Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Spinoza's mind

Month, Day: 177, Names, Speech (Grace)

Interesting article: Did Einstein Believe in a Creator? From April 2019. Fifty years ago, I was into Spinoza, big time, and found him again a few weeks ago. Namely, through his Ethics.

The article was a nice read. I'm going through Ethics and trying to lay out how Spinoza (400 years ago) was a computational mind. One of the first? And, given his thinking, we can apply the insights to help get a balance back into the colonialism spirit that is the current computing vogue (with the muddy cloud and all). Spinoza's 'pantheistic' mode seems to be apparent to some and appealing to others.

I see that Spinoza's uses 'God' in a type of rebellion to his past. Were he here today, he would, no doubt, have a more nuanced usage. Yet, he grasped the ring then, more than any other that I have read. When I say, computational, it alludes to the Euclid'like mode. Yet, it is more. Spinoza was very methodical with references between the Parts. The Parts, themselves, are of a categorical nature that is astoundingly in touch; albeit, one might consider some union of Spinoza and Descartes' thoughts which would be wanting due to various reasons. Such as, his time, which, in terms of symmetry is fairly close to now. Something to explain.

Insights? Spinoza's exposition is loaded. Take his ways of knowing. He uses imaginary, reason, and intuition, in that order. The Master talked several times of a cognitive look that uses imagination, thought, and comprehension. The main approach taken by science has been to throw out that latter (how intuition and comprehension relate is a topic to discuss); replacing this facility with mathematics has been troublesome; it's time to reassess just how much there is no basis to the model built thus, despite all of the glorious side-effects that we have seen; many times, one might add, accumulative poison to which we inure ourselves.

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The article was a Part I. Here are II (Yes, I Believe in Science -- and in God) and III (Defining Eternity: Scientifically & Spiritually).

Remarks: 09/01/2020

09/01/2020 --

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