Wanking Off Wittgenstein (circa TLP)
After reading a bit on feminist philosophy and reflecting on some past conversation with a friend, I found myself locked in consideration of a Spinozistic metaphysic. Let us see where the limits of this metaphysical philosophy takes my own thought in this discourse and if I can land upon some unique insight of my own toward the truth. For another time, I would like to think of ways in which my own philosophical views are in fact confined to patriarchal perpetuation.
In truth, I consider gender as nothing more than a fictitious and philosophically unfounded distinction; however, feminist philosophers tend to believe that concepts such as reason, contrasted to emotion, are inherently primarily “male” attributes of reality. And male philosophers only exploit this manner of truth-finding because of their gender disposition. Further, as I come to understand this claim, it ought to be that emotion and reason, “chaos” and “rationality,” as it were, are domains of existence which share equal value in so far as being properties of existence itself. It is my purpose here to attempt, however far I can, to establish that “randomness” is a fiction, subordinate to reason, as is emotion. Nature and Reason are the only truths, where inadequacy of understanding produces this concept of “true randomness,” emotion as a true opponent to reason, along with, as you may like to imagine, a multitude of other chimeras which afflict humanity.
A Practise Metaphysic
1 There exist only necessary and contingent things.
1.1 A necessary thing is that which depends only on itself to exist.
1.11 Necessary things will be the cause of themselves because they depend on nothing else. In this sense, cause is similar to the “cause” of produced things in only the name. A necessary thing is “caused” only in the sense that it is.
1.12 A necessary thing, for argumentative purposes, may be viewed as a thing produced by chance or randomness in so far as both a necessary thing and a chance thing are both unrestricted with respect to laws or external things.
1.13 Necessary things and chance things are closed systems.
1.2 A contingent thing is that which depends on a necessary thing, greater contingent things, or processes by which contingent things produce other contingent things.
1.21 A process by which contingent things produce other contingent things is effectively the same as a greater contingent thing in so far as it produces a lesser contingent thing.
1.3 This is how questions must be framed.
1.31 A question that equates chance things to necessary things presupposes that the definitions of the two are the same.
1.32 A necessary thing bears a logical relation only to itself.
1.33 A chance thing bears a logical relation only to contingent things.
1.34 A necessary thing cannot be subject to chance. The fact that a necessary thing is must exclude the necessary thing from any real similarity to a chance thing.
1.4 A chance thing depends on both potentiality and probability.
1.41 Potentiality, or possibility, says that a chance thing may be or come into being.
1.42 Probability gives a certain degree of necessity to a chance thing.
1.5 A necessary thing bears no potentiality or probability.
1.51 A necessary thing, by virtue of existing, can bear only actuality.
1.52 A necessary thing, by virtue of existing, can bear only absolute certainty in so far as its probability. In effect, it bears no probability but only absolute certainty.
2 Randomness is a fiction, along with “chaos” and “chance.”
2.1 Nothing is truly random in relation to the whole but may appear as such in relation to other contingent things.
Reflection: To relate the concept of emotion to the concept of randomness in so far as emotion is produced from the concept of randomness is to commit a fallacy of applying a definition of that which is unknown to something equally unknown. Ex.: Emotions have an unknown origin because randomness is by definition unable to be understood. We have assumed that randomness exists (even if we do not, by nature if its concept, truly understand it), and arbitrarily ascribed emotion to definitively stem from that unknown. What exactly would the “Law of Randomness” contain in its definition beyond the mere assumption: “There is true chance.” Can we assume by induction that in closed systems randomness exists? Would it not require that we step beyond the system itself? Are we in a closed system? Certain physical theorists have tended to think so.
If we argue for chaos, we would equally find ourselves arguing that vacuums exist or that miracles bear physical reality and physical implications. By definition, “randomness” is that which is unknown; it is that which is unexplainable by causal law. True randomness, and not apparent randomness, is impervious to reason as reason is the means by which apparently random occurrences are understood. A truly random thing in so far as its relation to contingent things fictitiously instills in the minds of other contingent things—however much mind those contingent things bear—that it bears the exact nature of a necessary thing.
Eventually, what is apparently random becomes ordered within the archive of what we call human knowledge. Reason must order its perceptions so that it may calculate and comprehend them.
The idea that a chaotic thing may exist within order must presupposes that this chaotic thing depends only on itself or on something outside of the whole of ordered things which follow causal law, as has been said. In so far as things being perceivably ordered, must we assume axiomatically that casual law is the means by which those things are ordered? The major problem seems to form when we attempt to apply causal law to necessary, contingent and chance things. But are chance things fictions, or are they real?
If we allow for true randomness (chance things to bear reality just as necessary and contingent things bear reality), we lose our ability to discern falsehoods. Chance things blur our ability to comprehend causality in so far as causality is applied to contingent things. Therefore, we must condemn all notions of true randomness as unessential and unhelpful to even our questions. Questions being framed and built upon necessary and contingent things as their constituents presuppose that an explanation can be attained. This is how we approach the sciences. This should be similarly how we approach all things in life, as you may have concluded, emotions as well.
3 Emotions, like chance things, are fictions not in so far as they bear relation only to contingent things but in so far as other contingent things bearing certain levels of mind and sentience perceive them as truly random things.
3.1 Emotions are contingent things which are ordered and subject to laws that place them in relation to other contingent things.
3.2 Emotions must be treated as contingent things which maintain a certain order and can be understood completely.
3.3 If we treat emotions as such, there may always be the possibility that we do not fully understand them. Ask yourself, do we fully understand physical laws? Do they convey objective truth in so far as objective truth reaches a deductive absoluteness? That is, objective truth is attained by numerous inductions as to attain it and, reaching that point, the consistency of results makes objective truth unshakably true.
3.31 Objective truth is acquired through induction which leads to certain deductive postulations.
3.4 Understanding emotion fully will not lead to the predictability of emotion but to an increased intuitive knowledge.
3.5 The level of intuitive knowledge exists in proportion to decisions being made in accordance with Nature. The more so intuitive knowledge increases, more so are decisions made in accordance with Nature.
3.6 Decisions made in accordance with Nature are constants that must always come to be, for contingent things are never outside of Nature. Our decisions are always intuitive rather than reasoned.
3.61 Our intuitions are increased by the procurement of inductive results and decisions are produced from the combination of intuition and instants of rational stopping.
3.62 Rational stops are attempts to cease intuitive decision making in order to find a contingent thought which, in so far as it is related to an infinite number of contingent things, we must assume it as true in order to establish it concretely to our minds in relation to that infinite continuum of contingent things.
3.63 If the assumption fits in with the continuum as we perceive it, we keep it then disregard it as assumption and consider it a non-falsehood. More concise questioning then commences.
4 Contingent things never being outside of Nature demands that no truly chance things ever exist.
4.1 What benefit do we receive for truth finding by assuming hypothetical worlds for our arguments in which we implicitly claim chance things are not fictions? Can we even argue, from our domain of contingency, that hypothetical worlds actually bear any explanatory power to our own?
5 We must then ask ourselves, despite what I have reflected upon: Is randomness a truth or a fiction? This is the most crucial question of all.
I leave off with a word from Benedict de Spinoza:
P35: Only insofar as men live according to the guidance of reason, must they always agree in nature.
–Benedict de Spinoza, IV. Of Human Bondage of Ethics
These thoughts may appear to be immature and naïve to you, should you be an experienced philosopher. I only share them here because I needed a medium with which I may easily return to them and reflect, and the backspace key is much easier than an eraser as an editing tool. Re-ordering and adding postulations and comments must have been difficult for Wittgenstein. If he ordered them to his liking the first time, I would be endlessly impressed; but, as we all know, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus was a collection of notes. Further, it was sent through an editor, as with all published works.