A Philosophical Work in Progress VIII

One may be able to claim that the consciousness/mind/manual mode is bounded to the body/subconsciousness/automatic mode of this particular being. But there appears to be a kind of freedom for the body from whatever principle governs matter. For Newton stated that an object in motion or rest will stay as such unless acted upon by an external force, I believe. Biological beings move without any apparent external force acting upon them. This is freedom from physics in a sense, but the body itself makes the limit of that freedom known by use of pain it seems.

The body is not outside of physics. It is the awareness of itself, i.e. a point’s ability to choose when to stop/go and its direction based on some rules perhaps, that frees it from inertia. However, being that a being can not merely stop being a being, the body is constantly being bombarded by forces; it itself is an amalgamation of forces. Thus, in a sense, the body is not free to stop, since stopping is death and decay. So it seems the body seeks solace in the mind which seeks solace in certain aspects of the world. I would perhaps say i seek my own solace in philosophy, but that conscious claim is merely one part of my subconscious.

Perhaps the body intends to keep the mind bounded to this place. Because there’s someplace better, worst, or nothingness beyond existence, one that exist can not be sure. Though the consciousness controls the body, it doesn’t control every part of the body. I can’t directly turn off and on my heartbeat, visual system, audio system etc.; it can only be done indirectly, e.g. through blinking, covering one’s ears, perhaps one can speed up and slow down one’s heartbeat. One can not directly perceive how the brain motion, i.e. neurons, translate into mental actions, at least not in a “the brain is telling the mind everything the body is doing and why it is doing it by means of a social language.” The subconsciousness, i.e. some system that runs in the background of consciousness, seems necessary for the body to function without the apparent feeling of constant labor on the consciousness. But it is not only that I feel no labor from some action, I also feel no control. Consciousness still feels any stress on systems it doesn’t have the power to freely manipulate.

Though the mind contains all the information one has interacted with up till now, the conscious only has access to whatever it needs and can get access to at a given time. The subconscious seems to process the bodies condition and stored information, which is a lot of information given the bodies chemical structure and constant operation, and simplifies it into a consciousness, it seems. The automatic aspect of the mind is perhaps constantly adding and changing data, while the manual mind merely changes and selects data. For no one adds anything new to the world, rather we all bring existing objects together. What a mind chooses to do depends on what it believes is possible in the world, and what it believes depends on how it interprets the information it receives. If the consciousness is a simplification of the subconsciousness, how does the subconsciousness decide what information is most significant? Perhaps the subconsciousness uses hierarchical categorization for notions, which could be a result of placing one’s attractions higher than one’s repulsions.

Philosophy for itself appears to contradict philosophy for the good and virtuous, in that one must possess preferences for the world to be a particular way, which appears to conflict knowing the world qua world. Such may only be the mark of the mind as a mere observer of the world, in contrast to the mind as a particular participant in it; or simply put, one’s perceived philosophical place in existence. For whether the mind is free and thus has the dilemma of what to do with freedom, or it is destine but unable to perceive the future, there seems to be a negative feeling associated with attaching necessity to choose. Ethically a least action principle is perhaps the best option if one does not possess certainty in action, but aesthetically something analogous to minimalism is perhaps the least appealing or interesting, minimalism being whatever nothingness would appear to be.

Pwip XXXI

Ethics doesn’t necessarily coerce one to accept the seemingly necessary conditions of moral living. I imagine the emotional contradictions ethics would maintain as an explicit form would be as followed. It would be positively affected when one is happy to follow the imperative; and negatively affected when one dislikes one’s lot. There is no actual force ethics can apply on the self beyond the physics or beings aware of its existence. And the existence of a true rational moral is determined by domains and the existence of professionals. One may perhaps consider the various relations that manifest themselves in each domain as politics. Various connections generate a number of layers in a hierarchy; and rules aren’t always explicit, much less strategies. And immoral individuals aren’t against taking advantage of the lack of explicity in ethics.

Though metaphysics and ethics are related, and a lack of science can be replaced with a metaphysical knowledge base, their collaboration can lead to harm. The problem is metaphysics (particularly non-scientific metaphysics) is highly speculative, while ethics becomes less nebulous as one interacts with the world and learns one’s own traits. Metaphysics starts at science’s boundary, which could also be the boundary of one’s knowledge; or it is one’s whole view of the world. The ability to be kind and empathetic is an ability of high level brain function, which can be studied by science. The law shouldn’t appeal to metaphysical notions for ethical reasoning, because the nature of metaphysics is curious, and not certain. Ethics may appear metaphysical because it maintains philosophical and dynamic dilemmas that aren’t simple to solve without passing some knowledge threshold.

Many ethical conflicts are based on the subjectivity not wanting to give control to the objective ethics, as true ethics may find the power unjustified and take it. Yet, proof of an ethical principle is no simply matter, as it requires correct reasoning in one’s self and the ability to bring others to that reasoning. A strategy to avoid the objective ethics could be to understand the ethical reasoning and know its correct, yet still reject its rule on psychological grounds, where one may not follow the rule because they lack the motive or ability to deny their own nature which maybe innately unethical. Physics will not stop the body’s actions that obey its laws, its laws intersecting and completely being separate from the laws of ethics.

Typical use of metaphysics in ethics is religion or theology, where individuals apply aesthetic reasoning to existence in general and ethics in particular. Religions have various properties, one is they all seem to possess the essential values for life. The aesthetic reasoning is easier to comprehend than science as a whole. Individuals naturally come to words, books, and a narrative. These things are natural for humans, but metaphysical skepticism and awkwardness appears more philosophically appropriate. Religion presents individuals with explicit ethical rules and ontological truths, completing the individual’s epistemology. Logic seemingly necessitates negation as a part of the completion of its proof, paradoxically achieving completeness through incompleteness. Metaphysical certainty is more difficult than practical certainty because there’s no constant reaffirmation by something like the present moment or the strongest feeling/sense.

The minds relation to the world and the others may manifest different identities, as the addition or negation of an object or individual changes the boundaries of actions. Considering the conditions and limitations of the planet and abilities of others, one may also consider one’s boundaries. Metaphysics is utilized in the absolute past or absolute future, assuming such things exist. The not so far future and the far future appear to have probabilities based on one’s information set. The temporally present world maintains a balance similar to a mathematical equation. But as the expression of anything must come in an aesthetic form, art appears also necessary. It maybe a question as to which expressions are best? But as long as truth can be expressed in the language, the arbitrariness of the language may not matter.