Arquivo para a ‘Information Science’ Categoria
Between immortality and eternity
05
Dec
It is not just a spiritual theme as it seems, Hannah
Arendt’s Vita Activa cited by Byung-Chul is a course correction, to remove us from simple mortal temporality, to the “time that is proper to the gods, who do not die and do not age , and the immortal cosmos” (Han, 2023, p. 145), where he differentiates immortality from eternity.
The search for immortality is, again Han quoting Arendt, “the source and center of the vita activa”. According to the author, “human beings achieve their immortality on the political stage. On the other hand, the objective of the vita contemplativa is not, according to Arendt, to persist and last in time, but the experience of the eternal, which transcends both time and the surrounding world” (Han, 2023, p. 145), in other words, immortality is the senseless search for the political stage, while eternity is the search for the experience of eternity already here and now.
But the author warns that the human being cannot linger on the experience of the eternal, “he needs to return to his surrounding world” (idem), when comparing it with the thinker, as soon as he starts writing he abandons the experience of the eternal , this is how one dedicates oneself to active life, and it is in this that one hopes to achieve immortality, Arendt admires Socrates who does not write, although Arendt herself thought and recorded her thoughts with the intention of immortality (Han, 2023, p. 146), but the Writing can be a contemplation, says the author.
In Byung-Chul’s view, the way Arendt sees Plato’s myth of the cave is actually a completely different story, it is of a philosopher who frees his companions from the chain of the shadows that waver before them, which they consider the only reality (page 147-8), Plato asks Glaucon to imagine: what would happen to philosophers if, after having seen the truth, they returned to it and tried to free prices from illusions? (page 148).
“Parehesia” (opening of the truth) is a risky situation, “the philosopher acts, when despite the danger of death, returns to the cave” in order to convince them of the truth, thus the action precedes the knowledge of the truth, while contemplation is the path from knowledge to truth, which precedes action (page 149).
After all, the Greek polis itself and Plato’s thought originated in the dialogues of Socrates written by Plato himself, this is a contemplative and discursive truth (I would say dialogical, but the term can have dubious interpretations), so action precedes thought in Plato.
According to Hans’ criticism, the idea that the loss of contemplative capacity led to the victory of the “animal laborans” that subjects everything to work with the consequent loss of contemplative capacity and its reintegration into nature and the planet.
Han quotes Saint Gregory, a master of the vita contemplativa: “when a good life program demands that one pass from the active to the contemplative life, it is often useful for the soul to return from the contemplative to the active life, in such a way that the flame of contemplation awakens in the heart surrender all its fullness of activity” (page 151), this is how eternity on earth is lived.
HAN, B.C. (2023). Vita Contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity, transl. Daniel Steuer, USA, ed. Polity (the page numbers is in brazilian text).
Palestine, Winter General and Essequibo
04
Dec
The truce unfortunately ended because Hamas
committed an attack on the last day of the truce, killing a rabbi and two women, according to the Israeli press, and the Al-Qassan militia, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack.
According to the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) 200 Hamas targets have already been hit, one of them a sumptuous building that housed the Hamas Supreme Court, the scale of the war returns.
Winter General is the name given to the Russian winter during the wars because both in the Napoleonic invasion (1812) when the army of a set of alliances (it is important to remember that some European nations supported it) lost the war due to the winter, also in the second war Worldwide, the winter was decisive for Germany to lose the war.
What to think now about the winter in Ukraine, where Russia has made advances on several fronts, however it has problems in Crimea where there is a large part of Russian ammunition, the winter there lasts until March and Ukraine shows signs of weakness and loses part of its support, now countries like Finland and Poland are already mobilizing in their own defense against a possible invasion.
Finally, a front may appear on the Brazilian border, the army has already sent troops to the region due to the possibility of an invasion of Brazilian territory, which would be strategic for an invasion of Venezuela against the fragile military strength of Guyana (formerly British Guiana).
A referendum held in Venezuela these days, it is good to remember that Maduro controls the entire State apparatus, gave a favorable opinion to 5 questions about a possible invasion of Guyana from Essequibo as the region that today belongs to Guyana is called, one of the questions challenges the International Court of Justice that prohibited Venezuela from any invasion.
Ultimately, a disastrous scenario of civilizational crisis is getting worse, but we believe in Peace.
Contemplation and the polis
30
Nov
The fifth chapter of the book “Vita Comtemplativa”
is The pathos of action, it begins by describing the two sacred concepts of the Jewish tradition: God and Sheba, for Jewish culture God is Sheba, that is, he is redemption, the immortal (page. 107), yesterday time is suspended, that is, compared to Han’s concept, it is inactivity.
The creation of the human being is not the last act of Creation, only the Sabbath rest completes it, the world is similar to the bridal chamber: “but the bride is missing. Only with the Sabbath does the bride arrive” (Han, 2023, p. 108), which is a quote from “Der sabbat” by Heschel.
The analogy with the bride will also be used in the parables of the brides, the arrival of “that day” when the groom comes to look for her and must find the lamps lit (developing around the theme of prudence), Arendt will modify the idea of rest divine complementing it with the principle freedom for a new beginning (or a fresh start, necessary in many stages of life), says Han’s quote:
“with the creation of the human being, the principle of the beginning (which in the creation of the world was in the hands of God and, therefore, outside the world) appears in the world itself and will remain immanent in it as long as there are human beings; which, of course, naturally, ultimately, means nothing other than that the creation of the human being as a ‘someone’ coincides with the creation of freedom” (apud Arendt, Han, 2023, p. 109).
“The “feeling of reality” that is due only to action; that is, when acting and producing an effect, it completely represses the feeling of being. The feeling of festivity, in which it is possible to experience a superior reality, is foreign to Arendt” (Han, 2023, p. 112).
This concept is the temenos of the Greek polis, which means the sacred space cut off from the public space that is reserved for deities; a peribolos (literally a playpen or enclosure), that is, a fenced space, an area of the temple delimited by walls. Temenos is a templum, a consecrated and sacred place, the word contemplation goes back to the templum (in picture the acropolis).
Thus the templum is part of the polis, on his trip to Greece, Heidegger has the acropolis in mind when he writes about the polis: “… this polis did not know, therefore, subjectivity as a measure of all objectivity. She submitted to the yoke of the gods, who, in turn, were subjected to destiny, to Moirá” (apud Heidegger, Han, 2023, p. 113-4).
By presenting it only as freedom and action, Han criticizes Arendt, the cultural dimension of parties, rituals and games has no place in her thinking and they were members of the polis.
HAN, B.C. (2023). Vita Contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity, transl. Daniel Steuer, USA, ed. Polity.
Intense war and freed hostages
27
Nov
Russia stated this Sunday (26/11) that it shot down
drones in the four regions at war, including some near Moscow and two missiles were also intercepted, while Ukraine claims to have eliminated more than a thousand soldiers and 30 Russian tanks in the war regions.
On Saturday there was a strong drone attack against Kiev, according to Moscow the biggest since 2022.
War negotiations continue, but the sanctions imposed by Moldova have created a new zone of conflict between Moscow and the West, Moldova fears being Russia’s next target.
The most serious thing about the Hamas and Israel conflict is the use of civilians as hostages (photo).
In the Gaza strip, the truce between Hamas and Israel continues, the exchange of hostages by Hamas soldiers continues, yesterday was the third day, in total | Hamas released 58 hostages while Israel released 117 Palestinians, in order these were the numbers of hostages released.
First day of truce 24 hostages, second day (Saturday) 17 hostages and third day (Sunday) 17 hostages, although the agreement is only for 4 days, and would end today, the expectation is that it can progress until Wednesday. fair.
Pope Francis, always optimistic, said in his last reference to war that humanity (of course those who make political decisions) chose war instead of peace.
Conflicts are already a major humanitarian tragedy and could become a serious humanitarian and civilizational crisis.
The final examination of conscience
24
Nov
We can be (illusory) building personal happiness (good life in philosophy)
without caring about the Other, society today lives the denial of the Other and pain, but this is the path to disputes, rivalries and in the last stage the wars.
The contemporary world lives with disbelief, a lack of individual and collective awareness, what matters is solving one’s own problem, there is no shortage of literature for this, either for easy success or for individual consolation with self-help books, there are no shortage of recipes considered “spiritual”, but in the exercise society, it is a despiritualized asceticism.
How we treat pain means how we see poverty, neglect of health (not even medical plans can solve it anymore), lack of basic sanitation, public abuses of immorality, not to mention prison systems, the destruction of drugs and the various social marginalizations.
The examination of conscience, as good literature says, is that awareness of something, not that of the comfort of gated communities, of social isolation in refuges, but that awareness of oneself and the Other, which is other than the social group and its illnesses, not forgetting the morals, which seem to have lost all references.
There is no shortage of literature and thought on these issues, but the final question is how do we reverse these issues, how do we avoid growing hatred, fanatical polarization and, at the end of it all, the tendency towards increasingly cruel wars involving diverse peoples?
The examination of conscience is what side we are on, not of public and even political irrationality, but on the side of those who suffer, those who have lost hope, those who, for a certain reason, whether justifiable or not, look at life as a burden. .
The final Examination of Conscience is the one, which is also biblical (Mt 25:34-35): “‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father! Receive as your inheritance the Kingdom that my Father prepared for you since the creation of the world! For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a foreigner and you welcomed me into your home; 36 I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you came to visit me’ “.
So it’s about doing this personal and social examination of conscience, which side are you on?
Contemplating or searching for nothing
16
Nov
Byung-Chul Han, in his essay on contemplation,
gives a cruel sentence to Eurocentric Western knowledge: “knowledge cannot fully portray life. The entirely conscious life is a dead life” (Han, 2023, p. 29) and is supported by nothing more than Nietzsche in the context of a “new enlightenment”, one that for Heidegger opens a clearing of Being, albeit from a different perspective.
Quoting Nietzsche, Han writes: “it is not enough that you understand in what kind of ignorance human beings and animals live; you also need to have the desire to not know and learn it. You need to understand that in this type of ignorance life itself would be impossible, under which the living being is preserved and flourishes: a great and solid bell of ignorance must be around him” (quoting Nietzsche, pages 29-30) .
He clarifies that the ultimate objective of a “master” is “to reach a state in which the will resigns itself. The master exercises in order to eliminate the will.” (page 31)
It states on the next page that it cites a parable made by Walter Benjamin “Don’t forget the best” in which he outlines the idea of a happy life, it deals with a businessman who has always carried out his life with precision and zeal, but at a certain moment he throws his clock out.
Then he starts to arrive late and things start to happen without his intervention, and they make him happy, it now turns out to be a “path to heaven”, things happen now when he least expected it, “friends visit him when they least thought of him” and remembers the legend of a little shepherd boy who is allowed on “one Sunday” to enter the mountain with his treasures, with an enigmatic instruction: “don’t forget the best” (page 33).
Benjamin’s parable of inactivity ends with these words: “At this time he was quite well off. He finished few things he had started, and didn’t consider anything finished” (page 33).
The age of hyperinformation, of fatigue, is not a time to search for the truth of being, for what we really are culturally, socially and spiritually; It is a time of searching for nothingness, in times like this, prophets, oracles, monks and sages emerged who fled this temporal void, to find themselves in an infinite totality, one that contemplates all being.
Byung-Chul Han wrote: “those who are truly inactive do not assert themselves. He discards his name and becomes nobody”, it is not nihilism, it is a reunion with the truth that everyone looks for in things and does not find them if they do not look at themselves, at their inner emptiness and their inactivity.
There will be a time when everyone will be looking for the truth, they will say it is here or there and they will no longer find it, it will not be an end, but rather a “new enlightenment”.
HAN, Byung-Chul. (2023) Vita Contemplativa or about inactivity. Trans. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Inform, symbol and connect
15
Nov
What was missing in the text of Crisis of Narration,
there is also something wrong in “Infocracy: digitalization and the crisis of democracy in philosophy” (2022) of Byung-Chul, the idea that information is in itself incomplete, is present in another book entitled Vita Contemplativa (ed. Vozes, 2023) because there, returning to being, one can find how form becomes narration within being, and becomes in-form.
An excerpt from this book says: “The loss of shared feeling accentuates the lack of being. The community is a symbolically mediated totality. The symbolic narrative void leads to the fragmentation and erosion of society.” (HAN, 2023, p. 91-92). (emphasis added)
Thus recognizing this aspect of the need for being as a symbolic void, which the contemporary narrative in general does not contemplate due to its informational vices, at the same time the author states: “The human being, as a symbolon, longs for a sacred and restorative totality” (page 92).
The term symbolon appears prominently because the author uses it based on a reading of Plato’s Banquet, where Aristophanes remembers that this broken piece of being, which for him was initially spherical and was broken, has this broken piece with a “symbol”.
Now if symbol is a part, united to another part we form a totality, not just in a community, but in every “sacred and restorative totality”, where there are men united for a good and just cause.
Narrative and information in this context, where the part is united, as an important principle defended by Edgar Morin said: “It is necessary to replace a thought that isolates and separates with a thought that unites and distinguishes”, thus the union of distinct “symbols” and that are part of contemporary cultures and peoples.
Thus, the ontological information (proper to being) linked to the context of the narration in its time and the object of thoughts within a diversity, are not a reason for fragmentation but rather for a universe that unites us and makes us more “whole” within our lives. communities.
Contemporary hyperactivity, which not only but also the digital world can lead us to, is itself a world that rejects internalization, meditation and thus, narration itself.
The author writes about this interiority: “Active life, with its pathos of action, blocks access to religion” (page 154), action is part of religious life as much as lay life, what differentiates is that in addition to prudence, our reflections from last week, can lead to a different, fair action that leads to happiness and fulfillment different from pure “action”.
Pathos, to clarify, is part of the Greek triad “ethos, pathos and logos”, while ethos persuades us through character, or by whoever narrates, if this is worthy of faith, logos persuades us through logical (broad) reason and pathos by feelings caused by sadness or joy, love or hate, and so often without going through reason and ethics.
HAN, Byung-Chul. (2023) Vita Contemplativa or about inactivity. Trans. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Wars and narratives
13
Nov
The recently released book, in Portuguese, 
“The crisis of narration” (ed. Vozes, Brazil), by Byung Chul Han, more than a discussion of the crisis of literary aesthetics with Walter Benjamin and philosophical with Hegel, which are the contours of the book, the author comes across the republic of Weimar and its political aspects.
Officially known as the German Reich, it dates back to the period from November 9, 1918 to March 23, 1933, a constitutional federal republic in Germany, but which had nationalist and warlike aspects that led Germany to two wars.
Chul Han’s book is timely due to the war climate that is gradually being established and with different narratives and interpretations that lead to an escalation of war, speaking of peace, the same forces that reinforce the war budget, call for an immediate ceasefire.
It is clear to a good reader that a narrative is implied in each speech that tries to justify the war and the death of innocents, whether in Gaza or in Ukraine.
The narratives disguise their war celebrations, at the same time they justify genocides and the most horrific war crimes, when asked they respond with cynicism: “it’s war”, and thus they think they are justified.
Most likely, all of this was prepared in the midst of the pandemic, an opportune moment for those who imagine that measuring forces will create “a new world” and that peace will come as in the Roman Empire, through the submission or slavery of a people.
The details of the war are, for opportunists, details that can be reviewed by articulating this or that narrative, the death of innocent civilians, the destruction of basic means of subsistence (water, energy and food) must always be condemned and must not be admitted.
They are important humanitarian corridors (photo), but they should not only enter Gaza, they should enter where there is war and in speeches at the UN.
It is necessary to defend peace wherever there is war, so the narrative can be true
What was happiness for the Greeks
09
Nov
The Greeks defined happiness as Eudaimonia
over the various human conditions: for those who are hungry, happiness is food, for those who are cold, warm clothes, for those who are ambitious, money, for those who are vain, honors, for those who are sick, health. , etc.
This is why, as we previously defined, rational happiness was called “good life”, and if so, how can we maintain that happiness is the good for men, since it must bring with it that they are common to all and the real possibility of life for everyone.
The purpose of life for each man can vary greatly from person to person, there are those who relate happiness to pleasure, pleasure, enjoyment, without any pain, but it is necessary to recognize the finiteness and limitation of these values and understand that life Full requires balance, give the necessary virtues, in Greek the arethé, Aristotle did not refuse pleasures, however he warned that this type of life aims only at the immediate and it is necessary to look at what remains.
Happiness is self-sufficient, that is, it is not desirable because of something else, and it is desirable in itself, so throughout life, we must shift our gaze from the outside to the inside and look within ourselves at those attachments and attachments to things temporary pleasures that are only temporal pleasures.
It was from the analysis of virtues and the practical exercise of ethics, Aristotle concluded that happiness is an activity, which is why it cannot be found potentially in man, it is not considered a virtue, although it does not occur without it, there is this potentiality in U.S.
