a new understanding of today, time and space.

a big picture look at where we are right now…

The question for the Greeks was about the good life:
what was the good life and how do we achieve it…

The question for the Medieval man was about salvation:
what was salvation and how do we achieve it…

the quest for the Modern man was answering the Greek question:
the good life is a theology called consumerism and we are all consumers
and that creates the good life…

but this consumerism creates many difficult problems as does
the associate problem of science…

if you look at modern ideologies from the last 500 years…
several things become clear… one: none of the modern ideologies
are concerned with the “individual”… all modern ideologies
are about collectivism of some sort and none of them are
concerned or deal with the individual… thus consumerism
and communism and socialism and democracy are all about the many,
not the one…what is MY place in the universe is answered by
you are one of the many who contribute the health of society by
your materialism… you are one of many… and that in a nutshell
is the ideologies of the last 500 years…you are one of many…
man is supplanted by humanity…science is about the classification
of the many… the one doesn’t enter into science because the one
cannot be the measurement and weighting and comparison and contrasting…
you need many for measuring and weighting and comparison and contrasting…
to build your model of the universe… you cannot do so on just one
representative… you need thousands, indeed the more things you weigh and
measure and test and contrast… the better the model of the universe you get…
which cannot happen with one…I… the one doesn’t enter into
consideration about the universe… I stand alone because as a single person
I am not considered… only as a group or a unit within many units or as
a consumer which is one of many or a democracy which is one of many or
as a comrade which is one of many or as a scientific measurement of
which I am one of many… but not me… Kropotkin, I am not thought about
or considered or brought into conscience… and that was the argument
those like Nietzsche or Ibsen or Kierkegaard…the one matters just
as much as the collectivism of the modern ideologies which include
both the economic and political theories of the modern age…
indeed those named above might argue that the one is more important
then the many of society…indeed one might write a history of
the world in terms of the ongoing battle between the one, the individual
and collectivism/the many…

the middle ages fell on the side of the one…
and the modern world falls on the side of the many…
but why cannot we answer both… that may be the question of
the modern age… how can we do justice to BOTH sides of
the equation… the individual and society…

faith/religion stands clearly on the side of the one…
and indeed aspects of the modern ideologies stand with
the ancient religion… communism does so when the adherents
of communism resort to appeal to revelation such as happens when
they resort to saying… what did Marx say? or the scientist when
he resorts to appealing to the “divine” authority of Darwin or Einstein…
but if they create an argument without appeal to authority, they
are not in religious mode… any appeal to authority is faith/religion
is religion and any argument that doesn’t appeal to
revealed religion is something else…
so which is why James is both right AND wrong about science…
if the argument that doesn’t resort to appeal of the authority is not
a religion and is science…so a appeal to the original founding fathers
as to the “correctness” of interpretation of the constitution is about
a religious appeal to authority…so any argument about what the founding
fathers meant is an religious argument. appeal to authority…
appeal to divine revelation which in this case is the founding fathers…

so we have in modern society a strong case to be made in which we are still
attached to “religious” appeals for our arguments…which is why
we still haven’t made any progress toward a solution for the problems
facing society… we are still invoking the name of divine revelation
in our arguments instead of creating new arguments which is not religion…

More in a bit…

Kropotkin

the medieval question was “how do we find salvation”
and the modern man answers… “through ideologies like consumerism
and communism”

finding salvation is an individual question, “How do I find salvation”
whereas it has becomes an collective question, “how do WE find salvation”
whereas that answer is… democracy and communism and consumerism…
we can find both an individual answer, I found salvation through…
AND a collective answer… WE found salvation through…
everything is an equation upon which we MUST create equality on
both sides of the equation or we have an unbalanced or unstable
equation and that leads to both a wrong answer in the equation
and an wrong answer in life, both individually and collectively…
the equation must balance out… be equal on both sides
so the modern ideologies have created unequal and unbalanced
equations whereas the scale is tipped on the side of collectivism
and not enough on the side of individualism… on the side of the “I”…

to rephrase the entire question…what is the meaning of life?

the individual or the collective?

the equation demands that both sides are equal and we don’t have
that right now…

“What is the truth”?

our equations must be equal on both sides or we will have failure…

more later…

Kropotkin

we have to create a balance in our equations…

how do we create a balance?

do we create a system such as Spinoza and Descartes
and Hegel and Kant?

or do we answer this question of balanced like Nietzsche and
Wittgenstein?

this question of format is an important one…

our modern science tells us that any system is
going to be incomplete because it cannot enter all
the necessary facts into such a system…ALL systems
are going to be incomplete… it is this incompleteness
that devotees of the religious, attack… Darwin/ evolution is
a system and by definition, incomplete as is gravity
as is any scientific theory…and this is the wedge that
opponents of science attack, the incompleteness of science…

as we cannot create a system that is complete and answers
all questions, so we cannot depend upon such systems as
democracies and communism and consumerism… as they
are themselves, incomplete…

how do we resolve our need for completeness of our systems
when they cannot be completed?

we return to the fact that the universe we live in is random,
chaotic, incomplete, unpredictable… so we live in a
random and incomplete and unpredictable universe and
we cannot compose or create a system to solve this
basic problem of randomness or incompleteness…

so we answer the question about creating a system by
not creating a system…we focused on particular problems
without resort to any overall system…like Nietzsche did…

we must balanced the scales without resort to a system…

a tough road but not an impossible one…

science is a means to measure, weigh, time objects in
the universe and philosophy is a means to interpret the
results of that weighing and measuring…

so we use philosophy to interpret the “answers” of science…
so science is not opposed to or opposite of philosophy,
science is just another aspect of the equation…
whereas science is on one side of the equation and
philosophy is the other side of the equation…

equality of equations is our goal, not necessarily
solving the equations, but balancing the equation
is the goal of philosophers…

Kropotkin

you have the idea of the equation…
A + B = C…1 + 1 = 2…

and you have individualism one side of the equation
collectivism, the other side of the equation…
like good is one side of the equation and
evil is the other side of the equation…
but as we have seen good vs evil is not
two distinct and opposite thoughts, but
as we view them from a long viewpoint, they
become two sides of the same coin and then
they become one…

individualism and collectivism are two
sides of the scale and then they become two
sides of the same coin and then they become one…
and they are no longer competitors but one and the same…

is this the mission of philosophy?

to take two distinct and opposing answers and
make them into one and the same…

Kropotkin

Have you ever had the feeling like nothing you say at all except one thing or two here and there has any value to it whatsoever?

It’s like, a working clock changes to suit the time, and they’re right a lot, but broken clocks are broken, still tell time accurately twice a day, reliable for that consistency at the least, but not much more.

You’re a broken clock, Krop. Just another broken clock.

K: even if what I am is a broken clock and am right twice a day, that
I am right twice a day is more then you… and I like those chances…

besides, I seriously doubt you understand what I am saying anyway…

I write for the future and not the past…
and you are the past…

Kropotkin

you have two types of understanding and analysis of the world,
one type is the platonic, intelligible, thinking, rational quest
for knowledge in which we think our way to knowledge

the other type is the sensible, experimental, physical,
sensory understanding of the world…

Descartes is a type of the first, platonic and rational…
Galileo is an example of the second whereas he understands
the world via experiments, sensory, physical understanding of the world…

Descartes mentally thinks about the world whereas
Galileo takes his understanding about the world from the world…

these two types of understanding or gathering knowledge are once
again two distinct and separate theories about how one gains
knowledge about the world… rationally or experimentally…

but yet once again, we have two and distinct and separate ideas
that when we examine, become two sides of the same coin
and then, with time, become one and the same…

Kropotkin

I am right almost every time I open my mouth; otherwise why would I open it? I don’t have the need to verbally expunge my diarrhea like you do.

K: ummm, I joined ILP in 2005 or 2006 and you joined in 2014…
I have 5537 post and you have 2053 post which means I
post 1.27 times a day and you post 2.13 times a day…
you post at a far greater rate then I have ever done…
and as far as being right, I lack the ego you have, I don’t pretend
to be “right” almost every time I open my mouth… I just am looking for the
right questions and from that will lead to the truth, I don’t pretend to
have the truth, I am just a modest seeker of the truth…
and there is a difference…

Kropotkin

I really don’t get why people like you fight so hard when all you have to do is realize that you’re just another idiot. What way could I argue what you said in any truth that hasn’t been seen a million times before? My own self, I’ve fought those ways too often to the point where I know them better than you and others do, but I’m glad for your insights on the matter so I can flesh it out fully.

I don’t need to argue with you on these points. It’s garbage, Kropotkin; absolute garbage. You’ve pushed out one, maybe two gems the entire time I’ve been here and believe me when I say that I’ve been paying attention to a lot of what goes on around me in all aspects of my existence.

Sorry if even when I’m flying by the seat of my pants, I still pull off being right more than you. Life is extremely, extremely unfair to all and it’s not even trying to be equal about it, that was my own personal fight in life. Never said any different. Sure, reality cheered on the sidelines while I fought for peace and equality, but it knew the score. Doesn’t give a fuck, just loves the fuck out of me.

another purpose of ism’s and ideologies are for the understanding
of the world… for example, communism is another method of understanding
the world… the basic tenant of communism is that man is an economic
being (this belief is shared by capitalism BTW) and communism interprets
the world in terms of the economic… man is a consumer and producer
and that is how communism understands man…

religion understand humans in terms of our relationship
with god… religion interprets man the world in terms
of the religious… man is a religious creature…

History understand humans in terms of our relationship with
movements and events of the past… we are our history…
man is a historical creature… history interprets man in terms
of the historical…

and they are all right… we are all of the above and even
more which is why they are incomplete because they
mistake the part of man as the whole… we have yet had
a theory of the FULL human experience because such a theory,
an ism of the world is, by definition, incomplete because no theory, system,
can cover all the necessary facts needed to complete the full theory/system…

to understand the world via science or via philosophy or via the religious
is bound to fail because it is going to be incomplete, it is a system and
systems can never be complete, but if we begin a much wider understanding
of the world in terms of more then just science or philosophy or religion,
we can come closer, not reach, but a closer to the truth understanding
of the universe and of human beings and of our relationship to the universe…

Kropotkin

modern science… newton and Einstein have been about creating
of theory of motion… Newton laws of gravity is about motion
as is Einstein’s theory of relativity, but the problem has been,
man is not just motion, but if humans are not just about motion,
then what is the human being about? thus we can conclude that
science for all its accomplishments, cannot answer the question,
what is a human being, because science is involved in the working
out the theory of motion and man is so much more then just motion…

history is involved in the theory of motion in history…
how does the motion of events change the course of human life

the economic is about the theory of motion in regards to,
how does the production and consumption of goods, which is motion,
affect or change human beings?

science is about motion and human beings are not, so
science cannot answer any questions about what a human being
is or isn’t because science focuses on motion and humans beings
are more than just motion…so science will be incomplete in
regards to that question of “what is a human being”?

as history will be incomplete as will the economic and the
religious will be incomplete because they only focus on
a small aspect of what a human being is… we have yet
to create a science of human beings… and even that
science will be necessarily incomplete…but it is something
closer then what we have today…

Kropotkin

if Plato and Descartes is right, then the universe
is explainable by mathematical theory, the solar system
is explainable by math and material matter is explainable by
math and time itself is explainable by math… the problem
becomes the human being… are we explainable by math?

the answer becomes no and so we have a basic problem…
the universe is explainable by math but the human being is not…
we have an equivalent problem in modern physics…
we can explain the universe in terms of the large, solar systems
and galaxies and the motions of the universe…
and we can also explain the small, quantum mechanics can explain
the too small to see world, but no one theory can explain both…
this is what is meant by the “Grand unified theory of everything”
a theory which explains both the small and the large motions of the
universe…

how do we reconcile both the small and the large and how do
we reconcile the mathematical aspect of the universe and
the human being which is not mathematical…

you can weight, measure, time, compare and contrast the height of human beings,
but it doesn’t tell you anything about human beings…
we are more then our physical dimensions…
we do exist as physical bodies in the universe as all other matter
and have the same aspects of all matter, which is extension
and motion and duration, but you cannot classify humans purely
along those lines…

a “GUT” of both human beings and the universe is needed…
we have the large which is the universe and we have the small,
which is us…and how do we reconcile the two?

Kropotkin

in thinking about it… we don’t a unified theory of human beings
and thus we are unable to create a “GUT” between the large, the universe
and the small, human beings… this is needed… a unified theory of human beings…

history explains a bit of humans and economics explain a little bit and
psychology explains a bit about humans but there is no cohesive and
comprehensive theory about human beings and who we are…

this is the goal… creating a cohesive and comprehensive theory of
the human being and then we can go about creating a “GUT”

Kropotkin

there is a very old saying, you don’t put new wine into old wineskins…

and yet that is what we have been doing…we have new times and
new environment… the modern age… and the modern age which is
new wine and we try to fill this new age into old wineskins which is the
old ism’s and old ideologies…our new wine created by the modern era,
must have new wineskins otherwise they burst…and part of the failure of
our times comes from the fact, we haven’t created the new wineskins for
our new wine… that is part of what we need to do in this modern age…
comes to grips with the new environment and new situation we find ourselves in…

Kropotkin

[quote=“Peter Kropotkin”]
there is a very old saying, you don’t put new wine into old wineskins…

and yet that is what we have been doing…we have new times and
new environment… the modern age… and the modern age which is
new wine and we try to fill this new age into old wineskins which is the
old ism’s and old ideologies…our new wine created by the modern era,
must have new wineskins otherwise they burst…and part of the failure of
our times comes from the fact, we haven’t created the new wineskins for
our new wine… that is part of what we need to do in this modern age…
comes to grips with the new environment and new situation we find ourselves in…

K: so when last seen, as I have noted above, I was talking about how we
have a new situation which in many ways is unprecedented…
we have the technology to destroy the world, we communicate
with ease around the world, we have gone to the moon and have computers
and have medically solved age old problems… within eyesight is my TV and my
microwave and the telephone and of course, the computer I am writing on,…
and we call this the modern age and yet, we try to fit into this modern age,
ism’s and ideologies from thousands of years ago… we have climate change and
overpopulation and pollution and what can text and ism’s or ideologies from
thousands of years ago can help us deal with these crisis? I have read the Koran
and I have read the bible and I have read texts from the followers of the Buddha
and none of these can help us in our current situation… we must create our own
current text that will help us solve or at least manage this “modern” age…
even the declaration of Independence, which is slightly older then 200 years
old isn’t current enough to help us answer our myriad of issues and problems…
we have new wine, new problems, new technologies, new issues and the old wineskins
of old ism’s and ideologies and old text cannot help us deal with these current
problems and issues…we cannot look to the past to solve our current issues
and yet that is exactly the answer conservatives give… let the old text and the
old ism’s and the old ideologies solve our problems and as much comfort as
they might give us, they cannot solve the problems of the modern age…

only new ism’s and new ideologies and new text can solve the new problems
and new issues of the modern age.

or to put it another way… hoping the old text will solve our problems is
like expecting a manual, a text, on fixing a horse drawn carriage will help us
fix a 2017 car…I can assure you a text on fixing a horse drawn carriage will
not fix anything right now except how to fix a horse drawn carriage and frankly
they are not that many horse drawn carriages floating around right now…

so why would you expect a text from 2000 years ago, the bible, fix
anything going on right now? why would you expect words from 1500 years
ago fix anything right now, Islam? No, you have to create new words and new
texts and new ism’s and ideologies to solve our current problems and issues…

so in any problem, we have to find the problem before we can solve the
problem… and this is where we are right now, attempting to discover
what is the problem and then and only then, can we begin to craft
a solution to our many problems and issues…

so, what do you think the problem is?

Kropotkin

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgFQ6WmxdMs[/youtube]

Communism is simply a form of government that tried to be about community; thus ‘commune-ism’. Capitalism centers around Capital; money, income. These are simple root-word terms that despite what people have twisted the definitions of, can still be traced back to their roots.

Some men are religious and are intertwined with God, others aren’t and are still intertwined with the being that is known as God to the religious.

These are simple matters, not vaguenesses that we can never figure out or work out. And, at the point of it all existing alongside each other already, all the varying systems and subsystems of belief and government, intertwined with each other like so much barbed wire and roses, what else can be said but that everybody and everyone is right and only partially right and mostly wrong because the divisions in society have kept them from being able to come together for very good reasons up to this point and we do need each other to fill in the gaps as we go for each other, every path in life is worth something in that regard, whether living or dead.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAsnOIGfq7E[/youtube]

Consider for the moment the common ant. What freedom do you think most ants of a colony have when the queens pheromones control the majority of them and those that they don’t control, control the queen to keep them all in place. In other ant colonies, there is no central queen ant and they are each individual to an extent. The variety of any being is worthy of note in comparison to humanity. Another tie-in to what I said about understanding Aristotle and his decisions by looking at the world around us that exists as we exists. for all its varied changes, it remains seemingly similar to frightening degree and surely, as has been said by the Beatles:

And, it is a slow universal learning to get everything up to the same page and the same chapter after realizing that we’re all reading from same book in different perceptions and perspectives.

Think I find pride and ego in being what these words flow through? I’m just another tie that binds, another bridge to bridge the gaps and I have to weather being burnt, destroyed, rebuilt to suit others at any given notice at the drop of a hat some times just on whim alone without assurance that it means anything at all. I have my own faith and loyalty and trust tested beyond what is obvious and evident to the outside observer.

If I’m tough on you at all, know that I’m the same tough asshole to everyone, myself included and I’m tough on you because I see potential, I see growth; otherwise I wouldn’t bother. I’d just walk the fuck away.

as I continue my quest to reform philosophy, I am
now into the modern age…I am just beginning in my
readings about Descartes… I have already mentioned some
aspects of him… how his “method” was a purely mental one…
He sat in his chair and contemplated the universe…
his method was purely abstract and intellectual…

in his time, Descartes was thought of as a mathematician who
had metaphysical thoughts… he was not thought of as
a philosopher… in fact, his chosen career was as a military
engineer and he was at several battles…as he came from wealth,
he “retired” from this and was able to afford to sit in his chair and
contemplate the universe… but that is part of the problem with
Descartes… he was all theory and theory definitely has its place, but
he wasn’t about the other side of the equation which is action…
he didn’t do experiments and he didn’t create any philosophy that
he or anyone was able to do physically, it was all mental…

the great loss on his life was his daughter who was born out of wedlock
and died around the age of 5 or 6…as far as I know, Descartes was
never married and here is another philosopher who wasn’t married…
this is an interesting trend among philosophers…of the major philosophers
I can think of only one who was married and that was Socrates…
but I don’t know about later philosophers like Heidegger or Husserl or Camus…
an interesting research topic…anyway…

as I wade into Descartes, I shall be on the lookout for idea’s that
can not only be mental but be about living life… for philosophy must
be about life and living it… philosophy itself is about a way of life
and that is how the Greeks thought about it… it wasn’t just
a game or a academic idea, but something that is a way of life
and the Christians took this idea from the Greeks…
that Christianity isn’t an academic theory but a way of life…
and that is something that is missing from philosophy…
it is too academic, not enough about a way of life… this is
how we live our life… modern philosophy doesn’t do that…
it creates theoretical meanings of life and doesn’t approach
the heart of living which is about a way of life and how do we live…

Descartes is just another example of the theory of life, but not
the action of life… how are we to live?.. you won’t find that
in Descartes…and his philosophy is lacking because of that…

Kropotkin

in doing some back research about Descartes and knowledge,
I was investigating Augustine and I came across something I noted
while studying Augustine but didn’t make a connection until now…

For Augustine, he wonders what is the point of, the purpose of
searching for the truth!.. is knowledge useful in of itself or
does knowledge need to do something to be useful…

In my own research over these many years, I followed my quest
for knowledge to do something with it… it wasn’t just for knowledge itself
that I was searching for… what is the point of gaining knowledge???

and then I realized that the point of knowledge is not only for itself but
it is to be used as a way of life…why pursue knowledge if you don’t
“do” something with it? my original thinking was to make use of knowledge
of create a way of life for myself… how to live… what is the meaning of life
in regards to creating a way of life? now the interesting thing about knowledge
is that you don’t often realize its importance until later when suddenly,
you see what the value of that knowledge is to you personally…

a lightbulb pops over one’s head and you say, OHHHHHHHH, I get it now
whereas you have had that information/knowledge for many, many years
and now suddenly you see the value of that knowledge…that has happened
to me over the years…knowledge or information that I have had suddenly
has purpose or meaning or value…

so what do the pursuit of knowledge/information mean to you…
what is its purpose to you? what is its value for you?

Kropotkin

A word I have been coming across lately has been
transformation…

the dictionary says: Transformation…1. To change the form of or appearance of
2. To change the condition, character, or function of…

Now the word, transformation suggest that the transforming is not
an act that is a routine transformation such as growth that everyone has…
transformation is not a something that happens to everyone…
Transformation is often a event or something that occurs that
by its nature, transform someone…

my search into philosophy occurred when I was reading a book that
suggested that climate changed people… I was 12 or 13 and I thought
the idea’s were wrong but I didn’t know in what way the idea’s were wrong…
I had to do the research to find out how the book was wrong…
and that in time lead me to philosophy…

the book and to save my life, I can’t tell you the title…
created a transformation in my life but for any number of people
who read the book, it didn’t create a transformation…
transformations are personal events…
a religious transformation would follow along these lines…

so have you had a transformation type of event?

Kropotkin