11/8/23

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.

11/6/23

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.

The Kingdom of God is Within You (a poem) cf Luke 17:20-21

 

  The Kingdom of God is within you
a transcendent realm of spirit
living for the souls
taken with the Lord
beyond time

    And space with worlds reigned
where wickedness has clout
wraiths of destruction compile reason
to kill the pursuit of peace and doubts
that material concerns are absolute in season

    Life inexorably does slip away
thermodynamics rise for original sin
corrected those errors that did start
de-calibrating peace from mankind’s origin
requiring the Lord to provide new hearts

  Just anything; the temporal is pushed forward
civilization is not a well-oiled machine
Utopian hopes drive a few toward time
where matter configured rightly is a personal dream
those conflicts and clashes are someone else’s crime.

11/4/23

On the Nature of Time

 I.M.O Time is a relationship among mass events. In the quantum realm when an event disappears time disappears with it. Quantum super-position of a wave at all possible locations of a massless particle without time raises some interesting question like; do places exist at all in the quantum realm, or differently at least, than when they become embedded in the Higgs Field, are 'observed' and waveforms collapsed? John Wheeler speculated that there may be just one quantum wave form crisscrossing itself from timelessness in to time to create the appearance of mass of a universe.

Time resumes when a new event occurs. In this paradigm time is discrete, local and relativistic. Time would seem to have more substance to conscious beings embedded within the continuum of a field like the Higgs.

https://youtu.be/xe_eDCXp5lg?feature=shared

Laker's Bench Depth Surfaces with Several Players Injured

 The Los Angeles Lakers have several players out with injuries; i.e. Prince, Vanderbilt, Hachimura, Vincent, Hood-Schafino) and that is something of a blessing. It provides an opportunity for playing minutes for new and young players that otherwise wouldn’t arise.

Coach Hamm knows that Russell and Reeves can play. So he could start Cam Reddish and Max Christie a few games to see what they can do. He also has a double and triple big lineup that would be interesting to use now and then. Wood and Hayes improve with more minutes. Give them a playing card and see what they call. The possibilities and combinations are endless and are all good.

A poem written in Elgo Form

 

Like Unto 1st Samuel:10

  Politicians gather rust
works sent to morticians
passes just in time to lurk
kurst public seek their asses.

The Case of the Missing Asses; Republican Presidential Candidates 2024


The Republican primary race for the Presidency so far seems to have boiled down to three candidates. Ron DeSantis is not the best campaigner yet might be the best and most effective President if elected, while Donald Trump and Nikki Haley are the most acerbic reality TV quality candidates. If Gov. DeSantis were like his opponents in demeanor he would seem mean.

It is questionable if Nikki Haley could be elected. She is an Indian (from India) Sikh and former Hindu who converted to the Apostate Christian sect of Methodism after marrying and running for political office. It s possible that evangelical voters would be cool on that Clemson graduate accountant.

Donald Trump is the candidate with a thousand criminal charges usually instigated by Democrats that Republicans are reluctant to move past. President Trump was abused by Democrats while in office and was a foreign policy wiz of a sort. The public knows Mr. Trump is an environmental Luddite though with a bad enough senselessness of the peril humanity faces such as could endanger human survival on this planet.

There is a remarkable and strange irony and humor in the Republican party’s inability to get behind a viable candidate and elect one to the White House when the Democrat candidate is the worst in several generations that could be knocked off by a janitor with a degree in cosmetology.

In ancient Israel Jews becoming organized wanted a king to rule them. God wanted them to be a democracy with Himself as their spiritual. Working with the Prophet Samuel select Jews were sent to find their missing asses (donkeys). When the asses were at last found the Jews also found their new king; Saul. That is like unto how the Republicans will have their 2024 Presidential candidate selected.


From 1st Samuel 10 KJV


Samuel Anoints Saul

1Then Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and said, Is it not because the LORD hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance? 2When thou art departed from me to day, then thou shalt find two men by Rachel's sepulchre in the border of Benjamin at Zelzah; and they will say unto thee, The asses which thou wentest to seek are found: and, lo, thy father hath left the care of the asses, and sorroweth for you, saying, What shall I do for my son? 3Then shalt thou go on forward from thence, and thou shalt come to the plain of Tabor, and there shall meet thee three men going up to God to Bethel, one carrying three kids, and another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a bottle of wine: 4And they will salute thee, and give thee two loaves of bread; which thou shalt receive of their hands. 5After that thou shalt come to the hill of God, where is the garrison of the Philistines: and it shall come to pass, when thou art come thither to the city, that thou shalt meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, before them; and they shall prophesy: 6And the Spirit of the LORD will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man. 7And let it be, when these signs are come unto thee, that thou do as occasion serve thee; for God is with thee. 8And thou shalt go down before me to Gilgal; and, behold, I will come down unto thee, to offer burnt offerings, and to sacrifice sacrifices of peace offerings: seven days shalt thou tarry, till I come to thee, and shew thee what thou shalt do.

Samuel's Signs Fulfilled

9And it was so, that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God gave him another heart: and all those signs came to pass that day. 10And when they came thither to the hill, behold, a company of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied among them. 11And it came to pass, when all that knew him beforetime saw that, behold, he prophesied among the prophets, then the people said one to another, What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets? 12And one of the same place answered and said, But who is their father? Therefore it became a proverb, Is Saul also among the prophets? 13And when he had made an end of prophesying, he came to the high place.

14And Saul's uncle said unto him and to his servant, Whither went ye? And he said, To seek the asses: and when we saw that they were no where, we came to Samuel. 15And Saul's uncle said, Tell me, I pray thee, what Samuel said unto you. 16And Saul said unto his uncle, He told us plainly that the asses were found. But of the matter of the kingdom, whereof Samuel spake, he told him not.

Saul Proclaimed King

17And Samuel called the people together unto the LORD to Mizpeh; 18And said unto the children of Israel, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all kingdoms, and of them that oppressed you: 19And ye have this day rejected your God, who himself saved you out of all your adversities and your tribulations; and ye have said unto him, Nay, but set a king over us. Now therefore present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes, and by your thousands.”

On Golden Pond or Lake of Fire?

 I was wondering if a second Biden term would bring a Lake of Fire to the world with nuclear holocaust, or a golden pond for a reelected oc...