Adaequatio

One of my foundation texts is E.F. Schumacher's Guide for the Perplexed, which I think I found through reading Ken Wilber.

First, here is his introduction to the idea of adaequatio (adequateness):

What enables man to know anything at all about the world around him? 'Knowing demands the organ fitted to the object,' said Plotinus (died A.D. 270). Nothing can be known without there being an appropriate 'instrument' in the makeup of the knower. This is the Great Truth of 'adaequatio' (adequateness), which defines knowledge as adaequatio rei et intellectus--the understanding of the knower must be adequate to the thing to be known.

A simple example is language. If I don't know Spanish, I am not adequate to understand the meaning of something written in Spanish. Similarly, most humans can perceive music, not just sound, because they have the capacity, they are adequate to receive the meaning of this particular organization of sound. Lower animals probably cannot hear music, though they may very well be able to hear the sounds.

Schumacher’s exposition of the concept of adaequatio jives perfectly with the idea that there is no ultimate distinction between subject and object, between me and the world. If me reading the page is actually the page reading itself, then the meaning of the page’s words can only be registered by a human, who is adequate to register that meaning. The page can still be seen by an animal, but the meaning will not be registered. But the page-animal interface constitutes its own experience, while the page-human interface constitutes another experience, that is richer because of the greater depth of the human’s capabilities as a conscious instrument. Meaning is created by relationship, and this relationship requires both the human subject and the page object. They are inseparable, as far as the meaning is concerned.

The fascinating thing is that the universe is composed of endless meaning. Humans will never run out of meaning to experience—it is a matter of developing the proper "organs" (or capacities, whether intellectual, artistic, social, religious, etc.) to experience such meaning. It seems to make more sense to assume that the universe is perfect and complete as far as meaning is concerned, and that the human is incomplete, constantly developing the faculties to discern and register different parts of the universe.

It follows from this truth that any systematic neglect or restriction in the use of our organs of cognition must inevitably have the effect of making the world appear less meaningful, rich, interesting, and so on than it actually is. The opposite is equally true: the use of organs of cognition which for one reason or another normally lie dormant, and their systematic development and perfection, enable us to discover new meaning, new riches, new interests—facets of the world which had previously been inaccessible to us.

See, the world exists in its entirety right now. But humans are limited by time, space, and the individual limitations of different streams of development (moral, aesthetic, creative, spiritual, etc.) On the path of contemplation, boredom is a sign that certain “organs of cognition” need further development, to access another level of the world’s ever-present meaning. These limitations exist for a reason, however, to perfectly harmonize and create the conditions of human existence. Existence is created by limitations, everywhere in the universe. God is the only “thing” that has no limitations, and thus is beyond existence. Everything else is finite manifestation, and the conditions of their existence is a result of their limitations, just as a window is created by the bricks around it. Once the limitations are in place, the existing creature, whether it is an emotion or a rock or a human being is free to act within its limitations.

At the higher levels, the very ideas of prediction and control become increasingly objectionable and even absurd. The theologian, who strives to obtain knowledge of Levels of Being above the human, does not for a moment think of prediction, control, or manipulation [the usual province of science]. All he seeks is understanding. He would be shocked by predictabilities. Anything predictable can be so only on account of its ‘fixed nature,’ and the higher the Level of Being, the less is the fixity and the greater the plasticity of nature [note: the notoriously fluid nature of psychic life, emotions, etc.]. ‘With God all things are possible,’ but the freedom of action of a hydrogen atom is exceedingly limited. The sciences of inanimate matter—physics, chemistry, and astronomy—can therefore achieve virtually perfect power of prediction; they can, in fact, be completed and finalized, once and for all, as is claimed to be the case with mechanics.

The Great Chain of Being can be interpreted as an ordering of forms of limitation. Thinking of it in linear terms is easy to grasp, but also misleading at a certain point, for there are many, many forms of limitation. But generally speaking matter is the most limited form of finite manifestation; its very fundamentality, however, depends upon its “severe” limitations. For human beings, are composed of matter, and necessarily so.

“Only a perfectly clean instrument can obtain a perfectly clear picture.” The clearer the organ the more distinct its object.