The concept of atavism is a very interesting way to view all those familiar feelings we get when we observe the reality of different cultures and societies in general and our place in them. Atavism also reveals how we relate to some of them more and not so much to others. Atavism is also a very useful concept to explain all those character traits that we have that make us who we are. Atavism is also a very adequate concept to describe some of our behaviour and feelings in general. The concept of atavism along with the fact that the knowledge that exists in our DNA that exists as natures programming is responsible for much of our abilities, faculties and behaviour is a very interesting and useful avenue of inquiry in which to understand ourselves. The work being done in DNA research itself as well as the behavioural sciences will teach us a lot about our nature, behaviour and atavistic feelings and this research will reveal all manner of interesting clues which will shed light on, for example, the reasons which compelled earlier philosophers to invent the concept of innate ideas. In his book the (meno) plato mentions that all learning is merely a recollecting. Now the first thing that I will mention in regard to plato's claim is that the concept of innate ideas represents something that we do feel within us even though the concept of innate ideas itself is false for various reasons and so I will have to begin to mention this in the due course of my investigation into this matter. The reasons why we as human beings know so much and remember so much in our lives as well as those things we experience on a day to day basis seeming so familiar to us is not because of innate ideas or because of past lives and such like things, but because of our DNA make-up and atavistic tendencies. Atavism applies to all those traits and affinities one has with one's ancestors due to our DNA inheritance. Atavism it must be pointed out does not exist in a consistent and regular manner, for example, a brother or a sister may have completely different atavistic feelings in regard to actual traits and feelings with the same ancestors but this brother and sister will usually in most cases have a similar racial or genetic affinity with each other. It cannot really be denied that our genetic inheritance and DNA make-up is an intrinsic aspect of how we feel in regard to culture and society generally and it can be said to be largely how we define ourselves in the world in regard to other people and cultures and this genetic aspect of how we define ourselves has a huge impact on all the other aspects of our lives and especially in our behaviour.
We as human beings contain a wealth of information in our DNA which is responsible for an innumerable number of functions in our bodies as well as in the faculties of our being and all these feelings that we get from the information that exists in our DNA makes the different things in reality seem familiar to us, even though we may not have experienced them before and our instincts and intuitions are largely due to this information in our DNA. Some of the information in our DNA also contains all the atavistic feelings and character traits which we as individuals experience most vividly in the fullest sense of affinity with particular ancestors and also the things that our ancestors experienced and these affinities that we experience also make certain things seem familiar to us that we know about due to the cultural, and physical experiences of our lives. Knowledge of the past and of previous cultures and societies is not enough to make us relate to these cultures because it is what we feel genetically that makes us relate to them or not.
Monday 28 January 2008
Saturday 19 January 2008
IN DEFENCE OF METAPHYSICS
Since the arrival of empiricism and its slow rise to the upper ranks of a lot of the philosophy being conducted by philosophers in the field today and of late, will be found as one will by chance happen to observe in this steady rise of empiricism a dual effect that has occurred in philosophy in the sense that a slow pernicious and damaging effect has been produced by the apparent success of empiricism at the expense of metaphysics. Now I find it to be my duty as well as my optimistic desire to repair some of this damage that has been perpetrated towards metaphysics at the hands of empiricism and its over confident supporters, of which I myself have been.
Now in the following passages that are to come, I will endeavour to repair the great name of metaphysics and so raise its proud banner high once again, so that all the world can marvel in its brilliant and creative radiance and this I do so that its efforts and offerings of which there are many shall never be lost by the hasty and ignorant of temperament. Metaphysics by its very nature is a cause of wonder and speculation and is a highly creative and all encompassing way in which to view reality itself (that is the essence of reality itself) and it is the type of outlook that got the early Greek philosophers thinking in a constructive way in the first place all the way back in the days when religion, mystery and superstition predominated. Now philosophy proper as a force was largely metaphysical at first and slowly began to branch out and take on other disciplines. One main reason why metaphysics now gets a bad name is because a lot of the philosophers around (especially the logical positivists) are only interested in trying to explain things which are easy to explain which are empirically obvious, they are not interested in all those mysterious things about reality which is harder to describe and explain. A lot of philosophers and peoples opinions and attitudes today have even degenerated into a somewhat petty belief that philosophy is only now good for a clarification of thoughts or for minor descriptions of phenomenon and a limited play with language etc. A lot of philosophers and people in general today doubt the greatness that philosophy has and also once had which was especially great in the minds and hands of the legendary figures like Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and this general attitude today is an indication of the nihilistic, apathetic, cynical and hopeless state in which some people live by and have allowed their opinion of philosophy to degenerate into and this negative outlook is partly due to science and the empirical method, which I am sorry to say, does not satisfy us in all departments and should be relegated to what it is good at. Metaphysics is one subject that has suffered the most at the hands of this poor outlook that I have described above that attempts to make us into automatons of so-called logic and hard scientific facts. Human beings in general mostly think in a philosophical, rational, symbolic, imaginary, metaphysical and desire-orientated way and not in a hard logical and scientific way, which hardly does not satisfy us at all as human beings. Metaphysics gets a bad reputation for supposedly consisting of all the erroneous speculations, subjective fancies and imaginary mystical beliefs that have ever been invented by the minds of human beings. Metaphysics it must be shown, does not necessarily consist of all those erroneous concepts that have ever been thought up, such as an all encompassing substance that surrounds everything or that matter consists of spirit or has spirit in it or that there is a swirling aether in space. Metaphysics as a subject should be approached as an extension of realism and materialistic philosophy, for instance, it is not known why energy perpetually vibrates both infinitely and eternally or why energy and space are infinite in extent and quantity and so on.
Some people even go so far as to claim that the concept of the will in nature is a purely metaphysical concept or is only an automatic physical process; but these views, it must be pointed out, are absurd at best and are only one-sided and incomplete views of the will. The concept of the will in nature is in fact both physical and metaphysical and the people who are ignorant at heart always want the physical to be separated from the metaphysical, as if in their estimation the metaphysical is going to weaken somehow what they consider to be a fact that is purely explainable by empirical, physical and literal means or by using a purely scientific type of language and description that is not always possible, seeing as it is usually hollow and without any true meaning and description of reality. Metaphysics attempts to describe and explain the very essence, nature and meaning of reality and existence itself and one will find no other subjects which attempt to do this and so therefore metaphysics cannot be replaced by any other subject and can also not be discarded in favour of any other subjects. Metaphysics as a subject is concerned mostly with first principles and basic causes and how they influence processes and this because it is an attempted understanding of all those activities and processes that occur as energy vibrates and forms physical and creative situations within space involving forces, rules, laws and universal forms. Metaphysics cannot attempt to explain first principles and basic causes in the literal sense because these things do not exist, that is there is no first or last principles for processes universally because there is no beginning or end to processes universally, but there is first principles for particular processes like the big bang. There are only first principles for particular processes like the creation of our universe. As time goes by one will find that physics will increasingly become more like metaphysics as it progresses and this is because the boundary between what we are capable of knowing in the sciences and what is highly real and unknowable in reality (i.e., metaphysics) gets blurred and one can find this occurring already in string theory. Metaphysics attempts to understand the deeper issues of reality and existence, such as why does matter exist at all? Why does energy perpetually vibrate? Why is space and energy infinite? And metaphysics never goes away because it is one of the most important subjects around.
Philosophy was largely metaphysical when it began as a major force in Greece and philosophy will always invariably lead to metaphysics because all absolute and ultimate questions and answers are metaphysical. Science by itself as a discipline and a method to attain knowledge cannot be relied on as a complete description and explanation of reality and processes, because it only concerns itself with how phenomenon operates and so on, but rarely asks questions like why does this phenomenon exist? And why does this phenomenon operate in this manner? Also why do processes produce a situation in which things operate in a certain way?
And why is it that the apparent infinity of space that we know of is able to produce a universe that only we know about that we exist in but yet we do not know if any other universes exist and if they do, how far away they are? The real tangible world human beings know about that we have representations of in the manner of ideas, abstract concepts, symbols, images and words is only partly real or only an interpretation of the truth of reality due to the correspondence of our perceptions to objective reality, but yet there are aspects of reality and the cosmos which is more real than our representations, and ideas and are in themselves undifferentiated. It is the human world of representations, ideas, concepts, images, symbols, languages, images and correspondence that creates the world of things for us as human beings and this so even if we are able to manipulate reality by the use of objects in science, but there are realities and processes that are outside our languages, representations and symbols which resist symbolization absolutely and this is what Immanuel Kant called the thing-in-itself and is a very useful label to assign all those things and processes that exist in reality that we are unsure about and do not know that are beyond our powers of perception and comprehension. Metaphysics as a subject as well as all those mysterious and unknown things about reality that we do not know will always motivate our curiosity and sense of wonder and so this will always lead human beings to probe further into reality to understand more about it, but there will always be things beyond the reach of our senses that we cannot, and will not know because they are beyond the comprehension of our limited physical human brains and this is because a finite thing cannot understand an infinite thing, it can only understand a finite portion of it. The logical positivists (empiricists) claim that all metaphysical statements and propositions are nonsense and false, but this is like saying that all statements and propositions that describe the nature of reality and existence are nonsense and false. What the logical positivists think are metaphysical statements and propositions are not really true metaphysical statements and propositions if they think they can dispense with metaphysical statements and propositions all together as being nonsense and false. If a person claims that there is a swirling substance called an aether that exists in space and also that this aether is responsible for gravity and many other things then one would using logic infer that this is not really a metaphysical claim but is an imaginary claim. Genuine metaphysical claims should not be dismissed as unnecessary or as nonsense simply because false imaginary metaphysical claims have been propounded by thinkers in the past. The logical positivists claim to use the word "nonsense" to mean that a statement or proposition cannot be independently verified rather than meaning that a statement or proposition is "without meaning". In science many theories cannot be verified with certainty but scientists still know that the available truth is still in accord with their theories and metaphysical statements and propositions that cannot be independently verified with certainty still have a validity as long as they correspond to and are in accord with the available truths of reality.
It is strange how in science today new theories like: for instance, energy being alike to looped vibrating strings and forces like gravity supposedly existing as a postulated particle called a graviton that is exchanged between most particles are accepted as science even though they fail the criteria of being science (that is, "demonstrable knowledge"), whereas metaphysics always gets attacked for being unscientific and unverifiable. What a lot of people do not seem to realize today, is that there is a very thin line between what we call science and metaphysics!
Now in the following passages that are to come, I will endeavour to repair the great name of metaphysics and so raise its proud banner high once again, so that all the world can marvel in its brilliant and creative radiance and this I do so that its efforts and offerings of which there are many shall never be lost by the hasty and ignorant of temperament. Metaphysics by its very nature is a cause of wonder and speculation and is a highly creative and all encompassing way in which to view reality itself (that is the essence of reality itself) and it is the type of outlook that got the early Greek philosophers thinking in a constructive way in the first place all the way back in the days when religion, mystery and superstition predominated. Now philosophy proper as a force was largely metaphysical at first and slowly began to branch out and take on other disciplines. One main reason why metaphysics now gets a bad name is because a lot of the philosophers around (especially the logical positivists) are only interested in trying to explain things which are easy to explain which are empirically obvious, they are not interested in all those mysterious things about reality which is harder to describe and explain. A lot of philosophers and peoples opinions and attitudes today have even degenerated into a somewhat petty belief that philosophy is only now good for a clarification of thoughts or for minor descriptions of phenomenon and a limited play with language etc. A lot of philosophers and people in general today doubt the greatness that philosophy has and also once had which was especially great in the minds and hands of the legendary figures like Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and this general attitude today is an indication of the nihilistic, apathetic, cynical and hopeless state in which some people live by and have allowed their opinion of philosophy to degenerate into and this negative outlook is partly due to science and the empirical method, which I am sorry to say, does not satisfy us in all departments and should be relegated to what it is good at. Metaphysics is one subject that has suffered the most at the hands of this poor outlook that I have described above that attempts to make us into automatons of so-called logic and hard scientific facts. Human beings in general mostly think in a philosophical, rational, symbolic, imaginary, metaphysical and desire-orientated way and not in a hard logical and scientific way, which hardly does not satisfy us at all as human beings. Metaphysics gets a bad reputation for supposedly consisting of all the erroneous speculations, subjective fancies and imaginary mystical beliefs that have ever been invented by the minds of human beings. Metaphysics it must be shown, does not necessarily consist of all those erroneous concepts that have ever been thought up, such as an all encompassing substance that surrounds everything or that matter consists of spirit or has spirit in it or that there is a swirling aether in space. Metaphysics as a subject should be approached as an extension of realism and materialistic philosophy, for instance, it is not known why energy perpetually vibrates both infinitely and eternally or why energy and space are infinite in extent and quantity and so on.
Some people even go so far as to claim that the concept of the will in nature is a purely metaphysical concept or is only an automatic physical process; but these views, it must be pointed out, are absurd at best and are only one-sided and incomplete views of the will. The concept of the will in nature is in fact both physical and metaphysical and the people who are ignorant at heart always want the physical to be separated from the metaphysical, as if in their estimation the metaphysical is going to weaken somehow what they consider to be a fact that is purely explainable by empirical, physical and literal means or by using a purely scientific type of language and description that is not always possible, seeing as it is usually hollow and without any true meaning and description of reality. Metaphysics attempts to describe and explain the very essence, nature and meaning of reality and existence itself and one will find no other subjects which attempt to do this and so therefore metaphysics cannot be replaced by any other subject and can also not be discarded in favour of any other subjects. Metaphysics as a subject is concerned mostly with first principles and basic causes and how they influence processes and this because it is an attempted understanding of all those activities and processes that occur as energy vibrates and forms physical and creative situations within space involving forces, rules, laws and universal forms. Metaphysics cannot attempt to explain first principles and basic causes in the literal sense because these things do not exist, that is there is no first or last principles for processes universally because there is no beginning or end to processes universally, but there is first principles for particular processes like the big bang. There are only first principles for particular processes like the creation of our universe. As time goes by one will find that physics will increasingly become more like metaphysics as it progresses and this is because the boundary between what we are capable of knowing in the sciences and what is highly real and unknowable in reality (i.e., metaphysics) gets blurred and one can find this occurring already in string theory. Metaphysics attempts to understand the deeper issues of reality and existence, such as why does matter exist at all? Why does energy perpetually vibrate? Why is space and energy infinite? And metaphysics never goes away because it is one of the most important subjects around.
Philosophy was largely metaphysical when it began as a major force in Greece and philosophy will always invariably lead to metaphysics because all absolute and ultimate questions and answers are metaphysical. Science by itself as a discipline and a method to attain knowledge cannot be relied on as a complete description and explanation of reality and processes, because it only concerns itself with how phenomenon operates and so on, but rarely asks questions like why does this phenomenon exist? And why does this phenomenon operate in this manner? Also why do processes produce a situation in which things operate in a certain way?
And why is it that the apparent infinity of space that we know of is able to produce a universe that only we know about that we exist in but yet we do not know if any other universes exist and if they do, how far away they are? The real tangible world human beings know about that we have representations of in the manner of ideas, abstract concepts, symbols, images and words is only partly real or only an interpretation of the truth of reality due to the correspondence of our perceptions to objective reality, but yet there are aspects of reality and the cosmos which is more real than our representations, and ideas and are in themselves undifferentiated. It is the human world of representations, ideas, concepts, images, symbols, languages, images and correspondence that creates the world of things for us as human beings and this so even if we are able to manipulate reality by the use of objects in science, but there are realities and processes that are outside our languages, representations and symbols which resist symbolization absolutely and this is what Immanuel Kant called the thing-in-itself and is a very useful label to assign all those things and processes that exist in reality that we are unsure about and do not know that are beyond our powers of perception and comprehension. Metaphysics as a subject as well as all those mysterious and unknown things about reality that we do not know will always motivate our curiosity and sense of wonder and so this will always lead human beings to probe further into reality to understand more about it, but there will always be things beyond the reach of our senses that we cannot, and will not know because they are beyond the comprehension of our limited physical human brains and this is because a finite thing cannot understand an infinite thing, it can only understand a finite portion of it. The logical positivists (empiricists) claim that all metaphysical statements and propositions are nonsense and false, but this is like saying that all statements and propositions that describe the nature of reality and existence are nonsense and false. What the logical positivists think are metaphysical statements and propositions are not really true metaphysical statements and propositions if they think they can dispense with metaphysical statements and propositions all together as being nonsense and false. If a person claims that there is a swirling substance called an aether that exists in space and also that this aether is responsible for gravity and many other things then one would using logic infer that this is not really a metaphysical claim but is an imaginary claim. Genuine metaphysical claims should not be dismissed as unnecessary or as nonsense simply because false imaginary metaphysical claims have been propounded by thinkers in the past. The logical positivists claim to use the word "nonsense" to mean that a statement or proposition cannot be independently verified rather than meaning that a statement or proposition is "without meaning". In science many theories cannot be verified with certainty but scientists still know that the available truth is still in accord with their theories and metaphysical statements and propositions that cannot be independently verified with certainty still have a validity as long as they correspond to and are in accord with the available truths of reality.
It is strange how in science today new theories like: for instance, energy being alike to looped vibrating strings and forces like gravity supposedly existing as a postulated particle called a graviton that is exchanged between most particles are accepted as science even though they fail the criteria of being science (that is, "demonstrable knowledge"), whereas metaphysics always gets attacked for being unscientific and unverifiable. What a lot of people do not seem to realize today, is that there is a very thin line between what we call science and metaphysics!
Tuesday 1 January 2008
ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FOLLOWING IDEALS AND HOW THEY AID US
The following of "ideals" is a purposive and constructive thing for human beings to do in their lives and is an activity that is mostly pursued by those who are noble and moral of character and also by those individuals who have a lot of integrity and honour. There are individuals who we meet in our everyday lives who follow role models or people they admire, but the problem with this course of action is that we tend to become faint copies of the people we admire and not truly ourselves and also we become far too respectful of the errors made by the role models that we follow and there are even people who spend a lot of time defending the faults and errors that have been committed by their role models and they engage in this defensive activity in open discussions with people who might say something negative about their role models or heroes. Ideals are either "abstract" or "actual" or they can be said to be a combination of both together. Our emotions, feelings, passions and hopes aim towards our "ideals" and "values" because meaning is nearly always objective and our ideals and values are objectified goals as things that are worthy for us to strive towards that give us meaning and the searching and striving for meaning always requires many goals.
A harmony and balance of different and varied meanings is what we appear to strive towards when following ideals because being multidimensional is more suited to our complex designs as human beings than does singular convictions of a stubborn kind. "Ideals" it can be said give us hope and purpose and without them our lives would seem to be lacking in any type of inner life or meaning. In the past religion and mythology gave our ancestors hope and meaning in their often difficult and brief lives and this is because religion and mythology represented their inner subjective hopes projected outwardly towards an objective meaning they thought existed in the world or cosmos at large. A desire for meaning is a subjective urge or need but meaning in the fullest sense can only be found objectively, for example, to lose one's enthusiasm and curiosity for the objective world of things whether they be real or ideal is to give in to despondency or lack of meaning subjectively. Whatever ideals a person chooses to follow will, I am sure depend on his or her character because the reason for following ideals are that we create our own meaning and purpose by the ideals that we follow.
To be a realist that follows ideals is the best way to approach the following of ideals because to follow ideals without regard for reality or the material conditions of things seems like an impractical thing to do. Consciousness is determined by life and real things so ideals must be in accord with practical and actual events as well as material conditions and situations, there should be a harmony and balance between the concrete and the abstract aspects of ideals. Even though "willing", is "willing something" as an aim for its total condition and fulfillment, it would still be impossible to be willing any particular thing without desire, need, attraction, purpose, striving, motives, reasons, etc. Willing is an end and "an end" includes an evaluation and this evaluation depends on our natures and it is our natures that give us our values, but nothing is valuable "in itself" and this is because processes ultimately have no meaning, meaning is a temporary truth and is less real than infinite processes which have no real aim, purpose or meaning. Our values are based on what is "pleasant" or "painful" to us personally as individuals and our ideals are a type of value to us because they represent our hopes of what is pleasant, enjoyable and meaningful to us. The authentic type of person determines his or her own values, ideals and meanings not by what other people think, but by what is advantageous to themselves, because to be authentic means to be truthful to oneself and one's own nature. When we follow ideals we are following concrete ideas rather than blind feelings (because feelings are only useful if you account for the motives or needs of these feelings) or faith in wishful thinking and self deception, which lets face it, is what hope in spirituality is. Any good motive for feelings can be useful if these feelings are based on ideals, real values, genuine sentiment and rational instinctual desires. Some people prefer to be free from ideals, but this is their own choice which for them is grounded in their own values, but a life without ideals lacks stability and purpose. Human beings are in general, a weak, flawed and imperfect race, the simple act of following any of them as an example of how things should be done or experienced, can only end badly, to put any of them up on a pedestal to be worshipped is a mistake at best. In the past people created the concept of God as a perfect ideal that was worth following or emulating. But now the concept of God is no longer a feasible or adequate ideal for most people to follow and so now it becomes necessary for most people to follow the ideals that suit them. Personal ideals and values have replaced most of the religious and spiritual hopes and ideals of mainstream religions.
A harmony and balance of different and varied meanings is what we appear to strive towards when following ideals because being multidimensional is more suited to our complex designs as human beings than does singular convictions of a stubborn kind. "Ideals" it can be said give us hope and purpose and without them our lives would seem to be lacking in any type of inner life or meaning. In the past religion and mythology gave our ancestors hope and meaning in their often difficult and brief lives and this is because religion and mythology represented their inner subjective hopes projected outwardly towards an objective meaning they thought existed in the world or cosmos at large. A desire for meaning is a subjective urge or need but meaning in the fullest sense can only be found objectively, for example, to lose one's enthusiasm and curiosity for the objective world of things whether they be real or ideal is to give in to despondency or lack of meaning subjectively. Whatever ideals a person chooses to follow will, I am sure depend on his or her character because the reason for following ideals are that we create our own meaning and purpose by the ideals that we follow.
To be a realist that follows ideals is the best way to approach the following of ideals because to follow ideals without regard for reality or the material conditions of things seems like an impractical thing to do. Consciousness is determined by life and real things so ideals must be in accord with practical and actual events as well as material conditions and situations, there should be a harmony and balance between the concrete and the abstract aspects of ideals. Even though "willing", is "willing something" as an aim for its total condition and fulfillment, it would still be impossible to be willing any particular thing without desire, need, attraction, purpose, striving, motives, reasons, etc. Willing is an end and "an end" includes an evaluation and this evaluation depends on our natures and it is our natures that give us our values, but nothing is valuable "in itself" and this is because processes ultimately have no meaning, meaning is a temporary truth and is less real than infinite processes which have no real aim, purpose or meaning. Our values are based on what is "pleasant" or "painful" to us personally as individuals and our ideals are a type of value to us because they represent our hopes of what is pleasant, enjoyable and meaningful to us. The authentic type of person determines his or her own values, ideals and meanings not by what other people think, but by what is advantageous to themselves, because to be authentic means to be truthful to oneself and one's own nature. When we follow ideals we are following concrete ideas rather than blind feelings (because feelings are only useful if you account for the motives or needs of these feelings) or faith in wishful thinking and self deception, which lets face it, is what hope in spirituality is. Any good motive for feelings can be useful if these feelings are based on ideals, real values, genuine sentiment and rational instinctual desires. Some people prefer to be free from ideals, but this is their own choice which for them is grounded in their own values, but a life without ideals lacks stability and purpose. Human beings are in general, a weak, flawed and imperfect race, the simple act of following any of them as an example of how things should be done or experienced, can only end badly, to put any of them up on a pedestal to be worshipped is a mistake at best. In the past people created the concept of God as a perfect ideal that was worth following or emulating. But now the concept of God is no longer a feasible or adequate ideal for most people to follow and so now it becomes necessary for most people to follow the ideals that suit them. Personal ideals and values have replaced most of the religious and spiritual hopes and ideals of mainstream religions.
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