one of the “modern” questions is about certainty………
what is certain? that has been the pursuit of both science and
philosophy since the rise of science, roughly 1500…….
the Roman/Greek world had their version of certainty…both
operated with the certainty of a fixed and set universe…
the medieval world has their certainty in their belief system in which
the point of existence, human existence was to get to heaven…
the medieval world negated the physical world… the body was
denied in favor of the soul…and the order of the universe was an
hierarchy… from bottom to top with god being at the top and the pope
next and the staff of the pope next with the kings and royality being next
with the lessor nobality next with the large base of this pyramid being
the large mass of peasants and serfs…
this was the certainty of the middle ages… and then came the cracks
in this belief system… we call it the rise of science which has engage
since 1500, the search for certainty…the same certainty that was felt
during the Greco-Roman period and the Medieval period…
you can describe the “Modern” era, as a search for certainty…
for example, Marx and Hegel both wrote about how their “systems” were
both models of certainty…and you can see in Kant how he thought his
Critiques, all three of them, were models of certainty in his pursuit to
find certainty in philosophy, especially in his “Critique of Pure Reason”
but we now live in 2018 and certainty is hard to find… science does
not guarantee the existence of a “certain” universe…philosophy
has its own issues and our political, social, economic and historical
understanding of the world has left us without any grounds for certainty…
I have gone over this ground before but I don’t think or see how
an understanding of moving objects that is the bases of Modern
science can help us or aid us in the gaining an understanding of
the world, how the understanding of moving objects can create
certainty in the world…………….the entire theory of relativity is
about a mathematical understanding of the movement between
objects in space with one being stationary and the other moving
whereas the special theory of relativity is about two moving
objects and how we can account for their relationship as they move…
I just don’t see how we can build a coherent system of or a model
of what it means to be human based on a mathematical understanding
of moving objects………………that is one of the major problems with
trying to stretch science into philosophy… science does it thing
which has little to do with any kind of understanding of the philosophical
nature of the world…….
so what is the philosophical nature of the world? Let us remove what isn’t
the philosophical nature of the world………. the movement of the planets,
stars, galaxies and of atoms… none of this creates any type of understanding
of the human condition, the human problem……
even if science were to discover what in fact began the universe, it doesn’t
change the reality of us being and existing in the here and now…
the existential crisis of being human does not come from our beginning,
to the big bang, but to the reason for and what is the point of our existence…
I submit that when science does find out the reason for the big bang, it will
not solve a dam thing… the question of human existence does not
resolve around how we got here but why, why we are here?
we are attempting to find certainty in this question of why we are here, instead
of how we came to be… (a side note, it would be quite interesting to find out
how we came to be, but it doesn’t really change the existential questions of
human existence)…
how does one find the answers to the existential questions of our human existence?
we use our tools of logic and science and philosophy and religion and history…
but the are just tools, a process to discover answers to certain questions……
this question of certainty looms large over every thing we do and act upon…
how are we to be sure that our hard earn taxpayer money is being spent
wisely and on things that matter in our lives? that is a question of certainty…
How can I be certain that my taxes won’t go up this year? How can I be certain
that we have a strong enough defense, a military, to protect us?
How can I be certain that I have all the freedom I am suppose to have?
How can I be certain that the laws being passed, benefit me?
How can I be certain that the company I work for won’t go bankrupt?
It won’t go belly up next year?
the many questions we have of the universe and its nature, revolve
around questions of certainty… ……
the next stage of philosophy is an understanding of what it means to
exist without certainty…the next great philosophy is a understanding
of how to exist without certainty………… how does one “ride” the wave
of uncertainty into the future? the quest for certainty is a search done
by our ancestors…… we “Moderns” have no need of certainty anymore…
because that certainty locks us into actions, behavior, schools of thought,
that are temporary… we act, think, behave, believe in a temporary
fashion……… our beliefs as children are temporary… the belief in Santa Claus
is an temporary one…our childish behavior is a temporary one, our
belief system is a temporary one at every age……….
at no point do we engage in or with permanent thoughts, beliefs, behavior,
or actions… so why should we believe in permanence, in certainty, when
clearly at every stage of our lives, we act, believe, think, behave in a
temporary manner… my beliefs, actions, thoughts, behavior are different
today, then they were 20 or 30 or 40 years and they will continue to change
and evolve as I age… become an senior citizen, just 3 years from now……
so why should we engage in finding certainty when our very lives change, modify,
develop, revise and turn over as we age……… I am not the same person, the same
man I was and I shouldn’t be…as I age, I change………
and this pursuit of finding certainty doesn’t reflect this constant
change that we human beings exist in…….
so in the final analysis, finding certainty in a life full of change, temporary
actions, beliefs and thoughts is a foolish task.
we should reject any attempt to spend our lives seeking that which
we don’t live our lives in, we don’t exist in or with certainty…
so why search for it?
embrace the who we are, embrace or become who we are…
we are creatures that change, evolve, seek, and engage with
movement… let us embrace that movement as our existential
core of being human……… the human being you are at this moment,
that will change in time, in the next 5 minutes you will change in some
fashion… embrace that change… become who you are… the
human creature is one that is constantly changing and evolving…
become that creature………
become who you are
Kropotkin