https://visionsoffour.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/4-4-the-fourth-quadrant/
The last multiplicity
The Fourth Quadrant harbors the last multiplicity and the principle of existence. That is to say: the partial unity of the Third Quadrant is activated in a dynamic appreciation. Its major carrier is the analogy. Delineations (‘things’) are compared on a physical base, bit by bit. A new reality is born in this comparison. The possibilities increase to a maximum, because the given facts and the interpretation of facts join into a pact.
Ethical and spiritual values contribute to complete the visibility given by the facts. A different form of oneness emerges, finding its roots in the increased knowledge of the past, the present and the future, and – of equal importance – a recognition of a ‘fourth dimension’: the understanding of the cognitive framework in terms of division thinking. All facts are coming together, including those facts, which have contributed to their own initial demarcation.
The last stage (of visibility) is – in many aspects – a very interesting one, but it should not be rated higher than the previous positions. The main feature of the fourth stage is the cognate increase of consciousness and the notion of relativity (of scale and value). It is understood that visibility is established in a process of transposition and can be seen as a direct result of the initial choice of division. The circle of interaction closes, so to speak. The beginning, born in innocence, is also the end, steeped in understanding and fading away in a reaffirmed clarity.
This theme of cyclicity (without actually knowing the radius of the circle) is a predominant element in the Fourth Quadrant. Man has seen it all during the circumnavigation of its own mind: first, an unawareness of the self, then some vague notions of relations, subsequently the linear tendencies of the hereabouts and finally, an alienation due to a wider, cyclic perspective. In the end, it is found that the beginning is relative, just a matter of definition and choice of division.
All creation myths bear the stamp of that primary and ultimate choice. Marcelo GLEISER (1997), in his quest for understanding the origins and place of mankind in the universe, looked at the nature of creation myths. He saw them as the bridge connecting the all-encompassing Absolute to our structured reality. ‘The Absolute is the central element in all credos, giving creation myths a deeply religious character’, according to Gleiser (p. 9), and he continues: ‘This Absolute could be God, or the realm of many gods, or the primordial Chaos, or even the Void, the non-being’.
ifferent mythological responses to the question of the origin of the Universe. This representation assigned the myth to an oppositional environment. GLEISER, Marcelo (1997). The Dancing Universe. From Creation Myths to the Big Bang. Dutton/Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England. ISBN 0-525-94112-6
His classification of the creation myths comprised two main groups, according to how they address the question of ‘the beginning’ (see above). Either there is a specific moment of creation, or they assume that the Universe existed forever. The former type was subdivided into three groups, depending on the agent of creation being. 1. A positive being (a God, Creator or gods), 2. A negative of non-being (an absolute emptiness) or 3. A primordial Chaos (where being and non-being coexist). The latter type (no-creation myths) were subdivided into two groups. 1. The Universe had an eternal existence, never created and never destroyed, or 2. The Universe is continually being created and destroyed, in a cycle that repeats itself forever.
The Last Multiplicity of the Fourth Quadrant leads to the very end of human imagination and points, by recollection or speculation, also to the beginning. The boundary between the Fourth Quadrant and the (following) First Quadrant holds the great enigma of life. By crossing this line – if only on a mental scale – we enter a complete different world.
The definition of the final boundary of a communication cycle is probably just as important as the notion of a first beginning, since the two events are, in essence, the same. The Ginnungagap in the Norse and Germanic myth of creation comes to mind. This time-space was the great void or abyss, where neither sand, sea, heaven nor earth was created. Its emptiness held the primordial energy source, which later gave birth to the world’s creation. In the south was Muspell, a place of light and fire, the first world. To the north is the dark and cold realm of Niflheim. The Muspell recurs at the end, when the world is consumed by fire.
The Muspilli is a German medieval poem, which describes the judgement day, the final end of the world (by fire) and the establishment of the great beyond (FINGER, 1977). These eschatological lines, by an anonymous author, were discovered in 1817 in a manuscript from the St. Emmeran monastery. The poem is probably written in the late nine century and has a strong dualistic style. Angels fight with the devil over the souls of the dead. Heaven and hell are painted. Elias (as a representative of God) struggles against the Antichrist (or Satan). The destruction of the earth starts when Elias’ blood reached the earth. The living and the dead appear for the final judgment, under the cross of Jesus. The souls are bound to heaven or hell.
Apocalyptic visions often bear the stamp of oppositional thinking. Their message is, in most cases, a sign of narrow mindedness rather than a reflection of the great things to come. The recent predictions of the Second Coming of Christ have in extreme cases led to (mass) suicides, because a strong dualistic belief offers no way out.
Another good example of a dichotomy at the end of the visibility area is found in the conception of heaven in the Christian belief. The kingdom of heaven was envisaged as an infinite space where the (righteous) souls would live forever after death. This view of the traditional theology was based on a linear and dualistic point of departure. A body was opposed to a soul, a visible life to an invisible afterlife, and a finite existence here on earth contrasted with an infinite life in heaven. The Kingdom offered, despite these contrarieties, the quiver of the eternal life in which the oppositional forces were silenced.
A Capuchin friar, Martin of Cochem (1634 – 1712), in the apogee of oppositional thinking in Europe, departed from this view. He was of the opinion that ‘heaven is not something spiritual as some suppose, but something corporeal, made of some kind of matter and having form and substance’ (in: McDANNELL & LANG, 1988). He projected the past visibility area right into the future, because ‘what joys could the saints’ five senses have, if in heaven, nothing could be seen except for a huge, immense space?’ Such an extrapolation of the visible world into the field of the invisible is an effort to ‘conquer’ the next visibility cycle.
The Fourth Quadrant-as-a-whole offers the width of thinking and freedom of imagination to development a creative model of commensurability. The latter faculty is defined here as a common measure between like quantities. The application of a wide field of observation (and implementation) makes it possible to discover a greater intrinsic coherence between the focus points.
The scholastic philosopher Nicole Oresme (1323 – 1382), a dean of Rouen and adviser of King Charles V on financial matters, carried out pioneering work on the subject of commensurability as early as the fourteenth century (fig. 53). He translated Aristotle’s ‘Nicomachean Ethics’, ‘Politics’ and ‘On the Heavens’ from Latin into French and invented co-ordinate geometry long before Descartes (1596 – 1650). The use of a graph for plotting a variable magnitude was another ingenious achievement (CLAGETT, 1968). Geometry became a tool to represent intensity, as a representation of the intensio and remissio within a given communication.
Fig. 53 – Nichole Oresme (1323 – 1382), seen here writing behind his desk, was an important scholastic philosopher, who ventured in many different terrains, ranging from translations (of Aristotle), mathematical and geometrical problems, to economic ideas of the use of currency.
Oresme was concerned with the mathematical aspects of the circulatio: the return of one mobile along a circular path from any point to the same point. (GRANT, 1971). This knowledge was directly applicable to the conjunctions of planets and had its bearing on astrology. This ancient art used the kinematics of the stars to predict terrestrial events. Oresme rejected – in his book ‘Livre de divinacions’ (c. 1366) – its validity, because he believed that the foundations of astrology were wrong: celestial incommensurability would lead to an inherent unpredictability. He further stressed his point in the book ‘Contra divinatores horoscopios (c. 1370).
Just one step further on the path of commensurability is the assumption that the observer is not a static unit, but is a dynamic and divided self. In quadralectic terms that would mean a shift from the Third Quadrant (III) to the Fourth Quadrant (IV). The latter position provides the perceptive space for the observer to become object and subject at the same time. There is no distinct ‘before’ or ‘after’ in a cyclic setting.
The consequences of these dynamics in the Fourth Quadrant are drastic. The implications change the complete scope of a communication, its outlook and expectations. Borders become relative, motion becomes relative and the whole event of visibility in a communication is a matter of fluctuation. What we are and what we do, is a reconstruction of facts collected during an interchange with the universe. The New Man – or any other description of a rejuvenated insight – is not new at all, but existed all the time. If only we are able to read its profile.
The Fourth Quadrant provides the space to put the split vision into perspective. It is only in a wider environment that the nature of relations becomes clear. Nothing could be counted on as firm foundations, but that does not mean that the relations and the structure of the system-as-a-whole are not significant. On the contrary, a conscious and contemplative mind, actively engaged to know its own position at any given time and place, is of the utmost importance to be able to judge the pressures of life. The graphical representation of the universal communication offers such a footing. Observations reach a sophisticated level of depth when they are placed in a context of multiplicity and can be given some sort of value.
The ‘subjectivity’ of the Fourth Quadrant and the accepted and approved influence of feelings are not a vague and weakened addition to the communication, like many scientists suggest or imply. The inclusion of what was formerly called ‘subjectivity’ leads to a very distinct pattern of inter-relationship. Feelings are the conscious registrations of a premeditated circumscription in a communication.
The choice of a four division is the most important act to create a world view, which goes beyond the rigidity of duality and the lopsided way of three- (or five-) divisional thinking. The principle of life is an augmented world view, and a cosmic understanding based on the interaction between division and movement. The observer cannot exist without a division perception and cannot comply with reality without being engaged in movement. Both actions are designed to create space in order to throw light on the universe.
The principle of life finds an ultimate challenge in the Fourth Quadrant, by a fulfillment of the promise, which hides itself in the infinity of time: by imagining the invisible invisibility within ourselves and seeing a spectacular universe emerging from its depth. That is a magnificent thought.
Visions of Four Notions 