An extract of the new book 'Spheres of Perception'  



Beauty what is it?
    ‘Beauty is the promise of happiness’

     Stendhal 

We cannot focus on the negative emotions of fear and greed and be forgiven in overlooking perhaps the most noble recruit in our cognitive ability - to sense beauty in the world around us. 

The historically well-argued proximity of goodness (morality), beauty and truth ensuing from Pythagorean times has been critically judged by some writers and philosophers ever since then. In concordance with Pythagoras I equate morality with goodness here, since no instances come to mind where moral action generally is not set on goodness or where goodness does not relate to moral action. 

Pythagoras’s brilliance historically stands out, perhaps even on this matter, seemingly well removed from his preoccupation with the mathematical world and architecture, where he clearly sensed harmony in a relationship between goodness, beauty, and truth. Albeit superficially open to much criticism he postulated the human soul’s structure to be similar and in accord with the universe and in consonance of melodious musical notes. The beauty in the music bringing us closer to a fusion of these three elements - beauty, goodness and truth. This is perhaps not as far-fetched anymore as it may seem to some. 

Pythagoras inarguably well ahead of his times, was constantly striving and delving deeper into understanding the physical and mathematical world. Perhaps we can also claim he existed in more pragmatic times where an embryonic and more open academia were not so much affected by ‘fashion’ and profit seeking enterprises. Such independence giving his wondrous cognitive drive the ability to exchange more liberally with the world and universe around him - who, what you are and when. Certainly, some amount of liberalism and perhaps ‘unconventional’ thinking and understanding was needed to sense the amazing interconnection and harmony of an omnipresent morality in an infinite universe and propose a fusion of truth, goodness and beauty. All this at a time well before mobile DNA, the internet, and an understanding of how cells interact with their surrounds and evolved the human brain.

The rudimentary argument used against Pythagoras’s proposal on this matter run along the lines of, ‘should I listen to beautiful harmonious music with rhythms harmonised with the universe, I do not as a result necessarily become a good person and then can lay claim to sense the truth’. This can be comfortably seen as unfair to Pythagoras and quite naïve because of my argument here. His criticism is mostly due to misinterpretation and a complete misunderstanding of his harmonising a universal morality and an innate longing as part of the natural human condition for an approximation between these three elements, rather than seeing one as a necessary product of the other.

Pythagoras sensed consonance instead of disparity between the structure of the human ‘soul’ (cognition), harmonious music and a consonant in the structure of the universe. He was perhaps, well ahead of his times already aware of the morality needed for such interactions in an interconnected universe to make it function the way we understand it today.  We can also revive this Pythagorean view with our proposal in this text where we have uncovered the gracious ethos needed for harmonious interactions to explain the evolutionary drive as,

E(m)=∑∞∆C {∞∆a (Metaphysical⇌LSOR⇌PSOR) ≈ ∞∆b(Metaphysical⇌LSOR⇌PSOR)}.

This certainly does not imply that if I listen to Mozart’s requiem (or any other piece of melodious music) that I necessarily become a good person or see the truth. It does however suggest that the requiem, inarguably a beautiful and mellifluous masterpiece with significant impact on our cognitive progress, may bring us closer to the pattern of interconnections and congruous interchanges. This expressing workable truths (in this case harmonious music) with a ≈ b. The threat of a supernova explosion, seen in the context of an understanding of harmonious cosmic interchanges and universal forces following certain physical laws, now become a natural event with even an element of beauty for a knowledgeable a. Without some understanding and realisation of such an interconnected universe, following truthful universal laws, we may see it egoistically and anxiously as a potential threat with the ability to cause mass extinction of life on our planet. Although such a threat may perhaps one day be real (LSOR), the closer we get in comprehending the physical rules and moral demands driving this infinite cognitive flux, as part of constantly changing interconnected flow of ‘ideas’, the more we can sense beauty, truth and even goodness in the context of these universal interchanges. With new understanding of such potential threats to our existence as part of a bigger infinite idea and with us as interconnected idea makers, we can unanimously advance our civilisation with a better chance to confront such issues than primitively fighting each other to survive.

A representative example may be taken as the beauty of an artwork or a face in a crowd, where the beauty may analytically be seated in the lines and proportions of the painting or the face, but only when seen as a holism does it present us with an image of our interpretation of harmonised living in purity, goodness and truth. Again, it certainly does not suggest the beautiful face in the crowd belongs to an honest and good person. The beauty of the face merely proximate and presents the three aspects of beauty, truth and goodness and our interpretation within a constant drive towards such harmony. Elements we all inevitably admire more than superficial worth. Generally superficial beauty in a person represents aspects of healthy clean living avoiding excesses, but it does not mean the person possessing beauty necessarily practices such wise lifestyle choices.

Another element of beauty is acknowledgment of its place as part of an interconnected whole. Arrogance or ego at once spoils beauty as beauty is selfless, quietly taking its place within a universal whole. A person can never possess beauty by means of ownership. We can merely through higher cognition, knowledge and understanding constantly attempt to better fuse the beauty of an object with goodness and truth together with these elements in the observer.  Trying to purchase a painting because it is highly acclaimed for its beauty but not having the ability to harmonise such beauty (through truth and goodness) is pointless. Any attempt to own beauty with the aim of enhancing one’s own lack in beauty, goodness or truthfulness is likewise doomed to fail and may even destroy the primary objects beauty - without much further explanation needed in the context of our understanding here, I hope.

Once the true beauty of an object or person b is realised and synchronised with these same elements in the observer a, beauty in the eye of the beholder - observer a. This harmony between observer a and the observed b is perhaps what Pythagoras proposed. With deeper digging and better understanding of the constant change and interconnection between the observer and the observed, it can be seen how we can merely appreciate, respect, and enjoy (be happy about) beauty but never truly possess it. We merely harmonise ourselves with beauty, truth, and goodness for certain periods, through constantly improving such inner elements in ourselves as changing observers within a continuous change. From this we can gather that beauty is simultaneously permanent and ephemeral - forever out of our reach and changing.

The potential of beauty then harbours itself in this search for such harmony within ourselves for these three evanescent elements. It is in understanding and developing of this longing, free of possession, that we can also increase the frequency of experiencing these dazzling moments of beauty but realise we can never entirely cling to it. As we change, our interpretation simultaneously changes all the time. This disparate attempt at bringing us closer to beauty through ownership is exactly with distances us from its true value. We may sense a similarity here between the ephemerality of beauty and that of obtaining ultimate knowledge. We freely move between objects and experience them based on our cognitive abilities to understand and know them. The better our cognitive abilities, the more truthful our knowledge and the higher our morality (selfless) the more beautiful our world and significant our minuscule place in the vast universe become. 

Beauty is consequently achieved through harmony between a, the beholder, and the beheld b. 

The latter is important to many of us today where we seem to accumulate more than we need or can consume in a market-driven consumerist society constantly promoting possession as a link to happiness. We can see how in an attempt to obtain happiness through status in possession, we may overlook the beauty around us and perhaps also how having fewer possessions and with a less egoistic perception, we may free our cognitive capacity to sense ubiquitous beauty, while helping others and the environment. Either way an open and sober mind relieves us of some of the environmental and social burdens that come with excesses in today's world. We now see the beauty of the elderly and realise the ugliness of or actions in ignoring the poor. Sadly, many of the attempts by more clear-headed activists today to make people aware of such superfluity in our progression towards a better world, is also quickly swamped by media and those more interested in sales and profits than genuine beauty, truth and goodness. It also robs us of our cognitive ability (what makes us us) and causes us to over-admire or attach ourselves to objects or certain ideas about objects or expect epiphany in one specific event.

It is apt to end this section perhaps with a musical break and if possible listen to Mahler’s ‘Das Lied von der Erde’. In the composer’s selfless search for beauty, written near his deathbed as a farewell to the world and close to his, what can perhaps be interpreted as a fulfilled life and happy death he gave us an overlooked message. The singer of his composition expresses the harmony and continuity of the world, life, and its infinite beauty in a sweet melodic repetition, Ewig ewig, ewig ewig - for ever and ever and for ever and ever and ever … We now see endless beauty, truth, change and infinity in these last profound words of the composer, rather than finality, even in the aged and our own inevitable death.
Miss you dad ...

WHY NOTHING IS TRUE AND WHY WE SHOULD BE HAPPY TO HEAR THIS.

In order for a theory to be consistently right it has to be set in the background of other theories that proved consistently wrong on the matter under question.
Furthermore consider this. We operate our thinking on such matters as products of a pliable cognitive drive as a consequence of an evolutionary process open to testing ideas that work and remain viable  in a constantly changing habitat—this habitat now slowly being seen more and more as a massively expanding universe (approximately 2.1km/sec, even this is subject to constant change).
We distinguish between a real world and our knowledge (innate or acquired) and this knowledge is supposed to be true or at least partially correspondent to some part of the real world (for a period at least) in order for natural selection to take palce. Nevertheless “the real world is nothing but the world of our experience” (Gerhard Vollmer), our knowledge of it and all we can know about the world is what our cognitive system knows and allows. Moreover, our cognitive system is explained precisely as a product of evolutionary process. But so is the habitat we base our growing epistemology on also constantly changing and evolving.
We should as natural scientists by now at least realise that without change in both habitat and organism there can be no evolution...and no life.
So life (cognition) is a change of ideas in an evolving idea.

Set in such a background, now for the First Godelian Incompleteness Theorem:
If T is a consistent, strong, recursively axiomatizable theory, then there is a sentence “P” in the language of the arithmetic of the vast universe such that neither “P” nor “not: P” is provable in T.
As Earth based evolutionary products our perceptive means receive and interpret photons the way we do, this depending on your species and evolutionary niche achieved. Traveling faster than light is not possible... Merely thinking about this and the photons from the outer realms of the universe only now reaching us after 30 billion lightyears we have already travelled faster than light — so thoughts travel faster than light, already a good start to question an existing theory.
 
Second Incompleteness Theorem: If T is a consistent, sufficiently strong, recursively axiomatizable theory, then the theory:
T+ not: Con(T)
            is consistent.

Here is the proof:
Let T1 be any consistent, sufficiently strong theory (e.g. Peano arithmetic). So, by Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem:

T2 = T1 + not: Con(T1) is a consistent theory.

We can deduct from this that “Con(T2)” is true. Now, consider the following theories:
(i) T2 + not: Con(T2)
(ii) T2 + Con(T2)
Since, as we have already seen, T2 is consistent, it follows, again, by the second incompleteness theorem, that the first theory:
T2 + not: Con(T2) is consistent.
But now consider the second theory (ii). This theory includes the claim that T2 does not prove a contradiction – that is, it contains “Con(T2)”. But it also contains every claim that T2 contains. And T2 contains the claim that T1 does prove a contradiction – that is, it contains “not: Con(T1)”. But if T1 proves a contradiction, then T2 proves a contradiction (since everything contained in T1 is also contained in T2). Further, any sufficiently strong theory is strong enough to show this, and hence, T2 proves “not: Con(T2)”. Thus, the second theory:
T2 + Con(T2) is inconsistent, since it proves both “Con(T2)” and “not: Con(T2)”. QED.

If we now place our pliable evolutionary cognition within its constantly changing epistemology in an equally pliable constantly changing habitat, we can perhaps sense the unlikelihood of absolute truths.
 Lastly a very plausible thought if everything is know in a fixed environmet there can be no scope for natural selection or evolution (cognitive evolution) to occur. So we can conclude change and tempory ideas about ideas is the best we can try and achieve even in mathematics. This is good news in a world where limitations can be blinding and politicians overconfident in their believes and ideas.

T D Holtzhausen
July 2016

References
     -Roy T Cook  Consistency of inconsistency claims.  Cited on the Internet http://blog.oup.com/2016/03/paradox-consistency-inconsistency/
• Kurt Gödel. Consistency of the Continuum Hypothesis. Princeton University Press
• Authors own unpublished personal work.
• Lewontin, R. C., "Organism and Environment", in H. C. Plotkin (ed.): Learning,
• Development, and Culture: Essays in Evolutionary Epistemology. Wiley, Chichester 1982, pp. 151-170.
• Lorenz, K., "Kants Lehre vom Apriorischen im Lichte gegenwärtiger Biologie", Blätter für Deutsche Philosophie 15 (1941): 94- 125. English translation reprinted in H. C. Plotkin, ibid.)
• Wuketits, F. M., Evolutionary Epistemology and Its Implications for Humankind. SUNY Press, Albany, N. Y. 1990.

A beautiful new world

THE MOST NOBLE THOUGHTS EVER THOUGHT AND SHARED:
How To Build a Beautiful World.
Criticism, opinionated demagogues, misinformation and ignorance abound in today's financial and market driven society.  Thoughts and ideas build OUR FUTURE WORLD.
This blog is purely for such thoughts and the beautiful minds that create them:
POST AND SHARE FREELY as long as:
 CONSTRUCTIVE
 CONDUCIVE TO WELLBEING OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS
 PEACEFUL
 KIND
‘Happiness is power of thought- the greater a persons power of thought the greater will be his happiness ; not something accidental but in virtue of his thinking ‘

‘All that is best for man lies beyond the power of other men or objects’

‘Recognition of man's free will as something capable of influencing historical events, as not subject to laws, is the same for history as the recognition of a free force moving the heavenly bodies for nature...’

‘How freely we live depends both on our political system and our vigilance in defending it's liberties.
How long we live depends both on our genes and on quality of our healthcare and lifestyle.
How well we live- that is how thoughtfully, how nobly, how virtuously, how joyously, how lovingly - depends on our philosophy and how we apply it to all else.’

The poor, are they us or them.

WHY POVERTY AND ‘UNDERACHIEVEMENT’ MAY BE HEALTHY FOR US.

In most western cultures poverty was generally associated with unattractiveness— drug abuse drunkenness, rogues and uneducated ‘losers’. In recent years the rich were the cultured, educated idea makers of an emerging society with more access to better education, good nutrition and culture. This was made even more adulatory set in a background of ample opportunity. Times have changed.

In a post Wall Street era where inevitably excess produces more waste and greed is overtly associated with selfishness, disregard for environment and others and in essence unappealing, wealth has yet again emerged without its expected respect or admiration. This further bolstered by the growing appearance of lack of culture and education associated with extreme wealth. Little imagination is needed to conjure up an image of such greedy all consuming characters in current day media or in daily encounters with these so called ‘high flyers’. Such profit driven characters and their conglomerates, besides complete disregard for the environmental impact of their actions, also succeeded simply because of their severe lack of empathy for others, our planet or future generations.                                                     

Why the intelligent and educated young are turning their backs on wealth in pursuit of a more meaningful existence maybe more than an instinctive response to a  pending crisis situation if we consider the following:  

  An innate global need for peaceful coexistence and sharing of resources, this emerging more so with our new understanding of our isolated place on a small planet in a very large universe. The only tug against this are greedy politicians and a outdated fiscal system kept in place by its principle benefactors in fear of losing their wealth and the security this offers with their blinkered belief in a precarious future.  

  Our generally recognised vulnerability facing the impact of climate change and associated global food and water shortages— an issue still only ignored by the complete ignorant or those festering in severe bias driven by greedy enterprises. Money won't by your way out of this with anarchy ruling and the poor busy robbing the rich in cities turning into mega-slums. 

  Growing awareness of the impact of investment property on others, the environment and their ability to get affordable housing. This is also where most of the middle classes secure their comfort zone in artificial  wealth creation (other than so called shares). 

  In many larger developed cities today salaries hardly match the cost of living and finding affordable housing has become near impossible. A ticking time bomb from all perspectives.  

  A growing highly educated workforce seeking employment. This to some extent further fuelling unrealistic enterprises and profiteering as a desperate pursuit with an escalating disregard for ethical behaviour— adding fuel to the fire.

  Increasing distrust of the major banks based on evidence of mergers and recent fraudulent activity and exploitation of the masses.

  Increasing number of inept and corrupt governments and their officials lacking foresight or morality and merely driven by personal gain. 

  Control of the media by a few wealthy individuals and their sways instead of mass opinion and authentic concerns. Such misinformation escalating the already existing suspicion and distrust amongst the masses. 

  Marketing enterprises targeting the sales of superfluous goods (medicines and services included here) creating environmental waste. Scepticism is on the increase with a growing number of more pragmatic post-baby boomer consumers entering the workforce.

  Commercialisation of universities and research now controlled by financial donors and their benefactors grossly misdirecting a more realistic direction of our evolutionary epistemology. A knowledge and healthcare driven by profit rather than its ontic value.

  An unrealistic healthcare system using superfluous ‘cover up’ medicines bolstered by an out of control profit driven pharmaceutical industry. All this with an overlooked and significant environmental impact. 

  The growing need to live simply with still an innate demand to remain interconnected made easier by computers and the Internet 

  Merges and monopolisations with its negative effect on competition, free enterprise, the environment,  job-creation and wealth distribution— resulting in elevated price fixing.

Only the extremely ignorant are not at least subconsciously aware of these issues, therefor the growing apathy towards monetary wealth. 

Now for the why simple living is HEALTHY for us and our habitat:

 Consuming and eating less is associated with longevity.

 General recognition of how stress and an unhappy work environments are linked to a negative health impact on both the individual, family and community at large.

 The growing toxicity of mega cities— safety, crime, dirty air, overcrowding etc. 

 A simple diet more selectively chosen cutting out processed foods, meats and dressed up convenience foods (the expensive stuff) is healthier.

 Simple living – one clean well-designed home catering for the needs of the family or person close to their workplace without extravagant and superfluous unused space is easier to warm or cool down and maintain. No investment property —consider this as theft in a world where we have poverty, environmental concerns and homeless people.

 Home grown vegetables and community farming are becoming very attractive sensible more economical and pesticide free options.

 The feasibility of cutting back on petrochemical means of transport by working from home or living close to work due to Internet. 

 Decentralisation of ‘busting’ cities leading to more self employment opportunities and economical growth of rural regions and in the self-sufficiency.

 Less dependence on social meeting places like clubs and bars in an era of Internet dating and chatting.

 Growing appeal of open spaces and visit is to remote regions instead of cities for holiday or relaxation purposes.

 The peace of mind that your simple lifestyle and lack of greed is helping others and the environment.

TIME to TAKE the DOG for a WALK:

They have coined a new phrase in Silicon Valley jargon— ‘pain point’. A pain point is any issue that may be a source of revenue for the money hungry  technology industry. An example here would be the trouble consumers (and perhaps the hesitation created) have to  go through to reach for a card in their  wallet before parting with their money. The arrival of ‘contactless payments’ are now here and soon we can merely swipe our smartphones to make a purchase.

Is there perhaps a form of arrogance and a misnomer in this hijacking of terminology by Silicon Valley, normally linked with a healthcare based on empathy and involved with physiological pain?    

Besides the fact that we have ill defined definitions of this so called increased efficiency we are getting (for of course a price) us normal folk are oblivious to these added new ‘pain points’ in our lives until kindly guided by the corporations marketing the new cures . 

Furthermore ignorance exists surrounding many frightening statistics indirectly costing the consumer or the environment.

So many, only 3 here:

 — Western nations dump 50 tonnes of e-rubbish in India each year .

—The average American adult spends 11 hours per day (70% of waking hours) on electronic media- this includes computers, smartphones, television violates etc.

—Recent studies indicate links to increased anxiety, depression and even addictive or aggressive behaviour linked to excessive use of electronic devices. This is besides the the physical problems, increase cardiovascular disease , obesity etc. as a result of less activity. 

The problem here is as healthcare workers we have a clear aim in addressing a pain point with as much efficiently as possible— to address a pressing and real existing suffering and distress in a patient (dog , horse, farm animal or human) with empathy and improve the quality of their lives.

Silicon Valley has only one clearly defined goal and that is profits and lots of it.

So perhaps, before arrogance overrule sense, we should take the dog for a walk, get some exercise and reserve terminology for its true intend.

Theo Holtzhausen

Reference:

New Philosopher p21-23 , no 11 April 2016.