The Nature of Our Reality

At heart, our awareness of existence is a philosophical interpretation itself. Everything is a product of perception to some extent through our senses. Perhaps this can often be an automatic phenomenological interpretation (we smell and see whether or not we intend to or even understand how we do it). But interpret is at the very heart of consciousness.

If I tell you that the charge of an electron is 1.6022 x 10^-19 Coulombs, should I believe in God or not? If the neutrino has mass, what does that tell you about the holy triad of truth, beauty, and goodness? If space is curved and time is relative, who should I vote for?

So, in essence, take every single bit of knowledge since the Greeks that has been obtained scientifically and we have absolutely zero insight into the big questions that are inherent to our existence. Oh, yes, we have learned plenty about the behaviors (how they can be correlated with mathematics) of the physical world. And many of our conceptual models do seem to paint a picture.

Even then, basically that ol’ atom model we all grew up with is not accurate. It should just be a cloud, a fuzz, a blur of probabilities. And who’s to say this quantum model won’t be overturned with a better understanding (assuming we can say we understand any deep property of the physical world other than how it can be correlated to mathematics)? So although we do seem to have some robust models, they could be seen (and often simply are) useful conventions.

No, let us not berate the Greeks. They basically had it right. At the end of the day, we have to somewhat logically figure out what anything means, let alone what it really is.

I don’t doubt that at all. The general impression I get from my readings is that it is difficult for the modern mind to comprehend a situation where it was assumed that either all important knowledge was already known, that it was blasphemous to seek more, and/or that most things were unknowable (or really didn’t matter).

Imagine living in a world where major inventions came along once every thousand years. The expectation was not of change. We live in a world now where we have the opposite expectation.

Computers, artificial intelligence, and manipulation of the genetic code guarantee we’ll be living in a world of rapid change for the foreseeable future. And what other technologies might arise that are unforeseen, yet revolutionary?

Still, it’s almost a given that at some point one of the apocalyptic scenarios will play out: A virus will be released. A comet will strike. A solar flare or prominence will devastate the earth. There will be a nuclear war.

What we won’t see are any of the false scenarios of the Left. “Climate change,” overpopulation, etc. But there are inherent dangers all the same. It’s very unlikely that humankind will be able to manage its newfound powers. It’s only been about 125 years since the invention of the airplane; 300 years since the invention of the steam engine; mere decades since the invention of computers. But despite the conceits of our managers (look at the loons looking to lead the Democrat Party), we haven’t revolutionized ourselves in any significant way. We’ve simply decided to pretend to be smarter, better, nicer, etc., without actually being so. (What we think we can manage — the climate — we can't. What we can manage — the borders — we don't.)

Worse, we have broken down our cultural immune system. We redefined threats (such as Islam or illegal immigration) into virtues. Europe is dying by any measure. We can glimpse it only in slow-motion but the motion is easy to detect.

That, and innovation was always a threat to someone. And, in the case of slavery (as in the South), it was more of a lifestyle choice, a way of living — a symbol of the superiority of one race over another. John Adams was the only Yankee who scratched his head at the sheer inefficiency of the Southern way of life.

Having a job that makes heavy use of computers (graphics software, etc.), it’s heavily ingrained that change is normal. It’s the opposite to the way things have always been. I try to blend in a healthy respect for inventions past (nostalgia, if you will). But there’s no doubt that our tools keep changing and to some extent we must keep up with them if we want to live a modern life.

There are people who choose to live less of a modern life than others. And I think that’s a good thing. But rapid change likely isn’t going away anytime soon unless the socialist drag us back to the 5th century.

One of our local Rabbi, commenting on science said something like, "we are children digging through G-d's tool box. Sometimes we have an ahah moment and say that's how he did that. But not everything in the toolbox is not safe for children to play with." For myself I hold with Dr. Malcolm on Jurassic Park, "just because we can do something doesn't mean we should"

Any homosexual running for office should not have a name that begins with butt

In Durant's "The Age of Faith", one finds again that as with most things philosophical, the Greeks have already been there and done that. Nevertheless, others found their way to philosophy as well. There was a time in the 10-11th centuries when Muslim scholars absorbed Greek learning and came to similar conclusions as the later Scholastics.

According to Durant, al-Farabi "took over Aristotle's proofs of God's existence, much as Aquinas would three centuries later.". To wit "A chain of contingent events requires for its intelligibility an ultimate necessary being; a chain of causes requires a First Cause; a series of motions requires a Prime Mover unmoved; multiplicity requires unity."

Avicenna took up this thought and went further by maintaining that "God is prior to the world not in time but logically, i.e. in rank and essence and cause: the existence of the world depends at every moment upon the existence of its sustaining force, which is God." Avicenna concedes that all entities but God are contingent-i.e., their existence is not inevitable or indispensable. Since such contingent things require cause for their existence, they cannot be explained except by reverting, in the chain of causes to a necessary being-one whose essence or meaning involves existence, a being whose existence must be presupposed in order to explain any other existence. God is the only being that exists by its own essence; that He exist, for without such a First Cause nothing that is could have begun to be. Since all matter is contingent-i.e., its essence does not involve existence-God cannot be material. ....The Supreme Intelligence sees all things-past, present, and future-not in time of sequence but at once; their occurrence is the temporal result of His timeless thought. But God does not directly cause each action or event; things develop by an internal teleology-they have their purposes and destinies written in themselves. Therefore God is not responsible for evil; evil is the price we pay for freedom of will; and the evil of the part may be the good of the whole.

I think this is nicely written.

There is no doubt that much of the scholarship which arose in the Islamic World during those years originated with Christians, particularly Syriac Christians. There were also many contacts with the Byzantine Empire.

I had one Jewish friend who romanticized the position of Jews under the Caliphs, and claimed that the Jews contributed most of the learning at this time. While there is no doubt that the Jews did do a lot of translation work and other things, their contribution was less than that of the Christians living in the Islamic world. One shouldn't forget that it is likely that many, if not most of those Christians were not Chalcedonian Christians, i.e. those who followed the Catholic Church's theology. There were Nestorians and other groups who probably had more freedom of worship under many of the more liberal Caliph's than they would have had under the Byzantine Emperors or Catholic popes.

According to Durant, the only science at which the Muslims excelled was chemistry and here they were excellent. He goes so far as to say they created the scientific method before Roger Bacon expounded on it some 200 years later. They were also good in medicine, particularly ocular medicine, but for the rest, took much from the West.

Another interesting point about the specific Muslim accomplishments during this period is that is would appear most such accomplishments in literature, science, medicine and philosophy were made by Persians or people from the Trans-Caucasia area. The Arab seems to have contributed little but the sword. Of course, that is what spread Islam in the first place.

Rhazes (al-Razi) is mentioned a number of times by Durant. He is considered the greatest Muslim physician.