Thursday, December 28, 2017

NEUROLOGY AND THE MIND


NEUROLOGY AND THE MIND

D. R. Khashaba

Neurologists are under a very serious illusion. They think that neurology studies the mind or at any rate can lead them to understanding the mind. The mind cannot be the object of any science for the very simple reason that the essence of the mind is subjectivity while the first principle of science is objectivity. Not even philosophers can study the mind. This sounds like a paradox but when we consider it more closely it appear more like a truism. Philosophers study the works of the mind and the workings of the mind. But the mind is the active principle behind all that which is an ultimate mystery like the mystery of Being (i.e., ultimate Reality). When I think, when I am moved emotionally, when I experience joy or grief, I am conscious of the works and the workings of my mind but my mind itself is a principle above and beyond all that.

A while ago I likened the mystery of the mind to the mystery of Being, but there is something wrong with that statement. I would rather say that the mystery of the mind and the mystery of Being are not two but one. Being, Mind, Life are, like the Trinity of Christian theology, one in three and three in one. Indeed the Christian Trinity could be seen as a fine allegory of ultimate Reality that has been spoilt by the gross interpretations of clever but narrow and shallow intellects.

Incidentally, psychologists in thinking that their branch of study is enhanced by adopting the methods and techniques and, more seriously, the approach of science, are deluded. The more of a science psychology becomes the farther it is removed from the living reality of the psuchê (psyche) and the more raducakky ut is denied insight into the inner reality of a human being.

D. R. Khashaba

December 28, 2017

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Thursday, December 21, 2017

DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY


DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY

D. R. Khashaba

Philosophy cannot be defined by its content or subject-matter like biology or chemistry or history. I have previously said that a philosopher’s whole work is that philosopher’s definition of philosophy. That is so as far as it goes, but it does not give us a general definition of philosophy.

The two statements I made in the lines above – that philosophy cannot be defined by its subject-matter and that each philosopher’s complete work is that philosopher’s definition of philosophy – are two sides of a coin. For, what is the origin, the source, the fount of a philosopher’s work? If it be a genuine philosopher we are speaking about, then there is one valid answer to the question. A genuine philosopher’s whole work stems from that philosopher’s puzzlements.

A philosopher is irked, tormented, by questions — ultimate questions. A philosophymonger who does not suffer under the stranglehold of puzzlements and doubts and who peddles secondhand philosophical merchandise in complete equanimity is a fraud.

A philosopher is a questioner. She or he questions the world, questions herself or himself, questions all received beliefs and inherited usages. Hence a philosopher is a destroyer as Nietzsche said.

There can be no textbook of philosophy as there are textbooks of physics or geology. Philosophy cannot be learned from books. Plato emphatically insisted on this. There is no way for anyone to ‘become’ a philosopher. No one can be a philosopher if not born a philosopher and the born philosopher ‘becomes’ a philosopher by giving way to one’s questionings: in other words, the only way rto ‘become’ a philosopher is to philosophize.

Philosophers write books. What do we get from reading books written by philosophers? A philosopher who presumes to give ‘truths’ ir ‘knowledge’ in her or his book is gravely deluded. The only good you get from reading a philosophy book is to be infected by the philosopher’s puzzlements and questionings and go on to wrestle with the questionings that set the philosopher philosophizing in the first place, impelling you to philosophize for yourself.

To be well-read in philosophy is no guarantee that you become a philosopher. Reading one philosophy book may initiate you to philosophy while reading a whole library of philosophy books may leave you with that ignorance that Socrates called the worst ignoramce, thinking that you know while you know not.

Dear Reader, these are stray thoughts strewn haphazardly without order or forethought. If they annoy you, I apologize; if they set you puzzling, I will have been well rewarded.

D. R. Khashaba

December 21, 2017

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Saturday, December 09, 2017

WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?


WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?

D. R. Khashaba

AI and IT experts speak glibly of intelligent machines and of robots that will replace humans. Be that as it may, but let us at least think a little about the words we use.

It is a corruption of language to speak of a machine as intelligent. I know that our scientists and experts have their definitions, their technically refined definitions, but all of those definitions specify external marks that cannot reveal the essence of what we are speaking about. And the more sophisticated and intricate the definitions are, the more distant they are from the true nature, the inner nature, of the thing defined.

The understanding of a thing, I will not say comes from, but is none other than the light that shines from the self-evidence of what we are speakingabout. Understanding is a live experience. You understand when you have no need for any definition or explanation or proof.

I repeat: it is a corruption of language to speak of a machine as intelligent because the first mark of intelligence is spontaneity, and I find ‘spontaneity’ here more telling than ‘autonomy’. Our intelligence is spontaneity; our free will is spontaneity.

When I speak of intelligence in a human being or in any sensate being, I am not referring to the intelligence of an Einstein or of an Alan Turing, but of the intelligence of my granddaughter’s cats, each of which has a marked character and temper and caprices of her own and does what she does because — because of no because, but just that it suits her.

Lessing, if my memory serves me right, said “ Kein Mensch muss müssen”. In four little words he put his finger on the holy of holies of humanity, or rather of all life. Had Descartes had a pet cat he would not have committed the idiocy of saying that animals are automata.

The essence of life is intelligence and spontaneity, All ltfe is intelligent in a sense of intelligence that AI and IT experts and all the geniuses of physics and astrophysics and robot builders cannot comprehend because they seek intelligence where there is no intelligence. Where there is no life there no intelligence can be.

Dear Reader, I write in anger. Where there is anger there will be error. But if all my statements are proven to be riddled with contradiction I will still aver that in my error there is more truth that is in all the works of all Laplaces and all Turings put together.

D. R. Khashaba

December 9, 2017

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Friday, December 08, 2017

LIMITS OF SCIENCE


LIMITS OF SCIENCE

D. R. Khashaba

The title of Martin Rees’ paper came to me like a pleasant surprise. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/limits-of-science/547649/ Throughout two decades in book after book and essay after essay I have been trying to drive home that philosophers and scientists should have learnt long ago from Plato and Kant — a simple lesson teaching that the very objectivity of science makes questions about the inner reality of things lie beyond yhe competence of science. I am writing this having read no more than the headlines of Rees’ paper which I will now proceed to read and see if I have any comment to make or anything to add but I conjecture that Rees’ position will not be as radical as Plato’s or Kant’s.

Rees starts by quoting a statement of Einstein’s that I have repeatedly cited. As I see it, the comprehensibility of the universe suggests that mind (intelligence) is an aspect of ultimate reality. But that does not make that ultimate reality accessible to the objective approach of science. The objectivity of science limits it, as Kant said, to dealing with things as they show themselves in human experience, that is, to dealing with phenomena.

I do not want to repeat yet once more my insistence (following Socrates) on keeping science and philosophy unmixed since science and philosophy deal with radically distinct questions. (See “Stephen Hawking’s Bad Metaphysics”.)

Regrettably my conjecture proved true. There is not much congruity between Rees’ approach and mine. To obtain “the enlightenment that scientists seek” scientists must learn to ask the questions that science cannot answer. Wisdom is not the fruit of much learning, especially not scientific learning.

I resist a temptation to take up once more the distinction between knowledge and understanding. But let this suffice for now.

D. R. Khashaba

December 8, 32017

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Thursday, December 07, 2017

GOD MUSES


GOD MUSES

D. R. Khashaba

WARNING: Dear Reader, these are black thoughts oozed in a black hour on a black day. You will be well advised not to read any further.

God sat musing.

When I created life — well, I didn’t really create life. Life is an original dimension of my being, which I shaped in myriads of shapes, from the tiger to the butterfly, from the lizard to the hippopotamus, that was good, All life has intrinsic value. When life feeds on life, that is a normal consequence of the principle of transience ruling all finite existence. Thus far all was good. But then I made my worst error. I created human beings. Humans, not content with their intrinsic value as living beings, created for themselves their own secondary values, aims, purposes. When these secondary values clashed within one individual human being, or when the values in certain human beings clashed with the values in other human beings, there arose misery, frustration, dejection … there arose greed … there arose anger and hate. All of this overshadowed the original worth of life in human beings. Many times I have thought of uprooting this grave error by destroying the human race totally. But then I saw maybe a single human being, one woman or one man that did not sully the intrinsic worth of life in them … at one time a Socrates here, at another time a Gautama there, at yet another time a simple woman who gave her life to save another life, and I changed my mind. But the evil generated by the human race has 0verflown all measure. I’d better deceive myself no longer. The human experiment has turned sour. I must finish off this vile weed. I must not let anything weaken my resolve this yime. What remains is to decide the means. At one time I had almost decided … by a sight alteration in the speed of the Earth’s revolution to send the polluted planet hurtling towards the Sun to be totally consumed. But this would end all life on Earth. True, I have shaped modes of life on other planets. But what wrong has the sleek scorpion or the nimble squirrel done to deserve this end? No. I will let the human race finish itself off. The simple combination of greed and stupidity with which hum\ns are brimful is sufficient to lead them to their inevitable end. In the process humans will have wreaked grave damage to the originally well-balanced environment of the Earth. This is a price that has to be paid. And the damage will be remedied when the cumulatively pernicious influence of humans has been removed. That’s it! Leave them to the poisonous mix of greed and stupidity and they will soon end themselves.

D. R. Khashaba

December 7, 2017

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Friday, December 01, 2017

IDEALISTS AND MATERIALISTS


IDEALISTS AND MATERIALISTS

D. R. Khashaba

It seems that humans are divided into two fundamental classes more radically distinct than the gender division of male and female. After all we know that there are males with a high ingredient of femininity and females with a high ingredient of masculinity. But among Idealists and Materialists there is no sharing and no common ground.

Plato twice asserts and underlines this distinction. In the Sophist we read: “What we shall see is something like a Battle of Gods and Giants going on between them over their quarrel about reality. … One party is trying to drag everything down to earth out of heaven and the unseen, literally grasping rocks and trees in their hands; for they lay hold upon every stock and stone and strenuously affirm that real existence belongs only to that which can be handled and offers resistance to the touch. They define reality as the same thing as body, and as soon as one of the opposite party asserts that anything without a body is real, they are utterly contemptuous and will not listen to another word.” ( Sophist, 246a-c). And in the Crito Socrates, having asserted with no less emphasis his conviction that “'we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone”, goes on to say, “this opinion has never been held, and never will be held, by any considerable number of persons; and those who are agreed and those who are not agreed upon this point have no common ground, and can only despise one another when they see how widely they differ” (Crito, 49c-d, tr. Jowett).

Socrates was speaking of moral ‘idealism’ but we can apply what he says, word for word, to ‘metaphysical reality’, to what different persons mean by reality, to what is real and what is not real, which is what I am concerned with in this essay. This is a battle that has been raging between the two camps from Plato and Aristotle, through Bishop Berkeley and Dr. Johnson, to the present day.

First I have to confess that I am semantically at a disadvantage. It is so common and so natural to speak of what can be touched and held in one’s hand as real that it would be unrealistic to ask people to reverse this usage. What I can and do ask for is that in philosophical discussions we should keep in mind that the metaphysician’s (Plato’s say) ‘reality’ has nothing to do with the commonsense usage of the term. When I wrote my first book, Let Us Philosophize, I hesitated long between ‘Reality’ and ‘Being’ for designating what is ultimately real. I have repeatedly said that my electing ‘Reality’ was foolish or at least unfortunate. But I don’t think electing ‘Being’ instead would have made much of a difference. I have lately found Berdyaev using the term ‘Spirit’ for what is ultimately real. For a while I said to myself I wish I had hit on that, but once again I don’t think that choice would have made any difference.

Thus once again, hoping against hope, I will try to clarify what I mean by what is real and what I, chiefly in common with Plato, mean by saying that the things we encounter in the world around us are – in the technical meta[hysical sense of the term – not real.

We know that the things around us, from Dr. Johnson’s rock to Kim Jong-un’s nuclear missiles at no moment of time have a constantly stable being. Heraclitus knew that all things are constantly changing and that the sun that came up this morning is not the same sun that came up yesterday. Heraclitus affirmed this despite the fact that the state of knowledge at his time seemed to belie him. The mountains at least seemed fixed and firm. Now our scientists know that the particles that constitute the Himslayas know no rest, that the sun today is one day nearer its final extinction, that the farthest galaxies vie with our oceans in their ceaseless commotion. Modern science taught us that this red rose is not in itself red and that the colour I see is the joint product of a complex operation involving rays of light, the physiology of my eyes, and the faery dances of neurons in my brain. Scientists were so taken by their discoveries that they, and not any Idealists, denied the ‘reality’ of the red colour. It was left for A. N. Whitehead to call this denial the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness.

In their search for what is ultimately real scientists went farther and farther away from the ‘commonsense real’. They sought the final constituent(s) of things, in other words, they continued the quest of Thales and Anaximenes. For a time the atom was triumphantly hailed as the answer, but then the ‘indivisible atom’ proved to be neither indivisible nor final. The old naïve materialism represented by Dr. Johnson’s solid rock was no longer viable. (The word is now used as a convenient blanket term for physicalism, scientism, empiricism, etc.) The search continued till we reached at one end Quantum Mechanics which nobody understands and at the other end the Big Bang characterized as a singularity which is a euphemism for absurdity.

But far more important than all of this is the following consideration: Supposing we reached a final objective thing, and quite apart from the question about the origin of that thing, we face the question: what supports that thing, what gives it its credentials for being?

Confessedly, the Idealist has no answer to that question any more than the scientist, but there is a difference. The Platonist would say: We do not know of a single thing in the natural world whose being and whose character may not be subjected to doubt. Our own subjective being is the one thing whose self-evidence, immediate presence, and present immediacy are beyond all doubt. This of course is what Descartes affirms in his unfortunate formulation, je pense, donc je suis. This Is the thought behind Kant’s noumenon set against all the phenomena of the natural world. Shelley with the prophetic insight of a philosophical poet condenses it all in one line: “Nought is but that which feels itself to be” (Hellas).

But Platonism does not stop there. What is the worth of all the world, of all we encounter in it and all we do in it as against the delight of understanding, the peace of loyalty, the bliss of generosity? What gift has the world to compare with the joy of intelligent contemplation?

To remove a widespread misunderstanding: neither Plato nor Berkeley nor any sane Idealist denied or doubted the actuality of the world around us. But which is more worthy of being held more real and more valuable: the hard world outside us or our mind and the verities of the mind within us? Socrates said it in a few words: The best thing for a human being is to discourse of virtue every day.

D. R. Khashaba

December 1, 2917

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