Subject, verb and object: all in the mind

Psyblog states:

It seems likely that this left to right bias has its roots in language (although not everyone agrees, cf. Chatterjee, 2001). Evidence for this comes from people who speak languages written from right to left like Arabic or Urdu who, sure enough, display the same bias, but in the opposite direction.

There is another left to right bias in the basic syntax of language: the vast majority of languages describe events in the order subject, verb, object (with the notable exception of the passive tense).

Together these two facts mean we not only look to the left first, but we also expect the subject to be on the left, and the object to its right. Subjects are by definition active ‘do-ers’ while objects are the passive receivers of the do-ers’ actions.

With the metaphysical notion of time, we have constructed the concepts of causation, subject, action/force, and object. Objectivity (‘what’)  is supposedly represented by the sciences, whereas subjectivity (‘how’) is the domain of personal interpretation and relation. While Hume took an axe to causation, Nietzsche blew up the roots of these distinctions with dynamite, declaring that objectivity itself is but a subjective misinterpretation that we cannot live without. Pragmatists such as John Dewey and William James deflated the whole bloated philosophical tradition of ontology and epistemology, and focused on what mattered most, namely human needs. I follow in their footsteps and maintain that we should use these categories wisely.

We see ourselves (subject) as acting on the world (object) in time. We therefore assume that we are agents with ‘free will’. From a utilitarian viewpoint this is best. However, it may shadow the way in which the world acts on us. We may not recognise how culture can dominate our decisions and actions, and in such moments we are not truly free. We may become slaves to our narrow-minded way of viewing the world.

Philosophy, such as that from Hume and Nietzsche, can set you free, but you have to be ready for the initally uncomfortable journey. Your cherished assumptions will be exposed as dogma, your values will be overhauled, and you will be left in the wilderness for a while. But then you can go back into the world and create your own meanings and values on a solid foundation. In doing so you will experience the joy of a free spirit.

The ends of philosophy

Knowledge, if Dr Dewey is right, cannot be any part of the ends of life; it is merely a means to other satisfactions. This view, to those who have been much engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, is distasteful.

Bertrand Russell implies that means are ‘mere’ in this case, obviously for rhetorical effect; as if the journey was always so unimportant and disappointing compared to the destination. He is mistaken in thinking that philosophy must have its ends in itself in order for the philosopher to have any joy along the way.

Bertie finds Dewey’s view of knowledge as serving pragmatic ends distasteful, and admits that he could be illogical in thinking so. He never bluntly says why he finds such a view distasteful, but, as one could easily imagine, it would wreak havoc on the self-image of a earnest, self-important philosopher who engaged in academic, artificial puzzles that rarely bore any pragmatic fruit.

Bertie should have been more philosophical in considering the ends of philosophy, rather than letting his ego get in the way. We might have had something of significance from him, instead we get only a preacher to those converted to his speculative, pointless way of life.

When does an interest in philosophy become vulgar conceptual consumption?

Aristotle considered contemplation/philosophy an end in itself, but was he just an addict to conceptual consumption?

Perhaps the dopamine rush due to the expectation of finding a magical conceptual key to an undefined treasure kept him hooked? (Hence his praise of ‘wonder’, which is the curiosity-interest-expectancy dopamine system in disguise). It is clear that many philosophers engage with superficial and artificial problems merely to mentally masturbate, because it feels good.

Philosophy must serve an end and that end is life. Don’t get hooked on the drug of wonder and forsake it for everything else.

A quick guide to the reading of philosophical texts

This guide is to assist you in deciding what to concern yourself reading. Follow these heuristics:

• The length of a text on a particular topic, beyond a certain extent, is inversely proportional to what significant things it has to say. Long-winded, rambling texts don’t communicate important points in ways that are memorable. If one cannot easily remember the key points of a text it will be difficult, nay impossible, to implement them in daily life. Words are only significant if they can be applied to the means and ends of life.
• If some point could have been made with less words than those used, the philosopher has overrated their attention-worthiness and mistaken their audience for people who don’t have clear aims in reading them.
• The degree of formal references to others, particularly to academics, is inversely proportional to the creativity and value of the text in terms of unique insights. (Group norms kill creativity.)
• The use of much philosophical jargon and overly formal style points to a lack of communication skills on part of the philosopher and heightened irrelevance to the life of the everyday citizen of anything they may say
• Avoid at all costs texts which talk about issues and concepts only of interest to philosophers; there is no wisdom in store
• Philosophy is often used by nerds as a means by which to impress others with their supposed intellectual superiority and to gain status amongst peers. Consider what self-concept the writer may be trying to project with their text. You may get more ego than content.
• If the reputation of the philosopher precedes the text, rest assured that the text is not as good as the cult surrounding its authority believe
• If from the opening paragraph of  a text you do not infer practical wisdom for your life on offer, put the text down and find something worth reading

The problem of philosophy: relevance

Isaiah Berlin knew it:

…he found the philosophy as it was practiced in the years immediately after the Second World War in Britain, and particularly in Oxford, lacking in the human relevance that he needed in a subject, lacking in the connection with human dilemmas. I mean one could even say and this of course was anathema to philosophers, then, and still is to some extent today, that he wanted to practice and study and examine and explore a type of thinking which shed light on the dilemmas of human life. In the very last conversation I had with him before he died, I asked him whether there was a single thinker or writer or philosopher who had influenced him more than any other, and without a single second of hesitation, he said ‘Herzen’. In other words, he didn’t mention a philosopher such as David Hume or John Stuart Mill, or any of the philosophers, some of them whom he admired greatly, he immediately mentioned a radical writer rather than an academic philosopher, as one who had influenced him more than any other single writer or thinker.

One wonders if all that is left of philosophy is a bunch of dictionary editors and literary critics. The sophists of the Academy have truly ravaged it over the years, but you can’t keep a true thing down forever.

Conceptual analysis versus Situational analysis

Philosophy was at its zenith when it was more concerned about analysing situations, rather than analysing concepts (refer to the Greco-Roman Moralists). Of course, conceptual analysis is a form of situational analysis; it is one of escaping the material reality of a situation into a conceptual, constructed fantasy-world. Little wonder that Nietzsche called it decadent.

Life is myth

Life is myth, but we have forgotten it as such.

It is anti-social to talk of life as myth, as many negative images and connotations are interpreted. Myth does not mean lack of seriousness, it does not mean an attack on science, it does not mean superstition, it is not anti-materialistic. Myth is how we understand our world.

We live in myths handed down to us; custom is our nature (Pascal). We derive new myths in the context of existing ones.

Us moderns recognising life as myth connects us more deeply to our ancient ancestors who were not shy at all to delve into mythology. It helps us to negate the superiority complex that would have us believe that we understand the world better than generations before. Our ancient ancestors had a much more colourful, dramatic and broad-minded understanding of the world.

Remarkably, many people may agree that our ancestors have lived better lives than us, lives less stressed and full of wonder. Yet they are reticent to associate this better living with better understanding. Moderns are distrustful of the myths though which lives ticked in the ancient world. But could it not have been that these myths provided a better understanding of the world, i.e., a better understanding of the world for living it?

Is not better living the result of better understanding? If better living is not the result of better understanding than exactly what ‘understanding’ are we talking about? What ‘understanding’ do us moderns choose to value and emphasise?

The West lost scientific knowledge as a type of understanding when it lost Alexandria to the Mohammedans. But it did not lose a more important type of understanding, an understanding which is for life. It did not lose its myths.

Today we live in different myths to those of the ancients: progress, consumerism, evolutionary teleology, utilitarian telology, capitalism, scientism, atomical individualism, more-real-than-real mass media, environmentalist cultism, wars involving ‘collateral damage’. Are our myths any better than those of yesteryear? Do they give us better understanding for living? We have long since outgrown our myths, yet we stubbornly cling to them. Perhaps we should re-energize the old myths, perhaps they are better for life?

Humans are mythology-machines

Humans are mythology-machines, we make and absorb meaning.

I trust no one who views Truth (with a Capital T) as anything but a myth that is taken seriously, dogmatically, with all its implications and applications for living.

We are machines in that our bodies are biological systems and our primary senses do quite a good job of measuring the world.

Thus for us it is important to maintain a healthly body and mythology. The latter is ideally one of joy. Good food, good myths; the absence of toxins and diseases; the absence of negative emotions, and people and situations which, through our prior conditioning, engender them; transformational myths which take the bad and reinterpret it as good; humour — all this is needed for the human to thrive.

What is NULL?

Recently I was asked by a co-worker to define relational database terms in a glossary. I cheekily wrote of NULL:

What is NULL? It is nothing. But nothing must be something, otherwise it would not have a name. But perhaps nothing is nothing but an empty abstraction of the mind, devoid of any material reality. But this proposition must imply that nothing came from something, namely our minds, which happen to have a material basis, namely our brain. If nothing is a result of something and that causal something has a basis in material reality than ergo nothing has a material basis as well. Ask yourself, is not the nothing of outer space, or the gaps between atomic particles, constitutive of the universe and all of material reality? To be is to be perceived. We see nothing everywhere; it is pervasive amongst the other somethings. NULL is not nothing, but a mere signifier or pointer to another reality in which nothing really does not exist.

My co-worker was amused, as they ought to be. Such philosophical speculation only has value for amusement.

Providence

The Philosopher’s Zone chats about Providence Lost?

It is well worth a listen, particularly as providence, despite mystical obfuscation, allows us an alternative view of freedom that is not to do with freedom of the will, but with a recognising of what is necessary in nature. This is a good pointer to Spinoza and the Stoics as a source of practical wisdom.

Genevieve Lloyd says:

What philosophy now has to offer us is something more than what I see as the rather narrow agenda of 20th century analytical philosophy. I’ve nothing against it actually, as a style of philosophy, it’s the way I’ve learned philosophy, and I still have a lot of respect for it. But there’s a lot more there that I think can be a resource now, not just for professional philosophers, but for all of us in our ordinary lives. These texts have a lot to offer.