Mu: I got! I got it!
Tal: Got what?
Mu: Why math and logic work.
Tal: What do you mean?
Mu: For quite sometime, I have been wandering why 2 + 5 = 7. Likewise, I wonder about why the laws of logics are reflected in the world. Today finally I understood why that I was wrong. It is the other way around. Math and Logic reflect the world.
Tal: Explain yourself.
Mu: I give you a simple example without going into complex details of explaining the concept of number, counting, and other trivialities that the philosophers love. Let supposed we say that 2 + 5 = 12. Then we go and check with 2 apples and 5 oranges. We count them. We find that truly it is not 12 but 7 the correct answer. Wouldn’t you say that we have reasons to reject 12 and accept 7 as the answer? You would say that 7 works and reject the 12 because it does not work.
Tal: Meaning?
Mu: Math works because otherwise would be rejected as useless. Math works because of pragmatic reasons. Likewise for logic. If the identity law were false, then we would not be able to understand each other. If you think that you are Napoleon, we probably take you to the mad house. Math and Logic work because they reflect the world. Otherwise, we have Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. My point is that the world is not mathematical but that math is worldy
Tal: Are you saying that the truth is what works? Are you a pragmatist?
Mu: Truth? What is that? That is another story.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Popular arts: our religions
Tal: Where are you today?
Mu: Puzzling.
Tal: Puzzling? Do you mean you are thinking hard?
Mu: Not really. I just remember, when I read Warret's The irrational man, that I am totally ignorant of art. I wonder.
Tal: Explain yourself.
Mu: Hegel was right: we are historical 'beings.' If so, popular arts reflect the soul of our times. It is not Picasso's genious and Schoenberg's boredoom but Spielberg's fantasies and Elton John's love songs. There we find ourselves.
Tal: Meaning?
Mu: That the elite is totally dead, that the masses rule and that in understanding popular art we understand ourselves.
Tal: We? What are we?
Mu: Lost souls, my friend. We are lost souls.
Tal: But you puzzle. Why?
Mu: Because we cannot overcome our loneliness. Lost souls are lost because they are absolutely alone; they cannot reach the other and dead awaits them.
Tal: Death?
Mu: It is coming and we cannot do a thing to stop it.
Tal: And art?
Mu: It replaced philosophy and religion as our guide in life. Reason cannot understand it.
Tal: Let us drink to that.
Mu: Puzzling.
Tal: Puzzling? Do you mean you are thinking hard?
Mu: Not really. I just remember, when I read Warret's The irrational man, that I am totally ignorant of art. I wonder.
Tal: Explain yourself.
Mu: Hegel was right: we are historical 'beings.' If so, popular arts reflect the soul of our times. It is not Picasso's genious and Schoenberg's boredoom but Spielberg's fantasies and Elton John's love songs. There we find ourselves.
Tal: Meaning?
Mu: That the elite is totally dead, that the masses rule and that in understanding popular art we understand ourselves.
Tal: We? What are we?
Mu: Lost souls, my friend. We are lost souls.
Tal: But you puzzle. Why?
Mu: Because we cannot overcome our loneliness. Lost souls are lost because they are absolutely alone; they cannot reach the other and dead awaits them.
Tal: Death?
Mu: It is coming and we cannot do a thing to stop it.
Tal: And art?
Mu: It replaced philosophy and religion as our guide in life. Reason cannot understand it.
Tal: Let us drink to that.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Hegel’s own alienation
Mu: Hegel is disgusting.
Tal: Why?
Mu: He tastes wrong.
Tal: Explain.
Mu: There are dualities. True? Sure. So subject and object are dualities that come together –they arise simultaneously. True? If so, they cannot be separated and none of them is the cause of the other. True? If so, idealism is wrong and realism is wrong because mind does not cause reality nor reality causes mind. Hegel as idealist confused the whole thing and created a world of madness. He confused causality with correlation. A very shameful thing for a smart person.
Tal: I see. Why should I care?
Mu: My problem? Even though the man was wrong, Engel and Marx created a monster out of Hegel’s ideology. Hegel’s views of progress and alienation compels to action and that action is devastating.
Tal: A monster?
Mu: Sure. They inverted him. They took the dialectic method –by the way, another crazy idea to be discussed another day- and discarded the crazy system. The point? Madness can kill us. If you doubt it, consider the millions of people murdered under communist regimes.
Tal: Drunk?
Mu: A little and still angry about history determined by crazy people –another example of Hegel’s madness.
Tal: Time to sleep. Tell me about Hegel’s dialectic another day.
Mu: Sure, but first, let us move into Schopenhauer. Let us get depressed!
Tal: Why?
Mu: He tastes wrong.
Tal: Explain.
Mu: There are dualities. True? Sure. So subject and object are dualities that come together –they arise simultaneously. True? If so, they cannot be separated and none of them is the cause of the other. True? If so, idealism is wrong and realism is wrong because mind does not cause reality nor reality causes mind. Hegel as idealist confused the whole thing and created a world of madness. He confused causality with correlation. A very shameful thing for a smart person.
Tal: I see. Why should I care?
Mu: My problem? Even though the man was wrong, Engel and Marx created a monster out of Hegel’s ideology. Hegel’s views of progress and alienation compels to action and that action is devastating.
Tal: A monster?
Mu: Sure. They inverted him. They took the dialectic method –by the way, another crazy idea to be discussed another day- and discarded the crazy system. The point? Madness can kill us. If you doubt it, consider the millions of people murdered under communist regimes.
Tal: Drunk?
Mu: A little and still angry about history determined by crazy people –another example of Hegel’s madness.
Tal: Time to sleep. Tell me about Hegel’s dialectic another day.
Mu: Sure, but first, let us move into Schopenhauer. Let us get depressed!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Where both Kant and Hegel went wrong
Tal: welcome back.
Mu: Good time. I am upset.
Tal: You upset.
Mu: No. I am really angry.
Tal: What happened?
Mu: Image a word without emotions, where every one of your actions is dictated by reason, a where where everything is thought out and define by a clearly thought and plan. Would you live there?
Tal: Of course not.
Mu: Why?
Tal: I am not a walking calculator.
Mu: Agree. That is the point. Kant and Hegel want us to live a life of reason. This is madness.
Tal: Why?
Mu: Most of our emotions are not rational. They do not conform to reason, but they are the honney that give taste to life.
Tal: Who care?
Mu: You do. No emotion and then you are a calculator. The human spirit is dead.
Tal: So what?
Mu: Kant and Hegel preached it. That was clearly a signed of madness, just a consequence of Newton physics. -Ayn Rand preached the same. She was either crazy or ignorant.
Tal: Agree. There is more to life than counting stars. To live is not to do more than math. There is also the smile of someone we love. Is that rational? There is also the hope of a better tomorrow. Is that rational? There is the belief that to be alive is better than to be dead even though we know that for most of us living is pure hell and uncertain. Clearly not rational at all. A rational man would commit suicide.
Mu: Kant and Hegel. The poor souls!
Mu: Good time. I am upset.
Tal: You upset.
Mu: No. I am really angry.
Tal: What happened?
Mu: Image a word without emotions, where every one of your actions is dictated by reason, a where where everything is thought out and define by a clearly thought and plan. Would you live there?
Tal: Of course not.
Mu: Why?
Tal: I am not a walking calculator.
Mu: Agree. That is the point. Kant and Hegel want us to live a life of reason. This is madness.
Tal: Why?
Mu: Most of our emotions are not rational. They do not conform to reason, but they are the honney that give taste to life.
Tal: Who care?
Mu: You do. No emotion and then you are a calculator. The human spirit is dead.
Tal: So what?
Mu: Kant and Hegel preached it. That was clearly a signed of madness, just a consequence of Newton physics. -Ayn Rand preached the same. She was either crazy or ignorant.
Tal: Agree. There is more to life than counting stars. To live is not to do more than math. There is also the smile of someone we love. Is that rational? There is also the hope of a better tomorrow. Is that rational? There is the belief that to be alive is better than to be dead even though we know that for most of us living is pure hell and uncertain. Clearly not rational at all. A rational man would commit suicide.
Mu: Kant and Hegel. The poor souls!
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Kant did not drink enough
Doom: I am here.
Mu: Good. I tell you something. Last night I read that Kant believed that there is a thing-in-itself which includes the ‘I’ that could not be known because reason could not reach it. I felt that something was really wrong with Kant. It does not make sense to me.
Doom: Oh, really.
Mu: You bet. Think about this. If the ‘I’ is a point of reference, then there is actually nothing to be reached by reason. Points of references are not knowable but experienced. Do you understand?
Doom: No
Mu: Let me give you an example. Imaging that I am walking on the woods on a beautiful afternoon. Tell me, where is the walking happening? Of course in the woods. Where is the woods happening? Of course, in the country. Now, where is the ‘I’ that experience the walking happening? In the mind? Where is the mind happening? In the brain. If so, then the mind depends of a physical vehicle; it is an action of the brain and -oh terrible- Kant was totally wrong- it is not in another unreachable world. The ‘I’, a transcendental subject, is no more than one of the many behaviors of the brain in the world.
Doom: So what?
Mu: Then there is no really a phenomena and noumena world. It is just a darn language game. It means that after Kant’s ‘critique of pure reason’ he had nothing else to say. Kant was swimming on his own culture damnation and we are left facing a life of faith.
Doom: Why do you care?
Mu: I think Kant’s major contribution is the view that experience gives content to knowledge and reason completes knowledge with its form. The rest is junk.
Doom: Do you mean no ethics, no esthetics?
Mu: I mean it. Ethics must be junk because we live always considering the consequences of our acts –not duty or sin. There is not duty but the one that we imposed on ourselves, there is no sin but the one what we allow Religions to impose on us. Likewise, Kant’s esthetics is lost because beauty seems to be culturally determined. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Doom: Are you laughing now?
Mu: No. It is just that I have the thought that Kant was already too old when he moved into ethics and esthetics. I think that because he did not have a wife and was going alzhemic his later philosophy was too loose and probably wrong. Pure junk after ‘pure reason.’
Doom: A life without a wife is tough in the frontier with Russia, specially when vodka is not available. Give another drink.
Mu: Good. I tell you something. Last night I read that Kant believed that there is a thing-in-itself which includes the ‘I’ that could not be known because reason could not reach it. I felt that something was really wrong with Kant. It does not make sense to me.
Doom: Oh, really.
Mu: You bet. Think about this. If the ‘I’ is a point of reference, then there is actually nothing to be reached by reason. Points of references are not knowable but experienced. Do you understand?
Doom: No
Mu: Let me give you an example. Imaging that I am walking on the woods on a beautiful afternoon. Tell me, where is the walking happening? Of course in the woods. Where is the woods happening? Of course, in the country. Now, where is the ‘I’ that experience the walking happening? In the mind? Where is the mind happening? In the brain. If so, then the mind depends of a physical vehicle; it is an action of the brain and -oh terrible- Kant was totally wrong- it is not in another unreachable world. The ‘I’, a transcendental subject, is no more than one of the many behaviors of the brain in the world.
Doom: So what?
Mu: Then there is no really a phenomena and noumena world. It is just a darn language game. It means that after Kant’s ‘critique of pure reason’ he had nothing else to say. Kant was swimming on his own culture damnation and we are left facing a life of faith.
Doom: Why do you care?
Mu: I think Kant’s major contribution is the view that experience gives content to knowledge and reason completes knowledge with its form. The rest is junk.
Doom: Do you mean no ethics, no esthetics?
Mu: I mean it. Ethics must be junk because we live always considering the consequences of our acts –not duty or sin. There is not duty but the one that we imposed on ourselves, there is no sin but the one what we allow Religions to impose on us. Likewise, Kant’s esthetics is lost because beauty seems to be culturally determined. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Doom: Are you laughing now?
Mu: No. It is just that I have the thought that Kant was already too old when he moved into ethics and esthetics. I think that because he did not have a wife and was going alzhemic his later philosophy was too loose and probably wrong. Pure junk after ‘pure reason.’
Doom: A life without a wife is tough in the frontier with Russia, specially when vodka is not available. Give another drink.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
What is important to us
Mu: I will tell you a secret today.
Tal: Go ahead.
Mu: There are 2 types of questions: questions of truths and questions of values. 'Questions of truth' entertain the mind and 'questions of values' justify life.
Tal: What do you mean?
Mu: Questions of truth' deal with knowledge and understanding. For example, 'Is reality knowable? Is the world flat or is there life in another planets? Is there any God? What do I mean when I say 'do you understand that?' These questions are questions dealing with some abstraction, very far away from my pains of being alive. They are the domain of methaphysicals, logical positivists, and crazy linguists. Reason rules here and we are in real trouble when we reach the end of both language and thought.
Tal: And questions of values?
Mu: These are the one that I need to answer to convince myself that life is really worthy, that to be alive is better than to be dead. For example, 'if life is suffering -and obvious fact-, why to choose life instead of dead? Why not to commit suicide? Faith not logic is king. You find Nietzche, Sartre and Christ sharing this universe. No abstractions. They resides in our bones and bath in our own blood. We are them.
Tal: Thanks. Now let me go back to sleep.
Tal: Go ahead.
Mu: There are 2 types of questions: questions of truths and questions of values. 'Questions of truth' entertain the mind and 'questions of values' justify life.
Tal: What do you mean?
Mu: Questions of truth' deal with knowledge and understanding. For example, 'Is reality knowable? Is the world flat or is there life in another planets? Is there any God? What do I mean when I say 'do you understand that?' These questions are questions dealing with some abstraction, very far away from my pains of being alive. They are the domain of methaphysicals, logical positivists, and crazy linguists. Reason rules here and we are in real trouble when we reach the end of both language and thought.
Tal: And questions of values?
Mu: These are the one that I need to answer to convince myself that life is really worthy, that to be alive is better than to be dead. For example, 'if life is suffering -and obvious fact-, why to choose life instead of dead? Why not to commit suicide? Faith not logic is king. You find Nietzche, Sartre and Christ sharing this universe. No abstractions. They resides in our bones and bath in our own blood. We are them.
Tal: Thanks. Now let me go back to sleep.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Hume wrote noir poetry
Talo: Look what I found. One day Hume wrote, 'If it be conveyed to us by our senses, I ask, which of them; and after what manner? If it be percieved by the eyes, it must be a color; if by the ears, a sound; if the by the palate, a taste; and so of the other senses. But I believe none will assert, that substance is either a color, or sound, or taste. The idea of a susbtance must therefore be derived from an impression or reflection, if it really exist. But the impressions of reflection resolve themselves into our passions and emotions, none of which can possible represent a sustance. We have therefore no idea of substance distinct from that of a collection of particular qualities, nor have we any other meaning when we either talk or reason concerning it.'
Mu: I see. What did he mean?
Talo: Do you see it? He meant that when we ask about the relations between the mind and the soul, we are actually asking about the relation between a nothing and another nothing. In other words, phylobabbles.
Mu: Are you saying that when the perceptions and reason are removed therere nothing left?
Talo: Indeed. No perception and no abstract thinking concerning quantity or number implies that we have nothing. We have nada.
Mu: What else did he say?
Talo: Something very funny. He said, ' When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles [that is, Hume's empirical principles], what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school methaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter or fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.'
Mu: Tough. He just dummped all the religions of the world. And people die for them. What a shame!
Talo: What shall we do?
Mu: Oh well...I think that we need to figure out what makes valid a question. Clearly, not all question are valid. Some are just asking nothing about nothing -a way of being waste in philoland.
Talo: Asking questions? How?
Mu: That is what we are trying to figure. How do we know that the question makes sense? What is that sense we want to have before reaching for an anwer? I feel tha Wittgenstein was wrong, that when we ask for the sense of a question we are asking for something beyond a usage or game meaning? I feel that there is a thing that our finger want to reach. I think a lot about the value of common sense.
Talo: Maybe there is a thing in common sense of value. At least sometimes.
Mu: Sure, though common sense can make the world go flat and the moon into a Goddes.
Talo: Not really. Only when you are a fool.
Mu: Sorry, my friend. We are already fools and reaching for the stars.
Mu: I see. What did he mean?
Talo: Do you see it? He meant that when we ask about the relations between the mind and the soul, we are actually asking about the relation between a nothing and another nothing. In other words, phylobabbles.
Mu: Are you saying that when the perceptions and reason are removed therere nothing left?
Talo: Indeed. No perception and no abstract thinking concerning quantity or number implies that we have nothing. We have nada.
Mu: What else did he say?
Talo: Something very funny. He said, ' When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles [that is, Hume's empirical principles], what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school methaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter or fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.'
Mu: Tough. He just dummped all the religions of the world. And people die for them. What a shame!
Talo: What shall we do?
Mu: Oh well...I think that we need to figure out what makes valid a question. Clearly, not all question are valid. Some are just asking nothing about nothing -a way of being waste in philoland.
Talo: Asking questions? How?
Mu: That is what we are trying to figure. How do we know that the question makes sense? What is that sense we want to have before reaching for an anwer? I feel tha Wittgenstein was wrong, that when we ask for the sense of a question we are asking for something beyond a usage or game meaning? I feel that there is a thing that our finger want to reach. I think a lot about the value of common sense.
Talo: Maybe there is a thing in common sense of value. At least sometimes.
Mu: Sure, though common sense can make the world go flat and the moon into a Goddes.
Talo: Not really. Only when you are a fool.
Mu: Sorry, my friend. We are already fools and reaching for the stars.
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