William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910)
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William James is one of three American Philosophers highlighted in The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant. The other two American philosophers are George Santayana and John Dewey. I commented on George Santayana’s philosophy in the Comment section of the essay CREATION.
This essay intoduces William James very briefly. For full introduction please refer to this Wikipedia article.
It is interesting to note that William James’ education had a cosmopolitan background. He had an early artistic bent, but, at the age of 19, he switched to scientific studies. Later he studied medicine but never practiced it.
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments. After an extended period of philosophical searching he finally resolved in 1872 what he called his “soul-sickness.” In 1873 he joined the faculty at Harvard University where he spent almost his entire academic career. He retired from Harvard in 1907. In 1882 he also joined the Theosophical Society.
He was one of the strongest proponents of the school of functionalism in psychology and of pragmatism in philosophy. He was a founder of the American Society for Psychical Research, as well as a champion of alternative approaches to healing. He challenged his professional colleagues not to let a narrow mindset prevent an honest appraisal of those beliefs.
I shall be commenting on the philosophy of William James (as summarized in the Wikipedia and in The Story of Philosophy) in the Comment section below.
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Comments
(Wikipedia) James was a founding member and vice president of the American Society for Psychical Research. The lending of his name made Leonora Piper a famous medium. In 1885, the year after the death of his young son, James had his first sitting with Piper at the suggestion of his mother-in-law. James was soon convinced that Piper knew things she could only have discovered by supernatural means. He expressed his belief in Piper by saying, “If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, it is enough if you prove that one crow is white. My white crow is Mrs. Piper.” However, James did not believe that Piper was in contact with spirits. After evaluating sixty-nine reports of Piper’s mediumship he considered the hypothesis of telepathy as well as Piper obtaining information about her sitters by natural means such as her memory recalling information. According to James the “spirit-control” hypothesis of her mediumship was incoherent, irrelevant and in cases demonstrably false.
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(Wikipedia) Most trance mediums remain conscious during a communication period, wherein a spirit uses the medium’s mind to communicate. The spirit or spirits using the medium’s mind influences the mind with the thoughts being conveyed. The medium allows the ego to step aside for the message to be delivered. At the same time, one has awareness of the thoughts coming through and may even influence the message with one’s own bias.
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Here is the Wikipedia article on Leonora Piper. She was a medium for the spirits to communicate.
A spirit is essentially a “center of awareness” generated by a confluence of certain thought or awareness vectors.
The medium has either read about, or is familiar with the personalities whose spirits it is supposedly channeling. A channeled spirit seems to be some familiarity coalesced in the medium’s mind as a “center of awareness.” The utterances of a medium are most likely coming from such a center that is manifested under trance as something separate from medium’s own center.
A channeled spirit is, therefore, a “self-like filter.”
The medium accessing certain knowledge without any known means is another issue. This is where James considered the concept of telepathy.
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These are good examples of mindful subject clearing. Maybe this is the essence of critical thinking?
Mindful subject clearing focuses on inconsistencies and helps one get better clarity.
(Wikipedia) James held séances with Piper and was impressed by some of the details he was given, however, according to Massimo Polidoro a maid in the household of James was friendly with a maid in Piper’s house and this may of been a source of information that Piper used for private details about James. Bibliographers Frederick Burkhardt and Fredson Bowers who compiled the works of James wrote “It is thus possible that Mrs. Piper’s knowledge of the James family was acquired from the gossip of servants and that the whole mystery rests on the failure of the people upstairs to realize that servants [downstairs] also have ears.”
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Apparently, a clear evidence of telepathy still needs to be established.
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Yup.
Jamesian theory of self
Material self
(Wikipedia) The material self consists of things that belong to us or that we belong to. Things like family, clothes, our body, and money are some of what makes up our material selves. For James, the core of the material self was the body. Second to the body, a persons clothes were important to the Material Self as well. James believed that people’s clothes were a way that they expressed who they were, or a way to show status, thus contributing to the formation of self. Money and family are also part of the material self. James felt that if we lost a family member, a part of who we are was gone as well. Money was a part of the material self in the same way. If at one point we had a lot of money then lost it, who we are as a person would change as well.
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That is an interesting definition. The core of the material self is the body. Other ideas connected to this material self are body’s associations, such as, the associations with clothes, family, affluence (money) etc. Body and its associations project an image to others.
A person who is too focused on material self my be called body-centric.
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Social self
(Wikipedia) Our social selves are who we are in a given social situation. For James, people change how they act depending on the social situation that they are in. James believed that people had as many social selves as they did social situations they participated in. For example, a person may act in a different way at work when compared to how that same person may act when they are out with a group of friends. James also believed that in a given social group, an individual’s social self may be divided even further. An example of this would be, in the social context of an individuals work environment, the difference in behavior when that individual is interacting with their boss versus their behavior when interacting with a fellow co-worker.
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This is more like a ‘reactive self’ that is formed in reaction to its social context. It is more like an outside shell of the overall self. It is a reaction but part of it is a ‘PR self’, which is how it wants to be perceived.
Too much of a focus on this self would be part of being body-centric.
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Spiritual self
(Wikipedia) For James the spiritual self was who we are at our core. The spiritual self is more concrete or permanent than the other two selves. The spiritual self is our subjective and most intimate self. Aspects of an individual’s spiritual-self include things like their personality, core values, and conscience that do not typically change throughout their lifetime. The spiritual self involves introspection, or looking inward to deeper spiritual, moral, or intellectual questions without the influence of objective thoughts. For James, achieving a high level of understanding of who we are at our core, or understanding our spiritual selves is more rewarding than satisfying the needs of the social and material selves.
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The personality of an individual is an outcome of the considerations he holds. The core values are a set of stable considerations. Conscience is a set of very basic considerations. So, we are essentially a network, or matrix, of considerations, of a multi-dimensional nature. The deeper one goes into self the more concrete or permanent the considerations seem to be. Normally we are not aware of our core considerations, because we simply take them for granted.
Physical perceptions are considered to be the most objective elements. Mental constructs that are consistent with physical perceptions, and which are also consistent within themselves are also considered objective elements. This is the domain of scientific thought.
Objectivity may be established within the deeper structure of self by removing inconsistencies wherever they are found to exist. This is how one may establish a high level of understanding of who one is at one’s core. As James said, such an understanding of ourselves is very rewarding and satisfying.
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Pure ego
(Wikipedia) The pure ego is what James refers to as the “I” self. For James, the pure ego is what provides the thread of continuity between our past, present, and future selves. The pure ego’s perception of consistent individual identity arises from a continual stream of consciousness. James believed that the pure ego was similar to what we think of as the soul, or the mind. The pure ego was not a substance and therefore could not be examined by science.
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At any point in time, “I” is the set of considerations that are in focus the most. it is an identification with that set of considerations. It is what one thinks one is.
“I” may be looked upon as the “center of awareness.” This concept is similar to the concept of “center of mass” for an object. “I” is the weighted resultant of all considerations that make up the self.
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“James believed that the pure ego was similar to what we think of as the soul, or the mind. The pure ego was not a substance and therefore could not be examined by science.”
This is like thinking that software has no substance because we cannot take it apart with a screwdriver. Maybe we aren’t quite doing it yet, but it seems reasonable to think we will.
(Wikipedia) William James developed a theory of self that was divided into two main categories. The first was the “Me” self, the second was the “I” self. The “me” self refers to the aspects of someone that come from that persons experiences. James broke the “me” self down into three sections, The Material Self, The Social Self, and The Spiritual Self. For James the “I” self was classified as the thinking self. James linked this self to the soul of a person or what we now think of as the mind. The Pure Ego was the name given to the “I” self.
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I don’t think that there is a clear distinction between a “Me” self and an “I” self. The whole self is like a multi-dimensional matrix of cross-indexed considerations.
The deeper and stable parts may be called the spiritual and material self, and the most responsive top layer may be regarded as the social self.
The considerations, which make up the self, have their own awareness vectors with “weighted attention” factors that vary with time. These weighted awareness vectors combine to create a center of awareness called “I.”
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“I don’t think that there is a clear distinction between a “Me” self and an “I” self. The whole self is like a multi-dimensional matrix of cross-indexed considerations.”
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(The Story of Philosophy) In William James the voice and the speech and the very turn of phrase are American. He pounced eagerly upon such characteristic expressions as “cash-value,” and “results,” and “profits,” in order to bring his thought within the ken of the “man in the street”; he spoke not with the aristocratic reserve of a Santayana or a Henry James, but in a racy vernacular and with a force and directness, which made his philosophy of “pragmatism” and “reserve energy” the mental correlate of the “practical” and “strenuous” Roosevelt. And at the same time he phrased for the common man that “tender-minded” trust in the essentials of the old theology which lives side by side, in the American soul, with the realistic spirit of commerce and finance, and with the tough persistent courage that turned a wilderness into the promised land.
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This is an interesting description of what makes a philosophy very American.
(The Story of Philosophy) William James was born in New York City in 1842. His father was a Swedenborgian mystic, whose mysticism did no damage to his wit and humor; and the son was not lacking in any of the three. After some seasons in American private schools, William was sent with his brother Henry (one year his junior) to private schools in France. There they fell in with the work of Charcot and other psychopathologists, and took, both of them, a turn to psychology; one of them, to repeat an old phrase, proceeded to write fiction like psychology, while the other wrote psychology like fiction. Henry spent most of his life abroad, and finally became a British citizen. Through his more continuous contact with European culture he acquired a maturity of thought which his brother missed; but William, returning to live in America, felt the stimulation of a nation young in heart and rich in opportunity and hope, and caught so well the spirit of his age and place that he was lifted on the wings of the Zeitgeist to a lonely pinnacle of popularity such as no other American philosopher had ever known.
He took his M.D. at Harvard in 1870, and taught there from 1872 to his death in 1910, at first anatomy and physiology, and then psychology, and at last philosophy. His greatest achievement was almost his first – “The Principles of Psychology” (1890); a fascinating mixture of anatomy, philosophy and analysis; for in James psychology still drips from the fetal membranes of its mother, metaphysics. Yet the book remains the most instructive, and easily the most absorbing, summary of its subject; something of the subtlety which Henry put into his clauses helped William James to the keenest introspection which psychology had witnessed since the uncanny clarity of David Hume.
This passion for illuminating analysis was bound to lead James from psychology to philosophy, and at last back to metaphysics itself; he argued (against his own positivist inclinations) that metaphysics is merely an effort to think things out clearly; and he defined philosophy, in his simple and pellucid manner, as “only thinking about things in the most comprehensive possible way.” So, after 1900, his publications were almost all in the field of philosophy. He began with “The Will to Believe” (1897); then, after a masterpiece of psychological interpretation “Varieties of Religious Experience” (1902) he passed on to his famous books on “Pragmatism” (1907), “A Pluralistic Universe” (1909) and “The Meaning of Truth” (1909). A year after his death came “Some Problems of Philosophy” (1911); and later, an important volume of Essays in “Radical Empiricism” (1912). We must begin our study with this last book, because it was in these essays that James formulated most clearly the bases of his philosophy.
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This is a nice description of James general background.
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PRAGMATISM
(The Story of Philosophy) The direction of his thought is always to things; and if he begins with psychology it is not as a metaphysician who loves to lose himself in ethereal obscurities, but as a realist to whom thought, however distinct it may be from matter, is essentially a mirror of external and physical reality. And it is a better mirror than some have believed; it perceives and reflects not merely separate things, as Hume supposed, but their relations too; it sees everything in a context; and the context is as immediately given in perception as the shape and touch and odor of the thing. Hence the meaninglessness of Kant’s “problem of knowledge” (how do we put sense and order into our sensations?) the sense and the order, in outline at least, are already there. The old atomistic psychology of the English school, which conceived thought as a series of separate ideas mechanically associated, is a misleading copy of physics and chemistry; thought is not a series, it is a stream, a continuity of perception and feeling, in which ideas are passing nodules like corpuscles in the blood. We have mental “states” (though this is again a misleadingly static term) that correspond to prepositions, verbs, adverbs and conjunctions, as well as “states” that reflect the nouns and pronouns of our speech; we have feelings of for and to and against and because and behind and after as well as of matter and men. It is these “transitive” elements in the flow of thought that constitute the thread of our mental life, and give us some measure of the continuity of things.
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I like the realism and practicality of James philosophy. James made an advance over Kant by pointing out that the relationships among things observed are also part of reality. It is just one more step from there to include the relationship between the observed and observer as part of reality. This latter approach is what is known as mindfulness.
Thought and considerations are not a series but are part of a multi-dimensional, cross-indexed matrix, or network, providing a continuity of perception and feeling. There are no static mental states, but very dynamic associations among the observers and observeds.
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(The Story of Philosophy) Consciousness is not an entity, not a thing, but a flux and system of relations; it is a point at which the sequence and relationship of thoughts coincide illuminatingly with the sequence of events and the relationship of things. In such moments it is reality itself, and no mere “phenomenon,” that flashes into thought; for beyond phenomena and “appearances” there is nothing. Nor is there any need of going beyond the experience-process to a soul; the soul is merely the sum of our mental life, as the “Noumenon” is simply the total of all phenomena, and the “Absolute” the web of the relationships of the world.
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The above is beautifully expressed. The key idea is that there is nothing beyond phenomena and “appearances,” and that the soul is merely the sum of our mental life. KHTK expresses this as an inexhaustible multi-dimensional matrix of postulates and considerations at the core of all existence. Souls are nodules of condensed segments within this matrix like the galaxies are in the matrix called space.
Per the above consciousness pertains to a flux and a system of relations. KHTK expresses this consciousness, or awareness, as the pattern propagating through the matrix of considerations. The outward expression of awareness is similar to electromagnetic disturbance propagating through space.
There is nothing beyond what is expressed above. This comes closest to conceiving the “Absolute.”
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That’s quite a statement.
Haha! But we are not there yet..
(The Story of Philosophy)
It is this same passion for the immediate and actual and real that led James to pragmatism. Brought up in the school of French clarity, he abominated the obscurities and pedantic terminology of German metaphysics; and when Harris and others began to import a moribund Hegelianism into America, James reacted like a quarantine officer who has detected an immigrant infection. He was convinced that both the terms and the problems of German metaphysics were unreal; and he cast about him for some test of meaning which would show, to every candid mind, the emptiness of these abstractions.
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“Pedantic” seems to mean going into unnecessary and formal details on an unclear path without first clarifying the fundamentals. Hegelianism went in the direction of justifying contradictions in complex ways that were unreal.
James rejected the complexity brought about by unreal abstractions in philosophy, and focused on the simplicity of direct observation in a practical and scientific manner.
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(The Story of Philosophy)
He found the weapon which he sought when, in 1878, he came upon an essay by Charles Peirce, in the Popular Science Monthly, on “How to Make Our Ideas Clear.” To find the meaning of an idea, said Peirce, we must examine the consequences to which it leads in action; otherwise dispute about it may be without end, and will surely be without fruit. This was a lead which James was glad to follow; he tried the problems and ideas of the old metaphysics by this test, and they fell to pieces at its touch like chemical compounds suddenly shot through with a current of electricity. And such problems as had meaning took on a clearness and a reality as if, in Plato’s famous figure, they had passed out of the shadows of a cave into the brilliance of a sun-lit noon.
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Here is the article that James read. It is worth reading.
How to Make Our Ideas Clear
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“It is easy to show that the doctrine that familiar use and abstract distinctness make the perfection of apprehension has its only true place in philosophies which have long been extinct; and it is now time to formulate the method of attaining to a more perfect clearness of thought, such as we see and admire in the thinkers of our own time. ~Peirce”
The following is the method recommended in KHTK to bring about clarity:
Subject Clearing
I am now reading this article by Pierce, and shall use it to update the essay on Subject Clearing.
Logic provides us with the following definitions:
A clear idea is defined as one which is so apprehended that it will be recognized wherever it is met with, and so that no other will be mistaken for it.
A distinct idea is defined as one which contains nothing which is not clear.
The above definitions may be satisfied by mere familiarity with an idea, and precise definition of it in abstract terms, without leading to a clear apprehension of what is there.
Self-consciousness furnishes us with our fundamental truths, and decides what is agreeable to reason. But distinction must be made between an idea seeming clear and really being so.
An idea must sustain the test of dialectical examination; that it must not only seem clear at the outset, but that discussion must never be able to bring to light points of obscurity connected with it.
The method of Descartes labored under the difficulty that we may seem to ourselves to have clear apprehensions of ideas which in truth are very hazy.
It may be acknowledged that the books are right in making familiarity with a notion the first step toward clearness of apprehension, and the defining of it the second. But nothing new can ever be learned by analyzing definitions.
The machinery of the mind can only transform knowledge, but never originate it, unless it be fed with facts of observation.
Hubbard’s word-clearing falls short of mark because it depends entirely on definitions provided by authority. Word Clearing is not designed to question the definitions themselves in light of new facts of observation.
Further clarity is resisted by those who think that they know it quite clearly because of their existing richness of ideas and knowledge.
For an individual there can be no question that a few clear ideas are worth more than many confused ones, but intellectual maturity with regard to clearness is apt to come rather late. This seems an unfortunate arrangement of Nature.
People love and cherish their ideas; they identify themselves with their ideas; and it is a terrible loss to them to let go of their ideas.
“This seems an unfortunate arrangement of Nature.” This is like complaining that one is not born with a university degree. Anthropomorphizing whether God or Nature is self-centric.
Well, here is the whole argument made by Pierce. I may be providing a misleading short cut:
For an individual, however, there can be no question that a few clear ideas are worth more than many confused ones. A young man would hardly be persuaded to sacrifice the greater part of his thoughts to save the rest; and the muddled head is the least apt to see the necessity of such a sacrifice. Him we can usually only commiserate, as a person with a congenital defect. Time will help him, but intellectual maturity with regard to clearness is apt to come rather late. This seems an unfortunate arrangement of Nature, inasmuch as clearness is of less use to a man settled in life, whose errors have in great measure had their effect, than it would be to one whose path lay before him. It is terrible to see how a single unclear idea, a single formula without meaning, lurking in a young man’s head, will sometimes act like an obstruction of inert matter in an artery, hindering the nutrition of the brain, and condemning its victim to pine away in the fullness of his intellectual vigor and in the midst of intellectual plenty.
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Eloquent. The old timers were more literary writers than modern philosophers.
I see it as Pierce pointing out a situation for which he is going to look for a resolution.
Actually, that is what he does in the following section.
The action of thought is excited by the irritation of doubt, and ceases when belief is attained; so that the production of belief is the sole function of thought.
Here “doubt” may merely be starting of a question, or an indecision; and “belief” may simply be a resolution, or a chosen course of action.
Feigned hesitancy, whether feigned for mere amusement or with a lofty purpose, plays a great part in the production of scientific inquiry.
It is that “irritation of doubt” which KHTK calls “inconsistency”.
In a piece of music there are the separate notes, and then there is the tune.
Similarly, in an observation, there is discrete sensations, and then there is an orderly flow of consciousness.
Thought is a thread of melody running through the succession of our sensations.
Good comment. And we come back around to another question as to the continuity or to the discreteness of things. These two terms seem to be not absolute, but relative notions. Are the differences reality-centric or self-centric concepts?
Can you reword your question for better clarity. Thanks.
Given: i. There may not be a discrete particle. ii. Continuous may be a macro and relative term. Possibly continuous pertains when something large is perceiving a lot of something small. Possibly there is an order of magnitude of size difference which must be established before anything appears continuous. iii. How do these two looks at parts, sizes, and ratios pertain to space-time?
Q: Is this notion of self-centric and reality-centric related to the abstractions of discrete and continuous?
Good question. The only thing that comes to my mind is standing wave.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_wave
Reality-centric would be all-inclusive view. Self-centric would be a more narrow view of one of the outstanding features.
The sole motive of thought is “idea” and its function is to produce “belief”. However, the action of thinking may incidentally have other results, such as, amusement.
Thought in action has for its only possible motive the attainment of thought at rest; but this purpose may be voluntarily thwarted for sake of amusement that comes from keeping thought in play.
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Let’s then examine the nature of “belief.” It has the following properties:
(1) It is something that we are aware of;
(2) It appeases the irritation of doubt;
(3) It involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action, or, say for short, a habit.
Thought comes to rest for a moment when belief is reached, but then the application of belief involves further doubt and further thought.
At the same time that belief is a stopping-place, it is also a new starting place for thought.
Belief is only a stage of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking.
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Two different beliefs may be confused as the same, or the same belief may be seen as different in two separate cases.
“One singular deception of this sort, which often occurs, is to mistake the sensation produced by our own unclearness of thought for a character of the object we are thinking.”
KHTK frames this problem in terms of difficult-to-spot filters that distort the view of what is out there.
“…the whole function of thought is to produce habits of action… To develop its meaning, we have, therefore, simply to determine what habits it produces… What the habit is depends on when and how it causes us to act. As for the when, every stimulus to action is derived from perception; as for the how, every purpose of action is to produce some sensible result.”
Thus, clarity of thought comes down to what is tangible and conceivably practical.
Let’s apply this principle to the doctrine of transubstantiation, which is taken literally by Catholics.
“… and we can consequently mean nothing by wine but what has certain effects, direct or indirect, upon our senses; and to talk of something as having all the sensible characters of wine, yet being in reality blood, is senseless jargon…
“I only desire to point out how impossible it is that we should have an idea in our minds which relates to anything but conceived sensible effects of things.”
“It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows:
Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”
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If we are made to believe that wine is actually blood in some special circumstance, while the properties of wine do not change to properties of blood, then this is a deception and akin to brainwashing.
Thus, clarity of thought boils down to “seeing things as they are”, which is mindfulness.
However, we still need to look at how mindfulness leads to the recognition of the elements of filter.
Seeing things as they are = Practical bearings!
……………………………………= Its purpose?
……………………………………= Reason for its being?
……………………………………= Whole of its conception
The whole conception of a quality lies in its conceived effects.
For example, conception of ‘hard’ lies in conceiving that it will not be scratched by many other substances.
All questions regarding the conception of something must be regarded with care. They may raise doubts and, thus, mental activity.
The question of what would occur under circumstances which do not actually arise is not a question of fact, but only of the most perspicuous arrangement of them… it arranges them so as to exhibit what is particularly pertinent to a question.
Contradictory results would follow from a hypothesis which is consequently judged to be false.
The concept of Force came about from the refinement of the concept of Cause.
To understand it clearly, we must first ask, “What is the immediate use of thinking about force?” The answer is, that we thus account for changes of motion.
Furthermore, change of motion never takes place abruptly; if its direction is changed, it is always through a curve without angles; if its velocity alters, it is by degrees.
This fact is that if the actual changes of motion which the different particles of bodies experience are each resolved in its appropriate way, each component acceleration is precisely such as is prescribed by a certain law of Nature.
According to this law, bodies, in the relative positions which the bodies in question actually have at the moment, always receive certain accelerations, which, being compounded by geometrical addition, give the acceleration which the body actually experiences.
This is the only fact which the idea of force represents, and whoever will take the trouble clearly to apprehend what this fact is, perfectly comprehends what force is.
“The concept of Force came about from the refinement of the concept of Cause.”
Force, cause, effect, etc., can be understood to have a zero-sum definition.
Reality (observed, filter, observer) is a zero-sum definition too. 🙂
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Zero sum is a good observation. What greater understanding does noticing it bring about?
No use getting anxious about things. What goes up must come down. Take life in your stride. Logic is ultimately circular. Marildi too will come around. 🙂
” . . . if its velocity alters, it is by degrees.”
. . . discreetly.
Forms of energy
Type of energy Description
Kinetic (≥0), that of the motion of a body
Potential A category comprising many forms in this list
Mechanical data3=the sum of (usually macroscopic) kinetic and potential energies
Mechanical wave (≥0), a form of mechanical energy propagated by a material’s oscillations
Chemical that contained in molecules
Electric that from electric fields
Magnetic that from magnetic fields
Radiant (≥0), that of electromagnetic radiation including light
Nuclear that of binding nucleons to form the atomic nucleus
Ionization that of binding an electron to its atom or molecule
Elastic that of deformation of a material (or its container) exhibiting a restorative force
Gravitational that from gravitational fields
Intrinsic, the rest energy (≥0) that equivalent to an object’s rest mass
Thermal A microscopic, disordered equivalent of mechanical energy
Heat an amount of thermal energy being transferred (in a given process) in the direction of decreasing temperature
Mechanical work an amount of energy being transferred in a given process due to displacement in the direction of an applied force
Some entries in the above list constitute or comprise others in the list. The list is not necessarily complete.
Why do you suppose that the word “gravity” has been left off this list of “forms of energy?”
Energy is essentially the capacity to bring about motion. A person having a lot of energy has a lot of capcity for motion.
A gravitational field contains the capacity for motion. and thereflore it contains energy. It comes from mass. Mass is the form generated from condensing the electromagnetic disturbance. This is a phenomenon of very high frequencies, very short wavelengths, extremely short periods and almost no propagation but rotation due to the feature of collapsing on itself. The gravitational energy seems to come from the tendency to collapse other things around it.
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There is no other “cause” than the force that is visible in the acceleration of bodies. Yet people believe it to be a mystery.
There is some vague notion afloat that a question may mean something which the mind cannot conceive.
When there is hair-splitting quibbling going on, it indicates the presence of some unseen filter that the logic cannot uncover.
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“When there is hair-splitting quibbling going on, it indicates the presence of some unseen filter that the logic cannot uncover.”
And thus it is the same for paradox.
Yes, the filter is putting something there that is not there.
The filter is an additional disturbance.
Each disturbance is another layer of filter.
Bruce Lee’s thoughts on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7U1wm5JSMU
What he is saying makes a lot of sense. 🙂
Well, it kind of harmonizes with what we have revealed in these discussions. “No mind” did not begin with Bruce Lee, but pervades Eastern philosophy and now that you’ve unearthed Will Durant’s work, Western philosophy as well.
Pierce defines reality as follows:
“Thus we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be.”
This would be a special kind of reality. Let’s call it “external or objective reality.”
In the broadest sense, reality is anything for which awareness exists. A person is aware of the contents of his opinion. evaluation, imagination, dreams, etc. Such awareness may be called “internal or subjective reality.”
However, the facts that there are thoughts, opinions, evaluations and dreams shall be part of objective reality beacuse these things exist independent of what anybody may think them to be. But their contents shall be part of subjective reality.
The genre of Fiction that exists as stories shall be part of objective reality. Figments that are product of somebody’s imagination shall be part of subjective reality,
An idea that earth is at the center of the universe may be popular and agreed upon by all people, but it would still be part of subjective reality, if it is not proven by direct, mindful or scientific observation.
Thus, agreement is not the test for reality as believed in Scientology.
(1) Reality, like every other quality, consists in the peculiar sensible effects which things partaking of it produce.
(2) The only effect which real things have is to cause belief, for all the sensations which they excite emerge into consciousness in the form of beliefs.
(3) The question therefore is, how is objective reailty distinguished from subjective reality.
NOTE: Pierce is calling “Objective reality” to be true belief (belief in the real) and “Subjective reality” to be false belief (belief in fiction). I hesitate to use the terms true and false because they are dependent on a self-centric view or opinion. From a reality-centric view, true and false are simply relative.
NOTE: “Objectivity reality” may change as we discover parts of it to be made up of subjective filter.
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Agreed.
The question essentially is,
(1) What is nature of the filter that distorts the reality?
(2) What is the nature of the reality in absence of the filter?
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“The question essentially is, (1) What is nature of the filter that distorts the reality? (2) What is the nature of the reality in absence of a filter?”
(1) I am the Nature of the filter which
distortsABSTRACTS reality.(2) That is unknowable. We argue for an existence beyond knowable. Everything within our intellect pushes this idea forward. Yet why should we think so? Does thinking so change the smallest bit of the existence that we know? Is there any advantage to thinking about another reality beyond this reality?
Abstraction and distortion are two very different things. We abstrct three cats, three dogs, three chairs, three tables, three cups, etc, as “three”. It is like finding the common denominator of a number of observations. Abstraction was identified as a key dimension in the KHTK Model of the Universe. Abstraction leads to a deeper appreciation.
Distortion is throwing more sand on what is there.
Good points.
Reality is essentially what is there, but the personal filters may distort it.
(1) A person may base reality upon arbitrarily chosen propositions.
(2) A person may simply hold a strong opinion about reality.
(3) A person may base his reality upon authority.
(4) A person’s loyalty to a faith may influence his reality.
(5) A philosopher may look at what harmonizes with his system.
(6) A person may simply not want to end a dispute.
(7) A person may not believe that a consensus on reality could ever be reached.
“Reality is essentially what is there, but the personal filters may distort it.”
It seems to me that reality, what we mean and say when we say reality, it the resolution of our filters. Yes, there is something going on but this dimension that we refer to as reality, being a relative, conditioned, and impermanent abstraction, if not an absolute then we can only ever be aware of our abstractions of the processes which occur around us.
I do not see a way around this, neither suggest that we need a “way around this.” We come into being gradually and go out of being either gradually or not so gradually and if we are fortunate, we’ve flapped our butterfly wings and left our iteration to continue the recursion and I’m more than ok with that. There is peace in understanding.
Yes. Filters are part of the reality.
(1) What is beyond the filters may be called the ultimate reality.
(2) What we see through the filters could be called reality of the moment.
(3) We, the observers, are also part of the reality.
What is not part of the reality, I don’t know. So, it all boils down to understanding the nature of the infinite variations that reality presents, and building a model for this reality.
This model is coming into focus in terms of a filter separating the observed from the observer. The filter modulates how the observer observes the observed. But when the filter is gone then the observed and observer are gone too. In a sense, the very existence of the observed and the observer depends on the existence of the filter.
So, this is the wonderful reality made of observed, filter and the observer.
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All the followers of science are animated by a cheerful hope that the processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to each question to which they apply it.
Different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the progress of investigation carries them by a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion.
This activity of thought by which we are carried, not where we wish, but to a fore-ordained goal, is like the operation of destiny.
The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality.
What is this force outside of oneself that carries one forward to a certain conclusion?
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Reality would then depend on certain laws. But earlier the very essence of reality was defined as that “whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be.”
In that case, the laws underlying reality shall be basic to even the very reality of self. You and I and each person shall be constructed out of these laws. These laws shall determine what we think of them.
Our filters shall be formed out these very same laws.
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Only an investigation carried far enough may lead to these laws, which, by their very nature, are beyond what anybody may think them to be.
“Only an investigation carried far enough may lead to these laws, which, by their very nature, are beyond what anybody may think them to be.”
This is one of your best comments today.
“There is no royal road to logic, and really valuable ideas can only be had at the price of close attention. ~ Charles S. Peirce, 1878”
It always gets down to mindfulness. Haha!
“It always gets down to mindfulness. Haha!”
Mindfulness seems to suggest adding mental energy at all times so as to not “coast.” Thinking about what one is doing while one is doing it requires mental energy, requires active mental participation in what is going on. This disallowing of inertia to carry ones thoughts along, thus having no particular motion, suggests that mindfulness requires some type of mental motion.
I do not think so. To me, as one learns to be mindful, the habit just takes over you. It is very peaceful, relaxing and natural. There is no effort required.
Mindfulness is like finding your equilibrium in the torrent of filter that has been sweeping you off your feet all this time.
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Then how does mindfulness relate to motion?
Mindfulness seems to simplify motion and ultimately dissolve it.
Interesting. Given that any motion is relative motion. A mind placed alone and hundreds of miles into space un-stimulated by any relative motion such as the Earth, life, circumstances, etc., would necessarily be only self-stimulating/stimulated. Placed ostensibly utterly alone, would entropy increase? And is entropy of mind the same as dissolution of mind?
There seems to a law here which is yet to be discovered. How did the universe come about in the first place? Would a mind having nothing to stimulate it, create its own stimulation?
It seems that the most basic desire is to know oneself. Did the Nothingness create somethingness to know itself because it was not happy with being considered nothingness?
These questions remain to stimulate our minds. Haha!
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hehehe, yeah.
Something I’ve been noticing is that the mental fatigue that used to accompany these drawn out discussions has abated. Possibly like an athlete in training, our minds are being trained to work more efficiently with less fatigue.
As you practice mindfulness things start to get effortless.
“There seems to a law here which is yet to be discovered. How did the universe come about in the first place?”
There is another possibility. In a universe, mathematically without whole ratios, the idea of inception may be a self-centric idea. Think about it: When we look closely, is there any example of inception until we reach the Big Bang? And if the answer is no, why would be extrapolate that the Big Bang provides an absolute beginning?
Big Bang does not provide the absolute beginning.
Fractals, orders of magnitude, and half-life isotopes provide clues as to the possible concentrations of space-time very near the Big Bang. Scientists become amazed at the “inflation” of the universe during the first second after the Big Bang. Factually and fractally, there can be many many times more space-time left over that needs accounting for before that early moment. The consistency of Newtonian Physics may be more similar to today’s weather than laws when considering the universe at that early moment. I am planning to keep my eyes and mind open.
Is the universe expanding? I don’t think so. The universe already expanded to its ultimate limits at DL0 (Disturbance Level 0). Now other things may be going on in the universe. We look at just DL100 or DL500 from a matter-centric view and conclude that the universe is expanding.
Big Bang could just be an exploding pimple in the fabric of the universe.
There is a life’s work (and maybe a reputation) to be made on these few thoughts and statements. I’ve tried to imagine the edge of the universe, there being an edge of space-time, however nothing about myself has been prepared for such a thought experiment and I find my thoughts must turn to the faith of religion to accept it. Therefore, I balk.
I read another reason for the red-shift of expansion. I don’t know it it is good science. But there it is anyway.
There is no edge to the universe, haha, just like there is no edge to a sphere.
There goes my square universe theory
LOL!
“It seems that the most basic desire is to know oneself.”
Why do you say this?
Well, if there anything more basic I haven’t come across it yet.
“Did the Nothingness create somethingness to know itself because it was not happy with being considered nothingness?”
That is a self-centric question.
Maybe that’s how it all started! Haha!
Maybe! I hadn’t thought of that. I see self v. reality as a matter of vector. This puts you back in Hubbard’s court?
Maybe at the start self was all the reality there was.
Please keep in mind there is nothing absolute. Our conceptualization makes it seem absolute.
Maybe the self is physically a node or corresponds to a node of sorts.
“These questions remain to stimulate our minds. Haha!”
I used to wonder at the condition of the baby Superman when he arrived at Earth in that tiny little capsule that he traveled within all the way from Krypton to Earth. No wonder he seemed a little disturbed.
He must have been trying to figure himself out.
More basic to any logic is mindfulness.
“What is this force outside of oneself that carries one forward to a certain conclusion?”
The Universe seems to be a seething, writhing, undulating, somewhat orderly, somewhat tangled, infinitely complex, ball of processes. The thoughts of this, force, outside, oneself, forward, certain, and conclusion seem to be abstractions. Do I suspect something of a Greater Power at work? Something “outside?” Of course. I think the reason is that the abstract self as a whole is not the whole universe but a little piece. Of course there are greater powers, greater processes at work — there are entire galaxies in collision at this moment. My human intellect has only awakened to the idea of looking for a moment away from my baser instincts and needs to ponder distance and time. Maybe this is how consciousness awakens. Maybe humanity is evolving toward a more awakened, more sophisticatedly abstract state of being.
Something that seems sure to me is that, aside from my anthropomorphic sense of self, I really do feel a part of it all and I do feel that my life has value and contributes a bit to the whole of things. That’s a good feeling, a happy feeling.
“That’s a good feeling, a happy feeling.”
It sure is!
Through us the universe is waking up. 🙂
(The Story of Philosophy)
He found the weapon which he sought when, in 1878, he came upon an essay by Charles Peirce, in the Popular Science Monthly, on “How to Make Our Ideas Clear.” To find the meaning of an idea, said Peirce, we must examine the consequences to which it leads in action; otherwise dispute about it may be without end, and will surely be without fruit. This was a lead which James was glad to follow; he tried the problems and ideas of the old metaphysics by this test, and they fell to pieces at its touch like chemical compounds suddenly shot through with a current of electricity. And such problems as had meaning took on a clearness and a reality as if, in Plato’s famous figure, they had passed out of the shadows of a cave into the brilliance of a sun-lit noon.
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From “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” by Charles Peirce:
Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.
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This is a very American contribution to Philosophy. This is mindfulness.
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(The Story of Philosophy)
This simple and old-fashioned test led James on to a new definition of truth. Truth had been conceived as an objective relation, as once good and beauty had been; now what if truth, like these, were also relative to human judgment and human needs? “Natural laws” had been taken as “objective” truths, eternal and unchangeable; Spinoza had made them the very substance of his philosophy; and yet what were these truths but formulations of experience, convenient and successful in practice; not copies of an object, but correct calculations of specific consequences? Truth is the “cash-value” of an idea.
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Truth is not something absolute. Truth is also relative to human judgment and human needs. Truth is the “cash-value” of an idea.
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(The Story of Philosophy)
The true … is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as “the right” is only the expedient in the way of our behaving. Expedient is almost any fashion; and expedient in the long run and on the whole, of course; for what meets expediently all the experiences in sight won’t necessarily meet all further experiences equally satisfactorily. . . . Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, a category distinct from good, and coordinate with it. The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief.
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Expedient means “proper under the circumstances.” What is most proper is the direct view of what is there without any assumptions or interpretations. What is viewed directly is the belief. This is also mindfulness in observation.
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(The Story of Philosophy)
Truth is a process, and “happens to an idea”; verity is verification. Instead of asking whence an idea is derived, or what are its premises, pragmatism examines its results; it “shifts the emphasis and looks forward”; it is “the attitude of looking away from first things, principles, categories/ supposed necessities, and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts.” Scholasticism asked, What is the thing, and lost itself in “quiddities”; Darwinism asked, What is its origin? and lost itself in nebulas; pragmatism asks, What are its consequences? and turns the face of thought to action and the future.
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Truth is looking at what is there for its direct impact.
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(The Story of Philosophy)
III PLURALISM
Let us apply this method to the oldest problem in philosophy the existence and nature of God, The Scholastic philosophers described the deity as “Ens a se extra, et supra omne genus, necessarium, unum, infinite, perfectinn, simplex, immutabile, imwensitm, eternum, intelligens.” This is magnificent; what deity would not be proud of such a definition? But what does it mean? – what are its consequences for mankind? If God is omniscient and omnipotent, we are puppets; there is nothing that we can do to change the course of destiny which His will has from the beginning delineated and decreed; Calvinism and fatalism are the logical corollaries of such a definition. The same test applied to mechanistic determinism issues in the same results: if we really believed in determinism we would become Hindu mystics and abandon ourselves at once to the immense fatality which uses us as marionettes. Of course we do not accept these sombre philosophies; the human intellect repeatedly proposes them because of their logical simplicity and symmetry, but life ignores and overflows them, and passes on.
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The “truth” of God implies total determinism, but we do not observe that in life.
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(The Story of Philosophy)
A philosophy may be unimpeachable in other respects, but either of two defects will be fatal to its universal adoption. First, its ultimate principle must not be one that essentially baffles and disappoints our dearest desires and most cherished hopes. . . . But a second and worse defect in a philosophy than contradicting our active propensities is to give them no object whatever to press against. A philosophy whose principle is so incommensurate with our most intimate powers as to deny them all relevancy in universal affairs, as to annihilate their motives at one blow, will be even more unpopular than pessimism. … That is why materialism will always fail of universal adoption.”
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The “truth” of philosophy implies continuing discoveries, and not a dead end. This gives us a God that is unknowable.
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(The Story of Philosophy)
Men accept or reject philosophies, then, according to their needs and their temperaments, not according to “objective truth”; they do not ask, Is this logical? – they ask, What will the actual practice of this philosophy mean for our lives and our interests? Arguments for and against may serve to illuminate, but they never prove.
Logic and sermons never convince;
The clamp of the night drives deeper into my soul. . . .
Now I re-examine philosophies and religions.
They may prove well in lecture rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds, and along the landscape and flowing currents.
We know that: arguments are dictated by our needs, and that our needs cannot be dictated to by arguments.
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Philosophy must satisfy what we desire to know.
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