#causality

[pratchettquotes]

One of the recurring philosophical questions is:

"Does a falling tree in the forest make a sound when there is no one to hear?"

Which says something about the nature of philosophers, because there is always someone in a forest. It may only be a badger, wondering what that cracking noise was, or a squirrel a bit puzzled by all the scenery going upwards, but someone. At the very least, if it was deep enough in the forest, millions of small gods would have heard it.

Things just happen, one after another. They don't care who knows. But history...ah, history is different. History has to be observed. Otherwise it's not history. It's just...well, things happening one after another.

Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

#history monks #small gods #discworld #terry pratchett #history #causality #events #meaning #philosophy #philosophers #observation #reality #perception #knowledge #squirrels #badgers #the nature of philosophers #things just happen #if a tree falls in a forest

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Reaping The Whirlwind

You reblogged Gandalf’s big naturals.

You did that and now the porn bots are overwhelming us.

The hubris of it all. Did you think you could tempt fate and not succumb to the consequences of your actions? Did you believe as you posted the great pendulous teats of the Grey Wizard that you could escape his inevitable wrath? Did you not foresee the ruinous ramifications of manifesting those mammoth magus mammaries?

But you did it. You unhooked the bra of destiny and now the botpocalypse is pouring out upon us. Ask not for whom the bosom heaves- It heaves for you.

#causality #unreality #gandalf #the melons of wrath

[philosophybits]

Before Kant, an inquiry into "the nature and origin of knowledge" had been a search for privileged inner representations. With Kant, it became a search for the rules which the mind had set up for itself (the "Principles of the Pure Understanding"). This is one of the reasons why Kant was thought to have led us from nature to freedom. Instead of seeing ourselves as quasi-Newtonian machines, hoping to be compelled by the right inner entities and thus to function according to nature's design for us, Kant let us see ourselves as deciding (noumenally, and hence unconsciously) what nature was to be allowed to be like. Kant did not, however, free us from Locke's confusion between justification and causal explanation, the basic confusion contained in the idea of a "theory of knowledge."

Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

#philosophy #quotes #Richard Rorty #Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature #Kant #belief #representation #justification #causality #knowledge #epistemology

[noosphe-re]

What remains today of Newton's fundamental breakthrough? Modern life, our system of education founded on the requirements of punctuality, scholastic exercises on the charts of train schedules, geographic maps—all this inculcates in us, from childhood, a very Newtonian idea of space and time. This is why we have such difficulty perceiving the absurdity of questions such as"What lies beyond the limits of the universe?" or "What existed before the creation of the world—or before the Big Bang?" We marvel at the apparent modernness of Saint Augustine, who was already addressing similar questions fifteen centuries ago: "Time did not exist before heavens and earth.” But few among us know or have really assimilated the Kantian critique of the concepts of space and time. Kant constructed this critique specifically to chart the boundaries between knowledge and faith, to free science from metaphysical presuppositions, to deliver geometry from the shadow of theology to which Newton had in fact ascribed it. For Kant, space and time are not things in themselves but "forms of intuition”—in other words, they constitute a canvas that allows us to decipher the existence of the world. According to Kant, things "in themselves" are neither in space nor in time. It is the human mind that, in the very act of perception, superimposes these categories, which are its own and without which perception would be impossible. This does not exactly mean that space and time are illusions or pure inventions of the human mind. These frameworks are imposed on us through empirical contact with nature and are not, therefore, "arbitrary.” They no more belong to things in themselves than they belong to the mind alone; rather, they exist because of the dialogue between the mind and things. They are, in the final analysis, an unavoidable product of motion itself by means of which the mind searches to apprehend—to understand—the outside world.

Rémy Lestienne, The Children of Time: Causality, Entropy, Becoming

#quote #Rémy Lestienne #Lestienne #Remy Lestienne #time #science #Kant #Immanuel Kant #St Augustine #theology #Saint Augustine #religion #physics #entropy #causality #space #space-time #spacetime #mind #education #Newton #Isaac Newton #philosophy

[yoga-onion]

“Ice in winter melts and flows in spring, and minerals and rocks are burnt and melted by fire. In this way, all things are established by causality and have no true nature.” - Kukai

[Kukai (b. 27 July 774 – d. 22 April 835),  posthumously called Kōbō Daishi ("The Grand Master who Propagated the Dharma"), was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and poet who founded the esoteric Shingon school of Buddhism.]

Buddha to his disciples, mini-series (21)

Nidana - "direct cause" &  "indirect cause" in all phenomenal things

Kukai's quotation of the sacred word 'causality' is referred to as the 'Twelve Causes (Pratītyasamutpāda,Ref)', etc., and is one of the fundamental doctrines that the Buddha taught to his first disciples after his enlightenment, and the content of enlightenment itself. The Buddha realised that "the phenomena of this world are the result of the interrelation of causes and conditions. Everything is the result of nidana".

In Buddhism, all phenomenal things which those caused by phenomena, have a hetu (direct cause), and a pratyaya (indirect cause) conditions that help the cause to produce the result..

"冬の氷は春になれば解けて流れ、金属や岩石は火に焼かれて溶解する。このようにすべての物事は縁によって成立し、本姓はない。"

―空海（くうかい、774年7月27日生 - 835年4月22日没）は、日本の僧侶、書家、詩人で、真言密教の創始者であり、「弘法大師」とも呼ばれる。

ブッダから弟子たちへ、ミニシリーズ (21)

因縁 〜 現象的事物 (有為) はすべて直接原因 (因)と間接原因縁 (縁)

空海の聖語から引用した「縁」という言葉は「縁起の法」「十二因縁（参照）」などといい、釈迦が悟りを開いて最初に弟子たちに説いた根本教理の一つ、悟りの内容そのものである。釈迦は「この世の現象は原因や条件が相互に関係しあって生まれ出た結果である。すべては縁によって成り立っているのだ」と気づいた。

仏教では，現象的事物には必ず原因があるとし，生滅に直接関係するものを「因 (梵:ﾍｰﾄｩ＝直接原因)」と言い，因を助けて結果を生じさせる間接的な条件を「縁 (梵: ﾌﾟﾗﾃｨﾔﾔ＝間接原因)」と言う…

#buddhism #dharma #buddha #wisdom #philosophy #mindfulness #causality #art #nature #winter #kukai

[motheyesofnight]

(from "An Artist")

An artist is not who's beautiful.

An artist is who makes a mess.

I have a poor mind and always struggled with grasping causality.

Instead of writing, made a mess.

Instead of an artist, became a pathetic fool.

#poetry #artist #artwork #writing #pathetic fool #causality #poor mind #the past #humans are sad beings

[sweetmapple]

Rereading Lost Children Arc

Aka the three days that took Guts’ already nonexistent expectations and curb stomped them to new abyssal depths upon every roadblock encountered

#berserk #guts berserk #lost children arc #causality #hawk of darkness #the dragonslayer #elves of the misty valley #fanart #gut’s no good very bad day (part 96) #causality is a bastard

[buck4yabang]

#mine #gif #miblin #the dark knight #joker #tdk #dc joker #madness #catalyst #causality

[teal-sharky]

Tumblr will literally rather invent time travel rather than just let reliable post threading, the single unique and positive feature of the place, exist in peace

#tumblr bugs #webdev #time travel #causality #also fuck cops of course but that's nothing new. OR IS IT?

[thimblezz]

ummm hsau time!!!

ok so ive made a homestuck au called causality and i have the urge to share it with people on tumblr

its basically me rewriting both candy and meat and mashing them together while making the stories better altogether because fuck hs epilogues idc

theres a davekat dirkjake and rosemary part

davekat parts (you turn the screws hashtag) rosemary parts (passion and the glowmother hashtag) dirkjake (no good purpose of pursuit hashtag)

all of the parts under the causality hashtag on my blog

#homestuck #homestuck au #hs2 #homestuck 2 #homestuck epilogues #causality #you turn the screws #passion and the glowmother #no good purpose of pursuit #davekat #rosemary #dirkjake

[philosophybitmaps]

#philosophy #quotes #Friedrich Nietzsche #Human All Too Human #Nietzsche #actions #responsibility #free will #determinism #causality #desert #merit

[pratchettquotes]

Frantic signals from outlying portions of her mind began to break down her iron-hard conviction that bad things only happen to bad people.

Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

#magrat garlick #wyrd sisters #discworld #terry pratchett #witches #morality #worldview #threat #danger #fear #conviction #causality #what goes around comes around #bad things #bad people #changing your mind #frantic signals

[eelhound]

"Asking 'Who is the villain?' is the prologue to asking who should be punished. But asking 'What are the conditions that led to this?' leads us to consider how to change those conditions so that the situation is less likely to happen again.

Reframing things in this way is a type of analysis known as dependent origination. Though this term has far-reaching and often abstract implications in Buddhist thought, it simply means that everything arises on the basis of multiple factors, and if we want to discourage something from happening again we have to address the factors underlying it. If our goal is to judge and punish, we will need to determine guilt, which becomes more difficult as we consider more causes. But if our goal is to gain a better understanding, then the fact that there are many factors is not a problem."

- Matthew Gindin, from "The Red Hat Rorschach Test." Tricycle, 30 January 2019.

#matthew gindin #quote #quotations #causality #dependent origination #interdependence #interconnectedness #understanding #zen #buddhism #change #activism #problem solving #behavior change #blame #villains #antagonists

[philosophybits]

All reasonings concerning matters of fact seem to be founded on the relation of Cause and Effect. By means of that relation alone we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses.

David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

#philosophy #quotes #David Hume #An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding #reason #rationality #causation #causality

[noosphe-re]

All that transpires on earth and all beyond Are parts of an illimitable plan The One keeps in his heart and knows alone. Our outward happenings have their seed within, And even this random Fate that imitates Chance, This mass of unintelligible results, Are the dumb graph of truths that work unseen: The laws of the Unknown create the known. The events that shape the appearance of our lives Are a cipher of subliminal quiverings Which rarely we surprise or vaguely feel, Are an outcome of suppressed realities That hardly rise into material day: They are born from the spirit's sun of hidden powers Digging a tunnel through emergency. But who shall pierce into the cryptic gulf And learn what deep necessity of the soul Determined casual deed and consequence? Absorbed in a routine of daily acts, Our eyes are fixed on an external scene; We hear the crash of the wheels of Circumstance And wonder at the hidden cause of things.

Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book One, Canto Four (from The Hidden Forces of Life, compiled by A.S. Dalal)

#quote #Sri Aurobindo #philosophy #spirituality #events #time #causality #reality #fate #Aurobindo #A S Dalal

[insaniquariumfish]

Hot take here but the overwhelming majority of morality is just social trends influenced by the ebb and flow of innumerable sociopolitical forces outside of anyone's actual control and the vast majority of ethical beliefs held by any given individual have nothing to do with genuine independent thought on their part and are simply emblematic of how that individual happens to be influenced by said trends and forces. Causality and natural laws determine the flow of human thought and behavior just as much as they do the flow of water, because humans are a part of nature. Also we are never going to gain collective enlightenment, because humans are not neurons in an ancient brain and we do not, when considered as a collective, literally constitute a singular being who learns and grows over time. Humans today are the same kind of beings as humans from 50,000 years ago, and humanity cannot ever meaningfully change because it is human nature and not ideology that ultimately determines how we think and behave as a species, and all ideology is ultimately both a product of and subject to this nature. And we cannot make concrete philosophical progress in the same sense that we make scientific progress, because philosphical truth and morality and ideas are not objective properties of reality, and all it takes to "unlearn" a philosophical belief is to have a reason, even an entirely subconscious reason, to not want to believe it, whereas something like how a light bulb works is true whether you want to believe it or not, and people (most of the time) do not have any psychological motivation to abandon scientific claims and observations. There is a reason why history repeats itself and progress backslides and problems that have plagued humanity for at least as long as recorded history continue to do so, and why issues just come right back in new forms whenever they are meaningfully addressed, and why they are so rarely ever meaningfully addressed in the first place, and why you can see certain types of oppression and depravity everywhere in the world no matter where you go. Humans are humans and will always be humans. And yes, that fact is incredibly depressing and disheartening, and yes it does mean that having genuine faith in the idea of "progress" is misguided.

#random thoughts #rant #vent #philosophy #human nature #morality #progress #politics #determinism #causality #hot take #unpopular take #unpopular opinion