Month: December 2014

Taking chances

~ philosophyalive ~ Leave a comment

Looking at the chances of the universe being the way it is, the supposed possibility that its causes can happen by chance neither explains how chance happens nor how inevitabilities intervene – to establish boundaries of possibility, which delimit what happens next. And there is no calculator in pure unbounded chance for considering the possible range of consequences, including the possibility of chance being overridden by the occurrence of something else – such as the emergence of deliberation and the known non-random results of its calculations.

Nevertheless, we continue to wonder how possibility is possible, even if by chance, as we observe in reality, possibilities for chance that invite us to perceive the outcome as made possible by chance.

© Mike Laidler 2014

Theories to Order

~ philosophyalive ~ Leave a comment

If we take ourselves off into science to explore the second law of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics or genetics and their implications for the question of how order arises from chaos, we will afterwards be able to return to the debate armed with the knowledge that the question still remains unanswered.

© Mike Laidler 2014

‘Orangality’

~ philosophyalive ~ Leave a comment

Scientific studies show that mankind and great apes share ‘personality dimensions’. We are all very intelligent animals. The Orangutan is said to qualify especially for the title ‘non-human person’ – because of their social abilities, they have been observed to spend less time on social issues and more time thinking.

Mike Laidler

A fact by what fact?

~ philosophyalive ~ Leave a comment

In what belief do we conjure a fact? As if the facts we discover do the seeing for us, as if it is the evidence that makes us see; as if knowledge is more secure when attached to facts that see nothing and know nothing of themselves?

Then is the claim to make a factual discovery not a figment of our perception, implying that the facts are the cause of the seeing, when all we see is our version of the seeing?

So does knowledge not come down to our ascriptions of authority – such as when ‘we’ claimed to discover America as representatives of a knowledge that the indigenous inhabitants could not equal?

© Mike Laidler 2014

Seeing stars

~ philosophyalive ~ Leave a comment

A child can see that the universe plus life is more than the universe without, and the fact that we are all star dust doesn’t help us to make sense of the difference. Also, our children, by their presence, help us to see that the universe with new and sentient life is now very different to that caused by a big bang, and all our elaborate theories can’t place that difference in a common origin, reduced to the elements.

Perhaps we need to look again at what there is to see and rethink the origin of seeing and thinking as it arises amongst the generalised oblivion of the vast expanse of stars and planets.

© Mike Laidler 2014