Is A Single Definition of Reality Too Much To Ask For?

Reality: if regarded from the empirical perspective, this refers to the ordinary world of nature; if regarded from the transcendental perspective, it refers to the transcendent realm of the noumenon.

from http://www.philosophy-dictionary.org/

I just found this definition of "Reality" and it's just about as helpful as it could possibly be. Did I say helpful? Of course I meant unhelpful. I don't mean this as a criticism of whoever was the anonymous lexicographer who wrote it. Only that it is not one definition, but two masquerading as one. It seems ironic that this should be so. We associate the world reality with solidness, lack of ambiguity, and all those other straightforward qualities - and yet it seems we are not to have the luxury of a single cosy definition.

Which one to choose? Most people I guess would choose the first. Naturally I would choose the second, and more especially because of that very reason. If most people choose a particular way of viewing reality, that seems an excellent reason to reject it. After all, if you look around, it hasn't done them much good, has it?

The real world is the world that exists beyond appearances. The observer is the creator of the universe. That is an axiomatic statement. If I had to climb down from that position, I would only descend as far as to say that the observer is the co-creator of the universe.

Who is the partner in this co-creation? This is difficult to answer, not because there is any difficulty in  formulating the notion, but because most of the words used to describe it are so heavily loaded with historical accretions of meaning as to render them almost useless for rational debate. Many of my readers will remember the ruckus that ensued after I used the word "God" in this context. For this reason I always avoid using the word whenever possible, unless my interlocutor demonstrates a clear understanding of its use in a Berkeleyan sense.

Well, not exactly a Berkeleyan sense, although not far away.

But such a situation is all too rare.

What We Can Learn From A Goose

I've just been for a walk in the park. While I was there I sat for a while at one of the picnic tables, and decided to spend some time watching the geese and the ducks.

Not much was happening. They were all sitting dozing or preening on the grass near the water's edge. The geese (as I discovered later from Google - I'm not very well-versed in types of animals!) were Canada geese and the ducks were all Mallards. They are extremely tame and accustomed to the proximity of humans so I was able to sit quite close to them without alarming them.

It occurred to me that some people might think of them only as a rather pleasant choice for lunch, but then wiser counsels prevailed when I remembered that there is a very high quality supermarket within 100 metres of the spot, where you can get duck or goose or anything you want, ready to cook. That would seem the obvious choice, at least for most of us who live in the so-called "civilised" world, for whom the thought of having to kill and pluck their own goose would be quite a gruesome prospect.

While I was pondering on this, I noticed something I had never known about before. As you are probably aware, the Canada goose has very dark, almost black, colouring on its head, and the eye, which is also dark, does not make a great contrast with the rest of the head. However, when the goose shuts its eye, for example to doze off, the situation changes quite dramatically. It is the lower eyelid that moves, which looks strange enough, but the astonishing thing is that the eyelid is a pure white colour. This makes a marked contrast with the rest of the face. I can think of no reasonable explanation for this, except maybe that it is for the protection of the goose against predators. Perhaps when the eye is shut it looks like it is open, which might possibly make a predator hesitate for a minute. I just don't know.

I noticed also that the Mallard duck has the same eyelid arrangement, although not so strikingly as the Canada goose.

This led me on to thinking about what it must be like to actually BE a goose or a duck. I spend a lot of time wondering about what it is like being something or someone else, so this is not completely surprising. I would certainly miss being able to scratch my ear (do geese have ears?), or ride a bicycle. And when was the last time you heard about a goose logging on to the World Wide Web (though they DO have webbed feet - ha ha sorry about that one!) But anyway, a goose would not miss those delights, never having experienced them.

However, if you were a goose, you would have one truly amazing skill that maybe would make up for your lack of opposable thumbs. You would be able to FLY - under your own power and control! And you would be able to land on water! Think of that. Now, be honest, wouldn't that be absolutely awesome?

Why am I writing this? Well, as I am a philosopher I think it is great if we can learn something from any experience, so here are some things I learned, and maybe they will be useful to you as well.

1. Canada geese have pure white upside-down eyelids.

2. It is worth taking the time and trouble to REALLY look at things.

3. We probably focus too much on the things we cannot do, especially when we compare ourselves to other people. Instead we would do better to focus on the amazing things we could do, if we only tried.

4. If you want to survive in this world, it is a good idea to try to avoid being tasty when eaten. If you cannot manage this, then try to live somewhere where they have a decent supermarket nearby.

How To Get The Best Out Of Internet Forums

I've been spending quite a lot of time on forums lately. I'm beginning to wonder why, really. They are a monumental waste of time, if you stop to think about it. But at the same time they are kind of addictive.

I don't know about you but i'm a serial forumist. What does that mean? Well it means that I join a forum and then start to get deeply involved with its discussions. Spend hours of each day on that one forum, to the exclusion of all else, even other forums. Then I seem to get a backlash where I begin to detest that one and all it stands for. Then I find another one and the same cycle begins again. See what I mean, serial forumist.

Or perhaps the phrase should be "serial monoforumist" to distinguish me from the other kind. The "polyforumists". These are the people who will probably go on to be extremely successful in later life. They can organise themselves so that every day (in every way) they visit each one of a systematic portfolio of different forums, make a small but deeply significant contribution, and then leave. I am of course full of admiration and envy of these people but I haven't got the smallest chance of ever emulating their feats of endurance. I would just find it dreary in the extreme, going through all those links, waiting for each one to open, etc etc. And then forcing yourself to leave just when things are getting interesting! No, I wish I could, but it's just not me.

Now tell me, what type of forumist are you?

Should Rich People Give Away Money, and How Much?

Many wealthy people give vast sums of money away to charity. From a moral point of view, are they doing something worthy? Should we applaud them and praise them for this?

There is no doubt that the large amounts given away by such people as Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet (who I've never heard of, but someone said he gives lots away) or historical figures such as Carnegie or Rockefeller, can go a long way towards relieving the suffferings of the poor, and providing them with opportunities in life. And these acts of charity get a lot of attention from the media. But we are here concerned with the moral aspect. How worthy are these acts of charity by these fabulously wealthy men?

I want to try a philosophy thought experiment. Before I do, maybe it should be said that, often, a wealthy person can trade off a charitable gift against a tax break, so his loss is not really as much as it seems. But to keep things simple in the thought experiment, let's allow the rich men to have their tax break and just look at it in simple terms?

A Thought Experiment

You have ten dollars. I have ten billion dollars. We each give $1 to charity. Our contributions are exactly the same amount. From a moral point of view, which is the most worthy?

Yours. You may need all your $10 dollars to feed your family, so $1 is a big sacrifice. I will not miss $1, I won't even notice it.

Again, you have ten dollars. I have ten billion dollars. You give $1, which is 10% of your total wealth. I give one billion dollars, which is 10% of my total wealth. So we have given the same proportion of our wealth away. I have given away ONE BILLION DOLLARS, a staggering amount of money! From a moral point of view, surely now, my contribution is more worthy than yours? Or at least, it's equally worthy, isn't it?

No. Because you have only $9 left to feed your family, but I have $9 billion. I think I'll probably manage OK on that.

Again, you have ten dollars. I have ten billion dollars. How can I make a contribution to charity that will, from a moral point of view, be the equal of yours?

Could it be that, in order to equal in worthiness your contribution of one dollar, I have to give $9,999,999,991?

Yes, because, in a charitable contribution, what really counts is not how much you give, but how much you have left. If I am left with only $9, I will feel the same pain and worry as you, so only then will I have made the same sacrifice as you.

So the acclaim that is given to rich men by the newspapers and the network news channels, when they give away minute portions of their fortunes, is totally misdirected. I'm not saying they should not give money away; I think it's good that they do. I'm not saying either that they should leave themselves with only nine dollars. What I'm saying is that it needs to be put into perspective. When they make these admittedly huge gifts, they should not praised and acclaimed as though they were especially virtuous and worthy men, as though the size of their giving made them automatically worthy of praise.

Patience Does Not Seem to Be One of the Seven Virtues

Here are some random thoughts that have arisen from the discussion that started on my previous post about whether or not patience is a virtue, as the saying goes.

First thought: As I hinted in the other post, the word virtue comes from the Latin vir, meaning a man. So, for the ancient Romans, the good qualities of a person that we now call virtues were those qualities which go to make a good man. Women, of course, had no place in society, no vote, no rights, and they were legally deprived of citizenship, being subject entirely to the whim of their father or husband. So the qualities were those of an honourable man, and that is why the word has come to us as "virtue".

The notions of honour in Roman society were actually quite similar to those of the Samurai, which many people in the present day seem to admire, often at the same time criticising the honour system of the West, which comes to us from the Romans. But that's another matter altogether.

In the first few centuries of the Common Era, when Christianity was spreading fast across the Roman Empire, it began to be accepted that there were just seven virtues. They were:

Prudence
Temperance
Justice
Fortitude
Faith
Hope
Love

The last three were considered to be religious virtues, and the first four were called cardinal virtues. Why cardinal virtues? Because there were those who enjoyed the idea of a system, and would look for all kinds of correspondences in everything. So they associated each of the four virtues with a point of the compass, North, South, East, and West. The four virtues also were associated with the elements Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Also each of them was associated with three of the star-signs of Astrology, and further with certain of the cards in the so-called Major Arcana of the Tarot pack.

I mention these purely as historical curiosities. If anyone wants to believe that these associations are valid, you are more than welcome to, but personally I think they go just a little bit too far!

The last one of the "religious" virtues, Love, needs some explaining. It used to be known as "charity", but this came from an over-literal translation in the King James Bible of the word caritas. This word means love, in a caring sort of way, note the similarity. Our word charity means alms-giving, and this sense of alms-giving is not really present in the Bible passage in question, which is from 1 Corinthians 13. This is the passage that a lot of people get read out at their wedding.

It's not only that last one that needs explaining though. All the others, in one way or another, need to be examined carefully if we are to decide whether or not we are leading the virtuous life by keeping to them...

The thing is, I'm running out of time on this post, so if anyone else would like to start the ball rolling, so to speak, feel free!

Maybe could start by wondering why is it that PATIENCE does not appear on the list?

Patience - is it really a virtue?

Patience is a virtue,
Possess it if you can,
Seldom found in woman,
Never found in man.

I found this quote on Google. It's anonymous, as far as I know. Sounds ok, doesn't it? But is it true?

Most of us nowadays, when we consider doing something, like buying a product, joining a club, trying a new diet, or maybe cultivating virtue, tend to ask ourselves: What's in it for me? (Be honest now!) So perhaps we should look at exactly what virtue means before going any further...

The word virtue comes to us via Old French, from the Latin virtus. This word in Latin means manliness or courage, and it in turn is from the word vir, which means a man. Our word virile is from the same source. The word virtus also has the meaning of "effectiveness" and we see this use in the word virtual. As in "virtual reality", giving the sense of something that has the effect of being real.

Ok so far? For the Romans, someone who showed manliness or courage was automatically a good sort of person, so the word virtue came to be applied to those qualities that a courageous and manly fellow would have.

If you look at the quote at the top though, it seems that patience is a virtue that men don't have at all.

Looking a bit further into this, if you look at the word patience, you find something even more interesting. It again comes from Latin, patientia, with the original meaning of "endurance". If we look a bit closer we find that the word passion comes from the same root word. Also the Greek word pathos (suffering) is from the same root meaning, and this one comes into words like "sympathy" (suffering together). The word passion tends to have a sexy sort of meaning for most people today, but in former times, it meant suffering. So for example, there was the Passion of Jesus on the cross, meaning the suffering.

I found another quote, this time from someone called Lyman Adams (who I have to confess I never heard of before), which goes, "Patience is passion tamed." This seems a bit absurd now. Rather like saying "Green is green".

Here's another quote I found. "Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle. Every day you need to work on it."

(I think that's enough quotes for one day.) But the question is: Why should you bother to acquire patience?

Well first, there are many situations where you just won't get what you want right this instant, or even this year. So why stress about it? Have patience!

Sometimes, to keep a good relationship going, you need to practise the art of forbearance, not getting angry with your partner or parents or children, even when you have good cause to. Have patience!

Or when you see the events in the world not really going the way you think they should? Do whatever you can, and hope for the best to come. Have patience!

All these situations have got something in them for you to gain if you have patience in them.

So what do you think? Patience really is a virtue then?

Just one more quote, and this is the last one, I promise!

"Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you, but not in the one ahead."

Attributes of God - A Philosophical Discussion

Someone asked on a blog discussion forum: "What are the attributes of God?" Needless to say, I joined the discussion, and the following is a partial attempt at an answer to the question.

To make sure that no-one misunderstands, I should just say that I'm not here arguing in favour of any religion over any other, and I'm not trying to evangelise or convert anyone. I'm treating the question NOT as a religious one, but as a philosophical one.

As usual, it starts with semantics.

The word "attribute" refers to a property or characteristic of an object. Many people would argue that the question is meaningless, since God is necessarily beyond all attributes. They would then refer to God by saying all the things that God is not. For example, God is not green, blue, red etc etc, and also God is not colourless and so on. The problem with this approach is that it's a bit negative, as it doesn't say what God actually is.

It seems logical to assume we can say (if God exists at all) that God is alive. Some would also say that God is love, although there is a problem with this, due to the slight double meaning of the verb "to be" which can be used to refer to an attribute, or to an identity. If it's the latter meaning, then you can also say "Love is God" which has far-reaching effects in terms of one's religious belief. Best I think to use the phrase with care.

The reason why it's necessary to try to avoid attributing any properties to God, is that these will impose a limitation on God, reducing God to the level of a created being. (Of course, it wouldn't actually reduce God, but would reduce our conception of God, or in other words, it would lead to the creation of an idol.) The important point is that God is free from all "earthly" limitations.

The interesting part of all this for me, is that the God who is followed by Christians, a very large proportion of the population (and many of them do not seem to be aware of this), chooses voluntarily to accept limitation, in order to share in the sufferings of humanity, by being born on earth in the form of a man, Jesus, an act which is being celebrated all over the world on this very day!

No, I Haven't Lost It

I've been involved in a discussion about the law of attraction! Have I taken leave of my senses? Well maybe not quite yet. Let me tell you how it all started...

I did a post on this blog a little while ago called More Lives Than a Cat, which was a follow-up to an earlier post, The Doomsday Device. These two posts were intended to be an opportunity for me to examine some of the aspects of quantum theory and the scientific inferences and thought-experiments that arise from the theory.

Much of it was pretty weird, though it was, and this is the point, a scientific look at quantum theory. It isn't long before you find yourself talking about the role of the observer, and things like consciousness.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I noticed that the Adsense near the post had switched to an ad for quantum theory law of attraction. I was intrigued by this. So I went on to Blog Catalog and asked a general question about it. The discussion that came out of it was rather fascinating.

I still can't understand how anyone can say that quantum theory and law of attraction are in any way connected (it's a bit like saying that weather forecasting and fortune telling are connected) but the discussion gave me some ideas, which in turn led to some insights, which I'll tell you about in the next post. The insights are about science (not fortune telling!), or rather, about the philosophy of science.

The Key Words of a Discussion

I participate in quite a lot of forum discussions, and I really enjoy them. People there have (I think) got used to me going on about having clear definitions of key words in the discussion. Anyway, I make no apology for doing this. I'm a philosopher (or anyway, a trainee philosopher) so it's what I do.

Let me explain to you what I mean about defining terms. Let's say you and I decide to have a discussion about oak trees. Now you know what an oak tree is, you have seen them before, you know a lot about them. Now, on the other hand, when I was very young, my parents took me to see an apple tree, and they said, "There, you see that? It's an oak tree." (I don't blame them for this, by the way, they didn't know any better.)

Now our discussion might go like this:

You: Ah the oak is the most majestic of trees!
Me: What? No, it's quite a small tree really.
You: No, you're quite mistaken, it's very tall.
Me: Oh well anyway, it's nice to have an oak in the garden. And the fruit is so good to eat.
You: What?? You actually eat acorns?
Me: Of course I do. Doesn't everyone?
You: No certainly not, what a disgusting idea!
Me: Well everyone I know eats them, they're delicious. You really should try them, you know.
You: Ugh, what a strange person you are. Nothing would induce me to try them! Acorns would make you ill.
Me: It's you that's strange! We make them into pies mmmmm! And there's a tasty drink you can make from them too.
You: Aaaargh!

And so on. Eventually, we might come to blows, or go off and form some armies and fight a war over this issue. Or we might realise we're talking about a different meaning of the key word of our discussion, and then we might start to agree.

You see what I mean? Often, people have discussions in which words like truth, beauty, goodness, knowledge, existence, proof, reality, God are used. These words are all highly charged with meaning and association. It's only to be expected that they will have different associations for different people. But people don't seem to take this into account, and they argue with each other. The arguments are often a waste of time and energy and stress, because, like the two people arguing about the oak tree, they are using the same word but meaning different things.

That's why I always want to have the important terms of the discussion clearly and exactly defined before joining the discussion. I think if everyone did that, then we could really get somewhere.

Moral Law as a Law of Reason

In the previous post I looked at what some philosophers say about how feelings are the ultimate determiners of our setting of aims. Some would go so far as to assert that morality itself depends on the feelings of the person making the moral judgement. Other philosophers react against this, with the view that the moral standard is a law of reason.

If these philosophers are correct, then moral standards are fixed and unchanging. The moral law would then be a law of nature, comparable to, but not identical with, such laws as the law of gravity. One form of this theory is that good actions are necessarily consistent actions. Thus a bad action would be a denial, and a good action an affirmation, of the real state of things.

For example, if a man steals a car and drives away with it, it is a bad action because he is not thinking of the car as being what it is (someone else's car), so he is denying things as they are, and contradicting the law of reason. The thief is affirming a falsehood. Again, they have argued that a man who beats is wife is in a way denying that she is his wife.

Some philosophers go further than this. They agree that it is true that the bad action is one that is inconsistent, but it is inconsistent not with an objective fact but with an ideal. Under this view, stealing is wrong not because it is a denial of an objective fact about the stolen property, but because the action is inconsistent with an ideal relationship between human beings.

The philosopher Kant held that when a person does a bad action, the inconsistency lies in the fact that they are acting according to a principle which they are not willing to allow others to follow as their principle. Under this definition, a person who only performs good actions is one who is at all times prepared to let others act on the same principles.

The philosopher says: In the lower forms of goodness, the actions of an individual form a coherent whole among themselves. In higher forms of goodness, they form a coherent system with the actions of one's own society. In the highest forms of goodness, they form a coherent system with all other acts of willing in the universe.

Reason as a Motive to Action

Aristotle was of the opinion (Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6) that the aim or end of the process of willing is set only by our desires, and that reason is required to discover the means to achieve those ends. This was echoed by David Hume, who wrote, in Treatise on Human Nature, that "reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions". Thus the ends at which we aim are determined by our innate instincts and preferences, leaving reason to assist only in finding the best ways to attain these ends.

This view has in the past been challenged in a variety of ways.

1. Sometimes the desire to act in a consistent manner and avoid contradiction - as it is sometimes called, to behave rationally - may override other desires. Thus a thief may feel a pang of pity for his victims, but he would very likely pull himself together by arguing that he should not allow his emotions to get in the way of pursuing his professional calling.

2. When there is a choice of desirable options to aim for, then reason will be called on to choose between them, so in that sense, reason could be said to be setting the aims in this situation.

3. A strong criticism of the theory is that it makes an artificial distinction between reason and desire which does not exist in practice. The mind exists and operates as a unity, with the "component" parts of it working together in a seamless manner.

4. Reason and reflection may suggest a course of action, and if this is later accompanied by a desire the action may be put into effect. Some might argue that desire is still the determining factor, but here, reasoning has also played a part.

5. Introspection (a reasoning process) may lead us to suspend our judgement, and leave the execution of a desirable course of action until a later time, after which it may happen that other considerations have arisen which will influence our desires. For example, if I write an angry letter to someone, it may happen that if I do not send it immediately, but perhaps wait until next morning, I may discover some rational considerations which make the sending of the letter seem less desirable.

These objections (and others) can lead us on to the possibility of our actions being determined, not so much by our desires and instincts, as by a "sense of duty" or conscience.

Socrates, who is often celebrated as the founder of Western philosophy, held that knowledge is virtue. In his view, a clear understanding of what is good would inevitably overcome all our other tendencies to action and thus would lead to right conduct.

The Soldier's Dilemma

Yesterday I was in the library and I found a book of philosophy which contained the following thought experiment. I can't remember the name of the book, but if anyone knows it, please tell me so I can give the name on this post.

Anyway I thought I would post it up, so I could see what the views of the Blogger community would be. It's a dilemma of morality.

A soldier is ordered to rape and murder a female prisoner. His first instinct is to refuse to obey, since rape and murder are wrongful acts. His superiors have no right to order him to commit these crimes. He knows, however, that if he does disobey the order, he will be shot, and the task will be given to another soldier. The prisoner, then, is doomed to die, and the only foreseeable consequence of the soldier's disobedience would be that he will die too.

It occurs to him that if he obeys, and commits the rape and murder, he will have the power to make the prisoner's death an easier one, and to minimize her suffering. Whereas it is likely that if he refuses, the prisoner's death may be more unpleasant and violent.

So if he obeys, he will commit crimes, but he himself will survive, and he will be able to decrease the suffering of another.

If he disobeys, he will not commit any crime, but he himself will die, and he will very likely condemn another person to greater suffering.

These two options seem to be the only ones he can choose from. I can't think of any others.

What should the soldier do?

The School of Filosofia

Some of you may realize by now that there is no sofia, or at least, that there is no person whose given name is sofia. This is because filosofia is a team, or more accurately a school. The word school here is used in the same sense as the school of the prophet Isaiah, or the school of the philosopher Pythagoras, or of the poet Homer.

Of course, there is one editor in chief, and perhaps many people have assumed that she is sofia filosofia, but in fact her name is Aimee. The name sofia filosofia is intended to embody a system of beliefs and thought and philosophy, brought together by a meeting of minds, and original writing, to make up the collection of filosofia. Aimee is in full editorial control, but that does not mean she is the sole author, as may possibly be clear from a stylistic analysis of the different posts this blog contains.

The school members are free to express their opinion on any topic whatever, subject to her editorial ratification. filosofia is currently in the process of considering whether to invite applications to join filosofia school, and there will be more news about this as soon as it becomes available. Meanwhile, any views of readers can as ever be written into the comments section.

If you have been addressing your comments to Sofia, as to a person, then please feel free to continue doing that.

A Discussion Entitled "Is Atheism A Religion?"

This post was first published by me as a comment on a discussion on BlogCatalog. The discussion was entitled "Is Atheism A Religion?" For reasons which you will probably guess, I decided to copy it here as a back-up, just in case the BlogCatalog people decide to obliterate the entire discussion. I thought this post was worth keeping.

I don't usually have a lot of time for religious discussion, except when there is a philosophical angle, since religious discussionists are often the most stupid of all. Yes even worse than the trivialists (How many comments a day do you get on your blog? You know the kind.) Religionists (and atheists) tend not to listen to each other but just bang on with their own pre-programmed spiel and damn the other side to eternal perdition.

But this here discussion DID interest me, for two reasons. First, because I really do think that atheism has certain characteristics normally associated with religion. Second, because I think a lot of the problems and disagreements over religion that I mentioned above are, in large part, caused by the semantic laziness which I talk about in the following post.

So without further ado, I'll now let you read it!

Sorry to keep going on about semantics, but I feel I have to because, in so many of these religion discussions, people don't take the trouble to accurately define the meanings of the words they are using. This can lead to people arguing about different things but calling them by the same word. In turn, this leads to misunderstandings, bafflement, the giving of offence, or even to fights breaking out!

Maybe what I'm going to say has already been said a bit further up (I haven't had time to read every post) but anyway I'll say it.

Someone further up said that the word religion means "reverence for God". Well it may mean that for some people, but only by association. The root meaning of the word is the Latin "religare" which means "to bind, or to bind up". It's quite interesting that the word "yoga" has a similar root meaning of binding.

In this pure definition of the word "religion" it may well be possible to say that atheism is a religion, but only when applied to those who are, as it were, active exponents of atheism. In other words, those atheists who attempt to convince others of the rightness of their belief. Some would argue that atheism, (or should we say Atheism?) is a credo, since the atheist is professing a belief in a proposition that is not susceptible of proof, any more than a belief in God is susceptible of proof. We can twist words around all we want, but the atheist is probably saying, "I believe there is no god."

There are some thought-systems that are given the label of religion, with the meaning of the word in the pure sense we have just defined, in which it is not necessary, nor is it even considered desirable, to believe in God. Buddhism is the most obvious one that springs to mind here. This is one of the criticisms sometimes aimed at Buddhism by adherents of other religions, that Buddhism is fundamentally atheistic. This does not, of course, apply to all branches of the faith, which is vast and fantastically varied. But some sects of Buddhism do allow the worship of a deity or deities, largely it seems because people like to worship something or someone.

I think the Buddhist would reply to an accusation of being atheistic by saying that she/he neither believes nor disbelieves in God. But I'm only guessing about this, since I am very far from being an expert on any religion, atheistic or otherwise.

What is the Definition of a Person?

A very dear friend of mine, one of the best friend's I have online, asked me to define a "person". This was a philosophical question, connecting to the whole subject of identity. It links up with the great question of who, or what, we "really" are?

Instantly loads of ideas came flooding into my head, so many that it would take a long time to write them down in one little shoutbox message. So I thought I'd do a post on Blogger.com.

Then it occurred to me that it might be nice to try it as a discussion, where I start the ball rolling, and readers contribute their ideas in the comments section? Then we all discuss them, and maybe finally come up with a consensus, even one that has never been done before!!!

How cool would that be?

This blog doesn't get a really huge amount of traffic, but I always think quality is better than quantity anyway. Maybe it won't work, but it's an experiment, so that's ok either way.

Here is my first thought: I think it's very interesting that the original meaning of the word "person" is the Latin persona, which was the name for the mask which was worn by actors in ancient times. The mask represented the role they were playing in the action.

The Over-Heated Discussion

The following post is a reprint of a post of mine on BlogCatalog. It mentions a discussion thread "Does God Exist Or Not?", started by me, which had attracted a large number of replies and comments. One fine Sunday morning, we woke up to find the thread had been suddenly and summarily deleted! Needless to say, someone started a NEW thread to discuss the deletion, and the post below is my little contribution to the new discussion. Some might say that I'm being too apologetic, some might say I should apologize more, but I've tried to express my true feelings about it. Why have I made a copy of it on this blog? Maybe you can guess the answer...

It was me that started the thread in question.

First of all I'd like to make a sincere apology for any trouble that the thread has caused. It was never my intention for that to happen.

I started the thread originally just to advertize a little post on my blog, which was looking at an ancient argument of "proof" of the existence of God by St Anselm of Canterbury. Thus you could say that my motives were mixed! One, I wanted to encourage an academic discussion, and two, I wanted some visitors to a blog that was new.

Imagine my surprise when the thread got hundreds of comments! I did not realize before that the existence of God or not was a subject of so much controversy. I had thought it was a dry-as-dust academic point.

As to the posts that were "nasty", I don't know what those were really. One post said that the ontological argument was aleph null stupid, which didn't seem to be an entirely well-considered counter-argument, but as it was not a long way from the truth, it was OK, I thought. There did seem to be a lot of bantering between people who clearly knew each other, and were continuing conversations they'd already had. But if there were any personal attacks, I must have missed them, because I didn't see any.

I did, however, read some very well-written posts arguing for one side or the other, and it's a real shame to lose them like that. Maybe I'll get deleted for saying this, but I think it's a worrying feature of the internet that your work can be deleted instantly, without any chance of appeal, by someone who doesn't like what you've done or said.

One of my main interests is in the phenomenon of misinterpretations. This is when you say one thing, but the hearer interprets your words in a way you hadn't thought of, and so believes you've said something else entirely. It's one of the main themes of Shakespeare's Hamlet, by the way! I'm fascinated by how a quite heated discussion can arise from one of these little misunderstandings. This is why I think it's so important for everyone to do philosophy, which among other things stresses the need for a precise definition of each word before it is used in a discussion.

I say this because its possible that a post of mine may have been the cause of the deletion. If so, it's because I may have expressed myself badly and caused a misunderstanding. The thing is, the thread seemed to have gone dormant, with no replies for the previous 5 days, so I thought I'd add a little last word, where for the first time, I actually gave my own view on the question! This was purely for my own pleasure, as I didn't think anyone was interested in the thread anymore, and would never see it. There was no nastiness intended in that last post, but it's possible that, as I just said above, it might have been misinterpreted, I don't know.

I don't want people to be nasty to each other. I like to hear both sides of an argument, and it's a good thing when they are strongly felt, but I believe that people should respect their opponents and learn from them.

Anyway sorry guys.

The link to the new discussion is http://www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/there-are-threads-being-deleted-again-instead-of-just-being-locked

The post on this blog that I was trying to advertize was http://filosofia08uk.blogspot.com/2008/10/ontological-argument-for-existence-of.html

The irony in all this is that the original thread was about a philosophical question, not about religion as many people assumed.

Why Does Writing Run Away With You?

When I started to write this post, my intention was to write something completely different from what came out! It was meant to be about a philosophical point, which will now have to wait until a later time. As I was writing it I noticed something happening which, for me at least, happens all the time. So I decided to go with it, and it became the post you see below. Not on the original philosophy subject, but it's still a philosophy post, I think...

This is (I hope) going to be only a short post! I know that sometimes I tend to ramble along in what seems like a bit of a random way, but I do actually have a plan. It's just that I don't always keep to it! I'll be writing about something, and while I'm in the act of writing, something else occurs to me and I think, yeah OK that's relevant, so I should put that in as well, and then before you know it, there's a couple of hundred words suddenly on the page that were not, repeat NOT part of the original plan!

There's also another thing that happens to me when I write. It's the tendency of words to somehow take on a life of their own and start running away with what you were wanting to say. Sometimes you actually find that it's become impossible to say some of the things you were wanting to say, because in some way, the words you've just put down somehow preclude the ones you want to say! By this I mean that to say them would involve back-tracking right to the beginning to make a kind of NEW preamble to what you want to say, and this would make the piece become too long, and maybe even a bit boring.

Writing is HARD to do!

I am actually quite pleased to find out that I'm not the only one who finds this happening to them. I've read a few other writings from people who, especially in blogs, notice a similar effect.

So then, my question is this:

To all writers, does this happen to you, or doesn't it? Any comments will be gratefully received...

More Lives Than A Cat? The Quantum Theory of Life

I was just reading about some things to do with quantum theory. The theory is way beyond my comprehension, but it gives rise to some interesting speculations and thought experiments, and those I CAN understand.

One of the thought experiments is about multi-dimensional universes. This is based on the idea of Schrodinger's Cat (see the Doomsday Device post). We say that the actual status of the cat is fixed by the observer, in other words, the consciousness of the observer CREATES the status of the cat. In a similar way, as you go through your day, your year, your life, you meet thousands and thousands of instances of having to make a choice. Do I go upstairs or downstairs? Do I take this job or stay in my old one? You have to decide which way to go, and whatever you decide, your consciousness follows the consequences of that decision.

It's a bit like the camera in a movie. Your consciousness, in a sense, CREATES the reality of what you see and experience. The other possible consequence is made to be non-existent because your consciousness has not followed it, has not MADE IT REAL. Up until the time when you make that choice, both of these separate realities have an equal chance of being real. They both have a probability existence, like the cat before you open the box. This gives rise to the idea of an infinite number of universes, branching off from each other, each one coming into existence each second or each millisecond as your consciousness makes the choice to observe it.

The idea of the Doomsday Device brings up another interesting idea. The Doomsday Device experiment tells us that the outcome which leads to no consciousness of any event just cannot happen, it would be impossible. This seems to indicate that there can be no such thing as death, at least as we understand it in its usual sense, because it would cause a PARADOX of having to be conscious of not being conscious, or being aware of having no awareness. So the logical conclusion is that, however things may appear to be, we are immortal, since every outcome of every branching probability is one which leads to conscious awareness. To life, in other words.

But how can this be, since we see and hear of death happening every day? Some have speculated that the event that we call death is the beginning of the event we call birth. They argue that your consciousness at the time of "death" immediately begins to have the experience of birth, and so life continues without a break. If you think this sounds a bit weird, just compare it with the paradox in the previous paragraph.

Some speculations come from this idea. What kind of life would this new one be? Some would speculate that it is the same life as before, but with the capacity to differ from the former one because consciousness may make different decisions at certain points, thus creating an entire different universe of experience. One can visualize this repeating itself endlessly over an infinite time, so that your consciousness eventually experiences everything possible. Under this model of the universe, or Universe of universes, life would not be dull.

Credit must here go to Nietzsche, who was probably the first to speculate on the idea of a cyclic model of conscious existence. But Nietzsche did not have the predictions of quantum theory at his disposal, so the best he could come up with was to say that when you repeated your lives over and over again eternally, each one was EXACTLY the same as all the others. A bleak prospect, and one that would indeed be dull.

A consequence of the consciousness-chooses-life philosophy is that, since you are immortal, it follows that you need have no fear. One imagines that if the idea became a widespread belief, there would be even more people taking up sports like sky-diving or drag-racing than there are at present.

The Doomsday Device

There is a branch of philosophy called Idealism. We think of that word to mean having noble thoughts and ambitions, but that is not quite what it means when a philosopher uses it, though it can include those things. In philosophy, it means the school of thought that considers reality to be in the mind rather than in matter or things. Idealism is thus the opposite of Materialism.

The Idealists are concerned with how information reaches us from the outside world. They maintain that the only way we can know anything at all is through the medium of the five senses - sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch. Anything that is in your mind apart from these sense-data, say the Idealists, must have its origin in your mind and not outside it. They say that a person who was born without any of the five senses would have no knowledge of the world at all.

One of the most famous Idealists of the past was George Berkeley, who was from Ireland. He said that nothing existed in our minds except what had already come into them in the form of sense experiences. The concepts we have in our thoughts, come from our experience. So we can only have the concept "cat" because we have seen a cat. Now, Berkeley went further, and said that the sense-data are all that you can ever know. So when you look at a table, you have the sense-data of the table but that's all. You can't know anything about what it really is, apart from what your senses tell you. This led Berkeley to say that to all intents and purposes, matter does not exist. The only existence it can have is in the mind of the observer.

So someone might ask, "What if I close my eyes, so I can't see the table? Does the table cease to exist?" A complete Idealist would say, yes it ceases to exist. But obviously this is a problem! The way Berkeley solved it was by believing in God, so when you shut your eyes, the table continues to exist, because God is observing it. In this way, the universe as described by Berkeley consists of God and the observer, who receives the sense impressions given by God.

This philosophy is what gives rise to speculations like: "If all that I can know about the world is through sense-data, how do I know that the information coming in is correct?"

Or: "How do we know we're not living in a virtual reality, like in the film, The Matrix?"

Or: "If a tree falls to the ground in a deserted forest, and no-one is there to hear it fall, does it make a sound?"

In space, there is no sound, because there is no air to carry the sound waves. But even when there is air, the movements caused by the falling tree only become sound when they reach an ear. So if there's no-one there, how can the tree make a sound? We think of the world as something outside and independent of us, but in fact, so much of "reality" depends on the observer.

This idea comes into the "thought experiment" called Schrodinger's Cat. Imagine an air-tight box with a lid, and inside the box is a cat. The box also contains a device which can release a deadly poison. (Sorry if you like cats, but this is only a THOUGHT experiment). The device has a random generator so it has an even chance of going off as not going off. Is the cat dead or alive? You can't know. The cat's existence is in a "probability-state" at the moment. The only way to find out is to open the box. Then the probability state ends and the status of the cat is determined, dead or alive. So it is the observer who has made this happen, before that the cat was in a state of probability. It's only by the process of observation that the cat is now dead (or alive).

A similar thought experiment is The Doomsday Device. This was in the writings of an astronomer, but I can't remember his name, so if anyone knows, please leave a comment? Imagine a Doomsday Device hovering above Planet Earth. If it goes off, it destroys everything on the planet, including humans and all life, with nothing surviving. If it doesn't go off, we survive. The Device has a random generator, like in Schrodinger's Cat. So we have an even chance of survival or total obliteration. What happens?

The astronomer says that we must survive. Even though it is an even chance, the Doomsday Device can never go off. Because, if it did, there would be no consciousness to observe it happening, and so it could not happen. Like the tree that makes no sound, or the cat which is only dead or alive because it is observed to be so, the Doomsday Device could not go off, because we would never know it had happened.

Ideas from Ancient Greece

Two philosophers of the past I just read about are Heraclitus and Parmenides. They both lived a long long time ago, and their writings are for the most part lost, so that all we know about them is from what other philosophers wrote about them. They both lived in ancient Greece, not far from each other, but their thinking was about as opposite as could be.

Heraclitus was a recluse because he didn't really like people very much, and he believed society was corrupt. He believed that the universe and everything in it is in a continual state of flux and change. He is believed to be the first person to say that you can never step into the same river twice. He believed that even though we see things around us that might appear to be solid and fixed, in reality this solidity is just an illusion. Everything is in a constant process of becoming something else. His ideas are said to have had a lot of influence on modern science.

Parmenides was a bit more sociable. He ran a philosophy school, called the Eleatic school, because it was in the city of Elea. He believed that the universe and everything in it is fixed and unchanging. Everything is made of the same basic stuff and it never changes. Nothing is capable of changing into anything else, because to do that, it would have to become something that doesn't exist. When we believe that we see change or movement, that is an illusion. His ideas are said to have had a lot of influence on modern science too!

Parmenides had a famous pupil at his school. This pupil was called Zeno of Elea. He wanted to prove that all movement and change were illusions, so he invented over 40 paradoxes for this purpose. One of them "proved" that you can never reach the finishing line in a race, because first you have to reach the halfway point, then the point halfway through the second half of the race, then the point halfway through the final quarter, and so on for ever. He also imagined an athlete called Achilles, racing against a tortoise. He said that Achilles can never overtake the tortoise, as he must first run to where the tortoise is, but in that time the tortoise has moved on. Every time Achilles runs to where the tortoise is, it will have moved on a little bit more, so the tortoise will always be ahead.

Of course we know that you can run a race, and Achilles can overtake the tortoise, but Zeno would say that was just an illusion. He also said that an arrow shot from a bow can never reach the target, because it can never move from where it is to where it is not. Zeno said that if the arrow moved to somewhere where it was not, it would cease to exist.

You may well be thinking that Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Zeno were a bit stupid and cracked-up, and that it would be easy to knock down their ideas and paradoxes. But the argument against them is not as obvious as you might think, and, if you are up against a real philosopher, they will easily defend them against the most obvious objections. Even if a philosopher doesn't agree with them, he or she can do that. The refutation of Zeno's paradoxes uses very technical logic, based on maths - at university entrance level - so I'm not going to try to write about that.

If you were an ancient Greek philosopher, would you be Heraclitus, would you be Parmenides, or would you be Zeno?