In Pursuit of the Inconceivable: Extract from the Introduction

Over the course of the last few centuries the progress of the physical sciences has been rapid and continuous, so why is philosophy stuck where it always was? We are members of an intelligent species, or so we like to think, but apparently insufficiently intelligent to make sense of our own existence or that of the space-time world in which we live. How is it possible that even today, ten thousand years or more since our ancestors first started asking them, the answers for all questions about the fundamental nature of reality continue to elude us? What is it about the basic nature of reality that prevents scientists and philosophers from deciding such simple questions as whether the universe begins with something or nothing, whether it is real or unreal, whether human beings have freewill or are automata, whether mind or matter is fundamental, whether God exists, whether anything other than God exists or even, come to that, whether anything truly exists?

The confusion of philosophers on such profound matters is easy to take for granted, as if it is to be expected, yet on reflection it is deeply strange and mysterious. What sort of cosmic magic could so effectively hide the true nature of reality from the prying intellects of human beings? How is the truth about our existence and true nature able to be so elusive? If we were a creator God, then how would we go about creating a space-time universe in which most of its inhabitants will find it impossible to work out the answer for any question about its origin and ultimate nature? We know it can be done, for here we are, but how?

This book explores the answer given to these questions by dedicated metaphysicians and mystics. Its thesis is that the true and fundamental nature of reality may be reliably inferred by logical analysis and, by way of other methods, reliably known to human beings. In Western society it is almost universally taken for granted that both these claims are false, but a detailed exploration of the issues shows that the evidence for their truth is all around us and not hidden.

As we grow up we cannot help but notice, sooner or later, that our parents and teachers are unable to answer any questions about the true or fundamental nature of reality. If we become curious about what the experts have to say about this and read an introduction to philosophy we learn that scientists and philosophers typically have no expectation of ever being able to answer such questions. We are likely to conclude that the answers for all truly profound questions about the world in which we live and the underlying reality from which it arises will never be known to any human being, and most definitely not ourselves. If we study philosophy to graduate level we may even come to regard questions about ‘life, the universe and everything’ as childish and naïve, for surely every educated person knows there would be no point in asking them. It probably seems obvious to most people that mere mortals are not allowed to know the truth about reality and existence, leaving them free to believe whatever they choose on the seemingly reasonable grounds that everybody has a right to an opinion.

I want to present a different view, one by which the true nature of reality is not a matter of opinion, faith or conjecture but may be established beyond all reasonable doubt by cold-hearted logical analysis, and beyond any possible doubt by experience and realisation. Making the case requires an investigation of an area of knowledge that attracts little interest in the scientific, academic, religious and spiritual communities, each for its own different reasons, and for which the relevant literature is distributed across many specialist areas of study. Fortunately, it is only ever necessary to examine their foundations and little technical expertise is required. The challenge is that of recognising the importance of certain basic facts and drawing them together into a coherent and comprehensible theory.

In this discussion I describe and justify a well-developed, well established and widely endorsed metaphysical theory that provides systematic answers for all fundamental questions and makes sense of the world, and show that it has been endorsed by the mystics of all ages, cultures and continents from before the dawn of human literacy. In the academic world both metaphysics and mysticism are widely presumed to be inconclusive, ineffective and untrustworthy as investigative methods, but when they are examined side by side this view cannot be maintained. The logical conclusions arrived at by scholarly ‘rational’ philosophers, for whom I take Immanuel Kant and Bertrand Russell as typical examples throughout, and the experiential discoveries reported by, say, the Buddha and Lao Tzu are mutually consistent in every respect and this cannot be explained away as mere serendipity. The perfect concordance between logical analysis and direct experience in respect of the true nature of reality is a vastly important fact with explosive ramifications for all human beings, but it can be known only to those who study the relationship between metaphysics and mysticism. Few people do this, and there is little dedicated literature.

In the academic world an extended, systematic and comprehensible metaphysical theory or ‘theory of everything’ is generally believed to be an impossible object, but I will show that this belief arises only because a poor understanding of mysticism must necessarily be accompanied by a poor understanding of metaphysics. When studying the foundations of existence the topics are difficult for a variety of reasons, not least because for most people they lead well away from the beaten track, but only rarely is it because they are complex or inaccessible. It is not intellectual complexity that creates the main difficulties for the metaphysician but the conceptual, ideological and psychological challenges that arise. These should not be underestimated, for we are trying, metaphorically at least, to understand the ‘mind of God’. These challenges arise for beginners and professors alike and they level the playing field. It would be easy to assume that the study of metaphysics and mysticism are best left to the experts, but the most important questions we can ask about reality and existence are immediately available for anyone to ponder and there is no evidence that having a doctorate in philosophy makes them any easier. Besides, nobody can understand the world on our behalf.

The discussion explains the reasons why metaphysics has appeared incomprehensible to most philosophers throughout history but need not seem so to the present reader. The cause of the incomprehension among philosophers is not difficult to see but it becomes visible only when we have some acquaintance with the philosophy of the mystics, and most philosophers have not been so lucky. Fortunately, this is an easy problem to solve. Once we know a little about the description of reality given by the Buddha, Lao Tzu and others who study consciousness to its deepest depths, metaphysics becomes comprehensible and all its questions become answerable. We may not immediately understand those answers but we will, on the grounds of logical analysis, have every reason to believe they are correct. Even a quite cursory non-specialist analysis is able to verify this, so metaphysics is an accessible area of study of immediate practical value for all human beings. As the study of our own nature as conscious individuals and the truth about our existential circumstances it is potentially the most valuable and beneficial of all academic disciplines. To realise its potential, however, it would be necessary to understand how it works and, to some degree at least, what it implies for the nature of reality and consciousness. This book is an attempt to show that acquiring this understanding is not as difficult as the history of philosophy might suggest.