Philosophy page of Amphibian7

THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE

2009-11-23T14:16:00.226Z

In ancient times self-knowledge was considered to be an important and significant ideal for various reasons, it was even inscribed above the entrance doorway of the temple of Apollo at Delphi in the form of "know thyself". In modern times this ideal of self-knowledge is now even more desperately needed than before, especially when we consider how immensely conditioned people are by modern society as well as by the many dogmatic traditions that still exist today. The sheer ignorance that certain dogmatic traditions instills in many people who are vying for status and prestige within the system that we all know and exist in, is incredible, and it is a system which most of us know is based upon certain traditions and specific procedures that have been around for a very long time. We may even ask ourselves why self-knowledge is important in our day to day lives, especially in the modern and fast moving world many of us live in. Also we find that when we really attempt to discover our own inner nature, we find that it is our own desires, inclinations, dreams and aspirations which most indicate who we really are as people. So it is only by discovering who we really are within us that we are able to change ourselves properly and effectively. It can be said that it is from our own self-knowledge that we form our own character. Having our own unique character as an individual does not only consist of those things that makes us different to other people, which is what we generally think makes our own character distinct and unique, it is also what makes us alike to certain other people that we identify with, that makes our character identifiable to them and to others in how they identify with us generally. We cannot say that being an individual with our own character means that we are completely unique and separate from other people, and this is because we all have to share certain similarities with others, otherwise we would never get on with each other in any kind of meaningful way. To find out who we are does not be mean that we discover that we are these fixed and rigid creatures that are unable to change. When we discover things about ourselves we also discover what we like and do not like about ourselves. To improve ourselves requires that we at least attempt to change the things that we do not like about ourselves. Real progress in evolution is about the ability to change the things that we do not like about ourselves as well as the ability to adapt ourselves and our own inner nature to suit new circumstances. In our desire to understand ourselves, we come to discover that certain aspects of our own character cannot really be changed at all, so we learn to accept these aspects of ourselves, we learn to embrace them and develop them. Self-knowledge enables us to be more direct in our understanding of reality, it gives us a type of certainty we would not have if we were more unsure of ourselves. This does not mean that self-knowledge always makes us correct in our assessment of the world, but it does make us more genuine in what we think and feel about it. Self-knowledge is a quality as well as an ideal that gives us a sense of freedom in our relation to the world, it prevents us from being conditioned and enslaved by societal conditioning and impersonal ideals. I have written elsewhere that a person can be judged as being a sum of his or her own acts, for example, you cannot be judged for what you think or say, but only for what you do. Yet I must point out that even though we are a sum of our own acts, there is still a big difference between our acts and our own motives themselves. An example of the difference between our acts and our motives can be seen in the act of killing itself; one person may kill in self-defence, whereas another person may kill because he or she is truly evil, yet both these people are judged as killers, but in the latter case it is called murder. Our motives can be judged when they are part of an act, in the sense of a motive and an act conducted together, but never as an intention without an act to go with it, and never as an unintentioned, unmotivated act of self-defence. Even though people cannot actually be judged for their own intentions, inclinations, dreams and desires and so on, these aspects of a persons character still represent a huge potential and latent portion of a persons inner nature. Many thinkers claim that the ego (i.e., the "I" or "the self") is unreal or false. The problem with thinking that the ego is unreal or false is the fact that it does not really tell us anything about why we have an ego, or why it is necessary that we should have one at all. I believe that all parts of the psyche manifest different aspects of our being depending on our knowledge and experiences. I view the ego as an adaptable structure that is in flux, yet is real. I think that the ego is similar to the Buddhist concept of emptiness, but with a temporary personality that always changes and adapts due to one's ideals or superego. I view the ego as consisting of two elements: that is "the self" and the "persona (mask)". Some psychologists claim that the self and the ego are two different and separate things, yet this does not make any sense seeing as how ego means the self, in its original Greek meaning. The different mythologies from around the world are a symbolic projection in the form of stories of all the basic needs, desires and inclinations of the human psyche itself that exists within human beings generally. The mythological stories that we can most relate to personally, are in a sense, the ones that tell us the most about our own inner nature in its existential essence, which are feelings that one finds in oneself that one needs in a sense to project and concretize in the world. The unreal aspects of mythology are metaphors for the types of energies that we feel and need to project outwardly. Alexander the Great with his strong identification with Achilles, is a perfect example of what I mean in regard to mythology representing energies that we can identify with in the sense of a wish to emulate it in the world at large in the form of the projection of energies. Alexander also worshiped Dionysus, which came out more in his reckless and rowdy behaviour. Identity is something that we choose because we find that it gives us some meaning and joy in our lives, and we choose one set of identities rather than another for this very same reason, it is merely a set of choices we cannot really avoid because of our inner nature in the sense of who we really are, and it occurs organically once we have made the decision to follow it and identify with it more and more. Some people also choose to be either wishy-washy or indifferent in regard to having any kind of distinct type of identity or character, and this is because they either do not want to be pinned down or have not yet decided what type of person they want to be. Identity is also something that we build up over many years, adding some things and disgarding others. Earlier in this essay I mentioned that the ego is in flux, this does not mean that all aspects of the ego change. Some aspects of the ego change, whereas other aspects remain fixed, yet all is in flux in ragard to how it expresses itself. Many thinkers claim that there is no fixed or distinct "self" or "I" in the ego, yet the characters of most human beings do have certain traits, inclinations and interests that consistently exist in them and which they have and express throughout most of their life, and so when some people claim that the self does not exist, it is an absurd and meaningless claim to make. Our self is who we consistently are. Also who we choose to be is part of the self, even if it happens to be a temporary aspect of our character, it still is an aspect of our character, and in a sense it can be said to be us, temporarily. The type of knowledge that we pursue tells us something about ourselves, it is a type of individuation, and this is so even though a lot of the knowledge that we pursue is objective knowledge. There are four main drives that I have noticed exists in most human beings, which are either connected to their insecurities or to their other drives, depending on whether they are being fulfilled or not, and which seems to motivate most of their desires and behaviour generally: the first, is the need to pursue happiness, joy and the sense of well being that comes from these feelings, the second, is the need to affirm life, which is the same as the need to feel fully alive and fulfilled, the third, is the need to put meaning into the things that they do, this manifests as the need to value things for particular reasons, which are reasons that make sense to them existentially, and gives them a sense of psychological satisfaction, and the fourth, is the need for freedom, liberty and individualism. Many people are far too afraid to behave in a strange and weird manner, in fear that many other people will no accept them, yet, a person is never more themselves than when they are being strange and weird. To be normal means to be conditioned, what is considered normal in one age may be considered backwards, ignorant or stupid in another, or even unhealthy. To be normal means to follow the herd, it represents the herd mentality in humans. Soul, being, selfhood, these are all different words for the same concept, they are all symbols that represent the need to discover our real authentic self, it is similar to the process of individuation, it entails ridding oneself of all that is false that society and the powers that be, has implanted within us through conditioning. Selfhood also consists of a creative element, this creative element, is called becoming. Now becoming is when tendencies and inclinations in the form of potentialities that exist within us, slowly become actual, which then lead to other things in a non-repetitive cycle of growth. I mentioned that one of the most significant and necessary drives within us is the need for meaning, we can also say that purpose comes from meaning. Jung mentions that meaning is largely a symbolic drive, it is different symbolic ways of thinking that gives us meaning, this can manifest as roles, or as symbolic ideals and so on. We can also say that meaning comes from the evaluations that we make, or from a strong sense of identification to things, either instinctually, or through more rational means. Evaluations, identifications, instinctual inclinations, or rational identifications produce a feeling that we value certain things, and in a sense, this is where meaning comes from, meaning comes from these values, which can then take on a symbolic form as purpose. We can have many purposes, in the form of the many drives that exist within us, which are competing for ascendancy within us all of the time, but it is nearly always the most powerful drive (purpose) within us that usually wins out in the end. These drives within us tend to have a hierarchy of their own, which depends on our circumstances and interests at any given time. How well a person understands the outside world is a reflection of how well they understand themselves. People who understand the objective world very well, also understand themselves very well. The essence of a person is not a purely subjective phenomenon; our inner nature depends on the outside world for its formation. In general human beings do not know themselves well enough to know what they really want, they are not completely sure of what they are about. Evolution is a long process, we are still in our infancy. Throughout history human beings have been driven by circumstances that they did not fully understand, they assumed positions, and they pursued aims that seemed to attract them for reasons that they did not fully question. Human beings do not always pursue what makes them feel good, but they do nearly always pursue what attracts them. We must investigate the nature of what does, or does not attract us as human beings! Only then can we fully comprehend human motives. The Bruce Lee saying that: "all knowledge is ultimately self-knowledge" is very interesting, and this is because he suggested that every bit of knowledge that we learn informs us more about whom we really are as people.

ON NATURAL AND POLITICAL TRUTHS

2009-07-10T10:22:00.421+01:00

Human beings are basically a species of rational pack animal, it is natural for them to live in communities or to want to live in communities. A town, a village or a state is a natural and legitimate community. In my essay entitled "The Lust For Power" I mentioned that all people are naturally unequal due to the fact that some people are mentally stronger, physically stronger, more ambitious, more domineering, more intelligent, more wiser, more devious, more manipulative, more controlling than someone else, etc. Slavery in the past was a form of political or legal inequality due to scarcity and poverty, and so political inequality is a natural outcome of natural inequality, a fact that Aristotle himself was not too slow to notice. Nowadays there are many laws in place that overcome political inequality, some of these laws even claim that it makes all people equal, but we all know that this is not true. Trying to make all people equal is no different than attempting to rob them of their own individuality as well as their own natural passions. All political laws are artificial but necessary, they are necessary as a means to create stability, fairness, justice and a sense of harmony amongst different peoples. The idealistic desire that some people have that makes them want to make everyone equal goes against the natural tendency for struggle, competition and conflict which are natural and useful drives within organisms. If a group of human beings were placed within a state of nature, there would be some conflict and struggle for power and the scarcity of resources amongst them, yet, seeing as how human beings are essentially rational, a semblance of ethical order would exist, nonetheless there would still be some tension and conflict and even war amongst them, but in the long run they would form productive communities, this is because human beings are naturally constructive and purposive creatures. The concept of having "the consent of the governed" is a very interesting concept in the field of political thought in the sense that it is a very useful ideal and aspect of political realism, it points out that if a governor or a political representative of any community (state) does not govern this state in accordance with the "general will" of these people as a whole who live in it, then the governed do not really owe this governor or representative any allegiance of any kind. The social contract is mostly a myth, except for in Switzerland where the people have actually democratically voted in regard to most if not all the amendments and changes in their own constitution that they wanted. The social contract does not exist in most nations and this is because the governed have never made any official agreements with any writers of laws within these other nations. The state is a whole and we as individuals are merely a part, the state that we are born into or enter into, existed before us. The state is an organized system as well as an abstraction. The state as a system has been maintained by many generations of people. The elite classes are firmly embedded within the structure and system of the state, they have maintained and expanded the state to serve their own interests, they are not easy to separate from the state. The governed (masses) have been largely manipulated and controlled by the elite classes up until now through the state, this will also go on for a while to come. A town, a village or a state and its leaders, governers or representatives only have force and the power to implement executive force because the people in these communities join the police and the army and this is because they want to protect and expand the interests of their own community. That communities have been hoodwinked and misrepresented by those in charge is an obvious fact that has happened many times in the past, so it does not warrant too much space in this current essay. Rights do not exist in nature, they do not originate in nature. Does a lion have the right to kill and eat an antelope? Do antelope's have the right to claim that lions do not have the right to kill and eat them? Rights are something that we struggle for, that we fight for, we enforce our rights onto the world from within us, because we feel them as values that exist within us that we need to objectify and enforce onto our environment and the world generally. We secure our rights politically through activism and artificial laws. Voltaire claimed that the ignorance and the idiocy of the masses prevents them from knowing how to govern one another and themselves properly and effectively, so enforcing their own rights and values through democracy is a waste of time. According to Voltaire, people should just accept enlightened benevolent and despotic rule. The problem with Voltaire's suggestion is that it expects the masses to remain ignorant and stupid forever, his view is essentially fatalistic, this is because a concerted effort should be made by the masses to educate themselves morally as well as through knowledge, they should engender a spirit of struggle and activism among one another and in themselves towards the goal of objectifying their own values and rights in the world. When we are born, we are born helpless and dependant on others for our existence and upbringing, yet, when we reach an age in which we can reason properly for ourselves, we begin to realize that liberty and freedom are gifts from nature itself, not long after this does it take us to figure out that no institution or person has the right to command us or dictate to us how to live. It is reason and desire that gives us the right to govern ourselves and one another. To rebel against so-called authorities that attempt to curb our liberty and rights is a natural survival mechanism in all rational and free human beings. The goal of government should always be to secure freedom, equality and justice for all within the state, regardless of the will of the majority, this is because the will of the majority is not always correct. The will of the majority can only be correct in a climate in which education, knowledge, integrity and the standards of morality are high in the population itself as a whole, and the population is well informed on all the latest issues of importance. The concept of an open society is a very useful one in politics, this is because it produces a political climate that is based on participation and consensus for all the people in a state. An open society is a society in which honesty, sincerity and communication is part of the every day existence of all the citizens and their government and everyone is well informed on all matters of importance to their lives. That living in societies with governments and rules shapes individual people into something which is different to how they would behave if they were in a state of nature is an interesting thing to think about. Societies tend to shape, mould, manipulate, control and alter peoples thinking and behaviour in many ways, so people should think about how they would think or feel if society had not altered them differently from how they think they would be in regard to their natural inclinations and tendencies in a state of nature. The human desire to make their own efforts, work and industry into a sort of right to own land, property and material goods, comes about due to the fact that human beings are naturally ethical, constructive, purposeful and have a propensity towards rationality and communal living generally, as you know I have mentioned and attributed these qualities in regard to people in a state of nature also as being natural inclinations that exist within them. The desire to be constructive and purposeful comes about within people when they fully realize how empty their existence is without these drives that exist within them, these types of drives could even be viewed as a way of distracting themselves away from how things would seem without them. Many great thinkers in the past such as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, etc., have written concerning how they thought people in the past must have thought and felt within a state of nature as well as how they must have behaved. These great thinkers that I mention above got some things correct in their assessment as well as other things wrong concerning people within a state of nature. I must also point out that these great thinkers that I have mentioned above, as good as their mental observations have been concerning the way that people within a state of nature might have thought, felt and behaved, I still feel as though there still remains the fact that they did not account for the fact that different individual people and cultures of the past were different one to another, they also did not account for the fact that reality is an ongoing process, they wrote about a state of nature as though it was a fixed condition, that is, that it was a certain way only, etc. When people begin to rule themselves and one another more fully with education, talent, ability, merit, scientific knowledge, reason and morality, then they will no longer need the concepts of "God" or "political force" to legitimize their own authority through government, rulers and heads of state will not even be necessary, all we will need as a system will be a type of deliberative democratic method that exists in a participatory and consensus form with representatives as well as leaders to aid us in our interests, and when intelligent and civilized people disagree on any matter, then all they will need to do to resolve any matter would be to discuss the matter until a compromise and agreement has been met in an ethical and rational manner. The very fabric of political thinking and civil society up until today in all of its institutions and in its general way of thinking has been based upon legitimizing itself, either through God, religion or force, whether military or legal. In fact the concept of God alone has had such a huge stabilizing and civilizing effect on society generally that any political activities and institutions that have allied themselves with the concept of God have had more success than any others, and has led to it being able to legitimize the behaviour of any of its own causes through the people that represent them, yet the only alternative to the legitimacy of God has been the use of political force in a Machiavellian sense, but the problem with these ways of thinking is that both these methods that I mention above are inherently manipulative, irrational and deceitful in nature, yet they have been used on society by the elite, and this because people generally do not know any better and so therefore have accepted it, people have not advanced and grown up sufficiently enough to have had the good sense to have overgrown this self-ignorance as well as the manipulation of others that has been perpetrated against them, these methods have robbed people of the individual freedom to live and grow in a world with truth and sincerity, both rationally and straightforwardly. Earlier on in this essay I mentioned and implied that the concept of God and religion is used in a false and dishonest way and also in a deluded way to legitimize the authority of whoever wants power over others, yet some people actually believe that religion gives people a hope that cannot be lived without or replaced by anything else, but I believe that the hope that religion gives people can be replaced by the hope that ideals can give them. To use the concept of God, religion or the Bible to legitimize authority over others, is to live a lie, this is so whether you have the authority itself or are having the authority used on you by someone else. The type of equality that is produced by political laws is an equality of living conditions and liberties that exists for certain groups of people in a nation or area, but does not exist for all people of all classes and circumstances across the board around the world or even in one's own country, for instance, if I went to another country that had different laws to that of my own country, then it is clear that I would be politically unequal to the people of that nation when I first arrived there, this would be so unless I went through the long bureaucratic procedures and struggles that are necessary for me to share equal rights with some of them politically. Even in my own country I do not share equal rights with the upper classes or with the members of the institutions of law enforcement, they are legally allowed to do things to me that I am not allowed to do to them, the simple act of enforcing laws onto others already makes some people unequal to others politically, it empowers the law enforcers with power over the people that are having the laws enforced on them. In a politically equal and free society there would be no laws, there would only be mutual agreements and liberty among all the people within it, yet we know that laws must always be enforced, otherwise crimes and injustices would be committed with impunity, so in a sense one finds inequality and power struggles everywhere in nature as well as the necessity to enforce laws as unavoidable. Any legitimate political state in the form of an organized political community needs force to enforce laws and maintain justice. In the past when people moved into city states to live they did this so that they could feel safer away from all of the anarchy and injustices that occurred in the outside world. City states also ensured people with more protection over their own property and belongings. Max Weber's famous definition of what a state is, has more to do with what a state evolves into over time due to some peoples love of power and control, yet if you eliminate most of the coercive institutions and hierarchical power structures from any state, then it becomes a simple organized political community with some means of law enforcement and protection for most of its own citizens. When anarchists claim that there should not be a state, this is like saying that people should not be allowed to live in organized political communities that protect them and their own property. I agree with the anarchists that there should not be any rulers, tyrants or false leaders running our lives within society or government, but I do believe that people in general need a government and a state to enforce laws and maintain order and justice. The members or politicians in government should be either leaders or representatives of the people, they should serve the peoples interests and nothing more, their own desire for power should be used to benefit the people at large, rather than be used to serve their own interests and vanity. It is not possible for the many to rule themselves or one another without representatives or leaders who are more qualified than they are to do this, and this is because the masses are either to busy or too unqualified to rule themselves or one another properly and consistently. Any real authority which anyone in government has over the masses should be based on merit, talent and ability, and not on coercion and manipulation. Anarchists like to mention that we could all live in a society in which all interactions are a cooperative succession of voluntary associations and contractual associations amongst all the different people within the society, yet this assumes that all people of all classes and levels of ambition and dominance will want to cooperate with one another without any problems arising in the long run. The problem with this anarchist system is that it suggests liberty without moral or legal security and stability, whereas a society with at least a minimal government can ensure liberty, security, stability and opportunity for all the people involved in it through its objective use and ability to uphold and enforce laws through a government and a judicial system, it also protects a nation from any outside or foreign attacks. Anarchists also claim that citizens can pay for their own law enforcement and military defence or at least ensure the establishment of these institutions to provide these service for all people. The problem with the anarchist economic system is that it is based upon pure socialism, except for the advocacy of government ownership of the means of production, and exists without a hint of capitalism involved, yet we all know that pure socialism without any capitalism does not work. For a political and economic system to work well it must largely be based upon capitalism with only a minimal amount of socialism involved in it, there should also be competition and a love of power on the part of some of the people within the system to keep a good dynamic going within the system generally, and the system should also ensure an objective sense of liberty, security, stability and opportunity for all the people involved. The system that I mention above can only really be based on a minimal government which provides democratic opportunities for all the people involved. An anarchist system by its very nature fails politically and economically and should be relegated to the category of unrealistic idealism. The reason that I mention that a capitalist system needs some socialism in it, is because socialism tends to counteract all the faults that seems to exist within capitalism, I believe that these two economic systems should be harmonized together, but with capitalism holding the greatest share of the influence and control over the economy at large. Anarchists are always talking about the need to abolish capitalism and the state, yet every year the economy and the different businesses are less able to produce enough jobs for all the many people that are being born and are leaving school who are looking for employment. Anarchists sometimes forget that it is capitalism that produces most of the jobs, labour, capital and the so-called wealth, opportunities and prosperity in the world generally, and that it is also the state in the form of the welfare state that supports all the many people that exist that there is not enough jobs for, because these jobs simply do not exist for them. I know that nowadays from experience that for every job that exists there is at least a hundred people that want this job and are willing to compete for it to some degree. In economics, scarcity will always be a problem, it is a problem that cannot be resolved by anarchism, but it can at least be alleviated if people remain politically organized through governments, etc. The history of the world has shown that the masses have up until now needed strong rulers and leaders to unite them and lead them towards greater things. People have needed strong and clever leaders because the masses have not been able to be strong and clever themselves as individuals. As long as the people remain weakened and uninformed they will need strong and clever leaders to guide them. Blaise Pascal made a good point when he mentioned that political laws would have no power behind them, and would not be able to be carried out without force behind them. He also mentioned that without political laws in our lives then any force that appeared could become tyrannical and oppressive. The use of physical force by individual citizens, even in its retaliatory use is something that cannot be left at the discretion of individuals and independent groups or clans. It is the need of objective laws that all people can agree to, that makes a government and law enforcement necessary, it is necessary as a means to enforce all the laws that have been agreed upon by a community; and this it does by using force. Government can be viewed as an arbiter and standard for honest disagreements among different peoples. Sometimes anarchists forget about these simple principles that certain people like Pascal was in the habit of pointing out from time to time. Force, manipulation and violence are the most effective methods of producing any political changes in the world at large, because simply voting and following the system does not produce any really significant changes in it. One must be willing to use force, manipulation and violence as well as the democratic method of self-government, if one is ever going to produce any real changes in the world politically, yet whether it be towards a good or bad end depends on the will of the people generally. I am a strong believer in democratic meritocracy. Democratic meritocracy is a democratic system of self-government in which it is popular for the people to support and vote for the representatives who deserve positions due to their talents, efforts, abilities and merits. Democratic meritocracy is a system of government that has leaders and representatives, not rulers, monarchs, aristocrats, plutocrats or nepotists. Aristocracy by its very nature is very repetitive, stuffy, insipid and oppressive, and so could never really fulfill the needs of an evolving and expanding culture. In a democratic meritocracy in which political offices and positions are held due to one's merit, it then becomes useful to have a review committee which meets at a specified period of time, whether each year, or every few years, which acts to reassess the validity of the tenure held by the different office and position holders. The review committee would stamp down on corrupt, abusive or incompetent position or office holders. In politics as well as in life generally, it is necessary to question authority, leaders, representatives, and office and position holders regularly, and this is because it is always a dangerous and passive position for the masses to be in when positions of power are not questioned, or challenged. Abuses and corruptions can occur if authority, and power is not questioned. A limited tenure for each office or position, with a regular change of office holders and position holders can be viewed as a good method to control and regulate power structures, it prevents stagnation and corruption and abuses from occurring. Too much political and economic equality, and agreeableness is a danger to all productive societies, and should be avoided, it produces weakness and decadence. Hierarchy and competition are significant features of a dynamic society, it prevents it from becoming stagnant, decadent and weak. Real freedom comes from political laws. When the members of all the classes are equal under the law, then real freedom can be experienced, and this is because freedom cannot come from the dependant symbiotic relationships of slaves to master, or master to slaves, or any other type of relationship based on political inequality. I do not believe in economic equality, it produces the faults that I mentioned earlier. The problem with having a pure meritocracy, is that everyone at the top will end up manipulating everyone in the middle and at the bottom in a sort of unfair manner. Some people claim that the masses as individuals have the authority to demand justice from their government, and that the best government is a government that governs wisely, prudently, and for the benefit of all the people in the society without a democratic system or institutions being part of it. But how can this be so? How can a government benefit all the people of a society, if all the members of the society is not allowed to shape their society through democratic means? If the democratic system is not allowed, then a top down manipulation and oppression of the masses will begin to show itself, and then the demands of the masses will not be met, this then starts to become a problem bit by bit. The masses are not only entitled to justice, they are also entitled to the democratic system, because there is no real justice without it. A republic is a stable form of government because the ultimate source of power lies with a constitution (charter), whereas in a democracy, the power lies with the rule of the majority. Republicanism is a form of statism; power lies in the state, and the citizens have to sacrifice themselves, and are slaves to the state. The power of the state should be weakened, so that the needs of all the citizens can be fulfilled. Statism has nearly always favoured the elite classes when it has existed as republicanism. A political empire is a form of statism, it is an inflated and greedy state, and it takes what others have, while also making them into slaves to this state. A government (state) should serve its citizens, just as much as its citizens serve their government. There should be a balance of forces between the citizens and the government, and it should not be allowed under any circumstances, for there to be an imbalance of forces between the government and its citizens. A government that does not serve its citizens, is an unjust government, and is therefore, an illegitimate government. An ideal government is one in which the head of state is a committee of several persons who deserve to represent and govern the people through merit, and govern the state in aggregate. An office or position should be merited, not only because of effort, talent and ability, but because they, as an office or position holder, is trusted by the people, and duty is the highest form of trust. Individual ideas are more important than whole ideologies. A political or economic system that is based on useful and advantageous ideas and principles, would work better than political and economic systems that are largely based on ideologies. I am a strong believer in mixed systems, composite systems, in synthesis. Many people make the mistake in thinking that specific ideologies should be pure, or simple, without admixture; yet this attitude, is one-sided and anti-dialectical, it reduces possibilities, creates dogmas, stifles progress, and limits potential and growth.

WHAT IS PROGRESS?

2009-06-16T16:25:00.267+01:00

In section 4 of his book the Antichrist, Nietzsche claims that the idea of progress is a false one, he then goes onto make the erroneous argument that the people in the renaissance period were superior to that of his own time in their essential worth as people, then afterwards he contradicts himself and mentions that progress does exist after all, but only in isolated and individual cases. Putting Nietzsche's confused sophistry aside, let us now tackle what this concept of progress really means for the rest of us, that is for the rest of us who really desire to understand what this concept of progress really means in this world that we all happen to live in, and in how it applies to reality as well as in our lives generally. We cannot say that progress means that in the future there will be less problems in the world because of it, evolution and complexity produces more problems in the world than we are able to adequately solve due to the sense of progress that we feel that we have made in the world generally, for example, the population increase, nihilism, a lack of jobs relative to the amount of people who need them, outsourcing of jobs for financial reasons, the flawed and corrupt monetary system, new viruses, technology becoming more powerful, and also problems due to the general unreliability of technology itself and the problems it creates, etc., are some of the main problems that may arise in any future scenario. We can say without a doubt that our knowledge and living conditions has progressed and improved since the renaissance period, for example, we can cure more diseases and sicknesses than we were able to cure back then, we definitely know more now about the physical universe than we did back in those days. We must remember that progress means an advancement or development towards a better state or condition, invariably this can only apply to particular things in evolution, and not to all things, this means that progress is a concept that is true for some things, yet is not true for all thing in evolution. I will not repeat here in this essay all that I have already mentioned in my writings concerning the concept of progress, because repetition is a bad vice, that is, one that I do not care to indulge in myself. The fact that progress is an inevitable force in evolution cannot be denied, its existence is not a matter of whether we really think that it exists or not, it simply does, it is all around us, we cannot escape it. How are we as individuals going to confront progress with an open mind? Are we going to prop up useless metanarratives to condone it? Are we going to attempt to understand it? How do we come to truly understand its nature? Nietzsche was a sophistic charlatan and phoney of the highest order! Nietzsche was in real life, a polite, timid, warm, ethical and soft spoken man, whereas in his philosophical writings, he was cold, arrogant, immoral, harsh, cynical, vain, conceited, mean spirited, deluded, sophistic and a megalomaniac. Now it is exactly this inauthentic Jekyll and Hyde aspect of Nietzsche's character, that makes him a complete fraud and charlatan, and the fact that many people can take him seriously as a whole, even though he had some interesting and good ideas, is a sign of stupidity in the reader. In his book "On The Genealogy Of Morals" Nietzsche claims that the evil that was done by the strong, noble, aristocratic types can be considered good and that the concept of evil is merely an invention of the weak, if this is so, then why did Alexander the Great feel deep remorse after murdering his friend Cleitus the Black, if doing evil is merely a false idea of the weak? Nietzsche also claimed that the concept of justice is merely an agreement between equal powers and does not count if it is between weaker and stronger types, so according to him it should not be pursued by either the weaker or the stronger party. This argument sounds like hypocrisy, it says, that one party who desires justice, deserves it, whereas another party that desires it, does not deserve it, because he says so. Nietzsche also calls the morality that was propounded by priests a "slave morality", he does not call it the "priests morality". Slaves were not able to put their morality into effect. So-called slave morality is nothing more than the morality that the different priests used to civilize the strong and make them less barbaric and evil as well as a means in which to control, manipulate and protect the weak and downtrodden. Nietzsche also claims that there was a great divide and sense of resentment that the priestly class felt towards the strong, noble, aristocratic types, but this is not so, all good historians know that all these different types lived harmoniously with one another, it is even a well known fact that some of the Roman emperors themselves represented the priesthood itself, we must remember that people were highly religious and superstitious back then. Nietzsche also claimed that the priestly class in ancient times felt so powerless and resentful towards the noble aristocratic types that it made them devise Christian values and the last judgement as a means to get power over them. Not only do we know that the priestly class was not powerless and resentful relative to the noble aristocratic types, we can also infer that the rise of the priestly class to a state of power has a less cynical motive than simply a powerless resentment that they felt that made them plot to take power away from the noble aristocratic types in order to empower themselves. As I mentioned before in my essay entitled " The Lust For Power" it is what people can do with power that usually motivates people to get power. In regard to Christian priests it must of been a desire of theirs to civilize people with Christian values that made them get power and not simply a need for power itself out of a sense of impotence alone. A good article that one can read concerning all the errors that can be found in Nietzsche's "On The Genealogy Of Morals" text, is called: A philosopher's appreciation for Jean-Pierre Vernant (January 4, 1914—January 9, 2007) By Nickolas Pappas. It is from the Department of Philosophy, CCNY & the Graduate center, CUNY. Progress is a reality that exists objectively in the world around us, it is not just an idea that exists in our mind that we can either dismiss or affirm as Nietzsche would have you believe, in my view this attitude of Nietzsche's and the postmodernists that makes them think that objective reality is merely a subjective opinion and not an objective fact of the world is a major failing in their way of thinking. The cynical view that Nietzsche had that made him think that societal evolution is nothing more than a battle and a struggle among weak and strong people for the acquisition of power is a black and white and childish way of viewing the world. In Nietzsche's view, evolution for people is not about becoming more civilized and making more progress, to him it is merely a battle and a struggle among weak and strong people vying for the acquisition of power to be used for their own ends and nothing more. According to Nietzsche's way of thinking, it was only the small minority of noble, aristocratic types that could be considered to be strong, whereas the rest of the population were merely weak and slavish and wanted the noble aristocratic peoples power for themselves. Nietzsche seems to conflate strength with privilege and weakness with lack of privilege, he also conflates strength with power, it did not seem to occur to him that strength also existed among those who lacked privileges or power, weakness and resentment also existed among the privileged and powerful. Nietzsche does not seem to judge people as individuals, he seems to judge them as simply fitting convenient categories that suit his purposes of argument. One of the main reasons that Nietzsche refused to fully acknowledge progress, both as a reality and as a concept, is the fact that his philosophy is essentially regressive and backwards in nature, this is so, with its desire to recreate the ideals and lifestyles of the ancient Greek and Roman nobles and aristocrats. Nietzsche's philosophy is antithetical to all the philosophers and thinkers who are predominantely progressive visionaries or who count themselves to be forward looking people. I could write many books concerning all the sophistry and charlatanry that exists in Nietzsche's ideas and theories, but I have better things to do with my time and efforts. At the end of the day Nietzsche was just an insecure cynic who could not handle the objective and systematic rigour of science, logic and mathematics, his deep distrust of these subjects, must, I am sure, have come about due to a deep insecurity he felt about the power of his own intellect. One observes that towards the end of the third essay of his "On The Genealogy Of Morals" Nietzsche cynically and distrustfully ridicules and dismisses the wise, objective scientists of his day and what he considered to be their so-called real knowledge of the world. Any theory of progress cannot really be complete without a theory of history, evolution and mass consciousness and their course through time as well as in how they set the stage for progress in its different manifestations. Hegel was correct to think that the desire of people to express and enforce their own sense of freedom was a large and prominent aspect of history, evolution and progress generally, one could also add to this the desire for people to express and enforce their individuality in the world. The desire for insight and knowledge are also two main driving forces in history and evolution as well as the desire for people to express and enforce their own values, this means expressing one's values irrespective of the mainstream values which are largely designed to manipulate and control the masses. Any individuals act of revolt towards rigid customs and traditions or old values and institutions is one of the main ways that people express and enforce their own desires and values as a constructive means towards progress. Customs and traditions are enforcers of values, whereas rebellion is a creator of newer more meaningful and progressive values. Anarchy exists as a form of rebellion, a form of rebellion that soon exhausts itself, this is due to its lack of desire to be constructive, ordered, systematic, progressive and ambitious. A state of anarchy cannot last for very long, this is because people cannot live in a state of unordered rebellion for too long. Anarchists detest hierarchy, yet hierarchy is part of nature. Anarchists think that because they want to govern themselves in a world without rulers, leaders, governments, laws, a state, etc., then this is what everyone else should want also, it does not occur to anarchists that most people in the world do not want what they want themselves, some people are quite happy for competent and trustworthy politicians to represent and govern them politically. In our investigation into the matter of progress so far, we have determined that it is only particular things that have progressed and not all things, this means that the concept of progress can only be applied to some things and not to all things in reality. We have also determined that progress can be curbed and stalled by old customs, traditions, institutions and values and the people that represent and uphold them. To say that progress is a false idea simply because it cannot be observed in all things, is a clever piece of sophistry, so is claiming that science does not give us any truth simply because it cannot give us a complete picture of reality, this is because truth can still be found in a partial view of something, a partial view of a phenomenon is not a false view, it is merely a limited view of the truth of a phenomenon. Postmodernists like to make the false argument that all truth is limited, approximate and is constantly evolving, this is not completely true, it is our knowledge of the truth that is limited and approximate, it is our view that alters and becomes more complete, truth itself is not limited or altered by us or our knowledge of it, the truth exists independently of us and our lives, except for subjective truths, that is, which is a topic that I have already covered elsewhere. Even though simple facts can be demonstrably proven to be true, no elaborate theory can ever be proven to be completely true (we can only show that a theory is partly false). No elaborate theory can ever explain all the things that it professes to describe. Thus an absolute and certain truth that explains all things to us is unobtainable. In our investigation into the matter of progress we have also discovered certain aspects of the human consciousness as well as the human condition that need to be expressed and enforced for real growth and progress to be made by people generally. Progress as a reality and as a concept will always have its detractors, yet our aim in this investigation is to clarify what progress is and what it is not, so that some semblance of coherence can be found in it for all who think of it as an important aspect of their own lives. To simply doubt that one is able to make any progress in any particular thing in one's life, is an absurdity. The intuitive, mental and real knowing that one experiences as one is able to make progress at any particular thing that one makes an effort with, is overwhelming, it is something that we experience when we slowly learn a language, a musical instrument, a sport or any other skill or subject that we choose to learn. It is I am sure in the desire of most people around the world to want to attempt to shape the future in such a way as to avoid the mistakes of the past. People desire to make improvements on the past, to learn from the past, to take what is good and useful from the past as if they were lessons they had learned, this is so even if this occurs indirectly through historical knowledge. It is the people that want to change the world who most understand history, that seem to be the most competent and able to shape the future for the better. Progress in a realistic sense is knowing that we can make the future better in many ways because we have a knowledge of the past and are able to use it to improve matters in the world and also because we know that progress is inevitable and unavoidable because of our current knowledge and conditions. Nietzsche's master and slave morality dichotomy, is based on his claim that all human beings value morality because it is a means to an end; and for Nietzsche, this end which morality aims towards, is the will to power. It does not seem to occur to Nietzsche, due to his biased and subjective way of thinking, that morality is actually something that most people value because it makes them happy, and because it helps them fulfill all their other values as well, and because it gives them a feeling of well-being. Nietzsche always treats the will to power as an end in itself, and other values as a means to this end, when in fact, most humans treat the will to power as a means to an end; the end being their happiness, the fulfillment of their values, and their feelings of well-being.

OF MONEY AND ITS USE

2009-04-01T23:16:00.061+01:00

Money is a type of universal tool of exchange amongst any group of people as well as a representation of the basic efforts, needs and wants of these people and the things that they value generally as well as their material possessions, it also represents their ability to accumulate and expand their interests in the ways that I have just mentioned above through this universal tool of utility. In the past the monetary system was created to replace the clumsy barter system of trade, this barter system of trade that existed before the monetary system was useful if a person A had something they wanted to trade or barter that people wanted, but it was useless if this same person A had things that a person B did not want or need, yet person B had something that person A wanted or needed. Even though needs and wants overlap, they are not exactly the same in entirety, for example, we can want food and need it to survive, but we can want jewellery, yet not necessarily need it to survive, some items, such as books are wants, but they are also needed for the knowledge contained in them. If one was stranded on a desert island, then food and water would be a need and a want, whereas more jewellery would be a want and not a need. The artificial value that is placed on objects like gold and silver exists because these substances are relatively permanent and pliable, they can be melted, cut, weighed and exchanged with ease. The type of value that objects like gold and silver have for us, I call artificial values, this is because not all people and animals value gold and silver, it is not a natural value, such as, food, water or morality. The desire for Morality is a natural value, because if someone harms someone we love, then we naturally feel the pain of this act, so it is likewise natural for us to create morals as well as a code of ethics and a set of laws to counteract this natural pain that we would feel if our loved ones were to be harmed or cheated in some way. We naturally need food and water to survive so we think of these things as natural values. Money, when it was first created as a concept and as a tool of exchange, began as a representation of one's efforts, property and belonging's in a fair and straightforward way, then over a period of time money lost its value as a real representation of what I have just mentioned above and slowly became more illusionary and divorced from its original purpose, it can even be said that money became an illusion due to usury and the concept of fiat money. Only about 3% of the money in circulation today represents the things it is supposed to represent, the other 97% mostly exists as numbers in computers. There is never enough money in circulation to represent all the things that it is meant to represent. Many of the interesting modern philosophical discussions occurring today concerns the merits as well as the disadvantages of the monetary system itself. The Austrian school of economics and its followers display a lot of optimism in the potential of a gold backed monetary system, whereas you also get the futurist idealists who prefer any kind of paradigm shift that enables us to discard the flawed monetary system altogether, with its long history of corruption and differential advantage. It seems that the need to use tangible money will become an outmoded thing of the past, seeing as how technology is finding ways to overcome this aspect of its use. I think that electronic money when it becomes introduced into the system will over time become something else, money will eventually become a type of universal number credit system, it will be either in negative numbers, if you are in debt or positive, if you are in positive credit, etc. Money now has become mostly a tool of manipulation and control that the elite classes of bankers, financiers, business people and upper classes use to serve their own interests at everyone else's expense. Money has become and is now a complete illusion as a fair representation of the endeavours of the masses and their own interests. The world is like a confusing playground in which people are slowly beginning to realize is becoming an uncontrollable situation of meaningless behaviour due to a scarcity of jobs and opportunities, a manipulation of the masses by the power hungry elite classes, a rapid and constant population increase, many people competing against technology for opportunities, people competing against other people and their greed for money and profit due to the outsourcing of jobs and opportunities, many people are also losing their sense of religious and mystical beliefs in any higher powers or universal objective meanings, etc., all these things and more add to the confusion and uncertainty of the world we currently live in. It is science, philosophy, reason and morality and some fair democratic and egalitarian politics for all people in the world generally that will be the saving graces of humanity in the long run.

THE LUST FOR POWER

2009-03-06T13:55:00.147Z

The people in this world who lust after power, in most cases, become the manipulaters and controllers of the people within society, and they also manipulate and control the course of events in the world generally. These people who lust after power that like to control and manipulate the masses as well as the course of worldly events, do it because they enjoy it, it is a type of aphrodisiac to them. In most cases the security one gets from monetary power ensures one's own survival and that of one's own progeny or those one loves that inherit this wealth. A lust for power in many cases tends to corrupt the people involved. Money is a symbolic type of power, it has an ability to change the course of events in the world generally. Those who lust after power, force the people underneath them into a real and actual sense of conflict with them, this behaviour produces a type of competition for economic survival, and this occurs even though power is not the primary aim or motive in the lives of some of these people who are not interested in power that are more peaceful and harmonious, this behaviour produces stratification as well as class divisions within society. The best democratic representatives of the people (masses) are those who use power as a tool to benefit the people, rather than as a power that these representatives lust after for their own benefit. Most corrupt politicians nowadays who lie and manipulate, etc., are a continuation of the schools of sophistry, Freemasonry, secret societies as well as of all the other black and occult arts and techniques that have been used to attain worldly power. I must add, that the so-called occult arts and magic is a form of symbolic and ritual psychology that utilizes natural laws and principles. The corruption that occurs in the world due to the desire for absolute power can only really come about from a concerted effort on the part of certain people that pursue this goal, i.e., Hitler and the Nazis and the British empire and its bankers, etc. Power in some of its manifestations is all about control and manipulation, if one can control and manipulate something, then one has power over it. A desire for power can be connected to the "divine" or higher self in humankind, it is that feeling of wanting to overcome the petty, limited, finite and weak aspects of ourselves. When our ancestors invented the symbolic archetypal gods of their own consciousness, they transposed these archetypes onto the world in an objective manner as representations of the different phenomenon in the world that occurred around them, they then began to think that these gods really did exist objectively in the universe, they confused subjective desires for the objective reality of things. The symbolic archetypes that human beings have created as the many gods, is a subjective outpouring of all of their inner desires and aspirations that exist as the "higher self" they feel within themselves, this somehow corresponds to the objective, worldy, mathematical, astrological, symbolic and aesthetic qualities and principles that we find exists in the world as natural laws as well as organic psychological laws of the human psyche. Even today we still have monarchs that rule in different parts of the world, we seem to have maintained an undending reign of monarchs since antiquity when kings and pharaohs actually did think that they were gods, we also have the elite classes as well that exist because of class divisions. The different occult practices, such as magic and Freemasonry with its different rituals and so on, is an attempt to enforce and express the sense of power that some people feel within themselves, this is a feeling as well as an intentionality that they feel they need to enforce onto people and the world in certain ways. A strong belief in magic itself in the sense that it works, is a belief that certain techniques of manipulation as well wilful influence based on natural laws and principles have a marked effect on people, society, nature and the world generally. Many of the techniques and laws of magic seem to exist and are very logical when understood properly, yet the mistake that many deluded occultists make, is that they actually believe and think that gods, demons, angels and external intangible forces exist, yet this type of self-induced delusional aspect of magic seems to help these people feel that there is more meaning in what they are doing than what actually exists and is occurring in what they are doing. Ritual itself is an aspect of magic that induces conviction, affirmation and self confidence in the magician, yet they are not wielding mysterious forces that exist outside of themselves, they are in tune with energy and are working with natural laws that actually exist and can be explained logically. Magicians use symbols, archetypes and the concept of correspondence as well as astronomical patterns in their rituals, workings and manipulations, they also use oratory and phonology to influence, control and manipulate the minds of people, they also use every possible form of guile and deception, whether political or sociological to make situations and events go the way that they want them to go. Hitler was, I am sure, one of the greatest magicians to have ever lived, and this is because he believed in and utilized magic and the occult to manipulate and change the course of worldly events to conform with his own will, he also knew and was able to make things in the world go in the way that he wanted them to go in generally, this is, in a sense what real magical power is, it is a sort of effective manipulation of the world to conform with one's own will by using natural laws and energies. Magic and the occult for those who use it and truly believe in it, is a type of self possesion by symbols, beliefs, principles and natural laws that have been passed down through time as well as tradition and has been used in certain ways to cause changes, these things have been used by people on society, it is this way of thinking and behaving that gives these people power over the masses or the uninformed within that society. There are many ignorant people in society today who do not think that the people in positions of power are manipulating them in many and very specific ways, yet it is this ignorance and indifference by the masses generally that actually enables the enlightened elite classes to create this ability to manipulate the masses in the many ways that they do. Knowledge is power, in the sense that knowledge enables us to control and master the different situations that happen in our lives, we need knowledge so that we do not feel powerless in the situations that we find ourselves in. When it comes to power, people are more interested in what they can do with the power, rather than with the power itself, the power itself for its own sake can only give a person a buzz that seems somewhat empty and devoid of meaning without something specific that can be done with this power. If people were interested only in power then they would relinquish it or give it to someone else that they cared about once they had got it. The desire for power is really all about control, manipulation as well as the ability to change the course of events in the sense of what can be done with this power once it has been attained. Most of the biological organisms that exist within nature are designed by nature to manipulate other organisms as well as some of the other tangible things in its environment in some shape or form, this behaviour is very natural and spontaneous, this behaviour is conducted by organisms in order to make the things in its environment somehow conform with its desires, its will or its natural growth generally. Examples of the desire of an organism to manipulate another in nature can be seen in the way a child cries for its parents to give it milk or in the way a dog barks at a person or another animal in order to protect its own territory by scaring them off, etc. The desire to manipulate, control and change our environment as well as the other organisms within it in certain ways, are some of the main reasons why people lust after power and its attainment. Aggression in the form of retaliation is also a very basic form of manipulation and is one of the main reasons why men nearly always fought with weapons to protect the territory that they lived in from any outside invasions. A passive creature that does not know how to manipulate situations or other organisms in nature would not last very long, this is why manipulation and control as well as the desire to wield power became desirable survival qualities in evolution. The most intelligent people within any environment was usually better able to manipulate the stupider ones and the stupider, more ignorant ones were usually less able to manipulate the more intelligent ones, this can be mostly seen in the many ways in which the elite classes were able to manipulate the masses with their knowledge, religion, money, customs, laws and so on. The will to power in the Nietzschean usage of the term, was in the past a survival mechanism, because any manipulator and controller of people, resources and the environment generally had a greater chance of survival for his or herself as well as their own progeny within a scarcity based environment, this scenario that I mention was an evolutionary form of survival of the fittest. Yet in a modern world where there is no need for scarcity and where people are less ignorant generally, especially of actual hierarchy and power structures, then power itself loses most of its appeal as a goal worth pursuing. The will to power is not the essence of reality itself as Nietzsche always liked to claim, it is merely part of a process within a scarcity based context where the strongest compete for limited resources and opportunities as a means to survive and control others. It is clear to see that when this limited paradigm of a will to power as a means of survival within an environment of ignorance and scarcity has been overcome, then the people who are strong willed and healthy will be able to direct themselves in many other avenues according to any new values and paradigm shifts they choose to pursue. Nietzsche claimed that "the will to power" is the most life affirming drive for all people. Nietzsche's way of thinking implies that a desire for power, manipulation, control, etc., is more life affirming than being an explorer, adventurer, scientist, mountain climber and deep sea diver and so on, which are in their own way very life affirming pursuits that do not really involve a desire for power as such. It is the different things that we most value in life that makes us feel that we are affirming our own life, it is this as well as our desire to really understand and comprehend reality and our place in it that are most life affirming for us. The people who are most interested in power are like the blind leading the blind, this is because a lust for power breeds an ignorant satisfaction from its own desires. Most of the people of the past that lusted after immense power, like Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin, etc., were all deluded charlatans. It is the most intelligent and the most wise of a species that know how to lead the masses properly, it is they that enable growth and progress to occur. The power hungry politicians as well as all those who desire power, cannot be said to be the ones that solve the problems of the world, they create problems as well as add to them, this is because they are not qualified to solve problems or create growth through knowledge, only technicians, scientists, thinkers, intellectuals and philosophers solve the problems of the world, it is they who increase and produce all the real growth and power in the world. The desire to "grow" as well as "unconceal" what we do not yet know about the cosmos due to our ignorance of it, is in a sense a more useful drive than the desire for power itself. Power concerns itself more with the desire to control and manipulate the ignorance of others through deception in order to satisfy one's own whims, vanity and pleasure. Apart from the desires for procreation, pleasure and happiness that exist to a lesser or greater degree within us, we mostly live in a world where "intentionality" and "struggle" are the main existential purposes of biological existence, some struggle for power, others struggle to enforce their values and personal choices onto a mostly indifferent world. All that we do is a choice, there are no rules or meanings written in stone, only the intentionality of our choices and values. To find meaning from what exists, is up to us alone. Those who are not interested in power are just as important as those that are, the one group balances out the other, if everyone was interested in power then there would be a state of endless conflict and mayhem in the world. The belief that "the will to power" is the essence of reality for all organisms, is just another useless metanarrative that attempts to rob people of their own individuality and uniqueness. The desire to rebel against those who are stupider and more ignorant than oneself is the natural instinct of all free peoples, especially if this rebellion, and defiance is aimed against the power hungry manipulators of the world, it is only the dumb and the passive that get manipulated and fooled or who fail to find a way out. Making our lives interesting and fulfilling by the use of knowledge, culture, constructive endeavours, sympathy, and humanity is far more valuable than the pursuit of power for its own sake, power in fact is only useful in regard to improving our lives. Strength is a more useful drive than the will to power, strength enables us to shape events and circumstances in any direction that we choose, regardless of power, the will to power is merely a vain indulgence. The problem with most of humanity is that it tends to bow to the inevitable, people are lazy in regard to rebelling against custom. People need to learn to rebel against the mediocrity that exists in modern culture, they need to rebel using strength, effort, courage and intelligence. We shape reality according to our vision, some people envisage doing evil, others envisage more positive and constructive endeavours. A mistake that many philosophers and people make generally is that they expect others to follow them and conform to their own way of thinking and living. People should be encouraged to be different, it is what we represent as individuals that most counts about us. A society full of highly individual people that are unique is more dynamic than a herd of people who are forced to conform to each other or to particular standards and customs. The will to power can be cruel and wicked, much evil is done in the name of power and systems of hierarchy, this way of thinking in general tends to advance the masses towards a state of repression and oppression. People are becoming increasingly more rational and ethical as time goes on, and what counts is that all systems of government enable and encourage people to become great in their own way, rather than allowing them to follow the ideal of an immoral "overman" or "superman" who is beyond good and evil, this is merely a fantasy for all the irrational, egocentric people of the world. In Nietzsche's hypothetical theory of "the will to power" as the so-called essence of reality, he also proposes the classical Greek concept of "agon" as an alternative to democracy. Nietzsche disliked democracy because in his view it creates oppositions and divisions amongst people, whereas in the concept of agon, which represents a sort of conflict, competition and struggle towards similar power based goals he thought he had found a good alternative to democracy. Nietzsche always harked on about individualism, yet he expected everyone to follow the same sort of power based goals through the concept of agon. When people are allowed to express their individuality through political freedom, then oppositions and divisions occur naturally among different types. Democracy endows all people with the ability to enforce their own individuality and sovereignty through the conflict, competition and struggle of agon, this is because the concept of agon cannot replace that of democracy, these concepts must be used together to get any realistic results and solutions in the world. Nietzsche also claimed that the will to power produces a sense of freedom, he also mentioned that this type of freedom produces happiness. I must point out that Nietzsche was incorrect in assuming that the will to power produces freedom, it does not, it produces manipulation and control. Manipulation, and control is not freedom, a sense of freedom can only be produced through democracy, agon, fairness, the need for an open society as well as a desire to implement equal opportunities and privileges for all citizens politically, it is this type of freedom that I mention that produces real happiness. Political equality always works better in theory than it does in practice, in practice different people are always naturally unequal on many levels. The concept of agon as a reality is only useful in regard to conflict, competition and struggle in the sense of expressing and enforcing one's individuality, values and sense of freedom towards others and the world generally. Those who use agon in the sense of a will to power, will do this anyway, yet this is not the only purpose of agon for all people. I mentioned that "the will to power" or "the lust for power" is a sort of survival mechanism in people through which a use of manipulation and control through domination of others and the environment seems to insure their own survival and that of their progeny as well as being a guarantee of them living well and pleasurably. Sometimes this survival mechanism is taken to an extreme by some individuals because of their vanity; Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon and Hitler were all vain people, it was what they were able to do with their power that flattered their own sense of vanity at everyone else's cost. A lot of the conflict and unhappiness that exists in the world today among different people are caused by some of the following reasons: (1) We think that we are separate individuals, which we are to a certain extent, also we put our ego's, vanity, uniqueness and our sense of separation above connection, similarities, congeniality and friendship with others. (2) We act out of self-interest without ever questioning our real motives for our actions or the pursuit of self-interest beyond the obvious reasons of self-value and the need for self-belief for reasons of confidence, etc. (3) We follow ideals that in their very essence maybe flawed or questionable or even deluded, such as spiritual or mystical beliefs. An atmosphere that is allowed to become too good, kind and peaceful does not necessarily make societies prosper, in fact history has shown that an atmosphere of freedom, conflict, tension, struggle and competition are what makes societies prosper well. What counts in my arguments so far is the fact of knowing how to distinguish the different motives, reasons and elements of a dynamic and prosperous society as well as knowing the mechanics, truths, illusions, delusions and realities of it also. A sense of happiness, and unhappiness is mostly a state of mind rather being solely a matter of conditions, so as long as people have some food and water and freedom they can be happy in a state of conflict, struggle and competition. Some people make the mistake of thinking that societies can improve and prosper if there is a significant amount of peace and kindness in the world, but this is not so. When we speak about power as a quality that exists in the world, and in organisms generally, we say that it can exist as power over oneself, or as power over others, or as power over the environment. Natural power is an unmotivated power, it is not a deliberate willing of power, it exists as a natural product from the natural abilities of the mind and body of the user, whereas will to power is a deliberate type of power, it is consciously willed, it is usually desired out of a sense of insecurity. Secure people do not want power over others, only the insecure do; Julius Caesar's strong desire for power mostly came from an insecure feeling that he had when he compared his accomplishments to that of Alexander the Great when he had reached a certain age. In the struggle for existence, defending your village or state is an act that has been done out of the desire for security, so once your village is safe from outside attack, you rest secure, but if one is constantly afraid of an outside attack, one then becomes insecure, which forces one to subdue outside invaders, which leads to the desire for even more power, all stemming from a basic insecurity, which then becomes a vicious cycle. We can say that power is a measure of the ability of an organism to control the environment around itself, and this includes control of the behavior of other organisms also, which I mentioned earlier. Now, if most people wanted power, they would all be trying to become politicians or rulers, which as we know, is the most effective way to attain and wield power. We do not see a great desire on the part of most human beings to attain power, we do not see the majority of people in the world trying to become politicians, rulers or controllers of others, this is a myth that Nietzsche invented, because he desperately wanted to outdo the theories of Schopenhauer and Darwin. Politicians and rulers exist because somebody has to do this job of governing other people and the environment; politicians and rulers are assuming a position that needs to be taken by someone who wants the power to govern and control others for survival purposes. Ascetics mostly want power over themselves, in the form of control over themselves. Nietzsche was such a miserable human being, that he deluded himself into believing that most of humankind is motivated more by a desire for power, than it is for a desire for happiness and a sense of well-being. For most people, the desire for power is a means to an end; people want whatever power is needed or required to fulfill their own values. Nietzsche's ideas concerning the "Will To Power", and how they are connected to the "Ubermensch" concept; seem to me, to be highly contradictory and inconsistent in nature. He claims that the "Ubermensch" type, is a master morality type, whom also desires power over others, and is also represented by a need for "The Will To Power". Yet, Nietzsche also claims that "The Will To Power" does not concern power over others, but only means self mastery. Now, how can this be correct? How can you have both these opposing things connected towards the same conceptual drive, without seeing the obvious contradiction? But still many Nietzsche scholars seem to go along with his ideas without even bothering to question this error that I have mentioned.

ON HISTORICISM, METANARRATIVES AND THE OPEN SOCIETY

2009-02-05T13:27:00.133Z

In the course of this essay I will point out to you a complex set of overlapping concepts in regard to how society thinks and responds to its own evolution and progress as a whole and as individual people comprising it. In my investigation I will cover many aspects of how the mass consciousness of people generally can so easily be manipulated by the false ideas, ideologies and control of philosophers, politicians and psychological experts. I will also point out that even though a society is made up of a multitude of impressionable as well as non-impressionable people, it is still individuals themselsves that make up this mass of people, so it is the job of all individuals within this society to arm themselves with wisdom, truth, knowledge and the active know how of what it takes to shape the world for the better in the real sense. Even though the postmodernists have pointed out the disadvantages of having many metanarratives, especially the erroneous ones, the following metanarrative, for example, is true: that patriarchy has systematically exploited, oppressed and subjugated women throughout history, this is a fact that cannot be denied. The metanarratives that in general were created by religions as well as by historicist philosophers and politicians are in a sense the worst of them all, an example of which are those by: the muslim and christian religions as well as some of the ideas of Plato, Marx and Hitler, etc. Some metanarratives have been a type of false invention made up by its creator or creators and this has caused a lot of uneeded manipulation and suffering in the world by those who have either invented these metanarratives or followed them in some way. Karl Popper in his two-volume work entitled "The Open Society And Its Enemies" contrasts the concept of an "open society" with that of a "closed society". In an open society the government is responsive and tolerant to changes, the political mechanisms are flexible. In an open society the state exists in a condition in which there are no secrets, the public are informed of what is occurring in the state, it is a non-authoritarian society in which all people are trusted with the knowledge of all that is happening. In an open society the people have many political freedoms and the human rights laws are always in existence for the inhabitants or citizens of any state. Any knowledge in the finite sense can be said to be provisional, fallible and limited in its own way and so any society or state must be open to alternative points of view whenever possible. It is said that open societies are associated with cultural and religious pluralism, for example, an open society is in a sense always open to changes and improvements, because knowledge and ideal conditions are never completed, but are always in an ongoing process of improvement and change. In a sense, any type of democracy can be viewed as example of an "open society". Any claims to certain knowledge or absolute or ultimate truths, such as you find in metanarratives and historicism and its theories leads to an attempted imposition of one version of reality onto the possibility of a more harmonious and fair one. A closed society is closed to freedom of thought, speech and behaviour, etc. In contrast to this, for example, in an open society the citizens need to engage in critical thinking, they also need to make a strong commitment to the pursuit of wisdom and truth, this requires good ecucation in knowledge and morals, they also need the cultural and legal institutions that can facilitate this process. Totalitarian dictatorships, theocracies and autocratic monarchies are all examples of a "closed society". Certain intelligent people in the field of psychology know of many sophisticated and powerful techniques of mass manipulation and deception, some of these techniques have been used in modern advertising and in cognitive science by political operatives. The electorates perception of reality can easily be manipulated and deceived by clever people in positions of power and that this has been done before on many occasions is obvious. It is now time for the masses to wake up from their self-incurred immaturity, this immaturity is self-inflicted and does no exist because of a lack of understanding, it exists from a lack of courage and independence to use their own reasoning abilities, intellect and wisdom, etc. This immaturity to act without the guidance or manipulation of another who happens to be more knowledgeable than ourselves is the main problem with society and the masses today, it is our fear of thinking for ourselves and standing up for ourselves in all matters that is the cause of many of the problems in the world today. Any democratic political discourse cannnot lead to a better understanding of reality unless we commit to standing up for ourselves properly in the ways that I have mentioned. For example, many politicians will manipulate people and abuse their power rather than respect people and reality, this is so unless the public cares about the truth enough and punishes any politicians when it catches them in the act of deliberate manipulation and deception. Historicism in the sense that there is an organic succession of developments to actual events in the world, is a false hypothesis from the standpoint of free will and contingency, we always have the choice to alter events because of wisdom and free will. I have also pointed out that historicism is also false and unnecessary from standpoint of metanarratives. Historicism in the sense that local conditions and peculiarities influence the results of the direction of history in a decisive way, is only true to a certain extent, certain cultures have influenced the direction of history more than others, i.e., the Greeks, the Romans and the British, etc. If historicism is viewed from the perspective of "process philosophy" (i.e., that the essence of reality and nature consist of inevitable and contingent processes) then I think that more fruitful ground can be covered by historicism as a philosophical method. The concept of change (that all is flux) in the universe, is a very real one. The things that make any proper theory of change useful, is the fact that one can find consistencies, patterns and actual processes in these changes that are real and that lead somewhere, these things that I mention that exists in processes can be observed and analyzed by anyone who chooses to notice them. Many of the metanarratives that have been thought up by the people of the past have had a mystical foundation to them, this in a sense is what made a lot of them lack credibility. One of the problems of historicism as a method, is the obvious fact that if a person cannot know the whole of the state of affairs of the world and of mankind at any given point in time, then it follows that they cannot know the future of the world and mankind in its entirety, they cannot account for all the variables involved. Any useful method of historicism should be based on the constants that one finds in evolution, progress, mass psychology, sociology, history, political science and in any particular cases that it applies to as well as in all the processes generally involved in any case to be predicted. Any good theories of historicism should be able to account for any variables that may arise amongst the foundational constants that I have mentioned that are to be found in the universal and particular processes involved. Thinkers should learn to become skilled at accounting for the different types of variables that may arise amongst all the constant things that happen in events for any theories of historicism to be valid. All good historicism is either suggestive or predictive, whereas bad historicism is usually manipulative and biased as well as being incorrect in a lot of cases. In historicism we are only predicting and dealing in finite and particular situations and events, because when we study a thing, we select certain aspects of it. It is impossible for us to observe, Know and also to describe the whole of the world, so we are only dealing in a piece of the world in our predictions and suggestions. It can also be argued that we cannot even know the smallest whole piece in its entirety, since all our descriptions are necessarily selective and limited. Computer programs that simulate events have become very useful, but they have their limitations also. Some people argue that all events are unique in history and so therefore in historicism potential events cannot be predicted from a study of history, I think that the above argument fails to account for the elements of determinism as well as the necessary and contingent aspects of processes in evolution and progress generally, you cannot separate events from processes by calling them unique, events are unique because of the exact circumstances and processes involved, these processes and their potentialities can be analyzed and understood to a certain degree of accuracy due to the elements of processes that are constant and predictable. Prediction as well as probability is a whole aspect of human reasoning and can be found in mathematics and logic generally, it is not too far of a stretch to find that human beings will be able to become skilled at predicting potential future events and scenarios through higher forms of reasoning. Seeing as though in philosophy we are mostly selective and our analysis of things is usually limited and finite, means that if we are to do justice to our subject, it is required that we be organized, rigorous, systematic, meticulous and thorough, otherwise our endeavours will seem pretty sparse and superficial. An example of a manipulative form of historicism, is Nietzsche's belief that a lot of people might become more nihilistic once the belief in God starts to wane. In point of fact, the only people that really seem to have become more nihilistic since the belief in God has been waning are Nietzsche's followers themselves (i.e., the nazis and others), most postmodernists seem to have become nihilistic also, this is because postmodernists have been largely manipulated by Nietzsche's writings, especially concerning nihilism, morals, subjectivism and perspectivism as well as by his claims that a lot of claims of truth and reason can be associated with institutions of power, such as the church, universities and the government. Nietzsche in his writings always makes the mistake of associating everything with a desire for power, just like the sophists did before him, it never seems to cross his mind that truth, reason, objectivity and morals are necessary for all human beings irrespective of any so-called desire for power that most people are meant to have according to his analysis of the world. I mentioned earlier that all good historicism is either predictive or suggestive. When I mention that good historicism is suggestive, I mean that it represents a sort of "mass wisdom" on the part of most people in the world in the sense that they are able to constructively suggest things to each other as well as being able to make good and serious judgements as a whole that will benefit them and their children. Mass wisdom can only come from a need of most people to want to become more educated, wise, moral and constructive, etc., for them to want to shape the world according to the best ideas, policies and decisions that they are capable of making. Predictive historicism applies more to ambitious philosophers themselves and their ability to predict what paths the events in the world will take or should take to benefit society for the better. Historicism is only useful if it can be used to benefit society generally, that is, if it is progressive and positive in certain ways, because any historicism that is negative, is useless and is anti-progressive as well as anti-evolutionary. An attempt to understand patterns and logical consistencies in the consciousness of organisms and societies and all its events in the sense of how it evolves and progresses through history can be found in the conceptual system of spiral dynamics, which I think is a very interesting and useful system to study. When it comes to power, people are more interested in what they can do with the power, rather than with the power itself, the power itself for its own sake can only give a person a buzz that seems somewhat empty and devoid of meaning without something specific that can be done with this power. If people were interested only in power then they would relinquish it or give it to someone else that they cared about once they had got it . The desire for power is really all about control, manipulation as well as the ability to change the course of events in the sense of what can be done with this power once it has been attained.

OF LANGUAGE AND ITS USE

2009-01-02T12:29:00.104Z

In my view there are three main reasons of why language was created and developed by our human ancestors: The first was so that they could express themselves as individuals and what they felt and thought, i.e., hunger, thirst, fear as well as to describe places, etc. The second was to communicate ideas about the world and themselves. The third was that it had a type of practical utility that was useful in the sense that words have exact meanings that do not alter, unless by consensus, these words represent ideas to be described that are either abstract or tangible about the world (cosmos) and this aided them in their day to day affairs. Words themselves are contingent, particular and temporary and languages are this way also, a defect in a language can hinder more rigorous forms of communication, so we can say that particular languages and words are of less importance than our own ability to describe things in the world and reality generally. Mathematics and logic are more complete than any verbal language, yet these things are also limited in comparison to the universe and the laws of nature, so mathematics and logic are never absolute forms of knowledge, they are always limited (finite) and flawed in their own way. In some ways language can be said to be an extension of physical behaviour, we even make physical gestures to fit the things that we want to express and communicate through language. The more articulate and clear we can be using language, the better, language should serve us well for the communication of ideas as well as our own inner thoughts, feelings and desires. A cynical view of language can be found in the works of thinkers like Nietzsche and Derrida, they attempt to make out that language is largely meaningless and not really a proper representation of the ideas of reality, but this is an absurd and unnecessary view, it is a type of sophistry, if people convince you to think that language is meaningless, then it gives them the opportunity to use more sophistry on you, real philosophers do not accept this conclusion, real philosophers know that language is logical and expressive and represents the ideas of reality adequately. Are ideas, language, grammar, logic, diagrams and mathematics a representation of reality? I am sure it is, for how else are we to represent and understand the truths of the reality that we inhabit. Nietzsche in his writing has attacked the validity of language, mathematics and logic as adequate representations of reality, he viewed these things as subjective fictions that do not represents truths, so if NASA send men to the moon using language, logic, science and mathematics, then according to Nietzsche's opinion it was just a fiction and not a real moon landing. When I mention that language represents reality, I mean to show that language corresponds to reality in the sense that it represents reality objectively and externally aside from our internal subjective conditions, otherwise language and its use would be divorced from events, facts and circumstances and would simply exist only as a subjective type of communication amongst people and would be totally divorced from objective and external events, facts and circumstances altogether. The following quote by Martin Heidegger, that "man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man" aptly leads me to a hypothesis that I have for a long time felt strongly about, in the sense that its truth seems so clear to me in my mind and of which I have no doubt is real. The hypothesis which I choose to impart to the world of which I feel so strongly about, is the fact that language increasingly becomes more efficient, logical and mathematical in nature, because language over time sheds all those vague, redundant and wooly aspects of itself that it no longer needs, language we must remember, is designed to aid communication as well as having a sort of utility to it. Those aspects of language that is most expressive for people, will in a sense be the most difficult for humans to lose control of, but in general human beings will have to adapt to a language that will become more efficient, logical and mathematical generally. There are many aspects to language development, so it is always necessary to do a thorough investigation of all the different ways in which languages are formed, if one wants to understand them. Even though some thinkers of the past have claimed that language does not represent and refer to objects in the world, they were wrong. Language does represent and refer to objects in the world, language has a type of utility in this sense. If the word cup does not refer to an actual cup in the world that we are talking about, then what does it refer to? Our use of language can only refer to the cup that we describe, our description of a particular cup that exists in a certain place can only refer to this cup and to nothing else. It is only when we are lying or when we are mistaken do our words not refer to an object, phenomenon or event, language has a dual aspect to it in the sense in which when people use it, is either true or false in its assertions, it also has elements to it that are neutral in this regard. In the philosophy of language we speak about the words that get their meaning because they represent and refer to things in the world, this aspect of language produce pictures and visualization in our minds when we think about how specific words relate to actual things in the world, we also discuss which words this applies to, this is because it cannot apply to all words in a language, they do not all produce specific or distinct pictures. Some words in a language can be considered to be more abstract and difficult to define in its usage and in how it refers to any particular thing in the world. Apart from the meaning of words and how they apply to things in the world, we also speak about the "use" or "usage" of words generally, words have a type of utility or usage in that they express many things in language as well as in how it applies to the world and ourselves generally. Words that do not have a physical or abstract counterpart in the tangible world, such as: God, hello, difficult, and, etc., can seem to be more difficult to define and concretize than other words that apply to specific things, for example, what is difficult for one person, may not be very difficult for someone else, a greeting such as hello may be genuine or it may be just a meaningless pleasantry. It is a well known fact that language shapes our minds as well as our understanding of the world generally, language shapes our whole conceptual framework of the world, yet any individual who can think for themselves (i.e., to think for oneself means to think in one's own way unaided by conventional standards of thinking, in the sense that no one is able to do your own thinking for you) can be largely shaped by their own concepts and developments in thinking, these people are able to transcend the limitations of their own language and culture in certain ways, not being able to conceptualize yourself limits you to conventional thinking, imagination is an important feature of being able to conceptualize reality in one's own way. I explained that language gets most of its meaning from representing things in the world, I also mentioned that some words in language are harder to pin down in this way, they exist more in their usage than in their exact distinctness to represent things in the world, language it is true, has many pitfalls, redundancies and ambiguities that need to be overcome, yet when language is used properly in a logical way, then most of its pitfalls can be overcome, the most useful way to overcome the flaws in it is in the ability of its users to become more articulate, clear, distinct and exact, they should endeavour to eliminate all the pitfalls that are to be found within language generally. Language also becomes effective when "context" and "description" become important features of how language is used, we should learn to make language apply to different contexts in the world and we should also use language to be highly descriptive about these contexts and situations in the world that we want to understand and explain. Language in its usage in general can never really be said to be pinned down to anything in particular, this is why language sometimes has a type of freedom to it that seems like an unending process of expression and application. When we use language in such a way that it becomes formal and contextual in the sense that we apply it this way to most situations, then this enables us to overcome this excessive freedom aspect of language. We know that language has rules. All languages are universal in the sense that they are based on reason and objectivity in that they are based on things in the world, this is why you cannot have a subjective language of your own invention that applies to anything that transcends the universal aspects of languages and how they apply to things in the world. Any proper study of language shows that in general if you can describe reality contextually and in depth, then this is a far superior tool than many complicated abstract concepts and theories concerning it, concepts and theories concerning the world should be simple and contextual, this is because reason, explanation and description are able to do so much more than conceptual generalities, philosophers in the past have confused many people with their vague concepts and generalities of the world, this in some ways has caused more problems in the world than these concepts and notions have deserved due to the true worth or merit that these concepts and notions actually have. All languages are particular and need the context, time, place and culture that they exist in to have any type of utility, for example, each language relies upon certain sounds or words that exist as a signifier to represent signified things in the world, like an object, thing, situation, event, etc., this is so even though the thing may be abstract or tangible or simply exists in the language as a word of usage only and is not that specific as relating to any particular thing in the world. A language in some ways can be said to exist separately from the world, any language that seems separate from the world, still has a type of universality to it that applies to the real world, so its separation from the world is only particular and circumstantial. Earlier in this essay I mentioned that mathematics and logic are more complete languages than verbal languages, I have reached this conclusion because any analysis of languages generally is going to be relative, seeing as though there are no absolutely complete languages in existence. I also mentioned that mathematics and logic are not absolute or absolutely complete in themselves. Mathematics and logic are more complete languages than verbal languages because verbal languages change and alter due to the semantic meaning of words and terms, whereas mathematics always retains its consistency and expansive nature, the same can be said of logic also. Mathematics and logic are not absolutely complete as languages in the fullest sense of representing reality, this is because reality in all its manifestations cannot be contained by any languages that are essentially linear, piecemeal and selective. I must point out that language is nearly always communicated in a linear fashion, a word follows a word, a few chosen words make a clause or a sentence, a sentence leads into another sentence. Language is always selective and limited in its linearity, this is why its is necessary to be careful and consistent in our use of language, otherwise our sentences can so easily be misunderstood or taken out of context. Noam Chomsky's concept of a type of universal grammar of language, exists I am sure, because only a certain number of sentences that make any logical sense can exist for any particular thing that is said that has an exact meaning as such, all other combinations of words or sentences that attempt to express this particular meaning fails to make any logical sense. All logical patterns that have meaning and express meanings in languages are finite and become a type of universal grammar. The meaning of a word is objective and contextual in the sense that the objective meaning of a word is a type of standard that everyone who uses it is able to understand and agree on, yet the meaning of a word also has a contextual element to it which depends on how the standard objective element is altered to fit the context and situation in which the word is used for any particular setting in which it gets used. I have spoken many times of the ambiguities, vagaries as well as the inaccurate expressions that exist as part of language, which I mention because of the necessity I feel that requires that we overcome the flaws inherent in the different forms that language takes on in its usage. Language needs to be improved so that we can be clear and accurate when we communicate with one other seeing as how language is inherently descriptive, logical and most useful within the context of discussions and arguments. Flaws in language tend to occur in its forms and expressions and how they are passed on and perpetuated due to laziness in language usage. As long as language adapts to fit the meaning and content of spoken ideas then language has a better chance of improving.

OF EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE USE OF KNOWLEDGE GENERALLY

2008-12-03T19:31:00.147Z

Epistemology can generally be considered to be any theory that we have about what real knowledge of truths are in regard to how they correspond to reality itself, and how this knowledge is acquired, what is it that we really know? How is it that we know what we know? What can we really know for sure? I mention this because there are two main types of knowledge: knowledge of truths and knowledge of things that are not truths; epistemology proper refers to a knowledge of actual truths. A proper accurate epistemology of truths should be objective and impartial, this is so, in the sense that it should describe what knowledge of truths really are in reality, it should not involve our subjective feelings concerning knowledge, seeing as how these can be biased. Radical empiricism as most of us philosophers all know, is a type of epistemology as well as an ideological theory and method that we find in philosophy that puts an emphasis on the individual empirical experiences that any observer has of the world and the objects that he or she encounters in life. Radical empiricism is very singular in its desire to exclude the use of any so-called transempirical entities (which is a fancy use of jargon, that means, any truths, facts or anything at all that is beyond the range of immediate experiential knowledge). Radical empiricism has its drawbacks for thinkers who require a more thorough and complete epistemology and this is because radical empiricism puts all limited personal empirical experiences above all the other methods of attaining to the knowledge of truths. Even though there is nothing wrong with empiricism as part of an epistemological method, the strictness of radical empiricism as an epistemology that is solely empirical and sense-data orientated seems limiting. Radical empiricism excludes all forms of universal objectivity as well as all other unobvious abstract truths, it also tends to put subjective meaning and values above pure objectivity, this is because it views all philosophy from only a practical and value orientated position, not as knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Philosophers can pursue knowledge only for the sake of knowledge itself or they can concern themselves only with the knowledge that is useful and practical to them personally in their everyday life or they can choose to do both. Apart from having a proper epistemology which all philosophers should have anyway, one should also develop theories of knowledge in regard to its value, use and purpose in everyday life for ourselves and for others, this knowledge should be a combination of the truths that we have learned as a type of knowledge for the sake of knowledge as well as the knowledge that is useful and practical. We should always ask the following questions to ourselves to find out whether any particular piece of knowledge is to be worth pursuing in the way that I just mentioned above: How much is a piece of knowledge going to benefit us? What does it resolve? Is it a solution? Can I use it? Is it practical? Do I value it? Does it tell me something new? Since the advent of materialism and pragmatism on the philosophical scene it has become necessary for all philosophers and thinkers to clarify the value and purpose of knowledge generally. How we use this knowledge depends on many factors, we are either able to use certain kinds of knowledge or we are not able to use other kinds of knowledge and the knowledge that we do use is either harmful, useful or neutral and depends on how it is used. Ideas have a lot of impact on the lives of people around the world even though a lot of them do not know it themselves. Ideas, knowledge and philosophy and how it influences politics, ethics, sociology, economics, etc., is much more significant in the lives of people than they generally think it is. Most of the people around the world chooses not to think, but thinking and developing ideas is necessary for the human race, for its progress and for its evolution, so it is important that some of us does it. For knowledge to be worth pursuing, it should ultimately have a purpose, meaning and value to us, it should also enlighten us, make us happy as well as enrich our lives in certain ways, otherwise it becomes an empty exercise in knowledge accumulation. Human knowledge when it is once acquired by any individual person exists in a latent form, yet it is used without any conscious strain at all. Sometimes the results and the use of knowledge does not always seem evident or actual, yet it is always there in some form or another, in our behaviour, actions and in our works. Even though knowledge exists objectively in books and computers and in the world generally, its use can also be viewed as personal and subjective and this is because we all value different types of knowledge. A physicist values mathematics, a politician values politics, history and sociology, explorers value knowledge of survival techniques, etc. A knowledge of history, for example, is not as useful as a knowledge of current events. In matters of knowledge, we prioritize knowledge due to the levels of usefulness that it has for us. Historicism and the philosophy of history as well as some knowledge of history is good to have, yet it is not necessary that we have a lot of it, this is because there are many types of knowledge that we can make room for, such as psychology, sociology, politics, science, etc. Epistemology also concerns eliminating the differences between certainty and truth. Certainty and truth does exist together in correct inferences, yet many people can be certain about things that are not true. For something to be true requires that it can be proven to exist concretely and can be validated as really existing by more than one person. Any knowledge that we think and know exists that is true and that we are also certain about as really existing is what is useful to us in any epistemology and without this solid confirmation of the knowledge of truths, then knowledge becomes a battle between incorrect certainties and the certainties of real truths. A strong desire and ability to avoid mistakes as well as to rectify them once they have been made, is a necessary aspect of building any kind of epistemology or theory generally. The following Bruce Lee maxim captures the essence of epistemology and how we apply it in our everyday lives as well as in regard to how we use knowledge generally: "absorb what is useful; disregard that which is useless". The fact that certain kinds of knowledge can be used in some way or another to improve our life is proof in itself that it is real and useful, this also applies to abstract knowledge that makes us wiser and not just to practical tangible (concrete) knowledge. In general an epistemology is formed after one has already understood reality in a simpler way (that is, observed it physically and metaphysically) and not before it. If you pick an epistemology before you analyze reality fully and thoroughly, you are more likely to delude yourself, this is why there are so many deluded people who are religious or spiritual as well as people who follow strange beliefs and ways of thinking. All useful knowledge is contextual and can be applied to a particular context in the world and can be explained using examples that relate to any thing in the world in an objective description, definitions of things in the world is also contextual in nature. In epistemology and philosophy new ground is covered when we know how to ask the right questions, when we are able to find the right questions through rigorous searching and then are able make the effort to answer these questions. It is not only new ground that we should be attempting to cover with the right questions, but new solutions also, it is in finding questions, which when resolved will lead to solutions. All legitimate questions that can be framed and put into words can also be answered and even demonstrated. Even though unanswered questions can produce doubts, it is in the nature of human beings to overcome doubts and seek certainties and results. Asking the right question means overcoming general uncertainties about the nature of things. Human beings need certainties, it gives them purpose and power, a knowledge of epistemology and its development furnishes them with confidence in their own certainty of knowledge generally. "Episteme" is a science of knowledge that enables one "to know" the truth of facts, it is equivalent to all systematic philosophy and science. A philosophy without an "episteme" is an inconsistent and unscientific body of knowledge, episteme allows all errors and falsehoods to be banished from the structure of a philosophy. A science of knowledge (i.e., episteme) in the sense of a systematic philosophy that enables us "to know" the truth of facts must be built on the foundation of the "logos", i.e., the knowledge of the fundamental order of the cosmos (macrocosm) and also on its microcosm equivalent (i.e., rational discourse and reason). A thorough knowledge of epistemology teaches us that a philosophy as a whole that is not systematic in the sense that it has an "episteme" based on the "logos" of the world combined with objectivity and the impartial empirical method, is flawed, chaotic and produces only crude, negative and contradictory forces when applied to the world, Nietzsche's philosophy is an example of this, his philosophy as a whole, is vague, flawed, false, contradictory, chaotic and illogical, it is an attempt at manipulation on its readers based on sophisms, in reality it is a failure, only some individual parts of his philosophy have any worth or merit. A lack of system in philosophy is the passive, rather than the active way, reason (logos) and all systematic and logical methods are the active way. Reason in itself is active and forceful, it is intellectual strength and is the sure path to all truth and wisdom. Skepticism should be a part of any epistemological method, but skepticism as an unending process should be frowned upon. Certainty in knowledge should always be the aim of any theories concerning objective reality and truth, otherwise skepticism becomes an unending process in which even the self-evidence of one's own existence is put into doubt, this its seems is a symptom of much of the thought today because of Nietzschean perspectivism and subjectivity and the influence it has had on postmodernism generally. Mysticism and prophesy is also the passive way, whereas magic (i.e., the science and art of causing changes in the world in conformity with one's own will and knowledge) as well as shaping the world actively is the active way. Magic occurs and causes changes in our own consciousness as well as in the consciousness of other people as well as throughout society and the world generally, it is the intention and effort of making the world a certain way, preferably better. Even though Nietzsche was profound at times, he was only correct about some things, he was also incorrect about many other things too. Most of the time Nietzsche behaved more like a so-called prophet (mystic) than a proper rigorous philosopher with an adequate epistemology. The active, certain, systematic, logical and truthful path of knowledge, is best summed up by the words of the famous mathematician Leonhard Euler in the following statement: "logic is the foundation of the certainty of all the knowledge we acquire". A certainty and progress in knowledge acquisition is produced by being firm and confident about the truths one already possesses, yet at the same time having a free and playful attitude towards the knowledge one is still unsure about. The concept of "episteme" is a natural outcome that appears once one has established a proper epistemology, it is a natural extension of it. An epistemology that is able to establish truths within their proper context and order them, is in a sense a prerequisite for having a proper episteme. Seeing as how we are able to establish a theory of the knowledge of truths in epistemology, we then proceed to create a systematic science of truths as a body of knowledge that exists as an episteme. To have an epistemology and an episteme as living concepts and methods means that their "essence" is established on the foundation of the order and reality of the cosmos or "logos", this gives them an objectivity and life of their own that transcends subjective opinions. Even though the word episteme is an old word, just like philosophy is, it does not mean that it represents an old paradigm or method, as a concept it is merely a type of universal form, it is up to us to put our own content within this form. The episteme that we create through our own effort is a "science of the knowledge of the real" that exists exclusively within the context of the new science of modern times. In epistemology we also concern ourselves with matters of whether an accurate theory of the knowledge of truths involves a correspondence theory of truths or a coherence theory of truths. Without any hesitation, I conclude that a proper epistemology must deal in a correspondence theory of truths, one that is highly objective in nature, yet it must also account for the fact that some truths are subjective also.

NOTES ON POSTMODERNISM

2008-10-13T15:15:00.307+01:00

In recent historical times there has arisen a new philosophical, artistic and cultural movement that goes by the name of postmodernism. In some ways this phenomenon of postmodernism has made important contributions to human thinking as well as making most people realize the pitfalls of an excessive use of reason, progress and scientific ingenuity to attain meaning in our lives. Any definition of postmodernism cannot be adequately defined without mentioning that it is a cultural rebellion against another movement called modernism or it can also be said to come after modernism; this I mention even though the postmodernists dislike postmodernism being defined. It is true that a world that is far too scientific and rational is a sterile and unfeeling one, so values, feelings, inner meanings and socially agreed upon external purposes are just as significant for our general needs and wants than is to be found in a scientific and rational progress as a goal in itself can be in our lives. In postmodern architecture we find a return to ornamentation as opposed to the very cold formal and simple buildings of the modernist movement. Also in architecture postmodernism reintroduces traditional and classical styles as a reaction against modernist principles, but postmodern thought and philosophy itself rejects all the traditional knowledge of philosophy, religion and science that have come before it, especially the knowledge that has led to the modernist movement. It is this extreme complexity, contradiction and ambiguity that I am mentioning that makes postmodernism a puzzling cultural movement; it does seem to create a lot of fertile ground for so much confusion and disagreements between people about what exactly it is that defines postmodernism as a unified whole. The ideals of postmodernism as a whole does not seem to fully resolve itself completely into a specific form than can be fully understood. Because of their dislike of modernism and progress it seems that postmodern thinkers have rejected traditional methods of philosophy and science to such a degree that they have discarded logic and objective truths completely from their epistemological thoughts of what real knowledge consists of. Most postmodernists give you the impression that they are a bunch of confused, deluded, affectless, illogical, relativists and perspectivists as well as subjectivists who will argue with you all day long on the matter of what exactly it is that truth is. This intense skepticism against any kind of objective or absolute truth claims is one of the defining aspects of postmodernism which I find to be an unjustified stance against the truths of reason and science that we have greatly benefited from, such as the curing of diseases, medicine, improved living conditions as well as all the other improvements to our lives that the knowledge of the truth has given us generally. Postmodernists are also suspicious of truth claims because they equate them with authority types and the manipulation of the masses by instituitions and authorities generally; I must add, that this way of thinking was made popular by Nietzsche himself. A lot of postmodern thinkers admired Nietzsche and were influenced by his example. Nietzsche was one of those thinkers of a dual nature who used equal amounts of sophistry as well as philosophy in his writings so that it would have a sort of dynamic and poetical affect on his readers, one especially finds this in his aphorisms, he was also known to have admired the sophists for their more direct, realistic and forceful methods. Postmodernism is also characterized by an incredulity or skepticism towards all "grand narratives" i.e., all grand narratives are grand or large-scale theories and philosophies that exist of the world about the world, examples of this, can be found in such theories as that their is a progress of history, the knowability of everything by science as well as the possibility of absolute freedom or free will. It is a good thing in a way that in postmodernist thinking absolute grand narratives have been rejected; this is because they seem like such a clumsy thing. In general people will cease to believe and accept that such narratives of this kind are adequate and sufficient to represent and contain any proper definitions of certain truths. We as human beings have become alert to the differences in opinion as well as the diversity and the interconnectedness of phenomena. Also the incompatibility of different peoples aspirations becomes more apparent over time. Peoples beliefs and desires change as society progresses. I must stress that progress is an inevitable thing throughout history as well as in civilizations forward movement and so the postmodernists are fighting a losing battle in their opposition against progress in this particular regard. I do not think that nihilism will take as much hold as Nietzsche claims in his most cynical moments of so-called prophecy and this is because most people are inherently ethical and constructive in nature. Somebody once described postmodernisn as being like a bastard child or offspring of modernism that is constantly trying to kill its own parent; which is a good analogy I am sure for this cultural movement. A battle against a traditional, progressive and objectivist way of thinking by a postmodernist way of thinking can clearly be found in the the novel that is a direct attack on all kinds of communist totalitarian regimes by the writer George Orwell in his novel called nineteen eighty-four. The character named O'Brien distinctly displays a postmodernist, subjectivist and collectivist type sophistry and denial of Winston's objective, empirical and rational truths as a means to manipulate Winston into submission and compliance with his own orders and that of the party. I have often thought that postmodernist writers are like a breed of neo-sophists of some kind; using whatever forceful but fallacious methods of thinking work for them at the time as they are formulating their ideas, but not really thinking about any thing in any real depth whatsoever. Modernism is supposed to represent a cultural condition that is characterized by a constant change in the pursuit of reason and progress; postmodernism on the other hand is meant to represent a constant change that has the notion of progress taken out of it altogether. Postmodernism also rejects all forms of universality in favour of relativism. Universality or universalism as we all know is a doctrine or school of thought (Plato and Aristotle, etc.,) that claims that universal facts are a part of reality and can be discovered and understood by philosophers. At times one gets the feeling that there are cynical, negative, destructive and subversive elements in postmodernist thinking, especially when it is attacking the positive ideals of the enlightenment, science, philosophy and tradition generally. Postmodernists have had the nerve to claim; Rorty in particular, that philosophy mistakenly imitates scientific methods and that it should not do this. It does not even seem to occur to Rorty and other postmodernists that it was philosophy that developed the scientific method in the first place and that it does not need to imitate something that is already part of its own doctrine. Anti-foundationalism is just another one of the mental diseases that has been spread by postmodernists and their crowd. Postmodernists embrace subjectivity because it cannot be made into a science; according them the human subject precludes objective truth claims and so they do not think that science is capable of discovering objective truth. Postmodernists even go so far as to claim that objectivity is an illusion and this is something that they believe in, even though people have actually been to the moon by using scienctific knowledge from objective truths; so according to the postmodernists everything that happens in the real world that is external from their own petty subjective states, is an illusion! If postmodernists really knew how stupid they sounded, they would actually make an effort to change their ways. The disapppearance of a sense of history and a lack of desire to retain the lessons from the past are also characteristics of postmodernism, this also brings about an erosion of class and culture distinctions between high and low culture, the latter of these two things I must add, is a good thing. The traditions of class distinctions will not be missed, but the traditions of knowledge, useful culture, reason and science, etc., should be retained and pursued by all people. The postmodernists like to think that the nature of reality is contingent, absurd, unordered, ambiguous, contradictory and diverse, rather than rational, ordered, universal, necessary, determined and comprehensible, etc.; one could even claim that this is one of the reasons why they are not to fond of Hegel so much and this is because he advocated the latter qualities, the existentialists were not too fond of Hegel either because he was considered by them to be too idealisic and unrealistic unlike they, who were realistic and experiential concerning existence and its struggles, apparant meaninglessness and sense of angst. Postmodernists claim to combine the best aspects of the modern world with the best elements of the traditions of the past, but I think that this is a false claim on the part of postmodernism; to my mind they seem to do this only in architecture, but in all other branches of though they reject the traditions and lessons of the past altogether. All the genuine philosophers of this modern era that we live in today, know how so very deluded and boring these postmodernist killjoys are, with their incessant affectless sophistry and their inability to find proper answers and solutions to things; at least proper philosophers of the traditonal kind actually have answers and solutions and don't simply just use methods of dissimulation to cover up their lack of knowledge which is exactly what postmodernists do when they find themselves unable to answer fundamental questions. When postmodernists claim that the nature of reality is largely contingent, they seem to leave out the fact that many things are in fact determined, necessary and inevitable and so is therefore capable of being understood rationally. Postmodernists are also known for their technical, vague, wishy washy jargon and play on words which they use to cover up the sheer emptiness of their rhetoric. In postmodernisms desire to rebel against all enlightenment ideals which the postmodernists deem to be far too optimistic and confident is a sort of extreme response against an imaginary extreme claim that was supposedly made by the enlightenment thinkers (i.e., postmodernists claim that enlightenment thinkers thought they could resolve all problems and figure out all things, which is not the case). Englightenment thinkers were simply confident in their own abilities to improve the world as well as to learn more about it, they did not claim that they could figure out all things and resolve all problems. In postmodernism any relativist, subjectivist and persepectivist opinion can be uttered and is expected by them to be accepted by others as a truth, but in reality this cannot be accepted as a truth, because black will never be white, salt will never be sugar and two plus two will never make five, it will always make four. Postmodernists have to accept that reason and objectivity works and that there is nothing that they can do to change it. It was natural for the modernists to find traditional themes and ways of thinking to be outmoded and outdated; therefore wanting to move on from all that was holding back progress was a very natural response and this is because change and progress enables one to overcome stagnation and repetition of the same old values over and over again. William Morris and the arts and crafts movement generally was a sort of anticipated rebellion against a climate that was increasingly becoming more industrialist and modernist. Industrialization and mass production of goods does seem to have lowered the quality and value of goods generally and this is because the time, effort and care that one expects to find in a product is not put into every individual product as it was in the past. William Morris and the arts and crafts movement basically taught us to appreciate all that was good in the past and its ideals and accomplishments. One ideally should have a foot in the past and another foot in science, progress and reason and this is because they are all aspects of the same desire to make sense of a world that is constantly changing and building on what was good from the past, postmodernism is simply a sort of negative overreaction to progress, the inevitable and the real. The problem with labels is that they always seem to be one-sided and incomplete. The integration and resolving of opposing concepts or things (Hegel's dialectic) is always the best way to find a harmonious balance in things generally and so the act of doing this always transcends labels and incomplete assessments of phenomena. Where exactly it is that postmodernism leads as a movement itself, no one can know! I myself think that postmodernism is simply a moral and reactionary movement that is aimed against the causes and results of an overuse of the negative aspects of reason to jusify one cause against another or one error against another. We philosophers know that reason is only a tool in the service of truth, reality and progress and that it is useless or negative when used in an absolute sense to justify any cause or purpose in the name of reason alone. Postmodernism likes to create uncertainty and doubt by its use of relativism and perspectivism as well as in its emphasis on subjectivity. But real philosophy consists of certainty, objectivity, clarity and accuracy. Postmodernists like to point out that a lot of the suffering in the world is due to the negative aspects of absolute reason, but this is not a case against reason, it is a case against how reason can be used, reason in itself is neutral, it can be used in a positive or in a negative way depending upon the intentions of the user. Postmodernists use the concept of the "other" (i.e., anything that is different or opposite to one's own cause) as a means to explain the destructive and negative aspects of how reason can be used, reason can be used as a means to be hostile towards the other. It is people who choose to be hostile towards the other by the use of an absolute type of reason, but reason can be used in many ways depending upon how it is used, this does not mean that reason itself is bad or should be blamed for the acts of individual people. Postmodernists do not hide the fact that they hold an anti-enlightenment position, they consider reason, rationalism, science and wisdom to be elitist pursuits, they think that these things are non-multicultural, so are therefore oppressive. Because postmodernists are contemptuous of traditional morality, this gives them an almost nihilistic outlook, they are always in the habit of stripping away whatever it is that is morally traditional and culturally rational in things from its innate meaning or qualities. Postmodernists are also known for being anti-capitalist and anti-individualism, they also dislike the traditions of artistic genius that comes from the renaissance and classical periods, they are in favour of radical egalitarianism and the rise of Political Correctness, so in this sense and in a few others the message of postmodernism is not a complete error. Postmodernists enjoy intentional discontinuity within the elements of a work, they also like ironic self-consciousness as well as anything that is fragmentary, random and arbitrary, they also dislike systematic science and continuity as well as all rational progress. Postmodernists think that they have opened themselves up to the exploration of past models, paradigms and ways of thinking because they have chosen to reject modernism, progress, rationalism, scientism and objectivity and its truths, but this is not so, in fact, postmodernists simply perpetuate the ignorance, blindness and narrowness of past models and paradigms. Progress should be viewed as an inevitable process, the ideals of modernism should be used as a tool to understand, appreciate and transcend older models by analyzing them as a natural process and progression and then learning to go beyond them. Postmodernism should be viewed as a failed experiment, one that panicked by being cynical and irrational in the face of modernism and its ideals. Just because modernism failed to produce new meanings to replace the older ones and initially failed to understand fully the meanings of the older forms and paradigms does not mean that modernism itself and its ideals lack any value or meaning. The postmodernists claim that the modernists are only interested in what is modern, that they behave in such a way that if something is not new, if it is not the latest thing, then it is reactionary, retrograde and an obstacle to progress, I think that the postmodernists use this excuse to cover up the fact that modernism is able to understand the nature of reality and the past very well, yet is also able to transcend it. The science of archaeology was created by the use of modernist ideals, which is the study that appreciates and understands the history of the past by studying ancient cultures, peoples and periods by scientific analysis of physical remains. Modernist thinkers like Einstein, Marx and Freud also appreciated the lessons of the past through science and reason, yet they also valued progress. Postmodernism by its very nature rejects all the ideals and values of modernism that enables us to understand and appreciate reality and the past and its path towards progress, and postmodernism rejects all the ideals of modernism for the superficial belief that it can understand reality and history because it is able to synthesize elements from all phases of human history without truly understanding them, seeing as though you can only really understand them using the methods and ideals of modernism. Postmodernism seems to care mostly about what is modern in the sense that you can synthesize it with older forms, for it makes a mockery of the past in its pastiches and mutations, by combining older and newer things together, seeing that it does not truly appreciate the past, otherwise it would not create these pastiches and mutations and present them as latest fashions, such as a Mona Lisa with a moustache, etc. Postmodernists do not actually understand or appreciate the past through archaeology, anthropology or a study of history that is done in a rational and objective manner, and this is because postmodernism rejects all science, objectivity, objective truths, reason, logic, progress, evolution, universality and rational processes, etc. One of the main reasons that postmodernism fails as a proper ideology is because it was a reactionary and impulsive movement rather than a properly thought out ideology. Postmodernism is full of flaws and contradictions of all kinds, it does not make much sense, not even in a rudimentary sense beyond just being a type of knee jerk reaction against progress itself and its inevitable course through time, with all of its optimism and hopes of a better future for all. Postmodernism is a form of decadence, it is an easy escape for those who fail to hope, dream and wonder on matters concerning the course of progress and evolution generally, it represents a resignation and a failure to be optimistic about how knowledge is understood and used to improve our lives. The in-depth analysis of many labels and their content, has brought me to the conclusion that labels like modernism and postmodernism are either too general, inconsistent or contradictory to have any real, distinct meaning or value for all the things that they are attached to, because they simply represent a sort of general attitude or direction that the general public accepts that they have, and on closer investigation and analysis become something entirely different and problematical. For example, postmodernism itself, is an academic intellectual movement that is anti-philosophical and intellectually bankrupt in nature, and only has any real value in architecture and the arts. Whereas labels like modern and modernism that have been made fashionable by historians, are in fact abused immensely. It is strange to consider, when one thinks about it, that something that happened a few hundred years ago, can be considered modern, yet this is how historians sometimes use the label modern. Will historians in a few hundred years time still be calling Descartes, and his philosophy modern?

ON ONTOLOGY, PHENOMENOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY AND HOW THEY APPLY TO THE FACULTY OF REASON

2008-09-30T16:39:00.154+01:00

As living beings existing in this world of matter and forms we go through second after second of conscious and subconscious cognitions of perception and experience. Our sensations, feelings, images and ideas flicker before us like a kaleidoscope of endless possibilities, yet as we all come to find out and know, I am sure, is that it is up to us to put our lives and our minds into finely tuned working order if we are ever to make any sense of this world that we happen to live in. Now as our lives tick on and on we order our lives within space, time and the laws of causality and so find ourselves pursuing all that is within our own power to accomplish that leads onwards and is constructive or valued by us somehow. Our being is existence, life and energy continually going forward in time always and ever seeking for meaning and purpose as well as joy and happiness. Some people deny the existence of meaning and purpose altogether and claim reality to be irrational and groundless. I have mentioned in my essay entitled "On The Rational And Irrational Aspects Of Consciousness And How It Relates To Reality" that what we call the rational, arational and irrational must all be aspects of reality depending on how we perceive the different stages of the processes that occur within reality itself. Ultimately there is a type of order to all universal processes, but the minds of human beings are of such finite and limited capacity and there are so many people that are so biased, prejudiced and deluded that it will never be within our own power as humans to fully comprehend these universal processes in their entirety. In the subject of ontology from the standpoint of values and one's subjective existence, we consider questions like the following: is constant change necessary in our lives or is some repetition and consistency important? Do we need continual growth in our lives and if so, of what kind should it be? Are attainable ideals necessary? Do we need the hope that ideals give us? Is the ultimate aim of our lives simply to enjoy every moment of it or should there be more to it than this? As an ontologist myself I can go on and on asking questions of this kind, but yet I have no room to do so in this essay because it will distract me from the purpose and goal of this current essay. Most people do not care about such ontological questions as have been mentioned above because it deters them from their own self-interests, narrow views and societal conditioning. Now the answer to a lot of ontological questions cannot be answered without some element of one's personal values and needs being part of the answer, the exact nature and needs of my existence is not the same as it is for another person and so on and so this must be taken into consideration when assessing a great number of ontological questions. Phenomenology concerns the subject of perception and how it functions as well as pointing out how percepton either aids us or at times lets us down when we are not truly aware of the process of perception itself and how we perceive things. Ontology in its obvious and general form as well as in the matters concerning its findings, it can be observed, cannot be understood aside from its grounding in phenomenological and epistemelogical categories of perception and knowledge. In ontology, when one asks the question, what is existence? Surely the answer is that it is a process that stems from other processes as an extension of them, right! So when one is considering the matter of existence and its essence one is dealing in processes of becoming that have a sequence from the past that have led to the present but yet are aiming towards the future. The essence and nature of reality and existence itself cannot be understood apart from an analytical and scientific explanation of processes and their results and continuations; these processes in nature are an outcome of energy and matter vibrating within space and so the knowledge of facts and things in nature when they have been analyzed and a synthesis has been arrived at of these things with other knowledge is something that cannot be fully comprehended without regarding these things as a result as well as a part of other process in nature and so it is important and necessary (cannot be emphasized too much) to think in terms of processes and how they function for any given fact or thing as well as generally. Anyone will find by examining my writings generally that I find it difficult to avoid using the two words process and processes and this is because I think that these two words most adequately sum reality and its nature. As organisms our existence consists of and contains certain properties and qualities of experience, for example, chemical and material properties, physical properties, sense and faculty properties, mental properties. How properties relate to each other and influence each other is a process also that needs to be understood more fully. In the subject of phenomenology one considers the fact that perception is either self-conscious perception or it is a perception of things (objects) or it is a reflection on the ideas and concepts that things have invoked in us due to the impressions that things have given us; then again peception consists also of all the imaginary things of our own devising, this aspect of perception is self-delusion. Unless we are able to know exactly where the different ideas and notions that form our own perceptions and thoughts have come from due to our past experiences then we will never be competent enough to account for our own thoughts properly, our minds will be disorganized and uncertain. The honesty and the willingness to admit doubt about some of one's own thoughts enables one to clear certain types of self-deception from the mind, in time one may be able to remember where exactly it is they got a certain idea from or the reasons why they think the way they do about things in general. In the subject of epistemology the main questions that we tend to ask ourselves are: What is knowledge? How is knowledge acquired? What do people know? How can I know something for sure? How do we know what we know? How much can we rely on our senses? How much can we rely on logic? Who or what is this "I" that wants to know? Also in epistemology the differences between "knowing that" something is a certain way and "knowing how" it is this way as well as "knowing why" something is a certain way are important factors in the analysis of truths. The "knowing why" aspect of epistemology closely ties in with ontological type questions and are both closely related factors in our desire to find meaning and purpose in things. When it comes to knowledge, there is always a difference between believing something to be true and knowing it to be true for sure, one should always be aware of this distinction between these two ways of knowing. Situations do arise sometimes in which we cannot tell for sure whether we know something for sure or whether this thing that we think that we know for sure is actually an aspect of reality in the way that we think of it. I am certain that for something to count as real knowledge, it must actually be true for sure; this is so because you cannot know something that is not real for sure, without in a sense deluding yourself. An honest and sincere person cannot delude themselves for very long without at some point noticing that he or she is doing it. Intellectual honesty is a quality that not all people possess, but it is a quality that all people with a genuine sense of integrity do possess. People who have integrity value integrity even more when they realize that it is a means at their own disposal in which to navigate through a world that is either full of stupid dishonest affectless people or a bunch of dishonest power hungry people. One of the main aspects of ontology is the desire for a feeling and knowledge of self-identity with one's own nature; this can also include a desire to really know the nature of reality, things and other people. We cannot argue against the fact that self-knowledge in the sense of a deep understanding of oneself is important; anyone who thinks that this is not so and that there is not much to discover in oneself and one's own behaviour must be a very shallow and empty person. If we are to truly understand ourselves and our behaviour, it is required that we can figure out the patterns of our own subconscious impulses and desires because it is these things that drive our consciousness.

ON HOW WE RESPOND TO SENSE-IMPRESSIONS AND HOW THEY AFFECT US SUBJECTIVELY

2008-09-14T11:12:00.107+01:00

As human beings we find ourselves in a world that is constantly open to us and our senses as long as we are alive and so we mostly rationalize the things and experiences that we encounter based on how these things and experiences make us feel, for instance, we do not rationalize things first and then feel afterwards. All the opinions, beliefs and values that we find ourselves focusing on in life is a form of intentionality on our part due to the impressions that things give us in our feelings based on the pleasure, pain, avoidance of pain as well as survival and adaptation principles that shape the interior subjective world of our organism in response to our environment and its stimuli. A feeling can be experienced as either a physical instinctual response or as an idea or both together. Now what it is exactly that determines how we respond to the stimuli in our environment is a subjective condition that depends on a natural design issue in the sense of how we use our brain as well as depending on the exact type of organism the brain houses. When I mention a natural design issue, I do not mean intelligent design as such, but I do mean the contingent and necessary facts that led to the uniqueness that is our organism.
Now seeing as though our senses at all times are open to the world even when we are asleep, it is likewise true that our perceptions are always at work observing anything that catches our inner desires whether we are dreaming or fully awake, but in either case we are never without a perception of some kind and this perception is always where we are at present. Our perceptions when we are asleep are mostly taken over by feelings, desires, values and meaning, whereas when we are awake these basic feelings are supplemented by rationalizations of a certain kind. Normally whether it is consciously or subconsciously we tend to shape perception to fit our desires because the nature of reality in of itself is difficult to comprehend, so we need conscious rationalizations as a means to fit our desires and needs as well as to understand reality in some form, although imperfectly and incompletely. The more we are able to understand the objective world and its nature the less necessary it is to fulfil our inner desires and whims and this is because it takes a lot of overcoming and transcending of oneself to truly understand the nature of reality in any form. Normally it is the case that we as organic beings do not show much interest in any thing other than when it fits our desires and obvious needs due to the basic organic principles that I have mentioned earlier. So feelings based on impressions are mostly what we as organic beings are used dealing in that have their foundation on these basic organic principles. All of our basic judgements are combinations of these feelings that we are very used to having, very rarely do most people transcend these feelings to accommodate others or to pursue the objective knowledge of reality and its nature. The concept of intentionality that is found in phenomenology in which perception is fully taken up by a focused pursuit of desire or sensation as the motive of our behaviour is one of the levels of the evolution of consciousness that is most basic, for instance, this is intentionality is most evident when a person is intensely interested and caught up in something to the exclusion of everything else or other things and will not notice people walking past them or will not notice what time it is and so on. As I have mentioned elsewhere in my writings and will now point out again is the simple fact that perception and consciousness in organisms generally becomes more integrated and expansive over time as it evolves in organic beings from generation to generation and occurs as societies evolve also and is what I call "multi-perception". Intentionality is only a basic form of consciousness and is not the essence of all that consciousness is capable of being or becoming.
Consciousness in organisms as many writers have shown evolves and progresses within organisms that are capable of progressing, evolving and adapting to nature. Many evolutionists and paleontologists always take the opportunity to point out that not all organisms are making progress in evolution; they are also always showing the fact that progress is not a general theme in evolution, but this does not take away from the fact that some organisms are capable of progressing and in fact do. Desire itself in the different ways in which it expresses itself in organic life is a very crucial and vital aspect of organic existence and is something that needs to be investigated further so as to assess what it really means as a motive and as a necessary aspect of life and evolution. Without a desire for pleasure, happiness, meaning, values and purpose it would seem that life would not be worth living. Desire is a strong feeling of wishing, wanting and having. Why do we desire things? Because we think that these things that we desire will give us pleasure, joy, happiness or power. Desire in all its manfestations makes us imagine and rationalize all as well as anyting that fits the criteria of what things are worth desiring, so these developments have become part of organic existence as it has progressed. The most basic sense of desire that we all feel within us is an obvious aspect of nature's way of wanting us to procreate our genes in organic life and all other desires are modifications and extensions of this initial desire, but this feeling is latent in young children. Homosexuality exists because the initial desire for procreation has been modified to such an extent that it no longer exists simply for procreation alone, but exists for pleasure and happiness. Desire for pleasant things and experiences as well as a need to find meaning seems to be nature's way of making us pursue things as well as attain worthwhile goals beyond simply just procreating. Without the pleasure, joy and happiness that things can give us we would not be motivated to do things. When we are considering how the senses receive sense-data as well as in how the mind produces ideas and the truths concerning them we always arrive at the age old problem that exists between the so-called subjectivists and the empirical objectivists and how they view reality. The subjectivists for example, claim that all truths are subjective, which is a very strange and false assumption in itself, whereas the empirical objectivists who are influenced by Locke or the scientific method or both accept that there is both subjective and objective truths because you cannot have one without the other or because of the fact that both are part of our experiences as well as being an aspect of the learning process itself.
It is not too far of a stretch to suggest that with the subjectivists there is a psychological discrepancy between their own knowledge of what are truths and of how this knowledge relates to sense-data and the ideas they get from it; this discrepancy exists to such an extent that they have deluded themselves into thinking that there is no correlation between these two things and so they seem to think that all ideas of truths come purely and completely from some internal place within themselves. All scientists, mathematicians, empiricists and genuine philosophers know that our ideas of the truth can only be arrived at through objective and subjective means and that to come upon external truths requires a high element of objectivity and freedom of thought without distortion. Ontology, epistemology and phenomenology are the primary subjects for understanding existence, knowledge, truth and how we perceive it and how it affects us also as well as figuring out what we can or cannot know for sure. The ideology of positivism claims that only the knowledge that one gets from sense experience is real and credible, but the problem with this one-sided ideology is that it does not account for all the truths that exist that we cannot detect directly with our senses; positivism is therefore a one-sided and flawed ideology and of no real use to anyone who values an extensive knowledge of truths.
Not all truths can be known through the senses alone and so the use of reason, logic and mathematics must be employed to account for all the truths that exist that the senses cannot detect directly.
Truths from sense experience and truths from reasoning must be integrated together to attain to a fuller knowledge of the truths of phenomenon as well as things, but whether it is possible to attain to complete (absolute) truths of phenomenon and things is highly unlikely and this is because there is always aspects of the things-in-themselves of phenomenon and things that escapes our reasoning abilities; the complete nature of reality itself is not fully comprehensible to finite limited beings such as ourselves no matter how confident that we think we are in our ability to figure out truths. The ideology of perspectivism takes the view that any estimation and judgement of truths takes place from particular perspectives and therefore cannot be taken as definitively "true". The problem with perspectivism is that it claims that an incomplete knowledge of a truth due to one's perpective somehow renders your truth invalid because it is not complete. An incomplete truth without the unknown elements to make it complete is still a partial truth and is therefore still a truth nonetheless. The knowledge of truths become more complete over time as new insights are added to them and so they become more valid and certain. The ideology of perspectivism was developed by Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th century and it suggests that no purely objective science or philosophy that observes things to be a certain way can exist as an objective truth because no ideation, conceptualizaion or thought as such can exist outside the influences of an individual perception. Nietzsche is pointing out that the ideation or conceptualizion of any single perception or thought is limited not only by its existence in our perceptions and bodies, but also by the assumptions and beliefs that are made by and which are formed by the perceiver's unique culture and history and particular situation. Nietzsche in his observation is only pointing out the obvious fact that we as humans are finite beings that only
understand our own ideas and knowledge and not things-in-themselves or the entirety of a phenomenon in a complete (absolute) sense. The whole point about the two words "objective truth" is that it means and also represents a truth that is observed to exist in nature independently of our tastes, opinions, desires, prejudices, feelings, beliefs and personal ideas. Nietzsche is attempting to make out that no singular human being is capable of observing truths in nature without subjective elements leaking in to contaminate it, but I think that he is wrong especially if a person rigorously eliminates all subjective elements from an observed truth. As long as an observer eliminates all subjective elements from an observed truth it can be considered to be an objective truth and for Nietzsche to suggest that this is not so simply because we cannot separate ourselves from our own thoughts is a very subtle and petty sophism. According to perspectivism the earth orbits the sun for some people and not for others or then again some people live forever while others don't from my perspective or point of view. Do you see how silly perspectivism can seem when you take it too far! Introspection is a very useful tool for understanding our own mental states, cognitive processes and behaviour. In the method an act of introspection we can analyze our own mental content as well as the nature of our usual mental processes and also the way that we usually respond to stimuli and so on and how it influences our behaviour; this is achieved by abstracting and objectifying these things out distinctly in isolation for analysis without personal feelings or desires interfering with our assessment of ourselves. In introspection we analyze the reasons why we get the thoughts and feelings that we do and also why we behave the way that we do; so the method of introspection concerns itself with both the form and the content of our psyche as well as our behaviour generally. Psychology is only useful when it analyses both our minds and our behaviour also, rather than just our minds alone which is only half the picture. When examining the philosophical concepts that are used by thinkers generally one will find that Nietzsche's concept of perspectivism is very similar to the concept of relativism. The concepts of perspectivism and relativism as ideologies that represent statements of truths, I must add, apply mostly to judgements of value and also to truth statements of a very specific aspect of temporary phenomenon and not to universal and eternal truths. Statements that are put forward that come under the category of perspectivism and relativism do not alter the obvious objective truth claims that are universal, eternal or general of which I gave a couple of examples earlier in regard to perspectivism. One could compile a long list of truths that are not altered or invalidated by the claims of perspectivism and relativism if one chose to do so. The epistemological concepts of externalism and internalism are two ways of categorizing the difference between ideas and knowledge that is either objective or ideas that are subjectively intuited as inventions and are thought out as a combination of objective ideas pieced together. Objective ideas are externally perceived to exist as coming from objective facts and things that give us knowledge as sense-impressions on our senses. Internal knowledge is a subjective combination of objective ideas pieced together in such a way as to yield original knowledge as inventions or creative acts of our own devising. Internalism in traditional epistemology is very different to how I have defined it myself for my own use and this is because I think that internalism in traditional epistemology as it is defined can lead to a type of relativism or perspectivism; this is bad because it makes epistemology subjective and circular rather than being a satisfactory definition of external (objective truths) and internal (subjective truths) that either become actual or are actual whether internally or externally. All one's inner tastes, preferences, values, needs and feelings, etc., that people feel generally can be classified also as subjective and internal truths. The exact classification of subjective and objective truths as well as internal and external truths overlap in many places and requires meticulous analysis to describe it; I know how to do it myself, but the method of understanding it is by dealing with one idea at a time and then first asking whether it is an objective or subjective idea; we also ask whether it only applies to internal subjective reality or whether it has a greater application also, for example, a subjective internal idea that begins as an invention or creation in our mind can end up becoming an invention or work of art in the external world. Also a subjective internal idea can remain internal and subjective if it is simply something that we feel or need, such as we prefer the colour red to the colour blue or we need soft music rather than loud heavy music, etc.

ON THE METHODS OF ANALYSIS, HYPOTHESIS AND SYNTHESIS IN PHILOSOPHY

2008-08-04T12:40:00.095+01:00

In the investigation of the truths of difficult things in philosophy it is always useful to employ the methods and techniques that are effective and useful for one's purposes. In philosophy the methods of analysis, hypothesis and synthesis should be developed by philosophers if they hope to make any progress in their endeavours. There are many useful methods and techniques that can be employed by philosophers as a means to figure out truths, but in general, rigour and objectivity are necessary components of any methods that are employed by philosophers. Philosophy is in a sense part subjective as well as value orientated and personal, but philosophy is also part objective, distinct and empirical, so one can say that Philosophy is the glue that binds all the knowledge together that we encounter in such a way as to make it intimate to us as human beings. Philosophy is a very human and vital discipline for our inner subjective needs and feelings unlike science and mathematics which are highly objective and impersonal disciplines. Philosophy is necessary to us as humans because it deals in all that is intimate and meaningful to us as living beings. Analysis in philosophy consists in making observations from our experiences as well as in conducting thought experiments in regard to the phenomenon of our experiences. One of the beauties of philosophy is that we can compare our findings from experience to that of other philosophers who have written on the subject or to the people we meet. In philosophical analysis our inferences and conclusions are arrived at by induction and deduction, for example, we conclude certain truths from their effects to their causes and certain causes invariably lead to specific effects whether universal or particular. In analysis we accept nothing as true that is not clear and distinct to the mind and the senses; if something can be doubted then it must be rejected as an invalid conclusion. Not all truths can be experienced through the senses, so all analytical inferences and conclusions cannot be arrived at by the use of the senses alone. Hypothesis, induction and logical inferences account for all the conclusions we arrive at that our senses cannot account for directly. To the Greeks analysis meant "a breaking up" or the process of "breaking up" a complex topic or problem into smaller manageable parts to gain a better understanding of it. In analysis we also proceed from the simple to the complex as well as revise our conclusions in a meticulous manner. All the causes and reasons of phenomenon and also all of their effects that are sought after to be understood must correspond to each of these phenomenon that we encounter in reality because each phenomenon must have an effect and an effect cannot be greater than or other than its cause. Also certain causes always lead to certain effects that are the logical results of specific behaviour or phenomenon.
Now hypothesis enables us to suppose or assume causes or reasons for phenomenon or things generally and so is a very useful tool. A hypothesis cannot be made into a working theory unless it has been made concrete and valid by observation, experiment or the use of reason. A hypothesis is only as useful and as valid as observation, experiment and logic make it, otherwise it becomes an incorrect and invalid inference. A hypothesis can also be made valid if it simply fits the phenomenon or event by the use of reason alone and is self evident as the solution or answer.
I mentioned also that all truths cannot be experienced directly through the senses, for example, the sub-quantum realm and the events prior to the big bang are examples of this, but there are many more etc. Seeing as though all phenomena and events cannot be experienced directly through the senses means that the methods of hypothesis as well a certain kind of reasoning is necessary to arrive at truths concerning them; this certain type of reasoning for things that transcend our senses is what Immanuel Kant called transcendental logic and the things which our senses cannot experience directly that are aspects of reality he called the thing-in-itself or things as they are in themselves. A desire for truth is a desire not to delude oneself concerning the nature of things and the ability to constantly attain to a knowledge of the truth is aided by sound methods and techniques as well as in a diligent use of them. Methods and techniques are an efficient and useful way to figure things out as opposed to simply guessing or bumbling along until answers are found.
If in the analysis and breaking up of a problem into its constituent parts we encounter unknown elements (variables), it is simply because there are things that we have not accounted for in our analysis; these unknown elements need to be resolved so that our analysis can be complete. Even a subjective truth can be explained analytically and so in a sense can be explained in such a way as to seem scientific and rational. Anything that is not subject to analysis is not a truth. There are philosophers who are content for philosophy to remain subjective, mysterious, unexplainable and circular, who prefer to live in a personal and deluded haze and condition in which they propound the idea that what is true for them is not what is true for you and so on.
Deductive reasoning it can be shown is the aspect of analysis that is most used in dialectic philosophy because it is the aspect of analysis that is creative and that also leads to synthesis (in its traditional meaning) and also all kinds of inferences, whereas induction mostly discovers pre-existent universal truths and is therefore more useful in metaphysics and science. Synthesis consists in following causes and other inferences to there correct places in the sense of how it fits or leads to certain conclusions. In the traditional Greek synthesis meant a "placing" of two or more things "with" one another as a combination, but in the discovery of existent truths one is only discovering pre-existing combinations. Both induction and deduction discover pre-existent combinations or truths. Some people dislike the idea of everything and everyone being analyzed and dissected, not that it can be done completely, but yet the fact that it can be done to a certain degree is disturbing to some people. Psychoanalysis was a great discovery and development in human thought and is something that can be applied to how we view all things, including ourselves and all other people generally and is not just useful for neurotic people and their problems. Human beings need to cultivate and improve their "inner being" and their general existence by the use of reason as well as through values and feelings and the most efficient way to do this is through the analysis of both subjective and objective knowledge. Compassion, mutual understanding and support for others are necessary components of an improved existence for all people. Even though in general deduction is used more than induction in dialectic philosophy it is induction that lays the foundation for a lot of science and the scientific method, so analysis in philosophy becomes more scientific when its deductions are established and founded on inductive truths and conclusions rather than being highly subjective and unscientific. The nature of human beings does not always seem rational, but this is only because we do not fully understand why a persons behaviour is so and so, but if we took the time to analyze this person and their behaviour with all the correct knowledge and also considering all the unknown elements involved then their behaviour would not be too difficult to understand. A person is represented more by their own behaviour than the entirety of what they claim themselves to be, so we judge them by their behaviour because we cannot judge a person on what they think, feel or say or on what they claim themselves to be, but only on what they are (which is their behaviour). Even though there are many logical methods and techniques in philosophy for discovering truths there are none that are as crucial and as useful as logical analysis itself. Logical analysis is the most active and penetrating of all the logical methods one can employ.

PHILOSOPHY IS NOT AN EXACT SCIENCE BUT IT IS A GENERAL SCIENCE NONETHELESS

2008-07-01T10:59:00.032+01:00

Iris Murdoch in an interview with Bryan Magee concerning the subjects of philosophy and literature claimed that philosophy cannot be considered as a science and that philosophy is merely a reflection on concepts. Now to suggest that philosophy is no more than a reflection on concepts is to tell us nothing about philosophy. It must be pointed out that philosophy does not exist merely as thoughts and can be considered to be ideas, concepts and notions that refer to and apply to objective reality. A philosophical truth is the same as a scientific truth especially if it is a truth of natural philosophy. In exact science one demonstrates truths by experiment, whereas in philosophy one describes truth in a general manner in regard to how it connects to reality (experience) and other truths. When Pythagoras mentioned that many things in nature can be figured out by using mathematics; he made a philosophical insight, this insight only becomes scientific through repeated demonstration. The philosophical insight of Pythagoras that I just mentioned did not exist merely as a reflection of thoughts and as concepts as Iris Murdoch claims philosophy only exists as, but actually applied to reality objectively and demonstrably as well as having practical applications. When a philosopher sais that there are 5,280 feet in a british mile and that there are 26,400 feet in five miles, then he or she is not only just reflecting on concepts, but is describing actual truths that connect to other truths that are demonstrable, therefore philosophers deal in scientific truths and demonstrable truths and not merely in pure mental concepts that are divorced from objective reality. What starts off as philosophical insights end up being called scientific facts after the fact due to repeated demonstration and experiment. Some scientific facts have been discovered by a purely scientific method, but the scientific method was developed by natural philosophers. Philosophers mostly use words to convey their ideas concerning the truth of reality; now words refer to the world and so do concepts. Concepts and words do have a value in their own right because it is our primary method of communicating our ideas, whereas mathematics as well as diagrams are secondary in this regard. Philosopher means "lover of wisdom" and "wisdom" means truth learned from experience. Philosophy as I have rightly mentioned deals in the truths that are learned from experience and so the concepts and truths of philosophy come from experience and don't exist only in the mind alone but do correspond to reality and experience. Philosophy by its very nature is empirical and objective.
A philosopher must be able to demonstrate his or her concepts, insights, inferences and hypotheses in the real world by example for them to become proper theories.
Truth is when our knowledge and ideas correspond to objective facts and things in the real world and its processes; so one can say that it is subjective opinions that makes philosophy circular and unproductive and seem as though it is merely a reflection on uncorroborated concepts and opinions. For philosophers to be taken more seriously requires that they can all agree to certain types of axioms and general truths because this is the only way that philosophy can become more scientific and universal in its application to our lives generally. Without corroboration and agreement between philosophers as to the axioms and laws of truths then philosophy will always remain undeveloped and subjective.
If philosophy is to be more scientific and certain it has to exist as pure reason and also as pure empirical reason and so therefore it must be objective, empirical, demonstrable, self-evident and consistent. Philosophy it must be pointed out can never be made into an exact science like physics or astronomy and this is because philosophy is a dynamic and living thing, whereas exact science concerns what is mostly mechanistic, rigid, predictable and determined. Philosophy will never be able to be more than just a general and loose science based upon reason and its application to circumstances that we find ourselves in and this is because it would be too mechanistic and rigid if it was treated as an exact science. People evolve and are dynamic and so philosophy has to be able to adapt to their needs and insights as a living thing. Even though philosophy is not an exact science, it can be considered to be a general science especially the logical type of philosophy that incorporates scientific knowledge as part of its content. Philosophers also have scientific hypotheses that they propound. If knowledge does not have an application or use it then fails to be right or wrong and so there is no criteria for truth. To lay down a foundation of truth, clarity, coherence and certainty should be the main aim of a philosophical method and from this foundation one builds, because philosophy is the glue that binds and connects all knowledge of truths together. The subject of psychology is generally regarded to be a type of general science by most people, but yet philosophy has always in the past escaped this classification by most people even though it is capable of being regarded as just as much of a general science as psychology is. Earlier in this essay I mentioned and defined truth in the sense of truth as correspondence and I also mentioned that it cannot exist without us assessing and being aware of it, But also you get objective truths that exists as facts which exist independently of our desire to know them which our truth as correspondence is based upon. Some people think that truth is a socially constructed pursuit, but this is not so, the desire for truth is a very primal need and is pursued by many people in isolation. When mentioning truth one cannot forget subjective truths also. Subjective truths exist as general facts that occur in our lives subjectively and in our personal experiences generally and are sometimes responsible for the things that we invent and so on. It is our values, feelings and desires that are responsible for some of our subjective experiences. If philosophy is to progress it has to show a gradual development and consistency and there has to be a cumulative and co-operative advance in its findings. The advances that are made by philosophy have to occur from generation to generation. Philosophy up until today has been held back by religion, the sophists, the positivists, the subjectivists, the perspectivists, the postmodernists, the ignorant and the downright stupid! Some people even claim that philosophy does not have any subject matter of its own, as though science, and ethics, and logic, and psychology and so many other subjects were not developed by philosophy, when in fact, we know that they were! Philosophers like to converge upon true statements and descriptions of reality because the need to remove doubt and uncertainty from their minds concerning reality is overwhelming. The knowledge of the truths of things that is attained by philosophy gives definite actions and all practical uses of knowledge a utility that is not attained by uncertainty, doubt and falsity. The knowability and demonstrability of universal, particular, objective and subjective truths enables people not only to discover new things about the nature of reality, but it enables people to be clear about what they think and feel is important; in this way you always know where you stand in matters in regard to others and their own point of view. To have the right of free speech is important in this world, because it is the intelligent, clear, rational, ethical and open minded people that will save this world from war, needless suffering and stupidity. One of the things that makes philosophers different to scientists is the fact that scientists are more unrealistically ambitious than philosophers; scientists attempt to create grand unification theories, scientists like the idea of having singular overarching visions or descriptions of reality that attempts to describe everything as a unified whole. Philosophers enjoy describing reality and they also like to make attempted explanations of phenomenon in the form of a hypothesis. Philosophers in general tend to think of their own knowledge of nature and reality as a fragmentary collection of truths that interrelate and connect somehow. To a philosopher reality can only be understood as a collection of truths that have been observed from different perspectives and then assembled as a means to make sense of them. The progress of history may not be a specific type of story as in Hegel's account of it, but history in its course forward does attain a gradual progress nonetheless which aims towards greater freedom for people, greater knowledge, better living conditions for people, more rights for people, scientific advancements, etc. Anyone with a certain amount of intelligence can tell that progress is a real thing and also a good thing and this is so even though the postmodernists reject this as a fact. In his notebooks, Leonardo da Vinci mentions that no human investigation may claim to be a true science if it has not passed through mathematical demonstrations. The most effective way to make one's philosophy or any other similar study into a true science requires that the investigator is able to use statistical analysis and other forms of demographic information as part of their examination, which as we know are mathematical in nature; also he or she must be able to combine this with a logical analysis and methodology based upon common sense and other forms of scientific knowledge and theorizing, it is only with this type of rigour can philosophy ever truly be called a science.

ON THE NECESSITY OF VALUES

2008-06-03T17:59:00.029+01:00

Values as a necessary and also as a created experience is a basic and common aspect of the existence of rational organisms and their desire to survive and find meaning in the world that they happen to find themselves in. Everyone shares some values, but one can also say, that in general everyone has different values. Without organisms to value things then things have no value, because value is about necessity and desires and also meaning and things do not have a value in themselves independent of a necessity, desire or a meaning that may be attached to them. Even though values are connected to desire and meaning; material values like food and water are primary to all organisms and are a necessity. Other significant material values are sunlight, shelter, clothing, etc, but are less necessary than food and water, but make existence more bearable and enjoyable. The four main type of values that we encounter regularly are: moral values (moral virtues), material values, quality values (the quality of material things) and content value (the things that interest people; whether concrete or abstract that are valued). There are many other values I am sure beyond the four main one's, such as the conditions, states and emotions that certain things give us that are unique in that way that they do this for us. All people value and share some of the material values, but not necessarily some of the other values that have been mentioned. People who share more of the same types of values and things, have more of an affinity with each other than do people who share less alike values with each other. That we tend to get on well with and also have an affinity with the people that we share the same types of values, virtues, interests and ideals is obvious. We may value the same virtues as someone else, but not necessarily share the same virtues as them. We may value a virtue that someone else has that we don't have ourselves. Having values makes us have judgements about the things we value as well as the other things that are relative to the things that we value and this happens whether it is a moral, material, quality or content judgement etc. Factual judgements are different to judgements concerning the value of things. Judgements concerning the value of things are necessary, contingent and are also personal (subjective). Factual judgements are scientific, empirical, objective and impartial. Judgements of value can also contain a mixture between value and fact, such as the value of something due to its quality in regard to fact (i.e. the quality value of a piece of scientific equipment relative to another and so on). Considering that most values are personal and subjective to each individual apart from certain material values means that most values have no value in an objective and absolute sense, for example, the concept of God is something that is valued psychologically by some people as a concept that gives them hope, but it has no factual value because we cannot value it factually; we can't make a factual judgement on it (because it is a negative). We cannot prove, disprove or judge a negative. It does not matter whether people are theists, deists, atheist or agnostics; what matters is that we can all get on together with each other, just like people of different races should get on with each other or people of different sexual orientations as well, because we all have to share the same planet and we all have to interact with each other and also be happy following our own values and so on. People should not allow their own values as well as their judgements of other peoples values to cloud them from what is objectively real and knowable; our personal values should not be confused for objective and empirical truths.
We as human beings cannot escape values; for us, values are always there in all that we do. Ideals can be said to be the values of the highest kind that we can have. I have always considered truth, reason, honesty, beauty, goodness and love to be significant ideals to follow. There are many other ideals that I could have added to my list, but I will leave them to the imagination of my readers. Life is a dynamic process that is full of joy, pleasure, pain, struggle, suffering, reason and effort and so many other experiences. Values and lofty ideals add to the processes of life and enrich it and give it a long term meaning and purpose that has a value that is worth struggling for; for us and for future people. When following our ideals we may sometimes fail miserably and find ourselves behaving badly towards others, but what counts is that we can value our ideals and never quit thinking that our ideals will improve our lives and also the lives of those we know.
Values like justice, law, rights, democracy, egalitarianism, happiness for all people as well as compassion and mutual cooperation are what count for people generally. Sometimes people confuse values for objective truth or they allow there own values to get in the way of having respect for the values of others. A lot of the suffering in the world comes from the intolerence and unacceptance that some people have towards others or their values. Suffering also comes from the enforcement of one's will and values on others without proper reason or purpose beyond the need to repress or oppress others. If a person lived in a world without other people they would not suffer unless something went wrong, apart from this they would simply struggle through loneliness as well as the need to survive but they would not suffer at the hands of other people. Apart from necessary values there must be a reason for why we value things, otherwise there would be no reason for why we value some things in particular and not others; to say that we value things for no reason does not make any sense. All things happen and exist for a reason and can be analyzed; so therefore there is always a reason for why we value things and also there are always motives for why we do things and this is so even if these things seem trivial or are done out of whim. Most of our behaviour and motives in life depends upon our desires and values, our behaviour also depends on how we interpret situations by our choices and inner nature. A lot of the situations that we have been through in life are in a sense neutral situations, but it is we ourselves that either interprets it in a positive or negative light. Values tend to fulfil our inner and outer needs and wants to such a degree of importance that in our usual day to day activities we are hardly aware of them. Many objects that we encounter in our everyday lives also have a use-value to which we are so accustomed to using but rarely think about because of there general utility. It is not really in our nature in most cases to think about values in a sort of rational and analytical way in the sense of why do we have these particular values and not others, we usually just feel that they mean something to us and leave it unanswered. Human beings are capable of changing their values if they chose to do so and it is this which makes many errors and faults that some people have alterable, for instance, they could turn greed into moderation, hate into love, despair into hope, tragedy into humour and comedy, ignorance into awareness, etc. Ayn Rand claims that all morals and values are purely objective in nature; this sounds wrong! It is only material values which are objective in nature, but apart from material values how can you value something without being subjective? Most morals and values are objective and subjective in nature depending upon our individuality as well as the climate or time that one is living in. What is right or wrong in one generation or time is not the same as what is right or wrong in another generation of time; this is because morality is artificially imposed upon nature by humans and what is considered as right and wrong changes as peoples values change as they evolve over time as a species. It does follow that most people, if not all of them holds an ultimate or highest value which all other values are subordinated to, for some, it is his or her own life, for others it is the ideals that they follow and for others it is some other thing. But the mistake that Ayn Rand makes is that she claims that the highest value for all people is their own life and that this is an objective fact. All of our values can be viewed as a hierarchy in the order in which they can be placed, from the most important to the least important.

ON THE LIMIT OF THE SPEED OF LIGHT C

2008-05-24T23:08:00.013+01:00

The hypothesis that I am going to propose in this brief essay; will I am sure, seem odd, but hey! The universe is a strange and mysterious place anyway, so any good theory that intends to describe aspects of the universe should not necessarily be free of strangeness. Now the vibratory activity of particles in a confined area like in atoms cannot vibrate and move at anywhere close to the speed of light, but when you get particles in atoms connected together in a field moving in a circular or elliptical translational movement with a continued energy flow feeding into itself all together at full speed, then this will produce the speed of light velocity and also its limit. The energy activity described above cannot exceed the speed of light because these activities are the limit of its abilities as such. Now this energy activity and speed that I just described above produces kinetic energy in the form of an electron flow emitting photons. Photons that are emitted from this field will travel at the speed of light and this is because this velocity of the photon has been given this velocity or momentum due to the full limit velocity of the field itself that has emitted it. The processes in Physics as a whole go from crude forces to a more refined state to a dispersion to a state of crude forces again and so on, and so they can never excede limits in their own natural state. Objects or masses as they approach the speed of light c limit tend to disperse because their electric charge breaks down. Is there a reason why the electric charge in masses breaks down at the speed of light c? I am sure there is a reason why! The following is I think and I may be wrong the reason why it happens; because the processes and vibrations within the inside of the object are in a sense slower and cannot keep up with the external speed of the object which is faster and so the electric charge in masses in a sense disperses due to this. The speed of light c limit exists for a reason and it will always fascinate the curious at heart and the most fascinating aspect about the speed of light c limit is the fact that it is more constant than anything else that we know about, because the addition or subtraction of the speed of a moving object relative to it has no affect on it and it always remains constant.

THE ORIGIN OF PSYCHIC ABILITIES

2008-05-10T10:53:00.040+01:00

The mistake psychics and mediums have made in the past is that they have attributed their powers to external causes rather than to themselves. Psychic ability and mediumship is an ability that exists latently within the psyche of most human beings and goes largely unnoticed unless activated and developed, which is the case with the people in whom it is most evident. Psychic ability can be said to be more prevalent in woman than in men; for the simple reason that women are more in touch with the irrational parts of the mind than men are. As I have mentioned elsewhere in my writings, irrationality is not a state of mind that is devoid of order and reason all together, but is merely indicative of the confusion that is found in consciousness because of the nonlinear states of mind which are difficult to comprehend due to the psyche's desire to grasp complex aspects of reality by nonlinear means and somehow not being able to rationalize the process rationally or because of confusion for other reasons also. Irrationality has order just like rationality does, it is simply that irrationality has an order that is harder to comprehend than the order that can be found in reason. The utterances from the Pythia of Delphi in classical Greece is a perfect example in which to illustrate that the strange irrational and incomprehensible words of a woman could in some strange way have an order and a relevance to them that was so profound that it somehow related to ordered choices in events of a rational kind that applied to any given circumstance put forward for judgement. The Pythia believed that she was in direct communication with the god Apollo and was his mortal human representative on earth during these moments of oracular insight. Most psychics use a combination of intelligence and intuition mixed with an intensely strong belief in their own powers to make the predictions that they are able to come up with. A definition of intuition is that it is a faculty which is a balanced marriage between instinct and reason and therefore combines the senses with the rational cognitions of logical thought. Intuition as a faculty must have been developed by organisms as a means in which to understand their environment both rationally and instinctually. Some thinkers are of the opinion that rational desires, thoughts and feelings do not affect choices in natural selection and that choices are purely selfish and instinctual, but this is not so, seeing as though it cannot be any other way that both the instinctual and rational play a part. Advantageous faculties are adopted and desired by organisms for their usefulness. There are also those cynical people among us who think that psychic people and all mediums generally are either delusional people or are exploitative charlatans and so on, but this does not take away from the fact that a genuine proof of nonlinear ways of thinking have been displayed by psychics and mediums in many cases. Instinct, intuition and reason must all be aspects of psychic ability and also all true explanations of psychic ability, I am sure, must also be explainable by reason and not by beliefs in external mystical forces and influences.

TIME, PROCESSES AND CHANGE

2008-04-14T16:04:00.045+01:00

Time is an artificial human construct and has been created as a tool to record the changes that occur in the processes within matter and abstract reality, because time in a sense represents "change itself" as a facet within processes. Time as a human construct, one can say, is an illusion, but the processes in matter, that time represents are not an illusion and are real. Now time is not an independent thing in nature that exists by itself naturally. Even though time exists artificially as a representation, it is also universal and therefore represents certain truths which exist in processes. Time as a regular representation of duration in moments can only exist as an internal constitution of objects and this is because time cannot be outwardly intuited and is relative in regard to one moving object relative to another in certain cases. If time as we have found out is an internal constitution of objects then time must correspond to the internal processes of objects and how they are affected by the objects activities.
Time only has the one dimension which is successive and if time is to be consistently regular and if its duration in moments are to be standard measures then the time in any given object must be measured in a stationary position.
The duration of the moments in time in an object is either standard and regular as in a non-moving object or they are affected by the objects activities. Now the duration of the moments in time of an object is affected by the changes occurring to the molecular constitution of any object due to its activities, such as its proximity and distance from any major gravitational sources and also the speeds at which an object travels through space affects the vibration of the molecules of an objects inner constitution and are slowed down by the pure and empirical intuition of space of the moving object itself. The molecules in the brain of a person travelling at fast speeds will not notice the difference in the duration of the moments in time because the vibration in the molecules in their brains have been slowed down also and so therefore they do not perceive the difference in time relative to a non-moving object. Some people have held the contention, that time as a human construct is merely an illusion, which it is, but the processes in matter, that time represents are not an illusion and this is because if these processes were an illusion then time would not be governed by exact universal laws of change and mathematical equations would not be able to record these changes and as Pythagoras once said: "time is the soul of this world". The processes that time represents could only be considered an illusion if it was unaffected by the exact changes relative to other processes and was completely changeable and inaccurate, but this is not so because time is an accurate indicator of the processes and the changes that occur in objects internally and relative to other objects and space itself. If these processes that time represent were an illusion then time would not be considered as a dimension in its own right and this is because time measures abstract quantities which can be accurate enough to allow people and events to coincide at specific locations at certain times and so on. Most of the causes in nature are more like inevitable processes rather than actual purposeful and intentional causes and only a few of the causes in nature are intentional, deliberate and calculated.
All the inevitable causal processes that exist in nature are responsible for the changes that exist in the universe and everything in the universe changes but at different rates. Now the changes that occur in nature give the impression to the senses of human beings that most changes occur suddenly and as definite causes, but change in nature is consistent, gradual and slow with occasional causes and changes that are obvious amongst all this causal change. Everything in the universe changes except for what Kant called: "the thing-in-itself" and this thing-in-itself is the perpetual and ceaseless vibration within energy itself and is the cause of all the gradual and consistent changes that occur in processes generally but is in a sense unaffected itself.
The thing-in-itself (or what the rationalists viewed as the primary substance) changes things in processes but remains the same in certain ways and this is because it retains its stability, integrity and consistency throughout the effect it has had on all the processes that have been affected by it. A lot of the processes in the universe change very slowly and evenly with a sense of stability and consistency and time in a sense is a good way of recording this. Animate organic life as opposed to inanimate inorganic life gives you the impression that it is quick changing and inanimate inorganic life gives you the impression that it is slow changing and does not change much, but these are only rates of change, but they both change nonetheless. Slow changing processes have more stability than the quicker changing processes and so can be considered less affected by the thing-in-itself than are the quick less stable processes.
All the changes that occur in processes are continuous and consistent and eventually resolve themselves and all these processes can only come from a force (i.e., the thing-in-itself) that is stable, consistent, continuous, interactive throughout all its parts, vibratory, perpetual, ceaseless, infinite, eternal, extensive and so on. To suggest that the thing-in-itself as a force has the qualities that I have enumerated infers that our universe would be only one among many and according to the eminent scientist Stephen Hawking universes exist as bubbles side by side and also expanding throughout the vastness of infinite space. The hypothesis of Stephen Hawking makes a lot of sense and makes much more sense than saying that a universe by itself can appear from a finite singularity out of nowhere and disconnected from everything else amongst the infinite energy and space that exists out there. The so-called bubbles of Hawking's theory can be viewed more as being like fields of connected energy that interact with one another side by side amongst the vastness of space. Time does not exist independently in nature because processes in nature are simply changes. What the people in the past noticed is that the processes of change in nature repeated as seasons and cycles of gradual change and could be divided mathematically into years, seasons, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, etc; so they began to build stone structures like Stonehenge to keep a record of time and its passage. For instance, in some parts of the world the new year begins in spring, which I would think is a more logical time to begin a new year. Time as we know it today is a human construct and a useful illusion as well as a tool which in a sense is founded on the supposed exact day of birth of Jesus Christ and months like July and august are named after people like Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar respectively.

ON THE SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE MODES OF INQUIRY INTO TRUTH

2008-03-21T21:18:00.035Z

Whenever it is found that we are able to think for ourselves on any given topic or aspect of reality to be observed a part of us becomes, so to speak liberated from the common mass of thinking that most people do and in so doing we also find ourselves enveloped by a sense of wonder and purpose in these moments of pure unconditioned thought.
From the moment we are born we are prepared for a conditioned life by those in authority who happen to raise us whether they are our parents, relatives or some other guardian and in us is instilled by others subjective modes of thinking due to our conditioning in this regard.
Now to follow societal conditioning without questioning it, I must add, seems to me to be a long road towards ignorance and error and this is because all second hand conditioned thinking is merely impersonal and lacks all trace of a personal judgement and assessment of the truth. Historical facts must be accepted as they are written but should also be compared to the common sense aspects of reality that we know of as well as to the other written or factual sources that exist for their truths to be understood realistically and beneficially. There are amongst us those completely delusional human beings who think that the fantasy and the conditioned thinking impressed on them by society could somehow apply to the experiences of their senses in the real world that they live in. Now clearly these fantasies, delusions and societal conditioning that they have thought about do not exist as part of their sense experiences in any shape or form. Errors in judgement usually occur when the subjective is confused for the objective and this is because all ideas of the truth originates from objective reality via the senses. Intense and acute subjectivity is a repression of one's own desire for objective and impartial truth and most human beings suffer from far too much subjectivity at the expense of objective truth and this is because of societal conditioning and plain old ignorance and mental laziness.
Objective truth and modes of thinking tends to get repressed because it usually undermines and puts into doubt many of the things that have been learned due to societal conditioning that is currently believed to be true whether religious or spiritual or just general things we have been taught by our guardians and society. The concept of the pure knowing subject is how the objective truth in matters is allowed to flood and saturate our consciousness and this is achieved in a sense by being empty, impartial and unopinionated in one's judgements of matters and to allow comparisons, differences, diversity, similarities, identities and sameness in ideas to occur by itself until a conception of the truth of a matter is arrived at in one's understanding organically and by itself without any subjective prodding or interference. The ego, the subjective and the personal aspects of one's being can be highly illusory and are what leads people astray and it is the universal and the objective which yields impartial truth. The solutions to the problems in the world and also in our lack of understanding of reality can be found once we have overcome all the false and arrogant aspects of the ego and the "I" that exist within us and this can only occur when we realize that the universal is preferable to the personal mind and ego and its petty, temporary, self-important and illusory attitudes. The personal mind and ego are only an illusory dewdrop relative to the universal and objective truth that is like an ocean and we should all learn to become one with this ocean of truth that exists out there in the cosmos. What I propose is that we as human beings live truthfully, straightforwardly, sincerely and objectively rather than subjectively, dishonestly and selfishly without any care for the truth, posterity and the universal. Impartial truth is only revealed inwardly when one is empirical, objective, real, factual, unbiased, unemotional, analytical, logical, scrutinizing and so on. There are many emotional subjectivists who claim that the truth does not even exist and if it does, then it only exists in language games or only in one's own opinions. I must add, that these subjectivists end up dealing in many sophisms. There are also people who claim that the concepts of the "subjective" and the "objective" modes of thinking and feeling are antiquated and are no longer useful, I think that this type of opinion could not be any more wrong. The concepts of the subjective and objective modes of thinking and feeling are very useful and important concepts in epistemology and cannot be replaced by anything else. Postmodernists in general like to niggle over the meaning of the word "truth" whenever they can, they behave as though objective truths do not really exist, they make out as though philosophers and scientists have never really figured out anything about the world and called them truths. Objective truths are things that we observe or discover about the world, whereas subjective truths are things that we create or that give us inner meaning, we can also say that subjective opinions can exist that are either true or false. Objective truths can never be viewed as being opinions or false conclusions, this is what makes them objective truths, they are facts and realities of the world, that exist independently of us or our wishes. Some people think that the concepts of subjective and objective create a dualism or dichotomy, but I think that these concepts can be understood in many ways that are useful and necessary. We can say that all things and events are not objective in and of themselves, we can say that many things simply exist as facts or events, etc., yet for any person to understand these things clearly and properly without bias, it is required that this person identifies with this object or thing in the sense of being a type of pure knowing subject or receptacle for what this object or event really is in essence. The fact is that we are separate from all the things in the world, so this is why we call ourselves a subject, with all the feelings, ideas, thoughts and emotions of our own that are different from the objects and events in the world. Many people talk about and claim that they can replace these useful concepts of the subjective and objective modes of conceptualization with better concepts, but then afterwards they fail to produce these so-called new useful concepts that they claim to have developed. Sometimes people confuse the concept of a "subject" with that of being "subjective". Some people think that because knowledge must past through a subject, then one is always in a subjective mode as this is occurring, this is not true. The word subject refers to a person or any organism that perceives or assesses knowledge, whereas being subjective means using one's own feelings and opinions in one's assessment of knowledge. The desire to want to know truths that exist independently of us always involves objectivity even though we classify ourselves as a subject, so we call these truths objective truths. It is far easier to attain objectivity in simple truths or observations, whereas it is much more difficult to obtain objectivity in elaborate theories of the world.

ON THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY

2008-03-14T10:16:00.043Z

Anyone with a deep interest in philosophy will from time to time encounter cynical, apathetic, skeptical and generally negative attitudes towards the value and necessity of philosophy from the opinions of others. Anyone with a healthy interest and love for philosophy I feel would find that it is of great significance that he or she in a sense reassesses what philosophy really means to them and what they hope to accomplish by it. Speaking for myself I would say that philosophy is a science that is objective, empirical, real and factual and it does not have a thing to do with the subjective fancies that some people are known to invent in their imaginations, but in a sense philosophy does not deny and is not against the subjective experiences people have where and when it counts, for example, in the improvement of our lives and in self mastery. It is a well known fact that most of the ideas of the truth that we attain in our consciousness as human beings has been received through our senses and only a minority of the truths that we have are subjective. Subjective truths correspond with the minor facts of our lives and also to the few original ideas or insights we might happen to have.
It is true that philosophy does not produce anything in the way that science, engineering and industry does but this does not mean that philosophy is useless and redundant. Even though philosophy does not produce objects and things in the literal sense it cannot be considered of any less value therefore and this is because we cannot learn anything from the possession of objects themselves but only from what they can do, whereas we can actually learn many things from the use of philosophy itself as an act and a process and as a thing that we do analytically. Even though we can value physical objects as products and tools, they are ultimately of less importance and value to us than what is going on in our minds and feelings and actions and this is because how we live our life determines whether we are happy or fulfilled and so on or whether we are living purposefully. The value of our lives does not exist in the physical objects that we use and own as products but exists within us in how we live our lives, in our thoughts, feelings and actions. The way we live our life is enhanced and improved by the correct use of philosophy applied in all the aspects of our lives. Science, engineering and industry, etc, cannot teach us how to live and these things cannot teach us how to find meaning because only philosophy can teach us these things. Philosophers, for example, should not have to compete against scientists and this is because scientists only think about a few particular types of phenomenon and things, whereas philosophers think about all the different aspects of reality and its truths whether subjective and personal or objective or impersonal. Now philosophy attempts to figure out and describe the truths of reality, its laws, rules, principles, axioms, etc; philosophy uses logic and different methods of reasoning to do this and to attain knowledge. The more that philosophy evolves the more limited people attempt to make it and an example of this can be found in some of the statements of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus where he tries to make out that philosophy is only limited to the logical clarification of thoughts and he claims that philosophy has not a thing to do with nature, reality or the natural sciences. According to wittgenstein's narrow view a philosopher has no right to have theories on reality and nature, which begs the question; since when was natural philosophy not philosophy anymore?
The whole point about philosophy is that a philosopher can love wisdom and truth in all its forms and a philosopher should have theories, ideas, inferences, insights, hypotheses, etc, on all aspects of reality and nature and its truths. I have a strong belief people should quit limiting the role of philosophy in their opinion of what they think it should be. Jacques Derrida the 20th century philosopher claims that human reason has been shaped by a dishonest pursuit of certainty and that reason is indifferent to the other (i.e., the things it does not know or cannot account for either morally or factually) and in a sense this makes reason a tyranny which can only be sustained by the evils of repressing and excluding what is uncertain. According to this so-called dishonesty of reason humans are lead into atrocities such as world wars and the launching of atomic bombs etc. I do not think that reason is dishonest or blind in all the avenues it takes up or is applied to, but it does seem to be this way when it is used to back up opinion, choice or self-interest. But when reason is applied in an objective sense and also with a full awareness of right and wrong it becomes a tool that is useful and has aided human beings for thousands of years. Derrida's observation only points out that reason has both negative as well as positive aspects to it, but then again people can say this about many things in nature anyway. Reason can only be blind if it is clouded by the wills desire to fulfill its own blind, evil or dishonest needs and motives and also the will does not like to be opposed and opposition makes the will more evil and cruel. Objective reason on the other hand always attempts to create a balance and sense of justice in all assessments of behaviour or potential behaviour. Reason by its very nature has dual negative and positive aspects to it in the sense that it has a negative, dishonest and blind aspect to it, but it also has a positive, useful, harmonious and objective aspect to it also and so one has to be careful in how one uses, and justifies their own use of reason in the analytical sense of being able to explain it and condone its use in any given situation.
Obviously reason and rationality are more favourable than irrationality and confusion but the use of reason itself must be explained and condoned by facts and motives and by further reasons also otherwise it is merely blind or can be used for all kinds of ends whether these ends happen to be good or bad. All the motives and reasons for why people do things ultimately comes from their own inner nature and this is why people can use reason to condone and justify negative, positive and ignorant things because these are all aspects of human beings and this is because human beings are not perfect and there are also many things that they do not know or understand and this is because they have not given it sufficient thought in the course of their lives. All true philosophers know that it is not reason or logic that is at fault in the world, but it is simply that the world and the people in it are not perfect. Philosophy gives us certainty and guidance and solutions and also the knowledge of the reasons for things and also the knowledge of the truth. Where would human beings be without reason and philosophy? Animals do not have these things to the extent that human beings do and look at where they are in the scheme of things! It would be impossible for a great philosopher to abandon, or doubt his or her own philosophy in favour of the wretched ignorance of the masses and their herd type of behaviour. The worst and most useless kind of philosophers are the one's who cannot think for themselves and are known to swallow the philosophies of other thinkers hook line and sinker to the extent that they are even known to repeat the errors of those other philosophers they have followed. Even though the western philosophical tradition has given a lot to humanity it has a negative aspect to it in the sense that it puts a lot of emphasis on argument and critical thinking. Discourse itself should be a means to an end and peoples ego's should not get in the way of attaining to truths, solutions and conclusions in their propositions and hypotheses.
It has become clear to me why some thinkers and philosophers have a cynical or oppositional attitude towards a lot of propositions and theories that they encounter and this is because many people have an insecure and unsure grasp of the truth, but yet have a sort of misplaced ego-trip type of certainty and love of argumentation and critical thinking. Argumentation is only useful in a discourse when both parties are unsure of the result of the propositions and theories being discussed or when one party is not convinced of a truth the other happens to be sure of. Written philosophy as a representation, description and analysis of the truths of reality and phenomenon goes through long chains of rationalizations, because in a sense writing is an extension of speech and speech which is a passive action but of thoughts is in turn an extension of ideas which are representations of empirically perceived things which we have attained via the senses. Now for a person to claim that written philosophy is merely a dead useless undecided exercise which quickly loses its meaning will of course not find any value in philosophy because in their view there is no connection between observed truths and its representations in written form, but if this was so then one would not be able to practice philosophy at all or use it in any way which is not so because philosophy itself has been utilized by many people for thousands of years with obvious results, even the declaration of independence itself is a philosophy but presented in political form and is well known to have created many changes in the fabric of society both practically and as an ideal. Philosophy is not just a word game or a language error game like that cynical sophist Wittgenstein claims. Philosophy is not useless and absurd nonsense as some people assume. Philosophy is the most important and significant thing in our lives and this is because as a human being we have no choice about the fact that we need a philosophy. Science, materialism and all materialistic ways of thinking are secondary, whereas our philosophy and exact way of thinking, and feeling and how we live our life is a primary and vital thing to us and this can only be developed by our own philosophy both subjective and objective. Philosophy allows us to be truthful to ourselves at all times, and also about the world and our place in it. Philosophy also allows us to utilize reason to make the correct and best decisions for us personally.
We can say that philosophy is a science in its reasoning abilities, in the sense that it can demonstrate most of its conclusions by example and evidence. Philosophy can also be viewed as a science of knowledge because it can be systematically applied to phenomena to achieve results (in other words, it is a system like science). In my essay called "Philosophy Is Not An Exact Science But It Is A General Science Nonetheless" I explain my ideas concerning philosophy as a science more fully. Now philosophy is a science that is empirical, factual, objective, actual, real, logical, analytical, scrutinizing, impartial and unbiased. Philosophy deals in descriptions, propositions, statements, attempted explanations, advice, suggestions, theories, hypotheses and notions, etc. Not all the conclusions and theories of philosophy can be demonstrated conclsusively, but one can say this about science also and this is because our senses cannot go everywhere to demonstrate everything.
All propositions in philosophy should be factual and rational and relate to actual things, either concretely, abstractly or logically.

UNIVERSAL DEFINITIONS AND GENERAL AXIOMS

2008-02-26T16:54:00.021Z

The desire to search and to find standard universal definitions for things and the need to believe that they are regular and objective truths which really exist eternally and abstractly and at times concretely as part of reality has haunted philosophers for two and a half millennia.
The need for universal definitions of the abstract and concrete qualities, states and conditions of things such as justice, beauty, love, fear and so on are usually part of any in depth thinking about the qualities, states and conditions of the things we experience in regard to whether they are universally intuited and felt or not. Some universal definitions for things require an abstract and a concrete analysis, such as universal definitions for beauty, whereas the quality and condition of some things are mostly abstract in definition.
The analytical process of actually searching for universal definitions from particular cases at hand is one of induction and requires that the thinker syllogize in inductive questioning concerning the quality and conditions of the things in question, for example, what is considered to have a beauty is not only pleasant to our minds, but is also something which is pleasant to our feelings and our senses also and this is because symmetry and proportion are aspects of what is pleasant to our senses in objects. Now the things which we think that are pleasant to our feelings and emotions usually involve how people and things behave and operate in nature and how they make us feel in the sense that they give us a pleasant feeling that is noticeable to us. A static work of art when observed can also give us a pleasant feeling in our being and in our emotions generally. When I mention that the conditions of a thing play a part in an assessment of its universal definition I mean to say, for example, that a damaged work of art is not as beautiful as an undamaged one or that justice has to be applied to actual situations rather than just being purely universal and abstract. Universal definitions and general axioms can only be arrived at by using induction. There are philosophers and scientific minded thinkers who view induction as a problem and claim that induction is a non-demonstrative method of inference therefore it is not justified or valid and any proposition, theory or inference based on it can be deemed false or worthless for the reasons mentioned. This so-called problem of induction exists only in logical procedures and their inability to assess processes in reality that cannot be demonstrated or proven outright. The validity of an inductive inference should be considered as being relative to the situation at hand and should also be dependent on the other forms and methods of reasoning at one's disposal for any given inductive assessment of a phenomenon or fact. Induction should not be viewed and applied as a rigid and regular method of reasoning to all situations and this is because philosophers and thinkers generally use many methods and forms of reasoning and logic simply to figure out one particular thing.
An example of the relative aspects of inductive inference and their dependence on other methods of reasoning for their validity can be shown by the following examples: All observed swans are white, therefore all swans are white, it is obvious that if one comes across a black swan this inference will be disproved but the problem with this pseudo inference is that it is based on what John Locke called a secondary quality because colour is not a real stable property of objects themselves and are variable and therefore it should never have been used for an inductive inference of this kind. Take for example, the claims of the inductive theories of evolution and also quantum physics as examples of induction which provide evidence that is hard to doubt and disprove as facts because they are backed up by evidence. Opposition to any inductive theory or inference can be crushed and neutralized if these theories and inferences have evidence to back them up, what would be the point of saying that these theories are false because they are non-demonstrative and therefore not justified if they have evidence to back them up. Also when one thinks of quantum theory it is not possible to imagine matter consisting of anything except molecules, atoms and particles in wave form, etc, what else is matter going to consist of instead of these things? Induction when it involves self-evident truths whether these truths happen to be empirical, universal, abstract or concrete or a combination of the two is what are known as legitimate conclusions and inferences and are valid unless proven otherwise.
The whole point about logic is that it can give valid reasons for things rather than being a tool to explain and demonstrate all things which cannot be demonstrated by using logic, an example of this inability of logic to demonstrate processes in reality is the claim of the theory of evolution that human beings and apes have a common ancestor; now how can logic and its premises demonstrate this? It cannot and the reason for this is because logic is out of its depth in this instance. Even though the theory of evolution is an inductive theory it does not need logic to validate itself in a demonstration and this is because it has the DNA research as well as all the other evidence in existence that can and does validate its authenticity and this is because non-demonstrative logic is only needed to explain the reasons of how and why things are so. Sherlock Holmes the fictional character or any detective in a real life situation would use deduction to solve crimes in a non-demonstrative sense also because they are not able to show you the actual crimes occurring but only in how they seemed to occur and how and why they happened due to evidence and apparent motives and this is not much different to inductive theories that have evidence or are self-evident but cannot be actually demonstrated.
A common argument that is used by people who doubt the validity of induction is that it is presumptuous to assume that the sun will rise tomorrow (i.e. the earth continues to spin on its axis and orbit the sun) because it has always done so as far as we know during our life. What these skeptical people who view induction as a problem fail to realize is that it is a valid enough conclusion to think that the sun will rise tomorrow due to our scientific knowledge and evidence. Also if something prevents the sun from rising tomorrow it will be due to another reason that will not have a thing to do with our original inductive conclusion. The universal and the particular, the potential and the actual are all aspects of reality which must be analyzed in a rigorous manner if universal definitions and general axioms are to be reached and found. Justice is in a sense an extension of the harmony and balance that can be found in nature but is perceived as necessary because it is impossible for a community of advanced forms of biological life to be happy without it.

ATAVISM AND DNA

2008-01-28T16:45:00.011Z

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.

IN DEFENCE OF METAPHYSICS

2008-01-19T12:21:00.011Z

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!

ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FOLLOWING IDEALS AND HOW THEY AID US

2008-01-01T13:31:00.014Z

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.

HOW COMPLEX IDEAS ARE MADE FROM THE SIMPLE IDEAS THAT WE RECEIVE THROUGH OUR SENSE-IMPRESSIONS

2007-12-23T12:38:00.010Z

All the complex ideas, notions, concepts and theories that our minds are able to create or receive from nature come firstly as simple ideas, or simple impressions and these come originally from our sense-impressions and these sense-impressions that we receive from our senses which then become a form of sense-data due to the faculty of perception and then become a form of understanding in our minds as a type of conception or realization of ideas is either of things we have sensed directly through our senses or they are things we have read or pictures we have seen or things we have heard people talking about etc. Complex ideas can be created in the mind without directly experiencing with our senses some of the simple ideas that these complex ideas consist of and there are various reasons for this which I will enumerate in due course. It must also be pointed out that we do not experience a lot of these complex ideas directly with our senses either even though some of these complex ideas exist in an abstract sense within nature itself as part of reality. Complex ideas are created in our minds from the many simple ideas that have been put together to create the complex ideas of varying complexity that we have in our minds. It must be mentioned that even though all our simple ideas come from our sense-impressions that some of these simple ideas that our complex ideas consist of have been received by our minds in many and varied ways, for instance, simple ideas can be received through reading, by listening to music, by looking at pictures, paintings and photographs, from things people have said, from television, films,and cinema, from objects in museums and also directly through our senses etc. Another way our minds create complex ideas out of simple ideas is by the use of logic, reason, intuition, instinct, memory and all the other aspects of the a priori concept which I have mentioned already in my essay called " logical intuition and instincts". The complex ideas that are created in our minds are either real or they are imaginary, they either apply to reality or they are fictions made-up in our minds and have no real existence except in our minds. The faculty of our mind to receive and interpret sense-data from our sense-impressions is called perception and is a faculty that is mostly a part of our senses, the faculty of understanding on the other hand is a faculty that is a part of thinking and reasoning and exists mostly in this way. Simple ideas must exist in the form of sense-data for the faculty of understanding to process it properly, because without the faculty of perception then the information from our sense-impressions would not exist as sense-data or as simple ideas for our understanding to comprehend. There is an aspect of our minds which we can call the faculty of conception which is the part of the mind that fully realizes the formation of a simple idea from the sense-data that the faculty of perception has presented to it. The faculty of conception can be said to be a type of logical cognition or process which confirms the sense-data as being a simple idea for the mind to assess. Our sense-impressions usually produce a simple idea in us or they produce a simple feeling and usually if the impressions on our senses are strong our minds can create a simple idea that contains a strong feeling (emotion) and this can be said to be extremely vivid in nature. A simple feeling (emotion) can be viewed as being slightly different to a simple idea even though most emotions are produced by simple ideas. A simple emotion is an impression or feeling that exists within us irrespective of thoughts or ideas being experienced, a simple emotion is simply felt and experienced without thought.
A simple emotion is basically alike to an intuition, or instinct in its simplest and purest form, it can be said to be the things we know to be true without having to think about it. We know things to be correct and true not because we think them to be so purely by thinking, but because we think and feel them to be correct and truly real and this is because the truth is something that is not only thought, but is something that is felt also. Ideas are involved in thinking and reasoning and emotions are what we know and feel to be correct irrespective of thinking, but most emotions come either from our simple ideas or they exist as simple emotions directly from our sense-impressions and it is sufficed to say that our emotions in general are very complex in origin and also in admixture of actual origin either from ideas and also directly from our sense- impressions and this is known to have created many a confusion in emotional wrangles between people. The emotions, passions and instincts are all part of the physical form and this is the main reason why simple emotions are instinctually felt through our sense impressions without requiring thought as a certainty of the validity of certain truths. Most of the ideas in our memory are simple ideas because when we attempt to remember a complex idea we find ourselves piecing together one simple idea after another until all the correct simple ideas have been pieced together in such a way as to present the correct complex idea that we have chosen to remember in our mind. When we attempt to create a complex idea in our mind that we have never thought about before it becomes necessary to use imagination and intuition as well as logical reasoning in our attempt to create this complex idea whether it be a representation of reality or merely imaginary.
It can be pointed out that our imagination is somehow connected to our intuition and instincts, for example, our intuition appears to be a faculty that is connected to thinking and reasoning whereas instinct is a very physical thing and is connected to our senses. Sometimes in the dark we imagine things to be there in front of us, or in a corner which are not really there and this is a form of instinctual imagination and this type of imagination is connected to the fact that our senses can fool us and play tricks on us, but we also have a reasoning form of imagination that is connected to our faculty of intuition and this is the type of imagination that is used in art and literature and is also used in thought experiments etc. Our complex ideas begin to form and take shape once we have reflected on many of the simple ideas that our minds are furnished with and this introspection and reflection occurs due to the thinking, imagining, willing, doubting and connecting of simple ideas etc. Simple ideas appear to be mainly of two basic types which our senses are able register as a simple idea, the first is the intuitive and relational type such as you find in geometry, algebra and arithmetic and the second type of simple idea is usually intuitive, and is also a matter of fact that is generalized and particular, the first type is more static and eternal like universals and the second type is both universal and particular. I am sure that other types of simple idea can be found in nature if considerable thought is given to the matter of simple ideas. In the philosophical movements of "idealism" and "rationalism" many subjective and fancy concepts were created and developed by the philosophers of these movements. Many of the subjective and fancy concepts that were created and developed in the movements of idealism and rationalism were redundant and erroneous concepts and have lowered the quality of philosophy in general ever since and this negative and weakening influence of redundant and erroneous concepts in philosophy has lead to further despondency and illusion in the philosophy that came after and it has allowed more negative and subjective fancies to appear and be produced in a lot of the philosophy of the 20th century and also up until the present day.
For simple ideas, concepts and notions to be valid they must come from reality and experience, and this is because our simple ideas must correspond to known facts of reality if we are ever going to be able or capable of creating complex ideas that are of any real truth and validity from them.
Philosophy is a science that is empirical, real, factual and objective and true philosophy does not have anything to do with the subjective fancies of ignorant people and this is only because most truths are objective and this is because most of our simple and complex ideas of the truth come from our sense-impressions especially those ideas of eternal truths which seem so profound and moving and only some or a few truths can be considered to be subjective in origin and a lot of subjective truths are usually temporary and our subjective ideas and truths usually exist as part of the minor facts of our day to day experiences. Some of our subjective ideas exist also in the form of original ideas, or insights we might happen to have in our lives of which some are real, and true whereas some are merely subjective fancies and are usually imagined. Our "ideas" and "theories" of objective reality if they are true always correspond to reality objectively and can be proven empirically and are not mere descriptions by the use of words but are actual explanations and descriptions of objective reality and processes in reality. Objective reality does not exist in words alone it exists objectively as a fact that is a part of reality and philosophy explains, and describes reality as it is. Language was developed by our ancestors to communicate ideas of objective reality and philosophy is not a language game that is stuck in language or in erroneous concepts. I must state that ideas do not exist in the literal sense in nature and what we call ideas are merely attributes, properties, forms and moments of processes which are part of the continuum of nature. Our ideas of these attributes, properties, forms and moments in processes are either abstract or concrete. What we call abstract ideas exist as potential and possibility in reality but can only be realized by thinking minds as an idea, for instance, triangles and squares do not exist in nature but are abstract ideas or concepts in reality for thinking minds to realize. Some aspects of reality seem to be abstract but exist as an actuality, for example, gravity and the strong force seem like abstract forces but are actual forces because we cannot see them, but we can feel them and know them to exist. The reason that I mention that ideas do not exist in nature in the literal sense is because ideas are a product of thought, you need to be able to think to produce ideas and to think you need a brain. Nature in general is not a brain and does not have a brain therefore it cannot think ideas or consist of ideas, ideas cannot exist in an unthinking medium. The brains of human beings convert reality into simple ideas in our thinking because our brains can only handle and process one thing at a time or just a few, but not too many. I must mention that synthetic a priori ideas and knowledge contribute to many of our complex ideas also and this synthetic a priori knowledge is only possible due to our DNA inheritance which as I have mentioned elsewhere is a natural inclination and ability inherent within us to know these truths.

ON THE ABSTRACT AND THE TANGIBLE

2007-12-13T15:08:00.002Z

Abstractions only exist because reality and its processes exist and abstractions should not be viewed as existing purely in our minds but should be viewed as being mental representations of processes in reality that are not always visual or fully tangible. Also abstractions in the normal sense of the word applies also as in abstract thinking existing in thought or idea but not necessarily existing in physical or practical existence. Abstractions are more useful when they are applied to reality in the sense of being conceptual representations of processes in reality that we have observed to exist but are not necessarily visually seen. A lot of the processes in reality are abstract and cannot be seen and abstractions cannot exist without actual processes in reality occurring therefore abstractions are analogous to processes in reality that are not always visual or not completely tangible. The a priori concept in some ways describes abstract processes in the sense of how people attain ideas and knowledge about the truth of reality which they have had and have not experienced directly through their senses. The many ideas that human beings have of abstractions must surely come from the fact that many processes in nature and reality itself seem very abstract. Also many of the processes in our genetic make-up itself and also in the workings of our minds seem very abstract and have their tangible source in the brain. Many of our simple ideas are abstract in either the imaginary or realistic sense of being a representation of something real. All simple ideas can be said to have an essence and nature of their own whether they be imaginary or real or whether in the concrete or tangible sense. All abstract ideas have an essence or distinguishing nature which enables us to know it and distinguish it from all other ideas and this essence and nature can be found also when simple ideas are part of a more complex idea that this simple idea may be a part of. The ideas that we have of imaginary abstractions come from the ideas we have of real abstractions and the ideas of real abstractions come from our sense impressions of reality and its processes. Ultimately all the abstractions that we can think of or conceive of come from the actual processes in reality, so that the best way to understand abstractions would be to attempt to understand the actual processes in reality and how they operate. The best way to try to understand the processes in reality or in nature generally is to picture them or think of them in an abstract way and also in a tangible way also whenever possible and this should be part of our thought experiments which in a lot of cases can yield good results except in situations where it is not possible to think of both of these things at the same time.

ESSENCE, CHARACTER AND INNER IDENTITY

2007-12-01T19:57:00.005Z

Even though I have defined the concept of "being" as not consisting of a fixed essence, or entity as a whole, or in general it still becomes necessary to mention a very important aspect of the concept of "being" and this is whether human beings have an inner essence, or character that never changes and is what defines them even though their personality and being may change in general. This inner identity, essence, or character must exist in the form of a pivot, or foundational aspect. It is difficult to thing of anything substantial in nature that does not have a foundation, or base and this includes the concept of being also and this must be so even though the concept of being is a very progressive, and changeable thing and is not completely fixed as I have mentioned before in my essay called " being and becoming" and this is so unless we are mentioning inanimate objects, or inorganic matter which is fixed to a great extent and still comes under the category of being. Anything that is to rely on its own essence, character, will-power, and intelligence for its own identity is more real, and genuine than anything that simply adapts, and reconciles and tries to fit in, or please. These latter qualities of the personality that tries to adapt, reconcile, and fit into situations is more fleeting, and shallow. It should be pointed out that our character is the only thing that truly belongs to us as human beings because it is the only thing that we have a complete control over, aswell as it being a complete representation of us without any form of indirect expression, or ownership. To not be able to think for oneself is one of the greatest crimes one can commit to oneself but yet society, and certain people try to rob us of this privilege by expecting us to think in a way that is foreign to our very nature itself. Everyone appears to be born with their own personal character, and inner identity but then society and other people try to drown out this aspect of ourselves by their conditioning and a lot of people end up thinking through cultural, societal, and indirect means instead of developing their own true character, or will, and this is a shame. One can even come across many philosophers who quote other philosophers from the past saying so and so wrote this, and so and so wrote that instead of saying, or writing something they came up with themselves. It must be pointed out that it does take a lot of confidence, and belief in oneself to develop one's own way of thinking to its fullest expression but it is well worth the effort because a philosopher who cannot think in their own way is of no use to the philosophical, or thinking community because it is new theories, and new ideas, and original thinking which pushes philosophy forward and enables it to progress. There are people who think that because culture, and society exists as a temporary truth and we happen to live amongst its fleeting processes that we cannot somehow transcend it by alligning ourselves with more general, universal, and eternal truths which can guide us to a greater understanding of processes, reality, and truth of a more significant, real, and eternal kind, but this way of thinking is plain wrong because we can, and are able to transcend temporary truth to a high degree in our thoughts, and in our feelings but maybe not physically. Academic philosophers, and thinkers in general expect references, and quotes for all manner of truths to be found in the written works of others but rarely expect to find the truth in the processes of reality itself, but it is reality itself which is alike to the greatest book you will ever get around to study to find the truth if you so choose to find it. Another great fault of academic philosophers, and thinkers is the importance that they place on technical forms of argumentation, but this type of behaviour is counterproductive because attempting , and trying to describe the truth should not be about pursuing argumentation. In general philosophers, and thinkers spend too much time attempting, and trying to win discussions, and this behaviour leads nowhere, and is counterproductive because the truth is rarely arrived at by the use of this method. Philosophers, and thinkers should disagree only in a constructive way so that a conclusion about the truth can be arrived at through dialectical discussion. Philosophers, and thinkers in general should not be disagreeing simply to disagree so that they can be right and feel they have won some kind of imaginary competition of the ego. Argumentation and its development is a sign that one lacks knowledge of the truth of reality because the truth is self-evident and should be studied and accepted in this way. Knowledge of the truth of reality produces agreement, and not argumentation because the truth about reality is a self-evident thing.
To argue a point should be a last resort attempt to convince another thinker of the truth of your own point and how it relates to reality and its processes. In philosophy axioms and their development are more important than arguments, and their development should be encouraged, and sought after by all philosophers.
Axioms and their development in philosophy are a good groundwork, and base for all future endeavours in attempting to integrate truths aswell having a stable foundation from which to work from. There are even academic philosophers, and thinkers today who don't think that a person has the right to consider themselves a philosopher who does not have a degree, and profession in philosophy or does not use the methods of academia as if the philosophers of antique greece who stood around street corners debating the truth were not true philosophers. And it is this technical, modern, and erroneous attitude of academia that attempts take away the joy, and organic creativity out of philosophy, and it also tries to rob the individual person, or philosopher of his true essence, character, inner identity, and will. True philosophers have never claimed to be academic, or scientific, and have never claimed argumentation to be an important thing, they have merely claimed to be lovers of wisdom, and truth and they have attempted to figure it out, and describe it to others. A person can clearly change their own behaviour through conditioning, but it is much harder to change their own nature. A homosexual person can change his own behaviour, but he cannot change being a homosexual. We it seems can only partly change our own nature and we can only do this with those parts of ourselves that are least ingrained within us, we cannot change what is most ingrained within our own nature.

REASON, INTUITION AND INSTINCTS

2007-11-29T16:24:00.023Z

The concepts of "a priori" and " a posteriori" can easily be replaced by theories of reason, intuition, physical instincts and the fact that our ideas of the truth come from our sense-impressions of experiences of objective physical reality as well as the fact that our DNA has information contained in it also. The truth as in knowledge corresponding to known facts of reality are mostly objective truths with a minor amount being subjective truths. When I mention that truth is mostly objective I mean to suggest that it exists irrespective of the influence of human beings, but human beings interpret the truth subjectively and then call it either subjective or objective truth. All of our ideas concerning the truth which are not subjective come from our sense-impressions which we have received from the objective physical world around us. Truths are not self-made realizations already formed within us because our ideas of the truth in the sense of "a priori ideas" are a combination of the ideas from our sense-impressions, or sense-data and the information that exists in our DNA combined with reason. The information in our DNA appears to be able to process the information from our sense-impressions or sense-data with the aid of our faculty of reason. It is a common misconception that a priori ideas are the same as innate ideas, or inner truths, because human beings do not have innate ideas, or ideas of the truth from an inner place, our ideas of the truth come from our sense-impressions of the objective physical reality around us. This ability to process, and store information within us from the objective physical reality around us occurs because of reason and the information in our DNA, and this process, and ability is called the faculty of "understanding".
It is obvious that without the cognitive, and retention abilities of our minds, and our brain to retain knowledge from our sense-data then our faculty of understanding would not have any real use and would be a superfluous faculty. A posteriori ideas are simply the ideas of the truth that we have from our experiences of the objective physical reality around us that we have received through our sense-impressions as sense-data, and it is the knowledge of the objective truth of physical events, and processes, and facts without any subjective influence on our part. Any truths, or ideas of truth which are purely subjective within us are only minor experiences which occur within the temporary truth of our experiences, and include things like original thinking, or ideas, etc. Our instincts, and our logical intuition are part of our physical form and DNA make-up and are partly responsible for our a priori ideas. Many philosophers in the past have tried to apply mystical, or hidden meanings to basic truths, or processes within matter, and reality, and are for example, that we have innate ideas, that we have a spirit, or soul, or that our souls transmigrate from body, to body, or that a priori ideas are due to some inner knowledge due to previous lives etc. Modern philosophers have to make a stand and accept that the truth is simpler, and more obvious than many of the philosophers in the past thought it was. There should be no room in modern philosophy for delusion, and fantasy. Modern philosophy should be a rigorous exercise of attaining to the truth of reality by the verification of simple, clear, logical, certain, and straightforward propositions, and statements. Statements that are verifiable should be "self-evidently true" in the sense of being logical, and rational, and statements should also be "empirically provable, and reproducible", or a combination of both empirically provable, and self-evidently true. Our physical form, and energy, or matter aswell as its processes within space, and time generally gives us all the answers to our questions, and the answers we seek do not need to be found in fantasy, or the mystical. Imagination is only useful in thought experiments based on reality, otherwise our imagination becomes fantasy, and delusion and leads us astray away from the truth, and this is never a good thing except in literature, or film. Metaphysical concepts, or ideas which are not verifiable are usually erroneous, and are useless as ideas in philosophy. Only metaphysical concepts, or ideas which stand the test of verification can be regarded as useful as working concepts, and ideas within philosophy, but this usually occurs if these concepts, or ideas can be adapted, and explained in such a way as to become useful to philosophers. Concepts, and ideas in philosophy are not static things but should be adaptable, and progressive to suit the times. A priori ideas, and knowledge consists of conclusions of things that exist in the cosmos that we have, and have not experienced directly through our senses, and is not limited to only our senses, and memory. A priori ideas, and knowledge is based on our senses, intuition, instinct, rational tendencies, understanding, memory, and will, etc. Einstein knew the speed of light is more constant than different frames of reference and never changes whereas frames of reference do vary. Einstein knew the speed of light is constant whereas frames of reference do vary because it is an a priori idea which has nothing to do with the experiences of our senses, einstein had to intuit this conclusion by using logic, and his instincts as well as using mathematics. Immanuel kant wanted to know how human beings could have synthetic a priori knowledge such as the kind that you find in geometry, and in logical ideas, for example, it is true that synthetic a priori truths and knowledge are not necessarily empirical but yet we can have them due to a combination of our instincts, intuition, logic, reason, and also because certain empirical a posteriori ideas contribute to these synthetic a priori modes of knowledge also. Instinct, intuition, logic, and reason are faculties and abilities that we already have in our DNA make-up due to millions of years of evolution and so it is our natural inclination, and ability to know these synthetic a priori modes of knowledge as being part of the truth of reality. Some people have opposed Locke's denial and refutation of the innate ideas concept by claiming that he was wrong because in nature we see some things that contradict his theory of a blank sheet of paper (or tabula rasa), for example, some people claim that pigeons have innate knowledge and ideas of some kind. Pigeons we all know when blindfolded and taken to a new location and relaeased know how to fly back home. The problem with the example of a pigeon having innate knowledge is that it is a flawed proposition to begin with; this is because a pigeon cannot be given knowledge of specific routes from certain locations to other locations as knowledge before they were born. Pigeons know where to go to fly home through sheer instinct and intuition; this instinct and intuition exists and comes from all the millions of years of evolutionary information that is stored up within their DNA make-up. Any knowledge or ideas that a pigeon may have of where to go to fly home springs from its instincts and intuitions and not the other way around.

OBJECTS AND SENSE-DATA

2007-11-06T10:21:00.010Z

The true nature of a physical object is partly different from the associated sense-data that we receive from it as impressions, but also our understanding of the object in question can be said to be partly the same as our impressions of it also, and this is because our sense-data depends on our perspective in relation to the object, and also in the relative amount of the total composition of the object that our senses can make out at any given point in time, and also by the amount of impressions we receive and undertstand about the object as sense-data. It takes a lot of rigour, and extensive comprehension to undertsand objects fully, For instance, how many people know the true composition, and nature of the following objects in their entirety; televisions, compact disc players, aeroplanes, or the biology of an elephant. To know, and understand any object completely would require knowing it from every conceivable angle both outwardly, and inwardly, and also in regard to its situation, and purpose amongst processes generally. Also how much does the average person know about the molecular, and elemental make-up of a lot of the objects they come across on a daily basis, and do they understand its purpose, and situation amongst processes, because nearly everything that occurs in nature, and also the things that are made by humans has a purpose. Philosophers for a long time now have debated on how much we can actually know with our senses, and they have attempted to understand, and have also inquired into whether there might be aspects of reality as well as objects which may possibly be beyond our understanding, and knowledge. The vibration, and activities in energy, or matter as well as the forces, rules, and laws in nature will continue to have a mystery for a long time to come and are the main reason why we cannot know and understand any objects in nature fully, and the processes involved in them, but hopefully knowledge will bridge the gap as much as possible even if it is not in an absolute, or complete sense. If you know everything that an object is, and everything that an object is not as well as understand its causes in the sense of how it came about, and also how it is part of a process then you can know the object as a totality. Only particular, and isolated objects can be known in their totality and can be understood almost fully whereas how objects relate to their surroundings becomes more complex if long chains of causes are sought after in the relation between objects and their surroundings, and also other objects. To try to understand objects, or things as part of a continuum of processes, and to try to understand these processes also and how they operate as knowledge is more difficult to ascertain than trying to understand objects in an isolated sense. Human beings do not have innate ideas, or ideas of the truth from an inner place within us at birth, but get our ideas of the truth from the sense-impressions we receive by the use of our senses, we do have information in our DNA in the form of instincts, logic, intuition, progressive rationality, will-power, etc. which helps us process sense-data through the faculty of understanding which then become knowledge in our minds. The most difficult thing to figure out in matter, or objects is the perpetual, and ceaseless vibration that exists in energy and how its activities produce forces, and forms as well as laws, and rules, and so these are important things to think about in an attempt to understand matter, and objects.

DETERMINISM AND CAUSALITY

2007-11-02T15:58:00.006Z

The concept of determinism is a very significant, important and useful concept in which to describe the highly inevitable course of events, and situations one finds when one is examining the processes that occur in the universe generally, but in particular events it can easily be found that in the causality of processes that chance, accident, and intentional causes play a minor role in the sense of being altering causes which effect the grand sweep of determinism into particular directions which are slightly different from the original deterministic course of events, but they always remain as minor alterations. Reality it can be said is mostly deterministic, but with a relatively minor element of chance effecting events, these chance occurences which alter the course of events need to be examined further, and they need to be described in more depth. The concepts of chance, and causality and how they alter the course of events are partly described in the many chaos theories that have been developed recently by a lot of thinkers in the field. One cannot deny that certain forces, laws, and rules exist within nature and its processes to such an extent that this fact makes the course of events in nature largely deterministic, and predictable. The causes, or incidents which alter the course of events in a slightly underministic manner are usually unforseen accidents of all kinds, and also the wilful behaviour of certain people and their conduct, as well as all the other causes from biological life in general, but these types of causes are usually minor. Events on the grand scale in nature such as the formation of solar systems and so on remain largely deterministic, and inevitable. The existence of human beings, as well as other forms of biological life is mostly inevitable in general and is due to prior processes and so therefore cannot be viewed as accidental, but certain avenues as well as aspects of progress within biological life maybe partly accidental, and due to unforseen events of a minor kind that occured and made things develop in a certain way. But the existence of biological life is largely inevitable, and deterministic, and even if humans did not exist it is clearly self-evident that there would still be plenty of other forms of biological life around, which there is.

REALITY, PROCESS AND PROGRESS

2007-10-28T19:02:00.006Z

Everything that happens in reality is a process, or part of a process and therefore the meaning of any thing that occurs in reality is because of processes and where they lead, or aim towards. Some of the processes in nature aim towards a situation in biological life which we call survival of the fittest, and this occurs because of various reasons, for example, conflict and struggle is inherent within nature and makes things advance and grow, and also the processes in biological life are progressive and they aim towards a raising of the standard of things, and this occurs because the pleasure principle in nature is a motivation of fundamental importance for biological life and is one of the main reasons why processes in biological life are progressive, because progress implies more pleasure, joy, happiness, possibilities, etc. And so therefore progress becomes a type of motivation, and meaningful process for biological life, the will in nature is also a fundamental aspect of survival of the fittest, it is the driving force behind it. The processes that occur in reality in general aim towards harmony, and refinement, and are usually progressive in most cases. It must be pointed out that our individual lives appear to be futile in the subjective sense of the way in which we feel about reality, but this occurs only because we are trying to find meaning in the wrong place, we are trying to find meaning in a subjective manner, and we also trying to find meaning in the way that we feel instead of looking for meaning in its rightful place which it must be added is in the objective aspects of the processes that exist in nature. Biological life evolves, and finds meaning only by being objective, and progressive, and by having intentions, aims, and designs that serve a purpose. Subjective feelings are only a way of attempting to understand reality. Reality is only as futile, or as meaningful as you choose it to be, but as processes in nature everything fulfills a purpose, eye's are developed to see with, hands, and fingers are developed to grasp things with etc. Purpose, and meaning is an exponential process within biological life in the sense that it leads to progress, and also in the raising of the standard of all things, states, and conditions. In regard to the concept of progress, one will find that progress only exists within biological life itself, and also in its workings, and activities and this is due to a long chain of events. The progressive states, or conditions which have been attained by biological life have occured because the chain of events that are progressive and have lead to biological life have only come about due to a continuance of the harmony that has already been attained due to the processes in nature that have lead to biological life in the first place. The processes, and events that have lead to the harmony that produced biological life are the following; our planet being at the correct distance from the sun, and our planet having an electo magnetic field due to the activity of the iron core mantle which is at the centre of our planet, and also in the fact that our planet has a moon orbiting it which creates movement in the sea which is a factor that aided the preliminary developments of biological life, and also in the fact that the planet we live on has the correct amount of elements, and chemicals which make our planet inhabitable, etc. The attainment of pleasure, joy, and happiness motivates the desire for progress within biological life and are states, or conditions which are only attained by overcoming conflict, struggle, and pain, and the fulfilment of these processes are a result that comes from the harmony that has already been in place due to the prior processes in nature, and all progress, and evolution in biological life is motivated as a result of these processes, or course of events. Progressive behaviour also involves the satisfaction one gets from improving the standard of things in oneself, and in one's activities. Diversity is a necessary part of evolution, and progress because it produces more options and continuance, whereas limited options or avenues could limit continuance in processes, and so this is why nature designs things, and people differently. The way people are, and most of what people do cannot be helped, because people are simply following their nature's in most cases and they should not be discriminated, or looked down upon for the way they are by nature. All meaning, and purpose in nature is progressive and unavoidable.

ON THE CONCEPTS OF THE "I" AND THE "EGO" AND THEIR MEANING

2007-10-20T20:39:00.021+01:00

The concepts of the "I" and the "ego" are labels that are used to encompass what we consider to be "our sense of self" and our sense of self is the identity that we have and give to our "being", it is also a combination of the character that one has as well as the character one develops and is in the process of developing for oneself in the sense of future goals to work towards, so the concepts of the "I" and the ego are parts of a process that is partly fixed and partly changeable as an identity in our consciousness and being. The concept of the "I" is a simplification of the many aspects of being that this concept encompasses and it consists of some of the following; the will, our character traits, our sense of self, our insecurities, our moral values, our virtues, what we think we represent, our desires, our needs, etc. In the ego insecurities appear as a defensive attitude and also as an inflation of one's attitude and estimate of oneself due to arrogance, arrogance is usually a result of a feeling of insecurity, and emptiness, and the feeling of arrogance attempts to make up for and cover up this defecit of feeling in the ego by appearing to fill the gap of what the ego feels it lacks. As part of the ego the mental abilities and also the character abilities of a person as well as the security of mind one has appears as a type of calm modesty, and it presents itself as a form of congeniality of character, for instance, modesty is always a sign of ability and security of mind and this occurs because you cannot cover up what you do not lack, which is what arrogance attempts to do, modesty is basically an attempt to tone down one's feeling of ability and security. In many cases insecurity is usually ill-founded and is the result of doubt and ignorance about reality. A tendency to want to always be right, and correct appears in the ego's of those who are amongst the ignorant and unwise and this attitude is always fully enforced by the will, the highly intelligent and wise amongst us on the other hand tend to be more unsure of themselves, and are more likely to compromise, and avoid conflict in most cases. The concept of the "I" by itself without reference to the ego represents our true selves whereas the ego is our false self or the part of ourselves that acts and pretends and that takes on a separate image from the subjective "I". In a sense the ego is just as much a part of ourselves as the "I" because you cannot have one thing without another, for instance, the "I" would feel fragmented by itself so it needs the ego to present itself in a simpler and more adaptable form that can act and deal with circumstances quickly in our every day situations of dealing with others aswell as with most objective goals. I will now endeavour to explain and describe what this subjective inner "I" is in which if it is anything at all constitutes our true self. It can first be pointed out that the subjective inner "I" that is ourselves is in a sense a process of composite elements which ultimately lead to a perception or intentionality which has an objective direction leading outwardly in the sense of looking out at the world and this is so because the will is the true essence and driving force of the "I". This subjective "I" is partly fixed in the sense of consisting of those aspects of our character that don't really change and if they do it happens rarely and these represent our true motives, desires, needs, traits and will and this is due to our nature, custom, habit and our actions because our true motives come out in our acts and not in our opinions. We always do the things that mean something to us and we tend to ignore and neglect the things that don't mean much to us. Our deepest motives are subconscious and so we are not always aware of them. The subjective perception of the "I" has no choice but to face intentionality whether enthusiastically or more apathetically but in so doing will encounter objective ideals and values that it follows and these usually play a huge part in our evolving and progressive natures. The final part of the "I" that I am to explain as being part of its content is the fact that we as dynamic beings need change and progress so therefore the inner "I" evolves and progresses and makes the required adaptations due to its inner needs and desires. All the internal dialogue that occurs in our being happens between the "I" and the ego and being truthful to ourselves usually means being truthful to the "I" and not the "ego". The ego sometimes alienates us and leads us into inauthenticity in the sense that the ego exists as an image which is capable of dividing us away from the "I" in our consciousness and this can create neurotic behaviour. It is the ego which represses the "I" and causes problems when we are not being truthful to ourselves, but the "I" always wants to be truthful to itself and this process happens in all of us. Many of the motives, desires, needs, wishes, ambitions, feelings and ideals of the "I" are latent and deep within the subconscious and this is why our passions and feelings are very dynamic and can seem mysterious and even overwhelming at times and so it is a bad thing to repress the subconscious aspects of the "I". The ego on the other hand can be very superficial and petty because the ego is imaginary and maintains a false appearance of coherence and completness. According to the philosopher Slavoj Zizek the concept of the "I" is an empty shell unless filled with the contents of the world (i.e., the stimuli and ideas of the outside world as sense data to fill us as subjective or inner content). Zizek's observation is correct to a certain extent, but we can still have a sort of basic "I" or underdeveloped character without much sense input, because this can be found in nature in animals that live under the ground, such as mole's and other types of rodents. The concept of the "I" is not a fixed thing and is in a constant change or flux, but yet part of its behaviour is consistent and predictable. Thinkers like Zizek claim that the "I" does not exist within us at all, he claims that it exist outside of us, to him it exist only in our behaviour and in a sense its non locality gets lost in our outer behaviour, according Zizek it can never be found within us. What Zizek fails to mention is that outer behaviour originates from our inner behaviour or inner consistencies, you cannot have outer behaviour without the inner behaviour conducting it. It is safe to say that Zizek's analysis is incomplete. Inner behaviour completes the outer behaviour and vice versa. The "I" exists as "potentiality" and as "actuality" due to the essence of the potentialities and possibilities inherent within vital organisms. Our thoughts, feelings and our behaviour are responses and choices that shape our potentiality and actuality of existence because of external stimuli. It is our thoughts, feelings and our behaviour that is either good or bad or good or evil due to our choices, not our potentiality. Good or bad, etc., are also relative terms. We are our intentions, choices and behaviour, it is this that represents who we are and shapes the actuality of the "I". The potentiality aspect of our being is neutral, it is the choices and intentions of our behaviour and our decisions generally that shape who we are. Potentiality and actuality exist together within our being, one pushes forward the other, one comes from the other, yet they exist together and shape the "I". The "will" or choice and decision making aspect of our being that exists as potentiality, is the most mysterious aspect of our being, it ultimately has the choice to do what it wants, regardless of the consequences. Behavioural psychology and science prove that we can largely be shaped by conditioning and education whether internal or external, we can even recondition ourselves, i.e., will a new self.

ON THE AUTHENTIC AND INAUTHENTIC ASPECTS OF BEING

2007-10-16T23:21:00.007+01:00

How many times have you heard the old saying "I was not myself ", which as a convenient thing to say has been used innumerable times as an excuse to cover up all types of behaviour, this old saying is no longer valid in a modern, and rational age in which society increasingly becomes as it progresses, for example, all behaviour comes from oneself, and all the behaviour that emanates from one's "being" is a process, and is an expression of one's will, and is intentional, and is therefore neither fixed, or accidental. To be authentic requires that we be 100% truthful to our own natures at every moment, and in every situation, and is an extremely difficult thing to keep up and going for a long period of time, because by conforming to what society and other people expect is inauthentic behaviour, but seems unavoidable, and is a sign of uncertainty and conformity. The process of being truthful to oneself is an instinctual urge and desire to follow one's natural thoughts and feelings to their conclusion, and to develop them fully. Sometimes other peoples ego's prevent them from accepting our behaviour when we are being truthful to ourselves because they take it as a threat to their so-called authority that we are not doing what they expect of us. A lot of the trouble, and futility in the world appears to be created by people who cannot think for themselves and who expect others to conform to societal, religious, economic, cultural, political , and national dogmas and beliefs, and also by so many other types of conformities and customs none of which have any real authentic meaning or purpose, they are simply hollow rituals that have been passed down from generation to generation. It is the authentic and original thinkers of the world who contribute to the progress of evolution, and it is they who give purpose to biological life in general by leading others by example. In modern society it can be difficult to find mutual ground with other people, there is nearly always a dance to be performed, in this dance we are under constant scrutiny from each others gaze, we are constantly wondering whether the other person is being authentic, or whether we can trust them, we wonder if they will accept us, or whether we will see them again, etc. Acting and pretending is something that a lot of people do in everyday life and they do it for sociological reasons as a means to see how far we can take the situations we are in in a certain direction, one could even suggest that it is part of adaptation, and evolution. It must be pointed out that acting and pretending is not an inauthentic form of behaviour but can be considered as a creative and natural thing to do seeing as though "being" is not a fixed entity, essence, or thing and so therefore acting is a form of adaptation, and is also a creative type of growth, and expansion of being, and personality. Whether a persons behaviour be authentic or inauthentic does not alter the fact that their behaviour comes from them and is partly influenced by society and other people, humans are social animals who need each other for various reasons so in a sense it can be hard to avoid conforming to the wishes of society and other peoples expectations. People should be aware at all times of their own authentic and inauthentic behaviour, and they should also be aware of when they are acting, and pretending, and also they should come to learn and also to understand their own behaviour, and motives, and the reasons for it, and also where it leads, one should also be able to discern these things in other people.
One day the meaning, purpose, behaviour, motives, and the progressive processes of biological life will be a science in itself and there will be no doubt why a person chooses to do anything. Meaning, rationality, and certainty are part of progress and become exponential over a period of time. There is an aspect of being in which a persons behaviour is influenced by a desire to impress other people by whatever means. Even in so-called acting, or pretending one is still being oneself, because without one's own abilities to act, or pretend that one understands things in general it would not be possible to persuade others whatsoever of the many things in society that do not have anything to do with oneself , so acting can viewed as an expression of one's own abilities to adapt in a sociological setting.

FREEDOM, LIBERTY AND FREE WILL

2007-10-06T12:11:00.006+01:00

"Freedom" as a concept in its truest sense it must be pointed out exists only as an ideal, because even though we may appear to be born with freedom at the moment of our birth, we are yet fully dependant on the care and love of our parents, or whomsoever it was that raised us from the moment we were born onwards. When people speak, or write about freedom as a concept, or thing to be pursued in the real world, they usually mean a freedom from other people as well as specific aspects of society, rather than from anything else in most cases. If it was not for other people, and society we would not have to mention freedom, or fighting for freedom, we would simply exist to do what we chose at any given point in time. Violence can be an outcome of the desire for freedom especially if one's liberty is being curbed. Freedom is always associated to growth, because as people we cannot grow without freedom, and liberty, and therefore these are ideals which are associated to progress, and the ideals of freedom, and liberty can be considered to be important for all people and their desire for meaning, and purpose in this world. There are many ways a person can behave in any given situation because one has the liberty and freedom to do so, but in general we are really just trying to be truthful to ourselves, so I suppose this is what true freedom is (i.e., the act of being truthful to oneself). "Free will" is a form of self mastery and is an extension of the "will"in nature that exists in us, and therefore one follows from the other, the whole point about "free will" is that you can control and shape your "willpower" in such a way as to truly have "free will", and this occurs in a relative sense, and not in absolute sense. It will be noticed by most people that it is at the moments when we feel happiness, and joy which are amongst some of the times in our lives that we feel the most free psychologically, whereas when we are feeling sad, and depressed it gives us the feeling that we are trapped, and limited by this condition. The concept of freedom is always connected to the pleasure principle in biological life, and so one of them always indicates the other and vice versa. Reason, truth, and freedom are always connected also because as concepts they liberate people from ignorance, and irrationality. Freedom of the mind is a condition that is harder to attain to than physical freedom, because as I have mentioned earlier we are conditioned by the people who have raised us from the moment we are born, and also society conditions us.

ON MORALITY AND ETHICS

2007-09-25T17:12:00.031+01:00

Now to begin with it is important to mention that there are two prerequisites which must be pointed out if one is going to do justice to the subject of morality and also to a system of ethics and how it relates to biological life in general and these two points or prerequistes must be addressed before any subsequent theories on morality are propounded and developed by the thinker.
Firstly; nature designs everybody differently in character, feelings, thoughts and in will and so therefore what works for one person does not work for or suit another in practice. The mistakes and errors that a lot of the moralists and philosophers of the past have made in dealing with the subject of morality is that they have based their theories on morality either on a concept of god or on themselves and what they thought was correct or on an artificially imposed moral law. Also a lot of what these moralists or philosophers of the past have considered to be correct in their theories of morality has produced a lot of biased and prejudiced attitudes on morality. Also one will find that most or none of these past theories on morality have ever been based on nature and its diversity of expression.
Secondly; any ideals or theories of morality in practice requires a mutual agreement and compromise between the people involved as a standard of what is considered to be right or wrong, rather than a fixed standard, which it must be pointed out is a rigid way in which to deal with morality; also all of the dealings and agreements between these people should not be based on "selfishness" or on any sense of overt "freedom" or lack of obligation by either person, because without a practical agreement morality means nothing and degenerates into force or opinion or fixed standards. Human beings have an innate sense of morality except for a minority of a few people and so the majority of people can be trusted in most cases to make the correct decisions in their behaviour. Mutual agreement is important in morality, without mutual agreement and mutual respect humans with strong characters would tend to enforce their wills unecessarily on others and prefer to abuse whatever common ground that might have existed between them and other people, morality just like everything else in nature cannot develop without harmony or agreement. Nature and its processes in reality are above and beyond and also more fundamental than the human concepts of what we consider to be right or wrong and so it must also be pointed out that conflict and struggle are inherent within nature and are what makes things advance and grow and so it cannot be considered as a completely wrong thing if a few bad things occur in the course of events that happen in reality and its processes. For something to be considered as either right or wrong one has to agree with it in accordance with the way one is designed by nature and not by an artificially fixed set of rules which does not account for nature or its rules. If a moral law is to have any value at all it has to be artificially imposed and agreed upon by the majority of people living in a state or country and this is what Immanuel Kant meant by a moral law has to transcend the empirical causal order of nature by exercising freedom of an artificial kind if it is to have any value, because morals are not part of the empirical causal order of nature, for instance, if a lion eats an antelope it is neither right or wrong and also if a person kills another person for food it is neither right or wrong either it is simply part of survival of the fittest and also of adaptation. If morality is to have any value at all in the practical sense it has to be something that is agreed upon by individuals as a unique agreement of what is considered to be right or wrong. Morality in its truest and most practical sense can be based on duty, on values, on ideals, on virtues or on whatever one chooses depending upon what you consider to be right or wrong in accordance with your own individuality or true nature. It is a well known fact that Immanuel Kant's theories of morality which he based on the concept of duty gets attacked all the time by people who have not thought about morality for any great length of time or in any depth whatsoever, in fact many people who attack Kant's morality are usually people who cannot think for themselves and are just following the bandwagon of the writings of philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and also Ayn Rand. A theory of morality based on duty works for some people and plenty of evidence goes to show that morality based on duty is practised every day by millions or even billons of people whether they are aware of it or not, morality based on duty is a way of creating and proving that a feeling of trust amongst people can be attained, for instance, many people have a duty to their wives or husbands and also to their children to remain faithful and supportive to them, in fact people who are brought up in this type of environment usually end up being more well rounded individuals in most cases.
Also a morality based on duty can be observed in a lot of peoples choice of work and career, whether they are soldiers or doctors or factory workers and so on or whatever a persons chosen profession happens to be and this is because it is the duty of this person to go to work when they are meant to go otherwise they risk losing their job or career or money or the trust of the employer etc. There is nothing wrong with duty to a particular cause if this cause makes a person happy. If morality is to be progressive, practical and genuine it should be based on "reason" and "emotion" in equal measures and it should always be founded on an agreement by particular individuals involved with each other rather than on an artificial standard founded by society or by other peoples devising who are not involved in the agreement, because it is impossible to agree to standards or rules which are not in one's nature to follow irrespective of how well or fair the intentions of these standards are, a person should not sacrifice their true nature for an artificially imposed rule, this is worse than any crime you could commit by following your true nature itself unless you happen to be evil. Our true natures are what give us joy and purpose in this world and to sacrifice this is to live a life of misery simply for artificially imposed rules and standards of morality or to satisfy society and its standards as a whole seems wrong. In general society as a whole is a very manipulative entity and can be considered to be one of our worse enemies at best. Anything or anyone who tries to curb or manipulate our true natures is our enemy and must be defeated and rejected in due course. To have a will of your own and to be able think completely for yourself and to know exactly what you enjoy and desire at all times and to also be able to stick to this 100% are all the things that constitute your true nature or character. The reason that I mention that morality should be based on reason and emotion in equal measures is because they are both equally important in a balanced judgement of all decisions based on morality and how it relates to reality, too much of either gives you a false impression of what is right or wrong in any given situation. Reason or logic pertains to the mind, whereas the emotions pertain to the passions and the organism as well as how it relates to the mind as a process, as I have mentioned before and elsewhere the emotions are a very rational process especially for those who understand them fully and emotions should not be viewed as being completely groundless in their origin. Feelings and emotions are very important because they are essential to the biological organisms connection to the mind in most human beings, in general the rationality of biology and its processes is stronger than mental reason, or logic and therefore reason needs to be balanced with the emotions as a means to promote general good health and harmony in one's being. As I mentioned earlier for something to be considered as either right or wrong a person has to agree to it in the first place otherwise one would be expected to follow things blindly and without inner purpose, most relationships and friendships are founded on this type of agreement of affinity between people, if you have no affinity with a person or a thing why would you agree with it or them in the sense of what is right or wrong or good or bad, because what is considered as right or wrong is either subjective or is due to affinity and agreement because of one's nature. What is wrong to one person, maybe right and correct for another person, for instance, for a religious person adultery is bad, but for a person who is not religious and does not believe in god adultery is fun, exciting and life affirming. Amongst the greatest mistakes that have been made by religious people and moralists in the past and even by people now in general is that they have judged and attacked people because of the way they have been designed by nature and these attacks have been focused more on their personal lives whether these people happened to be gay or bisexual or whatever and any kind of morality and code of ethics which does not account for nature and its diversity or is not founded on my initial two prerequisites is a flawed morality and code of ethics.
In reality force is more real than the concepts of right and wrong and anyone who is willing to use force is more right and correct than someone who is not willing to use force, because this illustrates the fact that nature is always right, correct and real and theories on morality are not as real as nature unless they account for or are in accordance with nature in the truest sense. Conflict and struggle as I mentioned earlier is inherent within nature and exists for a reason (i.e., it makes things advance, and grow) and also one thing cannot exist without another so any theory on morality requires that we accept conflict, struggle, effort and even pain as a means to experiencing improvements and growth in events, you cannot create improvements and progress by promoting only the good without the need for the bad also, conflict and struggle may seem bad but they should be considered as necessary aspects of reality, concepts of good and bad only exist in our minds and feelings anyway and this is one of the reasons why some humans have commited so many atrocities in the past because they thought they were proving something, that they were evil or whatever, but in reality it is neither here nor there in either meaning or purpose whether you are good or evil or partly of each, because nature is simply an inevitable process that happens to exist and the things that occur in reality occur for a reason whether they be self inflicted or not, because nature has its own rules and laws which makes things and events harmonize and attain a purpose and meaning of their own which are part of the general processes of nature. The worse type of morality is the belief that everyone should be equal or the same or similar, because this is an insipid, boring, flat and rigid ideal, for example, nature thrives on diversity and difference as well as on conflict. Morality is partly subjective and partly objective, the people who claim that morality is only subjective are making the argument that I can do whatever I want to you and your family, but if you do the same thing to me and my family, then it is wrong, for example, I can murder your wife, but if you murder my wife, then it is wrong. Morality is objective in the sense that certain people have to agree to objective standards of moral conduct in their dealings together, on the other hand, morality is subjective in the sense that what is considered moral depends on your own needs as well as the period that you live in, what is considered as acceptable behaviour in one period, is not so in another. Problems in morality appear when it becomes dogmatic and rigid, we should only be moral towards people who deserve it that we meet, morality should be practical as well as being part of our values and goals in life, we should not be moral towards everyone indiscriminately. Sometimes people expect us to have more integrity and respect towards things and people that do not really mean anything to us, that we do not value or respect, they wonder why our morals do not apply to everything indiscriminately, when it cannot.

ON THE FINITE, INFINITE AND ABSOLUTE

2007-09-18T12:53:00.003+01:00

The biological life forms that exist in nature are always in development, and life can be considered to be a learning process. In reality the events, things, processes, and occurences that happen are a development that leads to the absolute. The absolute (i.e., the complete, or totality of things,) is a finite concept, and the infinite is beyond measure and never complete. The process of things and events in nature and their development first aim towards the absolute and then afterwards in succesion of processes aims towards the infinite also, and so these processes are never fully complete in any way whatsoever and we are never fully satisfied, these are all finite processes occuring within infinite processes. In a lot of processes in nature the "actual" always aims towards the "potential", in other words, the finite always aims towards the infinite, and this is only possible because the activity and vibration within energy or matter is eternal, and infinite in movement and also in regard to potential rather than in actuality, the actual is always finite and absolute, and its absoluteness is relative in regard to other things and also in regard to the infinite also. Some philosophers reject the concept of "absolute objective truth", and they claim that we are the one's that dictate what the truth is subjectively, but the problem with this way of thinking is that these philosophers forget that all truth is objective whether we happen to exist to observe it or not, the truth that we feel subjectively is only a reflection of objective truths. The philosophers who reject the concept of absolute truth, whether it is subjectively felt, or exists in objective reality are self-centred, and these philosophers also think the truth of the objective universe revolves around their subjective opinion of it and what it should be, or happens to be, their idea of the truth is basically an opinion of theirs that caters to their own narrow view of what the truth is or is suppose to be at any given point in time, because this is what it means to say that there is no absolute truth objectively out their in the real world. Truth exists irrespective of whether we observe it or sense it, the truth is objective, particular, universal, absolute, and rarely is it subjective. "Universals"; and also other aspects of reality exist as absolute objective truths, absolute objective truths exist and are an aspect of reality in the sense of potential and possibility, reality exists and consists of both the "actual" and the "potential"and so both the actual, and the potential are therefore aspects of the truth.
Absolutes do not need to be irreducible, they simply need to be described because processes in nature cannot be reduced into basic explanations of why they are this way or that way and so on, energy and space are infinite and eternal and you cannot reduce what is infinite and eternal in a concept or basic explanation. Energy is indivisible, and continous, and elastic and therefore any attempt at reduction or division will be ill grounded and uncertain in its attempts. The concept of the "absolute" is similar to that of "universals" and also has a similarity to the concept of "perfection" in the sense that it exists as an aspect of reality in the relative sense as potential, and also as an ideal but not in a complete manner as part of physical reality, it can exist in our mind and in our feeling in the complete sense, an example of this is that our love for a person, or a thing can be absolute, and also our acceptance of a person, or a thing can be absolute also.

THE NATURE OF REALITY

2007-09-16T13:44:00.005+01:00

The words that describe "reality" more accurately than any other words are, for example, energy, vibration, space, processes, inevitable, activity, something, tangible, actual, potenial etc. Everything in reality is an inevitable process which springs from processes in general that exist in energy and space and so is everything that occurs in reality also. Everything in reality is part of a process, and these processes exist and occur because energy and space are "something" tangible and active, and energy and space has always existed and always will exist, and energy, and space are both infinite. All the forces, rules, laws, processes, and events in energy and space occur because of the ceaseless and perpetual vibration that exists in energy and its interactions and activities. Processes consist of moments that make up a unity in the sense of a continuum, and each moment is connected to the other in patterns and this can be seen to occur in endless succesion. One of the most interesting things about reality is how the activity in energy and space produce what we see,for instance, how do the forces and nuclear reactions and so on emerge from the activity and vibration in energy and its interactions, because to attempt to describe and explain this is worth the effort i am sure. Anyone who has thought about and studied the subject of metaphysics for any length of time and who have attempted to understand it fully would have realized at some point in their research that the original meaning of the concept of substance does not exist in reality in the way the concept was used, for example, according to the concept of substance in its original meaning and how it was described, it is written that things are supposed to exist "in" substance, but supposedly substance does not exist "in" or "within" things at all in reality or its processes, and this is where the flaw and the contradiction in the concept of substance appears in its original meaning, how can something exist in something and yet not be part of it, it is like saying i exist in the world but the world is not part of me, of course the world is a part of me, and i am part of the world. The concept of substance in its original meaning is flawed, redundant, impossible to imagine, or feel, contradictory, and therefore untrue, and erroneous, and not necessary and can easily be replaced by the concepts of universals, and the thing-in-itself, and also by whatever other concepts are useful to describe processes in reality, the concept of substance itself as a means to understanding energy and its true nature and what it consists of, and also how it is part of reality is a useful concept though, and this concept should not be rejected completely, it is a concept that should be appropriated for modern use and used with a modern and more logical meaning. The word substance can also be used to describe different types of tangible objects such as wax, clay, stone etc... and how these are extensions of an original substance. Trying to understand the true nature of the ultimate substance that everything comes from, or is made from, and also how it operates, or creates everything in its turn makes a lot of sense from a logical standpoint, so this is why the concept of substance was used as a concept originally as a means to understand energy and processes, and one could easily ask, what is energy?, and what is its true nature?, and how does this operate, and function to create tangible structure?, and how does it operate, and move in reality and in space? It is energy and its true nature that metaphysicians are trying to understand when they talk about, and write about substance and ask what is it? and how does it create structure in the universe? All substances in matter are the same as energy, and are the outcome of its interactions and so therefore can be considered as extensions of original substance, and you could say that energy is the original substance that everything comes from, and energy should be understood more fully by all metaphysicians. Nature and reality in general is more certain of what it is doing than humans are aware of what they are doing, nature creates meaning out of potential and possibility, whereas humans go around doubting that there is meaning at all, when all you have to do is to simply create it from potential and possibility for it to exist. Humans have so much potential to create meaning and to do things, they simply have to stop being passive and fatalistic, they also have to stop pursuing illusions. Humans have been able to create elements on their own which nature had not yet got around to creating, and humans have also been able to send particles faster than the speed of light by artificial means. It must also be pointed out that energy and space are intrinsically linked and connected, and that you cannot understand one without the other, and also fields are part of this process, whether they be gravitational, or electro magnetic, so to have an understanding of substance you must consider these things also. The concept of substance in its original metaphysical sense can be viewed as a description of energy itself in its purest form, which one could say would have specific characteristics such as vibration, elasticity, divisibility, continuity, flexibility etc. It is energy, and process, and not substance in its original metaphysical meaning, and also not the concept of god that is the basic ontological categories which describes reality accurately, and this is due to the eternal processes of change, and exchange in energy and its perpetual, and ceaseless vibration, movements and interactions in the space it inhabits, and also space is an important feature of these processes. The change that exists in energy is expressed by the exchange of opposites, or the interaction of opposites within the structure of matter. A good point that can be made in the favour of the people who believe in god is the mysterious properties that exist in energy in the sense of the perpetual, and ceaseless vibration that exists in matter, scientists have even claimed that it behaves as though it had intelligence and so this aspect of reality can be viewed as evidence that there might be a god by some people, but this line of inquiry must be considered as a metaphysical and scientific claim for it to have any kind of validity. Some people wonder whether the universe is either fortuitous or planned but I think that reason suggests that it came about by inevitable and spontaneous processes which continually refine themselves over time.

ON GROWTH AND CHANGE

2007-09-13T11:26:00.002+01:00

Growth it can be said consists of a process of change within any energy form in nature that requires additions from outside its form, as well as a change from within it due to the "will" in nature which is as I have mentioned before a force that is an extension of the ceaseless and perpetual vibration that exists in all energy or matter. In nature things like people and trees are able to grow only up to a certain point and then they stop growing, this whole process of growth and change is a fascinating aspect of nature, as is so many others, and should be investigated in its own right. The definite and particular size an object attains to due to the processes of growth and change in nature appear to exist due to a type of program within matter, but any program in matter or in nature in general has to be developed by an initial process and force, the reason i suggest this is because it cannot be any other way, inference and reason both lead to this conclusion. All of the causes of things and processes in nature are produced or set in motion by the ceaseles and perpetual vibration that exists in all energy or matter, so this would be the cause of the gradual forming of the seed and its program, aswell as the cause of the seeds growth once it has been formed and planted elsewhere, it is all of the combined activities of energy in general such as the soil, minerals, chemicals, water, and sunlight and their interactions with the seed that cause it to grow. The general activitities and vibration in energy and its processes that i have mentioned earlier are able to formalize and objectify an energy form that can grow and change, and this process and ability that energy has to do this becomes like a progam that can perpetuate and reproduce itself in matter by the use of free energy and this process is what i call the "formalization principle" and is a universal principle that exists in energy and its activities. The outward appearance of a growing and changing life form is shaped by its inner desires aswell as its will, and this outward appearance is also a response to how this lfe form views objective physical reality, for example, if our lifestyle is difficult and full of suffering because of our environment then we will seem difficult and unhappy to people, or alternatively cheerful and stoic, or however we choose to respond, and how we respond depends on our character and will aswell as the environment itself. Only life forms with weak characters or wills are shaped by their environment to a large degree, strong characters respond to their environment in the way they choose, and they also make an effort to shape their environment in accordance with their will. The change that occurs in growth consists of moments, stages, and phases and this change occurs because these processes are part of the program of whatever form goes through this , even the gradual decline of the form is part of the program, it is almost like the will in nature which is responsible fo this program in the first place is trying to stretch out and milk energy and processes for all it is worth in the construction of this form.

NOTHINGNESS DOES NOT EXIST

2007-09-09T11:17:00.011+01:00

The concept of "nothing" or "nothingness" has always struck me as a very interesting and worthwile aspect of reality to think about and form theories about, it is a concept that is used a lot by philosophers and by people in general. People even say that when you die you become nothing, but if your body is buried the atoms that your body consists of still exist, and some of these atoms gets converted into gases, on the other hand if you are cremated most of your atoms get dispersed into the atmosphere, and the rest of the atoms remain in the left over ashes. Even an empty paper bag contains particles, atoms, and molecule and cannot be said to contain nothing, it is also impossible in nature to create a complete or absolute vacuum, a vacuum will always contain a degree of matter in the form of particles. If nothingness existed there would not even be any space, let alone infinite space, a common axiom is that everything in physical reality is something including space itself which is infinite and also has infinite energy in its structure, and the fact that things exist is the only truth of physical reality concerning the fact that you cannot have nothing in physical reality even if something is only a temporary truth and impermanent. The reason why humans have a concept for nothing or nothingness is because concepts get defined more in relational terms to other concepts, for example, we have "something" or "being" and so what happens is that people have to invent the concept of "nothing" so that we can define and understand the concept of "something" more fully. Absolute truth consists of something, and the concept of truth exists because of the fact that reality itself is something (i.e., it consists of infinite energy, and space, and potential to create forms and events,) and to presuppose nothingness as an aspect of truth and reality is incorrect, and only that which is not true or does not exist, or has never existed can be labelled as nothing or not a thing that has ever existed, you cannot have the concept of nothing as the negation of being or of the concept of "something" and then say that this nothing exists as a part of being and existing things and then apply it to a description of reality. Everything in physical reality exists as energy and space and is part of a process that is like a continuum, whether you call a thing in nature a "something" or call it a "being" does not really matter, it is still an aspect of creation, or has a temporary existence, or is part of the dispersion of energy, or destruction and does not really matter because all of these processes are something and they consist of energy in space and are part of physical reality. Only an imaginary thing that does not exist in any way whatsoever and has never existed can be considered as nothing and be called this with confidence. The concepts of nothingness and untruth that we have only exist in the minds of human beings and also in their works, these concepts or things do not exist anywhere else in nature. The word nothing is only used in speech because languages contain many errors of reasoning, and languages are full of faults of all kinds anyway and if one chose to find errors and mistakes in languages one could find them easily, but people who are proud of human languages try to cover up these errors by defending these languages, but these errors are their and exist in languages none the less and cannot be denied. "Something" can only exist in relation to "space" and not in relation to "nothing", space is something also, but in relation to solid tangible objects it has less stable matter so it seems like it is less of a something even though it is not, nuclear reactions create stable matter, whereas matter exists everywhere in the fabric of space itself whether stable or unstable. The concept of relation means something is relative to something else, things cannot be felt or seem like they are concrete and dynamic unless they exist in the form of duality or relativity, but one can say that these things are not opposites they are the same thing but in a different state of activity, the concept of opposites are simply extremes of the same thing in polar opposite states of activity or state, I have explained and described some of these things more in my essay called: "So-Called Opposites" and also in my other essay called "Unity And Duality". It must also be pointed out that our senses cannot detect nothing, or nothingness, our senses can only detect something, ideas come from sense impressions, ideas are formed from things that exist and are a something that gives us an impression through our senses, so therefore we cannot have an idea of nothingness as an idea because it has no impression on our senses whatsoever. Sartre seems to use the concept of nothingness in a subjective, emotional manner, as a way of describing a feeling he gets in certain situations; someone else would feel differently in these same situations than he does, and that he describes, or they would analyze, and describe it more objectively than he does.

UNIVERSALS

2007-09-07T08:16:00.005+01:00

"Universals" appear to exist as perfect and apparent "ideas" but universals are not ideas and they are not perfect and this because there is not a thing in nature that is perfect. Experience teaches us that all universals exist only in a relative sense as part of physical reality and they have no real existence in physical reality in the complete sense and therefore can only exist in relative terms in physical reality as abstract potentiality and concrete partiality, but universals appear to exist in the complete sense in the reality of possibility and potential and are therefore an aspect of reality; reality does not consist only of what is physical but consists of what is possible also. The "eternal ideas" or forms mentioned by philosophers like Plato are called "universals" and these universals consist of all the eternal and universal things that exist as possibilities within the processes in energy or matter, universals also exist as thoughts in the minds of people also and universals give people and processes in nature absolute goals to work towards. The theory of universals is a description of all universal things that exist in the universe, either as concepts, forms or as abstract descriptions of universal things or a combination of all. Universals also represent all that is absolute in things in nature whether they are part of the continuum of nature or not, for instance, in nature specific types of colours in the electro magnetic spectrum, either in wavelength form or in the form of physical objects are never seen as pure, specific wavelengths are always seen by the eye as mixed with other colours, they are seen as fragmentary, so one could say that a specific type of red of the electro magnetic spectrum is a type of universal and is absolute as this type of red. for instance, the concept of a perfect sphere is a type of "universal" also, certain objects in nature due to processes may aim for the shape of a perfect sphere but they will never attain to this shape fully. "Universals" are the absolute "essence" of all eternal things and all temporary, imperfect and particular things in nature are partially derived from these universals and are called "particulars" and these particulars, it must be pointed out, have a character that is shaped by the circumstances that they are in due to the changes inherent in the processes of energy of which they are a part of. The reason why isolated parts of reality and particulars seem temporary and fragmentary, is because particulars are not absolute as an essence, particulars are combinations of universals and particulars also exist because of the changes inherent in the dynamic aspects of processes due to the "laws" "rules" and "forces" that are in place within the processes of energy and its possibilities. Particulars also consist of the temporary aspects of the ceaseless and perpetual vibrational activity which is inherent in energy and which is always at work in all processes. The fragmentary and temporary aspect of particulars is what gives them character and makes them unique, the only thing eternal about particulars is the vibrational energy activity inherent in them as well as the different universals they are a combination of and also of the laws, rules and forces that exist in energy and space. Universals are eternal, static, absolute things or forms that are abstract and become concrete in processes and are like rules and laws and things that are consistent and real within processes. Universals are possibilities and potentialities, that processes aim towards and become actualities in the sense that particular things are combinations of different universals. A particular on the other hand, is a dynamic, noticeably imperfect and partially real, tangible and temporary aspect of nature. Universals represent complete and eternal truths, whereas particulars exist as temporary truths in the concrete and tangible sense of physical reality. When describing universals and the rules and laws in nature and how the activities within energy take shape in accordance with the universal aspect of processes, it can clearly be pointed out that forms in nature cannot take shape or form without something to aim at that exists already within it to become as a guide and universals are like guides of possibility and potential that is inherent within energy and space. What has been ascertained already is that all things in nature consist of both the "universal" and the "particular" as well as the laws, rules and forces that are part of the processes in energy and space and all processes in energy and space come about due to the activity in energy. That everything in nature consists of the universal and the particular can be observed by the fact that this is the main reason why every individual human person is similar, but yet at the same time they are unique and partially different to everyone else and this can be observed in most tangible objects also whether they are animate or inanimate. Universals can always be sensed intuitively and felt, it is natural to compare in a relational way in our minds the concepts that we think about at any given point in time and how these concepts seem relative to universals and this usually happens when we think about reality in general. Universals or forms are immanent within matter, they appear, emerge and manifest in nature because they are inherent within nature itself.

IMPERFECT HARMONY

2007-09-05T15:33:00.002+01:00

All processes and forces in nature are interactions of energy and its vibratory activities within space, and these processes follow and obey rules which are a type of imperfect harmony which are inevitable as rules of activity for energy and its interactions and processes. Physical reality is an imperfect harmony of forces, and the reason I describe reality as being imperfect is because the concept of perfection exists only in our minds as an "ideal" or "idea", the concept of perfection exists in mathematics and geometry also as ideal mathematical concepts. One can say that it is only moments in time that exist in our minds which can be considered to be perfect, and perfection cannot exist in the concrete or tangible sense of phenomenon in physical reality. The concept of perfection appears to be partly real and partly imaginary, the concept of perfection seems to exist as a possibility that cannot be fully realized in physical reality, and it seems to exist in relative degrees also, for instance, an object A, can be considered to be more perfect than an object b, and vice versa. That something can exist as a possibility but yet not be fully realized in physical reality is a strange and mysterious aspect of reality, and requires more investigation and thought to be fully understood, and yet this is how the concept of perfection exists in reality. There are many factors which prevent the processes of energy or matter from attaining to the condition or state of perfection as humans conceive it, the concept of perfection could be viewed as not being very practical in physical reality, an example of this, is the human eye, in the human eye we have a blind spot which exists because of the eyes physical connection to the brain. There are no perfect spheres in nature, especially not planets or stars which have their very specific shapes for a reason. Everything in nature is imperfect and flawed by human standards anyway, and what humans call imperfection in these things is what gives these things character, if everything was perfect then everything would be more similar, "character" is what makes things different and "particular" otherwise everything would be more standard and alike, if things were perfect and alike then things would be limited and finite, and there would be no room for variation with different and particular types of things. The particular has character and is imperfect and flawed, whereas the concept of the universal is a perfect standard for all forms, and mathematical forms, aswell as a standard for all known things in the universe which are either abstract or not, "universals" can be considered to be "static concepts", even perfection itself can be considered to be a static concept, anything involving change can be considered as imperfect and flawed, anything universal is not completely real, it is part real and part possibility. It is only when the universal meets the particular within processes that you get particular things with character, and these particular things or forms are unlike any other things in existence, even though they may happen to be imperfect. What human beings call imperfection is really only a form of doubt that exists in our minds because we are comparing things in physical reality to our static and perfect "ideal"which exists only as a possibility. Even though things in physical reality can be considered as imperfect they are also efficient in their own way as a physical expression of processes within change.

THE FALLACY OF CYNICISM

2007-09-03T16:12:00.010+01:00

"Cynicism" is the belief, habit, and attitude of thinking that views other things; and other peoples actions as being insignificant, unimportant, not honest, self-serving, no good, redundant, not sincere, not worth anything, does not lead anywhere, etc. What I call "the fallacy of cynicism" is the fact that it is cynicism itself which consists of the things it projects as an attitude or view of the world, and it is in fact cynicism which is false, and negative, and unimportant. A lot of cynicism comes from a lack of inner content, or the lack of inner life that exists in people, and comes from a feeling of jealousy, and inadequacy, and a general feeling of apathy, and insecurity, and doubt towards oneself, and things in general, but is projected outwardly as an attitude, and it tries to convince itself and others that it is correct. All human beings who desire to be in touch with the truth at all times should banish cynicism from their very "being" as soon as possible. Modern society and the media and people in general these days are saturiated with cynicism, and it is because most people and the masses do not know how to think for them'selves, and don't really care about the truth, and are full of doubts, and therefore project this cynical attitude when they disagree with something. People should apply reason, logic, understanding, empathy, sympathy, and compassion if they want to overcome cynicism in them'selves and in others, cynicism is like a disease that must be eradicated. To have an appreciation for people, and the world in general, as well as developing, and displaying the faculties of "humour", "love", and "compassion" towards people has a positive and beneficial affect on people and their attitudes to the world in general , and when one displays this to them in a regular and consistent manner one finds great things begin to happen amongst people and their view of the world, and this should be encouraged more within the general make-up of peoples thinking and outlook of the world, instead of the tired cynical and defensive attitude that many people display which creates a feeling of seperation amongst people, which in general is a bad thing. I have always liked the Arthur Schopenhauer quote that; every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world, and this is why it is important to have a very open, and active mind, and one should also be all-embracing in one's view of reality and the universe in general, obviously wanting to know too much about reality can be foolish, you know the old saying, that if you try to be everywhere you find yourself to be nowhere, it is better to expand your knowledge a bit at a time, and at the same time it helps to have an active and open minded approach in one's understanding of things, it also helps to be all embracing in our approach and in our comprehension of reality, and we should also think of the "whole" and "totality" of things as best we can, and learn to harmonize differences. Some people have the attitude that being open minded means a person has no firm convictions, and also has an unbiased approach to reality, in a sense this is true, but this is not a bad approach, but a prudent one, and this is only because being biased can cloud peoples sense of reason because of its one-sided aspect and manner, also having convictions can be a rigid way of thinking and approaching life in general, because of the fact that convictions can be very fixed even when it is in defence of incorrect things, convictions can degenerate into petty one-sided stubbornness if it is not checked and corrected, so therefore it can help to be open minded at times when required. "Cynics" always have a very limited, narrow, and erroneous view of reality, and they think that their opinions have some kind of validity, when in fact their opinions on any topic contain the most useless answers any thinker could possibly have produced as a description of reality.
cynical people are always trying to devalue the efforts of other people and the force of their joy and enthusiasm, because cynical people have no joy or enthusiasm of their own, they have no desire to want to undersand things in reality, cynical people are simply negative empty shells devoid of any real content within their own "being", and they try to project this view onto everything else and everyone else, they want everything to seem less important than it is, and also less significant. Cynicism in most cases is a false and negative view of reality, enthusiasm, reason, and a positive way of thinking is a truer view of reality, and is also progressive. "Peak experiences" are a more accurate view of reality than a cynical and apathetic outlook could ever encompass, peak experiences give us a brief moment of clarity about the surrounding world, anything that gives our consciousness a feeling of clarity is truer than anything that simply undermines the importance of reality in our consciousness. Cynicism is an unconstructive and worthless aspect of human consciousness and should be beaten out of everyones attitudes to life who have this trait as part of their personality. Cynicism and apathy can create a feeling of boredom in our lives, and when events and moments in our lives become boring our will goes through periods were it remains passive for long periods of time, and then our focusing muscle, and our sense of purpose becomes weak and unenthusiastic and looses its focus, this outcome also gives us a feeling that our life is failing and is unimportant and futile. Meaning, purpose, and enthusiasm is important in our lives, cynicism, apathy, and boredom cripples the will, meaning and purpose stimulates the will, enthusiasm, joy, and the peak experience is a sudden surge of meaning, and it gives the feeling that we are in touch with the truth about reality. The majority of people who are very cynical do not, and cannot accomplish the great things that a more positive and enthusiastic person can attain, cynics by their very nature are low achievers. It is more what we believe things to be, and also what we want them to be that makes them what they ultimately become in the final result in the form of our actions, and this is why cynicism is such a negative and lazy attitude to have, because it lowers the quality of all judgements and endeavours. It is usually easy to tell what a cynic is thinking in most situations because most cynics have very predictable thinking patterns, in most cases. One of the only advantages to cynicism is that many things can be figured out using this approach, because the methods employed by cynicism are analytical, and fault finding, so in a sense the need for improvements in things can be suggested, by pointing out the faults that exist, and can be found in them, and cynicism can also indicate how those faults need to be improved, or eliminated. To be cynical about something bad is good, but to be cynical about something good is bad, for instance, to be cynical about an unfair, repressive and oppressive government is good, whereas to be cynical about a democratic and egalitarian state is bad. Most of what I have written in this essay is in regard to the cynicism towards good and positive things rather than the cynicism towards the negative and bad things. Sometimes when somebody is being very cynical we can get the feeling that they are not being truthful; so this the reason why I entitled this essay "The Fallacy of Cynicism".

CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY

2007-09-01T15:18:00.001+01:00

The "causes" that exist in nature and the universe in general are processes, and are not intentions, either by an all powerful god or by the events in nature. For all causes to be certain, all its aims would have to be certain, but the aims of energy, space, and processes are not aims-in-itself, they are simply processes from non explainable facts. Causes in energy and space are uncertain and groundless, whereas aims are not in most cases, aims are usually progressive and harmonious, some aims are groundless because causes are. Causes in energy and space are uncertain because they are processes rather than intentional causes, only an intentional cause can be certain, and be explained with certainty. If all the aims that make up a cause are known, then you can know for certain of how it causes things in a certain way as a cause. As i have mentioned already, the causes of processes in energy, space, and reality are uncertain, and they appear to have always existed, whereas the processes themselves have spontaneous order and can be explained by the laws of complexity. Seeing as though there is no ultimate aim to processes in reality and biological life implies that the processes of reality and existence are more important than the aims which are simply progressive and harmonious. All intentional certainty in nature is basically a build-up resulting from the events of processes that have occured in nature generally prior to the certainty that we are speaking of at any given point in time, but the more one traces back the certainty of causes for each event the more gradually they become uncertain and seem groundless as causes, and this is only because our knowledge is limited. Energy and space have always existed; and causes are the result of processes and cycles in nature that go from groundless and irrational, to arational, to rational and progressive, and then become refined, and then go back to a groundless and basic state again, and then continue because energy and space is infinite in all its processes. There is no beginning, and there is no end to processes in energy and space, processes simply continue from a sort of uncertain and groundless existence in energy and just continue and go on and work themselves out indefinitely, this is why humans have concepts like eternity, and infinity, because we intuitively feel these things in our very being as part of the universe and things in general, humans sometimes make the mistake of thinking that their existence is eternal because it is part of energy and space, but this is merely wishful thinking, and our existence is not eternal in any way, it is finite in space and time, and it is only the energy that we consist of and the space that we occupy that is eternal and is part of the infinite. A lot of processes begin and then die out or fail, this occurs all the time in nature, any process which is an extension of other processes, or you could say a microcosom of much more greater processes can be said to have a beginning and an end, but ultimate processes do not have a beginning or an end. Certainty is temporary, and limited, and intentional in most cases, and therefore has its limits in most situations. As society and civilization progresses more a feeling of certainty is aquired by people in general because knowledge has the ability of reducing the doubts we have about things. Ultimate causes and aims will always remain uncertain and cannot be understood fully seeing as how one thing cannot exist without another anyway, certainty only exists because uncertainty existed before it in the chain of events, and vice versa.

THE DANGER OF ILLUSIONS

2007-08-28T18:39:00.007+01:00

"Illusions" can be found everywhere in society, and are part of how humans perceive reality in general. Money, borders, countries, economic systems, religions, the media etc., and the list goes on are all illusions, in other words these things are false ideas, beliefs, and impressions, and have created, and continue to create a lot of damage and waste in the world. As we all know the concept of money was invented in the official sense and brought into regular use in a place called lydia, in asia minor, many years ago, and since then has become immensely important in the lives of many people, but what this enthusiasm for progress brought in its wake, was that powerful human emotion which we call "greed".
The concept of money as we know it today is an illusion, countries and economic systems are basically in debt to money that does not exist, the numbers in computers and books and so on, are just negative numbers, what exists in reality are raw materials, the only thing real about money is that its substance consists of cotton and linen, and coins consist of metal. A lot of humans spend so much time being greedy, and thinking about money, and their image, and what people think of them, and so forth, and they rarely bother to spend any time thinking about what is real or what is illusion, and how these things effect the world. There is only a limited amount of raw materials in the world, and when this starts to run out we are going to run into trouble in the world, metals, and oil are both limited, things like livestock, and fruit and vegetables can be produced indefinitely and are less of a problem. Some people have the bad habit of treating other people badly for the sake of money, and not realizing how much of an illusion it really is. A lot of business companies pollute the environment just to make money, greed and illusion create these problems and dangers to the environment, and the majority of people in the world do not spend much time thinking about these problems, instead they are to busy thinking about money and being self absorbed. And also what are all the people who drive cars going to do when the worlds oil supplies begin to diminish. Also when one thinks about all the political and religious wars that have occured in this world in the name of one illusion after another, it becomes a ridiculous thing and can be viewed as ignorant and depressing. As long as human beings do not think about the difference between what is real and what is illusion, then their focus will be diverted away from the things which could possibly become dangerous in the long run for people in general.
The problem with a lot of illusions is that people follow them in a rational manner, and think that because illusions are rational then that makes them real, people think things like, for example, that we need money to survive so then it means that the concept of money is a real thing, when it is not, it is raw materials which are real, and action, and the exploitation of them by the use of money which are real.
The fact that a person can change their nationality and get a new passport is evidence that the concept of nations is another illusion, just like so many others, and even the english language is a mixture of so many things that in the end it has no real intrinsic identity of any distinct kind of reality, it is merely an appearance for real things or concepts. The attitude that some people have that most people should drive cars, and that owning a car is a sign of progress is an illusion, and it is dangerous, as I mentioned earlier, what are people going to do when the oil starts to run out in the world, the more people who avoid owning and driving cars the better for the world in general, our planet only has a limited amount of metals also, there are also better uses for this metal than building and making cars with this metal supply. Most pedestrians will find that cars are always getting in their way anyway and that the less cars are around the better for pedestrians all round. And what about all the trees and forests that get exploited and used up just so that humans can have some huge well furnished house or whatever other uses we have for wood. So that when one talks about"progress" and "reality" it is important to define what is meant by progress, and what is not, some things progress, and others do not and are a hindrance to society and civilization in general, for example, one must constantly ask oneself what has advanced and developed to a better state that we know of ?, and what has not? When talking about and discussing activities, or situations, or advances in society in general one can categorize them as either progressive, indifferent, regressive, and worse than regressive. When describing progress one must be clear about what aids it and also what curbs its advance, progress does not consist only of advances and developments, but entails the raising of the quality of things aswell as an awareness of the environment as a whole. We as humans depend on the environment so it is important to think about it at all times, and not allow ourselves to be too selfish and narrow sighted, we must care about and appreciate what we have got on this planet and that also entails curbing the population increase, too many people equals not enough resources for them all. The natural resources in the world and the economic system will not be able to withstand the amount of people and their desire to earn money and consume natural resources, but yet people continue to procreate and uphold the view that work, money, jobs, and consumption of natural resources lead somewhere to a more advanced state of progress and so on, and it does not, in fact this attitude creates more problems down the line. There are no "ideals" that are truer, and more noble, and have more integrity attached to them than having an appreciation for all forms of life, aswell as looking after the environment, and also doing what you want, and doing the things that you enjoy the most in this world before you die, and one should do this irrespective of money, or economic systems, or religions, or whatever other illusions people choose to pursue without thought or care for reality and what it means. And when you die you will not find a life after death, or loved ones, or a god waiting for you, you will simply be dead!, so do what is real for you, and for the welfare of the environment, and for the people of the future who have to live with the mess or lack of it that we create for them. Certain thinkers and writers think it is admirable to glorify capitalism at the expense of other types of political systems, but the reality is that capitalists are consuming, exploiting, and destroying natural resources and the environment in pursuit of an illusion and for a temporary sense of accomplishment, the so-called glory of capitalism is an illusion and a destructive and empty ideal. It is true that the concept of money does motivate the masses and gives them a sense of meaning and purpose, but this is only because the masses do not know how to think for them'selves anyway and are easily lead and fooled, what humanity needs are alternative motivations which are less illusionistic and less destructive to the environment than are capitalism or the pursuit of money. The universe and reality itself presents us with an infinity of possibilities, so why is it that humans in general are consuming, exploiting, and destroying our environment in the pursuit and attainment of an illusion, why should greed be more powerful than reason? The eastern concept of "maya" that suggests that the world is an illusion simply because it is temporary and impermanent does not really make any sense, just because something is temporary and impermanent does not mean that it is not real or is an untruth, it simply means that the world is a temporary truth and is therefore real in the temporary sense. If you are going talk about illusions and develop a theory about them then you have to point out what is an illusion and also what is real about the world in a logical and realistic way, you cannot just say that the world is an illusion because it is temporary and then leave it there without further explanation. For human beings illusions are just as equally important to us as the truth of reality is to us, and if we did not fantasize or imagine things in our lives then our lives would seem dull, boring, and insipid because all we would be doing is facing and contemplating the truth of reality most of the time. The problem with illusions and fantasy though is that humans sometimes get deluded by these mental constructions and they start to think that these illusions are real when in fact they are not real at all, and this situation can be very dangerous because it obscures reason and it is dangerous because we rely on reason for our survival. There are two concepts that can be considered as illusions which have existed in the public mind since the days of plato, and these concepts have created a dangerous duality on the one hand, but have also produced a lot of original and useful theories on the other, the concepts I am referring to are the world of "phenomena" or appearances, and the world of "noumena" but what has become obvious is that these concepts have been useful in provoking people into wanting to know the true nature of reality, and these concepts have made people curious about reality in general and it has also given them the feeling to want to look past the obvious and objective aspects of reality and therefore to seek more into the inner nature of the processes of energy and space, so as to undertand its true nature more fully. Objects in nature should be viewed as a whole, and as a totality, and also as a unity, and also as part of a process, to try and understand the being of an object in nature requires Some reflection and desire to imagine being this object, trying to put oneself in its place by an act of imagination and reflection, and one should repeatedly do this so that a concrete feeling is attained with whatever objects one chooses to experience in this way, one should also research and examine these objects empirically, and also all of the information about these objects should be studied. Some philosophers or thinkers believe that mysticism or mystical revelation involves the use of the faculties of "instinct" and "intuition", but this is an incorrect assumption, and it must be pointed out that these faculties exist within the physical organism for reasons of adaptation and survival. Instinct, and intuition are rational faculties and processes of cognition due to evolution and adaptation in the organism, and even the reflexes in the biological form can be connected to these faculties. Mysticism and the claims it makes must be described as being a combination of imagination, wishful thinking, and hallucination, and therefore exist purely in the mind without empirical evidence to back it up.
There can be no doubt that mysticism is an illusion, and it is true that the faculty of reason involves a connection with the senses and the organism, and is a form of non-contradictory identity of agreement between knowledge and the facts of the senses, but what exists purely in the mind should be distinguished from what exists in the organism in the way of sensibility and empiricism.

ON THE FORCES WITHIN MATTER

2007-08-25T14:11:00.005+01:00

A force that is not impulsive is alike to an impression on its surrounding area in space, so a continually acting force has a continual impression on its surrounding area, and its impression on its surrounding area in space is proportional to its combined activity. All the forces in matter are an extension of the ceaseless and perpetual vibration that exists in energy or particles, and the forces in matter are a combined harmony of this vibration in particles all working together in a concerted manner in the sense that all the energy or matter is interacting together. A continually acting force is therefore the combined activity of this impulsive, ceaseless and perpetually vibrating force within energy all acting together and in combination to produce a continous force within matter and its surrounding area in space. If you divide an object you will find the same forces existing, but it will be diminished in strength, any object that is divided has the same vibrational patterns, all tangible structures come from this vibrational allignment or pattern, all energy and its interactions produce predictable and inevitable patterns. The harmony of forces within matter operate as a field, and a field of forces is alligned in a curve that is cyclical, and has periodicity. Structure as we see it is the vibration of energy working together as an alligned combination of forces going along the same curve which goes back into itself with a form of conservation of energy. Every energy field is composed of smaller fields, or is part of a larger field, except for the universe itself which appears to be independant and not part of a larger field. Everything about energy and space is infinite, even the ceaseless and perpetual vibration in energy is eternal and infinite in movement. The "finite" has to aim to become infinite in order to achieve "reality", and this is the reason why the vibrational activity in energy and its processes produce structured reality from within the fabric of space itself, and it is this which produces nuclear reactions and so on. Energy and space are infinite in the literal and truest sense, and have always existed and always will, for instance, mathematical symbols and circles cannot represent or contain what infinity really is, it is something than never ends in the literal sense, if you pick a direction in space you will carry on travelling forever until your structure or body wears out and falls apart. The mistake a lot of mathematicians and physicists make is that they don't think energy and space can exist without time, but time is only a measure of processes within particular and isolated events, it does not exist in the absolute sense concerning infinite energy within the fabric of infinite space. The reason energy can neither be created or destroyed is because energy is infinite anyway, the universe is essentially an open system with structure, and it is utilizing infinite potential energy from the fabric of space itself. The forces in nature actively operate as a continuum from sub quantum levels to particles, to atoms, to molecules, to planetary bodies, to stars, to galaxies etc. what appears as the seperate aspects of cause and effect is really just part of this continuum.
In a continuum energy fields overlap and can be seen to interconnect at the sub-quantum level, what appears as separate or apparently separate by our perceptions is really connected at every level infinitely by energy and its fields. All the forces in nature are part of the fact that all particles vibrate and interact as i indicated earlier, the forces as a whole are a harmony in the way all the particles vibrate and interact. All particles transmit forces by exchanging particles with other particles, these exchanged particles are charged vibrationally so as to attract both interacting particles, this process is occuring all the time in matter.

PURE THOUGHT

2007-08-24T14:54:00.002+01:00

The society that humans are brought up in, and the language that they are taught, and also the cultural baggage which has been impressed upon them by society conditions the way they think and feel about reality in general and how they view things. For any individual with a semblance of true character it becomes imperative for them to shed this conditioning that has been impressed upon them if they are ever to have a direct relationship with the truth. All great thinkers are creative discoverers, they start from the inside in their very "being" and then they work outwardly as a means to understanding the world, firstly they begin by purging themselves of all societal conditioning within their being, and then they proceed to learn to think and feel in a way that is truthful for them personally, and they develop a way of thinking that is without the yoke of society strangling them and suffocating their relationship with the truth. The ability to think for oneself without societal conditioning is called "pure thought", and is called this because it is a way of thinking that has been purged of all the illusions and baggage which has been impressed upon it by society. Once the process of experiencing the truth is attained in a consistent manner by the use of pure thought one begins to start feeling empowered by the realizations one encounters in their understanding of reality, and therefore it becomes necessary to translate this truth into the language that is used by society. In pure thought all prejudices and biased ways of thinking are rejected, and there are no one-sided ways of thinking in it to interfere with its processes, it is a direct and all embracing way of thinking that is "whole" and genuine. Labels and gimmicks are part of the societal and cultural baggage which I mentioned earlier in this essay, and this baggage it must be said limits the sense of freedom that is inherent within "being". Labels are always one dimensional, and being is multi-dimensional, especially one that is in touch with the truth. Reality is a continuum, and everything in the universe is relative to something else, this is why gimmicks and stereotypes fail to capture the truth about things, and it also becomes necessary that the truth should be described as a process of connecting relations, rather than as isolated concepts, or gimmicks. Any thinker who is original, and unpredictable, and writes and says things that you have not heard, or thought about before, is a pure thinker and is of great value to humanity. Presumptuous cynics always claim they have thought of everything before that great thinkers have written or said, but it is too easy and lazy to claim something after the fact, rather than figuring out things for oneself, or at least attempting to, this way of thinking is like assuming that you know everything, when in fact there is more that is not known about the universe than is in fact known about it, therefore it makes more sense to have an enthusiasm for figuring things out, rather than just claiming you could have figured that out without bothering to make the effort required due to apathy and so forth. what counts in life is that one has enterprise and initiative, rather than just knocking people who care more deeply about the cosmos and its processes and truths, and who try to figure it out. Most philosophers and thinkers tend to be a bit tyrannical and arrogant, and are always trying to push their opinions across without spending enough time thinking about things on their own, they also don't spend enough time listening to other thinkers and their ideas, this can be a great fault, but it has its uses also. Philosophers and thinkers in general must use every experience they have as a means to understanding reality, they should especially learn from the battles they have with other philosophers and people in general. Ultimate answers or truths can only be partly explained and described, they cannot be explained fully or understood beyond the obvious aspects they consist of. Humans need to overcome "mental mechanicalness" which is a tendency to use our minds in the same way ( and the same attitudes) over and over again, we should be able to change our thoughts and attitudes towards things. It is a well known fact that anyone who develops their mind, and their brains cognitive abilities produces more neurons as well, and this process continues until death. It has also been proven that a developing brain partly grows in size because of the brains similarity to a muscle, the skull also becomes adapted to this brain size increase. I must point out that developing one's brain or mind requires that one avoid drugs, and alcohol, which as you know kills many brain cells. In pure thought one must be careful that one's thoughts and theories are not "made up" and that they describe things and processes in reality as they really are in the sense of being a description of what is apparent, or likely to be apparent in reality. What appears to be one of the things that makes one persons character different to another persons character is the way they use their brains, whether this is insinctual due to the will is a fascinating thing to think about, the difference between a person who is very intelligent and a person who's thinking is mediocre is the way they choose to use their brain. All human beings should learn to think for them'selves first, and then afterwards if they want to permit certain types of knowledge to shape and influence their minds that should be up to them and should be their own choice, it is strange how society tries to manipulate people by forcing them to send their children to school, and also by forcing talented children who have a career in showbusiness to get home schooled. Any kind of thinking which requires pure reasoning must reject all biased and prejudiced attitudes from its cognitions and thinking patterns, because if these prejudiced ways of thinking are not banished once and for all in the commencement of our understanding of things then these unnecessary attitudes will begin to slowly grow and then end up ruining the straightforward quality of our conclusions and reasonings. To be 100% truthful in every way about one's thoughts and feelings about reality is the only way to be authentic and honest about things, and it enables us to understand reality more fully. We must be just as negative as we are positive about how we experience reality, reality does not deserve us being positive a lot of the time, or even negative a lot of the time, or any other kind of one-sided way of thinking, because to experience reality truthfuly requires an honesty that goes beyond the human tendency to act or label things or behaviour, reality is something that simply exists and we are merely a by-product of its processes, and reality does not deserve anything from us, we only owe ourselves the truth and a complete understanding of it. It is impossible to understand reality fully unless we can be extremely negative at times, and also be highly positive at other times, and also humorous at other times and so forth, and also everything in between, because what counts in the eventual outcome is that we can harmonize extremes or insights in our understanding of reality, how can we understand reality fully if we are one-sided or not willing to be extreme in our desire to understand things, and likewise how can we understand reality unless we stop acting and learn to be completeley truthful and able to handle humiliation. And also a lack of desire to always want to be right helps one understand reality also, because people who always want to be right only see what they want to see, and they do not see the truth of reality, because this is how perception works. Truth and falsity only seem to exist when we make a clear distinction between things, but when we harmonize them and view them as a process this distinction disappears. When you become a pure knowing subject of "truth" then all falsity disappears, and your consciousness deals only in what is concretely real and connected.

THE WONDER OF IT ALL

2007-08-23T00:24:00.004+01:00

The curiosity and the sense of wonder that the truly enthusiastic thinkers of all time have shown us, is that a widening of our senses and a desire to comprehend the cosmos brings us a joy that cannot be measured by the mere thoughts of an unenthusiastic mind. Narrowness of thinking and the blinkering of the mind to the wonders of the universe is in humans a great failing and a flaw in character, evolution in its truest sense implies being puposive, enthusiastic, and having a progressive outlook on the world. one will also find that this lack of desire that some people have to want to understand the universe in which we live in, is a great shame, that humans can get through life with this complete lack of an enthusiasm to want to understand the universe is shameful, and should be avoided at all costs by every human being. That people can blindly believe in god without requiring any evidence for god's existence, has always seemed to me like a very gullible and delusional thing for people to do, for instance, the fact that a religious fanatic is willing to kill people for a concept that probably does not exist, rather than appreciating these people for real, and having love for them, tells you more about the content of the character of some of these religious people, rather than giving evidence that there is a god. When human beings don't appreciate and respect each other, life becomes depressing, because most of the problems in the world are caused by either jealousy, or stupidity, and a small percentage of the problems in the world are caused by other things, for example, even "competition" in humans is a reflex of the biological form, or organism, rather than a properly worked out solution. What humans need are properly worked out solutions rather than blind biology. People should have faith and belief in each other, they should respect and appreciate each other rather than be self-absorbed in their own ego's and self interests all the time, they should try to strike a balance between self-interest and an appreciation for others, they should also do this instead of believing in a god that might possibly be non-existent and actually vacant from the processes within the cosmos. Belief in the concept of god can divide people in a very dangerous way, because it is not pragmatic, and it is a concept that is used to justify mental laziness at the task of trying to figure out the truth about reality and the processes of energy in the cosmos. The sheer joy and wonder one gets from thinking about the universe and its processes is a feeling that should be encouraged in everyone. A long list of the fascinating and mysterious aspects of the universe could be written out which could be considered as interesting and well worth thinking about, it could be done if one chose to do this, but it is better to tackle these mysteries in an organic way, and treat them as enjoyable mind problems to be solved. On the most part humans live by the preconceived conditioning which has been impressed on them by society, with all its religious and cultural baggage, for example, if one wants to shed limiting beliefs as if it was an old skin that is no longer adequate for our growth, entails having to re-learn a more radical and truthful form of knowledge and purpose, and this new purpose may consist of a way of living that could be in opposition to the passive conformists and religious brainwashed dogmatists who continually attack and oppress free thinkers and those with personal intelligence.
My aim in writing this essay is not to attack the religous, or the spiritual minded people who believe in god, but to open up peoples minds to wanting to think about the universe and how amazing it is in its own right, irrespective of how it might have been created, and I hope that what I have suggested is not taken as an attack on peoples beliefs, because I consider tolerance to be an important virtue for human beings to have, and it is not my aim to try and devalue peoples beliefs whatsoever, my aim is to point out logical ways of thinking as important factors in undertanding our existence and our place in the universe, as opposed to just accepting what we were taught and think we know without sufficient evidence for its justification.

SOCIETY IS IN ITS INFANCY

2007-08-21T09:36:00.002+01:00

We live in a time or period in which society and the media is largely cynical, confused, and illusionistic, where apathy, doubt, and uncertainty is mingled with hopes of a glamorous and superficial lifestyle, not only is this evidence of a society that needs to grow up, we are also under a constant bombardment of negative and nihilistic images by the media, which goes to show how immature, uncertain, and ignorant society truly is in its evolution at present. Much more maturing is required of society in general if we are to progress anywhere, and one can safely point out that this is only because society is still in its infancy, and is still very young, for instance, when one thinks about it in depth, one could say that time frames for the evolution of societies are much more extended than we at first realize when we think about it, and also society has not really been around that long when one compares it to biological evolution. Society has a lot to learn and re-learn due to the past errors of judgement that have occured in the events in the world so far, not only is society still in its infancy, but also human consciousness is still in its infancy also. Human beings are capable of creating a far superior society than the one's we have at present, they simply have to drop the illusions, and the apathy, and the cynicism, and get busy maturing as a whole, and get more in touch with the truth and the things that count. Creating truth out of possibility is the wellspring from which all purpose and meaning flows out from, so it makes more sense to create a meaning out of the thought that basically all of society needs to mature a bit quicker than it has been before too much doubt occurs in the world.
Human beings up until today have been largely passive and conformist, they have allowed concepts like god, and religion, and nationality, and politics, and money, and so many other things to rule them and influence them, if democracy is to really work in the world people have to refuse to conform to society in general, aswell as learn to shape the society in the way they want it as a whole, and they can only attain this as a non-conformist mass of people, they should do this instead of allowing the people who have the power in the things they are meant to conform to to have a power over them to manipulate them, because it is people in general who really have the power, and they have to stop giving their power away to the power hungry conformists and manipulators of the world. Realistically though humans have a lot of potential to do great and fantastic things in society, and with society as a whole, but they have to stop giving their power away due to fear, and selfishness, and mental laziness, and apathy, and cynicism and the list goes on and on like this, it is a shame really that a lot of people are to self absorbed to care about society and its problems. Individual people should do some revaluation of their place in society and view their situation as something progressive within a structure that has a lot of growing up to do, people should get busy shaping society in a more truthful and mature way, they should not allow dogma and ignorance, whether it be religious or political to interfere with their personal intelligence. The desire to live more genuinely within society implies a responsibility for one's own actions and how it affects other people, and this can be a lonelier stance or approach to be in, if one compares it to people who do not care about society at all or where it is going, whether they be involved in politics or not. The infancy of society will not last forever, but hopefully it can mature well with some of our help and wisdom, we just need to contribute to it what we can, so that its development will go without any problems, and in the course of time it will grow up to be a responsible adult.

INTENTIONALITY

2007-08-20T09:29:00.005+01:00

"Intentionality" is the active part of "being" which corresponds to the "will" in biological life, it usually exists before any thoughts we have of a specific kind appear, it compels us to grow from the time we are a baby and gives us a sense of purpose up until the present moment as you are reading this text. Intentionality makes every mental thought or action aim towards a purposive goal, or specific point, biologically we are set this way unless we choose to manipulate it by the use of free will, and will-power. "being" also has a passive, receptive side which is more empathic and sensitive to changes, the amount of dimensions a person has in their being and perceptions depends entirely on their desire to change themselves, our results in life are proportionate to desire, and action in all that we do, if a person wants to develop more dimensions to their being and increase their perceptions, they first have to have the desire to develop them. "The intentionality of being" can objectify our feelings or thoughts in an abstract way in such a manner that we physically respond to them, such as doubt, and fears, and joys which affect our conduct, I used the word objectify because this process can give us hallucinations once they have gone past the abstract phase of their development and become more mentally concrete, this happens more to people who have some kind of additional psychic power beyond the normal amount. Ideally our psyches or minds should be like close to perfect working systems, but yet they are interrupted by the intentionality of our imagination and wills. In my introductory essay on multi-perception I mentioned that many perceptions can be developed and used simultaneously depending on what perceptions are needed at that point in time in whatever situations we are in, it can only really be brought about by intentionality and its use by doubling, and then tripling its force and so on, as I have written already it is like many focused beams of intentionality working together. The intentionality of consciousness is directed towards the outside world, it is aimed towards the "objective reality" of objects and things, and it is therefore the aspect of consciousness which is most in touch with the faculty of reason, intentionality is the aspect of consciousness which is positional and exhausts itself in its efforts directed outwardly and objectively, it can also be said to lack stability. The psyche or consciousness as a whole needs stability and a foundation to work from as such, which one might add is the subjective unpositional and stationary aspects of consciousness. One cannot say that all the aspects of consciousness are aimed towards objective reality, it is also necessary to describe the aspects of consciousness that are geared towards or reside in subjective reality. "Subjective reality" are all the feelings we have as well as the aspects of consciousness which contains our inner world or inner life of the imagination, emotions, and intuition which are just as important as the faculty of reason or intentionality are, and this is the main reason why all morality and ethics should be based on "reason" and "emotion" in equal measure, because one is just as crucial and fundamental as the other. The Imagination, emotions, and the intuitive aspects of consciousness are more understanding in their cognitions and assessments pertaining to the arational, and irrational and groundless aspects of reality than the faculty of reason is on its own, and feelings and emotions are therefore just as relevant in all assessments of reality and truth as the faculty of reason is on its own, and therefore feelings and emotions are just as important as reason is in morality and ethics aswell as in all assessments of reality in general. It is because of the impulsive and rigid aspects of intentionality that we select in our minds what we want to perceive when we scan any given situation in life, and this is one of the reasons why their is always a discrepancy between how we perceive things in any given situation and what actually occured in that situation in life, and also how it looked, or what the weather was like and so forth, in situations some people tend to remember details a lot, others remember the general outcome of the situation and a few other things, highly emotional people mostly remember the general feeling of the situation etc. Experiments have proven that intentionality, and our behaviour in general begins in the subconscious, therefore all so-called conscious decisions, strange behaviour, and accidents due to instinct have already been decided upon by the subconscious, in a sense it could be said that we live more instinctually than we would like to believe, and our behaviour is not as highly consciously decided as we would like to believe it is, our instincts it must be pointed out are usually influenced by our environment, and our situation in life due to prior causes, and our mental, and emotional state in general, the instincts in biological life were shaped by evolution, and adaptation and constitute an immense part of our behaviour, biology, and instinct is stronger than conscious reason.

THE THING-IN-ITSELF CONCEPT AND HOW IT RELATES TO THE WILL

2007-08-19T13:47:00.006+01:00

The "thing-in-itself " concept which is alluded to by philosophers like Immanuel Kant, and Arthur Schopenhauer is a concept that can be viewed in two different ways, so can therefore be used in two different ways depending on your inclination. The first way in which the thing-in-itself concept can be viewed is that it is merely an ideal for unrealisable perspectiveless knowledge, and so can be viewed in this way if one choose, but this strikes me as being a very passive manner in which to use such a useful concept, even Immanuel Kant himself was not sure whether the concept should be used in an active or passive manner. I believe that the thing-in-itself concept should be used in an active and constructive manner as a way of trying to understand what truly constitutes matter and forms and the nature of things-in-themselves, for instance, when one thinks about it for any length of time it becomes obvious by inference, and also evidence of facts that the true nature of energy, forms, and also the nature of things-in themselves is a "force, activity, and inclination" that is inherent in all energy or particles, and it is the ceaseless and perpetual vibration that exists in all energy and particles, and it can also be said to be the most mysterious and elusive force that we know of in the cosmos and is responsible for all the forces and forms in physical reality, even Immanuel Kant himself always referred to the thing-in-itself concept or true nature of things as the aspect of physical reality that we cannot fully understand, and he was right!, because in sub-atomic physics especially in quantum mechanics heisenberg's uncertainty principle has proven kant to be correct, at least for now!, in time humans will know more about the true nature of energy, space, and the universe.
This thing-in-itself force must have been responsible for the big bang, and all the other forces that exist in matter, but a lot of people usually try to explain this away as being the creation of god and so forth. The thing-in-itself force always appears as a process that goes from groundless and irrational, to arational, to rational, as its processes work themselves out fully and develop, this process usually aquires a harmony of activity as it organizes itself structurally in a concerted manner, for instance, energy and its rates of vibration going from so-called strings, to particles, to atoms, to molecules to ever so more complicated structures relies upon a sort of concerted effort on the part of energy or the thing-in-itself aspect of energy, and it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that the forces in matter are an extension of this vibrational activity or force that we call the thing-in-itself. According to arthur schopenhauer the "will" in nature emanates from this thing-in-itself force also, even though the concept of the will in nature is responsible for a lot of the evolution of biological life, in speech it applies more to desires, needs, wishes, hopes, urges, inclinations, volitions, resolutions, determinations, decisions, choices, purposes, selections, plans and so on that a lot of the forms of biological life goes through and experiences.
In the forces that exist in nature it is usually the processes that can be considered to be rational, rather than the causes or aims. The "will" of a particular thing obeys no time constraints, it is timeless and can be activated by whatever causes come along, for instance, this happens when we plant seeds that have been lying around on our shelves for years, or when we conceive a child. Once the cause of a thing has been activated it is the internal and particular aspect of its appearance and phenomena that exists and subsists in time in the sense of causality, and time cannot be a fixed determination of the outward aspect of phenomena. Without the thing-in-itself force everything in the universe would be static, and undynamic, and without movement, how could one conceive of any processes within energy without it. The main reason biological life exists at all is because of the "ceaseless and perpetual vibration " that exists in "energy"and this activity is "infinite and eternal in movement and quantity", it is the driving force of everything, and anything that has a "will" in nature, and of so many other things in nature also, it is what makes biological life grow and progress, it gives us meaning and purpose. Our existence as we know it today is the resultant activity of this thing-in-itself force, it is even at work in the ageing process of our bodies at this present moment, and all the processes that have lead to our existence within matter is due to this force and it is what has produced us. All the creative aspects of nature such as biological life mostly come about because of the harmony that exists in processes that are part of the thing-in-itself force. Even electricity is a part of this thing-in-itself force, in a way it can be viewed as an aspect of this force which can produce a pure and continuous current of movement. One day more in the future when peoples senses improve they will be able to see and feel the ceaseless and perpetual vibration that exists in energy and matter, and they will also be able to see the colours that are part of the electro magnetic spectrum more clearly. All universals, forces, laws, and rules in nature are inherent within the ceaseless and perpetual vibration in energy and its activities (i.e., the thing-in-itself force,) and this general thing-in-itself force is the essence of these processes and harmonies of activity. There is no doubt that all energy appears to be living, and also appears to be conscious and highly aware of its activity and surroundings, and energy is always in harmonious communication with the other energy that is around it. Matter, or energy depending on how we use these words are used to express how seemingly solid objects or things in reality appear very solid, and this is only because the activity or vibration of energy itself is in a state of constant and continuously structured movement, so therefore energy appears to be more solid than it really is, but in reality so-called solid matter has more empty spaces than our senses can detect in their present state of advancement, maybe in the future when peoples senses are more advanced and refined this less solid aspect of energy will be more noticeable to the senses of humans. All of the movement in the universe, from the big bang, to orbiting planets, to the movement of the iron core mantle of the earth, and also to the tides of the sea by the pull of the moon , and also to the movement in biological life itself in the sense of the will in nature all comes from the activity and perpetual vibration in energy and its interactions with itself in the sense of a continuum of its activity, and processes.

ON THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF BIOLOGICAL LIFE

2007-08-19T06:40:00.032+01:00

Biological existence and biological life in all its nuances, one can say, springs from chemical reactions and its interactions with water and bacteria and is all a process, our ancestors were basically worm like creatures that sprung from these basic processes. Plants, greenery and trees must of come from different types of mould. All molecules, atoms and particles have a ceaseless and restless movement and all the movement that exists in the universe is due to this ceaseless and restless movement in energy, there are not any forms of matter that are static, so therefore all forms of biological life are a "creative ordering" amongst this ceaseless and active movement of processes in matter. All creation is automatic and inevitable and springs from this movement and all forms of biological life in general cannot be said to have come about by accident or chance and so even if humans did not exist there would still be many other forms of biological life around nonetheless because other animals and plants and so on would still exist. All of the meaning and purpose that is ever to be found in reality prior to the meaning that we create can only be found within the context of processes and their outcomes and also in the circumstances that exist therein. The passing on of one's own genes seems to be the main purpose of our existence as human beings in the context of what I have mentioned above.
Meaning and purpose are slightly different concepts, but are connected within the processes of events, for example, meaning is anything that has a serious, useful or important quality, whereas purpose means the intention, aim or design of a thing or its behaviour. Meaning can be said to be found in our need for air, food, water and sunlight because these things have serious, useful and important qualities for the very survival of our own existence itself and exists prior to any other meaning that we create ourselves, whereas purpose applies more to procreation or the meaning that we create ourselves. The word "meaning" has also come to signify both the definition of the word meaning that I have already given as well as the definition I have given for the word purpose both together as its meaning, for example, as in "something that is meant or intended because it has a serious, useful or important quality that one is referring to". "Biological forms with a mind" are animals and humans and all forms of life that have a mind and are capable of translational movement. The meaning and purpose of existence for biological forms with a mind is explainable in two stages, first there is the meaning, intention, aim and design of biological forms with a mind as a whole and then there is the meaning, intention, aim and design of the particular individual biological form with a mind. It can be said that meaning and purpose is when something is designed to do "something" due to the inevitable processes that have preceded it, biological life for instance and what it is designed to do, one can say, are its intentions, aims and designs that spring from its will. The most basic meanings that biological forms with a mind can find in this world is the desire to survive and secondary to this is the pleasure principle, which is the desire for pleasure and happiness and thirdly is the avoidance of pain principle which entails the desire to avoid pain and discomfort. The desire to survive, seek pleasure and avoid pain can be considered as a "will to life" and is only incidental to the fact that we have bodies, our thoughts, emotions and feelings are more fundamental aspects of our character and therefore the desire to create in all shapes and forms must be an additional meaning found in our lives. If the biological life forms with a mind that I have mentioned already are to prosper as well as advance and grow they would need conflict and struggle as well as a need for comfort and security. The development of a mind in biological forms of life is an inborn germ of realization of possibilities inherent within the processes in molecules and genes which occurs and develops unconsciously and then becomes more conscious over time, this process is intentionally willed in a gradual way by organisms only after a period of mechanical and automatic processes which came about due to the natural movement inherent in energy (matter) and its processes generally. The meaning or purpose of our lives that people are always talking about as well as whether our existence has any value or aim is merely up to us, because we have to create additional meaning in the sense of filling our time with purpose, humans are basically purposive organisms. There is not anything special about biological life or human beings, the only thing special about human beings is their desire to evolve, advance, progress as well as their desire to figure out reality and the universe, so whatever additional meaning or purpose beyond the neccessary one's that their is for us as humans comes from this sense of purposiveness that we all create because of the fact that we already exist. Human beings are just a by-product of the inevitable processes of energy when it creates galaxies, solar systems and planets and these processes are harmonious, progressive and are continually refining themselves. Anything that leads to progress has meaning or you could also say that anything that has meaning is progressive and leads somewhere forwards and onwards towards a more advanced state and anything in nature that was designed to do this has meaning also, because it is serving its purpose. Humans are a purposive animal, they are at their best and most contented when they are driven by a purpose, this purpose can change from time to time, but it is usually present, this current purpose is important otherwise they feel that their existence is strange, paradoxical and futile and as I have explained before, purpose is when something is designed to do something. Adaptation is a natural outcome of the survival , pleasure and avoidance of pain principles that exist, adaptation also makes the biological life form feel a desire to progress and seek harmony, these are natural inclinations for its sense of purpose.
The amount of meaning or purpose that exists for each individual is relative to their situation or abilities, for instance, life will have less meaning for a retarded or spastic person in comparison to an intelligent, able or successful person. Ultimately all meaning and purpose for human beings comes from their thoughts, intentions, desires, needs and ideals which are progressive and beneficial to humanity at large.
Any theory of meaning should be be equivalent to a science of human needs, desires, ambitions, intentions and ideals and so on... This "science of meaning" for humans should account for the intentionality that exists within us as well as in how it expresses itself in its different ways or manifestations. This science of meaning should be progressive and it should be able to account for all human possibilities; the theories of this science should enable humans to advance and progress quicker and adapt to more complicated scenarios that will exist in the grand international civilization of the future. A science of meaning for human beings is important because humans are the most complicated objects of activity in the known universe, but yet they are finite and so therefore can be analyzed up to a certain degree of accuracy; as humans we have to house manifold desires and needs without contradicting ourselves, we also have to prevent ourselves from becoming neurotic or repressed. A thorough knowledge of meaning and purpose for humans can only come from a scientific knowledge that studies psychology and human behaviour, we know that it is philosophical and scientific knowledge that can explain the concept of meaning and purpose itself and how it came about as well as in how it makes us progress as organisms. Also meaning cannot come from religion either, human meaning and not universal meaning is concerned with the biological organism and therefore involves all of its behaviour, human meaning involves behaviour that is empirical, real, possible, life affirming, progressive and actual, it can only be truly understood by induction. The human organism and its behaviour is partly mechanistic and partly autonomous, this is why great feats of endurance or starvation can be endured as well as a lot of pain can be endured also by an organism with a tough and strong mind and this is because the mind which is housed in the body can produce an autonomous and controlling affect on the rest of the body and this is what is known by people as mind over matter or the mind/body dualism, the more the mind and body are in tune with each other the more mechanistic will be the behaviour of the organism, whereas people who think a lot and are slightly out of touch with their bodies and their surroundings are more likely to be autonomous as an organism insofar as how their minds control their actions. As I have mentioned earlier; most people in the world need meaning and purpose in their lives and so if a person finds meaning and purpose in a life of philosophizing or then again maybe in a life of politics then all the good for them! Whether a person chooses to become an athlete or an astronaut and spend their days pursuing these things day after day then it must be pointed out that this is all for the best to them and this should be the response of all the positive and free thinking people of the world. "Emotions" can be considered to be just as rational as the "faculty of reason" and this is only because all processes in the universe are "ultimately rational in nature" and occur for a reason including the emotions. Emotions in general are a combination of the chemicals in our bodies as well as a type of imagination that is concerned with adaptation and the changes in or lives and also the motives that we have which are based on and caused by the pleasure principle and also the avoidance of pain principle and also concerns parts of the brain and its electrical activity. All of the events and circumstances that occur in reality including wars, peaceful organizations, political movements and social situations and events and all the other day to day situations both great and small as well all other human behaviour generally can be found to have meaning and purpose, because all behaviour and processes in nature can be found to have meaning and purpose if traced back and analyzed fully and thoroughly. Meaning itself cannot exist without meaninglessness and many people make the mistake of thinking that life either has meaning or it does not. Now one thing cannot exist without the other and meaning is an indication of how much processes in nature are progressive and lead towards the good and the constructive, whereas nature also has a lot of meaninglessness as well in the sense of suffering and unfulfilled processes. Now how much one is either able to live a happy constructive life or either sufferers at the hands of fate will be an indicator of how much meaning or lack of it one endures. I must point out that there is no underlying meaning or purpose to reality or processes generally and that any meaning that can be found at all exists only in the results of processes and how they function as well as in the meaning that we create; this may seem like a trivial and unnecessary set of meanings to some people who are used to thinking that there is no meaning at all in things prior to the meaning that they create themselves, but as a logical proposition it holds firm and is a valid observation of a truth. Also most people will agree that there is no ultimate meaning to life either because we as organic life simply arise and evolution and progress do not lead anywhere in the ultimate sense. In general our existence has no more meaning than what it represents to others, what we represent has its own value for whoever values it, apart from this and what we do with it, it has no meaning. Whether people value what we represent or not, does not really matter. Being who you are is what counts, people either value you or they do not, only people and other organisms can value things in any way that counts. There were thinkers like Sartre, who believed that reality was fundamentally meaningless; that no meaning could be found in it, unless through a highly conscious choice on our part. There was also Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who claimed that reality was impregnated with meaning, and that meaning could be found everywhere. The reality concerning meaning, is that it can be found naturally, but yet is not found everywhere at all times. A good example, of how meaning is experienced, can be observed in children; for children, meaning is experienced naturally, and they experience it spontaneously, without too much conscious decision on their part, they either feel it for something, or they do not. It is mostly when we become adults that we begin to doubt that any things have any meaning, and this is because our minds are more fed up and bored with the familiar things that we always encounter regularly.

SO-CALLED SPIRITUALITY

2007-08-18T10:35:00.005+01:00

Even though spirituality maybe a form of wishful thinking on the part of the people who call themselves spiritual, it none the less can still be considered to represent certain ideals which have a practical and moral value for people in general. Spirituality puts importance on feelings and thoughts of an introverted nature, people who call themselves spiritual apply this to a way of living , it is true that a lot of the ideals which are considered to be spiritual are of a positive kind, such as sacrifice, altruism, peaceful co-existence, humility, discipline by the use of prayer and so on, and can therefore be considered important for our evolution as humans. It does not matter whether we as humans have a soul or spirit or whatever that lives on after physical death, all this maybe wishful thinking on our part. Humans have always had spiritual beliefs irrespective of mainstream religions ever since the days when they lived in caves. To suggest that their is a god that exists, that created everything, or that god is dead, or that god does not exist, does not take away the feeling of wonder that is the miracle of reality, and the processes of energy within space, the structure of the universe is an amazing thing irrespective of what people say about it or how it was created. The ceaseless, eternal, and perpetual vibration of energy is the greatest if not one of the greatest mysteries known to humans, it is what Arthur Schopenhauer called the thing-in-itself (or the "will" in nature), it is also impossible to explain the reason why energy and infinite space exists at all!
Another way to look at spirituality is to view it as a concept of the human condition which connects us all in its ideals and morals, and elevates us towards our higher selves, humans need some of these ideals and morals of spirituality for their psychological well being and evolution.