A few philosophical thoughts about

In my recent investigations into pragmatism,
I have time to think about the consequences of
our thinking and actions..

To wit: there are no absolute statements or thoughts…
one might say, as an absolute, that all men die…
and yet in fact, we can’t prove this… we would have to
know about every single human that has lived and has since
died… this is information we simply cannot know…
‘‘that all human beings die’’ is not a truth… speculation perhaps,
but nothing more…in the universe there is no absolute truth…
there is a god… again, there is no proof for this…
it is speculation, nothing more…

‘‘Scientific truths’’ are subject to revision, every single scientific
theory we have, is subject to revision… indeed, we can guess
that every single scientific theory can in fact, can be totally overthrown,
discarded if, IF, new facts come in to show us that the latest theory
is garbage… In fact, given this, we could, come to the conclusion
that evolution is wrong… we could, if new evidence or facts come
to light that changes the theory…
We could hold to the theory that all life on earth, and that is
the only evidence of life we have, that all life on earth was
brought here by Aliens…we were, planted, shall we say…
in essence, we replace god with aliens… the bible could be
a religious discussion of what happened scientifically…

and god/aliens said, let us bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed,
and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself,
upon the earth: and it was so…

within every single passage thereafter, one can simple replace
god with aliens and the passage still works…

and god/alien said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea…

So, god created man in his image, in the image of god, create he him;
male and female created he them…

In fact, reading this, one could make the argument that these passages
better fits an alien idea of the creator rather than a god…
alien conspiracy theories better fit the beginning of existence
than religious theories…

as it been said before, advance science looks a lot like magic
to the average person…

So, to return, we have no such thing as absolutes…
certainly not in science, and certainly not in religious thoughts..

So, given this, we have no such thing as absolute morality or
morals given by a god that is complete and absolute…
and that is in fact, better for us as human beings…
for one size fits all ethics/morals fails to understand
all the possibilities given within human existence…
one size fits all ethics cannot possible cover all the
nuances of human behavior… and the law, as written
recognizes this, give how many exceptions that are listed
within the law… this is legal unless this happens and then it
is illegal… for example, murder is wrong, unless it is self-defense,
or committed by a police officer doing their ‘‘duty’’…
in fact, every single law written has exceptions within it,
that is the very nature of the law…there are no absolutes
within the law…everything has an exception…

This is the bottom line of life, that there are no absolutes within it…

Next, that there are no theories that can incorporate all aspects
needed to explain the theory… in other words, no matter how hard
we try to create a ‘‘theory of everything’’ we cannot, because no matter
how hard we try, we cannot know every aspect of the why that theory works..

so, for example, we want a theory of human behavior… but
we cannot list or know every single aspect that impacts human
behavior… we will miss quite a bit in knowing what really drives
human behavior… and in missing that part, it means we are unable
to create or find a theory that will cover all aspects of human behavior…
or to state this a different way… any theory we create, will be,
incomplete.. we cannot, no matter how hard we try, we cannot
discover all the aspects of human behavior, or any theory is
better understood by what is missing, rather than what is there…
every single theory that we have is incomplete, lacking some
facts or evidence because we are unable to expand our
parameters far enough to catch all aspects of any theory
or idea…at all times, we are dealing with partial aspects
of any idea or theory… we will never get the entire or whole
picture of anything we know, do, or believe in… we deal with
some of the information possible, not all the information possible…
thus, our theories have problems because we cannot incorporate
enough facts to make sense of any theory of existence…
This incompleteness of our theories isn’t just a quark of
about theories, but the core aspect of all theories…
they are incomplete no matter how hard we try to fill in
the blanks…

and in part, this is why we can’t hold to absolute theories
like ethical theories… they are, by definition, incomplete…
and we cannot hold incomplete theories as factual because
they are missing too much information to make judgments
about them…

Thus judgement such as ‘‘thou shall not murder’’ cannot
be defined unless we put some context within it…
one cannot attack and murder another without some
reason or context… and as there are plenty of
exceptions to the ‘‘thou shall not murder’’ as to make
it more like a guide instead of an absolute rule…
we must give any actions, such as murder, some sort
of context for us to make sense of it…

Now given there are no absolutes, everything we
hold true, must be given some sort of context for it to make
sense… so, any rules, laws, values can only make sense
within some sort of context… so, the statement,
‘‘Liberals are evil’’ cannot be true unless it is given some
sort of context… so, one can say, ‘‘liberals are evil’’
because god says so… once again, we need context,
so, how does god, (whose very existence is doubtful)
how does god and the bible, which is allegedly his word,
tell us about liberals? again, one must then name chapter
and verse for us to look at, to make some sort of context
for the statement, ‘‘god believes that liberals are evil’’
if there is no context, there is no useful statement for us
to engage with… it is only by creating context, that
we can understand this statement, "liberals are evil’’
now recall, I said there are no absolutes statements…
and the statement ‘‘liberals are evil’’ is an absolute
statement, given without context… and thus not
a valid statement… it is without context thus not
a valid statement… and as every single theory is
incomplete, by definition, every single theory/statement
is incomplete, and every theory/statement needs context
to even be understood, we can state that human speech
is basically one designed to state our emotions and feelings,
not dealing with facts or evidence…

I might make the statement, ‘‘I am mad’’ and that statement
is still missing/lacking context… thus until I further give that
statement context, mad at who, what, why, when, where and how,
the statement, ‘‘I am mad’’ is incomplete and invalid…
and therein lies the part of the problem with human communication…
it is incomplete and fails to incorporate all aspects needed to
make knowledge possible… we are left with incomplete
information and context to make communication impossible…
and thus much of the human struggles we face on a daily basis,
lies within our failure to make our statements with some context,
and our failure to understand that our statements, all
statements, are by definition, incomplete…

If I were to make a statement, ‘‘love is what makes the world
go around’’ we run into the problem that plagues most
communications, that of definitions… that there is a universal
word, like love, but as their are no universal, one size fits all
definition of love, we are not dealing with specifics, but
generalities… for love can have many, vastly different
definitions, and within that, I love, or think of love,
differently than you do… for the idea of love is also,
and most definitely based on one’s individual idea of love…

and some of the many conditions that define love, come
from our own history and indoctrinations… as a man,
I view love differently than a woman does, as a man being
67 years old, I view love differently than a much younger
person would… I view love within the context of my life
and experiences…it is not theory to me, but actual practice
as I love my wife of 30 years…

so, definitions don’t have a universal, one size fits all
definition… and given the way human beings work/operate,
we will never have a universal, one size fits all definition of anything…
we can’t…as my idea of love is tied up into my experiences and
context of my own life…just as is your definition of love is tied up in
your own experiences and context…

and I have read elsewhere, that part of the problem with
philosophy, has been it hasn’t changed or grown since
the age of Plato… 2500 years ago… and philosophy
is still dicking around with words and values suggested
by Plato… and why hasn’t philosophy been ‘‘universalized’’,
having one size fits all philosophy? Because for the reasons,
I stated, Philosophy is not and cannot ever be ‘‘universalized’’
or turned into ‘‘one size fits all’’…

Thus, seeking out a universal, one size fits all philosophy is
not worth the effort because it is not possible…

all philosophy is personal and individual…
and what does this mean for ideas like ethics/ morality?

Kropotkin

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and given there are no absolute or universal values,
how are we to judge such matters of ethics/and morals?

One of the tools we can use is its effect on our state/society…
in other words, we cannot allow violence to be practiced
within our state/society because of the effects that violence
has within and on the state/society… Violence disrupts
the state and society… and we can literally see what
state violence, ICE/SS is doing to our nation…it has
created, and on purposely done, has fracture our country
because it is nihilism… the negation of human beings and
their values… people, whether or not they are citizens,
have been negated because they are black or a minority,
or a women… negated by being arrested for being black
or a minority or a woman… you say only criminals are
being arrested by ICE/SS, so what crime did that 5 year
old boy in Minnesota do? he was arrested and sent to
Texas and his crime? the fact themselves prove the lie
that ICE/SS is going after violent criminals, because they
have killed 10 people in Minnesota, and what crimes did
these people commit?

every statement has to have context to make sense…
and under what context does arresting a 5 year old
for his ‘‘crimes’’ makes sense? ICE/SS is clearly not going
after criminals, they are going after everyone, well, not
well dressed white people… wonder why? I wouldn’t work
that hard at it… it is prejudice that drives ICC/SS
not logic or even a criminal record… that is the context
of ICC/SS… violence for violence sake… and that violence
has created a real danger in America… and that is because
it creates an ‘‘US VS THEM’’ mentality within America…
and that is never good for a state or a society…
violence is destructive, for the individual, the state,
the society… within violence, no one wins…
there are only losers in a violent society/state…
and the biggest loser in a violent state is the state/society
itself…for every act of violence brings us one step closer
to a state of nature… where everyone is against everyone else…
and there is no cooperation or even trust within people and thus
there can never be a state or society without cooperation or trust…

on some level, we have to trust our neighbors… and for the most
part, we are rewarded with that trust by being able to lead our lives
as we wish or want to lead it… it is only within a peaceful and stable
state or society that we can achieve our own goals and needs…
and violence, either legal violence such as ICE/SS or slavery, or individual
violence, prevent us from having this vital part of the state/society…

and therein lies the point of practicing or engaging in obeying
the law… for without the law, we are really nothing better than
animals… as Nietzsche says, the road is from being animal
to becoming human… and violence is animal, peace
is human… for the state/society that is essential for
human beings can only exist within a peaceful and safe
state/society…

we can deduce the rules and laws needed for the state/society
by thinking in terms of the state/society… order is essential
for the continuation of the state/society… but too much order
and the state/society itself stagnates, even dies…
we have to balance our need for order/safety/security
with our need to freely act and be who we are…and into
becoming who we are…

Think of a car… we drive our cars all the time…
and sometimes, given the situation, we need to drive faster
and other times, slower, again, given the situation…
a car being driven at one speed and one speed only
will cause and create quite a bit of havoc on the roads…
but if we are flexible in our speeds, we can help create
and maintain order on the roadway… once again, cooperation
and trust are the factors that allow us to drive on the roads…
by safely driving, we help the state and society…
by doing the right thing, driving safely, we help continue
the state and society… and this is true of all aspects
being human…for me to achieve what I want to achieve,
I have to trust and cooperate with the state/society, in order
to get what I want…

there is no need to be absolute in the needs we have for safety
and security… we simply have to cooperate with others…
for not only do we remove the absolute, but we don’t even
need to practice completeness to achieve our goals…
for our goals/needs are not complete, they are, by their
very nature, incomplete and partial…and we know and
accept this…my need for food or water or an education,
is never complete or universal… it is simply satisfied today,
without any thoughts as to yesterday or to tomorrow…

the bottom line is this: that without a state/society,
I am unable to reach or achieve any of my own goals
or needs… to become human, I need the state/society
to be, at a minimum, fully functional and working…
and such actions as violence, hatred, prejudice,
bigotry prevent me and you too, from being or becoming
human… any disruptions of the state/society, such as
the violence by ICC/SS harms us as human beings…
and as a state or a society…

Kropotkin

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You must be very sheltered.

There are absolutely absolute, universal values. You’ve never been eaten alive by bedbugs or else you would know that its objectively bad.

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ICE captured the 5 year old so he would not freeze to death in the cold.

ICE attempted to put the 5 year old back in the house full of foreigners but the foreigners refused to let the child in.

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Peter, there are absolute universal values because its impossible to cancel out attractive and repulsive electromagnetic force absolutes in the cosmos so the statement good is bad and bad is good is incorrect when you simply don’t know whether good is good and bad is bad.

You can guess incorrectly if you want and develop a science founded upon that incorrect philosophical guess which we all know is exactly what mainstream science has done….and you have been fooled into believing that science.

Attractive and repulsive electromagnetic force ABSOLUTES!!! do not cancel out in the cosmos.They are vibratory balanced out by the formula N/S=N/S which is why the cosmos and all the matter within it VIBRATES!!!

So the cosmos is not expanding only as mainstream science falsely claims….its expanding and contracting which is confirmed because it is all vibrating.

You need vibration to produce binary data Peter.Without binary data you wouldn’t be able to see;hear or feel anything because binary data is converted into sounds ;visions and sensations as we all know.

as there are no serious objections to my theory
of there being no absolutes, either in name or
in theory or actions… ‘‘saying there is a god’’ refers back to
an absolute, thus not acceptable… and any metaphysical answer
is not allowed because it too refers back to an absolute state…
of which we can’t find or locate… or said another way,
to be absolute is to be infinite, and we human beings are,
and always will be finite…how do we make that journey
from being finite beings, limited beings, to an infinite viewpoint?
an absolute viewpoint and an infinite viewpoint is the same thing…
how do we go from A to B?

And being limited, finite beings, we are not universal beings,
and there is no system that we can be part of because in the
understanding of systems, we are unable to gather all parts
of a system…we cannot know ever/all parts of a system because
our inability to know all parts of a system, every aspect of a system…
otherwise known as the incompleteness theorem…
our theories, our knowledge of the world is, by definition due
to our limited viewpoint, sensory and otherwise, is also limited…
We cannot build a theory large enough to encompass all aspects of
that theory… as our theories are limited, and our knowledge is
limited, and our intellect and senses are limited, there is no
absolute to be found… which is unlimited…
there is no theory that can encompass all aspects of being human,
it will be by definition limited, and it will be incomplete…

So, what is the bottom line in this type of universe, where
we are limited and unable to create a theory large enough
to encompass everything being human… it leads us to
one conclusion… that we human beings are not complete
nor do we fit into any type of theory, for example, the entire
Catholic theory, is not only limited, but it is incomplete…

The religious idea that human beings are Homo religiosus
is an assumption…as is the Marxist belief that human beings
are Homo economicus… that human beings are economic
beings, is also an assumption… for neither theory fully captures
what it means to be human… and no theory is large enough to
fully capture what it means to be human…
and what are we left with?

we are left with the notion that no theory we can create, can
fully describe or tell us what it means to be human… that our
isms and ideologies, meant to guide us, are, at best, incomplete
and limited/partial… so once again, where does that leave us?

It means in a very real way, human beings and their theories
are ‘‘ad hoc’’ of the moment… there is no theory that can totally
encompass everything that it means to be human…
our very existence and all our ism’s are ‘‘ad hoc’’ of the moment…

our species long attempt to reach/become unity with all,
is doomed to failure… we can reach values, believes and
theories as long as we know we are dealing with limited,
partial theories that can only explain part of what the
human experience is, not the entirety of it…
the human experience is a partial, limited one because
we do lack the ability to create a theory that explains
all aspects of our human experience…

Human beings are ‘‘ad hoc’’ we are limited; we die/maybe
and we go through life not having a universal, one size fits all
system that encompasses all human beings… nor do we have
any individual belief that overcomes this ‘‘ad hoc’’ nature of
human beings… a belief in god, doesn’t change the fact that
the very belief in god, is ‘‘ad hoc’’ of the moment…

We are ‘‘ad hoc’’ beings in an ‘‘ad hoc’’ universe…
Now what?

Kropotkin

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In an individual, not unified world that seems to be our
universe/world, we spend a great deal of time, trying to find/
discover what it is that connects us to the larger whole
and to each other…or to say another way, if we are ‘‘ad hoc’’
beings in an ‘‘ad hoc’’ world, where can we find a unity, that
something that seems to be in people, not all people, but some
people… as we go about our daily day, we rejoice when we
meet someone who has the same values as we do, and feel
sad when we don’t meet anyone who happens to share those values…
But the fact is, that values, beliefs, ideas are also ‘‘ad hoc’’…
of the moment…So, where can we, as human beings, be able
to connect in a meaningful way?

to be ‘‘ad hoc’’ and know what ‘‘ad hoc’’ means tells us that
everything we hold true, is transitory… of the moment…
transitory is just another way of saying ‘‘ad hoc’’ of the moment…
and tell me, what exactly is permanent? something that will last
forever? Well, it certainly isn’t ideas or values or beliefs or even
other human beings…that is why, in part, we try to hold onto
such values/beliefs as god…and other metaphysical values…
we try to force ourselves to hold to the permanence of something
because we can’t find anything that is permanent, lasting
forever… we believe ourselves to be ‘‘outcast’’ in the universe,
where there is nothing forever, where everything is ‘‘ad hoc’’
and there is nothing that is permanent, forever, and this very
thought discomfort/makes us uneasy in our lives…
something is wrong, but we are afraid to actually explore
this and try to find out what our malaise is… the 20th century famous
malaise that has darkened our skies like a low laying fog that
won’t go away…

and how do we overcome this malaise that has infected our entire
culture?

Kropotkin

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Claiming that a God doesn’t exist is an absolute Peter…
You don’t have the sole rights to whether a God exists and doesn’t exist you know….lol…and we know with 100% certainty that neither of us can prove that a God exists or doesn’t exist.

You need to step back into reality.

How do we find meaning and purpose in a world that is
‘‘ad hoc’’ and our very lives also being ''ad hoc"…
or said another way, how do we find meaning in a world full
of chance, or how do we find meaning in a world that is
transitory in nature… not permanent, not forever…
or how do we find meaning in a world that has rejected
any metaphysical aspects to it…

What is the bottom line in existence, human or otherwise?
that is of needs… we all, everything alive, needs certain
things in order to exist… and we can base our moral values,
our ethics on these needs…
both our bodily and our psychological needs…

How would that work?

Kropotkin

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Simple Peter ..stop driving yourself insane with a cognitively biased starting philosophy…because reality is not founded upon a cognitively biased starting philosophy one way or the other.

Good is Bad and Bad is Good philosophy is not your friend Peter.
Good is Good and Bad is Bad philosophy is not your friend either Peter.

So what does that tell you?

Combine these two philosophies.

Good/Bad=Good/Bad.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

If I am correct, and we lead ‘‘ad hoc’’ lives in an
‘‘ad hoc’’ world, what are the practical effects of this?
that there is no universal, ‘‘no one size fits all’’
beliefs, values or ideas that encompass all of us…
so, how are we going to work out our lives given there
is no universal values/beliefs that can speak for all us…
recall our incompleteness theory… we cannot create
a system that is complete because it will leave out something
necessary or important that is necessary for us to understand
that system… all systems are, by nature, incomplete…

But where does that leave us?
if there is no sense of superiority or inferiority within
people, for how are we to judge such a matter given
there is no theory that encompasses all of us…

So, what’s next?

so, what statement can we make that won’t violate the
principles we have already established…

That we lead ‘‘ad hoc’’ lives in a ‘‘ad hoc’’ world,
that there is no such thing as a permanent value or
a universal values/idea that allow us to understand
all human beings, we are left with only one idea that,
is kinda universal, but not totally ‘‘one size fits all’’ belief?

this belief, value stands because it doesn’t commit us
to or cause us the least amount of issues or trouble?
I would say it is this: That

‘‘all men/human beings are created equal’’

that is as close to a universal we can get and still not run
into trouble as far as universal’s go…for every single
universal, one size fits all, universe has some serious issues…
and this avoids most of them, not all, but most of them…

Ok, Kropotkin, as you always say, make the argument…

Kropotkin

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my thought that the only statement that avoid most, most
of the problems with universal, one size fits all, mentality,
is the statement:

‘‘All men/human beings are created equal’’

and how does this statement avoid most of the problems/

first of all, it makes no moral claims… and we have no way
to judge the validity of moral claims… we can’t make any sort
of universal, ‘‘one size fits all’’ claim of morality or ethics?
for how do we judge such a matter that, somehow, in some
fashion, that this morality/ethics of the Greeks were superior to ours?
We have no way to judge moral/ethical claims as being superior
or inferior…how would we make such a claim given there is no
universal value that is acceptable to all people, at all times?

The statement, ‘‘all men are created equal’’ avoids morality/ethics…
for it includes, not excludes…and exclusion is not universal or
‘‘one size fits all’’… but we can include people under the guise of the statement,

‘‘all men/human beings are created equal’’

for that statement works in terms of equality for people, legally,
socially, economically, philosophically, and politically… there is
inclusion within that statement, not exclusion…and we can’t reach
inclusion with ideas like ‘‘White are superior’’ or that ""Jews are inferior’’
for those statements excludes, not includes… inclusion doesn’t have
to include all of us, just most of us…and that is realistically, about
as inclusive as we can get, most of us…
especially given that we cannot create a system that includes
everyone, as we have already denied that… there is no system
that first of all, includes everyone, as the incompleteness theory
show us…

but Kropotkin, why the emphasis on inclusion and not exclusion?
Inclusion is ‘‘ad meliora’’ toward the better, and exclusion is
nihilism… and why is our age so troubled, as it were?
I would suggest that it’s because we have practiced,
exclusion more than inclusion in the last 126 years…
Jews hatred is exclusion, hating blacks is exclusion,
hating liberals is exclusion and with each exclusion,
we practice nihilism, not ‘‘ad meliora’’…
if we were to operate our state/society on the value,
the actual value, that ‘‘all men/human beings are created equal’’
we avoid making moral judgements that have no basis in facts,
‘‘Liberals are evil’’ is a statement devoid of facts and is harmful
to both individuals and the state/society…and why?
because it makes an unwarranted moral statement…
that has no basis in our lives, or in our society…

and how do we know what ‘‘ad meliora’’ refers to?
how do we know that by practicing ‘‘ad meliora’’ is
more the path into the future?

For we are social creatures… we can only exists within a state,
a society…we cannot succeed or meet our needs alone or independently
of others… As our society/state is the only means necessary to
met our bodily and psychological needs, that is where we
focus our own aspirations on…and the thought that

‘‘all men/human beings are created equal’’

does in fact, support our contention that it is through the state/
society that we can become human… and this idea that
the state/society is our means of becoming human, is not
a moral idea, but a logical thought that has its basis in
reality… thus it too, has some merit along with
the idea that ‘‘all men are created equal’’… we are not
making moral/ethical judgements with these statements…
because we have no way to make moral judgements because
we have no place, no universal, ‘‘one size fits all’’ means to
make moral judgements… and by holding to ideas and values
that avoid moral judgements, we avoid that problem of the
basis of that moral judgement? on what rock do we, or
can we hold to moral judgements? Not on any rock I can see…

But Kropotkin, there are exceptions to your ‘‘rules’’… of course,
that is the point… for every single rule, there are exceptions…
for we cannot, no matter how hard we try, we cannot create
an absolute, no exceptions to a rule, theory…

and therein lies the heart of the problem… we are not able
to create any sort of universal, one size fits all, answers…

so, we must ‘‘ad hoc’’ as best we can, our values, our lives,
our ethics and morality… we are living ‘‘ad hoc’’ and our
values, such as they are, are subject to our ‘‘ad hoc’’ lives…

Kropotkin

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given we live in an ‘‘ad hoc’’ world, with ‘‘ad hoc’’ lives,
what are some ideas that we now face?

The charge toward me, at least one of them, will be I am
inconsistent, not logical, contradictory, discordant…
and yet, the fact is that we don’t live in a consistent,
uniform universe… that is part of the point…
that in being inconsistent, I am in tune with the universe…
being illogical, inconsistent, contradictory is not a random
aspect of the universe, but a basic design feature of it…

We live within an illogical, inconsistent, random universe…
the universe exists within chance, randomness, probability,
that is the universe in a nutshell… if there is no universal,
then the universe is random, full of chance, or in one word,
entropy… having a random universe is really the
only universe we have… and one of the major aspects
of our universe changing and evolving is entropy…

We can only be illogical, inconsistent, random,
engaged in probabilities and chance…
that is the universe we inhabit… not the certainty of god,
or the certainty of math or the certainty of religions, but
the uncertainty of existence…

Entropy, chance, randomness is the only engagement
with the universe we have…

and as always, now what?

Kropotkin

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I am fairly certain that I developed a problem of high cholesterol by putting too much malaise in the tuna fish I was eating almost every day a few years back.

So, perhaps it would help if the entire culture cuts-back on malaise?

(In light of the fact that you, Peter Kropotkin, pretty much use this philosophy forum as your personal blog site and rarely converse with anyone who replies to your blog posts, I figured I’d just write something silly, seeing how you simply ignore what we say anyway. :upside_down_face: )

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One of the often-asked questions is this:
How does the universe hang together?
but from my standpoint, the question is slightly
different… the universe is doing its thing,
and we human are doing are thing, but how do the
two, the universe and humans connect?

If as I suggest, that our world/universe is random, probability,
chance, entropy, where can we human beings fit into that?
Humans like to have control over things… but we can’t control
or even be able to predict random/chance events…

A good deal of Greek philosophy centered on the idea that
the universe was knowable…understandable with time/reflection…
the Christian idea of heaven being a place of contemplation of god,
is a Greek idea, taken from the Greek Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle…
not from Socrates because he couldn’t give a shit about anything that
wasn’t directly tied into human existence… Socrates great claim
to fame was that he brought Philosophy down from the stars…
No longer was the ideal philosophy engaged in Metaphysical
thinking about the nature of the universe, as much of early
Greek philosophy, was about what the universe was, some thought
water, some thought air, some thought fire and one enterprising one
man thought it was nous, or mind… but Socrates wondered about
what it meant to be human… and tied that idea into our relationships
with such ideas as love, justice, power…

But as I have already noted, that human beings are, by nature,
limited, finite, in senses and in intellect… and no matter how
hard we try, we are unable to escape our limitations…
but also, again, we are faced with our inability to
create a philosophy that accepts the reality that we live
in a chance, random, probability universe…and the question
becomes how can we, if we can, create philosophies, that
take into account the nature of reality in which one of the
primary creators of change is entropy…

How do we account for our existence given that we exist
within a Darwinian universe that has chance, probability,
randomness as an engine of change…

Can philosophy even account, within itself, account for this
random nature of the universe? What does a philosophy that
makes chance, randomness a feature, not a on-off, but as a
central feature of human existence, even look like?

One could say, with some confidence, that the first attempt to
work out a ‘‘negative’’ universe comes from Schopenhauer…
and every philosopher thereafter, Nietzsche on down, as faced this
question of the random/chance nature of the universe…
but few have faced that question head on…
Perhaps the closes anyone got is Camus, and his
‘‘Myth of Syphus’’… Perhaps…

So, what would a philosophy that includes chance and probability
look like?

Kropotkin

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given our limitations, we can’t know the universe, as a whole,
we can only know parts, very limited parts… and then we
make ‘‘Grand’’ deductions from our very limited understanding
of the universe… I am reminded of the old, very old joke about
a group of blind people examining an elephant… the one who grabs
the leg believes that the elephant is about his leg and another grabs
the elephant trunk and proclaims that to be the elephant…
and another grabs the tail and proclaims that to be the elephant…
and I pity the fool who grabs the elephant’s crap…and that
become the next proclamation as to what an elephant is…
and all of them are right, that is the thing of it, that each of them,
is quite correct as to that part of the elephant as being part of the
elephant, and yet, each of them is wrong…

so, I grab the tail and proclaim that the elephant is the tail
and build my entire philosophy around the tail being the
essential aspect of philosohy…and it sure looks like it,
from my angle anyway…and I am right, and I am wrong…
and that is the nature of philosophy… One philosopher proclaims
the state as being the primary aspect of philosophy and another will
claim it’s the economic aspect of philosophy that drives us…
and another will claim it’s becoming human that is the right part
of existence… and another will make another claim and all of them,
all of them are right, and at the exact same time, wrong…

so, as I noted earlier, I hold that we human beings are living
‘‘ad hoc’’ of the moment lives, and that we live in an ‘‘ad hoc’’
world… that notion of partially of our lives is clear…
we don’t exist as whole human beings, we are partial,
human beings, living our partial lives, which is another way
of saying ‘‘Ad hoc’’…

WE spend our lives looking for a unity, a whole that doesn’t seem
to exists…because as limited, finite beings, we cannot know the
whole, we can only have partial, incomplete, limited knowledge of
the universe…

So, when Nietzsche exclaims that we must ‘‘become who we are’’,
what he is really saying is that we must accept and know
that we are limited, finite, incomplete beings… with no access
to a whole understanding of the universe…

that is why, people today are rushing toward religions and god,
because on some level, they understand that we are unable to
reach the whole, the complete understanding of what the universe is…
so, we reach for the ‘‘next’’ best thing and race like idiots toward
god…in hope of finding completeness and acceptance in
a unity, a wholeness that doesn’t seem to be there…
or said another way, there is no viewpoint that we can have
that will encompass all of existence… at best, at best,
we can only have a partial, incomplete view of existence…
and we make our decisions within that basis, of having a
limited, partial viewpoint of existence… and so,
we often fail because we only have a partial, limited
viewpoint, that prevents us from seeing the whole
elephant, as it were…

Kropotkin

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No Peter..you are completely wrong and are unable to see truth because you are trapped in your preconceived delusions…totally lost and totally in the dark.

You have to adopt a binary philosophy to understand truth.

So, one of the philosophical questions is this:
does life have meaning? given that we can only know
part of the elephant, I would say that all we have is our own
partial evidence of the elephant… and given the role of chance,
randomness in our lives, every single plan we make can be
interrupted by chance and randomness… so, on that basis,
we can only have ‘‘ad hoc’’ plans and we can only have
‘‘ad hoc’’ lives… but how can we work out a philosophy
that makes our ‘‘ad hoc’’ lives, make sense?

is even creating a ‘‘universal, one size fits all’’ philosophy even
possible?

Kropotkin

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The universal one size fits all is +/-=+/- philosophy Peter which is a united combination of the two philosophies +=- and -=+ AND +=+ and -=- philosophy.

The only science that works in the cosmos is founded upon +/-=+/- philosophy such a computer and motor technology.

Any science founded upon +=- and -=+ philosophy doesn’t work like cosmology and particle physics which has become mainstream sciences total embarrassment (white elephant) as we all know.

The cosmos and all matter within it is expanding and contracting (vibrating) and not just expanding as mainstream science claims.Why are they wasting their time with their deluded theories therefore?

You can only understand psychology with +/-=+/- philosophy Peter…..honestly.

one of the questions we have, is there meaning or purpose
in our lives?

Nothing big, and no pressure, but is there meaning in our lives?

the thing about isms and ideologies that purport to answer
this question of meaning and purpose, that isms/ideologies, they too are
limited, partial, ‘‘ad hoc’’…so, finding meaning and purpose in
such things as nationalism, patriotism, white makes right, anti-Judaism,
are all matters that are limited, and ‘‘ad hoc’’… or said another way,
we can’t find meaning and purpose in conspiracy theories… as they
too are ‘‘ad hoc’’ of the moment…

let us try this as an example, we have such a thing as nationalism…
the problem with nationalism is that the nation in question, often
disappears… I point out two examples… the Austrian-Hungarian
empire… that empire lasted roughly 50 years… and more recently,
the Soviet Union…that lasted roughly 75 years… how many
people are still nationalists about the Soviet Union or the Austrian-
Hungarian empire? empires, nations, city-states… are all ‘‘ad hoc’’
Political empires only last for a relatively short time… even our
current worshiping of America, can only last a short time…
for all political entities are, by their very nature, short lived…
and once the current dictatorship finishes what is left of
America, who shall be worshiping that particular political
entity?

and we can now see the appeal of a god or religions/
heaven… it is an attempt to create a universal, one size fits all,
universe… and it is doomed to failure because they have
yet given us any sort of facts or evidence for a god or heaven…
from what I can tell, religions and god, themselves are ‘‘ad hoc’’
attempts to overcome the ‘‘ad hoc’’ nature of human existence…

as we use Nietzsche formula of '‘how do we overcome this’"
by asking ourselves, how do we overcome the ‘‘ad hoc’’ nature
of existence, god, heaven, life itself?

and therein lies the philosophy of the future…
overcoming our ‘‘ad hoc’’ lives is really the next step
in philosophy…

Kropotkin

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