tar

Cladking, So, in respect to the OP and consequently Gees' inquiry into what truth and logic and wisdom are, the possibility that the status quo can be both wrong and right, depending on the complexity or simplicity of the consideration, and the "fitness" of the consideration, in the match between the idea and reality, being "born a philosopher" would require that the human under consideration would "already know" how to match their thoughts to the world and back again and know when things did not add up, and when they did. This is actually possible, and consistent with my personal muses over the last several years concerning language, the "meaning" behind it, and the way that the human internalizes the outside world into his/her model of it. In which case, my argument is weakened in the sense that a philosopher must have superior matching equipment, from the start. (be born with it). This is not an impossible consideration. Consider the basic equipment of a human and their consciousness of the world, where we evolved this capability, in concert with the world. The reward aspect of certian chemicals in the brain give a "bootstrap" reason for people in general, to feel good when things match. When the internal model of the world matches the outside world, the human can practice manipulating it, and moving around in it and then actually manipulate it or move around in it with this matching map. All animals that manuveur around the world in less than accidental or random ways, must likewise have some of this matching facility, and a way to remember what they sense. Language, and history and science are an extension of this facility between individuals, and my argument concerning the importance of learning about the world and therefore "truth" is a sound argument on both the individual and societal level, but if certain individuals have a greater reason to match, in a more thourough and exacting manner, than the average guy or gal, then they be our scientists and our philosophers, and in this, they may have been born such. Regards, TAR

Ed Earl, Well yes, the problem with religion is the reliance on an irrational, impossible "reason" to be good (that god will either strike you down, or bar you from heaven and send you to hell if you aren't). Or if you want to take some Eastern religions, there is the irrational, impossible progression of a clear and distinct, individual soul, making its way through a carnate/incarnate progression, whose main goal, or way of being "good" is to deny desire and "lose" the self, and become aware of a merging of the gross world and the subtle world and the mental world and thusly obtain a god state, where your goal is reached, and you become like, or rejoin the "master's" soul, and then do not have to go through being in a body anymore. The flaw in the both, is that this reality, and the actual individual consciousness is denied, for the promise of something "better" if you are "good". And in both or perhaps all religious considerations, there is this master/slave relationship between the universe and the individual, and it is better to be on the master's side, then go against him/her/it. This general rule happens to be actually reasonable and apparent, that one should not or can not fool mother nature, and the universe does rather overpower a mortal soul, and even at the level of society, the good of the many outweighs the good of the few, so the general metaphors of religion are apparent and real, but the actual prescriptions and "reasons" given for being good are impossible and deny the self. In this the promoters of religion somehow usurp the power of the universe, call it their own, and use this as a "reason" for others to become their subjects. This use of religion to become the master of another is the "thing" that us ignostics find immoral about religion. And it is from this vantage point that we can feel moral in the absence of religion, and consider we already know we are subject to the universe, without requiring any intermediate masters. But religion itself, is not the problem in this construct of mine, it is rather something we already embrace and already understand, on the metaphoric level, where it has reason and reality. There is already "good" to do, And good has already been done, before we were born, and will continue to be done after we die. So it is not a matter of having morality without religion, but having religion without mastery. Regards, TAR

John Cuthber, You say religion keeps getting morality utterly wrong, but that is a gross generalization condeming all religion by using the basic tenants of most religions as your standard, and cherry picking this or that religious war, or this or that slavery/master situation as wrong. Let's say for instance that I am a white male heterosexual, raised as a Christian in the U.S. (I am actually, so I can myself imagine the situation pretty well). My standards of right and wrong behavior come from what I learned in church, what my parents taught me, what I learned in school, and what I learned about human interaction from all the human interactions I have had over the past 60 years, plus the law of the land, and the rules and codes posted by the different organisations that I have been a member of during the last 60 years (family, school, church, clubs, army, companies and corporations, and last but not least, the rules of this forum). For me, it is not so immoral that a white male heterosexual Christian should be in charge of something, especially if its me that would appreciate a little control and have my judgement of a situation respected. Some "power" comes into play in human interaction, in a natural type of way, where one's will is done at the expense of another's will, most of the time, and the "best" behavior is the behavior that satisfies the individual, while either helping or at least not interferring with the goals and desires and will of everybody else. Now do you really think I have come to this understanding of "best" behavior, without the influence of religion on my thinking, and the experience of human interaction that "works" by following certain common understandings, many of them with roots in the Bible? But, now let's say I have also determined in my lifetime that it is "better" to be heterosexual, than homosexual. Have I commited an immoral act, by feeling uncomfortable showering naked next to a man that I knew was homosexual? Am I "allowed" by your standards of morality to feel there is something "wrong" with the guy? If morality comes naturally, and I naturally feel uncomfortable with a man sticking his penis into another man's annal cavity, am I immoral or moral to feel that way, and are my feelings based on religous beliefs or on my natural human moral compass? Bearing in mind that I have been an atheist since my late teens. Regards, TAR2

John Cuthber, That secular governments have succeeded is not without a basis in religion. Sweden has a strong Lutheran background and underpinning. The U.S. has based its secular law on the freedom to choose whatever moral code you like the best, as long as it does not contradict the laws of the land, which primarily where based on Abrahamic laws, as Gees points out. My argument is not that babies possess inborn morality enough to create a just society, but that just societies have been created, based on whatever judgements of right and wrong humans make, from baby on. For this to be the case there must be both a basis to work from, and some many "agreements" made along the way, of what one is to do in this situation and that, that will judged "good" by one's fellows. The OP suggests that morality can be had, without religion. My thought is that morality both causes religion in the first place, and defines it, in the second place. So with this dual role that religion plays, in regards to being both a product of morality, and a measuring stick of it, it is difficult to logically cut religion out of the mix. By my thinking here, if one were to determine the exact nature and rules of human "instinctual" morality, then this code could be written down, and then IT would be the good book, by which some would go...and IT would be the religion people would feel they could do without, and still be moral. Earlier it was noted that religion causes or allows slavery and wars. This may well be the case, but the only solution is to have everybody following the same book, with the exactly right prescriptions regarding behavior and conflict resolutions, and if this book was written, and I found fault in it, I would be a disbeliever...and in error...and on the wrong path...and judged immoral by the rest of world (provided everybody else found no fault in it). Regards, TAR2 What if John Lennon's "Imagine" was to come to pass, and there were no borders or nations or religions to divide us, and we all just loved one another...except for this one guy who refused to go along, and he kept making mischief and telling everybody they were slaves to the system and were ignorant of their true hateful, greedy, desiring selves and were just being stupid sheep. We would have to kill the immoral bastard. And then there will always be some group, like John Lennon once noted, like "those daft Chinese". Who just don't "get it right".

John Cuthber, Well still, if you are trying to build a universal morality, from a baby's sense of right and wrong, you are going to run into some societal conflicts along the logical way. One baby is going to wind up with the good thing in their hand and the other baby is going to cry at the injustice. If you can have morality without religion, would you also argue you can have justice without judges and a law to go by? I know that the Mayan's where "duped" by their priests into thinking that human sacrifice would bring the rainy season. I know that the bible is skewed heavily toward male concerns. I know the secret of the vedas is constructed in such a way that people feel it is better to NOT do what feels good and right...to, in my estimation, set up a hierarcy of who it is that deserves the goodies. But so what, that injustice will raise its ulgy head anytime you have a winner, because it will create a loser or many losers, is not a reason to avoid establishing a code of behavior that creates a way to share the goodies amoungst us. And if one set of codes, held by one group runs up against another set of codes held by another group, and a goodie is at stake, why there is liable to be a fight, and a winner, and a loser. The Soviet Union more or less banned religion under the idea that communal laws would suffice. Well they did and they didn't. Everybody still knew the difference between right and wrong, but wound up waiting in line for toilet paper. And the Soviet Union grew into somewhat of an evil empire during the cold war. Regards, TAR2

Well, the other side of the question then is whether you can have religion, without morals. Let's say it is true that human babies know what is pleasant and what is horrid, know what is good behavior and what is bad. Babies grow up and engage each other and the world. Bunch of once babies get together and raise other babies, all with the same idea of what is good and what is evil. The lessons would not be ununderstandable to the new babies. Write the stuff down, and you have a good book. Get a bunch of people holding the same good book sacred, and you have a religion. Earlier it was mentioned that it was not required that goodness be imposed from above, that it springs from within. Well even so it has to spring into action at some point, and had to have likewise sprung before, in earlier human interaction, throughout history. It has to be one of the reasons for religion in the first place. That you can be good without religion is like saying you can be a brick without being a building.

Like finding the skull of Christ as a 6 year old. Just can't be.

Popcorn Sutton, We cross posted. I wrote that last in response to Mike, not seeing your post. Still, not completely different and without similarity. 'Cept I don't quite see the magnetic and radioactive requirement. Regards, TAR

Mike, Makes sense in another way as well. Seems fitting that the "recording" would match a number of the characteristics of the sound. That is, it would be "easier" for the brain to evolve in a way that mirrored reality, than to develop in some odd way, that didn't fit well. In that the brain must be something like the thing it is conscious of, and if there are tubelet and channels and such in the brain, there very well could be an analogous "something like it" among the things the brain senses and remembers. Regards, TAR2 I am reminded of a thought I had a few years back, of the surface of a still lake having an exact reproduction of the mountains and trees and clouds reflected off its surface. Take the surface and fold it all up into a skull and you have something like a brain. A model of the outside, on the inside of the skull.

Cladking, The rise of Man seems to go along with a fall from grace, in your estimation. There is probably something to be said about this, but thanks to philosophy and religion it has not been done without a good deal of self reflection. Consciousness is raised along the way, in the Hegalian acending spiral type of way. Consider a workable idea you or anybody might have, as opposed to one that is incomplete or not workable. The good idea will be instantly accepted and understood and worked into other thinking and applied to other areas of human endeavor, and the bad or unworkable idea will be either instantly, or eventually discarded and abandoned as failed or flawed. But an idea that works locally, may have consequences, intented or unintended that weaken or disrupt the workability of another "good" idea, had by somebody else, somewhere else. Such unintended consequences that cause winners and losers in a different area than is being focused on, are frequent and widespread. One rarely has the reach to guide one's ideas through the mills of other minds, to keep it even close to its original pristine state. "Well, THAT is not what I meant" has been uttered more than once or twice on this board, and "interpretation" may cause some morphing of an idea...which is probably just as much a good thing, as it is a bad thing. Bad for the original idea in one sense, that it will be sullied, and good for the original idea in the sense that its workable portions will no doubt be used again. But if one is to take this thought, that good ideas survive and bad ideas are discarded, in a general overall, human evolution and human societal evolution type of way, then philosophy is a group event, and not a lonely enterprise. My reaction to the OP, and my agreement with iNow, that the OPs memories of having "always" known truth and logic, were false memories, are along this line of truth and logic being a sharable, "outside", objectively understandable thing. Although the "reasons" to honor your parents, to not bear false witness, to not steal and murder and such are evidently sound arguements that are conclusions that a person could come to, by themselves, through trial and error, the wheight and universal application of these very workable ideas make them true already, before you are born, so in this sense, you can be born with them, but your recognition of these truths, I would argue, is an outside in absorbtion of what has been learned about the world prior your arrival in it, passed onto you, from your parents and society, more than an idea "you already knew". Regards, TAR

Thread, Starchild? Seems even the questionable science is made worse by the non-sequitor of the possibility of a species with which we cannot breed, being our parent..and existing concurrently, both. Regards, TAR

Cladking, But wouldn't language have to be a cumulative thing. Current language that is. Or current consciousness. Or when we say "we" know this or that about the world. Although I have sort of a sense of what you mean by people "used" to have a natural language, I am not sure of the timeframe and constraints you are placing, in terms of a individual's development and the evolution of humans, and the evolution of certain traditions and societies. As the development of a human fetus somewhat mirrors the evolutionary trail from single cell through various stages toward a currently configured adult human, the term "used to be" can be considered on various time frames and in several levels from specific to general. You seem to refer to this development of language from the simple to the complex as a "loss". Things might have been simple and plain when we were a simple cell...but we are not that, any longer. There is a different form and structure, a different "pattern" that we are maintaining and carrying forward. Since evolution favors the the forms and strategies and patterns that "fit" and work, I would argue that whatever complexities and folds have been "added" to some more basic "natural" language, are "fitting" additions, and have enhanced the thing in its "survivability" and fitness. Such is my argument as well, for philosophy. It is maintained and held and improved upon by an individual, but the evolution of the thing is not solely the child growing into the adult, but the ideas being passed along from generation to generation. Fitting ideas, fitting again and working again. My own worldview has been cobbled together from a variety of readings and conversations and muses...but it would not be the same without Sidhartha and Plato and Moses and Kant and Einstein and Hawking and Dr. Zucker and my Aunt Gloria, to say nothing of my conversations with you and Gees and iNow and Mike Smith Cosmos, and Trimidity and the rest of the good folk on the board. I would not consider that the language in which they communicated their thoughts to me was somehow "less than" or inferior to a previous 'natural" language of grunts and sighs and bellows that we may have had, as a species, a long time, and many many generations ago. Regards, TAR

Cladking, So is philosophy a lone event or a group participation event? Regards, TAR2 I am thinking of a time in Germany, while I was stationed there in the Army, where I took leave, rented a car and drove around northern West Germany in a big loop, visiting and passing by a large number of towns and cities. My rememberences of the trip are just mine. I have also thought back on the trip and considered it would have been more of a "something" if I had taken it with another human being. The things I saw, the people I chatted with, the events and places, the "truths" I learned on the trip are part of my model of the world, they are things I have in my memory. But so what. Nobody in America knows what I saw and smelled and tasted and heard and felt, and the people that were in those parts of Germany at the time, experienced those things every day and held them and hold them as evident truths...which have changed in whatever manner they have changed over the 33 years since. A single philosopher's worldview is of limited value or usefulness, if the stories of the insights are not related to other people...to test them against other's insights so that one may guide another to an insight they have yet to have, or to be guided to an insight not yet obtained, or to revel in and be content in holding a shared insight. Not everyone needs to visit Tokyo to know Mt. Fuji stands within view (on a haze free day). But nobody knows this at birth. NOBODY. They have to see it for themselves, or see a picture painted or taken by another, to know. They have to learn about the world, they have to have insights about the world, to become a philosopher. The ability to know the world and build a model of it is obviously inate in a human. But the actual living and learning has to be done, after birth. The only sense/memories of the world and of himself, that the OP could have been born with, are those of the 9 months between conception and birth. And any inate abilities he had where encoded in his genes. Regards, TAR

Popcorn Sutton, We have strayed a bit from the tubes, but only in an effort to understand if they are preexisting pathways, "current" constraints, or after-the-fact judgements...or somehow a combination of the three. Path of least resistence would obtensibly be through or down or along or in such a tube. Suggesting that the "walls" of the tube, would offer some resistence...as that it is easier to follow the tube, than attempt to make it through the wall. Such in a fibre optic cable, where a particular strand or fibre, made entirely of the same substance, middle and edge, will coax a photon along down its length because of some refraction or reflection that occurs at the boundary between glass and non-glass. Turns out it is easier for the photon to travel in the glass, then to broach the boundary. And since this IS Mike's theory of everything, that we are testing, and a lingual one at that, it is within the scope, to consider the structure and form of the human brain and mind...what we are considering a model, and what we are considering the thing as it is. In this, the size and shape of time and space are different when considered in the model, and considered as being actual...so its "alright" to stray a bit, inorder to come to a better understanding of the one, in reference to the other, with the constraint being that for a thing to be true it must fit and make sense in more than one way. And in this case, must work in the model AND in actuality. Once you have the two working in concert, and thusly have a "working" model built...then the premises of Mike's theory can be tested against the model, with logic alone, within the confines of the member's brains. Or so I figure. Regards, TAR2 Then we can determine if Mike is "saying" something true about everything, or not.

Gees, Well OK. No interpretations. I am, after your 5 definitions, which I agree with, thinking about an angle here, which corresponds well with a definition of love I came up with about a decade ago. "Love is when you include another entity in your feeling of self." If we were to apply that definition to the current engagement, that of trying to get to the bottom of what a philosopher is, the love of wisdom or truth would have something to do with including that wisdom or truth in your feeling of self. This would explain somewhat, why people like myself get so defensive when my loved ones (truths that I have incorporated into my feeling of self) are attacked. And why people like myself get jealous when someone else says they have my loved one, and I can't have it too. Actually, not a completely different consideration than some religious and political and scientific arguments, in that people often covet their loved one, and can't readily imagine it "sleeping around". Then again, there is a certain release, and good feeling and connection one gets when they realize and except that there are others who share the same thing, who love the same thing, who have incorporated the same thing into their feeling of self, as the other has. Such might be the basis of family and societies, religions and clubs of all sorts. From the scientific community, to the musician's guild, to the philosopher's club I resisted being thrown out of. Let's say, for instance that I love this universe, find it complex and complete, fitting and wonderful, and know that I am in and of it, in a friendly, inclusive kind of way. What ever it does, what ever it is, has something to do with me. I include the whole shooting match in my feeling of self, in a general, imaginary type way. Let's say someone else feels the same way. Regards, TAR2 Or let's say I love the United States of America. I evidently am not the first and only to include this particular entity in my feeling of self. Wars have been fought, people have sacrificed their lives for the sake of it. People have pledged their honor and fortunes to it.

Imatfaal and Villian, There is, in my estimation, and in the estimation of the most of the scientific community, the thought that an objective view can be obtained by testing a theory against reality, and recording your approach in such a way as to allow a peer to experience the same thing. I personally am not concerned about the "hard to find" truely objective view, because a human being can not ever make any sort of judgement that is not being made by a human being. One can take a godlike perspective on a thing, but then so can everybody else. Such a perspective remains an imaginary one, no matter how informed such an imaginary stance might be. That being the case, I would submit that one can ask Socratic questions about the thing as it is, but one is dabbling in an imaginary space, when such questions are asked. In the context of Villian's dialog referenced above, Mt. Olympus was within the pervue of objective reality for the debaters, and those like Socrates were slightly out of bounds, by asking such questions as "what if two Gods do not agree on what is pious?". A similar break in assumption protocol was entertained by Socrates in the "why do the gods do cruel and stupid things"...which is repeated by atheists of today, who disbelieve in God because a just God would not allow suffering to exist. You cannot debate on imaginary things, without first agreeing on the image. Now there IS imaginary things upon which there is common agreement on the image. States and borders, laws and promises, morals and values of all sorts. It is interesting to me when someone states that one can have morals, without religion...as if one is an objective fact, and the other is akin to belief in unicorns. Philosophy is no different. Being a humanist is not a possible thing to be, without an image of "all humans" to go by. An "unseen other" is required to hold your own judgements responsible to, in any moral consideration. One's "SuperEgo" or conscience, or rules of behavior are somewhat non-material in nature. Imaginary, if you will...except it is not without basis in the objective world, if there is but one other, holding the same image. Is the border between Canada and the U.S. an objectively true thing? Why to any human I know it certainly is. To an ant or a bird or a lake or a goose the thing isn't even visible. It is not an objectively real, material thing in a lot of places where the line is drawn. Can I pull a Socrates and ask how thick the line is? Can I ask which country a quark is in if it sits exactly on the center of the line? No, I think if I would push the questions to that level, you would have to administer some poison. Regards, TAR2

Hoola, Not unlike the ID, Ego and Super Ego of Freud. The animal, the mediator and the law. Regards, TAR Mike, I came upon the southern hemisphere map maker insight after a class I taught on copier repair. I was standing infront of a machine asking a student which way a shaft was turning. He kept saying it was going counter-clockwise, and I saw it clearly rotating clockwise. I thought he had identified the wrong shaft, 'til I went around and saw that he indeed had the right shaft, and it indeed was rotating in a counter-clockwise manner. Even a watch rotates counter-clockwise, if you look at it from behind the face. Regards, TAR

Villian, Well perhaps, but if there is such a thing as philosophy, then there may be those who dabble in it, or do it full force, and these people could be objectively called philosophers, being the people who do this philosophy thing. Then it comes to the definition we are using to describe a philosopher. I would suggest that something is objective if it can be agreed upon to be an object of discussion. Discussion between two or more subjective persons, who by virtue of other discussions have agreed that they each are part of the other's objective reality. Thus each person is both subject and object in the discussion, and in completely based territory, by being in possesion of the other person's objective judgement of the situation. Gees has accused me of impiety and I have asked her to define piousness, in and of itself. This I have done with the probability that the definition is up to us, and what we decide is objectively true, among us, is true, among us, and can be an object of discussion. Socrates evidently was on trial for impiety. I believe he lost that case and had to drink some poison. Whether I am like Socrates, or like Euthyphro in this discussion, is not as important as taking a dualist approach that assumes that objectivity is a based assumption that gives any subjective judgment a wheight of truth, by virtue of it being available to the objective judgement of a second and third party. All that being said, it is unlikely that one can be born with truth and logic, as it requires to such a large degree the involvement of second and third parties, to arrive at any objective conclusions beyound the apparent truths that our senses deliver to us. Which still leads me to consider that one is not born a philosopher but developes into one, in the context of the environment of a society of judges. Regards, TAR In that, the gods are indeed not on Mt. Olympus, but among us, and objective judgement is available at any time, by asking anybody, other than yourself, for their judgement of the situation. And piousness, or the proper philosophical approach is a thing not obtainable in isolation from the reality or environment that would provide such things, in the first place.

Mike, There is a certain dualist approach it seems one has to take, to be both the subject and object of a consideration. I am wondering, along this line, if consciousness is not such a hard problem as it is made out to be. The problem becomes less of one, in my consideration if one does not consider consciousness a thing that needs an explaination, but considers instead what one is conscious of. The thing one is conscious of is already apparent, and in this, needs no explanation. Thus one can accept the model of the thing as a model, and the thing as the thing, both, in a dualist manner. When it comes to the forces and causations of motion and forms, it is both the context and the content which are important. There is not a way to have the one, without the other. We can take a stance, hold a thing constant and describe other things in reference to it...but we know we are holding the thing constant, in a somewhat arbitrary or conventional fashion, for the sake of being able to say something about everything else. Regards, TAR After all, if the first maker of a globe would have been from the Southern Hemisphere, she would have put the South pole on the top, and had the Earth spinning and revolving in a clockwise direction...then again her brother might have made the first clock, and based it on the movement of the shadow around a stick during the day, which I presume is the opposite of the direction of motion that such a shadow would take in the northern hemisphere...which would make "clockwise" the opposite of what we now consider it, and the Earth would still be spinning and revolving "counter-clockwise". Everything would still fit exactly right, even though the entire universe would be upside down. If we both are standing next to each other, and facing the same direction, both of us, can not be "on the left". One of us is, and the other is "on the right". "You are on my left" I say. "No, you are on my right" you retort. Seems you can only describe things well to each other if you agree on which way you are facing. Which way is up, which way is left, which way is forward. The equations and models of science depend on conventional agreements on these things, and knowing when a dimension is dropped from consideration, so you can visualize another variable in its stead.

Gees, Part of my objection to your earlier lines of thinking was your suggestion that you and Cladking thought along the same lines, and were therefore Philosophers, and in the context in which you stated this, there was the implication that I, because I disagreed, with some of your "truths" and wisdom, was NOT a philosopher. I found this hard to jive with my life, and the opinions that others have had of me through it, which indicated to me that I indeed did have a philosophical "leaning", was a "thinker" (often of the "over" kind), thought outside the box, and searched for the truth, regardless of the conventional opinions on subjects. Some have even noted that they liked the way I thought, liked the way I look at things, and have sought me out, for my opinions. Thus I think I am qualified to be in the philosopher's club, think I have paid my dues, and do not wish to be thrown out, on your say so. It may be a somewhat exclusive club, but it is not that exclusive, that you can be in it, and I can not. That being said, there must be something about being a philosopher, that is dependent on other people's opinions. If this is indeed the case, then one cannot be a philosopher by herself/himself, and must, at some point, in some way, consider other minds, and their relationship to these other minds...without other minds, philosophy would be as hard to find, as a matching snowflake. Thus being born a philosopher makes no sense. And philosophers are made, in their own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Regards, TAR Besides, if there were certain rules and criteria that one needed to follow inorder to be a philosopher, that would be sort of a box in which one would have to think, and that would disallow anybody that thought they thought outside the box, from actually being able to say that they did. There cannot be a philosopher box that we can put people in or out of, and at the same time consider philosophers unconstrained in their thinking. My favorite joke, whilst a philosophy major at Upsala College, was that I wanted to start a sophists club. I had as a philosophy professor a very bright man who is now the scholar in resisidence at a major U.S. university. That does not make me nescessarily a very good philosopher, nor am I an accomplished philosopher, but he did note on a certain recent occasion that I "thought outside the box". This statement, on his part "makes" me a philosopher, staying consistent with the current definition you are cobbling. And any definition you come up with, can not include you, and exclude me, or you are not defining a philosopher.

Sheever, For some reason, on my computer, your links are gone. I do not know with what lecture or link you responded to Mike with. I did remember "causation in complex systems" and George Ellis, so I was able to watch a hour lecture in which he touched on many topics. Some very many of them along lines I have been considering. He talks very fast and covers many things, but I was, in reference to this thread, interested in his use of the term "channels", and as well, the top down, bottom up considerations we have been talking about. Abstraction though, is one of his themes, and one of my "problems" in looking at the great attractor as if we are on the outside looking in, which we are not. I personally am stumped at considering such a pattern as walls of galaxies "moving" in a certain overall dance, "at the same time" as I eat my supper. One of George Ellis' considerations, when talking about hierarchies, was a "decoupling", where things on one level were not discussable in the same language as things on an other, where what is going on on the machine language level, for instance is not important to the programmer writing in Java. He used Mike's "black box" analogy. Also in the adaptive feed back type loops he was discussing there was a focus, or purpose, or pattern or goal at a high level, where the "parts" on the lower levels were interchangable, and basically non-determinants of what was "going on" at the higher levels. Here I have a general reluctance to assume any control or understanding of that which is on a grain size, or level, that is too far "decoupled" from our human time and size scale. Complexity is indeed, complex. Regards, TAR Easier to consider things at lower levels than us, than to consider things like universes. On the lower level, they do the thing they do, we see it start and progress and finish and repeat. On the higher levels, the galaxy spins abstractly, but not on a time scale that means anything to us. I do not know how to "make the timing correction one should make when considering a thing a light year away, and a hundred thousand light years away, and a hundred million light years away, as undergoing a unified motion.

Cladking, But, if there are things we all do the same way, like suckle a nipple, or express pain or want or surprise through certain expirations of air through our vocal chords in certain rythms and strengths, they are SO natural and instinctual, that we do not find them interesting or surprising or in anyway unusual. Wow, that baby was born knowing how to wake up mom and get fed. Complex behavior, species wide, inborn and natural. So much so, we all understand it, all know it, and "think" nothing of it. We all did it, and "get" it, when a baby does it. There are probably other, many other things of this nature that we do, but they are obvious and plain, and already "understood" by everyone. Plus there are many subconscious or "natural" ways we have of communicating, through hormones and subtle facial expressions and body language, where we have not "lost" these "instinctual" complex behaviors. But like metabolizing food, or sending blood to our muscles and nerves and cells, through our lungs by beating our heart just so, and expanding and contracting our lung cavities to intake and expel oxygen and carbon dioxide, there are just things we are born, knowing how to do. All of us. Philosophy is not one of them. Computer programming is not one of them. Sending a probe to Mars, is not one of them. These are complex behaviors that we learn how to do. It is difficult to imagine being born to fly an airplane. Especially difficult to imagine this inborn skill before the Wright Brothers. Regards, TAR We learn skills. We practice skills. We put our natural, inborn abilities together in such a way as to make them useful to ourselves or others. The OP was not the first to think or use logic, or seach for sharable, useable, truth and wisdom. And although the OP might have been born with greater capacity to excercise these behaviors than I was, perhaps quicker and more sure at pattern matching and predicting outcomes of complex combinations of materials and energies or whatever, my admonition to him and to Gees is to consider the usefulness of such skill, and the importance of "learning" how to apply them in a social setting. "Truth" and "Wisdom" are of little value, if you are the only one to have them, in some impossible to share configuration. If your "philosophy" is a secret, then it isn't "true" to the rest of us. We all laugh, we all cry. We all wonder why. And Socrates was put to death.

Mike, Well I think what's going on here, is on a different scale than what is going on in Sheever's link. So probably what it tells us, is that the universe has been busy over the last 13.6 billion years, doing a variety of things, mixing it up, on every scale, from subatomic particles, to great walls of galaxies and even they are mere components in some larger event, happening on some different time scale than we can readily consider. I am reminded of Men in Black, where they open the locker and a whole civilization and world is in there. It is good to remember that it takes light 100,000 years to cross even our tiny milky way, so "what is going on here" in regards to Sheever's link, is not actually an immediate concern. Even if the great attractor IS sucking in galaxies, it is not like we are going to be consumed before suppertime. In fact I would consider we are well insulated from stuff happening at that scale, by both time and space. I think we are safe from cosmic disaster, until at least next Tuesday. Regards, TAR2

Nice Sheever, Thank you. Mike, Well, if you think about it, when the universe first became transparent, in the first second, the farthest you could see would be 196,000 miles, so you would be in the center of a clear view sphere 392,000 miles in diameter. Anybody, any observer at that time, anywhere in the universe would see the same thing, transparent universe, clearing up outward at the speed of light, as the first photons from those far away places reached us. Everybody would be in the center of their observable universe. And the only way you would know you are seeing to the end of the universe is when the farthest thing you could see began to age. Then you would know the whole universe was transparent and within your view. Regards, TAR Cosmologist seem to think that the universe is getting away from us. I'm rather of the other opinion that it is still clearing up, and our view of it is getting larger, as our viewable sphere expands at the speed of light. After all a quasar we figure is 3 billion years old, was not in our observable universe 9 billion years ago when we were 4.7 billion years old. We couldn't see that far yet. It first appeared to us as cosmic background radiation, just emerging from it's non transparent state, 3 billion years ago,when we were 10.7 billion years old, and we have watched it age for 3 billion years. Where that area of space that was a quasar is now, as a 13.7 billion year old galaxy structure is really not important. We can't say its outside our obserable universe, because there is only one instance of that area of space, and we are looking at it, now.

Gees, Plato and the cave, with the shadows on the wall, is the way I take Kant's statement that we can not know the thing as it is. Sure you listed properties, but they are all considered by Kant, as things we can say about something, based on judjements we make and ways we apply those judgments over time. The only "inate" understandings Kant figures we have, the only a priori intuitions, are that of time, and that of space. Consider the human brain, already structured with a way to sense the world, a way to remember what was sensed, and a way to compare the two, and furthermore to compare and make analogies, shift grain size and manipulate or "test" the world, in a predictive fashion, seeing what might work by "practicing" it in ones head, before expending the energy or taking the risk to actually cause reality to change. These are inate abilities but not instinct, not prior knowledge. We just learn quickly to match up what is on the outside with what is on the inside. My contention is that the world does a lot of "thinking" for us, and shows us what will work and what will not, when it comes to space and time, geometry and cause and effect. We don't even know the way around our own house, until we see all the rooms. We learn about the world and build a model of it, internally, so that we can get to work, or know where the mushrooms grow, or where the blueberry patches are, or where the deer trail is and where the water hole is. Ways of thinking, truth and logic have a lot to do with following the model of the world you have, and matching up the model with what is apparently the case, instantly. In this regart I would say that the world is already fitting itself in an error free manner, and it is up to the human mind to follow suit as closely and precisely as it can manage. The world exhibits truth and the mind absorbs it. So its not likely to start out "already knowing" what truth and logic is. Now I do think there are certain forms and structures, images and such that might be "built in" to a human. As I find a womanly shape attractive on a very base level, I am not convinced that I did not "know" this was a pleasing shape, from the very beginning. And as you have mentioned, hormones seem to guide a person toward certain "judgements" that might be "built in" , where nobody needs to teach 12 year old Judy and 13 year old Brad, how to play "Doctor", and they each already have a desire to "learn" about how the other is put together. But senses and memory, an a priori understanding of time and space, hormones and reflexes, do not an instinct make. We, species wide can do these things, "instictively". but as humans we have lost any trace of a species wide, complex, unlearned behavior, that you can call an instinct like nest building....or all our houses would look exactly the same, or there would be some thing that you could point to where people all over the world alway walk together in V formations, or something. Philosophy is certainly not something done exactly the same, everywhere in all cases, in an unlearned fashion. If you were right, and it IS inate and unlearned then we all have it, and being born a philosopher would not be a distinction. On the other hand, if being a philosopher is a distinction then some people can do it, and others can not. Which leaves only things like intelligence and upbringing and schooling, and astute observation and musing, to develop a philosopher. Regards, TAR2