HOW SCALE SEEKS THE SPIRIT

“What piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

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Enlightenment critics sought to purify society in the reverse direction; alchemists sought to purify it—their substance, discipline, and society—in the forward direction; to perfect their practice and produce the elixir of life. If purification is the rebirthing of oneself from oneself—creator and created as one—or the continuous transformation toward perfection, then in the ever-expanding infinite series of becoming, there is no being; there is no existence, no creation, no creator of the creator. But there is only existence, creation, and the creator’s creator. That is all there is, becoming against the background of nothingness and the foreground of everything but unbounded in all directions, slicing through every single meta plane of every single meta discipline—existence and creation and creator of creator and alchemy and metaphysics and modernism and… there, in the all expansive folding outward and concurrent folding inward in the attempt to tow the undulating bound of relationality against subjects and objects only ever becoming and never yet being… there we return to the singularity of infinite potential. There, we return to God. We become the quintessence of dust. But folded in the folds of this atomic dust of mankind lies a kaleidoscopic big bang. 

Scale sets the world in motion. Scale is what creates. Scale is what transforms and purifies and perfects and refines becoming into being, and then into becoming and being and becoming again. And man sets the scale in motion. All there is is the infinitely oscillating stretching and compressing of scale grasping toward itself. And the mind of man closes its hand. Man is the substrate. Man binds to scale as it is scaling itself and allows it to still, to draw a circle around itself and enter its own orbit. Man completes scale; man sets scale into a steady relation with itself, and in doing so, man becomes the object of scale; man is what relates and compares, man is what exists and what is created, man transforms state of being and state of identity. With every drop of liquid life, with every arabesque of a paintbrush, man realizes he is not merely first-order, not merely second-order, but he is the transformation of transformations, he is the transformer himself! He is the scaling of scale. That is the basis of his spirit. Everything is an infinite series in infinitely many meta-dimensions until man takes a leap of faith into the imagination and imagines. Man imagining stabilizes scale’s undulating paths, the tempest of creation’s creator’s creator, and becomes the singularity out of which we enflame the creation of everything. Man imagines and grasps the universe.

Final

Formal

Efficient

Material

Strife

Love

Fire

Air

Water

Earth

Existence

Creation

Imagination

The beginning of everything. The imagination cannot be purified; it is what purifies. It is the sole pure substance that unfolds its purity in transforming and perfecting and refining the world around us. Becoming and being oscillate in a plane only a breath away from un-existence, sliced through with other meta-planes of existence and creation and creation’s creator with spirituous fluid dripping in infinitely many directions into infinitely many meta-dimensions—life concealed in every fold of this quintessence of dust. Man imagining is the original scale out of which tendrils of becoming and being extend with existence and relationality and scale. Man is creation, but he is also convergence. Man imagining condenses the Holy Trinity of alchemy and metaphysics and modernism into scale—condenses alchemist and philosopher and artist into human. Man imagines the composition of the galaxy, and sees in it his portrait and a dream, a mural of alchemy and birth and the circle of orbits of meta-meta-metaphysics. The world is black & white, an ocean greyness, until man imagines and gives colors to its tide, gives existence and creation, gives structure, gives scale. Man imagining is the elixir of life; man is the shimmering substance of white light, the singularity out of which primordial matter scales up the universe. An inhale away from un-existence, man imagining is what blows.

 How infinite his faculties indeed…

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Musician’s Note

When I first read How Scale Seeks the Spirit, I was struck by a sense of wonder, almost as if one were literally a traveler through space and time, seeing all of these thinkers and philosophers develop their thoughts and work. I set out with the music to create something equally wondrous and thought provoking, ultimately settling on the perhaps unexpected choice of scoring it for mallet percussion and electronics. Even more strangely, the piece largely follows 18th century baroque fugal treatment! I wanted to combine the very old method of composition of the fugue with the very new one of using synthesizers as a way of tapping into that sense of timeless wonder that the piece invokes. In line with that, a listener will hear the mallet percussion voices enter one after the next, taking up the tune of the previous voice while the others march on, creating a sort of a canon that weaves itself into a piece.

ANTONIS CHRISTOU

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Empedocles’ philosophical theory of recombining primary elements earth, water, air, and fire to be transformed into the existing material world preceded Aristotelian notions of interaction and causation; though the scale of the created world was, for Empedocles, limited to the four primary elements alongside the forces of Love and Strife, Aristotle expanded the scale in new dimensions with his theory of the four causes. 

Aristotle introduced the four causes as material, efficient, formal, and final. In the example of a bronze statue, the material cause is the bronze metal, the efficient cause is the artisan or sculptor, the formal cause is the shape or design of the statue, and the final cause is the purpose of erecting it. Empedocles’ ‘causes’ can be condensed into Aristotle’s material and efficient causes—earth, water, air, and fire as the former, and Love and Strife as the latter. Alchemical transformation is oriented to purify and perfect, and the primary elements of recombination may only partake in this purpose in the Aristotelian model, with the emergence of the final cause—the purpose of purification and perfection. 

We can thus see alchemy as progressing concurrently with metaphysical theories of causation and transformation; it is as if metaphysics is itself undergoing transformation and refinement as a branch of philosophy, thus teasing at some alchemical motivations of its own. Now, a relation between Empedocles and Aristotle is established, a relation concerning both their theories of causation and the process of theoretical development. Scale is, for the content of their theories, that which creates; for form, that which progresses. Both Empedocles and Aristotle involve notions of scale in causation—it is the ‘what’ of their philosophy—and scale is displayed in the ‘how,’ too—in the emergence of Aristotelian theory from an Empedoclean foundation. Thus the content and form of their theories comment on scale and ‘practice’ it, too; in a self-reflexive act, their theories embody concepts of relationality and proportion and comparison among causal realms treated here as ‘dimensions’ of causation. From Empedocles, Aristotle expands the scale of explanatory causes of the created world with his introduction of two formerly unmentioned causes—the formal and the final—thereby expanding the scale of what is included in metaphysics itself. 

Sharing in the same four causes, alchemy and metaphysics are not so different after all; just as the material cause of alchemy is base metals, so is the material cause of metaphysics ‘first principles,’ the philosophical assumptions regarding space, time, substance, identity, and causation. These first principles can be seen as the base metal substance metaphysics seeks to alchemically transform. Just as the final causes of alchemy are purification and perfection, so, too, can we regard these as the final causes of metaphysics. Their efficient cause may be the practicing alchemist or metaphysicist, or, say, philosopher—for both Empedocles and Aristotle would be identified as all three—leaving the question of the formal cause. After what are alchemy and metaphysics modeled? After wisdom? The perfect? Truth?

What of scale? Scale depends on relationality; the relative size, extent, scope, or magnitude of something can only exist when compared to another. Existence, then, depends on scale, which depends on relationality; something may only exist against what it is not. In order to exist, it must assert itself as distinct from something else. But relationality also depends on scale—to have some distinction in identity that allows for a relation—which then depends on existence. Existence depends on scale, which depends on relationality, which depends on scale, which depends on existence—a paradox of infinite regression emerges. What is the beginning of everything, if not existence, scale, or relationality?

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Empedocles would attribute the beginning of everything to be elementary earth, water, air, and fire as they exist yet unaffected by Love and Strife. Aristotle could be said to situate the very beginning in his four causes. But everything here already exists with scale and relationality; earth is earth precisely because it is not water, air, or fire. Love is Love because it is not Strife. The formal cause is not the material, efficient, or final cause. These meta-elements of creation exist in relation to each other, permitting us to claim that the scope of Empedocles’ metaphysics was expanded with the emergence of new Aristotelian causes that introduced new concepts to relate to each other with varying degrees of scale. In both theoretical and temporal dimensions, the scale of Empedocles’ theory was modulated and stretched over time with the development of Aristotle’s theory, and Aristotelian causation can be seen as a making anew, a refinement—an alchemical purification, even—of earlier Empedoclean theory.

New, new, new. Only the created is new—it did not formerly exist, but now does—it was not, and now is. The created exists, so it must exist in relation to what it is not—the formal cause as distinct from the material, efficient, and final cause. But the created must also exist in relation to its former state of un-existence; it did not exist before, but now it does. It has been created. It has been transformed in state from un-existence to existence, and transformed once again in identity as a distinctly existing entity against what it is not. Aristotle’s ‘new’ theories of causation have been created—transformed—in state of existence as they first emerged as original, and then were transformed again in identity to stand as distinct from, and yet related to and derived from, Empedoclean theories. Both alchemy and metaphysics explore what it means to create—the elixir of life or life itself—that which prolongs and that which is. If metaphysics concerns the transformation of states of existence and alchemy concerns the transformation of identity—of lead into gold—then it seems creation depends on metaphysical and alchemical transformation.

If existence is engaged in a scale relation of state, then creation is engaged in the scale relations of state and identity. Just as Empedocles’ metaphysics was operating in two dimensions—the material and efficient causes—the introduction of the formal and final causes with Aristotle increased to four the dimensions which metaphysics could encompass. Aristotle created these two additional dimensions, existing anew with relations of scale to both the states and identities of the other dimensions. To the extent that these new dimensions of metaphysics—the formal and final causes—emerge as distinct from Empedocles’ earlier model, Aristotle’s two new dimensions relate to that of his predecessor both in states of existence—they are relatively new in originality and come later in time—and in identity—the formal cause is different relative to the material cause. Aristotelian causes thus relate to Empedocles’ in terms of metaphysics and alchemy. They relate in terms of transformation. They are in a relation of comparison, a relation of scale.

If we draw a parallel between Empedoclean causation as operating in the two dimensions of the material and efficient causes, and if existence as a state operates in the relation of the two dimensions of space and time, then just as Aristotle’s four causes expanded causation to four dimensions, creation as a state operates in the relation of four dimensions–the dimensions of space, time, un-existence, and existence, to the extent that the created entity was formerly not existing and now is. Existence, in this model, is ignorant of creation and presupposes that what exists has always existed, but creation cannot be ignorant of existence. Creation is the coming into existence; it is a metaphysical transformation of space and time before it is an alchemical transformation of identity. Creation, then, operates on a higher dimension than existence; creation, to the extent that it is alchemical, is a meta-metaphysics.

To return to our paradox of infinite regression, what is the beginning of everything, if not existence, scale, or relationality? We asked this question previously in terms of existence, first-order transformation. I now invite you to ask it in terms of creation. If metaphysics is the transformation of un-existence into existence and alchemy the transformation of existence into existing as such (against what it is not), then I entreat you: transform the question about the beginning of everything into a question of creation, of second-order transformation. But creation depends on existence; we cannot have something from nothing; there must be something in existence in the first place before creation in the second. Thus second-order transformation may not precede first-order transformation. In referring to the beginning of everything—the very first existence, the creation of all creation, or of the creator—what is common to the big bang and Genesis is this creation. It is second-order transformation. The world was created from infinite potential, be it a singularity or God. Existence was created in this way; in terms of Genesis, it seems the second-order transformation is preeminent over the first.

But what of existence? Where is the first-order transformation? How can something be transformed in identity if there is nothing currently in existence to be transformed? If the beginning of everything concerns the creation of the world as we know it, what about the creation of the creator—the singularity or God? We started by framing this question as one of metaphysics to the extent that it concerns itself with existence, and have now reframed this question into one of meta-metaphysics—of existence and its creation. One could even say that we have transformed the question that dealt with original transformation. You see, questions of scale become infinite regressions—distortions of one meta-layer as it is seen in the face of another, and then another, and another. Some may begin at theology with God, others with physics. Then we approach metaphysics. Then, meta-level metaphysics—a meta-metaphysics. What’s next? Creation of creation of existence? Creation of creator such that it becomes the created? How meta must we go? How much must we stretch the scale of our faculties of reason? How much must we bend our mind? Will we eventually bend our mind back unto itself—a self-reflexive act—and place our mind in relation with itself? Can scale stand in relation to scale?

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Transformation of the creator into the created—of subject into object—is an ideal that comes to characterize the modernist turn. In his essay “Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” American art critic Clement Greenberg (1909 – 1994) defined ‘modernism’ as “… the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence.” He sees this self-critical confirmation of self as emerging from the Kantian method of using logic to establish its limits, thereby solidifying the prominence of logic in philosophy. He notes that the self-criticism of modernism is different from that of the Enlightenment; the Enlightenment criticized from the outside, while modernism does so from the inside.

From the inside… from the folding of one within oneself… the folding of the mind back upon itself, of scale relating to itself.

Folding upon itself to critique its three-dimensionality, modernist painting sought to purge itself of aspects that could be originally attributed to other artistic mediums, such as sculpture. The result is a ‘purer’ art, ‘flatter’ in the case of modernist painting, which Greenberg acclaimed Abstract Expressionism as perfecting. Each new artistic creation was made with the purpose of purifying, but does purity also fall into an infinite series in which one will never achieve absolute purity, just as one may never answer the question of the absolute creator?

Much like the modernist art that sought to purify itself, alchemy sought to purify its base metals into gold, thereby purifying and perfecting the mechanics of the ‘science’ itself. So, too, is there a sense in which metaphysics as a branch of philosophy sought to refine its own Empedoclean theories of existence with the introduction of Aristotle’s new dimensions of causes. Within the branch of metaphysics, Aristotelian theories emerge from Empedocles’; it is as if Empedocles’ theories ‘created’—or created the foundation for—Aristotle’s. It is almost as if Empedocles branches into Aristotle within the branch of metaphysics, the branch of the branch bending back upon itself, the self-reflexion of modernist and alchemical purification all contained within a single stretch of bark, the stretch of 490 – 322 BCE, the stretch of Empedocles to Aristotle, the branch of metaphysics encircled in tree ring upon ring—circle upon circle—orbit upon orbit of cosmic bodies. Infinitely many meta-dimensions of causes among infinitely many metaphysical principles of creation and existence, and across infinitely many sizes of scale from a drop of sulphurous water to planetary orbit… all seek perfection, all seek purity, all seek alchemy and modernism, all seek oneself, to branch out only to be beckoned back, to return upon oneself and establish a relation of scale. Infinitely many meta-dimensions all seek to establish the scale of scale.

What emerges is a new mode of relationality, one that concerns not only existence and creation (and the creation of the creator) in an infinite regress, but one of alchemical-metaphysical-modernist purification. The new Holy Trinity—alchemy, metaphysics, and modernism—champions the transformation of transformations; not only are we attempting to transform lead into gold or un-existence into existence or sculpture into painting, but in doing so we are transforming what it means to transform. We are perfecting the discipline by perfecting its practice; the object and subject of perfecting transformation become one—another transformation of existence and identity as one… another perfecting… another grasp towards absolute purity. Another infinite regress. Another collapse of scale upon itself. When will it stand? When will scale cease scaling itself?

Enlightenment thinkers criticized 17th-century alchemists under the farce of external empiricism and sought to ‘return’ scientific endeavor to something rational, quantifiable, and reproducible. This ‘return’ is a pilgrimage backward, a retreat away from mysticism. But there is also the sense in which they were really criticizing from the inside, for Enlightenment thinkers were trying to purify the discipline of itself. They were self-criticizing, and rather than disavowing the prominence alchemy enjoyed, they intensified it. They perfected it. Perhaps this prominence—the pursuit of transformation to purify and perfect—reached absolute purity because of this self-critique. Maybe this absolute purity is the absolute existence modernist painters sought, or maybe it’s the absolute existence of mankind Aristotle was aiming to unveil with his four causes.

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