The Flat Earth Falacy

Who really thought that the Earth was flat?  Although Aristotle’s physics fail to make mention of what gravity exactly is or why it functions in the way it does his belief is that the Earth is the center of the universe, because that is the most natural of places for it, and that all earthly material comes towards this center from all sides necessarily implies that the earth would form in to a three dimensional rotund shape, though not necessarily a sphere (Magruder Page 7).  If the Earth is flat is taken quite literally, then there can be no up and down, or no left to right.  We must all exist in a plane; we are all elements of two dimensions, with no depth.  Is only the underside of the Earth flat?  If so, then why? Why do these unearthly objects fall from the stars? Do they not reach the other side?  And, also, can we dig through the Earth to the other side?  If up and down are absolute then could we eventually dig a well into the abyss or would there be turtles all the way down? 

The Presocratic Scientists

“Philosophy began with Thales” – Bertrand Russell
The fundamental questions persist today: What is everything made up of, or what is matter?  Why does matter move or appear to move in the way it does?  What causes it to move?  Does matter really move or is this merely a trick of the mind or senses?  These are the fundamental questions the presocratics sought to answer.  They created many of the philosophical arguments which continue to this day: Monism vs. Pluralism, Materialism vs. Idealism, Plenism vs. Atomism, Chance vs. Necessity, and Finite vs. Infinite.  (Magruder).  The presocratics are important because they laid the foundations of modern scientific thinking.  They had grown tired of the application of divinity to the functioning of the world and as such decided to begin thinking not so much in a religion as applied to science context but science as a fundamentally necessary being all in itself.

What Quantum Theory says about Physical Reality

Is there a physical world, and if there is, what is it like? In other words, what is the nature of physical reality? Although this may seem like an obsessively philosophical question, our best current scientific theory about the basic stuff that makes up the physical world, quantum theory, seems to force us to try to answer this question. Even the scientific founders of this theory were driven to address this issue.

There is no quantum world ... only an abstract quantum description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.  (Niels Bohr)

This may look like an attempt to avoid engaging in “metaphysical speculation”. But it does states a view about the nature of physical reality. It seems that no one who takes physics seriously as an attempt to account for what the world is like can avoid such issues.

Pole in the Barn Paradox

            According to the special theory of relativity an object that is in motion relative to a givenframe of reference contracts – becomes shorter in length – along the direction in which it is moving.  But this seems to lead to a paradox.  Consider a pole that is 15 meters long when at rest, and consider a barn that is 10 meters long when at rest.  Suppose that the barn has a door at each end.  Clearly the pole should not fit inside the barn with both doors closed.

Walkabout

            The ideal world, for me, lacks most of the conveniences of modern life that permeate western society.  No cars, fast food restaurants, telephones, etcetera.  Cars pollute our air with their exhaust and our homes with the noise of their engines.  Fast food pollutes the health of our society with their quick fix hamburgers and milkshakes.  The telephone and other modern forms of communication are destroying the personalization that has evolved through the interaction of man amongst himself over the past three millennia.  My ideal life is myself living alone in a cabin in the wilderness far from modern civilization, minus electricity and telecommunications.  I have an infinite library of books, grow my own food, and my only contact with the outside world is through letter writing.

Death in Confucian China

Death is an idea which exists in the cultural construct of all peoples. As civilizations grow in size, wisdom, and wealth the question of death becomes apparent: Some societies, such as the Greeks, fear death, while others, like the Egyptians, embrace death. The Chinese, however, fail to fall into either of these extremes. For the Chinese, death exists and that is all. There is no inherent good or bad about the mortality of humanity for death just is so. Following, I will show that this is consistent with the Confucian view of death and why this is the viewpoint that Confucius takes.