Category Archives: science

The blind shephard

Our soul is not wrapped by the wind, but by the flesh. Our ratio is not the pendant of our emotion, but it is the fragile boat that is rocked by the waves of our pounding heart. We are submerged in this salty water that gushes into our mouths as we try to protrude and reach for a breath of rational thought. This is our blanket of logic in which we warm ourselves, we comfort ourselves like naked monkeys in the cold, lonely breeze. But this delusion is not our true nature, well, the delusive state is our nature, but we are not animals of contraposted anomalies, we are one nature, imperfect in all aspects, perfect only in being complete and entail all in one entity, which we cannot escape. We cannot save ourselves, we are neither lost. There is no salvation than the oblivious state, our forgetfullness is our heaven.

Those struggling souls I pity. Their struggle is their continuous horror that they cannot face themselves. Their struggle is their attempt to escape their fate. Alas, pityfull souls, embrace thyselves, in my arms you shall find salvation, because I subdue thee in thy fate, thy pity state. I hated this sick state of the human civilization, where man is not just like sheep, but fearful sheep, less than sheep. The sheep that fear their fate, I did detest. But I have learned to hold my heart in my hand and feed of the warm flesh pounding. I have grown to take a lost soul in my embrace, comfort it. Because in this comfort that is false, they find salvation, in my pityful embrace they are fotgetful. This is my love, which they love because they cannot recognize it. This is my love because they are strange to it. Continue reading

The Phantasm of American Life

My first weeks in the academic quarter of Manhattan, Morningside Heights, just under Harlem, are an enlightment compared to last year in Brooklyn Heights. Surely, the vibrant energy of Harlem street life breathing down upon it, attributes for a great deal of its more lively heartbeat. But the esthetics of the Columbia campus area contribute their own value and atmosphere, especially here in the border region at 122nd Street. The subway number one sees the day of light, racing with the loudest rattling of old and rusty, cast iron rails and construction, and while Broadway runs down, the rattling shoots straight up to the station at 125th, about 20 meters high.

At Amsterdam Avenue begin the projects, brown stone apartment highrises, mostly occupied by African-Americans, while the Hispanics live further up in Manhattanville, Hamilton Heights and Washington Heights. Continue reading

The Great Questions of Modern Philosophy

The great questions of philosophy on the nature of human knowledge that occupied the great and unknown thinkers from the Greeks up to the nineteenth century were largely answered by scientific research in the twentieth century, even though tremendous amounts of work still will need to be done. No proof for Platonic ideas was found, that misleading basis of Christian philosophy, no proof for the Biblical genesis was found. And yet, there are dogmatists that are not to be refuted by any of the great work of Enlightenment and modern science.

They justify their absurd rejection of all elementary proof by their finding that no conclusive evidence for all unexplained questions is yet found, and adhere to their conclusive explanation despite the complete absence of any proof. These Creationists postulate their a priori criterion of conclusiveness and see its conclusiveness as its inner and sufficient proof. It haunts my mind to see the absence of reason reach rational certainty in such manner, but honestly there is no arguing with such dogmatists.

The complete workings of human knowledge has not fully been mapped, and much work remains to be done, but the unfilled gaps are not to be taken as proof for its possible shortcoming. The shortcoming should be measured by the irreconcilability of its proof and the contradicting findings only. On top of that, its measured shortcomings are not per se to be taken for its invalidity, but are what they are: shortcomings to be further investigated to proof their soundness.

Given the current state of scientific findings, philosophy can already be understood as no longer a science in quest for the principles of human understanding. Instead, modern philosophy is more than ever a teaching of ethics only. It is here that zealots and believers still are in full right to claim their territory as long as it does not interfere with science. To seek meaning in life is still in our times part of the great questions of modern philosophy.

The weakness of character as speerhead

The weakest features of a person’s character are those which are compensated for with the fierest zealousness. If it is in public transport, at the cashier of the grocery store, a best friend, a spouse, a colleague, people’s flaws in character are the directing force for people’s behavior.

Those who are fearful will point at others to shift blame, those who lack money will fight over small change, and those who lack charisma seek to dominate by force of rule.

Those who lack generosity are selfish and grumpy, those who are not steadfast are eager to rush and push another aside, those who are easily drop clasp on convulsively. Continue reading

The metamorphoses of American leadership in the 20th century

The Wilson Vision
On 8 January 1918 the American president Woodrow Wilson before a joint session of US Congress outlines his famous Fourteen Points as a basis for a lasting peace in Europe. At the heart of this speech was the idea of the self-determination of all people. The principle of self-determination could not stand on its own, and to guarantee a framework for such balance of powers Wilson added restrictions on armament, that were designed for national security a priori. Not even 90 years later, the Republican president George W. Bush formulates his policy of pre-emptive strikes in the aftermath of 9/11 which allowed the US to strike first and ‘pre-emptively’. There could hardly be a greater world apart between the principle of self-determination and the policy of pre-emptive strikes. The question that should be asked is if this development from one to the other is a historic evolution or a sudden, drastic shift in policy under influence of dramatic contemporary events?

The Truman Conditions
In 1944/45 the Americans liberated the world from fascism and established democratic regimes. The years of the Cold War, were in retrospect perhaps the zenith of American power. Never before, were countries around the world indebted to the US as during the Cold War. Continue reading