For Love And Glory, XXI.
"In a black hole's own frame, the collapse to singularity was swift. To a safely distant observer, it took forever; what she saw was not a completed being but an eternal becoming." (p. 120)
Hegel argued that:
philosophers should begin by reasoning from the most general or abstract concept or category;
the opening thesis of the Hegelian System of Philosophy is being because everything is;
however, to say of anything only that it is is not to say what it is and thus is to say nothing about it;
therefore, the thesis, being, is identical with its antithesis, nothing;
these two contradictory yet identical categories are synthesized in the more concrete concept of becoming;
becoming generates being determinate, which is one thing and not another, as opposed to abstract being which is identical with nothing.
I think that:
being is not a property but the instantiation of properties;
thus, a large, red sphere is an instance of largeness, redness and sphericalness but not also of a fourth property, "being";
possibility or potentiality is more general than being;
thus, what is is a subset of what might have been;
physicists currently apply the concepts of potentiality, being, nothing and becoming.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The last sentence of this blog piece certainly applies to much that I am reading about in Frank Tipler's THE PHYSICS OF CHRISTIANITY. But I think he would disagree with Hegelianism.
Sean
Hegel's comment on history is an illustration of the general truth that human beings use intelligence instrumentally, as a means, not an end -- and that they are very resistant to information that contradicts the narrative/explanatory framework to which they are committed.
Eg., if someone was raised in the 'four humors' framework of explanation for how the human body is supposed to function, it's almost impossible to confront them with a piece of evidence that will invalidate it -- an important reason that it prevailed for around twenty-five hundred years.
It was finally overthrown by a meta-narrative about experimental validation.
The problem with that meta-narrative -- as demonstrated in the current "replicability crisis" in the sciences, particularly the psychological and behavioral ones -- is that it isn't as intuitive as most of the narratives human beings have come up with. It's true, but it doesn't -feel- true in the same way.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
To fully or properly understand your comments here I will need to look up this "replicability crisis" you mentioned.
Sean
Sean: short form, it turns ot that a lot of experiments, including ones taught in textbooks as "classics", are not replicable -- that is, running the experiment again, even very carefully, often does not yield the same results.
This is usually the result of being "directiionally sloppy" in setting up the experiment, not using sufficient controls, etc.
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