Transcendence

What is the definition of “Transcendent”?

I was told:

“Something no person understands rationally, so there is no point in trying” … like:

• human soul
• God
• Eternity
• Love

Let’s travel back in time to the ancient Egypt and look at the worshipers of the God of Sun RA. Let’s ask those people about:

• their god, the burning gas giant in the sky
• DNA structure
• Complex numbers

They lack the tools to observe and background to understand those things (as knowledge is difficult to consume at one bite so careful explanation will not do) … so they are transcendent to them … and even more so to out oldest mammal ancestors … but not to us.

Let’s assume that X is ANY idea without rational explanation. Experience shows that X can gain rational explanation with time (brain evolution, curiosity, new ideas, new discoveries, new observation tools – that happens all the time in science – old theorems collapse, new theorems emerge, complex theories are immensely simplified by new knowledge) … so now our definition of Transcendence is not applicable to X. And we do NOT want to put Human Soul and complex numbers in one group, it is too cruel, right? So we need a better definition:

Transcendence = “Something no person understands rationally and will ever be able to understand rationally, no matter the tools, knowledge or evolution provided … so there is no point in trying”

Now we include the future too, and the definition is rock solid.

And it is possible for such entities to exist.

Now that you know what transcendent means, how do you find the transcendent ideas? How do you know that something will never ever be understood by evolutionary or scientific progress of our species in a billion years?

• Today you cannot see into the future and say that.
• Judging by us is also not an option as the perceptual limitations of the next generations are different than ours.
• You cannot use probability. 0 entities turned out to be truly transcendent by definition in out recorded history, more than 0 turned out not to be transcendent. So it is more probable something to NOT be transcendent.

Conclusion:

Every time you claim something is transcendent, you just put a “there is no point in trying to study here” sign with no way for you to know that. This is called a lie.

Using the word “Transcendent” is a lie.