Uncertain World There is scarcely any certainty in the world. The best that can be expected is the mental impressions upon things an events. When we infer that Saddam is Saddam [S=S] there is certainty since the subject and predicate are the same. When we state S=M, the predicate adds to the subject, even though the subject itself is not changed: Saddam is a Murderer. However, the statement is an assertion and not true unless followed with contingent predicates or sufficient reasons, such ...

  Nietzsche’s inquiry into the nature of God as omnipotent and omniscient, concluded that He could not be goodness but rather cruel if “being himself in possession of the truth, he could calmly contemplate mankind , in a state of miserable torment, worrying its mind as to what was the truth?” Believers would immediately counter that humankind is not privy to truth except when God wishes to reveal it, and in the meantime faith is tentative knowledge. However, it is not as simple as eithe...

Agnostics and those of faith are not far apart. Generally agnosticism means that one cannot be sure that a deity exists; on the other hand a worshiper may claim the existence of God or gods, but the implication is in virtue of faith which by its very definition cannot be certain, though denying lingering doubt. Agnosticism is in reality skepticism — not able to hold a tangential divinity in the palm of a hand and therefore in all probability does not exist or at least unprovable. Yet many agno...

Can something as gross as a Picasso produce an aesthetic feeling wherein one is arrested in beauty? Obviously there is no beauty in asymmetrical concoctions so that the aesthetic experience must be modified to an arrestment of a myriad of internalized experiences or nightmares of the viewer. This may seem presumptuous in light of the esteem of this artist as arguably proclaimed the finest artist of the 20 th century. Still,  traditionally art was deemed beautiful when it imitated and exc...

What does it mean to be conscious of? Conscious of the outside world or conscious of oneself? To Heidegger it is the latter. One must first be awed by the, presence, nay, the power and dread of being in the world. Animals of the wild sense the dread, animals domesticated feel comforting presence of being cared for by a structure not their own. Humans feel the power of being in the world by the sheer strength of intentionality, that is the ability to project their being onto a world they have ...

Apparently, blogger Anathema needs some explanation for my blog on individualism. It is not necessarily opposed to holism, which is a theory predicated on collective action springing from a priori ideas similar to Plato’s realm of ideas, except that they tend to omit the required active intellection of an individual to sort out these forms of consciousness. This not simply the chicken or the egg dilemma; it rather presupposes that the collection of forms are already out there whether or not ...

The philosophy of individualism implies that the universe is made up of individuated material down to the infinitesimal particle, ruling out a holistic responsibility for reality. Even in the big bang theory which ostensibly calls for that mysterious infinitesimal “thing” — the mother of individualism in which all things are at rest in potentiality — to exhale its becomingness but not as some grand scheme of seamless wholeness but rather as helter-skelter free spirit of things finding individu...

There is a fascinating lure about Buddha. A man gifted with health and material splendor from noble birth, nevertheless, grasped the essential tragedy of existence, becoming sensitized to the millions of his countrymen suffering under the power structure of caste. Buddha walked among them, loving them, instructing them, giving them hope and courage—most important, courage. Here he promised them literally nothing but the strength of themselves within: One man on the battlefield conque...

    Pervading the country today is a throw-back to the daybreak of time when man's only companionship was a crude weapon to preserve what his animal stimulus forebode was a confused identity. Citizens of these "united" states devolve to primitive foundations by yielding to radical assertions that the enemy is government and welfare. They have lost all sight of their state of grace handed down by the founding father's contract with progeny. They are destructive seces...

  Compromising Self-styled Individuality Though over a long-run pure relaxation would become a bore, the short-lived hours of idleness normally available are appreciated psychologically as a just reward. Were the head of the household at home long enough for the children and dogs underfoot to effect irritability, or were he/she not usually involved in maintenance projects of modern living, vegetating of this sort would be an eternal nightmare or equivalent to eroding perception...

Columnists — bloggers excepted[?] — should exercise sound editorial judgment in composing their thoughts for the public. Far too often columnists express what is good for them is good for the rest by explaining only what is bad about the alternative without ever analyzing what is good about their own. It is dishonest to say that the New Deal was bad for the country because it interfered with private enterprise and intruded on the individual without citing what it was back then that caused priv...

Homosexuality seems to depart from nature’s system, but does it really when nature is mocked by a DNA structure of anomalies such as gender mix up as in the case of a transsexual, to the unheard extreme as the most recent in the death of the poor child with two heads? This is not to say that homosexuality is abnormal, although even now it is rare, since throughout history it was accepted more or less. The implicit anomaly simply springs from biology and the impedance of the reproductive proc...

Education must be as concerned with directing youth toward a code of ethics suitable to each individual and to the general good as it is with the growth of their intellectual citizenry. It must be concerned with the development of moral values as in the development of his economic and political potential. Educators must disclose their inherent distaste for the world of what too often is and espouse with immeasurable resources the philosophy of what can and ought to be. For education to ha...

Separation helped inspire the American Revolution; for without it the founding fathers would not dare bend the consensus of a colonist more or less comfortable with the Anglican Church and the many sects derived thereof. So, too, the growing number of Catholics in the colonies were content with the papal bull for the direction their lives would take. Suddenly from the Declaration of Independence there grew a conscience that began to break out of the box. There is no denying that a devout ...

While the current Martian landing and another to follow are in search of signs of life, present and past, astronomers are discovering by the satellite WMAP [microwave probe] that the universe is stranger than fiction in that far from finding signs of life it is baffled by this map indicating only 4% of the universe is made of known stuff, let alone life. Dark matter, 23% of the universe, is still not understood and another 73% consisting of dark energy is totally mysterious other than it act...