Web Publishing

When I log into apple.com I notice that there is no longer any reference to Apple Inc.

I realize that Apple is a multinational corporation. However I am on the internet in the USA and there are many huge multinational tech corporations founded and located here.

It gives me pause to think that the legal articles of incorporation (Inc) in the United States is no longer a concern to the Web face of a big US corporation in the USA. Is this really the case?

For me this raises the issue of nation-state in a global business environment. If the nation-state were to lose its national commerce identity, to the domain name system of the internet for example, what becomes the location of  legal identity? Does the next issue become a location of identity for rule of law?

The View

The View

Before the dualistic view of Plato, the preSocratics were looking for a MONAD, the substance at the base of all existence. A substance that emanated from Being. Each preSocratic had different ideas of it: Thales -- archē, the substance that emanates from Being; Anaximander -- apieron, the Boundless or that which has no limits; Heraclitus--logos, the word which gathers together; and Parmenides--alethia, the uncovering, the revealing of true reality. 

These substances they speak of are not like wood or cloth. These are thoughts with a lot of implications. Thoughts that explored their new view that the physical world has characteristics inherent to itself, coming out of an unseen Boundless by the process of uncovering which could be identified. They applied this view and these processes to examine the world around them, like stars and principles of geometry. They developed a new attitude that nature can be controlled, so they developed tools like telescopes and formulas that enabled them to better navigate the seas. The seas are no longer ruled by Poseidon from within.

With the monad, the ONE becomes the basis of a view and also the beginning of philosophical systems, which are more complete systematic views. Without the elements of those systems, what tools do you have to view? The sun merely warms your back as an experience.

The elements of a philosophical system are as follows:

1. Cosmology: how did the whole thing get here?

2. Cosmogony: how did we get here?

3. Metaphysics: its own question of time and the essence of things

4. Axiology: value system

5. Epistemology: knowable system

Re: 1. Cosmology

Physics tell us about the big bang...

The point from the view of the preSocratic, is, we as particular people and also the whole thing emanated from something they called Being. What is our reality about, how did it all come to be? A way of viewing creates our reality. Reality is not just something that we view, it is something that we experience.

Re: 2. Cosmogony

How did our people get here? Could be a cultural question, as in immigrating from Europe? Could it be a political history about our governing system? Or philosophically in the context of Darwin, through evolution from lower forms of life?

Re: 3. Metaphysics

1. Essence 

Does the thought of essence (usi'a) exclude the need to justify? explain? Some people find usia to be offensive as a concept, perhaps because it might tip-toe by without this explanation. Perhaps the process of alethia, uncovering, is looking for this essence.

2.Time 

It is interesting that time is a question of metaphysics. That is something that we take for granted as well, our view of time. That time might have another view is almost  impossible to imagine, we are so used a particular perspective. 

However we see it changing. Things have speeded up. We want instantaneous answers from Google, instantaneous connections to people. Our personal the vital signs are measured in seconds. 

The corporation has a short term agenda and no long term view. This view of time is getting us into trouble. We don't look at the long term consequences of what we do, even though we teach children consequences.

How does time get its definitional hold over reality? It is an element of a contract. It peers into the future for manipulation of markets and money. Did prehistoric man live so much in the present that time did not exist for him? He had no systems, he just was?

Re: 4. Axiology, value system

This seems to be a crucially human question as opposed to a question of things or Nature because it goes to the question of how we treat each other and how we find and acquire things necessary to survive. It is people who value something. What do we value and what value do we give to this or that? 

Ethics, or what ought-to-be in human conduct, is a branch of axiology. It is the another rendition of the verb to be, involved in teleology, the end-in-view, as are goals.

Re: 5. Epistemology

Knowledge is the collected understanding of a discipline, the body of knowledge, the ideas of knowledge. This is Plato's baby because he invented the Idea. Logos (ology), the gathering together in the word (words). 

When the preSocratics began their inquires they had needs to meet like crossing the seas, and approaching strangers for trade, strangers who had different points of view. From there we have come here. What is our view, our reality? 

In the USA it might be argued that our value systems are negligible. Certainly they are not culturally agreed upon, we are full of conflict and polarization. Philosophy is subterranean, if active at all. What is evident is our technology, which is based on epistemology, a knowledge-based system. Each gadget is rationally conceived, built, and claims to fill a need, respond to a need. If our view is primarily technological, it is limited. Or you might say we have no way of viewing at all.

Metaphysics as a View

 If you have ever raised children, one of the fascinating experiences is watching them learn to think, watching the mind develop. There is the period of the baby to the school child when they absorb all the attitudes around them. Then school takes over and formalizes the learning process.

We take so much for granted of this development. It takes training to be able to see, to view something. It is a wonder how all the cultures of the world do this, yet do it somewhat differently based on their history and experiences. Viva la difference! Life is interesting, even if conflicting and contradictory.

Going to the issue of what we take for granted. In his unpublished work on the philosophy of metaphysics, DK Toteras points out that prior to preSocratics, who actually were the first to develop the formal art of argument, there was at least 3000 years of civilization. Starting with the agricultural revolution mankind has math, is looking for causatives, develops a clock and recognizes seasons. "Regularity" was a world-wide view. Predictability. Then in Greece from 1000 to 700 BC, "deterministic thought" developed. This was the point where the preSocratics began to look for (THEOLOGIS), "first cause."

(Source: Here I am presenting what I understand of an interpretation of the preSocratics by DK Toteras, a Greek who studied their fragments in the ancient Greek language.)

How did we get here? Where did it all come from? The preSocratics raised these questions because they had gone beyond a hand to mouth existence, and the abundance in their lives gave them the luxury of entertaining such thoughts. Only in abundance do you have the issue of choice, to choose this or to choose that, which creates an new need, how do you decide what to chose? Choose their gods or reject them for another view called first cause?

Perception -- choice. This was an activity that the preSocratics developed. Another way to view their world.  

There were plenty of traditions at this point, explanations or views of what is the cause of our existence. They were mostly polytheistic. In polytheism the gods were unified with nature, they were part of all things, each god represented a part of the whole. The 17th-century philosopher Spinoza develops a similar thought in the modern context.

But things change, and not in neat linear packages either. The realities mix and coexist as they morph. The thought of sequential did not even exist in antiquity as it does today. 

In response to the inadequacies of the prevailing view for the needs of the time, the preSocratics began to question their traditions. They formally developed the QUESTION. The ability to question is 2500 years old, but it is modern. The definitive terms of ABSTRACTION developed by the preSocratics to question are still active. They are used today.

When we look at the preSocratics we are actually witness to the birth of thinking. The birth of "modern." Primitive thinking becomes systematic or systematized thinking.

The preSocratics might be called the first formal rebels. They questioned their traditions, and they kicked out their gods. They bring to mind the bumper stickers of the late 20th Century, "Question Authority." They made a METHODOLOGY out of it, they ARGUED the question.

However they were not professional thinkers. There was no such thing, yet. They were seekers of a truth of sorts, they called it ALETHIA, an activity of uncovering, unmasking, exposing. Seeing the world around them with a new eye, consciously making descriptions of it, which was the practical side of this activity. Looking at the stars for purposes of navigation on the seas, for example. But alethia is the basic activity of philosophy, it points to new observations that are not necessarily comfortable or popular.

Alethia is not a fixed state, it is a moving process, a verb. That is the beauty of the argument, the method. As opposed to truth as a noun, a conclusion.

They were looking for the first cause of Nature, PHYSIS in Greek, the origin of the terms physics and physical. It is the thought of first cause that carries polytheism to monotheism, to a God which manipulates nature as opposed to gods which reside in all things.

It is subtle what they are doing, looking at the world descriptively, to define it, and thinking about it as an abstraction, a thought, making a method to think.

What IS it? Identify it, a plate is round, it contains... This is the distinctively Greek verb "to be," the IS of Identity coming forward. The abstraction is metaphysical, beyond the physical. 

The verb "to be" also carries them to another thought, the thought of Being, (ta on) or (ta onta)  (τὰ ὄν τα) in Greek, the root word of ontology, the study of metaphysics. In his manuscript Toteras uses (a on' ta) for Being.

Metaphysics is not epistemology, the study of knowledge. Epistemology is a system of knowing that develops with Plato, based on "the form" or idea and its particular. Plato's dualism, the general and the particular is not like Being, which includes everything.  It also includes what is coming into being, becoming apparent from non-being. So paradoxically it also includes non-being. It is not dualistic. It does not cut everything into fragments like the academic disciplines do.

What is the methodology of metaphysics? What is its nature? That is the misunderstood question of ontology that we want to take up.

Let's Go (to Another Way of Viewing)...

 Even people who don't know the mechanics of Plato's dualism suspect that our rational way of thinking falls short when it comes to solving the complex issues of the times. In fact, it is self-evident that we are caught in a dualistic gridlock in the American government. It is not that we don't want to use common sense tools that are at our disposal, like arithmetic to figure out a budget. But we don't even seem to be able to do that.

What would be an alternative way to structure our thought other than Plato's dualism? DKToteras, in an unpublished manuscript, suggests that we return to the preSocratics for insight because they were among the first to argue thoughts. What did thinking look like in their hands before Plato's Idea, the form, developed?

In medicine, for example, to start your study of the body you look at the cadaver to identify the elements, at that which is no longer in motion or alive, so to speak, so you can isolate it for study. Similarly return to the beginning of thinking and thought to see its origins and isolate the elements. At first it may seem simplistic, but the arguments are deceptively powerful and the basis of many still in use today.

The first insight is that instead of being rational, thinking was poetic. It conveyed not just a thought being argued but also a feeling. The idea was intuitive. The world was not yet divided in two, there was no dualism. A view of the world had already developed that was more than just the primitive experience of the sun on your back. An elaborate "mythology" or cosmology was in place that explained where it all comes from.

The second insight is that preSocratic thinking was based on metaphysics. This was the period of time when the Greeks were rejecting their gods, their "polytheism." Socrates, who followed them, was actually charged in the court of the day with "impiety," perhaps better understood as blasphemy, therefore corrupting the youth. Philosophy and thinking is based on a rejection of religion. The thinkers were attempting a re-imagination of the story of creation, where does it all come from, if not the gods? They were, in essence, asking questions, questioning the REALITY of the day. They were questioning the view.

If a first step in developing a view is to isolate its elements, like look at the cadaver, how did they do it? What tools did they use? They were questioning. They were using poetry, the language. The Greek language had developed some peculiarities that distinguished it from languages in the East. For example, the "IS of identity," the verb "to be." 

These thinkers were looking to identify "physis," the Greek word for nature. They were interested in physical reality, how did it come to be? They wanted to understand that which they saw in front of them. And this is the basis of their  approach, seeing what is in front of you. Identifying it, which is a linguistic activity, perhaps among other things. Description. They called it (a le' thia) in Greek, which means uncovering. The original Greek word for TRUTH is a verb that means uncovering, the process that reveals.

And so we come to the fundamental question of philosophy, what is reality? How do we view our reality? Considering all the jams that we are in today, the question is urgently relevant.

Technology and the Limits of Rationality

There is a building supply store here whose motto is "Find a Need and Fill it." I have frequently thought that this motto would be good for the activities of the entrepreneurs and VCs. They are always looking for someone to disrupt, to fill a need better than the next guy. A more clever tool or placement of a tool. Google puts the search engine between  You Find Me and I Find You for the sale or the exchange.

Google solved a problem, a need, which was how the buyer and the seller find each another on the network without the buyer having to pay except for the purchase.

We have a lot of problems to work on, no doubt. Climate change, violence, economic and social disintegration. Is technology contributing to the solution of these problems? Isn't that what it is all about, solving problems?

But hold on, isn't climate change a result of our technologies? fossil fuel production; the energy costs of our lifestyles, in manufacture, in transportation, in keeping warm or cool. We can imagine technological solutions, like sustainable energy sources and more efficient mass transit. Is it just a matter of swapping the bad out for the good?

Might this be part of what you'd call Plato's dualism? It is really two sides of the same thing. Energy production, one type that gives bad side effects, then hopefully another type that does not give bad side effects. But since we couldn't see the effects of the first type, will we be able to see the effects of the second? We always seem to be getting in over our head. We get rid of the bugs on our crops and end up poisoning ourselves along with the bugs. Just can't seem to see where it is that we are going. Someone coined the clever term, unintended consequences.

Could it be the way that we are thinking to produce all this technology has some flaw to it? Could we do better?

With Plato's dualism we are following his RATIONAL pathway to the solution of problems. Tied into RATIONAL, hook line and sinker. Maybe we need to find a new way to look at our problems, to look at ourselves. A new method of viewing. What would that be?

Plato has created the idea, he called it the form, which is the abstraction of the object itself, or the particular. Hence the dualism, the concrete object and its idea, the abstraction. Somehow this leads us to opposites. We can abstract things in more than one way, when we find one solution, low and behold, there is a polar opposite to be found as well. Heaven and hell, good and bad, you give me Roland and and I'll give you Oliver, two sides of the same coin.

How does that happen? Why opposites? Simply you imagine it one way, I imagine it the other way.

It is like a vise that has us in its grip. We are caught in a methodology of living that is full of contradictions, and the amazing thing about it is that the whole purpose of the method was to follow a path that got rid of contradictions. Instead, it created them! And, contradictions are against the rules.

The rational method of living. 

What about taking a less rational path? One that isn't tied into all these rules of logic. Do you suppose that we could actually find some solutions by engaging in a little more feeling and passion and a little less thinking? What would that do for us?

So let us be content in this piece with raising the question, and save that exploration for the next pieces, since that is a big subject.

Comment by Jim the Bluesman:

Thanks for raising the question, Bronwen. Eager for more!  We have a few more days left in the States, flying home on Thursday.  Keep in touch and keep posting Jim

Deconstruction

Perhaps deconstruction is another manifestation of the dementia that we are entering. Toteras had no respect for it, he wouldn't give it the time of day.

Is the future is dreamed up?

Or is it created in the present by choices for the present, not choices for the future? Can the future be designed, or is it more heavily composed of unintended consequences?

What is the difference between information and ideas? We are in an explosion of information, information that contains almost no ideas? Ideas have been deconstructed into "information"? How does the information inform us?

Seeing what is in front of us, designing what is in front of us, now... That leads to the future.

The ontology of the information age, do I misunderstand it, or is it actually skatá?

The Greeks say NO

"....NO... means go to hell. It means fry me, cook me on a spit, torture me till your imagination goes dry, but No it is and No it stays." --DKToteras

Last January the Greek people said NO when they took to the streets to protest continuing debt, bigger debt and debt benefitting banks rather than people. The European "troika" negotiating debt terms failed to appreciate that the primary allegiance of the Greek people is not to the Greek government or nation-state but to the Greek family. Greek culture runs in the blood and bones and when threatened it responds with the absolute form of another era.

Mass rallies were organized by labor in 65 towns. Gigantic banners unfurled at base of the Acropolis, the symbolic source of democracy: "The people have the power and never surrender."  An accompanying statement from the powerful Greek communist party declared, "We will strengthen our struggle with people from all over the world against capitalist brutality in order for the brutal measures that bankrupt the people not to be applied."

Greek families have already experienced "a charade of voluntary haircuts." One tragic example is the cuts to the health care system, which was rated by the World Health Organization as one of the best in the world with costs among the lowest of European Union member countries. Following heavy budget cuts last year, there was a 24% rise in demand for hospital services because people can't afford private health care. Additionally there has been a sharp rise in communicable diseases  like malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, symptomatic of a health care system near breakdown. This penny-wise pound-foolish approach spells trouble for the region since germs don't recognize lines in the dirt that are national borders. 

The interesting thing about this economic crisis is who decides what and for whom. As of January 2012 when the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund were in negotiations, it was clear  that there was no way the debt amounts could actually be repaid. People like Costas Lapavitsas, writing in a rational manner, called for "default in a sovereign and democratic way by immediately declaring a cessation of payments,"..."with the objective to restart economic growth and avoid disruption of of basic social services."

The Greek government has restructured its debt. Half has been eliminated and funding costs are reduced over the next few years. In these times the Greek people are dependent on government services for health care and retirement funds. However there is little doubt that default terms were achieved because they made their position clear.