Embracing the Unknowable Can Illuminate Your Path Forward - Psychology Today

Over the years, large thinkers person pointed to an unknowable facet of beingness that profoundly affects whether we scope our goals. Carl Jung described the “psychoid” arsenic an unknowable transportation betwixt the caput and body.¹

Wilfred Bion described “beta elements” arsenic unprocessed outer stimuli that “hang around” successful the mind/brain without being attached to a thinker.²

Various religions constituent to an unknowable God.³ Quantum physicists person pointed to unknowable factors that underlie however 2 objects tin instantly impact each other’s behaviour crossed immense distances.⁴ All these factors, though unknowable, tin profoundly impact our minds, bodies, and lives. Therefore, it is worthy considering the assorted ways successful which we tin interact with the unknowable. In this little essay, I volition supply a fewer frameworks for however you tin flight the entrapment of a knowable beingness to perchance interaction the advancement you desire.

Intuition

Marcel Proust erstwhile said, “The existent voyage of find consists not successful seeing caller landscapes, but successful having caller eyes.”⁵ In our day-to-day lives, we usage our 5 senses to recognize the world, yet intuition is simply a hunch that tin usher america precise good into the future. I spot intuition arsenic a impermanent formulation of world asking to beryllium tested. As such, it comes from the assimilation of subtle accusation that the logical caput could not construct, yet it is often ignored.⁶

When thing is unknowable, logic cannot help, but intuition is simply a imaginable root of the dots you request to articulation to marque the unknowable manifest. The cardinal is to wage attention to intuitions that grant your deepest needs and to trial them to determine whether to papers the dots arsenic they emerge.

Prayer

Kierkegaard erstwhile said, “The relation of supplication is not to power God, but alternatively to alteration the quality of the 1 who prays.”⁷ People who signifier devotional supplication study that it tin assistance little anxiety.⁸ It tin assistance you surrender, opening your caput to caller ideas extracurricular of its habitual workings that specify your life.⁹ When you pray, your caput conjures up images of the unknowable, and these images tin besides beryllium explored to find if they are worthy documenting arsenic dots that you volition aboriginal join.

Music

Einstein erstwhile said astir his mentation of relativity, “It occurred to maine by intuition, and euphony was the driving unit down that intuition. My find was the effect of philharmonic perception.”¹⁰ Music is simply a almighty unit that tin heighten your subjective acquisition of life, activating an indispensable constituent of your thinking.¹¹ When you nutrient music, it represents a connection of feeling, bringing signifier to the unknowable.

Qualia Navigation

Qualia are highly subjective experiences that an idiosyncratic feels but cannot precisely pass to anyone else. David Chalmers erstwhile said, “Sense information are overmuch much arguable than qualia due to the fact that they are associated with a arguable mentation of perception–that 1 perceives the satellite by perceiving one's consciousness data, oregon thing similar that.”¹²

When you announcement your qualia, you taxable to the information that subjective experiences cannot beryllium precisely communicated, truthful erstwhile you wage attraction to however you spot reddish oregon sensation umami, alternatively than generalizing this experience, you wage attraction to the details of your experience, allowing the undefinable to exert powerfulness implicit your choices contempt it being beyond your grasp.

Meditation

Arianna Huffington erstwhile said, “Meditation is not astir stopping thoughts, but recognizing that we are much than our thoughts and our feelings.” ¹³ Meditation tin heighten your consciousness experience¹⁴ to the grade that it tin adjacent support your genes.¹⁵

The interaction of meditation whitethorn not beryllium contiguous oregon overt, but implicit time, it introduces you to intelligence states that are beyond your accustomed waking consciousness oregon heavy sleep. When you meditate, you brushwood and interact with the unknowable successful an unknowable way, and successful truthful doing, you whitethorn bask the benefits of watching the unknowable manifest successful your life.¹⁶ Think of it arsenic interior abstraction travel, wherever you observe aspects of yourself that lone the soundless caput tin illuminate.

Virtual Reality (VR)

Brennan Spiegel erstwhile said, “Virtual world is similar dreaming with your eyes open.”¹⁷ One technological reappraisal pointed retired that VR tin instigate non-ordinary consciousness, thereby promoting questions and interactions extracurricular of the phenomenal world.¹⁸ In that sense, VR is precise utile for knowing the unknowable much deeply.

To Get Started

Imagine a extremity you don’t cognize however to scope each time of the week. Accept that your way to this extremity is unknowable. Then, walk 5 to 10 minutes examining your intuition, praying, listening to music, registering your qualia, meditating, oregon experiencing a virtual world experience. When you do, you volition beryllium capable to recognize however the unknowable tin service you much deeply.

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