TIME, PROCESSES AND CHANGE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.