Tag Archives: Ontology

Time and its Prerequisite to Exist

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“What time is it? It is 7:15 P.M. Hhm…then I’ve still got time to write another article. But after that; what am I going to do then? How am I going “to kill” that time? Well, I would probably watch another episode of Californication and grab a bite or something. But let’s not think about that for now; let’s stay in the present. Let’s put time on a hold, shall we?

Too bad that isn’t possible. There’s no switch around, allowing us to turn of “the production process called time”. But what exactly is time? It is intangible but omnipresent; it is always moving forward and it is limited. It is unity and difference at the same time. It is the most valuable good we have. Everything we do depends on it. Time is the creator of value and the destructor of lives. Time can cure aids or let it continue unsolved. Time is us, we are time.

But, besides the philosophical picture of time, how do we “use” time in our daily lives? As a planning device, right? We use it to create order in this mess we’re living in. Imagine that we wouldn’t have our notion of time; our notion of standing up at 7:10 A.M., taking a shower, start working at 8:45 and wander around until – let’s say – 10:30 P.M when it’s time to go to bed and start the whole cycle of time all over again. Without time we wouldn’t know when to take our children to the crèche; cook dinner or attend at a birthday party. Without time we would be trees or clocks. Although the latter seems to have a pretty good sense of time, or doesn’t it?

But who’s in control? Are we in control of time, or does time control us? We think we know what time is which makes us base our entire lives upon it. “Our” time is a human construct; it’s created by us to make sure everyone gets on the train “on time”. But this is merely a superficial reflection of Time with a capital “t”; Time as the flow of life and death; as the creative power of this earth. Without this notion of Time there wouldn’t be anything. The only things that could “be” are snapshots; frames in time. But there would be no-one to experience these frames, because experiencing takes time. There wouldn’t even be things; because for something “to be” it needs to exist in time. Without time there would be nothing; and not even that. We could chop up time in pieces and glue them together, but that wouldn’t make something exist. “You can’t step in the same river twice”, Heraclitus said, because time is always present, making the river change continuously. However, without time, there wouldn’t even be something to be called a river; not by us – because we cannot exist outside of time – but neither by the world itself, because without time there wouldn’t be “things” to divide the world into; without time there wouldn’t be a difference between a river and its water. Both are one without time. It is only within time that these “things” become what they are. It is only in time that nature shows its true colors.

Time makes us who we are but continuously changes this “us” at the same time. The “I” that exists now thinks differently than the “I” that started this sentence. The “I” that reflects upon the previous sentence thinks that this article might be getting a little too philosophical. But luckily for you, I see it’s time to go.

What do you think?

Why Are We Here?

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It’s time to take a look at what might be the most mysterious question we human beings have to face: why are we here? When you start thinking about it, you immediately seem to stumble upon a wide variety of different – yet equally unsatisfying – answers. It doesn’t matter from what angle you approach the issue: you won’t be able to crack it. However, despite this seemingly discouraging answer, it doesn’t harm to give a go, right? Nah, probably not.

There are many different views about why we are here on this earth of ours. One “branch” of human thinking considers religion to be the foundation upon which the answer to this fundamental question is built. And although I am not a religious person, I cannot call it inconceivable to feel the urge to base your faith upon a higher power. I even dare to say that it is a natural human inclination to try to grasp the world we are living in to the fullest extent possible. And for that matter, religion seems to be a great tool for avoiding the madness of feeling powerless; for avoiding the feeling that we will never come to understand what we are doing here on this earth of ours. But more about religion in another article.

Since religion is not the only “option” available. There also is a completely different branch of human thinking that – through the centuries – has gathered many adherents. A branch to which the “enlightened” Western civilization adheres; a branch of human reasoning that says farewell to each and every inch of uncertainty; the branch that encompasses true reason and intelligence. I am talking of course about science. And if you caught me talking in a slightly cynical manner about the nobleness of our scientific enterprise, you are right. I don’t necessarily agree with the mindset of “let’s take a look at the facts” in order to end an argument. That is, a mindset of giving science the monopoly on the production of facts. Since how true are the facts if we do not call them facts anymore? If we just consider them to be products of human thinking and creativity?

But let’s take a closer look at the endeavors of religion on the one hand and science on the other. In what way do the two fundamentally differ from each other? Do they even differ from each other? Isn’t it true that both of them proclaim to know what is true and what is not? Isn’t it true that both parties believe that the manner in which they believe – whether it is adhering to the word of God or Allah, or gathering data and coming to conclusions – is not only the only way in which the truth will come to us, but is also the only morally right way to do it? “How can people ignore the word of God? Don’t they see that this is the way to act?” Or, “Why believe in the word of God when it is so obvious that the only truth there is can be obtained through the scientific enterprise? Science is after all the paragon of human reason.”

It seems to be – as it is with a lot of matters in life – very much dependent upon the paradigm you live in what your notion of truth or right and wrong might be. What is the neighborhood you grew up in? What are the ideas you have been taught at school? What do your friends and family belief? All these components determine the way you look at the world and the way you interpret the information you obtain from your external environment.

But what if you aren’t satisfied with the solutions brought forth by religion or science? What is you do not feel at ease about both of these proclaimed approximations of the way the world works?

Let me tell you a story. A few months ago, I was visiting a guest lecture from a Stanford University Professor at the university I am studying. The professor seemed to be a very knowledgeable man who spoke about topics like dark matter, very small particles, general relativity and other notions I hardly knew – and know – anything about. Although I did not fully understand everything he said, I could see that he was very passionate about – as he said – “coming closer and closer to discovering the true origins of our solar system”. His team at the University of Stanford had – by making use of satellites – been able to measure the activities in our solar system as they happened “within seconds after The Big Bang”.

At the end of the lecture, there was an opportunity for asking the professor some questions. When no-one seemed to make an effort to ask the professor a question, I decided to give it a go. Although I did not know anything about neutrinos or matters of those sorts, I knew what I wanted to ask:

“Sir, can you please tell me what happened before The Big Bang?”

Of course the professor didn’t know. After all, how could he? No-one knows. But it seemed to be the appropriate question to put everything into perspective. To show that there will always be a step further. That there will always be another cause for what we consider to be the beginning. But don’t get me wrong. I certainly do not believe that we should stop our quests in search for the ultimate foundations of knowledge. Both science and religion are great goods for our society. Besides all the economies being propelled by scientific discoveries and consequently the wealth we live in, science and religion provide us with food for thought. They allow us to dream about what might be. They give us purpose. What more could we wish for?

I am curious about what you guys think: can we know why we are here?

The Leap of Faith: The Creative Element of Science

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Scientific realists are known to have a positive epistemic attitude towards the content of our best scientific theories and models. The exact interpretation of this philosophical tenet can, however, differ dramatically between each of its proponents. Some of them base their idea of the truthfulness of scientific realism upon the seeming success of the reference of its theoretical terms to the things in the world. Others refer to the scientific method of inquiry as making science an adequate system for capturing reality. Here, I’ll interpret scientific realism not so much in terms of the truthfulness of its terms or a method of inquiry, but in terms of the faith one puts in the ontology of scientific theories. …Or, as the objective interpretation of scientific realism goes, in scientific theories as giving an adequate representation of a mind-independent world. However, isn’t there something fundamentally wrong with this representation of a “mind-independent” world? To see this, we first of all have to understand what science and its purpose within our society is.

Science is involved in the production of knowledge. It does this by gathering large lumps of data and extracting what are the seemingly underlying structures responsible for the phenomena being detected. Usually, on an “objective” interpretation of science, we think of science discovering the way the world works. Science is involved in writing down whatever kinds of regularities are being detected in the world. However, is this truly the manner in which knowledge is being created?

I believe that one crucial element is being left out of this picture, and it is this element that is responsible for the progression and the advancement in science as we experience it on a daily basis, and the seemingly never-ending accumulation of facts in which it results. I am talking, of course, about the element of inference. The notion of inference has been well discussed by philosophers ever since Hume pointed out the incomprehensible problems associated with it. However, apart from Hume’s ideas about the indeterminacy of scientific theories and the problems it causes, in what way does the inferential relationship – which is present in every logical system consisting of premises and conclusions – manifest itself in the daily life of a scientist? And what is its role with regard to the production of facts?

Let’s take a look at an example. Imagine a scientist who has made the following observation: (A) human skin gets agitated when it gets in touch with a deadly nightshade (which – apparently – is a type of plant). Furthermore, the scientist believes to know that (B) a poisonous plant makes one’s skin agitated. Therefore – and let’s assume that this was unknown up till that point in time – the scientist claims that (C) deadly nightshade must be poisonous. Or, to put it more formally, (A^B) –> C. Given that the scientist has enough data to back up this claim, he or she has just created what we consider to be a fact.

But what would have happened if the scientist would have went home after making the observation responsible for premise A? Then no fact, and thus no new knowledge, would have been produced. That is, the scientist would have remained stuck at the level of observation, a level that can be reached by each and every one of us and therefore would not create any scientific value, a.k.a. knowledge. It is only because of the scientist being a person who has studied botany for years, who has confidence in his or her own capabilities and who has a basic sense of logic, that the step from mere observation to fact can be made. And it is by making this step, the step represented by the “–>” symbol in the logical formulation, that the scientist adds value to the “knowledge-producing factory” called science.

Two noteworthy implications follow from this observation. The first is that facts about the world around us are, whether we like it or not, constructed on a very fundamental level. There is always a human being needed in order to take the last step and create the knowledge: to take the observation and the knowledge at hand, and make an inference leading to the creation of new facts. And it is because of this inference, which is an activity that has to be performed by us human beings with our minds and our souls, that objectivism, with its proclaimed access to mind-independent knowledge, is untenable.

But watch it: It is explicitly not being said that the observed regularities in the world did not occur before the scientist came along and used the data about these regularities in producing our so-called facts. No claims are being made about any causal relationship between the domain of knowing (epistemology) and the domain of beings (ontology). What is being said is that what happens within the domain of beings is completely irrelevant to us human beings, since we will never be able to access the domain of beings – from a mind-independent point of view – in order to know what would be happening there. All that we know is that, after the scientist has finished its research, the fact is there.

A second implication of this plea for constructivism is that, on the most fundamental level, science does not seem to differ from religion – or from any other system of beliefs for that matter – in any fundamental manner. Both of these domains are dominated by people who believe in the truths of the ideas brought forth within these domains. None of the ideas produced within these domains will be true – at least not in a sense of being true independently on the human mind – unless they are believed to be true. And it is this believing that is an inherently human, and thus mind-dependent, ability which provides us access to the only realm of truth we will ever know: the realm of beliefs.

So the question is: is knowledge being constructed by scientists as an outcome of a fact-seeking process? Or are facts existing somewhere out there in the world, true whether they are discovered or not? And, if so, true in what sense?

Note: an adaptation of this article has been published at www.partiallyexaminedlife.com.

The Nonsensical Realm of Ontology

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Since the dawn of intellectual humanity philosophy has been characterized by a dichotomy between the realm of being (ontology) and the realm of knowing (epistemology). Ontology deals with questions like, “What exists?”, “Are there properties in nature that can be grouped under a single name, or is each instance of a ‘group’ a different group in itself?”, and, “Are properties an intrinsic part of nature, or are they nothing more than a projection of our imagination?” Epistemology, on the other hand, is concerned with questions like, “What can we truly know?”, “Of what can we be absolutely certain?”, and, “Are there universally true ideas?”

The distinction between ontology and epistemology is deeply ingrained within academic philosophy. But, when you take a closer look at the distinction, there seems to be something very odd about it.

Let me ask you the following: if you look outside of your window, what is it that you see? Let’s assume that you would say that you see a tree, a car and little boy kicking a football. Okay, now let me ask you a different question: what do you think you know exists outside of your window? “Uh, a tree, a car and a little child kicking a football?”, you will probably say. But what’s the point of this?

Well, what I am trying to show is that although there might be a difference between what exists out there in the world and what you think you know exists out there in the world, we human beings only have access to the latter. We only have access to our own beliefs. Because think about it: how could we possibly determine what the world is made of if we aren’t even sure about what it is that we truly know? How can we ever believe to gain certainty about what is out there if we aren’t even sure about what is in here, in ourselves? In our own little worlds that we call our minds? In other words: why would we even try to come up with an ontology if there are no objective means to judge the fruits of these efforts?

It is, as I’ve written about in a previous article, impossible for us human beings to detach ourselves from our own, inherently limited, first-person perspectives. That is, we are forced to see the world through our own eyes forever. It is impossible for us to leave our own points of view behind and step into “the world as it truly is“. And even if we would be able to do so, to step into the world as it truly is, how would we know that we had entered it? How could we know that there is no other world of ideas that is even truer than this one? Then we, first of all, have to be sure that we have reached the truest of worlds, right? But then again, how would we know that?

I would say that there is no reason for continuing the ontological tradition besides it being “just fun” to speculate about what might exist in the world out there, in the same way it might be fun to speculate about what Hogwarts might be like. Let’s first of all focus on what we might be able to gain at least a little bit of certainty about. That is, let’s focus ourselves on what we think we know. Let’s focus ourselves on the quest of epistemology.

But what do you think?

Note: if you have found this an interesting article, you might also enjoy this one. A warning upfront: this one might be a little more philosophical in nature.