by

SOS


My previous post was on immortality. The contributions have been interesting but they got me thinking about a broader topic.

1. Why is metaphysics treated with apathy? Does it have any useful application?

2. What is time? Does it have a real existence?

3. What is space?

4. Does life has a beginning?  Does it end? Or put differently what is life?

About makagutu

As Onyango Makagutu I am Kenyan, as far as I am a man, I am a citizen of the world

61 thoughts on “SOS”

  1. ebolainfo says:
    March 19, 2016 at 13:07

    I don’t have any answers but dwelling on these topics elevates us above crass materialism and barbarism

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  2. Hariod Brawn says:
    March 19, 2016 at 15:24

    John Zande will answer all these for your OM.

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  3. john zande says:
    March 19, 2016 at 15:36

    Life is an ordered response to disorder…. the result of affinities.

    As John Fiske, so prudently observed:

    “As soon as it became cool enough for oxygen and hydrogen to unite into a stable compound, they did unite to form vapour of water. As soon as it became cool enough for double salts to exist, then the mutual affinities of simple binary compounds and single salts, variously brought into juxtaposition sufficed to produce double salts. And so on throughout the inorganic world … Here we obtain a hint as to the origin of organic life upon the earth’s surface. In accordance with the modern dynamic theory of life, we are bound to admit that the higher and less stable aggregations of molecules which constitute protoplasm were built up in just the same way in which the lower and more stable aggregations of molecules which constitute a single or a double salt were built up. Dynamically, the only difference between carbonate of ammonia and protoplasm which can be called fundamental is the greater molecular complexity and consequent instability of the latter.”

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    • makagutu says:
      March 20, 2016 at 10:18

      Let me think about this more.
      I am tempted to ask if there is order or whether it is our way of seeing the world? Or nature is ordered and we are able to see the order

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      • john zande says:
        March 20, 2016 at 15:57

        Energy states tend to disorder, whereas life seems a little disgusted by all this and fights back by trying to maintain it… In in the end, unsuccessfully. What Fisk calls “affinities,” result in life. Veles wrote the affinities 😉

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  4. keithnoback says:
    March 19, 2016 at 16:12

    1. People prefer comfort and are easily distracted. It helps keep you humble and puts the small stuff in perspective.
    2.B theory
    3.The potential for events.
    4.B theory

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    • john zande says:
      March 19, 2016 at 16:36

      I tend to agree with B-theory, at an individual level time is malleable, but I’m at a loss as to how it applies across possible dimensions. More than likely this is just a problem in my thought-processes (trying to visualise it), but it get’s so wobbly that it induces a kind of vertigo.

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    • john zande says:
      March 19, 2016 at 17:00

      Then again, we do have a physiological explanation for why time appears malleable. In extreme moments (like a car crash) neurons in the visual cortex spark off at triple normal speed and time appears to slow. In this instance, we are simply processing a lot more, a lot faster, and our perception of the world is in-turn altered.

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      • Barry says:
        March 19, 2016 at 17:35

        It also appears malleable in less extreme cases too. Such as when I have a migraine attack and the word appears to be in fast forward mode and very difficult to keep up with.

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      • keithnoback says:
        March 19, 2016 at 17:38

        Yes, really disorienting. I’m not sure how the physiology helps with the larger problem: the changes in the neurons are noted by convention. The convention is derived from the observed changes in neurons relative to changes in our environment noted by – changes in our neurons!
        There seems to be no escape to A time, for us. But psychologically, it is a more comfortable place to live, at least for most of the time, so we will continue to live there in our daily lives.

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    • makagutu says:
      March 20, 2016 at 10:21

      I had to read A and B theory of time, thanks to you. I will have to read them again before I can make a comment on it.

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  5. vastlycurious.com says:
    March 19, 2016 at 17:42

    My head hurts 🙂

    Life begins and Life ends and thats my scientific approach

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  6. inspiredbythedivine1 says:
    March 19, 2016 at 19:43

    “Life, time, beginnings, endings, matter not these things do. Timelessness, limitlessness, spacelessness, matter most these do. The Jedi’s way, these are. The way of The Force they are. All meaning is in no meaning. Thinking too hard, a path to the dark side, it is.” Yoda to Luke Skywalker, May, 1980

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  7. tildeb says:
    March 19, 2016 at 20:15

    What is metaphysics?

    Metaphysics is a way of deducing how reality operates and what it contains by assuming certain principles about the world first and then using those assumptions to then draw (logical) conclusions.

    The problem is that this approach doesn’t require any links between claimed effects and a claimed cause for them, no means that can be independently verified to back up the accuracy of the premises themselves; that’s why the method is a failed method describing how reality actually operates.

    This is why religious belief is so amicable to metaphysics (and why religious dogma absorbs ‘natural philosophy’ lock, stock, and barrel): let us first assume some premise is true – that god is real – and assume we can know something about its nature – revealed to us here in reality by selecting whatever effects fits our preferred divine model – and then show why we need to believe it is so (and give money to the priestly caste). Presto! A metaphysically friendly religion creating deepities as profundities and claiming philosophical sophistication tying it all up in a nice, neat bow.

    But remember, there is no need using this method to demonstrate any link between the effects we select with the cause we presume. Hence, the bramble of religious claims upheld by that Very Great Virtue called ‘faith’. This is metaphysics in action.

    The problem, as Galileo so adeptly demonstrated, is that there is no such thing as an object’s nature – a founding principle for premises that utilize metaphysics that is simply and factually wrong.

    That’s why metaphysics does not, never has, and probably never shall produce one jot or tittle of knowledge about reality. It allows those unconcerned with reality to achieve orgasmic pleasure believing themselves insightful by the use of logic. Yet all it impregnates – in all its supposed sophistication – is claims masquerading as ‘evidence’ for its ‘conclusions’. As long as the logical form is followed, the assumption is that the method is correct and therefore works to produce another ‘kind’ of insight into reality.

    This is as productive as masturbation.

    A lot of Big Brained people have failed to understand what evidence is – the demonstrable link between effects and cause – and so this essential discrepancy is missed/ignored/waved away in order to continue to believe whatever (and quiver with philosophically induced pleasure). What is really be waved away is the understanding to differentiate claims of metaphysical assumption from claims adduced from independent evidence. Because of this oversight, these same people then fail to understand why the lack of a demonstrable link between claimed effects and its cause is fatal to metaphysical claims about reality, mistaking their imaginings pregnant with assumption for the real bouncing baby produced by knowledge (and all the applications, therapies, and technologies that come from it).

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    • john zande says:
      March 19, 2016 at 20:30

      I have copy and pasted this into a document for future use. Brilliant stuff.

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      • inspiredbythedivine1 says:
        March 19, 2016 at 20:40

        I concur.

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        • tildeb says:
          March 19, 2016 at 20:50

          Thanks… but know that familiarity really does breed contempt… and I am contemptuous of those who have allowed their thinking process to be seduced by the dollar store allure of ‘modern’ metaphysics.

          I had to study so much of this shit at university and write all kinds of papers on it that my gorge is always at risk of rising whenever I encounter it. That’s why you may not realize just how nice and benign my tone really is in the above comment I made.

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          • inspiredbythedivine1 says:
            March 19, 2016 at 21:05

            Oh, I hear you. I find the topic so infuriating and redundantly nonsensical that I’d rather quote Yoda than write anything nonsensical about it myself. Talking about metaphysics, for me, is like watching ten hamsters run on ten separate wheels and trying to figure out some mystical way to get them all to do it in perfect synchronicity. Useless endeavors both.

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    • makagutu says:
      March 20, 2016 at 10:34

      While I totally agree with you about religion, is metaphysics concerned only with religion? Are the abstract questions such as freedom of the will not an important discussion regardless of whether the question can’t be answered conclusively?

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      • tildeb says:
        March 20, 2016 at 18:56

        Probably the most frustrating aspect of metaphysics is defining the terms as they relate to reality. For example, if we wish to consider will and the freedom to exercise it, then what are we actually talking about? Metaphysics is quite happy to keep its terminology nebulous… it gives the appearance of sophistication. But – invariably – when we parse the terms being used, we find either an empty set (mathematically speaking) or a set full of biology that is rarely if ever considered important. So we get philosophers telling biologists that they are too unsophisticated to offer much if any insight into metaphysical concerns.

        It’s a word game that leads us exactly nowhere.

        Now, if you want to want to find out what is the case about something in reality (let’s say, consciousness) and recognize the fact that to presume all your assumptive premises are true first leads one to a predetermined conclusion that may or may not have any accurate descriptive value about the thing being considered, then you’re going to have to leave metaphysics behind and turn to reality’s role to arbitrate whatever explanatory models you seek. Because metaphysics (meta meaning ‘beyond’ and ‘physics’ meaning the reality available to our senses) requires no link to reality, what are the chances we can produce knowledge about reality by first disallowing it any arbitrating role?

        Hence, the very high importance of nebulous terminology in metaphysical ‘considerations’ and the all too common defense when criticized about the ‘failure’ of other methods of inquiry that fail to produce certainty. There’s your binary thinking at work to allow wiggle room to excuse the utter lack of even incremental knowledge productivity from metaphysics and the blame for that directed everywhere else.

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        • inspiredbythedivine1 says:
          March 20, 2016 at 19:05

          Beautifully said. Metaphysics: The pseudoscience that ends where it starts-nowhere.

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        • makagutu says:
          March 20, 2016 at 19:54

          Is it always that metaphysics starts with assumptions?
          Is the question about definitions a weakness of metaphysics or inadequacy of our language to effectively define what is being described?
          I was looking at the origin of the word and whether it is a useful field of study, there seems to be two schools.

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    • ebolainfo says:
      March 20, 2016 at 11:02

      I beg to differ. Natural philosophy is/should be science. Metaphysics is the attempt to link the observable/tangible world with the intangible – mind,consciousness,spirit.

      There is value in the pursuit of how mind/consciouness impacts and interacts with matter. This knowledge does give a group/cabal/mafia/elite dominancy over others.

      The attempt to obfuscate/hide this fact is a reason for secret societies like masonry. Look to the jewish tribe and their kabbalah. Sometimes sincere research can be perverted as shown by jewish Freud.

      Once you start realising the frauds, deceits of modern life in banking, legal, medical, history and even science, you are led to seek truth?

      If “reality” as told/indoctrinated is false and benefits a small ruling class. what is the geniune “reality”? What is the truth?

      [ I am king, I have royal blood, the priests of your belief system assert this “fact”. My indulgence and utterances are unyielding orders. My needs override the needs of thousands, nay millions of oher eartlings.]
      – What utter bullshit

      In seeking truth, you meet charlatans, pretenders but it nonetheless is a worthwhile endeavor. I would not wish to go back to the slavish belief in big pharma/who vaccine pushers, religion, royalty, legal system, banking, mainstream media propaganda, statism, Bill Gates as a sincere philanthropist, technocrats,etc.

      I can search for ideas, practises that empower me or be slave to ideas/practises that benefit a small criminal cabal. The search always, always, always leads to mind, consciousness!

      That is why our mind is the primal fight we are engaged in now. The false mental constructs must be exposed/destroyed.

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  8. tildeb says:
    March 19, 2016 at 22:51

    Regarding 2 and 3, I heard a fascinating talk on the radio (here) about local and non local and the fight that has been ongoing between them for a very long time. My take away was the notion that maybe space is not fundamental to the universe but an emergent property of it. And the same could be true of time.

    But then, quantum mechanics always scrambles my brain and I’m left with more questions than answers.

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  9. Robert A. Vella says:
    March 19, 2016 at 23:22

    1. Why is metaphysics treated with apathy? Does it have any useful application? I see no useful application of metaphysics other than as a philosophical platform for discussing aspects of existence which are not empirically known. Metaphysical ideas are great topics for discussion when smoking marijuana; but, I’ll stick to science when sober.

    2. What is time? Does it have a real existence? As Einstein theorized, and which has been empirically verified, time is a relative concept which is inseparable from space – hence the term “space-time.” Nothing can exist in time without also existing in space, and vice versa. What we humans perceive as the passage of time is simply the specific entropy we experience here on Earth which is determined by its gravitational conditions and its absolute speed in relation to the universe. Astronauts and satellites, for example, experience the passage of time at a slower rate than what would occur on Earth.

    3. What is space? See: What is time?

    4. Does life has a beginning? Does it end? Or put differently what is life? I was born and I will surely die, so I guess life has a beginning and an end. But beyond that, I haven’t a clue what life really is.

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    • john zande says:
      March 20, 2016 at 01:01

      4. Does life has a beginning? Does it end? Or put differently what is life? I was born and I will surely die, so I guess life has a beginning and an end. But beyond that, I haven’t a clue what life really is.

      Ah, but life began on earth 3.8 billion years ago and hasn’t been interrupted since. So, your start and finish aren’t actually real, just a sentence in something far grander.

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    • makagutu says:
      March 20, 2016 at 10:52

      1. I can live with that for the time being
      2. Kant and later on Schopenhauer in their philosophical writings argued time and space are the grounds for our understanding. We understand causality in terms of space and time. They may not have given proof but I think this was metaphysics and it’s useful.
      3. Same as above
      4. Fair enough

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  10. inspiredbythedivine1 says:
    March 19, 2016 at 23:33

    “Nothing can exist in time without also existing in space, and vice versa” I’ve been spaced for long periods of time during my 20’s. Actually, I’m not sure I’m not spaced in time right now..cough! cough! cough! Excellent, man. Excellent.

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  11. john zande says:
    March 20, 2016 at 01:05

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  12. clubschadenfreude says:
    March 20, 2016 at 02:22

    time is nothing more than the sequence of events. to declare it separate is meaningless.

    Thus sayeth the Velkyn.

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