The Sefirot of Attainment
Summary of the book’s contents
V. Arshinov
M. Laitman
Y. Svirskiy
Chapter 1. An Introduction to the Theme
In writing this book, the authors' aim is the quest for truth, meaning and values in the context of the contemporary situation, when the global crisis is beginning to show itself, with increasing obviousness, as the tendency to escalate into an anthropological crisis (with symptoms such as drug-addiction, terrorism, etc.), and thus to acquire a new quality, that of self-organization negating man, brought forth by his own "egoistic activity." Following the view advanced by Ervin Laszlo, this situation may be termed the situation of a macro-shift in the epoch of bifurcation. Ervin Laszlo advances the view that at the present time, humanity is in the third, critical ("chaotic"), and even somewhere in the post-critical phase, of a "macro-shift."
In its essence this situation is poly-semantic and multidimensional, and the authors are of the opinion that the ways towards resolving it can only be found at the junction of three cultural areas:
1) Philosophy,
2) an inter-disciplinary direction in modern science—Synergetics, which studies the processes of self-organization, and
3) the ancient wisdom of Kabbalah.
The key thesis of the entire book is the following: in construing a new, modern value system, man can no longer utilize any single form of knowledge. We are speaking of establishing a new anthropocosmic world-view, in whose context human existence will acquire its own, truly global and cosmological spiritually-semantic dimension. And this is what compels us to speak of the development of a new planetary ethics.
It is precisely at this point that it becomes useful to turn to Kabbalah, which (in the authors' opinion) is a highly-organized, fractally-communicative system of interrelationships in the world as a whole, and can be understood as a holographically connected aggregate of universes, of which we ourselves are a part.
Chapter 2. The Methodological and Existential Difficulties
This chapter discusses the difficulties, related to the fact that researchers are not only divided by their professional boundaries, but also by their existential traditions, which assign their value systems. For this reason, the given chapter seeks to establish a ground for the necessity of creating new cross-cultural meta-communications, which to a limited extent shall include trans-disciplinary, trans-cultural and transcendental subjects—and such elements of reality are being construed, or rediscovered, in modern postnonclassical science, culture and philosophy. It is precisely in virtue of postnonclassical science that the academic world has adopted the concept that all objects which are assimilated in the natural sciences are, from the point of view of universal schematisms, becoming increasingly less subject to unification.
The emphasis on interdisciplinarities of a communicative character in the scientific quest also allows us take a more integral look at modern science's interactions with the lofty cultures of antiquity—the systems of traditional wisdoms and spiritual practices. Moreover, the discussion even extends to the construction of a special ontology, where the emphasis is placed not on an attempt to build an ontology addressing us back to the outdated way of life (that assumes certain "universalities" that are set once and for all), but rather on forming a solid base for the opportunity to approach the communicative ontology, which addresses us to the idea of coming-into-being (or "becoming").
The chapter also introduces the conception of a communicative reality, and here the scientific experiment presents itself as a "spherical" cybernetic process, where we find ourselves involved in a cyclical contact with the fragment of reality being researched, with our very selves, and with an "Other." The reference to the "Other" in the context of a strictly-speaking philosophic tradition and philosophic language, may very well be understood as an indication of the transcendental—a transcendental reality, which may be cognized as a virtual reality.
Chapter 3. Kabbalah in the Interdisciplinary Field of Postnonclassical Science
The aim of this chapter is to show the content of the "inner semantic connection" between the contemporary, postnonclassical way of knowing (i.e., obtaining knowledge, attaining) and Kabbalah as a special kind of synergetically-structural invariant of a cyclically-communicative interaction of two worlds, which interpret one another. The chapter concisely examines one of the central Kabbalistic symbols—"The Tree of the Sefirot," in which is embedded the entire spectrum of all the possible strategies of relating to the world and to man, all of which can be realized through the most diverse areas of life-activity. The symbol of the Tree of the Sefirot contains a powerful value potential of developing man's spiritual experience in an altruistically-oriented way, as well as the communicative potential of integrating this experience with the inter-disciplinary context of Synergetics as the nucleus of postnonclassical science, according to which the world—is an integral and dynamic composition of self-organizing processes (mutual transitions of the "chaos-order"). In the context of this picture, that to which we usually refer by the term "reality" emerges and exists in the realm between communicating instances (of the parameters of Hakken's order). Subordination to this reality is one of the manifestations of the synergetic principle of subordination (H. Hakken). The quest for higher realities—is the quest for higher parameters of order in the synergetic (hierarchically-matricized) field of chain-like, cause-and-effect connections. If reality is interpreted as the product of communicative, self-organizing processes, then we are well-grounded in speaking of the multiformity of realities, whose construction or discovery cannot be realized only through the means of (or based on) the rationalistic intuition in the spirit of Descartes. The communicative realm of the Tree of the Sefirot, being substantially non-linear and non-Archimedean, potentially leads us into a field that is beyond the confines of the Euclidian-Cartesian space (i.e., space that has been especially pre-intended to localize the idealized states of mathematical objects that are separable from one another). From this point of view, the Cartesian model is radically re-examined by Kabbalah, which supposes a new, non-local world, whose existence has already been proposed by quantum mechanics ( Bell's Theory) and especially by the "holographic paradigm" (D. Bohm).
Chapter 4. Matricized Thought and Synergetics
The aim of the chapter is to demonstrate the peculiarities of the dialogo-communicative way of thought, inherent to the interdisciplinary subject of the synergetic way of knowing (i.e., obtaining knowledge), who deals with self-organizing man-assessment systems. Man-assessment systems are systems found in states of uncertainty and the making of a decision (bifurcation). The meaning of the latter is the following: a synergetically interpreted object becomes realized in a broad sphere of states of consciousness, whose values' assessment is beyond the scope of the implicitly assumed value system of the rationalistically-oriented Western culture. Here Synergetics comes forward also as the methodology of construing reality, close to the discourse of Paul Watzlawik's communicative constructivism. According to M. Polanyi, there is a distinction to be made between personal knowledge and subjective knowledge; a distinction consisting in an individuum's communicative experience. According to Descartes, to think—means to doubt, and ultimately to obtain access to oneself by means of the critical and intellectual autodialogue. But such communication is the extreme and idealized case. More realistic is the dialogue of the type of individual who is open-minded, creative and predisposed to achieving a balanced, intersubjective consensus. That is, an individual who places himself and is found on the path to passing from the egoistic state of being to the altruistic one.
The synergetic way of thought, understood as a hierarchically-matricized one, necessarily includes an instrumentally-operational component. The given characteristic is best demonstrated by the basic device used in Synergetics, namely—the laser. The laser is a device whose operation combines the natural and the artificial, the well-ordered and the non-organized, the quantum and the classical. In the form of a laser, Synergetics is naturally cognized in the spirit of instrumentalism and neopragmatism, including the interdisciplinary constructivism of the conception of Maturana and Varela's autopoesis.
Chapter 5. The Laser Paradigm and Kabbalah
Kabbalah's place in the system of interdisciplinary communications, its matricized chronotope, is assigned by what we metaphorically call "the laser paradigm." The laser is a most interesting system, capable of teaching us a great deal. A laser's light does not only draw a connection between the quantum and classical worlds, but it also creates them. The light of a laser is a "creating light." The laser, as a generator of a well-ordered, high-quality light, can be viewed almost as a communicative junction of classical and quantum physics, evolutionary theory and cosmology, and the worlds of order and chaos. "The laser paradigm" does not signify a new scientific revolution, but vice-versa: it is grasped as the means to remove or "heal" the gaps between paradigms. And in correlation to the Tree of the Sefirot, we can say that it is " Kabbalistic." The Kabbalistic paradigm—is a new holographic (or fractal) communicative setting, new "non-Platonic" forms of a constructively-evolutionary transcendence, in which the rigid boundary between the actual and the potential, the possible and the real, does not exist as such.
Kabbalah, as a hierarchically-matricized communicative model of the world (that includes man in his imminently-transcendental dimension), offers us the opportunity to answer those questions, whose urgency and practical significance in our epoch of crisis, the epoch of the macro-shift and the crisis consciousness (E. Laszlo), can hardly be over-valued.
Chapter 6. On the Path towards a Dynamic Integrity
Kabbalah aims to bring man (and brings him) to an integral, wholesome perception of allof reality, and this draws it close to the holistically-oriented postnonclassical science and its most modern philosophic directions.
But in contrast to philosophy, Kabbalah has a steady tradition. And in contrast to the natural sciences, it does not appeal just to the sensory organs (including their supplementation with instruments) and the mind as the sole sources of obtaining knowledge. Practicing Kabbalists point to the necessity of developing an additional "instrument" of obtaining knowledge—"the spiritual sense." Moreover, such a sixth sense is irreducible to the capabilities of the mind; its presence rather indicates the existence of a special layer of reality, termed in Kabbalah "the concealed, spiritual world." And it is here that we find parallels to the postnonclassical (synergetic) ontologies of quantum physics and cosmology, in particular to David Bohm's holographic model of the universe, which includes the processes of cognition as inseparable parts of the creative process of establishing an integral hierarchical matrix of the implicit, explicit, and super-implicit orders of the universe.
Within the confines of his paradigm, Bohm had proposed the discernment of two types of ordering: the implicative and the explicative orders. This reality of a non-apparent (the implicative) order is not grasped through "the usual" means of observation, but a "tangible" (the explicative) world emerges on its basis. The implicative order of a deeper level of reality is precisely what is being described by the metaphor of the hologram. According to Bohm, in this case our world comes forth as a certain "apparition," something like the "apparition" of a holographic image, "behind which" there is a non-apparent order to life, giving rise to the entire reality that is observed through the sensory organs, and which is cognized in virtue of the existence of a certain "super-implicit" order.
It should be noted, that in this regard, the Kabbalistic assertion that the difference between the materialistic (explicative) order and the spiritual one (if we interpret "spiritual" as being precisely the implicative order) exists only relative to man, while there is no difference between these two components relative to the Creator; turns out to be coherent with Bohm's holographic paradigm. That is to say, we arrive at an image of a world that has its own special holographic memory, a world that self-organizes as a kind of super-hologram (the super-implicit order), from which we can decode (i.e., come to know) information only with the help of a source of coherent laser light. It is important for us to be clear on what laser light is. The resurrection of ontology, according to the data received in observing operationally-measuring schemes, is a task not having any single solution. There are many such ontologies, and Kabbalah can help us to make the adequate choice among them. This choice is first of all a choice between the value ontologies of egoism and altruism. According to the perspective developed throughout the book, Kabbalah can come forth in the capacity of a spiritually-oriented post-classical metaphysics, and in this regard resurrect the so-necessary-to-the-modern-scientific-way-of-knowing connection to the transcendental world of the values of human culture, thus providing a transition from the value system built on the basis egoism—to the priorities of human solidarity and altruism.
Chapter 7. From Centrism to Distributed Connections and Relationships
Chapter 7 continues the discussion of the synergy of the processes of knowing (obtaining knowledge) as self-organizing observations-communications, as well as the matricized (cybernetic) model of G. Bateson, who showed how a spiritual component of the universe is not confined to just the human body. Just as Bohm had done, he likewise defended the holistic view of the world, emphasizing not the objects, but the relationships between them. In order to describe the physical, biological and social systems and complexes, Bateson used the cybernetic conception of the reverse connection. In the extreme case, the whole universe can be conceived of as a certain matrix, where by means of reverse connections are realized the metabolic processes of the exchange of substances, energy and information. And if we suppose that intelligent behavior consists namely in the ability to self-regulate and self-learn by means of optimizing one's behavior, then it will not only be the brain that will come forward as its carrier, but also the entire human body, as well as all of the surrounding environment. Moreover, in such complex systems possessing a reverse connection, distinct centers of control (such as those of the type instantiable by "the I") do not exist. According to Bateson, any centralization indicates the absence of systematic wisdom. Reason is attributed not only to man, but in the extreme case, also to the entire universe. Furthermore, Bateson had supposed that the universe is hierarchized: each complex system with its metabolisms exists in the context of a more complex system, with which it exchanges substance and information. In addition, this context qualitatively determines the system's behavior. This hierarchy of contexts can be interpreted as a hierarchy of worlds, and correspondingly, a hierarchy of matricized intelligences that are no longer attributed only to the human being. In addition, here the term "intelligence" is beyond the scope of the Cartesian-Kantian interpretation of an agent's intelligently-sensible activity. Thus, the absence of systematic wisdom comes forth precisely as the non-consideration of such special types of abilities (such as the sixth sense) and the egoistic aspiration to construe one's own "I" as the ultimate governing and knowing instance. In order to counterbalance the egoistic prescription of the mind, Bateson insists on the presence of a Great Mind, where the individual mind—is merely a subsystem. This Great Mind can be compared to the ecological God. The ecological God is not sinister or vengeful. Rather, God's seeming aggressiveness is only a super-complex system's reverse reaction to man's ill-considered actions, which are based on the egoistic self-orientation. It is on the rejection of self-centerment and of the position of an isolated observer, that the phenomenon of faith maintains its existence; and we are not speaking of the dogmatic faith in an all-benevolent Creator, but of faith as the instrument to attain the higher contexts (or parameters of order). In this regard the Kabbalistic understanding of the status of prayer most curiously resonates with Bateson's ecological paradigm of consciousness, since such a prayer comes forth not as a one-sided objectification of the Creator, but as a means to develop the correct (ecological) relation to the latter.
Chapter 8. Concerning the "Make-Up" of the Agent of Postnonclassical Science
To us, the agent of postnonclassical science—is first of all a synergetic agent, who cognizes himself in the intellectual meta-context of diverse inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural communicative practices. Let us more thoroughly explain the concept of postnonclassical science, as it is interpreted by V. S. Stepin (who had introduced it into use). The first point we would like to emphasize in this connection is the following: postnonclassical science deals with an agent who is placed in the context of historical time, as well as the context of an open dialogue with culture. Postnonclassisicm aims to fix the "becoming" reality as a reality that is created not only by science, but also by the modern, highly-developed informational technologies; to fix the "becoming" reality as a reality that is created in the process of a diological and communicative interaction with culture; as a reality that is birthed by the process of man's correlation with his very self, by means of his evolutionary-cosmological dimension. It is precisely in this context of the quest for humanitarian reference points (i.e., the values of human solidarity and altruism), that Kabbalah becomes an important source of cognitive impulses for creatively overcoming Cartesian dualism, in order to solve the problem of the interconnection between body and mind.
The starting point of modeling the agent of postnonclassical science is the classical agent, who passionately yearns to know reality "as it really is," "on the other side" of the changeable world of human emotions and perceptions. The following point—is the nonclassical agent of quantum-relativist physics, for whom the reality knowable by him is grasped as a reality that is created in conceptual and natural experiments, and through reflection on them. Finally, the post-classical agent is born in the reflexive practices of the "second order," which create a communicative reality of "a new dialogue between man and nature" (I. Prigozhin), whose process of objectivation makes him an agent-carrier of an interga-cognitive consciousness.
The agent in postnonclassical science is complex, self-developing systems, among which V. S. Stepin discerns a special class of man-assessment systems, or systems that include the very process of their cognition. The inclusion of the process of cognition demands the corresponding instruments for performing empirical work in the realm of the transcendental. In this case, it is precisely Kabbalah with its Tree of the Sefirot that plays the central role of the transcendental parameter of order.
It is to such principles of postclassical science as synerginess, nonlinearity, observability, responsibility, communicativity, integrity, multilevelness of description, supplementariness, subjugation to parameters of order, and chain causality, that E. Laszlo's idea of a micro-shift is constructively connected. The concept of a micro-shift in combination with the idea of establishing a postnonclassical rationality, allows for the demonstration of the heuristic possibilities of the synergio-communicative approach to understanding the processes of the interactions of the new economy, the knowledge and the values in the postindustrial society as being in a special type of auto-poetic, evolving "man-assessment" system.
In this case, the movement towards a peaceful and stable civilization will grow stronger (E. Laszlo). In the context of the "macro-shift," the conception of society based on knowledge and communication expands to the notion of a reflective society, as a society that is able to consciously plan and goal-orientedly realize the mutation of its fond of cultural information, as the necessary condition for humanity's survival in the 21 st century.
Chapter 9. "The Screen" and Transcendental Empiricism
This chapter thoroughly examines the philosophical, scientific, and in part artistic aspects of the correlation of Kabbalah's "screenization" procedure with transcendental empiricism, introduced by the great 20 th century philosopher Gilles Deleuze as one of the fundamental methodological procedures in assimilating the "becoming" reality.
Kabbalah understands the building of a "screen" as a special algorithm of spiritual practice that is not reflexivized even in the postnonclassical natural sciences. This is a key algorism, without which the very experience of entering the "spiritual world," moving along the Tree of the Sefirot, is impossible. In the absence of a screen we are dealing merely with the face-value world given to us in our senses. So what is it that this screen "screens," partitions, reflects, or passes through itself? Kabbalah's answer is—desire. We should note that the term "desire" is extremely dense in Kabbalah. It connotes with such terms as "information" and "energy," and even "light" itself is interpreted as "the Creator's desire to delight the creatures." The screen's function consists in separating the desires that are inherent to our world—the egoistic desires—from the desires that stem from the Creator and constitute the Upper World—the altruistic desires. Thus, the additional, consciously obtained sensory organ—the screen, allows a Kabbalist to possess information about the Upper World directly and objectively. That is, "the screen" assumes a special type of communicative model, which describes the process of man's interactions with the Upper World, and moreover such a model ultimately assumes the openness of man and the world to one another.
As for "transcendental empiricism," we must say that for now, there is no precise definition, and such a definition is most likely impossible (when we consider the stylistics of the poststructuralist philosophizing in France). There are several interpretations of Deleuze's texts, suggesting certain conceptions of what he may have meant. Deleuze views the essence of empiricism through the correspondingly posed problem, which is the following: in any concrete experience, the agent who does the attaining is beyond the scope of what is directly given to him in that experience, but that which is beyond the scope of the data given at face-value is also a given of a specific type. Thus, the problem lies in defining the status of these two types of "givenness." The constructive assimilation of a new piece of given data (which is beyond the scope of the data given at face-value) assigns a space, in which a new agent becomes formed. In addition, here we can say that the given data is not so much given to the agent, but rather the agent must affirm himself in this given data. In the terminology of Kabbalah, he must correct himself in such a way, as to become matched to that new given data. That is, transcendental empiricism is summoned to transform the experimental conditions altogether (E. Kant) into the genetic conditions of real experience, which, from the point of view of modern philosophy, allows one to grasp the structure and essence of that which Kabbalah understands as the procedure of "screenization." At the same time, we cannot equate transcendental empiricism to the likes of a method as it is understood by Descartes or Kant, who view the method as the means for mediated obtainment of knowledge, voluntarily used by the researcher. In the case of transcendental empiricism, methodological research is accompanied by compulsion and chance, pointing to an unexpected encounter with something that eludes the thought and that simultaneously compels us to think. Here is also formed a special field of sensitivity (or sensory organ) that is very far removed from Kantian transcendental conditions, which necessitates the universality and necessity of the theoretical natural sciences. And, simultaneously, it in some sense preserves the quality of the "transcendentality" of those elements of reality, in which the post-classical philosopher or scientist, as well as the Kabbalist, are submerged.
Chapter 10. The Position of the Observer in Postnonclassical Science and in Kabbalah (the Problem of Altruism)
This chapter examines the position of the researcher-Kabbalist from the point of view of postnonclassical science, as an observer within the confines of overcoming the classical "subject-object" opposition. But if such a "removal" has a place, then precisely it points to a certain zone of proximity between the modern and postnonclassical ways of obtaining knowledge, and the Kabbalistic means of assimilating the world. Such a zone of proximity is comfortably denoted by the term "man-assessment." In order to approach the term "man-assessment," the chapter draws a distinction between three instances:
1) the subject, who "lives" not in the world, but in a logos that guarantees him the opportunity of knowing;
2) man is merely one of the world's components, and moreover one that is not so important in other cosmological constructions, and
3) the observer as a certain reduced equivalent of man (a man, whose life is assigned by attainment of knowledge). At the same time a question is posed: is the observer the person or the subject?
After analyzing the observer's place in the theory of relativity and in quantum physics, the chapter then proposes a metaphoric phase portrait as a model of human reality, which includes a field of special points of stability (the field of the subject); a field of special points of instability (the field of the person); and an intermediate, transitional field (the field of the postnonclassical observer). In the intermediate field of the proposed model, the emergence of the substantial components of knowable activity is examined as being the result of "up-flares of intuition" (according to Bergson). In addition, this does not speak of the pre-existence of those contents which such an "upflare" would imply. To them is applicable the term "quality of contingency," defined as that which happens without any external premises and is rooted in being. The "upflare" is contentless all by itself, but it implies the appearance of content, which in our model is designated as the "transition" into the realm of the points of stability. In addition, this transition is possible when qualitative changes transpire in the realm of the instabilities.
It is precisely in this realm or in this reality that an observer- Kabbalist is introduced, once he has ceased gravitating towards the subject or towards the person. Such an observer is himself internally motionless. On one hand, he resembles a void, shearing the phase portrait of human reality, and pointing to an "a-human" component; and on the other hand, he himself comes forth as certain evidence for the utility of such knowledge. The observer- Kabbalist comes forth in the capacity of an instance, indicating a special type of cognitive position, the latter being characterized simultaneously by presence in what is happening and by existence beyond the scope of what is happening. Such an instance assumes the absence of clear boundaries between the observer's bodily-sensitive (psycho-physical) components and his rational abilities of assessing the world (correspondingly, the boundaries between the subject and object become blurred in him). And here we arrive at the special realm of scientific ethics that is proposed by these types of cognitive practitioners—a realm that still demands its description and structurization.
Chapter 11.The Ethos of the Kabbalistic Observer
In this chapter we would like to not so much establish, as show the correctness of the fact that the ethos of modern science, or better yet, the ethos of the scientist, engraved into the problematic nature of postnonclassical science, resonates with the ethos of Kabbalah and is the ethos of coming into being, openness and the communicative dialogue—the dialogue with the Creator (as it is understood in Kabbalah). In addition, we are not speaking of the analysis of concrete research practices, but rather of construing (speculatively construing) a possible ethical position, which would be oriented not only on the "objective" grasp and a mathematical formulation of external and natural elements of reality, but also on bringing out those personal, and at times nonverbalizable, aspects of the art of science, which give life to the very process of knowing. The chapter examines the structure of the act of knowing, in which three syntheses are distinguished:
1) the spontaneous synthesis, which unifies the observer's inner potentialities with forces external to the latter into a certain complex (connective synthesis);
2) a synthesis that orders the indicated complex into a certain mobile but stable whole, and as paradoxical as it may seem, which allows us to draw distinctions in that whole, to mill it into components, and to distinguish something special and specific in it (disjunctive synthesis);
3) and finally, the synthesis, which provides a multiple reconnection of the separated milled parts into a new variative whole, variative precisely because the parts can reconnect in different ways, each time forming a different unity (conjunctive synthesis).
The first synthesis is passive, and the latter two are active. However, the possibility is not ruled out that in the first synthesis there is also present a special kind of activeness, not coinciding with the activeness of the other two syntheses. If the activeness of the disjunctive and conjunctive syntheses consists in reason or the mind (once again referring to Kant), then the activeness of the connective synthesis requires a clarification: this is the activeness, inherent to an unexpected encounter with a principally unpredictable dynamic of external forces, and in addition, such an encounter may sometimes bear a fundamental significance for a break-through into unexplored worlds. Based on the analysis provided in the chapter thus far, the chapter then continues to examine the comprehension of the postnonclassical subject's position on the basis of construing an image of a plastic (in contrast to a rigid) observer, who is open to any sort of self-metamorphoses in the process of research. This image is constructed in the form of an aggregate of the potential efforts or abilities that accompany an act of obtaining knowledge, directed at assimilating both the inner and the outer states of affairs. Under the influence of external forces, which provide the researcher with various means of an object's existence, the researcher himself becomes partitioned into layers, and such a layering assumes a multiplicity of reactions to the multiplicity of the forces of influence. In addition, a part of these forces is brought to life by the activity of the researcher himself. They are in essence a reaction to his bodily movements, to his efforts. Here we can distinguish a molar state and a molecular state in the researcher-observer. Molecularity is characterized by locality, non-reflexivity, and the absence of clear boundaries between the subject and the object; it assumes a certain collection, determined by the intensive characteristics. On the other hand, molarity assumes the self-organization of extensive integrities, which possess boundaries and lend themselves to qualitative values. In this case, the plastic dynamic observer exists between the molecular and the molar. At first glance, we may say of him that he has sufficiently clear, but extremely mobile, fractal boundaries; that he constantly recomponates (reassembles, reorganizes). But it would be more correct to define him as that fractal boundary, which marks the transition from one state to another. It is precisely at this point that the ethics of openness acquires its substance, which is the ethics inherent to the plastic observer—both in the existential and in the epistemological regards. When the Kabbalistic observer "screens" himself from the Creator's light, he finds himself in a situation that is much like the ethical position of the plastic observer (discussed above). By constructing a screen, a Kabbalist puts himself in the position of uncertainty and supplementation to what is knowable. He "screens" himself from the Creator for the sake of acquiring an openness to that new thing, which comes from the latter. And such a logic unfolds within the intentionality towards coition with the Creator—coition, understood as live obtainment of knowledge, leaving aside the logic of the disjunctive and conjunctive syntheses. At the heart of the matter, in this situation the Kabbalist enters a special logical realm, and precisely he subordinates himself to the logic of the event. It is to this very same logic of the event that a scientist partial to postnonclassical science implicitly subordinates himself (and this is what comprises his ethical vector). Both the formation of the screen in Kabbalah, and the theoretic assimilation or the processes of "becoming" in postnonclassical science, can be interpreted in the terminology of the event—encounter.
