Is the spirit world more than an idea?

The ancients believed in an invisible world in which spirits and gods are to be found. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, this is referred to as the spirit world. The concept entered philosophical tradition with Plato, who reworked it into his intelligible world of forms. Later, the philosopher Immanuel Kant also incorporated a "noumenal realm" in his philosophy. With the strong accentuation of the rational in the Platonic-Kantian tradition, something that the ancients affirmed was lost, namely the possibility of having an intuition of that world. Once this happened, the noumenal realm became nothing more than an idea - a realm beyond experience that religious people believe in. Something that the sceptical scientific mind could not accommodate. But with new developments in theoretical physics the possibility arises that the ancients could have been right after all. 

Since early times peoples from all over the world believed that an invisible world exists next to our own visible world. They believed that that world is occupied by gods and spirits. It was typically referred to as the "other world" and cosmic domains like heaven (as the abode of the gods) and the underworld were believed to be situated in that world. We find reference to it in the earliest writings of people like the Sumerians and the Egyptians. In fact, it seems that all ancient peoples held the belief that such a world exists. The Greeks and Hebrews also believed in it - their views played a formative role in the Judeo-Christian conception of the spirit world. The ancients even believed that we have some type of intuition directed to that world.

The idea of such an invisible world had a great impact on the thinking of the Greek philosopher Plato (5th to 4th century BC). In fact, his idea of a "world of forms (or ideas)" originated from the age-old belief in an invisible world. In Plato, the invisible world of the ancients is reworked into an intelligible world - a world that is only accessible through thought. He distinguished between the visible world of our senses and the intelligible world. Although he believed that that world is only accessible through thought, he nevertheless still held that it is a (the only) real world.

Later generations of philosophers followed Plato's lead in discerning an intelligible or noumenal world (from the Greek word "nous", meaning mind).  The greatest of them was the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The idea of a noumenal world differing from the phenomenal world featured prominently in his philosophy. Although he rejected the Platonic idea that we could access that world in thought (he rejected the possibility of humans having an "intelligible intuition" thereof), he still held that we can think it. But, according to Kant, we can have no "knowledge" of that world. This, however, did not stop him from thinking that such a world could really exist - he envisioned it as underlying and giving form to the phenomenal world.

The Platonic move to envision the invisible world as an intelligible world eventually had the opposite outcome that he intended - it led to the rejection of the possibility that such a world exists. How did it happen? Once the possibility of having any intuition (that is, a sensing without the use of rational processes, an immediate awareness) of that world was rejected (in Kant), it became nothing more than a mere idea - an idea of something beyond the senses that religious people "believe" in. Since nothing in science gave the slightest reason to believe in such a world, a general consensus developed that such a world does not exist.

But was Kant right? Do we not have any intuition of a noumenal world? Such an intuition would imply some type of experience of that world - which is in fact what the ancients affirmed. What is more, theoretical physics now also envisions a world very much in accordance with the Kantian idea of the noumenal world - but one that is real and which could in principle be accessible in some kind of experience.

Plato's intelligible world

Why did Plato redefine the invisible world as an intelligible world? The reason is simple. Socrates, Plato's teacher "discovered" reason. This led to one of the most important shifts to ever occur in Western thought - the accentuation of reason as the most important of all human faculties. It dawned on these men that reason is what makes us distinctly human (animals cannot reason). We can even through reason control our animal passions (therefore reason guides us to the virtuous life). In Plato's opinion, the human mind ("nous") should be viewed as a thinking ability - he equated it with intelligence. This ability is seated in the human soul, that part of humans through which they have access to the invisible world. Therefore that world - the one that is accessible only through thought - is to be understood as an intelligible world.

This Platonic move - to equate the invisible world with the intelligible - is clearly observable in his Phaedo.  In the dialogues between Socrates and his friends, it is mentioned that he takes the view of the mystics (the Orphics), in which the invisible world played an important part, as the point of departure (as a "metaphor") for his own view. Two different worlds are distinguished, namely the invisible and the visible realm. The invisible realm is called "the realm of the absolute, constant and invariable" whereas the visible world is always changing. In this last respect, Plato follows Parmenides of Elea (b. c515 BC) who argued for two worlds, one that is the real world and which is eternal, indivisible, motionless and changeless and the other that is the world of our senses, which is a world of "appearances".  Plato furthermore distinguished two types of things which belong to these two different worlds, namely the invisible (the forms) and the visible things.

According to the dialogues in the Phaedo the soul belongs to the invisible world: "Since the soul is invisible, it belongs to the eternal invisible world... When it [the soul] investigates by itself, it passes into the realm of the pure and everlasting and changeless; and being of a kindred nature, when it is once independent and free from interference, consorts with it". True contemplation is not with the eyes, but with the soul - or, more precisely, with the intellect. In this regard, we read: "We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves [i.e. as they really are] with the soul by itself" and "the man who pursues the truth by applying his pure and unadulterated thought to the pure and unadulterated object... Is not this the person, Simmias, who will reach the goal of reality, if anybody can?".

In Plato's writings, the human mind (nous) has a direct intuitive understanding of the invisible realm. Again this view goes back to Parmenides who argued for a dualism wherein nous describes an intellectual perception, which should be distinguished from sense perception. But was this how the earlier Greeks, in general, viewed the mind? As mentioned in the Oxford dictionary, the Greek word nous meant "mind, intelligence, intuitive apprehension". Although the Greeks allocated both understanding and intuition in the mind, there is no reason to believe that they viewed the intuition directed to the invisible world solely as an "intellectual" intuition (this view originated with Parmenides).

It seems that the Greeks allowed for a direct intuitive awareness of the invisible world, which is only then (as a secondary move) brought to understanding. The Pythagoreans, for example, seem to have held the opinion that we have some intuition of that world in the deepest essence of our being and that our thinking (even in reference to that intuition) is only secondary. They distinguished between 1) the higher soul, seat of the intuitive mind, 2) the rational soul, the seat of discursive reason and 3) the non-rational soul, responsible for the senses, appetites and motion. Even Plato often refers to a perception of the invisible world (for example, through the "eye" of the soul) which seems to be more fundamental than the thought thereof (why use the metaphor of "eye" if it is in fact the act of thinking that should be accentuated). The overall move in Plato's philosophy - and the Western philosophical tradition derived from him - was, however, to collapse the noumenal into the intelligible.

Plato's opinion on the relation between the worlds changed through the course of his writing. At first (in the Phaedo) the "invisible world" is viewed as a separate domain where human souls go between lives (and where the gods live), but in the Republic the "intelligible" world (as it is now called) is more closely connected to our own world (we can see that in the metaphor of the cave). This (our) world is somehow dependent on the real world for its existence (where the forms for the phenomena in this world is situated). In the Timaeus, the real world (of unchanging being where the forms are situated) underlies this world (of becoming) in a very real sense in that it gives form to it.

Kant's noumenal world

Kant lived many centuries after Plato but his reworking of the Platonic position produced one of the most important philosophical traditions since Plato. He lived during the height of the modern epoch - also known as the age of reason. Not only was reason accentuated more than ever before (in accordance with the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition), the discovery of empirical science demonstrated the practical possibilities of reason in a powerful way. And in science the sole focus is on the world of the senses. This now became the "real world". But even in the face of this new focus on the sensible world, Kant stood his ground in affirming the possibility of the "noumenal world". Kant was a Christian and believed in the existence of a spiritual world. And following Plato, he distinguished between the sensible (phenomenal) world and the "intelligible world", also called a "noumenal" world (which for Kant is supra-sensible, i.e. transcending sensible experience).

Kant's most important work, The Critique of Pure Reason, focuses (in the spirit of the age) first of all on our interaction with the sensible world (in contrast with Plato's focus on our interaction with the intelligible world). He shows how human thinking and sensing are interacting to establish "knowledge" of the sensible world. For Kant, the only knowledge possible is of this (sensible) world. He rejects the Platonic position that we can have any knowledge of the noumenal world. But this does not stop us from thinking the noumenal realm. The Critique distinguishes between the human faculty of "understanding" which get its content from the senses and "reason" which is quite independent of the sensible world and can think intelligible things. But Kant's goal with this work is to establish the limits of what reason can achieve.

Although Kant mentions that direct "intelligible intuitions" of the noumenal world is in principle possible, he argues that this is not something that humans have (God can have them). We can ask: But why didn't he allow for possible intuitions of the noumenal world other than intelligible ones? The reason for this is possibly because Kant was influenced by the Platonic move to view all intuitions of the noumenal world as intelligible ones. Kant's distinction between the sensible and intelligible (supra-sensible, noumenal) worlds therefore also incorporates a dichotomy between experience and intelligence. Kant assumes that all experience is sensible. He did not allow (as many ancient peoples seem to have done) for the possibility of an inner non-sensible experience directed to the noumenal realm. Although he did not exclude such noumenal intuitions in principle, he thought that we are not acquainted with such intuitions. He writes in the Critique of Pure Reason in a section called "Phenomena and Noumena": "room thus remains for some other sort of intuition... [but] we are acquainted with no sort of intuition other than our own sensible one" (B343).

As far as our understanding is concerned (to the extent that it is directed to the sensible world), the noumenal world is "empty" - we cannot gain any knowledge thereof. As far as reason is concerned, however, we can use reason, especially "practical reason", to argue for certain things about the noumenal realm. Starting with the Critique of Pure Reason, and developing his ideas further in his other two Critiques (of practical reason and the power of judgement), Kant developed an extensive view of the noumenal world. In the second Critique, he argued that we need the noumenal realm to account for our moral nature, our ability to make moral laws and act according to them. In the last Critique, Kant takes the noumenal world as the ultimate ground for our world, being ultimately responsible for the design of the whole spatio-temporal world. In this, he follows Plato in the Timaeus. Kant's noumenal realm is the supra-sensible ground of all phenomena, wherein the form-giving dynamic spontaneity (freedom) which gives form to the phenomenal world, is situated. Humans as well as nature are grounded and partially situated in the noumenal realm.

Science and the noumenal world

Towards the end of the modern epoch the Kantian affirmation of the existence of a noumenal realm seemed to be superficial. How can we ever show the existence of a realm of which we cannot have any experience. It's like defining something in such a way that it is beyond experimental proof and then affirming its existence in accordance with your Christian view. For the modern mind, which was so smitten by the power of reason, and who believed that science can give all the answers, this seems to be an excuse to keep believing in the face of scientific discovery - which seemed to confirm that the world is nothing more than the sensible world. Therefore a consensus developed that such a world could not exist.

Those days are, however, long gone. Gone is the days when it was believed that the human capacity to solve all problems and ultimately understand everything was around the corner. The centuries during which scientists affirmed that they would be able to understand everything in the not-too-distant future has lead to a new consensus (even though many scientists still hold to the modernist view), namely that this view should be taken with a pinch of salt. The world is extremely complex. More complex than modern man could ever have imagined. Today, scientists except ideas that were frowned upon only a few years ago, for example, that dark matter and dark energy exist. In their efforts to develop an unified theory that could integrate all the basic forces of nature, theoretical physicists are even postulating the existence of a higher dimensional realm that are interwoven with our own three dimensional sensible world. Scientists are confronted with the fact that it might just be possible that we would never be able to fully fathom what reality is like.

This development is in accordance with the position of some existential philosophers who rejected the modern efforts to establish reason as the sole arbiter of existence. Some like Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), developed an anti-Platonic, anti-Kantian position. He argued that we should affirm our earthly existence and embrace our inner drives - we must not bow to reason and fight against our true nature. In his opinion, all talk of another or noumenal world is the result of mankind's (especially religious people's) inability to cope with the here and now. They cannot cope in this world - and therefore developed the idea of another world where they would be happy. The post-modern philosophers took Nietzsche's views as the point of departure to develop an anti-modernist perspective in matters concerning the nature of morality, truth and reality. Other philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) followed a different route - he rejected the efforts to fathom all of existence through reason. He affirmed the reality of the Christian experience even in the face of reason's onslaught on the supernatural. In a sense, he rejected all efforts to reasonably establish the ground for the Christian faith (and our experience of the spiritual).

What I propose is that although we cannot reject reason's ability to fathom existence, we should at the same time affirm it's reductionist nature. In it's efforts to understand reality, reason has to construct models, establish approximations, formulate reductionist concepts. This is in fact what the Copenhagen interpretation confirmed for quantum physics - we can only have a partial concept of the reality that we study. This is where Plato and Kant have fallen short - in their efforts to rework the invisible (spiritual) realm as an intelligible realm, they have been reductionist. They have not been able to sufficiently account for those intuitions of that realm that the ancients, and many religious people throughout the ages, have affirmed to exist. Kant excluded the possibility of such intuitions in his philosophy - even though it is possible (in my opinion) to incorporate it therein. For him, all experience is sensible - but what about the possibility of non-sensible (or supra-sensible) experience of the noumenal?

In spite of this, Kant's conceptualization of the noumenal realm shows remarkable agreement with the higher dimensional structure of the universe that theoretical physicists postulate. These dimensions are very small and not accessible to our senses - they are supra-sensible. But they are interwoven in the structure of space. They underlay the phemonenal world as the form-giving part of the cosmos. All nature are in some way grounded therein - also are we as humans. Although most particle-structures could have parts in both realms, it is in principle possible that at least some particle-structures exist solely in that realm, implying the possibility of a whole world unknown to our senses existing next to our own without us knowing it. It is possible that humans have a part situated in higher dimensions (corresponding to what has traditionally been called the soul or spirit) that co-exists with our physical bodies. This description does not only closely agree with Kant's ideas about the noumenal realm, they affirm the possibility of a real spiritual world.

Conclusion

During the modern epoch, people thought that they have finally arrived and that the ancients were primitive and without true knowledge. In our day there is a new appreciation for the views of those people. They experienced something about the world that the rational mindset has conditioned us to reject as something unreal. They believed in some type of intuition directed towards that world that religious people from all around the world has continued to confirm in their everyday experience (not only Christians; there is no reason from a Christian point of view, why other religious experiences are not also directed to the spiritual world). One of the reasons why so many religious people have never bought into the modernist framework is because their own experience proved the opposite. Although many scientists are eager to (again in a reductionist way) ascribe all such experience to people's psychology, most Christians, for example, have a subtle, but distinct, awareness that their experience of God goes beyond themselves.

The one thing about the noumenal world that is especially interesting, is that Kant's formulation thereof corresponds so closely with scientific notions about a higher dimensional realm that co-exists with our own. It seems that through pure reason he was able to in a remarkable way foresee the eventual scientific formulation of models that describes the world as much more than a sensible world. Although this could (once proven) confirm the power of reason, his philosophy at the same time should always remind us how reductionist reason is. We should use reason, but we should also trust our deepest spiritual intuitions about our own experience in the world. Both reason and such intuition should be our guides in this world. Without such intuition, humankind will wander as a person in the dark, groping towards a destiny without hope.

Author: Dr Willie Mc Loud (Ref. www.wmcloud.blogspot.com)

See also:
The God Impulse (life after death?)
Kant's noumenal realm reconsidered in the light of contemporary developments in physics

Kant’s noumenal realm reconsidered in the light of contemporary developments in physics

Philosophers have been uneasy about Kant’s notion of a noumenal realm existing alongside the phenomenal realm as part of our cosmos since the time when he first proposed it.  For them, it seemed that there is nothing to justify its existence.  In this essay, I, however, propose that Kant might have been right after all.  It seems quite possible that Kant’s noumenal realm could be identified with the higher dimensional structure of the universe that has been postulated in contemporary theoretical physics.  I look into the implications of such an identification.

Introduction

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is one of the great names in modern philosophy and he had an enormous influence on all later philosophers.  Even post-modern philosophy is to a large extent a reaction against the Kantian perspective, with regards to both his grounding of science as well as morality in the transcendental human subject.  Central to Kant’s philosophy is the concept of a “noumenal” realm in which the freedom to both think and act are situated.  Although we could not gain any true knowledge about this realm, not even about the existence thereof, he did postulate it to account for the human ability to both creatively imagine and freely act in accordance with the moral law (and thus be responsible for one’s actions). 

The possible existence of a noumenal realm in a realist sense was, however, increasingly viewed as an unlikely possibility.  Shortly after Kant philosophers started rejecting this in their philosophy.  But was Kant wrong?  In this essay, I propose that Kant might be right after all!  In contemporary physics, it has been theorized that, even though our perception of the world is restricted to the four normal space-time dimensions, there could be other higher dimensions interwoven in the cosmos to which we have no access.  This higher dimensional structure of the cosmos corresponds to a remarkable degree with the noumenal realm that Kant postulated.  If we allow for this identification the implications for philosophy are profound.

In this essay I first give a broad overview of Kant’s view, focusing on his perspective regarding the phenomenal and noumenal realms.  I discuss the implications of both the non-existence as well as the existence of the noumenal realm.  I show why the noumenal realm could be identified with the higher dimensional structure of the universe.  I also make some proposals as to how Kant’s views, which were formulated in a Newtonian framework, could be logically adapted to incorporate contemporary developments in theoretical physics.  When this is done, Kant’s philosophy could provide a powerful framework within which the contemporary developments in physics could be interpreted.  Finally, some implications of this approach are discussed.            

         

Phenomena and noumena

According to Kant our world in its totality could be divided into two parts, namely the world that we empirically observe, consisting of all sorts of things, called phenomena or appearances, and an underlying part which is inaccessible to our senses and in which the “things in themselves” (as they in essence really are), called noumena, are situated.  The things in themselves (noumena) form the basis in which things (phenomena) are grounded.  Kant wrote in the Critique of Practical Reason: “Letting objects of experience as such, including even our own subject, hold only as appearances but at the same time… putting things in themselves at their basis” (Kant 1997:5).  Kant also refers to these as the supersensible and sensible, or the archetypal and ectypal worlds: “The former [supersensible] could be called the archetypal world (natura archetypa) which we cognize only in reason, whereas the latter [sensible] could be called the ectypal world (natura ectypa) because it contains the possible effect of the idea of the former” (Kant 1997:39).  

As with all objects, humans are situated in both worlds.  Thus they could view themselves under two different, even contradictory, aspects, namely as phenomena subject to the laws of nature (especially of causality), situated in normal time and space, but also as noumena which could be thought of as subject to other laws (especially of freedom), situated outside normal time and space (Tarnas 1991:352).  Andrews Reath says: ”The distinction between appearances and things in themselves, along with the claim that spatio-temporal properties and laws do not represent objects as they are in themselves, creates room for the thought of noumenal objects subject to laws that are different in kind from those governing spatio-temporal events” (Kant 1997:xi).

Humans are capable of comprehending the world because they have a priori interpretive principles or forms of thought called “categories of the understanding” (for example of cause and effect, substance, quantity, relation) which unite the manifold given in intuition in consciousness (Kant 1934:186; Tarnas 1991:344).  Kant allowed two types of intuitions, namely intellectual and sensible intuitions, which are directed towards the noumenal and phenomenal worlds respectively (Kant 1934:187).  Noumena are objects of intellectual intuitions (Kant 1934:187l; i.e. a direct intellectual access not possible for humans). They are not necessarily grounding appearances (one could think of God or angels) (Ward 2006:102).  Since they are unschematized (i.e. they could not be placed in normal space and time), they are not determinate objects. 

The only intuitions that could lead to real knowledge are the sensible ones.  The mind is only able to place such intuitions of phenomenal objects (“things”) within the normal space-time framework, allowing them from a human perspective to obtain “objective” existence (Kant 1934:190; Caygill 1995:394).  This means that pure reason is restricted in its ability to provide valid knowledge; it could only provide knowledge of the empirical world of phenomena. In this way, Kant established the boundaries of the application of pure reason.  Science could never attain knowledge of all of reality – the things as they are in themselves are outside its reach.  This, however, does not mean that we cannot think things in themselves.  We can.  But, as Kant said in the Critique of Pure Reason: “[They] must ever remain unknown to us” (Kant 1934:190).  We can at most “belief” that such things exist.

Although humans are restricted in their use of pure reason, Kant proposed another form of reason, namely “practical reason”, for “practical use”, that could be used to ascribe certain properties to the noumenal realm (Kant 1997:5).  Practical reason could be used to account for those practical realities of our lives that could not be established through pure reason, for example, that humans have the freedom to act rationally.  Kant was of the opinion that such freedom is a practical reality of human lives, forming the basis of our rationality: “The concept of freedom, insofar as its reality is proved by apodictic law of practical reason, constitutes the keystone of the whole structure of a system of pure reason” (Kant 1997:3).  Both the spontaneous activity of our imagination that synthesizes concepts and intuitions, as well as our will, exhibits such freedom.  Although such a concept of freedom falls outside the scope of any knowledge claims (as established through pure reason), the assertion thereof is nevertheless still rationally based.

      

Although the natural law of causality rules out the possibility of freedom in the phenomenal world, there is no reason why it could not be ascribed to the noumenal dimension.  In fact, it is exactly the possible existence of such a dimension that allows us to account for human freedom.  Reath writes in this regard: “Human actions, when considered as noumena, could be regarded as resulting from transcendental freedom … The grounds for ascribing freedom to ourselves come from our recognition of the authority of moral norms, and this ascription is made for practical purposes, as part of our self-conception as rational agents” (Kant 1997:xii/xiii).  This implies that the laws governing the noumenal world could to some extent be indirectly established through practical reason. 

The existence/non-existence of the noumenal realm

There are two possible ways to take the Kantian notion of a noumenal realm existing within the framework of our world in its totality.  One could reject such a possibility.  Until a few decades ago philosophers had no reason to accept such a possibility since there was no empirical reason to postulate it except maybe a moral one (the one Kant used).  In this case one could view Kant as following in the footsteps of Plato who postulated the existence of two worlds, namely one of being (of forms) and one of becoming, which in his later works, especially the Timaeus (Ostenfeld 1982:75), are not too dissimilar to Kant’s worlds of things in themselves (noumena) and things (phenomena).  Together with Plato’s ideas, Kant’s ideas in this regard could then be disregarded as “metaphysics”.     

Even if one rejects the notion of a noumenal realm, one could work with the notion of “transcendental” as referring to that which all people share (i.e. transcendental categories of understanding).  This is the path that many philosophers have followed, especially in analytic and phenomenal philosophy.  In this case, one still has to accept that the structures of the human mind are not fixed and timeless as Kant is supposed to have taken them, but are historically determined.  Many factors influence the non-absolute categories namely habit, history, culture, social class, biology, language, imagination, emotions as well as the unconscious (Tarnas 1991:184). 

In positing a noumenal realm in which the human self is also embedded, Kant connected the subject in a very profound way with the universe in which s/he is situated.  Some philosophers explored this possibility further even though they rejected the possibility of the existence of the noumenal realm: Fichte, Schelling and Hegel suggested that the cognitive categories of the mind were in some sense the ontological categories of the universe (Tarnas 1991:353).  In a way, they still held that the categories are embedded in the cosmic (although not noumenal) structure of the universe.  But as soon as this idea lost influence, the human subject became adrift and no direct contact between the human mind and the intrinsic structure of the universe could be assumed (Tarnas 1991:350).  In this way, the subject became decentered from its position as a basis for knowledge.  The acknowledgement of the impact of the unconscious on all our conscious actions opened the door for the post-modern philosophical perspective.

The noumenal realm as an archetypal world

But what are the implications of an acceptance of the existence of such a noumenal realm?  In this case, one could build on the Kantian foundation.  Instead of reducing the Kantian insights to their bare essentials, one could also explore the possibilities that Kant left untouched, using, for example, new developments in psychoanalysis.  In accordance with Kant’s notion of an archetypal world (natura archetypa) in which the categories of the mind are situated, C. G. Jung developed a very similar idea involving the unconscious.  Paul Kugler writes: “Kant’s categories (time, space, number, and so on) provided the a priori structures necessary for reason itself.  Jung extended the subtle implications of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason to the realm of depth psychology, positing archetypes as the a priori categories of the human psyche” (Kugler 2008:86).  He quotes from Jung’s own writings to affirm this:

“One could also describe these forms as categories analogous to the logical categories which are always and everywhere present as the basic postulates of reason.  Only, in the case of our `forms’, we are not dealing with categories of reason but categories of the imagination…  The archetypes are, so to speak, organs of the prerational psyche.  They are eternally inherited forms and ideas which have no specific content.  Their specific content only appears in the course of the individual’s life, when personal experience is taken up in precisely those forms” (Jung 1953-77:517-518).

Richard Tarnas writes in a similar vein: “[A] new focus on the inner workings of the psyche reflected as well an increasingly sophisticated concern with those unconscious structures within the mind of the subject that were determining the ostensible nature of the object – a continuation of the Kantian project on a more comprehensive level… In the course of analyzing a vast range of psychological and cultural phenomena, Jung found evidence of a collective unconscious common to all human beings and structured according to powerful archetypal principles… [J]ung’s granting the status of empirical phenomena to psychological reality was itself a major step past Kant, for he thereby gave substance to ‘internal’ experience as Kant had to ‘external’ experience: all human experience, not just sense impressions, had to be included for a genuinely comprehensive empiricism” (Tarnas 191:383-5).                   

Kant focused only on the conscious mind and then allowed, among all possible non-sensual intuitions, only for intellectual intuitions of noumenal objects.  He did not allow for other non-sensual intuitions that could, for example, be associated with the unconscious part of the mind and which could also be directed towards the noumenal (archetypal) realm.  Furthermore, although Kant refers to the phenomenal/empirical self as distinct from the transcendental self that is associated with the universal structures of the mind, he did maybe not position the personal conscious clearly enough within this collective framework.  Jung did this for the personal and collective unconscious: “[The] personal unconscious rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn.  This deeper layer I call the collective unconscious.  I have chosen this term ‘collective’ because this part of the unconscious is not individual but universal” (Jung 1990:299). 

The “collective” Kantian structures of the mind could be seen in the same way.  They are timeless, not in the sense that they stay the same over time throughout history (as some have wrongly interpreted them), but in the sense that they lay outside the normal time-space framework in the noumenal dimension.  They are also dynamic – allowing for example, for schematization in a contracted or bent space-time framework (in accordance with Einstein’s theories of relativity).  Furthermore, although they themselves do not incorporate a personal component, they underlay the personal component that is situated in both the noumenal and phenomenal realms, and which integrates these. The unconscious part of the mind only influences this personal component of the conscious.  The reason why a community of scientists could reach rational agreement is that they, in spite of the personal component, all share the underlying impersonal, universal, collective structures of understanding.  When the categories of understanding are understood in this way, the validity of human knowledge could maybe be secured.  

The problem with the Jungian concepts is that they have empirical validity only in the psychological sense.  Tarnas writes in this regard: “Depth psychology had perhaps rendered a deeper inner world for modern man, but the objective universe as known by natural science was necessarily opaque, without transcendent dimensions” (Tarnas 1991:367).  But what if the archetypal realm that corresponds with Kant’s noumenal realm does indeed exist?  This could imply that the human mind does in effect have access to this realm, although not in the same way that it has to the phenomenal world.  Kant allowed for this on the intellectual level (albeit not for humans); Jung extended it to the unconscious level.  Kant only allowed for a negative characterization of the noumenal realm, i.e. in a relative way as “that which is the cause or ground of appearances” (Ward 2006:100; Kant 1934:188), but it seems that Jung allows us to also characterize it in a positive way. 

Archetypes are schematized in the form of archetypal images existing in normal space and time.  This could imply that one could get true knowledge (in the form of archetypal images) from the noumenal realm.  Furthermore, if the subject’s mind is embedded in the noumenal realm of the cosmos, s/he is not removed from the world in which s/he is situated.  It is from its groundedness in the noumenal realm that the self accesses the world.

But what reason does one have to postulate the existence of such a noumenal realm?  I propose that this realm should be viewed as nothing but the higher dimensional structure of the cosmos as it is presently theorized in quantum physics.  And it seems to me that we have good reasons to accept this identification.

Relating the noumenal realm to the higher dimensions of theoretical physics

The Polish mathematician Theodor Kaluza was the first to propose (in 1919) that the structure of the universe contains higher dimensions.  (Interesting enough, as with Kant, he was from the University of Köningsberg).  He posited that space dimensions could come in two varieties, namely as large, extended and therefore directly manifested (the normal variety), as well as small and curled up (higher dimensions).  The Swedish mathematician Oskar Klein later refined his work.  They suggested that embedded in the fabric of the universe, at every point thereof, these extra dimensions exist alongside the others (Greene 2000:185-190).

Since the mid-1970’s higher dimensions have become a central part of theoretical studies in physics.  A larger number as well as different shapes have been proposed for such space dimensions.  Even other time dimensions could not be excluded.  In string theory elementary particles are envisioned as tiny strings that vibrate in both large, extended space dimensions as well as in the tiny, curled-up ones.  In fact, the structure of these higher dimensions, its extra-dimensional geometry, determines the fundamental physical attributes like particle masses and charges that is observed in the normal large space dimensions of common experience (Greene 2000:206).  The theoretical physicist Brian Greene writes: “The geometrical form of the extra dimensions plays a critical role in determining resonant patterns of vibration – which appear to us as the masses and charges of elementary particles” (Greene 2000:206 – my accentuation).                          

Now this corresponds remarkably with Kant’s postulate that the noumenal aspect of the cosmos, not only forms the basis and cause of the phenomenal world of observation, but that the phenomena flows from the noumena (Ward 2006:100).  In both cases there is a reference to an inaccessible dimension of our world that forms part of the fabric of the cosmos and which determines what our world of “appearance” looks like (a word Brian Greene also uses!).  Andrew Ward sums up the Kantian view: “[B]y taking the noumenal ground as ultimately responsible for the design of the whole spatio-temporal world, including its physical laws, we can give a purposive explanation for the extraordinary large number of diverse natural forms” (Ward 2006:218).  This is in effect what Greene says.

This brings us to Kant’s proposal that deterministic behaviour is to be associated with the world of phenomena and freedom with the world of noumena.  Is there any reason to accept that freedom (in contrast with determinism) should be associated with the higher dimensions in physics?  Here I would like to refer to the Schrödinger equation, according to which particles like electrons and photons are spread out “in a strange multi-dimensional ‘hyperspace’” (Pine 2006:222).  Some physicists like David Bohm takes this serious as referring to what actually happens (although he views the dimensions differently from string theorists).  When the wave-function “collapses”, the unobserved particle-wave which is somehow located multidimensionally, instantaneously collapse to a single unpredictable point in three-dimensional space.  

What is of interest to us, is that the location/position where the particle will become manifest could not in any way be determined beforehand – it happens in a random manner.  It is only possible to calculate the probability of a particle-wave collapsing at a certain location.  If the particle is in fact situated in part in higher dimensional space as has been proposed, then one could say that the random manifestation thereof in three-dimensional space results from the “freedom” inherent in that dimensions.  This corresponds to some extent with what Kant has said, namely that the free play of our imagination and our free will, as observed in our actions in the phenomenal sphere, originates in the noumenal dimension where the law of freedom reigns. 

As for the imagination, there is some evidence that its ability to produce concrete archetypal images from the dynamic underlying archetypal structures, takes place in a way not too different from what is observed in quantum physics, namely in a random (free) manner, restricted to certain particular outcomes.  Jung, following Kant’s lead (who in his Critique of Judgment made much of the free play of the productive imagination), used a technique that he called “active imagination” to stimulate the mind’s archetypal capabilities.  He writes:

“[I] took up a dream image or an association of the patient’s, and, with this as a point of departure, set him the task of elaborating or developing his theme by giving free reign to his fantasy.  This, according to individual taste and talent, could be done in any number of ways, dramatic, dialectic, visual, acoustic, or in the form of dancing, painting, drawing or modeling.  The result of this technique was a vast number of complicated designs… I was witnessing the spontaneous manifestation of an unconscious process… The chaotic assortment of images that at first confronted me reduced itself in the course of the work to certain well-defined themes and formal elements, which repeated themselves in identical or analogous form with the most varied individuals” (Jung 1990:74/5). 

As for the free will, there is obviously a great difference between the “free” (random) manifestation of particles and a “free” will.  One could, however, propose a very complex interplay of noumena and phenomena, combining freedom and determinism, in the framework of the human mind/brain resulting in humans having a free will.  If this is the case, the freedom manifested in the will is just a much more complex expression of the same basic freedom that is manifest in quantum physics.

The implications for epistemology and ontology

What are the implications for physics, both with regards to epistemology and ontology, if Kant’s noumenal realm corresponds to the higher dimensional structure of the cosmos?  To what extent would one then be able to accommodate developments in quantum physics within the framework of Kantian philosophy?  And what further adaptations to the Kantian perspective could be proposed to bring it in line with quantum physics?  To answer these questions we could first refer to the two well-known interpretations of quantum physics.

The interpretation of the wave-particle duality and how it manifests itself in quantum physics has divided the physics community.  Some physicists, like Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, have formulated the so-called Copenhagen interpretation, according to which observations on the subatomic level present us with a new epistemological discovery, namely that we have reached a barrier in our attempt to describe nature in terms of human concepts derived from ordinary experience (Pine 2006:226).  According to them the descriptions that we normally use to describe nature, like “particle”, “wave”, “position”, “mass” and “spin” involve assumptions about space and time that is not valid on that level.  At most, we could arrive at complementary views of reality. 

This view builds on the philosophical tradition derived from David Hume, according to which the question of what is real is unanswerable (Pine 2006:229).  We could describe the empirical world of observation, but we do not have access to the world as it really is.  Therefore, one should accept that between measurements, when the particle-wave propagates, there is nothing that could be known, i.e. that could be conceptualized in human terms.  Only when the particle is observed, when we could measure it, does it become an object in the true sense of the word.

One could propose that the limit that has been reached is not so much due to the smallness of the particles.  If it was only the smallness of the particles that was the issue, one could always have the expectation that new technology would enable us to overcome such a barrier in extending our observational reach.  But the Copenhagen interpretation clearly refers to a more fundamental barrier.  One could propose that the barrier that has been reached is the higher dimensional structure of the cosmos in which the subatomic particles is (at the very least) partially situated.  This could imply that physicists have experimentally become confronted with things situated in these higher dimensions, that is, with things as they truly are.

If we allow that this higher dimensional structure of the cosmos is the same as the noumenal realm that Kant postulated, then his philosophy is applicable to situations like these.  He said exactly what the Copenhagen interpretation acknowledges, namely that we have no direct experimental access to things situated in this dimension.  Also, in accordance with the “complementary views of reality”, he held that different sets of rules apply in the phenomenal and noumenal realms.                

         

Not all physicists agreed with the Copenhagen interpretation.  Albert Einstein, for example, disagreed.  Einstein rejected the view that a true barrier to knowledge had been reached.  He believed that “There is nothing so far removed from us to be beyond our reach or so hidden that we cannot discover it” (Pine 2006:225).  The human mind would always be able to conceptualize at least the most likely hypothesis about the nature of reality.  Using mathematical models and experimentation, physicists have proposed that we could arrive at a better and better understanding of the hidden forces acting on the subatomic level.  It is exactly in this domain of theoretical physics where the existence of a higher dimensional structure of the cosmos has been proposed.        

This view could also, to some extent, be accommodated in the Kantian perspective if the higher dimensional structure of the cosmos is equated with his noumenal realm.  Kant allowed that we could rationally think and conceptualize this realm.  But according to Kant we cannot arrive at any knowledge of this realm based on pure reason.  Kant, however, did allow us to say something about this realm using “practical reason”. The laws governing the noumenal world could to some extent be indirectly established through practical reason. 

Although Kant only applied practical reason to human freedom (morality), one could propose that it could also be applied to science.  This implies that one could, in spite of what Kant proposed, maybe also positively characterize the noumenal realm in physics (when we equate it with the higher dimensional structure of the universe).  Kant did not foresee that one day we would be able to indirectly access the noumenal realm to the extent that we are presently doing.  And it seems that it is through practical reason (not in the moral sense) that the identification between Kant’s noumenal realm and the higher dimensional structure of the cosmos as it is described in theoretical physics can be established.

Conclusion

It has been more than 200 years since Kant developed his philosophy.  The world has changed a lot.  We have moved beyond the Newtonian view of the world.  Einstein’s theories of relativity and quantum physics have changed our view of the world.  It has been a long time since philosophers have dropped Kant’s notion of a noumenal world existing alongside the phenomenal world.  Could it be true that Kant was right after all?  That his philosophy is not only compatible with our contemporary view of the world, but that the noumenal realm that he postulated is nothing but the higher dimensional structure of our universe that have recently been taken seriously by theoretical scientists? 

In this essay I proposed that this is indeed the case.  After giving a broad overview of the Kantian view, I made some proposals how his philosophy could be adapted (one should rather say extended) to incorporate new developments in psychoanalysis as well as physics. The existence of the noumenal realm opens up the possibility that our knowledge could indeed to some extent be grounded in the human subject, not as standing apart from the world, but as being part of the world.  His philosophy also, not only provides a unified perspective on our world that could incorporate disciplines as far apart as psychoanalysis and physics; it also enables us to reconcile the different interpretations of quantum physics.

If my proposals are accepted, the implications thereof are profound.  It implies that philosophy has taken a wrong turn when it rejected the noumenal realm.  Since this provides the natural ground for knowledge, at least some of what has been done since then leading to the scepticism of post-modernism should be reconsidered.  The adapted Kantian perspective could provide a powerful framework within which the contemporary developments in physics could be interpreted. Lastly, the existence of such a realm reinforces the fact that our world consists of much more than the observable realm.

List of sources

Caygill, Howard. 1995. A Kant Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Greene, B. 2000. The Elegant Universe. London: Random House.
Jung, C. G. 1953-77. Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol 11. Edited by H. Read, Michael Fordham and Gerhard Adler. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University.
Jung, C. G. 1990. The Basic Writings of C. G. Jung. Translated by R. F. C. Hill. Selected and Introduced by V. S. de Laszlo. Princeton: Princeton University.
Kant, I. 1934. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn. New York: Everyman’s Library.
Kant, I. 1997. Critique of Practical Reason. Translated by Mary Gregor. Introduction by Andrews Reath. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Kugler, P. 2008. “Psychic imaging: a bridge between subject and object”, in The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Second Edition). Edited by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terence Dawson. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Ostenfeld, E. N. 1982. Forms, Matter and Mind. London: Marinus Nijhoff.
Pine, R. C. 2006. Science and the human prospect. Internet: http//home.Honolulu.Hawaii.edu/pine/book1-2.htm/
Tarnas, R. 1991. The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that have shaped our worldview. New York: Ballantine.
Ward, A. 2006. Kant. The Three Critiques. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Author: Dr Willie Mc Loud (Ref. wmcloud.blogspot.com)

Read also: 
Kant, Noumena and Quantum Physics
Published in Contemporary Studies in Kantian Philosophy 3 (2018)