Aesthetics, metaphysics and ethics: Lent 2024, Day 13

[Inspired again by Marek, who asked:]

"Metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics. Are they separate fields? Do they overlap? Is there a hierarchy? Are they the same thing? How much of metaphysics is based on aesthetic 'intuition' ?"

I believe the foundation stone is aesthetics; preferences and familiarities. What you like, what's acceptable or tolerable, and what you dislike. In my case, I had formed a strong set of aesthetic preferences by the time I was a teenager.

As I wrote in my notebook on Friday, 2 February of this year:

"An aesthetic that has been turning slowly into a theology. Via consciousness – qualia"

Having covered my childhood metaphysical memories in yesterday's post, the question is how did this evolve into a quest with spiritual dimensions? The journey has taken decades and is far from over.

Essentially, the idea has been to try to nail down this anomalous memory phenomenon that I've noticed since early childhood, and what it could mean. Since early on when writing on this blog, I've used the label reincarnation? with a question mark as I don't wish to be conclusive; as yet I don't know. Nothing more than a notion, backed up by a lifetime's experiences.

Why am I continually drawn to a time and place outside my own lifetime? I'm sure I'm not alone in this feeling. The purely aesthetic response is unweakened over time, although the America that I feel and the America of today have diverged greatly.

There is a link; it is a metaphysical link; an effect without a physical cause (I could not have been in America in the 1930s or 1940s). I have considered physical vectors that could influence neuronal activity from one body another body (see this post from October 2015), but since then I've rather tended to reject a physicalist approach (brain-waves, atoms, bacteria in the gut biome) in favour of a metaphysical one. 

A key question here would be – does it make any difference if a dead body is buried or cremated? I mentioned the case of the famous Polish writer, whose daughter found a plum tree growing on the plot of his grave; decades later, the tree gave fruit, nourished by minerals from his decomposed remains. That would be a physical vector; eat the plum, and ingest atoms that were once inside the author. Could they convey fragments of his consciousness? I'd now posit that consciousness is non-local in nature and doesn't need a physical carrier. But these are early days! Much more to uncover during the forthcoming years.

And now we come on to ethics – and the notion that the Universe is powered by a loving Purpose that is unfolding in the direction of Good, of Love. The theology that I have constructed posits a Universe moving from Zero toward One, the one being unity, All in God, God in All, a moment of total fulfilment, the ultimate triumph of Good. The journey, however, is eternally long and beset with reversals of fortune; two steps forward, one step back.

My brother asked me to consider a Venn diagram with the overlaps between aesthetics, metaphysics and ethics; I see it rather has a pyramid with ethics as the peak; Marek would see that pyramid as having steeper sides and a flat top that could be built upon. Excellent! Maybe there's an even higher purpose than ethics...

Tomorrow: emergence and complexity vs entropy and chaos.

Lent 2023, Day 13
High Church and Low: Religious Styles and Personality

Lent 2022: Day 13
Comfort and Luxury, Consciousness and Ego

Lent 2021: Day 13
Comfort and Luxury - knowing when to stop

Lent 2020: Day 13
Holy buildings and the sense of the mystical