Oligarchs & Criminals: Reward and Punishment After the Unmoved Mover

[Sam1]

by Ian Welsh @ http://www.ianwelsh.net/oligarchs-criminals-reward-and-punishment-after-the-unmoved-mover/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IanWelsh+%28Ian+Welsh%29
.

Our conception of human nature rules most of our social decisions, including those centered around economics and justice.

One of the primary concerns of Theology and Metaphysics was to find an “unmoved mover,” or, a “first cause.”

Our ancestors were not stupid. They noticed that effects seemed to have causes. Even when the cause was not evident, they assumed there was a cause because of how the rest of the universe worked.

In one sense, this is a search for “the creator,” or “the first,” or “God” (though it need not be God in any monotheistic sense). What created the universe runs very quickly into infinite regress. If X created the universe, what created X?

You needed, then, to find a cause which itself had no cause. You needed to find an unmoved mover: Something that could move other things, but was not itself caused by anything.

To many moderns, this seems like a pointless pursuit, but the most brilliant people in many cultures pursued it for thousands of years, precisely because the oddest thing about existence isn’t any one part of existence, it is that there exists existence at all.

[bemildred]

1. KnR.

A couple comments:

1.) We live in what appears to be a universe that does not support infinities, hence any free-will or anything else we have is finite. Thus the question is not whether you have it or not, the question is whether you have enough.

2.) Cause and effect are inferred from serial correlation. X happens after Y over and over, therefore when Y happens you can expect X, and we do. But whether you consider it a cause or an effect depends depends on the situation, it is not an attribute of the thing discussed, but of whether you are considering what came before or what came after, of sequence.

3.) Thus all the causes we know of are also effects, those are labels we apply, depending on what we want.

4.) Our universe does show a high degree of serial correlation, tomorrow will look much like today, a proton next microsecond looks very, very much like it did before. But that is not infinite either, things do change, sometimes in big ways. Protons do eventually go away.

5.) New things emerge from complexity and recursion, self-reference, "strange loops", and there is the space where "free will", choice, and novelty can emerge, finitely.

[Hestia]

2. The above sums up Hermetics to a T. It is a philosophy rather than a dogmatic religion.

Though we are admonished to not dwell on the First Cause because we will never know. Why is this? If we are here on Earth we are way too far down the food chain (vibrational state) to ever get there. It is just one of those things we can not do anything about - who created us? It is an exercise in futility to even think about it when you can be doing "good works."

We do not have a Temple caste any longer to support in thinking these grand thoughts. Money and the pursuit thereof has replaced the Temples.


(Ah, I just noticed that I am posting this on the Oligarchy forum rather than Metaphysics. Oops, nobody here cares about vibrational states )

[Sam1]

5. I think it depends on the activity

We do not have a Temple caste any longer to support in thinking these grand thoughts."

These days we call them seminarians!

[Hestia]

6. Nope, not the same thing. There is a great documentary (but can't remember the name) about

Tibet, who for over 1,000 years had a King and a Priest rule/guide/administer the country. The documentary explains the symbiosis of having both "in charge" rather than just one or the other. China hated it though, told the Tibetans they have been doing it wrong all these years, and invaded them, to "free the Tibetans".

Other countries who were considered successful had this same system, late Bronze, early Iron ages. Unfortunately, people die and others take over. It's the worst thing about being born on Earth, the way we age.

[saidsimplesimon]

3. Ian Welsh, Firedoglake fame?

From the first sentence of the quote:

Our conception of human nature rules most of our social decisions, including those centered around economics and justice.

Humans are primates, we behave like primates. How does this move US forward?

[bemildred]

4. Yep. nt