Reason Observing Self-Consciousness: The Truth Behind Logic and Psychology

Reason Observing Self-Consciousness

Introduction

Reason has uncovered the universal, necessary, schematizable law that circumscribes self-conscious activity, organic nature, and inorganic nature, bringing them together, while keeping them apart. The fundamental unit by means of which this law operates is the complex number; this law is the law of fractal self-similarity. Nature is a complex structure that emerges by way of simple, repetitive, self-same applications of the same rule. This rule is expressed in organic nature by the internal purpose positing, and external goal-oriented, purpose driven behaviour of the gene; the gene controls the growth and division of cells. Cells form the basis of all organic life. The purposes for which an organism lives are predicated upon the imperatives set for it by the gene: to survive, reproduce, and exhibit itself, i.e. make itself observable. Genes are composed of inorganic matter, and are subject to the same mechanistic laws that govern the movements of all inorganic matter.

We have also seen that self-consciousness is a complex structure that emerges by way of simple, repetitive, self-same applications of the same rule, starting with the axioms: (i) the knower is distinct from the known, and conversely, the known is distinct from the knower, (ii) the knower is identical to itself, as is the object identical to itself, and (iii) the knower and known are situated in spacetime. From these simple axioms, analogous to a seed, sprouted sense-certainty, perception, the understanding, self-consciousness, desire, the stoic, skeptic, unhappy consciousnes, and Reason. However, even though nature is by definition bereaved of all self-conscious activity, it can be said that self-consciousness grows in accordance to the same law of fractal self-similarity as nature. 

Yet, nature is bereaved of all self-conscious activity. Reason is certain that self-consciousness is the basis of all reality, that nature is rational, i.e. nature operates like self-conscious Reason in accordance to universal, necessary, schematizable rules. Reason seeks to verify that this certainty is truth. It has discovered through empirical observation that nature imitates self-conscious Reason. Further, the law of fractal self-similarity expressed by the relation between gene, cell, and organism reveal that it is the teleological purpose of all organic life in nature to exhibit itself. The exhibition of traits is necessary for the survival of organic nature; since organisms are free and independent of mechanistic laws that govern the inorganic matter in their environments, the presence of consciousness in organisms is necessary for the evaluation of this exhibition. In order to complete its search for the truth of its certainty, Reason now turns to observe itself as self-conscious activity, and to verify whether indeed self-consciousness imitates nature. 

Reason Observing Self-Consciousness in its Purity

Self-conscious Reason is a function of an organism whose consciousness has evolved to self-consciousness, to self-conscious Reason, according to the law of fractal self-similarity, in the same way that the rational organism evolved from the simplest single celled life-form. The life of this organism is finite. It must die. It took a longer time for the organism to evolve its complexity from a single-celled organism than the time that one organism is alive. Thus, no organism with the capacity to be self-conscious and rational has observed the totality of that evolution. 

Self-conscious Reason arrives at the inference that it is the product of an evolution driven by genes according to the law of fractal self-similarity through the empirical observation of recurring patterns and distinguishing marks in nature. Here, Reason is not concerned with the actual objects in nature which it observes in nature; Reason is concerned with the manner in which it as self-conscious Reason behaves as a pure activity of self-consciousness as a result of these observations. Observing Reason observes self-consciousness bereaved of all natural activity. Reason has become a pure thinking, like the stoic, that observes its own thinking, and correlates that thinking to universal, necessary, schematizable laws. If it finds that these laws are identical to the law of fractal self-similarity that underlies and drives nature, Reason will have verified its certainty that self-consciousness is the basis of all reality.

Now, as a result of particular empirical observations, Reason reasons inductively to arrive at a conclusion that is true of all members of a class to which those empirical observations belong - it reasons inductively from particulars to universals. For example, every swan which Reason observes have the quality of being white. Reason reasons inductively that all swans are white. The problem behind this kind of reasoning, i.e. the existence of black swans, reveals the problem behind inductive Reason. It is not possible for Reason to observe every swan due to its finite life.

Self-conscious Reason seeks the law that allows it to make an inference about universals it cannot observe, predicated on particulars it does observe; Reason seeks the principles of valid reasoning. In other words, Reason seeks the Laws of Thought, the very foundations that make all rational thought possible. All laws of thought are found by means of introspection. Self-conscious Reason, i.e. Arthur Schopenhauer, writes the following:

"The laws of thought can be most intelligibly expressed thus:

1. Everything that is, exists.
2. Nothing can simultaneously be and not be.
3. Each and every thing either is or is not.
4. Of everything that is, it can be found why it is."

In other words, everything that is, is. All that is, is itself. Nothing can simultaneously be and not be, i.e. that which is itself is not another. Of everything that is, it can be found in spacetime why it is or is not. These are the same axioms whence self-conscious Reason itself emerged. To show that these four laws of thought are the foundation of all Reason, Schopenhauer provides the following explanation:

"Through a reflection, which I might call a self-examination of the faculty of reason, we know that these judgments are the expression of the conditions of all thought and therefore have these as their ground. Thus by making vain attempts to think in opposition to these laws, the faculty of reason recognizes them as the conditions of the possibility of all thought. We then find that it is just as impossible to think in opposition to them as it is to move our limbs in a direction contrary to their joints. If the subject could know itself, we should know those laws immediately, and not first through experiments on objects, that is, representations (mental images)."

Self-conscious Reason arrives at the laws of thought by making a distinction between two modes in which it thinks. On the one hand, self-conscious Reason is a self-consciousness that observes something with its senses. In other words, Reason observes a content. That content is a product of nature's exhibition of itself to self-conscious Reason. By relating that exhibited content to itself in a rational manner, Reason arrives at the laws of nature.
By turning to observe itself, Reason finds that self-consciousness exhibits no content of its own. Reason finds instead its own rational thinking, the possibility of which is based on the laws of thought. It attempts to uncover the laws of thought as a reality independent of the external reality of nature. Thoughts are presumed to be objective, formal, structures bound up with a content. For every dog, there is the thought of the dog.

Self-conscious Reason has a collection of thoughts, the sets of mathematical set theory for example, which it connects by means of various relations. Boolean algebra, the logic upon which computer programming is based, is a product of this kind of activity:

"All the signs of Language, as an instrument of reasoning may be conducted by a system of signs composed of the following elements: 1st Literal symbols as x, y, etc representing things as subjects of our conceptions, 2nd Signs of operation (relation), as +, -, x standing for those operations of the mind by which conceptions of things are combined or resolved so as to form new conceptions involving the same elements, 3rd The sign of identity, =. And these symbols of Logic are in their use subject to definite laws, partly agreeing with and partly differning from the laws of the corresponding symbols in the science of Algebra..

"Let us then agree to represent the class of individuals to which a particular name or description is applicable, by a single letter, as z. ... By a class is usually meant a collection of individuals, to each of which a particular name or description may be applied; but in this work the meaning of the term will be extended so as to include the case in which but a single individual exists, answering to the required name or description, as well as the cases denoted by the terms 'nothing' and 'universe,' which as 'classes' should be understood to comprise respectively 'no beings,' 'all beings.'"

"Let it further be agreed, that by the combination xy shall be represented that class of things to which the names or descriptions represented by x and y are simultaneously, applicable. Thus, if x alone stands for 'white things,' and y for 'sheep,' let xy stand for 'white Sheep;'"

Given these definitions Boole now lists his laws with their justification along with examples:

(1) xy = yx [commutative law]

"x represents 'estuaries,' and y 'rivers,' the expressions xy and yx will indifferently represent" 'rivers that are estuaries,' or 'estuaries that are rivers,'"

(2) xx = x, alternately x²= x [Absolute identity of meaning]

"Thus 'good, good" men, is equivalent to 'good' men".

(3) y + x = x + y [commutative law]

"Let x represent 'men,' y, 'women' and let + stand for 'and and 'or'. Thus the expression 'men and women' is . . . equivalent with the expression 'women and men'."

(4) z(x + y) = zx + zy [distributive law]

Let z = European, x = men, y = women. Then, European men and women = European men and European women

(5) x - y = -y + x [commutation law: separating a part from the whole]

"All men (x) except Asiatics (y)" is represented by x - y. "All states (x) except monarchical states (y)" is represented by x - y

(6) z(x - y) = zx - zy [distributive law]

(7) Identity ("is", "are") For, example, x = y + z, "stars" = "suns" and "the planets"

Boole observes that the only two numbers that satisfy x² = x are 0 and 1. He then observes that 0 represents "Nothing" while "1" represents the "Universe" (of discourse).

Boole defines the contrary (logical NOT) as follows (his Proposition III): "If x represent any class of objects, then will 1 - x represent the contrary or supplementary class of objects, i.e. the class including all objects which are not comprehended in the class x." If x = "men" then "1 - x" represents the "universe" less "men", i.e. "not-men".

Armed with his system, Boole derives the principle of non-contradiction, one of the principle laws of thought along with the law of identity and law of the excluded middle, starting with his law of identity: x² = x. He subtracts x from both sides, yielding x² - x = 0. He then factors out the x, giving x(x - 1) = 0, as required. So we have the "Law of Non-Contradiction"; for example, if x = "men" then 1 - x represents "NOT-men", then the statemen given by x(x-1) = 0 would read: there exists nothing in the universe that is both men and NOT-men.

Boolean algebra is but one example of a logical system that can be developed. Others include Aristotelian syllogistic logic, the propositional logic of the stoics, predicate logic, quantificational and modal logic. There exist differences between these systems of thought that exhibit the laws of thought by means of written signs, as well as similarities.

Essentially, self-conscious Reason observes the laws of thought as a motionless set of relations. We have an aggregate of distinct, by the law of non-contradiction, disjoint, by the law of the excluded middle "literals" denoted by an inert sign usually designated as x, y, or z, which serve as placeholders for any kind of content whatsoever. These inert and motionless signs are related by inert and motionless operators, +, -, =, or any other sign that is defined to be an operator. Thus, Reason uncovers patterns and fixed commonalities that can apply to any kind of thinking about any kind of object. 

By observing the recurring patterns of thinking, Reason has found the principles that make rational thought possible; from these principles it finds a manifold of fixed and inert patterns that apply to any kind of thought. This multitude of fixed and inert patterns are discovered as objective givens. They are not deduced from a single, self-replicating principle, i.e. they do not exhibit the same character as the law of fractal self-similarity that underlies nature. The patterns of thought are found via introspection, from utterances of another self-conscious Reason preserve as fixed and inert signs in a book, etc. 

The multitude of fixed and inert patterns of logical thought which self-conscious Reason finds by observing itself is a formal structure when considered relative to the content which observing Reason senses in nature. When self-conscious Reason ignores the content that nature exhibits, and considers the multitude of fixed and inert patterns of thought without any reference to its content, the formal structure of thought becomes a content. This content is the patterns of thought which Reason objectively observes, and explains by means of the unifying principles, the laws of thought, that apply to any kind of thought.

Thought, when considered by itself in its purity, independent of its relation to nature, is pure content. However, when considered in relation to nature, Reason finds that thoughts serve as an organizing principle. Thought is a formal structure when it thinks about something that is not a thought, i.e. anything in organic/inorganic nature. When thought thinks itself, it becomes a content for itself. When it thinks about nature, an external reality bereaved of all self-conscious activity, including thought, thought is a formal structure for another.

Thoughts do not have a formal structure for thought itself. Thus, there is nothing about the laws of thought that necessitates a unique, self-determined ordering of thoughts. The laws of thought are fixed and do not undergo movement or alteration. Self-consciousness as an activity, as we have seen, does undergo movement and alteration. The very act of thinking is a movement from one concept to another. It is not, however, self-generated. It is self-consciousness, which is an activity distinct from thought, since it may or may not involve actual thinking, that determines the direction in which thoughts will go, and in what way they will be altered.

Recall that nature undergoes a self-generated, self-determining movement and alteration according to the law of fractal self-similarity. The law of fractal self-similarity is not distinct from nature. By observing self-consciousness, Reason has not affirmed that self-consciousness imitates nature. Nature is a self-generated, self-determining movement that exhibits a content. Thought is a collection of fixed and inert essences that have no unifying principle that points to their being a self-generated, self-determining movement.

Reason discovers that it cannot find a universal law analogous to the law of fractal self-similarity for thought by observing self-consciousness in its purity, for in doing so it loses the formal structure that necessitates a unique, self-determined ordering of thoughts that imitate nature. It loses this structure because when considered in its purity, thought becomes nothing but content. This is the essential freedom that underlies all mathematical and logical thinking. This unifying structure, the set of all sets, is nowhere to be found because it does not exist. But thought is essentially a formal unifying structure of the content that nature exhibits to observing Reason.

That formal unifying structure cannot be lost sight of, or else Reason no longer observes itself as rational thinking. Without this unifying structure according to which thought must adhere to in order to be rational at all, thougnt cannot be rational. But the thought which Reason observes is rational. Therefore this unifying structure exists. In order to preserve this formal unifying structure, reason must observe itself thinking in relation to a content that is distinct from the activity of self-conscious Reason. Thus, Reason observes self-consciousness as it relates to external actuality, i.e. organic nature, inorganic nature, and self-consciousness, whether it be its own or of another organism capable of rational self-consciousness. Reason seeks the Law of Psychology.

Reason Observing Self-Consciousness in its Relation to External Actuality

Reason observes rational self-consiousness and its relation to inorganic nature, organic nature, and self-consciousness, whether it be its own or of another. Nature has a unifying structure, where it generates itself and determines its own content independent of the activity of self-consciousness. When nature is observed in its purity, independent of the activity of self-consciousness, that structure is not lost. It exists. When thought is observed in its purity, independent of its relation to the exhibitions of nature, the unifying structure of thought that would be analogous to fractal self-similarity is lost. It is lost because such a structure does not exist.

This unifying structure that underlies all of nature is the universal substance of external actuality. It is a simple form that generates a complex array of content by repeated iterations of the of its manifested content on itself; it is a self-coding code. This is the law of fractal self-similarity. The content of nature which is exhibited to self-consciousness determines the contents of the thoughts of that self-consciousness. Since self-conscious Reason is a function of an organism that lives for a finite amount of time, the totality of nature's infinite content cannot be observed by a singular organism. Only a finite fraction of that content can be observed by any single self-conscious and rational organism. The content which that organism does observe determines the formal structure of thought that allows it to think about and relate to external actuality. This formal structure is the rationally self-conscious organism's personality.

There exist a wide range of content that a single individual organism cannot observe, however, there exist a multiplicity of rationally self-conscious organisms that do observe the content which exhibits itself to each. Further, each content is exhibited to each organism in a manner where no two organisms will observe the same, identical, content. Thus, distinct forms of thinking will arise for each rationally self-conscious organism, due to the distinct content which nature exhibits to each. Each individual self-conscious organism will have its own, distinct, personality.

A personality is a set of habits, customs, ways of thinking, and emotions that self-consciousness acquires in its relation to external actuality. This set is the content that defines a personality. There exist a wide array of possible content for personality, i.e. habits, customs, ways of thinking, emotions, etc., from which self-consciousness selects only a portion to define its own unique personality. The selection is driven by the idiosyncratic inclinations and desires of the individual self-consciousness.

The content of personality selected from a larger array is finite in size, as is the larger array. The kinds of habits, customs, ways of thinking, emotions, etc. which self-consciousness can select from, based off its own inclinations and desires, is bound by the general actuality in which self-consciousness finds itself. Further, notice that self-consciousness is not its personality. Since self-consciousness as Reason is a reconciliation between the changeable and unchangeable, self-consciousness has both changeable and unchangeable aspects. Its personality may change, over time, however, there is something about self-consciousness that does not change over time. That unchangeable aspect is the essence/core of self-consciousness, i.e. the object that self-consciousness is certain of being the basis of all reality.

Observational psychology records the general permutations of personality, and the content that defines it. Every self-consciousness is said to have personality traits. Like the laws of thought, Reason considers these personality traits as inert, unchangeable qualities that define an individual, not restless movements that may change over time. Nothing can be said about the specific circumstances, i.e. the specific character of the individual's environment, whence these traits emerge. Every individual is a contingent medley of personality traits lumped together like a things in a sack.

Two opposed sides emerge: on the one hand, we have an actual individual who exists in spacetime, with changeable and unchangeable aspects. The changeable aspects of the individual are its observable personality traits, the unchangeable aspect of the individual is its unchangeable essence. On the other hand, we have an inert unity of observable personality traits - again, we see the re-emergence of a thing, the individual, and its determinate properties, its personality traits. Reason now has to find a law to describe how the individual as an unchangeable being interacts with its personality traits.

There exist two possibilities that result from the interaction between the individual and his personality traits. The individual may, first of all, sink into its personality traits. For it, there is no difference between what it fundamentally is and its personality. The individual conceives himself to be his personality, and thus acts accordingly. Personality, like genes, is exhibited for others to see. Thus, this individual is concerned with engaging in performance. Thus, what emerges is an individual engaged in a persentation of self, being nothing more than what it presents to the external world.

This individual, by fully immersing itself in a show of self, loses awareness of its own inner core. It is not dependent on other self-consciousnesses fluctuating standards of approval or disapproval for what it may or may not exhibit, and thus, for what it may or may not be. This individual loses its individuality, and becomes a conforming, universal individual.

Otherwise, the individual may regard itself as something absolutely distinct from its personality traits; it resists sinking into its personality traits, and is therefore indifferent to the show that the conformist is immersed in. This individual retains its awareness of his own essential, unchangeable, infinite core, and steadfastly clings to it. Rather than be altered by the flux of the world's standards of approval or disapproval, the individual alters the world of other self-conscious personalities. He may do so with or with an alternative in mind. If he alters the world of other self-consciousnesses with an alternative in mind, he is a reformist, or revolutionary. If he alters the world without such an alternative, he destroys it, and is thus a deviant, or criminal.

There can be no deterministic, mechanistic law that would decide whether an individual conforms to the world, or deviates from it. One would think otherwise, since the personality traits of the individual control the individual; the individual does not control its personality traits, not even their acquisition, since its inclinations and desires are genetically determined, and the actuality in which it is immersed that provide an array of personality traits to choose from is limited in scope. There must be a law that determines how an individual chooses its personality traits and interacts with them. Yet, since the fundamental infinite core of the individual self-consciousness is fundamentally for itself, i.e self-determining and independent, or as the stoic would say, free, the free choice of the individual to either conform or deviate from its personality traits, and the world of other self-consciousnesses with personality traits, precludes the possibility of such a law existing.

Reason abandons its search for a universal, necessary, schematizable law that relates the individual and its personality traits; the free will of the individual absolutely prohibits the existence of such a law. Thus, Reason turns to a new object that has emerged where no such choice is possible. This new object, like the previous, has two opposing sides. On the one hand, there is the individual and his personality traits. Reason is indifferent to how the individual interacts with its personality traits; the possibility of choice is no longer an obstacle for Reason's search for a link between the individual and external actuality. Opposed to the individual and his personality traits, there exists a fluctuating world of individuals with their own personality traits.

He knew himself a villain—but he deem'd

The rest no better than the thing he seem'd;

And scorn'd the best as hypocrites who hid

Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.

He knew himself detested, but he knew

The hearts that loath'd him, crouch'd and dreaded too.

Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt

From all affection and from all contempt

The array of personality traits that the individual chooses from to determine his own personality originates from this world. The conformist individual gets lost in this world and flows along with the fluctuating ebbs and flows of approval and disapproval, and constructs its personality to attain maximum approval and minimum disapproval. The deviant individual is indifferent to its own personality traits, and indeed constructs its own, drawing from a secret well of infinite scope to define its own personality. It is the Byronic hero, who by altering itself from this infinite well alters the world of other self-consciousnesses with personality traits. This individual turns out to be a fount from whence the collection of all personality traits that ebb and flow in the world of many self-consciousnesses with personality traits emerges. It is also the sink into which that same ebb and flow disappear into oblivion. Thus, "the individual allows free play to the stream of the actual world flowing in upon it, or else breaks it off and transforms it."

The individual self-consciousness is inseparable from the world of self-consciousnesses with personality traits. The free will that defines self-consciousness defines the world of self-consciousnesses. The conformist loses the free will that dwells at its fundamental core, and is carried adrift by the fluctuating ebbs and flows of approval and disapproval of the world of self-consciousnesses with personality traits. The deviant retains his free will, and serves as the very source and sink of those very same personality traits.

The personality traits of the individual, therefore, is what its world is. The world, conversely, turns out to be nothing but a collection of individuals, each with their roles of deviants and conformists, to be experienced and to produce more individuals with personalities. To observe an individual, furthermore, is to observe the world in ossified form. Reason observes the relation of self-consciousness to its immediate activity.

Reason Observing Nature (Part II): The Truth Behind Complex Numbers and their relation to Nature

Reason Observing Nature
Part II

Introduction

Observing Reason has reached a stage of transition. I have decided to continue the journey of self-consciousness, towards verifying the certainty that it is itself the fundamental basis of all reality through the empirical and objective observation of nature, into two articles. Further, we must resist the psychological tendency to get lost in the details of Reason's development. Thus, it is necessary to explain again what it is that observing Reason is attempting to accomplish when it engages in empirical studies of Nature. Doing so will allow us to see why Reason unfolds the way it does. 

First, note that Reason is a shape of self-consciousness. The object which defines the Absolute True for Reason is the self. It is certain of itself, i.e. the supreme being for which Reason is concerned is its own self-conscious activity. For sense-certainty, its object was the immediate sensed particular, for perception the thing, for understanding the unconditioned universal, etc. Reason is a rationally self-interested agent. This self-certainty, in principle, extends beyond the finite confines of the physical body which self-conscious Reason inhabits. It is a particular being certain of its own universality. More specifically, it is a rational particular being, i.e. it operates in accordance with definite, universalizable, necessary, schematizable rules. This rationality should extend beyond the confines of its particular body, composed of organic and inorganic nature, and governs all reality. Thus, even Nature, which is the objective flux of appearances in which Reason finds itself as a living body, bereaved of all self-conscious activity, is nevertheless inherently rational.

The inherent rationality of nature is not a demonstrated truth. It is a bare, supremely self-confident, assertion. It is easy to confuse certainty and truth, however, it is possible for one to be certain that something is true, though in actual fact it is untrue. We saw this dynamic play out in the dialectic of sense-certainty. Like sense-certainty, Reason is attempting to raise its certainty of being all reality, i.e. that all reality is rational, to truth. It wants be certain of the truth of its certainty.

Like sense-certainty, Reason observing nature has three sub-shapes. In the first subshape, Reason will attempt to verify its certainty by objectively observing its object alone, seeking the true nature of inorganic and organic nature, without the confounding effects of self-consciousness. Nature is, by definition, bereaved of all self-conscious activity, yet for itself still behaves like a rational self-consciousness according to definite rules. It is these rules which Reason is attempting to discover. The second subshape will emerge when Reason discovers that no such rules can be found in objective nature that would verify its certainty of being all reality. Thus, Reason will turn inward, just as sense-certainty did, and seek the truth of its certainty in its own self-conscious activity, i.e. it will attempt to discover the laws of rational thought - logic.

At this point in the development, we have seen Reason observe nature first as an activity completely bereaved of all self-conscious activity, i.e. inorganic nature. The rules which it sought through observing inorganic nature emerged as recurring patterns, distinguishing marks, and finally, probabilistic laws. Reason had to verify that these rules were indeed universalizable, necessary, and schematizable. It found that recurring patterns lacked necessity, distinguishing marks lacked universalizability, and that probabilistic laws lacked both.

Through experimentation, Reason turned to mechanistic laws, but in doing so conflated inorganic and organic nature. This conflation occurred to the very nature of law, as we saw in the understanding, and reason's incapacity to know the underlying factors that determined the nature of its rational activity. These factors can only be grasped conceptually; we are discussing them in this very article. Organic nature, to some extent, is confined by the same mechanistic laws that confined inorganic nature. Organisms operate according to an internal logic that is in one sense dependent on the inorganic environment in which the organism is immersed, in another sense independent. Due to the latter sense, Reason finds that mechanistic laws are not universalizable. The organic being and its inorganic environment turn out to coexist, but are ultimately free and independent of each other. Organic nature and inorganic nature coexist, but are mutually indifferent to one another.

This mutual indifference between organic nature and inorganic nature shows that nature does not operate like a rational self-consciousness. Nature is irrational, if its rationality is to be based on mechanistic laws alone. Reason, concerned only with verifying the certainty that it is all reality, turns to teleology. The organism is allowed its freedom to set goals for itself, and accomplish them, while still being confined by the regularities of nature that Reason describes via mechanistic laws.

The organism's freedom to set goals for itself and actualize them, goals either in accordance to or opposed to the nature of the organism, is entirely predicated on the unobservable self-conscious activity of the organism. The external, purpose-driven, rule-governed behaviour, i.e. the activity, of the organism is predicated upon the life process of the organism, exhibited by the components of its observable, living body. Observing Reason must now find a universalizable, necessary, schematizable rule that relates these disparate aspects of the organism. This rule, i.e. law, once discovered would raise Reason's certainty of being all reality to truth. It would show that nature operates like a rational self-consciousness without the conscious activity of a self-consciousness.

The Organism: Inner and Outer

The internal purpose of the organism is posited by the pure activity of its self-consciousness. This inner activity can only be grasped conceptually, with the techniques developed by Hegel and in this blog. It cannot be observed. The expression of this self-preserving, self-moving unity is the outer. The outer, being a direct image of the inner, is observable. Observing reason now seeks a universalizable, necessary, and schematizable rule that circumscribes organic nature, inorganic nature, and self-conscious Reason through observing the relation between inner and outer.

The pure inner activity of the conscious organism involves the primary function of the organism's consciousness, i.e. its sentience. Consciousness is a simple awareness. It is aware of itself and others. Since the organism is aware of objects other than itself, and it inhabits a physical organic body, it must have the capacity to know and be conscious of another via its senses, i.e. it is irritable. Irritability is the capacity of the organism's physical body to respond to external stimuli, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Further, the organism can respond to this response by engaging in rule-governed behaviour. Finally, since the organism loses the organic substance which composes its physical body, it is set in motion to preserve itself and replenish its lost substance by the feeling of hunger and thirst. The organism, as an individual, will die. Its activity is preserved through the genus to which the individual organism belongs. The organism is thus set in motion to produce offspring, in order to preserve its activity. The inner activity which sets the organism in motion to preserve itself as individual and as a member of a a genus is reproduction, i.e. the organism's desire to preserve itself and undergo growth, and to relate another and produce offspring. These three compartments of the inner, separate and distinct, are the primary impetus, the reason, behind purpose-driven behaviour. They cannot be observed.

The outer expression of this inner activity, however, can be observed. Observing Reason holds that the outer is an expression of the inner. Thus, there exist three observable outer processes that exhibit the essential character of the unobservable inner processes. The sentience of the organism is exhibited by its nervous system. The nervous system is the part of an organism's body that coordinates its voluntary and involuntary actions and transmits signals to and from different parts of its physical body.

The nervous system permits the organism to exhibit consciousness, consisting of the brain, spinal cord, sensory organs, and all of the nerves that connect these organs to the rest of the body. Together, these organs are responsible for the organism's control of the body and for the organism to communicate with its body, as well as for the body to communicate with itself. The brain and spinal cord form the control center of the body known as the central nervous system, where information is evaluated and decisions are made. The sensory nerves and sense organs of the peripheral nervous system monitor conditions inside and outside the body and send this information to the central nervous system.

All voluntary actions originate from the self-moving, free, and independent activity of self-consciousness. The central nervous system is the origin of the organic movement that brings that decision to act in a certain way into being. The peripheral nervous system carries out rule governed behaviour, maintaining the functions of the organism's body, as well as the organism's interaction with its environment. The nervous system is an also expression of the organism's sentience which observing Reason can observe. Through the nervous system, observing Reason observes the sentience of an organism as if it was an inorganic thing. The outer is an expression of the inner.

The irritability of an organism is exhibited to the senses of observing Reason by the muscular system of the organism. The muscular system permits the organism to move its body, maintain its posture, and circulate its blood throughout its body. Each muscle is a discrete organ constructed of skeletal muscle tissue, blood vessels, tendons, and nerves. Muscles are irritable; they receive and respond to external stimuli without any input from self-consciousness. The muscular response of external stimuli is a function of the periphary nervous system; a signal is sent to the central nervous system, and the organism qua consciousness responds by directing the motion of its muscles again via the nervous system. The inner purpose of the organism is carried out by the rule-governed behaviour of the muscular system. The muscular and nervous systems are not distinct and separate. They overlap.

Finally, the inner activity of reproduction, i.e. the primary impetus that sets the organism into motion in order to preserve itself as individual and as a member of a genus is exhibited to observing reason by the digestive and reproductive systems of the organism.

The digestive system is a group of organs working together to convert food into energy and basic nutrients to feed the entire body of the organism. Food passes through a long tube inside the body known as the alimentary canal or the gastrointestinal tract. The alimentary canal is made up of the oral cavity, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, small intestines, and large intestines. In addition to the alimentary canal, there are several important accessory organs that help the organism's body to digest food but do not have food pass through them. Accessory organs of the digestive system include the teeth, tongue, salivary glands, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. The mouth and tongue allow the organism to communicate to others its internal conscious activity. It also allows it to eat, and preserve itself. The reproductive system is a group of sex organs within an organism which work together for the purpose of sexual reproduction. Many non-living substances such as fluids, hormones, and pheromones are also important accessories to the reproductive system.

The activity of the digestive system and reproductive systems overlap with the activity of the muscular and nervous systems. This overlap presents a problem for observing Reason's search for a unifying law that relates inner and outer. The divisions of the inner conscious activity of the organism which observing Reason made are not true divisions into separate and indifferent compartments of an organic whole; there is overlap in the outer expressions of the inner activity of the organism. There can be no true distinction in the inner conscious activity of the organism. Sentience, irritibility, and reproduction are parts of an inseparable unity. 

The process of the inner life of the organism has unobservable inner aspects, for-itself, which exhibited observable outer aspects, for-another, observing Reason. The observable outer aspect of the organism can be expressed teleologically, i.e. the organism uses these systems to set and accomplish goals for itself; these outer aspects can be shown to obey mechanistic laws. The transmission of neurons, for example, obeys the mechanistic laws of electromagnetism. However, the three compartments of the inner activity of the organism are presented as distinct and separate. Reason must make this distinction and separation in order to know the inner soul of the organism at all as something that is distinct from its body, yet interacts with it, and with it engages in purposive activity.

Reason observes that neither the muscular system nor the reproductive system can operate without input from the nervous system, nor can reproductive system operate without the muscular system. Further, Reason cannot observe the multitude of ways in which these systems interact with the environment of the organism, and with each other amidst this interaction, whether it attempts to do so qualitatively or quantitatively. Every possibility cannot be accounted for, since the range of possibility is infinite. Reason cannot deduce from the anatomy of the organism how the environment, which is independent of the organism, will affect it. Thus, it cannot reason how inner and outer will interact; it cannot find a unifying principle that could determine every possible permutation of inner and outer activity; it cannot find a rational law that unifies the inner and outer being of the organism.

These three systems are bound up with the self-conscious unity of the organism. The life process of the organism involves the unification of these outer processes. If they exhibit the same living process, then the inner which each outer expression is supposed to exhibit cannot be distinguished into three non-overlapping compartments. The self-conscious activity of the organism is a unitary, living process. To divide this unity from itself is to kill the organism; to observe these divided outer expressions of an organism is to observe something that is dead. No longer can observing Reason pertain to know a living organism, but rather a dead thing.

The organism is not the dead thing which anatomical explanation unwittingly presumes; it is a living thing, i.e. a self-same fluid unity that differentiates itself from itself while remaining self-same. No two aspects of the organism can be separated and distinguished, as observing Reason has done by making the distinction between inner and outer, without sacrificing the organic significance of the organism. The processes that sustain the life of the organism cannot be separated into distinct non-overlapping categories, i.e. sets, because in truth these processes overlap and blend into each other. The functions of the nervous system must overlap with the functions of the muscular, digestive, and reproductive systems. Otherwise, the organism cannot be alive. The fundamental observable characteristic of life is the organism's capacity to move its limbs, via the muscular system, at the command of its brain and spinal cord, via the central nervous system. But observing Reason finds itself ignoring this overlap, instead observing the parts of the organism, all while the organic unity which gave it any significance has flown away.

The Whole of Nature: Inner and Outer

The inner organic unity of the organism is a part of a fluid process, i.e. a whole that cannot be ignored. Thus Observing Reason will now attempt to generalize the organic unity of the organism, while taking for granted that it has an inner and outer aspect - that it is a fluid whole whose life is sustained by differentiated, yet overlapping, parts. The overlap of these differentiated parts of the living organism suggest that they have a common origin. This common origin serves as the observable basis of organic unity, and it is to be distinguished from the organism as a self-unfolding activity of consciousness. The organism, therefore, is no longer being treated as a living, holistic, process, that fundamentally involves a sentient, conscious being. Rather, Reason seeks an observable basis for the organic living unity of the organism. Once the observable basis for this unity has been established, Reason will seek to explain it with universalizable, schematizable, necessary rules.

In other words, a second relation between inner and outer has been posited; this time, however, the organic unity of the organism as a whole, with its own inner and outer character discussed in the above section, is taken to be the new inner. More specifically, observing Reason considers the physical shape of the organism to be the inner, and sets it up in opposition to the new outer, which is the existence external to the organic shape of the organism, i.e. the environment. This organic unity develops cohesively, changing gradually from a simple unity to a complex whole.

The simple unity that serves as the holistic basis of all organic life is the cell. For this blog, we will only consider the animal cell in some detail.

Like the organism, the cell is a whole that observing Reason divides into parts. These parts are overlapping processes. Cells have various functions within the body of the organism. Like the organism, cells must feed and reproduce. Cells are a part of the organism which reflect the nature of the whole organism. In other words, the constitution of the organism as a whole, and the constitution of the cell, are self-similar. The purpose which the conscious organsm sets for itself is identical to the purpose which each cell functions - to subsist and reproduce. Thus, the cell too has an inner purpose, which it realizes by means of rule-governed, goal-oriented behaviour.

When observing Reason realized that the organism as a whole has an inner purpose which it accomplishes by means of external, observable, rule-governed and goal-oriented behaviour, it divided the organism into inner and outer aspects that correspond to its inner purpose and outer purpose. The inner conscious activity of the organism was directly expressed by the rule-governed, purpose driven behaviour of the organism's anatomy. However, observing Reason ended up carving the organism into various, disjoint, parts, killing it both literally and conceptually. This happened because of one of the very first axioms: to know is to make distinctions, literally to cut or pull apart, and to identify, to put back together.

The cell, being the basis of all organic life, has its own inner and outer purpose, and like the organism its outer is the direct expression of its inner. The nucleus of the cell corresponds to the nervous system of the organism. It controls many of the functions of the cell, and contain the basic unit of all cells, its genetic material, organized as DNA strands. The nucleus maintains the integrity of these genes of which DNA is composed and controls the cell by regulating gene expression. This gene expression is the driving mechanism behind the observable and unobservable traits of cells, and a fortiori, of organisms.

The internal purpose of the organism is identical to the internal purpose of the gene, though unlike the organism, the gene lacks consciousness. The organism reproduces and sustains its own life for the purposes of transmitting its genetic material to the next generation. Besides sustaining itself, what has been called being-for-self, the gene is responsible for the organism's desire to exhibit itself, what has been called being-for-another.

The transmission of genes to an organism's offspring is the basis of the inheritance of phenotypic traits, i.e. an organism's observable characteristics, such as its morphology, development, behaviour, products of behaviour, etc. A phenotype results from the expression of an organism's genes as well as the influence of the environmental factors in which the organism is immersed, and the interaction between the two. In other words, genes are the fundamental basis behind all the traits that organic nature has exhibited to observing Reason. Some genetic traits are instantly visible, such as eye color, or number of limbs, while some are not, such as blood type, risk for specific diseases, or the thousands of biochemical processes that comprise life. Observing Reason finds that the fundamental basis of all life, the cell, is predicated on its genetic material, which has an internal purpose that is identical to its external purpose - to be exhibited to another. Observing Reason finds that the basis of all life is its observability.

When observing Reason turns towards the mechanisms behind genetic expression, it finds not a simple conscious unity, but chemical processes, physical processes, and ultimately, numerical processes. The life of the organism is predicated on a gene, a self-contained code that writes itself; its basic unit of operation is the complex number; the law that governs the exhibition of genes is the same law that governs the processes of inorganic nature, i.e. the law of fractal self-similarity. Complexity emanates from the self-contained repeated iterations of simplicity: this is the universalizable, necessary, schematizble law which observing Reason has sought in its observation of organic and inorganic nature.

Repeated iterations of the equation in the above picture, where z and c are complex numbers, have an identical shape with cell-division.

However, by finding this law, Reason is not able to assert its certainty of being the universal substrate of all reality. The fractal is a pure concept that is the basis of all of observable reality, the objective flux of appearances, yet it is bereaved of all conscious activity. No consciousness, according to this law, is involved in the iteration from simplicity to complexity, even though consciousness itself is the basis upon which such a phenomenon may be understood. Yet, consciousness itself is an iteration from a simple awareness of immediate being, to self-consciousness, to Reason itself. The law of fractal self-similarity cannot acknowledge that it circumscribes both the activity of self-conscious Reason and nature.

Fractal self-similarity is explored in fractal geometry, which is devoted to the study of diverse aspects of diverse objects, either mathematical or natural, that are not smooth, but rough and fragmented to the same degree at all scales. The objects of fractal geometry reflect the rough and fragmented nature of observing Reason itself. Even though a unifying law has been found that allows observing Reason to provide a rational account of the diverse, yet lawful, complexity of inorganic and organic nature, this law proves to be no unifying principle. Instead, it is more a theory of probability. The seemingly successful application of a universal, necessary, schematizable rule that circumscribes both self-conscious Reason, inorganic nature, and organic nature, fails to serve as the vehicle through which Reason asserts the certainty that it is the basis of all reality.

The failure of observing Reason is due to its having undertaken the habit of framing laws, i.e. the universalizable, schematizable necessary rules that circumscribe the inner and outer of organic nature, inorganic nature, and self-conscious Reason, which turned out to be the law of fractal self-similarity. That is, Reason takes at least two aspects of self-conscious Reason, say inner and outer, and holds them apart as static mathematical disjoint sets composed of observable particulars, distinct from each other and indifferent to each other. Then Reason seeks to relate these disjoint static sets with a static rule of relation. This tactic cannot work because these aspects which Reason sets up as being mutually opposed in truth fluidly transition into one another. Ultimately, Reason makes a distinction between self-consciousness and nature, and seeks to assert its certainty of being the basis of all reality (as the cell is the basis of all life), which is a self-certainty, by finding a universal law, a unifying principle, of a medium that is bereaved of all self-conscious activity, nature.

Having found the law it sought as fractal self-similarity, it finds the basis of all nature. Nature is engaged in the process of transition, from simplicity to complex, from chaos to order, through repeated iterations of a simple, self-same unity that results in a complex self-same unity. The end, complexity, resides in the beginning, a complex number. Organic nature engages in this movement by means of the gene, which dictates the internal and external purposes of the cell, and the organism which comprises it. The ultimate purpose behind this movement is the exhibition of traits, which in turn propel this movement forward beyond the life of a single organism. These traits are transmitted from an organism to its offspring.

The exhibition of traits, however, mean nothing without a consciousness to observe those traits with its senses. Since organic nature cannot operate in accordance with mechanistic laws alone, the presence of consciousness is necessary in order to see the exhibition and act upon it in accordance with its own internal purposes and external, rule-driven, goal-oriented behaviour. In order for a consciousness to relate what it sees to universal laws, it must engage in Reason. Reason, however, presumes the existence of self-consciousness.

Since, self-consciousness is engaged in this same movement from simple to complex through repeated iterations of the same simple notion that begins with the statement: the knower is distinct from the known, for the first time observing Reason sees self-consciousness as an objective phenomenon. The law of fractal self-similarity expresses the basis of all nature, i.e. objective reality bereaved of all self-conscious activity. In order to find this law exhibited in the activity of self-consciousness, asserting the certainty that self-conscious Reason is the basis of all reality, Reason turns inwards and observes the Laws of Thought.

Reason Observing Nature: On the Truth Behind the Natural Sciences

Reason Observing Nature

Introduction

The unfolding of self-consciousness has thus far led us through a kind of development. Like a flower, it begins like a seed, and we have witnessed self-consciousness sprout and bloom. Every stage is generated by the conditions generated by the contradictions that arose for each preceding shape of self-consciousness. It is as observing Reason that self-consciousness begins to bear fruit, one of which is the science and technology that has made the writing of this very blog possible, as well your reading of it, fair reader. It would be a great advantage to you if you went back and digested the content of previous articles, if only to let such a way of thinking become second-nature for you. Once you accomplish this, the coming stages will seem to you to be second nature, and natural. We are not developing anything new; these articles are only an exercise in memory, where we are revisiting your own development through the various lives you have lived.

Let us briefly recall the nature of reason as it has so far developed. While its activity has become highly technical and nuanced, it is important not to lose sight of the formal essence of Reason, i.e. the necessary conditions that allow consciousness to be rational, the manner in which Reason undertakes rational and objective theorizing, and finally the final purpose and terminus for such an activity. We know Reason through the lens of the Aristotelian four causes, the four divine attributes of the universal substance which we have already touched upon. Reason is an expression of that knowable substance, and thus it is no surprise that Reason can be comprehended in terms of the four causes, while simultaneously comprehended in its own terms. Notice that self-consciousness does not unfold in line with linear history as we know it. There is nothing in the development thus far that would suggest that self-consciousness be limited to the temporal sequence which its physical and living bodies are subject. Indeed, Reason holds that time is not independent of conscious activity, but rather is itself an activity of self-consciousness. The movement of time is the movement of self-consciousness thinking itself, and in thinking itself elevating itself to higher and higher forms, incrementally growing in complexity from simplicity.

Recall the duplication of force into two distinct forces, reciprocally relating to each other. One is force expressed with force proper withdrawn into itself, the other is force proper with force express withdrawn into itself. The dual character of a single force, its expression as diverse matters and proper being as the thing-in-itself, was distributed between two forces. Force derived its mind-independent actuality by means of the duplication of force. Reason, certain of itself as the ultimate and essential universal substratum of all objective and subjective reality, takes this certitude for granted. The universally applicable, necessary, and schematized rules the transcendental unity of apperception ineluctibly obeys are distributed between the two distinct kinds of independent, self-same, realities - the self-differentiating unities of the the inner activity of consciousness and the objective flux of appearances. Just as force is defined as the interaction, i.e. the external relation, between two distinct and reciprocally related bodies, so too is Reason now defined as the interaction, i.e. the external relation, between two distinct and reciprocally related actualities.

Reason's taken for granted and instinctive certainty of its being the basis of all reality, inner and outer, at first was confined to the internal activity of the self - the only certain and rational truth is that I exist - whence the truth of the outer world of appearances was to be inferred, albiet unreliably. This internally self-related certainty has been dupicated and externalized. Thus, Reason expects to find the rationality inherent to the inner activity of self-conscious Reason in the external flux of appearances. The outer world, for Reason, is inherently rational. Reason duplicates its certainty of being all reality, and renders upon the external world of appearances the potential of being rationally accounted for. The two nodes, the source being the certainty of Reason, the sink being the inherent rationality of the objective world of appearances are established. The act of passive observation is the self-propelled motion of self-conscious Reason from the source to the sink. It is shaped like an electric/magnetic field.

Observing Reason is a self-consciousness confined to the limited space of its living body. Restricted to its singular particular body, observing Reason instinctively asserts itself as being the universal substrate of all reality, inner and outer. Yet it can only observe with the senses and perception made available to it by its living body. Thus, the content of its observation, while possessing a rich diversity manifest in space and time, does not possess the character of universality. The totality of the flux of appearances cannot be observed simultaneously. Observation only grasps particulars, i.e. sense-data. The universal significance of the sense-data can only be established if Reason can associate the data with the same universalizably applicable, necessary, and schematized rules that absolutely determine the activity of self-consciousness, and to which the activity of self-consciousness ineluctibly yields. Thus, the act of passive observation sets to establish a single set of rules that circumscribe the distinct, independent, and self-relating actualities - the activity of self-consciousness and the flux of appearances. The rules derive their validity from Reason's certitude of being the universal substrate of all reality. This certainty is verified if Reason can show that the rules that apply to self-consciousness equally apply to the external flux of appearances. Reason takes the mutually exclusive and pairwise disjoint union between the activity of self-consciousness and external appearances.

The external world of appearanes is inherently rational, i.e. it is like self-conscious Reason, and can be known with the same universalizable, necessary, schematizable rules Reason uses to know itself, it is utterly bereaved of all self-conscious activity. This external world Reason calls Nature. In the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel writes:

"Nature has presented itself as the idea in the form of otherness. Since in nature the idea is as the negative of itself or is external to itself nature is not merely external in relation to this idea, but the externality constitutes the determination in which nature as nature exists. In this externality the determinations of the concept have the appearance of an indifferent subsistence and isolation in regards to each other. The concept therefore exists as an inward entity. Hence nature exhibits no freedom in its existence, but only necessity and contingency."

Living bodies, composed of organic matter, contain self-consciousness. Thus, Reason excludes organic matter from its passive observation. Determined to verify its own certitude of being the ultimate substrate of inner and outer reality by finding universally applicable and necessary rules that apply to both Nature and the activity of consciousness, Reason objectively observes inorganic nature.

Reason Observing Inorganic Nature

Self-conscious Reason is no longer a passive agent powerless to affect the content of its own development. Reason takes everything it has learned of itself in uncovering the universality implicit in the sense-data it receives from inorganic nature. While it is not capable of observing the total universality of the flux of appearances, it can account for the universal necessity and rationality of inorganic nature in which it receives its sense-data by means of universally applicable and necessary rules; the same rules that determine the movement self-consciousness. These rules, while they must circumscribe both the activity of self-conscious Reason and inorganic nature, must also not conflict with Reason's instinctive and taken for granted presumption that keeps the spheres of activity utterly distinct. The rules must keep the subjective and objective spheres of reality apart, but bring them together.

Nature exhibits both necessity, i.e. order, and contingency, i.e. chance. Universal necessity, what is also known as metaphysical necessity, is exhibited to Reason only when that necessary natural order is associated with universally applicable and necessary schematizing rules that equally apply to the activity of self-conscious Reason. Even though inorganic nature is bereaved of all conscious activity, it is still inherently rational, conformable to the rational activity of self-conscious Reason. Reason proclaims and demonstrates the reconciliation of the changeable and unchangeable, i.e. contingent and necessary, poles of the unhappy consciousness. The unhappy consciousness began its path towards reconciling its self-contradictory nature by means of devotion, surrendering its will to the universal. In seeking universal necessity in inorganic nature, self-conscious Reason does the same. The unhappy consciousness showed its devotion to itself as unchangeable by engaging in ritualized behaviour. This internal activity must be found in the external activity of inorganic nature, so Reason seeks the ritualized behaviour that inorganic nature exhibits.

The universal necessity of inorganic nature is to be sought first in the recurring patterns that inorganic nature exhibits. In observing the repetitions of sense-data that Reason receives through the senses and perception of its living body, Reason describes these regularities. The recurring patterns that Reason describes inhere in no specific object, but are rather abstractions it extracts from its observation of external reality. The recurring patterns it observes in inorganic nature occur, and found contingently as given. In order for the recurring pattern to be a universally applicable rule, Reason must find the necessity behind the recurring patterns it observes, on its own account, by chance contingently. Reason must find the reason behind recurring patterns. Inorganic nature is the set of all inorganic matter engaged in repeating motion, set into motion by another inorganic recurring pattern. This other inorganic recurring pattern was set into motion by yet another  recurring pattern, ad infinitum.

No necessity can be established in the recurring patterns Reason contingently observes in inorganic nature. By definition, the motion of a universally necessary recurring pattern cannot be causally dependent on another recurring pattern. The recurring pattern has no objective universal significance on its own, but rather is given its universal significance by self-consciousness; the recurring pattern is universally significant only for self-consciousness. Reason does not just observe anything it senses and perceives, but only the sense-data that has a universal significance that is arbitrarily defined by self-consciousness - the ritualized behaviour of inorganic nature engaging in recurring patterns. The description of these patterns can apply to anything whatsoever. Reason cannot know whether it is objectively the describing the activity of inorganic nature, or whether it is projecting its own activity onto an inorganic nature which may in truth be pure contingency lacking any kind of necessity.

A nature of pure contingency is no nature at all, since it would lack any essential, self-same, and independent core. Without a universal substratum, nature cannot exist independently of the activity of self-conscious Reason. Conceding that nature is pure chance and contingency would undermine Reason's necessary assumption that the external world of inorganic nature is a self-same independent reality completely free of the creative activity of all self-conscious activity, sacred or profane. Reason realizes that the necessity of inorganic nature must exist on its own account, i.e. necessity is necessary.

On the other hand, Reason might be completely right in describing the entirety of inorganic nature in terms of recurring, mechanical, patterns. Here, nature is pure necessity, i.e. there exist no contingencies, everything is pre-determined. It would follow that the observations of Reason are also mechanistic and determined recurring patterns. The activity of self-conscious Reason would lack all independence from external reality. Divested of its own self-same independence, Reason would divest itself of the reconciliation between changeable and unchangeable that make the very activity of rational and objective observation possible. Its rationality would be irrational.

Thus, through observing recurring patterns in inorganic nature, Reason discovers the need for, yet cannot find a universally applicable and schematizable rule for establishing, the distinction between necessity and contingency in inorganic nature. Surrendering its will to the service of the universal produced the self-feeling of inner disruption for the unhappy consciousness. This dynamic recurs for Reason when it discovers that its description of recurring patterns accounts for the necessary aspects of inorganic nature contingently. The contingency of Reason's description are a direct product of self-conscious Reason's being confined to a contingent and particular living body - it cannot observe the totality of inorganic nature simultaneously. The universally applicable and schematizable rule that applies to self-conscious Reason is no longer the recurring patterns of its descriptions, but the individuality  of self-conscious Reason reconciled with the unchangeable and universally significant self-certitude of Reason.

Reason now observes inorganic nature in accordance with a new universally applicable and schematizable rule that emphasizes the individuality of the sense-data it observes that nevertheless exists in relation to an objective universal. Reason, therefore, emphasizes the recurring appearances of certain properties that relate to a thing. Recall from perception that properties are individual sense-impressions that have a universal significance and make a thing determinate and perceivable, allowing us to distinguish between one thing and another. Reason, therefore, seeks those properties of an inorganic thing that have a universal significance - distinguishing marks.

These distinguishing marks each have their own universal significance, with which Reason organizes inorganic matter and combines into groups and kinds in accordance to their commonly shared distinguishing marks. Reason engages in taxonomy.

The distinguishing marks of an individual denote the necessary, defining, substantial attribute of a thing - it is the thing's essential primary quality, which is a characteristic of a thing that exist in the thing itself independent of the activity of consciousness, and can be determined with certainty. Any other property, inessential secondary qualities, that belong to the thing can be attributed not to the thing itself, but to the activity of consciousness. Further, Reason relates each individual species of a thing to their own universality, a genus, in accordance to the primary qualities each kind of thing has in common. The recurring pattern has been reduced to finding bare similarities between one thing and another.

Reason distinguishes between essential objective properties of an inorganic substance and inessential subjective properties. The essential characteristics of a thing extend beyond the individual thing and make it a member of a class of things, a genus. Reason finds, however, that every class has an exception, as in, not all members of class A have quality B. The distinction that Reason has drawn between between essential and unessential is not in accordance to universally applicable and schematizable rule, as a recurring pattern or by engaging in taxonomy, but rather is arbitrary. The line it draws between essential and inessential is not necessarily inherent to the inorganic thing, since it finds that the thing itself does not distinguish itself from other things with the essential qualities Reason has assigned to it. The distinguishing mark that defines a thing, i.e. distinguishes that thing from other things, tends to vanish and become its opposite. It is not as stable as observing Reason first took it to be.

All properties are universal, and are thus related to infinity. Properties self-differentiate and become their own opposite. For example, the same matter that defines the solidity of a solid becomes the liquidity of a liquid. Force proper becomes force expressed, which in turn withdraws into itself and again becomes force proper, repeating this pattern ad infinitum. The world of appearances is in flux, self-differentiating. Reason identifies the notion of a stable and inert law that determinately describes the essential and necessary characteristic that defines objective inorganic nature - difference and change. The universally applicable and schematizable rule that Reason now turns to in order to establish a to circumscription between both the activity of self-conscious Reason and inorganic nature is a law that identifies simple difference in recurring patterns derived from the distinguishing marks of a thing.

What is necessary in inorganic nature becomes contingent, and what is contingent becomes necessary; what is essential becomes inessential, and what is inessential becomes essential. Reason attempts distinguishing between the necessary and unnecessary, essential and inessential, character of an inorganic thing by identifying its distinguishing marks, and associating the correlation between the inorganic thing and its distinguishing mark to a simple, self-distinguishing, lawlike universality, i.e. a number. Reason calculates probabilities and engages in making analogies between things and their distinguishing marks via mathematical functions.

The simple, lawlike, self-distinguishing while remaining in unity, character of numbers reflects the activity of self-consciousness as we continuously have seen. Reason identifies the distinguishing marks of an inorganic thing, and due to the self-distinguishing while remaining in unity character of a thing being reflected in numbers, so too do numbers reflect the activity of inorganic nature in flux. Numbers circumscribe both the activity of self-conscious Reason and the objective flux of inorganic nature. The laws of probability serve as the universally applicable and schematizable rules that bring the spheres of self-conscious activity and the flux of inorganic nature together, but keep them apart. Reason can even establish the rule that makes this kind of rulemaking essential and necessary: the flux of inorganic things, numbers, and self-conscious activity all share the same distinguishing mark of engaging in self-differentiation while remaining in unity - like becomes unlike, and unlike becomes like; law itself as inverted law makes law essential and necessary both for itself and for the recurring patterns it describes.

While having discovered the universalizing character of law and number, Reason can only make correlations between the distinguishing marks of a thing and its recurring appearance in relation to numerical probabilities, universals, with regards to what it has already observed in the past. Necessarily, the number of observations that Reason can make is finite, and every class of thing, even if they are brought together by laws of probability, has an exception. Thus, Reason associates the flux of inorganic matter to the inert stability of probabilistc laws with a degree of uncertainty.

The individual and particular living body of self-conscious Reason limits its capacity to make empirical observations. The activity of generating universal laws occurs within the strict confines of self-consciousness, which at some point in time must decay and die. These laws, already developed mathematically and ready for use, are imposed on the inorganic thing that may contingently possess the character of lawfulness. Probabilistic laws begin to develop in the activity of self-conscious Reason, and are applied to the empirical observations of the distinguishing marks of inorganic things post hoc.

The universal character of law inheres in its fluctuating tendency to differentiate itself from itself while remaining itself. As we saw in the section on understanding, a single law becomes a multiple collection of laws. Inorganic things are engaged in this same flux. The essential, necessary, and recurring distinguishing mark of an inorganic thing is its self-differentiating self-unity; a thing is a unity with many properties. Reason observes the thing with its essential and inessential properties. The inorganic thing is observed clothed in contingency, hiding the real, necessary, lawful, and essential distiguishing mark that underlies and defines it.

In order to grasp the essential and necessary character of the thing, Reason begins to unclothe the contingent qualities of a thing. An inorganic thing is related to itself, self-identical, self-differentiating by means of its own properties, which distinguish it from other inorganic things in its environment, which observing Reason also observes. The inorganic things that surround an inorganic thing are contigent. The essence of the thing is hidden by the contingent inorganic things that surround it. Reason modifies the environment in which the inorganic thing is immersed by setting up experiments in order to uncover the lawful nature of the inorganic thing.

Reason empirically observes and systematically keeps track of the character of the thing immersed in an environment that is continually purified of its extraneous, confounding, contingent character.

The particular kind sense-data available for empirical observation  can be anything whatsover, since observation is the activity of a free and independent self-conscious Reason. In seeking to purify the inorganic thing of all contingency, Reason experiments on the inorganic thing, purifying it of all contingency by modifying the environment in which the inorganic thing is immersed to grasp its lawful essence. The pure lawful essence of the thing has no sensible or perceivable qualities; Reason grasps it only through numbers, ratios, formulae, and geometrical relationships.

The laws of probability were produced within the confines of a rational self-conscious activity, and correlated to the distinguishing marks of inorganic things that self-conscious Reason empirically observes. The physical laws of nature are derived from purifying the empirically existing inorganic thing of contingencies, confounding and extraneous contaminents from the environment in which the inorganic thing is immersed, including any property that allows self-conscious Reason to directly perceive and sense the inoganic thing. Both kinds of law, each with their own distinct origins whence they developed, are expressed by means of mathematical language, so Reason instinctively conflates the two kinds of law. From that strange conflation emerges the strange science, i.e. quantum physics. We shall say nothing more on it.

Now, laws like the Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation, Coulomb's Law, Maxwell's Equations allow self-conscious Reason to account for the recurring, essential, necessary, distinguishing marks of a thing, regardless of what contingent environment in which the inorganic thing may be immersed. Having discovered the lawful character of inorganic nature's structure and composition, holding that an inorganic thing derives its lawful character from its structure and composition, Reason has with certitude uncovered the unobservable but necessary and essential distinguishing mark of all inorganic things - matter, i.e. the unities involving protons, electrons, neutrons, the subatomic particles of an atomic nucleus, energy, etc. While these are no longer observable with the senses, nevertheless underly all things in empirical reality.

The matter which composes the thing in some kind of structural permutation necessarily and essentially determines the character of the inorganic thing regardless of what environment in which it is immersed, regardless of the contingent sensible and perceivable qualities a thing may possess. The properties of an atom depend on the number of protons in its nucleus. Reason has discovered the lawful character of the inorganic thing and purified it of all contingency, leaving only necessity. The inorganic thing, according to this inorganic purified law is immersed in its environment, and free and independent of the confounding character of the environment.

The self-differentiating unity of number integrates, but differentiates, the self-differentiating unity of the inorganic thing and self-conscious Reason. However, Reason cannot distinguish the moments of the purely conceptual dynamic just mentioned in the previous paragraph due to its stubborn and instinctive preference for empirical observation. Indeed, in order to fully establish the rationality of inorganic nature, Reason must conflate the three terms of the syllogism: number, inorganic activity, and conscious activity. Reason empirically observes a quantifiable thing that is immersed in its environment while being completely free and independent of it that is purely, and metaphysically, necessary for itself, i.e. the source of its own motion. Reason observes organic nature.

Reason Observing Organic Nature

Having conflated inorganic matter, number, and the activity of consciousness, Reason observes an object that combines all three of these qualities. Reason observes organic matter empirically, and the domain in which all organic matter subsists is organic nature. Organic nature, like inorganic nature, is bereaved of all self-conscious activity, yet Reason will again attempt to establish universally applicable and schematizable rules that circumscribe both the activity of self-conscious Reason and organic nature.

Reason treats organic matter no differently than inorganic matter, and thus, the same purified laws that Reason derived from the structure and composition of inorganic matter apply to organic matter. Like inorganic matter, organic matter is immersed in an environment composed of other organic matter as well as inorganic matter, yet is free and independent of it. The structure and composition of organic matter alone determines the schematic development of organic matter, undisturbed by the contaminating and confounding influence of the environment in which the organic matter is immersed. The nature of this development is best expressed by the morphology of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Self-conscious Reason, i.e. Goethe, observes the manner in which plants, composed of organic matter, develop.
The structure of the plant can be considered as a transforma-
tion of a single fundamental organ in accordance to internal laws of organization embedded in the self-same unity of the seed. Animals also develop in a similar manner to plants; one should take immediate notice that the development of self-consciousness up this point exactly follows the development of any kind of organic matter.

Reason discovers that the activity of consciousness is necessarily and essentially an organic activity, confined by the limits of a living body, immersed in an environment composed of organic and inorganic matter. Organic matter grows; the growth of an individual animal or plant depends for its preservation on nutrition; organic matter decays and dies; the preservation of a species depends on reproduction, asexual or sexual. Inorganic matter does not grow, develop, or reproduce in the same way that organic matter does. Thus, the scope of the universally applicable and schematizable laws that describe inorganic matter is too narrow to provide an objective, empirical, and rational account of the development, growth, and reproduction of organic matter. Self-conscious Reason must expand the scope of the universally applicable and schematizable purified law which it has found through experimentation. This expanded law must circumscribe the spheres of organic nature and inorganic nature, bringing them together but keeping them apart, it must account for the development and growth of organic nature; and in addition to circumscribing the two spheres of nature, it must circumscribe them and the activity of self-conscious Reason, keeping these three spheres together but keeping them apart.

Organic nature is held apart from inorganic nature, i.e. organic matter is immersed in an environment composed of inorganic and organic matter, yet is free and independent of it. For self-conscious Reason, the physical space occupied by an individual composed of organic matter, i.e. a cell, and the environment in which it is immersed are mutually exclusive. Each space operates in accordance to different laws. The mutual exclusivity between the two spaces is nevertheless a kind of relation, even if so far the relation has been conceived as an empty space where organic matter and the environment it is immersed in do not overlap. Self-conscious Reason, i.e Goethe, notices that the complete separation of the organism and its environment is an abstraction, writing that "the [organism] is formed by external conditions for external conditions." The environment does influence the development of the organism. The organism desires to consume organic matter immersed in the environment, without which the growth and development of the organism would not be possible.

That the organism is composed of organic and inorganic matter and is completely free of the environment is an abstraction which has its source in self-conscious Reason's conflation of number, inorganic matter, and self-conscious activity. The contingent conditions of the environment in which the organism, composed of organic and inorganic matter, is immersed have an influence on the development of the organism. The physical structure and composition of the organism, therefore, while it determines the schematic development of the organism in accordance to internal laws of organization present in the organism since its having been conceived through some kind of sexual union, nevertheless is dependent on the physical structure and composition of the environment in which it is immersed. The configuration of the environment is contigent, and being composed of inorganic matter, has recurring patterns and distinguishing marks. It has weather patterns, a climate, various kinds of inorganic matter of which the environment can be composed, which can be taxonomized into different kinds: rainforest, desert, tundra, parkland, oceans, rivers, air, etc.  

Like all inorganic matter, whose defining essence is flux, the environment undergoes change: climate, the physical composition of organic and inorganic matter that constitute it, etc. Being immersed amidst this flux of the environment's physical structure and composition, the physical structure and composition of the organism must fluctuate in response. The organism must adapt in order to preserve itself as an individual. Since the organism undergoes growth and development in accordance to the fluctuating, altering and alterable, internal laws of organization of the seed, i.e. its genes, as well as the manner in which it adapts to the fluctuating environment, the organism must also decay and die. Like the external environment, the organism's defining essence is flux. The individual preserves itself as a member of a genus through reproduction, transferring the internal laws of organization that allowed it to preserve itself as individual and as a member of a genus, to its offspring. The units by which it accomplishes this transfer is its genes. The organism engages in and emerges from the activity of natural selection.

What in my day has come to be called the theory of natural selection has retained the renown of a law of the same calibre of physical laws such as Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation. Newton's law states that all matter, by virtue of having mass, attracts other matter inversely proportional to the distance between to masses squared times a constant. Any mass, on any given planet, with any given planetary mass, will fall with a definite acceleration. The physical/chemical structure and composition of any kind of inorganic matter is determinately connected to the behaviour of that kind of inorganic matter. The theory of natural selection vaguely points on what kind of behaviour an organism tends towards, it cannot say with certitude  what organism A will do at a point in space <x,y,z> at time t. In the same way Newton's mechanics describe with certitude the recurring patterns of aspects of inorganic nature, the theory of natural selection points out the recurring patterns of aspects of organic nature. There is no essential reason behind the recurring patterns natural selection, except the mindless, algorithmic, struggle for self-preservation and the propogation of an individual's genetic line. There is no necessity in the products of natural selection, but pure contingency. Even the emergence of the very self-conscious Reason that produced and made possible the emergence of the very theory of natural selection from a self-conscious activity is a contingency. Thus, any necessity that such a theory ascribes to itself is cancelled by the contingency it proudly takes credit for.

The schematic development of an organism in accordance to internal organization of the organism's genetic code, the very unit that justifies the veracity of natural selection, has an essential character to it. The genetic code contains the essential characteristics of the organism, determining which distinguishing marks the organism that develops therefrom shall exhibit. In seeking a law that circumscribes both the spheres of organic and inorganic nature, Reason now holds that the environment in which the organism is immersed also determines the distinguishing marks that the organism develops through adaptation and exhibits. The enivornment is identical to a gene. Montesquieu exhibits this idea when he writes in The Spirit of the Laws:

"Cold air constringes the extremities of the external fibres of the body; this increases their elasticity, and favours the return of the blood from the extreme parts to the heart. It contracts those very fibres; consequently it increases also their force. On the contrary, warm air relaxes and lengthens the extremes of the fibres; of course it diminishes their force and elasticity."

Cold air makes organisms strong, warm air weak. The very character of the organism is determined by the character of the environment. Tundra necessitates that the organism develop fur, the ocean necessitates that the organism develop fins, scales, and gills, the air necessitates that organisms develop feathers and wings, etc. By binding the distinguishing marks of an environment with the distinguishing marks of an organism, self-conscious Reason engages in developing two distinct taxonomies, one of the environment, the other of the organism, and combines them. This genetic binding of taxonomies has the appearance being a lawlike union, complete with deductions starting with the inorganic matter of the environment and ending with the organic matter of the organism, without actually being a law. That physical inorganic matter has mass and is separated from other inorganic matter by a distance necessitates  gravitational pull, and vice versa. The presence of a north pole necessitates the presence of the south, and vice versa. The presence of positive charge necessitates the presence of negative, and vice versa. The presence of fur does not necessitate the presence of tundra; the presence of fins, gills, and scales do not necessitate the presence of ocean; the presence of wings does not necessitate the presence of air, etc. The organism is not bound to its environment in the same way that matter is bound to gravitational and electrical forces, but is free to migrate. No organism that migrates from its environment takes its environment with it; no furred animal migrating from the tundra to an environment with warmer climate takes the tundra with it.

The organism takes with it only the influence the environment has had on the development of its physical/chemical structure and composition. It is immersed in its environment, is influenced by it at a molecular and atomic level, but is not determined by it. The organism is free and independent of its environment, it is self-determining and engages in purposive activity linked to its own growth and development. This purposive activity is influenced by the environment it happens to be immersed in; although the environmental influence is not absolutely determining, it is constraining. The lack of water in a desert constrains the animal's desire to satisfy its thirst. The universally applicable rule and schematizable rule that circumscribes both organic and inorganic natures is no longer an absolutely determinative mechanistic physical law, but a teleology.

Inorganic matter, an inanimate substance, cannot provide a teleological purpose to the activity of an organism composed of organic matter, an animated subject. The environment composed of inorganic matter constrains the organism that develops, grows, is free to engage in the motion of its limbs while its body stays in one place and to engage in locomotion from one place to another within the same environment, or from one environment to another. Its motion follows specific rules, and is constrained by the geometric configuration of its limbs, i.e. the human forearm rotates about the elbow joint a maximum range of approximately 135° on a single plane from its fully expanded position. In order to engage in locomotion, the feet and arms of a human must oscillate like an alternating double pendulum, simultaneously producing enough force to keep the human body upright, as well as propel it forward with the help of the static friction force between the ground and the feet. To increase its speed, the human must lower the length of its limbs, pendulums, when running. Thus, it bends its arms and legs while swinging.

Locomotion methods are developed from the constraints an environment imposes on an organism; they are mechanistic and are bound by the mathematical and physical laws of inorganic nature. The organism teleomatically obeys rules that are external to it; rules that it neither chooses nor designs, nor comprehends without the most rudimentary capacity for intellect as it emerges in the understanding. In my day, the teleomatic constraints that inorganic matter imposes on organisms can be used to promote the growth and development of a specific kind of body, with a specific kind of structure and composition.

While engaging in motion and locomotion, the organism undergoes growth and development which requires nutrition. Regarding the human organism, Thomas Huxley writes:

"A living, active man constantly does mechanical work, gives off heat, evolves carbonic acid and water, and undergoes a loss of substance.

Plainly, this state of things could not continue for an unlimited period, or the man would dwindle to nothing. But long before the effects of this gradual diminution of substance become apparent to a bystander, they are felt by the subject of the experiment in the form of the two imperious sensations called hunger and thirst. To still these cravings, to restore the weight of the body to its former amount, to enable it to continue giving out heat, water, and carbonic acid, at the same rate, for an indefinite period, it is absolutely necessary that the body should be supplied with each of three things, and with three only. These are, firstly, fresh air; secondly, drink - consisting of water in some shape or other, however much it may be adulterated; thirdly food. That compound known to chemists as proteid matter, and which contains carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, must form a part of this food, if it is to sustain life indefinitely; and fatty, starchy, or saccharine, i.e. carbohydrate matters, together with a certain amount of salts, ought to be contained in the food, if it is to sustain life conveniently."

The organism feels the absolute necessity of hydrating itself and keeping itself fed. It is internally driven by the imperatives of its living body to engage in rule governed procedural behaviour in order to fulfill an absolutely necessary purpose. The organism, as an activity of consciousness, neither chooses nor comprehends these drives. They are external to the organism, and are as immutable to it as are the mathematical and physical laws that deterministically govern nature. In engaging in purpose-driven behaviour, the organism acts teleonomically.

Teleological behaviour involves a purpose which an organism imposes on itself as a free and independent self-consciousness, where it sets goals for itself beyond engaging in mere nutrition and hydration, and engages in teleonomic purpose driven and teleomatic rule governed behaviour in order to satisfy said self-imposed goals. If the organism happens to be an estranged self-consciousness like the unhappy consciousness, its internal teleology appears to be an external teleology, where the organism as changeable sees itself as an artifact of a divine, unchangeable Creator. Self-conscious Reason, however, is not self-divided, but reconciled with itself. As an activity of self-consciousness, it sets a purpose for itself, and then acts via purpose-driven behaviour to actualize that self-imposed purpose.

The purpose which the organism sets for itself, as a free and independent self-consciousness, is predicated upon its freedom and independence as a self-conscious organism, i.e. the external environment does not determine for the organism what purpose it is to set for itself. The act of setting a purpose for oneself is, in other words, self-caused. It is motion where the organism causes itself to move in a kind of motion that may in accord with its own nature, or may be contrary to its own nature - the organism is free and independent of its environment; it may show itself to be free and independent of itself. Man may will himself to fly.

The organism sets a purpose for itself as an end, i.e. final cause. However, this end is not beyond the reach of the organism, but rather is present to it as soon as it sets this purpose for itself as a plan, i.e. formal cause. The end is present in the beginning. The beginning is an end that is not yet realized. The end, whether it is in accord to the present nature of the organism or not, is present as design. The organism is an artefact for itself, and engages in certain kinds of activity via purpose driven, rule-governed behaviour that will allow it to bring about and manifest its teleological purpose for itself.

This kind of activity is supposed to distinguish organic nature, inorganic nature, and self-conscious Reason, while circumscribing them. It is supposed to be universally applicable to all organisms, inorganic matter, and self-conscious Reason. It is supposed to be a necessary and schematizable activity. Thus, the end which the organism seeks must be universal.

But the organism is present to observation only as a particular individual organism. Reason cannot observe a universal individual. Any "universal" end that a particular individual sets for itself, an activity that is predicated on the individual's free and independent activity as an organism primarily concerned with its self-preservation, whether of itself qua individual via eating and drinking, or of itself qua member of a genus via sexual/asexual reproduction, turns out to be a particular end directed towards these things just mentioned. No organism can aspire towards a universal end that does not involve said organism.

The activity of an individual organism, to propagate itself as individual or member of a genus, begins and ends with the individual. This activity terminates once the life of the individual organism terminates. In the same way that the observation of recurring patterns in inorganic nature does not by itself show the reason behind those recurring patterns, so too does observing an organism engage in purposive activity not by itself show the reason behind that purposive activity.

To find the rationality behind the purposive activity of the organism, self-conscious Reason makes a distinction between its self-imposed internal purpose, and external purpose-driven, rule-governed behaviour which the organism must engage in due to the constraints of its environment in order to achieve this internal purpose. The self-imposed internal purpose of the organism is its intention, and the external purpose-driven behaviour that alters the living body of the organism and the environment that it is immersed in and constrains it is the consequence. Self-conscious Reason divides organic and inorganic, into inner and outer, and proclaims that the outer is the expression of the inner.