This is Mostly for Mark
Just part of a long philosohpy conversation with Mark. You can read it if you really want to.
Sitting on the hood of my car and looking out towards the Burnside Bridge, Mark, Erik, and I begin our talks. What’s tangible in this world? Because words are like dead things we use to describe the living; describe where we are at one point or another. Thinking about Heraclitus’ the one and the many, is this world the one we were in only a second ago? So perhaps nothing is tangible at all, as there is never any clear moment that pauses to allow us to put our fingers on objects and declare them tangible. They would no longer be, after time kept moving along. (I’ve obviously been thinking about the idea of time, and I hope you follow all this.)
Upon learning the elementary basics of the theory of relativity we come to realize that even time is not a constant. Time, the way I understand it, is basically how you are being hit by wavelengths of light. If you were able to travel with the same wavelength, following its arch for say several years (which means you are traveling below or above the speed of light), when you return to earth, much more time would have passed.
What I mean to say in all this is that scientifically (which is still a subjective view) time passes differently depending on where you are/how fast you are traveling. Thus, how can there be any absolute truth if even time is an inconstant? What about truth anyway? I have a very hard time believing Socrates in that. I come to a strange puzzle. Taking into account Parmenides belief that non-being cannot exist (in our minds), and that every time one tries to imagine nothing - even that nothing, simply by thinking about it becomes something. And then coupling that theory with Socrates’ ability to find a flaw in every belief structure, I begin to wonder about the possibility that whatever I say, whatever I write can be refuted somehow. So Parmenides argument of non-existence of nothing could be untrue in at least one circumstance. Which (to me) ties into the idea of black holes - non-existence. Or at least at kind of it. But by putting a name on a thing, even a nothing, does make it a thing. The only way scientists can “see” black holes is by the light that escapes or by the light that is getting sucked into it. Blah.
When Socrates in the Republic is discussing the idea of the word justice, what does that mean? Justice is just a word, a sound for an intangible but inane (perhaps) feeling in human beings. By placing wore words on it, does that make it tangible? Is that even the point? The problem I have with placing definition on the intangible (or even the tangible) is that at some point the words break down. They become traitorous. As Socrates showed by refuting all his peers’ definition for ‘justice.’
Here it is then; by placing borders on anything, be it tangible or not, at some point the “borders” or definition fails in at least one situation. But then if you flip the logic that there will always be one situation that breaks a solid definition, can there also be a definition that has no flaws? See, here I don’t know, you could flip that reasoning each way and still end up where you started.
Sitting on the hood of my car and looking out towards the Burnside Bridge, Mark, Erik, and I begin our talks. What’s tangible in this world? Because words are like dead things we use to describe the living; describe where we are at one point or another. Thinking about Heraclitus’ the one and the many, is this world the one we were in only a second ago? So perhaps nothing is tangible at all, as there is never any clear moment that pauses to allow us to put our fingers on objects and declare them tangible. They would no longer be, after time kept moving along. (I’ve obviously been thinking about the idea of time, and I hope you follow all this.)
Upon learning the elementary basics of the theory of relativity we come to realize that even time is not a constant. Time, the way I understand it, is basically how you are being hit by wavelengths of light. If you were able to travel with the same wavelength, following its arch for say several years (which means you are traveling below or above the speed of light), when you return to earth, much more time would have passed.
What I mean to say in all this is that scientifically (which is still a subjective view) time passes differently depending on where you are/how fast you are traveling. Thus, how can there be any absolute truth if even time is an inconstant? What about truth anyway? I have a very hard time believing Socrates in that. I come to a strange puzzle. Taking into account Parmenides belief that non-being cannot exist (in our minds), and that every time one tries to imagine nothing - even that nothing, simply by thinking about it becomes something. And then coupling that theory with Socrates’ ability to find a flaw in every belief structure, I begin to wonder about the possibility that whatever I say, whatever I write can be refuted somehow. So Parmenides argument of non-existence of nothing could be untrue in at least one circumstance. Which (to me) ties into the idea of black holes - non-existence. Or at least at kind of it. But by putting a name on a thing, even a nothing, does make it a thing. The only way scientists can “see” black holes is by the light that escapes or by the light that is getting sucked into it. Blah.
When Socrates in the Republic is discussing the idea of the word justice, what does that mean? Justice is just a word, a sound for an intangible but inane (perhaps) feeling in human beings. By placing wore words on it, does that make it tangible? Is that even the point? The problem I have with placing definition on the intangible (or even the tangible) is that at some point the words break down. They become traitorous. As Socrates showed by refuting all his peers’ definition for ‘justice.’
Here it is then; by placing borders on anything, be it tangible or not, at some point the “borders” or definition fails in at least one situation. But then if you flip the logic that there will always be one situation that breaks a solid definition, can there also be a definition that has no flaws? See, here I don’t know, you could flip that reasoning each way and still end up where you started.