Reference: Postulate Mechanics
See Glossary below.
- Philosophy, literally means, “the love of wisdom.”
- Religion looks inward at the Beingness subjectively.
- But philosophy looks outward at the Universe objectively.
- Philosophy is the front trench in the siege of truth.
- The captured territory becomes the domain of science.
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- Plato called philosophy, “that dear delight”
- To Browning, it was finding the meaning of life.
- To Thoreau, it was to live according to dictates of wisdom.
- To Bacon, it was to seek good things of the mind.
- For Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free.
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- Philosophy contemplates on the following fields of study:
- The Logic
- The Esthetics
- The Ethics
- The Politics
- The Metaphysics
- Logic is the study of ideal method in thought and research
- Esthetics is the study of ideal form, or beauty.
- Ethics is the study of ideal conduct, or good and evil.
- Politics is the study of ideal social organization.
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- Metaphysics studies the “ultimate reality” of all things as,
- Ontology
- Philosophical psychology
- Epistemology
- Ontology studies the real and final nature of “matter.”
- Philosophical psychology studies the real and final nature of “mind.”
- Epistemology studies the interrelation of “mind” and “matter”
- To understand the processes of perception and knowledge.
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- Philosophy is a rational inquiry that examines even its own methods critically.
- Philosophy brings the noblest pleasure, the joy of understanding.
- It sucks the experiences dry of their secret and subtle meanings.
- Science without philosophy cannot save us from despair.
- Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.
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Glossary
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ABSURDISM
The doctrine that human beings live in essential isolation in a meaningless and irrational world. [The philosophy of ABSURDISM is an acknowledgement that there are anomalies in this universe.]
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CONSCIOUSNESS
Consciousness is the ability to sense. There is primitive consciousness only, “to evolve”, in the “primary substance.” This leads to evolution. As the substance and its form evolve, its consciousness also evolves. This consciousness is weak in inanimate objects, greater in animate organisms, and the greatest in the humankind. There is no consciousness independent of the universe. The common denominator of all consciousness is “to evolve.” The ultimate evolved consciousness is yet to be realized.
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EMPIRICAL
From direct sensations and experience (not from abstract theory).
EMPIRICISM
[1520–30; <Latin empīricus<Greek empeirikós experienced, equivalent to em-em-2 + peir- (stem of peirân to attempt) + -ikos-ic] In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the central role of empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions. However, empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of previous sensory experiences.
ENERGY (RADIATION)
Energy (radiation) is a substance which fills the atom beyond its nucleus. It is not solid. It is more like “liquid” because it is the material substance thinned out thousands of times. From electron to microwave we have continually thinning substance. Light has substance because it has momentum that can be sensed and measured. Energy substance does not have center of mass, therefore, there are no discrete energy particles. The concept of energy quanta relates to the consistency of energy substance and how it is sensed through interactions.
EPICUREANISM
The philosophical system or doctrine of Epicurus, holding that the external world is a series of fortuitous combinations of atoms and that the highest good is pleasure, interpreted as freedom from disturbance or pain. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism. Epicurus believed that the greatest good was to seek modest, sustainable pleasure in the form of a state of tranquility and freedom from fear, and the absence of bodily pain, through knowledge of the workings of the world and limiting desires. [This is quite agreeable to me.]
EXISTENTIALISM
A philosophical movement that stresses the individual’s unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for making meaningful, authentic choices in a universe seen as purposeless or irrational.
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FASIFIABILITY
There has been a long standing criterion of verifiability. It states that only statements verifiable through direct observation are meaningful. We now add to it the logical criterion falsifiability. A theory or hypothesis is falsifiable if it can be logically contradicted by a possible direct sensation or experience. For example, a theory “all crows are black” is falsifiable because it is possible that there is a white crow, even though none has been spotted yet. Therefore, just like verifiability, falsifiability also acts as a deductive standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses. its purpose is to make the theory predictive and testable, and thus useful in practice. The predictions about unobserved things based on previous observations is never totally certain. This is emphasized by the falsifiability criterion.
A theory that promises something to be absolute is non-scientific. Therefore, the falsifiability criterion can also be used to distinguish between science and non-science.
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GOD
This is a postulate in religion: The creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being. A superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.
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INDUCTION
The predictions about unobserved things based on previous observations. This is not totally rational.
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LOGICAL POSITIVISM
A form of positivism, developed by members of the Vienna Circle, which considers that the only meaningful philosophical problems are those which can be solved by logical analysis.
Only statements verifiable through direct observation are meaningful.
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MATERIAL
The material substance comes in the forms of solids, liquids and gases. All of these forms of material substance can be reduced to discrete particles. These discrete material particles have a solid form and a center of mass. The ultimate material particles are protons and neutrons.
MATERIALISM
Materialism holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Material pertains to the substance or substances of which a thing is made or composed. [Origin: “belonging to matter.”] Philosophy defines matter as that which by integrative organization forms chemical substances and living things. [Origin: “woody part of a tree.”]
According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are by-products … of material processes (such as the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system), without which they cannot exist.
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NIHILISM
An extreme form of skepticism: the denial of all real existence or the possibility of an objective basis for truth. Different nihilist positions hold variously that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some set of entities do not exist.
NOMINALISM
The doctrine that general or abstract words do not stand for objectively existing entities and that universals are no more than names assigned to them.
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PANPSYCHISM
A theory that all matter has some form of consciousness.
PANENTHEISM
The belief or doctrine that God is greater than the universe and includes and interpenetrates it. [What is beyond the universe is Unknowable.]
PANTHEISM
The doctrine that God is the transcendent reality of which the material universe and human beings are only manifestations: it involves a denial of God’s personality and expresses a tendency to identify God and nature.
PESSIMISM
The doctrine that the existing world is the worst of all possible worlds, or that all things naturally tend to evil.
PHENOMENALISM
The doctrine that human knowledge is confined to or founded on the realities or appearances presented to the senses.
POSITIVISM
[First recorded in 1640–50; from Latin positus, past participle of pōnere “to place, put”]
Positive = explicitly stated, stipulated, or expressed, philosophical sense of ‘imposed on the mind by experience’.
Positivism = concerned with positive facts and phenomena, and excluding speculation upon ultimate causes or origins.
A philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either positive—a posteriori and exclusively derived from experience of natural phenomena and their properties and relations—or true by definition, that is, analytic and tautological. This philosophy does not allow for free conceptual construction. Generally, positivists attempted to introduce scientific methods to their respective fields.
PRAGMATISM
An approach that assesses the truth of meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application.
PRIMARY SUBSTANCE
The intellectual “substance-in-itself.” It is what a substance inherently is. In Hinduism, it is symbolized as SHIVA, which is then formed into substances through SHAKTI.
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REALISM
The doctrine that universals have a real objective existence; that objects of sense perception have an existence independent of the act of perception. (In literature) attempts to represent subject-matter truthfully, avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements.
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SCIENTIFIC REALISM
The universe described by science is real. Scientific theories are approximately true.
SKEPTICISM
Maintains that real knowledge of things is impossible; doubts or questions the possibility of real knowledge of any kind; universal doubt.
SOPHISTS
Sophists were traveling teachers of wisdom, who looked within upon their own thought and nature, rather than out upon the world of things. They were all clever men (Gorgias and Hippias, for example), and many of them were profound (Protagoras, Prodicus); there is hardly a problem or a solution in our current philosophy of mind and conduct which they did not realize and discuss. They asked questions about anything; they stood unafraid in the presence of religious or political taboos; and boldly subpoenaed every creed and institution to appear before the judgment-seat of reason. In politics they divided into two schools. One, like Rousseau, argued that nature is good, and civilization bad; that by nature all men are equal, becoming unequal only by class-made institutions: and that law is an invention of the strong to chain and rule the weak. Another school, like Nietzsche, claimed that nature is beyond good and evil; that by nature all men are unequal; that morality is an invention of the weak to limit and deter the strong; that power is the supreme virtue and the supreme desire of man; and that of all forms of government the wisest and most natural is aristocracy.
SPECTRUM OF SUBSTANCE
The primary substance evolves into thought substance (SPACE), energy substance (ENERGY), and material substance (MATTER) by gradual condensation. This process of evolution is essentially the process of forming. This process may be called TIME. This gives us the spectrum of substance.
SPIRITUALISM
Any of various doctrines maintaining that the ultimate reality is spirit or mind.
SUBSTANCE
Origin: “That which stands under.” A thing is made of substance. The substance is a spectrum that extends from tangible matter to intangible light to ephemeral thought. This whole spectrum of substance is substantial enough to be sensed one way or another. The substance may be divided broadly as material substance, energy substance and thought substance.
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THEISM
Belief in the existence of a divine reality; usually referring to monotheism (one God), as opposed to pantheism (all is God), polytheism (many gods), and atheism (without God).
THOUGHT
The thought substance is the material substance thinned out trillions of times. It is more like “gaseous”. Its space is filling the universe almost. Here we see space also expanding and time becoming swifter compared to material space and time. We encounter “quantum entanglement” when thought (and energy) space and time are superimposed over material space and time.
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