A ‘smol’ Treatise
on the
Human Understanding
Human Understanding
Introduction
Dear reader,
To start, let’s just call this short and bungled mess of a work a “mini treatise”. It is a “mini treatise in the subject of philosophy” if you want to describe it in short.
Or, maybe you’ll just call it “a work in epistemology”.
I don’t think it matters that much. However, I must insist that---in any case---you read the apology given in the paragraph below. It expresses my concerns succinctly and might ward off those who would read the work but complain of having their time wasted.
I must apologize: this is only the first draft of a work, and, moreover, it isn’t even completed yet. Why then? Why would I release a work which is premature and does not suit my idea of “completed”? Well, because I’m not only a perfectionist workaholic! I have another role in life as a dude that must eventually publish, lest he face starvation. Cool, right!? That means that, while I’m now on the self-assured path of creating a trustworthy, clear, and complete system of epistemology and philosophy, I am nonetheless forced (by the great capitalist economy of the USA (#GodBless #SatanBless)) to publish something which has not yet had time to develop to maturity. So, as this … “work”? Well, whatever it is, as this thing is thrust into the public sphere through publication (even though it will take the form of a blog post (#Kappa)), I hope that you, dear reader, will forgive the lack of clarity, the rambling, loose associations, shaky reasoning, and passages that suddenly end unfinished.
Surely there will even be inconsistencies which are not here predicted. Again, my apologies.
What is this work?
Well, for a TL;DR introduction, it’s a small treatise in the discipline of philosophy. And, to tell you the truth, It’s not great, and you probably shouldn’t read it.
You’ve been warned.
Dear reader,
To start, let’s just call this short and bungled mess of a work a “mini treatise”. It is a “mini treatise in the subject of philosophy” if you want to describe it in short.
Or, maybe you’ll just call it “a work in epistemology”.
I don’t think it matters that much. However, I must insist that---in any case---you read the apology given in the paragraph below. It expresses my concerns succinctly and might ward off those who would read the work but complain of having their time wasted.
I must apologize: this is only the first draft of a work, and, moreover, it isn’t even completed yet. Why then? Why would I release a work which is premature and does not suit my idea of “completed”? Well, because I’m not only a perfectionist workaholic! I have another role in life as a dude that must eventually publish, lest he face starvation. Cool, right!? That means that, while I’m now on the self-assured path of creating a trustworthy, clear, and complete system of epistemology and philosophy, I am nonetheless forced (by the great capitalist economy of the USA (#GodBless #SatanBless)) to publish something which has not yet had time to develop to maturity. So, as this … “work”? Well, whatever it is, as this thing is thrust into the public sphere through publication (even though it will take the form of a blog post (#Kappa)), I hope that you, dear reader, will forgive the lack of clarity, the rambling, loose associations, shaky reasoning, and passages that suddenly end unfinished.
Surely there will even be inconsistencies which are not here predicted. Again, my apologies.
What is this work?
Well, for a TL;DR introduction, it’s a small treatise in the discipline of philosophy. And, to tell you the truth, It’s not great, and you probably shouldn’t read it.
You’ve been warned.
The Work Itself
- The word “action” is a thing, but an action is not a “thing”.
- At least I’m sure that you will admit that the words mean different things. I don’t think we’ll get along if you tell me “the definition of the word ‘action’ and the word ‘thing’ are identical”.
- Actions don’t have “substance” or “matter”
- We can classify them as “events”
- In conscious perception, you know what an “action” is, and you know what an “object” is: there is a difference between “being” and “doing”.
- Objects act, actions don’t “object”.
- Think about the “parts of speech”: “verbs”, “nouns”, and “adjectives”.
- Actions can be “objects of perception”, but can never be “real objects”.
- We’ll say that, as common sense demands, “real things” are “real objects of perception”.
- However, it would be dumb to say, “the real objects of perception are the ultimately real thing”.
- So, actions can be “objects” of perception, but we should acknowledge that it’s a stretch of the word object to accommodate something for which it was not originally intended.
- Still, we say that actions are “objectively real”.
- It only seems sensible to argue against (or at least disagree with) the “skeptic” (the guy who says ‘nothing is real, prove me wrong’)
- It seems like reality is a thing, even if I can’t have “ultimate” (or ‘true’ or ‘divine’) “knowledge.”
- I don’t think I’ll ever be able to perfectly describe to you “what is real,” but there are plenty of indications that there is at least a difference between “fantasy” and “real experience.”
- Or, that “dreaming” (whether ‘daydreaming’ or ‘dreaming while sleeping’) is different from “being awake.”
- Also, it seems like you’re an asshole if you tell anyone, “your thoughts and feelings are not real, only I am real”
- This is what I call the “Assholism of Solipsism”
- Or, what would be called by the sympathists, “The Problem of Solipsism”
- I present to you an apple (it’s one that came from a tree in an orchard and was shipped to a store) and I ask you, “is this real,” should you say:
- (1) “No, I am dreaming and nothing is real,”
- (2) “No, that is an illusion,”
- (3) “No, that is a hologram,”
- (4) “No, this is a prank and it’s made of wax,” or
- (5) “Yes, it looks delicious”?
- As long as this isn’t some dumb trick question, it seems like five, “Yes, it looks delicious”, would the only sane option; unless you might want to say yes, but that you don’t like apples.
- So, we know that there are “real ‘things’” and “real ‘objects’” and that being a full skeptic is probably stupid and might make you an asshole.
- However, to say that “Everything in my perception is real” is stupid.
- If I perform the ancient philosophical ritual of “dipping the sick into the water” so that I can ask you satan’s question “is the stick actually broken at the point where it is divided by water and air, or is that just how it appears?” certainly you’ve got to say that it isn’t broken---again, so long as this isn’t some trick.
- No matter how well you know that the stick stays straight even though it’s partially submerged, you can’t help but see it as broken.
- This is the difference between “perceiving” and “knowing”.
- You “know” that the stick isn’t broken by entering the water.
- You merely “perceive” that the stick is broken by entering the water.
- It only seems fair to admit that this difference isn’t a mere quibble, and that knowing and perceiving are not the same thing.
- Let’s say that you’ve satisfied yourself of these conditions:
- You’re awake
- You’re not on any mind-altering drugs
- You don’t have a history of (“delusinashuns” for short)
- Delusions (Lack of Reason (i.e., reasonable support for belief))
- Loose Association (Weakness of Reason)
- Hallucinations (Lack of Sensory Understanding (Perception is not supplied by sense data))
- Illusory Perception (Weakness in Understanding (Perception is supplied by sense data, but incomplete and muddled by faulty subconscious processes))
- Side Note: These four fundamentals of medical psychology correspond with Schopenhauer’s system:
- The difference between us and other animals is our distinct separation between perceiving and knowing.
- All animals perceive, to greater or lesser degrees
- Only humans have abstract concepts
- This is why we can abstract so far as to connect ideas of perception with arbitrary ideas in language (i.e., words).
- In other words, our ability for abstraction is the foundation of reason and language
- In other other words, reason and language both spring from the same well: abstraction (simplification and association through generalization and universalization)
- Basically, you’re an average normal conscious person (“anorshusun” for short)
- You’ll also admit that “substance” (e.g., clay or water) is different from “form”, and that all “real things” have “substance” or are “substantial”
- An action that happens doesn’t have any “substance”.
- Without substance, there can be no action
- Any action in perception is predicated of (i.e., belongs to) some body or thing.
- Make a drawing of the wind
- Even if we never see the cause of something (e.g., leaves blowing) we always assume there is one
- An action always implies a subject
- Due to the special nature of thought (it’s something that belongs only to thinking beings), it makes a good example of this
- No thinking could take place without a thinker, thus
- Imagine an event without the following:
- Subatomic Particles
- Photons
- Electromagnetic Radiation
- How do you describe what happens?
- How do you even imagine such an event?
- The convention of “matter” makes no sense without these as well
- What even is matter, considering that “most of an atom is empty space”?
- Atomic theory states, as far as a theory can state a rule of thumb, that “10-10 m can be thought of as a rough value for any atom” (at least according to Brooklyn University’s website).
- Also, the same source states that “The nucleus of an atom is about 10-15 m in size; this means it is about 10-5 (or 1/100,000) of the size of the whole atom”.
- An atom is 100,000 times bigger than its nucleus, as a rule of thumb (i.e. functional approximation)
- The rest is an “electron cloud” which consists of the atom’s electrons orbiting (not just in an elliptical pattern) around the nucleus
- Really, the “cloud” is best understood (opinion alert) as a four-dimensional figure which has been simplified by the conversion of time into probability, thus allowing three dimensions to take the form of “extension in space” (mathematicians seem to call this “topology”) and still representing the fourth dimension (not only mathematically (abstractly), but also graphically (intuitively)) coloring or fading the intensity of this shape
- Side Note: It seems like chemistry could actually inform mathematics here, as crazy as that sounds
- Observing regularities (our brain achieves this through its foundational principle which penetrates all understanding (sense perception) and reason (knowledge): The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) (see Schopenhauer---NOT LEIBNIZ (confusing, I know)---for further exposition))
- The PSR is a general principle which we know in four particular ways: Schopenhauer calls this the “Fourfold Root of the PSR”
- They are as follows:
- (1) Becoming
- (2) Knowing
- (3) Being
- (4) Willing
- How does the concept of “physical” help here?
- Well, this involves the related term “mechanical”
- On second thought, the words aren’t clear enough to do any useful work for me here, at least not yet; I’ll need to bring them in such that they are well-defined and carry clear meaning.
- Linguistics (the mother of semantics and pragmatics) can never become so scientific that it no longer belongs to philosophy (i.e., our understanding of language can never be so advanced that our theories and research of it are devoid of metaphysical suppositions and presuppositions).
- This cannot happen with programming either: this is the bridge between our reasoning (which takes its particular form as language) and computers (i.e., calculators).
- Computers don’t really have language in the way we do: they require highly specific input in a specialized form. Humans (specifically their brains), on the other hand, are systems (organs in organisms) “intended”---Side note:
- We need to talk about the elephant in the room: teleology.
- (Also first, it should be noted that the first "calculators" were humans; it was an occupation and "calculation" was the job they did. So, humans are, in a sense, calculators in the same way computers are calculators: calculation just means "number crunching" and that's something both do)
- This isn’t the place for a history, so let’s just start with a definition:
- Teleology is reasoning from purposes or goals.
- No, I don’t mean being biased.
- It’s about considering “ends” rather than “means”
- Teleology is "reasoning from final causes" (like in the first line, purposes or goals are examples of these "final causes")
- Again, this is just circular, but “ends” are just goals or purposes, and “means” are methods, actions, or instruments used to achieve some particular end.
- Cue “Mother Nature is not conscious and therefore does not act according to the law of motivation (which, of course, implies consciousness). All I’m saying that she doesn’t act in accordance with her motives: that would be a bad description of nature because that’s not the way things are”
- In “Database Relational Modeling” (“Datashodeling”), things like “Referential Integrity” (“Refinteg”), “Relational Integrity” (“Relinteg”),
Here you find a
temporary end.
In some senses, you could say that this is a final end (using the technical argument that any changes will result in a new draft). My answer to such questions?
I don’t know. Like I told you, this is the end… Maybe later.
In some senses, you could say that this is a final end (using the technical argument that any changes will result in a new draft). My answer to such questions?
I don’t know. Like I told you, this is the end… Maybe later.
THE END (sorry about everything)
