Philosophical Miscellane

  I wondered why people aren't more civil. Atheists post a lot with occasional abuse on the web and that is interminable. A lot of superficial verbiage pro and con various religious opinions.

  Are people more civil now than during the 30 years war and respectful of the opinions of others about religion? The thirty years war was between the Habsburgs and other European powers that sought political and religious independence in some cases. German princes had sought to be free of the Hapsburgs since Luther and the Smalcaldian war. 8 million died during the 30 years war. Toleration of different ideas is valuable for a free society.

  I enjoyed reading much philosophy and history and understood what philosophy is eventually. It is a learning tool. Questions about cosmology and being are perennial though. Even those with faith may wonder about the nature of things and how that relates to God. An example would be the relationship of omniscience and omnipotentence to a Multiverse; is it a necessity for God to create every possible universe, and do those exist from eternity with God, or are they known yet not actualized until some function occurs.

When Aristotle wrote "The Politics", he was describing the way societies change, and the behavior of the polis. Political philosophy is part of social philosophy. In order to understand human society and politics a philosopher requires actual information, such as the willingness of people with different ideas concerning religion or many other topics to tolerate the expression of those concepts. Societies may have challenges and responses such as Toynbee described in his 'A Study of History' that prompt transitions in political cycles of society, and Toynbee's paradigm in a way is a broad expansion of paradigmata of Aristotle's Politics, yet one must understand real contemporary human behavior if one is to comprehend why people including leaders make the decisions they do, such as the Biden administration's fanaticism for war with Russia over Ukraine via proxies, One would like to know if such characteristics are common and will continue and combine with other Toynbean 'tells' such as vast public debt toward a cyclical progression toward general collapse of civilization (perhaps through W.W. III or if rationality still exists in sufficient measure to delay that. These are philosophical concerns.

Reason and the Quest for God

 Most everyone uses reason-it isn’t a rare skill. Reason can lead one to God for a number of reasons, though the spirit must draw one to Christ. A good old classical and symbolic logic text named The Art of Reasoning set out methods for distilling arguments…even so content of knowledge, learning and experience may take people to different destinations. It’s not like an arithmetic problem with one correct answer that can be found with a particular skill set.

Adam and Eve...

They had eternal life (in one direction) before the sin of disobedience. Elsewhere in Genesis it says to be fruitful and multiply. Maybe it's where and when they had sex, although it doesn't say that they had sex. Instead they became aware they were naked. Animals have no sense of that. Might have been an IQ test to determine if A and E were fully sentient. Consider the dog...does it knows it's naked (unless it has a cute little sweater)?

Sin means 'to miss the mark'. Since mankind has original sin having missed the mark of what they were supposed to do, and are hence in a fallen state replete with thermodynamics, there are sundry ways to continue erring not following the righteous course with the grace of God and the salvific work of Jesus. To follow the will of God and to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit with the Lord Jesus as one's personal savior is the way

The U.S.A. as an Empirical Threat to Russia and the Trump Peace Plan for Ukraine

Apparently there are Americans and some in political positions of leadership that never were willing to accept the existence of a peaceful and prosperous Russia after the end of the Soviet Union. They felt that Russia would continue forward the communist problems and legacy of so many regional communist revolutions around the world. That inability to have trust in peace doomed Europe to the largest war since the Second World War when the Soviet Union was an ally of the United States against Nazi Germany.

Stealing defeat from the jaws of victory is something Americans have done before. One of the more notable political faux pas was the Eisenhower administration’s unwillingness to trust the Iranian parliament to select a Prime Minister who would support principles of democracy instead of communist and therefore choosing to sponsor a coup to remove the prime minister and install an Emperor over Iran. Muslim nations do not favor communism anywhere and the decision was a consequence of misunderstanding of history in the U.S. administration. The United States, given President Putin’s willingness to restart relations with the U.S.A. should not fail to give peace and prosperity a chance one more time.

Those political individuals that choose to expand N..N.A.T.O. eastward toward Russia created a very real empirical threat to Russian existence. The Ukraine was supposed to remain neutral along with several other formerly Warsaw Pact nations. Instead N.A.T.O. grew larger and larger becoming an obvious future adversary of Russia and perhaps attempting to coerce it into submission to Western hegemony. A belligerent relationship is not a neutral one. Russia needed to be accepted as a normal state with friendly trade relations growing rather than as a problem to be defeated in detail over the decades.

Bad relations with Russia promotes all of America’s semi-adversaries. It endangers America’s world position in trade, environment and security. It creates possible nuclear, chemical, biological and A.I. wars when the only alternative is peace and prosperity. It is important to consider real politic and the demographic and environmental challenges of nations in the world that American leadership feels enmity toward. China is a good example of a nation that has had to implement strict birth control for several decades in order to keep its population from going from 1.5 billion to three or four billion. A democracy as chaotic as America’s has been the past eight years could be devastating if replicated in China. Many nations don’t have the luxury of printing up 36 trillion dollars of public debt to cover expenses when there is a cash shortage to fund government.

President Trump should act soon to be the adult supervisor in the D.C. day care center full of Democrats and renormalize relations with Russia. I suggest the Dnepr River as the new border with a five mile wide tax free trade zone on either side with a Marshall Plan for the entirety of Ukraine getting underway to rebuild the shattered land with ecological economic paradigmata.

Elon Musk explained the Trump team plan would freeze in place borders set by where Russian military forces in Ukraine are, have a British peacekeepers on a DMZ and stop Ukraine from joining N.A.T.O. for 20 years. Russia won't accept that plan because they want West Ukraine to be neutral forever rather than having a belligerent N.A.T.O. on its border in 20 years with a weapons build up before then (with western military supplies stockpiling).

The plan says nothing about ending sanctions on Russia and would probably destabilize the effort to normalize relations with Russia as soon as possible. British 'peacekeepers' is something of a joke. Britain was a primary driver of aggression against Russia and having the British military on Russia's border would be like having Nancy Pelosi provide security for G.O.P. headquarters. Who thought of that bizarre idea? Do they want Hezbollah to provide security for Israel's Gaza border too?

The Problem with A.I.

Programmers can become intoxicated with codes and algorithms and develop occupational tunnel vision. The problem with AI is it's success and power. Humanity has irrational leaders in politics making bad land use and economic decisions and with the need to specialize and focus on narrow self interests ignorance of critical social issues and relationship is pervasive. AI applied just to weapons development is not something to be irrationally exuberant about. Managing AI related issues will soon become beyond political competence.

Paradox of Motion

Subtracting the Eleatic paradox
from the distance times time equation
stipulating warped space-time’s infinite curvature
a transparent ball of yarn
journeys to forever in practice running.

Democrat's Bundle Bungling Gives Win to Trump

 Independents probably voted for Trump because the Harris-Biden campaign included a move to  initiate World War Three in their bundle of what they would do if Harris had won the 2024 Presidential election. World War Three is a hard sell to the American public even if abortion for women votes was also included in their political bundle.

President Trump alternatively was the peace candidate who sought to move toward business as usual, and though he included fossil fuel development in his bundle, his bundling of policies was more discrete and less uniform. Like buying a television entertainment cable package Trump had fewer onerous disincentives in his package to offend independent purchasers.

Because future and past President Trump is more independent in his package bundling- more inclined to change the policies and programs included within a political package bundle, he may discover that solid state batteries will probably replace fossil fuel vehicles as the power train of choice before the end of his term. Toyota plans to field a 1000 mile per charge solid state battery by 2029. Most home owners with usually sunny skies would rather pay zero per mile for fuel than 60 dollars each time they need to fill up a gas tank.

President Trump is an urban guy and doesn’t value the wilderness the way Teddy Roosevelt did while creating the National Park system. Yet he should know that it is almost impossible to replace wilderness areas once lost, and that keeping habitat intact for a healthy ecosphere and to stop the loss of endangered species is important to many independent voters, and should be for future Republican politicians too that develop a better global idea of the need to keep a healthy planet even while humanity expands its capitalist enterprises.,

The social security system could easily be fixed if it had a more need based basis for existing. When it was created it was seen  as a way to keep people out of the absolute poverty created during the Great Depression. It wasn’t intended to be a kind of 401 K system to give more than 2000 dollars monthly to people with very adequate retirement savings. Probably payments should halt at $2000 per month and the minimum monthly payment should rise to $1000 monthly.

Though President Trump is a global warming denier, the future Republican party cannot be. It is in fact only because the Democrats include abortion and loose border security in their political bundle each election that they find it challenging to get a majority of votes. In 2028 if Democrats can promise to have zero illegal immigration and set abortion aside to let the states decide they will have a bundle without two poison pills and a better chance to get millions of independent votes. The Democrats bundling a global heating reduction plan that can be accomplished without adding to public debt through incentives should have a fairly easy time winning the 2028 Presidential election.

If President Trump includes the policy directions mentioned above in his operating political package the next term he could set the stage for a more updated Republican Party. The majority of the world population is in warm sunny countries and those people will want to buy lose cost Chinese electric cars and solid state batteries. For the United States to be viewed as a leader in liberating humanity the Republican party will need to support rapid expansion of low cost electric car exports with solid state batteries while demonstrating that a healthy ecosphere can be kept for wildlife in developing nations. Of course it will help if President-elect Trump can restore peaceful relations with Russia and settle the Ukraine-Russia boundary dispute. 

https://electrek.co/2024/11/06/catl-pushes-forward-all-solid-state-ev-batteries/

Two Days and a Night on the Boat (poem)

 

Free boat scraping
barnacles of salt water in Marina Del Ray
the bargain boat bought brought a security guard
living on the empty vessel

Hoisting themselves up a mast near the slip
skill with a bosun’s chair gave a vision
of Johnny Carson’s get-away-yacht
the 26 foot sailboat didn’t have

Leaving the slip with a paddle making way
down a grid row, through a channel
sailing without a motor past breakwaters
toward Catalina and even Alaska

Night fell near the islands
still wind and wonder without maps
of glow from yonder window on the horizon
that seemed to grow larger moving uncertainly

A shipping lane, a careful watchman looking at a scope
in the dark of night a large towboat and barges vector past
what could have been a crushing, splintered feeling
of loss

Wind rose in the morning, waves slapping the hull
the boat taking on water, a screwdriver through
near the keel brought the question
to return or continue

Opening the Bible at random it said
give away what you have and follow me
-to L.A. from the island donating the boat
to an organ donor place and bike across the Mohave.

A Starplate Shed Project

 Recently I started putting together a Star-plate shed. Here are a few photos.

Eternity and Contingent Being (poem)

 

Wind starts and continues
without purpose or self-defining description
customizing experience
as if empiricism were more than formulai
for developing rigorous materially grounded statements

  Beliefs could be like echoes
for ideas ricocheting tensors of tenses
toward temporal certainty
assurance of waves driven across an ocean
the storm’s purity of creation 

  Encounters of interference patterns
meanings in metaphysics
dialectical evolution
unstructured structures compiling purposefully
porpoises diving deep

  Evolving purposes
in G.W.F. Hegel-like structures
realms of absolute spirit
where sub-routines realized themselves through history
and God was like a transcending magnetic force

  One might feel a unique verse
is created like a fossilized footprint
nominalism and realism unified with temporality
words that stand still in the past
while God is eternal.

I asked ChatGPT to evaluate the poem and this is what it wrote... "This is a dense and abstract poem, deeply philosophical in its exploration of existence, meaning, time, and the relationship between metaphysical and empirical concepts. Let me break it down in two parts: grade level and meaning.

Grade Level:

The poem uses advanced vocabulary, philosophical references, and abstract concepts, which would likely place it at a college level (around grades 11–12 or higher). Some factors contributing to its high grade level include:

• Complex vocabulary: Terms like "empiricism," "formulai," "tensors," "metaphysics," "dialectical," "nominalism," "realism," and "absolute spirit" suggest a sophisticated knowledge of philosophy, science, and metaphysical concepts.
• Abstract and non-linear structure: The poem doesn't follow a conventional narrative or structure, making it more challenging for younger readers. Its meaning is more open-ended and conceptual, requiring a higher level of abstract thinking to interpret.
• Philosophical references: The poem mentions Hegelian philosophy (G.W.F. Hegel), which is typically studied at the university level in philosophy courses, particularly in discussions of metaphysics and the philosophy of history.

Meaning:

The poem explores complex philosophical ideas about existence, time, purpose, and the nature of reality. Here's a breakdown of its themes:

• Wind as an emblem of uncaused movement: The poem begins with a metaphor of wind "starting and continuing without purpose" to suggest that natural processes or forces exist beyond human definition and may be without intrinsic purpose.
• Empiricism vs. abstract knowledge: There's a suggestion that empirical science (based on observation and physical evidence) cannot fully capture or explain the deeper, metaphysical realities of existence. The poem hints that "empiricism" can be limiting when it comes to the ultimate questions of meaning and being.
• The nature of beliefs: The mention of "Beliefs like echoes" and "ideas ricocheting" hints at the way human thoughts and beliefs are constantly shifting, changing, and bouncing around in search of truth, perhaps in an effort to stabilize in a world full of uncertainty.
• Temporal vs. Eternal: The "temporal certainty" contrasts with "eternal" concepts (like God). The poem explores how human understanding is confined to time and experience, while higher truths (such as divinity or metaphysical reality) exist outside the constraints of time.
• Metaphysical and dialectical evolution: There’s a reference to Hegelian philosophy, where the unfolding of history is a process of evolution toward greater self-realization, culminating in the "absolute spirit." The idea that history and God are intertwined in a process of development suggests a dynamic, evolving universe where ultimate meaning and purpose unfold over time.
• Purposelessness and Creation: The poem invokes the idea of "unstructured structures" that "compile purposefully" — an intriguing contradiction that points to the way systems or ideas, though seemingly random or without direction, may ultimately be seen as having some purpose when viewed from a larger perspective.
• Eternal vs. finite: The poem concludes with the paradoxical image of "words that stand still in the past" while "God is eternal," drawing attention to the difference between the transient nature of human language and concepts, and the eternal, unchanging nature of divine or metaphysical reality.

In summary, the poem contemplates the tension between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, and how human beings might understand their place in the universe. It invites the reader to consider both the limitations of empirical knowledge and the deeper, transcendent forces that might be beyond human comprehension. It suggests that purpose, meaning, and divine reality may evolve in ways that defy simplistic, materialistic explanations."

Faith and the Dynamics of Opposition

Faith is still reasonable though it encounters the fight dynamic of faithless expressions intended to reinforce the choice of unbelief. The faithless believe that is intelligent.

Many believe in Multiverses. Matrix, Holographic extra dimensional universes, dark matter and an infinite omniscient God actualizing every possible universe in his mind a priori as a quantum, virtual fact with an apparent 3rd dimensional Higgs Field facilitating iterative functions of mass and energy.

The oldest poem in the English language is the Hymn of Caedmon- an illiterate goat herder/genius … “Now [we] must honour the guardian of heaven, the might of the architect, and his purpose, the work of the father of glory as he, the eternal lord, established the beginning of wonders; he first created for the children of men heaven as a roof, the holy creator then the guardian of mankind, the eternal lord, afterwards” … (Updated to modern English).

Faith in Jesus Christ is pragmatic and historically supported. Empiricism is somewhat dated i.m.o. Cf. Quine's 'The Two Dogmas of Empiricism'. Concepts include any sort of thought, as phenomena. Perhaps a good contemporary dynamic tension is between physics and metaphysics. It is interesting that Kant's categories remain relevant in relation to physics and metaphysics.

Metaphysics in effect means greater physics. its role is inductive rather than deductive so far as it relates to what may be observed. About empiricism- people tend to misunderstand what it was. Read A.J. Ayer's 'Language, Truth and Logic' and then Quine's 'The Two Dogmas of Empiricism' for a better idea of the relationship epistemology has with empiricism, language, knowledge and percepts. Quine demonstrated that empiricism was wrong about its epistemic foundation.

There isn't a direct tie- a necessary tie, between matter and propositions made with thought about matter (or energy etc.) or anything else that imbues a verifiable truth to empirical propositions. An interesting point to consider though is that of computer programming and writing code from mind and thought that can be converted or made into part of reality. One structures ordered languages to perform tasks that are actualized in the objective world.

Maybe Quine would have taken a position like Sartre at that point, or even Bishop Berkeley. Neither implied that man is impotent and incapable of acting in-the-world. The range of human freedom to act is included within the given realm of possible experiences. God could have written code for the Universe or sentient beings in it in a comparable way without the limits given to human knowledge.