A Simple, Logical System for Proving the Existence of God — Idealist Metaphysics

[GrantHenderson]

In this proof, God is simply regarded as “universal consciousness”. This universal consciousness must also be, as defined by Anselm, "that than which nothing greater can be conceived". As such, this logical proof of God is a demonstration of how consciousness is fundamental to reality.

While there is no established definition of consciousness by which to prove that consciousness is fundamental to reality, there is general consensus among most professionals that any definition of consciousness must account for the hard problem of consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness suggests that consciousness cannot be fully explained in terms of physical systems, because this does not account for how and why we have subjective experience. Subjective experience is a qualitative phenomenon, and so cannot be reduced to a quantitative measure. A quantitative measure has specified properties as per its structure and function. Whereas, the subjective experience of properties is the meaningful qualities given to properties by the experiencing agent. It's not something in a quantitative sense, but the meaning given to something in a qualitative sense.

As such, a definition of consciousness which accounts for what’s posed by the hard problem of consciousness could be: That which gives qualitative meaning to properties:

Axiom 1: Consciousness/experience = That which gives qualitative meaning to properties.

To demonstrate that consciousness is fundamental to reality, the definition of consciousness must equate to the definition of reality, or be implied by the definition of reality. In other words, consciousness = reality if and only if it is true by definition. Only then would consciousness be "that than which nothing greater can be conceived".

Axiom 2: Reality has a definition: The definition of reality is “all that is not nothing”.

This definition of reality is a tautology. Reality cannot solely be defined as “all that is real” because such does not define what is real, or thereby what is reality. Thus, reality is all that is real because all that is real is all that is not nothing.
How this definition of reality directly implies the proposed definition of consciousness will be explained throughout the remainder of this proof.

Axiom 3: Reality has properties

These properties could either be mind dependent (idealism, conceptualism) or mind independent (realism). The prospect that reality has properties — irrespective of whether they are general or abstract qualities — is almost a universally held claim.

Axiom 4: The definition of reality informs the essential properties of reality.

If the essential properties of reality were contrary to that which is posed by the definition of reality, they could not be used to define reality, and the definition of reality would have no bearing on its properties. The definition of reality informs the essential properties of reality because they are posed by the definition of reality.
The only property posed by the definition of reality -- “all that is not nothing” -- is “realness”. However, the definition or reality also references “nothingness”. While nothingness is actually the absence of property, it is still required to define reality. The non-property “nothingness” is essential for defining the property “realness”, and is thereby equally essential as the property “realness”. Thus, “nothingness” can be regarded as an essential non-property of reality. Thus, the definition of reality imposes the essential property “realness”, and the essential non-property “nothingness”:

Axiom 5: The definition of reality informs the essential non-properties of reality.

With these 5 axioms in mind, consider the following inquiry:



Does the above graphical representation of realities essential properties/non-properties imply the definition of reality? Reality is all that is not nothing.

Answer: No, it does not.

The graphic does distinguish between “reality” and “nothing”, but it also displays both of them together. All It implies is the property “realness” and the non-property “nothingness”. Of course, this contradicts the definition — there cannot be both realness and nothingness.

However, inversely, the definition does imply the graphical representation, as the two properties/non-properties of the graphical representation are posed by the definition.

By depriving the meaning from the definition of reality, while maintaining the properties/non-properties posed by the definition (“realness” and “nothingness”), what’s implied is that reality has properties of “realness” and non-properties of “nothingness”. Evidently, this would contradict the meaning of reality — all that is not nothing. Realness and nothingness are essential properties/non-properties for defining reality as “all that is not nothing”, but only in terms of that definition upon which they are posed. In other words, reality interprets “realness” and “nothingness” in a way that only means “realness”. Thus, the essential properties/non-properties of reality are subject to the qualitative meaning reality gives them.
Thus, reality cannot just be its properties/non-properties. Reality must be that which gives qualitative meaning to its properties/non-properties.

In summary:

Axiom 1) Consciousness has a proposed definition -- “That which gives qualitative meaning to its properties”
Axiom 2) Reality has a definition — “That which is not nothing”.
Axiom 3) Reality has essential properties.
Axiom 4) The definition of reality informs the essential properties of reality.
Axiom 5) The definition of reality informs the essential non-properties of reality.
As such, reality defines the property “realness” and the non-property “nothingness” in a way that just means “realness”.
Therefore, reality gives qualitative meaning to the essential properties of reality. This is equivalent to the proposed definition of consciousness (1).
With only some of these axioms amounting to an explanation of reality, reality runs a contradiction by implicating to be real and unreal.
With all 5 axioms, reality is just real.
Therefore, consciousness is fundamental to reality.

This deduction of a “universal consciousness” fulfills Anselm's definition of God as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived", as it is a direct implication of the definition of reality-at-large, and nothing greater than reality can possibly be conceived.

Side note: One may object to this deduction with the claim that, for the essential non-property of “nothingness” to mirror the definition of reality, an object distinction must be conceptualized, thereby conceptualizing “something” instead. While dissociative alters are unable to conceptualize nothingness without conceptualizing something, there’s reason to claim that mind-at-large can, because it isn’t obscured by the contents of perception that dissociative alters are. Mind-at-large, or reality-at-large, can conceptualize nothingness because all that’s required is the absence of concept (non-concept).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God

[AshvinP]

In this proof, God is simply regarded as “universal consciousness”. This universal consciousness must also be, as defined by Anselm, "that than which nothing greater can be conceived". As such, this logical proof of God is a demonstration of how consciousness is fundamental to reality.

Grant,

Interesting analysis. To be honest, though, I think your conclusion of "God existing" is embedded in your axioms because they are so abstractly broad. Anselm's definition is accurate but is little more than a tautology in this context. What is the point? Is it to convince people that this abstract "God" exists?

Maybe we should ask why we think God can be reduced to and "proven" by our own intellectual concepts, if the latter are simply the very finished, mineralized, fragmented, mostly dead end products of whatever "God" is, which we behold as in a shattered mirror. Any reasonable person can discern this cannot be done, so any reasonable person is justified in rejecting this proof and all other proofs of a similar nature.

Anselm was a champion of philosophical realism, which argues ideas are real, not simply placeholders we create for the shared properties of particular perceptual forms. The former give rise to the latter, not the other way around. If this is accurate, then the next logical step is to notice how our concepts are also particular forms in this same way. And the logical step after that is to investigate our own ideational activity which gives rise to the conceptual forms. Then we are investigating the Divine itself, rather than attempting to reduce it to the particular conceptual forms.

[GrantHenderson]

Hi Ashvin, nice to see you again.

Interesting analysis. To be honest, though, I think your conclusion of "God existing" is embedded in your axioms because they are so abstractly broad. Anselm's definition is accurate but is little more than a tautology in this context.

This is a good point. Our definitions of God are ultimately limited by our emotional disconnect from God, and the attributes we associate with God are biased by our own human attributes.

We’re better off at defining consciousness than God, because we know that we can identify with consciousness (and even that is controversial). So, if we consider consciousness at the largest scale imaginable, we might be able to use our definition of consciousness to infer a definition of God with minimal conflation. That’s the reason for Anselm's definition as well. Perhaps I didn’t effectively integrate that into the text.

Maybe we should ask why we think God can be reduced to and "proven" by our own intellectual concepts, if the latter are simply the very finished, mineralized, fragmented, mostly dead end products of whatever "God" is, which we behold as in a shattered mirror. Any reasonable person can discern this cannot be done, so any reasonable person is justified in rejecting this proof and all other proofs of a similar nature.

Yeah, I see what you mean. If reality can be defined in the first place, does this already imply God? What conceived of this definition?
But then again, I do think it’s difficult to argue against the analysis that reality can be defined, and that this definition has bearing on reality. If it were used for any other logical framework that doesn’t imply God, I don’t believe people would argue with the process.

What is the point? Is it to convince people that this abstract "God" exists?

Honestly, largely because it’s like an infinitely intriguing puzzle, trying to understand and articulate what is in the most basic way imaginable. I want to say that it's because I want to help people to recognize the god within them, and the inherent meaning they have. A fundamental reason to treat people with love. I try to maintain that fundamental motivation. Sometimes that’s deprived by analyzing it.

And the logical step after that is to investigate our own ideational activity which gives rise to the conceptual forms. Then we are investigating the Divine itself, rather than attempting to reduce it to the particular conceptual forms.

Yes, this empirical evaluation is essential for validating the particular forms of reasoning used. I believe that with which our ideational activity gives rise to conceptual forms reduces to that which is posed by the hard problem of consciousness. I mostly skip over this in the text (for the sake of simplicity), and basically just say that the hard problem of consciousness is generally accepted and informs our definitions.

The problem I see with using other more detailed ideational activity/processes in a proof procedure is that they are also more abstract, and less confirmable.

[AshvinP]

Hi Ashvin, nice to see you again.

Interesting analysis. To be honest, though, I think your conclusion of "God existing" is embedded in your axioms because they are so abstractly broad. Anselm's definition is accurate but is little more than a tautology in this context.

This is a good point. Our definitions of God are ultimately limited by our emotional disconnect from God, and the attributes we associate with God are biased by our own human attributes.

We’re better off at defining consciousness than God, because we know that we can identify with consciousness (and even that is controversial). So, if we consider consciousness at the largest scale imaginable, we might be able to use our definition of consciousness to infer a definition of God with minimal conflation. That’s the reason for Anselm's definition as well. Perhaps I didn’t effectively integrate that into the text.

I don't see why it would be easier to define consciousness than god. We experience consciousness, and we experience God (whatever it is). These are axiomatic. There is no reasonable definition of either which puts them outside experience (although most try to put them outside direct and conscious knowledge). But when we make the leap from experiencing them to having the capacity to define them in propositional statements, this is not warranted. It is akin to claiming we can propositionally define the experience of aesthetic or ethical meaning, the experience of a symphony or a deeply moving love story. This cannot be done.

Maybe we should ask why we think God can be reduced to and "proven" by our own intellectual concepts, if the latter are simply the very finished, mineralized, fragmented, mostly dead end products of whatever "God" is, which we behold as in a shattered mirror. Any reasonable person can discern this cannot be done, so any reasonable person is justified in rejecting this proof and all other proofs of a similar nature.

Yeah, I see what you mean. If reality can be defined in the first place, does this already imply God? What conceived of this definition?
But then again, I do think it’s difficult to argue against the analysis that reality can be defined, and that this definition has bearing on reality. If it were used for any other logical framework that doesn’t imply God, I don’t believe people would argue with the process.

Most people wouldn't, true, but I would. This is really where modern philosophy and science went off the rails. It confused convenient abstractions (intellectual concepts), taken from reality, to have a power to reconstruct that reality in models and reach the essence of that reality. Critical idealism responded to this rationalism, but practically commited the same error - it argued its own intellectual concepts can show that knowledge of reality is fundamentally limited by the structure of reality. How it can arrive at such a conclusion about the structure of reality without surpassing its own conceptual limitation? Once again the intellectual concepts are given priority. If we are to take idealism seriously, the concepts can only be symbols pointing to their source. Just like no configuration of points and lines on a piece of paper will give us understanding of three-dimensional experience, no configuration of intellectual concepts will give understanding of archetypal ideal experience. But who decreed we are only limited to points and lines? It is ironically our over-reliance on them that ensures we will not perceive either the necessity (rationalism-materialism) or possibility (critical idealism) of evolving beyond them in Thinking.

What is the point? Is it to convince people that this abstract "God" exists?

Honestly, largely because it’s like an infinitely intriguing puzzle, trying to understand and articulate what is in the most basic way imaginable. I want to say that it's because I want to help people to recognize the god within them, and the inherent meaning they have. A fundamental reason to treat people with love. I try to maintain that fundamental motivation. Sometimes that’s deprived by analyzing it.

And the logical step after that is to investigate our own ideational activity which gives rise to the conceptual forms. Then we are investigating the Divine itself, rather than attempting to reduce it to the particular conceptual forms.

Yes, this empirical evaluation is essential for validating the particular forms of reasoning used. I believe that with which our ideational activity gives rise to conceptual forms reduces to that which is posed by the hard problem of consciousness. I mostly skip over this in the text (for the sake of simplicity), and basically just say that the hard problem of consciousness is generally accepted and informs our definitions.

The problem I see with using other more detailed ideational activity/processes in a proof procedure is that they are also more abstract, and less confirmable.

We don't need to give more detailed definitions of ideational activity. I'm saying we can try to experience the activity which gives rise to all our concepts as it occurs. This was explored by Cleric in depth in The Center of the Central Topic essays (on topic specific forum). I don't think I can provide more clarity than those, so I recommend you check them out. Most importantly, we must overcome the modern habit of thinking it is impossible to investigate our own thinking in a living way and a precise way. One could broadly think it of as fusion of Eastern mystical practice, devotional religious practice, and Western phikosophical-scientific mindset, but the key endeavor is to actually try and experience it. It cannot be proven to us by concepts before we try to actually engage it within ourselves.

[GrantHenderson]

I don't see why it would be easier to define consciousness than god. We experience consciousness, and we experience God (whatever it is). These are axiomatic. There is no reasonable definition of either which puts them outside experience (although most try to put them outside direct and conscious knowledge).

Because our understanding of “what is God” is largely informed by our understanding of “what is consciousness”, considering that God is “universal consciousness”. I don’t claim that a definition of either should put them outside experience. Just that, consciousness is something that almost everyone can agree that we possess (as opposed to god), so it is better to use that as the basis of an argument if it is to have a greater reach.

But when we make the leap from experiencing them to having the capacity to define them in propositional statements, this is not warranted. It is akin to claiming we can propositionally define the experience of aesthetic or ethical meaning, the experience of a symphony or a deeply moving love story. This cannot be done.

I have mixed feelings about this. It’s likely impossible to prove a definition of consciousness. But also, since we claim to know that we have consciousness, it follows that we can also claim to know what it is, given that our knowledge of our own consciousness entails the characteristics of consciousness. A counter argument might be that consciousness could only be defined by the “outside”, which I think we can both agree against. So I doubt that these characteristics of consciousness exceed the capacity for defining. Proving a definition of consciousness is a different story however.

I don’t think your examples work. A symphony could make me feel happy and could make another person feel sad, but the common denominator is “feeling”. Consciousness isn’t defined by the specific qualities of experience. But rather, by the fact that they are indeed qualities of experience. This is not a subjective fact — as opposed to the examples you outlined — but rather, a fact outlining subjective experience. One thing we know for certain is that the symphony makes everyone feel.

Most people wouldn't, true, but I would. This is really where modern philosophy and science went off the rails. It confused convenient abstractions (intellectual concepts), taken from reality, to have a power to reconstruct that reality in models and reach the essence of that reality. Critical idealism responded to this rationalism, but practically committed the same error - it argued its own intellectual concepts can show that knowledge of reality is fundamentally limited by the structure of reality. How it can arrive at such a conclusion about the structure of reality without surpassing its own conceptual limitation? Once again the intellectual concepts are given priority. If we are to take idealism seriously, the concepts can only be symbols pointing to their source. Just like no configuration of points and lines on a piece of paper will give us understanding of three-dimensional experience, no configuration of intellectual concepts will give understanding of archetypal ideal experience. But who decreed we are only limited to points and lines? It is ironically our over-reliance on them that ensures we will not perceive either the necessity (rationalism-materialism) or possibility (critical idealism) of evolving beyond them in Thinking.

Certainly, we need come to terms with the empirical fact that all explanatory models are in terms of our experience of reality. I’ve outlined that elsewhere:
1) “I experience a model of reality”. This is a true proposition.
2) “All models of reality as I experience them are in terms of my experiential model of reality”. This is also a true proposition due to its internal structure.
3) “Therefore, I theorize models of reality in terms of my experiential model of reality.” This is a valid inference of (2).
4) “Therefore, all scientific explanatory models of reality depend on the empirical fact that my experience models reality”. This is a valid inference of (3)
5) Therefore, the ontological dependence of an ontology is that experience models reality. This is a valid inference of (4)

However, I don’t think this in itself implies that “mind is the cause of all existence”. It just implies that “all models of reality depend on mind”. I don’t think we can conflate the two (not implying that’s what you're doing, just a worthy point). Additionally, while any activity outside of mind is an inference that we can never prove by mind, it remains a plausible theoretical possibility — especially in the eyes of hardcore realists.
I do believe that this idea coupled with the system I’ve proposed here stands a decent chance. This system outlines how mind is a first cause as opposed to an ontological dependence. But, if you can explain how the ontological dependence of any explanatory model of reality is mind, and explain how the cause of existence is mind within the same explanatory framework (using the same reasoning method), then you have a more coherent and complete model. That’s what this has the potential to do I think.

[AshvinP]

I don't see why it would be easier to define consciousness than god. We experience consciousness, and we experience God (whatever it is). These are axiomatic. There is no reasonable definition of either which puts them outside experience (although most try to put them outside direct and conscious knowledge).

Because our understanding of “what is God” is largely informed by our understanding of “what is consciousness”, considering that God is “universal consciousness”. I don’t claim that a definition of either should put them outside experience. Just that, consciousness is something that almost everyone can agree that we possess (as opposed to god), so it is better to use that as the basis of an argument if it is to have a greater reach.
...
However, I don’t think this in itself implies that “mind is the cause of all existence”. It just implies that “all models of reality depend on mind”. I don’t think we can conflate the two (not implying that’s what you're doing, just a worthy point). Additionally, while any activity outside of mind is an inference that we can never prove by mind, it remains a plausible theoretical possibility — especially in the eyes of hardcore realists.
I do believe that this idea coupled with the system I’ve proposed here stands a decent chance. This system outlines how mind is a first cause as opposed to an ontological dependence. But, if you can explain how the ontological dependence of any explanatory model of reality is mind, and explain how the cause of existence is mind within the same explanatory framework (using the same reasoning method), then you have a more coherent and complete model. That’s what this has the potential to do I think.

But this is the issue - do we get understanding of anything by way of conceptual definitions, or by way of direct experience and reasoning? Generally, concepts are a way to delimit experiences in certain ways - to fix them in space and time for purposes of functional analysis within some domain of experience. It is precisely when we forgot this is what the concepts are doing that we began also thinking that the concepts by themselves, arranged and rearranged in various ways, which we give different labels and call "ontology" or "worldview", can reach essential understanding. When we are dealing with the essence of what we experience, the concepts are only useful as symbols pointing to Ideas which were once concretely experienced, just like we now experience colors and sounds. Concepts are no different than poetic words, in that sense. These point us towards a realm of shared meaning. There is nothing "subjective" about this in the sense of aesthetic and moral meaning belonging to a "private" space of experience, any more than the meaning of scientific relations between outer perceptions can be called private.

Consider an analogy with Light. As we evolved into more precise cognitive consciousness, portions of the Light spectrum were veiled from us that are still sensible to lower organisms. We no longer perceive ultraviolet, infrared, etc. The same thing applies with Sound frequencies. Where has the ultraviolet spectrum gone? Nowhere. It still permeates all of our experience, but is veiled from our current cognitive perception. It is still influencing our bodily organism (and in an increasingly oppressive way, when it remains unconscious i.e. imperceptible). Does it make any sense to say there is a world of Light and Sound behind the world we perceive, and we use the visible and audible spectrum of light and sound to model that world? This is the modern understanding of human thinking, proliferated through Kantian epistemology, but it is adding in another 'noumenal' world which is entirely unwarranted from experience. Instead, it only makes sense to say that any localized perspective, at any given time, only perceives a narrow spectrum of the total world content, and the rest has become supersensible in the course of evolution.

The ideal forces which are responsible for aesthetic meaning are supersensible to most, like the ultraviolet spectrum. That doesn't mean they are any less objective than the relations we still perceive. The latter are only the shadows of those forces, the forces when perceived through a flattened and mineralized lens. In fact, aesthetics is where we find a concrete overlap between the objective and so-called "subjective" domains of experience. Every art form has its precise theoretical aspect which complements the meaningful aspect. So there is no reason to divide philosophical or scientific inquiries from aesthetic or spiritual (moral) ones. It is not justified to say any of these domains can be captured by propositional definitons in a way that brings genuine understanding of their deeper meaning. We cannot "prove" that meaning via concepts.

What is the alternative? We can try to make the supersensible more and more sensible. This requires a new way of thinking. It is a thinking increasingly liberated from the conditioning of sense-perceptions. We can call this "sense-free" thinking. It participates in a domain where thought weaves upon thought directly, without the mediation of the current sensory spectrum, which includes our concepts (anything we can think about is a "perception"). Mathematical thinking is a preliminary stage of this 'pure' thinking, since it deals in objects not found in the outer sensory world, but it lacks the qualitative dimension. If we can see some of the logic underlying cognitive evolution, then it is only natural that the supersensible ideal forces, with their qualitative dimension, i.e. their aesthetic and moral meaning, will be unveiled through and within our awareness of our own thinking and how its conceptual life unfolds. We get back into the flow of living thinking before it exhausts itself in the concept-perceptions. This is where the Spirit awakens to itself as a creative force in the world of perceptual experience, cultural and natural.

[AshvinP]

...

Let me add something on this objective v. subjective distinction. Let's imagine we are observing ourselves shoot a basketball. I see the ball come up when I raise my arms, go through the air after releasing, and go through the hoop or bounce off the rim or miss everything entirely. Then I can describe this entire process with concepts of cause-effect, parabolic motion, air friction, impact angle, etc. The difficulty for nearly all modern philosophies and sciences, especially idealism, occurrs when we move from the lawfulness of the transforming perceptions to the lawfulness of the inner concepts.

The conceptual process generally appears as a stream of words we speak to ourselves, or written symbols if we are more precise in thinking through the observations. It is generally ignored that there is a lawfulness to this stream of word-concepts as well. There are several reasons for that, apart from the fact that general human evolution of cognition has arrived to this stage of abstraction

1. It is more difficult to observe the stream of concepts, i.e. it requires turning our observation inwards.

2. The stream of concepts transform according to a different Time-experience, i.e. it is over a longer period of normal Time-experience that the lawfulness can be discerned, relative to observing the basketball go from my hands to the hoop.

3. We simply aren't aware to look for the lawfulness. Our concepts are considered the source material, so to speak. It is forgotten that they arrived within us through a living flow of ideal activity. If we do acknowledge this, it is generally in the most abstract way, like "my concepts come from MAL". Practically this is the same as saying they came from nowhere or pure nothingness.

So what we are speaking of is really whether there is an inner lawfulness to our concepts and whether it can be discerned. Note that I am not bringing this up as a completely separate issue from your original post. We cannot learn to observe the inner lawfulness until we also learn to reason through pure thoughts, i.e. philosophical or mathematical axioms, premises, etc. When we do that, we are already halfway to discovering the objective nature of inner meaningful experience, or at least well beyond the thinking which simply observes and describes basketballs going through or not going through hoops. Now we only need to ask ourselves what we are doing inwardly to think in this way and seek the answer in the observation of our thinking. To discern the inner lawfulness, it will help to consider overarching Ideas which structure our experience over relatively lengthy periods of time, like that of "day and night", "fall or spring", "modern age". We can try to discern how these evolving ideas brought us to our current experience, and our remembered or anticipated experience. All of these things are quite possible and very accessible to the modern soul, but also require a pardigmatic shift in perspective. We must discern that there is an entire depth structure of lawful ideal forces which shape and direct our current thinking.

[mikekatz]

I don't see why it would be easier to define consciousness than god. We experience consciousness, and we experience God (whatever it is). These are axiomatic. There is no reasonable definition of either which puts them outside experience (although most try to put them outside direct and conscious knowledge).

Because our understanding of “what is God” is largely informed by our understanding of “what is consciousness”, considering that God is “universal consciousness”. I don’t claim that a definition of either should put them outside experience. Just that, consciousness is something that almost everyone can agree that we possess (as opposed to god), so it is better to use that as the basis of an argument if it is to have a greater reach.

I certainly don't want to get involved in another discussion, lol, but I question both your premises.

"We experience consciousness" and "...consciousness is something that almost everyone can agree that we possess..." are both dualist assumptions.

Who is it who experiences consciousness? Only consciousness itself can experience! Similarly, how can we possess consciousness? Possession implies a possessor who possesses something, again dualistic. How can consciousness be possessed?

The only non-dual way I can see to express this, is to say that we are consciousness.

Maybe I'm getting mixed up, and neither of you is actually espousing a non-dualist view. In which case, my comments are irrelevant and I apologise for intruding.

[GrantHenderson]

Fair point Mikekatz. "we are consciousness" it is then.

The potential dualist interpretation from this communication error shouldn't be reflected within my actual views however.

[AshvinP]

The only non-dual way I can see to express this, is to say that we are consciousness.

Maybe I'm getting mixed up, and neither of you is actually espousing a non-dualist view. In which case, my comments are irrelevant and I apologise for intruding.

I would say, we are evolving, structured conscious activity.

Again, we come back to whether it makes any difference in our understanding to shift around the words in a definition. The main things to avoid are dualism, reductionism, atomism. So I want to stress monsism, nested hierarchical relations within primal Idea, and evolving processual flow of ideal activity.

If we were to also explore the depth structure in terms of metaphors, analogies, etc., or in terms of the supersensible activity of real Idea-beings, this would aid understanding. But if we reduce the irreducible ideal relations to worldly conceptual definitions, then we inevitably end up with dualism and atomism, and that can only muddle our understanding further. There is. very fine line to walk with conceptual reasoning, and I think attempts at definitons always lead us astray of that line.