Absentialism: The Tao Te Ching and Incomplete Nature
The Tao Te Ching, attributed to the Taoist sage Lao Tzu and probably written during the fourth century BC, provides one of the most cryptic accounts of a metaphysics that attributes equal relevance to the present and absent aspects of things. Unlike the Hindu and Buddhist traditions it almost entirely ignores addressing issues of subjectivity and spiritual being, and instead focuses on developing an understanding of the logic of natural processes that can inform appropriate action. It is in the section describing the Tao (sometimes translated as “the way” or “harmonious path” or “natural order”) that hints to its metaphysical foundation are addressed. It entails a recognition of two intrinsic aspects of all forms of being: Yin, the passive, yielding, absent, “feminine” aspect, and Yang, the active, forceful, substantial, “masculine” aspect. Thus, the complementary passive/active, yielding/forceful, absent/present features of natural processes and human actions are highlighted. Verse number 2, line 1, explicitly invokes “The mutual production of being and nonbeing”—an almost literal statement of intrinsically dependent being. But perhaps the most directly relevant verse (number 11) was quoted as the epigraph to Chapter 1 of Incomplete Nature. It poetically encapsulates the essence of the core thesis of the book. It is rendered (not a literal translation) there as follows:
"Thirty spokes converge at the wheel's hub, to a hole that allows it to turn.
Clay is shaped into a vessel, to enclose an emptiness that can be filled.
Doors and windows are cut into walls, to provide access to their protection. Though we can only work with what is there, use comes from what is not there."
Below we will return to analyze various aspects of this verse and why it metaphorically exemplifies the essence of the theory, but here it is relevant to notice how each of the examples used—a wheel, a vessel, a wall—is defined both with respect to something present (Yang) and something absent (Yin), and how both aspects are necessary complements which provide for usefulness (which is also not an intrinsic attribute). The property that in Incomplete Nature is sometimes described as being “absential” or a “constitutive absence” is also echoed in the Taoist conception of the feminine (Yin) principle. For example in verse number 6 we find the following description.
“ The valley spirit never dies.
... the mysterious female
... It seems to exist.
In being used, it is not exhausted.“
Again, the reference to “being used” brings into focus the existence of that which offers a potential that cannot be used up. The relevance of this to constitutive absence (as is also exemplified in verse 11 above) can, for example, be demonstrated by the referential function of words. Because the meaning of a sentence exists only intentionally, but not as a physically present object or force, it cannot be exhausted by use and can be handed from one form to another without diminution, as when a spoken idea is transferred to electric signals and electric signals to written text and written text to neural activity patterns in another’s brain.
The Whole at the Wheel’s Hub
In the brief discussion of the Tao Te Ching, mentioned above, verse 11 was described as a sort of synopsis of the essence of the logic underlying Incomplete Nature. The opening line of the verse cites the hole at the hub of a wheel. The hole is an example of what Deacon calls a “constitutive absence,” and was used as a metaphor for the property that characterizes a word’s meaning, a shovel’s function, or an organism’s purposes; i.e. the property of existing in relation to something not immediately present.
In the case of the hole at the wheel’s hub the absence of material at this position is a necessary feature of what constitutes the wheel. Without reference to the material of the wheel it is not a hole at all, just a region of space. The wheel must have this absence of material at its hub in order to be able to rotate with respect to a rigid axle. Only an absence of material between that of the axle and that of the wheel will allow this to occur. Of course, the material components of the wheel are in no way dispensable to the use. Without them there is no wheel. But neither can one dispense with the place at the center where there is no material, otherwise the whole wheel is useless. This intrinsic functional relationality is made explicit in the final line of the Taoist verse from which this concept is drawn. It says: “Though we can only work with what is there, use comes from what is not there.” It is “use” that we are focused on here, not merely the stuff or its absence.
-- Terrence Deacon and Tyrone Cashman, Steps to a Metaphysics of Incompleteness
