity. Death is reimbursable and embryos hawked on the Net. Everything a commodity. Sacred science and spiritual wisdom can be yours for a small fee. Wrongful death suits ensure that a price is extracted for a life taken too soon. The culture of commidification, of commodities, is ours, is here, boldly staring us in the face every moment of our waking lives.

Merchandisers, marketers, and ad agencies merely want to uncover our weaknesses, our secret little triggers, and then prey on us as a pawn to be moved by the whims of desire and aversion. Desirable images are splashed and displayed for us to see 24-7. We live within the midst of a manipulative culture; the culture of commodities, the culture of manufactured desires and seduction through images, the culture of Pavlovian rites of passage --- ringing bells and salivation; a conditioned salvation yours for a fee.

The prevalent myth of progress --- a myth that is centered upon the ability to manipulate the world for ones own selfish gain --- has lead to what can only be called, "the culture of commodities and exchanges", i.e., the Market. And as fate and luck would have it --- a good deal is out there, and the better deal is just around the corner. For the myth of eternal progress states that there can be no worse off than where we are right now, or where we were before.

The myth of progress is just that --- a Myth of Progress. You see, what was is not as good as what is coming down the bend. The former never measures up to the latter. For the Myth of Progress states as its fundamental tenet: "Better is always and evermore just around the corner, is on the way, is coming with the next great commodity to be purchased in the/from the Market". The next progression is always better than the last one; the next commodity exchange is always better than the last one. Ever it is that the next exchange, deal, gamble, risk, reward will leave us better off than before.

The Myth of Progress has become so pervasive a force that the threat of blindness due to this Myth is overwhelming and immanent. Why question that which comes from the mouth of the Myth. The Myth states that progress is "good", so all that comes down the pike must be for the good of the community, right? It is the prevalent Myth of our times, and it is this Myth that has huge consequences for how we see and perceive; along with the world that we build via the consequences of the Myth itself.

Joseph Campbell, a modern prophet of mythology, was fond of saying that the old myths had died and that it was up to us to build new myths. Well, Joseph, that myth is erected. It is the Myth of Eternal Progress.

This is the first myth to really encompass both the secular and the spiritual. There is now no actual leavening agent; there is only one train out of here, only one myth that matters: The Myth of Eternal Progress.

In former ages there were myths that competed and held each other in check. They served as tension makers in the cultural-mind, that would hold in check the forces of the Psyche. This tension of competing ideologies held totalitarian forces at bay. Oppressive regimes within and without had to deal with the conflict of ideologies, of myths. That is no longer the case. There is only one "alpha" myth. All other myths are now secondary adornments.

The Myth of Eternal Progress is a myth that we deeply want to believe in. We follow this Myth unquestioningly, precisely because our tendency is to want to believe in the fact that we can do better and be better. Inwardly we all, psychologically speaking, cherish this idea of progress and overcoming and advance and going forward and movement to higher vistas and more economic growth and greater control over forces of Nature. It is a very Western notion. Following the uni-directional arrow of Time how can we not progress, right? Time marches forward. Sequences build up. We learn more. We build on yesterday's inventions. So, the Myth of Eternal Progress is more a fact than a myth, right?

From the Tao-te-Ching:

Do you want to improve the world?
I don't think it can be done.

The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.

It is apparent that the Myth of Eternal Progress runs contrary to what the Tao-te-Ching has to say about progress and improvement. One could even look at the little book of wisdom from China and see that it is also a bit prophetic; for how much of the world have we lost by treating it like an object? Much, much of the world has been lost. There are innumerable species that have been sacrificed to the engine of progress. In this light we can see that myths are hungry ghosts; they must get their energy from what actually exists, then that energy is transmuted so as to be in accordance with the dictates of what the myth states to be so itself. Just as a religious myth can lead to the sacrifice of many, many humans, so too does the Myth of Eternal Progress require a sacrifice. It is just that we don't see it as being so up close and personal. Many of the sacrifices go unnoticed. Because we are in the midst of the Myth and see the world through the lens of progress, we never note the sacrificial offerings to the gods of progress, to the keepers of the myth.

The world is being leveled. Diversity is on full retreat and the homogenization of cultures is in full force. The Myth of Eternal Progress --- being the "alpha" myth of our times --- dictates that the measure of the world be "progressivism"; meaning techno-economic progress. The Peoples Republic of China has been sold on the Myth of E(ternal)-Progress, as has India and Europe, South America and Mexico, Australia and The United States. As I stated before, The Myth of E(ternal)-Progress has assimilated all other myths, both secular and spiritual, unto its domain.

There is still some resistance to the Myth of E-Progress, this text being but one example, but it is just coming from backwards looking neo-Luddites and uneducated putzes who see not the far-off Glory of never arriving, always progressing.

The Myth of E-Progress has no mercy. "Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated". Such is the arrogance and vanity of the mouthpiece for the E-Progress Myth.

As you surely know, every area of human endeavour is progressive. And we can expect "bigger, better, cheaper, and faster". All throughout our existence we can look forward to techno-economic marvels that = "bigger, better, cheaper, faster". After all, the Myth of Eternal Progress states so. And who's to argue with the evidence? We are progressing, aren't we?

We are changing.
Impermanence: just so.

For some the changes are progressive. For others the changes are regressive. Because the dominant myth that forms global culture is that of E-Progress, we are forced to deal with it. It demands that we do so. The Myth of E-Progress confronts every being on the Face of the Earth. Either directly, or indirectly, all beings on Earth at this time are forced to deal with the consequences of the dominant species being ruled psychologically by the Myth of E-Progress. All are engaged. Some take up the flag and march for progress. Others are fully aware that Progress demands a sacrifice; one that they are not willing to make, to concede to the hungry ghosts of progressive consumption and redistribution.

In other cultures --- those that are still resistant to the Myth of E-Progress --- a more cyclical view of Being-in-Existence forms the primary mode of relations with the world as a community. Progress is not the dominant myth in these last bastions against Western global homogeneity via E-Progress. For but a few remaining cultures on this bejeweled Earth there is a world that is understood as being more cyclical/seasonal in nature. Time's arrow and progresses march are not seen as being dominant forces --- either psychologically or economically. Cycles repeat themselves, and time is not perceived as just a straight line shot to ever-betterness. Seasons repeat; change comes around wearing the mask of similarity again and again. The Western hegemony of linear progression and time is just that, a Western, setting-sun, darkening sky, oncoming night, view.

The Western hegemoneous Myth of E-Progress is taken to be sole and alone in its justification of superior understanding; of "truth" and "objectivity" mounted in battle against the backdrop of backwards thinking primitives and retro-regressive moralities. The Myth of E-Progress is that seductive.

Hate yourself and world
In relation;
Believe in Progress
Above all else.

Never
Get there.

The irony is that the Myth of E-Progress has forgotten something; something has been left out, something essential. Soul has been left behind while marching to the drum of progressivism. Because Soul doesn't keep up; doesn't march to the metronomic beat of the 'machine age'. Soul wanders and explores nooks and crannies. Soul slumps down in slumber and rests under shade tree. Soul says, "Go ahead. Have your progress. I'll be here when you are done. Come back and we'll talk then."

In the primitive landscape.

The Soul knows no progress such as it is and has been ordained by the Myth of E(ternal)-Progress. The self is what progresses; only to whither on some silicon vine, distanced from Soul by all the progress that the self has undertaken.

We cannot progress into Soul. We can progress away from Soul. For Soul is a given, and intimately so. Progress assumes that there is no given, none other than our self-ingenuity, which allows for the self to get to some imagined ideal state that is not now. Yet, for Soul there is no ideal, only a self can know ideals as such. To Soul ideals are merely divergences from, not a means to. For what can be a means to That which is "always already" sufficient and fulfilled in whatever state or condition that is arising? There is no means to "what is". The self is the means to "what is not yet". Soul knows no progress. The self is the vehicle of progress. The self-is-improvement-help-transformation vehicle; for only selves know progress-development. Soul knows --- period. Soul just knows; just is; just so.

There are limits; there are spheres that are not reducible. We cannot reduce matter of self to realms of Soul to Essence of Spirit. Certainly each sphere bleeds into the other, but just like we have organs that cannot be reduced to each other as they perform a specific function, so too is the same manner of ordering in operation amongst self, soul, and spirit (essence). The heart cannot replace the liver and the liver cannot replace the heart. The self cannot replace the soul and the soul cannot replace the self and neither can replace the essence. Each member of the Triune Nature is irreducible. This is a crucial point to bear in mind, so I will state it again. Each aspect of the Trinity is irreducible to any other aspect of the Trinity. We can say that the Trinity of self, soul, spirit is of one sphere. Yet within that single sphere, as within a single body, the organs of that sphere are not reducible to any other organ of that sphere. The individual self is not soul in its totality, as soul is not spirit in its totality, as spirit is not the Trinity in its Totality. Reduction doesn't work here. Similarity, relationship, analogy, metaphor and kinship do.

Reductionism confronts objective walls because of its nature and bent to want to reduce further and further. There are limits to reduction; as we have seen and will note further later on.

We'll return to the irreducible nature of the Trinity and Its members shortly. For now, we can safely state that no mere aspect can account for the whole wherein that aspect is an emergent derivative of. There may be resemblance, similarity --- an analogical relation --- but no direct reducibility.