The double look on complex dimension
Abstract: A tree falls in a forest, casting doubt on its existence despite the noise produced. Inseparable and unadjustable halves The double look, what is it exactly? Let’s start with a classic riddle: “If a tree falls in an uninhabited forest, does it make a sound?” The answer “Yes, of course!” is not suitable. The … Read more
Abstract: Many of our motivations are wrongly considered natural. I take 3 examples: staying healthy, protecting nature, upholding equal rights. Behind them lie artificial ideals: Eternal Life, the Natural History Museum, Democratic Equality. Confused with principles truly constitutive of human nature, these ideals crush with their weight many aspects of our lives. They flatten our … Read more
Abstract: The etymology of ‘hierarchy’, the sacred order, remains relevant: there are always laws to which one must submit, if only the natural, new sacraments. I show that the collapse of hierarchies is natural, too, but that this disappearance is disastrous. It is not the hierarchical principle that poses the problem but its dysfunctions, its … Read more
Abstract: Is the ideal an engine of social change or only a symptom? The double look shows that it is both, in a metastable cycle, allowing for example to understand that the abolition of slavery or the death penalty can be imposed on a population that appears to be unfavorable but which implicitly accepts the … Read more
Abstract: I assume here that you have read the UniPhiM, a philosophical method with universal claims, and that you have reservations about it. I use a classic rhetoric, the prolepsis, to smash your criticisms before you’ve even said them, bad guy! Which are covered? The method’s lack of celebrity, in the first place. I modestly … Read more
From the Casimir effect and other properties of the quantum vacuum, Vlatko Vedral shows that everything that exists comes from this vacuum, from a Nothing that is Everything, with infinite energy. What I see as a great illustration of the T<>D principle and double look: From the point of view of an individual (Vlatko), Everything … Read more
(to come)
Abstract: The errors of top-down/teleological causality make one think that only the bottom-up/ontological has fundamental value. It is however the first which is entirely creative of our mental scenes, including by lending to reality per se its models, without having direct access to it. Bottom-up causality is fundamentally constitutive of our reality, which hovers over … Read more
Abstract: Hierarchy is one of the main threads of this blog. It allows to walk through the complex dimension. All the subjects are delimited and linked to the others. The hierarchy here founds both a general theory of reality (Surimposium) and a general philosophical method inspired by it (UniPhiM). A first article, ‘Complexity explodes in … Read more
Is the ontology of the terms themselves correct? Philosophers defined the terms ‘ontology’ and ‘teleology’ before the rise of structuralism. That is, they named fundamental aspects of reality without a general theory about it. Is this reasonable? Can we keep the original meanings of these terms when a general theory requalifies them? Quine defined ontology … Read more