Arquivo para June, 2018
Small things make a difference?
15
Jun
The answer is yes, though we often imagine that a small act of concord, honesty, or hope can mean a 
naive act, not the same when we think of the physical sense, but everyday thinking remains the mechanic.
Quantum physics and complexity theory have demonstrated this (the name chaos is also misinterpreted because it is the fact that not everything is linear), but it seems more “organized”, more “logical” binary logic of the yes and no, and in this case also has nothing to do with the digital world, only with idealistic thinking.
Also the biblical wisdom and the teachings of Jesus reflected this, in the words of the evangelist Mark, “The Kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, when it is sown on the earth, it is the least of all the seeds of the earth.
When it is sown, it grows larger than all the greenery, and extends branches so large that the birds of the sky can shelter themselves in its shade “(Mark 4: 31-32), who has seen a grain of mustard and saw your tree know this. It is easier and more tempting to follow the current.
But if with small daily gestures we make a difference it gradually changes the culture around us and can spread to other people, just as a vicious circle is difficult to break, a virtuous circle transforms the habits and the environment in which we are inserted.
This is valid for nature, for example for ecological concern and not infrequently we already see many people worrying about the selection of waste, with trees and animals, this will make a difference over the years, it is a new culture that create.
The question of honesty is a reflection of the world of corruption, if we take away small acts of daily corruption we may over the years make corruption something truly heinous, said one activist: “it will be remembered as terrible as slavery.”
It is necessary to apply and be resilient in small acts of daily attitudes of truth and justice.
Chaos and small things
14
Jun
Although chaos suggests something totally disorganized, such as physical and mathematical theory it
means highly sensitive and dependent dynamic systems of their initial conditions, and most systems as they are complex, depend on these conditions (see previous post).
As the system evolves and if we can think of this system over many years, the system that could move “linearly” undergoes profound changes, and this time when the system undergoing changes becomes unpredictable, it is called Lyapunov’s stability period (the above fractal), for example, this calculated period for the sun is approximately 50 million years, it can be calculated for any dynamic system.
At this point complexity theory are united, dynamic systems are complex if seen for long periods, sensitivity of the initial conditions, they can determine the changes in these periods of Lyapunov and Chaos theory, all systems are in constant organization and this can cause great instabilities , depending on the weather.
So small things are unstable over the years and depending on the initial conditions, they are small things like a butterfly wing.
What we can do over the years then is to apply these concepts to human culture, to civilizing processes and to daily conversations and dialogues, thinking about human systems.
Thinking about nature, the planet and indirectly in society, it is necessary not to change the treatment of soil, water, plants and animals, so that in the future a little distant, now not so much, guarantee the stability of the planet, planting of food and an indispensable harmony of nature, in flowers, fruits and beauty.
The theory of chaos is therefore not a theory of the mess, it is precisely the opposition to it, if Francis Bacon and others spoke in the field of Nature, not least his maxim that said “you can not dominate nature without following it “Which means to obey its laws”,
Can a butterfly wing strike cause a tornado?
13
Jun
The so-called butterfly effect, arose from an article by E. Lorenz in 1975 in an
atmospheric forecasting journal and for this reason was a long time concealed as a “phenomenon”.
The first question is this, there is even this article, because it is so little mentioned even more in Brazil since the name of the country appears in the title: “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set off the Tornado in Texas? “, yes the article does exist.
The other two questions posed by Lorenz himself are: if a single butterfly could generate a tornado, the earlier or subsequent wing beats could also cause the millions of other butterflies as well, and if they could cause they could also avoid them.
What Lorenz proposed in general terms + and that minuscule perturbations do not increase or decrease the frequency of events like tornados, the question he puts in his article is that the immediate influence of a single butterfly can make the presence of a tornado evolve in two different situations, being able in some very early instance to decide its presence or not.
This small event can be fundamental, linked to others, able to modify the regime of the winds and the temperature in a vast region, would spend hours and the meeting of the masses of air can provoke a heavy rain in areas that before was determined sun.
Hence Poincare enunciated in 1908 as “sensitivity of the initial conditions,” but it must be said that the formulation of Lorenz’s chaotic systems distanced itself much from what is called nonlinear systems in mathematics, from the idea that linear is the most common, while unstable or chaotic are unconventional.
Most systems are unstable, and this is fundamental, Heisenberg of whom we spoke in our previous post, said: “quantum physics has defeated the causality and certainty that stable and predictable systems offer us, its phrase is famous:” Physics quantum provided the definitive refutation of the principle of causality. ”
Small actions, in human systems, can also cause huge differences and lead human systems to stability or not
The whole and the part
12
Jun
An essential question of small things is not to imagine them totally unconnected, this is a complex
problem for modern man, because his vision was shaped by idealism to see things in pieces, in isolated parts, without forming a whole.
It is thus for philosophy, for the sciences, for the arts, and even for religion, which sees God as the essence of the “whole,” but almost always segregates it from human realities. A great master and thinker on the subject, his book “The part and the whole”, has just this name was Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976).
The book can be considered his intellectual autobiography, where it makes dialogues with Einstein, Bohr, Planck, Dirac, Fermi, Pauli, Sommerfeld, Rutherford among the most prominent names of the physics of his time, as well as philosophical dialogues with other colleagues.
According to the author in the preface: “Modern atomic physics has shed new light on philosophical, ethical, and political problems. Perhaps this book can contribute to the understanding of the fundamentals of this discussion by the greatest number of people. ”
It is difficult to summarize the ideas of this book, segment it would contradict the proposal itself, but the winner of the Nobel Prize in physics at age 31 (in 1932 therefore) for the formulation of the principle of Uncertainty, said about his book: “I intended to convey, those who are far from atomic physics, an impression of the movements of thought (Denkbewegungen) that accompanied the history of the emergence of this science. ”
The part, however small it is essential to the whole, from the modern atomic and quantum physics, and segments it is to realize the atomic fission, a rupture with nature and man.
Butterflie´s effect and the little things
11
Jun
It seems that to change the world to change everything we must do great things, great projects
and in fact not really, small things can make a lot of difference, and the first thing we can change is ourselves, according to Plato’s phrase: “if wants to move the world, the first step will be to move oneself. ”
The butterfly effect, researched and defended by Edward Norton Lorenz, who even created the figure to the side, has double meaning first that he discovered that a butterfly’s wing beat could influence the climate, according to which the graph that created this effect physics heat convection model has the shape of the wings of a butterfly.
Lorenz was simulating global climate models on a computer, and executed another model that by removing some houses after the comma the processing time would be shorter and the result quit faster, in practice it slightly changed the process conditions, and the results were quite divergent.
This means in practice that small actions and interventions in phenomena can along a course influence them deeply, which gives us hope because so little that we do correct, honest and ethical inspiration can in the future dramatically change things, Of course, other people will need to do small things.
A personal experience was to lose a loved one by suicide, made me think a lot wondering what could have happened to that person, after much suffering a psychologist explained to me that not only social and emotional but also genetic, physical and emotional factors could determine the action of that person.
Thinking in the positive sense we can make small gestures, a child asked me to play ball with her, I was hurrying, I stopped and I played for five minutes with her, there the neighbor of a building that saw me with a bag in hand, told me can go now I play with the kid (kids in Portugal).
Also thinking about Brazil, the enormous suffering with all negative social and political events, we must try to see small actions that can be done, to make people aware and to listen when someone is very convinced of their point of view.
I see that Portugal left the crisis winning and recovering the optimism as a people, they did not lose hope, although the crisis has reached many people and still there are reflexes, but it is noticeable the improvement.
Can a Divided House Survive
08
Jun
The word is bible, but true for many countries across the earth and for
the planet as a whole, it takes a minimum of unity to progress and ensure progress for all.
Unity is compromised and risk of wars, in addition to the intermittent wars in Africa, the Middle East and tensions in several European countries, may at some point break like the Guatemalan volcano and the consequences would be unpredictable.
The tension with Will will happen again, and also North Korea still has remnants of threat, as well as social tensions throughout Latin America.
How to react to all this? it is necessary to seek points of unity and dialogue, the war has no winners all lose, and of course, the powerful and the war industry to profit.
The Biblical word for Mark 3: 23-25 says, “Then Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables,” How can Satan cast out Satan? and a kingdom divides against itself, it can not stand. If a family divides itself against itself, it can not stand, “and beyond the idea of the kingdom of God, which is evident, there is also a word to man: oneness.
Unity is a divine word, of course it is always about a certain tension: inequalities, injustices, exclusions, prejudices are all inherent forms of divisions, but even in these cases dialogue is possible and fundamental, the idea that violence alone destroys violence is warlike
Looking at the upcoming elections in Brazil, it is necessary to seek points of convergence, more than a dozen candidates is an absurdity in cost and confusion for the simple people, we must debate idea and programs under pain of accepting an adventurer or dictator.
Dialogue can be harsh and even harsh, but it is necessary to bend over so as not to break up and build partisan fronts around programs and proposals, and hope too.
Postmodern dualism
07
Jun
Hegel is too tedious even for those who dominate philosophical discourse,
and I think in particular that the question of objectivism x subjectivism, natural x cultural, and other questions posed by thought of modernity, and which are current in everyday life, is already at another point.
The point I place is that of the infernal dichotomies of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro: “Cannibal metaphysics: lines of poststructural anthropology” (Katz Editores, 2010), although there may be a Portuguese edition, a Spanish edition, translated from French, fell into my hands .
It caught my attention because he begins the book on issues that I think are fundamental: the return to things, perspectivism, multinaturalism and anthropological schizophrenia.
The beginning of the first chapter “Anti-narcissus” confesses that he abandoned the idea of making a book to write about it, as Borges did, and he posed a question: “what should be the conceptual anthropology of the peoples that he studies?” “Differences and internal mutations of anthropological theory are explained mainly (and from a historico-critical point of view only) by structures and conjunctures of social formations, ideological debates, intellectual fields and academic contexts that have emerged researchers ? is this the only relevant hypothesis? It would not be possible to proceed from a perspective that shows that the most interesting of the concepts, problems, entities and agents introduced by the anthropological theories have their origin in the imaginative capacity of the societies (or of the peoples, or of the collectives) that propose explain? “(Viveiros de Castro, 2010, p.14).
To these questions he finally penetrates the infernal dichotomy which I consider essential in modernity: “It will not be where the originality of anthropology resides, in this alliance, which is always equivocal but often fruitful, between conceptions and practices from the worlds of the” subject “and of the object” ? “(Idem).
The anti-Narcissus question then is epistemological, that is, politics, and the author states that if everyone is more or less in agreement that it requires a decolonization of thought, and in this lies the anti-narcissus.
Viveiro de Castro’s speech is consistent because he affirms that the “other” is always thought and “invented” according to the sordid interests of the West, and then will discuss “perspectivism” and “multiculturalism”, it is impossible to synthesize them in a post, then we only punctuate these perspectives,
Viveiro de Castro’s speech is consistent because he affirms that the “other” is always thought and “invented” according to the sordid interests of the West, and then will discuss “perspectivism” and “multiculturalism”, it is impossible to synthesize them in a post, then we only punctuate these perspectives, called by the author of “cannibals” or metaphysics of predation.
Perspectivism is the idea that every theory is particular and depends on the “perspective of the subject,” or multiculturalism is the idea of the “coexistence” of many cultures in different regions, but both lack and a “decolonization” of thought, so the dichotomy remains .
The dualism of Kant
06
Jun
Although Kant made a critique of Descartes, he did not penetrate the
question body and consciousness (or mind as many want), but in what he considered the core of Cartesian thought to be the “representation” of things (phenomena):
“All our intuition is no more than the representation of a phenomenon; the things we perceive are not in themselves as we perceive them, nor the relations between them are in themselves as they appear to us;
It is by what he calls a “thing” that can be confused as the phenomenon, but it is the thesis that the human being has a kind of software in his head that interprets the world: the brain is not a container to where they are ” tossed “the objects of the world, he” naturally “processes the culture of the world and sees it in a certain way.
If I lived in our time I would say that it is a painting, not a photograph, and yet I would say that the two are “representations” because it is not possible to conceive the objective reality, only subjective, that is, in the subject’s mind, dualistic
Its kind of dualism is the opposition between the concepts of “derived intuition” on the one hand, and “original intuition”, on the other hand, not an original culture but intuition.
Already the “derived intuition” is, according to Kant, the “sensible intuition” of the human being; and “original intuition” is the “intellectual intuition” that Kant says is divine and not cultural.
Do not be happy the religious, although most understand this as “transcendence” and gave in the “vague” religiosity of today, which states that any intuition is of the “Holy Spirit”, without relation to objectivity, here is the Pure Kant.
The great Kantian problem that will reflect in philosophy, that which Marx said of the old Hegelians, where Man and God are in totally separate realities and without some possibility of ontological interaction, is the “dead” God.
The Kantian thought that I consider the most essential is that:
“And if we take from the center our subject, or even the subjective constitution of the sensibility in general, the whole constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, as well as space and time, would disappear because, as phenomena, they can not exist in themselves, but only in us. ”
When modern physics discovers that space and time are not absolute, Kant’s center of gravity is “swayed” and objectivity is questioned because the subject becomes part of the phenomenon, so it is not only representation, but “ontological” part.
The rationalistic dualism
05
Jun
The basis of all Western rationalism lies in Cartesian dualism, its most essential
foundation being in res-extensive and res-cogitans, at bottom is the idea that there is a “thinking” and a “bodily” substance, mistranslated as body-mind dichotomy, in fact in terms of current philosophy is the idea that separates corporeity from historical consciousness.
Gadamer treated this in a very thorough way, first separating romantic historical consciousness, analyzing Dilthey, and then the question of theory and practice, commending the theory, against the “practitioners” who are basically modern empiricists.
Extensive Rex is what we call a thing as a material substance, while res cogitans is the thought substance, or thinking thing; in fact, the body-mind dualism is the psychophysicist, which can also be thought in present terms as body-consciousness.
The Cartesian code then what is it? is something that does not suspend the ego, the self of contemporary individualism, so it may also be called ego cogitans, as some authors do, case of Husserl and Gadamer.
The ideas that Descartes have phenomenological roots are mistaken, the reading of Husserl’s text: “from naive objectivism to transcendental subjectivism,” thus finding the “absolute rational foundation” of all positive sciences is a hasty interpretation, since they will be questioned and “included at a single stroke in the parenthesis of the epokhé,” it being known that the epokhe, as well as prior to Cartesian thought, had for ancient philosophy a complete “emptying” of categories and of the ego itself to penetrate a-letheia.
So the being of the cogitans is not, to be essential, but only residual; , not because of the transcendental reduction to “every conceivable entity for me and every sphere of being of such a being” to the absolute ego, but through logical and mathematical abstraction, having nothing to do with the transcendent.
Husserl is clear in pointing out that in § 10 of Cartesian Meditations entitled “How Descartes lacked transcendental guidance,” it is possible to grasp the pure self and its cogitationes.
The cogito ergo sum is therefore not an epokhé, for it does not suspend its own ego and its preconceptions and the tabula rasa which will be an addition of Kant will also have problems.
The dualism and the state
04
Jun
Perhaps in no area is dualism as “unjust” as in law, it is so true that for 
international law there are two theories: dualism and monism.
The dualist theory argues that international law and domestic law (that which concerns the State in relation to others) are two totally distinct and independent systems, the latter regulates relations between states and, therefore, is not obligatory among individuals, allusion to idealism is clear because the “state” as well as the “individual” are “ideal” elements.
The monist theory, on the other hand, argues that law is unique both in the relations of the State with society and in relations between States, and this current is divided into two: the first that is called internationalist monism, foreseeing that there are norms of international law to domestic law, prevails in the domestic law, and the other called Nationalist Monism that argues that in this same situation, the primacy is of the Internal Law over the International, in times of exacerbated nationalism this is important to be debated.
Brazil in its Constitution is silent (in law is silent) as to the theory adopted, but the position of the Federal Supreme Court is in the sense of a moderate Dualist Theory, receiving the International Treaty the Status of Ordinary Law, by constitutional provision, except the Human Rights treaties, whose 2nd. Of Article 5. From the Federal Constitution it attributes efficiency to normal supralegal, that is to say that it is superior to the law in the legal hierarchy.
As a matter of fact, we must have international laws beyond the general UN human rights provisions, the humiliations and prejudices with foreigners in many countries of the world have generated an odious relationship that often explodes in violence.
The need to discuss these “doctrinal” questions is time, and we should no longer speak only in the United Nations, but in a treaty of “unity” between nations, something in the line that already goes to the European Union, maybe a good way, would be the Union of Latin America, the Pan-African Union and perhaps the Asiatic, recomposing the fragmented globe to nations.
By no means does it mean the submission or denial of local cultures, quite the contrary, international agreements may prevent the submission of some “more prevalent” crops be it financial, colonial, or warlike over others.
You have to look at the planet as a whole and think about world citizenship.
