February 22, 2013
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professional bullshitting made easy or the socratic handy gardening guide book:
yea i took ancient philosophy as an elective. got good marks in it too. the prof actually borrowed some of my material to explain stuff to the class, then regretted it when i informed him he used some of my essay material.
at first, i was as dis-infomercial about philosphy as the rest of you. i just figured it was freelance creative writing and connived it to be an easy mark.
but various facts remain awesome sauce even now years after learning them.
1. it is quite a unifying experience to be clueless as everyone else in the class.
2. facial contortions of a philosophy professor trying to define a simple idea to a brain dead audience beats half the entertainment on present tv.
3. if in doubt fake it pays off greatly in philosophy. in fact the more real one gets, the more wrong they are apparently.
i found myself wondering why they didnt teach us this stuff in preschool. when our child genius was still untainted by hormonal conquests.
remember when we were kids? our comeback, i know you are but what am i?…. apparently it is a valid question that can entail a detailed 7 page essay.
takes one to know one, the usual sidekick to that previous inquest also very valid and apparently remains an ongoing inquiry.
but in all truth, the facts or history of some of the stuff is just awesome to consider.
fun fact numero uno –get this: here we are in modern day , we finally admit that yes, there may be alternate universes. that yes, there is probably one of me, where i am the master jello maker in the universe or my attention to grammar when writing is not only excellent but proof of my internal need to plaster nonsense on the internet with inherit human meaning of profound nature that all i need to do is yell the name ‘NORM’ and all you nod your head with reverent knowing.
well, actually i am pretty sure we all did when i did that anyways. somethings are universal regardless. my point is though, it can be that if i yell norm and tap dancing pinstriped penguins come parading out of nowhere prancing a Sinatra motif two step that would make Sammy davis giggle is not only probable, it is happening now as we speak.
sure, we all have had the would-shoulda iffa coulda’s , meaning that we all have speculated alternate space time stuff. but plato, grande compadre to Socrates had it all figured. he seriously had the whole concept of an alternate universe not only figured out, but even knew the answer as to why we cant have our imagined realities exist here.
bear in mind, this is an ancient Athenian. things like the concept of a world, in the idea of being a planet were alien and unimaginable, apparently the concept of omnipotent beings with harsher character flaws then a pack of drunken french mimes were a more likely prospect and sheep guts were a way to get the numbers to the next regional lottery.but imagine that in the time when zeus was believed to shoot lighting bolts at stuff, this guy plato had figured and deduced not only that there is an alternate universe but the friggin physics of it as well.
you could say, the earth goes around the sun and those lights are other suns , he would have accused you of heresy, but if you said, there is a mirror universe where everything is perfect and because it is perfect can never exist here. he would have agreed with no question.
he had worked out why doing things with no expectations was not only a good way to maintain a healthy outlook, but the whole mechanics behind it all. the reason was because he couldn’t understand why shit went wrong in the world. the old, if there is a god why do little children not get their own private jet axiom we all have used when confronted by earnest biblewhacking borg. he said that we all picture the perfect object. that for instance, kraft dinner mixed with tuna is perfection, whereas kraft with extra cheese is still perfection. in other words, i can say the word chair and we all visualize a chair in our minds, which even know are different for both us, still are perfect. but because we have our individual perfect objects which we recognize from the alternate universe, when we attempt to recreate it in this one, it is destined to be faulty. he said, it will always fail.
the truth is, that is exactly the problem qauntum theory is trying to solve now.
in the present science , we know that there is alternate universes with alternate versions of everything, but if they exist here, they fail and collapse. that whole antimatter thing actually revolves around speculation of what happens when one of these type of things is introduced into this realm. the agreed on result, it cancels out the matter and they both cease to exist.
so, in effect plato, an anceint Athenian had figured out quantum space/time mechanics.
next fun fact takes a bit of explaining:
first: this guy named thales, who was total awesomnosity that he is claimed to be the progenitor of the science itself, belived that that which creates , moves. literally, the thing which created the universe ,the constructor or building blocks, must move. he used magnets to demonstrate and show the energy of the creator in action.why is this awesomesauce?
in modern times, we have figured that the big bang is what made everything. even more incredible, it started off with positive ions mostly of hydrogen. we know this because we can see the stars that existed near the beginning with our telescopes. the earth, is active. it has a iron core. when two metals are placed together cool stuff happens, like duracell bunny whacking drums and other electronics happen. it is caused by the metals and the electromagnetic proprties creating an electric force.things like heat energy and whatnot begin. it is what creates lava and is reason electric stoves work. (the atoms of the impure metal on stoves cause friction as the electricity surges through.this causes a massive amount of entrophy and is released in heat energy and light.
so, thales, worked out the big bang, arichimedes comes into picture now. he stated that what we see is not there. borrowing from thales, he not only saw everything in motion but stated that since everything is moving , it isnt really there.we only percieve it is there. that we can only know for sure that the object we see is truly there by nearing it and actually touching it.
he had figured out relativity.
an ancient athenian had worked out what einstien had deduced , before the idea of time and space was even existing.
this other guy, who forget the name of then worked out that the only way anything comes into existence was with chaos. he said that heat and cold and other stuff were separate forces and that they have to combine in a massive chaos to create matter.
lastly for the conversation, is pythagoras, who was in love with numbers, because like plato he understood that numbers are something that lives in the world but can never be seen. in otherwords, the number three exists and we recognize it, but we can not find it anywhere in nature.
so he said: that the world is made of incredible small nothings and that these nothings combine and create matter. he figured out atoms.
it stunned me. these ancient men, had such incredible modern thoughts. they had solved the mystery of the universe, with pure human intelligence. science didn’t even exist then. stunning stuff really.