We produce signs (and especially symbols) in order to make
the universe intelligible. Semiosis is the lifeblood of reason, one of two
traits that “make us men” (the other is freedom, says the hymnist). But the ability to use symbols is in turn
dependent, in the first instance, on forming a primordial concept of the
spatial Other. “The foundation of the identity of things is their spatial
location,” observed RenĂ© Thom, that remarkable mathematical
prodigy-turned-philosopher, who attempted, late in his intellectual
development, to bring a sort of proto-scientific rigor to semiotic philosophy. “All
ontology, all semantics necessarily depends on a study of space,” Thom also noted,
echoing a sentiment found in Spengler and elsewhere. By “space,” Thom meant
both physical and conceptual space; the internal “semiotic space” which characterizes
human thought is no less susceptible to topological analysis, he believed, than
is the external space in which matter and energy are suspended.
In formulating a hypothesis of Self during the earliest stages
of cognitive development, the infant soul is crucially dependent on external
sensory stimuli, which furnish evidence for the notion of a Self in which
reactions to an outside Other can inhere. This Other, as non-Self, is of necessity removed in
space, and hence is born the idea of extendedness. As Spengler pointed out long
ago, the symbol representing spatial extension can take various forms,
depending on the culture of origin. For the Western mind, space is regarded as
infinite, for example, whereas for the “Magian” soul of the Arabian culture, it
is bounded like a cosmic cavern. But whatever form it may take, the
space-symbol requires extension, with its corollary assumption that space is
populated by differentiable things that, in order to be distinct, must occupy
different portions of space.
Note that this applies both to conceptual and to physical
space: the distinction between a blue giant star and an emperor penguin resides
in the first instance on their not being spatially coextensive, both externally and within the "universe of discourse," and all other
distinguishing characteristics will flow from that first assumption.
What is, after all, this thing we characterize as [physical]
“space”? If we blithely suppose it to be the nothingness in which matter and
energy is to be found, then we contradict both the authority of the hymnist,
who denies the existence of “pure space,” and the revelations of 20th
century physics, which (thanks to the paradoxes of quantum physics) has found space to be suffused with virtual matter in addition to the more tangible stuff. As to the mysterious (and possibly misnamed) "dark matter" which only lately has been found to pervade the cosmos, we can venture no opinion other than the obvious inference: there appears to be no such thing as empty space on either a microcosmic or macrocosmic scale.
What, then,
remains to answer the semantic requirements of space? The answer, it seems to
me, can only be found in the realm of the symbolic: the space-symbol is that
which affords any cognizing mind the possibility of differentiability and,
hence, of cognition. Thus, while the Other may be ontologically prior to the
Other-as-Symbol, the Symbol is in its turn prior to the notion of physical or
corporeal space. That such a notion may appear to smack of mysticism is only
because the assumption of spatiality so compenetrates our semiotic being.
It was Joseph Smith’s first great realization, that both God
the Father and Jesus Christ are corporeal (i.e., spatial) beings, that forever
revolutionized religion. The old notion that Divinity somehow transcends space
and corporeality—that He is both everywhere and nowhere -- is one of the last
refuges of primitive animism. Such a concept of God must yield in the end to
the pantheism of the ancients, since, semiotically at least, if God is
coextensive with the universe, he must be consubstantial as well. This we must
admit if we acknowledge that any two signs, in order to be distinct, must also
occupy “spatially disjoint domains” (per Thom).
But the boy Joseph learned in the Sacred Grove that God the
Father is a “man like ourselves” – in terms of spatial extension, in any case.
In later years, it was further revealed to Joseph and his associates how this
Man’s influence spans the cosmos: it is through the instrumentality of light,
which “fills the immensity of space” (NB: we need not assume that by “space” is
meant here only the expanse inhabited by galaxies and cosmic radiation; instead,
since “the light which
shineth, which giveth you light … is the same light that quickeneth your understandings,” we may, in this context as in our previous musings, understand “space”
to denote also the boundless realms of cognition).
As composite
beings, we both think and (more importantly) act in space. Spatiality, a
cardinal attribute of physical bodies both mortal and immortal, is thus
indispensable to the exercise of agency – that is, to think and act for
ourselves.
All
reality, both cognitive and corporeal, has symbolic life, as Peirce perceived
and as we have elsewhere noted. The universe itself is a grand symbol, and no
symbol – owing to its indissoluble connection to purposeful thought, can be dissociated
from the notion of purpose. But purpose in its turn requires a spatial Other unto
which purpose can be directed, and thus are Symbol and Space (sensu lato) ontologically linked. Perhaps
this is why “there is no space in the which there is no kingdom; and there is no kingdom in which
there is no space.”
2 comments:
Truly a transcendent thought worth grappling with, space as symbol - hence the immensity of symbol, and perhaps as immensity of joy?!
Fascinating article. Thanks!
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