“Because we exist within light, and can only perceive by means of light, we can only measure the two-way speed of light — that is, the speed of light as it travels a full circuit from the original point of our subjective perspective (point A) to another point (point B) and back to our original point of subjective perspective (point A). The objective perspective necessary to measure light traveling in one direction from just a point A to a point B could only be accessible to the one who said “Let there be light” in the first place.”
A related question I have had is whether light can coherently be said to “travel” at all. Phenomenologically, light is instantaneously pervasive and even the Theory of Special Relativity indicates that at the speed of light, time dilation is infinite, if I understand this correctly, and hence cannot travel in principle.
Which kind of light are we talking about? There's uncreated light, noetic light, and material light — all of which are bound up together symbolically and hierarchically, I believe, in the mystery of Christ, He who is both God and man, man being both breath and dust. I think we can say that material light does travel. The two-way speed of light is well attested to experimentally, that is, in the realm of the senses. Einstein did no experiments; he was a theoretical physicist. His equations exist in the realm of the mind and rely on using the two-way speed of light where the one-way speed of light is called for, Einstein admitting this substitution as a convention, aware that science has never measured the one-way speed of light.
You may very well be right to question whether noetic light travels, but if we inspect the hierarchical unity of the universe in Christ, and the way that noetic and material light are related to each other in their respective operations, it may be that noetic light does in fact travel. It travels, that is, in the form of material light. It's like asking if a human soul has gender. Gender is rooted in the body. Does that mean the soul is genderless? If you're conscious of how the human soul and body relate hypostatically, you'd never answer that question affirmatively. The soul is not genderless any more than it's bodiless (it's neither). According to this pattern of how the immaterial and material realms interpenetrate each other in their energies, it may very well be proper to say that noetic light travels ... in the form of material light.
(A phenomenological perspective is not going to understand this properly due to its dialectical opposition to dualism obfuscating the nature of cosmic hierarchy. Phenomenology is to the classic Western dualism it's rebelling against as miaphysitism is to Nestorianism.)
Hm, well, I've reread your question, and I'm not sure how else I'd respond. As I understand it, you're asking about light not as it's observed scientifically, but how it's thought of in theory, "in principle", according to a noesis proper to the immaterial realm. But light is also a material phenomenon with materialistic properties observable by materialistic means. I wouldn't think that either of these two layers of reality would nullify the other. Perhaps you would argue there is something unreal about the scientific perspective? I could maybe be persuaded by that.
First, science has a way of appropriating words designating phenomena (i.e. accessible to everyday experience) and then stipulating abstruse and technical definitions for them that tacitly situates them outside of what could ever be experienced. "Light" is one example among countless others. But let it be noted that in every case, the scientific definition is parasitic on the conventional one because otherwise scientists would have no way of knowing how to focus their microscopes, as it were. Nothing about the definition of photons explains how light can ferry visual images between beings. You wrote that "light is also a material phenomenon with materialistic properties observable by materialistic means" and I agree with you. And the same thing should properly be said about the human person, howbeit we shouldn't let scientists tell us, as they are wont to do, that the human person is only what they are capable of studying. Schiller has my preferred enunciation of this point:
“Of your myriad suns and nebulae, tease me not with your amount,
Is Nature only mighty that she presents what you can count?”
Next, vis-a-vis the question of light travelling: per the Special Theory of Relativity, at near relativistic speeds, time dilates towards infinity relative to an inertial reference frame. The result is that light, travelling at the speed proper to itself, cannot be said to travel at all because it would traverse all of space without time having elapsed for it. It seems to me that when we measure "the speed of light," by the logic of this theory, we are measuring something about our own inertial reference frame. As I'm typing this out, the parallel with Kantianism is striking. Anyway, I look forward to hear your thought about this.
In the first part, I am skeptical of the phenomenological approach you’re implicitly employing when referring to human experience. Anything that would exclude ratiocination as unnatural to human experience doesn’t seem right, does it? It would seem to have us condense human experience to sensual experience and instinct based thereon, as if any discursive calculation were an inhuman deviation. Heaven and earth aren’t connecting properly in this approach, symbolically speaking. Phenomenology, in my experience, tends to condense all such heaven-and-earth dualities in artificial, self-contradictorily dialectical ways that are harmful to understanding — if relatively helpful in spotting the flaws in heterodox dualisms. (This is why I compare it to miaphysitism.)
In the second part, I’m uncertain of the authority of the point you’re ostensibly making, that light doesn’t travel, when it is based on the “abstruse and technical definitions” that you seem to exclude from human experience in your first part. Or is your point merely that it is nonsensical to talk about measuring the one-way speed of light when, by its own abstruse and technical standards, no such thing exists? If so, do you deny the existence of a two-way speed of light?
I accept your perception that I have failed to answer your question. But I’m curious: Do I appear confused to you? Or has what I’ve said made sense on its own terms, and it’s merely the case that I’m talking past you, not grasping the ideas you’re raising?
I agree with your article’s conclusion that science’s attempts to age the universe based on its understanding of starlight are misguided. I think science fundamentally cannot understand how light works.
thanks for the comment. I think it makes little sense to continue the exchange here because we are using this apparent disagreement about light as a proxy for divergent epistemological departure points. in short, I don't think the dichotomy, as you have framed it, holds up, viz. sensual experience versus ratiocination. but you are in the company of plenty of intelligent people who do and I thoroughly appreciate the work you do so keep it up.
This is awesome, Cormac. Thank you as always
A lovely reflection, great choice of icons
Thank you. Beautiful essay! And yes God can and will lead us and guide us if we ask
“Because we exist within light, and can only perceive by means of light, we can only measure the two-way speed of light — that is, the speed of light as it travels a full circuit from the original point of our subjective perspective (point A) to another point (point B) and back to our original point of subjective perspective (point A). The objective perspective necessary to measure light traveling in one direction from just a point A to a point B could only be accessible to the one who said “Let there be light” in the first place.”
A related question I have had is whether light can coherently be said to “travel” at all. Phenomenologically, light is instantaneously pervasive and even the Theory of Special Relativity indicates that at the speed of light, time dilation is infinite, if I understand this correctly, and hence cannot travel in principle.
Can light coherently be said to "travel" at all?
Which kind of light are we talking about? There's uncreated light, noetic light, and material light — all of which are bound up together symbolically and hierarchically, I believe, in the mystery of Christ, He who is both God and man, man being both breath and dust. I think we can say that material light does travel. The two-way speed of light is well attested to experimentally, that is, in the realm of the senses. Einstein did no experiments; he was a theoretical physicist. His equations exist in the realm of the mind and rely on using the two-way speed of light where the one-way speed of light is called for, Einstein admitting this substitution as a convention, aware that science has never measured the one-way speed of light.
You may very well be right to question whether noetic light travels, but if we inspect the hierarchical unity of the universe in Christ, and the way that noetic and material light are related to each other in their respective operations, it may be that noetic light does in fact travel. It travels, that is, in the form of material light. It's like asking if a human soul has gender. Gender is rooted in the body. Does that mean the soul is genderless? If you're conscious of how the human soul and body relate hypostatically, you'd never answer that question affirmatively. The soul is not genderless any more than it's bodiless (it's neither). According to this pattern of how the immaterial and material realms interpenetrate each other in their energies, it may very well be proper to say that noetic light travels ... in the form of material light.
(A phenomenological perspective is not going to understand this properly due to its dialectical opposition to dualism obfuscating the nature of cosmic hierarchy. Phenomenology is to the classic Western dualism it's rebelling against as miaphysitism is to Nestorianism.)
I'm not sure you understood my question, but thanks for the comment
Hm, well, I've reread your question, and I'm not sure how else I'd respond. As I understand it, you're asking about light not as it's observed scientifically, but how it's thought of in theory, "in principle", according to a noesis proper to the immaterial realm. But light is also a material phenomenon with materialistic properties observable by materialistic means. I wouldn't think that either of these two layers of reality would nullify the other. Perhaps you would argue there is something unreal about the scientific perspective? I could maybe be persuaded by that.
Thanks for the follow up. I have two comments:
First, science has a way of appropriating words designating phenomena (i.e. accessible to everyday experience) and then stipulating abstruse and technical definitions for them that tacitly situates them outside of what could ever be experienced. "Light" is one example among countless others. But let it be noted that in every case, the scientific definition is parasitic on the conventional one because otherwise scientists would have no way of knowing how to focus their microscopes, as it were. Nothing about the definition of photons explains how light can ferry visual images between beings. You wrote that "light is also a material phenomenon with materialistic properties observable by materialistic means" and I agree with you. And the same thing should properly be said about the human person, howbeit we shouldn't let scientists tell us, as they are wont to do, that the human person is only what they are capable of studying. Schiller has my preferred enunciation of this point:
“Of your myriad suns and nebulae, tease me not with your amount,
Is Nature only mighty that she presents what you can count?”
Next, vis-a-vis the question of light travelling: per the Special Theory of Relativity, at near relativistic speeds, time dilates towards infinity relative to an inertial reference frame. The result is that light, travelling at the speed proper to itself, cannot be said to travel at all because it would traverse all of space without time having elapsed for it. It seems to me that when we measure "the speed of light," by the logic of this theory, we are measuring something about our own inertial reference frame. As I'm typing this out, the parallel with Kantianism is striking. Anyway, I look forward to hear your thought about this.
In the first part, I am skeptical of the phenomenological approach you’re implicitly employing when referring to human experience. Anything that would exclude ratiocination as unnatural to human experience doesn’t seem right, does it? It would seem to have us condense human experience to sensual experience and instinct based thereon, as if any discursive calculation were an inhuman deviation. Heaven and earth aren’t connecting properly in this approach, symbolically speaking. Phenomenology, in my experience, tends to condense all such heaven-and-earth dualities in artificial, self-contradictorily dialectical ways that are harmful to understanding — if relatively helpful in spotting the flaws in heterodox dualisms. (This is why I compare it to miaphysitism.)
In the second part, I’m uncertain of the authority of the point you’re ostensibly making, that light doesn’t travel, when it is based on the “abstruse and technical definitions” that you seem to exclude from human experience in your first part. Or is your point merely that it is nonsensical to talk about measuring the one-way speed of light when, by its own abstruse and technical standards, no such thing exists? If so, do you deny the existence of a two-way speed of light?
I accept your perception that I have failed to answer your question. But I’m curious: Do I appear confused to you? Or has what I’ve said made sense on its own terms, and it’s merely the case that I’m talking past you, not grasping the ideas you’re raising?
I agree with your article’s conclusion that science’s attempts to age the universe based on its understanding of starlight are misguided. I think science fundamentally cannot understand how light works.
thanks for the comment. I think it makes little sense to continue the exchange here because we are using this apparent disagreement about light as a proxy for divergent epistemological departure points. in short, I don't think the dichotomy, as you have framed it, holds up, viz. sensual experience versus ratiocination. but you are in the company of plenty of intelligent people who do and I thoroughly appreciate the work you do so keep it up.
also, in case you have interest, I was grappling with this problem some time ago and summarized my thoughts here:
https://theoriapress.substack.com/p/relativistic-spacetime-and-the-essence