“Cuando muchos predicados se atribuyen a un mismo sujeto y ese sujeto no se atribuye a ningún otro, se llama sustancia individual” (Discurso de metafísica). Sustancia individual es, para Leibniz, aquello que hace de sujeto de muchos predicados sin que él sea predicado de ningún otro sujeto. El predicado se atribuye al sujeto con verdad, porque, parcial o totalmente, es idéntico al sujeto, por lo que está contenido en él – en el sujeto – explícita o implícitamente. De manera que quien tuviera un conocimiento completo del sujeto conocería a priori, sin la necesidad de recurrir a la experiencia. Por esto no es de extrañar que Leibniz diga que la sustancia individual es “un ser completo” (Discurso de metafísica) del que se atribuye lo pasado, lo presente y lo futuro. Muchas otras veces Leibniz también habla de la sustancia individual como aquello que sirve de sustrato (Principios de la naturaleza y de la gracia).

La sustancia individual no sólo es sujeto de los predicados, sino también principio de actividad (Principios de la naturaleza y de la gracia), porque el movimiento supone el principio del movimiento, que no es sino la potencia activa. Y esta potencia activa, aunque proceda de Dios, no la ejerce Dios como creía Malebranche, sino las propias sustancias individuales – si la ejerciera Dios hablaríamos del panteísmo de Spinoza, que considera que sólo Dios es agente –. Por ello es necesario afirmar que la sustancia individual es potencia activa y que tal potencia la ejerce la sustancia individual desde sí misma (A. Robinet, Malebranche et Leibniz. París. 1955).

Descartes, apoyándose en el principio de la inmutabilidad divina, afirma que lo que se mantiene siempre constante es la cantidad de movimiento. Para Leibniz, en cambio, lo que siempre se mantiene constante es la cantidad de fuerza – energía cinética –. Y es que para él el movimiento, como el tiempo, no es algo real y absoluto, sino algo fenoménico y relativo, y lo único real y absoluto es la fuerza. Por tal razón, lo que se mantiene constante es la cantidad de fuerza. Por potencia activa se entiende aquella potencia que para ejercer su actividad requiere algo previo que la active, como le acontece a la voluntad, que necesita que la inteligencia le presente un bien a querer. También se llama potencia activa a aquella potencia que para ejercer su actividad no necesita la ayuda de nada previo que la active, sino sólo la eliminación de todos los obstáculos que se lo impiden, como le ocurre a un peso colgado de una cuerda, que para caer sólo necesita que lo suelten. La sustancia individual no es una sustancia activa que requiere ser activada, sino una potencia activa que únicamente necesita no ser obstaculizada. También, por ser un ente completo, ni recibe su actividad de otro ni la transmite a otro. Esta suficiencia permite decir que cada una de las sustancias individuales constituye un mundo a parte de las otras, aunque no respecto de Dios.  

***

Definición: es un pensamiento crítico sobre los fundamentos que sostienen la sociedad del Antiguo Régimen y estableció las bases del pensamiento moderno. A este movimiento intelectual se le conoce como Ilustración. Nació en Inglaterra y Escocia en el siglo XVII, y se expandió por el continente Europeo durante el siglo XVIII.

El siglo de las luces. Es el nombre que recibe el siglo XVIII, la época de la Ilustración, porque una explicación racional del mundo venía a iluminar las sombras heredadas de la tradición o de la superstición. Se produce un gran avance de la ciencia en matemáticas (Leibniz), física (Newton), astronomía (Laplace) y química (Lavoisier). Las leyes del funcionamiento del Universo cuestionan los relatos bíblicos sobre la creación de la Tierra.

Pensamiento económico. En estas fechas se ponen las bases del pensamiento económico contemporáneo: el liberalismo económico. Adam Smith afirma en su libro La riqueza de las Naciones (1773), que el progreso económico exige dejar en libertad los factores de producción (capital, tierra, trabajo).

La crítica social y política. En Francia los ilustrados eran conocidos como les philosophes y tuvieron un importante antecesor en John Locke (vivió en el siglo XVII) y había justificado el parlamentarismo inglés impuesto tras la Gloriosa Revolución de 1688, diciendo que era una restauración del contrato social. Defiende la necesidad de tolerar ideas y creencias diferentes, y de establecer un sistema político pactado en el que nadie tuviese poder absoluto.

1. Voltaire: primero que difundió en Francia los planteamientos de Locke, reivindicaba la libertad política y la tolerancia religiosa así como la unificación de las instituciones del Estado.
2. Montesquieu: noble acaudalado al que se considera fundador de la ciencia política y de la sociología. En su obra El espíritu de las leyes, explica las diversas formas de gobierno. Propuso un sistema monárquico controlado por una constitución en el que habría una separación de los poderes legislativo, ejecutivo y judicial. Su doctrina inspiró la Constitución norteamericana de 1787 y otras europeas del siglo XIX.
3. Rosseau: creía que el hombre era bueno por naturaleza y que el orden social había corrompido la igualdad original entre las personas. Explica que su concepción de gobierno es un contrato que debía reflejar la voluntad general en la que se fundarían todas las voluntades individuales, por lo que se trata de la primera afirmación de la soberanía nacional. Para él, los reyes o representantes elegidos no eran más que delegados de un pueblo soberano. Su crítica a la propiedad y su defensa de la igualdad estarían presentes en planteamientos democráticos posteriores.

La enciclopedia. El conjunto de las ideas ilustradas circuló inicialmente entre unas élites reducidas. La publicación de los 28 volúmenes de la Enciclopedia (1751-1772), dirigida por Diderot y D´Alembert intentó ser un diccionario razonado de las ciencias, las artes y las técnicas, en la cual colaboraron famosos intelectuales. Presentaba la situación de los conocimientos en la época, pero también figuraba una crítica hacia las instituciones políticas y religiosas.

El absolutismo ilustrado. Monarcas y gobernantes europeos acogieron favorablemente el espíritu de las luces y lo utilizaron en sus conflictos con la autonomía de la Iglesia o contra el poder de la nobleza. Eran los déspotas ilustrados, que planificaban reformas que creían favorables para el pueblo pero sin contar con él.

by Christopher Vitale (crossposted at Networkologies)

In several recent posts I’ve mentioned quantum issues, and the manner in which they relate to mediological and networkological concerns, in passing. But quantum physics is a body of knowledge much used and abused by those who like to speculate about the constitution of matter. And so, I’d like to put a little meat on the bones of these quantum references.

Before doing so, however, its worth reviewing what the stakes are to mediological/networkological analysis (and for more on these approaches, please see What is Mediology? or Networkologies – A Manifesto). In a recent post called World As Medium, I argued, following Whitehead, that the world is a medium to itself, in that self-differing substance gives rise to a multiplicity of positions for its own self-experiencing. The ‘distance’ between these points are what Whitehead calls ‘extension’, and space, time, and spacetime are differing forms of abstraction thereof. Extension is then that which creates separate positions within experience, it is that which makes all positions upon the world non-identical.

Quantum particles, however, seem largely exempt from the separations within extension – at least when they are in a pure, undisturbed state, one called coherence by most physicists. That is, until they decohere, quantum phenomena do not exist localized in space and time the way we normally think of large, or ‘macroscopic’ entities, as existing. One of the descriptions used to describe this state is that of smearing – coherent quantum phenomena are smeared over areas of time and space. This is why, for example, electrons are often depicted as clouds, in that it is only when these clouds interact with something else that they take up specific positions in space and time. Until that point, they float, are smeared, etc. Take your pick of metaphor, the point is, they aren’t anything near what we consider normal for objects we encounter in daily life. This distinction also gives body to

two depictions of electrons clouds in an atom.

the famous ‘wave-particle’ duality that high-schoolers are taught about the realm of the quantum. That is, when localized in spacetime, quantum phenomena behave as particles (as described by Heisenberg’s matrix-mechanical model), but at other times, like waves (as described by Schroedinger’s wave-mechanical model). Whether or not the quantum phenomena are smeared or localized depends on the extent to which they interact with each other. Large macroscopic entities, like dogs or chairs, of course, are made up of so many entities that it is impossible for quantum particles to remain in isolation, so they are continually hauled into the ‘actual’ world. Only under conditions of extreme isolation, or in the incredibly brief moments (if we can even call them that!) between encounters do quantum phenomena delocalize. This is precisely why we don’t encounter things violating the constraints of spacetime on a more continual basis. Of course, under more extreme conditions, such as incredibly high gravity or incredibly high speed, the threshold level for these violations increases, such at ever larger objects can begin to violate the general laws of space and time, for it is precisely under these extreme conditions that, as many have said, space and time begin to ‘break down.’ Of course, for quantum phenomena, space and time are only part of the story.

Whether or not the ‘cloud’ states of quantum particles denote probability or smearing, of course, is grounds for debate, depending on whether your approach to these issues is fundamentally oriented in an ontological (ie: Heisenberg, Bohm) or epistemological (Bohr) bent. For Bohr it is only that which is observed that is real, and thus, only the particulate nature of quantum phenomena can be said to truly ‘exist’ – the rest is only speculation (and Schroedinger’s equations, despite their use, are nothing but tools for prediction, rather than descriptions of some sort of ultimate reality). For Heisenberg and others, quantum ‘potential’ is in fact a very ‘real’ thing, a ‘virtual’ present and between the ‘actual’ of quantum events.

These positions in physics, between the epistemological skepticists and the ontological optimists, so to speak, roughly correspond to opposing viewpoints in philosophy. That is, in philosophy, we could roughly divide these two groups into the Kantian/epistemologists, and the Spinozist-Hegelian/ontologists, or use any other set of related distinctions between those who aim to limit thought to only that which can be seen, and those which feel that one of the primary functions of thought is its own self-exceeding. These debates are highly relevant to contemporary philosophy, particularly in its most recent guise as Speculative Realism. Such approaches generally reject the Kantian divide, particularly its anchoring within the subject of psychology and language, and attempt to reintroduce the metaphysical questions which were previously banished by Kantianism and its more post-structuralist re-incarnations. In particular I find Graham Harman’s object-oriented philosophy and Levi Bryant’s approach of onticology to be of enormous import in contemporary discussions over the notion of what precisely constitutes an object. And it is here where the concerns of contemporary philosophy and the realm of the quantum coincide.

In order to go beyond mere invocations of the quantum, its worth going into some detail about precisely how it is that quantum phenomena exceed space and time, let’s examine two particular quantum experiments famed in their ability to confound common sense – the EPR experiment, first proposed by Einstein and two lesser known colleagues, and the more recent advent of quantum eraser experiments. While both of these began as thought experiments, both were eventually realized in laboratories, but sometimes much later than their initial theoretical formulations.

Included below are notes I prepared recently for my students to explain these two experiments in basic terms. Please keep in mind, though, that there are many ways to ‘realize’ these experiments, and I’m only giving the simplest realizations of these experiments to explain. Also, please keep in mind, I’m a theorist, not a physicist, so be kind if I make any minor technical snafus. Even if I do make minor missteps in the explanation, however, the bigger issues remain quite secure, and thus, the implications thereof:

1. THE EPR EXPERIMENT:

a. THE SETUP: A gun shoots a particle at a splitter which splits the particle into two parts. One part goes towards an observer on the right, the other to an observer on the left, with great distance between the observers, the gun, and the splitter. The original particle coming out of the gun is split into two parts, one going to an observer on the right, the other to an observer on the left. Each particle can be observed in one of two ways – according to spin along its horizontal axis, or spin on its vertical axis. If you measure its verticle spin, you can get an answer of up or down. If you measure its horizontal spin, you can get an answer of left or right. Because the two particles come from one split source, if there is an up spin on one, the spin on the other must be down; likewise, if there is a right spin on one, there must be a left split on the other. But there is a catch. You cannot measure both spins at the same time, you have to do one first, then the other. And the observers are too far apart to tell each other whether they look at vertical or horizontal first.

epr experiment

b. THE EXPERIMENT: The observer on the left always goes first, and decides at the last minute to observe either vertical or horizontal spin first, then the other. At a time five minutes later, the observer on the right makes the same random choice, and observers either vertical or horizontal. Both write down their results, and after many trials, the two experimenters compare results. When they compare results, they notice some strange things. When the observer on the left, who always goes first, looks at vertical first and gets an ‘up’ spin, the observer on right always gets a ‘down’ spin, no matter if vertical is looked at first or second. But when horizontal is checked, the data only matches half the time, there is a random 50-50 split. That is, whichever axis is checked first (by the first observer) always matches that on the other side, while whichever is checked second (by the first observer) always goes random. That is, the first observation always matches, the second one is always random.

c. THE PARADOX: Ok, so if there’s a large distance between the two particles, farther apart than can be covered by light in the time between the readings, how do the two particles coordinate? Do they have walkie talkies? It SEEMS like they are communicating, but if so, they have to be doing so faster than the speed of light, or jumping through some sort of wormhole or other dimension in space. Or, the quantum particles are reading our minds. Or time works backwards as well as forwards for quantum particles. Or all of the above.

d. HOW TIME ‘REVERSAL’ FIXES THINGS: If time can ‘work backwards (more on this in our quantum eraser discussion)’, there’s no issue. Go in reverse. You start off with two particles with the two different observers. They start off comparing notes. Their notes come out coordinated. After that, they shoot particles backwards into a gun. Because they are already coordinated, the particles combine nicely, and go back into the gun. Luckily, the only particles they start out with are already coordinated, but that’s because they check first. Everything works out, no paradox. Thus, if time is going to be ‘causally consistent’ backwards as well as forward, only the right particles are chosen when the experiment goes backwards. This means that the experiment going forwards is ensured to work as well.

2. THE QUANTUM ERASER EXPERIMENT:

a. PREFACE – REVIEW OF THE DOUBLE-SLIT: There are many ways to set up a quantum eraser experiment, but what I’ve got below is my attempt to give you the simplest setup. The quantum eraser experiment is version of the double-slit experiment with an extra few twists. Remember in the standard double-slit experiment, you first have a single slit, which reduces a set of photons to a single stream, and after this there is a double slit, followed by a plate of photo-sensitive film. We can’t be sure which slit the photons go through, and we see interference/ripple patterns on the plate of film. Because only a single file of electrons can make it through the first slit, however, the only reason why this would happen is that each photon must go through ‘both’ slits, and interfere ‘with itself’.

double-slit experiment.

b. NOW, THE TWIST – DETECTORS: But what if we put detectors before the plate with the double slits? If you do this, the detectors will tell us which slit a given photon goes through. After we send a bunch of photons through the experiment with this new setup, we don’t see the ripple pattern on the film anymore. Rather, we just see two piles of blips on the plate, one in front of each slit. That is, because the detectors tell us that the photons go through one slit or the other, they can’t be in two places at once, ‘interfering’ with themselves. The detectors modify what the photons do, and its like the photons seem to ‘know’ we are watching them. Really, through, by detecting the photons before the slits, we modify them, forcing them to choose one slit or the other, so they can’t go in both. That’s why now there’s only two piles of blips on the film, instead of ripples. Its also why scientists say that quantum particles can be in more than one place at a time.

c. NOW, THE SECOND TWIST – ERASERS: We can take this all to the next level, to see just how much photons ‘anticipate’ what we’re doing, as if they can also ‘read our minds’ or ’see into the future’. Let’s put covers on top of the detectors, and a device which can erase the data in the detectors after they are recorded. That way, if we record the data, but then decide to erase it, if photons react differently when we erase the data and when we don’t, then either 1) they can read our minds, 2) they can ’see’ into the future, 3) they go backwards and forwards in time ‘at the same time’, that is, their time (or at least their sense of cause-and-effect’ is bi-directional, or doesn’t ‘flow’ in one direction. But why do we have to send multiple photons through the experiment for it to work?

quantum eraser experiment

d. WHY WE NEED A BUNCH: Well, if we send only ONE photon through the device, it doesn’t tell us much. That’s because tiny quantum particles don’t always go where they’re supposed to (remember quantum probability and the uncertainty principle!), and so you have to send many photons through any version of this experiment to get a pattern, either the ripple pattern or the two-pile pattern. Any single photon could belong to either pattern, only a bunch will tell us which pattern we really have. But how do we make sure that WE aren’t influencing the experiment? That is, what if we have already made up our mind, in one way or another, before the experiment, as to whether or not we’re going to erase the data or not, even if we don’t tell anyone? If we can find a way to get the human aspect out of the experiment, we can make sure that photons don’t ‘read our minds’, but rather, that their time is bi-directional. And that’s what this experiment really aims to show.

e. THE FINAL TWIST – RANDOMIZER: Here’s how we do it. Let’s put a randomizer in. Half the time, it erases the data in the detectors so that when we take the cover off, there’s no data there. The other half the time, we find out whether or not the photon went up or down. So what happens when we do this? As we send a stream of photons through the experiment, we see an odd result. We don’t get a ripple pattern, or a two-pile pattern. We get a pattern between the two – a new result. Which means that half the time the photon interferes with itself, the other half it doesn’t, and the reason why can only be one thing – the erasing. But what does this mean?

f. THE RESULTS: When we erase the detector data, after it is recorded, it means the photon interfered with itself. When we don’t erase the data, the photon only went through one slit, producing the two-pile pattern. Now, of course, because we used a randomizer, we know that the photon didn’t read our mind – because we didn’t decide after the fact to erase, a computer randomizer did, so this rules out any weird theories that we used psychic ‘influence’ to alter the experiment (and yes, some have proposed this, so its important to rule it out!). So, what then DOES it mean? Photons ‘act’ as if they can ’see’ into the future. But we know that photons don’t actually ‘know’ or ’see’ anything, that’s just a way we talk about things to make it easier to understand.

g. WHAT IT MEANS FOR US: What does it mean, then, really? That photons, and quantum particles like them, do not exist in a time that ‘flows’ in only one direction. Time for quantum particles is bi-directional, it flows from past to future and future to past. This isn’t to say that the particle goes backwards in time (though some particles do this as well!), but rather that the relationship of cause-and-effect has to work in both directions. This is what the eraser experiment shows us. This is why something which happens afterwards (erasing or not erasing the data in the detectors) effects something that happens earlier (whether the photon contributes to the ripple or two-pile pattern).

h. QUANTUM CAUSALITY: But ok, what’s the difference between the particle going back in time, and its relationship of cause-and-effect being bi-directional? When a particle goes back in time, its like watching a film in reverse. It does everything backwards – and this includes its spin, so if it normally spins up, it now will spin down. And there are particles that do this – or rather, there’s no difference in quantum theory between particles doing some things backwards from each other, and going backwards in time. That is, we can’t tell if they’re opposites or time traveling, and ultimately, it doesn’t make much difference. But what we saw in the quantum eraser experiment is that the relationship of cause-and-effect is bi-directional. This is something different. In our regular world, the relationship of cause-and-effect goes in only one direction. That is, if you put a flame to a candle it will start to burn, but if you reassemble all the parts of the burnt candle, you won’t necessarily get fire as the result. In the quantum world, the only things that happen are those that can go backwards as well without paradox. Or, in simpler terms, if something can’t go in both directions, quantum particles won’t do it. Why is this?

i. BEYOND SPACETIME: But why? Much of this brings us back to the difference between particle-time and wave-time. When particles interact with other particles, they are ‘observed’ and change. They become ‘real’ so to speak, and can’t be in more than one place at a time. But when they are acting like waves, between observations, they can be in more than one place at a time (as we saw with the double slit experiment). But here’s what the quantum eraser suggests. When quantum particles aren’t being ‘observed’ or ‘interacting’ with other particles or things, not only can they be in more than one place at a time, but more than one time as well. This is why sometimes scientists argue that quantum particles are ’smeared’ across an area of space and time (spacetime). Its impossible to fully say where they are, or what time they are in, because it is like they are in many spacetimes at once. Time doesn’t flow for them, which is why cause and effect has to work in more than one direction. For us large, non-quantum things, however, time flows, and so, things only have to work one-way. That’s because we’ve given up the quantum freedom to be in multiple places and times at at ‘time’ . . .

What’s the ramifications of these experiments, particularly for mediology, networkology, and object-oriented/onticological approaches to speculative realism? These experiments cast light on what it means to be an object in spacetime precisely by showing us what it might mean for an object to be beyond these constraints. They show us precisely how it is that by interacting with itself, self-differing substance mediates itself via extension in spacetime. They separate out quite distinctly what it would mean to go backwards in time versus for being outside of time, and how temporal flow and causality are two very different things.

All of this sheds further light on what precisely it means for something to be an object. The simplest form of object is the quantum event, which is as such because it is localized in spacetime, of which, in relation to other quantum events, it is co-constitutive. It is here that we why it is possible to consider time and space as networks, networks of quantum events zipping in and out of spacetime. Larger objects are, of course, networks of quantum events. And as some theorists, such as Julian Barbour have argued, all macro-objects are in fact continually recreated by the flickering of the quantum events of which they are composed jostling amongst each other, continually coaxing each other into localization in spacetime. That is, each quantum event mediates those with which it interacts. Spacetime is the form this mediation takes on a larger, macroscale.

As many have argued, time only flows because of the disequilibria of entropy in the universe we know, a residue of the big-bang. As we see for quantum phenomena, however, time only flows in this direction for those in the macroscopic world. Thus, there are in some senses two universes, the atemporal and temporal, aspatial and spatial, and the universe we know it is continually jumping between these states. That said, both of these states are extended, only differently. For in fact, quantum phenomena can only violate spacetime localization within the very strict confines between interacting with each other. And this is why there is talk of smearing. It is not that spacetime is abolished, only that is smeared inbetween events. The difference between smearing and true atemporal or aspatial existence, however, begins to break down as we approach extreme states, such as we see in blackholes, in which extension itself begins to collapse on itself.

a feynman diagram of a quantum event. notice there are no arrows on the lines to indicate the direction of the flow of time.

Of course, there is something which violates the separations in the world that we know as space and time on a regular basis. And that is mind. Thought is able to unite differences across space and time differences. When we see something green, green can describe leaves on a tree that are spatially separated, or the same leaf in different moments in time. Mind is, like the quantum, able to collapse space and time, in a manner which is analogous to quantum smearing. Furthermore, as Whitehead has argued, all quantum events, because they are ‘uncertain’ to outside observers, have a degree of ‘privacy’ to them – that is, they cannot be predicted, there is what seems to be a fundamental randomness at work here. Whether this is the result of indirect influence of the apprehension of the larger context by a quantum event, or simply a result of limitations of our knowledge, remains the sort of epistemological/ontological distinction we mentioned at the start of this post. But either way, it seems that there is something at least ‘internal’ to each of the most basic objects in the world. That is, there is something ‘like’ mind at work in the most basic objects in existence.

The result is that quantum mechanics does seem to endorse a quasi-Leibnizian view of the world. There is a windowless ‘monad’ or interior privacy within each basic quantum event, one which seems to resonate with the larger world, but which does not touch it directly. What does touch the

a feynman network.

world directly is, rather, the physical object that corresponds to such a monad (what many commentators on Leibniz have referred to as a monad’s ‘body’, to which it is connected by what Leibniz calls the ‘viniculum’). While Leibniz argued that matter is infinitely divisible, and quantum theory postulates smallest known parts to the universe, even this seems to recently confirm Leibniz more and more. For as we build machines that can test the limits of quantum phenomenon at higher and higher energies, matter appears increasingly divisible. That is, the size of the quanta in question get smaller. Thus, we now know that many of what we once considered ultimate particles, such as protons, are in fact composed of quarks, and these very quarks, when cut apart, turn into ‘jets’ that reform into whole quarks – like earthworms, they split and regenerate. Whether or not all matter can be divided infinitely is something we’ve yet to truly tell. But for us, it can at least be considered functionally infinitely divisible. And the large majority of the other Leibnizian intuitions about the physical world hold as well.

Either way, all matter can thus be said, in a sense, to possess something like mind or proto-mind, depending on how you define mind. But it thus becomes much less problematic to wonder how it is that matter ‘emerges’ seemingly spontaneously from mind (and it is this issue which I address at length in my forthcoming manuscript The Networked Mind’). That is, there’s something like the potentiality for what we call mind (and perhaps other types of mind as well), all the way down to the very bedrock of what we know as matter, namely, the quantum event.

What then of mind? It is perhaps an echo at a higher level, or an actualization of a virtuality present within all matter. And it is fundamental to what any notion of object today might mean. And in this sense, the emergence of what Levi Bryant calls an objecticle from its field can be seen in the emergence of a quantum event from its field – and into spacetime. For it is via objects that the world is medium to itself.

Siguiendo a Aristóteles, Leibniz se muestra partidario de la pluralidad de sustancias, pues no sólo parece evidente que pensamos – como decía Descartes -, sino que también parece obvio que ‘pensamos algo’, incluso diversas cosas entre sí, lo que hace considerar que en el cogito está incluida la pluralidad de sustancias. Leibniz intrododuce un nuevo concepto de sustancia individual. Las sustancias individuales son seres dotados de unidad de simplicidad (Monadología). La sustancia individual no es otra cosa que una sustancia simple, es decir, que carece de partes. De esto se siguen una serie de consecuencias que veremos.

La sustancia individual al carecer de partes no puede empezar a existir por agregación de partes, ni dejar de existir por descomposición de partes. Por agregación pueden empezar a existir las sutancias compuestas, y por descomposición éstas pueden dejar de existir. Las sutancias simples sólo pueden empezar a existir por creación o dejar de existir por disolución, que es como decir que necesitan una intervención divina.

La sustancia individual al carecer de partes no puede ser un átomo material como pretendía el mecanismo atomista, ya que los átomos por más que proclamen indivisibles, no lo son. Lo material, por pequeño que sea, siempre es divisible, con lo cual resulta imposible llegar al final, es decir, a los ulteriores elementos. Si no se llega a ellos resulta imposible hablar de un ser compuesto, porque siempre cabría preguntar, ¿cuáles son las unidades que entran en composición? (Nuevo sistema para explicar la naturaleza de las sustancias). Así, Leibniz propone sustituir el nombre de átomos materiales por el de átomos formales o formas sustanciales.

According to Leibniz, who I incidentally harbour a burning hatred for, we are all monads – simple substances – built with a set of all possibilities, past, present, and future. Usually, we only actualize one course of actions, one possibility, out of many at any given moment. Sometimes, I imagine split-screen versions of myself doing the thing I ought to do, or wish I did. Should I have kissed him? Why did I pick up the phone? Why did I miss that call?

I don’t like the way these un-actualized possibilities direct our lives in a very real, albeit passive way. Sometimes it can take years, a decade, a lifetime for a single plotline to unfold, so I try to seize the most appealing possibility at any given moment. It’s earned me a reputation for being impulsive, brash, and emotional. Call it what you want to call it but I’m not waiting for anything to happen to me; I’m actualizing my possibilities.

I’ve been giving some thought to the objections that have been raised by those who see anthropocentricity as an objection to creationism or even theism. The epistemological gap is fundamental and cannot be avoided. I can only see the universe through my perceptions and then rely on my perceptions of others to come to what really amounts to a perception-consensus about what truth is. Nobody in the RichardDawkins.net forum seems to account for the fact that even a unity of thought, as to what scientific observations/perception mean, does not warrant the conclusion that the issue of how the universe or Man came to be is resolved.

Name one scientific rule that is wholly infallible and which can never be changed. Does evolution theory get a special dispensation from its believers? Why not admit that evolution may very well be only a partial answer, a best answer, but certainly not the final answer? Until one ‘gets off the dime’ on the position of absolutism, there cannot be the possibility of argument. If either the the evolutionists or the creationists have the absolute final answer, there is nothing to talk about. If there are, among them, those who are willing to come off the absolutism platform, at least for purposes of argument, a discussion can be had.

As Denish D’Souza points out, for example, it may very well be that is has been accepted as a rule that light travels at 186,000 mph. However, no scientist knows whether that is true in all places in the universe or near wormholes or blackholes, assuming these exist. If there is a background noise, we don’t know what happens to light at the ‘edge of the universe.’ The law of physics as they apply to light, for example, are subject to revision. In several places in the God Delusion, and in Dawkins’ Darwin Lecture at Stanford, he does unequivocally claim that natural selection and evolution are the only plausible answer(s) for all that is — thereby allowing him to eliminate one more god from the list of others who have fallen at the hands of intellectualism and science. Nevertheless, he has not, and cannot, defeat the human conception that there is something higher than genetic destiny and that higher thing sits outside of our personal/human condition.

The response that I see to the anthropocentricity objection is essentially as follows:

I am the center of my perception as you are to yours. The further we look into the world the more we come to an understanding of the atomic universe and the principles that govern it. Incredibly, microbiology seems to be coming up with many of the same findings or observations that the astrophysicists are (i.e., as to the atomic structure of all that is and the rules that govern it).

Similarly, the further out we look into the universe, we revert to a principled view of the atomic universe. Under either analysis, we come back to the same place and remain the center of our universe. We are the center of our universe and we always come back to the same place — as we must. Can you separate yourself from your perceptions? What is it that you know about the universe that has not come through and by perception?

Just think about it — at any given time, you are at a center of Earth since it is a sphere. (unless there is a desire to get into a discussion about the earth’s magnetic fields and pole alignment). Indeed, you can begin measuring away from yourself in any direction and will reach the same infinitude in terms of space and time. Prove otherwise. Until the astrophysicists can measure from Earth to the ‘background noise’, the presumption seems to be in favor of treating the Universe as though it is infinite in any direction.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that we are so anthropocentric and limited by our human condition. My own anthropocentric perception is unique and cannot be the mere byproduct of a genetic destiny and yet be so vastly different from the perceptions of others. Again, animals seem to have a limited sense of self and the ability to change the self. Humans seem to be created by evolution, or otherwise, as something completely different as to function and purpose (or lack thereof).

We are each undeniably the center of the universe known for us. Separate yourself from your perception and you might have the opportunity to live the life of an animal. Our awareness of our own perception dictates our ability to strive for change in the self, environment, and a glimpse of something higher than ourselves. Our perception is the beginning of freewill. The question seems to be whether our ability to engage in freewill (moral behavior by ‘choice’) is the result of being created/evolved from something higher or different than the general animal kingdom. In any event, the anthropocentric position is equally applicable to evolutionists as well as the creationists. Self loathing by either side doesn’t seem to fix this fundamental problem.

Absolutism has absolutely no place in human existence where it has to be admitted that human perception, even in groups, is subject to revision.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

WARNING!

BRAIN CELL TWEAKING READ

This is a well written essay that outlines how physicists and metaphysicians are AT LAST on the same page about the nature of reality.

I’m only offering some excerpts from this article here – get the full version at:

A Holographic View of Reality

David S. Walonick, Ph.D.

“Bohm (1987) concluded that the implications of nonlocal connections are that objective reality itself is entirely a construct of the human brain. The true nature of reality remains hidden from us. Our brains operate as a holographic frequency analyzer, decoding projections from a more fundamental dimension. Bohm concludes that even space and time are constructs of the human brain, and they may not exist as we perceive them.”

“Matter itself may be gravitationally trapped light. (Toben, 1975)”

“One of the most central themes of modern physics is to be able to describe the mechanics of our perceived universe. In the 18th century, Leibniz first maintained that space, time, matter, and energy were merely intellectual constructs (Talbot, 1991, p. 291). Modern quantum theory supports this proposition, where matter exists only as a probability on a continuum. For example, when we attempt to observe an electron, it becomes impossible to pinpoint its exact location. Bohm remarked that “what appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world is an illusion. It is dynamic and kaleidoscopic–not really there”. Bentov (1982, p. 56) describes reality as a vast empty space filled with oscillating fields.”

“The atoms of our bodies are very high frequency oscillators that vibrate at a rate of about 1015 Hertz. It is quite possible that our bodies blink on and off at this frequency. We currently have no technology to measure such rapid phenomena. (Unterseher, et al., 1982, p. 364)”

“Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious is compatible with holographic theory.”

“Synchronicities are coincidences that are so meaningful that it is unlikely that they can be attributed to chance alone. Jung was the first to perceive these events as more than simple coincidence. He proposed that some unknown mechanism buried deep within the psyche was responsible for these events, and that they were controlled by some kind of acausal mechanism. Physicist Paul Davies (1988) agrees that “non-local quantum effects are indeed a form of synchronicity in the sense that they establish a connection–more precisely a correlation–between events for which any form of causal linkage is forbidden.” (Talbot, 1991, p. 79)

Another physicist, F. David Peat (1987), believes that synchronicities represent “flaws” in the fabric of reality. These fissures give us a momentary connection to the underlying nature of the implicate order. They demonstrate the possibility of connecting with the true nature of the universe. Peat believes that the scarcity of synchronicity demonstrates the degree to which we have cut ourselves off from the deeper orders of mind and reality.

Many scientists now believe the brain and body operate on holographic principles on the cellular, molecular, and neural levels. In Space-Time and Beyond, Bob Toben (1975, p. 130) describes how DNA contains the coding for orderly growth. “Nonlinearity in electrochemical reaction pathways of biological processes provides feedback patterns that are responsible for self-organization. On a deeper level, there may be self-organizing biogravitational fields whose structure determines the shape of biological molecules, cellular differentiation, and the overall shape of living systems”.

“Many physicists have begun to describe the universe in words that resemble Eastern philosophy. Bohm talks about the “dimension of consciousness beyond the concrete world of our ordinary experience”. Capra discusses the “web of connectedness which cannot be described in words”. Beauregard quotes from ancient Indian scriptures about the “illusionary nature of separateness”. John Wheeler summarized the holographic view of the universe when he said, “There may be no such thing as the ‘glittering central mechanism of the universe.’… Not machinery but magic may be the better description of the treasure that is waiting.” (Toben, 1975)”

crossposted at Orbis Mediologicus

The combinatory is an idea whose time, once again, has come. In The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich argues that the database is one of the primary apparatus of the new media age. He cites Dziga Vertov’s use of this form to ‘digitize’ the visible world, in films such as Man with a Movie Camera (decades before the advent of the digital computer), as a key precursor of the mode of de/reconstructing the world in the age of computerized media. And yet we can go back further – Leibniz, widely considered one of the forefathers of the modern computer – was himself fascinated by dream of a ‘universal characteristic’, a combinatory which could translate human thought into a series of symbols which could avoid the ambiguities of human language. Combined with production of the first binary numeral system, as well as his attempt to produce a mechanical adding machine, Leibniz’s desire seems fulfilled in the contemporary form whereby inputs hit computers, are metabolized into numerical codes which are stored in database grids, then to be read and output in cybernetic loops with us, their human relay centers.

Manovich has argued that time itself changes in the digital age, it ceases to be the linear time of modernity (which for Vilem Flusser was prompted itself by the linearity of the sentence as promoted by the ‘Gutenberg revolution’), and rather is spatialized by the very form of the database grid. In database time, each cell in the grid contains a moment, retrievable at random, not necessarily placed in the order of temporal flow. Thus, you open one cell and the grid and see yourself as a child, in the one nextdoor, as a geriatric, and in between as split between ovum and sperm. Certain experimental films and books, particularly hypertext fictions, pursue a related notion of temporality which Gilles Deleuze, Cinema II: The Time-Image, calls crystalline time. In crystalline time, there is still a flow of present to past at the level of the observer, but this observer moves continually amongst a series of ‘cells’ of the past and future, thereby combining the linearity of modern temporal flow with the spatialized time of the computer database. A film such as Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 is an example given by Deleuze of the manner in which ‘time is out of joint’ in the post-war world, producing an interpenetration of memory and imagination, desire and anticipation, all in a multi-temporal present which explores time as one explores a house whose labyrinthine structure is crystlline, and whose rooms indicate moments of time. A film which takes this to the next level, for Deleuze, is Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad, in which the protagonists explore a variety of virtual scenarios, what Leibniz would call ‘incompossible’ combinations of events, each of which present alternative futures and pasts, many of which could not exist at the same time. For Deleuze, Resnais’ film presents us with one of the most advanced images of the crystalline form of time appropriate to the postwar age.

Videogames present perhaps some of the most advanced forms of crystalline narration available today, in forms which go beyond the inherent linearity of time within film. Many contemporary videogames present the player with virtual worlds which are like Leibniz’s combinatory of possible worlds as presented in his Monadology (leading Ken Wark, in Gamer Theory, to refer to Leibniz’s God as a sort of cosmological video-game programer).. Key events lead to forking paths which separate the world of play into parallel realities, only one of which the player can follow at a time, but which by playing multiple times and making multiple choices, allow for an exploration of incompossible parallel realities. Such an approach uses a linear formation to explore the potential permutations of time as algorithm, as spatio-temporal crystal. What’s more, on the level of the code whereby the game itself operates, the form of the database generates this time-as-crystal via a mode of production whose form is analogous to its content. The crystal is in many senses the form of time, or as Mikhail Bakhtin would say, the ‘chronotope’ of our networked digital age.

What’s more, there seems to be something fundamental about this form of time in relation to contemporary quantum physics, which seems to increasingly lend support to the notion that quantum states are able to explore multiple spatiotemporal potentials before they actualize. Many physicists seem to feel that it is only our macroscopic time which works in linear fashion, and even then, physicists argue that this linearity likely breaks down at extreme conditions, where it returns to more ’spatial’ forms. Black holes and singularities destroy the distinction between macro and micro/quantum, dragging time and space back into a sort of pre-individuated (or as Whitehead would say, pre-’extended’) state. According to many contemporary theorists, were it not for the flow of energy (negentropy) in our universe, time might not in fact have an ‘arrow’ or direction at all. From such a perspective, ‘time’ is fundamentally multi-directional, it only takes on linearity in specific situations. Our contemporary cultural mileu may in many senses then be a return or resonant echo, if on a more macro level, of what exists as our quantum foundation. [For more info on all of this, see a text like Paul Davies' About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution, or recent books by Huw Pryce or Julian Barbour].

All of which, surprisingly perhaps, brings us to Hegel. Few thinkers would seem, at first glance, more contrary to this form of networked, spatialized time than that of Hegel. The thinker of the dialectic, of the linear progress of time, Hegel seems the thinker of the linear flow of temporal par excellence. And yet I feel that Hegel has much to teach us about what it means to think the potentials of this seemingly ‘new’ type of temporal form.

Many miss the non-linear side of Hegel’s approach to temporality, his ‘database’ side, if you will, because they put the emphasis of their readings on the early parts of his texts at the expense of their ends. And this makes sense: Hegel’s books are beyond dense, long, and arduous – they are filled with abstruse digressions into outdated scientific topics which may or may not turn out to be essential to later parts of the argument. Reading Hegel is an exercise in frustration (with perhaps the Encyclopedia Logic being the quickest of the bunch, and that’s not saying much). But for those who do get to the end of one of his works, the fact that the temporal model outlined at the start of his works, one in which linearity prevails, is itself made by the end to seem overly simple, and in fact, is a key insight. While at the start of Hegel’s work, linearity prevails, by the end, not only does spatiality prevail, but it is shown to be that from which linearity emerges.

The implications of this might not only be useful in regard to furthering our understanding of what might be at stake with database forms of temporality, but in regard to contemporary theory. Slavoj Zizek’s highly influential reading of Hegel as a thinker of the radical split, of the fundamental dehiscience of the now, hinges upon a very particular reading of Hegel’s relation to time. My sense is that this ek-static, contemporary reading of Hegel is as one-sided as those which reduce him to simple linearity.

As I’ve argued in previous posts, Hegel’s works are written in performative fashion. What this means in regard to time is that time in fact operates, both as described and as deployed, in a different manner in all the three parts of any of his books. In the Logic (either version, Encyclopedia or Science of), Hegel emphasizes that the movement of time between the moments presented in his first section, on ‘Being’, is that of ‘passage’ between distinct and separated entities. In the second section, on ‘Essence,’ time is presented as a splitting of the present into the virtual experience of a part of the present which is past and one which is the future, both of which are contained within the present. This is the form of time privileged by Zizek, in which the past is always a nostalgic fantasy, and the future always an wishful illusion. The model of time operating within the final section of Hegel’s Logic is that of the ‘Concept’. This is for Hegel the more ultimate form of time, one which encompasses the other two in their disjunct unity. For the Hegel the Concept is that which gives rise to time: it is not only the splitting of the now into past/present, nor the passage of time between past, present, and future, but the unity and difference of these two approaches within a sort of ‘disjunct-unity’ which does not merely ‘move’ in time, or ’split’ itself in time, but is in fact all of these as unified and different at the same ‘time.’ The concept, for Hegel, presents us with an atemporal genesis of time itself.

But what exactly does this mean? For Hegel, each part of his work not only describes the aspect in question, such as ‘Being’, ‘Essence’, or ‘Concept’, but also the parts thereof – parts which are composed of the approaches to the world described in ‘earlier’ parts of the text. Thus, ‘Being’ is described three times – once in the section on Being, then seen through the lens of Essence, and then again both of these preceding approaches to Being are recast from the perspective of the Concept. Thus, not only does ‘Being’ change along the way, retroactively reworked, but it shows three different faces, so to speak, the final form of which contains the preceding two. The result is that Hegel’s books are like fractals, they are expansively ’self-similar’ up and down at multiple levels of scale. But if we are to understand them at the level which he considers the most fundamental, that of the concept, we need understand them as self-similar not only within each section, but between them as well. The result is that his books necessarily need to be read, and the model of time presented therein understood, as structured around a far more complex model of time than has generally been thought.

For in fact, if we read Hegel’s book as presenting simply three models of time – Being (progression), Essence (splitting), and Concept (atemporal genesis) – we in fact read the three sections merely under the mode of thought appropriate to the first section of the work, that is, the ‘lens’ of Being. We hypostatize the three forms, without considering them through the lenses of Essence or the Concept. If we then try to fix this by viewing the three approaches to time (Being, Essence, and Concept) through the lens of Essence, we get another three models of time – Being (progression as produced from an original scission which is its essence, thereby giving rise to all three models presented under the lens of Being – Zizek’s reading of Hegel, as it were), Essence (a scission of time into a progression and atemporal genesis, thereby giving rise to all three models presented under the lens of Being), and Concept (a scission which gives rise to progression, scission, and atemporal genesis, thereby giving rise to all the previous models . . .).

Taking this chain of logic to its final, hypercomplex conclusion, we need to be able to see how this all plays out form the perspective of the Concept – Being (a progression through all three models of time till we finally understand it as atemporal genesis, thereby giving rise to the previous models – the common caricature of how Hegel’s works function), Essence (a series of intertwining scissions leading up to the folding of atemporal genesis into itself, thereby giving rise to the previous models . . .), and finally, well, the most fundamental model of all, or the Concept of time as understood under the lens of the Concept itself. But what might this be?

The Concept of Time under the form of the Concept is in fact rather similar to what quantum physicists might describe as the varying modes of the disjunct-relation between micro and macroscopic levels of time. That is, the time of the Concept, understood ‘Conceptually’, is in fact all the other eight models just mentioned, all at once, both understood as unity (Being), giving rise to each other (Essence), and Concept (as all of these both in unity and difference).That is, we have yet another fractal threefold division of what previously seemed to be the final category.

In the first of these (or the Concept of time under the form of Being), we see what in fact corresponds to what we have discussed in the first part of this post, namely, time as combinatory – database time. But what in fact might lie beyond this? This is where Hegel may be useful to help us think beyond the time of the database. Continuing this line of logic, the second approach to the time of the Concept (this time viewed under the scission of Essence), views time as giving rise to itself from the atemporal. That is, this approach concerns how time comes to be by means of the splitting of itself from the atemporal from which it emerges and will return. This is precisely what quantum physicists describe when the discuss transitions from quantum multi-temporality to and from macroscopic linearity. But what is the last, keystone approach to the notion of time, that is, the Concept of time, viewed Conceptually? It is all of these, all at once. It is as if one could be like a quantum particle, in many places at once, all of these approaches incompossible yet folded into each other, but then also be like a macroscopic entity as well, differentiated in each of the preceding forms. At once temporal and atemporal, both within the database and outside it, flowing yet spatialized, this notion of time is more than just the combinatory, but a combinatory which thinks itself and is the knowing of itself at every level of scale, in all its unities and differences.

And this in fact helps us understand precisely what is at stake with the Hegelian notion of what it means to ‘know’. The word in German for ‘the Concept’ (often unfortunately translated as ‘Notion’) is Begriff. Derived from the verb greifen (to grasp), a literal translation of a ‘the Concept’ is as a ‘grasping’. Any introductory reading of Hegel presents this basic translational quirk which is difficult to render in everyday English. But as some scholars have argued, this grasping can also be translated as ‘the knowing’. And in fact, that is precisely what Hegel aims to produce with his works. Knowing is more than a thing, or process, or even a database. It is rather the interplay, intertwining, and interpenetration of all these levels. Hegel’s model of time is thus much more than a simple combinatory, going beyond this to what might best be described as a sort of hyper-complex, video-game-like ‘crystal’ of time in the process of ‘playing’ itself – even as it is ‘writing’ itself – and all at the same time and separately, and all the states in between. And here we see precisely why Hegel’s texts are necessarily performative, because language itself begins to break down in any attempt to simply describe such a supra-linear, and hence supra-linguistic, concept of time.

Many contemporary post-structuralist approaches to time, which are much more limited than that presented by Hegel, can perhaps learn much from such an approach. And this in fact seems where a thinker like Deleuze, who in most of his works presents time as a Bergsonian flow of duration, may be going in his later works, with his notions of time as crystal or network of Leibnizian worlds. From such a perspective, the Bergsonian and Zizekian approaches, as well as many others, including that of the databse, are included as elements/moments (whatever such terms might mean within the model of temporal/atemporal knowing presented by Hegel). And perhaps this truly provides us with, to use a much maligned word, a ‘post-modern’ approach to the issue of time, one which no longer asks which form of time is true, but which, in a given situation, works.

And is this not the situation we see in contemporary videogames, in which chronotopes of various sorts expand and contract, putting us at one ‘moment’ in the mode of collecting coins while a clock ticks down, another moment frozen into a section of cinematic interaction while watching ourselves linearly unfurl from a distance, another moment exploring the multiple pathways of a game as so many incompossible futures, even as pulling back into special screens to modify our parameters as time is paused? Hegel’s time is video-game time, and increasingly, perhaps, it is the time we live.

Welcome to the chronotope of the digital age.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)nació y murió en la antigua ciudad prusiana de Königsberg. Procedía de una familia modesta y de arraigada profesión de fé cristiana. Echó fama de persona metódica y ordenada. A pesar de nunca haber salido de su ciudad natal y sus alrededores, el suyo fue un espíritu cosmopolita y siempre estuvo al tanto de lo que pasaba en el mundo a través de periódicos y libros. La extensión e intensidad de sus conocimientos fueron estimuladas por la penuria económica y el agobio del pluriempleo, que le obligaban a profesar casi la totalidad de las materias de las Facultades de Filosofía de la época. Comprendían las ciencias empíricas -tanto naturales (física, química o geografía) como humanas (historia, filología, antropología) y las “ciencias puras”, como la matemática pura y la filosofía pura, ésta a su vez dividida en dos grandes apartados (la metafísica de la naturaleza y la metafísica de las costumbres) que acabarían vertebrando la propia obra de Kant.

Kant adquirió una cierta familiaridad con la tradición de la metafísica racionalista, de inspiración remotamente leibniziana, sistematizada por Christian Wolff. Éste sostenía que todos los entes que componen la realidad han de ser posibles (es decir, no contradictorios) y existen en virtud de una razón suficiente, de suerte que estos dos principios se bastarían para explicar todo cuanto hay. Un armonismo éste del que ayudarían a salir a Kant el empirismo antimetafísico de Hume y el radicalismo político de Rousseau.

En lo que se refiere a Hume, y por más que Kant no vacile en atribuirle la hazaña de haberle despertado del “sueño dogmático”, la deuda precisa matizaciones. No está claro que el empirismo constituya la teoría del conocimiento más adecuada para satisfacer las necesidades del pensamiento científico, como la de dar cuenta, por ejemplo, del funcionamiento del principio de causalidad. Cuando la priedra lanzada por un muchacho rompe el cristal de una ventana, lo único que empíricamente percibimos es una sucesión de hechos -lanzamiento y rotura- pero no así el nexo causal entre uno y otro, que sería absurdo reducir a la simple secuencia temporal de nuestras percepciones (nadie diría, pongamos por caso, que la undécima campanada del reloj sea la causa de la duodécima cuando oímos dar la hora al mediodía). Frente a la pretensión empirista de que no hay nada en el entendimiento que no se halle con antelación en los sentidos (nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu) un Leibniz habría respondido que ciertamente no lo hay… salvo el entendimiento mismo (nisi intellectu ipse). Si Hume despertó a Kant del sueño dogmático, fue Leibniz quien le previno de incurrir en el sueño escéptico y abandonarse a la tentación de renunciar a cualquier esfuerzo por ir más allá de lo empíricamente dado, con la funesta consecuencia de impedir al sujeto cognoscente la posibilidad de contribuir activamente a la organización intelectual del conocimiento científico en lugar de someterse pasivamente a los rudos y crudos datos suministrados por los objetos conocidos de conformidad con los cánones empiristas.

La “revolución” filosófica de Kant divide en dos la historia entera de la filosofía. Descontando el difuso precedente del humanismo renacentista, la reivindicación del protagonismo del sujeto en la filosofía moderna se remonta a Descartes, pero la de Kant es más sobria y sofisticada que la cartesiana. El sujeto del que habla Kant no es el “yo substancial” de la metafísica racionalista inaugurada con Descartes y que vendría a ser para el criticismo incognoscible, pues no hay manera de confirmar su existencia (Kant reservará para esa supuesta substancia -la res cogitans del cogito, ergo sum- la denominación de sujeto metafísico o “yo nouménico”), pero dicho sujeto tampoco se reduce a inconexas percepciones de sí, como lo quería el empirismo antimetafísico de humeano, pues el yo de “yo pienso” o cogito habrá de acompañar a todo acto de conocimiento, un sujeto que oficiaría como “la condición de posibilidad” de cualesquiera objetos o hechos en cuanto conocidos (recibirá en la jerga kantiana el nombre de sujeto o “yo trascendental”, con lo que el criticismo kantiano pasará a ser llamado trascendentalismo).

De la deuda de Kant para con Rousseau, reconocería deberle poco menos que su “sentido de la humanidad”, obnubilado con frecuencia en los filósofos por un pedante intelectualismo, y consideraba a Rousseau “el Newton del mundo moral”, en el que él mismo había sido introducido de su mano. Cabría decir ahora, que el lugar central ocupado por el sujeto (el sujeto moral y no ya el tracendente) se traduce en la “autonomía” de su legislación moral o su moralidad, la cual el hombre se impone a sí mismo libremente en lugar de esperar a que le venga heterogéneamente impuesta desde fuera. La huella de Rousseau en Kant-más que la de ningún otro ilustrado, cosa que aquél sólo lo fue muy matizadamente- se dejará apreciar con fuerza en el texto Contestación a la pregunta: ¿Qué es la Ilustración? de 1784, donde Kant aventura una famosa caracterización de esta última:

Ilustración significa el abandono por parte del hombre de una minoría de edad de la que él mismo es culpable. Esta minoría de edad significa la incapacidad para servirse de su entendimiento sin verse guiado por algún otro. Y uno mismo es el culpable de dicha minoría de edad cuando su causa no reside en la falta de entendimiento, sino en la falta de valor y de resolución para servirse del suyo propio sin la guía de algún otro. Sapere aude! ¡Ten el valor de servirte de tu propio entendimiento! Tal es el lema de la Ilustración.

It is known that René Descartes had a secret notebook and that mathematician and fellow Rosicrucian, Gottfried Leibniz, using his knowledge and unique personal skills, found the key that unlocked Descartes’ secret and then cloaked it again until Pierre Costabel rediscovered and revealed it in 1987. The secret involved Platonic Solids, the set of five special geometric objects known as regular polyhedrons that can be inscribed inside a sphere with all vertices touching the sphere’s inner surface. 

The secret, apparently known only by initiated Rosicrucians prior to 1987, was that, with any and every polyhedron, when the number of its faces is added to the number of its vertices, and the number of its edges is subtracted from that sum, the answer is always two: F+V–E=2, a “topological invariant” and a revelation about the space aspect of reality. But, until now, an even deeper and more profound truth—embedded in the structure of Platonic Solids and more—has remained either undiscovered or concealed. 

Noetitek™ has facilitated a breakthrough that parallels our earlier discovery of the numerical evidence supporting our “Theory of Everything” (see the separate post). Although PluribusOne™ is not revealing details at this time, we are announcing our discovery of a second proof of Omniversal unity—the Oneness of the origin and infinitude of Omniverse. To summarize this latest finding and its significance, PluribusOne™ states: “An extended set of primary solids, including all Platonic Solids, contains within its aggregate geometry the key to understanding containment of mind/spirit in matter.”

Leibnitz, though not murdered, may be said to have died partly of the fear that he should be murdered, and partly of the vexation that he was not.

~ Thomas De Quincey, Murder Considered As One of the Fine Arts

Such a cosmic rebuke.  Leibniz might have thought his murder necessary in the best of all possible worlds.  Mere death is something even the least can aspire to with confidence; the grand endorsement of martyrdom is granted to few.

En los días de Leibniz la física de Aristóteles era despreciada porque se consideraba que la forma sustancial no servía para explicar los fenómenos físicos particulares y que era necesario echar mano de la extensión y el movimiento local, conceptos fundamentales del mecanicismo. Leibniz se dejó arrastrar por este influjo reformador, aunque muy pronto lo abandonó, ya que descubrió que detrás de la extensión y el movimiento hay algo que no se reduce a ellos: la unidad y la actividad. Estas funciones son propias de la forma sustancial.

Así, Leibniz regresa a la filosofía escolástica aunque aportando un enfoque nuevo: la explicación próxima de los fenómenos físicos concretos está en la extensión y el movimiento, pero la explicación última de los mismos hay que buscarla en la simplicidad y la actividad. De este modo comprendió – mucho mejor que Descartes incluso (recordemos la comparación de la filosofía con un árbol) – que la física, realmente, tiene su fundamento en la metafísica. En Descartes la metafísica tiene por objeto los entes espirituales (el alma y Dios), y la física los entes materiales. En Leibniz un mismo objeto puede ser considerado por dos saberes distintos: uno que se ocupa de la extensión y del movimiento, y otro que se ocupa de lo que está detrás de ellos: la simplicidad y la actividad o entelecheia y mónada.  

I’ve been reading some classic literature lately and was interested to see mathematics show up two of these works.

Last week I read Voltaire’s Candide (1759). One of the main characters is the ridiculous Dr. Pangloss, who subscribes to Leibniz’s philosophy of optimism (or Voltaire’s take on optimism). Leibniz believed in a good and omnipotent God who created “the best of all possible worlds” and Voltaire pokes fun at this belief by making Dr. Pangloss and the other characters suffer miserably despite their optimism.

Although Voltaire does not mention Leibniz’s mathematics, math does show up later when Voltaire’s takes a jab at Parisian scientists in Chapter XXII:

Candide stayed in Bordeaux no longer than was necessary for the selling of a few of the pebbles of El Dorado, and for hiring a good chaise to hold two passengers; for he could not travel without his Philosopher Martin. He was only vexed at parting with his sheep, which he left to the Bordeaux Academy of Sciences, who set as a subject for that year’s prize, “to find why this sheep’s wool was red;” and the prize was awarded to a learned man of the North, who demonstrated by A plus B minus C divided by Z, that the sheep must be red, and die of the rot.

Right now I’m reading Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (1880). Today I read Part II, Book V, Chapter 3, in which Ivan Karamazov mentions non-Euclidean geometry. I’ve reproduced the entire paragraph below and have highlighted the relevant passage.

“Joking? I was told at the elder’s yesterday that I was joking. You know, dear boy, there was an old sinner in the eighteenth century who declared that, if there were no God, he would have to be invented. S’il n’existait pas Dieu, il faudrait l’inventer. And man has actually invented God. And what’s strange, what would be marvellous, is not that God should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man. So holy it is, so touching, so wise and so great a credit it does to man. As for me, I’ve long resolved not to think whether man created God or God man. And I won’t go through all the axioms laid down by Russian boys on that subject, all derived from European hypotheses; for what’s a hypothesis there is an axiom with the Russian boy, and not only with the boys but with their teachers too, for our Russian professors are often just the same boys themselves. And so I omit all the hypotheses. For what are we aiming at now? I am trying to explain as quickly as possible my essential nature, that is what manner of man I am, what I believe in, and for what I hope, that’s it, isn’t it? And therefore I tell you that I accept God simply. But you must note this: if God exists and if He really did create the world, then, as we all know, He created it according to the geometry of Euclid and the human mind with the conception of only three dimensions in space. Yet there have been and still are geometricians and philosophers, and even some of the most distinguished, who doubt whether the whole universe, or to speak more widely, the whole of being, was only created in Euclid’s geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in infinity. I have come to the conclusion that, since I can’t understand even that, I can’t expect to understand about God. I acknowledge humbly that I have no faculty for settling such questions, I have a Euclidian earthly mind, and how could I solve problems that are not of this world? And I advise you never to think about it either, my dear Alyosha, especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three dimensions. And so I accept God and am glad to, and what’s more, I accept His wisdom, His purpose which are utterly beyond our ken; I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life; I believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be blended. I believe in the Word to Which the universe is striving, and Which Itself was ‘with God,’ and Which Itself is God and so on, and so on, to infinity. There are all sorts of phrases for it. I seem to be on the right path, don’t I’? Yet would you believe it, in the final result I don’t accept this world of God’s, and, although I know it exists, I don’t accept it at all. It’s not that I don’t accept God, you must understand, it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept. Let me make it plain. I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidian mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with men — but thought all that may come to pass, I don’t accept it. I won’t accept it. Even if parallel lines do meet and I see it myself, I shall see it and say that they’ve met, but still I won’t accept it. That’s what’s at the root of me, Alyosha; that’s my creed. I am in earnest in what I say. I began our talk as stupidly as I could on purpose, but I’ve led up to my confession, for that’s all you want. You didn’t want to hear about God, but only to know what the brother you love lives by. And so I’ve told you.”

There is a brief discussion of this passage on the Mathematical Fiction website.

¿Qué necesidad hay, de saber siempre cómo se hace lo que se hace? ¿Saben las sales, los metales, las plantas, los animales y otros mil cuerpos animados o inanimados cómo se hace lo que ellos hacen, y tienen necesidad alguna de saberlo? ¿Es necesario que una gota de aceite o de grasa sepa geometría para redondearse en la superficie del agua?

After spending millions of dollars from American budget and time too, the NASA discovered  water on the moon; not clear fro us ordinary people how they found this the picture and their authenticity must be verified, all this could be saved money and time just listen, see,  and make research and make clear your intentions or goals ; what you will search  could be found.

Concerning the discover of water on moon by NASA this week(nov2009); it is already written in kuran from 14 centuries! You will ask for the source? The kuran(metareading, light,criterion,grace,soul) The universal message written in natural language

No falsehood can approach it from before or behind it: it is sent down by One Full of Wisdom, Worthy of all Praise. “Kuran(metareading) 41 Fussilat 42
The vision that comes first to mind in all researches, the fundamental point is the position of this vision.If one located on the right (west), we do not see what is happening to the left (east) and even just in the middle, there is a risk of making bad choices, make decisions inappropriate .

The more moderated, more cautious, more reasonable at the center ; in a high position, on planet Earth, in his Monadology Leibniz(1716) described such a position at home or city of God.
City of god in Old Testament built by Abraham(peace upon him):” And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, aUnto thy bseed will I give this cland: and there builded he an daltar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of aBeth-el, and pitched his tent, having bBeth-el on the west, and cHai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and dcalled upon the ename of the LORD.”O.T genesis12(7-9).
In Kuran(Meta-reading,Reminder,Soul) it the position where you can be testimony on humans:”He has chosen you, and has imposed no difficulties on you in religion; it is the religion of your father Abraham. It is He Who has named you Muslims(submitted, secured), both before and in this (Revelation); that the Messenger may be a witness for you, and ye be witnesses for mankind!”Kuran 22The Pilgrimage (Al-Hajj) -78
the bible confirm this verset: ” And this a gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” Bible Matt 24-14
.One may ask what i have to follow now ?IT is too easy if u love jesus(peace upon him) you follow jesus(puh) when u follow jesus(puh) u win because u will follow this path of saints,testimonies,truthfuls(assidkin) and prophets”All who obey Allah and the messenger are in the company of those on whom is the Grace of Allah,- of the prophets (who teach), the Sincere (lovers of Truth), the martyrs, and the Righteous (who do good): Ah! How beautiful is there fellowship“Kuran 4 nissa(women)69.
which give u lights and knwoledge” Allah will rise up, to (suitable) ranks (and degrees), those of you who believe and who have been granted Knowledge. And Allah is well- acquainted with all ye do.”Kuran 58 Mujadala11.
To move rightly on earth how to be the pioneer both in this world and the eternal world “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the bSon of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. “Bible John 6-27
Who is the son of man the seal?He is Muhammed(peace upon him) on him was revealed the kuran(metareading)”Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but (he is) the Messenger of Allah, and the Seal of the Prophets: and Allah has full knowledge of all things” Kuran33Alahzab -40. “He that obeys Allah and His Messenger, has already attained the great victory. “Kuran33Alahzab71.

Right now we return to verset22 -78 where one can be testimony take the kuran(meatreading) what we can see we read that all creatures are created from WATER:”He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days – and His Throne was over the Waters ” Kuran11Hood -7.let ’s see the chapter before the hajj(-direction to kaaba(home of god) )-which is the chapter 21 prophets ; we  see:
Creation of SKIES, EARTH, MOUNTAIN, NIGHT DAY, SUN, MOON:”Do not the kafaro(Unbelievers,dissimulators) see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before we clove them asunder? We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe? And We have set on the earth mountains standing firm, lest it should shake with them, and We have made therein broad highways (between mountains) for them to pass through: that they may find their way. And We have made the heavens as a canopy well guarded: yet do they turn away from the Signs which these things (point to)! It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course. ” Kuran21 prohets 30-33.

Next chapter 22 hajj we see
Creations of PLANTS:”Seest thou not that Allah sends down water from the sky, and forthwith the earth becomes clothed with green? For Allah is All-Subtle, All-Aware“Kuran22 hajj -63

Chapter23 amooinoon(believers,secured):”And We send down water from the sky according to (due) measure, and We cause it to soak in the soil; and We certainly are able to drain it off (with ease). With it We grow for you gardens of date-palms and vines: in them have ye abundant fruits: and of them ye eat (and have enjoyment),-”Kuran 23 moominoon 18-19.

Chapter 24 :
Creations ofANIMALS:”And Allah has created every animal from water: of them there are some that creep on their bellies; some that walk on two legs; and some that walk on four. Allah creates what He wills: for verily Allah has power over all things. “Kuran 24Noor(Lights) -45.

Chapter 25
Creations of HUMANS:”It is He Who has created man from water: then has He established relationships of lineage and marriage: for thy Lord has power (over all things). “Kuran 25 Furaqan(Criterion)-54
THESE CREATURES WORK IN PAIR TO MAINTAIN BALANCE? TO REPRODUCE TO EXIST:” That has created pairs in all things” Kuran 43Gold Adornments (Az-Zukhruf)-12.
PLANTS:”has sent down water from the sky.” With it have We produced diverse pairs of plants each separate from the others. “Kuran 22aha53.
ANIMALS:washed out by Noah(peace upon him):”take thou on board pairs of every species, male and female“Kuran 23moominoon23 -27.
HUMANS:”That He did create in pairs,- male and female, From a sperm-drop when lodged (in its place);”Kuran 53 Star(najm) 45-46.
PLACE TO DIVERSITY:” Seest thou not that Allah sends down water from the sky? With it We then bring out produce of various colors. And in the mountains are tracts white and red, of various shades of color, and black intense in hue. And so amongst men and beasts and cattle, are they of various colors. Those truly fear Allah, among His Servants, who have knowledge: for Allah is Exalted in Might, Oft-Forgiving. ” Kuran35 The Originator (F?tir) 27-28.
DIVERSITY OF HUMANS THEIRS LANGUAGES AND COLORS:”And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colors: verily in that are Signs for those who know. “Kuran 30The Romans (Ar-Rüm) -22.
Creator must be OMNISCIENT and OMNIPOTENT, laplace said :”We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.” Wickepdia.”
“Seest thou not that it is Allah Whose praises all beings in the heavens and on earth do celebrate, and the birds (of the air) with wings outspread? Each one knows its own (mode of) salathoo(connexionprayer) and tasbihahoo(mission, praise. And Allah knows well all that they do. dominion of the heavens and the earth; and to Allah is the return“Kuran24 Noor(lights) -41-42

« Fait capital et d’une immense portée, une conception anthropomorphique de Dieu nous est à la fois philosophiquement interdite et religieusement nécessaire. »

LE ROY, Le problème de Dieu

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GRILLE DE LECTURE

L’anthropomorphisme est le fait d’attribuer à Dieu la nature humaine, de lui donner des caractéristiques ou des représentations de l’homme. La religion le fait mieux. En effet, la religion est une relation entre l’homme et le divin. Du latin religare (relier), la religion signifie en soi ce qui relie l’homme au divin. Mais dans la conception religieuse en général, le divin est éloigné de l’homme (cf. les Religions Traditionnelles Africaines).

Ainsi pour montrer le divin, l’homme passe par soi. Comme le divin est au-delà de ce qui est sensible, qu’il ne peut faire demeure avec l’homme, c’est à travers des hommes qu’il se fait voir, qu’il dirige le monde. Le divin s’incarne dans les grands hommes. Il prend ainsi la peau humaine, agit par l’homme, agit en homme. Les grands hommes de ce monde, de l’histoire sont donc l’incarnation du divin. Le divin a ainsi des attributions humaines. Les calamités sont attribuées au divin mécontent : il a été lésé, offensé, négligé… Le divin a alors des actes, des sentiments humains, il agit comme l’homme dans la colère, la réclamation, le besoin (d’adoration et de sacrifice par exemple…). Voilà l’anthropomorphisme de Dieu. Cela engage toute la croyance religieuse.

Mais cela ne passe pas chez les philosophes qui voient dans la conception anthropomorphique de Dieu une certaine trahison, une imposture, une méprise. Dieu qui est l’Etre transcendant ne peut être cerné, caractérisé. Il ne peut être enfermé dans les schèmes du sensible, il dépasse tout ce qui est représentable intellectuellement puisqu’il est invisible. Dieu dépasse toutes les catégories humaines. L’Etre nécessaire, transcendant, ne peut être vu comme un homme car l’homme est un être qui doit le tout de son être à l’Etre suprême.

L’homme est comme un effet du don de l’être par l’Etre suprême qui est sa cause. Or, la Cause ne peut être prise comme et pour le causé, l’effet. Dieu est la Cause incausée de tous les êtres dont fait partie l’homme. Le rapport entre Dieu et l’homme est la causalité, la création, la donation de l’être. Leibniz disait « C’est se jouer de Dieu par des anthropomorphismes perpétuels : c’est se le représenter comme un homme qui se doit tout entier à l’affaire dont il s’agit » (Théodicée, I, § 122).

En effet, pour le philosophe, Dieu est trahi, est joué et l’anthropomorphisme n’a pas sa raison d’être en fait. Par l’anthropomorphisme, le causé se joue de l’Etre causant non causé. Aussi, Dieu est un Etre Absolu, et l’homme est un être relatif. L’Absolu ne peut revêtir la peau du relatif. Chacun a ses attributs propres qui le distinguent essentiellement de l’autre. On ne peut ramener l’Absolu, le nécessaire et l’Infini au relatif, au contingent et au fini.

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Leibniz sostiene que nada procede de la experiencia, sino que todo es innato. Para expresar este innatismo introduce una corrección en un viejo aforismo clásico que dice: “Nada hay en el entendimiento que no proceda de los sentidos”. La corrección de Leibniz reza: “Nada hay en el entendimiento que no proceda de los sentidos, salvo el entendimiento mismo”. Si el aforismo clásico nos dice que todo procede de los sentidos y que, consecuentemente, nuestro entendimiento es totalmente pasivo frente a ellos y se limita a recibir lo que la experiencia le dicta, como si fuera un papel en blanco en el cual no hay nada escrito; el aforismo de Leibniz, en cambio, nos dice que nuestro entendimiento es una potencia activa capaz de desarrollar toda una serie de potencialidades que hay en ella. Por esta razón Leibniz compara nuestro entendimiento no con un papel, como Locke o Hume, sino con un bloque de mármol con vetas que parecen prefigurar la imagen de un determinado personaje, por ejemplo el Moisés. Este ejemplo pretende significar que las verdades son innatas, que están en nosotros como la imagen de Moisés está en un bloque de mármol veteado, es decir, como inclinaciones, disposiciones, hábitos o virtualidades (Nuevos ensayos sobre el entendimiento humano, prefacio, G. V, 45). En consecuencia las verdades están en nuestro entendimiento, pero no de un modo actual, sino virtualmente, como en Descartes.

Cuando Leibniz determina las verdades primeras, es decir los principios, alude principalmente a tres: el de identidad, el de contradicción y el de razón suficiente. Los dos primeros, que aparecen unidos en una sola formulación, corresponden a verdades de razón y el último concierne a verdades de hecho.

Respecto a los dos primeros principios Leibniz presenta una formulación algo distinta a la de Aristóteles. El Estagirita dice que el principio de no contradicción es una ley que rige la realidad y el conocimiento, es decir, que tiene un valor ontológico, pero también un valor lógico. Cuando se fija en su aspecto lógico lo expresa afirmando que “es imposible que un mismo predicado se dé y no se dé en el mismo sujeto y en el mismo sentido” (Aristóteles, Metafísica, IV, 3; 1005 b 19-20). En cambio, Leibniz formula que lo verdadero y lo falso no pueden darse juntos en una misma proposición, es decir, afirmando que “una proposición no puede ser verdadera y falsa a la vez” (Nuevos ensayos sobre el entendimiento humano, IV, II, 1, G, V, 343), o dicho de otro modo, ninguna proposición es idéntica a la propia negación (A no es no-A). De este modo vemos que en Leibniz el principio de no contradicción no es más que el principio de identidad formulado de modo negativo. Por tanto el principio de identidad es el primer principio en Leibniz, mientras que en Aristóteles este nunca apareció en la lista de los primeros principios.

El enunciado más general del principio de razón suficiente dice que “nada hay sin razón” (Teoría del movimiento abstracto, G, IV, 232), es decir, “ninguna proposición es verdadera si no tiene razón suficiente para ser así y no de otro modo” (Monadología, 32, G, VI, 617). También tiene un interpretación de carácter ontológico: “ningún hecho sería real […] si no tiene razón suficiente para ser así y no de otro modo” (Monadología). Algunos han entendido este principio como una prolongación del principio clásico de la inteligibilidad de lo real. Este dice que lo real se deja conocer con verdad, tal cual es; de manera que conocemos la cosa de manera dependiente si depende de otra o independiente si no depende de otra. De este modo si una cosa se deja conocer, el que la conoce puede comprenderla. Este principio son las cuatro causas aristotélicas: “Que nada es sin razón, se refiere a la causa eficiente, material, formal y final” (Textes inedites, Paris, 1948, I, 269).  

1. El mejor de los mejor de los mundos posibles.

Alguna vez leí, fuera de contexto, como una cita casual de esas que se coleccionan para poder sazonar una conversación decaída o para aparentar cierta inteligencia o sabiduría popular, la idea de Leibniz de que este es el mejor de los mundos posibles.

A primera vista es un optimismo desbordado, que encuentra fuerte oposición en la realidad, en esa tenaz pantalla que nos mira constantemente a la cara, muchas veces con mirada cruel. Hace unos días apenas se publicaba en este espacio una rápida revisión de la obra de Amijai, quien con lenguaje certero y hermoso nos decía haber atestiguado un mundo carente de piedad.

Hoy leo al filósofo alemán, y encuentro una inteligencia límpida en sus escritos, o al menos en ese breve opúsculo llamado Monadología.

Nos dice Leibniz, en la parte que me interesa comentar, que el universo es uno solo, puesto que siendo el universo infinito, como él lo entiende, y siendo que no es racional que existan varios infinitos, solo es dable un universo con múltiples perspectivas.

Por lo tanto, lo que popularmente hemos entendido como Universos Paralelos, no sería imposible en sí mismo, pero habría que precisar que más que Universos serían perspectivas del mismo Universo.

“debido a la multitud infinita de substancias simples, hay como otros tantos diferentes universos, que no son, empero, sino las perspectivas de uno solo.”

En segundo lugar, y aceptando que solo un Universo existe de todas las posibilidades infinitas, este Universo ha sido seleccionado por dios para poder existir. Y siendo dios infinita bondad y sabiduría, la elección de este Universo indica que esta es la mejor elección de dios, y con ello, se muestra que este es el mejor de los mundos posibles. (Hay que hacer notar que éste es el dios de Leibniz, un matemático, y que su idea de dios en este escrito no tiene nada que ver con Libros Sagrados, ni dioses antropomorfos).

“como hay una infinidad de universos posibles en las ideas de dios y como no puede existir sino solo uno de ellos, es necesario que exista una razón necesaria de la elección de dios, la cual le determine a uno antes que a otro.”

Considero que hay que reunir ambos aspectos para conseguir una mirada más completa: éste es el mejor de los mundos posibles, pero nuestra mirada es solo una de las infinitas miradas de este Universo.

[Quiero entender que la llamada Realidad, lo que percibimos los hombres, no agota el Universo, y que considerar como el poeta que este mundo puede mejorar, es admitir que el mundo es perfectible. Y lo que me parece querer decir, es que el mundo que nos hemos dado los hombres puede ser mejor, pero que el Universo, la gran creación, o la gran broma, no podría ser mejor.

Nos quedaran, en todo caso, dos tareas: Mejorar el mundo que nos hemos contruido, y agotar las posibilidades del Universo.]

2. Sobre la existencia de dios

Todas las cosas del universo tienen una razon de ser, una causa, pero necesariamente cada cosa presupone una anterior que la provoca y sin embargo, para Leibniz como para muchos filósofos, esta serie de causas no puede extenderse hasta el infinito, sino que es necesario que exista una causa última que a su vez sea independiente de otras, es decir, que carezca de causa, y ese ser es llamado dios.

Y siendo independiente de otras, dice con lógica irrefutable Leibniz, un solo dios basta, con lo cual estoy de acuerdo, y este dios debe ser “incapaz de límites y debe contener tanta realidad como sea posible”.

[Tengo para mí que dios, de existir realmente, es un ente ajeno a los adjetivos humanos: sabio, piadoso, bondadoso. Y dios no puede tener voluntad ni desear ni tener apetitos, no puede expresar ni comunicar, ni de ninguna forma entrar en contacto representable ante los hombres, su entendimiento o su imaginación. Y si algo es derivado de dios, no es por creación, sino por emanación, y es por ello que cierta parte de la Kabbalah me parece agradable y sutil.]

Con ello comulgan párrafos de la Monadología, en que se establece que “sólo dios es la unidad primitiva… del cual son producciones todas las esencias* creadas o derivadas, y nacen… por Fulguraciones continuas de la Divinidad.”

*Mónadas, en el original.

Hay que admitir que lo mejor de la filosofía es cuando se acerca a la poesía.

3. El efecto mariposa

En alguna otra de mis lecturas, se decía que no podías cortar una simple flor sin alterar el curso de las estrellas. El conocido efecto mariposa, que proclama que el menor de los actos puede desencadenar las más grandes consecuencias.

Pues bien, Leibniz expresa que el Universo todo esta lleno de sustancia, de seres, que no hay vacío en realidad, y que siendo cada ser vecino inmediato de otro, cualquier cambio en uno de ellos hace eco en todos los demás, hasta el más lejano extremo.

“y por consiguiente, todo cuerpo se resiente de todo lo que se haga en el universo, de tal modo que aquel que lo ve todo podría leer en cada uno lo que ocurre en todas las partes e, incluso, lo que ocurre y lo que ocurrirá”.

4. Un mundo que encierra infinitos mundos.

Una idea que se ha ido repitiendo en la ciencia ficción, con motivo de nuestra pequeñez frente al inmenso mar que es el Universo, es aquella que muestra a la tierra como un ínfimo gramo de polvo, que se integra en un mundo más grande.

Leibniz toma la idea de que toda la materia pueda ser divisible. Pero filósofo alemán va un poco más lejos y expresa que ello no es sólo una posibilidad, sino que de hecho cada porción de materia “esta subdividida actualmente y sin fin en partes”.

Pero aun más, toma el camino inverso de nuestra fingida modestia cinematográfica y no mira hacia el universo exterior, sino interior, pues para el filósofo cada porción de materia expresa todo el universo, y por lo tanto:

“Hay un mundo de criaturas, de Vivientes, de Animales, de Entelquias, de Almas en la mas pequeña porción de la materia.

Cada porción de la materia puede ser concebida como un jardín lleno de plantas, y como un estanque lleno de peces”

Y a su vez cada uno de ellos contiene un mundo semejante. Es el tipo de ideas que la ocasionan a uno cierto vértigo intelectual.

5. Un hombre contra el caos.

“No hay nada de inculto, de estéril o de muerto en el universo, nada de caos, nada de confusiones, sino sólo apariencia de ellos.”

Y sin embargo, para los hombres, que nos agrada decidir por apariencias, nos basta la apariencia de caos para afirmar que tal caos existe. Alguna vez Borges afirmó que el orden del universo es más  bien pudoroso. Casi no se muestra.

[Resulta evidente que Leibniz es más que un filósofo un matemático; no busca tanto la verdad como la solución del problema que representan dios, los hombres, el universo.]

Los escritos Característica universal y Disertación sobre el arte combinatorio han servido para que los historiadores de la lógica califiquen a Leibniz como el fundador – no como el constructor, papel que reservan para Boole – de la lógica simbólica. Su objeto era reducir todas las proposiciones a unas pocas primitivas y combinarlas de modo que resultasen todas las proposiciones posibles.

El primer paso consiste en construir un lenguaje simbólico universal parecido a los caracteres usados en álgebra. El segundo paso debe permitir pasar de unas proposiciones a otras a través de un verdadero cálculo, llamado cálculo lógico, entendido como una operación de símbolos. No obstante, para Leibniz, este cálculo no es estrictamente una noción matemática, sino una noción más general en la cual la matemática es un caso particular. La importancia de este cálculo es poner orden en las discusiones filosóficas: “cuando surjan controversias, dos filósofos no necesitan discutir más que dos calculadores. Bastará, en efecto, que echen mano de la pluma, que se sienten frente a una tabla de calcular y que se digan […] el uno al otro: calculemos” (Ciencia general. Característica, G, II, 200. Las citas de este libro están tomadas, salvo indicación contraria, de la edición de Gerhardt, Die philosophischen Schriften, G. Olms, Hildesheim, 1978). Con lo que cualquier razonamiento falso no sería más que un error de cálculo.

Cuando Leibniz aborda la cuestión de la verdad dice que una proposición es verdadera si el predicado está incluido en el sujeto. Pero esta inclusión no es siempre la misma, porque unas veces el predicado está incluido en el sujeto de modo necesario y en otras de manera contingente. De ahí la distinción entre verdades de razón y verdades de hecho (Monanología, 33, G, VI, 612). Las primeras son proposiciones necesariamente verdaderas, ya que anuncian algo que es de tal modo que no puede ser más que de ese modo, pues sería contradictorio que no lo fuese. Que el triángulo tiene tres ángulos es una verdad de razón, pues sería contradictorio que no los tuviese. Su verdad descansa en el principio de contradicción. Dentro de las verdades de razón hay unas que son primitivas porque a ellas pueden reconducirse, por análisis, todas las demás. De estas unas reciben el nombre de idénticas, porque entre el sujeto y el predicado hay una identidad total – el triángulo es una figura plana de tres ángulos – o parciales – el triángulo es una figura plana – (Nuevos ensayos sobre el entendimiento humano, IV, II, 1, G, V, 343). Entre las verdades idénticas encontramos el principio de identidad.

Respecto a las verdades de hecho decimos que estas son contingentemente verdaderas, ya que anuncian algo que es de cierta manera, pero que podría ser de otra, porque no es contradictorio que lo sea; pero que no lo es, porque hay una razón suficiente para que no lo sea. Por lo cual, si fuese de otro modo, aunque no contradictorio, sería falso. Así, que Cesar atravesó el Rubicón es una verdad de hecho, porque aunque lo cruzó podría no haberlo hecho, ya que no implicaría contradicción. Pero, aunque no la implique, es falso, porque hay una razón suficiente para decir que sí lo cruzó, a saber, que la historia así lo dice. Estas son proposiciones verdaderas que descansan en el principio de razón suficiente. Dentro de este tipo de verdades también hay unas llamadas primitivas, entre ellas, por ejemplo, la primera verdad cartesiana: pienso, luego existo. Pero Leibniz cree que el pensar siempre remite a un objeto, puesto que cuando un sujeto piensa, siempre piensa algo.    

Infinity Ware II or Infinity Wear

Psycho – o.k. hell with art. Nowadays surrealist equals imaginative. During this week I have read The Dancing Wu Li Masters, realized I am not a good secretary, that my writing is a brain destroying drug. Nearly lost it all, nearly lost my mind, nearly spent more money I don’t have, didn’t eat enough, didn’t purchase enough groceries, ate more donuts.

Just don’t know what to do, I sweep up the Hadron droppings in the particle zoo. What the hell, I don’t know how to spell. I’m a sloth wallowing in my trough. I continue to write though visually inclined. Reading about physics I find my entire past present and future unfolds as if designed, that I have no choice in the matter whatsoever. Leibniz is correct, choice is an illusion. Choosing not to choose is a choice. End your choosing on a choice.

To continue with what I have not yet started (oops, wait, have I started that or not?) I can’t remember. I find it difficult to start what I have not yet finished.
Wow! Whiplash.

Again, to continue where I have not yet left off… where was I? Oh yes.

So I’ve been trying to think of all I experience and remember in terms of a subatomic particle. That I operate according to some equation and everything’s taken care of. What a relief.

JS Bell was greeted at the gates of eternity by a crowd of friendly Bodhisattvas. When he inquired after the whereabouts of Einstein they said, “Oh, Einstein usually whiles away his afternoons” (Bell glanced at his wrist watch and saw that it was indeed 2:27 pm) “in the solarium, playing dice with God”