Journal Entries
Grief for the Modern World
Posted Oct 4, 2006
Let's get a basic grasp of the 'subject-object problem/dilemma'
Manifestations of this problem (well most of them) arise in multi-disciplines, becuase of what we call a recursive reference.
# Thinking about thought - Nagel (Philosophy of mind) A926949
# Logic proofs of logical systems completeness - Godel (Mathematical logic) A422010
# Talking about your feelings to someone else - Wittgenstein (Analytic Philiosophy) A1024156
# Measuring the position of a molecule (particles) with an electron microscope (particles) - Heisenberg (Quantum Physics) A2350216
# Building a scientific method for science - Kuhn (Philosophy of science) A1049915
etc., etc.
Basicaly when we (the subject or object) try to do something to an observable (the object or subject) you change it. You cannot observe without changing what you observe, in which case what you are observing is not the same becuase of that action. (pass the panadol 
)
Our subjectivity is entangled with the object and it cannot be disentangled. (best take a stiff drink 
to get over that)
This is not my theory or idle conjecture - It is the best and latest models of reality we have at this time. When confronted with this new picture some folks embued with the paradigm of modernist or enlightenment reason - chuck their dummy (you get the most outrage you can imagine in a 'polite' forum!
They go into grief...
Stage 1 - Shock ('well I never')
Stage 2 - Denial ('what load of twaddle - must be a trick')
Stage 3 - Anger ('how dare you insult the temple of XXX I have based my life on')
Stage 4 - Bargaining ('maybe it applies just to a little bit of me life, and I can go on as usual otherwise')
Stage 5 - Depression ('well I give up then, if you take my ball away I am not going to play')
Stage 6 - Acceptance ('OK - so what can I do to work with the new model in a constructive way')
You can expect this to happen a lot for daring to bring up a topic that addresses people's sensitive parts. 
But we have to do it. Becuase the world is in a mess right now and needs a new way of seeing things. 
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Oct 4, 2006
Grief for the Modern World
Posted Oct 4, 2006
Let's get a basic grasp of the 'subject-object problem/dilemma'
Manifestation of this problem (well most of them) arise in multi-disciplines, becuase of what we call a recursive reference.
# Thinking about thought - Nagel (Philosophy of mind)
# Logic proofs of logical systems completeness - Godel (Mathematical logic)
# Talking about your feelings to someone else - Wittgenstein (Analytic Philiosophy)
# Measuring the position of a molecule (particles) with an electron microscope (particles) - Heisenberg (Quantum Physics)
# Buildings scientific method for science - Kuhn (Philosophy of science)
etc., etc.
Basicaly when we (the subject or object) try to do something to an observable (the object or subject) you change it. You cannot observe without changing what you observe, in which case what you are observing is not the same becuase of that action. (pass the panadol )
Our subjectivity is entangled with the object and it cannot be disentangled.
This is not my theory or idle conjecture - It is the best and latest models of reality we have at this time. When confronted with this new picture some folks embued with the paradigm of modernist or enlightenment reason - chuck their dummy (you get the most outrage you can imagine in a 'polite' forum!
They go into grief...
Stage 1 - Shock ('well I never')
Stage 2 - Denial ('what load of twaddle - must be a trick')
Stage 3 - Anger ('how dare you insult the temple of XXX I have based my life on')
Stage 4 - Bargaining ('maybe it applies just to a little bit of me life, and I can go on as usual otherwise')
Stage 5 - Depression ('well I give up then, if you take my ball away I am not going to play')
Stage 6 - Acceptance (OK - so what can I to work with the new model in a constructive way')
You can expect this to happen a lot for daring to bring up a topic that addresses people's sensitive parts.
But we have to do it. Becuase the world is in a mess right now and needs a new way of seeing things.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Oct 4, 2006
Quotes from G K Chesterton
Posted Oct 3, 2006
Abridged
Robert Browning. (1903) : One of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that every flower and leaf has just uttered something stupendously direct and important, and that we have by a prodigy of imbecility not heard or understood it. There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.
Michael Moon in Manalive (1912) : As for science and religion, the known and admitted facts are few and plain enough. All that the parsons say is unproved. All that the doctors say is disprovable. That's the only difference between science and religion there's ever been, or will be.
Where All Roads Lead (1922) : If there were no God, there would be no atheists.
The Defendant (1901) "A Defence of Patriotism" : 'My country, right or wrong' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober'.
Heretics (1905) Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy :
• …
• Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. He is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. …
• It may be said even that the modern world, as a corporate body, holds certain dogmas so strongly that it does not know that they are dogmas. …
• Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. …
• If it is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them.
• If it is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. …
• …
Orthodoxy (1909) Chapter III, The Suicide of Thought : It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.
Orthodoxy (1909) Chapter VI, The Paradoxes of Christianity : The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.
What's Wrong With The World (1910) Part One, The Homelessness Of Man, Ch. 5, The Unfinished Temple: The great ideals of the past failed not by being outlived (which must mean over-lived), but by not being lived enough. Mankind has not passed through the Middle Ages. Rather mankind has retreated from the Middle Ages in reaction and rout. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Oct 3, 2006
Concatenation #7 Can Atheists and Theists Communicate
Posted Sep 28, 2006
The simple axioms of faith that we tacitly acknowledge in some of our worldviews, that we may think have no religous content, are huge leaps of faith at least to others, that we sometimes seem to be blissfully 
unaware of, e.g.,
a) the division of objectivity & subjectivity of mind (what is 'you' and 'other' in terms of thought)
b) truth and falsehood of logic (and the bivalency thereof)
b) the transcendence of reason (pure reason is not falsifiable)
c) the immanence of empiricism (what we experience is of the world)
d) the phenomenological existence of self (being)
e) When statement of probability can be invested with certainty (realism & anti-realism).
f) etc.
At the root of these are axiomatic statements of truth, that we can personally agree with or not. They are choices. From axioms such as these we can build traditional religous perspectives or lots of other worldviews (such as the ones we have today). Good axiomatic statements are those that do not lead to contraditictions in life, the universe and everything 
.
Don't let us fool ourselves though that the foundations of math, logic, measurement, language, and thought are immutable or complete (they can be proven by the way that they are incomplete). There is more faith in our worldviews than we often recognize.
There are different sets of axiomatic truth that are both internally consistent and yet fit our observations of the immanent reality, that nevertheless allow a transcendent one to exist. It's an issue of tolerance and opening our minds to dialog about these axioms and their implications.
I'll leave you with the following two statements one from a well regarded 20th century Philosopher the other from a tradition a bit older...
To Wittgenstein philosophy consists of no more than this form of analysis: "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen" — whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
A philosopher asked Buddha: "Without words, without silence, will you tell me the truth?" The Buddha sat quietly. The philosopher then bowed and thanked the Buddha, saying, "With your loving kindness I have cleared away my delusions and entered the true path." After the philosopher had gone, Ananda asked Buddha what the philosopher had attained. The Buddha commented, "A good horse runs even at the shadow of the whip."
Thus I propose to go silent now on this string 
Discuss this Journal entry [53]
Latest reply: Sep 28, 2006
Concatenation #6 Can Atheists and Theist Communicate?
Posted Sep 27, 2006
http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_handler/20060926.html
In that report it finishes ... 'Still, I have the same questions I had in high school. How could you kill someone because he or she believes something different? All I can say is, we need a new Enlightenment, because the old one didn't quite work out.'
I agree.
We need a new enlightenment, where rationality and faith can see that they need to exist in a kind of symbiotic relationship. Faith needs rationality so that what it says does not contradict the truth of science, and Reason needs faith to give it truth and meaning in the human contexts of justice, goodness and beauty; the humanities that science does not really address.
The issue is of course - how can we dialog with fundamentalists who deny the existence of any kind of truth in the other camp!? Without a bit of tolerance it's a shambolic mess.
'Violence in the name of religion is irrational' (Pope Benedict XVI Regensburg University Address 12th Sept 2006). Unfortunately becuase of other remarks this speech may be remembered for the violence and upset that ensued from other remarks within it!
Again I ask the question for us all - 'Am I part of the problem?, or is it all the fault of the other guy?' It's enough to make you weep. (seriously)
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Latest reply: Sep 27, 2006
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