Immanuel Kant's "transcendental idealism" is the view that the human mind is configured to impose space and time, cause and effect on the external world i.e. these things are not authentic properties of the external world. Our minds create a world of appearances - phenomena - that has no relationship whatsoever to the world of things as they are in themselves - noumena. Because we can't escape from our own minds, we can never gain genuine knowledge of the noumenal world. It's as though we are wearing time-and-space/cause-and-effect goggles that we can never remove. No matter what, we will always see time and space, cause and effect even though they have nothing to do with the true nature of things. We can have knowledge only of mind-generated phenomena and never of noumena.
The noumenal world is outside space and time i.e. it is analogous to r = 0 except whereas the noumenal world, for Kant, is completely unknowable, r = 0, for Illuminists, can be completely known.
Schopenhauer took Kant's theory a radical step forward. He concluded that space and time create the appearance of separate things, but in the noumenal universe, where space and time don't exist, then nothing is separate. Whereas Kant thought a different noumenon corresponded to, and underpinned, each individual phenomenon, Schopenhauer realized that there could only be one noumenon which he called "Will": the irrepressible, eternal striving to exist, to survive. There is one universal Will but, in the world of appearances, it manifests itself in the myriad things of the phenomenal world. Trees, water, insects, rocks, stars, air, humans - they are all just different expressions of the single, fundamental, universal Will to exist. Every human is an embodiment of this Will. Our bodies are objectified Will. Schopenhauer said, "My body and my will are one."
So, for Schopenhauer, there is an outer, "objective", physical world of time, space and causation and an inner, subjective, "mental" world of Will, outwith time, space and causation. The outer world of appearances is illusory and the inner world of Will is the true nature of existence where everything is unified. Existence, in its rawest form, is pure Will.
Berkeley, Kant, Schopenhauer, Hinduism and Buddhism offer no explanation (other than the "will of God/Nature") as to why the world should have this rather extraordinary dual nature of an illusory level of appearances overlying noumenal truth (which is usually conceived of in terms of a transcendent unity).
Idealism denies the reality of the r > 0 physical universe, consigning it to the level of an illusion in the mind. Idealism does not, however, account for what purpose is served by this fantastically elaborate illusion. For example, if there are vast galaxies in deep space that we have only discovered in the last few decades, what function is served by adding these to our "prior" illusion in which they played no part (because we knew nothing of their existence)? It seems far simpler to conclude that the r > 0 universe is real and that science gives us meaningful and legitimate knowledge of it. We discover genuinely new things, not new elements, previously hidden from us, of a grand illusion.
Those who subscribe to scientific materialism, on the other hand, take the opposite stance to idealists and deny the reality of the r = 0 aspect of the universe.
Idealism and materialism are two extreme views that both miss the mark. The truth is that r = 0 (idealism) and r > 0 (materialism) are both aspects of the genuine reality: the r >= 0 mental and physical universe.
Materialists are wrong to deny dimensionless existence, and idealists are wrong to regard dimensional existence as an illusion. Illuminism is the reconciliation of the two major philosophical traditions. Dimensional and dimensionless existence are both real; neither is an illusion. They work together dialectically and each influences the other. The r > 0 is psychosomatic i.e. the "body" is influenced by the "mind", and the r = 0 universe is somapsychic i.e. the "mind" is influenced by the "body". The profound mysteries that science has hitherto failed to penetrate are caused by science's neglect of the dimensionless universe. Equally, the absurdities that many religions and philosophies (based on idealism) fall into are caused by the neglect of the dimensional universe.
What could be simpler than the coexistence of the dimensional and the dimensionless, of time, space, causation and the principle of individuation (plurality) on the one hand, and timelessness, spacelessness, free will and the principle of interconnectedness (unity) on the other? All the problems of science, philosophy and religion disappear in the r >= 0 universe.
Take the age-old problem of free will. In the r > 0 universe, where everything is seemingly controlled by inexorable scientific laws of cause and effect, there is no room for free will. Everything is inescapably determined by the preceding scientific cause. However, once the r = 0 aspect of the universe is introduced, which stands outside scientific time, space and causation, then the causal chain that precludes free will is broken. Hence our experience of free will is no mere illusion, as the most rigorous materialists would contend.
Death in the "mortal" r > 0 domain of time and space is the definite end, but in the r = 0 universe where time and space do not apply, nothing can truly perish. Everything is, in a sense, immortal.
The human brain is the r > 0 manifestation of the r = 0 human mind, thus resolving the mystery of the relationship of brain to mind. But if the human mind is a portal to the r = 0 aspect of the universe (a "microscopic" portal in comparison with black hole singularities which are macroscopic portals) then it is also a portal to the Absolute Mind, the Mind of God.
Imagine that every human mind is unwittingly connected to the greatest mind of all. Most of us never conceive of such a connection; only mystics and those well versed in the esoteric arts have learned how to make use of this channel to the divine. But, every now and again, some of us inadvertently glimpse what is normally hidden.
When we go to sleep, we (largely) shut off our physical r > 0 senses, and then we dream. Time and space become wildly distorted; dead people can appear; we can have transcendent visions. This is exactly what we would expect if our minds were "free-floating" through the r = 0 universe.
