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00434: Re: Le Zero et l'Infini

From: Giorgio Menon <giorgio.menon(at)pd.infn.it>
Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 11:48:17 +0200
Subject: Re: Le Zero et l'Infini

Georges Metanomski wrote:

=========================================================>In his "Le Zero et l'Infini" (Zero and Infinity) Arthur
Koestler gives one of the best if not the best literary
description of Hegelian Dialectic commanding Gulag and
more generally any inquisition based regime.

Let's recall Hegelian "reasoning" at its roots:

"Whatever we assert about the Absolute, our assertion will
not be adequate and will call for negation. When we say
that Absolute is a Pure Being we do not attribute anything
to it, our statement is equivalent with saying that
Absolute is Nothingness. Thesis "Absolute is Being" leads
to antithesis "Absolute is Nothingness" and to synthesis
that Absolute is some synthesis of the two."


Well, it might be useful reminding all the interested people the Artur
Koestler studied levitation and telepathy and left a large sum of money
for research into parapsychology: this funded, amongst other things, the
Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh University. See:
http://moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/
here, after clicking "Research" and "The Challenge" we get Professor
Morris stating that:
"Parapsychology threatens the precision and tidiness of traditional
scientific methodology.
Parapsychology involves the study of complex, open systems. It has
difficulty in generating and testing theory-based hypotheses. For these
and other reasons, parapsychology has often been labelled a
pseudoscience by philosophers and sociologists of science. At the
Koestler Parapsychology Unit, we attempt to address these issues by
setting our research within the wider context of society as a whole, by
developing models for understanding how we can be deceived by ourselves
and others..."
You can read an essay of him (Physics and metaphysics) at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2740/janus.html
Having Koestler decided that ". . . the apparent absurdities of quantum
physics . . . make the apparent absurdities of parapsychology a little
less preposterous and more digestible" he found out that "the members of
a hierarchy, like the Roman god Janus, all have two faces looking in
opposite directions: the face turned toward the subordinate levels is
that of a self-contained whole; the face turned upward toward the apex,
that of a dependent part (3). Koestler called this unit, holon.
Ok, holon, then. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, says
Koestler. That means that the whole is at a higher or deeper level of
organization than the parts alone, and that's a hierarchy, what Koestler
calls a "holarchy."

"As the higher stages of consciousness emerge and develop, they
themselves include the basic components of the earlier worldview, then
add their own new and more differentiated perceptions. They transcend
and include. Because they are more inclusive, they are more adequate."
But with the possibility of transcendence comes the possibility of
repression. "The higher might not just transcend and include, it might
transcend and repress, exclude, alienate, dissociate."

Now would anyone care to explain why he who states that "The higher
might not just transcend and include, it might transcend and repress,
exclude, alienate, dissociate" finds that "whatever we assert about the
Absolute, our assertion will not be adequate and will call for negation"
and similar amenities are

"... a fallacy as naïve as a mathematical teaser, and yet
its consequences lead straight to Goya's Disasters, to the
reign of the guillotine, the torture chambers of the
Inquisition, or the cellars of the Lubianka."?

Let's not forget that Koestler's holon and holarchy generate exquisitely
metaphysical masterpieces like this:
http://www.purifymind.com/QuantumMeta1.htm
**The whole is invisible from the orders of its parts.* **
***Both the whole and its parts are real, but the whole has a more
profound reality.*

*plus a whole set of similar definitions.
How could possibly Koestler dare to say that Hegel's idiocies are worse
than his own?


Writes Georges:
" As to Webster, if you want a definition of "toilet seat",
you may ask him and he will give a reasonable answer.
But if you ask him about Metaphysics, you will get the shit
you got and the fault is yours."
Is Koestler a sensible reference, while Webster's dictionary is not?
Georges: if you ask Koestler about Hegel "you get the shit
you got and the fault is yours." BTW is this "clipper service" or not?

G:
" Metaphysics is simply playing with transcendental gimmicks
out of the human Universe of Discourse, and thus void of
anything remotely resembling meaning or sense."

Did i ever say the contrary, maybe? Maybe we could try to understand
what the word "metaphysics" mean to me and what means to you.

Let's proceed. Says Georges:


Koestler considers it (Hegel's Thesis "Absolute is Being" leads
to antithesis "Absolute is Nothingness" and to synthesis
that Absolute is some synthesis of the two) as

"... a fallacy as naïve as a mathematical teaser, and yet
its consequences lead straight to Goya's Disasters, to the
reign of the guillotine, the torture chambers of the
Inquisition, or the cellars of the Lubianka."

Symbolizing with Koestler the Absolute Pure Being with
Infinity (I) and the Absolute Nothingness with Zero (0),
we may epress "some synthesis" as S = I * 0.


Wrote Koestler:
"In the social equation, the value of a single life is nil; in the
cosmic equation, it is infinite"
Thus the single's value varies from zero to infinity. Again, i see no
real difference between Hegel and Koestler. Surely Absolute makes no
sense while a single do make sense to me, but this is the only
difference i see. For me infinity is a non-human value, something no man
can ever see, fell, touch, eat nor, more generally, perceive. It's a
metaphysical thing, like the allmighty, God's infinite wisdom
etc....useful only to deceit the gullible. Or the mathematicians.
Infinity is the reason why i decided that i could only be an agnostic
when i was a teeneger: both atheists and believers discuss about things
and use words that make no sense at all (to me, of course).
Beside the value of a single life cannot be nil. Never, no matter what
context we put it in. This is simply outrageous.


It may be useful reminding that it all begun when Georges stated that
"via Engels, Lenin and Mao
Hegel presided the extermination of 100 million people".

This is one of the worst examples of bipolar thinking i've ever read.
It implies that communism exterminated 100 million people and the guilt
lays upon Hegel's shoulder.
I'd only like to remind Tito's ex-Yugoslavia as a viable way to offer
pacific coexistence to different ethnic groups under the communist flag.
We all know what happened after Tito's death. Assuming that Tito's
communism was a reasonable thing, why is Hegel responsible of carnages only?

The real problem is the market IMHO. Let's not forget that nazi
concentration camps, soviet Gulags and chinese Laogai were built to
offer free manpower to "improve" the whole "community" (no matter how
absurd this sounds), to offer the nation the capability to compete with
foreign powers. Essentially prisoners were asked to work for free in
order to build infrastructure (roads, railways, buildings) or any other
manufacts essential to the nation's economy. Only thanks to
concentration camps the nazi Germany was capable to produce the
sinthetic oil necessary for the war. Also (or maybe only) thanks to the
Gulags the USSR menaged to compete with the USA. And also thanks to the
Laogai China is now a superpower. There are accusations that Chinese
labor camp produce products are often sold in foreign countries with the
profits going to the PRC government. Accusing Hegel of being responsible
for the current model of development seems utterly silly and unfair to
me. Bringing Koestler as main witness for such accusations is absolutely
senseless.

Best regards

Tonguessy




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