You might think that philosophy is about finding the answers to life’s big questions. However, I would argue that much of philosophy is more about therapy for disconnected states and sink states. When we are stuck in a narrative related to our unpleasant Learned Layer (LL) experiences, we are like the captives in Plato’s cave – we are embedded in an unhelpful self state.
The Mystery arrow is a common element of philosophy: it points out that we can’t know everything. We can’t even know, perhaps, which things we can know and which things we can’t know.
I would argue that hunter gatherers often thought they knew the answers to questions they couldn’t possibly know. For example, they might believe that their society was mystically linked with animal species, as noted in Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life. So accepting mystery might have been just as hard for them as for us. However, having a positive narrative would have been important for them, and Mystery is a Narrative Arrow that provides that positive narrative.
The Mystery arrow helps us to let go of narratives that trap us in disconnected or sink states. It also answers all-or-nothing thinking by reconciling contradictory narratives into a state of puzzlement. We can then recognize that there is no sure way to choose between the two contradictory narratives. In each example below, I have listed a sink state narrative that the philosophy or religion addresses.
Note that a Mystery arrow does not automatically provide “answers” to life’s problems, but it makes it possible to let go when we are stuck.
Socrates – In Plato’s early dialogues, Socrates often ends intellectual exploration by concluding that the only thing he knows is that he knows nothing. In one dialogue, Laches, the sink state involves the belief that we can figure out the definition of a word – in this case, “courage.” Throughout the dialogue, Socrates and his friends are trapped, looking for this definition, until Socrates releases them by realizing that they should give up. The Socratic Mystery dialogues that end in philosophical confusion are called “aporia” dialogues; some examples include Laches, Euthyphro, Protagoras, and Meno.
Ecclesiastes and Job (Old Testament) – One sink state idea is that good people are rewarded, bad people are punished. However, the Book of Job is a story about a just man being punished by God. In it, Job notes that God’s actions are unknowable. He questions God, but then repents, saying (Job 42:3) “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” Ecclesiastes, likewise, is skeptical about the power of human wisdom. Ecclesiastes 1:18 argues that: “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.” In both cases, Mystery is at the center.
Taoism – One sink state narrative is the idea that morality can be formulated in a definite way according to LL precepts. Taoism shows that right and wrong may be impossible to understand – they are a Mystery that comes from DHR intuition. In #19, the Tao Te Ching says:“Stop being altruistic, forget being righteous, people will remember what family feeling is.” And in #2, “Everybody knowing that goodness is good makes wickedness”.
Buddhism – Many people are stuck in the narrative that things can either stay the same (which is good) or change (which is bad). A desire to prevent change – which is connected to resisting Mystery or uncertainty – is at the root of suffering. But according to Buddhism, everything changes, and so change is necessarily neither good nor bad. Impermanence or “anicca” is central to Buddhism.
Christianity – 1 Corinthians 13:12 suggests that all mundane analysis will fail due to the Mysterious nature of God, but promises a future understanding: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
Nietzsche – Nietzsche’s sink state narrative is the Christian idea of good vs. evil; Nietzsche cares about going “beyond good and evil.” He tends to write in cryptic aphorisms that imply the inexplicable or Mysterious nature of wisdom.
Existentialism – The sink state narrative comes, again, from LL ideas about meaning, such as materialism. Existentialism holds that life has no inherent meaning. In the ideal case, we accept that we live in a state of angst, accepting Mystery, our meaning indeterminate.
These philosophies can help us construct Mystery arrows that will take us into a nexus state.
Nexus State Theory 