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    Mind and Life, Form and Content
    Mind and Life, Form and Content
    Mind and Life, Form and Content
    Ebook472 pages11 hours

    Mind and Life, Form and Content

    By Mike Hockney

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    What is form? What is content? You cannot understand what life and mind are unless you can answer these two fundamental questions of ontology.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMike Hockney
    Release dateMay 1, 2016
    ISBN9781310016141
    Mind and Life, Form and Content
    Author

    Mike Hockney

    Mike Hockney invites you to play the God Game. Are you ready to transform yourself? Are you ready to be one of the Special Ones, the Illuminated Ones? Are you ready to play the Ultimate Game? Only the strongest, the smartest, the boldest, can play. This is not a drill. This is your life. Stop being what you have been. Become what you were meant to be. See the Light. Join the Hyperboreans. Become a HyperHuman, an UltraHuman. Only the highest, only the noblest, only the most courageous are called. A new dawn is coming... the birth of Hyperreason. It's time for HyperHumanity to enter HyperReality.

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      Mind and Life, Form and Content - Mike Hockney

      Introduction

      What is form? What is content? You cannot understand what life and mind are unless you can answer these two fundamental questions of ontology. Compared with science’s empiricist way of thinking about reality, form and content furnish a radically different, rationalist alternative that puts mind and life – rather than mindless, lifeless matter – at the heart of existence. Anyone who is dissatisfied with how science addresses the questions of ultimate reality has an entirely new, logical approach available to them via form and content. Where the engine of science is abstract, physical mathematics, the engine of form and content is real, ontological mathematics.

      In the ancient world, matter was regarded as the content for form. Form provided the structure of a thing, while matter was the thing’s content that received the structure. Form constituted the essence of the thing, and, without it, the thing dissolved into amorphous, unstructured potentiality rather than actuality. Form supplied an intelligible container, while matter was the sensible content inside the container.

      Plato and Aristotle considered matter as shapeless, lifeless and purposeless, while form was what shaped matter and gave it its nature, purpose and even life. Without form, there could be no life at all since matter did not possess the quality of life. This fundamentally contradicts the modern scientific view, which claims that mind and life are produced by particular ways of organising mindless, lifeless atoms – a logical impossibility since mind cannot come from non-mind, or life from non-life. The reason why scientists say that lifeless matter creates life is very simple: they have denied the existence of anything other than matter, hence matter must be the source of life. Of course, no scientist has ever explained how life comes from atoms, just as no scientist has ever explained how atoms generate mind. No scientist has proposed any model, hypothesis or definition with which to even get started.

      There is nothing whatsoever in the theory of DNA that explains how arranging atoms in this way causes life and mind. Moreover, the emergence of DNA is itself not said to be caused but merely to arise by random accident. If, by some miracle, you could demonstrate how DNA necessarily generates life, mind and consciousness, you would still be committed to a stance that life, mind and consciousness ultimately arise by chance in an inherently mindless, lifeless, purposeless, meaningless universe ruled by throws of the dice. This is indeed the atheistic, nihilistic stance of modern science. We randomly come from dust (stardust), it says, and we will return to dust in due course.

      If form defines matter, yet is radically different from matter, then this implies an immaterial reality that scientific materialism is unable to detect, in which case all of the claims of science regarding ultimate reality must fail.

      The world is not exclusively made of matter, contrary to the claims of scientific materialism. Form, not matter, makes the world what it is. Matter is merely a kind of clay that form acts on to create all of the order, pattern, structure, organisation and life that constitutes meaningful existence and an intelligible cosmos.

      What conveys form? What conveys content? What conveys matter? Where are matterless form and formless content/ matter located? How do they come together and interact? What are the laws governing them? Are form and content/ matter two separate realities, or two sides of one coin? Do they constitute a dualism or a dual-aspect monism?

      Anyone who cannot define form and content/ matter will never understand reality. Science and religion manifestly fail to do so. Philosophy has tried but failed to reach any definitive conclusions. Only one subject can offer certainty in this regard – ontological mathematics.

      Mathematically, form and content allow a precise, non-sensory reality to be described and defined, something that’s impossible with science. Above all, form and content naturally lend themselves to addressing the question of mind, an issue with which science has never made any progress, and never can since mind is scientifically unobservable, hence can form no part of the scientific method, based on observation and measurement.

      Form and content are the means to rationally venture into the unseen, noumenal world that underlies our common sense world of appearances, into the world not of physics but of metaphysics (that which comes after physics or lies beyond physics).

      The soul belongs to the immaterial, metaphysical domain outside space and time, not to the material, physical domain of space and time that science probes. Science can say nothing at all about the soul, and its usual stance is simply to ridicule it and deny that it exists. Metaphysics – comprising the strictly mathematical exploration of form and content – goes where science cannot, and reveals that this visible world of ours is merely the content of an invisible world of form. This other world is a mathematical Singularity and is none other than Soul World! The visible world is a holographic projection of Soul World.

      Form and content belong to a mathematical rather than scientific conception of reality, and provide the rational, logical means to defend religious, spiritual and New Age conceptions of reality.

      This is the incredible story of form and content and how reality is shaped by them, and, most especially, life, mind and existence itself.

      What Is It?

      What is existence made of? This is the most fundamental question of all. With this answer, we can then respond to Leibniz’s famous question: Why is there something rather than nothing? In fact, the two questions are fundamentally connected.

      Given that nothing is the rational ground state of the universe, and the most stable state of the universe conceivably possible (since nothing cannot degenerate into a lower state because it’s already at the lowest state), an overwhelming prima facie case can be advanced that there ought to be nothing rather than something, so why isn’t there?

      The principle of sufficient reason makes it mandatory for existence to have a net effect of nothing, since there is no sufficient reason why it should have any arbitrary non-zero value. So, whatever something is, it must have one quality of which we are rationally certain: averaged across all of its states, it must result in a net value of exactly zero.

      With this fact in mind, the question of what existence is made of becomes radically simple: it’s made of whatever can be something while also, overall, being zero. Not close to zero or approximately zero but perfectly zero. Only one subject is capable of defining and providing such a scenario: mathematics.

      Existence is made of mathematics. In particular, it’s made of mathematics that precisely balances to zero. This is ontological mathematics. Ontological mathematics is the mathematics of perfect cosmic symmetry, with something being perfectly symmetrical with respect to zero (nothing), i.e. something has a positive component matched by an equal and opposite negative component. Negative numbers are therefore essential to existence. A simple Cartesian grid, with zero at the origin and positive and negative axes symmetrically radiating from it, provides the simplest way of picturing reality. If you symmetrically rolled up the equal and opposite axes, you would end up back at the zero Singularity (nothing) at the centre of the system. Everything leads back to nothing.

      Ontological mathematics is expressed through ontological units called monads, all of which are net zeros (singularities). The universe comprises nothing but monads (forms) and their contents.

      Each monad, and thus the whole universe, is defined by the something-nothing equation – the God Equation – which is infallibly equal to zero, point by point and also averaged across all of its states. When x = π, Euler’s formula, the root of the God Equation, reduces to the most famously beautiful, elegant and astounding equation in all of mathematics: eiπ + 1 = 0.

      Here, we literally see that something (the expression on the left) is equal to nothing (the expression on the right). Given that the = sign is the symbol of tautology (stating the same thing in different terms), we discover that the secret of existence is that something and nothing are tautological. It’s not a question of there being something rather than nothing, but of something being nothing, but expressed in different terms. Existence is just mathematically structured nothingness, organised void. Everything comes from nothing, and everything is equal to nothing.

      Existence, like the soul, is eternal and indestructible because it requires nothing and nothing can prevent it. It is necessarily a perpetual motion system because it can never run down. It’s a net zero-energy system. It never expends any energy, so it goes on forever. It’s the perfect system for converting energy into motion because it suffers no energy degradation or depletion whatsoever. If this were not the case, the universe would infinitely long ago have suffered Heat Death, and we would not be here. Science tries to get round this by claiming that infinite universes (forming a Multiverse) can randomly jump out of nothing at all. Each runs down in due course, but endless new universes can be magically conjured out of nothing to keep the whole show on the road.

      If you do not accept that something can miraculously and continuously leap out of nothing at all to create endless universes, each of which is doomed to run out of useful energy, then you are rationally committed to the position that existence is permanently equal to nothing, and, if that’s true, then it can never suffer terminal Heat Death, and it can never spawn multiple, degenerative universes that run down. There can be only one universe that goes on forever. Such a universe is mathematical, not scientific. In terms of its foundations, it’s a perfect universe that can never crumble.

      Where the scientific Multiverse is the worst possible violation of Occam’s Razor, the mathematical Universe is the best possible reflection of Occam’s Razor. Is existence the least economical system conceivable (as the Multiverse implies), or the most economical system conceivable, as the ontological mathematical universe implies? You simply could not get a greater difference between two conceptions of reality.

      The scientific Multiverse is based on total randomness while the ontological mathematical Universe is based on total causation. Again, this is the greatest possible contrast.

      *****

      The innermost secret of nothing is that not only can it be mathematically defined, it can also be experienced. If it were possible to see the universe from outside the universe (which is impossible because the universe is everything), we would see nothing! Existence is simply an infinitely complex Singularity – an immaterial, dimensionless nothingness composed of countless individual nothings (monads). These are none other than immortal, indestructible souls!

      The universe is Soul World, the Existential Singularity that does nothing except explore the mathematical properties of nothing.

      Existence is eternal because nothing is eternal. Existence is a perpetual motion machine (or rather perpetual living organism) because it requires nothing and expends nothing, hence keeps going forever. Nothing cannot suffer from any degradation or running down.

      The Abrahamic claim that God created the universe out of nothing is not so ridiculous. However, the truth is that God himself, as well as the whole universe, is made out of mathematical nothing.

      Given that existence is all about nothing, this means that mind and matter are also made of nothing, and life and consciousness are equally made of nothing. Existence is the illusion produced by the mathematical properties of nothing.

      This book is all about how we live in a universe made of noumenal mathematics that we never perceive because there’s nothing to perceive. Rather, we encounter the experiences made from hidden mathematics, from nothing.

      When we think, each of our thoughts is made of mathematical sinusoids, but we never encounter those sinusoids directly. We encounter their content, not their form. We experience the thought, not what the thought is made of. We experience the thought, not the container that contains the thought.

      This is the tale of the magic and mystery of existential form and content. These go right to the heart of the mystery of mind, matter and life. One of the catastrophic failings of science is that it ignores form and content, and that’s why it cannot explain mind or life, and why its claims regarding the fundamental nature of matter are entirely fallacious.

      You cannot understand existence if you don’t understand its fundamental character, if you don’t know what it’s made of. Existence is not made of God, or of consciousness, or of love, or of anything physical. Existence is not made of anything religious or scientific. Existence is made of mathematics. What is mathematics? It’s eternal perfection.

      Only perfection suffices for existence that goes on forever. If existence contained a single flaw, there would be no existence. There is no sufficient reason why imperfection would ever be preferred to perfection. There is a sufficient reason why perfection is a necessity: any imperfection would create catastrophic chaos – and we would not be living in an ordered cosmos, or indeed any universe at all.

      Science’s claim that reality is fundamentally based on randomness is as stupid as it’s possible to get, and wholly irrational. If you accept that this is a rational universe, you must also accept that it’s a wholly deterministic, mathematical universe. And that means that you must reject all of the claims of scientific materialism regarding ultimate reality.

      A thousand years from now, science will be regarded as a post-Abrahamic way of thinking that replaced a worldview based on feelings and stories with a worldview based on the senses and experiments. Science is simply the precursor for humanity’s final worldview, which will be based on intuition, reason and ontological mathematics.

      Abrahamism provides an emotional understanding of reality, science provides a sensory understanding of reality, and Illuminism provides a rational understanding of reality. Abrahamism can be right only if we live in a world made of emotion. Science can be right only if we live in a world made of sensory things. Illuminism is right because we live in a world literally made of ontological reason, expressed through ontological mathematics. That’s exactly why the world is ordered, organised, patterned, rational and intelligible. That’s why we can work it out. If the universe wasn’t made of reason, it wouldn’t be intelligible.

      A universe made of anything other than ontological reason is an irrational universe, and an irrational universe is an unintelligible reason. It really is that simple.

      Anyone who thinks that existence has an answer must accept that, at its foundational level, existence is strictly rational and intelligible, and provides a closed, analytic solution that’s infallibly true for all eternity. Only ontological mathematics is capable of providing such a solution.

      Only rational people are intelligent enough to grasp that existence is made of reason. An irrational person, by virtue of being irrational, cannot distinguish between rational and irrational arguments, hence cannot understand why the conclusion that we live in a rational, as opposed to irrational, universe automatically means that we live in a universe made of ontological reason = ontological mathematics.

      Let’s state the argument as directly as possible: if the universe is rational, it must be made of eternal reason (= ontological mathematics); if the universe isn’t rational, who cares what anyone says about it because one irrational opinion is as good as another.

      Science, an irrationalist subject which denies that existence is strictly mathematical, makes utterly irrational claims about existence. It says that existence comes from non-existence, that life magically comes from non-life, that mind miraculously springs from non-mind, that consciousness and free will are illusory, that cats can be simultaneously dead and alive, that infinite universes can be born out of nothingness and produce infinite clones of us in infinite parallel worlds, that things can be both in motion and stationary at the same time, that reality collapses out of unreality, that everything that can happen will actually happen, that existence is fundamentally random, accidental and meaningless, that evolution proceeds by way of unobservable chance mutations, and so on. These claims are every bit as stupid and deranged as those of Abrahamism, Karmism and New Ageism. This is what you get when you deny that existence is governed by the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Science does not care about reason. If it did, it would convert to ontological mathematics.

      Science rejects reason because it accepts the primacy of the senses and experience. You cannot logically maintain that this is a rational universe if you then claim that whatever you are experiencing with your senses right now, no matter how irrational and delusional, is the truth of existence. When your sensory experiences come to an end – when you die – what then? Does existence end? That, in fact, is the strict logical conclusion that flows from empiricism. Your own death must also signal the end of existence in general because you have absolutely no basis for assuming the continuation of existence when you have defined existence as being all about your personal experience of it.

      Only rational people, who accept the reality principle, and objective reality based on eternal principles, can logically assert that existence continues regardless of whether one person has died, or the entire human race, or every sensory being in the universe capable of having experiences. In a universe of reason, no observers are required, no observations, no experiences and no experiments.

      The Big Bang was an event of Reason (rationalism), not of Experience (empiricism). After all, there was nobody there to experience it! Therefore, rationalism, not empiricism, is the means to define the Big Bang. That means the Big Bang must be treated mathematically, not scientifically. The Big Bang was a Singularity event, and singularities are exactly where scientists admit that the laws of physics, as they understand them, break down. Ontological mathematics, on the other hand, starts with singularities. Every monad is a singularity. Zero and infinity, the two numbers banned by science are the two numbers on which ontological mathematics is predicated. Reason alone can accommodate zero and infinity.

      Form and Content

      "The notions of form and content are simple enough, though the uninitiated must first have them explained. ‘Form’ and ‘content’ are relative terms used in different contexts within formal logic. The basic idea is that of container and contained.

      "In one sense, a word is a form, and the word’s meaning – the real or imagined things it refers us to (i.e. that we intend when we use the word) – is the content. Thus, the personal name ‘Joe’ refers to an individual man we know by that name; the common name ‘man’ refers to an open-ended group of individuals like Joe, Jim, Nathalie and others.

      "We can also call any abstraction (or concept) a form and its (perceptual or intuitive) concretes the content. ...

      "Formalization, then, is just a way to freely study the logical properties of propositional forms, without regard to their content. A ‘form’ is simply a shorthand expression for any number of particular propositions or ‘contents’. What we say about the form applies to all the contents. The wider the form, the broader the range of possible behaviour, and the less rules there are for it. If any content is specified, or a more specific form is considered, the behaviour pattern becomes more narrow, and the rules more restrictive." – Avi Sion, Logical Philosophy: A Compendium

      The mathematical monad, the fundamental unit of ontological mathematics, is a logical container for a complete and consistent set of analytic sinusoids, which constitute the fundamental components of mind. Sinusoids are individual thoughts. They are simple, atomic thoughts that can be combined into complex, molecular thoughts.

      When individual thoughts are thought, this activity takes places within the private world of an individual monad. The monad is the agent that does the thinking, via its constituent sinusoids.

      When collective thoughts are thought, this activity takes place within the public world of all monads together (the Monadic Collective). Collective thoughts are what we know as matter. Matter, therefore, is mental, but collectively rather than individually. It’s the collective mental nature of matter that makes it seem so different from what we ordinarily regard as mental.

      Monads and their constituent sinusoids are all that exist. There isn’t anything else. Monads are the containers (forms) for sinusoids (contents), but sinusoids are also the containers (forms) for thoughts (contents).

      Every individual sinusoid is an individual basis thought. These individual thoughts are like the letters of the alphabet. In themselves, they don’t do much. However, when they are combined, then, just as letters can be combined into words, words into sentences and sentences into books expressing myriad ideas, basis thoughts can be combined into all possible complex thoughts.

      Letters (atoms) and words (molecules) can be combined into sentences, paragraphs, chapters and books (contents; objects). Letters and words are forms (together with spelling, syntax and grammar, i.e. the proper, valid relations between them and ways of ordering them and combining them), everything else the content.

      In chemistry, the periodic table of elements provides the forms (atoms) from which all molecules come. We might think of molecules as the contingent content of necessary atoms. Molecules themselves can then be combined to form, for example, human bodies. DNA is a molecular form that gives rise to bodies (content).

      *****

      For Aristotle, the world consisted purely of form and matter, which combined to produce substances. At the bottom of Aristotle’s great chain of being was formless matter (Chaos), and at the top matterless form (God).

      When form is applied to matter, it gives it shape, order, organisation, and even purpose and life.

      For Aristotle, each level of his great chain of being acted as the matter for the level above, and form for the level below. Chaotic matter had nothing below it, and God had nothing above him. God was pure mind (pure reason). All the substances below him constituted his body = the cosmos.

      In Illuminism, God is replaced with monads, which are eternal mathematical entities that enshrine the laws of ontological mathematics, reflect the principle of sufficient reason and thus constitute reason itself: reason as it’s manifested ontologically.

      *****

      The wider the form, the broader the range of possible behaviour, and the less rules there are for it. – Avi Sion

      The widest form of all is the single cosmic Formula known as the God Equation (the generalised Euler Formula). It’s the supreme Form, the Form that defines all other forms, and all of their contents. The God Equation defines sinusoids, monads and all their relations (the whole cosmos, in other words). It defines Fourier mathematics, quantum mechanics (and thus science), and holography, and is the true, absolute (not relative) basis of Einstein’s theories. When Einstein’s theories are properly expressed, in a manner consistent with quantum mechanics, his bizarre and impossible principle of relativity (which contradicts the reality principle by allowing something to be considered both stationary and in motion at the same time, depending on subjective perspective) vanishes.

      We live in an absolute, defined, mathematical universe, not a relativistic, undefined, scientific universe.

      *****

      A ‘form’ is simply a shorthand expression for any number of particular propositions or ‘contents’. What we say about the form applies to all the contents. – Avi Sion

      Every applicant for a job is asked to fill in a form. Each applicant fills in the form uniquely, i.e. the form is identical in all cases, but the content different in all cases. There is a one-to-many relationship between form and content.

      If we regard the periodic table of elements as the set of basis forms for the material world then we can combine these forms in myriad different ways to produce all of the different molecules and compounds of the world.

      The ultimate form is the generalised Euler Formula = the God Equation. Each monad fills in this form uniquely, via what it does with its set of basis sinusoids (thoughts).

      The Syllogism

      In logic, a syllogism is a formal deductive argument consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion. This is a logical form into which all manner of contents can be inserted, and, if the contents are valid, the conclusion will be logically valid.

      The syllogism is intended to produce logical conclusions, although whether it does or not is dependent on the validity of the major and minor premises, and these can be highly contentious. In other words, the logical form does not guarantee a logical conclusion. To say, using the classical syllogism, that all men are mortal (major premise), Socrates is a mortal (minor premise), therefore Socrates is mortal (conclusion) seems unarguable, until we introduce the concept of the immortal soul. Is it true that all men are mortal? If men have immortal souls then it’s only their bodies that are mortal, and that’s a radically different argument.

      It’s critical to grasp that perfect form does not automatically lead to perfect content. In fact, usually the opposite is true. Perfect form is usually host to imperfect content.

      All sinusoidal forms are perfect, but their content can be utterly false. All of the beliefs of Abrahamists are ultimately reducible to perfect sinusoidal functions in terms of form, but the beliefs themselves (the content) are false, absurd and as imperfect as you can get. The gulf between form and content can be, and usually is, a yawning one.

      Memes are perfectly formed but frequently perfectly ridiculous. Lies, falsehoods, errors, fallacies, opinions, beliefs, guesses, and so on, all have a perfect sinusoidal form but reflect nothing but bad, wrong and irrational content.

      Imagine combining letters wrongly to form meaningless words. The letters themselves are as perfect as they are in meaningful words, but their particular arrangement is senseless. Similarly, if we use perfect sinusoids in a jumbled way, we get meaningless content. People, unfortunately, might regard the content as meaningful (as in Abrahamism), but that’s a different story.

      Form and Content II

      Ultimate Form, i.e. the God Equation, is Parmenidean, Platonic, eternal, immutable and perfect. It’s pure stasis, pure being.

      Content, i.e. everything dynamically generated by the God Equation, is, on the other hand, Heraclitean. It’s pure change and becoming, mutable and imperfect, dialectical and teleological.

      The God Equation is the Platonic Form of Thought. It defines how thought exists ontologically, but does not define the content of thought.

      We inhabit a universe ruled by a supreme Platonic Form (the God Equation). This defines eternal mathematical minds = monads. Each monad is a Platonic living being, a perfect reflection of the Supreme Form. However, its content is not perfect. As soon as a Cosmic Age begins (when perfect, divine symmetry is broken), all monads become pure potential (empty content) and are in need of being perfectly actualised (i.e. achieving perfect content through the restoration of perfect cosmic symmetry). This is where the Hegelian dialectic kicks in. It drives imperfection (potential) to perfection (actualisation). Viewed in other terms, it converts fallible content into perfect, infallible Form (matterless form = God).

      The end of a Cosmic Age occurs when Form and Content become perfectly, mathematically, cosmically aligned. It’s when reason thinks only about reason, and everything is rationally understood down to the finest detail. It’s when Absolute Knowledge is attained.

      Delivery Mechanisms

      Old audio and video cassettes were once the Form for delivering music and film content. New Forms – CD and DVD – replaced these, and these, in turn, are being replaced by iPods, smartphones, tablet computers, and the like. The Form for delivering content keeps changing and improving, although the quality of the content is rarely getting any better.

      If you imagined the perfect Form for delivering content, what would it be? It’s self-evident that existence must use this perfect Form, the perfect delivery system, because there’s no sufficient reason why it would choose anything less than perfect, and anything less than perfect would lead to endless copying errors, mutations and, sooner or later, catastrophe.

      In real life – considered ontologically – Form and delivery are perfect and never change. Analytic mathematical sinusoids, organised into complete and consistent units (monads), constitute the perfect Forms and perfect delivery mechanisms for content (information). However, it must always be remembered that although Form is perfect, content is not. Content is dialectical. It’s improving over time, and becomes perfect only at the Omega Point, where Form and content become perfectly aligned.

      Eternalism

      We can look at reality in two ways, via Form and Content.

      Form is perfect, immutable, eternal and Platonic. It’s the 100% sure, certain and perfect foundation of existence. However, Form, by itself, is never meaningful. It’s what Form supports, delivers and distributes that defines the meaning of life. Content is the key to existence as we experience it. Content is king.

      In relation to a work of art, Content constitutes its meaning or significance as opposed to its style or form. When people talk about the triumph of style over substance, they mean that the Content has been sacrificed for the sake of the presentation, the packaging, the delivery mechanism.

      Existence provides, so to speak, the perfect DVD as a technological Form. It cannot be improved in any way. However, the content contained by the perfect container is always in need of improvement. Ontologically, this improvement takes place dialectically.

      Where perfect Form is all about perfect, immutable Aristotelian and Leibnizian logic, imperfect Content is all about dynamic, messy, dialectical (Heraclitean and Hegelian) logic.

      *****

      Existence comprises: 1) Eternal Form, considered regardless of Content, and reflecting Aristotelian perfection, and 2) Temporal Content, considered regardless of Form, and reflecting dialectical imperfection. (Dialectical content becomes perfect at its Omega Point. The triadic, iterative process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis wipes out, in due course, all imperfections and contradictions.)

      Rationalism (metaphysics and mathematics) is, when properly understood, all about eternal, perfect Form. Empiricism, when properly understood, is all about Content and phenomenology: how we experience reality rather than what reality actually is, what it’s made of. The problem arises when we imagine, as empiricists do, that our experiences are reality, and the only true knowledge. Empiricists are saying, in effect, that Content is primary, and Form isn’t even secondary: it doesn’t actually exist.

      Imagine the best DVD movie ever, so good that you are actually in the movie, dynamically interacting with it, as you would in a video game, and even able to get food, drink, and all your needs met within it. The DVD movie provides an environment so realistic that you can’t distinguish it from the real world. You become addicted to this game until you realise that only death will remove you from it. Within this movie, you even have children, and they will live and die exclusively in this film. In other words, reality and the movie have merged and become one. You are in The Matrix. You are in the ultimate dream.

      You are so preoccupied with the movie that you never once give any thought to what the DVD delivery mechanism is. What is the DVD made of? What is its operating system? How does the whole thing work and produce the effects it does? Who or what made it and designed it?

      What’s the difference between waking reality and dreaming reality? What’s the difference between analogue and digital reality? If you were in The Matrix, how would you ever find out that you were in a digital simulation of real life produced by an Artificial Intelligence if no one offered you a red pill?

      Observing the world, perceiving the world, experiencing the world ... these don’t tell you anything at all about the true nature of the world. You are beguiled by Content and ignoring Form. You have to transcend Content and understand what it’s encoded in and on (its Form). This is a rationalist, not empiricist, exercise.

      In the rationalist paradigm, regardless of whether you were in reality, a dream, or a computer simulation – all of which might seem empirically indistinguishable – you would be able to rationally work out their ultimate Form (foundational existence), and their relative Forms (what distinguishes them) just by reasoning your way through the problem.

      Extreme empiricists and skeptics such as David Hume and Bishop Berkeley effectively denied that we could ever have any meaningful knowledge of Form, only of Content. And a corollary was that if we could have no knowledge of it, it could not actually exist, or it was redundant to refer to its existence. Modern science asserts that absence of evidence (regarding the soul, for example) is evidence of absence, and anything that cannot be observed, or is not amenable to the scientific method, cannot exist.

      Extreme rationalists such as Plato and Leibniz asserted, in effect, that true knowledge concerns Form alone, and Content provides only mutable, illusory knowledge. True Form is intelligible, while Content is sensible. True Form is metaphysical, while Content is physical. True Form is noumenal, while Content is phenomenal. True Form is deductive, while Content is inductive. True Form is analytic, while Content is synthetic. True Form is a priori, while Content is a posteriori.

      Form concerns eternal, necessary truths of reason. Content concerns temporal, contingent truths of fact. Form is Aristotelian (static, fixed), while Content is dialectical (dynamic; unfixed).

      Illuminism is a strictly rationalist system, i.e. all of its foundational assertions relate to eternal ontology, to eternal truths of reason, to perfect Platonic Form, to indisputable, absolute, infallible knowledge. This knowledge can be gleaned through reason and logic alone (as expressed through ontological mathematics). It has nothing whatsoever to do with the senses, experiences, feelings, faith, mysticism, falsification, verification or the scientific method. These all provide illusory knowledge of contingent Content, not real knowledge of absolute Form.

      Before you approach epistemology – the study of knowledge – you must be able to distinguish between eternal and temporal knowledge, necessary and contingent, a priori and a posteriori, analytic and synthetic, deductive and inductive, necessary and contingent, metaphysical and physical knowledge. Empiricists say that true knowledge derives from what we experience. Rationalists say the opposite: true knowledge derives from what we don’t experience.

      We don’t experience reason itself. We don’t see it, hear it, smell it, taste it or feel it. We think it. Reason is immaterial and dimensionless. Ultimate reason is mathematics, and we can never perform any experiment to prove that 1 + 1 = 2. This is eternally true, hence beyond all temporal, contingent experiences.

      Only rationalism deals with true knowledge (truths of reason). Tragically, empiricism has claimed, on the contrary, that it alone deals with true knowledge (truths of fact), and has dismissed truths of reason (Form) as empty tautologies that don’t tell you anything about the world. This was the stance most

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