I can't tell you if we have the capacity for a universal view. I can't tell you if there is any a universal view, regardless if we have the capacity to grasp it. You can very well stumble upon a view that is universal for all I know, but we have no capacity to know if you do, in fact, stumble upon a universal view. The only I have ever known to have views on things were humans, and thus no reason to thing anything exists beyond that. The capacity to process information seems to be the key to having a perception, whether that being is self-conscious or not change this. But to think that there is an overall view from someone who perfectly processes information to know and determine what is universal is beyond my suspension of disbelief. What is all-knowing? To contain all perspectives? Is the way existence 'works' really come down to any of the math equations we've written? Is there a book where the qualitative experience or human condition is perfectly described? I don't know.
I am not suggesting that a universal view is an 'all-knowing' one, but one where everyone sees the same reality. Since reality is One, any differing views are contained within it. It would be somewhat akin to saying that Christianity is the universal view, while Protestantism and Catholicism are more 'personal' views of Christianity.
When you suggest that a book or some formal knowledge might contain a perfect view, you are already within the realm of thought and therefore a personal view. A universal view, then, must necessarily come
before thought. It is not about
thinking, but about
seeing. Because it is a view that is present before thought, it is also a view that is impersonal: it is neither your view nor my view, because the idea of an "I" which thinks is also a product of thought. So it is not about a 'you' or 'I' which sees, but about seeing itself. Seeing itself gains access to the universal view.
Imagine a white laser light that is split in two via of perfect mirrors. While there are now two beams, there is only one light, and they are virtually identical. So what one beam sees is exactly what the other sees as well. No thought is involved. If you now place two different colored filters over each, the result will be two different results. This condition would approximate to having a personal view, the colored filter being one's ego, or "I". So we might say that these are distortions of the true nature of the original. The point here is that an original does exist, does not involve thought or knowledge, and is always present. The capacity to apprehend such a view involves only seeing, without thought, and without an agent called "I" which sees.
Here is Alan Watts on the topic of 'metaphysic':
"Metaphysic...is the apprehension of reality prior to any facts...As a 'pre-factual' knowledge it is concerned with what we know directly and immediately, as distinct from what we know by reflection, inference, and abstraction. This is not to say that its concern is with uninterpreted sense-data. It is far more fundamental. For the very notion that the foundations of experience are sense-data is already an opinion, and interpretation of experience based upon memory and reflective thought. The word 'metaphysic' itself is the clue to its meaning: it is the knowledge of that which is 'beyond' (meta) 'nature' (physis) - that is to say, of the way in which we experience before we ascertain the nature of our experiences by reflection - by remembering, naming, and classifying. Strictly speaking, then, metaphysic has no language, and its content is incommunicable or ineffable.
In one sense, however, there is no need to communicate metaphysical knowledge because it is already the ground of anything else. It is the origin, the sine qua non, the basis of all other knowledge. But it is at the same time a neglected knowledge, because the mind is distracted by things that come after - somewhat as considerations about the past and future distract us from the immediate present. Therefore metaphysical knowledge is communicated, not by direct description, but by a removal of distractions and obstacles. When these are out of the way, it is possible for the mind to attend one-pointedly to the only reality which it knows, veritably, immediately, now.
Nearly every great culture of the world has held this type of knowledge in the highest esteem, even when it was enjoyed only by an elite minority. For knowledge of this kind is the essential corrective, the 'ballast of sanity', for a species whose chief instrument of adaptation to the world is memory and reflective thought, the power of abstraction. It preserves the mind from slavery to, as distinct from mastery of, the conventions of thought, and from the anguish and confusion which follow from treating certain abstractions, such as the ego, as realities. It keeps our consciousness in touch with life itself, and preserves it from the emotional frustrations which attend the pursuit of such purely abstract mirages as 'pleasure', the 'future', or the 'good'."
excerpted from: 'Myth and Ritual in Christianity', by Alan Watts
Education contributes to a lot of what one can understand about reality.
Does it? Education utilizes knowledge, which is comprised of facts. Facts are held in memory, which is data
about reality. Since it is held in memory, it is knowledge from the past, used to predict what may occur in the future, as in scientific knowledge. But it is not about reality as it exists now, because reality as it now exists is an
event, and not a frozen fact. It can only be apprehended by seeing it in the Now. Reality just 'is'. Any attempt to encapsulate it via knowledge only renders information
about reality; it tells us what the
characteristics of reality are, and how it behaves, but not about the true
nature of reality. If education gave us understanding as to the nature of reality, we would know what the nature of the universe is, but we do not. In fact, we are further away from a true understanding about the nature of the universe than ever, in spite of the fact that we have a huge amount of factual knowledge about it. We understand much about its behavior, but still nothing about its true nature. It is still a total mystery.
