As I have insisted within these pages and elsewhere, Nicholas of Cusa is not a mystic. In fact, the truth is precisely the opposite. And anyone professing to identify Cusa's works as such, merely demonstrates his of her intellectual shortcomings.
By the phrase "just the opposite" I mean to say that the method of philosophic dialogue that Cusa develops is the basis not for mysticism but rather it is the basis for scientific investigation. I shall demonstrate this in what follows.
We do not know, and will never know precisely when and how the mechanism of cellular energy throughput came about in the history of the biosphere. We do know that the remarkable near universality of the mitochondria as the locus of the energy throughput via the engine of the enzyme ATPase supplying ATP as the source of energy to the cell. We know that this constitutes an endosymbiosis, in which the cell's nuclear DNA is separate and distinct from the encapsulated mitochondrial DNA. This constitutes a unity as the basis for the very organization of life across the boundaries of its aerobic and anaerobic forms.
The principle for this process of development of our organic existence is twofold. One is the necessity of the capture and useful reduction of energy underlying and differentiating the living and non-living states of matter. The second principle is the process of subsumption of opposites in the manifold contractedness of substance. This occurs via that which Riemann established as the equivalence of degrees of freedom through added dimensionality. This is understood as the orthogonal movement of n dimensions to n + 1 dimensions.
Thus for all history, the subsumption of the mitochondria into the cell, constitutes a nodal event that rather efficiently demonstrates that which Cusa identified as learned ignorance. For we will never know precisely how this came about, however by investigating this very biophysical irony, if you will, we know that we shall progress upon the pathway of humanity's necessary mission of conquering disease and extending our "healthspan." We do this not as an isolated goal, but instead as the complement for humanity's larger mission of space colonization.
It is likewise not accidental that the scientific progress in the investigation of the inorganic realm hinges upon a subsumption of a different, restricted kind. That is both matter and anti-matter somehow are related as a basis of energy throughput of that nonliving realm. How it is that there is a sort of directionality of the priority of matter over anti-matter in the evolution of the cosmos will never be precisely known. However, we know that in investigating this, we will likewise afford humanity the ability to achieve a new degree of freedom in energy throughput. For it is known that the potential of matter/anti-matter reactions will bring about a new regime for providing thrust for that very same mission of space colonization identified above.
Once again, we as a unique species are by our nature fitted out to carry out these scientific investigations. In any one historical epoch of such necessary endeavours, we understand that we are merely providing guidance and a potential pathway for what future generations must achieve to further the true mission for humanity. And once again, we return to the principle of "investigation" cited above for both the inorganic and organic realms. This time however we are applying the principle of subsumption of opposites as Cusa develops in his Docta Ignorantia in a different manner.
Firstly, even though the history of mankind pivots around two different and opposed principles, it is only by the utter defeat of one upon which our continued existence hinges. The organization of society by an irrational oligarchy whose goal is itself destructive of the means and ends of civilization's necessary missions must be once and for all overcome. Now, achieving that does require an uplifting of humanity out of such infantile irrationality. It means extinguishing forms of oppression such as the mechanisms of financial looting of the physically productive economy. In this case it is not a relation of symbiosis that we are dealing with so much as parasitism.
However, there is a precise meaning for the unity of opposites as Cusa developed in his great work De Docta Ignorantia. It is in the national language cultures and philosophical and religious beliefs that apparent opposites can and must be overcome. The ongoing cooperation of eradicating poverty, defeating disease and colonizing space is the basis of creating a new degree of freedom for humanity. Moreover it is by the production of beauty in the arts that we inspire progeny to take up that very same mission. This represents the principle of the Contracted Maximum in human history and as such qualifies the philosophy of Cusa as the basis for scientific progress.
Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), detail of relief ‘Cardinal Nicholas before St. Peter’ on his tomb by Andrea Bregno, church of St. Peter in Chains, Rome
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