Arquivo para a ‘Information Science’ Categoria
Moving forward to true thinking
04
Feb
No thought is complete if it does not have a spirituality, what modernity
calls subjectivity but which is separate from objectivity as is typical of dualism, creates two realities and neither is part of the whole.
Contemplating the whole means considering the depth of our Being and understanding that we are part of an immense universe full of mysteries, and that our soul yearns for infinity and that is where a true spirituality walks, which is not separated from the substantiality of life (the which is called objectivity in modernity, which is just the part) and that without it we do not contemplate and live the whole, we live a segmented life.
To replace it with a small part, small vices and pleasures, is to walk in frivolity, in superficiality, no true asceticism does without a spirituality, and there is no spirituality without contemplating the human soul as part of the whole of our Being, thus surpassing anthropotechnics and to arrive at an onto-anthropotechnic that looks at things and also at the soul.
Many exercises, from the physical to the spiritual, are done seeking this asceticism, at this point Sloterdijk is right almost all of them are “despiritualized” but his explanation is incomplete because there is no eschatology in their spheres, this reasoning is done especially in Spheres II, which is the whole towards which we walk, it is possible to go to Him.
Yes, it is possible if we move towards deeper waters, seek the completeness of our substantiality, overcoming anthropocentrism and understanding the Earth and the Universe as our home, our abode, but mainly walking and casting the nets for deeper thoughts and spiritualities, there is at high sea, even if raging, what our soul longs for: the eternal.
The biblical passage Lk 5:4-5 says, right after Jesus taught the crowds and Peter (Simon) complained that they had not caught anything, Jesus answers him: “when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon: “Go into deeper waters, and cast your nets for fishing”, Simon replies that he worked all night and caught nothing, but obeyed and cast the nets.
The result was a great fishery. Here, the substantiality of the food and also the spirituality of advancing “to deeper waters” are worthy.
Different reactions to dominant thinking
03
Feb
In countries that were colonies of Europe, the term decolonization
emerged, which differs from decolonization because it penetrates precisely into the dominant thought and epistemology (some authors will call it epistemicide), which is not the simple liberation of domination, but also the resurgence of cultures. subalterns.
Thus, authors appeared in Africa (such as Achiles Mbembe), in Latin America (Aníbal Quijano and Rendón Rojas y Morán Reyes), as well as authors of original culture such as indigenous peoples (Davi Kopenawa and Airton Krenak), but a dialogue with European authors is possible. open to this perspective like Peter Sloterdijk (speaks of Europe as the Empire of the Center) and Boaventura Santos (speaks of epistemicide and also some concepts of decolonization), there are many others of course.
Christian culture must also be highlighted in these cultures, seen by many authors as a collaborator of colonialism, one cannot deny the historical perspective and also the doctrine that is the liberation of peoples and a culture of fraternity and solidarity, it is also a minority today in Europe and persecuted in many cases.
Among the Europeans who defend a new humanism, or a humanism in fact, since the Enlightenment and materialist theories failed to contemplate the human soul as a whole, and are therefore a one-legged humanism, among the Europeans I highlight Peter Sloterdijk and Edgar Morin, the first who defends the concept of community as a “protective shield” capable of saving our species, and the second, a planetary humanism, where man is a citizen of the world and diversities are respected.
Both consider the proposals populist, it is good to know that there are left and right, they must lose with the current crisis and global consumerism depends on an atmosphere of “frivolity” or superficiality that humanity will be forced to rethink, we will not go back to that what we consider stable, the original writers themselves, as Davi Krenak highlights in several interviews, what we want to return to was not good, there was no real happiness and well-being in what was considered normal.
As an aspect of the construction of thought, in Sloterdijk I highlight anthropotechnics, for him modernity was a de-verticalization of existence and a de-spiritualization of asceticism, while the knowledge and wisdom proposed in antiquity leave the empirical and the deceptive to go towards the eternal and of the true, as religion does not exist for him, it would be a movement of wisdom and knowledge, and not just an asceticism of exercises, where the immortal soul was exchanged for the body.
In Edgar Morin’s perspective, it is the hologrammatic perspective that can give man a vision of the whole, now fragmented by the specialization and particularity of each branch of science, a paradox of the complex system in which man is a part that must be integrated into the whole, where “not only the part is in the whole, but in which the whole is inscribed in the part”, the pandemic taught us this, but the lesson was still poorly learned, in the middle of the pandemic crisis it was decided that everything is released and there is no protocol for protection of all in each (each part), and there is no co-immunity.
Scientific truth and humility
02
Feb
From the Copernican revolution, with the discovery of Galileo
and with the scientific advances it should be clearer, even more now with the discoveries of unknown forces of the universe and with the new telescopic James Webb, it should be more and more clear that the man does not he is the center of the universe, although he is capable of doing a lot of damage if he does not put aside the anthropocentric and enlightened vision that places him as an “all-powerful”.
Schopenhauer also followed, one of the first to criticize the Kantian “thing-in-itself” and his metaphysical system of putting in its place a “Will” (which is the same thing as when man was placed as the center of the universe and the earth where its center inhabits), opened a new philosophical perspective where nothing exists on purpose, everything and we are all consequences of an endless system, with determinations and goals, and that we are responsible for one fate hurting the other, we are hurting ourselves.
In this way Schopenhauer wanted to represent in a compassionate way that he can represent in himself the pain of another, and this would be a great step towards peace, although the phrase of this philosopher is capital: “Man is properly speaking, an animal that attacks” (Arthur Schopenhauer), which goes back to the “wolf man of man” and justifies an aggressive state.
The well-known foundation of Kantian ethics is the categorical imperative (act in such a way as to be a model for others) that serves to guide the actions of subjects, and this in turn is the principle of a “factum” of reason, which is part of the world. numenic, which manages to influence (not in principle sense) the phenomenal world, in order to guide the actions of the rational subject in a universal and necessary way, Schopenhauer at this point makes an important criticism, although it is not enough for a deep criticism of this ethics.
For him, the Kantian ethical program is meaningless because it has as its ultimate foundation of action a metaphysical aspect that disqualifies actions that come from any other instance than reason, the relationship that exists between reason and metaphysics (see that the Kant’s metaphysics is not part of the world, but it is neither theological nor divine), is that rational subjects (transcendental in relation to objects) share the unknowable, since they are able to think about metaphysical things, but not know them.
Numenic refers to what is known without being part of the senses, it is a criticism of empiricism but does not recognize the phenomenal (which manifests itself as a thing).
This gap where there is no mystery, it is natural that it has distanced itself from divine and theological transcendence, but it is an objectified reason, without subjective aspects, that is, proper to the subject, and Schopenhauer correctly points to the pain of the other who is capable of conceiving. , but this principle of compassion will not have a development, other phenomenological authors deal with the question of the Other, and this is a principle for the critique of reason.
Covid 19: increase in the number of deaths
31
Jan
The rhythm and curve in each country are different, Europe, even in
the middle of winter, saw the curve increase exponentially and only later did they take sanitary measures, in some countries including with lockdown, Asian countries, especially China and Japan, faced with strict isolation measures. and were successful in controlling the new wave, the winter Olympics that are about to begin in Beijing will not have an audience and the measures for the delegations have been a rigorous testing control.
A WHO official Van Kherkhove warned of the assumption that the virus will go softer with mutations: “There is no guarantee of that”, of course we hope so: “but there is no guarantee of that and we cannot bet on it”, justifying that measures sanitation services are still sorely needed.
In Brazil, there is an increasing number of daily infections, which approach the record of 200 thousand (graphic), and an increase in daily deaths that exceeds 800, with a moving average around 500, the increase is significant and there is no visible stabilization or decline trend, several states register an increase, only Pernambuco, Pará and Rondônia register stability.
The policy that believes, by hypothesis, that the pandemic is passing or that it can become an endemic is still without clear scientific data, the very seriousness of the omicron that is less lethal does not have a precise assessment, working on preventive when it comes to life is the most prudent thing the authorities can do.
We hope and as we said last week, we believe in the power of positive thinking and believing in hope, that everything can be close to an end of the pandemic, but caution is still necessary with decisions that release the people and public events that may be responsible for a greater number of infections and deaths.
There are forces that can change the course of catastrophe
27
Jan
The idea of some imminent catastrophe to happen is in the air, it’s
not just apocalyptics, but natural scientists who see planetary depletion (glaciers, species extinction, climate change, earthquakes, etc.), political scientists about the ideological tension that returns remembering the cold war, and it would be possible to avoid or at least have a positive reaction to it, the pandemic looks like it was a training and the rehearsal doesn’t look good.
One of the recent mysterious discoveries made by astronomers is that an object in our “galactic backyard”, which means at 4 thousand light years, a space object was found, as being a neutral star or white dwarf are only hypotheses, in which this object produces powerful beams of energy, the strange object (pictured) launches the beam of powerful energy that crosses the line of sight of the earth observed by astronomers and published in the journal Nature (see in ICRAR), are something unusual in space observations.
Natasha Hurley-Walker, from Curtin University’s International Center for Radio Astronomy Research, leads the team that made the discovery and stated: “This object was appearing and disappearing for hours in our observation…. It was kind of scary for an astronomer because there is nothing known in the sky that does that.”
There are also powerful forces that act in our midst, it is not just about cheap exploitations of prayers or positive feeling that can lead to the improvement of an environment and people, a set of words and actions taken in a positive direction for a given problem can and should able to resolve or change situations where the problem or conditions are great.
In addition to the pandemic, which some want to decree the end as if it were that simple, we have the tension of an imminent war, and we should have no doubt that all people who can speak, ask, meditate or pray that an atrocity of this size does not occur. they must do it, in war only civilians, the poor and the weakest who suffer, there is no palpable or healthy solution that comes from provoked catastrophes.
Mysterious object unlike anything astronomers have seen before – ICRAR
Language and empathy
21
Jan
José Saramago expressed this about the opinion that people have
on different subjects: “The problem is not that people have opinions, this is great. The problem is that they have opinions without knowing what they are talking about”, in times of social media it is very common to repeat illustrious strangers because they said an impact phrase, but when it is placed in an appropriate context or if one penetrates the subject in question, one can have a more sensible opinion.
Everything is controversial today and in a way almost everything has become mere opinion, the doxa of the Greeks, in this context the problem of language is extrapolated and empathy is increasingly rare in everyday language, if the problem at the origin of modern society in classical antiquity was sophistry, everything was argued just to please the ruling power, the problem today is to see this disseminated in everyday language, care with language, respect for others and respectful listening must be part of empathic language.
It is not just central politics that has deteriorated, or democracy that has gone into crisis, the choices of savior leaders of the homeland, the little discussion of the de facto problems that affect the population, in full pandemic expansion little is said about effective measures against it. , just to give a serious example, the whole problem seems to be the vaccination of children, which is undoubtedly urgent, but everyone has several cases of family or close infection in the neighborhoods where they live.
Re-educating everyday language, reintroducing respect for any citizen, of any race, color or religion, should be a common effort to improve social empathy.
Even in religious language, previously extremely respectful and loving, a more separatist and isolationist conception seems to evolve where the different is isolated and frowned upon.
It is necessary to find space, time and place where the first truths can be spoken, where the original cultures can manifest and be heard.
In many cultures, religions and theories there is a central node there where the deepest truths are spoken.
The biblical passage in which Jesus reveals who he really is and what he came to should be the central point of analysis of his language and his mission, went to Nazareth, the city where he was raised and could be seen as an ordinary person, an empathic attitude, going the synagogue on the Sabbath day they gave the book of the prophet Isaiah (Is 61) and there he read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor: he has sent me to proclaim the deliverance of the prisoners and, for the blind, the recovery of sight; to give freedom to the oppressed, he sent me to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord”, closed the book and then surprised everyone by saying: “Today this passage of Scripture that you have just heard has been fulfilled” (Lk 1:14). -21) (In the photo the signature of the prophet Isaiah, National Geographic).
Verbal, mixed and mystical language
20
Jan
Verbal language is one in which we find only words (it can be
primary, secondary or written orality), while non-verbal language involves gestures, visual signs, images, figures, drawings, photos, colors and even music, but communication can be realized beyond the gesture and then becomes a mystical communication.
It is not specific to religions, close people, lovers and even children can communicate with this perfection without the exclusive use of verbal or written language, it is beyond autosuggestion involves the theme that we develop further behind empathy, the vigor of a loving relationship or simply a great opening of the soul.
But the mystical language to make itself revealed to many and to be understood uses mythical resources, figures of speech, parables and even poetry, as Heidegger already thought who considered it an “other function” of language, the verses are rich in metaphors. , symbols and stories such as the passage of the Samaritan who helps a person who was robbed and attacked on the road to explain that helping the Other, mercy with those who suffer and helping is always a divine “will” for man.
However, it happens that many passages are read and analyzed out of context or out of the hermeneutic meaning of their realization, if in the past several linguistic resources were needed to read mystical documents, among them the Bible, the Quran or the book of Vedas, it does not mean that they can be read without the necessary hermeneutics.
Also updating them just to make political use, whatever the ideological tendency that makes it is a suspect hermeneutic because it depends on a certain historical conception, and we know that the sacred text, except for its contextual reading, must refer to a timeless and divine reality. aspatial (although the term does not exist), but considering the earthly life of everyone who reads it, it is on this that a good hermeneutic must be based.
The Bible does not mean anything other than what was written from a verbal word, the Christian gospels represent a review and a re-reading of the facts and verbal accounts of the early times of Christians that began with the public life of Jesus, period of domination of the Roman Empire and in which, besides him, many others claimed to be prophets.
The mystical language finds correspondence when a certain soul is in tune with the “divine will”, in the Christian saying, attentive to the Holy Spirit and having a special grace for this, which is very different from common influencers in our days due to the media powers and to the appeals to our human needs, one must be attentive to the divine, of course this is for those who believe, although also a perfect non-verbal communication can perfectly happen between those who do not believe, but it will be devoid of any divine revelation.
Language, speaking and native culture
19
Jan
In the work of Heidegger: Hölderlin and the essence of poetry, 
read in Heidegger (1992) speaks of the essence of poetry as a type of primordial language, an original speech that precedes and makes possible the common language, the communication, this refers to an unprecedented fusion of horizons in language and language, classically defines language as: “it is an organized set of elements (sounds and gestures) that enable the communication of a given nation or culture”, while language would encompass a broader set that includes the ability of human beings to develop and understand the language, as if it were possible to dissociate it from contexts, cultures and forms of communication linked to culture.
The common language in which a certain original culture is communicated, keeps its own forms of a linguistic code that is necessary for each original language and develops in a creative way in order to preserve it, this speech (or word) is said to be that one. who names the gods, and does so to respond to a cultural appeal.
If in the past narratives included myths, symbols and poetic hooks to connect the narrative, today it is no different, there is always in speech some belief and some fantasy, without which poetic language would be a mere exercise in rhetoric, and it is not, and this appeal to fantasy, imagination and the transcendent is part of the human and the divine.
Wanting all speech to be pragmatic and objective is to reduce it to the context of pure formal logic, scientific exercise also often needs some exercise in the beyond, in the imagination to find answers that are not just there as a logical equation.
It is not pure daydreaming, beliefs and imaginaries have always been part of human history, it is a just desire to go further, to seek higher flights and to imagine as possible something beyond the boring and heavy day to day, even though it may contain joys. and flavors, the threshold of openness to different original cultures cannot be linked only to objective and simple realism.
In the photo above, a syncretic church built in Kazan, started in 1992, therefore, in the post-Soviet period, capital of Tatarstan (Russian Republic, but with a totally different culture) where, even with the predominance of Islam followed by the Orthodox Church, it is at the same time a symbol of resistance to the Russian linguistic complex and capable of building a work of such great significance where different religions can express themselves, an eclectic work by the architect Ildar Khanov.
HEIDEGGER, M. (1992) Arte y poesía. Argentina, Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Truth and language
18
Jan
Is it possible to really speak? or to ask a more contemporary
question, is it possible to deny the truth without falling into relativism? Only the logical truth that comes from Parmenides “being is and non-being is not”, was expressed until very recently as the only truth, but it is the foundation of positivism and dualistic logic, the idea of considering historicity and the hermeneutic circularity places subject and object within a relationship with language.
In this scope of the language of language, truth is re-signified, no longer conceived as unique, as a faithful description, and starting to be seen as a partial, creative but limited redescription of things, as a possible interpretation in a given context and cultural situation determination. , for this it is necessary to understand language as something prior to everyday language, what Heidegger called attention to in Hölderlin’s poetics as the essence of poetry as a type of primordial language, an originary speech that precedes and makes possible the common language, the Communication.
How then is it possible to speak of the truth? It is only possible to speak of the truth taking into account the historicity and hermeneutic circularity of subject and object, which are within the scope of language. Thus, the truth is re-signified, no longer conceived as unique, as a faithful description, starting to be seen as a partial, creative and limited redescription of things, as an interpretation among other possible ones. One possibility of speaking in truth is through language. But for that, it is necessary to resort to an understanding of language that is prior to the language of everyday life, of communication. In Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry, Heidegger (1992, p. 125-148) speaks of the essence of poetry as a type of primordial language, an originary speech that precedes and makes possible the common language, the communication;
Since language is the mediation of our relationship with being, it is what establishes this relationship, more clearly what is said in Heidegger: “where does man assume the requirement to enter the essence of something? Man can only assume this demand from where he receives it. It receives it in the appeal of language … it is language that, first and ultimately, beckons us to the essence of something” (HEIDEGGER, 2002, P. 167-168).
Thus, the truth must be understood in the context of the linguistic turn (or reversal), the contemporary rediscovery of the importance of language and it cannot be separated from the original historicity, the one that refers to the culture of the peoples and religions of the past and the present.
HEIDEGGER, M. (2002). Ensaios e leituras (Essays and lectures). Brazil, Petrópolis: ed. Vozes.
Covid Brazil: Pressured health system and increase
17
Jan
The increase recorded in the first weeks of January in Brazil in Covid
cases, with a predominance of the ômicron variant, is very high and there is no tendency to stabilize, the health system is pressured by the increase in hospitalizations and the presence of the H3N2 flu that has also appeared , it’s usually only expected at the beginning of winter around April and May, but this year it came earlier.
The numbers are uncertain, but there is a significant increase (see graph), there is little testing and a crash in the Ministry of Health data that drags on for more than a month, this jeopardizes the adoption of policy and the effective control of the pandemic, as explained to the press the infectologist and researcher at Fiocruz: “We cannot plan the opening of new hospital services, testing centers, opening of new beds and understand the regions where the impact of the new variant is greater” and the numbers are expected to increase in February.
It is a fact that the infection of this variant is less serious, but it is not certain that this would be an indication of the end of the pandemic and care should be maintained, the end-of-year parties and the release of public events, there is already some setback in these measures. , were vectors of propagation of the variant that is more infectious than the previous ones.
Brazilian neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis denied that the ômicron variant could be the end of the pandemic, stressing that mutations are probabilistically chaotic and it is not possible to predict the next variant or some point of linear weakening of the virus, it is likely that we will still have to live with it. for a long time, and the neuroscientist warns what is already happening in England and the United States where the health system can collapse at any moment, once it is under pressure. and warns that it is possible to reach a point of chronic Covid, this is a state in which the hospital system can no longer handle the volume of cases that happen and with palliative treatments only without being able to effectively treat the disease.
With this weekend’s numbers in Brazil, it reached close to 50,000 daily cases, the expectation is to grow until the end of February and the already pressured health system could collapse, while the authorities monitor without really data. valid and reliable data from the pandemic.
Vaccination of children began in Brazil, at the age of 5 to 11 years, with the Comirnaty vaccine (Pfizer/BioNTech) but the number of doses available is uncertain, the health secretariats have opened registration for scheduling that, in addition to avoiding agglomerations, can do a forecast as doses are available
