[Excerpt  Be and Become, ProCreative, Sydney 2000]

To begin the journey into a truer understanding of reality requires that we begin on common ground. We need a starting point which is unquestionably universal to everyone.

As was covered in the first chapter, the one and only mainstay of personal experience, above and beyond all else is our own individual awareness. That awareness is composed of all that is consciously known to us, and all else (whatever “that” is) which is unknown to us.

So, let’s begin by considering what we know1

Our view of the world is a complex assortment of what we have been taught (from both religious and scientific sources) and what we have deduced for ourselves, usually by making our own observations of life. We can categorize our personal experience as being a duality of that which is KNOWN and UNKNOWN. Once again, this is the most fundamental principle which could be expected to be common to all. (Refer Table 3.1)

Now, we can observe that life is a process of converting the unknown into the known. Or that life is the process of expanding the Known by encroaching upon the previously Unknown. Lets encapsulate this as shown in Table 3.2.

 The arrow reflects this continual process of conversion from the unknown into the known. For example we learn to walk, talk and live life. At first much is unknown, and through learning we come to know that which was previously unknown.

Learning is another name for the process of defining that which has not previously been defined. When we define something we make it definite, which is to say, finite. Anything which is known is finite. Dictionaries define the word “definite” as meaning something which is precise and bounded. Something which is bounded is limited—if it wasn’t we would not be able to place bounds around it, define it, or Know it. Before something becomes known it is vague, nonspecific, general and undifferentiated. Accordingly, some of the qualities of the Unknown are that it is “general, vague, non-specific and undifferentiated.”

Refer Table 3.3 below.

Getting to know something is a process of differentiation and definition. In simplistic terms, our experience of life is a process of growing or expanding circles (of knowledge). If we talk in terms of boxes, instead of circles, then learning is the process of “thinking outside the box” (of the known). Inside the box (or circle) is the known. Outside is the unknown.

As will be covered more fully in the next section, what we don’t know, i.e the full extent of our Unknowing, is infinite in scope. So we might say that our personal experiences could be seen as being an island of knowing within an infinite sea of unknowing. Our personal existence then is a combination of the Known and the Infinite-Unknown (Unknowable)2.

We can express this more meaningfully by observing that our personal experience of existence is a duality of the known and the unknowable.

In view of the foregoing, learning is a process of establishing finite, bounded boxes of awareness within an unbounded, infinite “unknowableness.”

Learning is the process of categorizing, defining, labelling and limiting. Learning is, if you will allow the term, the paradoxical process of “finitisation” of an infinite-unknown. Once again, Table 3.3 helps illustrate this basic duality.

Now, a distinction needs to be made at this point between that which is unknown (but can become Known) and that which will forever remain unknown (i.e. the infinite) and is thus Unknowable. We could say that there are three levels to existence: the known, the knowable and the unknowable. In other words, there are two forms of Unknown: The finite-unknown, which is knowable and the infinite-unknown, which is Unknowable. Both the Known and the Knowable are finite. The Knowable is defined as being able to be Known (defined and differentiated). In other words, to be able to decide if something is knowable we first must decide or discern if it is finite. It might be helpful to think in terms of the bucket of sand, mentioned in the definition of Knowable in the glossary. We may not immediately know the quantity of grains of sand in the bucket, but we do know that it is possible to get to know their quantity, given sufficient time and determination. Accordingly, the Known and the Knowable are “lumped” together (at this point) as being finite and defined. They are both quantified or quantifiable, whereas that which is infinite is beyond knowing, measurement and differentiation.

Let’s summarize the last few paragraphs by saying that our entire existence can be seen to be an island of finite knowledge and dimension within an Infinite-Unknown (the Unknowable).

In addition, our perception of the measured and the physical is via time-delyed (speed-of-light) physical senses. Accordingly, all that is known, measured, real and physical is in the past (right-wing of Table 3.4 - see section Fluid futures, specific pasts, below)

Fluid futures, specific pasts

From our own experiences we can accept the correlation of the future with being Unknowable, while the past is Known. As well, while the past is known it is also certain, while the future is uncertain. We can therefore include the correlation of Uncertainty with the Unknowable, while Certainty is Known.

I suggest that the past is Known, because we perceive the past to be over and done and to be fixed in terms of what occurred. In other words, we perceive the past to be well-defined (known). Archeological teams, for example, excavate historical digs to determine what happened millions of years ago. While debate may continue over the precise interpretation of which dinosaur lived when and how, the assumption is invariably made that only one past occurred, in which certain definite, real events transpired.

The past is perceived to be “set in concrete.” The future on the other hand is perceived to be fluid with possibility, pliable, not yet solidified into solid fact and experience. If this were not true (that the future is fluid with possibility) we would have no freedom of choice. In fact, we’d have no awareness of choice. The future would be perfectly predictable and entirely unsurprising.

Now, despite the past appearing fixed (known), and the future fluid (unknowable and unpredictable), it is necessary to keep in mind that the associations of past with known and the future with unknown are correlations—the past is not perfectly Known, nor is the future perfectly unknowable.

At this point, I’ll also include the correlation of unpredictability with the future, and the past while appearing fixed, finite and known is deemed to be predictable, in the sense that it is predictably the same tomorrow as it is today.

Once again, these correlations are not meant to suggest that the future is perfectly unpredictable. I use the term predictable in its raw literal meaning, which is that to Predict is to “pre-say.”4 That is, a prediction means that we totally and precisely know what the future holds.

1. 1. The terms “Known” and “Knowable” have, within this book, a strict definition in that they pertain to only that which can be measured, defined and bounded
2. 2. The term “infinite-unknown” is used synonymously with the term “unknowable.” Both terms are meant to convey the idea that there are aspects to existence which cannot ever be known (defined, named, labelled, measured or proven)
3. 3. The term “spiritual” is, at this point, defined to mean that which is unknowable (immeasurable and beyond definition, i.e. infinite). See also the glossary.
4. 4. The origin of the word “predict” is the Latin word praedicere, fr. prae- pre- + dicere to say.

[Excerpt  Be and Become, ProCreative, Sydney 2000]

In view of the fact that our very lives are dependent upon definitions and limits, it is to be expected that consideration of the extent of these limits invokes fear within many. Such consideration, in light of our reliance upon modern scientific limited perspectives, strikes at the core of our sense of security and survival.

Nevertheless, it behooves us to reflect deeply upon such matters of limitation and constraint.

We take for granted many aspects of everyday life which are both known and unknowable, such as our intimate experience of the past (known) and the future (Unknowable). And yet there was a time in our history when merely speaking of irrational (“Unknowable”) numbers, for example, was sufficient cause for one’s death. As the late Arthur Koestler wrote in his book The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe:

Koestler cites another source in support of this idea as being Proclos who wrote:

These are examples of how people throughout history have feared aspects of our reality which cannot be defined or limited. Aspects of our existence which are open, limitless and without bounds have been known to frighten many people to the degree where they seek to kill those who openly speak of such matters. One example of this penchant for killing those who speak the unspeakable was the execution of the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno in the year 1600.

Bruno believed that the universe is infinite, that God is the universal world-soul, and that all particular material things are manifestations of the one infinite principle3

Bruno was imprisoned in 1592 on charges of heresy. He faced eight years of questioning, but in refusing to recant his heretical beliefs was burnt alive at the stake in Campo dei Fiori on February 17, 1600.

The persecution of those who speak of ideas concerning the infinite is a recurring theme throughout history, and one that is still evident in the world today. Or put another way, societies generally persecute those who speak the Unspeakable (ideas concerning the Infinite, the Unknowable).

The idea that we have historically deeply feared the infinite (the spiritual) is evident when we observe the history of the introduction and use of “zero” (the equally unknowable and immeasurable conjugate of infinity). India, an Eastern culture orientated towards the spiritual and the void (see next section), embraced the use of zero over 500 years before Western societies.

The Western fear of the infinite and the unknowable is evidenced by the fact that many religious people openly describe themselves as being “God-fearing.” When we correlate God with the infinite (the nameless and the unknowable), we can understand, in certain terms, the origin of such fear. To be “God-fearing” means, in part, to be in fear of that which is infinite, unbounded and unknowable4

For each succeeding generation, there will always be ideas presented by societal “black sheep” who push the envelope in terms of what is possible (Knowable). Those who gently push the envelope in socially acceptable ways (e.g. in sports or business performance) will be showered with accolades and generous financial rewards. But those who do so in substantial ways which unsettle the general populace will receive a commensurate degree of condemnation or persecution. The ideas they present push people outside their personal “comfort zones.” Schopenhauer observed that grand new ideas were generally subjected to a three-step process of ridicule, opposition and eventual acceptance. Generally speaking then, the introduction of bold new ideas which lay welloutside the societal comfort zone can be expected to be faced with the following three step process:

1. The idea is ignored or ridiculed, and evidence supporting the idea is ignored or denied validity.
2. With increasing evidence in support of the idea comes a corresponding increase in the vehemence against the idea: the idea can be violently, sometimes lethally opposed.
3. It is accepted as self-evident.

• 1. Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers: A History of man’s changing vision of the Universe, ARKANA Penguin Books, London 1989, p 40.
• 2. Koestler, The Sleepwalkers, p 41.
• 3. Excerpt of text on “Bruno, Giordano,” The Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia (Electronic Edition), Funk & Wagnalls Corporation, 1994.
• 4. Such fear has its origin in ignorance (born of immaturity), as is more fully covered in The Evolution of the Human Psyche.

[Excerpt  Be and Become, ProCreative, Sydney 2000]

As suggested earlier in this chapter, the distinction of reality being physical (Finite, Knowable and measurable) and "spiritual" (Infinite, Non-physical, Unknowable and Immeasurable) may not at first appear significant, but as will be more fully explained throughout this book, a bias towards either the physical (Knowable) or the Unknowable explains basically all of human behavior.

For example, Eastern societies have traditionally leaned towards accentuating and experiencing the Unknowable to the extent that they regard the spiritual (Unknowable) as being the “primary reality” while our everyday world of people, cars and trees is considered an off-shoot, or secondary reality. As David Bohm, the late physicist and protege of Einstein observed ...

In other words, while our Western culture is orientated towards believing that the physical universe is a primary component of existence, Eastern (Oriental) cultures are orientated towards believing that the spiritual (Unknowable) is primary. Aspects of our reality which are spiritual (Unknowable) lay in the realm of the mysterious. As a result, we can readily observe that Eastern cultures celebrate mystery, while we (in the West) celebrate facts. Hence our educational institutions being "fact-factories."

In view of the foregoing, we can add “Eastern culture,” and “Western culture” as the heading to TOA9 for the Unknowable and Known columns (resp.). With the inclusion of these two perspectives, it needs to be remembered at this point that Western cultures are not entirely “KNOWN,” limited or lacking in mystery. Western cultures lean towards exemplifying KNOWN qualities, such as being definitive, “factual” cultures which lack tolerance of mysterious (inexplicable) events.

Eastern cultures do not embody all things Unknowable and are not unlimited, but instead lean towards exemplifying the qualities of the unknowable and the mysterious in their cultures. As David Bohm once observed:

In being biased towards proof, fact and technology, Western cultures discount or downplay the role of intuition, mystery and imagination.

We are so very much more comfortable with facts and reason (the Finite-Known) than we are with mystery, emotion and the spiritual (the Infinite and the Unknowable). As the late physicist David Bohm wrote

1. 1. David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Routledge, London 1995, page 22
2. 2. Bohm, page 23
3. 3. Bohm, page 206.