Property

My recent reading of Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit" has spurred some reflection concerning the place of property, both ontologically (degree of being), and in any system of ethics.   Hayek believed that any up to date system of ethics, and any legitimate role played by government, should be based upon the protection and facilitation of the ownership, and transfer of ownership of "several property."  Socialism, as he defined it, resulted from the atavistic urge to share, and to make decisions regarding property that enabled smaller hunter-gatherer groups to survive, but were now inappropriate, and in his view, destructive.
Without endorsing this view, which falls well outside my model, I believe he was on to something when he recognized the fundamental role property plays in all interactions.  Survival requires the appropriation, preferably temporary, of things that didn't previously belong to us.   Plants appropriate water molecules, photons and the nutrients in soil to survive.  Similarly, animals appropriate oxygen and food, whether in the form of plant or animal life.   They appropriate territory, beds, nests, houses to serve as shelter.   It is no accident that our pets, ants what have you, are territorial, often fiercely so.    The right to property, to some extent, is the right to survival.  When enlightenment figures enshrined the pursuit of property, they were recognizing this fundamental truth. 
    Since the concept of property is restricted to living things, we can say that it occupies a tier, probably secondary, in our ontological hierarchy.
    The roles of the "and" and "or" in the pursuit of property will be discussed shortly,.     

Musings based on first post re Truth

Thus, is truth knowledge? Would knowledge exist without a knower? A realist, or possibly an atomist would say that knowledge consists of facts; i.e. those facts that underlie our objective world "out there".

But as for facts, even in the objective world, what constitutes a fact seems pretty arbitrary. We may, for example, say there is ice in my glass. There are cubes of ice in my glass. There is water in my glass that is below 32 degrees. There is H2O in my glass. Which might be divided into: there is H in my glass, there is O in my glass, there is a compound consisting of two molecules of hydrogen bonded to one of oxygen in my glass etc. These all may be objectively true, but I am selecting them; I am deciding which of these, or combination of these true statements (i.e. whether to say there is H, or to say there is O, or to say there are both) to call a fact. Bertrand Russell said that facts were the ultimate simples. But there is no ultimate simple. The statement that there is a substance that is two parts hydrogen bonded to one part oxygen, is no less simple than the statements that there is hyrdrogen and there is oxygen, all of which are true. They have fundamentally different meanings. It is what we decide to focus upon. Thus, even objectively true facts have an subjective element. They need a factornator. And what is that factornator, you may ask. Well, that factornator is the two pronged force I have written about extensively in my blog, called the "and" and the "or" which group together and separate true statements.

In sum, knowledge and the facts of which it is composed seems to be, in part, a human creation, or to consist of a hybrid combination of objective realities and human groupings/selections. It doesn't exist apart from the human factornator, and the "and" and the "or" work through the factornator to create knowledge. This was largely the case for G.E. Moore, who recognized that facts, which he saw as factual propositions, were not objects in the same way that objects out there, or even mental objects were.

And if this is all that knowledge is, if this is all that truth is, it seems quite arbitrary. A largely human creation. Certainly not something to devote one's life to, to go to war over. But go to war we do.

We have said that the "and" and the "or" works in human perception/cognition much the same way it works in the objective world, and that thus perception serves largely as a window to the world, an open window at that, less separated from the world than a mirror, or some entirely separate realm.

But this doesn't explain the emotional tug that truth and knowledge often has for the knower. And I think the answer has something to do with property, which as I will explain in a separate post, is primordial in its own way, at least for living beings, whether they be plants, animals or emperors. Truth is is property; it belongs to us. It legitimizes each of us. Like food and oxygen, it is something we cannot live without. It may be, and hopefully is shared whenever possible. It often has a revelatory, nourishing quality.

Sorting, the thing itself, mind/body

We can say that sorting, "oring" and "anding" into groups, whether those groups be cells, genes, species, brands, types of houses, alphabets, words, sentences, paragraphs, books is among the fundamental processes of both nature and the mind.

And when we view things from this perspective, the mind-body problem and the philosophical agony that has attended our alleged inability to know "the thing itself" fall away.

For if the "or" and the "and" are at work in both nature and the mind, can we not say that the mind is nature? There is no real distinction between nature and mind? Or perhaps the mind is a reflection of nature.   Or perhaps rather than being a distorting lens, the mind is a window to nature.

And when we view the mind as nature, as something that is natural and works in the same manner as nature, that acts as a non-distorting window to nature, our alleged inability to see things through other than human filters, to see "the thing itself", evaporates. The human filter is all we need.

 

Buffers

The erection of buffers by the "and" (and/or "or"?) to allow the process of living and diversification within these buffers seems to be a constant in nature.  We see these buffers in the membranes that protect the nuclei, the shells that protect mollusks, the skin that protects organs, the walls that protect settlements, the dwellings in which families conduct the activity of daily living, the prisons in which we house villains,  laws protecting privacy and shielding deliberations so that they can be carried out unfettered by outside interference.  Buffers are everywhere, allowing us the freedom to think regardless of the strictures oppressive governments place upon our actions, shielding our thoughts from the prying eyes of others.  Buffers, of course, also isolate us.  My authorship of this blog is an attempt to break through this buffer, to show at least a few of my thoughts that would otherwise remain forever private. And of course most communication allows us to break through these buffers within which we imprison ourselves.     Okay, time to go out.

Which is it?

I have talked about the "and" and "or" cooperating when coalitions are formed, when some entities, in drawing together with other entities, draw apart from the rest.  But do they really cooperate?  Is the "and" ascendant? Or is the "or" providing the impetus.  Half a dozen of one and six of the other? Only the particles will know.

Speculations on an Andorian Link Between Astonomy, Geometry, Chemistry and Biology

We have already said that prior to the big bang, when the "and" was ascendant, and the "or" only existed in its potential form, the universe was compressed into an infinitely small dot, or so some scientists claim.  At the moment of the big bang, the "or" experienced its actualization, and the one (dot) became many, exploding into an unknown multitude or remnants.     The "and", craving reunification, sought to connect the many, or as many of the many as possible, beckoning them, though the various processes of bonding (i.e. ionic bonding, covalent bonding etc), to coalesce into line segments.  Of course, the "or" was operative in the formation of line segments as well, as to form line segments, as the bits that would be forming line segments, had to drift away from the bits that would not form a portion of this alliance. And it came to pass that the "and", still enraged, beckoned various line segments to themselves form coalitions and become open shapes.   As we have said, the "or" itself was cooperating in the formation of these alliances, as the segments that were forming these alliances had to draw away from the segments that refused to join.   And eventually the "and" and "or" saw that there was greater security for these alliances when the shapes were closed, i.e. when the segments combined to form closed shapes.     And these closed shapes, in the right environment, created the conditions necessary for living cells to form.   For the walls or "segments" of these shapes created a buffer, so to speak, or  security for more exotic interactions to take place between these walls, within these shapes.  And we can speculate that members of these coalitions, chunks of these walls, may not have felt quite at home in these walls, may not have felt that their andorian potential for diversification, was being fully actualized.  But they saw that what remained of these buffers, which could soon be called cell membranes, created a safe place for various types of activities to take place within.  And both the "and" and "or" saw that the cleavages in this buffer caused by the departure of these bits into the center, could quickly be repaired by the absorption of other portions of the outside environment, other atoms, molecules etc, to replace the departed.  The departed themselves, those who were entering the nucleus of the cell, may have chosen to compensate for their departure by cooperating with the nucleus (the and at work again!). to draw in particles from the outside and repair the breakage.

At this stage we have reached the birth of single celled creatures, with membranes protecting a nucleus.  And to repeat myself, the nucleus, through the forces of the "and" and "or", works together with the membrane, to draw other members of the outside environment in.  What we see here, in this drawing-in-from-the outside, are the first rumblings of the nutritive process.  In our case, respiration, breathing in oxygen, is a part of the nutritive process.  And it is easy to see how the "and" and "or" subsequently cooperated, causing these single celled creatures, living in the deep sea, to form alliances into multi-celled creatures, and how these multi-celled creatures could become more successful, more efficient, if the labor, if what was necessary for both survival and the nutritive process, was divided between different clusters of cells, with skin cells performing one specialized function, blood cells another, and so on.    And eventually, through the workings of the "and" and "or", specialization and the division of labor, is repeated on a larger scale, with bands of whole multi-celled creatures, societies, whether they be humans, ants, bees etc., bands of bands of cells, working together toward a common end.

Glue

Causality,

 The glue that holds events together

A predicate for time and its relentlessly forward direction

And time itself the canvas upon which events are arranged, imprisoned by causality.

…  Yes, …and for us animals,

Memory holds time together.

While it strengthens time,

It defies it

Lashes out at it in anger.

Appearing unbidden

Like the chaos of the ocean.

Entropy

Entropy is the unmitigated "or".

Collective Consciousness

As you read this post, my words are your words. My thoughts are your thoughts.  If a congregation is reciting a prayer at the same time, that is a collective consciousness. When listening, you are temporarily giving up your ability to think your own thoughts so you can think mine.  With the use of language, on a temporary basis, the "and" gains hegemony.   Of course, the "or" is always pulling.   The "or" is saying, "I don't want to read this," "I don't want to hear this".   And eventually the "or" becomes dominant when you stop listening.  Thus, in communication there is a constant shifting of dominance from and dominance of the "and", to the dominance of the "or", for from "Andian mode" to "Orian" mode, a drifting into and out of the collective. Constant tension, constant streams into and out of these modes.  And a person who is never in Andian mode is isolated.  On the other hand, a creature of the mob, one who lacks the courage to think for oneself, is a coward, pathetic, and eventually becomes spent, needing a moment for himself.  Somehow obtaining a balance is what we should strive for, as I've said before.



Thus, there is no single overriding collective consciousness.  There may be several collective consciousnesses.     If everyone thought things lock',step and key, would there be one collective consciousness.  To an extent, reading a newspaper or published book is an act of participating in a collective consciousness, or sharing the thoughts or words others had at one time...

Diversity

When the "and" and "or" thrive, there are many "the"s and many "other"s.

The Parentheses

Parentheses are the ultimate embodiment of the and/or.  They group together those that are inside them, and simultaneously separate them from those on the outside. And they do this in the world of numbers and words.  Our bodies, our skins, are parentheses, separating our organs and ourselves from others, separating each living thing from every other living thing. And maybe cell membranes serve this function as well, separating that on the inside from that which is outside it.   But it seems like parentheses, like the "and" and the "or", underlie everything.  Like the "and" and the "or", they underlie all reality.  And as the perfect fusion of the "and" and the "or", parentheses are God.

Borders are holy.

Thoughts on the Andorian basis of Quantum Reality

We can try to place the andorian basis for quantum reality within a number of possible schemas in space, one in which an electron's location is viewed in relation to the other, and another in which we view andorean forces as affecting the electron's relationship/location to itself.

The first is relatively simple and straightforward.  The and is moving the electron toward another and the or is moving it away from another.  If we viewed the "and" and "or" as forces that pull, it is possible to view them as canceling each other out and the electron as not moving at all, something that quantum physics says is not the case. Thus, this schema does not work.  If, rather than seeing the and and or as pure movement, rather than force, the electron is simultaneously moving in two different directions, one towards another particle and the other away from it.  Under this schema, the electron is in any number of different places at the same time given the relative speeds of the and and or.  This does allow for both a particle and wavelike quality and could coincide with quantum reality.

 The other possible schema, its relation in space in relationship to itself, (rather than to another) takes some more vigorous thinking but seems to work best.  The or doesn't "want or allow" the electron to be wherever it seems to be at any given time. Rather, it refuses to be in any given place at any given time, but wants to be or tries to be somewhere else.  Since it refuses to be anywhere at any given time, but is always trying to be somewhere else, at any given time it exists, when unaccompanied by the and,  as poor possibility.  In essence, it doesn't have a corporeal existence but only exists as possibility or probability.  The electron's andness, on the other hand, wants the electron to be somewhere and elsewhere, or more accurately everywhere, at the same time.  Thus the "and", when unaccompanied by the "or", makes the electron be everywhere, and thus be everything at any given time.     Since the andorean schema provides that both the "and" and the "or" are operative, the electron's orness is making it exist nowhere at any given time but only exist as possibility, while the electron's andness is making it exist everywhere at any given time.   This weirdness, this simulaneous existence and nonexistence, this being everywhere and nowhere at the same time seems to correspond more with fuzzy quantum reality, and is more likely the best schema within which to place it. Of course, we have to trust our senses to some extent, and our senses tell us that matter exists.  And in a sense, the "or", taken alone, is not saying that the electron does not exist; it is simply saying that it doesn't exist here.   While the "and" is saying that it exists everywhere.  Thus, this schema weighs more heavily, overall, in favor of existence, but a more fuzzy existence.

More thoughts on Creativity

A precondition for creativity, besides intelligent beings, is a certain degree of diversity.  In creativity, the "and" and the "or" cooperate to increase diversity.  Or we may say that diversity perpetuates itself through the "and" and the "or".   In any event, creativity involves the "and" gathering the disparate other together, and the "or", which wants to escape itself, split away from itself and become other,  modifying the boundaries of each individual other so that each of the separate pieces can become intertwined, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  And through sufficient work and time, the pieces become completely welded together until the separate identity of each piece is no longer recognized, and a new single piece is created.  In sum, the process of the "and" gathering pieces together, the "or" modifying each piece, and the "and" taking advantage of that modification to link them together, culminates in the entire melding of these separate pieces into an entirely new piece, which the "or" separates from other pieces, ultimately increasing diversity.    Of course, there is a temporary sacrifice, or murder, if you will, involved in creativity, in that the formerly separate pieces, the disparate others, who have already been assaulted, lose their identity when welded together.   But not to worry,  their separate identity continues to exist in memory and can be reproduced if need be.  

Creativity, of course, has various degrees.   Take the example of a songwriter (me). I will take various tunes I may have heard before, modify them (change their boundaries somewhat), and meld them together, using bridges between tunes when necessary, to create a song.  Something with a higher degree of creativity,  such as a new musical genre, occurs when the separate pieces have been so modified and so melded together that their former separateness is no longer apparent.  And of course, the geniuses are few who have played significant roles in the birth of new musical genres.

More on Language

Of course, to put language in a box, to categorize it, would be to commit the same offense that language routinely perpetrates.  For language is more than a leveler.   Language also forms the glue, the "and" that enables members of the same speciies, particularly humans, to cooperate. People use language to conspire to dominate all other things (and other people).  Language is something that develops over time so that people can dominate or get a handle around more things.   So we may see a cycle: the "and" uses the tool of language to further develop that tool, so it can subjugate more and more of the other.    Or maybe the "the"(the person?), through language uses the "and" to cooperate with other thes, to further develop the tool of language, so it can  get a handle around and dominate more and more of the other.

Most nonhumans use very little language, it is rudimentary, and if it is used to classify things, a big if, it classifies very few things.   A dog doesn't see a CD as a CD.  It sees something that is flat, shiny, may have a certain smell, is difficult to bite into, metallic tasting, and the dog likely makes no attempt to recognize that there are other CDs.  If it recognizes a similarity between this and other CDs, it is just the experience that it is useless, not good for the teeth and has no nutritional value.  And it is doubtful that the dog sees CDs as different from other worthless pieces of metal with similar smells. It is possible, however, that the dog's experience of the CDs, without the leveling, without the differentiation, is in a sense richer than ours.  The animal does not feel a need to "box" things to the same extent that people do.   And it likely has no interest in doing so.  But humans use language to box everything in the universe.  Language allows us to cast a wide net. We use language to subjugate all others.  And then the "or" then goes to work, using language to separate things into different categories, and killing their individuality in the process. In creating these different categories, the "the" and the "and" create an artificial diversity among things, trying to undo the damage they had originally done to the "or" through the leveling process.   Thus, language is both a leveler, a conqueror and an enslavor.  And I, my friend, am turning language against itself, using language to level language.  And I said I wouldn't do it, but I did.

A slightly more serious thought about poetry

Yes, language is a tool, and poets, novelists, editorialists, essaysists, and would be philosophers wield it for various manipulative purposes.  When that tool is meant to be a window to the world, which words can truly never be, I wonder to what extent the imagery in poetry is meant to create a sense of yearning - because the images poetry creates cannot be as vivid as those we actually experience with all our senses - because words by their very nature destroy individuality - to what extent is imagery meant to create a yearning for the experience?

Utilitarianism or "Kill the Poets"

Thus, in the act of categorization, we are stripping the other of its otherness.  Or as Nietzche might have said, we are, in a sense, filing down a coin until it has lost its distinctive character, until you know not the country from which it originated, until the face that appears on it is unrecognizable.  When you use the word "cat", you are not referring to some idealized form which gives cats their substance.  Rather, you are viciously robbing millions of felines of their identity by putting them in a box so you can "get a handle" on them.  For securing a conceptual handle is the first step on the long road to hegemony, to dominance.

Thus forms, categories, universals are man made.  We make them by combining the "other" with the "the" and stripping the other of its otherness.  It is as if we are paring down a beautiful branch, once burgeoning with leaves in their multiple fall colors, stripping it thereof, and paring down its tip until it forms an arrow.

From categories, we move to language.  We'll discuss the structure of language in a little bit more detail later,  but all sentences, all declarations are composed, in part, of "objects" - subjects, nouns etc., - that relate to each other through verbs, which themselves involve the four pillars (the "and", the "or", the "the" and the "other".)  And objects are forms or categories.  In the sentence, "the cat caught the mouse," we have two categories: a category we have conquered by slitting the throats of millions of cats, and another category we have derived from running billions of mice through mazes until they've lost their individual spirit.

Man uses categories, and language, to get a handle on things so he can dominate them.  Language is largely a tool, like mathematics, science etc., which man uses to subjugate others.  Language strips individuals of their identities. In its crudest form, it is a weapon, what was once a beautiful branch, flush with leaves of various hues, that we have stripped away and honed into a spear.   There is nothing beautiful about it.   Poets are magicians, who somehow make dead branches, well honed spears,  appear beautiful; they are illusionists. They show us tools, and pretend they're showing us something else.  They are frauds!!!!! They must be stopped!!!.

Categorization

In the act of categorization, the "other" is combined with the "the" and stripped of its otherness.  It is a violent act that strips the other of its individuality.  And yet it is a characteristic of all human thinking.  It is impposible to speak or think without categorizing.  When we use words we are categorizing.  When I say "Melba is a cat" I am categorizing her.   I am shutting out some of her ownmost characteristics, such as her colors, weight etc so that I and you can "get a handle" on her.  We may try to undo some of this damage, when we describe some of her traits, but still...The use of all language involves "trying to get a handle" on or manipulate the world.  And why do we do this?  Because the world, in its shapelessness is overwhelming.  We and all animals are locked in, or at least feel locked in a constant battle for survival.  When exiting the womb we see things as they are, and it is too much.  We start to cry.  Lacking fangs or venom our only way to survive is to use our mind, to get a handle on things, to define them, to turn them into tools if need be.  For some, the act of meditating is an attempt to let things be, to let things come as they are without defining them.  Looking at a work of art may be an attempt to view something in its undefined essence.   Of course, meditating or visiting museums are only activities that can be done at our leisure.  And can we really see things as shapeless blobs as a baby might see them?  Not really.  We may see or experience more of the thing in itself, but our lenses set, our neural networks are formed, our horizons forever limited.  We are murderers.      

The Four Pillars

Four pillars underlie all that is: The and, the or, the "the,"  the "other".    While the and and the or are the two primordial forces, they would not operate without the "the" and the "other".  

We have already defined the "and" and the "or".  Similarly, the "the" and the "other" can be given somewhat amorphous definitions.  Both can represent any object or point in space, or space time, with the "the" generally serving as the protagonist.

 We can first say that the "the" and the "other" are the building blocks of space or spacetime as we experience.

Prior to the big bang, there was no other, just the "the" and the "and" holding the "the" together, causing the "the" to occupy an infinitely small point.   With the big bang, the "or" caused the "the" to separate from itself, giving birth to the "other", and to infinite "the"s and infinite others, and our modern space, or  spacetime as we currently know it, as well as motion.  

    With regard to motion,  the "and", along with the "the" and the "other" is operative in all motion insofar as all motion involves the "and" causing the "the" to merge with the "other".   Similarly, the "or" is operative in all motion insofar as in all motion, the "the" is moving away from itself, or its former point in spacetime,  thus giving rise to the "other."

We have already, in one of our earliest posts, said that the "and" and "or" form the building blocks of all the fundamental forces, such as the strong force, weak force, gravity and electro-magnetic force because all force is attractive, causing things to come together, or repulsive. But we left the "the" and the "other" out of the picture.   Attractive force, motivated by the "and", causes the "the" to merge with the "other".  Similarly, repulsive force, with the "or" as its building block, either causes the "the" to separate from itself, forming the "other", or the "the" to separate from the "other".

 The four pillars, as we have already said, underlie all language.  For all written language must consist of words, which in turn must consist of letters. And the "and" is responsible for joining two or more letters, one of which we may call the "the", with the other called the "other", into a word, or two words (which may both consist of "the"s, "ands" and "others" into a sentence.  And as we've already said, the "and" combines sentences into paragraphs, while the "or" separates letters, words, sentences and paragraphs from each other.

There is not a single thing, either in nature, history or thought, that does not have contain these four building blocks.

DM/DE

Dark matter and dark energy.  The "and" and "or" in their purest form

An Important Task

The  the amino acids, proteins, the elements such as hydrogen, that make up a cell, each separately dead, come together in miraculous ways to make up a living cell.  Cells come together to make conscious beings.  Life is predicated on the "and". Without the "and", life wouldn't be. If the "and" dies, so goes life.  Protect the "and".  Let the "and" bring "the"s and "others" together, allowing them to preserve their otherness but to work as a team.  Teamwork does more than win ball games.  It makes life possible.