de alchemia cybernetica
lapis philosophorum
Separabis terram ab igne, subtile ab spisso, suaviter, magno cum ingenio. (You shall separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, suavely, and with great ingenuity.) — Tabula Smaragina Hermetis (Emerald Tablet of Hermes)
The Philosopher's Stone, a.k.a. the Stone of Wisdom, "was believed to mystically amplify the user's knowledge of alchemy so much that anything was attainable" (Wikipedia). Cf:
[…] 'problem solving' is largely, perhaps entirely, a matter of appropriate selection. Take, for instance, any popular book of problems and puzzles. Almost every one can be reduced to the form: out of a certain set, indicate one element. […] It is, in fact, difficult to think of a problem, either playful or serious, that does not ultimately require an appropriate selection as necessary and sufficient for its solution. It is also clear that many of the tests used for measuring 'intelligence' are scored essentially according to the candidate's power of appropriate selection. […] Thus it is not impossible that what is commonly referred to as 'intellectual power' may be equivalent to 'power of appropriate selection'. […] If this is so, and as we know that power of selection can be amplified, it seems to follow that intellectual power, like physical power, can be amplified. Let no one say that it cannot be done, for the gene-patterns do it every time they form a brain that grows up to be something better than the gene-pattern could have specified in detail. What is new is that we can now do it synthetically, consciously, deliberately. — W. Ross Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics
Since everything that grows comes from a seed, the fruit must be contained in its seed. Mark this well, for here lies the secret of creation. The raising of specimen, as said before, is the raising of vibrations. Herbs, animals, as well as minerals and metals, grow from seed. To understand this secret of nature, which is only partly revealed to mankind generally, constitutes the main theoretical subject in Alchemy. Once this is known, then only the proper understanding is necessary in order to obtain results in the raising or elevating of specimen, which is nothing else but transmutation. If we can help nature in her ultimate goal, that of bringing her products to perfection, then we are in harmony with her laws. Nature does not resent an artificial effort, or a shortcut, to bring about perfection. — Frater Albertus, The Alchemist's Handbook
The Great Work of alchemy is the transmutation of base metals into gold, i.e., changing corruptible entities into incorruptible ones (cf. the incorruptibility of some Catholic saints; cf. the fixed and the volatile), and the Stone is the mechanism which accomplishes that. Stone implies substance; it is not the Philosopher's Word or Idea. The Stone is an embodied phenomenon. Many spiritual systems, including alchemy, agree that it is not enough to study their teachings intellectually; we must practice i.e. embody them.
Sad as it is to say, you never understand anything by merely reading a book about it. That's why every science course includes laboratory experiments, and why every consciousness-liberation movement demands practice of yogas, meditations, confrontation techniques, etc. in which the ideas are tested in the laboratory of your own nervous system. — Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising
Wisdom is applied knowledge. The wisdom of living — the selection of states that conserve an organism's autopoiesis — is embodied in the biology of cognition (cf. instinct and reflex). So why associate the Philosopher's Stone with Fire instead of Earth?
To recapitulate: the individuality of the body is that of a flame rather than that of a stone, of a form rather than that of a bit of substance. — Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society
The properties commonly ascribed to any object [entity /jam] are, in the last analysis, names for its behavior [event /jam]. — Charles J. Herrick, Introduction to Neurology (my emphases)
It is the essence of fire, manifested as the human organism, which provides us with the instrument for the Great Work. — Paul Foster Case, Esoteric Keys of Alchemy
A 'fixed spirit' is as paradoxical an entity as the 'volatile body' which is its corollary — one of the many paradoxes, in fact, of which alchemy is composed and which converge on the Stone. — Patrick Harpur, The Philosopher's Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination
Matter is spirit named. — Alan Watts
Compare the Philosopher's Stone to the Elixir of Life, and re/call that "all knowing is doing" (Humberto Maturana). The Stone is able to change all things, without being changed, which is a mystery of structural coupling. Cf. Tao Te Ching 37: "The Way [Tao] takes no action, but leaves nothing undone." Solve et coagula.
author: joshua madara