Hyder Husain Arastu

Month: February 2025

  • Parts, Wholes, and A Thing Greater Than Any That Can Be Conceived

    Parts, Wholes, and A Thing Greater Than Any That Can Be Conceived

    There has crept into my mind a certain skepticism that now takes up the greater part of my thought. I am not unsure that this is a worry I am merely restating and which has been brought up on numerous occasions in many discussions, but given its effect on me, I will share it nevertheless.

    There are parts which make wholes. But it appears to me now that this may not be the case. I will waste little time in explaining my worry, for I think it straightforward.

    If it is the case that it is the parts that make wholes, then statements of the form ‘1+4=5’ must be of the nature that nothing can be learned from them, but it is the case that knowing that ‘1+4=5’ is more than knowing ‘1’ or ‘4’ alone, so it must be the case that something new is added when a ‘truth’ of this kind is learned, it must of course be learned.

    The ‘union’ of particulars then is greater than the particulars themselves, and though it is the particulars that comprise the object, their synthesis results in something greater than their mere union, its is not the case that the summation of ‘1’ and ‘4’ results in simply x = {1,4}, but it is instead something else than contained in x, which seems to go against all intuition.

    So far, I have said little that is of surprise. It is here that I am conflicted, a natural question arises of the limits of this notion of wholes being greater than their parts, and I must inquire as to how far it applies.

    In an attempt to explore what this comprises, I thought it ‘wise’ to approach it negatively, to explore where the notion is not contained. A natural place to start would be one where a statement is made that contains its own self, an analytic judgement. Of course this is entirely unhelpful (even if we were to ignore the problems with the category of judgments on a whole) since analytic judgments do not contain parts and wholes, since they are by their own definition contained in themselves, applying this line of thinking could not yield anything of benefit.

    Since I can conceive of no manner of judgement (thought) wherein it is meaningful to say then that the whole is equal to its parts, I am forced to conclude at this time that this universally applies.

    What occurs now to me is the Cartesian assertion of the third meditation, where it is claimed that an effect must have at least as much formal reality as does the cause, but this cannot hold, since if parts make wholes, and it is the case that the wholes are the effects of their parts, then it is necessarily always the case that every effect is greater than its cause.

    And yet, ironically enough, though I have directed this towards the third meditation, it in effect provides a similar assertion, insofar as it is the conclusion of the extension of this line of thinking is concerned. If it is the case that everything may be conceived of as a part of something, for it cannot be the case that any object we know of can be but a part of something greater, then it must be the case that there is a whole containing every object that is a part of its, and the unity of every part is a synthesis which must be greater than everything conceivable, for it cannot be conceived, we are returned in this inversion to our original assertion.

    HEHE

  • Culture, Schizophrenia, and Madness

    Culture, Schizophrenia, and Madness

    There exists a schism in culture as it is, resulting in its incapability for remaining an object of value.

    There is a notion, the origin of which I will not at this time spend words locating, this notion concerns a certain valuation ascribed to culture, that it is to be preserved. This though is in itself a contradiction, for what culture requires is its own destruction – parallel to the Nietzschian observation on which it is the values that devaluate themselves.

    If a culture holds in regard such ideas as ‘good’ and ‘respect’, then it inevitably falls into contradiction with the history that defines it as culture. That culture is historic is of little debate, that history is characterized by immorality, prejudice against all manner of people is clearer still.

    To preserve culture then is to preserve this history of madness. It itself though is what rejects this, culture then is a dialectic. The only way out of this is an inversion of exactly that which it is, a reconciliation of the schism created through its negation of its own self.

    The manner of surpassing this schizophrenia is its realization. This inversion that occurs as product of the realization though has not yet occurred, for it cannot happen with the individual, but only through the entirety of the culture. A movement that does not rise from within or even without but in which the whole realizes itself.

    So long as this realization remains merely ideal, the schism manifests itself as madness, a hysteria of the masses, the only parallel that comes to mind is that of an ant death circle, when the ant loses its pheromone trail it begins to follow itself resulting in a cycle where its own self is chased until all in the circle kill themselves. This circle is not the product of any single ant, and a single ant who escapes the circle will result neither in the salvation of all others, nor of its own self- in isolation, the ant brings its own death.

    We have forced ourselves into such a circle, existing in a schizophrenia of culture and of progress, both seemingly invoking the other and simultaneously negating it.

    It manifests itself also on the level of the totality that is each particular which partakes in the whole, presenting itself as a dilemma in every social interaction. An impossible choice between doing what one would do in isolation and what society asks of one, neither of these offering any salvation. The realization on the individual level though cannot be cathartic except through a destruction of the self, the individual is forced into madness. All attempts at escape result only in reinforcing this cycle, a constant alienation.

  • Encountering (the) I

    Encountering (the) I

    The encounter with reality begets the I, the I exists only as the synthesis of that which is not I. Freud describes the first tragedy as the clash of the pleasure principle with the reality principle, the conception of the self is from tragedy. The accuracy of the wider Freudian framework is irrelevant to the subject of discussion. What is relevant here is only that there is no meaningful conception of the I without it being understood as the negation of that which it is not, and what it is not is what precedes it and what succeeds it, this is the nature of the self that is subject.

    This I, the self, the first subject is inevitably annihilated as consequence of the apperception of its own truth. It is in this assimilation of what the self is with what it thinks itself to be that is both the end of the I and the beginning of a greater self. The self which has encountered itself no longer is capable of being the self that did the encountering but is a new self, the encountered self, evolution.

    I return again to Freudian language, for its convenience here. — I hold that any sufficiently developed metapsychological framework will express the same as its ‘essence’. The source of morality, of anxiety, grief, and all else that polices the ego, is the superego, the superego exists only as the mirror of the id, and it is this tension between the superego and the id that presents itself as the conscious self, the ego, I. The tension is irresolvable, but the I attempts reconciliation with the superego, the self attempts a movement towards its ideal. This attempt to be what it is not and can never be results in a second tragedy. It cannot be doubted that such an impossible task will result in disappointment, when it fails to realize, which it always will, it collapses into itself, pushed down further by the superego, by reality. All such attempts are fruitless, what follows is the Nietzschian catastrophe.

    There exists a singular escape, release. There is only one way to achieve catharsis, ending the self, this arrogant, deluded phenomenon must be put to an end, not through a harmony of its parts, for such harmony as we have already discussed is impossible, but through unity within itself. The encountered self is both the end of the former I and the opportunity for an evolved I, one that is not a unity of its parts, but is instead the unity itself from which the parts emerged, the whole.

    To be free can only be meaningfully understood as no longer seeking liberation, no person who is free would seek freedom, for this search then would become itself the restricting structure. To achieve freedom then, one must give up their search for it.

    Prerequisites to moral high ground is the collapse of the notion of a moral high ground, so long as one holds an awareness (a deluded one at that) of their superiority, one cannot be so. To let go of this seeking is impossible through a will for it, it is achieved only through the movement of the I along the stages following which it births itself anew as the freed self, the stages it must go through revolve around the encounter with itself. The ultimate act then is not a willed act, but a realized act, realized through tragedy.