At this early stage Heidegger holds that Dasein expriences its thrownness and groundlessness in anxiety. If it resolutely holds onto anxiety, that is, if it accepts its ontological limitations, it will give up rigid roles and identities and become sensitive to marginal practices from the past. So, for instance, resolute women will be able to be sensitive to gender practices left in our culture from pioneer days. As Heidegger puts it:
The resoluteness in which Dasein comes back to itself, discloses current factical possibilities of authentic existing, and discloses them in terms of the heritage which that resoluteness, as thrown, takes over. (p. 435) [p. 383]
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Dreyfus commenting on Foucault quote
For Foucault, postmodern power is not an instrument of exclusion, but a pervasive pressure towards ever greater inclusion. It does not serve to objectify, exclude, coerce or punish, but rather to order and enhance life. Power creates docile bodies and self-absorbed, deep subjects so as to produce ever greater welfare for all. The resulting practices embody what Foucault calls disciplinary bio-power.
"It is a power working to incite, reinforce, ... optimize, and organize the forces under it: a power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather than one dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them."
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault explains the way postmodern power is something entirely new. Unlike monarchical power, whose exercise was top-down, centralized, intermittent, highly visible, extravagant, and stable; postmodern power is bottom-up, diffuse, continuous, invisible, operating in the micro-practices, and constantly on the move colonizing new domains. In The History of Sexuality, Vol. I. Foucault adds:
"Power's condition of possibility ... must not be sought in the primary existence of a central point, in a unique source of sovereignty from which secondary and descendent forms would emanate ... Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere."
Just as for Heidegger the technological understanding of being, by treating everything as resources, levels being to pure ordering, and so gets rid of all onto-theology --the idea that some entity is the ground of everything -- so bio-power reveals the irrelevance of questions of the legitimacy of the state as the source of power. Foucault says:
"At bottom, despite the differences in epochs and objectives, the representation of power has remained under the spell of monarchy. In political thought and analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the king. Hence the importance that the theory of power gives to the problem of right and violence, law and illegality, freedom and will, and especially the state and sovereignty."
That is, just as total mobilization cannot be understood by positing subjects and objects, so normalization works directly through new sorts of invisible, continuous practices of control Foucault calls micro-practices. The everyday person to person power relations whose coordination produces the style of any regime of power are, indeed, everywhere. But in earlier regimes of power they are not micro-practices. Only disciplinary power works meticulously by ordering every detail. So, while for Foucault all forms of power are bottom up and the understanding of power as monarchical misses this important fact, nonetheless bio-power is bottom-up in a new and dangerously totalizing way, so that understanding power on the model of the power of the king (the equivalent of onto-theology) covers up an important change in how our practices are working.
[We can schematize the above relations as follows:
Heidegger: ontological: mode of revealing: (Gestell) enframing
style: challenging forth
ontic: the practices are so structured as to make beings show us as optimizable and flexible standing reserves, i.e. things show up not as objects but as resources.
Foucault: ontological: dispositive(apparatus) : subjugation/objectification
style = discipline
ontic: things are organized by the apparatus (e.g. exams) so that people show up as docile bodies to be managed and enhanced.]
Heidegger and Foucault are clear, then, that what is uniquely oppressive in our current practices is not that they are illegitimate nor that they cause ecological devastation. According to Foucault legitimacy is a red herring; our current society becomes more oppressive as it becomes more protective of rights and more permissive, and productive. Heidegger, on his part, distinguishes the current problems of technology -- ecological destruction, urbanization, nuclear danger, etc. -- from the devastation that would result if technology solved all our problems.
What threatens man in his very nature is the ... view that man, by the peaceful release, transformation, storage, and channeling of the energies of physical nature, could render the human condition, man's being, tolerable for everybody and happy in all respects.
Their common critique of techno/bio-power does not, however, lead Heidegger or Foucault to oppose the use of technological devices, nor specific welfare practices. Heidegger is clear that it is the essence of technology -- the technological understanding of being -- not technology, that causes our distress. That the technological understanding of being can be disassociated from technological devices is clear if one looks at contemporary Japan where a traditional, non-technological understanding of being -- or, perhaps better, no single understanding of being at all, but a pluralistic understanding of multiple realities -- exists alongside the most advanced high-tech production and consumption.
When he was thinking of modes of resistance to the technological understanding of being, Heidegger came to think that there was an essential antagonism between a unified understanding of being and local worlds. Of course, he always realized that there would be an antagonism between the style set up by a cultural paradigm and things that could only be brought out in their ownness in a style different from the dominant cultural style. Such things would inevitably be dispersed to the margins of the culture. There, they will shine in contrast to the dominant style but will have to resist being considered irrelevant or even wicked. But if there is a single understanding of being even those things that come into their own in the dominant cultural style will be inhibited as things. Already in his "Thing" essay Heidegger goes out of his way to point out that, even though the original meaning of ‘thing’ in German is a gathering to discuss a matter of concern to the community, in the case of the thing thinging, the gathering in question must be self contained. The focal occasion must determine which community concerns are relevant rather than the reverse.
Given the way local worlds establish their own internal coherence that resists any imposition from outside there is bound to be a tension between the glorious cultural paradigm that establishes an understanding of being for a whole culture and the humble inconspicuous things. The shining of one would wash out the shining of the others. The tendency toward one unified world would impede the gathering of local worlds. Given this tension, Heidegger abandoned in a late seminar what he had considered up to then his crucial contribution to philosophy, the notion of a single understanding of being and its correlated notion of the ontological difference between being and beings. He remarks that "from the perspective of appropriation it becomes necessary to free thinking from the ontological difference." He continues, "From the perspective of appropriation, [letting-presence] shows itself as the relation of world and thing, a relation which could in a way be understood as the relation of being and beings. But then its peculiar quality would be lost." What presumably would be lost would be the self- enclosed local character of things. It follows that, as mortal disclosers of worlds in the plural, the only comprehensiveness we can hope to achieve is our openness to dwelling in many worlds and the capacity to move among them. Only such a capacity allows us to accept Heidegger’s criticism of technology and still have a genuinely positive relationship to technological it.
The moral seems to be that, when one is looking for marginal practices that could support resistance to the dominant regime of power, rather than thinking of resistance as a new regime that is dawning or a new god that can save us, one should think of the marginal as what is outside power. It is precisely not power but things and selves which will be what one studies. Thus in the last works of Heidegger and of Foucault the discussion of epochal understandings of being drops out for Heidegger and discussion of the structure of regimes of power seem to drop out for Foucault.
Beautiful!
"It is a power working to incite, reinforce, ... optimize, and organize the forces under it: a power bent on generating forces, making them grow, and ordering them, rather than one dedicated to impeding them, making them submit, or destroying them."
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault explains the way postmodern power is something entirely new. Unlike monarchical power, whose exercise was top-down, centralized, intermittent, highly visible, extravagant, and stable; postmodern power is bottom-up, diffuse, continuous, invisible, operating in the micro-practices, and constantly on the move colonizing new domains. In The History of Sexuality, Vol. I. Foucault adds:
"Power's condition of possibility ... must not be sought in the primary existence of a central point, in a unique source of sovereignty from which secondary and descendent forms would emanate ... Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere."
Just as for Heidegger the technological understanding of being, by treating everything as resources, levels being to pure ordering, and so gets rid of all onto-theology --the idea that some entity is the ground of everything -- so bio-power reveals the irrelevance of questions of the legitimacy of the state as the source of power. Foucault says:
"At bottom, despite the differences in epochs and objectives, the representation of power has remained under the spell of monarchy. In political thought and analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the king. Hence the importance that the theory of power gives to the problem of right and violence, law and illegality, freedom and will, and especially the state and sovereignty."
That is, just as total mobilization cannot be understood by positing subjects and objects, so normalization works directly through new sorts of invisible, continuous practices of control Foucault calls micro-practices. The everyday person to person power relations whose coordination produces the style of any regime of power are, indeed, everywhere. But in earlier regimes of power they are not micro-practices. Only disciplinary power works meticulously by ordering every detail. So, while for Foucault all forms of power are bottom up and the understanding of power as monarchical misses this important fact, nonetheless bio-power is bottom-up in a new and dangerously totalizing way, so that understanding power on the model of the power of the king (the equivalent of onto-theology) covers up an important change in how our practices are working.
[We can schematize the above relations as follows:
Heidegger: ontological: mode of revealing: (Gestell) enframing
style: challenging forth
ontic: the practices are so structured as to make beings show us as optimizable and flexible standing reserves, i.e. things show up not as objects but as resources.
Foucault: ontological: dispositive(apparatus) : subjugation/objectification
style = discipline
ontic: things are organized by the apparatus (e.g. exams) so that people show up as docile bodies to be managed and enhanced.]
Heidegger and Foucault are clear, then, that what is uniquely oppressive in our current practices is not that they are illegitimate nor that they cause ecological devastation. According to Foucault legitimacy is a red herring; our current society becomes more oppressive as it becomes more protective of rights and more permissive, and productive. Heidegger, on his part, distinguishes the current problems of technology -- ecological destruction, urbanization, nuclear danger, etc. -- from the devastation that would result if technology solved all our problems.
What threatens man in his very nature is the ... view that man, by the peaceful release, transformation, storage, and channeling of the energies of physical nature, could render the human condition, man's being, tolerable for everybody and happy in all respects.
Their common critique of techno/bio-power does not, however, lead Heidegger or Foucault to oppose the use of technological devices, nor specific welfare practices. Heidegger is clear that it is the essence of technology -- the technological understanding of being -- not technology, that causes our distress. That the technological understanding of being can be disassociated from technological devices is clear if one looks at contemporary Japan where a traditional, non-technological understanding of being -- or, perhaps better, no single understanding of being at all, but a pluralistic understanding of multiple realities -- exists alongside the most advanced high-tech production and consumption.
When he was thinking of modes of resistance to the technological understanding of being, Heidegger came to think that there was an essential antagonism between a unified understanding of being and local worlds. Of course, he always realized that there would be an antagonism between the style set up by a cultural paradigm and things that could only be brought out in their ownness in a style different from the dominant cultural style. Such things would inevitably be dispersed to the margins of the culture. There, they will shine in contrast to the dominant style but will have to resist being considered irrelevant or even wicked. But if there is a single understanding of being even those things that come into their own in the dominant cultural style will be inhibited as things. Already in his "Thing" essay Heidegger goes out of his way to point out that, even though the original meaning of ‘thing’ in German is a gathering to discuss a matter of concern to the community, in the case of the thing thinging, the gathering in question must be self contained. The focal occasion must determine which community concerns are relevant rather than the reverse.
Given the way local worlds establish their own internal coherence that resists any imposition from outside there is bound to be a tension between the glorious cultural paradigm that establishes an understanding of being for a whole culture and the humble inconspicuous things. The shining of one would wash out the shining of the others. The tendency toward one unified world would impede the gathering of local worlds. Given this tension, Heidegger abandoned in a late seminar what he had considered up to then his crucial contribution to philosophy, the notion of a single understanding of being and its correlated notion of the ontological difference between being and beings. He remarks that "from the perspective of appropriation it becomes necessary to free thinking from the ontological difference." He continues, "From the perspective of appropriation, [letting-presence] shows itself as the relation of world and thing, a relation which could in a way be understood as the relation of being and beings. But then its peculiar quality would be lost." What presumably would be lost would be the self- enclosed local character of things. It follows that, as mortal disclosers of worlds in the plural, the only comprehensiveness we can hope to achieve is our openness to dwelling in many worlds and the capacity to move among them. Only such a capacity allows us to accept Heidegger’s criticism of technology and still have a genuinely positive relationship to technological it.
The moral seems to be that, when one is looking for marginal practices that could support resistance to the dominant regime of power, rather than thinking of resistance as a new regime that is dawning or a new god that can save us, one should think of the marginal as what is outside power. It is precisely not power but things and selves which will be what one studies. Thus in the last works of Heidegger and of Foucault the discussion of epochal understandings of being drops out for Heidegger and discussion of the structure of regimes of power seem to drop out for Foucault.
Beautiful!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Learn the craft of thinking
Learn the craft of thinking, unswerving, yet erring.
To err is to wander. To swerve is to change direction quickly and violently. There is a difference between jumping in your car and speeding at 50 mph to accomplish the next chore on the rote, say, obtaining one's weekly groceries, and milling peacefully over to the corner store to buy a sack of potatoes. There is a similarity, perhaps, in that these are both things that have to be done, in some shape or form.
But what attitude is brought to the process? Forwards always, no abrupt changes in direction? No, not forwards only. We turn, we meander, we stop and pause. What's this store that just opened, I didn't see it before, what's inside? What's that person wearing, where did it come from? What are the clouds like today?
Was today a good day or a bad day?
In order to answer these questions one must err, one must wander.
But what is so bad about swerving? Indeed, what is swerving?
Swerving thought and a swerving automobile... both are swerving from a purposeful means of proceeding. You stop at a store in front of you because it is related to you. It is in your neighborhood, it is on the path you use everyday on the commute.
To swerve is to admit a severe error. To swerve is to lose control. To swerve is to follow a line of thought, you did not anticipate in the least before this moment.
It is done, however. It is done often even, I would say. But we could strive not to. For to do so takes away from the craft of thinking.
Learn the craft of thinking, unswerving, yet erring.
To err is to wander. To swerve is to change direction quickly and violently. There is a difference between jumping in your car and speeding at 50 mph to accomplish the next chore on the rote, say, obtaining one's weekly groceries, and milling peacefully over to the corner store to buy a sack of potatoes. There is a similarity, perhaps, in that these are both things that have to be done, in some shape or form.
But what attitude is brought to the process? Forwards always, no abrupt changes in direction? No, not forwards only. We turn, we meander, we stop and pause. What's this store that just opened, I didn't see it before, what's inside? What's that person wearing, where did it come from? What are the clouds like today?
Was today a good day or a bad day?
In order to answer these questions one must err, one must wander.
But what is so bad about swerving? Indeed, what is swerving?
Swerving thought and a swerving automobile... both are swerving from a purposeful means of proceeding. You stop at a store in front of you because it is related to you. It is in your neighborhood, it is on the path you use everyday on the commute.
To swerve is to admit a severe error. To swerve is to lose control. To swerve is to follow a line of thought, you did not anticipate in the least before this moment.
It is done, however. It is done often even, I would say. But we could strive not to. For to do so takes away from the craft of thinking.
Learn the craft of thinking, unswerving, yet erring.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
emergence
The word emergence has become more and more relevant, of late. People talk about the modern world again and again; the changes it has wrought continue to permeate the everyday. Starbucks coffee cups littering the streets and desktops. Asphalt blanketing the surface of the urban landscape. More cars, more public transportation, more plane routes, more, more, more production in general, expansion is the key to survival, those things which fail are simply absorbed into a constantly growing and shifting organism. Like life, always evolving, though unlike life, it is composed of many parts which are inorganic. And yet, they were produced by an organic substance. In a sense, the organic and inorganic parts form a whole when they interact, and thus to the eye which transcends viewing man from the perspective of himself in order to see the whole, this distinction becomes... unhelpful. Meaningless. Same thing.
An addendum to this, as it bothers me slightly. We talk about natural and artificial, but it is only a egotistical distinction. We are the products of our environment as much as anything else. The changed man has wrought on the world are fast, yes, but in the end everything must be reduced to what is natural.
In any case, perhaps it may prove a useful distinction in a less encompassing sense. So let us continue to use this pair of words, artificial-natural.
Returning to emergence. So we see a society which moves forwards, towards something, growing constantly, often violently, but such is all evolution. There are changes which are positive for the organism, which it embraces, and there are changes which are negative, which it strives to correct, and there are changes which seem to serve no purpose at all, or perhaps once served a purpose and no longer do, as does the appendix of man.
To use a biological metaphor, these are the precise interactions that one can label, mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. The first is a cobeneficial interaction between two organisms, the second is an interaction where one species benefits from the relationship, and the third is one in which one species benefits and the other is harmed.
And yet these organisms themselves are a chaos of conflicting forces. Surely thousands of little processes occur every second inside a sparrow, some beneficial to its general well-being, many not, and yet as a whole the sparrow functions. And then, when we back off a few steps, we can see how the sparrow's interfacing with other organisms creates larger relationships.
We should not strive to understand the higher level in terms of the lower. It simply does not help much; for we have already come to understand the higher resolution intuitively. So what if a person lies 1% of the time, though the system is fallible, it still works, and so... we can generally speaking come to trust this person. So what if we don't understand every little process which brings to pass the birth of a ladybug, we still know that releasing a swarm of them over a crop will cause an aphid invasion some trouble.
Well there are problems with the above idea of course.
Self-sustainability is a word which comes to mind. The idea that there are systems which can preserve their processes longer than others. And yet what we forget when we talk about this is that there is a constant war going on for some limited resource. In order to realize self-sustainability, there must be a "giving-up" of autonomy. That is why the human organism, homo sapiens, is both a perfect example of self-sustainability and not. If you look at the organism itself in contrast to its environment, we can see that with its ability to project far into the future, and map the world and cosmos surrounding it, that it can plan for all sorts of contingencies. Indeed, this organism is perhaps the most self-sustainable organism as compared to any other in the world, from this perspective.
And yet from another perspective not at all. For we forget that by creating all of this "knowledge" the world has changed irreversibly. Indeed, the world and all of its biological components form a superorganism which has ran rampant. The production of knowledge has deeply affected it, for knowledge has far reaching implications. It has drained lakes, killed species, spawned wars, allowed for the unleashing of nuclear fission on the planet's surface...
Yes indeed, the very act of thought, has become more powerful than any mere physical process...
But to return to emergence. We are still in a process of evolution of course. We are in the process, to be more precise, of continually giving up our autonomy. Now there may be something intrinsic to the property of thought which may prevent a giving up of autonony to the extent that we find in the cells which make up a larger organism. But... on a whole, we are losing autonomy.
You could say something like, but wait! Today man has the ability to visit just about any country or island in the world to visit, and explore! Is that not more autonomous than what we had in say, the medieval ages?
Haha. That's funny. Think about the last place you visited. Think about the tourist industry, and all the lines forming like little self-governing processes as you wait to get onto the plane, or purchase a meal at a local restaurant, or waiting to get into a museum. Think of the beaches and all the hundreds of other people there.
You are not autonomous. You are taking part in a process which is much larger than you. Your choice of visiting this particular tourist destination was only made possible due to the channels of knowledge which have been constructed in society. Yes, the map of the world is a fairly objective instrument. It looks pretty much the same whether you look at it in the US or in China, except the spellings of each country seem slightly different. And yet, let me remind you, that this is not the world we are looking at. It is a representation of the world. And what you have in your mind is a representation of the world, too, after having learned how to navigate it. Because quite clearly you don't know your way around the world. Try navigating a foreign downtown city you've never been in before. I'm not saying find your way home, which is a simpler matter when one takes into account certain built-in systems of communication and self-localisation, but rather, try to find your way to the nearest supermarket, to the nearest government building, to the nearest...
Don't you see how lost we all are? We can see a map of the world, but all our representations depend on the workings of the system. We need to stop and ask for directions, consult a map.
It was similar before, I suppose, we used more primitive signs. Look for water by following the dry ravines downstream. Find a spring by following a river upstream. Etcetera. But the difference here is that all of these understandings of the world, these conceptualizations, are all bouncing off each other, feeding off each other, and producing in the end, a system which is incredibly dependent on its own mechanisms, streamlined and all.
The tourist depends on the tourist industry for finding his way around, for having a bed to sleep at night, for finding exotic food which he enjoys, and the tourist industry depends on the tourist for money so that it can also thrive.
But wait, you may say. That doesn't mean I'm giving up all my autonomy. We each are unique human beings. We can each choose an occupation and objective in life, we can pursue the arts, we can philosophize about things which don't even seem to matter!
Haha. Well there are some commensalistic and parasitic aspects to the system. The professional philosopher of say aesthetics may have a very mild impact upon the societal organism. But he is taking advantage of the system. He is what some may consider a parasite, feeding off its products, and enjoying a fulfilled existence himself without contributing in turn. These are not my perspectives, but they are perspectives held by certain parts of the system. Certain individuals think these things. And so you see what we have here is a conflict within the system.
But the philosophers are a part of their own system now. There are many of them, and they feed each other with their ideas, written and orally expressed, and they produce, produce, produce so much information, which richochets off other disciplines sometimes, and so we get a kind of interaction, which is insufficient to kill the entire organism clearly, and thus is not persuasively negative, at least not enough to justify exterminating the entire system such as it exists today. Indeed, perhaps it may eventually bring to pass a very positive effect. Who can tell?
The same goes for all processes, for all systems. Who can tell what time will bring? Who can look at the beginnings of history and expect all the stories which have come to pass since?
And yet, there are many things we can tell. We can look at the system as a whole. We can see the patterns falling into place, the people giving up their autonomies, so influenced by their cultures and environments. I can tell, when looking at a line in front of a museum, that the second person in line will follow the first person in line.
We are giving up our autonomy because we are creating a system which caters to more and more of us. We have to integrate ourselves into the system in order to succeed; we have to be mutualistic to demonstrate our usefulness.
And yet, funnily enough, there are also just some of us who only want to sit in the corner and philosophize.
An addendum to this, as it bothers me slightly. We talk about natural and artificial, but it is only a egotistical distinction. We are the products of our environment as much as anything else. The changed man has wrought on the world are fast, yes, but in the end everything must be reduced to what is natural.
In any case, perhaps it may prove a useful distinction in a less encompassing sense. So let us continue to use this pair of words, artificial-natural.
Returning to emergence. So we see a society which moves forwards, towards something, growing constantly, often violently, but such is all evolution. There are changes which are positive for the organism, which it embraces, and there are changes which are negative, which it strives to correct, and there are changes which seem to serve no purpose at all, or perhaps once served a purpose and no longer do, as does the appendix of man.
To use a biological metaphor, these are the precise interactions that one can label, mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. The first is a cobeneficial interaction between two organisms, the second is an interaction where one species benefits from the relationship, and the third is one in which one species benefits and the other is harmed.
And yet these organisms themselves are a chaos of conflicting forces. Surely thousands of little processes occur every second inside a sparrow, some beneficial to its general well-being, many not, and yet as a whole the sparrow functions. And then, when we back off a few steps, we can see how the sparrow's interfacing with other organisms creates larger relationships.
We should not strive to understand the higher level in terms of the lower. It simply does not help much; for we have already come to understand the higher resolution intuitively. So what if a person lies 1% of the time, though the system is fallible, it still works, and so... we can generally speaking come to trust this person. So what if we don't understand every little process which brings to pass the birth of a ladybug, we still know that releasing a swarm of them over a crop will cause an aphid invasion some trouble.
Well there are problems with the above idea of course.
Self-sustainability is a word which comes to mind. The idea that there are systems which can preserve their processes longer than others. And yet what we forget when we talk about this is that there is a constant war going on for some limited resource. In order to realize self-sustainability, there must be a "giving-up" of autonomy. That is why the human organism, homo sapiens, is both a perfect example of self-sustainability and not. If you look at the organism itself in contrast to its environment, we can see that with its ability to project far into the future, and map the world and cosmos surrounding it, that it can plan for all sorts of contingencies. Indeed, this organism is perhaps the most self-sustainable organism as compared to any other in the world, from this perspective.
And yet from another perspective not at all. For we forget that by creating all of this "knowledge" the world has changed irreversibly. Indeed, the world and all of its biological components form a superorganism which has ran rampant. The production of knowledge has deeply affected it, for knowledge has far reaching implications. It has drained lakes, killed species, spawned wars, allowed for the unleashing of nuclear fission on the planet's surface...
Yes indeed, the very act of thought, has become more powerful than any mere physical process...
But to return to emergence. We are still in a process of evolution of course. We are in the process, to be more precise, of continually giving up our autonomy. Now there may be something intrinsic to the property of thought which may prevent a giving up of autonony to the extent that we find in the cells which make up a larger organism. But... on a whole, we are losing autonomy.
You could say something like, but wait! Today man has the ability to visit just about any country or island in the world to visit, and explore! Is that not more autonomous than what we had in say, the medieval ages?
Haha. That's funny. Think about the last place you visited. Think about the tourist industry, and all the lines forming like little self-governing processes as you wait to get onto the plane, or purchase a meal at a local restaurant, or waiting to get into a museum. Think of the beaches and all the hundreds of other people there.
You are not autonomous. You are taking part in a process which is much larger than you. Your choice of visiting this particular tourist destination was only made possible due to the channels of knowledge which have been constructed in society. Yes, the map of the world is a fairly objective instrument. It looks pretty much the same whether you look at it in the US or in China, except the spellings of each country seem slightly different. And yet, let me remind you, that this is not the world we are looking at. It is a representation of the world. And what you have in your mind is a representation of the world, too, after having learned how to navigate it. Because quite clearly you don't know your way around the world. Try navigating a foreign downtown city you've never been in before. I'm not saying find your way home, which is a simpler matter when one takes into account certain built-in systems of communication and self-localisation, but rather, try to find your way to the nearest supermarket, to the nearest government building, to the nearest...
Don't you see how lost we all are? We can see a map of the world, but all our representations depend on the workings of the system. We need to stop and ask for directions, consult a map.
It was similar before, I suppose, we used more primitive signs. Look for water by following the dry ravines downstream. Find a spring by following a river upstream. Etcetera. But the difference here is that all of these understandings of the world, these conceptualizations, are all bouncing off each other, feeding off each other, and producing in the end, a system which is incredibly dependent on its own mechanisms, streamlined and all.
The tourist depends on the tourist industry for finding his way around, for having a bed to sleep at night, for finding exotic food which he enjoys, and the tourist industry depends on the tourist for money so that it can also thrive.
But wait, you may say. That doesn't mean I'm giving up all my autonomy. We each are unique human beings. We can each choose an occupation and objective in life, we can pursue the arts, we can philosophize about things which don't even seem to matter!
Haha. Well there are some commensalistic and parasitic aspects to the system. The professional philosopher of say aesthetics may have a very mild impact upon the societal organism. But he is taking advantage of the system. He is what some may consider a parasite, feeding off its products, and enjoying a fulfilled existence himself without contributing in turn. These are not my perspectives, but they are perspectives held by certain parts of the system. Certain individuals think these things. And so you see what we have here is a conflict within the system.
But the philosophers are a part of their own system now. There are many of them, and they feed each other with their ideas, written and orally expressed, and they produce, produce, produce so much information, which richochets off other disciplines sometimes, and so we get a kind of interaction, which is insufficient to kill the entire organism clearly, and thus is not persuasively negative, at least not enough to justify exterminating the entire system such as it exists today. Indeed, perhaps it may eventually bring to pass a very positive effect. Who can tell?
The same goes for all processes, for all systems. Who can tell what time will bring? Who can look at the beginnings of history and expect all the stories which have come to pass since?
And yet, there are many things we can tell. We can look at the system as a whole. We can see the patterns falling into place, the people giving up their autonomies, so influenced by their cultures and environments. I can tell, when looking at a line in front of a museum, that the second person in line will follow the first person in line.
We are giving up our autonomy because we are creating a system which caters to more and more of us. We have to integrate ourselves into the system in order to succeed; we have to be mutualistic to demonstrate our usefulness.
And yet, funnily enough, there are also just some of us who only want to sit in the corner and philosophize.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
What is a fractal?
A fractal is a recursive element: "fractals can be any type of infinitely scaled and repeated pattern." (http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/plugins/fraclac/FLHelp/Fractals.htm)
Also useful for this discussion are the terms "nonlinear" and "stochastic."
"a nonlinear system is any problem where the variable(s) to be solved for cannot be written as a linear combination of independent components"
"A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic in that a state's next state is determined both by the process's predictable actions and by a random element. Stochastic crafts are complex systems whose practitioners, even if complete experts, acknowledge that outcomes result from both known and unknown causes. Classical examples of this are medicine: a doctor can administer the same treatment to multiple patients suffering from the same symptoms, however, the patients may not all react to the treatment the same way. This makes medicine a stochastic process.[1] Additional examples are warfare, meteorology and rhetoric, where success and failure are difficult enough to predict that explicit allowances are made for uncertainty."
Why are fractals important?
Fractals provide a way of successfully mapping extremely complex systems. Non
Also useful for this discussion are the terms "nonlinear" and "stochastic."
"a nonlinear system is any problem where the variable(s) to be solved for cannot be written as a linear combination of independent components"
"A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic in that a state's next state is determined both by the process's predictable actions and by a random element. Stochastic crafts are complex systems whose practitioners, even if complete experts, acknowledge that outcomes result from both known and unknown causes. Classical examples of this are medicine: a doctor can administer the same treatment to multiple patients suffering from the same symptoms, however, the patients may not all react to the treatment the same way. This makes medicine a stochastic process.[1] Additional examples are warfare, meteorology and rhetoric, where success and failure are difficult enough to predict that explicit allowances are made for uncertainty."
Why are fractals important?
Fractals provide a way of successfully mapping extremely complex systems. Non
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Schopenhauer's World as Will and Presentation
I was going through Schopenhauer and am about halfway through book 2 of this thing. It is hard to follow at times. The first book mainly concerns reason, and his detailed explanation with regards to how reasons doesn't really explain things at all, and the second book thus far introduces will as the only explanation that we should ever really need.
That summary doesn't really do justice to what is actually a very deft and verbose affair-- a lot of the points he makes are convincing and you find yourself wanting to follow the entire arch of the argument better.
The translator did a decent job but I wish I had a professor to help me walk through it.
That's all for now.
That summary doesn't really do justice to what is actually a very deft and verbose affair-- a lot of the points he makes are convincing and you find yourself wanting to follow the entire arch of the argument better.
The translator did a decent job but I wish I had a professor to help me walk through it.
That's all for now.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Spatial Relations
What makes a distance a distance?
I mean, how do we know it takes, say, 2 miles to get to school, or 15 miles to get to work?
One can "feel" that some distances are greater than others. But some days, don't some distances "feel" shorter even though one's traveled them X number of times already?
One can "see" that one thing is further away than another. But this is merely a matter of immediate comparison which can change the moment you change your position.
One can "measure" distance by using instruments. The question remains: Does the machine correlate with how we "feel," or do we adjust our feelings to correlate to the measured distances?
Take for example, a 25 mile bike ride down the beach, in contrast to a 20 mile bike ride through hot, humid, industrial downtown.
Without an instrument to measure distances, would not these two distances, perhaps, via personal judgment, be swapped?
Also, we should remember that there is more than one way to get to the same point. The distance conventionally used to label two points' distance apart is not the shortest distance between them, for such a distance involves the curvature of the earth.
I mean, how do we know it takes, say, 2 miles to get to school, or 15 miles to get to work?
One can "feel" that some distances are greater than others. But some days, don't some distances "feel" shorter even though one's traveled them X number of times already?
One can "see" that one thing is further away than another. But this is merely a matter of immediate comparison which can change the moment you change your position.
One can "measure" distance by using instruments. The question remains: Does the machine correlate with how we "feel," or do we adjust our feelings to correlate to the measured distances?
Take for example, a 25 mile bike ride down the beach, in contrast to a 20 mile bike ride through hot, humid, industrial downtown.
Without an instrument to measure distances, would not these two distances, perhaps, via personal judgment, be swapped?
Also, we should remember that there is more than one way to get to the same point. The distance conventionally used to label two points' distance apart is not the shortest distance between them, for such a distance involves the curvature of the earth.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Animals' rights
Do animals have a right not to be eaten?
First I'd like to point out that there seems to be a running assumption that humans already have a right not to be eaten; the assumption is inferable due to the fact that "animals" is the subject in question, not humans. In today's world, there is not a matter of public controversy concerning whether it's fine to eat humans-- it is simply wrong. This is a taboo which cannot really be justified any further in our society. It may be worth mentioning that many primitive societies did practice cannibalism, so that it wasn't taboo in all historical circumstances, so it cannot be defined as an absolute law, not even by Kant's categorical imperative strategy.
Let us rephrase the question, then: assuming humans possess the right not to be eaten, do animals have the same right?
We need to further refine the question, however. For we could imagine two situations in which this question is applicable: one, in which an animal is treated humanely throughout its life, then dies naturally, and consequently we have to ask the question: do we have the right to eat it? The same question could be applied to a human who lived a long and natural life. Do we have the right to eat him after he dies?
The other situation involves the necessary conditions that have to be established for a meat-consuming society, and to make things as clear as possible we should subtract the eating component from this side of the question. The conditions in question are the establishment of inhumane practices that treat animals' lives as parts of an assembly line. Are the suffering an animal experiences over the course of its life in this assembly line wrong? Once again, the same question could be asked concerning a human: if we forced a human to experience all the suffering an animal did in the assembly line we created, would it be wrong?
Four questions now. Let us rehash:
1) Is it wrong to eat a dead human, regardless of what kind of life he lived?
2) Is it wrong to eat a dead animal, regardless of what kind of life it lived?
3) Is it wrong to treat a human as an item on an assembly line?
4) Is it wrong to treat an animal as an item on an assembly line?
Now let us imagine a number of different people came to answer these questions. The first is a cannibal who believes in the sacredness of life. The second is an animal rights activist. The third is an average American who just enjoys his hamburger.
The cannibal would say:
1&2) It's fine to eat a dead human or a dead animal.
3&4) It's not okay to treat any living thing as part of an assembly line.
Animal Rights Activist:
1&2) It's not okay to eat dead animals or dead humans.
3&4) It's not okay to treat animals or humans as parts of assembly lines.
Average American:
1&2) It's okay to eat dead animals, NOT dead humans.
3&4) It's okay to treat animals as part of an assembly line; NOT so for humans.
The average American is the only one who places special status on the species human. Can this special status for humans be justified?
It has been proposed that humans are the only beings on Earth capable of deep reflection upon their past experiences. Humans have the most complex understanding of the self, which makes their suffering far greater than any animal's could ever be.
But imagine that an alien race descended upon Earth and enslaved the race of man, treating them like cattle. This alien race had such a level of intelligence that it dwarfed man's cognitive abilities. To this race of aliens, humans were nothing special; though we could reflect, we could not perform what they might call "reflection squared"-- we'll just make up this term, which will serve as a cognitive ability the aliens use to justify their treatment of humans.
Does this alien race perform an act that is morally wrong? By our "reflection" rule, yes! By the aliens' "reflection squared" rule, no!
The line that differentiates humans and animals can be drawn however one pleases. We could say chimps and men both possess a sufficient level of consciousness that neither should be subject to prolonged suffering... but we draw the line at human consciousness.
What about just eating humans and animals, then? I haven't heard any ethical arguments against those, except that it might be healthier to stick to vegetables.
First I'd like to point out that there seems to be a running assumption that humans already have a right not to be eaten; the assumption is inferable due to the fact that "animals" is the subject in question, not humans. In today's world, there is not a matter of public controversy concerning whether it's fine to eat humans-- it is simply wrong. This is a taboo which cannot really be justified any further in our society. It may be worth mentioning that many primitive societies did practice cannibalism, so that it wasn't taboo in all historical circumstances, so it cannot be defined as an absolute law, not even by Kant's categorical imperative strategy.
Let us rephrase the question, then: assuming humans possess the right not to be eaten, do animals have the same right?
We need to further refine the question, however. For we could imagine two situations in which this question is applicable: one, in which an animal is treated humanely throughout its life, then dies naturally, and consequently we have to ask the question: do we have the right to eat it? The same question could be applied to a human who lived a long and natural life. Do we have the right to eat him after he dies?
The other situation involves the necessary conditions that have to be established for a meat-consuming society, and to make things as clear as possible we should subtract the eating component from this side of the question. The conditions in question are the establishment of inhumane practices that treat animals' lives as parts of an assembly line. Are the suffering an animal experiences over the course of its life in this assembly line wrong? Once again, the same question could be asked concerning a human: if we forced a human to experience all the suffering an animal did in the assembly line we created, would it be wrong?
Four questions now. Let us rehash:
1) Is it wrong to eat a dead human, regardless of what kind of life he lived?
2) Is it wrong to eat a dead animal, regardless of what kind of life it lived?
3) Is it wrong to treat a human as an item on an assembly line?
4) Is it wrong to treat an animal as an item on an assembly line?
Now let us imagine a number of different people came to answer these questions. The first is a cannibal who believes in the sacredness of life. The second is an animal rights activist. The third is an average American who just enjoys his hamburger.
The cannibal would say:
1&2) It's fine to eat a dead human or a dead animal.
3&4) It's not okay to treat any living thing as part of an assembly line.
Animal Rights Activist:
1&2) It's not okay to eat dead animals or dead humans.
3&4) It's not okay to treat animals or humans as parts of assembly lines.
Average American:
1&2) It's okay to eat dead animals, NOT dead humans.
3&4) It's okay to treat animals as part of an assembly line; NOT so for humans.
The average American is the only one who places special status on the species human. Can this special status for humans be justified?
It has been proposed that humans are the only beings on Earth capable of deep reflection upon their past experiences. Humans have the most complex understanding of the self, which makes their suffering far greater than any animal's could ever be.
But imagine that an alien race descended upon Earth and enslaved the race of man, treating them like cattle. This alien race had such a level of intelligence that it dwarfed man's cognitive abilities. To this race of aliens, humans were nothing special; though we could reflect, we could not perform what they might call "reflection squared"-- we'll just make up this term, which will serve as a cognitive ability the aliens use to justify their treatment of humans.
Does this alien race perform an act that is morally wrong? By our "reflection" rule, yes! By the aliens' "reflection squared" rule, no!
The line that differentiates humans and animals can be drawn however one pleases. We could say chimps and men both possess a sufficient level of consciousness that neither should be subject to prolonged suffering... but we draw the line at human consciousness.
What about just eating humans and animals, then? I haven't heard any ethical arguments against those, except that it might be healthier to stick to vegetables.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Love
Whenever we love, we stumble upon something truly enigmatic. It is at once superficial, yet inexplicable: a "crush" will fall apart into oblivion, or perhaps instead turn into something quite different, what might be called an emotional investment. Marriage is an imprisoning social contract which some, with sufficient willpower, can break and by doing so, reforge their lives.
The only thing which makes love important, pragmatically speaking, is the consequence we have all come to expect and desire, for one reason or another: offspring. Undesired pregnancies abound, revealing that the mechanism of love is still performing its intended function. Does that not repulse you? Or does that fill you with awe? Perhaps a little of both.
But why should it be repulsing? The images in themselves have been tainted: the fluids, the taboo of pornography and blazing harshness of the raw flesh, reveal within us a cringing coward who dares not embrace the concept of sexuality. It is a silent thing that belongs to the night, unseen except by one secret companion. (or perhaps more than one?)
And yet then, why should it fill us with awe? Paradoxically for the very opposite reasons; we stand amazed at witnessing the act of creation, a soul of new innocence unfold into the complexity of the world. What was ugly in man has become beautiful in his child.
There are those who perhaps see the complete opposite for each; who admire adult human flesh, and hate the wailing of the newborn with passion.
Regardless of what you feel your reasons for these feelings to be, I suspect to some extent they exist in us all-- the duality of revulsion and awe at our own bodies, as well as concerning those of the desired sex. What next?
What is gained by love? What is lost by abstaining from it? These questions can only be answered by taking a path that cannot be easily returned by. Commitments are never easy to retreat from.
What is gained by abstaining from love? What is lost by pursuing it?
The same questions, inverted. But the same questions could be applied to any aspect of your life. How would your life have been different if you'd pursued politics instead of medicine? Public service instead of law? You would be different.
Pragmatically speaking, if you pursued love, you would likely have a child, and know what it is to be a parent.
If you did not, you would experience much more that you would never have had time for, had you taken care of a child instead.
We can think in terms of selfishness-- that a selfish man would obviously not pursue love. Only superficial love, love that satisfied his appetites, but not committing love that results in a family.
Why is this so important? Consider at least this. For every human being who has survived until adulthood, there have been those who have taken care of him. These humans performed the function of parents. Do you want to know what the experience of this function is like? Do you have any idea of how it would feel? The emotions that would course through you? You do not, at least, not until you perform that function.
What does it mean to be human? Is it to philosophize? Not at all. Philosophy only becomes an interest when all other avenues are exhausted. It is defined as ultimatum. Being human is far more inevitable. We feel the call night and day. We see children and families together all the time. That is the pressure pushing us towards this continuation.
One could choose not to be human, to make goals and destinies for himself that do not include love. This man would not be human. He would accomplish things I would probably characterize as inhuman. Is that bad? I cannot say. It is another question. All I can say is that neither path looks particularly appealing at the moment. That is a frightening thought.
The only thing which makes love important, pragmatically speaking, is the consequence we have all come to expect and desire, for one reason or another: offspring. Undesired pregnancies abound, revealing that the mechanism of love is still performing its intended function. Does that not repulse you? Or does that fill you with awe? Perhaps a little of both.
But why should it be repulsing? The images in themselves have been tainted: the fluids, the taboo of pornography and blazing harshness of the raw flesh, reveal within us a cringing coward who dares not embrace the concept of sexuality. It is a silent thing that belongs to the night, unseen except by one secret companion. (or perhaps more than one?)
And yet then, why should it fill us with awe? Paradoxically for the very opposite reasons; we stand amazed at witnessing the act of creation, a soul of new innocence unfold into the complexity of the world. What was ugly in man has become beautiful in his child.
There are those who perhaps see the complete opposite for each; who admire adult human flesh, and hate the wailing of the newborn with passion.
Regardless of what you feel your reasons for these feelings to be, I suspect to some extent they exist in us all-- the duality of revulsion and awe at our own bodies, as well as concerning those of the desired sex. What next?
What is gained by love? What is lost by abstaining from it? These questions can only be answered by taking a path that cannot be easily returned by. Commitments are never easy to retreat from.
What is gained by abstaining from love? What is lost by pursuing it?
The same questions, inverted. But the same questions could be applied to any aspect of your life. How would your life have been different if you'd pursued politics instead of medicine? Public service instead of law? You would be different.
Pragmatically speaking, if you pursued love, you would likely have a child, and know what it is to be a parent.
If you did not, you would experience much more that you would never have had time for, had you taken care of a child instead.
We can think in terms of selfishness-- that a selfish man would obviously not pursue love. Only superficial love, love that satisfied his appetites, but not committing love that results in a family.
Why is this so important? Consider at least this. For every human being who has survived until adulthood, there have been those who have taken care of him. These humans performed the function of parents. Do you want to know what the experience of this function is like? Do you have any idea of how it would feel? The emotions that would course through you? You do not, at least, not until you perform that function.
What does it mean to be human? Is it to philosophize? Not at all. Philosophy only becomes an interest when all other avenues are exhausted. It is defined as ultimatum. Being human is far more inevitable. We feel the call night and day. We see children and families together all the time. That is the pressure pushing us towards this continuation.
One could choose not to be human, to make goals and destinies for himself that do not include love. This man would not be human. He would accomplish things I would probably characterize as inhuman. Is that bad? I cannot say. It is another question. All I can say is that neither path looks particularly appealing at the moment. That is a frightening thought.
Big Questions
Let us imagine that you are taking care of a six year old girl with an insatiable curiosity. You need to do a series of chores until such time that her parents return, and yet she refuses to be left alone. Instead, she prefers to follow you around as you perform each chore. You start by putting clothes in the washing machine. When you put soap in afterwards, she asks why you did. You explain that the soap is what allows the clothes to get clean.
"Why is that?" she asks in response. You explain that soap is a base, which corrodes certain materials more than others, and so will remove the ugly stains that are currently on the dirty clothes.
"And how does the base do that?" she asks. You get into excruciating detail, trying to remember the organic chemistry you took in college; you even take out the molecular kit you still have lying around and try to get her to play with that. To no avail.
"Why does the hydrogen get given to the stain? Why does that make the stain fall off the clothes? Why don't the clothes fall apart?"
You cannot answer any more of these questions off the top of your head. You go online and do some research until you find answers that satisfy you-- answers which actually relate to the molecular orbitals formed, and the electrons that form each bond. When you relate these answers to her, she only has more questions. You throw up your hands in despair and give up-- an answer may have been discovered, but you are fairly certain that whatever the answer is, it is beyond your immediate ability to comprehend. This little girl has already probed the boundaries of knowledge, and she has only asked five series of whys.
This little girl has the same spirit as the most profound philosophers; the only difference being she has not acquired the vocabulary to fully express herself. Rather, she is in the process of acquiring this vocabulary by asking this recurring question, "why?"
A lesson to take from this scenario is that there will always be more questions. The philosopher may take a question that normally we would not even bother to answer, such as "Why do I want to live?" or "Why do I think I have free will?" These are very difficult questions to answer, questions which shake us to our very foundations if properly investigated. The beautiful thing about such questions, however, is that the answer will satisfy if investigated for a sufficient length of time.
The little girl was not satisfied-- this is what made her profound. A philosopher might investigate one of the above questions-- on the subject of life and free will-- and find a suitable explanation. The problem is, that every time an answer is attained, the answer will inevitably lead to more questions. This is the lesson to be learned from the scenario. This is the lesson to be taught to all would-be philosophers, who have a desire to be profound.
"Why is that?" she asks in response. You explain that soap is a base, which corrodes certain materials more than others, and so will remove the ugly stains that are currently on the dirty clothes.
"And how does the base do that?" she asks. You get into excruciating detail, trying to remember the organic chemistry you took in college; you even take out the molecular kit you still have lying around and try to get her to play with that. To no avail.
"Why does the hydrogen get given to the stain? Why does that make the stain fall off the clothes? Why don't the clothes fall apart?"
You cannot answer any more of these questions off the top of your head. You go online and do some research until you find answers that satisfy you-- answers which actually relate to the molecular orbitals formed, and the electrons that form each bond. When you relate these answers to her, she only has more questions. You throw up your hands in despair and give up-- an answer may have been discovered, but you are fairly certain that whatever the answer is, it is beyond your immediate ability to comprehend. This little girl has already probed the boundaries of knowledge, and she has only asked five series of whys.
This little girl has the same spirit as the most profound philosophers; the only difference being she has not acquired the vocabulary to fully express herself. Rather, she is in the process of acquiring this vocabulary by asking this recurring question, "why?"
A lesson to take from this scenario is that there will always be more questions. The philosopher may take a question that normally we would not even bother to answer, such as "Why do I want to live?" or "Why do I think I have free will?" These are very difficult questions to answer, questions which shake us to our very foundations if properly investigated. The beautiful thing about such questions, however, is that the answer will satisfy if investigated for a sufficient length of time.
The little girl was not satisfied-- this is what made her profound. A philosopher might investigate one of the above questions-- on the subject of life and free will-- and find a suitable explanation. The problem is, that every time an answer is attained, the answer will inevitably lead to more questions. This is the lesson to be learned from the scenario. This is the lesson to be taught to all would-be philosophers, who have a desire to be profound.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Analytic vs Continental
Philosophy of language is considered to fit under the subgroup of analytic philosophy.
Analytic philosophy is opposed to continental philosophy.
Analytic philosophy is opposed to continental philosophy.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Philosophy of interpretation
This is a subject that is better covered by the introducer of literary anthologies. However, it is important to reflect upon such a task before moving forward.
I am preparing to interpret Beckett's trilogy. This is not a single "work", per say; it was against Beckett's wishes that they be regarded as such. They are considered as a trilogy in the public eye, and that is a fact.
Therefore a distinction may be drawn: a de facto reality, and what we shall call a minority perspective: that of the author.
Does it matter what Beckett wanted us to do, if what has happened is that most people regard the three novels written in quick secession as having a central theme? Some unifying principle?
To me, it is more important to think of how the novel is viewed by everyone. The task of the literary critic is to make SENSE of the common view, not to cater to a minority, even if that minority is the author. Just like any marketing scheme... you are trying to sell your product to the most customers.
So what are the objective principles that I can set down, having just recently finished all three of these increasingly crazy works?
A lot of what I can say I found on wikipedia, unfortunately. I haven't learned too much from reading them... yet.
First, these three works, when construed together, represent a movement. From a typical Beckett plot, then stripped down some, then stripped down to pretty much nothing. Ramblings; a conflict between a desire to continue and a desire for closure and conclusion; that is all that is left by the very end.
There is a person behind the text that becomes increasingly apparent as the stripping down occurs. In a sense, Beckett himself becomes more clear. This is a personal observation... not really an objective thing I can rely on.
I read one piece of criticism that related Molloy to CG Jung. I am a bit annoyed at this... segways into the realm of psychoanalysis, which I feel is too... what's the word? specialized, yes. Can't sell my product as well.
I am particularly interested in this idea of existentialism-- not the precise understanding that is developing in the philosophy departments across our nation and the world, but mainstream existentialism. I think Beckett is key to this. Call it a hunch. Call it something I remember someone saying in passing once. The idea is there, and it's stuck.
Fragments of philosophy are all over the place in Beckett's ramblings. I feel that I am the common man, desperately trying to solve an enigma. What will I discover? A personal truth? Beckett's truth? Or something in between?
How has this idea changed from the beginning glimmers of this gold we call existentialism? Is it fools' gold? That's not my question to answer. I think it is real gold to many people. I think it is gold to me. But I haven't found it yet. It's not tangible enough, not yet.
Rumination...
I am preparing to interpret Beckett's trilogy. This is not a single "work", per say; it was against Beckett's wishes that they be regarded as such. They are considered as a trilogy in the public eye, and that is a fact.
Therefore a distinction may be drawn: a de facto reality, and what we shall call a minority perspective: that of the author.
Does it matter what Beckett wanted us to do, if what has happened is that most people regard the three novels written in quick secession as having a central theme? Some unifying principle?
To me, it is more important to think of how the novel is viewed by everyone. The task of the literary critic is to make SENSE of the common view, not to cater to a minority, even if that minority is the author. Just like any marketing scheme... you are trying to sell your product to the most customers.
So what are the objective principles that I can set down, having just recently finished all three of these increasingly crazy works?
A lot of what I can say I found on wikipedia, unfortunately. I haven't learned too much from reading them... yet.
First, these three works, when construed together, represent a movement. From a typical Beckett plot, then stripped down some, then stripped down to pretty much nothing. Ramblings; a conflict between a desire to continue and a desire for closure and conclusion; that is all that is left by the very end.
There is a person behind the text that becomes increasingly apparent as the stripping down occurs. In a sense, Beckett himself becomes more clear. This is a personal observation... not really an objective thing I can rely on.
I read one piece of criticism that related Molloy to CG Jung. I am a bit annoyed at this... segways into the realm of psychoanalysis, which I feel is too... what's the word? specialized, yes. Can't sell my product as well.
I am particularly interested in this idea of existentialism-- not the precise understanding that is developing in the philosophy departments across our nation and the world, but mainstream existentialism. I think Beckett is key to this. Call it a hunch. Call it something I remember someone saying in passing once. The idea is there, and it's stuck.
Fragments of philosophy are all over the place in Beckett's ramblings. I feel that I am the common man, desperately trying to solve an enigma. What will I discover? A personal truth? Beckett's truth? Or something in between?
How has this idea changed from the beginning glimmers of this gold we call existentialism? Is it fools' gold? That's not my question to answer. I think it is real gold to many people. I think it is gold to me. But I haven't found it yet. It's not tangible enough, not yet.
Rumination...
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Trilogies
Trilogies are like trinities, like triangles. There are a work split into three pieces, and they each contribute to the whole. But it is also defined by what it is not, a single work, and so the three pieces individuate themselves through their distance.
A question:
Is each piece of approximately the same length/volume/object?
An answer:
I see no reason to say yes. A triangle can be isosceles. A trinity operates as one entity represented in three different ways; the three sides would thus just be three different ways of viewing the same side. Properties such as size, shape, or length would thus be insignificant.
A question:
What is a trilogy?
An answer:
This is a difficult question. I can only address it if it's broken up a bit more.
A question:
Why would someone split a single work into three parts?
An answer:
That is not a very helpful question to ask, I think. Commonly, I suppose, the answer is for marketing purposes. By hooking people on the first part, you can ensure the success of the next two. But why three? Why not four, or five, or seven? The answer is because it's traditional. It's the way things have been done. Humans are things of habit, that's all; stories have beginnings, middles, and ends.
Q:
What can be said about the connectedness between the parts of a trilogy?
A:
The only thing that can be said is that there is some common thread of thought to all of them. There is an element of unity. The answer lies in the question, unfortunately... there is nothing more that can be said other than that there is some connectedness.
I am thinking about Beckett's trilogy, specifically. It is hard. I feel... there is a lot of similar thread in all of them, but what bothers me is this recycling of names. The second part makes reference to characters in the first part, and the third part makes reference to chars in the second and first parts.
So in a way, they are chronological. But so is time, and... the way memory works, I suppose, is being mimicked, but what's really interesting, actually, is his reference to chars in novels written long before any of these parts of "the trilogy."
A question:
Is each piece of approximately the same length/volume/object?
An answer:
I see no reason to say yes. A triangle can be isosceles. A trinity operates as one entity represented in three different ways; the three sides would thus just be three different ways of viewing the same side. Properties such as size, shape, or length would thus be insignificant.
A question:
What is a trilogy?
An answer:
This is a difficult question. I can only address it if it's broken up a bit more.
A question:
Why would someone split a single work into three parts?
An answer:
That is not a very helpful question to ask, I think. Commonly, I suppose, the answer is for marketing purposes. By hooking people on the first part, you can ensure the success of the next two. But why three? Why not four, or five, or seven? The answer is because it's traditional. It's the way things have been done. Humans are things of habit, that's all; stories have beginnings, middles, and ends.
Q:
What can be said about the connectedness between the parts of a trilogy?
A:
The only thing that can be said is that there is some common thread of thought to all of them. There is an element of unity. The answer lies in the question, unfortunately... there is nothing more that can be said other than that there is some connectedness.
I am thinking about Beckett's trilogy, specifically. It is hard. I feel... there is a lot of similar thread in all of them, but what bothers me is this recycling of names. The second part makes reference to characters in the first part, and the third part makes reference to chars in the second and first parts.
So in a way, they are chronological. But so is time, and... the way memory works, I suppose, is being mimicked, but what's really interesting, actually, is his reference to chars in novels written long before any of these parts of "the trilogy."
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sufficient vs Necessary
"A is sufficient to make B true" means as long as A, then B, regardless of any other contingency.
"A is necessary for B to be true" means for B to be true, then A. Other contingencies could still make B untrue, however.
A statement can be necessary AND sufficient, which make such statements of primary importance.
For example:
You're going to the fair. It costs 50 cents to get in.
It is SUFFICIENT to give the ticketmaster 50 cents to get in. I suppose we're ignoring cases where you're on America's Most Wanted and he recognizes you, thus preventing you from entering... so technically speaking, this is not a perfect example.
It is sufficient for a closed shape to be a triangle if it has three sides. It is also necessary.
Hmm... I want a perfect example of something that is just sufficient, however...
"A is necessary for B to be true" means for B to be true, then A. Other contingencies could still make B untrue, however.
A statement can be necessary AND sufficient, which make such statements of primary importance.
For example:
You're going to the fair. It costs 50 cents to get in.
It is SUFFICIENT to give the ticketmaster 50 cents to get in. I suppose we're ignoring cases where you're on America's Most Wanted and he recognizes you, thus preventing you from entering... so technically speaking, this is not a perfect example.
It is sufficient for a closed shape to be a triangle if it has three sides. It is also necessary.
Hmm... I want a perfect example of something that is just sufficient, however...
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Occam's razor: is it valid?
Occam's razor is applied to a situation in which two competing theories both account for all observable data; it eliminates the more complex one in favor of the more simple. For example, dualism must be discarded in favor of monism, because they both can fully account for existence.
Ontologically, this tool is a nightmare. It is kind of a mute acceptance that there IS NO WAY to know whether one theory is more true than the other.
Occam's razor is also an exercise in pragmatism. Recall that pragmatism is a method that examines the practical consequences of assuming an idea to be true. Since ontologically there can never be certainty, we should consider the fact that people need a systematic way to understand the world. Therefore it would practically be of use to them if we were to eliminate needlessly complicated theories.
Unfortunately it is a tool that must be applied when applicable. That's always a question of debate, however: when is it applicable? When two or more theories account for ALL observable data. If one theory BETTER ACCOUNTS for observable data than another, then that theory is obviously preferable; Occam's razor need not be applied.
I was wondering; what if two theories successfully account for 90% of the data? Obviously something's off, and you should probably do more observations until you can get either really close to 100% or change one of the theories so that it can account for the remaining 10%.
This tool is both ontological and epistemological, because it can apply to theories about the process of attaining knowledge as well as to theories about the world as we believe it to exist.
I think I ought to give an example of using Occam's razor in an epistemological situation, just to cement the title of my blog a little bit more.
The two main theories for how knowledge is attained are:
1) empiricism (knowledge derived from sense experience, associated with "Blank Slate" and Locke)
2) innate idea (ideas present at birth, associated with idealism and Plato)
Unfortunately I don't think these ideas are mutually exclusive (nature and nurture, anyone?). Furthermore, it seems that there are instances for both that problematize them. The two theories must satisfyingly account for all observable data before Occam's razor can be applied.
Darn, that didn't work out. Oh well, at least I tried.
Ontologically, this tool is a nightmare. It is kind of a mute acceptance that there IS NO WAY to know whether one theory is more true than the other.
Occam's razor is also an exercise in pragmatism. Recall that pragmatism is a method that examines the practical consequences of assuming an idea to be true. Since ontologically there can never be certainty, we should consider the fact that people need a systematic way to understand the world. Therefore it would practically be of use to them if we were to eliminate needlessly complicated theories.
Unfortunately it is a tool that must be applied when applicable. That's always a question of debate, however: when is it applicable? When two or more theories account for ALL observable data. If one theory BETTER ACCOUNTS for observable data than another, then that theory is obviously preferable; Occam's razor need not be applied.
I was wondering; what if two theories successfully account for 90% of the data? Obviously something's off, and you should probably do more observations until you can get either really close to 100% or change one of the theories so that it can account for the remaining 10%.
This tool is both ontological and epistemological, because it can apply to theories about the process of attaining knowledge as well as to theories about the world as we believe it to exist.
I think I ought to give an example of using Occam's razor in an epistemological situation, just to cement the title of my blog a little bit more.
The two main theories for how knowledge is attained are:
1) empiricism (knowledge derived from sense experience, associated with "Blank Slate" and Locke)
2) innate idea (ideas present at birth, associated with idealism and Plato)
Unfortunately I don't think these ideas are mutually exclusive (nature and nurture, anyone?). Furthermore, it seems that there are instances for both that problematize them. The two theories must satisfyingly account for all observable data before Occam's razor can be applied.
Darn, that didn't work out. Oh well, at least I tried.
epistemology, part 2
I think I actually am a hypocrit, with respect to the title of my blog. If you go back to my original post, you will see the significance of it in relation to my beliefs, in the sense that all things that are not as certain as that one thing Descartes showed (Cogito ergo sum) ought be put into a different category for consideration and debate.
Allow me to clarify:
ONTOLOGY that we can be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN about must be restricted to that one conclusion Descartes made.
ONTOLOGY actually covers more than that, however. I can imagine the world as being comprised of existence in itself, giving rise to my sensations, etc. This is an a posteriori conclusion that comments upon ontology, but it assumes that EMPIRICISM is a valid tool to make conclusions. The conclusion Descrates made does not require this empiricism, and so is the stronger conclusion.
I was tempted to say that because empirical conclusions are less certain, a healthy amount of skepticism could never hurt, and so I would be justified in thinking about empirical conclusions in the larger frame of EPISTEMOLOGY. Ontological conclusions outside of Descartes's cogito ergo sum are not certain, but at least I could investigate WHY I feel so certain of some empirical conclusions and not of others.
So you see, I divided the universe into absolute ontology and epistemology; epistemology encompassing all empirical thought. I am a hypocrit because sometimes I made an ontological query and used empirical logic without considering the larger epistemological framework I wished to apply in the beginning.
From now on, I will do my best to rectify my errs, and not be a hypocrit.
Allow me to clarify:
ONTOLOGY that we can be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN about must be restricted to that one conclusion Descartes made.
ONTOLOGY actually covers more than that, however. I can imagine the world as being comprised of existence in itself, giving rise to my sensations, etc. This is an a posteriori conclusion that comments upon ontology, but it assumes that EMPIRICISM is a valid tool to make conclusions. The conclusion Descrates made does not require this empiricism, and so is the stronger conclusion.
I was tempted to say that because empirical conclusions are less certain, a healthy amount of skepticism could never hurt, and so I would be justified in thinking about empirical conclusions in the larger frame of EPISTEMOLOGY. Ontological conclusions outside of Descartes's cogito ergo sum are not certain, but at least I could investigate WHY I feel so certain of some empirical conclusions and not of others.
So you see, I divided the universe into absolute ontology and epistemology; epistemology encompassing all empirical thought. I am a hypocrit because sometimes I made an ontological query and used empirical logic without considering the larger epistemological framework I wished to apply in the beginning.
From now on, I will do my best to rectify my errs, and not be a hypocrit.
Mind-brain identity theory
This is a somewhat ontological topic, so in one respect it shouldn't belong in my queries.
However, I have successfully snuck around being a hypocrit because I suggested that in order to be able to answer ontological questions, I could assume an empirical method. Otherwise I'm just stuck at Hume's roadblock.
The mind-brain identity theory suggests that minds and brains are NOT two different things; but rather, that all references to these are really to brains and brain states.
This theory stands in favor of a monistic materialism and in opposition to dualism. Can it be empirically argued for? Not really, since to prove this would be to disprove dualism, which can't be done since spiritual reality cannot be empirically observed.
I can use Occam's razor to get rid of the spirit world, though, but I haven't thought about Occam's razor in depth. So what else can I talk about here?
It is related to eliminative materialism, which predicts that at some point in the future, language will change to more accurately represent what is going on in the brain. Instead of saying "I am happy" you might say "I just had a bunch of endorphins released in sectors A4, B95..."
(This is kind of an extreme case, but the idea is as science moves forward, the gap between sensation and corresponding reality will become smaller). If the eliminative materialists are right, dualism would eventually become less popular of a perspective, less intuitive, and to de facto eliminated.
However, if I were to approach this subject from the same level of skepticism as I have approached, say, the existence of God, then I would be forced to conclude that as this is merely a theory, there will never come a point where we can for certain say one system is true over another.
However, I have successfully snuck around being a hypocrit because I suggested that in order to be able to answer ontological questions, I could assume an empirical method. Otherwise I'm just stuck at Hume's roadblock.
The mind-brain identity theory suggests that minds and brains are NOT two different things; but rather, that all references to these are really to brains and brain states.
This theory stands in favor of a monistic materialism and in opposition to dualism. Can it be empirically argued for? Not really, since to prove this would be to disprove dualism, which can't be done since spiritual reality cannot be empirically observed.
I can use Occam's razor to get rid of the spirit world, though, but I haven't thought about Occam's razor in depth. So what else can I talk about here?
It is related to eliminative materialism, which predicts that at some point in the future, language will change to more accurately represent what is going on in the brain. Instead of saying "I am happy" you might say "I just had a bunch of endorphins released in sectors A4, B95..."
(This is kind of an extreme case, but the idea is as science moves forward, the gap between sensation and corresponding reality will become smaller). If the eliminative materialists are right, dualism would eventually become less popular of a perspective, less intuitive, and to de facto eliminated.
However, if I were to approach this subject from the same level of skepticism as I have approached, say, the existence of God, then I would be forced to conclude that as this is merely a theory, there will never come a point where we can for certain say one system is true over another.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Pragmaticism and Pragmatism
I was reading a thematic overview of philosophy by Donald Palmer and came across a really nice, friendly definition of pragmaticism/pragmatism I thought I should share.
PRAGMATISM was coined by Charles Peirce. It is a method used to clarify thought processes by tracing out the practical consequences of beliefs in various ideas. For example, postulating the existence of a loosely defined ultimate cause is an unprovable theory that will have no effect on your actions in daily existence. No practical consequence; so dismiss the question. Hey! We just used Peirce's pragmatism!
However, there's a little story about this word, which is important because its meaning changes. Stories are so nice because they help you remember better, too! It goes like this:
A man named William James used this word to make a new argument in favor of religious belief. Peirce was pretty upset about how James used it, especially since he wanted to use it to void questions concerning religion, rather than reinforce a particular stance in the controversy. So Peirce changed his word to "PRAGMATICISM" which he thought was "ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers." To this day pragmatism is now associated with James's use of it, and pragmaticism is used for Peirce's.
I'll just quote James who says: "On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true." As long as it "will combine satisfactorily with all the other working truths" this hypothesis seems to "work" pretty well. Subjectively true, then; not rigorously so, but conveniently so.
I'm still a bit confused about the distinction between Peirce's pragmaticism and James's pragmatism, however. As I see it, James successfully used Peirce's method to show something Peirce didn't like. That would imply that Peirce's new term is incompatible with the conclusion James made in the preceding paragraph.
Here's a quote from wiki, which suggests the terms are actually interchangeable:
"Whether one chooses to call it "pragmatism" or "pragmaticism", and Peirce himself was not always consistent about it even after the notorious renaming, his conception of pragmatic philosophy is based on one or another version of the so-called "pragmatic maxim"
To conclude, I should also mention that I initially decided to discuss these two words because I thought they were related to pragmatics; THIS IS NOT TRUE.
Pragmatics is not related to pragmatism/pragmaticism, except for the fact that they share a common root.
Here's that root, complements to thefreedictionary.com:
[Latin prgmaticus, skilled in business, from Greek prgmatikos, from prgma, prgmat-, deed, from prssein, prg-, to do.]
If you're interested on my take on pragmatics, please refer back to my previous post on that. As I said before, it's been giving me a headache, so if anyone would care to take a shot at explaining it, I'd appreciate it.
PRAGMATISM was coined by Charles Peirce. It is a method used to clarify thought processes by tracing out the practical consequences of beliefs in various ideas. For example, postulating the existence of a loosely defined ultimate cause is an unprovable theory that will have no effect on your actions in daily existence. No practical consequence; so dismiss the question. Hey! We just used Peirce's pragmatism!
However, there's a little story about this word, which is important because its meaning changes. Stories are so nice because they help you remember better, too! It goes like this:
A man named William James used this word to make a new argument in favor of religious belief. Peirce was pretty upset about how James used it, especially since he wanted to use it to void questions concerning religion, rather than reinforce a particular stance in the controversy. So Peirce changed his word to "PRAGMATICISM" which he thought was "ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers." To this day pragmatism is now associated with James's use of it, and pragmaticism is used for Peirce's.
I'll just quote James who says: "On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, it is true." As long as it "will combine satisfactorily with all the other working truths" this hypothesis seems to "work" pretty well. Subjectively true, then; not rigorously so, but conveniently so.
I'm still a bit confused about the distinction between Peirce's pragmaticism and James's pragmatism, however. As I see it, James successfully used Peirce's method to show something Peirce didn't like. That would imply that Peirce's new term is incompatible with the conclusion James made in the preceding paragraph.
Here's a quote from wiki, which suggests the terms are actually interchangeable:
"Whether one chooses to call it "pragmatism" or "pragmaticism", and Peirce himself was not always consistent about it even after the notorious renaming, his conception of pragmatic philosophy is based on one or another version of the so-called "pragmatic maxim"
To conclude, I should also mention that I initially decided to discuss these two words because I thought they were related to pragmatics; THIS IS NOT TRUE.
Pragmatics is not related to pragmatism/pragmaticism, except for the fact that they share a common root.
Here's that root, complements to thefreedictionary.com:
[Latin prgmaticus, skilled in business, from Greek prgmatikos, from prgma, prgmat-, deed, from prssein, prg-, to do.]
If you're interested on my take on pragmatics, please refer back to my previous post on that. As I said before, it's been giving me a headache, so if anyone would care to take a shot at explaining it, I'd appreciate it.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Agnosticism vs. Atheism
I have had difficulty deciding whether I should label myself as an agnostic or an atheist. The problem, of course, lies in definition. Technically speaking, I am an agnostic. I see it as the only rational choice.
Here's the religous story of my life. I was raised in a nonreligious environment and found no reason to believe in God. Science seemed to do a good job of answering my questions and I didn't really see a reason to delve any further. As I learned more science, my beliefs were cemented even further. At this stage of my life, I was an atheist (I would have denied the existence of God).
Then I transitioned to agnosticism when I learned that scientifically speaking, everyone should be an agnostic (there is no absolute proof for or against God's existence). Even if there was scientific evidence for God, his existence would still just be a THEORY, just like the theory of evolution... which is still called a theory, even though the evidence has reached a point that if you round a little, it's pretty much fact. My point being, stating that the existence of God is a theory would imply that there is SOME level of doubt, however small.
Then a wavy bit came. I started to consider that if I pretended to believe in a Christian God, my life would be more complete; I'd be happier. This is the closest I came to believing. This is a bit of a cheat because I was divying myself up into an "emotional" bit and a "rational" bit, a tactic that I have become increasingly aware of as I become older. At this stage I would have denied any affiliation whatsoever; I was still trying to make up my mind.
Anyways, the rational bit won after a bit of a struggle. What ended the conflict was reading Dawkins's God Delusion and Life of Pi. Life of Pi suggests that one should believe whatever one prefers (and thus supported my belief that being Christian just to be happier is a good enough reason), but in the end Dawkins's firm statements had a more profound effect on me. Furthermore, I think Life of Pi was promoting existentialism; religion wasn't being taken too seriously at all.
However, one statement in Life of Pi had a serious effect on me. It was along the lines of "choosing agnosticism as a way of life is like choosing immobility as a means for transportation." It stuck, and I felt compelled to choose between atheism and theism. Dawkins also expressed annoyance at agnostics, so reading God Delusion didn't help me there, either.
So I decided that I was an atheist. But after thinking a lot about philosophical arguments, and definitions, I finally changed one more time, back to agnosticism, and I sincerely doubt that I will change again in my lifetime. I've simply thought too hard about this, and believe I have come to the most sound, rational, conclusion. So let's see... here are the terms.
ATHEIST: somebody who does not believe in God or deities
AGNOSTIC: somebody who believes that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists
Next, let's define God. I'm talking about ultimate cause God, not necessarily the Christian one. An eternal being that created/started everything, or is the totality of reality, etc.
Postulating the existence of such an eternal being is not even a theory, it's a guess. Anything eternal cannot be measured; human beings are limited, mortal beings. There's no scientific evidence that can point either way... infinity is simply too far off from the limited length of time we can infer actually happened, which is just the age of the universe (what was it, about 11 billion years?). If we found a way to go back to the big bang and hit a time wall, it wouldn't prove that an ultimate cause started it. Heck, it might've been us hitting the time wall!
My point being, this doesn't even approach what we can conceive as being an experimentally provable theory. Empirically, it's nonsense (as Hume would have said). I see the problem of God having to do with the extensive connotation of the word, which has deep roots in the history of moral conduct. It is hard to reject this thing completely, because by being nice and decent human beings in the U.S., we necessarily participate in a Christian moral scheme.
Anyways, to wrap up this post... a loosely defined eternal being might or might not exist; there is simply no way to prove it either way unless you define it a bit better with respect to time and such. With respect to this kind of God, I am a true agnostic.
With respect to a Christian God, it is different. Consider the following two theories:
"The God that is described in the New Testament does not exist."
"Evolution results in the creation of new species from common ancestors."
Personally, I think an empirical thinker should come to the conclusion that a lot of evidence supports both of these theories. The fact that they're theories does mean a little bit of doubt is involved, however. This is a lot less doubt than is involved for the loosely defined God, as mentioned earlier.
So that settles it. I am an agnostic. Apologies if I offended anyone... but really, Dawkins is much harsher than I am...
Here's the religous story of my life. I was raised in a nonreligious environment and found no reason to believe in God. Science seemed to do a good job of answering my questions and I didn't really see a reason to delve any further. As I learned more science, my beliefs were cemented even further. At this stage of my life, I was an atheist (I would have denied the existence of God).
Then I transitioned to agnosticism when I learned that scientifically speaking, everyone should be an agnostic (there is no absolute proof for or against God's existence). Even if there was scientific evidence for God, his existence would still just be a THEORY, just like the theory of evolution... which is still called a theory, even though the evidence has reached a point that if you round a little, it's pretty much fact. My point being, stating that the existence of God is a theory would imply that there is SOME level of doubt, however small.
Then a wavy bit came. I started to consider that if I pretended to believe in a Christian God, my life would be more complete; I'd be happier. This is the closest I came to believing. This is a bit of a cheat because I was divying myself up into an "emotional" bit and a "rational" bit, a tactic that I have become increasingly aware of as I become older. At this stage I would have denied any affiliation whatsoever; I was still trying to make up my mind.
Anyways, the rational bit won after a bit of a struggle. What ended the conflict was reading Dawkins's God Delusion and Life of Pi. Life of Pi suggests that one should believe whatever one prefers (and thus supported my belief that being Christian just to be happier is a good enough reason), but in the end Dawkins's firm statements had a more profound effect on me. Furthermore, I think Life of Pi was promoting existentialism; religion wasn't being taken too seriously at all.
However, one statement in Life of Pi had a serious effect on me. It was along the lines of "choosing agnosticism as a way of life is like choosing immobility as a means for transportation." It stuck, and I felt compelled to choose between atheism and theism. Dawkins also expressed annoyance at agnostics, so reading God Delusion didn't help me there, either.
So I decided that I was an atheist. But after thinking a lot about philosophical arguments, and definitions, I finally changed one more time, back to agnosticism, and I sincerely doubt that I will change again in my lifetime. I've simply thought too hard about this, and believe I have come to the most sound, rational, conclusion. So let's see... here are the terms.
ATHEIST: somebody who does not believe in God or deities
AGNOSTIC: somebody who believes that it is impossible to know whether or not God exists
Next, let's define God. I'm talking about ultimate cause God, not necessarily the Christian one. An eternal being that created/started everything, or is the totality of reality, etc.
Postulating the existence of such an eternal being is not even a theory, it's a guess. Anything eternal cannot be measured; human beings are limited, mortal beings. There's no scientific evidence that can point either way... infinity is simply too far off from the limited length of time we can infer actually happened, which is just the age of the universe (what was it, about 11 billion years?). If we found a way to go back to the big bang and hit a time wall, it wouldn't prove that an ultimate cause started it. Heck, it might've been us hitting the time wall!
My point being, this doesn't even approach what we can conceive as being an experimentally provable theory. Empirically, it's nonsense (as Hume would have said). I see the problem of God having to do with the extensive connotation of the word, which has deep roots in the history of moral conduct. It is hard to reject this thing completely, because by being nice and decent human beings in the U.S., we necessarily participate in a Christian moral scheme.
Anyways, to wrap up this post... a loosely defined eternal being might or might not exist; there is simply no way to prove it either way unless you define it a bit better with respect to time and such. With respect to this kind of God, I am a true agnostic.
With respect to a Christian God, it is different. Consider the following two theories:
"The God that is described in the New Testament does not exist."
"Evolution results in the creation of new species from common ancestors."
Personally, I think an empirical thinker should come to the conclusion that a lot of evidence supports both of these theories. The fact that they're theories does mean a little bit of doubt is involved, however. This is a lot less doubt than is involved for the loosely defined God, as mentioned earlier.
So that settles it. I am an agnostic. Apologies if I offended anyone... but really, Dawkins is much harsher than I am...
Panpsychism
(FYI, quotes taken from http://www.iep.utm.edu/p/panpsych.htm)
I used to think about an idea I would call "global consciousness" and then found that there's a term called "panpsychism" which is similar in a number of ways.
First: What is panpsychism?
"panpsychism may be defined as the view that all things possess mind, or some mind-like quality"
It stands in opposition to the belief that only a certain restricted class of beings can possess mind. Also, "Either mind was present in things from the very beginning or it appeared (emerged) at some point in the history of evolution." Believing the former means you're a panpsychist, believing the latter makes you an emergentist. Defending emergentism is generally more problematic because one would have to argue for a line at which you could rigourously define the mind.
If you believe in Darwinian evolution, you would probably agree with me that arguing for such a line is not very useful and that it is clearly a better idea to just think of things in terms of always having possessed some simpler mind-like quality.
Second: What is mind?
"it is clearly debatable what one means by “mind.” Panpsychists have employed a variety of descriptive terms to articulate the mental quality that all things share: sentience, experience, feeling, inner life, subjectivity, qualia, will, perception"
To address the question of mind, I will appeal to structuralism. Having a mind is equivalent to having a specific set of atoms organized in a specific structure. This explains the continuum of varying complexity of minds that human experience seems to encounter (including cats, dogs, cnidaria worms, toddlers, infants, etc.) Different structures mean different experiences.
Third: Why is it important?
"Panpsychism, with its long list of advocates and sympathizers, is a robust and respectable approach to mind. It offers a naturalistic escape from Cartesian dualism and Christian theology"
"Panpsychism thus offers a kind of resolution to the problem of emergence, and is supported by several other arguments as well. The viability of panpsychism is no longer really in question. At issue is the specific form it might take, and what its implications are. Panpsychism suggests a radically different worldview, one that is fundamentally at odds with the dominant mechanistic conception of the universe. Arguably, it is precisely this mechanistic view—which sees the universe and everything in it as a kind of giant machine—that lies at the root of many of our philosophical, sociological, and environmental problems. Panpsychism, by challenging this worldview at its root, potentially offers new solutions to some very old problems."
I used to think about an idea I would call "global consciousness" and then found that there's a term called "panpsychism" which is similar in a number of ways.
First: What is panpsychism?
"panpsychism may be defined as the view that all things possess mind, or some mind-like quality"
It stands in opposition to the belief that only a certain restricted class of beings can possess mind. Also, "Either mind was present in things from the very beginning or it appeared (emerged) at some point in the history of evolution." Believing the former means you're a panpsychist, believing the latter makes you an emergentist. Defending emergentism is generally more problematic because one would have to argue for a line at which you could rigourously define the mind.
If you believe in Darwinian evolution, you would probably agree with me that arguing for such a line is not very useful and that it is clearly a better idea to just think of things in terms of always having possessed some simpler mind-like quality.
Second: What is mind?
"it is clearly debatable what one means by “mind.” Panpsychists have employed a variety of descriptive terms to articulate the mental quality that all things share: sentience, experience, feeling, inner life, subjectivity, qualia, will, perception"
To address the question of mind, I will appeal to structuralism. Having a mind is equivalent to having a specific set of atoms organized in a specific structure. This explains the continuum of varying complexity of minds that human experience seems to encounter (including cats, dogs, cnidaria worms, toddlers, infants, etc.) Different structures mean different experiences.
Third: Why is it important?
"Panpsychism, with its long list of advocates and sympathizers, is a robust and respectable approach to mind. It offers a naturalistic escape from Cartesian dualism and Christian theology"
"Panpsychism thus offers a kind of resolution to the problem of emergence, and is supported by several other arguments as well. The viability of panpsychism is no longer really in question. At issue is the specific form it might take, and what its implications are. Panpsychism suggests a radically different worldview, one that is fundamentally at odds with the dominant mechanistic conception of the universe. Arguably, it is precisely this mechanistic view—which sees the universe and everything in it as a kind of giant machine—that lies at the root of many of our philosophical, sociological, and environmental problems. Panpsychism, by challenging this worldview at its root, potentially offers new solutions to some very old problems."
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