A  Discussion Document

Dear Georges,
It is that the human body and brain physically change fundamentally over short periods of time, ie, from the 1600s or 1700s to the present or from classical and/or Hellenistic/ Roman times to the present. Why is this vated the same way TO THE PHYSICAL INDIVIDUAL, though accidental circumstances may be tremendously different. But these circumstances are all accidents whereas the physical individual remains exactly the same.

Also, one commentator to my out-of-date Hume quotes another commentator to the effect that *[Hume? s] statement, accordingly comes simply to this, that mental science, or what we call psychology, takes the place of philosophy-- is itself philosophy.* In his preface Hume informs us: *It is evident that all the sciences have a relation greater or less to human nature; and that, however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another.*

So, whoever the philosopher is, however *cutting edge* and scientific their philosophy may be, as it must NECESSARY from a physical brain, it is always and in every case PRIMARILY formed by the psychology of that physical brain before it even becomes a definite science or philosophy, and that physical psychology has not noticeably changed since the time of Socrates, so that the *cutting edge* of philosophy is still fundamentally, in its primary physical motivation, still the *cutting edge* of Socrates or for that matter Hume or Kant. Or Ernst Mach, Hermann Cohen, Rickert, Boltzman, etc. Personal motivation to start psychological/ philosophical enquiry is far more formative, and therefore important, than the goals one sets oneself to achieve.

RICHARD SANSOM:
I have yet to see any solid evidence that the modern animal species, homo sapiens, is cognitively any different from its early progenitors ? say of a hundred thousand years ago. Many see the *progress* in our various systems [economics, politics, science, law, etc.] as evidence of *progress* or change in the individual human; I do not. In social communities, bees or people, the individual is studied for what is interesting about individuals, but the full picture of a species must deal more thoroughly with the behavior of the collective. The most salient hallmark of our species is what we build and our communication among ourselves. What we build, beginning with the earliest tools and trinkets, through the pyramids to the Space Shuttle and the obscene constructions in Dubai, are continuously more and more complex. The same is true of our science, law and economic systems. But IMO all of these systems are reducible to a few basic facts and rules and were dealt with more or less in the same way in Hellenic times as today. Put another way, we do things at the fundamental level the same way we did them 50,000 years ago. Science has progressed along a more or less seamless path from its beginning. Even with the apparent leaps, as with Einstein? s insights, his reasoning was not new ? only his powers of observation and his scientific audacity.

GEORGES METANOMSKI:
Human reality is immanent. It's constructed from sense impressions by mind's faculty of imagination in the mind's domain Imagery in form of image-event structures. Mind's faculty Reflection maps them to abstract-symbolic structures or models. Science and, by consequence, rational philosophy deals exclusively with models.

Now, imagination and reflection faculties of Aristoteles and Einstein are identical, but they lead to different and incompatible abstract models. Cutting edge of contemporary science and philosophy deals with Einstein's model and considers that of Aristoreles as historically interesting, but obsolete and useless old hat.

RICHARD SANSOM:
I agree with Georges here. But the two models of reality, while very different, both grew out of observation and the integration of a few fundamental truths/facts about the world known or assumed at the time..

JUD EVANS:
Hi guys. Breaking off from my ball-aching, back-breaking refurbishment chores (tiling the bathroom and installing a wet-room) and sitting in my usual state of exhaustion in front of my screen, I read the two contributions from the two great thinkers above with avid interest. I have long felt that *traditional philosophy* is in fact not "philosophy" at all, but (as Hume/Gary claims) - is what we call *psychology* (and I am not sure if either Hume or Gary would go quite this far) with certain notable exceptions *real philosophy*  (empirical, object-based philosophy) is in fact a form of science (or philosophy aspiring to be scientific) .

RICHARD SANSOM:
Jud, while you suggest that *real philosophy* aspires to be scientific, I will add my two cents worth. IMO philosophy can never be science. Science ultimately leads to the building of something ? something beyond its own *pure* objectives or intentions. Philosophy builds nothing and cannot lead to the building of anything. How does one do  *research* in philosophy? Read lots of books and scientific literature? Study the ancients? Philosophers mostly talk to each other, often creating systems that are supposed to explain reality, or dabble in spill overs from the cognitive sciences. Philosophers play intellectual games that do not result in much that is useful to humanity. While particle physicists may give a name, like the Higgs particle, to an entity that has never been observed; this is not a neologistic act. But neologisms abound in philosophy that, as Jud discusses often, become reified, and are useless.

GARY C. MOORE:
Dear Georges.  It is that the human body and brain physically change fundamentally over short periods of time, ie, from the 1600s or 1700s to the present or from classical and/or Hellenistic/ Roman times to the present. Why is this related the same way TO THE PHYSICAL INDIVIDUAL, though accidental circumstances may be tremendously different. But these circumstances are all accidents whereas the physical individual remains exactly the same.

Also, one commentator to my out-of-date Hume quotes another commentator to the effect that *[Hume? s] statement, accordingly comes simply to this, that mental science, or what we call psychology, takes the place of philosophy-- is itself philosophy.* In his preface Hume informs us: *It is evident that all the sciences have a relation greater or less to human nature; and that, however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another.*

So, whoever the philosopher is, however *cutting edge* and scientific their philosophy may be, as it must NECESSARY from a physical brain, it is always and in every case PRIMARILY formed by the psychology of that physical brain before it even becomes a definite science or philosophy, and that physical psychology has not noticeably changed since the time of Socrates, so that the *cutting edge* of philosophy is still fundamentally, in its primary physical motivation, still the *cutting edge* of Socrates or for that matter Hume or Kant. Or Ernst Mach, Hermann Cohen, Rickert, Boltzman, etc. Personal motivation to start psychological/ philosophical enquiry is far more formative, and therefore important, than the goals one sets oneself to achieve.

GEORGES METANOMSKI:
Dear Gary, Sorry, but this time ships passing in the night. I simply don't understand anything of your post. No rhetoric denigration, or any such sort of rot, but most sincere statement - I simply don't understand. Let me point to some bricks against which my grip stubbed its toe.

You use frequently "physical(ly) ": (body and brain physically change, the physical individual, physical brain, physical psychology, physical motivation). What do you mean by "physical"?

GARY CM MOORE:
My fault for the obscurity, but it is probably a better dialogue to proceed in this fashion anyway. I was trying to be too compact. Also, what I think I type, versus what actually gets sent, has a tendency to differ.

I am trying to relate physical structures of the body to physical motivation as the basis of all human thinking and therefore philosophy. Sartre, in his CRITQUE OF DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM, proposes *hunger* as the fundamental motivation for any and all thinking. And though Liebnitz and Einstein may seem very far away from the starving hunter seeking his prey, none the less I think all thought should be related back to specifically physical, instead of abstract, considerations. The actual situation of a philosophy professor in his/her daily life is actually not at all detached from constant concerns of physical livelihood. These concerns are never detached at all from the abstract considerations of writing a paper for publication or a lecture for class. Loosing one? s job position overrides any philosophical position.

Specifically, though, I am trying to *translate* the present impulse and circumstances of writing this - which has to deal with a very specific physical environment while doing so which directly determines what is said. In other words, it is different substantially from the context in which you can write the phrase you use directly below *the art of science*. An *art* involves skill of action, a form of *doing* than depends upon a deep background of training and practice which becomes largely unconscious in making present judgments. Hubert L. Dreyfus uses professional sports figures who, at the peak of their performance in a game, get *into the zone* where everything they do is perfect but totally without conscious thought until analyzed afterward ? an analysis always insufficient in direct understanding of how a perfect performance was achieved. Arthur Koestler wrote a book called THE SLEEPWALKERS where he explores how the great astronomers and astrophysicists stumbled upon their discoveries *as if* sleepwalking. They were, in their actual present process point of living, not at all directly focused upon the mathematical discoveries that later made them famous but either had their attention divided, going from one thing to another like any normal person through the day, or made their discoveries pursuing something else altogether, for instance Kepler pursuing his bread-and-butter *science* of astrology which he was very *good* at supposedly. Supposedly this was also true of Newton who considered his astrophysics as of secondary importance to his alchemy and interpretation of the NEW TESTAMENT and other daily pursuits at trinity College, Cambridge.

GEORGES METANOMSKI:
You say:
"The superficial and accidental forms change constantly, but none of the basics ever change".

What are "forms"? Which are "superficial and accidental" and which "basic"?

GARY C. MOORE:
The particular form of Athenian democracy, especially pre or post Peloponnesian War, is accidental, but the need for government per se never changes. Here is a legitimate use of abstraction, *government per se* which is always and for everyone necessary versus *Athenian democracy* which many think is the origin of democracy as we now know it and which is not at all so except in its very worst forms.

GEORGES METANOMSKI:
What do they have to do with the current state of the art of science?

GARY C. MOORE:
Funding for research. More and more emphasis in the academic world is on practical application. This was supposedly not true when I was very young ? but I doubt it. And  *practical application* is either business, political, or military related. The *environmental question* is almost entirely political, even on the verge of mass hysteria, when any conclusive findings about changes in the environment would take hundreds if not thousands of years to come to a truly scientific conclusion about what is really happening. BUT funding is readily available for any short term *environmental* research. Yet how can environmental research, in its very nature, ever be *short term*?

GEORGES METANOMSKI:
You quote Hume:

If I can read, it means - and Ockham would agree - that "science is made by scientists". BTW, when you meet Hume, ask him what's "human nature". I'm eager to learn it.

GARY C. MOORE:
Unfortunately, in one sense, you hit on me on a very sore point. Hume? s *human nature* is extremely ambiguous. But, in the TREATISE, it is actually deliberately so, not only because it is an object observing itself with all the circumstantial as well as necessary distortion [but *distortion* from what standard?], but because Hume is extremely aware of how physical, personal circumstances effect one? s philosophical conclusions. It is most famous at the end of book 1, but also very evident in the evolution of law and morals in Book 3 where he says it is largely a matter of imagination and pure chance, no rational abstract principles at all. It is actually best exemplified in the fifth volume of his HISTORY OF ENGLAND where he shows how the Puritans established the traditional *forms* of English liberty by destroying all the forms of Royal privilege and law, not through any general love of liberty but through the specific power drive to establish the Puritans as the dominant political force in Britain. They were hindered, in the end, only because many supported the Puritan cause for politically non-Puritan reasons, and Oliver Cromwell who hated them trying to dictate what he was suppose to do and how he was to do it, an overconfident carry over from their victory over Parliament. These accidents determined the actual necessary form of *government per se* in contemporary seventeenth century practical reality.

GEORGES METANOMSKI:
Let's now switch to my side. You talk about some "PRESUPPOSITION" behind my concepts, which I neither recognize, nor even understand. Now, the axioms of my Second Enlightenment' s ontology are detailed and explained in

"TIME, AWARENESS AND EVENTS" http://findgeorges. com/CORE/ A_FOUNDATIONS/ a_time_awareness _and_events. html

"STRUCTURES OF MIND" http://findgeorges. com/CORE/ A_FOUNDATIONS/ c_structures_ of_mind.html

and

"NATURAL MODEL" http://findgeorges. com/CORE/ B_NATURAL_ VIEW/a_natural_ model.html

They may be briefly and non-rigorously resumed:

Human reality is immanent. It's constructed from sense impressions by mind's faculty of imagination in the mind's domain Imagery in form of image-event structures. Mind's faculty Reflection maps them to abstract-symbolic structures or models. Science and, by consequence, rational philosophy deals exclusively with models. Now, imagination and reflection faculties of Aristoteles and Einstein are identical, but they lead to different and incompatible abstract models. Cutting edge of contemporary science and philosophy deals with Einstein's model and considers that of Aristoreles as historically interesting, but obsolete and useless old hat.

RICHARD SANSOM:
This brings up the issue of human *potential,* a term I use carefully. If we consider the *wolf child,* raised by either other non-human animals or deaf and dumb and language deprived humans, such a child might be, were it not for his/her nurturing environment, another Einstein or Glen Gould. Who can say?

GEORGES METANOMSKI:
Helen Keller

RICHARD SANSOM:
I am not sure what your point is in mentioning Helen Keller? s name. She was a year and a half old when she lost her hearing and sight. I assume that by that time at least some important synaptic connections were formed, since she lived in a language using environment. In addition, she was tutored by a dedicated woman who was devoted to brining out Helen? s communication abilities. Had there been no such person around there is little doubt that Helen would have remained entirely without such abilities and probably would have ended up in some horrible institution.

Had she been born without sight or hearing there is little doubt that not much could have been done.

GEORGES METANOMSKI:
Hi Richard, I forgot to give you the URL of my "DARK AND LUMINOUS MATTER" http://findgeorges.com/ROOT/SECOND_ENLIGHTENMENT/0h_dark_matter.html

RICHARD SANSOM:
Dear Gary, In your post dealing with the cutting edge of philosophy you say: *Is social change a significant factor? Only if the basic problems that a society is formed to solve ? i. e. food, water, defense, inheritance, ownership, labor, etc. Though these items may change their forms according to different situations, the basic forms themselves and the needs they are to satisfy do not change.* I agree with the general thesis of this remark, but alter the ingredients. IMO the four main ingredients/requirements of all organisms are: sustenance, shelter, procreation and defense. It can be argued that in modern homo sapiens a fourth category must be added ? that of communication. This addition accords with the highly social nature of our species and it is folly to deal only or mainly, in this regard, with the individual, as opposed to the collective. The lonely person, living in the outback, with no human contact deals only with the four most important imperatives of existence, while the city dweller, surrounded by her fellow humans, cannot exist comfortably, safely, or at all sans communication. [It is arguable as to the extent that the lone woodsman in the far reaches of a forest can deal with his environment without language ? many have claimed that it is part and parcel of rational thought and action; I do not know the answer to this, though I have my opinions.]

This brings up the issue of human *potential,* a term I use carefully. If we consider the *wolf child,* raised by either other non-human animals or deaf and dumb and language deprived humans, such a child might be, were it not for his/her nurturing environment, another Einstein or Glen Gould. Who can say? But the question is significant. Is human *potential* something that is worth paying attention to in terms of understanding our species? Providing a child only the four key ingredients for life is certainly not sufficient for the development of the *modern* human, and the potential realization of that person? s full capabilities. Social contact, language and the freedom of expression are needed for that realization. Am I wrong here?

You say that *A classical Greek still needs to eat, drink and defend himself and his state?..* and I say that the same can be said of modern man. The only real difference is the environment and collective milieu in which these two find themselves. Each of my four requirements, sustenance, shelter, procreation and defense, can be broken down into their modern equivalents ? as opposed to those that might be associated with our primitive progenitors. Sustenance could include that of expressiveness, art, communal bonding, etc. Shelter might include not only physical shelter, but mental or psychological shelter; and defense could include a host of social mechanisms designed to ward off attacks and intrusions of various kinds. [Procreation needs no comment in our modern context, except to mention things like in vitro fertilization, cloning, etc. another topic for another day.]

You say that *But these circumstances are all accidents whereas the individual remains exactly the same.* I agree with this, but you have omitted to discuss the more important aspect ? that of the collective human group ? the family, the tribe, the clan, the state, the nation, etc. We cannot be fully analyzed by looking only to the individual ? as Marx would agree. Our species is not identified by our individuality, but by our collective whole. We are nothing as individuals, in terms of the fulsome description of our species. Recent [i. e. in the 20th century] much has been made of *human rights.* For me, as grand and enticing as this may sound, echoing the likes of Thomas Paine and others, human rights are an invention of the capitalist regimes, not necessarily the result of Rousseau and his ilk. Marx was right in decrying the concept of *individual rights,* believing that collective or group rights should hold sway in societal systems. Modern capitalism loves the concept of individual rights, since it attempts to confer some *natural* privilege on the individual as opposed to a similar one on the collective. IMO, there is no such thing as *rights,* especially *individual human rights,* that are ordained by some transcendental prescription. Rights arise from law; law arises from communal connections and agreements ? or from religious dogma.

Gary, what does Hume have to say about *human rights,* if anything?

Enough rambling?

Regards,

Richard.