The Philosophers

Jakob · June 30, 2019, 7:05pm

I did not know you were Jewish. A Hungarian Jew, you have famous company.

Here is an example of some good writing, true discourse, which happens on ILP quite rarely. Today is somewhat of an anniversary. VO is 8 years old.

without-music:

The following is an excerpt from a recent paper of mine on the philosophy of science. In light of a recent discussion between James, Silhouette and I, I think it’s rather relevant.

Elizabeth Lloyd traces the history of the ‘ontological tyranny’ back to seventeenth century science and philosophy. By the eighteenth century, Lloyd observes, the ontological tyranny had become a universal standard for all knowledge claims. In the seventeenth century, many figures – perhaps most notably, John Locke – differentiated between primary and secondary qualities such that primary qualities were given a more ‘real’ status because their existence is independent of all knowers; they are “absolute and constant” and thus objectively measurable – they do not change relative to time, place or person. Secondary qualities, contrarily, arise from our sensory interaction with the world; they are things like taste and colour and are therefore dependent on individual knowers. They are less real because they fluctuate and are relative to persons; they are subjective. Lloyd observes that each philosopher or scientist making the distinction between primary and secondary qualities had “prior ontological commitments that justified their adoption of specific methods for investigating nature”. Moreover, many of these figures were explicit about their prior commitments. Galileo believed that the physical universe was geometrically perfect and existed independent of us, knowable only through the proper mathematical method. He derived this account from his belief in God, and his commitment to Plato’s metaphysical assumption that God is Truth. The case is analogous with Descartes. As such, Galileo and Descartes both derive their distinction between primary and secondary qualities from “an ontology that was fundamentally religious”. By tracing its origins, Lloyd finds that the ontological tyranny comes not only from philosophical views – Plato’s divine equivocation and the mathematic philosophy – instead of scientific discoveries, but also that these philosophical views are predicated on unverifiable religious assumptions (i.e. that God made the world in geometric perfection). The ontological tyranny grounds itself in the “strong claim that the objective reality – the reality converged upon through the application of objective methods – equals all of the Really Real”. Implicit are the assumptions that the Really Real exists independently of human knowers, objective knowledge of this independent reality requires a detached and disinterested reasoning, and that perspective or a non-disinterested point of view will get in the way of our access to independent reality. Last, that this reality is knowable to everyone. Thus, knowledge of the Really Real exists independently of who acquires it, as long as it is acquired through the proper methods. By accepting the ontological tyranny in any of its incarnations, a philosophy is thus committed to the view that good scientific knowledge is mandatorily neutral, non-value-laden and independent of individual knowers.

On this picture of objectivity, we can arrive at scientific knowledge only by reasoning in a detached manner and stripping our inquiries of all values and interests. In verifying a given hypothesis, the scientist amasses a corresponding body of evidence. Each time the hypothesis is able to accommodate a piece of evidence, it grows stronger; if any one piece of evidence is incongruous with the hypothesis, the hypothesis is thrown out. This is the scientific method. By working within this method, we are able to access the Really Real, which is the truth of the world regardless of who, when or where it is accessed. Thus, scientific reasoning is always empirical, value-neutral and disinterested. Its endpoint is objective knowledge, which is a fact of objective reality as it exists independently.

I think it would be rather productive to engage the topic, the tyranny of ontology in science. Philosophers like Nelson and Anderson propose alternative ways to understand the scientific enterprise: Lynn Nelson and her holistic account of naturalized epistemology counted among my favourites. However, there are still many thinkers taking the light for their science from Plato’s fire, to speak with Nietzsche. To begin, then: is it possible to today defend the ontological tyranny, or must it be thrown away out of hand?

Jakob:

without-music:

phyllo:

his is where you lose me on the subtle distinctions.
How do you ‘embrace that bias that is ineradicable’? What does it mean in the context of gathering data and analyzing the data? How does ‘the embrace’ change the theory?

That’s a really exacting question; I’ll be sure to look over my notes before giving you a response.

What a great discussion. Without-music, I would like to respond to this question. I hope I will not disturb the careful logic your discourse.

phyllo, when we use the phrase “gathering data” there is already a bias, a perspective taken for granted. The assumption is that the data-gathering is an objective procedure. But scientists know this to be untrue; All scientific data is gathered with a certain intention. Otherwise it is not useful data. Intention is subjective, the subject is biased. The bias determines what is useful - and the word useful here suggests the question “useful to what?” Well, to progress of course. “Progress of what?” Of knowledge! “Of which knowledge?” Of the type to which this data is pertinent!" There is no way out of this loop, science is self-evident to itself. Philosophy has an entirely different angle, a different bias - it can look at science as a mere technique without any relation to meaning, reality or truth.

When one wants to study the behavior of nylon molecules under high tension, one does not wander into the supermarket, aimlessly gather some random items, and wander out to look what may be applicable to the status quo on the laboratory-table. This would be relatively unbiased data-gathering. On the other hand, to collect different items made out of nylon and to start stretching these items is extremely biased. It makes sense, but it is about as far from objectively real as possible. It makes sense precisely because it is through and through subjective, a an aspect of reality intentionally isolated, that such seemingly “hard facts” as science works with can come to be known, so that we can know the answer to the question does x equal y or not? Such questions are the root-substance of science, and the idea that in such questioning (is this that?) reality is addressed, is the scientific bias.

What does this bias produce? Electricity, engines, processors, a lot of useful things. But - useful to what? Here we fail to produce a scientific answer. We fail to do so because we are not even aware that such an answer could be asked scientifically. We are unaware of this because we think that science is unbiased, that it registers the objective truth. We think that our discoveries are simply results of the successful effort to understand the workings of the universe. But they depend solely on our bias of what is valuable, what is considered as “workings” - results of what it is that can be asked, and of in what way things can be asked.
Science operates from well-calculated bias - it knows what it wants to find out, it knows the context in which it is possible to find such out, and it knows how to create that context and how to isolate it from other intrusive elements of reality that do not support the context. In doing so, it determines how we view the world.

Incidentally, science has since a century discovered that its basic tenets, the either/or way of questioning, resulted in a problem. But the root of the problem has not been identified yet as the method of questioning. The contradictions of quantum-mechanics were implicit in scientific method all along, the questioning finally running into it’s own proposed limits, unable to understand beyond it, even though it perceives that something real does lie beyond it. It cannot however be accepted as real because it doesn’t fit the terms. There is no evil will involved, just a mind trapped inside its metaphysical circuitry, its language.
The coming decades could be very rewarding times for philosophy, as philosophers are the only ones who understand that all knowledge relies on grammar, especially in science, where grammar is called algebra.

Jakob · June 30, 2019, 8:18pm

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

Meno2 · July 1, 2019, 11:26pm

Thanks ,Jacob for Your comments on ontological bias and examples on good writing.

Ontology consumes it’s self may not point to a negative or even a negation within post modern acknowledgement of positioning a non descriptive objective within an effort to partially reconstruct an almost totally reduced cohesion within the previous apex of continental pre-eminence.

The writing may be broken, cut, dis-associated , into various frames of reference, where this process acquires a need for reconstruction on many levels.

The bottom line has almost been reached, peripherally, tangentially, so as to cause the ontological primary causes to be reintegrated.

I believe this was understood way back as early as the 19 th century , beginning of the twentieth, with the start of partially derived solutions, such as socialism, national and international, detailing limits set by critics against the positivist , the Vienna circle, the new Hegelians , who came to roost in England, where they germinated/terminated Marx.

The germ also set a philosophical to be, particularly against Russel’s ’ sense datum’ and it’s behavioral counterpart.

The stage was set, and it is comprised by very basic patterned harmonics, such as the failed manifestos of the Internationale, the deconstructed 5 year plans, and last but not least, re under a such as Buchenwald, Sztalingrad, and Dresden.

That the veneer of the politicised naive positivism did little to avert the ongoing melt down has exposed the frailty of relying on the beneficience of a simulated superman in the form of AI to sew up the ontological synthesis that exposed Kant to so much critical disacclaim.

This, just to imply a sentiment, that it is too early in postmodern non history to proclaim non events to postscibe any intelligent mode of survival to a bias, rather then to a precise formulation of survival.

Jakob · July 8, 2019, 1:41pm

Did they really Terminate Marx though?

“Who is the Ubermensch (Nietzsche’s Superman)?”

Trixie asks.

Nietzsche would have us think of Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander, primarily.

Of these, Gaius Julius Caesar is the most solid, because of the tricks he pulled. He was, as the Superman is supposed to be, entirely beyond good and evil and able to deify his own interests and make the whole world attribute and appendix of his will.

Alexander the Great was radically a mammas boy - he was almost “poisoned into power” by her crooning his supposed divinity. And then he made a triviality out of Aristotle.

Napoleon Bonaparte unfolded as a Superman on horseback. His presence was so electrifying and his valuing so sweeping that he was able to make endless legions of men eager to meet their destinies.

Adolf Hitler has been named by eager nazis as the fourth in this series, but well, he lost, and that is not very Supermanly. It is easy to see other reasons for his disqualification.

The whole logos of the Superman is to be the purpose of existence. To be such a person worthy of being interpreted as the aim of billions of years of evolution. Whether or not these men I mentioned live up to that standard for you is the ultimate issue. Who can be said to be the triumphant product of all of evolution so far? If you have an answer to that, that is your Superman.

Jakob · July 9, 2019, 10:35am

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Coh867wsA[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PkrNYDFCBo[/youtube]

Jakob · July 9, 2019, 10:47am

Mr. Role Model.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZp3pfx59yE[/youtube]

Jakob · July 9, 2019, 10:49am

Winning keeps getting greater.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq3rAQzYwuY[/youtube]

Exuberant_Teleportat · July 9, 2019, 4:13pm

Jakob:

Did they really Terminate Marx though?

“Who is the Ubermensch (Nietzsche’s Superman)?”

Trixie asks.

Nietzsche would have us think of Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander, primarily.

Of these, Gaius Julius Caesar is the most solid, because of the tricks he pulled. He was, as the Superman is supposed to be, entirely beyond good and evil and able to deify his own interests and make the whole world attribute and appendix of his will.

Alexander the Great was radically a mammas boy - he was almost “poisoned into power” by her crooning his supposed divinity. And then he made a triviality out of Aristotle.

Napoleon Bonaparte unfolded as a Superman on horseback. His presence was so electrifying and his valuing so sweeping that he was able to make endless legions of men eager to meet their destinies.

Adolf Hitler has been named by eager nazis as the fourth in this series, but well, he lost, and that is not very Supermanly. It is easy to see other reasons for his disqualification.

The whole logos of the Superman is to be the purpose of existence. To be such a person worthy of being interpreted as the aim of billions of years of evolution. Whether or not these men I mentioned live up to that standard for you is the ultimate issue. Who can be said to be the triumphant product of all of evolution so far? If you have an answer to that, that is your Superman.

So these inconquerable, mighty, supreme victors and arbiters over the battlefield show the courage and bravery that such an esteemed, hero of old should demonstrate to qualify as godly or uber like. The aim is of course to grow in stature from the clays of primitive earth, to the towering canopy of the jungle, brilliant, and everlasting in valor.

Jakob · July 11, 2019, 12:37pm

“So the key is to be the ultimate overseer of the strategic and mobilizing chessboard - where is the Love, the mania of the Ubermensch. In essence, where is the Power of Forever that catapults Nietzsche to romantic vistas of everlasting pleasure and golden twilight?”

Oh God, you misunderstand, or havent had the privilege of learning of Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon.

Perhaps you misunderstand the nature of mankind and of war.

There is no more passionate affair in humanity than war. There is no more romantic sentiment than that which makes an Aeonic military leader; sweeping the hearts and minds of millions of men and women to willingly fight to the death for a Beloved Ideal.

This ideal is always the Homeland, the Nadir. The Moon, the Mother.

Research into Alexander, and his mother, his passions, his friends, his speeches, his habits and his “melting face”.

Read how Caesar wept at the statue of Alexander before he received his first command. Read Rex Warners “Young Caesar” and “Imperial Caesar” and read Napoleons own words about passion, and about Christ.

What is a higher love than the willingness to die for ones love?
Thence war is the highest human expression.

Meno2 · July 31, 2019, 9:42pm

Jakob:

“So the key is to be the ultimate overseer of the strategic and mobilizing chessboard - where is the Love, the mania of the Ubermensch. In essence, where is the Power of Forever that catapults Nietzsche to romantic vistas of everlasting pleasure and golden twilight?”

Oh God, you misunderstand, or havent had the privilege of learning of Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon.

Perhaps you misunderstand the nature of mankind and of war.

There is no more passionate affair in humanity than war. There is no more romantic sentiment than that which makes an Aeonic military leader; sweeping the hearts and minds of millions of men and women to willingly fight to the death for a Beloved Ideal.

This ideal is always the Homeland, the Nadir. The Moon, the Mother.

Research into Alexander, and his mother, his passions, his friends, his speeches, his habits and his “melting face”.

Read how Caesar wept at the statue of Alexander before he received his first command. Read Rex Warners “Young Caesar” and “Imperial Caesar” and read Napoleons own words about passion, and about Christ.

What is a higher love than the willingness to die for ones love?
Thence war is the highest human expression.

And then e Shopenhauer on vanity, of mere e existence, that in my opinion , at least, has not successfully been overcome by even Nietzche. He was a populous investor, of circumstance, such as some others to numerous to mention deem
to be.

barbarianhorde · August 4, 2019, 2:06pm

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZAjoodditY[/youtube]

barbarianhorde · August 11, 2019, 7:09pm

Lol

There was a moon in a pale blue sky of the evening. Fire was in his mind and strange sounds of evening whirling through the heart. Listen my heart, to the silence he said and a bird flew up. Prrr went the birds wings. And then the water was audible. The bird had disclosed by fluttering its wings the finer sounds. Now a concert was going on, and the moon had moved oh ever so slightly.

barbarianhorde · August 11, 2019, 7:28pm

Who wouldn’t mind controlling this planet?
soundcloud.com/taurusvision/buddha-and-power

Buddha used to control the world
the world that he saw fit to control
including also his lack of power to control the rest.

Meno2 · August 11, 2019, 7:36pm

And, he may again.

barbarianhorde · August 11, 2019, 10:15pm

huh?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EoDMZHF4Iw[/youtube]

[tab][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XxK2JJisEc[/youtube][/tab]

Arcturus_Descending · August 15, 2019, 4:05pm

That was really lovely, barbarianhorde. I didn’t realize that you had the heart of a poet but then how would I?

Was the “Prrr” of the bird’s wings like the Purr of a kitten or cat when completely content with the world all snuggled up to its companion?

Jakob · September 8, 2019, 3:10pm

Let me post this here too for good measure.

It was very difficult in comparison with the upper Sephirot to analyze these lower ones. From a philosophical training it is a doable task to do good justice to the top logics, but downward it gets impossible to approach it by principle alone. I had to run into some earthly limits.

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

Meno2 · September 8, 2019, 4:00pm

Of course, lesser logic undervalued higher, for the alleviation of animal sacrifice projected outwardly, with glee and celebration. The limits to chaos. Totally understandable. It is purely existentially reactive to the monumental power of Being.

Forgetting we all had to go through it at some point, to variable and acceptable degrees of realization.

Jakob · September 8, 2019, 6:14pm

Occult requires explicit references because its implications multiply too fas (cloaked as it is)

my opinion on todays forum business
vocaroo.com/i/s1Av15MBy6W7

Arc - Prrr is the physical sound the wings made, harsher than the purring of a kitten - a sound that might startle a nervous person.

Jakob · September 12, 2019, 12:52am

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enochian