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Arquivo para a ‘Information Philosophy’ Categoria

The information paradox in the cosmos

14 Mar

The issue of information with black holes is that any object that falls there and you will never see it or have any information about what happened, even the merger of two black holes is impossible to undo, you cannot separate them and what happens?

Black holes just don’t seem to preserve any information.

Throughout the history of science, our scientific laws were written based on quantifiable observations, this information is certain measurable physical properties of matter and energy. A molecule or particle, such as a proton or an electron, for example, contains a mass value, an electric charge, a spin and several other quantum properties (number of baryons, leptons, hypercharges, etc.).

However, there was the famous Higgs or “God” particle, something that attributed mass to others and an experiment at the Large Particle Collider (hadrons) managed to detect it, in a black hole that absorbs a certain amount of particles, matter and energy throughout of time, itself is made up of particles with unique properties, and so it should contain a significant amount of information, but where is it?

The right question is where did this amount of information go? In theory, a black hole made from the collapse of a normal star, where the emerging black hole can be observed, has completely different encoded information than a black hole made from the collapse of an antimatter star (considering it possible), for example.

This is not a violation of Newtonian physical laws, but rather quantum theory itself, because when Stephen Hawking applied the rules of quantum mechanics to black holes he discovered (or supposed) that isolated systems would emit a form of radiation, called radiation. Hawking, which would be independent of the initial state of the black hole and would depend only on its mass, electric charge and angular momentum.

If information is not preserved or evaporates entirely through Hawking radiation, there is a paradox: among the most accepted hypotheses currently is string theory, the main candidate for a new unified theory of nature, which accepts that information really escapes from a black hole.

So if you jump into a black hole, you won’t necessarily be gone forever; Instead, information from your body may emerge, particle by particle, to reconstitute you in some way from these small waves, called “strings”.

Observations from the James Webb super space laboratory and continuous studies into the frontiers of thought will take us even further, towards the confines and enigmas of the Cosmos.

 

Between heights and human smallness

12 Mar

Before achieving air travel, now space travel, man delighted in the heights of the mountains, the dizzying landscapes of peaks, gorges and paths in the heights that could contemplate the houses, cities and vegetation in the distance.

A text that talks about these sensations, and the beginning of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, was written by Rüdiger Safranski, author of renowned works on Heidegger and Nietzsche, who also wrote about the rebellious philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in a work entitled: “Schopenhauer and the wildest years of philosophy” (Brazil, São Paulo: Geração Editorial, 2011).

In it the author tells of Schopenhauer’s experience at the age of 16 when he climbed Mount Pilatus (near Lucerne, Switzerland) in the company of a mountain guide, the text says: “I felt vertigo when I first saw that encompassing space that I understood what was in front of me… I realized that such a panorama, seen from the top of the mountain, was so extraordinary that it led me to expand all my previous concepts. It is so different from everything else that it becomes impossible to give a real description of its scope for those who have not had the opportunity to see it.”

The text continues: “All smaller objects simply disappear, only greatness can be understood as a whole. All things mix with each other; one no longer sees a smaller number of isolated objects, but an immense, colorful, brilliant image, on which the gaze lingers for a long time, full of pleasure”, our highlight.

Safranski’s sagacity in describing the philosopher is important to understand how he sees beauty and the world, he no longer sees “isolated objects”, but in the eyes we become only “the eyes” on an “immense, colorful and brilliant image”.

He tells of another strong experience, but this one more “human”, when on July 30, 1804, when the great journey was already approaching its end, he climbed the Scheekopp mountain (The Snow Peak), in Silesia, then German, but today in Poland. The very old photo above is from this region, in this region when climbing the mountain they had to stop for the night in a cabin on an intermediate plateau, at the foot of the highest peak of the mountain (it´s in the background).

He says about this experience “we entered a unique room full of drunken shepherds… Their animalistic heat was unbearable… it produced a burning heat”, says Safranski of the passage that “it was from here that Schopenhauer took his later metaphor of the porcupines that they pushed themselves against each other to defend themselves from the cold and fear”, Schopenhauer’s readers will understand the image that somehow permeates his speech.

There is merit in Schopenhauer for removing all idealism and romanticism from the philosophical and literary reading of his time, his vision of seeing objects “from above” made him escape from idealism, but his vision of men is pessimistic and the metaphor of hedgehogs demonstrates this.

On a frame in the hut where a book is attached to write down memories, is what was written by Schopenhauer: “Who can rise above the mountains and then remain silent?”

However, the discoveries of post-idealism, post-Enlightenment are that the Cosmos is larger and enigmatic.

 

Non-thought today

07 Mar

Heidegger’s text on Serenity, written in 1949 at a ceremony commemorating the centenary of Conradin Kreutzer’s death, in his hometown Meßkirch, which, as it was also Martin Heidegger’s hometown, was called to speak at the event, book This is part of your speech.

The text of serenity reveals how much we are induced to a calculated thought that runs from opportunity to opportunity, it is fundamental to understand that what is attributed to the digital world, was already happening long before this, and is not restricted to the digital universe: “ this thought continues to be a calculation, even if it does not operate with numbers, nor does it use a calculating machine, nor devices for large calculations” (pg. 13), even long before the digital universe, he talks about it and says that it is not the one you’re talking about.

The dynamic that many attribute to the digital universe was already very present in modern man: “thought that calculates (rechnend Denken) never stops, never comes to meditate. The thought that calculates is not a thought that meditates (ein besinnliches Denken), it is not a thought that reflects (nachdenkt), it is not the meaning that reigns in everything that exists” (idem, pg. 13), that is, of the late 1940s and before modern computers.

It is worth translating the German words: ein besinnliches Denken (a contemplative thought) and nachdenkt (to think about) and das rechnend Denken (calculative thought).

Thus, for the philosopher there are two forms of thought: that which calculates and that which meditates, and it can be thought that the second does not perceive reality, “contributes nothing to carrying out praxis” (pg. 14), can lead to pure reflection, persistent meditation being “too “high” for common understanding” (idem).

The author says that the only correct thing is that the truth of a thought that meditates appears as little spontaneously as the thought that calculates, both require efforts.

The fact that contemporary man is linked to a way of thinking is because this is the current way in which thought was elaborated and trained, linked to rational and ideal logos.

However, he considers that each person can follow the paths of reflection within their limits and in their own way: “We do not, therefore, in any way need to elevate ourselves to the “higher regions” when we reflect. We just need to linger (verweilen) close to what is close and meditate on what is closest: what concerns each one of us, here and now; here, in this piece of homeland; now, in the present universal hour” (pg. 14).

Of course, Heidegger reflected on the celebration in his hometown, but this applies to all the events we experience in our lives.

Heidegger, M. (no date) Serenidade (Serenity). Transl. de Maria Madalena Andrade e Olga Santos. Lisboa: Instituto Piaget, s/d.

 

 

 

There is an inner Being

07 Feb

The philosopher Hannah Arendt had already developed the theme of Vita Contemplativa, and the Korean-German essayist Byung Chul-Han expands on this theme in his book with the same name, but we will only point out the new features there, including what he takes from Heidegger that It’s the disposition.

In Being and Time, Heidegger works on the verb stimmen, using the conjugation stimmung (which is translated as disposition) and also uses Gestiment-Sein (to be willing), but which in German is something like being in tune, being in tune with something and This modifies the concept of intention.

Literally disposition, a state of mind precedes any intentionality referred to objects: “Disposition has already opened up, however, being-in-the-world as a whole, and makes primarily possible a direction towards [something]” (Heidegger apud Han, 2023, p. 66).

Thus, the relationship with the external world, with objects, with beings and with everything that comes from outside the Being, means that we are disposed, says the text: “Disposition opens up to us the space only in which we confront ourselves with a entity. It reveals the Being” (Han, idem).

This vision transforms what we are and what we think, in spiritual terms, what the soul is disposed to and what it is directed towards from interiority, says the text: “The contemplative dimension that inhabits it transforms it into a correspondence. It corresponds to what “addresses us as the voice [Stimme] of being”, by allowing itself to be defined by it” (Han, 2023, p. 67).

Thus thinking becomes something other than logical articulation or narrative discourse: “Thinking means “opening our ears”; that is, listen and listen carefully. Speaking presupposes listening and responding. “Philosophia is the truly consummate correspondence that speaks attentively to the call of the being of beings. The correspondent hears the voice of the call […]” (Han, 2023, pgs. 67-68).

All of this seems excessively philosophical and in fact it is, but it means, as the author states, that something defined, and we have many pre-arranged definitions, is something that is condensed in our mind and our thoughts “in the pre-reflective scope”, I mean inside us.

So it is what we have inside, in our interiority that helps or limits us, says the author quoting Heidegger again: “If the fundamental disposition is left out, then everything is a forced cluster of concepts and shells of words” (Heiddeger apud Han, p. 68).

Thus, it is not the outside and what we take outside of ourselves that defines us, but what we have inside and that is why interiority is fundamental for any analysis.

 

HAN, Byung-Chul. (2023) Vita contemplativa: ou sobre a inatividade. Trad. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.

 

 

Ontology and Power

26 Jan

Not the external aspects that show what kind of power we nurture and defend on a daily basis, but those that we concretely place inside our Being and practice as a consequence of what we have inside.

Just like vices, virtues can also have a virtuous circle, they can become habits, and in the face of each phenomenon or thing, we take an attitude that has a good or bad intention.

Power is strength, capacity and, at the same time, authority, but there is the authority of testimony and public recognition, which is a power that is imposed through respect, the only relationship that can give it symmetry (equality before the Other) , and there is the power of force, the one that leads to oppression and ultimately, wars.

We find this in the philosophy of Idealism, which led to a conception of the Absolute and the State, whose peak was Hegelian idealism, and we can find it in everyday life in theories of self-esteem, self-valuation to the detriment of the Other and literature that emphasize the “I”.

Ontology, which is the deepest study of Being and Entity, on the contrary, goes in search of the deepest roots of Being and individual fulfillment without forgetting the relationship with the Other and with things, yes there is an emphasis on “things” today (see Non-Things by Byung Chul Han) however, concrete relationships with nature, food and money say something about who we are.

In this philosophy, the essence is treated as a characteristic element of being in someone, like rationality, which makes man, for Saint Thomas Aquinas, the essence is “quiddity” (the thing in itself) or “nature” encompasses everything that It is expressed in the definition of the thing, both in its form and its matter.

There are no concepts in Ontology, but rather conceptualization, which is a relationship with Being on languages.

This philosophy, although metaphysical, is considered realism, as opposed to nominalism where naming things and conceptualizing them is stronger than the essence of what is, we observe this in all fields of philosophy and human life, we are a “label” and not what we are interiorly and essentially.

The authority of those who expel what is bad for the essence of human life and the civilizing process must be analyzed in light of these categories and not just from the perspective of power.

The essence of Christ’s authority, which underlies his “culture” was a type of Authority in essence, says the reading: “Everyone was amazed at his teaching, because he taught with those who have authority, not with the teachers of the Law” ( Mc 1:22) and even cast out “demons”.

 

 

 

Non-things and subjectivity, the distorted eidos

12 Jan

Subjectivity comes from idealism that judges Being separate from things, thus only being if projected onto objects, but the Greek “eidos”, from which nascent idealism came, there was no such separation, both in Aristotle’s 4 causes: material, formal, efficient and final, as well as in the theory of Platonic ideas, which is the essence and which we have already related to the thing.

Those who think the world is immersed in eroticization are mistaken, be it the world of fantasy, that which comes from works of fiction, from children’s imagination and from looking with hope at a better future, today in an increasingly worrying present, Chul- Han writes like this:

“Without fantasy, there is only pornography. Today, the perception itself has pornographic features. It occurs as an immediate contact, even as a copulation of image and eye. The erotic occurs in the blink of an eye” (Han, 2022), that is, it is precisely its opposite, we are in the existential void, in the denial of Being and in it only pornography remains, as a degradation of Being.

Quoting Barthes, Hul-Han clarifies the part of the piece that is: “Absolute subjectivity can only be achieved in a state of silence, the effort to achieve silence (closing the eyes means making the image speak in the silence). Photography touches me when I remove it from its usual blahblablah […] not say anything, close my eyes […]” (Han, 2022) and he is quoting Roland Barthes in his work (photo): The camera lucida (or Lucid, depending on the translation).

Photography is therefore a way of perpetuating silence, the desire of many to take photos as an individual act is to remove it from everyday life and insert something that is eternal, while the public exposure that the digital universe has allowed is to return it to the “ usual blahblabla”, says the author: “The disaster of digital communication arises from the fact that we don’t have time to close our eyes” and maybe he doesn’t know but this is even physical, by not blinking our eyes we should use eye lubricants if We expose it for a lot of time on screens.

“Noise is both acoustic pollution and visual pollution. It pollutes attention” (Han, 2022) and citing Michel Serres says that this instinct is of animal origin, as dogs, tigers and other animals that urinate to demarcate land, pollute with their stench to inhibit other animals from approaching.

Allowing others to approach is not demarcating territory. Jesus’ biblical response to the initial contact of two new disciples is wise (John 1:38): “Jesus asked: “What are you looking for?” They said, “Rabbi (which means: Master), where do you live?” and he replied: “Come and see” and they went and stayed with Him, because he did not demarcate ground and did not close himself.

The logic of silence is contrary to noise, which does not just mean the pollution of an audible sound, but a complete void capable of containing and receiving the Other.

Han, Byung-Chul  (2022) Não-coisas : reviravoltas do mundo da vida , transl. of the Rafael Rodrigues Garcia. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: ed. Vozes.

 

 

 

Physics and the mind of God

03 Jan

The basic original question of man is language, but when searching for information man was forced to look at the universe and try to understand its enigmas, geocentrism (the earth as the center of everything), heliocentrism (the sun as the center of everything) dominated human language and thought for millennia, throughout this time anthropocentrism dominated human conception and with this the attempt to dominate all of nature grew.

However, nature is indomitable, modernity was an attempt to dominate the forces of nature and assert anthropocentrism over it, but it has its own logic, and when looking more deeply the universe that had a mythological explanation moved to a more focused focus. clear of eschatological inquiry: where did we come from and where are we going.

The book by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku: “The God equation” takes a deep dive into this issue from contemporary physics and cosmology, the physicist is the great theorist of string physics (Hyperspace is one of his books), professor at Harvard and host of programs on Discovery Channel.

In his book he explains the quest of physicists such as Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein to try to explain all the forces of the cosmos, what is called the theory of everything, and which in its current formulation is called the Standard Physics Theory, the discovery of quantum forces of particles, including the Higgs boson, the vision of the photon with a particle of zero mass, the particles of terrestrial magnetism helped this unification, but that’s not all.

Many physicists have failed, the quantum explanation breaks with the idea of ​​“thing” that some dualist authors continue to have, the “quantum” is something beyond it has a third state, called in physics the “third included” where a particle is between the Being and Non-Being and is not dual.

If this state of quantum physics is already a reality, what the particles actually are is still a mystery, and the “most promising candidate (and, in my opinion, the only candidate) is string theory, which says that the universe it is not made of point particles, but rather of tiny vibrating strings, where each mode of vibration corresponds to a subatomic particle” (Kaku, 2022).

We would need a microscope powerful enough to see electrons, quarks, neutrinos, etc. they are nothing more than vibrations of tiny loops, similar to rubber bands. If we put these elastic bands to vibrate countless times and in different ways, we will eventually be able to create all the subatomic particles in the universe, and this means that the laws of physics are summarized in these modes of vibration of the small strings.

Kaku says in the introduction to his book: “chemistry is a set of melodies that we can play with them. The universe is a symphony. The mind of God, which Einstein eloquently referred to, is a cosmic music that spreads across space-time” (Kaku, 2022).

 

Kaku, Michio. 2022. A equação de Deus (The God equation). Trans. Alexandre Cherman, Brazil, R.J.: ed. Record, 2022.

 

 

 

Narratives, Palestine and Israel

12 Dec

Primary orality, a period before printed writing, was the way of transmitting stories and the culture and tradition of people through narration. We live in modern printed culture and now a culture called “post-narrative” by Byung Chul Han emerges.

Says Han: “Today everyone talks about narrative. The paradox is that the inflationary use of narratives reveals a crisis of narration itself”, he says at the beginning of his book “The Crisis of Narration”, establishing an opposition between narratives and narration.

Prophets and oracles were responsible for narratives in the period before writing. It is worth remembering that scribes and clay tablets were present in archaic cultures, however, it was the narrative that sustained traditions in oral cultures, including original ones.

A modern interpretation, made by Walter Ong, disciple of Marshal McLuhan, is that myths were used as a mneumotechnical process, that is, “hooks” so that the narrative did not deviate from the initial narrative, maintaining cultures and traditions, thus great works of Western culture such as Iliad and Odyssey can be reread in this aspect.

The prophets do not differentiate themselves from these cultic aspects, they have the pretension or in fact they can be divine revelations, since numerous facts in these narratives reveal divine intervention, the departure of Abram (only later to be called Canaan) from the region of Chaldea, giving rise to the Hebrew people, which meant on the other side of the river, until the arrival of the region where his son Isaac will be born, but he will also have a son with the slave Hagar, called Ishmael, and only later will he have a son with Sarah, Isaac who will have two sons Esau and Jacob (later called Israel, he who wrestled with God).

Already in the mother’s womb the two were fighting and the biblical narrative says, Genesis 25:23: “And the LORD said to her: Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be divided from your womb: one people will be stronger than the other. other people, and the greatest will serve the least”.

From conception, the biblical narrative reveals two people in struggle, Rebekah was sterile and when she gave birth to the twins, Esau was born first for a few minutes and was supposed to inherit the tribes, but Jacob, using a trick of pretending to be his brother who was hairy, went to his father who is almost blind and asks him to bless him, which he does, but later realizing that he would have to fight with his brother, says the narrative, in a region called Jabbok ford (a tributary of the Jordan) he fights with an angel for God to bless him, and from then on he is called Israel, meaning one who fights with God.

However, the Ishmaelites will continue to exist and are not to be confused with the Palestinians, who come from the ancient people called Philistines, initially they were on the southwest coast of Canaan, forming Philistia, despite having adopted the local Canaanite culture, studies point to an Indo-European origin for countless words and even in the first wars they already knew how to make steel, while the Israelites still mastered bronze (in the photo the map from 830 BC).

 «Origem dos filisteus pode ser finalmente revelada por DNA antigo». National Geographic. 15 de julho de 2019 (in portuguese).  

 

 

Prudence biblical, moral or expendable virtue

07 Nov

In times of war, violence and anger, a virtue to remember is prudence.

As a philosophical meaning, prudence is seen by Aristotle as intellectual virtues, divided into 5 classes: science, wisdom, intelligence, techniques and prudence, so it can be seen as an ascetic morality, but it has historical and philosophical meaning , thus better dividing morality.

As a biblical virtue, prudence means the ability to judge between malicious and virtuous actions, not only in a general sense, but with reference to appropriate actions in a given time and place, it helps to discern what is good, fair and the means to achieve them.

As a habit, from a philosophical and moral point of view, is considered as knowledge that is acquired through habit, knowledge in general is for Aristotle indicates something that is not possessed simply by custom or conditioning, but rather as a disposition by which something or someone is well or badly disposed, either in relation to themselves, or in relation to something else (ARISTOTLE, Met. I, v. 20, 1022, b, 10-12).

We acquire these through study, demonstration, training and argumentation, so that we obtain a complete notion of a given field, master it masterfully and begin to have stable qualities of the subject that are difficult to lose (TOMÁS DE AQUINO, S.T., Iª. IIae q. 51 to 2 co.).

So it is not simply a matter of taste or will, but of how we understand intellectually and how we process habits, so prudence is a virtue acquired through understanding, practice (habit) and through stable conditions of the subject.

A return to peace and “good dispositions of the soul” cannot be obtained without the practice of these habits, if they are socially valued and without the subject and society remembering them as virtues that must be socially inserted to return to stable conditions of Society.

 

ARISTÓTELES.  (2002). Metafísica:  ensaio  introdutório.  Greek text with translation and commentary by Giovanni Reale, Transl. Marcelo Perine. Brazil. São Paulo: Loyola,. 696 p.

TOMÁS DE AQUINO.(2001-2006) Suma teológica. Brazil, São Paulo: Loyola, 9 v. 

 

Stoics, Epicureans and Cynics

14 Sep

Seneca was a lawyer and a great writer, but he was questioned a lot and is still Nero’s tutor today, it is good to remember that legend or fact Nero condemned him to suicide for treason, and the philosopher was consistent with his theory against anger and did so patiently.

His phrase is also famous: “If I decided to go through one of the current republics one by one, I would not find any capable of tolerating the wise man or one that the wise man could tolerate”, he was thus aware of his time and perhaps this is the reason why he is returning “the fashion”.

He was different from the Epicureans because he defended the public involvement of philosophers, after all this was the first argument in Plato’s time to found his academy, but Seneca even stated in “The Retreat”, that in certain circumstances it would be better to withdraw from public life, but this never meant an omission, and he explains it in “The Withdrawal” this way:

“We float, being tossed from side to side; desired things, we abandon; what was put aside, we resume. Thus, we alternate in a permanent flow of voluptuousness and regret. We are entirely conditioned by the opinions of others.”

In times of polarization, not always rational, it is also a reason for him to come back to the fore.

In addition to the Epicurean “purists” and the “retired” Stoics like Seneca, there are the Cynics, while the former valued “natural” aspects, the behavior of the Cynic philosophers pointed to a philosophical distinction between natural aspects (physis) and human customs. (nomos), a problem that permeated all the philosophical thought of Ancient Greece, reaching, in a certain way, also to the nominalists and realists of the Middle Ages.

I remember the critique of cynical reason, the work of Peter Sloterdijk, to say that the problem is current and it is no coincidence that these currents resurface, although updated by social and political problems, they point to a civilizational crisis.

The society that tries to eliminate pain, suffering, that worships “nature” is also reminiscent of the Stoics, those that try to destroy human culture and customs are reminiscent of the cynics, it must be said here that it does not mean the common sense of saying the which is not true.

Antisthenes, from Athens, and Diogenes, from Sinope, were the first cynics, they lived despising the customs and “sages” of their time, Sloterdijk says that today “is not a time suitable for thought” and in a way he is right, Cynicism comes from the Greek word kynikos, which means dogs because of the way they lived abandoned on the streets and often begging for alms.

In these thinkers there is a background of reason why they should be studied, they knew the crisis that the civilization of their time was going through, they were looking for a happy life within a troubled society and away from the false problems of their contemporaries, but Seneca and others did not omit themselves in public life, which is why they taught to value suffering and understand why.