Alliance for Mystical Pragmatics

Alliance for Mystical Pragmatics

Harmonizing Evolutionary Convergence

Glossary Menus

primary-secondary relationships

The primary-secondary structure of the Principles of Unity and Duality marks the most fundamental change in the way we humans look at opposites in the history of human thought.

In the West, Aristotle’s Law of Contradiction holds sway, as dualism, asserting that no entity can have the properties of A and not-A in the same instance. For example, a bowl can hold either three or five apples, but not both. The sets of all sets with three or five members are quite distinct.

On the other hand, we can define S to be the largest set, the set of all sets. However, Georg Cantor proved that the power set of any set, including infinite ones, is strictly larger than the set itself. So S is both the largest set, by definition, and not the largest, a relationship that is encapsulated in the Principle of Duality, which has a primary-secondary relationship with the Law of Contradiction, illustrated here.

We can resolve this paradox and any other by transcending the categories with the Principle of Unity, in this instance extending infinite sets into Nondual Transfinity, as Divine Wholeness.

In contrast, the predominant pattern in the East is that opposites are cyclic, as duality, encapsulated in the classic T'ai-chi-t'u symbol, or ‘Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate’. Here, the Chinese concepts of yin and yang, as inseparable dark and light, moon and sun, female and male, etc., are constantly turning into each other, as day turns into night, which then turns back to day, for instance.

The dots in the middle of the two main shapes indicate the potential of the opposite to arise when one side is dominant in any particular situation. The key point here is that when the Universe is viewed as a whole, both opposites co-exist; to reject one in favour of the other does not lead to Wholeness, Peace, and tranquillity.

This is something the Taoists recognized, Laozi saying in the opening words of Tao Te Ching,  “Tao can be talked about, But not the Eternal Tao. Names can be named, But not the Eternal Name.” Here, we have another example of a primary-secondary relationship, not actually made fully explicit in this ancient endeavour to find a harmonious way of life in our dual and dualistic world.

In general, what we humans tend to do in our reasoning is illogically put second things first, focusing more attention on the surface than on the hidden depths, which drive most of our thinking and hence behaviour. So if we are to fully awaken to what is happening to us all at the present time, we need to realize that profundity is the union of the profound and superficial, as this diagram illustrates.