Hamas's Use of Hospital for Military Ordinance Cache reminds one of 'Hard Boiled'

 Hamas' use of the main hospital in Gaza City for a military HQ and weapons cache reminded me of the classic movie 'Hard Boiled'.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-it-has-clear-information-linking-shifa-hospital-to-hamas-held-hostages/

https://youtu.be/Kf1vVsULTDY?feature=shared

Some Conservatives Do Support Theocracy

 Some support theocracy and theocratic influence and others hate it. Christian morals could be said to be pro-human these days as few advocate asceticism while formerly humanism partisans tend toward support for a broad range of inhuman powers that subvert human and family interests.

Some hate church cosmology concerning origin of the Universe while some Christians believe that evolution is a sub-set of God's way of developing the universe so it's suitable for containing fallen mankind (modern hermeneutics).

Some Democrats support socialism rather than democracy and a few socialists prefer communism. It tends to balance out.

A nation with lots of people that value aretaic ethics, education and economic and environmental pragmatism is bound to do well if it has classic Christian values too. It might be pointed out that some nations could have strong moral values that are wicked and religion that is pagan. Those nations would lack the balance in politics required for sustainable democracy too.

I think no one besides atheists and the devil would oppose direct government by God. That isn't a human political system though. There is no human representative government of God that wouldn't be implicitly corrupt as humans are. A theocracy wouldn't be democracy. It would effectively disenfranchise most voters. It would work something like a communist or fascist government for the elites would be the same kind of people that appear in any form of government besides democracy with the ideology being a flag of convenience.

Luther's 95 thesis were posted in 1517. In that day expressing public support for democracy just didn't work. In Europe all of the governments were royal with zero tolerance for the ancient Greek demos being revived. The first short-lived modern Republic was created in Holland in the 17th century about 150 years after the 95 thesis. The protestant reformation stimulated political pluralism leading to the US democracy about 260 years after the 95 thesis. Even Luther had to publish in an environment with royals all around. German princes did support him because they had faith yet also were glad to be independent from the Catholic Habsburg empire. The Smalcauldian War followed. The Dewitt brothers that founded the Dutch Republic were torn apart by a mob and reputedly eaten.

Does the Higgs Field Have Curvature?

 Just another guess at why the expansion of the Universe seems to be accelerating; the Higgs field isn't flat, has curvature and it expands space with scalar increases of force with increasing curvature. One seems to travel faster or at least cover more space at the edge of a merry-go-round than toward the center. It might also act with different force angles at different locations in time forcing the expansion of space-time.

Maybe it's a bit of evidence for the universe existing on the event horizon of a black hole.

https://news.yahoo.com/universe-expanding-faster-theory-predicts-132133980.html

Alternatively dark energy might be called 'The broadcast media effect'. It could be the Higgs field is warped and its angle makes spacetime appear to expand as time increases. Or as has been said the universe is located on the surface of a vast black hole of higher dimensions, and from the inflation, as spacetime increases the curvature increase the rate of change. Who knows what it is- a ploy by five dimensional rich ets to doge income tax.

Configuration (a poem)

 

    Numbering the stones
each piece of metamorphosed rock
broken into fragments with time and stress
is like the hair on a head
or feathers of a sparrow
articles counted to the last follicle
each jot and iota of meaning
quantified and calculated
appearances emerged, existed and disappeared

    Consider the lilies
grown living structures upon structures
minerals glistening in sunshine and rain
even in moonlight
with gluons and quarks snug in nuclei
atoms forming molecules
everything accounted for
in the pluralistic division of a solitary field
being is becoming.

Being Too Judgmental About Epistemlogy

 In this era where the human species has realized that being too judgmental may be an unnecessary prelude to fomenting conflict (and that superfluous conflict may be counterproductive and present steep opportunity costs) it might be noted that social media and science have found the field of epistemology-theory of knowledge, to be ripe for disputations. Perhaps those actually interested in philosophy might be concerned with de-conflicting the points of view that might be 180 degrees apart (I would say at loggerheads except the term is somewhat anachronistic and logging is unpopular vs popular itself with partisans tending toward extremes). Epistemological conflict has even entered the field of religion where some seek to make epistemological questions and test a necessary element of soteriological concern.

 One epistemological issue of note is that of subjectivism vs objectivism including ontology. A theory of being and a theory of knowledge concurring simultaneously; the observer and knower in-the-field yet not of it, or in-the-field and aware, or in-the-field (the field comprising the Universe) and not aware of what the field really is for-itself.

 Some people believe (actually a majority perhaps of philosophers) that naive empiricism is obsolete. It bears the same relation to perception of reality that Newton’s theory of gravity had; conditionally and temporarily the best truth available yet surpassed by Einstein’s General Theory of Gravity that is waiting to be surpassed by a newer better theory that could be very strange or arise from myriad directions. Others believe that science is obsolete and that ontological mathematics is reality for-itself. Inexpert in the field myself, I would guess it is something like the criterion described by Max Tegmark in his decade old book named ‘The Mathematical Universe’. Tegmark described a Multiverse constructed solely of math. Math descriptions of quanta and how they are-in what state they are in, would not only be a representative portrayal of the Universe, it would actually be what the Universe is made of.

 I believe the point of various subtle mathematical descriptions of primary quanta is to make the representation the Universe-for-itself. Obviously it is also a construct by sentient human knowers perceiving sensations, learning about the quanta comprising the sensations and formulating a math theory to explain it all even including their own mind. Plainly though the theory is artificial and not a necessary component of every human mind today.

 Religious mystics describe their own encounter with God in an experience transcending reality. Reality opens up to experience. I had an experience something like that driving a Honda Civic downhill on a freeway through Utah that lasted a few moments. It is so unusual and life transforming (to a limited extent) that it is memorable.

 Religious mysticism though is traditional regarded as heretical by the Catholic Church as well it might be. I think the experience though paranormal shouldn’t necessarily be regarded as an encounter with God. Instead it is an encounter with a subjective-objective experience briefly transcending the mundane world of experience. May there are a few who would describe an experience like that as an encounter with God, and perhaps theirs was, I cannot say, yet it is not in any way requisite for salvation nor even a good idea. Scripture provides the strait and simple path through the narrow gate to eternal life with God; and that is through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 I mention religious mysticism here because some people have attacked Abrahamic faith as a kind of mysticism in their effort to attack science, Kantianism and sundry forms of ways of thinking about the Universe’s mechanics. The end of the subject-object distinction developed by philosophers like W.V.O. Quine, P.F. Strawson and others joined with the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle and other quantum mechanical concepts has prompted a new generation of intellectual cosmological mysticism with believers regarding themselves as not mystics.

 The idea of pure math comprising the Universe things leads one to reflect upon Plato’s realm of forms where real forms exist of which everything in the observed world is a copy. That idea is an example of intellectual mysticism even if it provided baskets of differential equations and eigenvalues to all that ask freely. It is an interesting era.

When the Subject-Object Distinction was Overcome

 

The subject- object distinction in philosophy became more important to science with the rise of investigation of forces, particles and quanta. It was mostly a philosophical concern before, as most people accepted the naïve realism that held that observers could discovery the mechanics of objects. Logical Positivism most notably formalized by A.J. Ayer in Language, Truth and Logic (1936) was a kind of radical empiricism that destroyed metaphysics as a valid concern of philosophy. W.V.O. Quine in his Two Dogmas of Empiricism demolished the epistemology of empiricism and logical positivism. He showed that the reef of solipsism in effect, cannot be overcome; individuals as subjects perceive and exist without being able to separate themselves from their own perceptions and thoughts, or intensions as Heidegger might have termed cognitive mind. Quantum mechanics reinforced the concept of observers affecting quanta simply by measuring them. An observation collapses the wave function because a wave is everyplace and a point position is a particular place and has no speed (plainly and artificial construct in some respects as far as particles are concerned).

Schrodinger’s wave equation; “The Schrodinger wave equation is a mathematical expression describing the energy and position of the electron in space and time, taking into account the matter wave nature of the electron inside an atom”  https://byjus.com/jee/schrodinger-wave-equation/#:~:text=The%20Schrodinger%20wave%20equation%20is,the%20electron%20inside%20an%20atom.

“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR23uxZruhE 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zoVhVpqcxL0

Naïve reality is complex. One knows that math and words are products of the human mind and neither exists in nature. Sure animals have some language, yet if the words animals used represented meaningful objects and concerns the words would still simply exist in the animal’s mind. Nature is without language. Language belongs to sentient beings. Ideas about how words apply to objects may be incorrect, yet exist within a lexicon of humans rather than in nature. Nature would be indifferent if oranges were named footballs; it is humans that would care.

All of the mass of the Universe potentially could be described as an object and given a name. The Higgs field or some greater hosting field that includes the Higgs hosts the energy slowed down such that it appears to have mass. Energy is convertible to mass and vice versa as Einstein proved. The subject object distinction being effaced philosophically as brought many changes to the way people think about reality. Some go so far as to claim nothing exists including themselves, or that others create all of common realty with their mind, or that the individual mind creates all of realty.

There are practical consequences for ending the subject-object distinction for science. It will allow more discoveries of the realm of being that does manifest itself as a Universe to human observers as observers realize they are part of the Universe being observed as well as the problem that arises because they are limited to what Immanuel Kant realized was a limit for human knowledge. Kant thought the phenomena was what people could be aware of and that noumenona was the unknown existing beyond the reef of solipsism as Sartre termed it.

Bishop Berkeley of course invented ideaism popularly called idealism. In his Three Dialogues he described perception and existence that could be created by God or a demi-urge tricking the individual to believe that reality is empirical and objective when it is just senses being stimulated to make it seem that way. Berkeley was a couple hundred years ahead of the Matrix in speculating how a mind could be made to believe reality is real when it is just a product of a Superior Being. A human mind could exist in a jar or as computer code in a greatly advanced system and made to believe it is experiencing objective reality.

Complex and interesting topics... Some have faith in the Lord and yet enjoy scientific method and logical investigations. Others detach from reality, or rather, the common realm of human experience and focus on pleasure, yet others believe nothing is real. I believe there may be three or four kinds of modern human outlook. One is to have faith, two is to believe just in science and observation, the third is to believe in nothing and the fourth is to focus on please or work and avoid thinking about it.

 

Will Zelenskky's Sidekick Joe Biden Rule out 2024 Presidential Election Too?

Ukraine's President Zelenskky has ruled out a Presidential election in 2024 because of the ongoing war with Russia. He may inadvertently shown a winning path for President Joe Biden to stay in office after 2024- cancel the election.

https://garycgibson.com/2023/11/08/will-zelenskkys-sidekick-joe-biden-rule-out-2024-presidential-election/

Usually a substantial crisis is required to cancel an election; rain, snow, sleet, flood or extreme darkness of night because of emp blasts or whatever. In 2024 though it may be easier to foment a crisis; after all Democrats upgraded a bum-rushing the capitol mob of unruly protestors an insurrection, so something else might receive the hyperbole treatment and become a crisis of such stature that 'Honest' Joe Biden must remain in office as Dictator Perpetuo like Dictator Zelenskkyy who has found a good way to silence anti-war dissidents.

Reaching the Ground (poem)

 

Desiccated weeds and tall dry grasses exist
shaking agitated in the wind
inconstant element with the sun
mild this time of year

  While cars and trucks roll over edges of interstate grooves
rivaling the sound of engines
racing through nowhere to be somewhere
green things grow in the distance

  Things more alive than the pale green sagebrush
set by the trillions in these places
that know barbed wire and goats
yet was made to serve coyotes and rabbits

  Pale yellows, browns and green suggest possibilities
of something near that never does appear
for green blades of grass and special storefronts
concrete curbs and sports bars are more real

  What of the stars that are so clear and alone
set far across empty space
when humans know gravity’s conforming love
the cold empty void can’t be home

  Stones are strewn amid driest dirt
knighted with a crust of rain long ago-
a patina that is vigilant against dust storms
that too easily rise

  A sinusoidal wave trough from eternity
lingers with temporal clinched drives
each life is a momentary beingness
of relationships too readily benched.

Misc Philosophical Comments

 Western science did exist historically yet now it's world science. Toynbee noted in his last book... "Mankind and Mother Earth", that Western civilization has morphed into world civilization...there is just one civilization and it has many streams flowing into it.

Energy is a description of relationships or events; yet what is it for-itself? Less than a string, more basic than a two dimensional point, is it comparable to quanta detached from a field or observed at a point of exchange? Does energy make up the stuff of all quanta including strings or quarks?

One may have an endless supply of definitions of energy that provide examples. It could be a characteristic of quanta. Even massless particles may have it. Yet it may all be borrowed from a field with a total quantity of potential energy? Perhaps some believe that field comprises the Universe and that it is eternal.

Time and configurations of space would be contingent and relative in each denouement of a Universe existing of course. The energy field should be bound in some way before a singularity. Yet what dynamic tension holds it together...gravity or simply the will of God.? Is the field unique or is there an infinite supply of fields that can be a Universe in mothballs as it were.

On Euthenasia

Euthanasia seems like a reference to state sanctioned murder popularly. It reminds me of the hit man smothering some old guy with a pillow.

Self-murder may be sought to relieve suffering of course. I think of the couple in The Alien that blew themselves up with a grenade instead of being captured.

Sartre invented a term; the coefficient of adversity, to describe the relationship of the individual to external challenges. When it becomes too much the thought of people can turn toward suicide. After all, few people kill themselves thinking that "I am too happy and life is too wonderful, therefore I must kill myself!".

I wonder if the oxy-fentanyl death epidemic is driven in part by those seeking an easy way to check out of reality. Assuredly good medical care and a righteous economic system would cut down the numbers of self-death makers.

On contemporary thought challenges/conflicts regarding abiogenesis and the Biblical story of Genesis

The truth can be difficult to know and people may rely on authorities rather than themselves for opinions. People don't spend their lives as philosophers generally. Some dabble with partial truths part-time and ossify and promote that insight.

Interpreting scripture can be philosophical challenging for-itself. Moderns can err on their assumptions. Specialists in science and Christianity may wear blinders though not necessarily. Here is a link to a free book I wrote on the matter...

Christianity, Evolution and Digital Universes

https://www.lulu.com/.../chr.../ebook/product-wnddgd.html...

On 'The Pragmatic Fallacy'

It derives from William James- the Harvard philosopher associated with the foundation of pragmatism (it actually was C.S. Pierce) who explained belief in Christ is comparable to a bet. If one has faith one is a winner, and if wrong loses nothing. Alternatively if one hasn't faith one is a guaranteed eternal loser if Christ is the true way, and would be no better off than the Christian if right.

Sorry...I provided an incorrect reference. James did apply a pragmatic argument to the question of faith yet the pragmatic fallacy is something else. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4320221....

A generative AI explained the pragmatic fallacy thusly; "someone assumes that something will help everyone because it helped someone else".

On the Question; Are People Part of Nature and the Natural World?

Yes; people are like giant thinking ants that affect nature in a world where they are the top dog, the biggest cheeses, the ultima ratio for good or bad under God they challenge the existence of.

Second growth of nature upon derilect ant colonies is nature too; as well as primary virgin land unworked by worker ants. The giant ants ignore their ant-thropocene caused changed to the natural world they live in sometimes, and consider themselves to be not part of nature while also sometimes believing they too are part of nature and so they cannot possibly harm it. That is something like saying they are criminals and everyone else is too so they cannot possibly commit crimes that could harm society. The problem with that way of thinking is that the natural criminals are petty criminals avoiding paying parking tickets etc while the Giant Ants are destroying the environmental viability of not only ants to live in, on every other criminal too as they blink and fade into extinction.

David Hume; First Cause, Proximal Causes and Initial Causes

 David Hume did not believe in cause and effect. In retrospect I tend to agree. Instead there is a continuum or field with apparent plurality within it's monism

The universal field is thought by physics to have been unified at some early stage. The entire field is itself contingent and emergent from eternity. The temporal order is a phenomenon that could be compared to the trough of a sinusoidal wave plunging from eternal timelessness briefly into time.

Proximal causes are never unary or monopolar even if they could be reduced to a singularity...they would always be part of a complex of compresent events in spacetime. God can provide an ostensible order in Genesis yet for the eternal and omniscient can there even really be more than subjective arrow-of-time-for-others as might be said to present to sentient beings within his temporal creation.