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?