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?
Category: philosophy
I love Kant, the later Wittgenstein, Derrida, post structualism, postmodernism and the philosophy of language.
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.
One system?
The other day a fatal accident occurred on a highway in Japan where the car somehow skidded and launched itself into the air jumping the median strip and ramming into an oncoming bus. The all passengers on the bus, including the bus driver, survived. This is a prime example of our understanding of objects. Objects never occupy the same space as another object. Any attempt to do so will end in tragedy.
Objects “occupy” space in predictable manner. Something that I do not believe anyone has pointed out is that a point in space can either be space or object, never both. So in reality, an object in space and time are predictable. There is only one space and one time. There is no reverse. And there is no fast forward. Time is steady and predictable as well.
There is inherent stability and predictability to object, space and time. If this never changes, then can we conclude that object, space and time are one thing, or at least one system?
Space, object and time
Space, object and time must be one complete system, for the existence of objects infers the existence of both space and time. Space, objects and time are not independent of each other.
It is possible to think (imagine) that they are separate “things”, just as we can think of the front and back of a piece of paper as discrete sides, but they are never separate from each other as such (even though with great skill, ingenuity and difficulty we can do it but they will always remain from the original one piece of paper).
Space, time and perception
There is no reason for space and time to cease to exist simply because of the end of perception. Any one birth or death does not change space/time. There being necessarily a time in which nothing sentient existed to perceive space/time must mean that perception of it does not define it.
Therefore, space/time is independent of perception.
Define the system and its range
All systems are necessarily closed. It has a range and limit. Everything within the system will define each and every other object within the system.
The English alphabet is one such system. There are 26 letters. each and every one of those letters contrast to each other for not being one another. Within the confines of these 26 letters all combinations of words are made. Saussure called this the system of difference. For the signifier this is difference is easy to understand. Together with the signified the story becomes less clear. Since the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary this means a signified can take any signifier. Up to a certain this can be true. However, the reality is that some signified meanings take on certain signifiers in the form of polysemy. Other forms of dictatorial tendencies may be seen in onomatopoeia, assonance and alliteration. In other words there is both arbitrariness and systematicity at work in the relationship between form and meaning.
To me, the implications of this is important to our understanding of the nature of language, and ultimately to the nature of thought.
Ordinal-Cardinal/Nominal
Yesterday was the end of the Interleague series between the Japanese Central and Pacific League baseball. Had Hiroshima Carp won against the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks they would have been at the top of that table. But the loss had meant they were second. This is the meaning of ordinal. Ordinal numbers indicate an order but not size.
As of yesterday Carp were 3 games ahead of Hanshin Tigers. This means that if Carp lost three games and the Tigers win three the two teams would be equal first. This is the meaning cardinal. Cardinal numbers indicate a size but not order. You could be fifth and sixth and the size could still be 3 games difference.
There could be two players with the same name in baseball. So how do we tell the difference between the two? By giving unique identification numbers (or ID). An ID is a unique number to indicate each individual object (or in this case, player). The ordinal and magnitude of the numbers are irrelevant, only that each ID is different from another. When used in this way a number is nominal. It is a label and nothing more. Numbers used as labels are a relatively recent invention. With the advent of databases and such we can keep track of millions, billions or even trillions or objects.
A word can be said to be like a nominal signifier. However, they are different in that a single signifier can have several different but related meanings. Unlike numbers signs need to be used in a sequence or syntax known as a sentence. Thus a word can have more than one meaning (polysemy) according to the sequence.
Concepts do not pre-exist
From a diachronic point of view, any concept must come into existence, that is, it must not have existed at some point in the passage of time.
The argument for God and existence of God supposes and privileges eternity and presence. Theism, then, supposes permanence. This must necessarily extend to atheism. Thus the idea of atheism must have been there from the beginning.
The theists have therefore pulled wool over your eyes when they argue in this way. The only way out is to argue for finitude, absence and impermanence.
Interpretation and Prediction
The past is now part of my future. The present is well out of hand. (Ian Curtis, Joy Division, Heart and Soul)
Even this is projection in both directions. The past is interpreted while the future is predicted. In projecting the link between past and future, control is lost in the present. Dejection and pointlessness sets in. The point is there is no “link” without the present. And that there is always control in the form of projection.
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