MADONNA) // (CHILD

MADONNA) // (CHILD
So Strong; yet so calm: Mary's Choice.
Showing posts with label Knowledge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Knowledge. Show all posts

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Solipsism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


"I think; therefore I exist."
~(Descartes)~

"I think not!"
~(Simply Jim:  Opps!  Sorry.  Persona Buster?)~

[;^)



Solipsism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Solipsism (i/ˈsɒlɨpsɪzəm/; from Latin solus, meaning "alone", and ipse, meaning "self") is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known, and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist.

There are varying degrees of solipsism that parallel the varying degrees of serious skepticism.

Metaphysical solipsism is the "strongest" variety of solipsism. Based on a philosophy of subjective idealism, metaphysical solipsists maintain that the self is the only existing reality and that all other reality, including the external world and other persons, are representations of that self, and have no independent existence. There are weaker versions of metaphysical solipsism, such as Caspar Hare's egocentric presentism (or perspectival realism), in which other people are conscious but their experiences are simply not present.

Epistemological solipsism is the variety of idealism according to which only the directly accessible mental contents of the solipsistic philosopher can be known. The existence of an external world is regarded as an unresolvable question rather than actually false.

Epistemological solipsists claim that realism requires the question: assuming that there is a universe independent of an agent's mind and knowable only through the agent's senses, how is the existence of this independent universe to be scientifically studied? If a person sets up a camera to photograph the moon when they are not looking at it, then at best they determine that there is an image of the moon in the camera when they eventually look at it. Logically, this does not assure that the moon itself (or even the camera) existed at the time the photograph is supposed to have been taken. To establish that it is an image of an independent moon requires many other assumptions that amount to begging the question.

Methodological solipsism may be a sort of weak agnostic (meaning "missing knowledge") solipsism. It is a consequence of strict epistemological requirements for "Knowledge" (e.g. the requirement that knowledge must be certain). They still entertain the points that any induction is fallible and that we may be brains in vats. However there are those who say that even what we perceive as the brain is actually part of the external world, for it is only through our senses that we can see or feel the mind. There are thoughts, but that's all that's known for certain.

Importantly, they do not intend to conclude that the stronger forms of solipsism are actually true. Methodological solipsists simply emphasize that justifications of an external world must be founded on indisputable facts about their own consciousness. The Methodological solipsist believes that subjective impressions (Empiricism) or innate knowledge (Rationalism) are the sole possible or proper starting point for philosophical construction. Often methodological solipsism is not held as a belief system, but rather used as a thought experiment to assist skepticism (e.g. Descartes' cartesian skepticism).

Philosophers try to build knowledge on more than an inference or analogy. The failure of Descartes' epistemological enterprise brought to popularity the idea that all certain knowledge may go no further than "I think; therefore I exist" without providing any real details about the nature of the "I" that has been proven to exist.

The theory of solipsism also merits close examination because it relates to three widely held philosophical presuppositions, each itself fundamental and wide-ranging in importance:

  1. My most certain knowledge is the content of my own mind—my thoughts, experiences, affects, etc.
  2. There is no conceptual or logically necessary link between mental and physical—between, say, the occurrence of certain conscious experience or mental states and the 'possession' and behavioral dispositions of a 'body' of a particular kind (see the brain in a vat).
  3. The experience of a given person is necessarily private to that person.
Much of the point of the Sophists was to show that "objective" knowledge was a literal impossibility. (See also comments credited to Protagoras of Abdera).

Descartes

The foundations of solipsism are in turn the foundations of the view that the individual's understanding of any and all psychological concepts (thinking, willing, perceiving, etc.) is accomplished by making analogy with his or her own mental states; i.e., by abstraction from inner experience. And this view, or some variant of it, has been influential in philosophy since Descartes elevated the search for incontrovertible certainty to the status of the primary goal of epistemology, whilst also elevating epistemology to "first philosophy".
Epistemology(ɨˌpɪstɨˈmɒlədʒi/ from Greek ἐπιστήμη, epistēmē, meaning "knowledge, understanding", and λόγος, logos, meaning "study of") is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge and is also referred to as "theory of knowledge". It questions what knowledge is and how it can be acquired, and the extent to which knowledge pertinent to any given subject or entity can be acquired. Much of the debate in this field has focused on the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such as truth, belief, and justification. The term "epistemology" was introduced by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier (1808–1864).

Berkeley

George Berkeley's arguments against materialism in favor of idealism provide the solipsist with a number of arguments not found in Descartes. While the latter defends ontological dualism, thus accepting the existence of a material world (res extensa) as well as immaterial minds (res cogitans) and God, Berkeley denies the existence of matter but not minds, of which God is one.

Psychology and psychiatry

Solipsism is often introduced in the context of relating it to pathological psychological conditions.

Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud stated that other minds are not known, but only inferred to exist. He stated:

"consciousness makes each of us aware only of his own states of mind, that other people, too, possess a consciousness is an inference which we draw by analogy from their observable utterances and actions, in order to make this behavior of theirs intelligible to us."
(It would no doubt be psychologically more correct to put it in this way: that without any special reflection we attribute to everyone else our own constitution and therefore our consciousness as well, and that this identification is a sine qua non of understanding). 

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Malachi (NRSV) - Biblia.com

Malachi
1

An oracle.


The word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.a



Israel Preferred to Edom

2 I have loved you, says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” Is not Esau Jacob’s brother? says the Lord. Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but I have hated Esau; I have made his hill country a desolation and his heritage a desert for jackals. 4 If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says: They may build, but I will tear down, until they are called the wicked country, the people with whom the Lord is angry forever. 5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the borders of Israel!” 
Corruption of the Priesthood

6 A son honors his father, and servants their master. If then I am a father, where is the honor due me? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. You say, “How have we despised your name?” 7 By offering polluted food on my altar. And you say, “How have we polluted it?”b By thinking that the Lord’s table may be despised. 8 When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not wrong? Try presenting that to your governor; will he be pleased with you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts. 9 And now implore the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. The fault is yours. Will he show favor to any of you? says the Lord of hosts. 10 Oh, that someone among you would shut the templec doors, so that you would not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hands. 11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. 12 But you profane it when you say that the Lord’s table is polluted, and the food for itd may be despised. 13 “What a weariness this is,” you say, and you sniff at me,e says the Lord of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the Lord. 14 Cursed be the cheat who has a male in the flock and vows to give it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished; for I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is reverenced among the nations.


"Some 
say that one-sided love is better than none, 
but 


like half a loaf of bread, it is likely to grow 
hard and moldy sooner."


2 And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2 If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse on you and I will curse your blessings; indeed I have already cursed them,a because you do not lay it to heart. 3 I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and I will put you out of my presence.b
4 Know, then, that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may hold, says the Lord of hosts. 5 My covenant with him was a covenant of life and well-being, which I gave him; this called for reverence, and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in integrity and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. 8 But you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in your instruction.


in·iq·ui·ty


iˈnikwitē

Immoral or grossly unfair behavior







Tuesday, July 8, 2014

The Imagination of Jesus of Nazareth, Albert Einstein, and Martin Luther King: Maybe It Might Have Been Better Had They Never Lived?









14 comments








William R. Conley
Yesterday 11:45 PM
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So true
What we think can just as easy became real








Nikola Kokkinos
2:00 AM
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I believe in intuition and imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating process, giving birth to evolution. It is strictly speaking, areal factor in scientific research








Akshay Kumar
2:13 AM
Be friend with stupid people, feel like genius, all the time.








































Marah Alsaadi
6:08 AM
Yes sure and i think that there should be aknowledge first then it will help us to have imagination some times ...
























Pabitra Kr Das
11:09 AM
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True.....

I always imagined myself in a spaceship in distant future, sailing the uncharted territories of space...








IOANA Datcu
5:50 PM

One can not separate them, Mr.  Einstein








IOANA Datcu
5:51 PM

Imagination is limited without knowledge.








Jim Ed Avery
5:59 PM
But even Einstein  still failed the same as M.L.K. and Jesus failed in spite of how hard they tried explaining these epiphanies of theirs, as they related to the tragic nature of the human species, inspiring them to to be the person we only know they eventually became.  The only difference between the three of them,  is that one of them unintentionally with the use of his imagination figured out a way turning a hypothetical already being discussed within the science community into an equation that was just way too simple enough making it possible for those within the  human species just as knowledgeable and imaginative as Einstein  in their own rights, but of the wrong kind.

So I pose a question to you without waiting for the answers:

What's the difference between a crazy man, an angry man, and a genius?

A crazy man could find no one willing to let him finish telling them of an epiphany he thought extremely important enough,  just could not give it a break.  Eventually he burns down his house with him still in it;  thought it was laughing at him instead of with him.   But how would we possibly know this when no one would let him finish telling them an epiphany of empending doom?

An angry man is finding no one willing to hear the whole story..  But...eventually  finds a way getting your attention.  He burns down your house with you still in it/maybe the wrong house.    But it would not matter who it was in this house as he will plead...and rightfully so ... "not guilty."  Sometimes a man's  gotta do what a man's gotta do....SACRIFICE THEMSELVES.  Just as easily  a woman as well.   "YOU DO NOT CONCLUDE UNTIL UNDERSTANDING.  Once understanding...YOU DO NOT JUDGE!"

A genius will be the one getting all the credit for the building of an Atomic Bomb...and the burning down of houses on a massive scale.  But the discovery that a bomb of this magnitude could  theoretically also be possible,  along with many other scientific breakthrough related to Einstein's equation  of E=mc2,  was someone elses;  the thought of a bomb never occurring to Einstein until pointed out to him by another scientist.

  In 1939, a group of Hungarian scientists that included émigré physicist Leó Szilárd attempted to alert Washington of ongoing Nazi atomic bomb research. The group's warnings were discounted. Einstein and Szilárd, along with other refugees such as Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, "regarded it as their responsibility to alert Americans to the possibility that German scientists might win the race to build an atomic bomb, and to warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon." On July 12, 1939, a few months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, Szilárd and Wigner visited Einstein and they explained the possibility of atomic bombs, to which pacifist Einstein replied: Daran habe ich gar nicht gedacht ("I had not thought of that at all"). Einstein was persuaded to lend his prestige by writing a letter with Szilárd to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alert him of the possibility. The letter also recommended that the U.S. government pay attention to and become directly involved in uranium research and associated chain reaction research.

The letter is believed to be "arguably the key stimulus for the U.S. adoption of serious investigations into nuclear weapons on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II". In addition to the letter, Einstein used his connections with the Belgian Royal Family and the Belgian queen mother to get access with a personal envoy to the White House's Oval Office. President Roosevelt could not take the risk of allowing Hitler to possess atomic bombs first. As a result of Einstein's letter and his meetings with Roosevelt, the U.S. entered the "race" to develop the bomb, drawing on its "immense material, financial, and scientific resources" to initiate the Manhattan Project. It became the only country to successfully develop an atomic bomb during World War II.

For Einstein, "war was a disease ... [and] he called for resistance to war." By signing the letter to Roosevelt he went against his pacifist principles. In 1954, a year before his death, Einstein said to his old friend, Linus Pauling, "I made one great mistake in my life—when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification—the danger that the Germans would make them ..."

Although the atomic bomb is his biggest regret and still yet  being justifictions that the Germans might be close to producing one themselves; can't help but find it amusing how the Germans got so close so quickly to producing an Atomic bomb when the Jews responsible, and not just Einstein,  where fleeing Germany elsewhere with the imaginative skills responsible for the knowledge  eventually accumulating into the production of an Atomic bomb...  with the help of the U.S. entering the "race" to develop the bomb, drawing on its "immense material, financial, and scientific resources" to initiate the Manhattan Project. It became the only country to successfully develop an atomic bomb during World War II.

Then I come across the following regarding Einstein view on religion:

Einstein was then asked to what extent he was influenced by Christianity. "As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."   Einstein was then asked if he accepted the historical existence of Jesus, to which he replied, "Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."

He stressed however in a conversation with William Hermanns that, "I seriously doubt that Jesus himself said that he was God, for he was too much a Jew to violate that great commandment: Hear O Israel, the Eternal is our God and He is one!' and not two or three." Einstein lamented, "Sometimes I think it would have been better if Jesus had never lived. No name was so abused for the sake of power!" Nevertheless, he also expressed his belief that "if one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity.

Could it be possible that it might have been better if Einstein and M.L.K. had never lived as well...also.

Or just Einstein, as he was the one who got to live long enough to be given the Nobel Peace Prize for his discovery in theoretical physics; precursor to the cellphone technology  responsible for even another kind of mass destruction of the social kind rather  than the good it could have been.

I'm going to focus, instead, on what all three (Jesus, M.L.K. and Einstein) have in common:

That Jesus' Life Story as it is interpreted by the mob mentality brains of Christians living today's world nothing but a "bothced"cruxifixion; the Christians having turned his life story into a blank check...the gift that keeps on giving without  con$ent by Jesus.

Martin Luther King had gotten it right as well, although only known for his civil rights activism for African-Americans when in fact it was Civil Rights for all actually.  At the time of his assasination, his speeches had already began their drifts away from the black cause to that of suffering by the poor in general;  in effect, still helping the black cause mostly.

The quality of a good leader is one able disappointing his own people at  rate they can absorb.

And this takes a lot of imagination to accomplish.

LOTS!



kenza moumou 
 8:18 AM 1

 Reply it is true that there is a difference between knowledges and intelligence


aruqe seikh 
 10:10 AM

 Ya imagination is d true sign of intelligence...


Jim Ed Avery 3:04 PM

 While morality is shaped by one's worldview; one's intent shapes reality. Knowledge is the sum total of what one knows objectively. And this includes worldliness and common sense; not just book smarts.

 Intelligence is how efficiently one triangulates within their knowledge range accumulating new knowledge; but knowledge overall that is already known by someone. This is an active process requiring effort. Although the skills for intelligence can be taught through formal education, experience can be nature's cruel way of giving the test first; followed by it's lessons. Those who survive the experience, have the extra incentive making the efforts learning the skills. 

 Sometimes, one does not realized, although extremely knowledgeable, intelligence has stalled; even if only becoming lazy due to less need in order surviving. We call these people "arrogant" and/or "obtuse". 

Sometimes we call people "stupid", when for reasons only known to them, may actually have been conscientious efforts at surviving; one requiring imagination known as denial. Imagination, also, is a learned skill; one requiring leisure time without distractions, developing over time through use and practice, even, if unintentional due to isolation. 

 As one's intent shapes reality; the other end of the same stick is denial. The imaginations eventually leading the U.S. to developing the first Atomic bomb, also the same imaginations ending up bringing down the two towers of our World Trade Center. 

 The same as there must first be a common interest before there is a conflict, there must first be something different before there can be an advantage; therefore, imagination nothing more than a tool one develops surviving no less than denial helped accomplish same effect. 

 It's beginning to appear to me, in the end after all is said and done: 
everything is assumption based...even...E=mc2. 

 There is no such thing as right and wrong... or... good and evil; only the by-products of circumstance. Morality is nothing obligated; only our own consciousness we must reconcile with effort. Which we never will until too late. 

We're doomed.

It is true! 

 What goes up must come down...
eventually. 

 Like spectrum of light... 
no one is going anywhere without anyone.

 IOANA Datcu 
 5:02 PM

 Jim, I was just about to agree with you since you have many good points. What changed my mind is your denial of the only sure principle of our existence: the duality. Nothing is happening in the universe without the existence of its opposite. One phenomenon creates its opposite. We are not doomed, regardless of the extremism, greed, meanness, violence, we experience in our time. All of these ugly traits create much goodness somewhere, in the same time.

 Jim Ed Avery 6:49 PM

 I am unable disagreeing with anything you've just said; except, your certainty of "duality"...the only sure principle of our existence. As this is assumption based, I'm still throwing my lot in with Spinoza and Einstein. Spinoza contends that "Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature") is a being of infinitely many attributes, of which thought and extension are two. His account of the nature of reality, then, seems to treat the physical and mental worlds as intertwined, causally related, and deriving from the same substance. Spinoza describes how the human mind is affected by both mental and physical factors. He directly contests dualism.

 But it is strange how I happened upon both Spinoza and Kurt Godel, most especially Kurt Godel, due to interests on a personal level, I couldn't help but feel was growing between me and Albert Einstein. And all this started out, with me only using the Internet and Google's Search Engine, trying to find a way of killing God.

 At least that word anyway, as I see it the only possible way attempting another reset in the language of how we discuss God and Politics. "

Albert Einstein was also living at Princeton during this time. Gödel and Einstein subsequently developed a strong friendship, and were known to take long walks together to and from the Institute for Advanced Study. The nature of their conversations was a mystery to the other Institute members. Economist Oskar Morgenstern recounts that toward the end of his life Einstein confided that his "own work no longer meant much, that he came to the Institute merely ... to have the privilege of walking home with Gödel".

 "I JUST GOTTA BELIEVE IN SOMETHING! 
 I JUST GOTTA!"

 As this is my mother I'm no longer speaking with because of me being "METHODIST FAG THE POLITICAL CATALYST" as well as "SIMPLY JIM: One PEARL, Total PIG, Anti-Christ" and many others monikers I've given myself; following the breadcrumbs nature has laid out for me, 
OF COURSE, 
I veered off into reading what Wikipedia had to say about Godel. This just sounded way too homoerotic for me not too. It does not have to be sex physically to be the same thing. 
 And I discovered he died on January 14, having starved himself to death due to paranoia. 

 January 14, 1962 is my birth date.

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 TAO~g(Pale 6!9 Dot)d~OG

 As...
 Jesus is supposedly also a capricorn the same as me,
 and I'm a veterinarian who considers himself a cat person; 
 Me and Jesus 
get to be both half goat and half catfish. 
Another example of the trinity being nothing but a language tool 
of 
2 substantive and 1 unsubstantive 
or 
2 unsubstantive and 1 substantive.

 + 

 ~g(0)d~ 

 As my definition of God nothing more than the sum of all of us having a face like that of a digital clock changing with every second;  constantly new departures and arrivals:
 God's spelling 
changes to a form of enumeration with the use of "Zero be the Hero" as opposed to "No God" 
while 
still remaining a real number.

 + 

 E=mc3 

 The internet is the closest we are ever getting to knowing the mind of God.
With everyone uploading all their personal informations and thoughts, 
plus 
dead people coming back to life through websites like Wikipedia and through Fan Pages like this one, 
plus
 even through characters such as Dr. Seuss' Lorax taking on life themselves just by reason of being impressionable; 
we have entered a new level/realm where money and plastic have taken on lives of their own if able 
earning 
income much more than me within their own rights.

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U=Pragmatic Competence

 If nothing's a miracle once we know it's possible; therefore then, there is no such thing as artificial life as we know it can be recreated out of dust and water with the use of light as the source of energy due to E=mc2. The universe itself is a life within it's own right; even if life no longer existing as we know it. We just know it possible to start all over again....sometime eventually...as god is the eternal and not two or three. 

 When I said we're doomed, 
I was just saying we will destroy ourselves/yourself back to the original elements before our sun does it automatically billions of years from now.  

But otherwise we go no where. 

The universe is a great recycler of it's resources; 
 but 
not the souls nothing more than energy imprinted in brain matter with the use 
of 
E=mc2 
no differently than a hardware(s) with software(s) uploaded to them.


IOANA Datcu
Yesterday 7:55 PM
 
Reply
 
Dear Jim, you are a very interesting man. I agree with your perception of God . I like to read about Godel first. I'll come back to you.