Arquivo para September, 2021
What is natural and the possibility of knowing
16
Sep
The problem of knowing the world (natural and not 
cultural, this is what we have) must start from a premise of clearing our minds of cultural convictions, most of them idealistic, that blind us to the possibility of understanding that we do not dominate nature as proposed the Enlightenment, and worse, we run the risk of destroying it and putting civilization in check.
Quoting Edgar Morin in the epigraph of his first chapter of the book “The Nature of Nature”, I write the second in capital letters even to deify it in the sense that it is still unknown to us, and contains mystery that affects us, as proved by the current Pandemic that still challenges us.
Edgar Morin, opening the first chapter: “The Spirit of the Valley”, quotes Karl Popper: “Personally I think there is at least one problem… that interests all thinking men: the problem of understanding the world, ourselves and our knowledge as part of the world”, so this knowledge is neither definitive nor eternal, as everything evolves and is perishable.
To introduce these convictions, he makes a second quote by Jacob Bronowski: “The concept of science is neither absolute nor eternal”, and he will make a third, which is for the next post.
He begins with 5 convictions that made him start this book and where is his “cogito” his suspension of judgment of everything he thought before, his first conviction of these problems states that he: “holds us to the present, they demand that we let go of it to consider them in depth” (Morin, 1973, pg. 13), and professes his second conviction: “the principles of knowledge hide what, henceforth, it is vital to know” (idem) thus detaches himself from his previous ideas.
His third conviction is the strongest, increasingly convinced that the relationship science Ʌ politics, Ʌ ideology when it is not invisible, continues to be treated in an indigent way, through the reabsorption of two of its terms in one of them that has become dominant” (idem) , gives you food for thought.
His fourth conviction is that “that the concepts we use to conceive our society — the whole society — are mutilated and lead to inevitably mutilating actions” (idem).
Finally, his fifth conviction is: “that anthroposocial science must be articulated in the science of nature, and that this articulation requires a reorganization of the structure of knowledge itself” (Idem), so the knowledge we have needs to be modified to from its bases.
He knew that his task was really encyclopedic and vast, that’s why he even isolated himself in a castle (I don’t have the precise data) because his task: “I myself needed exceptional circumstances and conditions’ to move from conviction to action, that is, to work” (idem).
And it is from there that he wrote his complex method with three initial questions: “What does the radical self of self-organization mean? • What is the organization? • What is the complexity?” (page 14).
MORIN, E. The nature of NATURE. Lisbon PUBLICATIONS EUROPA-AMERICA, LDA., 1973.
What is natural and the possibility of knowing
15
Sep
The problem of knowing the world (natural and not cultural,
this is what we have) must start from a premise of clearing our minds of cultural convictions, most of them idealistic, that blind us to the possibility of understanding that we do not dominate nature as proposed the Enlightenment, and worse, we run the risk of destroying it and putting civilization in check.
Quoting Edgar Morin in the epigraph of his general introduction of the book “The Nature of NATURE”, he write the second in capital letters even to deify it in the sense that it is still unknown to us, and contains mystery that affects us, as proved by the current Pandemic that still challenges us.
Edgar Morin, opening the first chapter: “The Spirit of the Valley”, quotes Karl Popper: “Personally I think there is at least one problem… that interests all thinking men: the problem of understanding the world, ourselves and our knowledge as part of the world”, so this knowledge is neither definitive nor eternal, as everything evolves and is perishable.
To introduce these convictions, he makes a second quote by Jacob Bronowski: “The concept of science is neither absolute nor eternal”, and he will make a third, which is for the next post.
He begins with 5 convictions that made him start this book and where is his “cogito” his suspension of judgment of everything he thought before, his first conviction of these problems states that he: “holds us to the present, they demand that we let go of it to consider them in depth” (Morin, 1977, pg. 13), and professes his second conviction: “the principles of knowledge hide what, henceforth, it is vital to know” (idem) thus detaches himself from his previous ideas.
His third conviction is the strongest, increasingly convinced that the relationship science Ʌ politics Ʌ ideology [Ʌ in text it´s triangle] when it is not invisible, continues to be treated in an indigent way, through the reabsorption of two of its terms in one of them that has become dominant” (idem) , gives you food for thought.
His fourth conviction is that “that the concepts we use to conceive our society — the whole society — are mutilated and lead to inevitably mutilating actions” (idem).
Finally, his fifth conviction is: “that anthroposocial science must be articulated in the science of nature, and that this articulation requires a reorganization of the structure of knowledge itself” (Idem), so the knowledge we have needs to be modified to from its bases.
He knew that his task was really encyclopedic and vast, that’s why he even isolated himself in a castle (I don’t have the precise data) because his task: “I myself needed exceptional circumstances and conditions’ to move from conviction to action, that is, to work” (idem).
And it is from there that he wrote his complex method with three initial questions: “What does the radical self of self-organization mean? • What is the organization? • What is the complexity?” (page 14).
MORIN, E. The nature of NATURE. Lisbon PUBLICATIONS EUROPA-AMERICA, LDA., 1977.
Was the old normal normal?
14
Sep
In his book “A Change Path: Coronavirus Lessons Needed”,
Edgar Morin elaborates 15 lessons of the pandemic and the challenges that will come when we overcome it, and it must be said that we are still close to halfway through immunization.
He points out in his book: “Isolation was a reclusion, but also an inner liberation from timed time, the workers’ driving-work-bed rhythm, the workload of the liberal professions (…) Ending the isolation, let’s go resume the infernal race?” asks the centenary thinker.
A more sustainable world, with greater global cooperation (and fewer centralizations), harsh social isolation has shown that some of these changes are possible.
The regeneration of nature, the small respite we gave showed that nature can still recover, but with less transport, with more sustainable industries, with more solidary actions and emergency relief for the poor in vulnerable situations, with little circulation of planes and ships through the world gave some positive signs of nature.
The unpredictability of the Pandemic, the proximity of death and the halt to the force of humanity put in check old “truths” and laws that seemed solid were not, in this moment of crisis it is possible to think of a new direction, the time to “change lanes” as the sociologist wants.
In addition to a great social reform, a personal reform that takes into account all human complexity (not the man focused only on the conquest and domination of nature), the change in ethical values, and a new regenerated humanism, can be a utopia , but perhaps it is a last chance for a civilization in crisis.
Morin wrote: “Solidarity and responsibility are not only political and social, but personal imperatives. We should already understand that social reform and personal reform are inseparable. Ghandi wrote: Let’s be the change we want to see in the world”, without changing course we will arrive at the same dilemmas of modernity: injustices and tiredness.
MORIN, E. It’s time to change course – Coronavirus lessons. Bertrand of Brazil, 2020.
Slow fall and protocols
13
Sep
Although the WHO warns of the possibility of a new wave due
to inequality in the fight against the pandemic, which due to the number of vaccines also does not see priority in the third dose, even some Institutes dispute (AstraZeneca, for example), the fall in Brazil is slow, and here the controversy is due to poorly applied and punctually rigorous protocols.
In the country, the total number of doses is 210 million, but the total number of people vaccinated is 72.6 million, which gives 34.4% and it makes sense to say that the third dose is still to be thought about, since the number of vaccines is limited and yet both the fall in deaths and vaccination are slow.
There is also controversy around the vaccines, Chile is applying the third dose with Pfizer and AstraZeneca under the argument that the “combination” is good, but looking at the vaccines that are accepted in European protocols, only AstraZeneca, Pfizer , Moderna and Jenssen are consensus.
To understand the controversy created by the interruption of the Brazil x Argentina game after ANVISA’s (Brazil Agencie) requirement that 3 players be removed from the game (only 1 was on the bench), it is necessary to understand the Interministerial Ordinance 655/2021 which established a period of 14 days for quarantine set for people arriving in the country via South Africa, India and the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, and that Brazil´s International Airports are aware of, but only sign a paper.
There is no local Anvisa agency at the airport to verify that the information provided is in fact true, and only hours after this is done in specific cases that have repercussions in the press.
So there are protocols, use of masks, procedures in bars, restaurants and supermarkets, but anyone who walks around observes whole families in these places, misuse of the mask and sometimes even not using it and because of this it causes revolt, law enforcement is only punctual.
Not to mention the release and flexibility that occurs in many situations where there is agglomeration, schools, in Rio de Janeiro, a team may have fans in the game on next Wednesday, the demonstrations on September 7th and 12th, etc. finally, the protocols must be complied with, but always so that the law is effective and respected by the citizens.
There is still not a broad understanding that the fight to be effective has to be global, there has to be a basic set of protocols that all countries sign to avoid their demoralization, and these are necessary.
As for the third dose, only if there is an assumed ineffectiveness of any vaccine justifies the third dose, as they will be necessary for people who have not yet been vaccinated and for the 2nd. dose.
Between the natural and the Supernatural
10
Sep
The soul (anima in its original Greco-Latin version) was studied by 
almost all ancient philosophers, it can be summarized from the Latin “anima mundi” (soul of the world) as a cosmological concept of a ruling force of the universe by which the divine becomes manifested in laws that affect matter, or in the hypothesis of an immaterial force, as something inseparable from matter, is in Plato in the books The Republic and Timaeus.
Marsilio Vicino, Renaissance humanist, who wrote a Platonic Theology, defined it as “The soul can be called the center of nature, the intermediary of all things, the current of the world, the essence of everything, the knot and union of the world” , whatever the concept, it is a part of the natural that may have manifestations unknown to current science, and that is why it is supernatural.
But the natural that man seemed to dominate from the Enlightenment, revealed to the few more mysterious than imagined, at the beginning of the century the uncertainty principle gave rise to quantum physics and a tiny virus challenges us, and we have not overcome it, the relaxation can provoke a new crisis, like a poorly cured patient who wants to do activities that the disease does not allow.
In his book The Nature of Nature, not by chance his first book on his method of complexity, Edgar Morin will describe the Dasein of nature (from physis) as: “All systems, even those we abstractly and arbitrarily isolate from sets of which they are part (like the atom, which is moreover a partially ideal object, or like the molecule), they are necessarily rooted in the physis” (Morin, 1977, p. 133), and quoting Lupasco (creator of the idea of the included third party, state between being and non-being of matter): “A system can only be energetic” (idem).
Energy, complexity and mystery is therefore a characteristic of nature, and we have discovered over the last century that uncertainty must not only be part of a truly scientific method, its absence can lead to dogma and obscurantism.
How the supernatural manifests itself then depends on the cosmovision of each culture, without being confused with it, as it has a unique meaning within the eschatology that sees it, the beginning and end of everything, of the universe and its enigmas.
In Christian culture, the supernatural is present in the human revelation of a God who makes himself small, and the human condition is reduced to take him to the coming of eternity. Jesus forbade the apostles to speak openly about his divinity, but he questioned them (Mk 8.27-29):
“Who do men say that I am?”. They replied, “some say you are John the Baptist, some say you are Elijah, some say you are one of the prophets.” Then he asked: “And you, who do you say that I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.”
He talked separately with the disciples and was going to explain the kind of death he was going to die.
MORIN, E. THE METHOD 1. A natureza da NATUREZA (The nature of NATURE). Portugal: Europe-America Editions, 1977.
The natural and the cultural
09
Sep
The word naturalization is widely used at this time in history, 
and so this idea of the natural that permeates Western culture since classical antiquity is explained here, which actually exists is a dichotomy between culture and the natural.
The renaissance was a great movement of transformation in Western culture, the universe became infinite, new lands and new peoples entered the history of the Old World and this climate put everything in discussion, Italian humanism was one of these stages of historical movements, we quote Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Vicino and their works, but Dante Aligheri is more cited.
Dante’s Ulysses will cross the Pillars of Hercules of scientific knowledge, philosophy, technique, mathematics, arts and letters, challenging previous dogmas, but physics and the domain of nature are placed on opposite sides, although the Copernican Revolution is the great symbol of this turn, it will be the domain of nature that will develop in the next moment.
The idea of limitlessness, predictability, and certainties accompanied the philosophy of modernity until the advent of quantum physics, while science sought the domain of the natural, and we now see the consequences of this domain on the planet in ecological crisis, point physics The beginning of the Copernican revolution continued to move towards the mystery of particles to atomic subparticles, from harmonic universe to chaos with black holes, with worm paths that contradict absolute time.
The uncertainties reached science, and Edgar Morin recalls that one of the consequences of the current pandemic in an interview stated: “We do not know the political, economic, national and planetary consequences of the restrictions caused by the confinements. We don’t know whether to expect the worst, the best, or both mixed up: we are heading towards new uncertainties”, and this is the future.
The naturalization of historical contexts (race, ethnicity and sexism, for example), is actually a culturalization (although the term does not exist), and the so-called scientific epistemologies were important for this, mainly from a historical point of view, where they were transformed into culture because they were not natural and not even real, but versions of history.
The planet, society and civilization are asking for a truce, and we do not know if it will be possible to deliver it, the climate is increasingly tense, and a consequence that we did not expect from the pandemic (which should push us towards solidarity) is that we are more divided than before, the truce will be difficult.
Humanism and the natural
08
Sep
We have difficulty in understanding what is really natural and what is cultural, the naturalist view of pre-Socratic philosophy already anticipated a web of laws and interpretations of the material world, not exactly giving the configuration of what Being was, it was in this space that it developed the idea of the subject as dual of the object, so subjectivity is not seen as cultural, but natural.
Heraclitus’ scarce references, what remains of him are just a few maxims as you cannot cross the same river twice, the idea of becoming and fire as a primordial element in nature, hide a search for human identity with a prevailing objectivist tone , was the path opened by Socrates to themes as important today as interiority and conscience.
Moral conscience was only resumed within the scope of Christianity, leaving aside Plato and Aristotle, who elaborated the idea of the immobile engine (the principle of the whole universe and thus of nature) but separated from the world of ideas, where “naturalistic” ideas developed , did not postulate a regnum hominis, a kingdom of man, of course there will be other readings from this period.
What encouraged me was Karl Popper’s description of The World of Parmenides as a period of the genesis of the Enlightenment, the Greek physis is nothing but nature, so it can be said as more property that physicalist naturalism begins there. , an extension of the perception that the human subject has its interiority linked to the living environment, and therefore cultural, an understanding of the individual or collective macrocosm (of cultural groups) is then linked to the idea of nature without a broader cosmovision being contemplated.
To this question there is another one, about the emergence of the subject canceling the Being, which is freedom, subject is only as action, that is, as a function of the object, interiority is then a problematic part of an individual or collective subjectivism, and not a freedom of choice over which it manifests itself.
If man in his universe can only submit to the laws, to his destiny, he is not free, there is no place for autonomy, and in a broader sense he is subject to fatalism, in Aristotle a one-dimensional concept of freedom is traced. It, as a free being, is one who has himself as an end and who is not subject to menial work, is defined, therefore, around the polis, and its laws.
If the anthropocentric concept is revisited today, it is important to understand its Greek roots.
The Renaissance philosophy will develop a humanism, as the man at the center of all speculation, being a creature of the world he enjoys, however, a unique and very exceptional situation, I highlight Nicolau de Cusa, Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola.
Ficino is the least known, born in Figlini Valdarno (1433) and the greatest representative of Renaissance Fiorentine humanism, and revisits the works of Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry and Proclus.
Perhaps the reason for being little known may be due to the fact that he became a priest and wrote the Theologia Platonica (1482), a work that makes a dialogue with Plato’s conception of religion and the Neoplatonists.
The The return to frivolity will not be simple
06
Sep
This is the phrase of the most respected living German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, and a lot of news indicates that they may have to live with the covid 
for longer than we imagine, the feted New Zealand for fighting the pandemic, announced last week a death for the covid.
Vaccination remains important because there are still cases of death, the numbers in Brazil until the weekend are 66,862,534 people who completed the vaccination schedule, this corresponds to 31.34% of the country’s population, while those with the first dose is over 134 million, corresponding to 62.90% of the population, which is insufficient to make the measures more flexible.
It would be enough if it weren’t for the Delta variants and now the Mu (5 cases in Brazil and many cases in Colombia), which has already arrived in Colombia and is even more lethal, the delta is already present in many regions and is the probable cause of high deaths in Rio de Janeiro, Roraima and Espírito Santos, the others we are remain falling but slow.
Peter Sloterdijk’s analysis for the newspaper El Pais about an improbable (his view) returns to the old normality, what he calls frivolity is explained by conceiving the current reality where a “gigantic sphere of consumption is based on the collective production of a frivolous atmosphere . Without frivolity, there is no public or population that shows an inclination to consumption”, and in a way the pandemic broke this link.
Everyone is waiting now, even so-called progressive conceptions, as the philosopher says: “that this link will be reconnected again, but it will be difficult”, many have learned to live the essentials.
Using a modern concept also used for disruptive technologies, his vision of an anthropotechnics is important for a more sensible analysis, explains the current phase: “after such a big disruption, the return to frivolity standards will not be easy”, he says in interview with daily El Pais.
Understanding that the process is now global and this is the “new of this current outbreak”, says the philosopher, before we had “relatively regular outbreaks, but, in the past, people tended to return to their common habits of existence”, ie, a frivolous thought, life and consumption.
While we have not been able to elaborate some form of mutualism, which Sloterdijk defends, he goes back to using his concept of community, prior to this crisis, and states: “this crisis reveals the need for a deeper practice of mutualism”.
It will come, but the polycrisis, as Edgar Morin called the current crisis before the pandemic, will widen, the environmental, social and justice.
Listening and the crisis of thought
03
Sep
When only fundamentalist and ideological discourse has space, it is
because listening to the other side has become difficult, understanding that reality is multiple and complex, that there will not be a monochromatic future that is sustainable, is essential for a new world that is sustainable.
The understanding of reality, in addition to the facts and worldview of each social and cultural group, can only be expanded in a context of conviviality and respectful listening.
The demand for isolation due to the pandemic could have helped greater cohesion and social solidarity, it even existed in some groups and individuals, but the radical isolation of many groups around self-reference and the reinforcement of group positions has increased.
They perceive reality only through an angle of vision, closed worlds, more isolation and consequently more injustice, in addition to social injustice, that existential one that isolates groups and people, who repeat discourses and narratives only to justify subtle forms of power, is the so-called psychopolitical ( name given by Byung Chul Han), unable to open the vision.
It takes almost a miracle, perhaps the easing of the pandemic will help, but for now what we see are groups that are estranged in search of consolidating power, or taking it over.
The biblical passage that impressed even the Pharisees was the one that Jesus healed the blind and deaf, a clear metaphor so that groups clinging to his vision (political and religious) could understand through the metaphor the need to open their ears.
The passage in Mark says (Mark 7: 31-34): “Then they brought in a deaf man, who was speaking with difficulty, and they asked Jesus to lay his hand on him. Jesus walked away with the man, out of the crowd; then she placed her fingers in his ears, spat and with saliva touched his tongue. Looking up at the sky, he sighed and said: “Ephphatha!” which means: “Open up!”.
More than listening, it is necessary to listen, but to see it is necessary to widen the field of vision.
Complex thinking and humanism
02
Sep
Edgar Morin, Heidegger, Sloterdijk, and more prematurely 
Nietszche and Schopenhauer realized the crisis of what we call humanism and which distanced itself from man.
Some approached more from an ontological perspective such as Heidegger and Sloterdijk as a critic of Heidegger’s humanism, others as an approach and critique of Nihilism such as Nietszche, and Schopenhauer in a more human purpose, his phrases are famous: solitude is the luck of all exceptional spirits and the higher the spirit, the more it suffers.
All these thoughts deserve to be analyzed in the crisis of civilization that we have already entered, it is no longer lurking, it has already penetrated, in our view, it is in the thought of Edgar Morin that it is possible to find a more solid solution to this crisis, although we are moving in the opposite direction.
According to Morin, the core of humanism that we need to revitalize is the one described in Method II: “It is not a question of refusing humanism. It is necessary, as we shall see, to hominize humanism, and therefore to enrich it, basing it on the reality of the Homo complex” (Met. ll, p, 398).
Complex, because the human cannot be described in a linear logic, and cannot be isolated in areas delimited by knowledge (complexus: weaving together), the whole is man, and this is his complexity.
This arises from antiquity with the emergence of the problematic that will be called subjectivity, Karl Popper draws attention to the pre-Socratic Enlightenment, the naturalistic view of philosophy of this time would have submerged man in the web of laws of the material world, not precisely configuring the notion of Being, placed in subjectivist (of the subject) or objectivist (of the physis) aspects.
Morin promotes a review of concepts and methods, both in The Lost Paradigm, and especially in The Method, the recent evolutions of biological sciences, cybernetics and the so-called cultures of man, undergo revisions, highlighting the concepts of “autonomy” , of “love”, of “individual” and consequently of subjective, and of “uberty”.
Woven in the Jewish-Greek-Christian matrix of our culture, traversing the history of Western thought and daily life, humanism assumes orientations that do not exactly coincide with man, and which, in our view, gave an idealist vision to more universal human principles.
For Morin, two revisions are needed in humanism that intertwine and complete:
— The sketch of the homo complex;
—-The hominization of humanism.
To a phrase by an anonymous author (not Einstein’s) that circulates on the internet: “you cannot reach different results from the same thoughts”.
