The Law of Nullification
When we act out of the External Authority (rather than acting out of our own unprovable, unverifiable but also quite irreplaceable sense of interiority) not only does this make us instantly expendable, instantly replaceable, and instantly generic in nature, it also completely nullifies us. Allowing the External Authority of our thoughts to ‘operate us as it sees fit’ doesn’t just ‘dumb us down’, it doesn’t just make us into ‘thought’s self-deceiving tools’, it turns us into ridiculous two-dimensional cartoon versions of ourselves. Thought parodies us.
When we take all our cues from the EA then this has the effect of cutting us off from our own interiority, which puts us totally under the power of whatever it is that’s coming to us ‘from the outside’. When we don’t even know that there is such a thing as a sense of interiority then of course we’re going to be at the mercy of whatever comes to us from the outside. The outside is ‘all there is’ in this case. The outside is a tyrant that we don’t see as such.
The outside rules all, to be sure, but the outside is also a lie. There IS no outside and there never was. There never could be. When everything comes to us from the outside and the outside is a lie then this — as we might expect — has consequences. This has consequences and it is us that has to confront them at some point or other. It’s us that has to pick up the tab. When we live our lives ‘all on the outside’ and ignore the inside (for all the world as if it wasn’t there) then we become subject to a very singular law, something that we might call the Law of Nullification.
The Law of Nullification essentially means that we can’t ever arrive at a verifiably true statement when our basis (the basis we take for granted in our everyday lives, the basis we act out of every minute of the day) is false, is an invented or assumed kind of a thing. When expressed like this, the law sounds perfectly self-evident — if we start off from an unreal place, a location that exists only in our imagination, then — clearly — we’re not ever going to reach anywhere real. What isn’t true to begin with never can become true, no matter how much effort and ingenuity we might put into it.
This is so self-evident that it hardly seems worth calling this as a ‘rule’ or ‘law’ — of course no amount of spin-doctoring or fudging can make a lie magically turn into the truth, of course if we start off mooching around in the Fantasy Realm then we’re not going to be able to find a road that leads out of it (since all the roads in the Fantasy Realm are themselves going to be purely fantastical in nature). It’s worth flagging as an actual law that it helps to have awareness of however — it’s worth drawing to attention to this principle because acting out of a false basis while expecting real results is all we ever do! This is the name of the game, as far as we’re concerned; acting out of a false or imaginary basis whilst expecting real results is what this artificial world of ours is all about. No one spots the utter absurdity of what we’re constantly doing.
This is reminiscent of Einstein’s famous quote about the definition of insanity being where we keep on repeating the same action over and over whilst expecting a different result. We have this tactic — which is ‘acting out of a false basis’, which is ‘acting on the basis of something we believe to be true but which isn’t’ — and we keep utilising it, we keep on going through the motions, we keep on enacting the procedure, etc., but the thing we want to happen never does happen (not in the way we think it should, at any rate). We imagine that the result we want totally could happen if we were lucky enough, or skillful enough, and so we keep putting our money on it. Because of this belief we keep on ‘playing the game’, in other words. This is the odd thing therefore — not that when we act out of a basis that only exists in our imagination this action doesn’t yield the result we want it to, but that we seem to be fundamentally incapable of learning this fact. We’re stuck fast in a state of terminal non-learning, in other words. There’s something important that we just aren’t getting…
Whenever there’s serious ‘non-learning’ going on we can be sure of one thing — we can be sure that there’s a very good reason that we’re not learning the lesson in question. Not learning the lesson is a great inconvenience because it means we’re going to waste time endlessly repeating our mistakes, but — very clearly — to actually learn whatever it is we have to learn (in order that we might ‘move on’ to something else) would be a worse inconvenience, a much more serious inconvenience. No matter what we do in unconscious life, the one thing we can know for sure is that it is always going to be ‘the easiest option’, ‘the option with the least a difficulty associated with it’. If we’re doing something painful or difficult then it must be the case that by doing so we’re avoiding something even more challenging. Unconscious living is always carried out ‘for a reason’.
Put very simply, what’s more inconvenient than being ‘stuck in a state of terminal non-learning’ is discovering that there is no basis for our purposeful action, that there is no solid platform to stand on (in order that we might be able to survey the terrain, in order that we might be able to ‘map it out’, in order that we might be able to ‘gain control’ over what’s going on). There is no ‘authorised reference point’ in other words, and if we were to find this out then that would put an immediate and uncompromising stop to all of our projects. That would put the kybosh on all our hopes and dreams, that would take the wind out of our sails in a big way. There are a number of ways to look at this basis / platform — we could say that the platform is thought, that it is how we see or understand the world. In this case we can say that there is no proper authorised way to see or understand the world. We imagine that there is (or that there should be) but there isn’t. What we may or may not imagine has nothing to do with anything — there’s nothing in the world more irrelevant than this!
The thing about the TM that we never realise is that it always has to provide its own basis, its own platform, its own custom-made framework — this is something no one ever tells us about. Certainly, the TM itself never lets on about this — thought itself will never bring our attention to this particular detail. The thinking mind is a kind of truck with a derrick attached to the back for lifting heavy stuff. The truck runs on regular rubber wheels but when there’s heavy lifting to be done wheels just aren’t any good (because they aren’t secure enough) and so on occasions like this the truck will raise itself up onto metal legs that can be locked securely into position. The truck erects its own secure basis whenever and wherever it wants; it is perfectly mobile in itself but when there’s lifting to be done it has to make itself immobile, it has to make itself secure. It can only work when it is ‘fixed’.
This is a metaphor for how the mechanism of thought works, therefore. I can — potentially — look at the world in any way I please, from any angle I please, but if I am to do any lifting and pulling (which is to say if I am to get going with all the mental activities of extrapolation, analysis, creating systems and frames of reference, and so on) then I have to arrange a fixed platform for myself to be able to operate from. I arrange a solid, unchanging basis for myself by blanking out all other viewpoints, by drawing a veil over all other perspectives. I have to say that the position I am acting out of is ‘the only one’, I have to say that there wasn’t any choice, that there wasn’t any freedom to see things in any other way. If I don’t take it that my angle, my take on things, is ‘the right one’ then the whole exercise becomes meaningless. I am actually going totally against the truth here therefore because what I’m claiming to be true is the complete reverse of what actually is true, it is truth turned around on itself.
If all angles or viewpoints are equally good (which they are) then there is no ‘right’ choice, no ‘right’ angle — all statements are equally true and so this totally undermines the meaning of the word. A positive statement can only get to be a positive statement by excluding all other possibilities, by stating implicitly that there aren’t any other possibilities, so if it were the case that there is no exclusion of all the other possibilities going on then there is no statement. The term ‘statement’ becomes meaningless — if the only way I can state something is by ‘being narrow’ (i.e., by implicitly denying all other perspectives on the matter) then how can I have a statement that ‘denies nothing’, a statement that ‘addresses everything equally without prejudice’? It’s just not possible to ‘address the Whole of Everything’. The world isn’t a stated or positive reality — it’s a negative one. It’s what happens all by itself when we don’t state anything therefore, when we don’t jump to any conclusions. We can’t say what the truth is, we can only say what it isn’t. When we say ‘what the truth is’ then what we’re basically doing is lying.
This is why we can say that the External Authority — which is the same thing as the positive or stated reality, and which is also the same thing as thought — is a lie. Reality is being presented as being precisely ‘what it isn’t’; it is presented as being ‘an upside-down version of itself’ (in accordance with the principle of the Simia Dei) and this — as we have also just said — is not without consequences (consequences that we have absolutely no insight into). Even our most venerable and learned professors — so it seems — have no insight into these consequences. The first thing we can say (on the subject of these unsuspected consequences) is if that there is going to be thinking — if thought is to be allowed to create its own neat-and-tidy, rule-obeying world — then it has to assume a fixed or unchanging basis. The second thing we can say is that when the TM does this — as it absolutely has to if it is to engage in thinking-type activity — then it undoes itself at the same time it does itself. The movement by which it makes itself is also the movement by which it unmakes itself. ‘To cross twice is not to cross’, says Spencer-Brown.
There is of course no way that I can make a literal statement about the world without first assuming that the basis from which I’m making it is ‘the only one possible’. The term ‘literal’ loses its meaning if this is not the case — it becomes a random statement, one statement among very many possible statements, with none of them having any more claim to ultimate ‘veracity’ than any other. But when I do make a ‘literal statement’ (on what I am taking to be an exclusively-or-universally true basis) then I’m inevitably going to go back on what I have said just as soon as I say it. I discover (paraphrasing Michel de Montagne here) that ‘whatever I believe I also — by the very same token — disbelieve’ and this is a paradox that none of us can ever hope to escape from. [Or — at least — it’s a paradox that none of us can escape from just as long as we’re trying to do so on the basis of logical statements and the actions that come about as a result of these statements.] As we have already said, I arrange a fixed basis for myself by blocking out all the other viewpoints, by erasing all other perspectives — essentially, I draw a line and refuse to look beyond it. I have to say that the position I’m acting out of is the only possible one, I have to say that there wasn’t any choice, I have to say that there wasn’t the freedom to do otherwise. If I don’t assume this then I can’t know for sure that my ‘angle’, my ‘take on things’, is the right one. Radical doubt starts to creep in, and I don’t want that! I’m actually going totally against the truth here, therefore; I’m ‘going against the truth’ because what I’m aggressively claiming to be true (which is to say, that the viewpoint I’m currently utilizing is the only possible one) is the complete reverse of what is true. It is ‘truth stood on its head’, it is ‘truth being mocked’, or ‘truth being parodied’. I am reversing everything.
If all possible viewpoints are equally valid (which they are) then clearly there can be no such thing as ‘the right choice’ — all statements are going to be ‘equally true’ and this totally undermines the meaning of the term. A positive statement only gets to be positive by excluding all other possibilities, by arguing implicitly that there aren’t any, and so if there is no ‘excluding’ going on there can’t be any positive statements (i.e., there can’t be any thinking, there can’t be such a thing as ‘a world that is made by thinking’). If the only way I can state something is by implicitly denying everything else, then how could there ever be such a thing as ‘a statement which denies nothing’, ‘a statement that says everything’? It’s not possible to have a positive statement that ‘covers everything’, however — it’s not possible to ‘state (or define) the Whole of Everything’. The world isn’t a stated or positive reality — it’s a negative one. It’s what comes about when we don’t state anything, when we refrain from stating anything. We can’t say what the truth is, we can only say what it isn’t; when we’re ‘saying what truth is’ (which we do an awful lot, if not all the time) then what we’re actually doing here is lying, therefore.
We can assume whatever the hell we want to assume but the one thing we can’t assume is this thing called reality! We can’t assume reality because it isn’t something that’s separate from us or different to us, because it isn’t something that we can point at — from some sort of standardized rational platform — and say, ‘This is what reality is, and this is what it isn’t’. In order to be able to verify whether something is real or not we would first need a criterion or rule — there is after all no way to determine whether a particular assertion is true or not without a criterion, without a standardised investigatory procedure that we can subject it to. This turns into an infinite regression however, it turns into an infinite regression because we can’t know if the criteria (or rule) we’re using for testing our statements is true or not unless we have a mechanism or procedure that can in turn be used to validate it. All of our validations (without exception) are themselves in need of validation — there’s no such thing as a validation that does not itself need to be validated, no such thing as a proof that does not, for its part, need to be proved…
Because there is no such thing as ‘a proof that doesn’t — in its turn — need to be proved’ we are, at some point, going to give up our attempt to ‘regress all the way back to Infinity’ and simply draw a line under the project, saying in effect that ‘this is the ultimate validation’, that ‘this is the validation beyond which none other is needed’. This is the validation that doesn’t (itself) need to be validated. There’s nothing else we can do — if it’s ontological security we want then we’re just going to have to lie; we’re just going to have to ‘make a break with the truth’. The Lie is therefore us claiming our criterion to be valid ‘of itself’ when it absolutely isn’t; the Lie is us brazenly claiming that our golden standard is universally applicable when actually it’s applicability can never go beyond itself. The standard ‘only holds good for itself’, and the thing about this is that ‘self-agreement’ isn’t a legitimate operation. The laws of logic absolutely govern the Domain of Thought, it is true, but it’s also true that the Laws of Logic are the Domain of Thought, which means that that they have therefore no applicability or relevance outside of themselves, outside of ‘what has been assumed’ (and this is just another way of saying that the Continuum of Thought is a null domain).
The upshot of all this is simply to say that we are living our lives on the basis of the Thinking Mind and yet the Thinking Mind — as the Great Patriarch of Zen Buddhism Bodhidharma tells us — doesn’t exist. We however are scrupulous in acting as if it does exist, as if its maps and models do have a reality of their own and doing this is what creates the Nullity. Ignorance (or ‘the entropy of the system, S’) is what creates the Nullity, in other words. We could also say that the TM is our sneaky way of making the world relevant to us — it’s how we make the world relevant to our thinking and it’s also how we make our thinking relevant to the world. This gives us another way of looking at the Great Lie therefore: The Great Lie — we might say — is when we say (or assume) that our basic approach to the world is ‘relevant’ when this simply isn’t the case. None of our thoughts or theories are relevant. We compel reality to appear to be relevant to our assumptions about it by asking crude closed questions so that if one answer is NO then the only answer left, must be YES. The universe is thereby ‘compelled to play ball’, as if it were. The truth is however that our concrete statements — whatever they might be — are always going to be 100 % irrelevant, always going to be 100% ‘off topic’; the universe (if we didn’t put a spin on it) wouldn’t say YES to our dumb-ass questions any more than it would ever say NO. ‘Reality is divinely indifferent to our games’, says Richard Bach. We’re not relating to reality — we’re relating to what we’re unwittingly projecting onto reality. We’re relating to ‘our own stuff’.
The universe just isn’t interested in validating our bullshit and so if we want our BS validated — as we absolutely do — then we have to take care of that ourselves! We have to ‘take care of that ourselves’ by the very straightforward precedent of lying to ourselves, as we must if we wish to secure some kind of sense of there being ground (however hallucinatory this sense might be) under our feet. There’s no other way. When we do this, however, then that has the effect — as we have already said — of bringing the Nullity down in our heads. We are ‘incurring the Law of Nullification’. We are placing ourselves at the disposal of the Nullification Process, we are handing ourselves over to it. We are entering (via an irreversible road) the grim valleys and dark caverns of Avernus, and we never notice a thing…
Nullification means that there is an infinite regression of yes followed by no, up followed by down. Via the tactic of ‘asking the universe closed questions,’ we get it to confirm the validity of our approach (which is does by either affirming or denying whatever statement it is that we have just made). <YES> versus <NO> always is always going to lead into a regression however (as is elegantly exemplified by the celebrated Liar Paradox) — POSITIVE can’t go anywhere but NEGATIVE and NEGATIVE can’t go anywhere but POSITIVE. If you travel North long enough you end up going South. To say YES is to invoke NO and to say NO is to invoke YES, and this mutual invocation goes on forever and ever without getting anywhere. ‘To ‘agree unreservedly with what we ourselves have just said’ is to disagree unreservedly with it, and so all we can ever do is swing back and forth between the two extreme positions, alternatively promoting and denying ourselves…
