Arquivo para a ‘Calm Technology’ Categoria
Humanism and the natural
08
Sep
We have difficulty in understanding what is really natural and what is cultural,
the naturalist view of pre-Socratic philosophy already anticipated a web of laws and interpretations of the material world, not exactly giving the configuration of what Being was, it was in this space that it developed the idea of the subject as dual of the object, so subjectivity is not seen as cultural, but natural.
Heraclitus’ scarce references, what remains of him are just a few maxims as you cannot cross the same river twice, the idea of becoming and fire as a primordial element in nature, hide a search for human identity with a prevailing objectivist tone , was the path opened by Socrates to themes as important today as interiority and conscience.
Moral conscience was only resumed within the scope of Christianity, leaving aside Plato and Aristotle, who elaborated the idea of the immobile engine (the principle of the whole universe and thus of nature) but separated from the world of ideas, where “naturalistic” ideas developed , did not postulate a regnum hominis, a kingdom of man, of course there will be other readings from this period.
What encouraged me was Karl Popper’s description of The World of Parmenides as a period of the genesis of the Enlightenment, the Greek physis is nothing but nature, so it can be said as more property that physicalist naturalism begins there. , an extension of the perception that the human subject has its interiority linked to the living environment, and therefore cultural, an understanding of the individual or collective macrocosm (of cultural groups) is then linked to the idea of nature without a broader cosmovision being contemplated.
To this question there is another one, about the emergence of the subject canceling the Being, which is freedom, subject is only as action, that is, as a function of the object, interiority is then a problematic part of an individual or collective subjectivism, and not a freedom of choice over which it manifests itself.
If man in his universe can only submit to the laws, to his destiny, he is not free, there is no place for autonomy, and in a broader sense he is subject to fatalism, in Aristotle a one-dimensional concept of freedom is traced. It, as a free being, is one who has himself as an end and who is not subject to menial work, is defined, therefore, around the polis, and its laws.
If the anthropocentric concept is revisited today, it is important to understand its Greek roots.
The Renaissance philosophy will develop a humanism, as the man at the center of all speculation, being a creature of the world he enjoys, however, a unique and very exceptional situation, I highlight Nicolau de Cusa, Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola.
Ficino is the least known, born in Figlini Valdarno (1433) and the greatest representative of Renaissance Fiorentine humanism, and revisits the works of Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry and Proclus.
Perhaps the reason for being little known may be due to the fact that he became a priest and wrote the Theologia Platonica (1482), a work that makes a dialogue with Plato’s conception of religion and the Neoplatonists.
Walking towards a troubled future
13
Jul
Lectures and motivational books have been growing since 
the beginning of the 21st century, it doesn’t matter much the message, the important thing is to lead people to an action force that is performance.
Traditional religions lose adherents to churches that change the discourse of sin for self-help and the desire for recognition and success, political polarization does not leave this aside, a good politician must demonstrate his “deeds” and not his exemption, balance and honesty.
Far from disdaining technological evolution, it is important and can help in a co-immunological resumption, one in which we discover mutuality, the “exam” as described by Byung Chul Han only seeks performance and it can include disrespect and fake- News.
The repressive and disciplinary society of the 20th century described by Michel Foucault (Watch and Punish) loses space to a new form of coercive organization: neuronal violence, fanpages fill up, lives exhibiting performances and even exhibiting violence, which is worrisome.
Interiority, which is different from subjectivity, which is what is proper to the subject, is that internal space that we need to cultivate to make our lives more balanced, with more positive thoughts and actions and that collaborate with mutualism, the feeling of responsibility for the other, the social conscience, finally, the community (the immunological society).
Chul Han points out that subjectivity, already present in discourses of current thinkers, such as “post-industrial society” (Bell, 1999), “control society” (Deleuze, 1992), “cognitive capitalism” or “material economy” (Negri and Lazzarato, 2001, Gorz, 2005) and “biopolitics” (Foucault, 2008) were forms of expression of this subjectivity, however without resorting to interiority.
Society is pushed towards an excess of positivity as Chul Han calls it in his Society of Tiredness, the coercive disciplinary concept (“you shall”) imposed from outside, brought into the scene a new statement (“we can”), which, in its most immanent aspects, “refers to a false freedom by imposing on individuals the imperatives of performance and self-satisfaction.
The author’s analysis starts from the film Black Swan (Aronofsky, 2010) to explain his thesis, the imposition of performance and performance through self-overcoming is incorporated by the protagonist who is taken to the last consequences.
Today’s society of tiredness is nothing more than the unilateral absolutization of “positive power” and cognitive enhancement (neuro-enhancement) may not pose any moral problem, but it will lead to an even greater moral problem in the normativity of the performance society.
Han, Byung Chul. (2015) THE BURNOUT SOCIETY. Translated by ERIK BUTLER stanford briefs. An lmprint of Stanford University Press. Stanford, California.
There will be no return to frivolity
06
Jul
Although media philosophers and optimists out of context want
some return to some kind of normality, we already have two irreversible structural changes, the need to understand total interdependence, no one is isolated and the restructuring of social and urban life.
England about to return to normality and the United States, which celebrated its Independence Day, thinking of celebrating the independence of the coronavirus, admit failure, in both countries the authorities declared that we must live with this difficulty, in UK the same.
The concept of co–immunity was developed by Peter Sloterdijk in another context, a kind of mutualism in which everyone is responsible for everyone, finding scapegoats either in the creation of the virus or in ineffective combat became difficult to accept conspiracy theories, in both cases political opportunism is present, even though it is possible to perceive a fight that is not always effective.
On the individual commitment aimed at mutual protection, Peter Sloterdijk thinks that neither is the time for national withdrawal nor has the world become small for everyone, consumption exists thanks to frivolity, there is no public consumption if there is no appeal to it.
What should happen is a new requirement of mutualism, it is still just a trend, but the idea that we will not easily get out of living with the danger of the virus and new mutations leads us to the need for a new community consciousness, in addition to the one mentioned and not practiced.
What Sloterdijk calls mutualism could become something even broader, he said in an interview with the newspaper El País: “The need for a universal shield that protects all members of the human community is no longer a utopian thing. The huge medical interaction around the world is proving that this already works”, the problem is that disputes and nationalism prevent this.
Sloterdijk’s answer is quite interesting: “these movements are not operational, they have impractical attitudes, they express dissatisfaction, but they are in no way capable of solving problems. I think they will be the losers of the crisis”, I agree with him.
The only caveat is that these disputes can lead to irreversible clashes, which would be catastrophic for all of humanity and, moreover, a topic that he also touches, democracies are at risk.
His answer is: “in the future, the general public and the political class will have the task of monitoring a clear return to our democratic freedoms”, the desire to suppress them is on the agenda every day.
Idealism and its religion
14
May
Beginning with the critique of idealism, in “The German Ideology” (1932), where
he talks about Feuerbach, B. Bauer and Stirner, who even call them St. Buer and St. Stirner, for their claim to be theology.
If the essence of idealism is the separation of object and subject, I make a purposeful inversion, the essence of religious thinking for Ludwig Feuerbach is the separation of subject and sensible objects, for for him object consciousness can be, although distinct from itself, a consciousness that coincides shortly thereafter when dealing with the religious object, because of its “transcendence” is exactly what makes it return to self-consciousness, I explain.
For Feuerbach, and the sensitive object is out of being (though ontology here is only an appeal), the religious object is in it, it is an intrinsic object, and neither does it abandon it, its moral consciousness leaves it, it is an intimate object. , and even the most intimate, is the closest of all.
His critique of theology using idealism essentially presupposes a critical judgment, the “difference between the divine and the non-divine, between what is and is not worthy of worship,” so that with this dualism it is possible to play all the essence of the divine in the mass grave of the Ideal.
The consciousness of God is man’s consciousness itself to him, this is the Hegelian idealism made religion: the knowledge of God which is man’s self-knowledge, there is no God-self for man.
The negation of the subject is considered irreligious, and its relation to sensible objects, a negation of the subject, is the atheistic religion of Feuerbach, which Marx will turn to call them the Old Hegelians, and seeks to make their inversion here new now. from object to subject, here is the new “religious” version of the Young Hegelians, like Marx, even criticizing Feuerbach’s main atheistic thesis: “thought comes from the subject,” not the object.
It is no longer about Heaven to Earth,” said Marx, but now “from earth to heaven,” that is, from the object to the subject, the labor force and the production, to their divinization (of the object, of money, economy, etc.). If, for Marx, fetishization was the separation of labor from his instrument of labor and commodity, fetishization may be reification (res – thing) or objectification for these young “Hegelians”, where he sees the separation between subject and object. , in religious fetishism is the separation of (sinful) consumption of the individual (seen in self-awareness) to which the religious must “attend” and live his “concrete”. The fair relationship with money, work, health and education is only a surpassing of the idealistic religious view, its consummation in a man in harmonious relationship with the world, and in this case also beauty, poetry and life. healthy would have a perspective, for the “pure” religious not. This religiosity lacks an asceticism that in fact “elevates” them, although they seem as linked to contemporary themes, actually has an idealistic god and not pretending to be realistic as they would wish, their concrete is the modern state god their economy, or the positivist law and his narrow view of justice.Beginning with the critique of idealism, in “The German Ideology” (1932), where he talks about Feuerbach, B. Bauer and Stirner, who even call them St. Buer and St. Stirner, for their claim to be theology.
If the essence of idealism is the separation of object and subject, I make a purposeful inversion, the essence of religious thinking for Ludwig Feuerbach is the separation of subject and sensible objects, for for him object consciousness can be, although distinct from itself, a consciousness that coincides shortly thereafter when dealing with the religious object, because of its “transcendence” is exactly what makes it return to self-consciousness, I explain.
For Feuerbach, and the sensitive object is out of being (though ontology here is only an appeal), the religious object is in it, it is an intrinsic object, and neither does it abandon it, its moral consciousness leaves it, it is an intimate object. , and even the most intimate, is the closest of all.
His critique of theology using idealism essentially presupposes a critical judgment, the “difference between the divine and the non-divine, between what is and is not worthy of worship,” so that with this dualism it is possible to play all the essence of the divine in the mass grave of the Ideal.
The consciousness of God is man’s consciousness itself to him, this is the Hegelian idealism made religion: the knowledge of God which is man’s self-knowledge, there is no God-self for man.
The negation of the subject is considered irreligious, and its relation to sensible objects, a negation of the subject, is the atheistic religion of Feuerbach, which Marx will turn to call them the Old Hegelians, and seeks to make their inversion here new now. from object to subject, here is the new “religious” version of the Young Hegelians, like Marx, even criticizing Feuerbach’s main atheistic thesis: “thought comes from the subject,” not the object.
It is no longer about Heaven to Earth,” said Marx, but now “from earth to heaven,” that is, from the object to the subject, the labor force and the production, to their divinization (of the object, of money, economy, etc.). If, for Marx, fetishization was the separation of labor from his instrument of labor and commodity, fetishization may be reification (res – thing) or objectification for these young “Hegelians”, where he sees the separation between subject and object. , in religious fetishism is the separation of (sinful) consumption of the individual (seen in self-awareness) to which the religious must “attend” and live his “concrete”. The fair relationship with money, work, health and education is only a surpassing of the idealistic religious view, its consummation in a man in harmonious relationship with the world, and in this case also beauty, poetry and life. healthy would have a perspective, for the “pure” religious not. This religiosity lacks an asceticism that in fact “elevates” them, although they seem as linked to contemporary themes, actually has an idealistic god and not pretending to be realistic as they would wish, their concrete is the modern state god their economy, or the positivist law and his narrow view of justice.
The first aortic mutation
03
Mar
How exactly life originated is still speculation, one of the most 
elaborate theories was made by Lynn Margulis (1938-2011) Carl Sagan’s first wife, he is famous for the Cosmos series, her theory called Endosymbiosis.
In this theory the mitochondria and chloroplasts become organelles in a cell, the first by chemical energy and the second by photosynthesis, although the theory has never been proven in the laboratory is interesting, Teilhard Chardin called them “chain of carbon molecules” (The phenomenon human) and ATP (adenosine triphosphate) energy-carrying molecule in living beings, there are other theories of course.
Fundamentalists on duty stay calm, also in the Genesis of the Bible is that God made man out of clay and then blew him in the nostrils, so life also appeared at a certain moment (Genesis 2,7), and the previous text says that “but a steam was rising from the earth to water the whole earth ”(Gn 2,6), that steam could well be CO2.
We may never know exactly how this happened, but it is certain that Earth and Nature came before living organisms and certainly after them (or most of them) man appeared, but the aortic mutation did not stop there.
Genetic mutations, although rare can happen, they can cause new genes to appear in a given population, by natural adaptation mechanisms, if certain characteristics are favorable to survival and reproduction in a certain environment, therefore if the environment changes, the mutations can become stable in the new environment.
The land has undergone several environmental changes, and perhaps what we are going through is the one that most deeply affects the stability of the environment, birds and animals have been extinct and forests and natural environments have been devastated, so it is to be expected that some mutation will occur, but it will be the environment is the first to change and react, so natural phenomena can occur.
This takes many years to occur, but suddenly they break in a chain of mutations, as Teilhard Chardin describes it: “the irresistible developments that are hidden in the most sluggish slowness, – the extreme agitation that is hidden under a veil of rest, – the entirely new that insinuates itself within the monotonous repetition of the same things ”(Chardin, 1965, p. 8).
In times of pandemic risks, looking at the universe of cosmogenesis we live in is essential.
CHARDIN, T. (1965). O fenômeno humano (Human Phonomenon) BR, São Paulo : Herder.
Healing the Other
24
Feb
Gandhi affirmed that “one cannot hurt the other without hurting oneself”, but Carl Jung has an expanded recipe “the one who heals the other, heals himself”, in terms of the pandemic it is good to think about this, to take care of the distance, hygiene rules, etc.
Some say this will never happen to me, they are people with comorbidities, etc. yes they are in the risk group, but the pandemic now with the new strains has expanded the “risk group”, it can be said that the whole society is vulnerable.
And along with the pandemic, economies are collapsing, but the idealistic models are still there, we have the answer for so long, do not forget that they have already been tested, so it is not about this or that model, all current models are centered on “ economy ”as the center of any policy and not in the human being, this was even more valid in this crisis.
The Fukushima plant for example, there have been tremors in that region recently, it has shown new leaks, the water used to cool it will be poured into the sea and then it will go around the world now.
If we have other natural accidents, earthquakes are always happening here and there, and if they are close to other plants, and if another type of planetary crisis, other than the pandemic comes, and this is not just pessimism, it is a possibility that we all know exists .
Yes, now the problem is the disease, the source of the current blindness, it is also an extension of the cultural crisis and night of God, see the different types of religiosity that grows, the appeals and prophecies are not lacking everywhere, in my view some may to be true even, but this is not about this, but about asking how “healthy” life is going on the planet, and there comes the Other.
They said that the crisis was in the media, or in the networks, which is a very different thing, now they are the lifeline to keep in touch with the proper distance, time it wasn’t the cell phones that did this and why they don’t do it now, to keep companies and schools running , it is not so bad, the use yes.
Of course not, the loss of relationships does not depend on the means (the media) that we use, and putting ourselves in a network is even better, now it seems clearer to put ourselves first in front of those closest to us, take care of and take care of them, things that we remember being asked by our grandparents, who seemed closed and backward, but they knew what it meant to be close, to be loving and to be faithful.
Saving the economy even if people die, that is the foundation of a world where, at bottom, the economy that everyone was concerned about, maybe a minority really thought about the well-being and balance of life lived in essence, without luxury and with a certain “comfort”.
Remember that the Greek oeconomicus was about the domestic economy and agriculture, it is true that the economy has evolved a lot, but it shouldn’t have lost its origins, organizing people’s “domestic” economy and producing food, it seems essential in this crisis.
We don’t just have to heal ourselves, we need to heal and care for the other, so our medical heroes teach us, because the consequences will be for everyone, the discovery of this interdependence is healthy for a world that begins to close itself in authoritarian nationalisms and mentalities.
Desert, existence and dreaming
13
Jan
Existence already (pointed in others posts) depends on 
living the instant that passes, time of change imply to know and know that there are moments of desert in which existence itself seems in check at this moment must not stop dreaming, a future to come.
What we seek or what we find in the desert is the understanding of what we have developed this week in anguish, not the one that leads to frustration, but just without opposite, in the developed concept we aim not to live on borrowed meanings, to look at it as an opportunity.
The second feeling of desert is that which philosopher Kierkegaard has pointed to as repetition, the feeling that everything has stopped and there is nothing but the desert, existence has stopped and it may even seem that it has ended, there is another repetition that aims in the essentials. that is boy to go beyond.
She deals with frustration and keeps us dreaming, but we affirm it is not the pleasures, the fortune (here in the financial sense) and not even letting it happen and leaving the world as it is that dreams are found even in a desert.
Precisely because it is changing times, values and feelings are boiling, that we can find new dreams, achievable of course, but sometimes even crazy can be achievable.
What separates one from the other is not the depth of a dream, but the perpetuity of what one seeks, if we seek only the pleasures, the power or the preponderance over the Other, they are not dreams, they are at the very least evasive of true dreams, not they are generous to all mankind.
But what is most sought after is these transient dreams, and frustration follows them almost inevitably, of course some will get rich, will have ecstasies of value, but at a high cost.
It is like the biblical passage, when receiving the disciples of John the Baptist who lived in the desert, said the multitudes who followed him (Mt 11: 7-9): “What were you to see in the desert? A reed shaken with the wind? What did you see? A man dressed in fine clothes? But those who wear fine clothes are in the palaces of kings. 9So what were you to see? A prophet? ”, a prophecy is also a dream.
It takes philosophical anguish to dream, to enter a virtuous circle of a dream come true.
Vaccines are in the testing phase
26
Oct
All vaccines are in the testing phase, only the Russian vaccine with
its mega emperor Putin has approved vaccines, but no one trusts it.
The American group of Modern biotechnology, one of those conducting tests in phase 3 in the United States promising results for December, was asked in September to give more transparency in its reports, almost always delivered to the government in a “confidential” character, reveals the pressures on the FDA (American Medicines Agency) because the election is close and could favor the government, but the company itself does not believe in short deadlines.
Another laboratory at Pfizer, one of the most promising vaccines, sparked controversy this week due to the infection and death of one of the people recruited for testing, a Brazilian volunteer who died, but according to the Bloomberg website the boy was in the group of test placebos and did not receive the active dose of the vaccine.
Clarifying the tests are called double blind, that is, neither doctors nor patients know which version was applied, in some a placebo is applied and in others the vaccine itself, this being one of the most reliable forms of testing, only in cases such as this from the death of a volunteer the dose is revealed.
The controversy of the Chinese vaccine, still without approval and with a deadline for October 2021, is one of the consequences of the politicization of the vaccine that we already warned in last week’s post, social polarization makes any issue, even those that should be everyone’s concern. regardless of ideology.
The problem of mandatory vaccination must be dealt with democratically, and the controversy does not help the public consensus, which in this case is already unlikely, the politicization of the issue is regrettable, judicialization is even more regrettable, I remember the case of drug addicts whose involuntary hospitalization has not been approved.
The testing phase, according to experts and the WHO itself, should continue for 2021, any premature anticipation of the vaccine will be as serious as the pandemic itself, and the result can be disastrous and subject to lawsuits.
We hope that the vaccine will come, that there will be a worldwide consensus on its validity, that the politicization of the theme will decrease and that we can emerge less polarized from the pandemic, is an altruistic theme, but we need to hope for a better humanity, if not so much suffering in a disastrous year that it was worthless.
Number of covid grows in Brazil and vaccines
14
Sep
The number of data has returned to grow, if we look at the valley
of September 7, national holiday in Brazil, we see the valley of decrease with 10 thousand cases, in this short-term evaluation is better the number of infected, because the number of deaths will only be affected from 7 to 14 days, which in this period also returned to grow.
It was a scandal and commented throughout the country the descent of São Paulo to the coastal beaches, coincidence or not, is a real and scientific data, the number of cases has returned to grow and the number of deaths has returned to close to a thousand daily.
While the vaccine does not come, we will have to live with this reality, the period of a possible lockdown passed the virus is in every country and the only isolation that works is the social to prevent infection among people close, starting precisely from the idea that everyone can be carriers of the virus now and all care is necessary.
Now we are waiting for the vaccine, and the case of a side effect of a woman in London of the Oxford vaccine, which uses the viral vector principle, the effect was a transverse myelitis that causes a neurological problem and high blood pressure, being possible that the cause was an external factor the formula, the woman passes well, there is evaluation of the case by a committee that is independent (see how complex and serious the tests should be) , and the resumption of testing has already been authorised, there are 6 more in testing phase.
It is important to note that the problem was the side effect and not the infection, the vaccine from Oxford and the Laboratory Astrazeneca, which has participation of the laboratory of Brazilian Fiocruz, has no possibility of infection, it does not replicate the virus, so it is considered safe, but side effect exist in any medicines and vaccines and should prescribe cases, such as those we found in the leaflets , of type, children or adults cannot take, etc.
The case was important for all of us to be aware of the seriousness and slowness of the tests, which are necessary.
Other vaccines go up in the “quote”, the Pfizer vaccine. which follows the nucleic acid (RNA) principle, and with good quotation in the medical area, but this is also subject to testing and without the evaluation of “contraindications” should not be rushed its use, therefore, the delay is necessary and this phase cannot be dispensed with.
Socially what we expect, after a period of help (it should go until the end of the year, but that is already there), we must already start thinking about the economic, social and educational consequences, they will be strong and will require the effort of all and one should think not as a weight, but as a social need that certain groups have protection.
This is the case of the elderly, children and socially marginalized groups, if society and public policies do not embrace these people, the social consequences that are already serious, could go to the field of out of control and it would be a tragedy.
The dark night of humanity
04
Aug
Watching political debates or even relevant issues of public life, a brief look at
culture and religion, any angle that looks at the moment aggravated by the pandemic, it is relevant to point out the confused features of this civilizing moment.
It is a fact that we have already been through another pandemic, in frightening numbers the so-called “Spanish flu” in the middle of the 1st. world war, it was a great and humanitarian disaster that challenged humanity, and even then came the second war, the concentration camps and the Hiroshima bomb, but the contours of this moment seem even more serious, there is a crisis of thought.
What can be observed are phrases made with a doubtful impact, appeals to impossible optimism in the face of the pandemic scenario or the hope “after all this is over”, however as the vaccine does not reach reality it imposes it, even on the wise on duty a little sobriety, but still without the solidarity and humanity that would be desirable.
The crisis of thought already pointed out by Edgar Morin, Nicolescu Barsarab and many others, in addition to the scientific and technical debate, is the difficulty of composing elements that should go beyond the limits of specialties to solve problems beyond the disease, the social and the religious, to tackle the problem together would require an overall view and not an impoverished disciplinary view of specialists.
When less is seen by pure and simple analysis, the darker this night becomes, the foundations lost, even if the civilizing foundations can be overcome: the Greek culture, the Judeo-Christian religiosity that so many scholars had, also the Islamic with Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Khwarismi and more recently Abdus Salam, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979.
Science is still strongly linked to the positivism and logicism of two centuries ago, while Karl Popper, Tomas Kuhn or Bachelard are still little known and confined in circles of “experts of the scientific method” which indicates a shallow reading of these questioners of conventional science.
The last century gave us Gustave Klimpt, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dali, the bold architecture of Antoni Gaudi, by Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer, but the straight façades, the abuse of glass and crystals that appear for the first time in the Crystal Palace (photo), English architectural structure of the 19th century that invoked a recreation center for “education of the people”, cited by Sloterdijk and his disciple Byung Chul Han as representative of current architecture, as centers of consumption and “an architectural form was proclaimed as the key to capitalism . condition of the world ”(SLOTERDIJK, 2005, P. 279).
The Creator’s greatness and daily novelty are a stark contrast to repetitive, outdated religions that say nothing to the world today, about the pandemic oscillating between simple adherence to current discourse to models of solidarity and defense of life that are too fragile for tragedy pandemic.
SLOTERIJK, P. Crystal Palace, Chapter 33 of in Globalen Inneren Raum des Kapitals: Für eine philosophische Theorie der Globalisierung (In the Global Inner Space of Capital: For a Philosophical Theory of Globalization). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005, pg. 265-276.
