Red, White & Black

BODIES do not only fall toward each other, they also cease falling. A theory of gravity should explain both of these mysteries, and it should do so based solely on a single albeit complex mystery, a single yet complex principle, a single but extremely complex belief. Hence the word gravity should connote not only falling but also standing (or, you might say, rising), not only black holes but also atoms, not only unity but also multiplicity — and most deeply it should connote the spiritual. But, we should ask, what are the bodies — the substances, the real things — that are at once falling and standing (or rising, as it were, á la the Phoenix)? Following Leibniz we have little choice but to recognize these bodies as souls, i.e. particles (quanta) of experience. Each soul is unique; nevertheless each is in relation with all the others; and the number of souls is best considered infinite. Leibniz thought these units must be monads, each a sort of monarchy. I think they must be pleiads, each a crudescence of the whole cosmos, each consisting not only of itself but influenced by and structurally (physically) resonant with all others. Indeed, I will argue that our understanding of merely physical objects — i.e. of the structure of experience rather than experience itself — should be derived from this principle of plenitude, a holistic and holographic principle of the extreme relation of real things. Such principle, I assert, is the ultimate principle of relativity. My Gravity trilogy is based only upon this truly general principle.

Falling, rising, generality, difference, relation. These are extremely profound notions; people for countless millennia have naturally meditated upon them. Indeed via mythology and etymology we will discover — or reconstruct — the original and in fact prehistoric theory of quantum gravity, i.e. the prehistoric theory of everything. Likewise we will learn that this antique Holy Grail, if you will, interfaces naturally with the theory of everything nascent in our contemporary world. In the process we will recognize that we owe as much or more to the likes of James Joyce as to the likes of Leibniz and Einstein.

Note that the principle of relativity involves a fundamental trinity: unity, separation, and plenitude. Indeed, physics, mythology and in turn history are precisely understandable in terms of this trinity. Perhaps the most beautiful and seemingly the most common set of terms which mythology — or mytho-logic, as I like to call it — attaches to this trinity consists of the colors white, red and black, respectively. In the 1960s, American linguists Brent Berlin and Paul Kay studied the universality and evolution of basic color terms in eighty-eight diverse languages. They discovered that the least embellished languages, those spoken by the bushmen of southern Africa and the aborigines of Australia, had distinct color-words for white, red and black only. Moreover, these colors alone were common to all those eighty-eight languages.

To emphasize the exceeding symbolic importance of these colors, I henceforth render their names in capital letters. Of this trinity, the Black is the most important. The Black is reality: existence, facticity, the supposed plenum, the set of others, the matrix — what I call the “Present Mother” and the “Baroque.” The Black’s attributes include passion, pain and pan(ness) as well as the cognate passivity, peace and patience. The White and the Red are rather ideal — and by this word I mean conceptual — in comparison.

The White begins from the notion of simple unity. Which is to say, the White emphasizes continuity — as in evolution, continuum physics, e.g. field physics, and as in whole number mathematics coupled to the concept of zero. Hence the White attempts to achieve a monadic, monarchic, autonomous, progressive, pure, simple, free existence (i.e. free from the influence of others). The White is analytical rather than wise, epic rather than romantic, linear rather than circular, otherworldly rather than this-worldly. The White idolizes ideas, concepts, knowledge. The chief concept employed by the White is the concept of space, i.e. space-as-container, outer space. The White conceives of its separations in terms of space: the separation of one mind from another, i.e. the localization of mind in terms of space and matter, yet the White program aims to reduce to space the description of matter. Likewise the White asserts the utter incommensurablity (and in this sense the simple duality) of minds and physics — although the White aims to reduce Mind (in the singular), i.e. God, to space/physics/Nature. In this sense the White believes that reality is essentially comprehensible but that no mind (and hence no set thereof) — i.e. no mere facet of Mind/God/Nature — can possibly comprehend it perfectly. Hence the White does not believe that a truly final physics can ever be achieved. Spinoza remains the chief philosopher of the White, while Newton, Einstein and Schrödinger remain its chief physicists. The White does not believe in irreducible complexity, i.e. in quantumness, hierarchy, archetypes, destiny. Neither does the White believe in intuition, for intuition implies real, magical yet commensurate relation to others. … In accord with Nietzsche’s early classic The Birth of Tragedy, and for reasons that will herein become clear, I alternatively call the White the “Apollonian.” Apollo was the god of distance.

The Red, conversely, begins from the complex notion of multeity-in-unity, i.e. from the principle of (real, magical, commensurate) relativity. In a word, the Red begins with the end; it is cyclic, or, better put, quasi-cyclic; temporally as well as numerically quantum. Hence the Red, in marked contrast to the White, understands choice by way of emphasizing intuition over analysis, wisdom (which means “turning, cyclic”) over knowledge, destiny over mere chance, hierarchy over mere equivalence-become-identity, archetypes over vanishingly different aspects, liberty (implying bondage) over mere freedom. Yet the Red thus subsumes the White. Leibniz remains the chief philosopher of the Red, while Bohr and Heisenberg remain its chief physicists. As I suggested above, Red mathematics is complex, holistic, fractal, non-whole number, fundamentally quantum. Likewise the ultimate Red physics is essentially non-local and final. The archetypes of myth correspond to such mathematics and physics. … Again following Nietzsche, I alternatively refer to the Red as the “Dionysian.” Dionysus was a god not only of intuition but also of the (Black) forest. He was a broken yet resurrected god, a god of cycles. God of the vin, he is Finn. God of the tree, he is Three. God of the forest, he is Pan. Finesse, finality, multeity-in-unity, non-locality (i.e. acausality, ubiquity): these are his accidental qualities.

The White/Apollonian embraces the simple. The Red/Dionysian embraces the complex, the messy — in hopes of understanding its beauty, i.e. its combination of order and variety. The White believes in a cosmic war of Good versus Evil — destined to be won (if never finally) by Good. The Red believes that Good and Evil are better considered a fundamental, irreducible duality. Thus the Red not only affirms the carnal, the here-and-now, but considers this middle ground of sorts more profound, more holy, than anything else — even, we might fairly say, more holy than God, for God accordingly remains but a member of the set of others, albeit the greatest/limiting member, and therefore is an object of faith/belief/principle rather than an identified soul. Such God is neither self-sufficient nor creative. Rather such God is but another person, to use the word in its most general sense, and is thus very much indeed like a father or mother.

Given the ideal nature of both the White/Apollonian and the Red/Dionysian, we may call each a paradigm. Yet we will do well to consider these the most natural paradigms of all, and we should recognize that the White/Apollonian is more ideal, more paradigmatic than is the Red/Dionysian.

Because these paradigms are so natural, each entity — whether a person, a business, an industry, a government, or a religion — fundamentally subsribes to both, yet each entity is paradigmatically either chiefly White or chiefly Red. Christianity, for example, is chiefly Red/Dionysian, but within it the Protestants are White relative to the Roman Catholics (i.e. the orthodoxy), and likewise the evangelical Apocalyptic Christian is White relative to the the common Christian. Generally speaking, Christianity is a re-expression of the prehistoric pagan, Red/Dionysian cosmology but under the tremendous influence of White/Apollonian Zoroastrianism. Islam, by way of contrast, is chiefly White/Apollonian, but within it the Sunnis are Red relative to the Shiites, and likewise the Islamic evangelicals/extremists are White relative to the common Muslim.

Not only do extremes meet, as Red/Dionysian William Blake said, but there are also natural affinities between all entities. In a word, there is natural peace to be recognized between all entities. What’s more, according to the truly general principle of relativity there is the general peace — the absolute relativity, the absolute interconnectedness, the absolute co-existence — between all souls.

Mythology tends to represent the White/Apollonian paradigm in terms of a youngest sibling (often of twins): a rather naïve upstart, a warrior, masculine, the prodigal son, decidedly free and at least in this sense pure, but eventually to be empowered and wounded/humbled/corrupted/experienced, i.e. sacrificed (cuckolded, for instance) and thus transformed into a complex, complete, relatively feminine, Red/Dionysian figure. Meanwhile the Red/Dionysian is represented in terms of an eldest sibling. This relatively mature figure is typically a poet, a priest, a wizard, a guide, a trickster, a cad (as in caduceus), even a villain.

In a sense, then, the Red/Dionysian character is not only mature and powerful but a falling/fallen character in contrast to an ascending/ascended White/Apollonian character. But merely White/Apollonian ascension is a sort of extreme separation which meets extreme unity. Red/Dionysian descension is a closing of a circle involving ascension/separation; its unity is complex, a magical equality of unity and multiplicity.

Despite the distinct differences I’ve pointed out between the White/Apollonian, the Red/Dionysian and the Black/Baroque, each of these aspects reference what I call the “Absent Father,” i.e. God, Allah, Brahman. The Absent Father is the ultimate White/Apollonian figure. He stands singularly and extremely distant from the rest of the cosmos, which set of others (the rest of the pleiads) may all but fundamentally be considered His creation. That creation is Red/Dionysian in the sense that it is equivalent to the self-sacrifice of the Absent Father. This equivalence implies 3 components: White absence (above, as it were), Black absence (below), and Red tangible presence (inbetween): White = Red = Black. Really, however, the Black/Baroque matrix includes the Absent Father as the single greatest soul (pleiad). In this sense the Absent Father, too, is fallen, Red/Dionysian, demiurgic. As such, the notion of creation is superfluous, merely ideal, and we are left with the Leibnizian, Existentialist notion of a com-union of souls (i.e. real quanta) that are best considered as existing concomitantly with each other rather than as creations. Although the Absent Father is considered the single greatest soul and is precisely inasmuch the Absolute, He is precisely less than the whole set of souls, which whole set may be called the Present Mother. Absent Father and Present Mother are contrasting but inseparable, like White/Apollonian and Red/Dionysian, like particle and wave in orthodox quantum physics.

The only complete and consistent appreciation of the White, Red, Black trinity is the perennial philosophy I call the Golden/Legal. (Leibniz coined the term “perennial philosophy” and it was famously expounded upon by Aldous Huxley.) The Golden/Legal philosophy naturally accommodates both the antique and the presently nascent theories of everything (i.e. of quantum gravity). This philosophy is more than a paradigm, in the sense that it is the only paradigm capable of truly addressing the Black/Baroque. I hinted at this philosophy when I described the holistic nature and holographic essence of the true principle of relativity and when I emphasized the natural affinities — peaces — between all entities.

In Albrecht Altdorfer’s famous little painting “Saint George in the Forest” we see the Golden/Legal philosophy referenced precisely in terms of White, Red and Black. The silver-armored knight St. George is seated on his white horse while prodding — but not killing — with lance a rather lowly red dragon of oddly human size, both figures all but overwhelmed in a deep, dark, primeval forest nevertheless opening in the distance onto a bright, golden landscape.

As the legend of St. George goes, a kingdom was plagued by a dragon blowing poisonous, fiery breath and requiring sheep be sacrificed daily to its terrible maw. Eventually the king’s store of sheep was exhausted by this demand. Therefore the king had no choice but to offer to the dragon human sacrifices instead. Before long the king’s own daughter drew the short stick in this horrible respect, prompting a certain young George, significantly young and of rather lowly birth, to ride forth, lance the dragon — but again I stress, not kill it — and collar the beast with the princess’s girdle.

This legend involves a rather unfortunate but very natural historical twist which I, following Joseph Campbell, refer to as the “Great Reversal”: an especially severe and enduring yet doomed White/Apollonian represssion/simplification of the Red/Dionysian. The Great Reversal is of a kind fundamental to the Golden/Legal philosophy, but it is an extreme and inasmuch rather unhealthy instance of such reversal. In the next chapter we will trace this especially extensive and still lingering but nevertheless profoundly mordant repression to its beginnings in the 4th century BCE.

Of course the elemental mythological trinity White–Red–Black — where the cyclical progression, in contrast to merely White/Apollonian linearity, is from White to Red to Black and so on — calls to mind among myriad theological trinities the Christian trinities Father–Son–Holy Ghost, spirit–soul–body, God–angels–people, and Father–Son–Mother. It also recalls the Islamic trinity angels–jinn–people. According to the Qur’ân, angels are made of light, jinn of fire, people of clay; Satan, Iblis, is described as an especially powerful jinn. The Black–White–Red further corresponds to the early Gothic maxim: “God hath shapen lives three,/Boor and knight and priest they be.” Likewise we are reminded of the plebes, consuls, and senators of Rome; Black, White, and Red, respectively. According to Greek mythology the hero Theseus introduced federal government to Athens, which had otherwise been divided into 12 nearly autonomous communities that occasionally warred with each other; and in so doing he recognized precisely 3 classes within the happily burgeoning population: the Demiurges or “artificers,” by far the most numerous (Black); the Georges or “farmers” (each farm being characteristically autonomous, a little monarchy); and the Eupatrids, who managed law and religion and enjoyed the highest status. Medieval society emerged upon a similar tripartite footing: peasants, monarchs, and aristocrats; Black, White, and Red, respectively. Hence we have the British House of Commons, the Royals, and the House of Lords. Hence too we have the United States of America’s House of Representatives, the White House, and the Senate. The role of the aristocrats/senators is Red in the sense that it represents a profound middle, an extremely heroic balance between multiplicity and unity, a radical conservatism. Generally the federal government of the U.S.A. is addressable in terms of the people, the executive branch, and the legislative branch (including the judicial): Black, White, Red. Note, however, that the Commander in Chief, the President of the U.S.A. — as the very title President suggests — is rendered a complex, Red/Dionysian figure, more a high priest than a warrior king, more Red than White, for that officer is profoundly and significantly lamed, sacrificed, as it were, from the start. (Likewise as the Middle Ages developed and concomitantly the mediating power of the aristocrats and in turn the gentry rose, kings increasingly took on the signifance of priests.)

In this deep, complex but likewise extremely precise sense the United States of America is in fact a theocracy. …

A note regarding humility and theory:

James Joyce once commented about his artistic production, “I have a grocer’s assistant’s mind,” and “I have learnt to arrange things in such a way that they become easy to survey and to judge.” His father exclaimed about him, “If that fellow was dropped in the middle of the Sahara, he’d sit, be God, and make a map of it.” The Gravity trilogy is my map, an ironically personal cosmic cheat sheet. Yet I think you will find this device remarkably useful.

Near the beginning of his Summing Up, Somerset Maugham writes:

If in the following pages I seem to express myself dogmatically, it is only because I find it very boring to qualify every phrase with an 'I think' or 'to my mind.' Everything I say is merely an opinion of my own. The reader can take it or leave it. If he has the patience to read what follows he will see that there is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain.

This passage largely expresses the way I feel about the Gravity trilogy. Still I recognize — and I expect my readers to do the same — that a theorist is obligated to postulate, to eventually present at least a single postulate as if it is simply true, and to build his/her theory as much as possible on the minimum number and simplest expression of such postulates. These foundational postulates are what we call principles. Good science is ultimately reckless in this deepest, principled sense. Aldous Huxley in his Literature and Science notes the same with respect to literature, pointing out “the ultimate magic — the magic of what might be called verbal recklessness.” Principles are the highest codification of magic. A theorist is a poet. Yet contrariwise Maugham says, "to write good prose is an affair of good manners.” I intend my writing to be an appropriate and pleasing balance between the poetry of theory and the prose of practical discourse, i.e. between the unexpected and expected. Similarly I intend this book to express the fact that I respect my readers and that I feel humble in relation to them as individuals and as members of their communities and nations (civic and religious).

Nevertheless I dare invite you to step aboard my black ship and join me in the odyssey at hand …