Tag: truth

Philosophy Now’s Question Of The Month

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In the earliest days of this daily thing I’m doing, this experiment shall we say, I made suggestions for things I would write about. One suggestion was to answer a question from a magazine I subscribe to and don’t read enough of, Philosophy Now. It involves an evil and confusing question roughly every two issues which means four months and I think I may have answered one at some point on here although I think I didn’t give much of a shit to make it decent as I knew I had missed the deadline for entering. This one though I’m going to enter. I’ll still write it on here in my usual half arsed and rushed way first though just aware that I’ll be sending it in too.

Does History Progress? If so, to what?

Time certainly progresses. I feel slightly older today than I did yesterday. Of this I am fairly sure, or at least I have convinced myself of this truth. In that case yesterday is now history and the day before yesterday is older history. Yesterday though, the day before wasn’t as old as it is now. However is that history progressing, it still feels the same now as it did yesterday just a little fuzzier. Perhaps it’s evolving but that’s my memory that’s evolving not necessarily history itself.

What is history though if not just a series of memories. Even the version we write down only captures one take on events and that is open to interpretation. What happens when this version loses it’s appeal, the fashions of the modern age deciding they don’t like the historical narrative and give an event a new one. Surely then it has progressed to something new. Again it has evolved, but does that mean it has progressed. We must looked then at our understanding of the meaning of progress. To advance, to go forward. These are positive notions surely but histories changes don’t always feel positive, advanced or even evolved sometimes. What happens when they go sideways or backwards. Hitler made changes to the history of his country while he was in power, did they progress? For him they did, but now history would suggest otherwise.

So history can make subjective progress? Again that’s a version of an event. Objective history on the other hand cannot, but then we can’t say there is such a thing as objective history. It is only ever a story and someone must always be around to tell that story. So subjectively history progresses, but to what? I guess that depends on whatever the subject decides they want it to. Or we just accept it will always change into an infinite amount of possibilities and the change itself can subjectively be called progress. Not in the moving forward sense of course but in the something other than it was five minutes ago sense.

And that is my answer. I find them quite challenging if that’s not clear by now. I’m sure the one I did before was a little bit of a ramble with too many rhetorical questions too. I suspect rhetorical questions are not always a good thing, or at least too many of them. The other approach is to make it dry and over explain but you’ve only got a maximum of four hundred words and the other answers people tend to send in are not formed in that way. Like everything it is simply practise, everything is always practise.

Tell The Truth Partisan

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I was thinking about Donald Trump today. I don’t like talking too much about American politics because I’m not American, it’s not my country and the world focuses on it enough already. The problem is that American politics plays such a large role in influencing what happens in other countries that to not take an interest in it risks potentially not understanding politics on a global scale. In that case then it’s also important to understand the situation in China, Russia, Iran and Australia. I threw in Australia there because it’s good to focus on a country that isn’t in some kind of battle with the Americans and also because their politics is so unbelievably corrupt and owned by corporate interests that it’s a warning not to be missed. That doesn’t mean we’re not corrupt and owned in Britain but at least the politicians keep up some kind of pretence.

American politics is just so unbelievably entertaining at the moment that it’s hard to keep your eyes off it. I appreciate of course that my enjoyment of politics and power as entertainment completely ignores the suffering of those who it affects. But the truth is it affects us all. And we have Boris Johnson, he’s not known as “Britain Trump” for no reason. But it’s always more than one man even though they may be desperately trying to convince you otherwise.

The thing with Trump though is that he is used to working in the entertainment industry. He understands ratings but not from a politics perspective, hence why politics has devolved into reality television. I was thinking today though that I’m starting to get bored of the constant criticism of him. That seems like a strange statement to make but it’s more that I’m just tired of hearing such completely biased and partisan news stories. It’s not that I necessarily disagree with them but I want real news, I want to know what’s really going on, not some version of events that fits a narrative and a political position. People are not idiots, they are capable of making up their minds for themselves but the left wing and the right wing seem to write such blindly ideological stories that nobody gains anything. If what you believe is right and really the best way to approach life and power then you should have nothing to fear. If the other side are full of shit and wrong then surely their argument will unravel eventually. Maybe there is something naive in this thinking, to control the narrative is to control the story but why are we so scared of being scrutinised if what we believe is genuinely the best approach.

I broke habit and voted in the last elections, and despite being bitterly disappointed Jeremy Corbyn didn’t win I will not say everything is good about him, what he thinks and how he acts. It is the same for Trump or Boris, not every single thing they suggest is bad. I may disagree with large amounts but they will have some good ideas, maybe not many but they will. How are we supposed to evolve in a mature developed society if we are unable to see moments and ideas for what they really are. Nothing is perfect, but I just want to know the truth. I want to see the world for what it is not how people want me to see it. I know I’m not alone in this and that’s only going to continue.

Maybe And Probably Not

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How do we really know. Fixed absolute ideas of how things were. What if one clue to histories truth was lost and now we determinedly believe an inaccurate story. We miss one piece of the jigsaw, now we cannot see what once was. What if all we need is this one piece to confirm what many suspect but none can prove, do we dismiss entirely the possibility that this may in fact be the true story and not the one we think we know. When do we learn to question. Who do we trust to ask the right questions. What if we already have the piece but refuse to believe what it is showing us, at some point we need to accept, but do we ever do this as final. Should we.

And then our ideas in general. Our beliefs range far and wide. Think of all the philosophers out there disagreeing with each other. They can’t all be right but seemingly each one is. Each set of eyes view their own truth. In that case what is right. Do we have objective truths, how about one truth. Did that truth change when a new piece of the jigsaw is added and what happens when some accept it and the others turn away. If the greatest minds cannot agree, what hope are we.

How do we know the truth about scientific explanations or medicines. Both may be true at this time but new truths are constantly discovered and newer truths again. Always missing the point as the only truth being the inaccuracy of the old and therefore the latest too. How many letters behind my name are required before I can credibly speak these words. We never accept anything as final says the scientist or doctor before professing an absolute belief that they are right and you are wrong. They have facts but can they ever be true.

How do we really know that what we believe in politics. What if we are wrong. Are we strong enough, and arguably are we smart enough, to take a step back from what we believe and think we believe, see these beliefs for what they really are and readdress them. Can we do this objectively or will we be forever tarnished by the inaccuracies of existence. In these subjective times that have existed for eternity, we will never know as they run for another infinite millennia.

How do we advance society and people, and what really is the best approach to running a community. What if we’re wrong? No one person is the same yet we box the pack away into the very same space the world over. Who are we to tell others they are doing it wrong when we have never checked to see if we’re doing it right. Are we doing it right. Am I doing it right. I don’t even know what right is. I definitely don’t know their right.

As religion pokes it’s empty head around the corner we decide to not even entertain.

But to all I say maybe and probably not. Let’s start from there.

Mental Strife

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“And woe behold, is todays mind but one bereft of even those most basic of ideas” said me now, not someone from an age past, only partly quotable in what the modern age has done to language. Basically I can’t really think of anything to write about…bereft of ideas as a wise man once said. Perhaps I should wait until later in the day when maybe the mind is more keen to do battle with the creative limits it’s own development has boxed it into. Exactly the reason for choosing this moment of struggle to put out a piece, the challenge of finding light in the darkness, the very creative representation of the Guru in translation. For do we not learn what is true in times of strife, when adversity forces us through the self-imposed limits of our ability to find solutions within ourself? The answers are forever within. Alone in life we embrace this struggle of discovery until we are left with nothing but the hollowed out carcass of illusionary past moments and past lives. The frame of conditions we believed were once the existence that held together the fragility of consciousness, of all that we could see and understand before our eyes now nothing but dust as it exposes itself in the light of truth. But what of truth in this great journey of understanding, for what if mine is yours and yours is mine, are not all universal the understandings we seek? Delving deeper into this morass of darkness and confusion that comes before the light, thrashing and screaming as we see only the untruth before our eyes in all it’s ugly vain glory. Until the moment of acceptance comes before our minds eye, will we forever miss the beauty in the darkness of our delusion. The acceptance that comes when we understand we can no longer blame this darkness for stopping us breathing, but our own inabilities to inhale the truth that now fills our lungs. In and out we breath, the oxygen of light that simply began with us pushing out from the shackles we accepted, that grew while we floundered but which now lay smashed upon the ground. The hammer of liberty breaking the bonds of ignorance held in place through such safe existence. Grown fat through illiterate teachings, shepherds of prosperity forcing us to regurgitate their own vomit. To discover the chains had no lock when all is too late and all is lost. For we learn it is easier to dig our own graves, stepping into the reassuring darkness. Better this murky existence than merely pushing ourselves in times of mental stupor.