The Dimensions

For the longest time — the era spanning what we call “the Modern Era” — we knew only of a reality of three-dimensions: the three dimensions of physical space described in terms of the extensions of length, width and depth. The discovery of the third dimension — depth — was the innovation of the Renaissance, and chiefly of the perspective artists.

This innovation largely marks the difference between the Modern and the Medieval worlds. The Medieval world was predominantly two-dimensional. Much of the social turbulence that attended the transition from the Medieval to the Modern, in terms of social outlook and organisation, was very much owing to this major “paradigm shift” in what were deemed to be the true dimensions of our reality, if not truth itself.

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Sub specie aeternitatis

The phrase sub specie aeternitatis, meaning something like “the view from eternity” or something seen “from the aspect of eternity”, was apparently coined by the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Jung uses the phrase quite a bit. Formally, it is defined as ” expression describing what is universally and eternally true, without any reference to or dependence upon the temporal portions of reality. “

It is pretty much what Jean Gebser also means by “integral consciousness” or “aperspectival consciousness”, “time-freedom”, and a corresponding “universal way of looking at things”. Sub specie aeternitatis means that “universal way of looking at things,” which is aperspectival.

Time, Consciousness and Digital Technology

This posting might be taken as a sequel to the previous post on “the New Normal” (and this “New Normal” also being coincident with the Post-Modern Condition), where we will take a look into another and different aspect of this “New Normal” as befits what Gebser calls “the double-movement” or “the crisis of paradox” as Jacob Bronowski also calls it — that is to say, “chaotic transition”.