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This took me some time and I am glad it is done.
Further Epistemological Concerns
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are you 5
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にんしきろん
認識論
rèn shí lùn
literal: "recognize knowledge view"?
"epistemology" seems easier to understand in 漢字 than how English dictionaries may define it
認識論
rèn shí lùn
literal: "recognize knowledge view"?
"epistemology" seems easier to understand in 漢字 than how English dictionaries may define it
Última edición:
- Registrado
- 24 de Jul, 2019
I sometimes think about getting into other philosophies but it all sounds like hippy trippy bullshit and I don’t like it.にんしきろん
認識論
rèn shí lùn
literal: "recognize knowledge view"?
- Registrado
- 6 de Jul, 2022
Read the Bible.
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- 24 de Jul, 2019
Here is the second edition of this text. In plaintext:
Further Epistemological Concerns
Second Edition
Alex Buckley
Dedicated to the Kiwi Farms
“Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.”
In the Bible, when God tasks Adam with naming the animals He does so very specifically. The text reads, “And he knew their names”! How can you name something without already knowing what the thing is? Adam did not create their names from nothing the way God created everything, he did not learn of their names from another source and was thereby inspired, and he did not receive instruction! God tasked man with doing the naming for Him! Man already knows all that he can know! (Prolonged Applause)
How could this be possible? How is it that man can already know what he has not yet come to understand? How could Adam know their names since before he met them? The answer is so subtle! Does man not derive his knowledge from the very substance that he is? Does he not use his mind, his brain, in the act of understanding? Are mental incompetents not those who suffer brain mutations or other damage? Do people not become infected by memetic spreading poisonous ideology? This should tell you all that you need to know! Fools really do believe that knowledge is some property of an invisible ether, transmitted fully and universally to each other in a social situation: vulgar historical materialism, naive dualists! (Laughter and applause)
My purpose here is to systematize my understanding of the nature of knowledge, what is known as theory of mind. This consideration is of great importance, and a misunderstanding or non understanding of the subject is worse than blindness. Fixing these most basic issues is critical to solving not only the current problems that man faces in his thought but also in making further steps into what can be known.
Man and Nature
There is a simple and yet radically different way of thinking about complex and subtle ideas. The interpretation of nature is an intensely difficult problem that I believe to have found a solution to. Unity is only a part of this explanation. The rest is in self creation, interpretation, and the nature of meaning.
Our question is of natural existence. At this moment there is too much to discuss, but it should be clear that there are many acceptable answers to this question. My answer is a general understanding of the nature of questions and answers, and not necessarily if any one answer is correct. Bacteria, obviously inferior to us, live every day right alongside us, inside us, despite their lowly status.
Man seeks answers for his own reasons: his selfishness, his pride, his desire for power over others. All of these things can be achieved through and perpetuated by science! Science is only abstract reasoning, this being an interpretive signification and arrangement of ideas. Any order or collection of ideas is a science, their only differences being in explanation of known fact, prediction of future states, and the power of the models they produce. Concerns about ethics and morality are very much beyond the scope of what science can provide.
Abstraction
Abstraction is simply an attempt at generalization, and will be our tool for the foreseeable feature. I wish to avoid vulgarism, or becoming lost in the appearances of the objects in nature. The purpose of abstract reasoning is to interact with things that cannot be seen or touched, and to truly interact with those that can be seen. An excellent example is yesterday. Go ahead and attempt to point at yesterday, the abstract conception of the day previous. How do we understand these things that cannot be touched, that cannot be seen with our own eyes? The human mind is an organ developed in nature and is capable of abstract thought. As already made clear, the information is in no way external; man does not receive his knowledge from outside himself. Man uses his mind to abstractly systemize his thought in order to naturally explain his past, describe the present, and predict the future.
Natural Foundations of Human Knowledge
It has occurred to me that I have not thought through an issue as thoroughly as I may have liked. I very firmly believe that all natural matter in the universe is alive in the way that we think about life: that it is a self and is composed of other selves and has agency and makes decisions. Photons apparently know the best path to take when traveling, as do electrons: these particles are aware and agential in a similar way as to macro scale organisms. I also believe that man’s mind is in some way unique and is capable of some kind of higher or more complex abstract reasoning. In my opinion there is no reason why the nature of mind in man and in matter should be any different, but it very obviously is in the intelligence of humans. Man very clearly shows dominance over other life, with his intelligence, his self awareness, his mastery over materialism and mathematical physics being key reasons. This being so, I don’t know what it is that man's brain, his intelligence, allows him to access that wasn’t already accessible to the mind. Maybe it is the higher abstract reasoning. Perhaps only man can do science, and the rest of nature lacks the self awareness to perform such an act. The answer is probably that conscious self awareness and agential vital expression are not exactly the same thing, in fact being distinct from each other. There is quite likely a difference between agential life, abstract thought, and conscious intelligence, maybe in some kind of ascending order.
My above reasoning is based on an assumption of natural unity. I believe that all of nature has some one single origin with all the differences being variations on the same, and that recapitulations happen frequently enough to cross reference each part of nature with itself. We should come to find, in the end, that nature tells one singular story with no loose ends. Obviously we will never achieve this. Our best will be a satisfying story with a few loose ends.
Nature is not a mirror but an interpretation of itself by semiotic agents assigning meaning in acts of expression. From the one managed to grow three interlinking parts that each power the other driving the whole into a complexification of mosaic like stories.
Substance, Structure, and Function
What does it mean to be a whole? A part? An individual? Is man a phenomena of interacting agents? If man is not his substance, what is he? What is the relation between man’s function and his substance? Or in other words, what is man’s purpose? Is there a purpose?
There is a very obvious connection between a thing's substance, its formal structure, and its teleological function. What the thing is and what it does in relation to other things are very closely connected. God, the all-thing that is, has a certain substance that performs a function because of what it is, and these various results are collected into a formal arrangement. There is an obvious realism assumption here, that these objects are real things. Nominalism and conventionalism are hopeless solipsisms.
As I shall explain in a future text, I believe that God creates so that he may destroy and finally redeem. This brutality is clear and ready to be seen by all. I see no other way to explain the obvious creation, destruction, and apparent redemption that we see everyday. Beliefs of atheism are repeated by people who have no understanding of the meaning of their faith, and the same follows for those who follow the philosophy of physical reductionism. Any Christian, when he suffers, is reminded of his Lord when he looks up at the cross, seeing his Lord Christ, the son of God, has been butchered! Who is man in comparison, and why would he deserve any better treatment than Christ?
Natural Ontology
Ontology is the sequencing of events in a very specific order, suggesting that the thing next derives from the thing previous. Nature is an ontology of things being produced from the last thing made. The sequencing of things in nature is incredibly important to the understanding of nature. The abstract arrangement of natural ontology is discoverable and the understanding of this can allow further discovery.
Ontogeny is the self creation of the thing out of the thing itself, or in this case life out of the substance of God. The development of the thing out of what the thing is I name expression. Ontogeny specifically is the origin of expression.
Natural Ontology
Natural ontology is composed of three simple substances: the virtual, the physical, and the symbolic. I will briefly detail them below.
Virtual Nature
Very little is known and understood about this matter. Very strange and abstract entities populate this aspect of nature. These abstract things interact and emerge at a higher phenomenological level as a physical object.
Physical Nature
Physical natural phenomena are the result of interactions between the virtual objects. Physical objects populate the world around us and are what we are composed of, our material nature. Physics is the study of this kind of nature. Physical objects have evolved in complexity (of this subject I have further thoughts that I wish to discuss elsewhere) and produced through their interactions consciousness. I have stated above that I am not sure of the exact difference between mind and consciousness, if matter is evolving separately from mind or if mind is the result of physical interactions. I tend to think that the mind is a substance similar to the symbolic, and that consciousness is a higher emergence from physical interactions.
Symbolic Nature
Symbolics are the result of physical interactions. Physical particles come together and interact in such a way that a higher form of abstraction emerges. Symbolism consists of symbols, icons, and indices. These signs are very abstract but are certainly real.
Phenomenological Ascendence
The name I give to this rising emergence is phenomenological ascendence.
Recapitulations
To recapitulate is to do what has been done before once again. Doing this provides legitimate strength to the action: the performance gains some legitimacy from the fact that it had been done before, the performer shows the solidity of the act, and the performer can align himself with previous abstractions for boosts in popularity and in legitimacy or control.
Recapitulation is performed across the line of ontology. The primary line of ontology in nature is the phenomenological ascension, and recapitulations can occur in a number of higher complex fashions between the three interacting parts and all their emergent sub parts.
In the act of God’s development His ontology winds itself ever outwards in an
increasingly complex development, recapitulating so that it may reach yet further. God draws on the substance of himself, creating, destroying and redeeming to create again, to function in yet further ways.
Reticulation
It may be that instead of a linear model, nature could be reticulated in its ontology. It is possible that virtual produces physical, that physical produces symbolic, and that symbolic produces virtual. This is a very strange model and I do not understand how symbolism can interact with virtual reality, thereby Influencing physical phenomena. The linear model is the opposite: instead of symbolism producing virtual nature it simply is its own thing and has no relation. This linear model suggests a higher abstract world of spirit and agency, a nature populated by abstract mental entities living in an ideal ecology. The reticular model suggests rebirth.
I may note here that it is possible that the three substances are entirely separate and have no relation to each other. I am preparing for this scenario.
Objectivity
This is what everyone wants to know, the objective truth of nature. This is not possible and never will be. The problem here is an ontological one: the part is in no way the whole. The part may only know what it is in relation to other parts, and how they are arranged against an unknown whole.
Identity
Each part in the whole has a unique identity and these identities are composed of other identities and are themselves unique identities.
Subjectivity
These individual identities, who have no way of understanding the whole, must use their subjective experiences to understand nature.
Interpretation
The individual understanding of nature in relation to the whole is interpretation. The mechanism of interpretation is semiotic signification. The abstract data points of knowledge are information. The philosophy of interpretation I name general semiology.
Information
Information is the combination of some point data overlaying the contextual semiotic substructure. Informational objects are abstract, and can be interacted with in abstract terms. Man has no direct observation of informational objects, and must approach this sublime thing by indirect means. I happen to walk backward to reach my object of desire. Mirrors work as well. The abstract nature of metaphysical reality is such that it does not allow for direct observation and must be interacted with indirectly.
I already know that no information is contained in anything, and that therefore no text that I read has any information inside of it available to me. There is no object of information that is directly accessible contained in anything. No book, no movie, no story can ever be a contained informational particle. I wonder how this is. I conclude that when I read the text, I do so not to inform myself, but to remind myself of what it is that I already know. This is critical to understand, as this is an issue relating to the substance, structure, and function of nature. Very foolish people call this bias and see this issue from a very different perspective. To create a new thought in one's mind is to suggest that the underlying brain structure has been somehow changed during the act of learning, or that the agent has a change in his organizational collective consumption. This is not so! No teacher has ever surgically opened a student's mind in order to ensure instruction has been received. No opinion has ever been changed that wasn’t already accepting of change! While we are not aware of this very subtle fact, it is also very obvious. The students may be coaxed and swaddled or beaten in class, but the learning must all be done by them: whatever potential they have will be revealed by their expression of themselves. When the test scores are returned, they most usually represent the teacher's non understanding of the nature of thought and the inability to force thoughts into one's mind. It’s a fact of nature to be reliant on one’s own sense, and to berate another similarly shackled person by claims of being uninformed, of being uneducated or biased is a disgrace. Of course this claimant believes himself (or herself) to be on the side of objectivity, of the right side of history, of correct moral and ethical opinions. Why wouldn't they believe such a thing?
Observation
Observation implies an understanding of what one is looking for. The purpose of observation is the attainment of some answer. To achieve an answer, and a very specific answer is usually desired, a very specific question must be asked. How can a question be asked if the answer is not already known? How would you even be able to formulate the question without an idea of what is desired? The answer is that you already know, or have the capacity to know, what it is that you want to know.
The observation is arranged in a statement. This statement assumes categories used to arrange the ideas of observation.
Awareness
Awareness is a state of consciousness that an agent assumes in order to perform the signification of observation. It is an arrangement of categories useful to the agent. This act is a kind of instinct: the substance of nature and the nature of life are the same.
Belief
Action is the agential performance of will. Action is the necessary choice decided by the agent. Habit is the ritualization of action. Habits become further canalized into beliefs. Change in belief is a personal endeavor, and this involves a change in habit and behavior. These beliefs are a foundation of self awareness.
Perception
Perception is the self awareness of observation. Every individual has a unique subjective perspective. This perspective is informed by the stimulation received from the senses. Sensation on its own is in no way an observation of truth, but the arrangement of these senses into a perspective allows the agent to map his environment. Higher abstract sense perception is performed by the physical organs and whose structure is transmitted by genetics.
Definition
Definition is the arbitrary assignment of meaning to a signified. Definition can be however life wishes it to be. There is no closed door here, the way is open to any path. Any arbitrary meaning can be assigned to any category and these categories themselves are arbitrarily designated. Do not be fooled by the seemingly useless description of nature as arbitrary: this is exactly how meaning is communicated in a world with no contained information. Definition provides the agent with a sense of self, of place that may be communicated, rather than something that inherently is.
Communication
Communication is the transmission of ideas from one agent to another. The transmission of information is semiotic in nature.
Semiotics
Signification is the mechanism of action in interpreting information. This mechanism is composed of three parts: abstract sublime signs, signified objects carrying arbitrary assigned meaning standing in as observable objects for the unseen signs, and the interpretive signifier.
The signified is a physical entity that is used as a stand-in for the sign, the thing being referenced. The signifier is the party performing the semiosis.
Expression
Expression is the act of agential self fulfillment. This has been known for a very long time: the expression of personally held truth, the expression of self and emotion. The Greeks are an excellent example of this natural form. They communicated their ideas to each other in the presentation of a story, with actors up on a stage being closely watched by an audience of onlookers and the gods above. These plays had a very serious religious role in Greek society and were respected as such.
Representation
Conventions are routine arbitrary assignments of meaning to expression. These conventions have no actual connection to any objective world and are merely the overlapping of many different assumptions and observations into a web of belief. This web has no foundation and can only reference the individual that created it. These beliefs are representations and derivations of systems of thought.
Reference
Reference is the invocation of a known representation.
Descriptive Statements
Description is a one dimensional line of symbols strung out linearly along a string. These strings can be interwoven together to provide a stronger foundation, but never forget that these strings are attached to nothing and are purely arbitrary lines of thought. Reference is a common descriptive statement, used to represent some already common idea and to name its origins.
The hope of description is to provide highly detailed stories of nature. As already stated these stories are told with some kind of personal purpose in mind, whatever that may be. Models with higher and more complete and consistent descriptive content will outshine weaker models. These models are obviously more complex in their nature.
Alignment and Association
This kind of symbolic nature is critical in the formation of names and descriptive statements and their weaving into a cohesive and consistent whole. Names and and statements can be aligned to already existing names and statements to confer validity. These references to already associated ideas helps bind the new idea into a network of already supporting ideas. This helps with validity and structural integrity. Associated ideas tend to grow together or coexist nicely, and when they are mutually beneficial this process is quickened. Naturally, some ideas do not associate well and these ideas will self segregate. It is important to be aware of these associations, whether mutually supporting and converging or unrelated and disagreeing as this is the abstract ecology of thought. This thought should be consistent through its structure and inconsistencies should be obvious.
Hypothesis
Hypothesis is the generation of novel descriptions at the presentation of an unforeseen situation. The purpose of the hypothesis is to gain an increased understanding of the situation that we are concerned with. This may be for manipulation and control, or just for the simple pleasure of personal understanding and access to knowledge.
Enlightened guesswork
Asking questions is a form of enlightened guesswork. There is no guiding hand directing the flow of inquiry: only the agent can know why and where his questions come from. Supposing a question suggests that the asker already knows the answer as he can’t formulate a question without knowing what it is that he would like to know.
Framing
Framing is a method of inquiry used in the formation of a hypothesis. Sometimes ideas need to be set against a background of other ideas to more fully convey the meaning of stated questions or within a scaffolding of related ideas. This framing can be used to control the aspects of experimental inquiry, with its starting questions and expected answers.
Frames of reference may also be used to suggest the positioning of future considerations and to provide a framework to work within. New ideas and discoveries or already known facts can be assembled in a way satisfying to the investigator.
Analogy, Induction, and Intuition
A framework of statements of questions can now be built in a mutually supporting web of theory. Analogous structures can be interpreted to provide information on related structures. This relational understanding is known as inference, or induction and sometimes as intuition. This is a very meta level understanding: to rise above the stage and understand the nature of its happenings. I will not discuss this further until I myself am more personally aware of this topic.
Evidence
Evidence is merely what has been found acceptable to table, to bring forth in polite discussion. Obviously, those facts most uncomfortable to the natural investigator will be quickly ignored, leaving only those in agreement. The manipulation of evidence is in no way moral and lacks any capacity for such. Morality here is decided by the winners: evidence is not needed or can be falsified at a show trial. A supposedly unbiased jury can be found to be composed of plainclothes police officers.
May I offer a solution? This is radical acceptance. Accept your own personal bias, your own caprice. It is unavoidable. As for those most noble goals, of truth and morality: let them go. And if a test of truth is really needed: the use of your own reasoning skills will suffice. Or that of an authority figure whose word you choose to accept. You must decide for yourself what to believe, or else be at the mercy of others.
Experiment
Experiment is the setting up of reliable circumstances to test an idea. Before you get excited, the experiment is arbitrary too. And so are the instruments! Experiments can be used to test theory, and this is done by closely aligning physical nature with theoretical abstraction and measuring the results. Obviously this is all an interpreted and arbitrary matter, which is fine. Knowledge can only ever be self satisfactory.
Falsification
Falsification is useful in the experimental test of theory. If a theory is presented and an experiment is constructed and shown to disprove the theory, then the theory is clearly wrong. Physical theory presented with a physical experiment will either prove or disprove the statement. The same goes for symbolic or virtual theory and experiment, however those may be devised. In this way Popper’s philosophy is of use, but it may not be used to discover falsifications .
Confirmation and Refutation
Experiment is confirmed by a verification test. We have not yet been able to devise forms of test other than physical, something which my work is attempting to fix.
Explanation
Explanation is the accepted story used to describe a given set of events. An explanation is in no way a proof, it is only an organizing of facts to fit a narrative.
Persuasion
It is my opinion that education should not be available to the masses. Here I take persuasion to mean the persuasion of like minded individuals. Knowing the consideration I have made in the “Evidence” section, let us now consider how we may persuade somebody to our way of thinking. Obviously it is easiest if the recipient is open to a new way of thought and in so being is easily convinced. This assumes that the target is of such mentality as to understand the reasoning being put forward to him. If he fails to understand, and not just because he chooses not to but because he cannot, there are still yet other methods of persuasion. Special education camps can be devised to facilitate, if not a way of learning, then one of controlled living. Repetition and dogma work fantastically for the less mindful. Most people do not want to think. Abstract thought is exhausting and uncomfortable. The easy way is self delusion.
For those with higher reasoning abilities visual explanations usually work best. Statistics, charts and graphs are easily readable and also easily manipulatable by educators.This kind of information is easily communicable and is an excellent form of propaganda as it can be easily distributed on leaflets or posters. Notice how the classes are filled with these kinds of adornments on the walls. Demonstrations are fantastic displays of the teacher's knowledge. Chemistry is usually best suited for public display but I imagine the rest of the sciences do just as well.
The suggestion of an authority figure has an impressive impact on a younger generation looking up at those who have achieved in their lifetimes. The selection of books suggested, of movies watched and activities engaged in is an important contribution to a students education: his conversations with the teacher, their close intellectual relationship. The student's own desire to be his own person guided by the teacher's desire to imply his way of thinking are key here.
The Creation of Fact
Today we have an overwhelming reliance on the “fact”. These so-called facts are taken literally and realistically, on their face and for whatever their claim may be. This is an obvious sign of the intelligence of the interpreter: when no further thought is given to the assumption and taken for granted. These so-called facts are passed around freely and taken for assumed truth and used in further theory building as foundations with apparent valid support. Very quickly we will see here that these facts are not the truths that they claim to be, but are more often used as political pawns in the course of some other motivation.
The enforcement of fact can be done in two ways: it can either be forced from the top by power or it can gain social validation and become popular with the masses or among learned individuals. It should be expected that ideas live in an ecology much like the rest of life does and must compete to even stay alive. Many good and perfectly valid lines of thought and scientific methods of reasoning have met their end in the face of struggle. Agents may be persuaded of fact for reasons other than the validity of that fact; or maybe the validity of that fact then comes from the consequences of failure to follow.
With all that we have considered so far I would like here to make a momentary digression into an unrelated topic. The enforcement of fact and the power of top down control, planning, and organization are clear here. Science, being an arbitrary thing, may one day be dominated by a power that has no contest. So far this has yet to be achieved. The Americans have been the closest, but while they got very close it was not enough. The communists in Russia held the vanguard of worker revolution long enough to pass the torch to the ascendent Chinese communist party. For a brief moment the Americans held Russia in their hands before it slipped away. The American empire has been subverted from world domination and their hand has slipped from their attempted grab. But at some point in the future, will some one person not take it all? It is possible. When one man owns it all, then we will live in post truth. That man will become the closest on earth to God: his word will be law and undeniable. Any reasoning, however inconsistent, will be enforceable. This day is not today, but may be one day. Perhaps as humanity spreads across our stellar system it will become harder to maintain top down control. Maybe top down control becomes so powerful as to be unavoidable. Maybe in some places chaos reigns and in others authority rules. Science can only exist through personal struggle and will die in the face of insurmountable challenges.
I have a feeling that the progress and advancement of science is in some way related to the struggle that life is. I have noticed that the slow growth in modern science may just be due to the American dominance on the world stage. I am hopeful for change and for the expansion of room for new ideas and the advancement of already held ideas.
.
Understanding
Understanding is the reception and self awareness of communicated information. This means that the message has been communicated effectively and in full. Understanding should be both fast and complete. Finally, understanding can be recognized in the actions of others in their writing, their public speaking, and the conduct and guidance of their discourse.
Truth
Truth is only that which is decided by God. As none of us are God (the part cannot be the whole) none of us will be able to grasp the truth. Truth is meaningless for us here. Truth is not the concern of science or philosophy.
Meaning
Meaning is the true concern of all of this. This is what everyone wants and what nobody has today. We live such completely meaningless lives and it almost seems hopeless. Fortunately time goes on and knowledge advances, and this slump was just that, a bad day. New solutions are being proposed and those that fail to advance are already being left behind.
It is my model that offers a solution to this issue! My model explains and describes both the mechanism and the nature of meaning! Interpretation and the naming of things are both powerful tools for the purpose of existence.
Intension
Communicated meaning will always have some kind of intentional statement. This meaning, along with noise and other unintended messages are the collection of transmitted signals.The intended message is the signal that sits above all the other possible interpretations of the message, that and the noise and other traffic that may be traveling down the same channel. All of these can be considered intentional information, but usually only one (or perhaps a few layered messages, somewhat like Fourier analysis) are the true intended meaning of the transmission. This intended message can only be known by the speaker, and he will be able to recognize when it has been interpreted correctly in its target.
Implication
These other signals that are tied to the intended message are called implications. Implications are a very powerful tool of theory because they tell you so much more than just what the message says on its face. Every message will say something, but it will also not say all sorts of other things and this can be used with other statements to map the consistencies. When enough consistencies have been found a new message can be discovered that had never been transmitted on its own or even intended. Sometimes the meaning can also be implied. This is a grand subtlety, and is known in things like flirting.
Science
Science is the concern of all the above. It is the formation of stories out of observations and given meaning by its consistency and ability to describe nature. These abstract considerations are completely open to each individual. All science is just a story, and each agent has the opportunity to tell his own stories.
Modern science has accumulated a debt that prevents new advances and it can no longer be moved forward under its weight. This requires a reorganization, incorporating new research and a critical reexamination of previously held assumptions. There is a great deal of uncertainty about the state of the future. We cannot delay this any longer! (Cheering Applause)
Assumptions
To achieve an answer for a question, the inquirer must make some kind of an assumption, and that he already knows what he wishes to achieve (or close to it) when he formulates his question. Assumptions are in no way morally or ethically disagreeable. They are an important part of being a subject: expect them and use them. Be aware of them. Knowing this, it should be clear that you cannot state all your assumptions. It's ok to be biased.
When you read a science textbook for the first time you may find it unreadable. The same thing can happen if you pick up a later book in a novel series that you had never started: names and places and events are references for things that you had never heard of before. This is because you are unfamiliar with the assumptions being made. Science, a story that has been building for maybe three thousand years now, has an immense number of assumptions that have been named, derived, integrated, analyzed, and systematized since that time.
The A Priori
A priori is formalization of the assumptions used in statements. Formal logic assumes the reality of abstract forms, the a priori being the foundation of rigorous abstract thought.
Organization and Arrangement
Any arrangement of thoughts or ideas can be science. What makes the modern hard sciences so powerful is their consistency, their descriptive and explanatory power, and their ability to predict the results of experiments before the experiment had been held. It is a strange happenstance of history that the hard sciences started in Greece and nowhere else (I am unsure of this and will need to do much more research about the origins of science in and early philosophy of other cultures. As far as I am aware science originated in Greece and spread to other cultures). There are many possible arrangements of ideas, and therefore many different sciences.
Systematization
Systematization is just the arrangement of known ideas into a model, somewhat resembling a mosaic of different tile shapes of sizes and colors. The model should be a single whole with no loose ends or gaps. The beauty of the system, its ability to explain all known facts and do so simply and timely, is the goal of a system of thought.
Systematics
Systematics is the modern biological study of classification of life into categories of descent. This is a very powerful model and one that I hope to follow closely as I believe that ideas are very similar to life in that they can be classified into families and connected through lines of heritage.
Classification
We classify the objects of our word into arbitrary groups of categories that we decide for our own purposes. Classifications are organizations and assignments (naming) of categorical systems. The naming of these systems is very important as this will affect the whole classification, its structure and organization, and the interpretation of models that nature provides.
Selection
The agent lives in a world of anarchy! He has no choice but to defend for himself, to see his own interests met. His act, the only act he can make, is known as choice. Selection. Between one option and another, he may pick. The choice is his and belongs to no other! The phenomenological agent, due to the substance of his being and his relation to the rest of God and nature, will have to make a selection of his thoughts and assumptions, what he chooses to experience, a critical decision among all possibilities. Remember! This process is open, and that any one choice may be as good as any other; that the selection of a decision denies the agent of other decisions; that time itself is moving, and may bring unintended consequences to the agent at inopportune times! (Applause)
The process of selection is fascinating! The very substrate of construction is alive. Each individual, and the wholes that they compose, cry out in singular and together! (Roaring applause, the crowd is seething, waving back and forth barely controllable. They shout, individually and in unison: “Pick me! Pick me! Oh my God pick me!)
Agency
The agent is carved from the nature of God, the consequence being that his substance and his function are the same as God’s. (Applause) The agent makes choices in his nature for his own reasons, the same as God.
Choice and Necessity
A choice is the decision an agent makes between two or more options available. Furthermore, a choice implies that an answer may have multiple correct questions. How could the agent know which choice is a necessary one? Firstly, it is important to prevent others from making choices for you, whether by direct coercion or by naming categories in advance and preventing your choice. They will make it seem so innocent, for example that you would maybe like to have Pepsi or coke. Are there no other options? Imagine all the drinks not yet invented, or the ones “undiscovered" in foreign cultures. Do not fall into a criminal's game, do not become his fatal accomplice. Secondly, the necessity of the choice will become clear only after the choice is made. Only after the decision is decided can it be clear that it could have been no other way.
Personal Exploration of Nature
The above discussion should make these conclusions clear. Man is lost in a personal exploration of nature with no one to guide him. Mankind, and each individual, is left to his own devices. Whatever he is to make of nature is up to him, and there are many answers. The answers we choose today, that we make, follow a long tradition of man’s attempt at understanding nature. I will detail this method below.
Sense Experience
In a previous text I have made an argument for the unreliability of sense perception. I stand by that claim now. The only truth that one can know is one's own truth, and even this is apparently merely a coping mechanism for dealing with an otherwise far too complex world. The fact of one's own senses may just be nominal, and if that is true then the ultimate force of nature is the evolution of matter, with the mind being in some way completely and totally separate. I believe that the purpose of sense perception has never been, by itself, to acquire truth, but that the brain in some way became meta aware of these perceptions. Sense perceptions probably have their origin solely in physiology and physical organismal survival. Awareness of sense perception is not necessary for organismal survival as is clearly shown by all other life on the planet. Bacteria are clearly not self conscious and lack a brain, and yet they still manage agential behavior.
Brain Structure
There is a very close relationship between the structure of the brain and the function of the mind. I will admit that my knowledge here is limited. Acknowledging that, I have noticed a few interesting things. The brain seems to produce thought by the passing of salt ions back and forth across membranes. There is something here.
Natural selection does seem to have selected for the self conscious mind in humans. Natural productions have left man with a structure that is good for little else. It may be that the mind is a recapitulation of nature.
The function of brain structure is put to the test in nature. There must be some relation between the requirements of survival in nature and the capability of abstraction, at least in the particular circumstances that man finds himself. Evolution of the brain here, in relation to knowledge and learning, is not the reason why man thinks. The changes in man's thought over the course of his lifetime is most probably linked to development, and specifically differentiation. If man does acquire some new idea that was previously unavailable to him, it is most likely that his brain has developed in some way as to allow him the function of thought.
Outsider philosophers and physiologists believe the mind to be contained. This is in no way true! The mind exists by extension, to the furthest limits of natural being!
Personality
Nothing but man's personality can be blamed for his behavior in the world. No external force is so great as the primary substance of God. (Loud Applause) Each personality is the result of a substance, structure, and function spatially isolated from the rest of the whole. Nature has generated the brain, an organ that is used for self reference. While not necessary for self reference of the mind, the brain allows a focusing of implication, allowing the agent to realize itself. Agency can occur without awareness, but awareness can only arise by agency. Man's personality is the sum of what he is, an ultimate metaphysical question.
Besides man's mind and his personal experiences there is no other sure authority that one could appeal to. If man did have a connection with god, a special connection above his other knowledgeable understanding, then he would have an absolute answer.
These ultimately important questions; some think that they really do know what it is that they believe! How foolish! (Laughter) What could be the solution? (A voice shouts from the crowd: “Replacement of vulgar materialists! Of the dualist!”) A complete reordering of human knowledge! (Applause)
Caprice
What else could be appealed too? Attempt to explain your model to a listener and watch how quickly they get the ideas twisted. Who could ever judge your work? The only answer is your own personal enjoyment and sense of fulfillment.
Mapping
Nature is highly self referential. The use of mapping as a connection between the mind, sign, and nature, helps the individual in guiding itself in an unsure ontology. The map's formal name is the model.
Models
Models are small reconstructions and simplifications of nature used to abstract away irrelevant concerns and to more fully understand the phenomena being modeled. Models are sometimes a mapping of physical features onto mathematical abstractions, like charts or graphs. The models make it easy to understand vast quantities of data or the complex interrelations therein. Sometimes these models are simulated to give the investigator a better understanding of the dynamics being suggested. It should be noted that the model is always a simplification of nature and by its very purpose will leave detail out of its description. This is both useful as it gives an accurate insight into simple phenomena but it also prevents us from understanding this phenomena more fully in the world as it actually is, and not how the world looks on a chalkboard. Dynamic models are known as simulation.
The purpose of a simulation is to create a model in micro to explain the macro of nature. The simulation is always energy intensive, and will fail to simulate anything not specified for. The intensitivity of the model is why the reality we live in is not a simulation, and the reason why simulation theory of the universe fails to describe what the “actual real” simulator is. The simulation is always an imperfect model of the real. This is why the universe could not be a simulation, and this is why simulation theory of the universe makes no sense: the part cannot be used to describe the whole and the ontology is all disorganized and senseless. Instead, one observes the part to understand its relation to the whole, and not that the part is the whole.
Simulacra are self referential models that very quickly become displaced from their original reference. This is because the theoretical model references increasingly abstract notions and concepts without arbitrary lines of definitions. This is why it is important to set boundaries that you have decided for yourself in metaphysical matters.
Models at different levels and scale provide differing amounts of power, be it explanatory, descriptive or coercive. Abstract models of nature can be used to control nature. It is likely that a model's power is a scalar magnitude, with higher level abstractions being of greater magnitude. Certain scale models can effectively handle some questions, struggle with others and be stopped by the rest. If a scale question is asked, and a similar magnitude scale model is used as an answer, the model may struggle to provide an answer in a timely manner or not at all. If a fast, reliable, and efficient answer is desired then a higher scale model is required. In practical terms this means a higher level of abstraction, and a new form of understanding is needed to solve this puzzle. This may be some kind of meta scale, meta awareness or gaming of the system. It could be a revolutionary outlook, a seizure by insiders and denial by outsiders, or a higher synthesis and complexification that emerges from lower forms performed by a radical inside agent.
Mental Maps
Life has no direct connection with physical nature so it must build for itself a mental construction inside its mind that is analogous to the physical outside world. The degree of similarity and correct understanding of an unreachable nature is the capability of each individual mind, and this degree is directly related to the success of the organism, of its physical avatar. These mental maps are held by the agent in his mind and are consulted by in guiding the movement of the physical avatar in physical space. Mental maps are entirely personal constructions of each mind.
Faith
Faith is useful for those that insist on some higher and unattainable truth, or those that require emotional, moral or religious justification for their action. Faith is common in both matters of God and His concerns of scientific organization.
The agent must have faith that his classification of ideas is a useful one, and that he is not being misled by his own thoughts. We must maintain faith in the reality of sense perceptions, of thought itself, and the reality of nature, lest we descend into a nightmarish and meaningless solipsism. While not required, I would encourage a healthy faith in one's own abilities over damaging self criticism. Cynicism is the ultimate decay in ideological or spiritual and religious faith and belief. The mindless following of script is like acid on symbolic legitimacy. The followers of a faith cannot be seen cynically following their commands of faith.
Revelation
All knowledge can only be acquired by personal remediation of already known things. This revelation does not come from God but is God. You, a part of God, are also a part of knowledge. When you remember something (learn, realize, or experience) you are not taking in something new but experiencing something that you already are. It can be this way and no other way! What is the alternative model? There is no other way, and no suggestion of another way! Meaning can only be what we make of it. It cannot come from outside and would have no way of doing so.
The Seizure of Ideological Meaning
My conclusions should be obvious! I should be in no way unclear about this: oppressive outsider action will attempt to crush the insider! His means for defending himself are clear! He must construct for himself his own history, his own way of knowledge and his own radical solution! This is the ideological seizure of meaning! Do not let others decide the meaning of your statements or to determine the acceptability of your knowledge and bias! How cruel, to cut an enemy out from under himself before the battle even begins! How can you expect to win a game when playing by unfair rules! And of course they will be unfair, the outsider doesn't play for anybody but himself and his collaborators!
If God formed your knowledge, would you be willing to know it? If you knew of God, and you knew and only you would know the fact of nature, would you share it? What if He didn't specify either way? Would you even be able to communicate your thoughts to another? Would the listener care? Would they even understand? What if it meant everything? How horrible this situation is! We are all locked up in our own minds, and the only sure answer to anything is one's own connection with God! And what a God, who does such evil hateful things! The only solution is radical acceptance: but to prostrate oneself before a Lord such as this suggests only destruction and perhaps redemption. What else can one do? Who else can be relied upon? My being is set before this ivory tower and it implies, “You first.”
References
Buckley, A. (2023) What Science Is
Buckley, A. (2024) Mind and the Nature of Interpreted Thought
Second Edition
Alex Buckley
Dedicated to the Kiwi Farms
“Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.”
In the Bible, when God tasks Adam with naming the animals He does so very specifically. The text reads, “And he knew their names”! How can you name something without already knowing what the thing is? Adam did not create their names from nothing the way God created everything, he did not learn of their names from another source and was thereby inspired, and he did not receive instruction! God tasked man with doing the naming for Him! Man already knows all that he can know! (Prolonged Applause)
How could this be possible? How is it that man can already know what he has not yet come to understand? How could Adam know their names since before he met them? The answer is so subtle! Does man not derive his knowledge from the very substance that he is? Does he not use his mind, his brain, in the act of understanding? Are mental incompetents not those who suffer brain mutations or other damage? Do people not become infected by memetic spreading poisonous ideology? This should tell you all that you need to know! Fools really do believe that knowledge is some property of an invisible ether, transmitted fully and universally to each other in a social situation: vulgar historical materialism, naive dualists! (Laughter and applause)
My purpose here is to systematize my understanding of the nature of knowledge, what is known as theory of mind. This consideration is of great importance, and a misunderstanding or non understanding of the subject is worse than blindness. Fixing these most basic issues is critical to solving not only the current problems that man faces in his thought but also in making further steps into what can be known.
Man and Nature
There is a simple and yet radically different way of thinking about complex and subtle ideas. The interpretation of nature is an intensely difficult problem that I believe to have found a solution to. Unity is only a part of this explanation. The rest is in self creation, interpretation, and the nature of meaning.
Our question is of natural existence. At this moment there is too much to discuss, but it should be clear that there are many acceptable answers to this question. My answer is a general understanding of the nature of questions and answers, and not necessarily if any one answer is correct. Bacteria, obviously inferior to us, live every day right alongside us, inside us, despite their lowly status.
Man seeks answers for his own reasons: his selfishness, his pride, his desire for power over others. All of these things can be achieved through and perpetuated by science! Science is only abstract reasoning, this being an interpretive signification and arrangement of ideas. Any order or collection of ideas is a science, their only differences being in explanation of known fact, prediction of future states, and the power of the models they produce. Concerns about ethics and morality are very much beyond the scope of what science can provide.
Abstraction
Abstraction is simply an attempt at generalization, and will be our tool for the foreseeable feature. I wish to avoid vulgarism, or becoming lost in the appearances of the objects in nature. The purpose of abstract reasoning is to interact with things that cannot be seen or touched, and to truly interact with those that can be seen. An excellent example is yesterday. Go ahead and attempt to point at yesterday, the abstract conception of the day previous. How do we understand these things that cannot be touched, that cannot be seen with our own eyes? The human mind is an organ developed in nature and is capable of abstract thought. As already made clear, the information is in no way external; man does not receive his knowledge from outside himself. Man uses his mind to abstractly systemize his thought in order to naturally explain his past, describe the present, and predict the future.
Natural Foundations of Human Knowledge
It has occurred to me that I have not thought through an issue as thoroughly as I may have liked. I very firmly believe that all natural matter in the universe is alive in the way that we think about life: that it is a self and is composed of other selves and has agency and makes decisions. Photons apparently know the best path to take when traveling, as do electrons: these particles are aware and agential in a similar way as to macro scale organisms. I also believe that man’s mind is in some way unique and is capable of some kind of higher or more complex abstract reasoning. In my opinion there is no reason why the nature of mind in man and in matter should be any different, but it very obviously is in the intelligence of humans. Man very clearly shows dominance over other life, with his intelligence, his self awareness, his mastery over materialism and mathematical physics being key reasons. This being so, I don’t know what it is that man's brain, his intelligence, allows him to access that wasn’t already accessible to the mind. Maybe it is the higher abstract reasoning. Perhaps only man can do science, and the rest of nature lacks the self awareness to perform such an act. The answer is probably that conscious self awareness and agential vital expression are not exactly the same thing, in fact being distinct from each other. There is quite likely a difference between agential life, abstract thought, and conscious intelligence, maybe in some kind of ascending order.
My above reasoning is based on an assumption of natural unity. I believe that all of nature has some one single origin with all the differences being variations on the same, and that recapitulations happen frequently enough to cross reference each part of nature with itself. We should come to find, in the end, that nature tells one singular story with no loose ends. Obviously we will never achieve this. Our best will be a satisfying story with a few loose ends.
Nature is not a mirror but an interpretation of itself by semiotic agents assigning meaning in acts of expression. From the one managed to grow three interlinking parts that each power the other driving the whole into a complexification of mosaic like stories.
Substance, Structure, and Function
What does it mean to be a whole? A part? An individual? Is man a phenomena of interacting agents? If man is not his substance, what is he? What is the relation between man’s function and his substance? Or in other words, what is man’s purpose? Is there a purpose?
There is a very obvious connection between a thing's substance, its formal structure, and its teleological function. What the thing is and what it does in relation to other things are very closely connected. God, the all-thing that is, has a certain substance that performs a function because of what it is, and these various results are collected into a formal arrangement. There is an obvious realism assumption here, that these objects are real things. Nominalism and conventionalism are hopeless solipsisms.
As I shall explain in a future text, I believe that God creates so that he may destroy and finally redeem. This brutality is clear and ready to be seen by all. I see no other way to explain the obvious creation, destruction, and apparent redemption that we see everyday. Beliefs of atheism are repeated by people who have no understanding of the meaning of their faith, and the same follows for those who follow the philosophy of physical reductionism. Any Christian, when he suffers, is reminded of his Lord when he looks up at the cross, seeing his Lord Christ, the son of God, has been butchered! Who is man in comparison, and why would he deserve any better treatment than Christ?
Natural Ontology
Ontology is the sequencing of events in a very specific order, suggesting that the thing next derives from the thing previous. Nature is an ontology of things being produced from the last thing made. The sequencing of things in nature is incredibly important to the understanding of nature. The abstract arrangement of natural ontology is discoverable and the understanding of this can allow further discovery.
Ontogeny is the self creation of the thing out of the thing itself, or in this case life out of the substance of God. The development of the thing out of what the thing is I name expression. Ontogeny specifically is the origin of expression.
Natural Ontology
Natural ontology is composed of three simple substances: the virtual, the physical, and the symbolic. I will briefly detail them below.
Virtual Nature
Very little is known and understood about this matter. Very strange and abstract entities populate this aspect of nature. These abstract things interact and emerge at a higher phenomenological level as a physical object.
Physical Nature
Physical natural phenomena are the result of interactions between the virtual objects. Physical objects populate the world around us and are what we are composed of, our material nature. Physics is the study of this kind of nature. Physical objects have evolved in complexity (of this subject I have further thoughts that I wish to discuss elsewhere) and produced through their interactions consciousness. I have stated above that I am not sure of the exact difference between mind and consciousness, if matter is evolving separately from mind or if mind is the result of physical interactions. I tend to think that the mind is a substance similar to the symbolic, and that consciousness is a higher emergence from physical interactions.
Symbolic Nature
Symbolics are the result of physical interactions. Physical particles come together and interact in such a way that a higher form of abstraction emerges. Symbolism consists of symbols, icons, and indices. These signs are very abstract but are certainly real.
Phenomenological Ascendence
The name I give to this rising emergence is phenomenological ascendence.
Recapitulations
To recapitulate is to do what has been done before once again. Doing this provides legitimate strength to the action: the performance gains some legitimacy from the fact that it had been done before, the performer shows the solidity of the act, and the performer can align himself with previous abstractions for boosts in popularity and in legitimacy or control.
Recapitulation is performed across the line of ontology. The primary line of ontology in nature is the phenomenological ascension, and recapitulations can occur in a number of higher complex fashions between the three interacting parts and all their emergent sub parts.
In the act of God’s development His ontology winds itself ever outwards in an
increasingly complex development, recapitulating so that it may reach yet further. God draws on the substance of himself, creating, destroying and redeeming to create again, to function in yet further ways.
Reticulation
It may be that instead of a linear model, nature could be reticulated in its ontology. It is possible that virtual produces physical, that physical produces symbolic, and that symbolic produces virtual. This is a very strange model and I do not understand how symbolism can interact with virtual reality, thereby Influencing physical phenomena. The linear model is the opposite: instead of symbolism producing virtual nature it simply is its own thing and has no relation. This linear model suggests a higher abstract world of spirit and agency, a nature populated by abstract mental entities living in an ideal ecology. The reticular model suggests rebirth.
I may note here that it is possible that the three substances are entirely separate and have no relation to each other. I am preparing for this scenario.
Objectivity
This is what everyone wants to know, the objective truth of nature. This is not possible and never will be. The problem here is an ontological one: the part is in no way the whole. The part may only know what it is in relation to other parts, and how they are arranged against an unknown whole.
Identity
Each part in the whole has a unique identity and these identities are composed of other identities and are themselves unique identities.
Subjectivity
These individual identities, who have no way of understanding the whole, must use their subjective experiences to understand nature.
Interpretation
The individual understanding of nature in relation to the whole is interpretation. The mechanism of interpretation is semiotic signification. The abstract data points of knowledge are information. The philosophy of interpretation I name general semiology.
Information
Information is the combination of some point data overlaying the contextual semiotic substructure. Informational objects are abstract, and can be interacted with in abstract terms. Man has no direct observation of informational objects, and must approach this sublime thing by indirect means. I happen to walk backward to reach my object of desire. Mirrors work as well. The abstract nature of metaphysical reality is such that it does not allow for direct observation and must be interacted with indirectly.
I already know that no information is contained in anything, and that therefore no text that I read has any information inside of it available to me. There is no object of information that is directly accessible contained in anything. No book, no movie, no story can ever be a contained informational particle. I wonder how this is. I conclude that when I read the text, I do so not to inform myself, but to remind myself of what it is that I already know. This is critical to understand, as this is an issue relating to the substance, structure, and function of nature. Very foolish people call this bias and see this issue from a very different perspective. To create a new thought in one's mind is to suggest that the underlying brain structure has been somehow changed during the act of learning, or that the agent has a change in his organizational collective consumption. This is not so! No teacher has ever surgically opened a student's mind in order to ensure instruction has been received. No opinion has ever been changed that wasn’t already accepting of change! While we are not aware of this very subtle fact, it is also very obvious. The students may be coaxed and swaddled or beaten in class, but the learning must all be done by them: whatever potential they have will be revealed by their expression of themselves. When the test scores are returned, they most usually represent the teacher's non understanding of the nature of thought and the inability to force thoughts into one's mind. It’s a fact of nature to be reliant on one’s own sense, and to berate another similarly shackled person by claims of being uninformed, of being uneducated or biased is a disgrace. Of course this claimant believes himself (or herself) to be on the side of objectivity, of the right side of history, of correct moral and ethical opinions. Why wouldn't they believe such a thing?
Observation
Observation implies an understanding of what one is looking for. The purpose of observation is the attainment of some answer. To achieve an answer, and a very specific answer is usually desired, a very specific question must be asked. How can a question be asked if the answer is not already known? How would you even be able to formulate the question without an idea of what is desired? The answer is that you already know, or have the capacity to know, what it is that you want to know.
The observation is arranged in a statement. This statement assumes categories used to arrange the ideas of observation.
Awareness
Awareness is a state of consciousness that an agent assumes in order to perform the signification of observation. It is an arrangement of categories useful to the agent. This act is a kind of instinct: the substance of nature and the nature of life are the same.
Belief
Action is the agential performance of will. Action is the necessary choice decided by the agent. Habit is the ritualization of action. Habits become further canalized into beliefs. Change in belief is a personal endeavor, and this involves a change in habit and behavior. These beliefs are a foundation of self awareness.
Perception
Perception is the self awareness of observation. Every individual has a unique subjective perspective. This perspective is informed by the stimulation received from the senses. Sensation on its own is in no way an observation of truth, but the arrangement of these senses into a perspective allows the agent to map his environment. Higher abstract sense perception is performed by the physical organs and whose structure is transmitted by genetics.
Definition
Definition is the arbitrary assignment of meaning to a signified. Definition can be however life wishes it to be. There is no closed door here, the way is open to any path. Any arbitrary meaning can be assigned to any category and these categories themselves are arbitrarily designated. Do not be fooled by the seemingly useless description of nature as arbitrary: this is exactly how meaning is communicated in a world with no contained information. Definition provides the agent with a sense of self, of place that may be communicated, rather than something that inherently is.
Communication
Communication is the transmission of ideas from one agent to another. The transmission of information is semiotic in nature.
Semiotics
Signification is the mechanism of action in interpreting information. This mechanism is composed of three parts: abstract sublime signs, signified objects carrying arbitrary assigned meaning standing in as observable objects for the unseen signs, and the interpretive signifier.
The signified is a physical entity that is used as a stand-in for the sign, the thing being referenced. The signifier is the party performing the semiosis.
Expression
Expression is the act of agential self fulfillment. This has been known for a very long time: the expression of personally held truth, the expression of self and emotion. The Greeks are an excellent example of this natural form. They communicated their ideas to each other in the presentation of a story, with actors up on a stage being closely watched by an audience of onlookers and the gods above. These plays had a very serious religious role in Greek society and were respected as such.
Representation
Conventions are routine arbitrary assignments of meaning to expression. These conventions have no actual connection to any objective world and are merely the overlapping of many different assumptions and observations into a web of belief. This web has no foundation and can only reference the individual that created it. These beliefs are representations and derivations of systems of thought.
Reference
Reference is the invocation of a known representation.
Descriptive Statements
Description is a one dimensional line of symbols strung out linearly along a string. These strings can be interwoven together to provide a stronger foundation, but never forget that these strings are attached to nothing and are purely arbitrary lines of thought. Reference is a common descriptive statement, used to represent some already common idea and to name its origins.
The hope of description is to provide highly detailed stories of nature. As already stated these stories are told with some kind of personal purpose in mind, whatever that may be. Models with higher and more complete and consistent descriptive content will outshine weaker models. These models are obviously more complex in their nature.
Alignment and Association
This kind of symbolic nature is critical in the formation of names and descriptive statements and their weaving into a cohesive and consistent whole. Names and and statements can be aligned to already existing names and statements to confer validity. These references to already associated ideas helps bind the new idea into a network of already supporting ideas. This helps with validity and structural integrity. Associated ideas tend to grow together or coexist nicely, and when they are mutually beneficial this process is quickened. Naturally, some ideas do not associate well and these ideas will self segregate. It is important to be aware of these associations, whether mutually supporting and converging or unrelated and disagreeing as this is the abstract ecology of thought. This thought should be consistent through its structure and inconsistencies should be obvious.
Hypothesis
Hypothesis is the generation of novel descriptions at the presentation of an unforeseen situation. The purpose of the hypothesis is to gain an increased understanding of the situation that we are concerned with. This may be for manipulation and control, or just for the simple pleasure of personal understanding and access to knowledge.
Enlightened guesswork
Asking questions is a form of enlightened guesswork. There is no guiding hand directing the flow of inquiry: only the agent can know why and where his questions come from. Supposing a question suggests that the asker already knows the answer as he can’t formulate a question without knowing what it is that he would like to know.
Framing
Framing is a method of inquiry used in the formation of a hypothesis. Sometimes ideas need to be set against a background of other ideas to more fully convey the meaning of stated questions or within a scaffolding of related ideas. This framing can be used to control the aspects of experimental inquiry, with its starting questions and expected answers.
Frames of reference may also be used to suggest the positioning of future considerations and to provide a framework to work within. New ideas and discoveries or already known facts can be assembled in a way satisfying to the investigator.
Analogy, Induction, and Intuition
A framework of statements of questions can now be built in a mutually supporting web of theory. Analogous structures can be interpreted to provide information on related structures. This relational understanding is known as inference, or induction and sometimes as intuition. This is a very meta level understanding: to rise above the stage and understand the nature of its happenings. I will not discuss this further until I myself am more personally aware of this topic.
Evidence
Evidence is merely what has been found acceptable to table, to bring forth in polite discussion. Obviously, those facts most uncomfortable to the natural investigator will be quickly ignored, leaving only those in agreement. The manipulation of evidence is in no way moral and lacks any capacity for such. Morality here is decided by the winners: evidence is not needed or can be falsified at a show trial. A supposedly unbiased jury can be found to be composed of plainclothes police officers.
May I offer a solution? This is radical acceptance. Accept your own personal bias, your own caprice. It is unavoidable. As for those most noble goals, of truth and morality: let them go. And if a test of truth is really needed: the use of your own reasoning skills will suffice. Or that of an authority figure whose word you choose to accept. You must decide for yourself what to believe, or else be at the mercy of others.
Experiment
Experiment is the setting up of reliable circumstances to test an idea. Before you get excited, the experiment is arbitrary too. And so are the instruments! Experiments can be used to test theory, and this is done by closely aligning physical nature with theoretical abstraction and measuring the results. Obviously this is all an interpreted and arbitrary matter, which is fine. Knowledge can only ever be self satisfactory.
Falsification
Falsification is useful in the experimental test of theory. If a theory is presented and an experiment is constructed and shown to disprove the theory, then the theory is clearly wrong. Physical theory presented with a physical experiment will either prove or disprove the statement. The same goes for symbolic or virtual theory and experiment, however those may be devised. In this way Popper’s philosophy is of use, but it may not be used to discover falsifications .
Confirmation and Refutation
Experiment is confirmed by a verification test. We have not yet been able to devise forms of test other than physical, something which my work is attempting to fix.
Explanation
Explanation is the accepted story used to describe a given set of events. An explanation is in no way a proof, it is only an organizing of facts to fit a narrative.
Persuasion
It is my opinion that education should not be available to the masses. Here I take persuasion to mean the persuasion of like minded individuals. Knowing the consideration I have made in the “Evidence” section, let us now consider how we may persuade somebody to our way of thinking. Obviously it is easiest if the recipient is open to a new way of thought and in so being is easily convinced. This assumes that the target is of such mentality as to understand the reasoning being put forward to him. If he fails to understand, and not just because he chooses not to but because he cannot, there are still yet other methods of persuasion. Special education camps can be devised to facilitate, if not a way of learning, then one of controlled living. Repetition and dogma work fantastically for the less mindful. Most people do not want to think. Abstract thought is exhausting and uncomfortable. The easy way is self delusion.
For those with higher reasoning abilities visual explanations usually work best. Statistics, charts and graphs are easily readable and also easily manipulatable by educators.This kind of information is easily communicable and is an excellent form of propaganda as it can be easily distributed on leaflets or posters. Notice how the classes are filled with these kinds of adornments on the walls. Demonstrations are fantastic displays of the teacher's knowledge. Chemistry is usually best suited for public display but I imagine the rest of the sciences do just as well.
The suggestion of an authority figure has an impressive impact on a younger generation looking up at those who have achieved in their lifetimes. The selection of books suggested, of movies watched and activities engaged in is an important contribution to a students education: his conversations with the teacher, their close intellectual relationship. The student's own desire to be his own person guided by the teacher's desire to imply his way of thinking are key here.
The Creation of Fact
Today we have an overwhelming reliance on the “fact”. These so-called facts are taken literally and realistically, on their face and for whatever their claim may be. This is an obvious sign of the intelligence of the interpreter: when no further thought is given to the assumption and taken for granted. These so-called facts are passed around freely and taken for assumed truth and used in further theory building as foundations with apparent valid support. Very quickly we will see here that these facts are not the truths that they claim to be, but are more often used as political pawns in the course of some other motivation.
The enforcement of fact can be done in two ways: it can either be forced from the top by power or it can gain social validation and become popular with the masses or among learned individuals. It should be expected that ideas live in an ecology much like the rest of life does and must compete to even stay alive. Many good and perfectly valid lines of thought and scientific methods of reasoning have met their end in the face of struggle. Agents may be persuaded of fact for reasons other than the validity of that fact; or maybe the validity of that fact then comes from the consequences of failure to follow.
With all that we have considered so far I would like here to make a momentary digression into an unrelated topic. The enforcement of fact and the power of top down control, planning, and organization are clear here. Science, being an arbitrary thing, may one day be dominated by a power that has no contest. So far this has yet to be achieved. The Americans have been the closest, but while they got very close it was not enough. The communists in Russia held the vanguard of worker revolution long enough to pass the torch to the ascendent Chinese communist party. For a brief moment the Americans held Russia in their hands before it slipped away. The American empire has been subverted from world domination and their hand has slipped from their attempted grab. But at some point in the future, will some one person not take it all? It is possible. When one man owns it all, then we will live in post truth. That man will become the closest on earth to God: his word will be law and undeniable. Any reasoning, however inconsistent, will be enforceable. This day is not today, but may be one day. Perhaps as humanity spreads across our stellar system it will become harder to maintain top down control. Maybe top down control becomes so powerful as to be unavoidable. Maybe in some places chaos reigns and in others authority rules. Science can only exist through personal struggle and will die in the face of insurmountable challenges.
I have a feeling that the progress and advancement of science is in some way related to the struggle that life is. I have noticed that the slow growth in modern science may just be due to the American dominance on the world stage. I am hopeful for change and for the expansion of room for new ideas and the advancement of already held ideas.
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Understanding
Understanding is the reception and self awareness of communicated information. This means that the message has been communicated effectively and in full. Understanding should be both fast and complete. Finally, understanding can be recognized in the actions of others in their writing, their public speaking, and the conduct and guidance of their discourse.
Truth
Truth is only that which is decided by God. As none of us are God (the part cannot be the whole) none of us will be able to grasp the truth. Truth is meaningless for us here. Truth is not the concern of science or philosophy.
Meaning
Meaning is the true concern of all of this. This is what everyone wants and what nobody has today. We live such completely meaningless lives and it almost seems hopeless. Fortunately time goes on and knowledge advances, and this slump was just that, a bad day. New solutions are being proposed and those that fail to advance are already being left behind.
It is my model that offers a solution to this issue! My model explains and describes both the mechanism and the nature of meaning! Interpretation and the naming of things are both powerful tools for the purpose of existence.
Intension
Communicated meaning will always have some kind of intentional statement. This meaning, along with noise and other unintended messages are the collection of transmitted signals.The intended message is the signal that sits above all the other possible interpretations of the message, that and the noise and other traffic that may be traveling down the same channel. All of these can be considered intentional information, but usually only one (or perhaps a few layered messages, somewhat like Fourier analysis) are the true intended meaning of the transmission. This intended message can only be known by the speaker, and he will be able to recognize when it has been interpreted correctly in its target.
Implication
These other signals that are tied to the intended message are called implications. Implications are a very powerful tool of theory because they tell you so much more than just what the message says on its face. Every message will say something, but it will also not say all sorts of other things and this can be used with other statements to map the consistencies. When enough consistencies have been found a new message can be discovered that had never been transmitted on its own or even intended. Sometimes the meaning can also be implied. This is a grand subtlety, and is known in things like flirting.
Science
Science is the concern of all the above. It is the formation of stories out of observations and given meaning by its consistency and ability to describe nature. These abstract considerations are completely open to each individual. All science is just a story, and each agent has the opportunity to tell his own stories.
Modern science has accumulated a debt that prevents new advances and it can no longer be moved forward under its weight. This requires a reorganization, incorporating new research and a critical reexamination of previously held assumptions. There is a great deal of uncertainty about the state of the future. We cannot delay this any longer! (Cheering Applause)
Assumptions
To achieve an answer for a question, the inquirer must make some kind of an assumption, and that he already knows what he wishes to achieve (or close to it) when he formulates his question. Assumptions are in no way morally or ethically disagreeable. They are an important part of being a subject: expect them and use them. Be aware of them. Knowing this, it should be clear that you cannot state all your assumptions. It's ok to be biased.
When you read a science textbook for the first time you may find it unreadable. The same thing can happen if you pick up a later book in a novel series that you had never started: names and places and events are references for things that you had never heard of before. This is because you are unfamiliar with the assumptions being made. Science, a story that has been building for maybe three thousand years now, has an immense number of assumptions that have been named, derived, integrated, analyzed, and systematized since that time.
The A Priori
A priori is formalization of the assumptions used in statements. Formal logic assumes the reality of abstract forms, the a priori being the foundation of rigorous abstract thought.
Organization and Arrangement
Any arrangement of thoughts or ideas can be science. What makes the modern hard sciences so powerful is their consistency, their descriptive and explanatory power, and their ability to predict the results of experiments before the experiment had been held. It is a strange happenstance of history that the hard sciences started in Greece and nowhere else (I am unsure of this and will need to do much more research about the origins of science in and early philosophy of other cultures. As far as I am aware science originated in Greece and spread to other cultures). There are many possible arrangements of ideas, and therefore many different sciences.
Systematization
Systematization is just the arrangement of known ideas into a model, somewhat resembling a mosaic of different tile shapes of sizes and colors. The model should be a single whole with no loose ends or gaps. The beauty of the system, its ability to explain all known facts and do so simply and timely, is the goal of a system of thought.
Systematics
Systematics is the modern biological study of classification of life into categories of descent. This is a very powerful model and one that I hope to follow closely as I believe that ideas are very similar to life in that they can be classified into families and connected through lines of heritage.
Classification
We classify the objects of our word into arbitrary groups of categories that we decide for our own purposes. Classifications are organizations and assignments (naming) of categorical systems. The naming of these systems is very important as this will affect the whole classification, its structure and organization, and the interpretation of models that nature provides.
Selection
The agent lives in a world of anarchy! He has no choice but to defend for himself, to see his own interests met. His act, the only act he can make, is known as choice. Selection. Between one option and another, he may pick. The choice is his and belongs to no other! The phenomenological agent, due to the substance of his being and his relation to the rest of God and nature, will have to make a selection of his thoughts and assumptions, what he chooses to experience, a critical decision among all possibilities. Remember! This process is open, and that any one choice may be as good as any other; that the selection of a decision denies the agent of other decisions; that time itself is moving, and may bring unintended consequences to the agent at inopportune times! (Applause)
The process of selection is fascinating! The very substrate of construction is alive. Each individual, and the wholes that they compose, cry out in singular and together! (Roaring applause, the crowd is seething, waving back and forth barely controllable. They shout, individually and in unison: “Pick me! Pick me! Oh my God pick me!)
Agency
The agent is carved from the nature of God, the consequence being that his substance and his function are the same as God’s. (Applause) The agent makes choices in his nature for his own reasons, the same as God.
Choice and Necessity
A choice is the decision an agent makes between two or more options available. Furthermore, a choice implies that an answer may have multiple correct questions. How could the agent know which choice is a necessary one? Firstly, it is important to prevent others from making choices for you, whether by direct coercion or by naming categories in advance and preventing your choice. They will make it seem so innocent, for example that you would maybe like to have Pepsi or coke. Are there no other options? Imagine all the drinks not yet invented, or the ones “undiscovered" in foreign cultures. Do not fall into a criminal's game, do not become his fatal accomplice. Secondly, the necessity of the choice will become clear only after the choice is made. Only after the decision is decided can it be clear that it could have been no other way.
Personal Exploration of Nature
The above discussion should make these conclusions clear. Man is lost in a personal exploration of nature with no one to guide him. Mankind, and each individual, is left to his own devices. Whatever he is to make of nature is up to him, and there are many answers. The answers we choose today, that we make, follow a long tradition of man’s attempt at understanding nature. I will detail this method below.
Sense Experience
In a previous text I have made an argument for the unreliability of sense perception. I stand by that claim now. The only truth that one can know is one's own truth, and even this is apparently merely a coping mechanism for dealing with an otherwise far too complex world. The fact of one's own senses may just be nominal, and if that is true then the ultimate force of nature is the evolution of matter, with the mind being in some way completely and totally separate. I believe that the purpose of sense perception has never been, by itself, to acquire truth, but that the brain in some way became meta aware of these perceptions. Sense perceptions probably have their origin solely in physiology and physical organismal survival. Awareness of sense perception is not necessary for organismal survival as is clearly shown by all other life on the planet. Bacteria are clearly not self conscious and lack a brain, and yet they still manage agential behavior.
Brain Structure
There is a very close relationship between the structure of the brain and the function of the mind. I will admit that my knowledge here is limited. Acknowledging that, I have noticed a few interesting things. The brain seems to produce thought by the passing of salt ions back and forth across membranes. There is something here.
Natural selection does seem to have selected for the self conscious mind in humans. Natural productions have left man with a structure that is good for little else. It may be that the mind is a recapitulation of nature.
The function of brain structure is put to the test in nature. There must be some relation between the requirements of survival in nature and the capability of abstraction, at least in the particular circumstances that man finds himself. Evolution of the brain here, in relation to knowledge and learning, is not the reason why man thinks. The changes in man's thought over the course of his lifetime is most probably linked to development, and specifically differentiation. If man does acquire some new idea that was previously unavailable to him, it is most likely that his brain has developed in some way as to allow him the function of thought.
Outsider philosophers and physiologists believe the mind to be contained. This is in no way true! The mind exists by extension, to the furthest limits of natural being!
Personality
Nothing but man's personality can be blamed for his behavior in the world. No external force is so great as the primary substance of God. (Loud Applause) Each personality is the result of a substance, structure, and function spatially isolated from the rest of the whole. Nature has generated the brain, an organ that is used for self reference. While not necessary for self reference of the mind, the brain allows a focusing of implication, allowing the agent to realize itself. Agency can occur without awareness, but awareness can only arise by agency. Man's personality is the sum of what he is, an ultimate metaphysical question.
Besides man's mind and his personal experiences there is no other sure authority that one could appeal to. If man did have a connection with god, a special connection above his other knowledgeable understanding, then he would have an absolute answer.
These ultimately important questions; some think that they really do know what it is that they believe! How foolish! (Laughter) What could be the solution? (A voice shouts from the crowd: “Replacement of vulgar materialists! Of the dualist!”) A complete reordering of human knowledge! (Applause)
Caprice
What else could be appealed too? Attempt to explain your model to a listener and watch how quickly they get the ideas twisted. Who could ever judge your work? The only answer is your own personal enjoyment and sense of fulfillment.
Mapping
Nature is highly self referential. The use of mapping as a connection between the mind, sign, and nature, helps the individual in guiding itself in an unsure ontology. The map's formal name is the model.
Models
Models are small reconstructions and simplifications of nature used to abstract away irrelevant concerns and to more fully understand the phenomena being modeled. Models are sometimes a mapping of physical features onto mathematical abstractions, like charts or graphs. The models make it easy to understand vast quantities of data or the complex interrelations therein. Sometimes these models are simulated to give the investigator a better understanding of the dynamics being suggested. It should be noted that the model is always a simplification of nature and by its very purpose will leave detail out of its description. This is both useful as it gives an accurate insight into simple phenomena but it also prevents us from understanding this phenomena more fully in the world as it actually is, and not how the world looks on a chalkboard. Dynamic models are known as simulation.
The purpose of a simulation is to create a model in micro to explain the macro of nature. The simulation is always energy intensive, and will fail to simulate anything not specified for. The intensitivity of the model is why the reality we live in is not a simulation, and the reason why simulation theory of the universe fails to describe what the “actual real” simulator is. The simulation is always an imperfect model of the real. This is why the universe could not be a simulation, and this is why simulation theory of the universe makes no sense: the part cannot be used to describe the whole and the ontology is all disorganized and senseless. Instead, one observes the part to understand its relation to the whole, and not that the part is the whole.
Simulacra are self referential models that very quickly become displaced from their original reference. This is because the theoretical model references increasingly abstract notions and concepts without arbitrary lines of definitions. This is why it is important to set boundaries that you have decided for yourself in metaphysical matters.
Models at different levels and scale provide differing amounts of power, be it explanatory, descriptive or coercive. Abstract models of nature can be used to control nature. It is likely that a model's power is a scalar magnitude, with higher level abstractions being of greater magnitude. Certain scale models can effectively handle some questions, struggle with others and be stopped by the rest. If a scale question is asked, and a similar magnitude scale model is used as an answer, the model may struggle to provide an answer in a timely manner or not at all. If a fast, reliable, and efficient answer is desired then a higher scale model is required. In practical terms this means a higher level of abstraction, and a new form of understanding is needed to solve this puzzle. This may be some kind of meta scale, meta awareness or gaming of the system. It could be a revolutionary outlook, a seizure by insiders and denial by outsiders, or a higher synthesis and complexification that emerges from lower forms performed by a radical inside agent.
Mental Maps
Life has no direct connection with physical nature so it must build for itself a mental construction inside its mind that is analogous to the physical outside world. The degree of similarity and correct understanding of an unreachable nature is the capability of each individual mind, and this degree is directly related to the success of the organism, of its physical avatar. These mental maps are held by the agent in his mind and are consulted by in guiding the movement of the physical avatar in physical space. Mental maps are entirely personal constructions of each mind.
Faith
Faith is useful for those that insist on some higher and unattainable truth, or those that require emotional, moral or religious justification for their action. Faith is common in both matters of God and His concerns of scientific organization.
The agent must have faith that his classification of ideas is a useful one, and that he is not being misled by his own thoughts. We must maintain faith in the reality of sense perceptions, of thought itself, and the reality of nature, lest we descend into a nightmarish and meaningless solipsism. While not required, I would encourage a healthy faith in one's own abilities over damaging self criticism. Cynicism is the ultimate decay in ideological or spiritual and religious faith and belief. The mindless following of script is like acid on symbolic legitimacy. The followers of a faith cannot be seen cynically following their commands of faith.
Revelation
All knowledge can only be acquired by personal remediation of already known things. This revelation does not come from God but is God. You, a part of God, are also a part of knowledge. When you remember something (learn, realize, or experience) you are not taking in something new but experiencing something that you already are. It can be this way and no other way! What is the alternative model? There is no other way, and no suggestion of another way! Meaning can only be what we make of it. It cannot come from outside and would have no way of doing so.
The Seizure of Ideological Meaning
My conclusions should be obvious! I should be in no way unclear about this: oppressive outsider action will attempt to crush the insider! His means for defending himself are clear! He must construct for himself his own history, his own way of knowledge and his own radical solution! This is the ideological seizure of meaning! Do not let others decide the meaning of your statements or to determine the acceptability of your knowledge and bias! How cruel, to cut an enemy out from under himself before the battle even begins! How can you expect to win a game when playing by unfair rules! And of course they will be unfair, the outsider doesn't play for anybody but himself and his collaborators!
If God formed your knowledge, would you be willing to know it? If you knew of God, and you knew and only you would know the fact of nature, would you share it? What if He didn't specify either way? Would you even be able to communicate your thoughts to another? Would the listener care? Would they even understand? What if it meant everything? How horrible this situation is! We are all locked up in our own minds, and the only sure answer to anything is one's own connection with God! And what a God, who does such evil hateful things! The only solution is radical acceptance: but to prostrate oneself before a Lord such as this suggests only destruction and perhaps redemption. What else can one do? Who else can be relied upon? My being is set before this ivory tower and it implies, “You first.”
References
Buckley, A. (2023) What Science Is
Buckley, A. (2024) Mind and the Nature of Interpreted Thought
- Registrado
- 17 de Nov, 2019
I think this guy's skitzo
- Registrado
- 26 de Nov, 2023
tl;dr, but one interpretation of that passage is that God and therefore Adam spoke Hebrew, in which the names of things represented their true essense.
while we know that to not be true, there is a broader philosophical meaning to the pasage, as well as the implied notion of there once having not been a language for naming things.
remembering that like any religion, judaism is cosplay of much older traditions, it would be worth pondering why that story was thought to be important to write down and where it might come from. If from Egypt, we might be looking at a narrative stretching back to prehistory and from there to human origins.
while we know that to not be true, there is a broader philosophical meaning to the pasage, as well as the implied notion of there once having not been a language for naming things.
remembering that like any religion, judaism is cosplay of much older traditions, it would be worth pondering why that story was thought to be important to write down and where it might come from. If from Egypt, we might be looking at a narrative stretching back to prehistory and from there to human origins.
Última edición:
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- 24 de Jul, 2019
Yup, thats exactly what i am hoping to do. There shouldnt be any blind spots or loose ends, we should expect that entire whole of reality is one singular thing, that being God. This narrative unravels through time, and if at any point we wish to look at where something originated from we need only look backward through natural ontology to find its source.
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- 26 de Nov, 2023
So, before I engage you, what are you looking to gain from a dicussion on this matter at this place and time?
Syzyg
kiwifarms.net
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- 17 de Jul, 2023
Mr. Buckley, quite something you've written. I notice you cite two other works you wrote.
About the thrust of your argument, that Man knows all he needs to know, what of the outcome of Adam and Eve eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? If man knew all he needed to know, how could he know more? For it says in Holy Writ (Genesis 3:7)
It would be a pleasure to read them to better understand what informed this essay of yours.
About the thrust of your argument, that Man knows all he needs to know, what of the outcome of Adam and Eve eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? If man knew all he needed to know, how could he know more? For it says in Holy Writ (Genesis 3:7)
They did not know they were naked yet after eating "they knew that they were naked". Was this knowledge of the same substance as that which enabled Adam to name all the animals? If so, then would it count as revelation as you described it? If not of the same substance, what makes this knowledge different than that which is innate to Adam?
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- 24 de Jul, 2019
yes that is something of an issue, although its not that "man knows all that he NEEDS to know" but rather that "man already knows all that he COULD know". My theory is really about the limits and nature of knowledge. My theology is not as well worked out as my philosophy or science, so i havent thought out or am not aware of special issues related to the bible: of that opening scene in genesis i know well. I tend to think that you already have everything that you could have, just not access to it. So its a question of access rather than knowledge. Sort of like receiving an address to a particularly difficult to reach location.
You already have everything that could ever be, just not access to it. I hope that's clear.
Heres some links, i hope you enjoy.
Well, I got my model the way I like. I realized a long time ago that i cant rely on other people to do my work for me, sorry.
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- 24 de Jul, 2019
you REALLY must understand that the only one who doesn't know something is YOU! If you ever have this moment of realization, of revelation, its only happening to you! And just because you have this sudden revelation that doesnt mean that the thing is new and that it hasnt already been around. When Adam and Eve are enlightened its not like god is creating the new world before their eyes, they are simply seeing what they failed to see before. We, as humans, are greatly deceived by our sense perception. We are totally imperfect, and, despite being a part of God, are not Him and we suffer because of that. No science and no way of knowledge is going to solve that, the problem is so much more fundamental. We are talking about the nature of creation, and our awareness and participation in it.