Neti, neti

Neti, neti — “not this, not that” — is the Upanishadic apophatic formula for approaching the supreme reality. Brahman cannot be specified by any positive determination, because every positive determination would falsify it. The supreme reality is approached by removing inadequate concepts, not by adding accurate ones.

This is the same operation found in Christian apophatic theology as the via negativa, in Spinoza as omnis determinatio est negatio (all determination is negation), and in information theory as the measurement of information by the reduction of possibility.

One bit cuts the field of possibilities in half. Knowledge is exactly the elimination of alternatives. Heidegger retrieves the Greek aletheia to make the same observation: truth is what is revealed when obscuring is taken away. Knowing is carving.