Kitaro Nishida's An Inquiry into the Good, Part IV: The Universe Is a Tree Rooted in God

A Model of the World#

First, let’s model the overall structure of the world as follows.

• God

  • The root node, the source of everything.

• An individual

  • A specific node inside the tree, or the subtree rooted at that node and the subspace it represents.
  • It isn’t limited to individuals: everything in the world is a proper subtree of the one big tree rooted in God.

• Reality

  • The whole tree.

This tree is not a static structure. It is a living process in itself, constantly sprouting new branches and leaves, differentiating and developing itself without end. So rather than the tree itself, it’s easier to think of the decision tree algorithm.

“Differentiation” and “Unification”#

The workings of our consciousness can be understood as two movements in opposite directions on this tree.

• Differentiation

  • The process of “branching” from a parent node to child nodes.
  • It means cutting up and dividing a reality (the data space) that was originally an undivided whole, through reflection.
  • Distinctions like subject and object, or me and the world, are born afterward, through reflection.

• Unification

  • The movement of “trying to trace back” from child nodes to the parent node.
  • The fundamental activity of the mind, which tries to gather scattered experiences and knowledge into a higher meaning or order (the parent node).
  • Self-consciousness is the feeling that arises as a by-product when this “unification” succeeds.

For example, a figure enclosed by three straight lines is a triangle. Now, when it is reflected that “two of the sides are equal in length,” a child node, the isosceles triangle, cuts out a part of the space of triangles. In other words, the full range of triangles is narrowed down to a subset of possibilities.

In the same way, my hands and feet are me limited to one part of myself, and yesterday’s me and today’s me are likewise me limited to one part of myself.

Just as there are several ways to limit a triangle (isosceles, right-angled, and so on), there are several ways to limit myself. Becoming aware that there are many ways to limit oneself is what “freedom” really is.

The freedom of the will, as an element of individual personality, means the self-determination of the universal. Just as the concept of a triangle can differentiate into various triangles, the feeling of freedom is the awareness of the various possibilities of determination that a certain universal contains within itself.

Conversely, by unifying the isosceles triangle and the equilateral triangle, you can gather the whole subtree together as “a figure enclosed by three straight lines.” Likewise, by unifying yesterday’s me and today’s me, you can gather together the self that is me. At that moment, the feeling of consciousness appears as a by-product.

Love is the seeking of unification. Trying to unify the self by gathering all experience together is self-love, and trying to unify the self and others is love of others.

The World Is the Self-Development of God#

The splitting algorithm is the same for every node.

The ultimate reality at the source of the universe (God) and our individual consciousnesses do not run on entirely different principles. The fundamental activity that makes up our consciousness is, in essence, the same as the fundamental activity that makes up the whole universe.

• Everything in this world is a subtree that limits God to one part.
• Just as we manifest our own possibilities (our hands and feet, our past selves and so on), the universe is the personal manifestation of God.
• Just as we love (= seek the unification of the self), God loves the world.
• However, God is the set of everything, so there is nothing for God to unify into. For that reason, God also has no consciousness, which would appear as a by-product of unification.

God is the state of the root alone, before any branching has happened. The self, too, can experience the state before branching occurs in its own subtree. This is what is called pure experience. So the state of pure experience is the state closest to God.

By the way, differentiation and unification are two sides of the same coin; in essence they are the same thing. The more a decision tree differentiates, the more expressive it becomes as a model. The root node alone gives you no useful information. Only by differentiating the world can God express his own infinite richness for the first time.

In order to manifest its deepest unity, God must first divide greatly.

So differentiation is a precondition of unification. It may help to think of it like this: only after you’ve tried every possible triangle does the feature common to all of them, the triangle itself as “a figure enclosed by three straight lines,” become clear.

Knowing and Loving#

Knowing and loving are one and the same.

• “Knowing” refers to knowledge of an object seen as impersonal.
• “Loving” refers to knowledge of an object seen as personal.

…But this is merely a difference in the object; the mental activity itself is the same.

If the universe is the personal manifestation of God, then to know God you have to see God as personal. In other words, you have to love God and the world that is his manifestation.

Thoughts#

If I’ve understood all this correctly, then Nishida really is saying something very good. And it makes perfect sense to me why (ordinary) trees so often carry religious meaning.

To put it in terms of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the hero achieving “atonement with the father” at the deepest point of the adventure might mean this: as he brings out his own possibilities, he realizes that he is actually doing the very same thing as God, who continues to manifest himself personally.

Chilled Tofu (Hiyayakko)#

Stepping back even further, the anime Kemurikusa might be an extremely Nishida-style story.

• The root node of this world is the Garden of Eden-like state depicted in episode 11, and from it the differentiation into Wakaba and Riri occurred.
• In order to aim for unification, Riri had to differentiate herself further. The purpose was for the Rins and the rest, after differentiation, to live freely (= personal manifestation).
• Once Rin became able to love Wakaba, all of Riri’s differentiated branches achieved personal manifestation, and at the same time Riri was able to truly know Wakaba.
• Hence, as the result of the deepest unification, the outside world was opened up.

I probably need to watch it again.