To me, there is no doubt that the mind is product of the physical brain that is of the physical world. Without the physical world there is no mind. By extension all concepts are therefore a product of the physical world by way of the physical brain. Once every living sentient thing disappears (if that is at all possible) from the physical universe then all concepts disappear. What remains is a physical universe without sentient being. That is quite possible because there is no law that says there must be sentient beings. In fact at the very beginning after the Big Bang it was quite possible that the universe did not contain a single sentient entity whatsoever. This being the case then it is possible that there can be a time in the future without sentient beings as well.
Author: Warren Tang
I write about linguistics and philosophy. I also write poetry and take photographs.
The faces of Foucault
Not many people know it but Michel Foucault had (at least) a public and private face. I will not elaborate. But perhaps it is only important to remember that we are protean in nature. Everyday we play many roles. Most are chosen. Some are not. Many, you may see. Others are unnoticed, camouflaged or outright hidden from you.
The Existential problem
I am happy with the concept though not with the term of the absurd. The definition that everything is meaningless is perhaps better rephrased as “without intrinsic meaning”. This is better captured in the term “without essence”. There is only existence. At first glance this sentence seems to indicate that existentialists are a kind of realist, materialist or physicalist. But the concerns of existentialists are how to live with freedom of choice. In other words, existentialists are concerned more with the mind than the real. The so-called freedom of choice, then, is seemingly complete freedom. Existentialists ignore the physical limitations that we are bound to, opting to place priority to the mind.
coffee bean
en(capsul)ates
the past
painful histories
the not so
dark (roast)
secrets of man
each little bean
can represent a soul
the soil and toil
that had been lost
for the present
or it can re-present
a now and future
that we aspire to
to wake
or awaken us
rejuvenate
invigorate
temporarily
and get us ready
for another day
Religion, philosophy and science have the same aim
Looking beyond the surface of religion, philosophy and science they essentially have the same aim – to explain what the world is and how we should live in it. For this reason I find it does not matter what religion or belief you have as long as you are trying to be the best person possible you are heading in the right direction. But once you try to impose your own values on others then we lose our way and we lose respect for other people to have their beliefs.
Stasis of form
The physical stasis of the form of the word creates the illusion of the stasis of the thing.
Conceptual Stasis
The problem with concepts are that they create illusions of stasis when none are there. Plato fell into the trap, as did Aristotle. This way of thinking held sway until the 19 century. Even Peter Abelard had lost out (probably due to his love for his Heloise). Would we have the novel (and more widely, literature) if it were not for the understanding of the fictive mind?
Anxiety
Exhausted, yet
Not wanting to sleep on this
Stagnant night of anxiety
Stasis or Kinesis
“The world is in a state of flux,” said Heraclitus. His contemporary Parmenides said the exact opposite – “everything is unitary and static”.
While it is easy to show that something that looks stable is in fact changing it is hard to show that it is not. One can say that both are illusions, only that one eventually does show itself to be the case (kinesis). Over time an object in rest gradually changes its form. What Parmenides was arguing for was that this was all an illusion and that really everything is the same. In other words, he was a kind of rationalist.
In some ways Christians are rationalists, that sense empirical data is imperfect and should be ignored.
Priority and preference is given to the thinking mind rather than to the physical reality. Rationalists will argue that all that is necessary is the mind and its reason.
But if that is the case why have we not evolved to be rid of sensory faculties. Clearly, the senses do matter, and it is to sense the changes in the environment, not its staticity. Stasis is a controlled look at all things. There is something abstract about stasis, it’s removal of movement of reality, like a photographic still or a painting of a scene.
One Consciousness
There is a belief that as long as there is one consciousness that exists in the world that the world will exist. So even if all corporeal life disappears from the universe there is still God to watch over it all.
I am not so sure.
To me, that amounts to cheating. It is not only deception but more importantly self-deception. The problem with self-deception, though, is that it is so good at it that you do not even notice that you are being deceived. And the concept of God does not help either. It only perpetuates and “substantiates” the self-deception.
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