Branches of Metaphysics

In addition to ontology, there are several other traditional branches of metaphysics, including:

1. Cosmology: which is the study of the nature and origin of the universe as a whole, and includes questions about the nature of time, space, causality, and the beginning of the universe.
2. Teleology: which is the study of purpose, design, and goal-directedness in the universe, and includes questions about whether there is a purpose to existence and whether things are moving towards a specific end.
3. Philosophy of mind: which is the study of the nature of the mind and its relation to the body, and includes questions about consciousness, mental states, and the relationship between mental and physical phenomena.
4. Philosophy of science: which is the study of the nature of scientific knowledge, and includes questions about the scientific method, the relationship between theory and observation, and the nature of scientific explanations.
5. Epistemology: which is the study of knowledge, belief, and justification, and includes questions about the nature of truth, the sources of knowledge, and the criteria for justified belief.
6. Axiology: which is the study of value, and includes questions about the nature of ethics, aesthetics, and other normative domains.

These branches of metaphysics all deal with fundamental questions about the nature of the world and our place in it, and are closely interconnected with one another.
There are other branches of metaphysics that are sometimes recognized in addition to the ones mentioned earlier, including:

1. Ontotheology: which is the study of the relationship between ontology and theology, and includes questions about the existence and nature of God or other divine or spiritual entities.
2. Metaphilosophy: which is the study of the nature and methodology of philosophy itself, and includes questions about the aims, methods, and limitations of philosophical inquiry.
3. Metaphysics of modality: which is the study of the nature of possibility and necessity, and includes questions about the relationship between possible worlds, counterfactuals, and the laws of nature.
4. Metaphysics of time: which is the study of the nature of time and temporal existence, and includes questions about the nature of the present moment, the direction of time, and the possibility of time travel.
5. Metaphysics of causation: which is the study of the nature of causation and the relationship between cause and effect, and includes questions about the role of causation in scientific explanation and our understanding of the world.
6. Metaphysics of free will: which is the study of the nature of human agency, and includes questions about the relationship between free will and determinism, the existence of moral responsibility, and the nature of intentional action.
7. Metaphysics of properties: which is the study of the nature of properties and their role in ontology, and includes questions about the relationship between properties and objects, the nature of causal powers, and the existence of emergent properties.
8. Metaphysics of identity: which is the study of the nature of identity and the conditions under which two things can be said to be identical, and includes questions about the relationship between identity and change, the nature of personal identity, and the problem of the ship of Theseus.
9. Metaphysics of possibility: which is the study of the nature of possibility and the relationship between the possible and the actual, and includes questions about the ontological status of possible worlds, the nature of counterfactuals, and the relationship between possibility and necessity.
10. Metaphysics of mind-body problem: which is the study of the nature of the relationship between the mind and the body, and includes questions about the nature of consciousness, the relationship between mental states and brain states, and the possibility of mental causation.
11. Metaphysics of universals: which is the study of the nature of abstract entities such as properties, relations, and concepts, and includes questions about the relationship between universals and particulars, the existence of abstract entities, and the problem of universals.
12. Metaphysics of mathematics: which is the study of the nature and ontology of mathematical objects, and includes questions about the existence of abstract mathematical entities, the relationship between mathematics and physical reality, and the nature of mathematical truth.
13. Metaphysics of language: which is the study of the relationship between language and reality, and includes questions about the nature of meaning, reference, and truth in language, as well as the relationship between language and thought.
14. Metaphysics of values: which is the study of the nature of value and moral properties, and includes questions about the nature of goodness, rightness, and moral obligation, as well as the relationship between moral values and other normative properties.
15. Metaphysics of social reality: which is the study of the nature of social entities and their relationship to the physical world, and includes questions about the nature of institutions, laws, and social norms, as well as the relationship between social reality and individual agency.
16. Metaphysics of science fiction: which is a subfield of metaphysics that explores the philosophical questions raised by works of science fiction, including questions about the nature of time travel, artificial intelligence, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. These are just a few examples of other branches of metaphysics that are sometimes recognized. Each branch of metaphysics focuses on a particular set of questions and issues within the broader field of metaphysics, and together they provide a comprehensive framework for understanding the nature of reality and our place in it.

How definite descriptions improve critical thinking

Testing chatGPT and thought this collection of ideas was helpful. There are many questions to explore with this technology.

In symbolic logic, a definite description is a phrase of the form "the X" where X is a property or a set of properties. For example, "the tallest building" or "the prime numbers" are definite descriptions. The use of definite descriptions allows us to talk about unique objects or sets of objects, such as a specific building or a particular set of numbers, in a formal and precise way.

Here is an example of a definite description being used in symbolic logic:

Suppose we want to say that the capital city of France is Paris. We could express this statement using the definite description "the capital city of France" as follows:

Let C be the capital city of France. Therefore, C = Paris.

In this example, "the capital city of France" is a definite description that refers to a unique object, namely the city that is the capital of France. The statement "C = Paris" asserts that this unique object is in fact Paris. This allows us to make a precise and formal statement about the capital city of France using the symbolic language of logic.

Definite descriptions are often used in logical arguments to make precise and formal statements about unique objects or sets of objects. This can help improve critical thinking in several ways.

First, using definite descriptions allows us to be more precise and clear in our reasoning and arguments. This can help us avoid confusion or misunderstandings, and make it easier for others to follow our line of thinking.

Second, using definite descriptions forces us to be more precise and explicit in our assumptions and premises. In order to use a definite description, we need to clearly specify the properties that define the unique object or set of objects we are talking about. This can help us identify any assumptions or implicit premises in our arguments, and make sure they are stated explicitly and clearly.

Third, using definite descriptions can help us evaluate the validity of an argument by examining the relationship between the premises and the conclusion. In a logical argument that uses definite descriptions, the premises must be sufficient to support the conclusion. If the premises do not logically entail the conclusion, then the argument is not valid. This can help us improve our critical thinking skills by encouraging us to carefully evaluate the logical structure of an argument.

Here are some examples of how using definite descriptions can improve critical thinking in the ways described above:

1. Precise and clear reasoning:

Suppose we are having a discussion about the tallest building in the world. Without using definite descriptions, our conversation might go something like this:

Person 1: I heard that the tallest building in the world is in Dubai.

Person 2: No, I heard it's in Shanghai.

Person 1: But I read an article that said it's in Dubai.

Person 2: Well, I saw a documentary that said it's in Shanghai.

In this conversation, there is a lot of confusion and disagreement because it is not clear which building we are talking about. By using a definite description, we can be more precise and clear in our reasoning:

Person 1: I heard that the building with the highest architectural height is in Dubai.

Person 2: No, I heard that the building with the highest occupied floor is in Shanghai.

Person 1: Ah, I see what you're saying. So they are different buildings with different records.

Person 2: That's right.

In this revised conversation, the use of definite descriptions ("the building with the highest architectural height" and "the building with the highest occupied floor") helps us avoid confusion and have a more productive conversation.

2. Precise and explicit assumptions and premises:

Suppose we are trying to prove that all prime numbers are odd. Without using definite descriptions, our proof might go something like this:

Proof:

Let P be a prime number.
P is not even, because if it were, it could be divided by 2.
Therefore, P is odd.

In this proof, the second step is not explicitly stated, so it is not clear what the proof is based on. By using a definite description, we can be more precise and explicit in our assumptions and premises:

Proof:

Let P be a prime number.
Let E be the set of even numbers.
P is not an element of E, because if it were, it could be divided by 2.
Therefore, P is odd.

In this revised proof, the use of definite descriptions ("the set of even numbers" and "an element of E") helps us make our assumptions and premises explicit and clear.

3. Valid logical structure:

Suppose we are trying to prove that all triangles have three sides. Without using definite descriptions, our proof might go something like this:

Proof:

Let T be a triangle.
T has three sides.
Therefore, all triangles have three sides.

In this proof, the second step does not logically follow from the first step, so the argument is not valid. By using a definite description, we can make the logical structure of the argument more clear:

Proof:

Let T be a triangle.
Let S be the set of polygons with three sides.
T is an element of S.
Therefore, all triangles have three sides.

In this revised proof, the use of definite descriptions ("the set of polygons with three sides" and "an element of S") helps us make the logical structure of the argument more clear and valid.

On the conflict between omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence

It is simply easier to reason without employing a god, especially a god with the omni-powers. Such a being wreaks havoc on the foundations of logic. Most people don’t study formal logic. They know of certain rules from their observations of natural language, but it is always a swirl of thoughts if we utilize no systemization. Add this to the fact that belief in a god isn’t difficult given certain circumstances (indoctrination, tragedy, ignorance, etc.).

Unfortunately, one can’t prove a negative. I can only define the terms and attempt to show how they disagree.

Omniscience means you have all knowledge, a complete epistemology.

Perhaps some may ask where omnipresence is. Well, it is contained in omniscience. There’s no difference between knowing everything and seeing everything, though seeing all differs from knowing all. The human must use time to utilize knowledge. Our observation of the present becomes a record of the past that we use to predict the future. Knowledge also uses truth, as the connections between various ideas and facts have to be determined as kept or thrown.

As one could guess, an omniscient being simply knows the future. How can one know the future before it has occurred? You could be the one creating everything in the space. Of course, how can one know one’s creation is working without running it, I don’t know. To test the creation is to lack confidence in one's omniscience, but to not test the creation is to not have proof of one’s absolute correctness. The internal conflicts of omniscience would be claimed to be solved by omniscience. But our mortal brains need proof for claims. All honorable things are willing to pass through logic, surely omniscience would use truth's greatest tool!

Omnipotence means you have the power to do anything, full control over ontology.

The word "omnipotence" means that you have the power to do anything, including fully change your mind about things. In other words, if an omnipotent being wanted to destroy the Earth and all of humanity with a single thought, it could. Omnipotence is also defined as "omnipotence" in philosophy or theology; thus, there are two types of divine omnipotence: one which is limited (or not unlimited) and another which is unlimited (or not limited). Of course, a true god would have to have unlimited power.

What more can be said about a being that can do anything? Words are meaningless in the face of such power.

Omnibenevolence means you are perfectly good, never stray from the path of ethics.

Omnibenevolence is the belief that you are perfectly good, meaning that your actions always result in goodness. It is difficult to be good in nature. The more knowledge you gain, the more responsibility is expected from you. One has to be unselfish and want the happiness of the other for the sake of the other. One has to study the other and the world to provide optimal service. However, ethics doesn’t ask that we needlessly suffer for others who wouldn’t suffer for us. A problem so complex for a human ought to be nothing for a god.

Some may claim relativity for ethics. They may appeal to culture and the various things people would consider good. Unfortunately, there are no perfectly ethical cultures. This forces one to investigate every culture and pick out those parts that are ethical. An omnibenevolent being would know all the correct actions, but this is merely knowing all the win-win situations.

A god with all three properties cannot exist.

If god is omniscient, he can know everything that has happened and will happen. He could also foresee every possible outcome of any decision or event in the future, which means that he could have known what was going to happen before it happened. If god is omnipotent, then he has unlimited power over all things: himself included! This means that if there were some event or situation where his actions were required (like sending someone away from Jesus), then he could use his own power to make it happen with no help from anyone else. But if we say “God cannot do this because…” then we're saying something about our beliefs about how things work around here; not necessarily facts about reality itself!

The first thing to note is that a god with all three properties cannot exist. A god with omniscience knows everything and therefore has no need for anything else; hence it would be impossible for such a being to be omnipotent. Omnipotence means having the ability to do anything that can be done in principle (for example, create something out of nothing). But if you aren't able to create something out of nothing then how could your power not be limited and restricted?

Similarly, if your power is limited by its own nature then what need does it have for benevolence? If there are limits on how much good or bad someone else can do before they're punished by fate itself—which seems like an awfully cruel way of doing things—then why bother helping them at all?

Omnibenevolence means having good intentions toward others, even though you might not like their behavior or think they should change their ways. If you had no reason to feel bad about yourself (and therefore didn't care about how other people felt), then why would it matter if others did?

Omniscience is a property that would make a god all-knowing. If god were omniscient, he would know everything there is to know about everything, including you and me. But this would conflict with the idea that god is omnipotent because if he could do anything in the universe then it would be impossible for anything else to exist (because by definition if something exists then it cannot be nothing). And if god has all power within himself, then he wouldn’t be able to create anything new.

If such omniscience were possible, then there would be no need for any kind of punishment or reward system because everything would already have been decided by fate itself (which is also impossible since fate doesn't exist). This also means that anything that happens after death couldn't happen at all since there wouldn't be anything else left besides an empty void where nothing exists anymore except perhaps some vague notion about possibly existing beings like ourselves who might exist in some form after death but not necessarily us ourselves!

If a god exists, then it must be omnipotent and omniscient. But if a god exists, then we can't be sure that he's omnibenevolent. If a god is omnibenevolent, then he would want us all to be happy; but if he wanted us all to be happy and didn't have any control over our actions or emotions (which many people believe), then how could one person's happiness affect another?

These two ideas contradict each other: either we're not responsible for our own actions or emotions—or else our personal suffering affects everyone else around us unavoidably. Either way, this contradiction proves that no one can know whether god exists without knowing something else first: namely whether there are other minds in the universe besides their own.

There are three ways for a god to exist. First, the god could be omniscient and omnipotent—that is, it would know everything about the world and control everything in it. Second, the god could be omnibenevolent—that is, it would care about everyone equally and want everyone to live happily in this world. Thirdly (and finally), we can imagine a god who doesn't have any of these properties: instead of knowing everything or caring about every single person equally or even existing at all!

Now let's consider what happens if we combine these three properties together into one entity: our god-like being would know everything there is to know about everything in existence without ever having experienced anything himself which means he wouldn't have any personal knowledge or experience related specifically towards his own life because he experienced nothing personally before creating each individual human being out of nothing but dust! So how does such an entity even begin considering itself? How could anyone possibly conceive such an idea?

Conclusion

What is the point of giving up one’s logical reasoning for the false belief in a god? We do much waste and suffering in the name of deities who should be universes unto themselves. It would be an abusive relationship if god were real. Logic shows that a god with the omni-powers is absurd. Letting go of false propositions will help one organize one’s epistemology, creating more true connections, and leading to better predictions.

PWIP 40

The relationship between the object, other, and self changes when moving through philosophical domains. For ontology, all that exist is one object, there are no distinctions between the three. Some event brings us to the realization that we have been made other to the totality of existence. It is a calculation made by the brain. We discover the notion of otherness that was somewhere possible. One finds one’s self in the totality as a part. Epistemology perceives distinctions and one can only hope one’s brain is sufficient to understand epistemology.

One can perhaps conceive a self as an other to ontology when pondering on the parts of the ontology that one controls and the parts one does not control, this typically coming in the form of oppositions, e.g. pleasure/pain, gain/loss, positive/negative. Would the self perceive itself as an object apart from the world if it had no conflicts with it? The nihilism of ontology presents a major problem for an object that cares for itself. Ethics places a high value on the self and other selves. Though the hard problem of consciousness presents feelings as something redundant to machines, it appears to be a useful tool in distinguishing the difference between a self and an object. Words and intelligent acts could have the same effect, but considering the history of the collectives of decision-makers, they are likely to consider intelligent nonsentient beings to be of equal value to sophisticated rocks.

The relationship between self, other, and object generates a problem of economics. Individuals own and produce objects. These objects can be exchanged for other objects from others. Individuals desire to avoid losses, thus they will attempt to trade less for more or equal for equal. Any item with the exact same dimensions as another is considered a duplicate of it and can be considered equal. There is no reason in trading an equal with another because it doesn’t change one’s state. The option is to trade lesser for more, which can only be done through deceit from the lesser owner, or sacrifice from the greater owner. One can also trade an object of different dimensionality but equal value. One can give more of a lesser item to compensate for the lower value. If one item is a fraction off from another, pieces of the lesser item can be given if that doesn’t destroy the item's integrity.

Objects have different values depending on time, place, individual, and domain of value. These domains have a specific order of priority in ethics, so objects have a value based on a domain and the domains have particular weights depending on their place in the priority. Ethics appears to weigh the weights as ordered: Objective, functional, universal, collectivistic, individualistic, physical, personal, psychological, aesthetic, subjective.

Kantian politics and virtue psychology don’t appear to have a self as separate from the collective. In relativistic aesthetics and utilitarian mathematics, we see the self manifest itself as a shaper of the world, and a unit, scale, measure, and calculator. There is an objectively optimal state which we call Utopia. Such can only be achieved by intelligent means through physical and psychological force. The ideal or perfection isn’t always obtainable, thus one may settle with what is good enough or functional. Of course, since ethics is only generated between more than one agent, objects/products with universal use are most prized. A cohesive group of individuals, i.e. the collective, have more value than a single individual (assuming all are virtuous). This gives objects that can serve the whole more import than objects that can only serve a part. Obviously, every individual can’t use everything everywhere all the time, nor is any product always appropriate for every task. Physical products take precedent to psychological ones as unembodied objects, i.e. objects with no interaction with reality, have no use. Personal objects pertain to one’s identity and appear to be valued more than merely pleasant or beautiful items. Vice agents have their own weight, which is the subjective, as some objects have a function that lends itself more towards harm.

PWIP 39

Epistemology

The problem the epistemology has with ontology is skepticism. If something is real and exist it can be considered true. The skeptic calls into question the nature of reality. Let us see what something like an exhaustive denial of the devices used to perceive reality looks like. First, it would appear that there must be something real for the skeptic not to fall into absolute ignorance or nihilism. The goal of the skeptic ought to be the truth, not doubt for the end of deception. The awareness of one’s own limitations helps in producing a more accurate orientation in ontology.

The brain in a vat problem is an observation from the skeptic concerning our relationship to the world. The skeptic comes in degrees, being completely against the world’s existence; to partially against the world; to assuming only the world exists. If the world completely doesn’t exist and only the self exists, then we fall into solipsism. If the world is one mind that appears to be many, then idealism appears to be the case. Since the brain in a vat thought experiment uses technology, it makes assumptions about an existing world. The manufactured world of the brain that is in the vat would be equivalent to art or entertainment. Even if it was being used for scientific means, a simulation is an imitation of a thing. The skeptic’s suspicion as to the nature of the world seems to be a consequence of science’s discovery of the brain organ’s limits.

Skeptics seem to think the mind and body hide the truth from the consciousness. It is comparable to those who believe the true essence of the homo sapien is an immaterial soul. Some portion of these individuals see the body as an obstacle to reality. However, the body doesn’t will itself into existence. It is manifested in the world as parts of the world combine to result in what we call ourselves. What about the body fills the skeptic with caution? Though there may be more, we can look at the limits of the senses, the emotion’s effects on rationality, and mental illness. Hearing and seeing have limits on their extent and resolution. Science tells us the eyes are deceiving because they can’t see all the spectrums of light. There’s much weight placed on the visual sense as the main arbiter of truth. This appears contrary to science which confirms its theories by being correct on a prediction. There’s nothing in science that necessitates vision. Geometric ideas can be understood as abstractions or symbols. Our sense of smell and taste can be affected by our moods, the physical relationship between our structure and objects in the world, and the context the self and object are placed in. Our sense of touch appears to tie every other sense together, in that signals need to touch our sense organs to be observed, or the brain needs to generate motions that are equivalent to sense organs being acted upon or touched.

The skeptic may say, at some point, that pleasure and pain are wholly products of the mind. Emotions can have such a large impact on one’s mind that one may be led away from actions one knows are more rational than the ones being taken. This again brings up the hard problem of consciousness, as a robot need not have feelings of this kind of conflict. One may ask if a robot without the feeling would still act as one with the feeling? It does appear that one with the feeling of being alive is of more value than a philosophical zombie, i.e. one who merely acts like they have feelings but don’t actually possess any. However, a philosophical zombie may still prove themself to possess ethical value, e.g. showing their desire to exist, their susceptibility to damage, their gains and losses, etc. The skeptic seems to show feelings both should not exist and are deceptive.

The skeptic may appeal to something like profound schizophrenia and claim no way to know if perceived events are true events. Not only are the senses limited but the biological material may also produce maladaptive brain structures. In this, the hard problem would need to go further than just asking why qualia exist and ask why is it deceptive? Either the maladaptations are accidental and randomly placed, or the biological material generates beings with an intention on the outcomes, or the brain is intentionally deceiving the consciousness, or there is a brain in a vat like situation with greater authority in control of one’s experiences. Beyond this disrupting our ability to perceive true reality, it may also cause one to act in a way that influences the acts of others.

To deny the other the skeptic must also deny history. Like our eyesight, our reasoning has a limit on its extent. Physics can only take us so far back in the past or forward in the future. If we are brains in vats, then the study of nature is the study of a piece of art or entertainment. This would make others unreal objects, but then the truth of one’s world would be solipsism with the World being beyond all of one’s devices, unless an individual in the World cares to communicate truth to the one in the artificial world. The next problem is local evolution. Homo sapiens are multicellular organisms that multiplied from a single cell made from the combination of two cells. These cells themselves are made from chemicals combined in a particular way. This fact is gotten from others, being that it can’t be observed by the self as the self goes through the process of birth. Assuming the other is real and we are in the World, we may all be suffering from the same hallucinations. Others may have different experiences from what was thought to be the same content. Combining the deception of the senses, the unreliability of rationality, and the perplexity of mental illness the skeptic claims the world hasn’t been parsed. If the skeptic falls into idealism, they may say that freeing one’s self from the body will return one to the greater mind that may know the Truth.

There is a limit on knowledge that results from our physical limitations. Complex ideas don’t appear innate to the mind but must be learned. Language appears to go beyond physical limits. Though concepts like a square circle or the wave/particle duality are difficult to recreate as a visual imitation, they can still be instantiated as linguistic objects which correlate with real or impossible existence. Falsehood much like nonexistence has a paradoxical relationship with existence. Again, the skeptic ought to assume some truth is possible, or they would fall into total ignorance. This truth ought to be communicable, since symbols appear to be able to hold abstractions, and the world (assuming it is real) should be less abstract than the totality of what abstraction can contain. Scientists rely on technical tools and language made specifically for understanding particular parts of reality. Thus senses are replaced with technology and intuition replaced with formulas. From these, we attempt to see the world in a form untainted by the mind. Technology with its ability to process and analyze data with more precision than a brain makes it a good candidate for understanding the World. An automaton could make an actual representation of the World, rather than a deceptive semblance of it. Of course, how could one build a robot that can perceive the World if one can’t perceive the World oneself? Beyond this problem, science must still admit limitations because there are predictions that are difficult to make. One may not know what truth the skeptic will allow, but they must allow something given the data.

A Philosophical Work in Progress X

Once one places value on one's self, one takes on the responsibility of constantly generating one's self. What results is perhaps an interpretation and an agent. One could start by framing the notion to something analogous to the id, an evolving entity. At the bottom the id is a mere chemical process. That the universe could produce such matter doesn't appear unusual, considering the trillions of planets in our galaxy alone, and the incredible power of mathematics. One's biology is one's whole self. We are nothing without our organs.

Once constituted, the id as a practical and actual entity takes on various forms in its biosphere. As an id, i am most aware of and connected to my own id, and i assume other ids are mostly aware of their own ids. The entity one calls "me" or "I," i would consider to be the ego. The ego maybe a more difficult entity to define because it consist of indirect physical objects, nonphysical objects, or mental objects; for one's experiences of one's self is not on display in the same way as one's physical structure, i.e. the id, is. The form of the ego is perceived through time as what the ego thinks, believes, and does in the present and the past. However, there are mental objects that one may not consider as one's own, and mental objects which maybe hidden from the ego.

Social, or harmonious id, behavior i'll call the overego. The overego is controlled by dominate ideas called the superego. The superego is instinct for most animals. For humans, the overego is whatever motion the masses are making. Confusion or disagreement on the superego in groups of individuals produce groups of overegos. Though one may admire the swarm creatures' unity, one may despise its mindless assimilation, i.e. complete control or negation of the ego. The superego, which is one's fundamental knowledge, is different for many egos; and made so simply by a change in where the id was initially generated, what cared for the id till maturity, how the ego developed, and other factors based in time.

A human's own subsistence depends on other humans for a time after birth, this forces human relation and interaction. And since we must imitate others before we gain the ability to invent our own objects/ideas, we also acquire a frame of reference in which we aren't the source. One persisting mental problem is the collective vs. the individual needs. If the ego perceives the collective as the most valuable, it will internalize the culture it is engrossed in. If it values the individual more, it will internalize the ethics implied in its self made philosophy.

One may need to supplement the personality given by the culture with a philosophical/scientific personality, though such may contradict at times. The ultimate rational being would perhaps be computer-like, it would analyze every notion based on mathematics or some other objective and detached standards. A scientific/philosophical mindset should, it seems to me, pursue knowledge for the sake of knowing in and of itself. Since intelligibility, or the intellect, is the main ability that separates humans, or rational animals in general, from other "lower" creatures, efficient thinking should be the main focus of development. Science, i.e. what is most likely the state of affairs, may provide knowledge of the activities that help to improve thinking. Philosophy, i.e. the attempt to know everything, pushes the limits of knowledge by showing its limits. But for most individuals knowledge is a means for obtaining some item for the id, ego, overego, or superego. Whereas I would accept such limits for my own self, it seems immoral to attempt to force others to maintain my mindset, because: 1. others may not be able to run on the exact same logic as me, and 2. forcing a mind into a certain form is psychologically painful. The transformation from a benign personality of a mere observer to the philosophical/scientific personality of an active knower is perhaps painful in of itself.

PWIP 37

Epistemology

Existence and non-existence can both be said to exist in some sense. Non-existent things are said to be unable to show themselves in reality. These objects appear to have linguistic form but not physical form. Perhaps these are existentially broken objects; they have aspects of existence, but not those that can push them pass the existence threshold. Language is flexible enough to bring the idea of non-existent objects to the mind based on properties with no solid connections. If the ontology allows absurdities, the epistemology doesn’t appear to participate in it, save perhaps the ontology itself as presented as an epistemology.

How do we balance the thing, its opposite, and its negation? Nonexistence appears to be the opposite of existence itself, and not of the thing. It appears that it must exist that the thing must exist or not exist. Existence being a necessary property of a thing and its negation says nothing about the thing’s opposite. The opposite of a thing appears to be those in its family that generate significantly different results. The properties of the elements in a family present themselves in the relationship between mind and world as the mind attempts to correlate epistemology to ontology.

The unequal relationship between epistemology and ontology generates uncertainty. From the epistemology’s point-of-view, there is a conflict between existence and reality. When a thing is real and exist, it is considered true or actual. What are things which don’t exist but are real? Can they be said to exist in the future or past, thus being real but not existing currently? Perhaps these things exist in nonexistence, thus they are real there and not here? And what of those things which are not real but do exist? Can they be said to be fiction, since people will say they exist in some sense but not in the one which makes them real? Non-reality and nonexistence appear to lead to non-being. Non-being, from the epistemology’s point-of-view, is beyond all hints of awareness. These are being which appear forever unknown to those who can know anything.

The letter appears to exist in ontology in the same sense as number, in that anything that is one in number is also a word in letter. All phenomena appear to be in some sense nameable. Such makes an epistemology equal to the ontology theoretically possible, though impossible without omniscience. Since to explain the ontology is to equate words to what is, one can give the whole a name and be done with it. However, one can only confirm the parts by observations of them, and they appear to have some type of infinity. Without the complete truth, one doesn’t have the Truth. Though unobtainable it is still a goal to pursue.

The models and theories of the mind must mimic the world for there to be truth. The law must mimic ethics for there to be justice. This is typically dependent on Kantian Politics and whether virtue has any power. The mind judges its grasp of the world on its frequency of correct predictions. Likewise, the mind judges its grasp of ethics based on its frequency of producing good outcomes. Knowledge is used both in epistemology and ethics. Whereas the value of knowledge in epistemology is truth and falsehood, the value of knowledge in ethics is good or bad. Ethics may further its distance from epistemology by being more concerned with action than knowledge. Although, knowledge as a prerequisite for action is necessary for one to be an ethical agent. It would appear that Ontology is indifferent to truth, Epistemology is indifferent to virtue, and Ethics is indifferent to beauty.

A Philosophical Work in Progress IX

Individuals accept or attempt to reject characteristics given to them by nature. All objects possess some property which makes them known, I believe. If x were an object with no properties, one could just claim it is contained in the empty set, for even the term “object” wouldn’t apply to it. Language itself doesn’t seem to allow one to express a non-property. Words are either understood or not; and when they are understood, they are typically understood as the role they play in what is being communicated. Thus it would appear that an object must possess a property of some sort to exist. People possess many properties, e.g. potentiality, age, race, thought patterns, culture, income, language, employment, beliefs, physiology, philosophy etc.. Some properties are perceived as companions, while others are seen as enemies.

To identify with particular aspects of one’s self is reasonable. But perhaps one shouldn’t be too intimate with accidental, unintentional qualities, which any quality not obtained by the will appears to be; albeit even extreme possession of one’s own will is a limit to one’s self by applying value inaccurately. An obvious example of accidental qualities is gene inheritance, no one decides beforehand what genes they get, we all simply make use of what we are given. No one can choose their fundamental physical structure, for one would first need to know about the world and one’s self in order to know what qualities are desirable. Such would require that one exist before coming into existence, or that one should possess knowledge of existence before having come into existence. All beings seem to rely on beings in existence to generate their existence or bring them into existence. This condition, which is perhaps cause and effect or something similar, has many forms. This constant generation appears to constantly change while still maintaining somethings constant/unchanging. Thus we come into existence in this biological condition which has evolved/changed over time, where one’s beginnings depends on others. And as one can not split off one’s self into multiple beings of a single consciousness, one can only choose one path, though one may perceive many. “What is the rational course of action?”, seems to be a reasonable question; and though the imposition of rationality appears to limit freedom, any forced denial of its use seem just as oppressive.

Perhaps this is all an attempt to escape bias, obtain a broader worldview, and a more efficient way of thinking. For the most reasonable way of thinking would be to think like God, or any being with efficient thinking. Science can help to fill in more than half of one’s epistemology; though most of science is the work of history and random curiosities. The simplest expression of epistemology is perhaps logic, which establishes the notion of having a notion and deciding to accept of reject notions or ideas. Ethics requires a solemn look into situations. Yet the real ethical dilemmas and examples one perceives (pass rape and murder) are almost comical, if there effects didn’t cause such distress. Biologically, all we do is perhaps for sex, psychologically it is all to escape pain, but these are “simple” pursuits. Philosophy seems to encompass everything. Adherence to any particular notion/idea is a denial of many others, one should perhaps show caution for what one excludes.

So what is really being done in the action of communication? The mere appearance of one’s self to another gives away information of the self, actions and words seem to add information one could not have known with just the mere appearance of the self. Such information usually consist of the self’s physical, psychological, and chronological condition/ing.

Understanding and responding to the actions of others is always possible, in that our domain of physics will always produce an outcome, i.e. reality has a limit to its possibilities. This existence, however, must be an error if no God or perfection exist, but I can’t say for certain that such things don’t exist, or rather I can’t supply sufficient proof that they don’t exist. Philosophy, which is everything, should allow one to contain all possibilities, both the existence and nonexistence of perfection or God and their implications on the world and self.

One can not merely reflect on one’s self to know one’s self, but one must also observe and reflect on the world. One may continue such a process until one is satisfied with the results, such is typical for those biological beings whom know their next move. To reflect constantly on everything is perhaps the curse of a philosopher. Maybe one can choose when to be satisfied and when not to be, or whether such a notion even matters, for such is somewhat derived from the biological entity. To identify one’s self with any particular being is limiting, even if one list every particular factor of one’s self, for perhaps it is the unlisted, unable to be listed, or resilient to being listed items which truly define the self

Passive morals seem quite clear to most individuals, e.g. don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t rape are simple propositions to understand, in that when one knows the action, one knows what to negate or simply not do. If one wishes to know why such rules are in place, one must question the source of the rule. Active morality are actions one should perform or ought to perform. These appear to cause more harm in the world because it appears to force the self to act in an indignant way. These and other sorts of ideas which come from various minds are intimately connected with the psychology of the mind it is contained in to the point that neglecting the ideas are mentally painful.

The mind maybe able to accept any notion in theory, but the contrary maybe the case when it comes to application, as one must go beyond imagination and vague thinking. Any moment of one’s self is the best simplification of all the current knowledge available to consciousness. Though we are all prone to error, there’s an idea which we hold as fundamental and it differs from being to being. Ethics seems to require that all individuals follow the same law, but such limits freedom. How much control does one have in choosing one’s limits? Should one give one’s self to a notion of what the self thinks is good?

PWIP XXXIV

Any sense appears able to perceive patterns, for a pattern can be any sequence or repetition of actions or objects. In that way all senses can be used to conclude something like numbers, given sufficient mechanical capacities that go further than mere observation. The senses can differentiate between absence and something, or 0 and 1. The counting numbers are abstractions of the multiplicity of objects, which one can come to merely from 0 and 1 being two objects and so on, though such an intellectual feat may require high intelligence to come to with minimal prior knowledge. Aside from the abstract form of multiplicity, which is the natural numbers, there is the abstract ideal shapes. The abstraction of raw data, typically rigid objects, to apparent ideal forms, i.e. the mathematical expression of physical objects, appears to require even more knowledge and understanding, which may only be achieved through feedback on already achieved understandings.

The seemingly faint background mental processes are one’s means of functioning in a manner more sophisticated than mere sensory observation. Perhaps one can call such a thing the active observer. The senses with no subjectivity are perhaps passive observers, i.e. reactions and imitations of external environments. An organism at rest doesn’t decide what it is or will sense beyond how it is positioned in the world. A change in position of the observer by the observer is an active observation. As observation is likely layered, the local external environment can only be perceived by the passive observer, which is a mere receiver and reactor to the state of the external environment. Taking what the observer receives and providing feedback or manipulating it is a part of the internal environment, or virtual world, of the organism and is an active observation. The ability to change position in the environment intentionally appears to require the observer hold the external environment as constant in the memory, then it must plot or plan a destination, updating from the passive observer while following the path generated by the active observer to reach the destination. As the passive observation must remain active, the active observation likely remains in the background of the passive observation interface.

The senses appear to be one’s only connection to reality. Even if objects exist in the same space as the perceiver in reality, it is as good as nothing if it can not impress upon some sense. The abstract abilities of an organisms, i.e. the actions of the active observer, appears in a sense to be concealed information in the environment when considering the external environment as a purely physical process, i.e. as a moving set of points. The knowledge in the self is less than that in the environment because the self is locally present, whereas the environment is omnipresent. Sensations as reactions to some external object appear to be an interaction between two objects. Thus, to be may be to be perceivable, even if not perceived. There are higher functions to sensation that one may find in brains and AI. The set of higher functions appear to be larger than the set of sensations. Simple to more complex brains and AI sense something, assuming they are active. Aside from sensations they may have the ability to recall, apprehend/understand, identify, imagine, decide, judge, conceptualize, categorize, attend, reason, calculate, use language, evaluate, classify, problem solve, ideate, associate, rationalize/irrationalize, plan, erroneously think, act, control self, adapt, attach, valuate, learn, inquire, empathize, prioritize, generalize, interpret, manipulate, etc. all of which are context, i.e. space and time, dependent. These may all be subsumed under cognition.

It is difficult to determine which process of cognition is most vital. Memory seems to be used most often. But only artificial intelligence can recreate exact replicas of visual and audio content. Natural intelligence likely uses the imagination to recreate a memory, which isn’t the exact experience. For the memory to be related to an actual event, one likely needs to use some kind of reasoning that uses the notion or process of consistency. The complete explicit expression of all the various forms of brain configurations and what they do may explain the large variety in story telling.

Psychology and epistemology are very closely related, though epistemology contains more content than the psychology. As pure materialism, ontology/existence would be what science has determined is nature. It would perhaps be the body to Descartes’ body and mind duality. There is a question as to whether the body is the final form of one’s being, or whether the body perceives the actual world or a deception? Science, of course, assents to the question begging truth of the body actually existing in the world, yet denies a simplification of the various processes and phenomena in the world. It intersects, but is different from, the view of the world from one’s own perspective; which is psychology. By rejecting the notion of the brain having complete knowledge one can push the limits of one’s understanding. Such is achievable in the virtual space of one’s mind. We can perhaps look at the spectrum of intelligence as the simple brain, the human brain and A.I. Understanding is perhaps a coherence between the virtual world of the mind and the physical world of the body.

PWIP XXXIII

The senses align well with the model of reality. Dogma typically begins with knowledge, but philosophy starts with ignorance. One can imagine the search for knowledge as one being in a room. One’s experience of the room would depend on which sense one uses to search it. Ontology seems related to the sense of smell. This is founded on the animal’s ability to sense objects that are not in sight. The smell of an object is perhaps more telling of the object’s composition than its image. The olfactory system, however, only ever gets the hint of the object, not the object itself, unless the object is a smell. Sight is more related to epistemology. It maybe the second most concrete sense, second to touch, and can obtain a pinpoint perception of what is in the immediate vicinity. Such is dependent on light, similar to how the olfactory sense is based on particles in the air. An image of an object seems to allow for quicker discovery of what the room would hold, assuming there is a source of light. Of course, the experience of pleasure and pain, which is a tactile sense, brings one to ethics. Though pure touch seems binary, e.g. hot or cold, hard or soft, it appears to be the most significant sense. The conscious mind is aware of the animal’s condition through emotions, which appear tactile in nature. Taste seems more closely related to one’s aesthetic self, as it merely communicates what one finds most appealing, not what is most efficient. It is also more closely connected with one’s intimate self, as animals are more willing to touch an object, than to taste it; or rather they touch more objects than they may put on their tongues. Thus ethics would be more closely related with the sense of touch and psychology with the sense of taste. Sight and smell appear to be extended senses, as they can perceive objects a distance away from the body. The last extended sense is the sense of hearing. The audio sense is more spherical than vision, which is rather linear. Hearing is rather communal, as it relates to sociology, since at least half of human communication is audio. Like smell, sound is rather abstract, but unlike smell, it is also rather brief. Ultimately all perceptions seem to be hints from which to reason about the world, rather than explicit expressions of the overall process. It is quite difficult to believe truth is somehow outside of experience, and not buried somewhere within.

PWIP XXXII

This venn diagram is an attempt at a sufficient model for the apparent reality. Ontology is similar to the universal set, in that it is the set that contains all sets. Contained in the ontology is the set epistemology. Epistemology contains the subset sociology, which contains psychology, which itself contains ethics. Epistemology is perhaps bounded ontology, as it appears to be the set of universal and leading ideas.

The sets can’t really be perceived as separate from one another. If the world is merely the world and nothing else, then epistemology is a stable domain, and ontology extends only to impossibilities. What is and is not appears to exhaust the notion of existence, though not much information about what is is given. Ontology is more difficult to discuss because it is supreme universality. When one uses notions such as all, existence, everything, metaphysics or god one is referring to ontology. However, since such notions alone express little discrete information, they are usually found bounded to some other thing. One appears to enter epistemology at the limit of understanding.

Unlike a typical venn diagram, the lines that delineate the sets from one another are also relevant objects. Philosophy separates ontology and epistemology. Science separates epistemology and sociology, as any single human is perhaps too limited to obtain universal notions without others. Language separates sociology and psychology, as communication is the medium for ideas. And aesthetics delineates psychology and ethics, since emotions conflict with morals. Often one may find that the moral obligation may conflict with one’s positive sensibilities. What is truly good ethically is a mix of scientific efficiency, social justice, and personal desire, social justice being the universal fulfillment of reasonable aesthetic desires.

Psychology is a single point-of-view of ontology. Sociology is a collection of such points-of-view. The path of society appears manifested by the interactions of the collective sense. Perhaps the collective sense is the people and machines that observe the environment and exchange information. Ethics considers the biosphere in its entirety and what it should do, assuming it can intentionally do anything as a unit. If ethics does not exist, then perhaps the next best system to determine collective behavior is economics. The difficulty of survival necessitates complex motions, but not pure chaos; a mix that is difficult for linear thinking beings. The weighted judgment, hierarchy of skill, and distribution of labor and reward are just a few properties needed by the group that are provided by an economic system. Ultimately it is the individual’s interactions with the environment (changing the environment) that determines the outcome (the current configuration of the environment).

Perhaps the most interesting sets are ethics and sociology. Sociology and psychology appear rather concrete, as most individuals believe their selves to be a real existing thing. The belief of self existence comes from the locality of thought and feeling, as well as the physical appearance of the body. The physical appearance is also perceived in others, as well as their effect on the self, which makes them appear concrete. Ethics and epistemology appear abstract as they consider universal notions, rather than only the local appearances. Ethics considers the dynamics between each individual psychology. These dynamics seem to change based on needs, wants, skills, character, and possibility.

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 XXX

Students of philosophy may come across the notions of good, truth, and beauty. These notions are related to the philosophical branches of ethics, ontology, epistemology, and aesthetics; and are initially somewhat simple. Each notion is, in a sense, innate to all humans. Evolution has provided many of the structures needed to develop biological beings. In as far as survival is concerned, most of what is considered good is given. The good may appear mundane or unnoticeable after time has passed. Individuals may take their abilities for granted until someone without such abilities is presented, then pity and gratitude may hopefully generate, and not some opposites. The good is contained in the pleasurable and the ethical, though the pleasurable and ethical don’t necessitate each other. Pleasure would appear of lesser complication than ethics.

Beauty is good when presented to an agreeable mind, for beauty is contained in pleasure. As such, beauty isn’t always compatible with the ethical good, sometimes not even truth. It attempts to go beyond a necessary good to a state of bliss, a desire which permeates one’s lifestyle and notion of an ideal world. Individuals attempt to mold a world particular to themselves. Depending on how closely their epistemology is related to the ontology, they may succeed or fail. Success leads to comfort, and individuals may fail to act on behalf of ethics because of it. Thus beauty may relate to the good through pleasure, yet not intersect with the ethical good. The fairness of any exchange of what is good or beautiful is perhaps resolved in economics or social law.

Beauty and the good appear dependent on truth, which is ultimately ontology, whereas the truth isn’t dependent on good or beauty for its existence. The beautiful, as an innate biological function and not the study of aesthetics, is very much concerned with understanding the pleasures and pains of the self; and the ethical good is an extension of that understanding to others. The full spectrum of truth consist of one’s own understanding and the understanding of others. It consist of one’s ignorance, known and unknown, as well as others. Truth contains its logical negation, even if the negation isn’t physically possible. And lastly it includes the truth as a thought presented to the awareness and/or communicated ideas, both of which are limited by time and individual cognitive capacities. Everything appears to be related to the truth, whereas the good and beauty are more so related to the pleasures and pains of the self and others.

A Philosophical Work in Progress VII

I like to think of my self as a duo of non-being and the being I am to/for other beings. For compared to all beings I am infinitesimally small, practically nothing. But I am also the composition of a mind, body, consciousness, observer, cells, particles, social roles, thoughts, senses, time, personality, history, etc.. I would assume that a perfect science, which is perhaps the expression of nature itself, would possess me as a well defined object, by use of objectivity. It may, however, be the case that no mind perceives objectivity, at least not a priori. All minds seem to follow a path determined by some set of data, but objectivity seeks a description of all data, without placing any significance or emphasis on a particular datum. The focused scope of the mind, i.e. subjectivity, leaves one vulnerable to error; for the broader world is placed outside of awareness. One may find it easier to reason from objective facts to subjective facts than the contrary. If one uses reasoning, which is perhaps the ability to organize thought, then one maybe able to discover or bring to consciousness content of various kinds and functions. Some notions are rather perplexing and the chances of misunderstandings and errors are present.

The conflict between determinism and freewill appear dependent on the time scale of the universe and the effect of its properties on humans. If the universe has no beginning or end and maintains fixed rules throughout, then there would probably be numerous opportunities for biochemistry to form. Science, however, has discovered a numerical beginning for the universe, viz. the Big Bang. Possessing an initial point seems to present one with a domino like concept of the universe, which is seen in classical mechanics I believe. On the other hand, logic or curiosity may negate an initial point by seeking a point before an initial point, or some other counterargument (perhaps by claiming the initial point and final point are one and the same). For though determinism must occur in accordance with the law that governs it, one can also say that all occurrences have already occurred in a sense and one can predict the future if one knows the law. All one seems to need to determine the future of a system is its initial state, the rules it obeys, and the objects obeying the rules. God is beyond all rules, but the moment one can breaks a rule one seems to lose the ability to predict future events, for there would be nothing from which to determine the future from (God is still beyond this as well).

No object in the universe behaves as if it knows everything that will occur. Minds seem to require some supporting principle or rule for the decisions they make; even if the rule is that one will break all rules, which is still a rule of sorts. The ability to maintain contradictory thoughts in one’s mind seems to oppose determinism, for determinism proposes a kind of certainty of course. Uncertainty and cognitive dissonance are perhaps illusions of consciousness, the mind or world as a whole may contain a specific and determined path.

Are we more free than our ancestors? We have better versions of various objects, plus more objective facts. These advance properties give us more control over space and time, which seems to imply more freedom. By making a necessity unnecessary, one frees one’s self from a limit. One seems to free one’s self from limitations by applying a novel limitation. So minds may generate meaning by giving value to objects that are merely objects, making them no longer mere objects. Objects are merely objects, but there’s no such object as a “mere object;” unless one means everything, which is the “mere object.” A mind seems only able to perceive particular objects, i.e. geometric descriptions and sensual experiences. Not only are some notions and experiences/descriptions difficult to express, but language itself appears to contain notions that are beyond empiricism, e.g. God.

Since beings can vary, it is probably the case that freedom varies. All minds may have the ability to decide what is freedom from what is not. Given the extent of my imagination, the physical body is rather limiting. Yet, when one considers that these objects are products of the development of a large amount of moving points, one tends to find amazement of some sort. Though the substance of minds are the same, i.e. we all have brains and are perceiving the same physical world, the desired form is different from being to being. This seems to be both an aesthetic and ethical dilemma. Is a universally appealing form possible?

Ethics seems to contradict freedom in that it implies a restriction. Freedom from all things is perhaps only attainable by God. One may seek to be free of many conditions in one’s thoughts; ethics, however, requires a fair or common distribution of freedom. All of this seems to also imply that one is choosing one’s master by choosing a limitation. For my mind would consider itself the master of my body, and an idea is master of my mind, an idea which is derived from my interaction with the world.

A Philosophical Work in Progress VI

Perhaps innocence is freedom from moral responsibility, i.e. freedom from moral behaviors and moral consequences. Mathematics being quite abstract is rather innocent. Numbers can be applied ubiquitously, but whether they are used for virtue or vice is outside the control of numbers (although in a sense numbers are part of the governing of the world). Accordingly nature is often also seen as innocent, although it is perhaps the true cause of pain and misfortune. This may all depend on whether determinism is somehow intentional. One may assume that if nature knew the pain it caused, and had the ability to negate it, it would negate it. I doubt there will ever be a day where nothing on this planet has died. Perhaps the longest living thing is the chemistry itself, which propagates itself though generation and death. One may conclude that nature itself is either cruel or incompetent.

Babies are also often seen as innocent. Yet they are equipped with various behaviors that allow them to intentionally take control of circumstances. This is opposed to the blind force of nature, which is perhaps also related to the notion of doing nothing, for typically one thinks nature external of a mind/brain is non-volitional. Most creatures appear to be reacting to some overall impression of the world. But no mind appears to be innately equipped with those necessary and arbitrary ideas needed for one to claim one understands the world (and perhaps one never understands the world, but rather only one’s own part of it). It doesn’t seem to be an easy task to get an overview of the world. Practically all animals that are not human are seen as innocent because they lack (or appear to lack) an overview of life. Yet, some innocent beings may still be punished for ethical transgressions.

Our nature is blind in the sense that no one knows everything. The blind force of nature is such because it only seems to know the laws which govern the movement of some particular unit/s. Both conditions could be used to argue for innocence. The choice to willfully perform an immoral action perhaps depends on a feeling and what is considered moral. Without a scientific system of ethics, most moral predicaments are resolved by taste or group authority. If one existed alone, ethics would ask, “how should one treat one’s self?” If one existed with others, ethics would ask, “how should one treat one’s self? How should one treat others?” Usual answers seem to appeal to personal taste or preferences, which appears rather arbitrary and subjective. Yet, any legitimacy placed on a subjective ethical principle seems to imply some underlying objective phenomenon.

A Philosophical Work in Progress V

A real freedom is to be free from all things. Is being free from freedom being bounded? One is first bounded by not being God. We may all be parts of God, but the appearance of something, rather than everything, limits one’s freedom. Or, perhaps, one is freed from the everything when one becomes an individual. All laws seem to be ways of restricting freedom.

The difference between matter and mind is apparent when related to freedom. For if one is asked to build a wall in one’s mind, then asked to build one in the external world, one can immediately perceive more labor being exerted in the latter. Matter appears to exist prior to mind, but is mind primarily or originally mind or matter, i.e. is mind a chemical calculation or a motive/operation. Science seems to logically connect itself temporally by virtue of evolution, and events appear deterministically bounded, till they attempt to surpass present time, future time, and the Big Bang. The history of science itself appears to be an attempt to overcome human error and capacity, which can be seen as a limitation to freedom.

Other beings appear to limit the freedom of one’s own being if they are not under one’s own control. The freedom we all seem to have from the direct control, i.e. a mental command causing an object to move, of one another is perhaps what gives rise or want for an ethical system. For the human appears to distribute its potential among individuals; and some interactions can be, in my opinion, rather horrific. Perhaps one of the goals of Ethics is to resolve these unequal experiences among beings.

A Philosophical Work in Progress IIII

If nature had a feeling, it would probably be something analogous to nihilism or indifference. One may claim that nature is cruel, but may run into problems if one means to imply that nature is intentionally cruel, for such would include the feeling of choice making and application. I doubt nature possesses feelings or choices outside of the generations of minds, but anything could be the case if absurdity exist. A being either exist or not, and if it exist it does what it does (one can perceive in science or knowledge the existence of beings performing actions). The notion of ethics is expressed by humans, and features of it are seen in other creatures. Ethics relationship to nature is the question of whether it is a logical system discovered in nature or a human artifice; and how one applies praise and blame to different beings such as nature, other humans and creatures, objects, and notions.

Praise and blame are themselves entangled with states of mind, behavior, and logic. For one may show the attitudes or prolonged feelings of happiness or sadness through a smile or a frown. But upon the first appearance of a smile or a frown, i.e. a smile or frown without a context or history (like the tragedy and comedy masks), one infers happiness or sadness or pleasure or pain without any information. One may infer the existence of geometric shapes from the senses of sight or touch, and likewise perhaps one could infer ethics from history, biology, and interaction between the world and the observer.

How does ethics relate to nothingness? Like the number line, nothing seems related to the negative and positive, in that it is between the two. The positive appears better than nothing, assuming one can obtain a true positive (the positive is perhaps happiness). Real nothingness, i.e. nonexistence, can be seen as better than a certain degree of the negative. Typically creatures would prefer nonexistence to an existence of pure suffering. Science contains various criterion for judging various physiological and psychological states. Nothingness, being the final form of negation, is a transcendent form/being or notion like God, nature, reality, truth, logic, perhaps goodness and ethics.

One may be able to praise or blame nothingness. One can praise nothing in the same way as when one praises the negation of something negative occurring. One may blame the other for doing nothing to change a negative condition into a positive one when the other could have done something. For minds typically want other minds to take responsibility for being conscious or intelligent or possessing some other role that can affect moral circumstances. The way minds relate to one another is different from the way they relate to other physical objects.

Nothingness would imply that a mind does not exist, which would also mean ethics would not exist in nothingness. A mind may judge nonexistence as bad if it judges existence as good. The logic of the mind appears to be quite different from the logic of the universe. Whereas the world is merely the appearance of something, the mind is in the world and over the world. Ethics is relates to how minds allot the physical world, since the body must change the world in order to change itself.

A Philosophical Work in Progress III

I think Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason are appropriate examples of ethical systems. Aristotle analyzed individuals according to extremes in personality traits; what was considered ethical or best was the midpoint between extremes. Kant formulates a law, the categorical imperative, which generally states that a human should only act in ways that that human would allow other humans to act in. The question for every moral theory is whether it is subjective (a notion) or objective (an object)? Any ethical system derived from science should be objective and found in nature, like science; but subjectivity has much to say on the subject of ethics.

The biological entity appears to have a sense of what is good and what is bad, and perhaps it derives such a sense as an extension of please and pain; for the unconscious maybe a consolidation of all the knowledge that the biological being possesses. But this is where the difference between biology and psychology becomes apparent; for biological awareness is what occurs at the cellular level, which is beyond our immediate experience of the world. Perhaps the biology inferred that if it is a colony of cells, then it would be best to gather information about colonies of cells rather than individual cells. Physics can then provide a scalar relationship between objects in space, which I think are the qualities of large and small being represented with quantities. Knowing is only one kind of action, an observer may perceive the biological entity performing all sorts of actions. Thought, either one’s own thoughts or another’s, may consider some actions as moral or immoral, and perhaps any attempt to understand those notions are pursued in human centered science. Science, however, does not contain a system of ethics, I believe. The question is whether that exclusion of a formal ethical system is due to a lack of an ethics in nature or a lack of discover.

Most human systems contain laws that mediate and govern our wide range of behavior. Existence itself may have a wide range of motions, yet what one perceives is ordered occurrences, instead of the chaos or complete silence of everything. For what would the image of all the visual memory of an individual superimposed on one another look like, or what would all the feelings one has felt feel like if experienced simultaneously? Usually the appearances are consecutive and somewhat predictable.

For me, science begins with the study of simple objects, such as simple three dimensional shapes, but that is to say I’m extracting a universal idea from a common perception of existence. In this case, one seems to take commonality for granted, then moves logic along with an “always happening.” Nothing is eternal with reference to God, but time allows occurrences to happen for long durations.

Following the lines of Aristotle’s worldview, to be good with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way, is an odd thing to judge as easy or difficult. A good being shouldn’t find it difficult to be good, for it is predicated to be good. But beings are malleable and adaptable, thus they may become something other than good. A good being can still perform wrong actions; such errors can lead to bad outcomes and could be seen as immoral by other beings. The notion of goodness is ambiguous much like God, logic, nature, and science which exist universally (or, perhaps, because they exist universally).

Hume expressed his ethical system using the dualities of praise and blame. These dualities are more concrete than good and bad, for they imply a judgment and pointing by persons, e.g. one can point out errors in systems with goals, or one can be aware of pleasure and an object which generates that affect. Theoretically, one maybe able to have a being categorize all the possible actions in existence as good or bad/praise or blameworthy. Problems typically occur when multiple beings are categorizing actions and have the ability to dissent from one another. Well, there is only a problem if ethics necessitates that all beings agree on which actions are good or bad.

It seems to me that there are psychological differences in how praise and blame are applied to various situations. One praises those objects which gives one pleasure. Pleasure, a feeling, is activated by appealing sensations. What is considered a moral action comes as a sensation. What appeals to the senses is perhaps not as important as why a sensation appeals to a mind or biological being. For biological beings the appeal appears to be related to the energy exchanges between the world and the being. The mind, being a record of the biological beings experiences, perhaps finds its appeal in how aspects of the world are connected.

The mind intersects the world at some point, but it appears multiple minds cannot intersect the world at the same point, for such would imply that two minds can exist in the same place at the same time. There are cases where two minds may appear to exist in the same place and time simultaneously, such as split personalities, identical twins, or collectivism. For we all exist on the same planet and share similar knowledge. These facts and other similarities are used to justify the assumption that others possess minds and consciousnesses. Yet, there are differences between minds/consciousnesses, for there would exist no friction or conflict if there were no differences. This may all be a result of intersecting the world from different points. Two physical points not being able to exist in the same position in space at the same time implies a distinct history for both points.

Perhaps ethics revolves around a logic based on the notions of good and bad, which are derived from biological functions (particularly the feelings pleasure and pain; and the behaviors or applications of praise and blame). What are the outcomes of categorizing something as good or bad? I would think God is to blame and praise for all that happens, but I’m unsure what that implies. A part blaming or praising the whole implies it blaming or praising the other parts that together make the whole. God is still beyond the whole.

The notion of ethics is also strongly related to judgments and decisions, Because the creation of a consciousness/mind in existence is so subtle, it has many degrees of freedom. Why one does what one does is a personal question. An ethical system seems to require a kind of universality. Science can tell one how to stay alive, but it doesn’t tell one how to exist; it merely exclaims what exist in nature.

The appeal to the senses is desire, for one comes to know what one wants through multiple interactions with the world and with one’s self. The desires of the self appear distributed between the biological structure and the particular mind which it possesses. The desires of the world are the wants of other beings and the necessity of physics. Though all are objects of praise or blame, the consequences of each are different.

A Philosophical Work in Progress II

The mind is what the brain is doing, or one could extend the brain to include the whole cellular system. Where is the observer relative to the mind and the world? The brain appears to recreate or represent the information it receives from the other organs, and the other organs communicate their conditions to the brain. Thus the world is how the brain represents the organs’ reactions to the world acting on them. The brain also manipulates the information it produces, perhaps automatically. One manipulation is extending the innate first-person view to the third-person or bird’s eye view. The observer perceives the five senses and the abstractions, and to the mind the mental constructs are perhaps more congruent with “reality” than the sensations. The observer is everywhere a mind is, in a sense; but since the mind is a product of the cellular system, and the cellular system is a logical operation of physical material, the observer could be physical material itself, wherever it may exist.

The only particular objects that matter philosophically are everything or/and God, which in themselves are not pragmatic; for everything is omniscience, which is beyond human capacities; and God in Its nature is beyond nature, therefore any talk of it appears to be nonsensical and absurd (I myself will not stand by my own words about God because I’m not God). In any case, such notions are investigated and categorized under philosophy, which in some sense associates philosophy with absurdity. I think this understanding merely serves as a warning of sorts when one is moved to duality, i.e. something other than the absolute.

What is the process by which nothing becomes something, and something becomes everything, then everything becomes one thing, and one thing becomes nothing? I think such is a simple logical question derived from word play. Yet, what it means to be, which is the study of ontology in philosophy, entails the notions of what does it mean to become and what does it mean to cease being, or whether such actions even occur? My immediate answer to such a question would be that one needs to look at particulars in order to understand universals (even though everything is insignificant in relation to God; it is also as great as God, assuming what is below God is still part of God).

I assume I’m in the “something” part of the process of existence because of an appearance. The appearance has an immediate form and a mediate form as it comes through consciousness. To the observer the immediate form of the appearance is all that passes through one’s mind at any given moment. The mediated form of the appearance are those items which affect us yet are outside of our awareness; such would include those perpetual mechanisms in the brain that find their expression in the mind yet go unnoticed by consciousness. It is science that assists us with understanding the appearance of something which is complex and nebulous upon first acquaintance. One may need to use the immediate appearance to move about the mediate appearance to acquire scientific knowledge. Science can then begin with the study of simple objects, such as simple three dimensional shapes; that is to say I’m extracting a universal idea from an extremely common perception of existence. In this case, one seems to take commonality for granted, then moves logical connection along with an “always happening.” This may all be a result of a kind of trust in a system or what one considers truth. The expression or organization of knowledge (in words at least) comes in many forms; but two interlocutors can simply agree on a mutual understanding and hope it is true. Real truth is perhaps with God, but absurdity/paradox is difficult for the mind to comprehend.

Ethics, I believe, is a formalization of the natural behavior of cooperation. Creatures typically cooperate or conflict, and that maybe a result of the attraction and repulsion forces, or the general fact of dualities, which manifest polarizations. Diurnal life, however, is not as disambiguous as polar opposites (which usually express themselves with terms like good/bad, moral/immoral, virtue/vice). What would God, a being beyond ethics, think of ethics (assume God does something analogous to thinking)?

The leap from ontology to ethics feels quite pretentious, it would be best to look at problems first. The general truth of appearances is, in my opinion, found in science. For science is our best record of what nature is. However, the records themselves are subjective; science would consider nature to be an objective entity (basically meaning a being that is outside of one’s self). The observer itself is either outside, inside, or both in relation to one’s self. For one’s self is one’s whole self. In reference to ontology, one’s whole self is everything, for one is a part of all things. It seems to me that all ethical systems exclude some aspect of the everything. Perhaps many ethical behaviors can be supported by science, since science is the expression of objects in space and what they are doing.

Philosophy and science are both similar in that they seek the truth, where they diverge is perhaps at some extreme point generated by philosophy. The use of science as a bases for ethics does help in placing one’s mind in a natural context, I believe. One could think of nature as the observable universe, and the limit of sight. Sight itself is a strong sense in reference to science. How far out does one extend the notion of ethics? Theoretically, one may extend one’s ethical system as far as to God (although it may become absurd at that point). What one should encompass in one’s ethical system is an ethical question involving exclusion.

Science informs the mind of objects in nature that immediate nature, perhaps, cannot inform the mind of. Again, one is not born with scientific knowledge; it is acquired or discovered in nature. Science allows one to trace back to the origin of an object, and by knowing what an object has done, one can infer what an object can do. Roughly the objects studied in science are particles, molecules, cells, creatures, societies, and galaxies. Ethics mostly revolves around societies and creatures; this exception is related to what makes science and ethics different, and that is to say ethics seems to exclude extremely small and large objects and objects that are not constructed from cells.

I think Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason are appropriate examples of an ethical system. Aristotle analyzed individuals according to extremes in personality traits; what was considered ethical or best was the midpoint between extremes. Kant formulates a law, the categorical imperative, which generally states that a human should only act in ways that that human would allow other humans to act in. The question for every moral theory is whether it is subjective (a notion) or objective (an object)? Any ethical system derived from science should be objective and found in nature, like science; but subjectivity has much to say on the subject of ethics (subjectivity being one’s present thoughts and experiences).

For the most part, the biological entity has a sense of what is good and what is bad, and it probably derives such a sense as an extension of pleasure and pain, for the unconscious maybe a consolidation of all the knowledge that the biological being possesses. But this is where the difference between biology and psychology becomes apparent. For biological awareness is what occurs at the cellular level, which is beyond our immediate experience of the world. Perhaps the biology inferred that if we are colonies of cells, then it would be best to gather information about colonies of cells rather than individual cells. Physics can then provide a scalar relationship between objects in space, which I think are the qualities of large and small being represented with quantities. Scientific data one can obtain quite easily from the internet was rather difficult to acquire, express, and propagate, and still, knowing is only one kind of action. An observer may perceive the biological entity performing all sorts of actions. Thought, either one’s own thoughts or another’s, may consider some action moral or immoral, and perhaps any attempt to understand those notions are pursued in psychology. Science, however, does not contain a system of ethics, I believe. The question is whether that exclusion of a formal ethical system is due to a lack of an ethics in nature or a lack of discovery.

On the other hand, science does contain social science, which is a record of the various social systems which have been observed. Most social systems contain laws that mediate and govern the wide range of possible behaviors. Existence itself may have a wide range of motions, yet what one perceives is an ordered occurrence (given significant time has elapsed), instead of the chaos or complete silence of the everything. For what would the image of all the visual memory of an individual superimposed on one another look like, or what would all the feelings one has felt feel like if experienced simultaneously? Usually the appearances are consecutive and somewhat predictable. Nothing is eternal with reference to God, however, occurrences may happen for long durations of time. Knowledge of a continuity is the insight from science or memory/rationality. The first continuity one may perceive is existence, and any most laws seem to consider existence. It is through the notion of existence that one is able to form considerations, and perhaps one can simply jump into any moral dilemma by use of consideration. For typically one considers the goodness and badness of actions.

A Philosophical Work in Progress

When a rational being intends to understand the entirety of existence, then it begins to philosophize. I believe it may begin with the expression of a meaningful series of questions. The expressions are arbitrary; it is the feeling or notion that is distinct. The notion of philosophy in a broad sense is the study of everything. Most humans, it would seem, do not seek to know everything; such a goal is quite unrealistic. Yet any attempt to escape the ennui of any circumstance would require that one tries to transcend the circumstance, even if the attempt is futile.

Perhaps the goal of philosophy is to know as much as one can. That seems to be what many philosophers do, they either explicitly state what they know, or they express a method that one can use to obtain knowledge. I personally prefer the Socratic Method, in which case one seeks knowledge through systematic questioning; although in practice most investigations fall short of a perfect or complete line of questioning. From what I have seen it would be foolish (perhaps impossible) to depend solely on the Socratic Method, but as a preliminary method it is as good as any other, and easily accessible.

The first notion which comes to my mind when I begin to think about what it means to “know” is observation. To observe a phenomenon is to experience it, which is to sense it in some way. On the other hand, to observe could merely mean to be aware of something. It sounds more proper for one to say “I am aware of knowledge,” than “I sense knowledge.” Typically individuals say they have/possess knowledge.

An observer is perhaps the best description of an object that mindlessly absorbs or somehow “perceives” information (information being a more concrete notion of knowledge). How the observer, or perhaps one could say an extended meaning of observer, is used by various mechanisms is quite complex. For one, the observer is the focal point of experience, particularly sensational experiences. This focal point can be awareness of one’s self. By what I have seen, most philosopher take the awareness of self and extend it to the awareness of others, the world, or god, and justly so I believe; for any object that cannot move beyond self awareness may not possess consciousness nor sentience. I myself do not imagine dead objects as objects that are only aware of themselves. I imagine physical space to be something analogous to multiple layers of infinitesimally thin cloths, or as infinitesimally small spheres which become more massive when they clump together. The mathematics, however, seems to show that the act of picturing a particular object itself is erroneous. But I know very little about such facts.

For me, the observer can be seen as a point on a plane. Knowledge is a network inside that point, with different nodes representing discrete information. This, however, is a mathematical analogy, and I lack a formal grasp of mathematics, albeit I’ll still use mathematical metaphors. The observer and knowledge relationship is also similar to the mind and body relationship; although I would consider the observer to be the thing below Descartes “cogito ergo sum.” The mind or body can be said to possess information, whereas the observer only senses information.

The interaction between observer and knowledge is very much like a Cartesian Theater, but the individual or thing viewing the stimuli/events also views the reflections, thoughts, and judgments being made. The observer becomes a problem when language is introduced, whereas knowledge becomes a problem when logic is introduced. There are many issues that need to be addressed.

No matter the perspective one takes, in practice at least, one can never have a view of everything (everything meaning omniscience). Knowledge of everything would imply producing a model or summary of everything. Exclusion of any detail could be seen as incomplete work. But to make an exact replica of everything would require everything. Creating another time and space similar to our own seems beyond the powers of a human being. Language is the closes we can get to a display of everything, with philosophy as the notion of the pursuit of truth and knowledge, despite its apparent ultimate failings. Everything is the collection of all particular things, and language implies that a particular thing be expressed.

Language itself is mediated by the thought of an agreed upon idea. Whether the idea is actually consistent in both minds, i.e. whether observers perceive the same events or two different events, is rarely analyzed in great detail; the notion of a common sense is typically applied to a circumstance by observers occupying a local space (local merely meaning one can interact with another). The notions of change and difference automatically conflict with the notion of a common sense, which leads me to the issues with knowledge and logic.

I am no logician, but I find the idea of logic quite compelling. All practical matters appear to require the minimum of an informal understanding of logic; Aristotle’s Organon could be an example of a formal theory of logic. Logic is profoundly useful in investigations on particular subjects. However, it is a difficult ideal to aspire to in philosophy. How can I obtain the knowledge of everything if it must also contain its negation, viz. non-philosophy/not everything? Particular items are not everything (unless the particular item in question is everything), but they are all still parts of philosophy (some particular categories in philosophy are ontology, epistemology, ethics, axiology, among others).

The second problem with logic is truth. What exactly is truth? It is perhaps best understood in comparison to its opposite, falsity. But falsehoods are truths one excludes from one’s own system of truths (for what would an unassailable reasoning or ultimate truth look like?). I would consider falsity to still be a truth, i.e. it is true that some propositions are false. The strongest truths typically are associated with empiricism. However, the observer perceives more than just sensory information. Most individuals observe science, religion, philosophy, or intuition in their models of the truth. Subjective truths are also in effect, and they generate more complications. Truth makes all notions ambiguous, and most methods fatal.

Thought seems to be the mechanism in which ideas obtain a praxis existence. Usually I think of thought as the internal monologue. Yet, there are many mechanisms which operate in us. One can repeat a single word in one’s mind while thinking of other ideas (either simultaneously or consecutively, I’m unsure which) and moving the body about. We have the connotation and denotation of words, i.e. the facts words express and the feelings associated with the words. We possess memory, which leads to the notion of time. The mind has many abilities, yet it has a limit.

Perhaps it can be said that the observer is viewing a consciousness. I can only speak for myself and those who may think like me, although I can’t guarantee certain truth. My consciousness is one of many. So whereas one could consider one’s self as a single point on a plane, life is multiple points on a finite plane moving about gaining and losing points as it goes along. Humans seem to be the only creatures that attempt to express universal facts about the world explicitly and logically. I believe it best to first focus on the non-intuitive facts/atypical senses of the world, which one may fall upon while investigating grander problems.

The validity of science is obtained from the expressions of observations made by observers from various times and places on the earth. The reoccurrence of particular ideas, perhaps expressed in different ways, binds them to the mind; one may become more attentive and reactive to those features of the world. Overall science seems to be a learnt skill, or perhaps it is the extension of the curious will.

What is consider natural after time has operated on it? Most, if not all, humans use ideas formulated by others. It seems that it is through mastery of one skill that we invent novel items. People praise those skills that go beyond naturally and universally inherited abilities, e.g. no one praises another for breathing (unless the individual is a new born, or recovering from an injury). Science is the study of nature qua nature, which seems to imply that it is somehow innate to nature, although its modern interpretation is not in the mind from birth. It is the ability to question or be curious that appears innate in us, though how strongly the emotion is felt depends on an individual’s proclivity.

It seems to me that social, genetic, and first-person forces push the individual toward particular actions. I want to remove errors and acquire vital truths of the world, which would perhaps be achieved quickly and efficiently if I survey the works of the most profound minds to appear on earth. I can’t enumerate every author I’ve ever read; I hope their influence on my mind is entailed in my thoughts. The hope of philosophy is to constantly go beyond any limits.

The limit of philosophy appears to be God. My personal understanding of God is acquired by first negating all other notions of it. If I have any direct relationship with God, it must be founded in my nature. Philosophy being the study of everything, and God being the limit of philosophy, makes God everything itself or something beyond everything. In any case, God can be used as an extreme notion.

Religion/theology is the study of God. God being the initial and/or final being is, in some sense, the ultimate being. Like every other religion, I would say all other religions contain some truths and many errors. I’m perhaps not a religious individual, but I do enjoy playing with the notion of God. For instance, I would consider It both within and beyond understanding, which is logically absurd; yet if absurdities exist, they must exist in existence.

What is the relationship between science and religion? Maybe science is a set of axioms or vitally true propositions one uses to make sense of the universe. If God can be known, then the universe in question is either the universe of God or a part of God’s universe, or perhaps God is the universe. In any case one would need to think about one’s own relationship with God. From the viewpoint of mere existence, a relationship with God is a relationship with anything at all.

Science is an amalgamation of findings from studies on the natural world, i.e. the world of the senses. Information picked up by our senses are encoded into language and recorded in or on a medium of some sort. The medium of self seems to be the focus of experience or the immediate container of the observer, all of which is perhaps summed up to be consciousness. Consciousness is a strange object, but in relation to the natural/physical world, it appears to be a logical outcome of complex and dynamic forces. All things or anything can be just byproducts of God; or certain things can be specially made by God.

There may be no way to truly know which actions are from God or from something other than God, e.g. accidents or byproducts from God’s mere existence. One notion that I believe is the doing of God (assuming It does something more than merely existing) is logic, or “the rules of mere existence."

The brain seems to have a function that is directed toward the physical world, the senses, and a function that is directed toward symbolism, reasoning. These properties can conflict or supplement each other; for reason appears to contradict sensation when one expresses a particular happening that is not actually happening, which is a falsity. The truth, however, is usually sought for outside of one’s simple self, i.e. the scientific truth is objective and serves a function.

What is expressed in society serves a social function. How exactly does the "social being” exist? Individuals must somehow cooperate while pursuing personal goals/motives. Simply put, we work in the best interest of our being, which is a complex system. What is God’s hand in the harmonious movement of beings?