Etymologically speaking, reason comes from ratio. ‘Reason’ in Latin but also having to do with ‘reckoning’. With dividing the ‘big picture’ into easier to understandable slivers. Slivers meant to be analyzed and later assembled back into meaning. Into ‘truth’.
Now, which of the two reasons gives birth to the ‘genuine’ truth?
The analytical/synthetic one which attempts to develop reality into meaning or the one which defends and embellishes the already known truth? The revealed truth?
The whole thing depends on the “ends” of the reasoning agent?
Reason, hence truth, depends on the intention of the individual performing the act of reasoning?!?
Quite unreasonable, don’t you think? Truth was supposed to be anchored in reality, right?!? Not on ‘intention’….
Truth as unhiddenness… is a concept developed by Heidegger. Basically, this whole thing is about individuals being unable to discover nor formulate the ‘entire’ truth so a ‘bigger’ truth may be reached only through cooperation. Everybody ‘says’ – unhides – everything they know about a subject and that’s how the most complete truth available at that moment is ‘uncovered’.
‘But this means the Truth becomes fluid. No longer ‘fixed’. Unreliable!’
I’m afraid you’re right! Except for the ‘unreliable’ part. As long as enough people do their part, and honestly speak up their minds, the most reliable truth knowable at any given moment will become apparent to everybody. To everybody who cares to look for it! To everybody who accepts that their reason, while imperfect, can and should contribute to the common effort to get closer to truth. To everybody who accepts that other people’s reason, while imperfect, can and should be listened to in the common effort to get closer to truth. To everybody who accepts to continue this effort knowing very well that no matter how hard they will try, people will never find the entire truth
I’m not going to discuss any of these ‘calls’. In a normal world, it doesn’t matter who makes a decision. At which level.
In the present world, which is far from normal, something jumps at any open minded observer.
‘States are good enough when it comes to setting rules about when a woman might have – or rather not – an abortion but they shouldn’t be allowed to decide, individually, whether a would-be president has been involved in insurrection.’
I agree with the legal minded among my readers that there are sound arguments, legal-wise, for each of those decisions. Unfortunately, most people are ‘legal-blind’. Instead of delving into the obscure paragraphs which shed light into the nook and crannies of any judicial sentence they prefer to decide based on what they see at the first glance. And what’s staring at us is the fact that the President of the USA is elected state-side. Each state sends a number of people to Washington with a clear mandate about who should be the next POTUS. Which means that candidates need to ‘win’ more delegates, not necessarily more individual votes from the general public. States play a critical role in this process. Equally staring at us is the fact that ‘individual rights’ are defined and upheld at the federal level. States no longer have anything to say about an individual right as soon as a particular ‘something’ is assumed – at the federal level – to pertain to the realm of the ‘individual human rights’.
According to Newton, there’s no new colour to be seen. The spectrum he had ‘split’ from what was called white light was continuous. And still is. So, in order for us to see a new colour we should rename one of the already existing ones.
There’s more to light than meets the eye… at the first glance, at least. The way our brain works has something to do even with what we see of this world! The good thing being the fact that once we understand how our brain works, we are capable of by-passing at least some of these limitations.
But what has any of these to do with ‘dimensions’?!?
I’ve argued in my previous post that having evolved as ‘runners’ we basically live in a 2.5 dimensional world. That we are biased against a proper perception of depth. And that we loath to go back and reconsider already entrenched convictions.
In this post I’ll go further and say that dimensions are tools. Gimmicks we have invented to help us make sense of the world. And not only invented but fine tuned to fit our purposes.
We have invented length and breadth when we needed a way to impose taxes on arable land. We have invented weight and volume when trading cereals and wine. We have invented time when needing to pin point our position on a map while sailing around the world. We have radically altered geometry when the old one was no longer useful. We have even learned to adjust dimensions when speed had became fast enough to demand it.
Now, time is ripe for us to reconsider them altogether. Opportunity, space and time. We can make do with only three basic dimensions.
Life needs ‘thickness’. As suggested in the drawing above, if animals had only two dimensions they would have had to make do without any digestive systems.
Hence we live in a 3 dimensional environment. But we, the only fully conscious beings on Earth, live ‘on a surface’. We’ve learned to fly rather late in our evolution. Most of us behave as if able to fully process only two and a half dimensions. We make good use of height and length, the things we ‘face’, but depth is rather tricky for most of us. OK, we’ve climbed up and down trees and mountains since only ‘god’ knows when but we’re basically runners. And runners run on a surface. Runners run along a mostly linear trajectory which happens mostly on a surface. This whole thing takes place in a three dimensional environment, true, but our ‘running’ nature has left some influences on the way we think.
The most obvious one being the discursive nature of our reasoning. We start from ‘premises’, go along a logical path and end up with conclusions. We very much like the things which fit into a narrative. And we hate going back to reconsider our ways.
Since Einstein has noticed that things were ‘relative’ – to the manner in which we measured them – we have started to add dimensions. To the previously 3 dimensional environment into which we used to live. The first dimension which had been added was time. Nowadays, many scientists believe that ‘the universe operates with 10 dimensions but 6 of them are very tiny‘.
I’m not going to contradict them. For the very simple reason that I don’t know – and don’t care – about the other 6. Dimensions. I’m sure that they are out there, somewhere, and that those who have discovered those dimensions knew what they were doing.
What I’m going to do is to propose a new manner of counting. ‘Dimensions’. Redefine them, first, and only then (re)count.
What do you think about mass? Is is a dimension? How about energy? ‘White’ (aka ‘visible’), ‘dark‘ … whatever…
Since the ‘jury is still out’…
I’m going to pause the narrative here to make a point.
‘The jury is still out’ means two things. The obvious and the one which stops us from sleeping at night. The fact that the jury – us – hasn’t (yet) been able to fulfill the task.
Back to our main thread.
How about we return to our good old 3 dimensional Universe?
Where space is what separates ‘things’, time is what separates ‘events’ and opportunity is what sets the stage for ‘things’ to evolve into ‘events’?
Easier said than done? In the sense that it’s very easy to put it into words but there’s no mathematics available to describe in ‘absolute’ terms what I’ve just narrated? They key word hasn’t been mentioned in the phrase above. There’s no mathematics available yet… The mathematics used by Einstein to demonstrate his theories wasn’t available to Newton… Mathematics – a form of artificial language – is invented by those capable to do that as soon as the opportunity arises. As soon as there’s a need for new ways to express new perceptions of reality.
And no, don’t expect me to come up with new mathematical expressions of anything. I’m no artist. I have enough trouble expressing my using with mere words.
Since this post is about dimensions, not about my limitations, I’ll end up remembering the three (meta?) dimensions. In a more ‘natural’ order.
Opportunity.
Anything which makes things possible. Mass – visible and/or dark, energy – visible and/or dark – and anything else which ‘works’ in this sense. I’m going to make a second – and a lot shorter – ‘transgression’ here and remind you how ‘relative’ things are. How right Einstein was. We speak about visible matter being “normal” and about “dark” (invisible to us) energy/matter having to exist in order for us to be able to make sense of the Universe as we are able to perceive.
Space
Whatever it is that separates, and also harbours, ‘islands of concentrated opportunity’. Mainly ‘mass’ but who knows (yet) what else might be ‘separated/harboured’ by space. Energy – as we know it, is somewhat distributed ‘along’ space rather than ‘separated’ by space.
Time
Whatever it is that separates, and also sequences, events. Happenings. ‘Notable’ ‘intersections’ between matter and energy. Here, again, we have a difference between matter and energy. While matter seems to ‘survive’ better ‘in time’, energy seems to be more ‘vulnerable’ to the passage of time. Entropy….
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. Robert A. Heinlein, Postscript to Revolt in 2100.
Religion is the metaphusical ‘thing’ inside which people who hold a set of tenets to be true are able to build a community.
Religion is sociological phenomenon. Something belonging to the realm studied by those who try to understand how large number of people work together.
Religions – on the other hand – are ‘sets of tenets’ put in practice by various groups of people. Sets of tenets which survive for as long as they continue to help the people who uphold them in their quest to survive as a group. As a community.
Religion cannot be ‘changed’. Religion can be studied. May be better understood. Like physics. You can’t ‘change’ physics! With what? With chemistry? Things don’t work like this. The only thing you may do about physics is to ‘deepen’ your knowledge about it.
Religions can, and sometimes have to, be changed. By the very people who ‘use’ them to survive.
Since nobody can survive on their own, each and everyone of us needs to belong. To a community. To a religion, actually!
And what do people do when they realize survival is impossible in certain conditions? Die or do something about it, right?
Now, which community can survive based on hate? It doesn’t matter whether you are asked to hate somebody inside or outside your community. Whether you hate individually or collectively. Hating – or despising – somebody blinds you and exhausts you. Puts a huge burden on your back. Focuses your attention so tight that you are no longer able to notice the real dangers. Those which actually make you less likely to survive.
And this is valid both for you as an individual and for you as a hating community.
Time, like everything else human, has two sides. Like a coin.
A ‘base’ and an interpretation.
There’s no interpretation without a base – even hallucinations are based on ‘something’ – and there’s nothing which has penetrated human conscience and ever managed to evade interpretation. In fact, human conscience needs to interpret, to assign meaning to, everything it ‘sees’. Everything it perceives. Anything which is uninterpretable, which has no meaning, cannot be controlled.It is, hence, dangerous. If you don’t know what’s going to happen next, you can assume anything. And since assuming the worst – and preparing for it – is far more useful towards survival than sleeping over it, we are biased towards erring on the side of caution. And towards relentlessly searching for meaning.
Time, like everything else human, is both a phenomenon – it happens – and a concept. The difference between the ‘time’ of a star and the human time being that ours has a name – given by us – and that the star cannot do anything about it. While we do!
We can do things to and about time!
We named it, we measure it, we attempt to interpret it…. and we try to do the best of it! We try to do, while alive, what we consider to be ‘the best’.
The best (?!?) for whom?
Tao.
The ‘road’. If everything flows, it has to flow ‘somewhere’. Not only from the start/spring to the ‘end’ (?!?)/never tranquil sea. Everything flowing needs a ‘riverbed’ to flow ‘through’. A plant needs soil to sprout, grow, bear fruit and ‘return to nature’. Even a star needs an Universe in order to shine… besides enough ‘fuel’, of course! I have started this post by saying that there’s no interpretation without a ‘base’ and that we, conscious human beings, need to attach meaning (a.k.a. interpretations) to everything of which we become aware. Same thing here. For anything to happen, a venue is needed. Some wise people in our past have used ‘Tao’ as a name for THE venue. For the venue where everything takes place.
Karma.
At first, when conscience had dawned on us, we were alone in the ‘dark’. And afraid about what was going to happen to us. To assuage that fear, we have identified God. As the ‘the meaning’ of the world. At first, when both the world and time seemed to be endless – to us, consequences came from God. We had to behave. Or else… God was there to punish each and every transgression. Sometimes using one of us as his proxy. After a while, some of our ancestors have learned to write. To reliably transfer information over generations. Very soon, those ancestors of ours have learned the link between cause and effect. Between behavior and consequence. Very soon God had become an outside observer. Or was out-rightly forgotten. But Karma survived.
Future.
I keep hearing that ‘evolution has no purpose’. Like many other human utterances, this one conveys far more information about the utterer than about the phenomenon described by the utterer.
‘This wooden table has 4 legs’. We learn about the table that it is in front of us, that it is made of wood and ‘has’ 4 legs. We learn about the utterer that: It was conscious when uttering those words. Only conscious agents are capable of ‘speaking like a human’. It has, at some point, learned to speak. English, and possibly other languages. It has, at some point, learned to count. At least up to four. And it had conserved that ability up the moment when it uttered those words. It was capable of identifying ‘wood’ as a material. When uttering that phrase, it was in a ‘casual’ state of mind. A ‘scientifically minded person’, a ‘grammar nazy’, for example – when in that mood, would not attribute human ‘abilities’ to a table. Which table is a mere object and objects cannot posses other objects. Tables cannot ‘have’, hence that person was speaking colloquially. Or, given the current ‘technological’ developments, those words might have very well been uttered by a statistically ‘minded’ AI application…. A man made ‘parrot’!
See what I mean?
Let’s go back to the presumably purposeless evolution.
Evolution is a phenomenon. Like a thunder. It takes a lot more time to unfold than a thunder, it’s about as hard as a thunder to predict the exact point where it will ‘strike’ but we know enough about both to be able to point out, quite reliably, a few ‘rules’ about how both phenomena take place. About where, when and how they will unfold. What’s the purpose of thunder? To ‘close the circuit’? To discharge the energy pent up in the cloud? I’m afraid that attributing purpose to thunder is akin to allowing tables to ‘have’ legs. What we have here is a ‘figure of speech’. An ‘implicit’ figure of speech… so implicit that it’s not even considered as such… Same thing when it comes to evolution.
Which evolution is paramount to survival. Just as no cloud can accumulate ad infinitum electric energy – hence thunder – no living thing ever – no species, more exactly – has yet been able to survive ‘everything’. Everything mother nature has thrown at it. Hence ‘evolution’! Which is a mere process which makes life possible. In certain conditions – in a certain Tao – after it had sprung up. And, again, attributing purpose to evolution is akin to allowing a table to own legs.
Then what about ‘future’? If God no longer decides for us – the God we have identified – and if evolution is ‘pointless’… then ‘future is blind’?!?
Not so fast!
Question: Where was God at Auschwitz? Answer: Where was man at Auschwitz?
Could any of those present at Auschwitz have done anything to fundamentally change the outcome? Probably not. Could we, as a species, have done – have behaved, actually – in such a manner as to avoid Auschwitz altogether? Specially after the Armenian Genocide had already taken place? Should we, as a species, have done differently when so many Tutsi had been killed in Rwanda? When 8000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys had been murdered in Srebrenica?
See what I mean? About the future? About our future?
What do we have here? “Eternity and endless return?” Or past mistakes haunting us through time? Until we figure out the way forward? Or else…
“An old Jewish Rabbi dies and goes to heaven. He stands in line for a while for his chance to meet God in person. His turn comes and he steps forward. God says âWelcome. Do you have any questions for me?â Rabbi: âNo, I just want to tell you a joke about my time in that concentration camp.â God: âHow can you joke about such a thing?â Rabbi: âI guess you had to be there.â “
‘A proposition needs more than ‘mere’ Logic in order to be True. It also needs to be epistemologically correct.’ Oscar Hoffman, 1930-2017
This morning (February 22, 2013, thanks FB) I had a very interesting discussion with my son.
Trying to ‘soften’ him up to my arguments I said: “I don’t understand how a person with such a command of logic as yourself is unwilling to accept that…”
I should have seen this coming: “If you have such an admiration for MY logic why don’t YOU accept that…” That very moment I recalled a lecture by Professor Oscar Hoffman: ‘A proposition needs more than ‘mere’ Logic…’
How do you translate that to a 13 years old?
“Look here. Being Logical is only the beginning. You cannot do anything without it but it isn’t enough just by itself. It’s only the formal side of Things”. And that was the very moment when inspiration hit me: “Let me give you an example. You have a lot of wooden pieces: spheres, cubes, pyramids, cylinders, cones..etc. and two boards with holes in them: circles, squares, triangles. Your task is to put each wooden piece through the corresponding hole but you must also follow a second rule: half the wooden pieces are made of red oak and they belong to the red board while the other half are made of birch and they belong to the blue board”.
“Let’s presume you have no idea about either geometry or kinds of wood. Using logic you might separate red oak from fir using the grain and then learn to thread various shapes each through the corresponding hole. But no amount of logic will ever enable you to associate the correct pile of wooden pieces to which colored board unless somebody tells you which pile is made of red oak and which pile is made of fir. Savvy?”
I’m proud to report that he got the point!
Present day edit. He remembers the discussion but neither of us can recall where it started!
In order to survive, individual organisms have to ‘communicate’ with their exterior. To import nutrients and to export the by-products of their metabolism. In order to thrive, individual organisms need to know as much as possible about what’s going on as far as possible. In order to maintain their congruence – read sanity, individual organisms which happen to be aware of their own selves have to make sense of what’s going on around them.
We, the only fully conscious beings know to man – to us, gather information using what we call ‘senses’. In order to survive, thrive and make sense of the world we smell, taste, touch, listen to and look at it. At the world. Smelling and tasting have very much in common with ‘feeding’. The organism ‘imports’ tiny bits from the surrounding reality and uses them to learn things about what’s going on around it. Touching is the first sense which ‘closes’ the frontier between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. Hearing is about becoming aware of other things interacting among themselves. Hearing a stream flowing means water moving relative to the banks. Also, hearing means both the hearer’s ears and the interacting things reside inside the same sound transmitting medium. Seeing means becoming aware of light bouncing off things happening to be ‘in range’. The seer’s ability to see depends on light being emitted in such a manner as to be reflected – or obscured – by the observed object towards the eyes of the seer. Making sense of things means integrating gathered information into a scenario where no piece of information contradicts any other. Specially any byte of information stored in the long term memory and held to be true.
Language is the tool we use to convey information. To speak our minds…
The consequences of tool use – messages, in this case – depend on the yielder. The consequences of shooting a gun depend mainly on the person aiming the gun. The consequences of using language … depend on those who are at the both ends of the ‘barrel’.
Messages – consequences of language being used to put together batches of information with the intent of transmitting them to an audience – are interpreted as soon as they reach their ‘target’. Meaning – what the receptor makes of a message, using the same languaging tools as those put to work by the emitter – depends mainly on the receptor. In fact, most of the times, there’s more information to be gleaned from a message than that intended to be conveyed by the person initiating the exchange.
If interested in who said what and what Orwell thought about the subject… just click on the link above. I’ll only add the reasons for which I know it to be a misleading affirmation.
The factual truth is that only dictators need to be guarded by rough men during their sleep. And during the rest of their lives… We, the rest of ‘the people’, go to sleep at night knowing there’s only a very slim chance to be targeted by thieves. Yes, we know that the police will likely come to investigate after the fact. After the fact… But we also know that we are less likely to fall prey to violence than those living in other countries because our societies work better than those which are more violent than ours.
Because our society works better, not because we employ more ‘rough men’ to guard us… On the contrary! The more violent a country, the more ‘popular’ the ‘rough men’ are. On both ‘sides of the isle’!
And the more violent a country, the less peacefully people sleep in that country…
nicichiarasa 