The claims of a positivist: The reality of a painting on the wall

The revelation that I am a positivist, inadvertently made by me, is indeed profound. I was always of the ‘impression’ that what ever I wrote, whatever I discovered for myself, sprouted from the metaphysical speculation I often sink deep into. Metaphysics, with all its abstractions and interpretative variety, has been alluring me; every so often, when I sit down to think before a session of good and wholesome writing, it dangles a carrot in front of my eyes, and it promises me a wonderland. I am smitten, although it seems at first. To me, positivism is not a belief but an approach towards an idea that I would like to assume in order to understand it better. However, the idea I am approaching comes to light only through the magic of metaphysics. It is like my world is, in essence, defined by the fundamental conceptualizations of objecthood, reality, possibility, causality, etc.; but once I have understood the purpose behind their respective existences and the utilitarian impact they have in the physical world, I need quantification to be able to repeatedly recognize them. Let me take up an elucidatory scenario.

You are in a closed room, and on one of the walls, there hangs a painting. You are in the room, at the center, and looking at it. After some time, you turn around and look at the opposite wall. Now, can you tell me whether the painting behind you exists?

The painting on the wall

Of course, you will, at first, tell me that the painting indeed does for you just happened to see it hanging there. Yes or no? If yes, then the reality of the painting (an inanimate object devoid of senses) has been designated as true by your sight. Therefore, the painting existed because you saw it (thereby also verifying its objecthood). If you hadn’t seen the painting at all, would it have existed?

Again, your answer to this question can be yes or a no, but a more probable answer would be that “it is possible”. So there, we have another one of the metaphysical concepts: that of a possibility. Now, possibility can be understood easily: it is the chance a particular event has of occurring (or not occurring). We say it is a chance because we are not, in our conscious knowledge, endowed with the information necessary to arrive at a certain conclusion. Although whether this information will become known at all is subject to contention, the situation necessitating the understanding of the relationship between ourselves and the event occurring in the future exists nevertheless. And thus, it is a possibility.

Here, I have established for myself that there does exist objecthood, the kind recognizable only through the meaningful interpretation of the object. However, it is that employment of a codified and unified method (for ex. science) that helps me in objectively identifying the nature of their manifestation.

Do Communists really have no class?: Some clarifications.

Yesterday night, after I put up the post questioning the possible fallacies of Communism, I had a small chat online with a friend of mine who was studying law. He had a few questions for me, the answers to which I thought I had mentioned in the post itself. Once I give it a comprehensive read, I realised I had taken some concepts and ideas for granted. Here are the clarifications:

1. In the flowchart, I have not taken a just and an absolutely meritorious law for granted. I have only assumed it to be the origin of my arguments. If I were to give you a physical representation, a sheet of graph paper would be apt. To me, the origin {0,0} is out of focus; the “law” point rests at a different point {x,y}, the point at which law as a concept in life becomes necessary.
2. I have taken the law to be just and fair, the (possibly necessary) precursor to the birth of society as it exists today. What I mean is the ‘law’ which I have taken to be the embryo of equality and justice is a just law, if necessary in an absolutist sense.
3. The metaphor of the smoke against the white skies I have used to detail the relationship between equality and freedom must be noted when reading about an individual’s rights being “endowed”. Here, I am not refuting the naturalist who says individuals are born with rights; I am saying the rights as we know them, the rights as we seem to be able to invoke them in the halls of justice, are endowed with. In other words, the rights I am referring to are those with the law as a backdrop, and not those that exist simply from, say, an idealistic existentialist’s point of view.
4. And, yes, I am a positivist. 🙂

(Refer to ‘Some useful links‘ for further information.)

Nietzche & The Vedas: The Contradiction Trap

You all know of Friedrich Nietzche, of course, as the founder of the nihilistic basis of thought. The Vedas are ancient texts which were written some 4,000 years ago by Indian sages. Although it was passed down orally from generation to generation, Vyasadeva, the manifested literary incarnation of God (Hinduism), was insipired by their profound wisdom and pit them down in the form of Srimad Bhagavatam. Now, the Bhagavatam consists of many different chapters grouped as cantos, and each chapter deals a specific element of either the Supreme Being, the Universe, Nature, or man. A recurring phrase throughout the books is that of the ‘Absolute Truth’, a reference to pure Krishna consciousness, the ultimate realisation that stems from completely understanding the world.

My father had all the 18 volumes of the text, and when we shifted out residence from Chennai (India) to Uppsala (Sweden), we had to separate the set into those books which we could afford to carry (or wanted to finish reading) and those that could be left behind. I think only two or three books made it that way. One among them, the Twelfth Canto, caught my eye. It dealt with the annihilation of false egos and the glaring mistakes and faults of the Kali yuga which would lead to the downfall of mankind in the Great Flood. Here is a line from the canto (in Sanskrit):

na hi sathyasya naanaathvam|
avidhvaan yadhi manyathe||
naanaathvam chidhrayor yadhvaj|
jyothishor vaathayor iva||

It translates as:

“There is no material duality in the absolute truth. The duality perceived by an ignorant person is like the difference between the sky contained in an empty pot and the sky outside the pot, or the difference between the reflection of the sun in water and the sun itself in the sky, or the difference between the vital air within one living body and that within another body.“

The duality mentioned, if you will observe, is a relative duality. Vyasa says the duality is restricted to materialism, which is also false and illusory. When you perceive an object, the perception assumes meaning when you can observe the effect of the object in its environs. For example, you can know the saturating power of water only when you see and feel a damp cloth or sponge. You can understand the burning power of fire only you feel the heat or when you see ashes. Therefore, the duality in materialism simplifies to the duality of cause and effect. Yet again, the effect of a phenomenon deserves perception only when the cause is perceptible, and there can be no effect if there was no cause. But, as per our earlier argument, the cause itself is realised through but the effect it has come to give birth to. Does this mean the cause and effect of any event are relative to each other? Yes, it does.

Duality?

A: The fire is burning.

B: How do you know?

C: You can feel the heat.

A – cause; C – effect

____________________

A: The fire is burning.

B: How do you know?

C: Why? Don’t you feel the heat?

D: No.

E: Then, it is not fire but something else.

If you were to deductively continue along these lines, you will observe that materialism is proven to be false and illusory. The Vedas decry it, and uphold its defeat in the search for the truth. Everything that has a beginning will have an end, and everything with a beginning and an end will beguile cause and effect, and therefore must be shunned from the self. For example, the cycle of life and death culminates in the attainment of Moksha, or deliverance, and through the deliverance, man attains Heaven. Therefore, the cycle of life and death, in this case, becomes an illusion, and everything contained within dissolves into a tiny atom of the Absolute Truth.

Now, Friedrich Nietzche’s arguments are also along the same lines, although he also furtively discarded the concept of God Himself. Nietzche argues that objective morality does not exist in this world, thereby diffusing the values of objective morals with which to prefer one action over the other. Therefore, even if a God exists, humans have no obligation to worship them. The following is a famous quote by Nietzche.

“To the clean are all things clean’ — thus say the people. I, however, say unto you: To the swine all things become swinish! Therefore preach the visionaries and bowed-heads (whose hearts are also bowed down): ‘The world itself is a filthy monster.’ For these are all unclean spirits; especially those, however, who have no peace or rest, unless they see the world FROM THE BACKSIDE — the backworldsmen! TO THOSE do I say it to the face, although it sound unpleasantly: the world resembleth man, in that it hath a backside, — SO MUCH is true! There is in the world much filth: SO MUCH is true! But the world itself is not therefore a filthy monster!“

The relativism established in perception by Nietzche is unmistakable. “To the clean all things are clean; to the swine, all things become swinish!” – a statement that purports the perceptional reflectivism, a relativism on its own, that becomes clear when the Vedas are taken up as reference. Although the Vedas assume a Supreme Being in order to quantify the cause, they give the Supreme Being no end – fortifying the effectlessness of the cause. Therefore, the Supreme Being is no illusion and exists. However, this is an argument wherein the posteriori argument and the priori justification resemble the head and tail of Kekule’s snake!

Anyway, Nietzche’s nihilism seems to have been borrowed from the Vedas with a few aspects removed. Either which way, the absence of a moral absolute as put forth by both sources is the same: the Vedas argue for no such thing, but by condemning materialism the morals established thus also find themselves set aside. Our search for an absolute being is vain. We are trapped in our own contradictions: we live in a materialistic world, we define our own morals. The absolute we look for can not manifest in such an environment wherein the Creation, a part of the Absolute Truth, dwells, for the reaches of our argument only span something that does not exist. “To the clean all things are clean“. The only truth is the self when everything perceived by the self and everything understood by the self is a reflection of the self again. I am because I am. There is no disputing that. The fire is fire to me if I am me while the fire is: I have to be consciously aware of the self while I touch the fire, and if it is hot, then I describe the fire as ‘hot’ while taking for granted that I am me. Everything else is there because I am. I am the cause. I am the effect because I perceive it and make it seem real.

Except, of course, love failures!