Monday, April 04, 2005
Introduction to the Site
A long time ago, a man named Aristotle tried to figure out how the world worked. He said many foolish things (don't we all?) and one of them ran something like this: There was some sort of universal force linking all the objects in the universe. Until Newton came along, a lot of people believed this hooey. Then, thank goodness, Newton discovered gravity and things made a lot more sense.Eventually, a goofball named Einstein showed up on the scene. He wasn't a philosopher. He did physics, not metaphysics. His works led to other silly chaps suspecting the existence of a whole other layer of reality below what we perceive. A reality governed by four fundamental forces that may boil down to wiggly, squiggly things all over the place called strings that are connected to each other in ways we just don't get.
Was Aristotle right? Or Newton? Maybe they were both right. Einstein tells us that just about everything depends on the position of the observer. From their respective positions in history, Aristotle and Newton both offered cogent observations that brought greater meaning and understanding to those around them.
Lately, the scientists keep discovering lots of neat things. Some of them are so ridiculous that they believe the logical conclusion of this will be that they discover everything.
The only group that's more ridiculous is the philosophers. Even though they often don't understand the scientists, they worship them. Unless they're deconstructing them. At any rate, since they've largely forfeited the world, today's philosophers spend a lot of time talking about how they like to talk about the world and coming up with reasons why their inability to find any meaning at all marks an even greater cleverness than that of those who once sought to explain everything.
I frankly prefer those philosophers who sought to figure out everything. Not that I'll necessarily undertake that task. But I do aim to try to make sense of what's up with the world, based on what I see and read and think. And here's where I'll be doing it, either by responding to writers and philosophers before or by my reaction to what strike me as significant events.
posted by gbarto at 7:25 PM