Potentially Me

Cyril C House
Ancient Metaphysics

Potentially Me

    In his book Physics, Aristotle claims to identify four foundational causes of things. These are the Material, Formal, Efficient, and Final. The material cause is the physical composition of the thing in question, that is: the glass of which the cup is composed. The formal cause is that which distinguishes the particular material cause from other material causes of similarity, that is: the property of ‘can contain water’ is that which differs the glass cup from the glass window. The efficient cause is that which causes the causes, or else that which does set into motion the being of the thing, therefore the Glassblower is the efficient cause of the glass cup for it is she who did set the being of the thing into motion. The fourth cause is known as the final cause. The final cause might be referred to as the end towards which the being of some thing was set into motion. What is to say: the function for which the glass was created, being the provision of a vessel to drink from. It is clear then that should a cup never be filled, yet having been created to be filled, that it is this state of fillèd-ness which the cup strives and moves towards as it continues to be a cup. This seems graspable enough, that things which are created are created for a function. But what about things which are not created? That is natural things. Both absolutely natural things like earth, air, wind, and fire; but also compounds of the absolute like plants and animals. These things, having not been made with any particular intentionality, would seem to lack any specific function, or end towards which they exist. Aristotle contends that all natural motions have final causes. For an immediate moment we may simply read this as saying that natural things have final causes. This brings forth the secondary curiosity: What is motion? and thereby, What is natural motion? As well as the primary curiosity: Can it be proved that natural things have final causes? I believe that Aristotle is correct to claim that natural things have final causes. In the following paragraphs I will begin by explaining the synonimity between motions and things, and thereby explain what motion and natural motion are. After this brief digression I shall return to our primary curiosity and explain why it is that natural motions must have final causes.

Terminology

Natural motion may be thought of as a compound thing consisting of the components Nature and Motion. Nature, as Aristotle understands it, can be defined as “the immediate substratum of things which have in themselves a principle of motion or change” (Physics 2.1 193a), so we can see that by ‘motion’ Aristotle means ‘change’. In defining change he claims that it is “the fulfillment of what exists potentially, in so far as it exists potentially” (3.1 201a). Typically this is viewed as having the potential to be on the other side of the room and then actualizing that potential, in other words walking across the room. So when I am at one wall in a room I have the potential to be at any of the three other walls, and so when I actualize one of these three potentialities (when I begin to walk towards one wall or another) then I have now actualized the potentiality of my potential to be at one of the three walls (IEP). However this phrase can be understood as essentially anything at all which has the attribute ‘Existence’, for all existent things change through time towards some more ultimate state of being than that at which they have been in the past or are in the present. If I am existing here in my chair and I have the potential to (still) be existing here in my chair seventeen moments from now, and then that potential comes to become actualized (I proceed to exist in my chair, hence changing from the present me to the seventeen moments older version of me), then this also is motion and/or change. So when Aristotle says that all natural motions have final causes, he means that all natural changes have final causes, and by this he can be interpreted to mean that natural things which exist have final causes. And when Aristotle, in defining nature, says ‘that which has within itself a principle of motion’ he means ‘that which has within itself the principle of its own existence and continued growth and/or change’, which can be reduced to ‘that which possesses the potential to perpetuate itself, and thereby to fulfill its own function’. A prime example is an Oak tree, the Oak tree is a natural thing because part of what it is to be an Oak is to produce acorns, and acorns evolve into other Oak trees. Therefore the Oak tree has within itself the principle of its own existence and the source of the perpetuation of continued change. For Oaks make acorns by being Oaks, and acorns make Oaks by being acorns, and so the function of the acorn is ‘to Oak’ and thus it does so by way of being what it is; and the function of the Oak is ‘to acorn’ and thus it does so by way of being what it is. In contrast, a chair is not a natural thing because a chair can in no way perpetuate the coming-to-be of future chair-kin and thereby the chair will also fail to perpetuate the continued process of change; nor can the chair fulfill its own function, what is to say the chair cannot sit upon itself.  And so ‘Natural’ may be understood as that which perpetuates its own existence, and ‘Motion’ can be understood as anything which is in flux from one state, or essence of being, to another state, or essence of being. Therefore Natural Motion can be understood as ‘the state of being-in-change of a thing-which-is-natural’.

Interpretation

So now we have defined Nature, and also come to the admittance that motion is the actualization of change, even so simple a change as a change through time. From this understanding of the topic at hand it is now plain to describe not only why Aristotle was right, to suggest that all natural things have final causes, but in fact why he could not be wrong. Let us bring all the content together and lead from there. Aristotle claimed that all natural motions have final causes. A final cause is the end towards which some-thing was created and thus towards which it moves. A motion is the state of being-in-change of a thing. Existence is a kind of change due to temporality. And thus:

1. Motion is the state of being-in-change
2. Change is the ‘going-ness’ from one state to another
3. Existence is a type of change
4. Final cause is the end-toward-which a thing was created, and thus towards which it moves
5. Nature is a thing which is able to perpetuate its own existence

         _____________________________________________________________

Therefore: Natural Motion, so long as it exists and continues to move through time, moves towards some end which it has the potential to be (continued existence), and this end towards which it moves can be understood as its final cause.

Conclusion

We can confirm the validity of this argument by looking back to the cup. It was admitted that: should the cup have never been filled (that is the post-efficient, pre-final cup of material/formal completeness) that it is this state of fillèd-ness at which it strives and moves towards as it continues to be a cup. So there lay two obstacles in the cup’s path to fulfillment of its finality: A) time, B) the coming-to-be of fulfillèd-ness, which in an artifact’s case is contingent upon the action of an agent. So as time passes an agent will fill the cup and thereby complete the cup’s final form. But an agent is only necessary to fulfill the final form of artifacts. We have already admitted that natural things fulfill their own functions, and thus time is the only obstacle of a natural thing realizing its final cause. It can now be understood entirely, based on my antecedent argumentation, that not only was Aristotle correct to state that natural motions have final causes, but in fact he could not have been incorrect, providing you proffer the requested assumptions up to that point. Reduced to a sentence: When some-thing exists, and can be expected to continue to exist, that thing is moving through time towards a future potentiality of itself, and is in fact actualizing the potentiality of that potential; thus, being the realization towards which it tends, this realization is known as the thing’s final cause.

Works Cited

Aristotle, and Richard McKeon. The Basics Works of Aristotle. New York: Random House, 2001. Print.

Sachs, Joe. "Aristotle: Motion and its Place in Nature." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.

Fire with Fire

Fire with Fire
Cyril C. House
Political Philosophy
01/11/2016

Fire with Fire

    On September 11, 2001, more than 3000 people were killed when a group of individuals hijacked several passenger planes flying over the United States and crashed them into coordinated key targets, namely the Twin Towers and the Pentagon (History.com, 2010). On February 09, 1996, two people were killed, dozens more injured, and property worth in excess of two hundred and fifteen million dollars was destroyed when members of the Irish Republican Army detonated a fertilizer bomb weighing several tonnes in East London’s Docklands (Kushner, 2003). In the late eighteenth-century, facing economic collapse, the French peasantry rose up and overthrew the established feudal monarchy and established a, however temporary, democratic state (“French Revolution,” 2016)(Tankard, 2009). What do these events have in common with one another? Which of these events, if any, were justified? And whether just or not, were any of these events ‘right’? The thing what is in common between these three events is that they are all cases of terrorist attacks. Terrorism is a very complex phenomena, and little is agreed upon when talking about it in the academic community. In the following paragraphs I will argue that terrorism is not always reprehensible, for although violence can never be just there are cases in which it is the right course of action. I will begin with a conceptual analysis of exactly what terrorism is, or seems to be, after-which I will proceed to distinguish between the two extremes of the terror spectrum. Finally I will address a middle point on the terror spectrum, which will touch lightly on the idea that we are each products of terrorism regardless of how we feel about terror itself. Now, let us begin.

Political Violence

    So what is terrorism? From the root word ‘terror’ it is plain to see that it involves fear. Fear of what though? Fear of losing one’s privileges and standard of living? Fear of death? These fears in particular are most pertinent to the discussion of terror as an -ism. Along with the intuitive notion of terrorism comes an underlying allusion to violence. When one hears that terrorists may live among them one of the first thoughts that comes to mind is violence and death, and perhaps also a notion of innocence. Innocence as it is contextually tied to a civilian population. Violence is an effect of conflict, and so terrorism must too be tied to conflict. A question which now comes to mind is: What does a civilian population have to do with the conflicts of a radical group? And a further question: Who or what is it that these radical groups are conflicting with in the first place? In Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction Charles Townshend states that “‘terrorist’ is a description that has almost never been voluntarily adopted by any individual or group. It is applied to them by others, first and foremost by the governments of states they attack” (2002). From this statement one is able to understand that when groups attack states, the government of that state then labels the group as ‘terrorist’. So terrorists are in conflict with states. Terrorism seems to be a form of political violence. This answers our second of the previous two questions, now to tend to the first: What does a civilian population have to do with the political conflict of terrorism? Well any government is subject, to some degree or another, to the beliefs and opinions of its citizens. In a democratic government this is particularly true due to the implicit control of future governmental structures via the democratic process: the idea that control is essentially in the hands of the citizens and the government is simply a manifestation of the citizens needs and desires, as well as a supra-structure to provide for all citizens (more or less) equally. However other forms of government are also subject, to a lesser degree, to the beliefs and opinions of their citizens. On the other end of the political spectrum, if a totalitarian regime acts entirely out of sync with the people's mode of thought then they could very well be inciting an internal overthrow of their own power structure. These governments too, must consider the beliefs and desires of their citizens. Therefore it is safe to assume that by manipulating the beliefs of the citizens, a group can thereby manipulate the actions of the government. This process is referred to as resonant mass, implying that the masses will resonate their fears outwards for the government to then pick up from them (Townshend, 2002). Let us now discuss the differences between some varying points along the terror spectrum.

The Terrorist

    The Terrorist, as we shall understand the term in the context of this article, is a proponent of indiscriminate killing. He considers all people to be ‘guilty’, to some degree or another, of supporting and enforcing the enemy-state and its structures, under which they live. Therefore The Terrorist feels justified in, and so too tends to realize such acts as, bombing a crowded public square or utilizing a commercial passenger plane suicide-missile in order to attain the aims and goals of his party/group. The indiscriminate killing is the primary conditional of The Terrorist, rather than his beliefs regarding the justness of his actions, as there are surely instances of such indiscriminate attacks where the attacker did not believe the victims to be ‘guilty’ necessarily, but simply viewed such tactics as the most efficient means of achieving his goals. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is considered to be of type Terrorist. Mohammed is the member of the al-Qaeda terror group who is strongly believed to be the mastermind behind the 9/11 attack (Aryanfard, 2011)(Miniter, 2011).

The Freedom Fighter

    On the other end of the spectrum we find The Freedom Fighter. The Freedom Fighter is a terrorist who is fighting for some more-or-less noble goal. For example, the perpetrators of the French Revolution would be considered of type Freedom Fighter because although they killed, maimed, beheaded, and drowned,  they did so in the name of freedom from the oppressive tyranny of the French Monarchy at the time. So what makes The Freedom Fighter so different from the terrorist? Not much in one sense, for they each kill and terrorize. Although in another sense quite a bit differs, for The Freedom Fighter does not kill indiscriminately because not all people are ‘guilty’ in his eyes. He identifies between ‘with me’ and ‘against me’. Anyone considered ‘against me’ is the enemy and must be either killed or converted, while anyone ‘with me’ is generally safe from being targeted for harm. The Freedom Fighter is commonly viewed as valiant and courageous to be standing up to the powers that be. Unlike The Terrorist, who is commonly regarded as morally-bankrupt and psychologically-disturbed.   

Misrepresentation of Political Violence

    Now that we have taken a very brief look at the two extremes of the terror spectrum you may be wondering what is in the middle of this range. Well let us look at the rubric again: terrorism is a form of political violence and terrorist is a label which is applied to a group or individual when they attack a state, in reference to the fearful repercussions due to that attack. So to consolidate these two points let us say that ‘terrorists are political actors who use violence against a state’. Who else can we think of that fits these two requirements: 1. A political actor 2. Uses violence against a state? Well the most obvious answer to the first condition is that governments are political actors. And the second condition? Do governments use violence against states? Yes. Does this mean that governments are terrorists? I  believe so, although certainly my opinion is vulnerable to heated debate. A certain such counter-argument would express that states alone may legitimately utilize force, and therefore states are not terrorist, yet only those who are not states and using violence are terrorists. At which point we would need to say that terrorists are political actors who use violence against a state, but are not themself a state. I do not find this argument convincing however. This implies that when states use force they are just in doing so, and when non-states use force they are unjust in doing so. The virtuous world-order will attempt to maximize the justness of its charge and minimize the unjustness. This then means that when the French lower classes stood up and revolted against the oppressive tyranny of King Louis XVI, they were wrong to do so and they should have been stopped, for they were not a state and therefore their violence was unjustified. As for the argument of the states, that their violence against others is always legitimate and therefore just: I do not find offensive-violence to be just in the least (as is the type of violence we see a great deal of, still today: the US invasion of the Middle East, the Syrian indiscriminate bombing of ISIS-held territory (Syria), the US invasion of Syria and concurrent threats towards Russia (Zuesse, 2016)). As Plato argues justice to be in the first book of Republic “if men are injured, they must necessarily become more unjust . . . [f]or it is not the work of heat to make cold, but the opposite . . . Nor is it the work of the good to injure, but the opposite . . . And [since] the just man is good . . . [t]hen it is not the work of the just man to injure . . . whether to injure a friend or anyone else, anyone- but that is the work of the unjust man” (1999).  This Platonic support would suggest that the only justifiable violence is violence in self-defense, and only to such a degree as is necessary to cessate the incoming violence at any given time.

Conclusion

    We have discussed herein some very complex issues, and in a very condensed manner. We originally set out to provide clarity for the argument that terrorism is never just, although there can be times when such injustice is the right course of action. We looked at two extremes of the terror spectrum, after which we touched upon a seeming gray area between the two, which is the offensive tactics employed by legitimate state powers. Terror as a tactic is used by illegitimately-sovereign groups to act against their legitimately-sovereign opponents (al-Qaeda 9/11 attack: unjust and unrighteous; the French Revolution: unjust, yet righteous), it is used by legitimate states against their illegitimate opponents (Syrian attacks on ISIS: unjust, yet righteous), and so too is it used by legitimate states against other legitimate states (US occupation of Syria: unjust and unrighteous). So to address the umbrella question Is terrorism always reprehensible? No it is not, it is much too intricate of a phenomena, and happens much too commonly to be able to condemn all acts of terrorism as ‘bad’. Terror is everywhere around us, we are all living in a world that was forged in the fires of terrorisms-past. For as long as we fight one another there will be terror, and for as long as there is terror there will be blatant injustices in the world. But as I mentioned in the beginning, sometimes terrorism, although unjust, must be the right course of action. But how to define between the sides of that very narrow line, which has been drawn upon the precipice of a very steep slope? We must continue to be vigilant in our pursuit of justice and righteousness, for we may never know how wrong something is until too long after it has already been done.

References

Aryanfard, O. (2011). World at War: Understanding Conflict and Society. ABC-CLIO. Retrieved October 20, 2016, from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?sid=e5e2cc6c-8642-4208-b1f5-f472f8e7f0e7@sessionmgr106&vid=0&hid=117&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ==#AN=edsabc.1595895&db=edsabc

French Revolution (2016). . In Funk and Wagnall’s New World Encyclopedia

History.com (2010). 9/11 attacks - facts & summary. history.com. Retrieved from http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks

Kushner, H. W. (2003). Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzQ3NDM4NV9fQU41?sid=255cc5f6-2a63-4ae7-af37-7c7b821c432a@sessionmgr4009&vid=5&format=EB&lpid=lp_65&rid=0

Miniter, Richard. (2011). Mastermind: The Many Faces of the 9/11 Architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Sentinel. Retrieved October 20, 2016 from http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?sid=53e61487-20d0-478c-892b-ceecc8b1d142%40sessionmgr4006&vid=1&hid=4110&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#AN=000208711600031&db=edswss

Plato. (n.d.). Great Dialogues of Plato (W. Rouse, Trans.). New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Syria 2015/2016 | Amnesty International. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2016, from https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/syria/report-syria/

Tankard, Keith (2009). The Age of Revolutions: France after the Revolution. knowledge4africa.com. Retrieved from http://www.worldhistory.knowledge4africa.com/modern/revolution-04.jsp

Townsend, Charles (2002). The Touble With Terrorism. Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction. Retrieved from print.

Zuesse, Eric. Dangerous Crossroads: U.S. Invades Syria, And Warns Russia ... (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2016, from http://www.globalresearch.ca/dangerous-crossroads-u-s-invades-syria-and-warns-russia/5542083

Finish Every Time

Cyril C. House
Mass Communication and Popular Culture
14/02/2016

Finish Every Time

Introduction

  "That's what" (She). Today's generation is vastly freer to assert themselves than ever before, and one of the results of such freedom is the inevitable expression of repressed sexuality. This comes out in many forms, from the more mature expressions seen in the influx of openly-LGBTTIQQ2SA-persons, across the spectrum to the less mature expressions seen in the wry humour of today’s youth, a prime example is seen in the quotation above. These forms of sexual expression are duly noted by the Cultural Production Industry. The Cultural Protection Industry takes this knowledge and wields it as an ammunition of advertisement. In plain cases this means the Sunshine Girl in the Edmonton Sun newspaper, drawing many consumers to purchase the paper for little other reason than to view the Sunshine Girl of the week. There are also more obscure cases, such as the popular Rihanna song Work (DirectLyrics). To a surface listener the lyrics depict a girl who is frustrated with her boyfriend because he is failing to respect her emotions. To a critical ear however, the truth comes out that, this girl is frustrated with her boyfriend but she is frustrated because he is failing to satisfy her sexually. Halfway through the song she meets Drake, and Drake starts rapping about how he intends to fulfill the need that her boyfriend cannot. I am certain you can think of several examples where you have been listening to a song and thought ‘that sounds extremely erotic, I wonder if that is intentional’. Popular Culture is rife with sexuality in advertisements, and even the most seemingly-harmless product-ads carry with them a deeper, darker, sexier side which is intended to appeal to your desire to express yourself sexually. Within this paper I will be taking a peek at one such ad, and pointing out the attributes and components of it which are intended to communicate with the sexuality of the consumer. 

Theoretical Framework

  The study of meaning-making and meaningful communication is known as semiotics. Semiotics was catalyzed by Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist, during his time as an instructor at the University of Paris.  Saussure dies in 1913, two years before the birth of his successor: Roland Barthes. Barthes took the study and application of semiotics and popularized it, writing several books and even publishing a series of essays known as “Mythology of the Month” in the popular magazine Les Lettres Nouvelles (Seiler). 

  Saussure and Barthes studied signs and symbol systems. A language is a type of symbol system, in which the symbols of coloured marks on a page have a systematic meaning, which we call words or sentences. A sign is the cumulative product of a Signifier plus a Signified. When we look at images of kittens, the image of the kitten is the Signifier, it is a physical representation of some-thing. The feelings or thoughts which one has when looking at the image of the kitten, this is the Signified, it is a mental representation of some-thing. A Signifier and Signified, together, comprise a Sign. Two more terms which one should be familiar with to understand the following are: Metaphor and Metonymy. A metaphor is what occurs when there is a disjunction between the signifier and signified, so the signifier Fist can signify Power metaphorically. Not dissimilarly, a metonym is when a signifier represents only part of a larger whole but it is intended to symbolize that whole regardless. Seiler gives the apt example: “the sign of a mother pouring out a particular breakfast cereal for her children is a metonym of all her maternal activities of cooking, cleaning, and so on, but a metaphor for the love and the security she provides.”

Analysis

  When looking at the Duracell ad pictured above a number of things popped into my mind, and after a little unpacking I came to see that there was a logical, linear process of how such thoughts ‘appeared’. As I am sure you are aware, Duracell is a brand of batteries which pride themselves on the ability to ‘keep going, and going, and going’. As it turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, the Duracell brand is the primary signifier here. The ad is for a small, portable power bank to charge your phone with when you are away from an outlet or your charger, but in fact the ad acts to metonymically promote the entire line of battery products, and in fact it better promotes the other battery products than the power bank itself. The second signifier that came to my attention was the heading at the top of the phone display: “Some things shouldn’t end before the end” and I had this shockingly immediate signified representation of a vibrator being powered by some brand of battery less inclined to ‘keep going, and going, and going’, and again as a footing: ‘repower your smartphone with a portable USB charger, and finish every time”; this latter claim has strong implications not just of self-pleasure devices but also of portable pornography which becomes further reinforced by the half-text “Downloaded 99%’. My original assumption was strongly reinforced as I continued to critique this advertisement. A particularly sneaky bit of metaphoric signage in the ad is the dark room just slightly lit by this powered device, again signaling to the consumer a little battery-powered fun in the solitude of darkness.  

  As an individual with a particularly strong ‘conspiracy-radar’ if you will, the second I saw a major corporation advertising with a sluice  of small, nearly unreadable text all positioned in plain sight, my mind was screaming “subliminal messaging!”. The couple points we considered in the previous paragraph were indeed subliminal in the purest sense of the term. This paragraph will be dedicated to the strong signifier/signified which are, not really, all too well hidden. The middle of the phone is riddled with half-finished text messages meant to indicate the dire situations one might find oneself in should one choose not to purchase the Duracell power bank. There are a couple images in the fray as well, most noticeably there is a picture of a box standing in for the word ‘box’ in the half sentence: “Life is like a box of…” In this case the half-sentence is less interesting than the picture itself. The box could be called a metaphor, although I am not sure it is cleverly-enough disguised to warrant such a term because ‘box’ in the street slang of the present-day is an extremely common euphemism for vagina. Some more explicit ‘half-texts’ which will bring sex to the forefront of the mind are “Stick it all the way up his…”, “She’s bleeding from her…”, and “Nobody does it like…”. Now if I, as a common consumer, were to finish these sentences (as I autonomously do), they would read “Stick it all the way up his ass”, “She’s bleeding from her vagina”, and “Nobody does it like you”. Now we have a bit of a disjunction within these three ‘full-texts’, “Stick it all the way up his ass” is explicitly vivid and readily brings forth the signified images of vibrators (in correlation with my argument) and/or other erotic utensils. Skipping ahead to “Nobody does it like you”, this is a much more implicit-implication of sexuality because ‘it’ could be anything, and for many, or perhaps most, people this statement alone would signify myriad other ‘its’ before it signified anything sexual; but taken in correspondence with the rest of the ad’s signifiers, the ‘it’ in this case is arguably a self-pleasure apparatus. If I may recall the example from my introduction about Rihanna’s boyfriend not being able to get her off, and so Drake comes along to assist her; and maybe nobody does do it like Drake, but that is a matter of debate. What is less complex of a discussion topic is the opinion that nobody does it like themselves, bringing us back to the imagery of electronic stimulation devices. Now, the true, seeming, dislocation in our three full-text examples comes with the phrase “She’s bleeding from her vagina”, because there is very little to get excited about when a woman is bleeding in such ways, regardless of the (natural or not) nature of the ailment. However, in a subliminal context there is something to get excited about here, being the word ‘vagina’. Although the phrase in its entirety seems to detract from the erotic ambience of the ad, it is not the entirety in which it is intended to be taken. The word ‘vagina’ is all that the brain is intended to take in because, bleeding or not, any image of a vagina will evoke some semblance of sexuality, and it is this semblance of sexuality which serves the greater purpose of reinforcing the overall message of the ad itself.

Conclusion

  It could be argued that this ad, taken in the context which I have, so vividly, provided is aimed at the typical male-heterosexual-consumer as it is using the signified imagery of masturbating females to promote the Duracell brand, and it does so quite effectively. However, whether intentionally or not, this advertisement is quite effective at targeting the entire consumer spectrum. Hetero-males for the above described reason, hetero-females who desire to finish every time, like Rihanna, and it also appeals to the rest of the population perhaps best captured in the LGBTTIQQ2SA acronym, because of the very plain fact that society attempts to suppress the open expression of sexuality from its subjects, and the natural reaction to such suppression/oppression is to rebel. While the societal controls imposed on obvious forms of sexual rebellion remain in the indoctrinated ‘taboo-range’ of the common citizen, what is not in the taboo-range is buying batteries for any and all battery-powered devices, and when deciding on a brand these people will now choose Duracell; not because they are cognizant of the underlying messages within this ad and intentionally set out to rebel against society, but because their subconscious tells them Duracell is a good brand, because the subconscious recognizes that it feels good to rebel/ it feels good to express oneself sexually/ it feels good to unconsciously experience freedom from sexual oppression, and these good feelings are transmitted to the conscious mind in logical/ non-taboo/ non-offensive messages, something along the lines of: “these batteries have a lot of juice”, “they last longer so I will spend less on batteries”; and these messages are taken in and accepted all while the subconscious mind is screaming in delight. The morality of the advertising tactics examined herein are at best uncertain, but the effectiveness of such techniques is proven. Whether any given person chooses to buy Duracell over the no-name battery brands is meaningless, the important take-away is that Duracell is one of the primary brands of battery which come to mind when asked about batteries, or when thinking about batteries. Duracell’s sales may fluctuate throughout the years, but their notoriety as the brand ‘that doesn’t quit’ will certainly remain a constant.

Works Cited

Rihanna. “Work”. Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group. 18/02/2016. Web. URL = http://www.directlyrics.com/drake-rihanna-work-lyrics.html

Paris, Ogilvy & Mather. “Duracell Batteries: "Some Things Shouldn’t End Before The End" Print Ad”. Coloribus. Web. URL = http://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/prints/duracell-batteries-some-things-shouldnt-end-before-the-end-15906005/

Seiler, Robert M. “Semiology // Semiotics”. University of Calgary, n.d. 18/02/2016. Web. URL = http://people.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/semiolog.htm

She. Justin Wishne, Bryan Nicolas. “That’s What She Said: The Most Versatile Joke on Earth”. Penguin Books Ltd: New York, 2011. Print.

A Shabby Chain Indeed

Cyril C. House
History of Political Though
14/02/2016

A Shabby Chain Indeed

  Human society has the potential to achieve liberty when people work together to form a society in which equality means more than negative liberty: the absolute and protected right to run races against each other to determine winners. Idealists imagine a … liberty that enables us to build together toward common objectives that fulfill and even surpass our individual goals. (Macpherson)

This is a very bold statement, and I say such in the most positive tone I can muster. Humans as a race are absolutely bursting with potential, and out of that raw potential has been bred these things known as government and society which are themselves bursting with potential. Some form of societies, however primitive, were necessary constructions, given our biological and psychological construction. But certainly such advanced societies, as are the sprawling urban megalopolises which litter the globe today, were contingent upon the factor to which we chose to utilize our potential more so than otherwise. What exactly is it what I am suggesting when I, in the immortal words of C.B. Macpherson, make such a claim? Well, this will require a few definitions of the working terms before I am able to clearly communicate why it is that “[h]uman society has the potential to achieve liberty when people work together to create a society in which equality means more than negative liberty” (Macpherson).

Negative Liberty

  Negative liberty is best thought of as ‘oppressive freedom’. Isaiah Berlin says “if a man is too poor to afford something on which there is no legal ban – a loaf of bread, a journey round the world, recourse to the law courts – he is as little free to have it as if it were forbidden him by law . . . [his] inability to get given a thing is due to the fact that other human beings have made arrangements whereby [he is], whereas others are not, prevented from having enough money with which to pay for it”. Easily is such a concept viewed in today’s western state: big corporations paying the way in political campaigns (McMahone) in an effort to have their corporate views and desires considered ahead of the rest of the population’s views and desires. For many people this is a concern of motivation. If we consider the corporate donors as the ‘upper class’ we see they measured 3.6% of the population in the United States in 2008 (Lard Bucket). The same area at the same time had 43.4% middle class citizens, whom arguably could have donated to political campaigns, if they chose to, in order to have their views and desires hiked up the totem pole a few degrees. We do not begin to see the utter stratification until we observe the 45.7% of working class citizens, and the 7.3% of lower class citizens (Lard Bucket) in the same time period. By definition, the working and lower classes do not have the spare capital required to, in this case, donate to a political campaign. What one is able to observe about the state of affairs in the above situation is that 53% of the population does not have the required capital to invest in politics, and therefore 53%, a statutory majority, of people are having their views and desires restrained by the actions of the wealthy. This lower 53% of people have the same liberties under their capitalist political system as do the 3.6% whom comprise the upper class; but due to the distribution of wealth this lower 53% is not able to exercise those rights. They have these rights which they are unable to utilize because of the varying consequences of that same set of capitalist rights, such as gross socio-economic stratification throughout the state. What then may we consider an un-utilizable right? Denotatively it is a right all the same, yet connotatively it appears to be a constraint. This is what is meant by negative liberty. The specific example is a token-distinction of negative liberty, and the system which allows such tokens to occur is a type-distinction of negative liberty. I will be concerned with the type-distinction hereforth.

Natural Liberty

  The next type of liberty we ought to examine is natural liberty. Natural liberty is simply the freedom to think and act as one pleases, without the fear of a higher power discovering one’s deeds/thoughts and exacting retribution upon them for experiencing such desires and/or performing such actions. This is the type of liberty experienced before civilized governments came to be, and this is also the type of liberty experienced in an anarchist state. Clearly however, there are some concerns with the practice of natural liberty. If all men have a right to all things, then no man has a right to anything; for I have a right to my life and my body, yet so too does the next man have a right to the same (Hobbes). It was out of such concerns from which the need for positive liberty hails.

(Positive) Liberty

  What then is positive liberty? I think it is put beautifully by the Baron of Montesquieu, Charles Secondat:

[Positive] liberty . . . is a tranquility of the mind arising from the opinion each person has of his safety. In order to have this liberty, it is requisite the government be so constituted as one man need not be afraid of another . . . [It] does not consist in unlimited freedom. We must have continually present to our minds the difference between independence [[natural liberty]] and liberty.

As is phrased above, positive liberty is a regulated and constrained form of natural liberty. It is a freedom to think and act as one pleases, without the fear of a higher power discovering one’s deeds/thoughts and exacting retribution upon them for experiencing such desires and/or performing such actions so long as one’s thoughts and actions do not inhibit the liberties of others to enjoy the same. In order to clarify the distinction I feel the need to point out that by hoarding resources to themselves (money, influence, power) the upper class is indirectly inhibiting the liberties of others to enjoy the same. And not just a few people find themselves within these constraints, as we discussed previously: over half of the population in America are within these constraints to their liberty.

The Difference

  Positive liberty is the most commonly considered type of liberty, and is often mistaken for the only type of liberty, as though there is only Liberty or Not-Liberty; perhaps more accurately as though there are only varying degrees of liberty and the further along the spectrum one observes, the more ‘liberal’ it is. This is not entirely inaccurate, for there does seem to be some sort of a spectrum. The true nature of the spectrum of liberty however, seems to be inversed when compared to its folk-counterpart. Positive liberty inherently contains this restriction that what I do must not interfere with the abilities of others to enjoy the same liberties: everybody is restrained in order to allow everybody to be at equal liberty. Next along the spectrum we find negative liberty, wherein this restraint of all is replaced by a lesser restraint: everybody is kind of restrained in order to allow a minority to experience extreme liberty, while the majority experience a suppression of their liberties. Further yet along the spectrum we find natural liberty, wherein all restraints are removed: everybody is absolutely free to do unto others as they see fit, and so therefore no one is at liberty. If we follow this logic it is plain to see that the more society is restrained from infringing upon one another the freer we all become as a result. It is but a fool’s mathematics which would think that a minority having extreme liberty is of greater a sum than the whole having equal liberty. In dialectic support of my argument, I offer the following quotation: “[a]t Genoa, the word ‘Liberty’ may be read over the front of prisons and on the chains of the galley-slaves. This application of the device is good and just. It is indeed only malefactors of all estates who prevent citizens from being free. In the country in which all men were in the galleys, the most perfect liberty would be enjoyed” (Rousseau 278).

Equality

  Equality is not the right of each to out-run, or out-compete, or out-produce all others. Equality is not as abstract as that. Equality is a concrete state: all persons are equal. Therefore all persons deserve to be treated as equal to one another, and therefore should some persons be suppressing the abilities of others to live their lives to par, then this is not equality. Equality is requiring of a certain, general compassion for the well-being of others. We live in an individualistic, negatively liberal, consumer culture wherein greed is rewarded; but these rewards serve to feed our short-term requirements and desires, and these rewards blind us to the true nature of the societies we live in. If we were to look out beyond the petty wishes of our self-driven-motivations we would see the true potential power of the systems which we comprise. 

Conclusion

  A society is a common-wealth, it is formed to best serve the common-good of the common-people and whatever it is you believe that you are, I am here to remind you that you are a common-person. No one person, of the vast states we live within, is better than any other; we all work together to protect one another and enforce each other’s common-interest. This is the reason why your neighbour will call the police if he sees someone breaking into your house, and this is the reason that people enter your store expecting to offer you money for your products and services: because these are stipulations which we have all implicitly agreed to in order to preserve the common-good. Think twice before you claim to have done anything ‘on your own’, because you live in a vast society and are being assisted by the denizens of that society every day; often you do not know you are being helped by them, and often they do not realize they are helping you. Perhaps their intentions are selfishly-motivated, but that does not detract from the fact that their selfish-motivations help you to succeed. An employee comes to work each day for, typically, selfish-motivations, but that does not detract from the assistance he provides to your company. Such assistance is worth money to you in fact, and you pay the employee to continue to assist you in the future. What then is so different about societal-assistance? Why do we not pay everyone in society for unknowingly helping us to succeed? Perhaps because we do not have the money to pay for the assistance of even a small community, let alone an entire society. But perhaps we need not pay them directly, perhaps all we need afford them is the ability to pay themselves? Perhaps it is in everyone’s ‘self-interest’ to accept more stringent restrictions upon their personal liberties in order to attain a freer state? As the old idiom goes: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link; therefore if a chains weakest link is quite weak, then the entire chain is quite weak as a whole, because it is a system which is dependent upon each of the individual parts of itself. What then might this mean for a chain of which 53% of its links are weak? I am compelled to admit that such a chain seems quite shabby indeed.

Works Cited

Berlin, Isaiah. “Two Concepts of Liberty”. The Idea of Freedom, ed. Alan Ryan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. 175 – 93. PDF.

Hobbes, Thomas. “Of the Liberty of Subjects”. Leviathan. Penguin Books Ltd: 1985. Strand, London. Print.

Macpherson, C.B. “Introduction” to Robert Meynell, Canadian Idealism and the Philosophy of Freedom (Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011), pp. xi – xii.

McMahone, Tamsin. “Political Donations: How parties pay the rent”. National Post. April 23, 2011. 03/03/2016. Web. URL = http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/political-donations-in-canada
N.a. “Subjective Social Class Membership”. Lard Bucket. 2008. 03/03/2016. Web. URL = http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/sociology-comprehensive-edition/s11-03-social-class-in-the-united-sta.html

Rousseau, Jean-Jaques. “The Social Contract”. Trans. G.D.H. Cole. The Social Contract And Discourses. Ed. P.D. Jimack. Tuttle Publishing, North Clarendon, VT, USA: 1993. Print.

Moving Matter Machine

Cyril C. House
Philosophy of Mind
14/02/2016

Moving Matter Machine

Introduction

  Are you free? Is freedom an actual, or even potential, attribute of the human experience? I think, in many contexts, most of us are free: freedom from slavery for example. In other contexts however, freedom becomes a much more uncertain claim, such as freedom from the conditions of one’s upbringing. Then so too are there such uncertain claims as are freedom of the will, or more precisely: the availability of multiple potentials in choice situations. I place an emphasis upon the word choice due to the fact that if freedom of the will is an illusion then so too would the appearance of ‘choice situations’ be an illusion the same.  In this essay I shall briefly explore the concept of freedom of the will, and detail why it is I have come to believe that we all are, in such a context, truly free.

Framework

  Benjamin Libet performed a series of experiments in the early 1980’s which were, by many, interpreted to disprove free will in action. It was thought by most at this time that to perform a voluntary action, one must first will the action so. The willing of the action would set off a causal chain of events which moved throughout the body to result in the predetermined action. Now back in 1964, Kornhuber and Deecke, a pair of German scientists, performed an experiment which showed there to be an increase of electrical activity in the brains of subjects just before they would perform some action (Information Philosopher). The discovery of Kornhuber and Deecke, in addition to some prodding by John Eccles (Information Philosopher), led Libet to begin running experiments to examine where it was free will fit into all of this. Libet subsequently placed subjects in front of a rapid-spinning clock and asked them to decide to flex their right finger at random; they should note where the clock was when they willed the action so, and again note the clock when the action was in-performance. Meanwhile Libet was scanning for and measuring their neural activity, in expectation of this electrical activity discovered by Kornhuber and Deecke. What he discovered is that the conscious willing of the action fell at such a time that electrical activity was already taking place in the brain. This meant that the ‘will’ could not possibly be causing the electrical activity, and if the electrical activity caused the movement or the action, without being preceded by a conscious willing of such an action, then we must be misunderstanding something about how the willing of an action takes place. A position has been suggested which seems to sweep the conflict under the rug, what is Epiphenomenalism, the belief that the Mind, and so therefore too the Will, are phenomena which are the result of brain activity; such as the ‘exhaust fumes’ of the brain (Clarke)(Clark). However I cannot agree with such a claim, for I believe the Mind and Will to be of too paramount-centrality within the lives of us all, to possibly be a non-causal-by-product of some much less interesting system within us.

  When you think about the provided information, what conclusion is it you come to? Do you agree with the apparent science of the matter? Or do you feel there must be something which the scientists are missing when discussing this topic? I am of the latter opinion, I see several flimsy parts involved in this experiment and they are flimsy regardless of the interpretation one takes away from the data presented. The first inaccuracy I find is the method of qualification of a Willing Experience. Humans are likely one of the most fallible sources of information there is, even if they do not intend to be mistaken they often are due to the plain fact that there remains a universal disjunction between the incoming communication concerning a matter and the degree of comprehension of that matter. Much can be done to mend such a divide in any given circumstance, yet nonetheless there will never be a perfectly accurate representation of understanding gleaned from a source of outside communication. After exercising myself in a home trial of the Libet Experiment, I become most concerned with specifically which portioned-progression of the act of willing one is to call ‘the moment of the willing’. Is it to be the portion of the willing when I begin to consider that ‘anytime now’ ought to be random enough and therefore I ought to act? Or perhaps the portion of the willing after I have decided precisely on the moment in which the act shall occur? Or ought it to be the portion of the willing as the will is transferring and coming to embody the physical convulsions appropriate for motion? My point is that such an indeterminate discrepancy cannot possibly yield determinate data.

  The second inaccuracy is to be found again in the methods of the experiment: the subjects were instructed to move the right finger at a random time; therefore they had already compiled the decision and stored it away for later use by the time they were being examined. One could argue that there is little to no ‘willing’ involved in a predetermined action. Therefore the willing of the action is sitting in the chamber of the mind, and so the readiness potential to perform the predetermined action could in no way predate its willing of. Now Libet had similar considerations upon reviewing his own data, and tentatively concluding that the brain initiated action before the subject seemed to will it so. ‘Well if the will does not initiate action’ Libet must have thought, ‘then perhaps it can inhibit action’. He placed a new spin on his experiment: the subject were to now will the flexing of their finger, but before the action manifested itself they were to suppress their original intention and veto the physical movement. What was discovered is that the subjects were, in fact, able to suppress the transition of electrical activity into motor function. These series’ of experiments by Libet and his colleagues remains in the conversation of today as it has come to fuel a spectacular degree of contemporary research into the nature of agency and authorship of action.

Exploration

  Thomas Hobbes said “[t]hat when a thing lies still, unlesse somewhat els stirre it, it will lye still for ever, it is a truth that no man doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion, it will eternally be in motion, unless somewhat els stay it” (4). The nature of the Universe and its constituent parts seems arguably to be matter in motion (Hobbes). The zenith of the known cosmos inevitably stretches away from wherever it may have begun, planets circle their stars, and electrons orbit their nucleuses. So too do human babies crawl around, human adults drive to and fro, and human species migrate. It seems foolish to consider that something could ever not be moving, for should a man so cease to walk then so forth shall he be carried by the rotation of the globe; and should the globe so cease to spin, then so forth shall it be carried by the elaboration of the cosmos; and should the cosmos cease to grow, then still would the atoms spin within it. What then, I ask, what then is the justification for the consideration that human agents ought to hold some form of control over whether they move forth with the rest of known existence? Whether or not they ‘will’ it to be so. I say no, I say that human beings and human consciousness is dragged forth within the inevitable grind of its world, for most would lack the motivation to will themselves about each day, were this not the case. However this need not imply some style of absolutely deterministic existence, for there is still the phenomenon of Free Won’t displayed by Libet’s second string of experimentation. For should my life be as though I am careening downwards on the face of some unending hill, the air rushing by as my experience, then still do I possess the power of inhibition: I dig my right foot in and I veer to the right, I dig my left foot in and I veer to the left, I dig both feet in and the air rushes by slightly slower. This is the power of Free Won’t, and it is in fact an even greater power than Free Will. Should Free Will be the case, then I need always put out in order to gain reciprocal experience, and this seems to be a highly inefficient strategy; however should Free Won’t be the case, then I need not exert any effort to receive reciprocal experience because it is forced into me by my sheer forward velocity, but should I be receiving experience which I do not agree with, then I am able to exert my efforts to alter my path down the great hill, and with my efforts arrive new opportunities of experience from the other side of the street.

Conclusion

  In attempting to come to a closer understanding of the nature and plausibility of free will of action we have briefly reviewed the work of Kornhuber & Deecke, which led us into a discussion of some of the works of Benjamin Libet. After reviewing his original experiement I took the time to address two of my major concerns with his methodology, and in discussing the implications of such methodological flaws we arrived at Libet’s second-string of experimentation which was the testing of the suppressive capabilities of the will. After concluding that there seems to be such a capability, or faculty rather, as Free Won’t, I turned to argue from my own perceptions that Free Will seems to imply that one could fail to will some sequence of things and so therefore too fail to be ‘in motion’, which would be incompatible with the most basic observations of the Universe. After my expository comment on the aforementioned observations of the Universe I concluded in congruence with Libet’s second experiment that Free Won’t seems the most plausible case. Now, in accordance with my opening statements I conclude that Free Won’t is in fact the perfect freedom, for with it one is free to ‘not will’ without the concern of becoming static matter, to speak metonymically. Yet so too are we free to will the cessation or alteration of actions and procedures initiated by our unconscious brains, a faculty what is known as Free Won’t.

Works Cited

Clark, Andy. “Appendix II”. Mindware: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science. Oxford University Press: New York, 2014. Print.

Clarke, Peter G.H. “The Libet Experiment and its Implications for Conscious Will”. Be Thinking. 15/05/2014. 28/03/2016. Web. URL = http://www.bethinking.org/human-life/the-libet-experiment-and-its-implications-for-conscious-will

Hobbes, Thomas. “Leviathan: Or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil”. Everyman’s Library: Great Britain, 1965. Print.

Hobbes, Thomas. “Of Imagination”. Leviathan: Or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil. Everyman’s Library: Great Britain, 1965. 04 – 08. Print.

Libet Experiments. Information Philosopher. 27/03/2016. Web. URL = http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/libet_experiments.html

Secondary Considerations

Cyril C. House
Philosophy of Mind

Secondary Considerations

       Most religions today, as well as most spiritualist doctrines, hold the belief (or something akin to) that life goes on after death. Some believe that the dead are shipped off to live in a remote plane of existence, while others believe that individuals are ‘reborn’ in new bodies/forms. Although similar to one another in many respects, each belief system is unique. However, there is at least a single, assured, thread which runs through all belief systems of this type. That thread is the notion that there is something else, something which is not the physical body, and which is the thing what is teleported, or transported, to somewhere else, upon receipt of the death of the physical body. The Soul, The Spirit- this thing is referenced by these names, and others. However, for the moderate degree of consensus that there is some thing, it is decidedly less agreed upon precisely what that thing is. This is because the thing of which I/they speak is immaterial. That is to say it is not discernible by physical experimentation or observation, and we know of no method(s) for testing/observing for nonphysical/immaterial phenomena. Why then do so many believe in that which they can neither detect, nor even sufficiently describe? Let us then look into the matter at hand. Following I shall summarise the key points of the substance dualism debate, and attempt to explain precisely why substance dualism is an outdated, and incorrect assumption/theory.

       Substance Dualists have many strong arguments, among them is the notion that mental states/objects can perform actions which physical states/objects cannot. For example I, a physical person, can hypothesize about the concluding sentences of this paper, and I am able to draw relatively accurate portrayals of both the literal words which will be used, as well as the (less tangible) impact which they shall have on the reader. The egg cartons tacked to my wall cannot hypothesize about anything, they can neither hypothesize about the physical words which I shall write in my conclusion, nor can they hypothesize about the intangible impact which my words shall have. Why can they not? Simple, say Substance Dualists, they cannot hypothesize because they are lacking the required mental supervenience which performs abstract functions such as hypothesization. To combat this claim you may tell them that computers are things which can ‘hypothesize’ about future states of things if they are so encoded. Yet they would say back to you that such an account of hypothesization is entirely incomplete and therefore is not hypothesization at all. It is an incomplete account because although it can predict the tangible, (the future states of a certain spreadsheet for example) it cannot predict, nor does it even acknowledge that there is such a thing as, the intangible associations inextricably linked to the physical result. Herein the Substance Dualist holds a very strong position indeed, but aside from this (and perhaps a few other) argument(s) the Substance Dualist is indeed urinating in the direction of an oncoming tempest, as I shall explain hereafter.

       Now I wish to draw your attention to a statement I made in the introductory paragraph: “we know of no method(s) for testing/observing for nonphysical/immaterial phenomena”. What this statement, or fact rather, implies is that we have no way to check if or if not there is such a thing as an immaterial substance. This being the case, it follows that we have no way to run experiments on an immaterial substance. This being the case, it follows that we cannot explain anything about this substance. This is a problem because of the Theory of Causation: all things which are have a sufficient and complete explanation for how they came to be. So to perform a G.E. Moore Shift on the antecedent information will result in an argument as such:

1. All things which are have a sufficient and complete explanation for how they came to be

2. We have no way to test for the existence of an immaterial substance

Therefore

3. We cannot explain how an immaterial substance came to be

Therefore

4. An immaterial substance is not.

Now, the resolute substance dualist will point out that simply because we have not discovered the explanation yet, does not mean that the explanation is not there. For thousands of years mankind knew nothing about microbiology, yet that did not deter Leeuwenhoek from discovering it (Boundless). But there is a flaw with this argument in the case of Substance Dualism.

       The case of Leeuwenhoek and the discovery of microbiology is a valid argument because before the discovery was made there was an aspect of the world (Ex. disease, rotting food, foul breath) which could not be completely and sufficiently explained. There were of course rudimentary explanations such as a failure to sacrifice enough goats in order to appease the gods; so then the gods would use their ‘magic’ and POOF: your breath smells as though you defecated in your own mouth. Even back then such an explanation was insufficient, mainly because of this word ‘magic’. What is magic? How does magic work? Such questions require an answer to be able to comprehend the word magic, and so therefore too such a comprehension of magic is necessary to a sufficient explanation of why grandpa’s breath is so foul. So again we have this fallacy in that we cannot explain magic so therefore magic is neither a thing nor an explanation for things. So here now we bleed into the claims of the substance dualist. Why can the case of microbiology not be the case for Substance Dualism? Why can we not posit ‘we just don’t know yet, and therefore we cannot say one way or the other’? The reason we cannot is because of the extant explanation of that which Substance Dualism attempts to elucidate.

If you ask a physiologist to describe what happens when [Grandpa] runs away from a lion, they will say something like this. Running occurs when certain muscle groups- especially muscles in the thigh- contract powerfully. The thigh muscles contract because they are stimulated by certain nerves. Those nerves arise in the spine, and are in turn stimulated by special spinal nerves. The spinal nerves in their turn are stimulated by the motor cortex- the part of the brain devoted to the initiation and control of movement (Ravenscroft).

Note that nothing being explained here has to do with immaterial substances. Note also that there is a complete and sufficient explanation of running. So too is there a complete and sufficient explanation for all things which have to do with both vital and voluntary motions; that is to say that motions of the blood, the breath, the excrement, the nutrition, as well as motions of the thought, the action, the pursuit, the avoidance et cetera, are all completely and sufficiently explained by physiology, and if not by physiology then by another hard science such as physics or biochemistry. Thusforth it follows that this thing what it is which Substance Dualism attempts to offer an explanation of, is in no need of an explanation for it has already been explained!

       Furthermore, might the substance dualist claim, there is such a thing which has not been explained by science, and this this thing is called consciousness; this is a valid claim. There are many working theories of how consciousness comes to be, and exactly what the nature of consciousness is, but to date there is no sufficient and complete explanation of the nature of consciousness. Does this lend credence to the substance dualist’s argument? Unlikely at best. If I feel a slap on the right side of my face, and I turn around to see you standing there before turning back around; then I feel another slap on the right side of my face and turn around to see you standing there again, and again I turn back around; then I feel a slap on the left side of my face, is it realistic to turn around expecting to see my mother there? Certainly not.

       So here we are, having now been briefed on the subject of Substance Dualism, a few of its strongest arguments, and reasons why these arguments are unfounded in the modern day world. In millennia past substance dualists had a highly legitimate theory for the explanation of certain things in their world. They now however, have been corrected by modern science. Substance dualists explained the way the world works in a pretty good way, but then physiology, biochemistry, kinesiology, and other hard sciences came along and explained the way the world works, not just pretty good, but precisely; completely and sufficiently. Maybe there is some sort of immaterial substance out amongst the world, but we cannot know anything about it, and therefore we cannot use it to explain things which we do know are out there. Science has unveiled ways to reveal the secrets of that which we do know to exist, and therefore to debate the matter of Substance Dualism is methodologically futile.

Works Cited

       “History of Microbiology: Hooke, van Leeuwenhoek, and Cohn.” Boundless Microbiology. Boundless, 21 Jul. 2015. Retrieved 27 Jan. 2016 from https://www.boundless.com/microbiology/textbooks/boundless-microbiology-textbook/introduction-to-microbiology-1/introduction-to-microbiology-18/history-of-microbiology-hooke-van-leeuwenhoek-and-cohn-204-8020/

       Ravenscroft, Ian. “Dualism”. Philosophy of Mind: A Beginner’s Guide. Oxford University Press, 2005. 09 – 24. Print.