The metaphysics of contingency (was: Science applied to Ahura Mazda and Asha)

Charles Peirce was absolutely and most of logically right: If the world would have been DETERMINISTIC (and if it is, it has to be 100% deterministic, there can be no such thing as 99% determinism, in which case it is no longer determinism at all), then there would have been NO WORLD AT ALL. Indeterminism is the very requirement for difference to exist, and difference is essential to existence (such as the fundamental difference between that which exists and that which does not exist). Zarathushtra realised this too, as his starting point was NOT some prophecies transmitted by angels, but rather his VERY OWN AWE towards existence. Werner Heisenberg then draw the logical conclusions for physics in the 1920s when he identified and proved "the uncertainty principle". Any Abrahamic or post-Abrahamic idea of determinism is thereby dead. The future is open and not pre-programmed, even the so called laws of the universe are not necessarily set in stone anymore. Rather, existence is full of contingencies and emergences as a consequence of its indeterministic nature.
Ushta
Alexander

2009/12/28 ardeshir farhmand

I agree with DINO here 100%, well written. i will post an article later confirming what u said in a more poetic gathic style.

Ardeshir


On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 3:26 PM, Special Kain wrote:



Dear Daniel and Alexander

It probably was Zarathushtra who introduced contingency and therefore the basic principle behind existential philosophy 3700 years ago: We could have chosen other thoughts, words and deeds than the thoughts we actually think, the words we actually speak and the things we actually do.

The American logician and scientist Charles Sanders Peirce was the first to propose tychism as the doctrine of absolute chance (and as opposed to necessarism as the doctrine of necessity) in the 19th century and at a time when the whole universe seemed to be a well-oiled Newtonian automaton. Little deviations in measurements don't reveal errors in measurement techniques only, but they also something about reality's own nature - remember that Peirce was a realist!

«The only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature and for uniformity in general is to suppose them results of evolution. This supposes them not to be absolute, not to be obeyed precisely. It makes an element of indeterminacy, spontaneity, or absolute chance in nature. Just as, when we attempt to verify any physical law, we find our observations cannot be precisely satisfied by it, and rightly attribute the discrepancy to errors of observation, so we must suppose far more minute discrepancies to exist owing to the imperfect cogency of the law itself, to a certain swerving of the facts from any definite formula.»

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce

My two cents,
Dino

--- Alexander Bard schrieb am So, 27.12.2009:


Von: Alexander Bard
Betreff: [Ushta] Science applied to Ahura Mazda and Asha
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Sonntag, 27. Dezember 2009, 1:15



Dear Daniel and Dino

Dino is 100% right. We hit this issue right somewhere between The Great Pragmatists and what Lacan and Bataille would describe as "The Disturbance of The Real", those instances in our lives when we run into walls of the unknown so hard and concretely (whether that wall is "real" or just "imagined") that this forces us to change, or "adjust", our worldview, our fantasy of how the world works. Slavoj Zizek has written about how 9/11 was one of these "collective experiences of The Real" which "disturbed" and forced "The Western Collective Imagination" to change drastically (liberal democracy had not at all won the conquest for world power etc). All of this is perfectly compatible with Zarathushtra's teachings and his combination of phenomenological relativism and ethical absolutism (thoughts, words and actions are identical). Please also observe (as Dino would agree) that there is no definite cosmological principle according to which everything happens. We know for a fact that the world is fundamentally indeterministic (the uncertainty principle in physics) which also means that there is a "free choice" involved here which fascinated Zarathushtra as it opened up the possibility for his ethics of action.

Ushta
Alexander

2009/12/26 Special Kain



Dear Daniel

You're correct, we're dealing with representations, that is: theories and simplified models. There are also «cultural biases» involved (please see social constructivism) . But such theories and simplified models aren't photographs, they don't «mirror» the real world, so representation A isn't closer to reality or «truer» than representation B. They're both tools that enable us to make new experiences and enrich our existence (please see instrumentalism, John Dewey and Richard Rorty). Such theories have to be empirically tested and evaluated in terms of functionality and intersubjective agreement.
But that's not all there is. There's also Jacques Lacan's «The Real», and also disturbingly absurd and transgressive experiences that Georges Bataille had tried to describe and explain before Lacan succeeded in doing so.

Ushta,
Dino

--- daniel.samani@ ymail.com schrieb am Sa, 26.12.2009:


Von: daniel.samani@ ymail.com
Betreff: [Ushta] Science applied to Ormazd and Asha
An: Ushta@yahoogroups. com
Datum: Samstag, 26. Dezember 2009, 19:05





Earnest, Dino

Touché, this is how I have come to understand the mechanisms behind creation. What you call Ahura Mazda? As being an student of cognitive neuroscience when I hear Asha and Druj, I can't stop thinking of representations. With the understanding that this could be the student of cognition in me speaking. What the idea suggest is that there are something between mind and the outside world. That is called representations. This means that we don't see world as is. We see world trough representations in our brain. Then having constructive and truthful representations I find relate to Asha, and the opposite namely destructive and untrue to be Druj.

I don't however see the connection between memetics and Asha. The theory of memes to copy without purpose or any meaning. To Asha that I have understood to be "first of all, 'true statement'. A 'true statement', because it is true, corresponds to an objective, material reality. This reality embraces all of existence. Recognized in it is a great cosmic principle since all things happen according to it." (Duchesne-Guillemin , 1963, p. 47)

Now to relate this to the representations, to me Asha simply put is when one sees the truth of what is. When ones representations do not cloud what is.

Regards,

Daniel Samani