In a more complex model the Mind could therefore be represented not as if put before the World but as if contained by the World, and it could have a structure that enabled it to talk not only of the world (which is opposed to it) but also of itself as a part of the world, and of the same process whereby it, a part of what is interpreted, could serve as interpreter. At this point, however, we would no longer have a model but precisely what the model was clumsily trying to describe. And if we possessed this knowledge, we would be God, or in a Fichtian sense we would have constructed Him. In any case, even if we succeeded in elaborating such a model, it would be didactically less efficacious than the one (still dualistic) we are proposing. Let us therefore accept all the limitations, and the apparently dualistic nature, of the model, and continue.
First hypothesis. Let us imagine that the World is composed of three atoms (1, 2, 3) and that the Mind has three symbols (A, B, C). The three worldly atoms could combine in six different ways, but if we limited ourselves to considering the World in its present state (including its history), we could suppose that it is equipped with a stable structure given by the sequence 123.
If knowledge were specular, and the truth adaequatio rei et intellects, there would be no problem. The Mind assigns (not arbitrarily) to atom 1 the symbol A, to atom 2 the symbol B, to atom 3 the symbol C, and with the ordered triplet ABC it represents the structure of the World. It should be noted that in this case there would be no need to say that the Mind «interprets» the World: it would represent it specularly.
The problems arise if the assignation of the symbols to atoms is arbitrary: for example, the Mind could also assign A to 3, B to 1, and C to 2, and by combinatorial analysis it would have six possibilities of providing a faithful representation of the same 123 structure. It would be as if the Mind had six different languages at its disposal to describe a World that was always the same one, in such a way that different triplets of symbols always stated the same proposition. If we admit the possibility of total synonymy, the six descriptions would still be six different specular representations. But the metaphor of six different mirror images of the same object allows us to think that either the object or the mirror has moved every time, providing six different aspects. At this point it would be better to go back to talking about six interpretations.
Second hypothesis. The symbols used by the Mind are less numerous than the atoms of the World. The symbols used by the Mind are still three, but the atoms of the World are ten (1, 2, 3,…10). If the World were always structured by triplets of atoms, by factorial calculation it could group its ten atoms into 720 different ternary structures. The Mind would then have six triplets of symbols (ABC, BCA, CAB, ACB, BAC, CBA) to account for 720 triplets of atoms. Different worldly events, from different perspectives, could be interpreted by the same symbols. Which amounts to saying, for example, that we would always be obliged to use the ABC triplet of symbols to represent 123, or 345, or 547. We would have a bewildering superabundance of homonyms, and we would find ourselves exactly in the situation described by Aristotle: on the one hand, a single abstract concept such as «man» would serve to name the multiplicity of individuals; on the other hand, being could be said in many ways because the same symbol would stand both for the is in «A man is an animal» (being according to substance) and for the is in «That man is sitting» (being according to accident).
The problem would not change—except for ulterior complications—if the World were organized not in a stable manner but chaotically (and if it were capricious, evolutionary, bent on restructuring itself in time). By continually changing the structure of the triplets, the language of the Mind would have to adapt itself continually, always because of an excess of homonyms, to the different situations. Which likewise would happen if the world were an infinitely segmentable continuum, an epiphany of fractals. The Mind, rather than adapt itself to the changes in the world, would continuously change its image, gradually causing it to gel into systems of different stoicheia, depending on how it projects (as copies or schemata) its triplets of symbols onto it.
But it would be worse if the World were hyperstructured, that is to say; if it were organized in accordance with a sole structure given by a particular sequence of ten atoms. By combinatorial analysis, the World could organize itself into 3,628,800 different decuplets or combinations (let us not even think of a World that readjusts itself through successive hyperstructuring, that is, one that changes the arrangement of sequences at every moment, or every ten thousand years). Even in the event of the World’s having a fixed structure (that is, if it were organized in a single decuplet), the Mind would still have only six triplets of symbols with which to describe it. It could try to describe it only a piece at a time, as if it were looking at it through a keyhole, unable ever to describe it in its entirety. Which seems very like what happens to us now and what has been happening to us over the course of the millennia.
Third hypothesis. The Mind has more elements than the World. The mind possesses ten symbols (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J), and the World has only three atoms (1, 2, and 3). And that is not all: the Mind can combine these ten symbols in duplets, triplets, quadruplets, and so on. As if to say that the cerebral structure had more neurons and more possible combinations among them than the number of the atoms and their combinations identifiable in the World. It is clear that this hypothesis should be immediately abandoned, because it clashes with the initial assumption that the Mind is also part of the World. If it were part of the World, such a complex Mind should also consider its own ten symbols as worldly stoicheia.
To permit the hypothesis, the Mind would have to leave the World: it would be a kind of highly rational divinity that has to account for an extremely poor world, which moreover it does not know, because the World has been cobbled together by a Demiurge devoid of imagination. However, we could also think of a World that in some way secretes more res cogitans than res extensa, that is, one that has produced an extremely small number of material structures, using few atoms, keeping others in reserve for use only as symbols of the Mind. In any case, it is worth entertaining this third hypothesis, because it serves to throw a certain light on the fourth.
It follows from this that the Mind would have an astronomical number of combinations of symbols to represent the worldly structure 123 (or at most its six possible combinations), each from a different point of view. The Mind could for example represent 123 through 3,628,800 decuplets, each of which accounts not only for 123 but also for the hour and the day on which 123 is represented, the internal state of the Mind itself in that moment, the ends and intentions according to which the Mind represents it (assuming that a Mind as rich as this one also has ends and intentions). There would be an excess of thought in relation to the simplicity of the world, we would have an abundance of synonyms, or else the stock of possible representations would exceed the number of the possible existing structures.
And perhaps this is the way it happens, given that we can lie and construct fantastic worlds, imagine and foresee alternative states of things. The Mind could very well represent even the various ways in which it is in the World. Such a Mind could write the Divine Comedy even if the infundibular structure of the inferno did not exist in the World, or it could construct geometries with no counterpart in the material order of the World. It could even set itself the problem of the definition of being, duplicate entities and being, formulate the question why there is something rather than nothing—given that it could talk in many ways of this something—without ever being sure it was saying it the right way.
Fourth hypothesis. The Mind has ten symbols, as many as there are atoms in the world, and both Mind and World can combine their elements, as in the third hypothesis, into duplets, triplets, quadruplets … decuplets. The Mind would then have an astronomical number of propositions at its disposal to describe an astronomical number of worldly structures, with all the possible synonymies that derive from them. But that is not all; the Mind could also (given the abundance of worldly combinations not yet realized) design modifications of the World, just as it could be taken continuously by surprise by worldly combinations that it had not yet foreseen; moreover, the Mind would be hard put to explain in different ways how the World works.
There would be not an excess of thought with respect to the simplicity of the World, as in the third hypothesis,
