DAVID BIRNBAUM SUMMA METAPHYSICA
DAVID BIRNBAUM PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
••• TOOL:
* (Infinite) Recursiveness & (Infinite) Loop–ability *
(my term)
An entity or theme repeating within itself…..indefinitely… is a key cosmic theme. For instance POTENTIAL, as we define it, is recursive… i.e.
Potential within Potential within Potential ad infinitum
Recursiveness of Quest for Potential∞:
The power of Q4P (Quest for Potential∞) hinges on its (infinite) recursiveness. Like an infinitely coiled spring.
To the extent that it keeps iterating infinitely outward and onward, it self–charges and perpetuates its power.Another way of looking at this is always assuming
Q4P to mean – Q4P to the power–of–infinity.
NOTES by KHALIL
3 Leverage A: “Leveraged Buyout” is a term from finance. It refers to a case in which a financier buys a company using future earnings as the collateral. For instance, a financier might offer to pay $1 million dollars a year for ten years to buy a company. And where, does he plan to get the million dollars per year? From the future projected earnings of the company – of $1.5 million dollars a year. The financier essentially buys the company using the company’s own future earnings (i.e. He buys the company with the company’s own potential). Birnbaum is positing throughout Summa Metaphysica that the original “leveraged buyout” concept was cosmic. The cosmos was created, he hypothesizes, out of the cosmos’ own potential.
4 Leverage B: Plato had infused in Western philosophy that “God” created the universe out of ‘primal matter’ even though Plato never articulates just where this primal matter came from – just as he never explicates where ”God” came from. Platonic thought –
and, indeed, most Western philosophical thought – including classic Jewish philosophy – is linear, i.e. A created B created C, etc.
Birnbaum’s paradigm, on the other hand, is ‘bootstrap’, i.e. the potential of A ignites A retroactively. The Torah Itself has a one –phrase all–encompassing treatise on Jewish philosophy: “Eheyeh Asher Eheyeh”. This is Potential within Potential within Potential, which Birnbaum seizes upon as the crux of Summa Metaphysica.
5 Leverage C: A classic theme in Jewish thought is “yesh mai–ayen,” the creation of somethingness, from nothingness. This ‘magic trick’ receives an elegant ‘makeover’ in Birnbaum’s “leveraged buyout” theme, namely that potentials down–the–road ignited the cosmos. Now, finance is not cosmology – and cosmology is not finance, but the “leveraged buyout” theme can indeed be applied to both. Indeed, there is a 1:1 parallel between the two.