Let's Be Green

Over the last few years in particular, the cry for mankind to be more "Eco-sensitive" or in other words to be green has grown louder. The effects of our pollution and total disregard for nature is affecting this ecosystem we call earth and as scientists dwell on how to save migratory birds and animal species whose livelihood have been disrupted by the drastic changes, even the layman is noticing as the temperatures are getting hotter and the snow caps are disappearing on the mountain tops! The plea to mankind has been for us to use cheaper and Eco-friendly fuel sources, cut down on our lavish lifestyles, refraining from the excess use of chemical in farming and animal husbandry that only lead to the defacing of mother earth, and saving the forest just a to name a few in the name of giving our future generations home on earth rather than trying to invade mars!

As i echo out this plea of self-examination and call on us all to help curb this growing problem of Global warming, i want to point out something interesting, something we need to exemplify as a human race. What does it mean to be green? I say to be green means we should be more like plants! We should use more natural and Eco-friendly energy sources (sunlight) rather than coal and oil which burn and release hazardous toxins into our atmosphere. I say we use install solar panels on our rooftops and fight for our tax-dollars to be spent to foster research for lithium battery cars rather than ground breaking techniques to eradicate wrinkles on our faces. Nonetheless, i suggest that for the time being when we still have to use electricity or oil to light up and heat up or houses respectively, how about we turn the lights and heaters of when we leave the house!

We can also follow the footsteps of our Kingdom Plantae relatives who have mastered the act of recycling. In a world where things are manufactured with the sole purpose of being thrash and where we are running out of space for dump sites and the rivers and seas are becoming overly polluted, i think we should rethink our thrash issues. If possible, we should all go through our thrash and see if we can reuse stuff or recycle them before disposing of them the same way plants use oxygen from photosynthesis in respiration and carbon dioxide from respiration in the manufacturing of glucose!!

The time to act is now and as i take this personal vow to become green ( NO; not like the incredible hulk) and i beg you all do the same and join in making our beautiful home more habitable and have other life forms (from different planets) envy us rather than we trying to see if we can live on Mars or wherever!!!!

Natural Instinct?

In most philosophical debates,the word "instincts" is mentioned constantly be it in discussing the theories of human development ( Freud, Erickson,Piaget etc) or why we would save a loved one before someone we don't know or in the case of the life-boat save a stranger over an animal. The word instinct is tossed around to explain why we do the things we do when reason or logic isn't necessary; it is just normal (instinct) to eat meat or want to eat meat? Well so what exactly is this instinct? Is it a genetic code in all animals that make us act they way we do when reason and logic has no say? Or is it a memory imprint we adapted from our ancestors? Well the reason this comes up and why i address it here today is because, recently i was playing a video game (Assassin's Creed) on my PS3 and during one of the dialogues between my character and the operator of the animus ( a device that puts me in an alternate universe sort of like in the matrix trilogy), the operator of this animus asked my character what memory is? My character correctly define it as " a mental recollection of past events" and i was impresses ( because i probably wouldn't have defined it as that) but the operator then said something which broke my train of thought regarding the definition of memory. He said well "memory isn't only the recollection of past events experienced (via our senses) by the individual having the memory but also a recollection of event experienced by the individual's ancestors".So to my understanding, he meant that some how our ancestors or previous relatives pass on their experiences and we can sometimes experience them as our memory; so it got me thinking! What if he is right? What if we can somehow pass down our experiences to future generations who can have a mental recollection of them? What if that is exactly what instincts are? Hear me out before you think I'm crazy! Maybe the reason we act out instinctively is not because we a genetically programmed as animals to act that way but because that is the way it has been done in the past and we've acquired that knowledge and now call it instinct because we can trace it to any theological school of thought?

Is $3.17 paying to much for a gallon of gas?

As someone who has had to buy gas over the last few years or so, i have to agree that i have at some point complained that gas was getting expensive and ridiculous. Matter of fact i used to cherish the days when gas $1.65 or so a few years ago (when i moved to the US) but then i  was amazed when people tell me gas used to $.79 (79 cents or less) a gallon. But then it got me thinking, what is the actually price of gas? How much should i be paying for gas?  With my little knowledge of cost 0f production from microeconomic classes i realized that for me to asses the actual cost of gas, i have to take into account the military budget set aside to protect oil fields, the lives probably lost in protecting these oil fields ( we all know a person's life is beyond any monetary value ), the lives lost since 2003 in Iraq; soldiers and civilians alike (if we agree that the war was for oil), the cost to pay the workers and employees of the oil company, the amount of money for transportation of oil to the refineries and from the refineries to the gas stations and of course the actual refining process. So now i ask myself and in so doing  ask you all that how much do u think is the price of gas? Before you even think of saying I'm crazy of thinking like this, keep in mind that this is the same procedure used to assess any  business venture worldwide by entrepreneurs of any caliber (small and big business alike)- the difference between this cost and the outcome is what we all call gain or profit. Personally i think that it might be more than $3.17 a gallon but now before we can complain, i think we should consider how lucky we might actually be to pay $3.17 giving how much is put into oil production. We should think of the brave men and women over in iraq every time we stop at a gas station when we fill up the car to drive down the street " and cool our heads" when we could just walk. We should think of the lives lost in making sure we pay $3.17 a gallon since 2003 rather than fuss about paying for gas (granted it may be a strain on most of America). Most of all we should count our blessings for being part of a free nation and know that there are people out there who can even afford a single decent meal, let alone a car or gas for its smooth running                                                                                         

Why are we in Iraq?

Well this question has pondered  everyone from the political minds in our government  to the layman in every city and even to students in colleges across the nation. This question has been posed in different forms and versions since 2003 when the United States Military invaded Iraq but here I am today still been faced with the same question; a question even our President hasn't till date answered confidently and sincerely. To some, we are in Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and they posed a treat to the US and the world as large. Members of our government even took it a step further;Donald Rumsfeld said he could even pinpoint the actual locations of these WMDs and Colin Powell boasted to the UN the actual weight in pounds of how much weapons Iraq was concealing. Nonetheless, the UN's inspectors could find anything and the US government could assist to protect their confidential sources... Moving on! 

Another possible explanation for our massacre in Iraq was to dethrone Saddam Hussein the dictator but then we all know the long history of the US working hand in hand with Saddam as well as other "dictators" especially when it is to our interest as a nation. 

                               

 Point is this wasn't the reason either why we went to war because the UN has in place procedures for dealing with war criminals and leaders like Saddam as seen with the those involved in Rwanda's genocide.

Bottom line to me at least is that we went to war for our selfish economic reasons and whatever positives we got out of that like dethroning Saddam and introducing democracy is nothing more than a cover-up. The US sought to control Iraq be it for its oil or whatever natural resources because it once more put us in control of other nations who might need these resources and more importantly restored the US as the "superior" nation. Supporting this train of thought crossing the minds of every free-thinking American, Harley Sorensen even writes that; " conquering Iraq was the first step toward dominating the oil-producing nations of the Middle East and eventually the world" as well "eliminate Iraq as a treat to other nations like Israel!  

Saying Goodbye to "the American Patriotism" and Hello to an "earthly patriotism": A response to Robert Jensen

To quote Eugene Debs, " I have no country to fight for, my country is the earth and i am a citizen of the world", i think this hits the nail on the head as to why i agree with Robert Jensen's position in the article "Goodbye to Patriotism" because we have to stop think of ourselves as citizens of individual nations but more of as citizens of one race belonging to the earth. When the terrorists bombed the World Trade Center amongst many other realted attacks, they claimed they were doing it in the name of Allah (God); some may claim that to be patriotism-the love and loyalty to a belief or religion (rather than a nation) so how different are we who despise terrorists when we bomb Iraq, hurt innocent civilians and claim we are defending our country or worse of all as some say "the lives of US citizens are more important that the lives of Afghanistan citizens". Why do we continue to isolate ourselves be it by sex, race, ethnicity and nationality from those of the opposite sex, race, ethnicity or from different countries? Last time i checked. the USA is part of this world so when people say "we should bomb Afghanistan till there's no earth to bomb" doesn't that include bombing the US as well? Its time i think we start looking at the bigger picture- World Unity and fighting for a common goal and being patriotic to the world rather fostering our individual goals as a nation. American feel the same grief when they loose a loved one and i can bet my life savings that Afghanistans who have lost loved ones feel the very same grief! So the question isn't being patriotic to the US, the question setting aside all our differences as a nation( from others) and realizing that we would achieve more if we all show "love and loyalty for the world".

Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right

Personally i think capital punishment (lethal injections or hanging or electrocution) for crimes like murder or whatever are morally wrong for the simple reason that we are indeed killing someone-granted that they killed too. Some may even make the ethical argument that capital punishment is also wrong because it defeats the purpose of correction (correcting someone) because the person doesn't live to learn from their mistakes but the purpose of this blog isn't to get into a debate about capital punishment and all that hoop-la. I used that example because i think it is fitting with the topic of patriotism and our support of the war in Iraq. I condemn acts of violence be it the 9/11 attacks, or apartheid in South Africa or better yet wars because i think there might be more-peaceful alternatives and especially since innocent citizens get harmed in the process. How is destroying a whole nation solve the problem of terrorism or better yet how does it prove my patriotism if i don't support this war. The war in Iraq affected many citizens for the worse and the grief those people feel for their loved ones is the same as the grief felt by families across the US who lost friends and family to the 9/11 attacks.Fighting violence with violence isn't necessarily the answer thus why i don't support the war in Iraq but that doesn't make me less patriotic to the US. If anything, i wished we didn't have to send troops (our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts, friends and neighbors) out to war but since we did and can't go back in time, all i can do is support and pray that they return to their families and loved ones.

The Human Contribution

A classmates of mine (jeremy paquette) intelligently suggested that although we might blame the human race for many environental and ecological mishaps that may affect or somewhat destroy the fitness of the earth and its ability to support life, we might just be contriubting to the ever present concept of evolution. Pollution, global warming, research on animals, having a preferance as to what animals to eat, selecting a female partner and etc are all human activities that are comparable to other animals who prefer a certain food source to others, display a trend to mate with others outside their group (allopatric speciation) etc. The bottom line is we all; human and non-humans animals alike, are part of this earth and whatever we do might after all be just a matter of natural selection which in turn increases our fitness (the ability to survive from generation to generation) and consequently our contribution to evolution. When a deer from the savoy state forest decides to mate with another from North Adams, it does that to increase its genetic variations and in so doing, its fitness. Humans on the other hand do the same-that why the normal, average human being will mate with someone genetically different from them (outside the family). These activities are just natural to animals and are our contribuion to the evolution process. I make the same argument for technology as well, especially the research on animals. I do in no way condone the suffering and pain we might inflict on animals during research but i do say doing research into the gene that causes a strain of CMT is as important and similar to peahens prefering peacocks with bigger, brighter tails ( a representation of their healthy status and good genes). If due to research we can succesfully block the gene that causes the genetic form of CMT, without any aftermath, then we can possible have a couple with the blocked out gene pass it on to their children who intend pass it on and in due time have a sizeable population with no HSP27 gene thus eradicating the possibility of CMT. So although i think research could be at times cruel, i think it is just our contribution to the natural order of things, in the same manner by which gray wolves (Canis lupis) tend to mate with domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)- a possibilty of giving the respective specie a better chance or survival, thus shouldn't be judged at least on a moral basis for its intent but rather for the manner in which the intent is fulfilled!

Defending Meat Eating: A response to Pam Saunders

Before i even start this blog, i would like reinterate that i in no way necessarily support the views expressed by Pam Saunders but after searching for hours and hours for an article or piece of writing that could defend why myself and others eat animals and meat-products, i thought the least i could do was share this with my readers. In her three page article termed; "In Defense of Meat: Guilt- Free Choices, Pam Saunders raises two main (atleast to me) that are credible defenses for meat eating;what do we do with the cows and livestock we've grown for food and the a second issue referring to how plants use animal products-manure and decomposed matter for their own sustenance. The first argument she makes is widely known to many involved in animal rights discussions wherein it poses the question that we can't exacly let these animals back into the wild for the obvious reasons that they wouldn't be able to fend and provide for themselves as their wild counterparts would. I know we are the reason behind why these animals may have lost their natural instincts so some will say keeping them as livestock doesn't fix the problem either so they are better off being free and through generations, they can get these instincts back via evolution or just natural selection. The second argument and the one i'm most interested in ( for the purpose of this blog), is the idea of plants using animals for their survival as the natural order of things. Some may say this is a version of Benjamin Franklin's argument : if they can eat each other...then why can't i?" but i think its got some credibility! I'm not taking the "if they eat animals, then i could eat animals too" route but i would like to know how others feel especially the vegans and vegetaranians. Do you rethink you plant produce now that you know that it may have absorbed its nutrients and stored its reserves from animals themselves? Are u indirectly consuming animals when you eat plants?

Reality Check

What is reality? We may not agree on what we individually define as reality for the simple fact that the facets of reality are sometimes subjective and compiled with the discrepancies in our knowledge of the world or better yet if our knowledge or belief of our knowledge of the world is solely based on our interpretations of that "truth' or is it the "truth" beyond any human interpretations. Well we may never come to terms on the reality of the world or the truth of the world but what we can all agree on is the reality of the disaster in New Orleans called Hurricane Katrina. As my spring break, i alongside 18 others from MCLA (Massachusetts College of LIberal Arts) volunteered with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and together with other student groups from Miami University of Ohio, Oklahoma State, Taiwan, South Dakota, Portland-Oregon and many more (totaling and sometimes surpassing about 100 students daily) were responsible for planting 25000 trees (oak and cypress) in the Fontainbleu State Park in Mandeville ( on the city limits of New Orleans) which lost 90% of its trees thanks to Hurricane Katrina. The trip was eye-opening for it gave me and many others a perspective on how much the lives of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana were affected. Even after two years and counting, the devastation is still evident by the number of destroyed houses and bare foundations left standing in the neighborhoods of New Orleans. I was brought to tears listening to the stories of habitants who lost everything but are still steadfast in their faith in God (something or someone we still haven't come to terms to...His existence or none thereof) and are moved by the volunteer work and dedication the youth and many others are showing towards the rebuilding efforts. I write this blog to offer a voice for those in New Orleans that a lot still needs to be done and the reality of the matter is that although we may not necessarily have ties to the state of Louisiana, we kinda owe it to humanity and the people affected by this tragedy by doing whatever we can to help rebuild. In the words of Lady Chase who has owned and operated the Dooky Chase restaurant in New Orleans since 1942 " “If you come down here and don’t put a hammer to a nail, that’s ok. Just come. You being here is a push, and we need a push. We’ve have a lot of work to do down here.” and that sums it all......doing anything is something worthy of helping.

Knowledge vs. Belief

The one thing i have realized as a staple in our recent conversations has been the idea of knowledge and belief and how flimsily we sometimes interchange them. For the purpose of clarity as i continue this blog, knowledge refers to the things that we have evidence of; factual accounts of some sorts whereas belief will typically mean things we have strong convictions for and may sometimes lack the evidence to prove their validity. I know i am a man ( by man i mean of the male gender) and i can back this up from genetic research which prove that i have xy chromosomes and not xx ( which will make me female). I also have anatomical and sex roles that are associated with being males from my enlarged vocal codes to the fact that i can't give birth ( lack of a uterus) that confirm my knowledge that i am indeed male. Now to the question of belief, i believe that there's a God or at the very least a supreme being that is responsible for the creation of our universe and its entirety as we "know" it. The belief stems from my belief in the biblical recounts of the old testament to the new testament as well the accounts of the Qua- ran and the Kitab-i-Agdas as well as most historical books. Some may question this belief for there's no prove of a God but how many things do we belief in or rely on as true (knowledge) but can't prove? What we know or what we belief are two different things but philosophers like Ernst Von Glasersfeld have stipulated that there are some aspects of knowledge we will never attain; for the most part we will always believe in what we know as the truth.

Cosmological Theory of Philosophy

The cosmological argument is regards to the existence of a God; a supernatural omnipotent and omnipresent being in a nut shell postulates that "everything has a cause" thus the world has a cause or in this case a creator responsible for its being. The apparent flaw with this argument that many great minds have quickly pointed is that if God is the "cause" of the universe as we know it and if everything has a cause then what or Who created God? In other words is the cosmological theory self-contradictory? Well I'm not going to pretend i know the answer to this question that must have perplexed the advocates of the cosmological argument but let me run this by you all as suggestion. In the case of time, most scientist and philosophers suggested that time was a circular phenomenon rather than a linear function- a very large circle that will avoid any repeats in peoples' events and life in the same life cycle! So what if we apply this to the cosmological theory; maybe the cause and event function is more of a circular notion rather than a linear progression- wherein every cause has an event and every event in turn becomes a cause and vice versa. This probably differs from what cosmological philosophers might argue; that God has no cause but call me part of camp 2- i belong to that camp that suggest that the cosmological argument is sufficient in sort of proving the existence of a God if and only if He in Himself is created by something else as a result of the circular manner of creation and coming into existence. The next can or worms i might have left myself vulnerable to is who then is the creator of God or the cause of God? Well to me; " the lack of proof for the existence of God or in this case his 'cause' is not sufficient proof for his nonexistence"

Agnosticism: Human Nature or Skeptical?

Which is more practical? Is it more rational to believe that there's no God or be rest content that " no proof for his existence isn't proof for his nonexistence"! Some people attack the agnostic point of view towards religions because they think not having evidence or enough evidence to prove that there's a God is good enough reason to say that there isn't one while others think their stand is somewhat cowardly (for lack of a better word) since they remain open-minded and sort of middle ground between atheism and theism. In addition, the agnostic position to others is just a skeptic's approach to religion and the debate over the existence of a God or not. Personally, i think the agnostic position is more than just being a skeptic or a "coward" not being able to make up their mind as to which direction they'll take. Who said they have to be atheist or theist? They have already made up their mind and taking the stand that they would prefer more evidence in either direction before drawing a conclusion. I mean isn't that what we all do? isn't that what statistics and researchers do when they never say we reject a hypotheses thus accept the alternative. Better yet isn't that what we do on a daily basis when we don't believe things we can't comprehend at first mention because we would like more evidence. Atleast the agnostic is open-minded and ready to learn from evidence and not an atheist in disguise or as some think just on a middle ground so they can go either way and not be necessarily held to their previous convictions.

A pragmatic empiricism

According to Thomas Clark the society has to refrain from characterising itself by any epistemological belief or abide by any particular religion and in so doing maintain an environment where everyone can freely worship and belief what they want to. The same applies for policies, laws and rules that apply to communities and areas of the public including schools, universities etc. This is maintained by public schools not offering religious classes of any kind or particular doctrine so as not to put undue pressure on its students as to what way to abide. Then i pose the question of why then do we teach science like evolution in public schools wherein some people might object to that version of the origin of the world? If we make the argument that we have to expose the students to this scientific belief without any bias towards others or without necessarily asking students to question their faith and the knowledge of God creating the universe then we can make the same argument for religious classes. Why not teach history classes with the Bible as the text or better yet why not teach Islam to students from a historical perspective of the Mohammed's life, the jihads and the consequent segregation of Islamic followers or matter of fact we could just allow anyone with the authority to hold seminars or classes about whatever religious or epistemological belief they see fit as long as they have a certain number of interested parties? It will just be an extension of the real world empiricism maintained by catholic schools and other religious-affiliated schools in society!

Science vs Faith: What side are you on?

Before we rush into any conclusions, i am not asking that anyone choose one side because if you have been a staple on my blog you would realize that i always prefer a middle more stable ground rather than picking an extreme which requires that we constantly debate out stance against other extremes especially at times when our extreme theories aren't so convinving. So why do i pose the question then? Well i am asking that you tell what discipline dominates your thinking; what set of rules or justifications to you turn to when faced with a choice or otherwise moral decision. Do you look to facts in nature (science) or tend to the holy writings -bible, koran etc (faith) to justify your actions? Personally i choose neither one but use both of them choosing between each one depending on the situation at hand. I know what you are thinking; there he goes again settling for a common ground rather than sticking with one thing but honestly you can't rely on just on discipline to make who you are or at least the source of your justification. You need religion and science to go hand in hand for the a more effective society; a great mind once said " Science produces guns but religion tells you how to use it correctly". The same applies to our society today in respect to laws, rules and norms. We might want to advocate that our legal constitutions are strictly political or selected based on facts but i would disagree with that because it is impossible to have a stance on pretty much everything without appealing to you faith or believe. When a political figure or representative gives his or her stance on thing like taxes, abortion or firearms, their personal experiences as a tax payer, a conscious human with a pre-disposed knowledge on abortion as well firearm violence all come into play. They also call on their faith from time to time making them ponder if the right thing to do is to reform the tax policy, if abortion is murder and if making firearms easily accessible is the best thing for a society where gun violence is always on the news! We try to make out public space as free as possible from a particular religion, faith or belief but in doing so we open our public space to every religious belief and justification out there possible(on the basis of religion). I'm in no way advocating that our society becomes a strictly Christian or Moslem and therefore everyone has to abide to the laws of the Bible or the Koran. What i'm trying to expatiate is that we as members of a public society have to realize that others and us included have various religious beliefs we tend to call upon or use as a decision making rule book thus respect each and every one for that and realize that .....Different do not neccessarily mean wrong.

A supernatural realm?

Metaphysical realists talks about a true world; a world wherein thinks existed in their natural self. In this world, things exist independent of human interventions and perceptions thus apples here are "real" apples as Ernst von Glasersfeld puts it. We could also extend this world to include and support the objective theory of time supported by Henry of Ghent and Giles of Rome which states that time " exists in reality as a mind-independent continuum...". It is my conclusion therefore that the true world independent of our perceptions is one in which time, real apples and the reality of the world exists as what they are; without out interpretaions and perceptions.So here is my question; if this world can't be accessed, can we therefore classify it as being supernatural? Is the true world that contains real apples and time( as a mind-independent entity) metaphysical (as in beyond physical space and time)? How then can we talk of this supernatural world or at least attest to its existence when we don't know it exist or can't talk of it without making it our percieved notion of the world especially since most philosophers and great thinkers would argue that there has to be people present for things to exist (subjective theory of existence and reality) or as Aristotle puts it in reference to time; "for if there cannot be someone to count there cannot be anything that can be counted...".

Mindful Timing: A reaction to Bejamin Libet

In 1970, Benjamin Libet performed experiments with the brain and he found out that the brain initiates free choices about a third of a second before we are aware of the choice therefore the person decides to act freely before the body initiates the action. This raised the question; " whether we can speed up our minds relative to physical time...[to] become mentally more productive and get more high quality decision making done per fixed amount of physical time". I don't know if i can answer that question but i could try. A 100mph major league fast ball is about 4/10 of a second faster than the blink of an eye and some professional players have made their living being successful fastall hitters. To get to this point softball and baseball palyers have trained and trained from pee-wee till the majors as the velocity of pitches have increased. To my understanding, it takes some mind ability to play baseball; you have to make a choice between swinging or not at a pitch does for a 100mph fastball your thinking or decision making or as the article from the internet encyclopedia of philosophy puts it "initiating free choices" has to be quicker. To follow this train of thought then i will have to agree that we can by practice speed up the decision making of the mind just as the hitter who progress along the ranks till professional baseball or softball has to, to become a better hitter.

What time is it?

Well as I write this blog it is approximately 5:29pm but the answer to the above question is far more complex than a one-word answer; matter fact i don't think there's an aswer! First off, we have to make clear as to what aspect of time we are talking about; psychological (internal time) or physical time (clocks). As a conscious living organism with the capability to interpret and percieve notions, we all have and use an internal time reference (psycholgical time); is that temporal reference we use when we say time goes slower when anxiously waiting for the bus or faster when we are immersed in an interesting book. Likewise physical time is what my initial answer to the question would have been if asked what time is it; it is time in reference to seconds, minutes and hours as well days, weeks, months and years etc. Scientists developed the S.I. Unit scale to avoid the complications of local units of measurments; this scale offered a universaly recognized unit for each measurement. To me, physical time is to psychological time like units are to measurments; its a lot easier to talk of lengths in terms of inches and yards and consequently time could be in minutes and hours. We all our internal clocks to refer to like for example if we can tell if we have been sleeping for a long time or have been waiting endlessly for a bus but it is a lot easier if asked by someone else to say " i have been sleeping for two hours or have been waiting on the bus for the last ten minutes". Therefore the physical time to me is just a way of reading and analyzing psychological time essential in our external world and to make sense of our time-related experiences.

Skepticism and Faith

Being a skeptic entails eing judgemental ( for lack of a better word) about pretty much even when these things could be scientifically or logically explained. To borrow wikipedia's definition of skepticism, "A skeptic critically examines the meaning systems of his/her time, and this examination usually results in a position of ambiguity or doubt. This doubt can range from disbelief in contemporary philosophical solutions, to agnosticism to rejecting the reality of the external world". This begs to question the fact that if they question everything and everyone and certainly ponder on the certainty of human knowledge then they must have a hard believing in history and most of all religion. I mean how can you believe something you didn't experience (no intent on invoking von Glasersfeld) or better yet faith in a supreme being whose existence (no pun intended) we can't attain either by our knowledge or our perceptions. Skepticism was first introduces by Socrates who claimed the only thing he knew was nothing; even that in itself is paradoxical ( because he says he knows nothing thus he knows something-the fact that he knows "nothing") but that if the topic for a different blog somewhere down the road. But back to the question of faith and skepticism. Do skeptics believe in historical events, do they have faith in God or any divine being or gods for that matter? What strikes me ass odd is the fact that skepticism's foundation is linked to the Greeks who to my knowledge were also very godly; from zeus, to atlas, thor and the rest. How can a skeptic justify his belief (if any) in religion and consequently his faith when he restrains from making assertions of things in everyday life; "The hallmark of the skeptikoi (the Greek terminology refered to skeptic philosophers) was caution; they refused to be caught in assertions that could be proven false". ?

Ontological Reality A Myth?

Our perception of the world is the onlys access by which we can experience this mysterious world we live in and better yet these perceptions is unique and different from individual to individual as a result of our background-past and present and in general who we are as a person. This in summation is von Glasersfeld point or atleast one of them and to clarify this stance or the above statement i'll use this example. Lets say we have a questionaire about the MBTA ( Massachusetts Bay Transport Authority) and one of the questions is how safe is the bus/subway? To someone not familiar with the woes associated with the public transport they might say it is easy, accessible and safe ( which for the most part it is) but to me and most people who have taken the bus and trains in boston or atleast have listened to the news over the last few years i'll be a little bit reluctant to answer that question by just a check. After witnessing people being shot on a bus right infront of me my perception of the MBTA's safety is different from that of a person who maybe just started riding the bus a week ago. So my point, well my understnding of von Glasersfeld's point here is that our perceptions will differ from person to person based on our experiences. That brings me to Methaphysical Realism: the epistemological theory that believes in an ontological rality or "true" world independent of our experience. I tend to believe that there's a world independent of our reality but with my limited knowledge on the subject restricts me from proving how i can talk of this world independent of my experience. So that begs me to question, how would a methaphysical realist approach this? What would their response be to the presence of this real world outside my perception when my perception is the only way in which i can access that world? How can i rely on my perception or the perceptions of othere or better yet my perception of other perception ( mine and that of others) when our perecptions differ based on our experiences and there's no way of knowing which is true? This is a lot more complicated that matching a painting the paint on the wall like von Glasersfeld so eloquently attributed methaphysical realism to!!!!

Existence outside Experience

According to von Glasersfeld, we can't speak of our world outside our experiences or better yet a world of real apples; where things exists independent of our perception. Ernst von Glasersfeld proposes that we can only come in a contact with world by means of our perceptions and those we can't talk of something even ourselves without pervieving it. Those how can we talk of something before we percieve it? The moment we start talking about a world where things exist outside our experience we've already crossed over or accessed those things via our perceptions. The world where real apples exist; to borrow von Glasersfeld's example seizes to exist once i talk about it because it becomes a percieve apple and no longer a real apple. With this train of thought it seems like Ernst von Glasersfeld wins no matter what and how. It seems liek we can't access the world let alone the truth of it without percieving it. TO make matters worse, how can we talk of the truth about the world when all we can do as individuals is percieve it. My perceptions of the world differ from each others thus we can't rely on our perceptions to pass judgement on the reality of the world especially since there's no way of proving that, that particular perception is right. so now we are stuck of not having access of to the world we live in but even worse we can't tell if what we percieve of our world is true or not. so we do we go from here? Personally i think i'm worse off now than before when i thought there was a world outside my existence, our world i came into contact with every perception.

What Epistemology and Religion have in Common

Like Religion epistemology and the search for a theory to explain our knowledge and attainement of it is fast becoming sectual. Philophers, Psychologists and intellectual minds from time immemorail have taken sides and formed camps about issues like what morality is, how do we develop as humansn animal ethics and now how we come to know what we know of the world. Locke, Piaget, Vygotsky, Chomsky and others including Ernst von Glasersfeld have chosen various sides as to how we aquire knowledge and as such has become sectual. Like the protestants, catholics, baptists, jehovah witness and adventists of Christianity, Epistemology is following suit and the sad path of the matter is i think this creates a much biggger problem. Rather than trying to solve the problem at hand, this various camps are indirectly creating more problems as they fight against each other trying to decide whose theory is right or wrong.
To quote D.C. Philips, " this descent into sectarianism, and the accompanying growth in distrust of nonbelievers is probablt fate of all large scale movement". The problem of sectarianism is that individuals of the various camps don't believe in each other and rather than fightng towards their common goal; how we attain knowledge of the world or if that knowledge if justified ( in this case), endless hours, man-power and brain power are consumed as we disagree and reject each others perspective.
I think it is time we put aside our differences and agreed to disagree just so we take ten steps forward towards the objective rather than taken numerous steps in other directions except forward!!!

The parable of the lock and key

Reading "An Introduction to Radical Constructivism" by Ernst Von Glasersfled got me thinking about lots of stuff especially when i came across the lock and key metaphor used to explain the difference between radical constructivism and metaphysical realism and the whole idea of "fit" vs "match". FOr the purpose of this blog, i'll dwell on the lock and eky here and sometime down the road tackle the "matching" perspective of the metaphysical realist. he parable describes the world as a burglar faced with a challenge of opening a lock for which he doesn't have a key. He goes on a step further to say that locks could be opened by different keys thanks to locksmiths and burglars and he relates this to humanity being burglars faced with this challenge of unlocking the truth of the world and doing so in various ways ( different experiences).
Some criticize von Glasersfeld for his use of this metaphor as a subtle way of promoting radical constructivism as a "higher" philosophical doctrine than metaphysical realism as well as the obvious reason of laying out the concepts of radical constructivism. But i'll rather refain for that but attack his metaphor for its obvious flaw; the same one the Vico quote fell victim to. LIke vico he talks of real truth but tries to elude it by saying we don't know of it till we expereince it. Humans might not come to know and understand the world in its entirety but that doesn't change that fact that there's a world out there outside our experiences. The burglar trying to open a lock with a duplicate key nows he's its not the original; even if he succeeds in opening it, he is still away he's wasn't the key made with that lock.
So my problem with radical constructivism is this exactly;our experiences are definitely our keys to unlocking to the mysteries of the world but to suggest that the truth of the world is only what we know it is is absurd like someone who thinks his lock can't be picked by a burglar with the right tools.

A response to Ernst von Glasersfeld

"As God's truth is what God comes to know as he creates and assembles it, so human truth is what man comes to know as he builds it shaping it by his actions. Therefore science (scientia) is the knowledge (cognitio) of origins, of the ways and the manner how things are made".
Ernst Von Glasersfeld used this quote by Giambattista Vico in attempt to solidify the stance of his Radical Constructivism theory of knowledge but to me he actually made a case for everyone in oppostion to his train of thought and to the metaphysical realist in particular. Metaphysics realism talks about a true reality; one whose existence is independent of our knowledge contadictly to the Radical Construtivist like von Glasersfeld who argues that the truth of the world is only what we know of it as a result of our epxeriences. The quote by Giambattista Vico talks about God's truth; a truth He comes to have as a result of him creating (experiencing) the world. I defnitely agree with this train of thought but not probably nor for what Vico and Glasersfeld might have intended. God created the whole world as we know it and if von Glasersfeld agrees with it; by quoting Vico that there's a world bigger than what we know of it. So why then would he disregard that aspect and reject the metaphysical realist's claim of a " true ontological rality"? Why would he claim that human truth is only as a result of our experiees when we all know that there's a bigger world out there?