From "East Coker," by T.S. Eliot

IV.

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That questions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood—
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

from Faraway (so close!)

Emit: "Long ago there must have been a golden age of harmony between heaven and earth. High was high, low was low, inside was in and outside was out.
But now we have money. Now everything's out of balance. They say time is money...but they got it all wrong! Time is the absence of money. Wouldn't you agree, Karl?"

Cassiel: "What can I add to that? Time is running away from me, Mr --"

Why Life is prior to space

We may temporarily permit ourselves a foray into a somewhat unclarified to point out now that the priority of time over space necessitates us to consider life as prior to space. I will endeavor to point out why in the following sections:

We have stated previously that time is the medium in which and through which change was experienced, and that, furthermore, it is the core condition for the possibility of any experience at all. Change, however, ought not be defined as a mechanical but as a formal process. We can show this is correct via the following reasoning:

Nothing that changes remains exactly what it was
A thing that has not altered in any way that is potentially observable (whether immediately or via posterior consequences) has not changed.
No change is potentially observable if there are no observers.
Conversely, if there are no observers there is no change.
Therefore, change only exists if potentially observable (whether immediately or via posterior consequences)

Now, observers only ever view formal characteristics. The concept of non-formal observable objects is absurd, since such objects would be formalized by experience and are therefore self-contradictory. Since observers can only view formal characteristics, we must state that change, which only exists in relation to a (potential) observation, must always be formal.

Formality, however, can exist independently of space. Indeed, formality by definition must be prior to space simply conceived, since space is itself a formalization. Time, however, as we pointed out before, is not necessarily a formalization, and only seems susceptible (at least as far as I am presently able to conceive of it) to a limited and partially extrinsic formalization.

Since we have already brought up (somewhat needlessly) the point that only observers formalize, and that space is a formalization, it is clear that there were observers prior to the formation of space. Observers by definition must be alive (though clearly not necessarily in any traditionally conceived biological sense, if our argument is correct). If there are living things then there is life.

THEREFORE, Life is prior to space.

Further proof of this may be had if one considers the discussion of change above. Since we have stated that time effectively changes into space, it is clear that there must be observers prior to the existence of space.

The reader endowed with forethought will already have realized that we are hurling ourselves, with breakneck speed, against Kant's antimony of the eternity and non-eternity of the world. Perhaps we will soon have gathered enough force behind us to shatter this cave wall and break through to the light of day beyond.

Continued

We must immediately clarify the manner in which we are speaking of some forms as prior and others as derivative. We stated previously, for instance, that time is prior to space, and that furthermore space owes its existence to time (at least in a qualified manner). However, we did not specifically analyze the manner in which this derivation takes place, and what it entails. We will now try to look at this briefly.

Derivation is participation. Plato makes this clear throughout his writings. However, the manner in which this participation takes place is what is typically not thought through with any manner of care. I believe that most, when they attempt to think through participation, have an overly mathematical construct in front of them. Participation is not the subset relationship; that is to say, the whole essence of a form that is participating in a derivative manner in another form is not necessarily contained in this form from which it is being derived.

To apply this to our previous example -- even though space relies wholly on time for all its original essential characteristics, this is not to say that the true essence of space is contained in time. To understand how this operates, we must come to a proper understanding of privation. Privation has traditionally been viewed as something strictly negative. Our immediate physical experience often confirms this. However, we must endeavour to understand the manner in which a thing may be reduced and in this reduction expanded.

Space has its origin in time. Since space is not time, space must either have properties that time does not have, or lack properties which time does have, or both. Time is the medium in which change is experienced. It is not, however, simply a condition of experience, but is in its core the condition for the possibility of any experience at all. Because of this, it is impossible to seize on time as something which we can control or even fix at a given point. Space is the crystallization of time. As such, it is inherently a privation when viewed from the standpoint of time, since it lacks the capacity for flow which is the defining characteristic of time. Thus from an originary standpoint space is a privation of time. Conversely, however, from the standpoint of space it reveals itself to be the truth of time, in that it is that towards which time always tended from the beginning. Furthermore, precisely because it is less than time from the standpoint of time, space has certain essential capacities that time lacks. The very statis that defines space allows us to hold onto it in a manner that is positive. Thus its very privation leads to wholly new possibilites that were not contained in its origin.

More to follow.

New wine into new wineskins

It has long been thought by those who know that every form is subservient to a higher form, and so on up to the very Form of forms; but it is equally true that each form must contain within itself its superior form, and even the Form of forms itself. For if a form did not contain the Form of forms, in virtue of what are we calling it a form? The matter of this containment needs to be clarified, but it is clear at the outset that all negative opposition of image and idea is immediately superfluous.

Because of this time can both be a condition of all existence as well as a property of any given object and therefore contingent upon that which it conditions. However, this contingency does not imply that there is anything necessarily spatial about temporality in and of itself, but merely demonstrates that the essence (and not simply existence) of anything that may be said to have an essence relies upon its further development into that which it conditions. This is where its contingency lies.

Since this is the case it is furthermore true that time can have a definite beginning, since it is from an absolute view prior to the existence of any object. Paradoxes involving the succession of events outside of time that may cause time can be solved by pointing out that the cause of time must be some variety of existence that, while certainly not temporal in and of itself, contains in and of itself that from which time springs.

Therefore, it is clear that what is to come has come before. But this may not yet be the end of the story. More to follow.

Aphorisms for a Full Moon

Fire is the essence of all that is manifest.

The unmanifest appears.

Evolution implies negation of what has been in favour of what is to come. This is the true meaning of redemption.

You can see the sun that lies behind the sun best at the full moon, but even in the broadest daylight still it shines and, if it is willed, we may catch a glimpse of its light.

Things are best seen when they're invisible.

From Four Quartets

"Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being."
---Burnt Norton V

This may be the clearest articulation of Plato's theory of ideas that is currently in print.