The Philosophy Tales - The Quest - By Ellese Elliott
The Philosophy Tales - The Quest
In the depths and wisdom of space, at the edge of reality, a lone man travelled across a strange land in the pursuit of something great. It seemed his search had lasted as long as time extended; travelling over six hundred thousand plethrons; which was a long, long way. Despite his old age he was not weary, nor did he waver as his belief in something greater had kept him strong. It had kept him alive! The land he travelled across was by far the most treacherous. Freezing winds as strong as a herd of wild horses stampeded over his blistered body. The hail like bullets battered down upon land and sea. The sky emerged as a shattered mirror, the ground a pebbled desert of glass and the whole world was a luminous white.
Qqqcccrrrrkkk! A jagged crack suddenly ripped through the ice; parting the floor beneath him into two. “Argh!” he shouted as he nearly fell in, but instead hung by the strap of his bag from a shard. Being an experienced traveller, he was equipped with all sorts of gadgets and tools. Carefully, he manoeuvred around and pulled out his durable ice pick then used it to climb to safety. It would have been a long way down, but he soldiered on, prepared for any battle, persevering.
The seasons were different there. The moon would never fully rise above the surface, nor would the sun and the planets appeared as though they were crashing toward where he be. Consequently, the days and nights were much shorter, with dusk and dawn seemingly lasting forever. He hardly slept, and awoke each time by a siren like howl of a carnivorous creature; a kindred traveller.
Hoowwwlllll! This time, he was already awake. He had not stopped, sensing the proximity of the 'Great Something' was close. As he reached the peak of a humongous mountain that had taken many weeks to venture up, a peculiar noise swept passed the fragile hairs that lined his ear canal; a silent ringing persisted . The strong forces of nature seemed to immediately subside and he thought his eyes blurred the view. Removing his shield from his aged face, some of his skin was removed with it. Tiny crystals had formed in the wrinkled crevices of his blemished countenance and his lips were chapped blue. He rubbed his eyes trying to focus, squinting into the distance. There was nothing wrong with his eyes.
"Hergh," he gasped, as shock overcame him; travelling down his frozen nerves, cracking his insides. He wailed in pain with every muscle left in his body, but no object was present to give this act to the ear. The silence travelled endlessly. There, in front of him, his belief was realised. It was 'The Great Something'. “Ex Nihilo" he mouthed, it was 'The Nothing'. Before him, all around, there was emptiness. He looked back at the battered land and at this point, at this peak, the world seemed to dissipate into 'The Nothing'; turning gaseous and intangible, before vanishing. Equally, the world seemed to emanate from 'The Nothing:' forming, solidifying and hardening.
The bold traveller removed his ragged glove from his left hand, exposing his tender flesh to the bitterness of the cold and reached slowly out into the unknown. Unbelievably, his hand seemed to run away from him like water rushing over a fall. He suddenly retracted, scared 'The Nothing' would cast his hand into the abyss. However, his hand was intact. “How can this be?” he questioned, “How can 'The Nothing' create this world?” Standing on the borders of this contradiction he wondered if he himself, at that moment, was being created or destroyed.
'Aha! Maybe,' he thought, 'it was just that things had never travelled any further then this point. So, if I throw something into 'The Nothing' then there may be something.' This seemed to be a half reasonable hypothesis to make. 'Now, what something shall I throw?' he thought to himself, looking about. He hesitated for a minute, not quite sure, and then he picked up an icy rock from beneath his feet. Giving himself enough space he threw the rock as hard as he could into 'The Nothing', his body nearly flew with it. He closely watched on like a hawk watches its prey as the rock fragmented into a rainbow of light, glowing with every imaginable and unimaginable colour possible then finally disappeared. His fear was confirmed and 'The Nothing' remained.
Behind him the day was already turning to night. The sun and the moon set; the stars rose, yet all remained still before him. He could not sleep, even if he wanted to. How could he have? He wore his bemusement with such intensity. How utterly baffling this all was. Straining his wits he thought, 'If the rock, could not travel through 'The Nothing', does that mean that the sun cannot travel through nothing either, but only through something? How can this make sense? How can anything move if there is always something in its way?' The world had become a plenum of glass pebbles on the edge of a vacuum according to reason. Maybe it was his mind that created such nonsense. Perhaps it was his belief that had caused such events. Perhaps indeed it was.
The traveller believed there was something greater, yet he did not know what that something was. Obviously his belief had led him here, but did his belief in the 'Great Something' cause 'The Nothing'? Did his belief create 'The Great Incomprehensible Nothing?' 'The Nothing' certainly was great, but was 'The Nothing', something? The simple answer is no. The bold traveller believed in a 'Great Something' not in 'The Great Nothing'. Conclusively, as 'The Nothing' wasn't something he dismissed this idea as absurd.
In turmoil the man reflected on his life and his journey; the journey he had taken to find what he had always sought; something great. But now, with aching bones and a heart full of dismay, he had failed to understand it. Standing on the edge of reality, where the darkness never looked so full of life and the stars and the moon so bright, he thought ‘how could all of this be possible?’ And was there any meaning to any of it? He would be hopeful if there was even a speck of meaning in this void. The bold traveller had realised how much he does not know, if anything at all apart from that.
Frustrated, angry and confused his blood rushed away from his brain, and furiously flowed to the core of his heart. 'I must know.' he thought in a state of intense conviction. Taking a deep breath, sucking every minuscule particle of the world as he was able to into his lungs, he leaped out of the something and into 'The Great Nothing'. Hoooowwwwwlllll! It was morning and the bold traveller was gone. Did he find the answer? No one knows. No living being would come across 'The Nothing' for over five million years. When they did, they did not have to jump in to understand, as they had advanced way beyond the powers of reason we have today, but I will tell you one thing for certain; they did not have even an inkling of passion as the man who made a great leap from belief to knowing.
By Ellese Elliott
Dedicated to Gregory Wood
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Something/Nothing' Issue 24
A dialogue between Socrates and Funkbadger - By Selim 'Selim' Talat
A dialogue between Socrates and Funkbadger
Lo there Socrates, it is I, Funkbadger, mammal of Athens.
And what should bring you out on this scorching day little friend?
I have stumbled upon a problem, and I long to discuss it with one as wise as yourself.
But surely you know that I am far from wise, knowing nothing, or at best very little - could you not choose another with whom to discuss your philosophical problem?
Enough of your modesty Socrates!
I awoke this morn and made the terrible realization that I was made of something, and that everything else was made of something. Yet I could not for the love of my stripey self make heads or tails of it! Why am I something and not nothing? And where does this idea of nothing come from - I certainly have not seen nothing before - have you?
I cannot say I have, nor can I say I have not - for if I were to see nothing, how would I know I had seen nothing?
And yet we use the word nothing all of the time - sometimes in a poetic way, and other times we actually talk about there being 'nothing'. How can this make sense oh Socrates.
Perhaps this nothingness is the product of our imaginations; the result of abstract thinking that sends us round and round in logical circles, and not to be taken too seriously.
Yet it irks me Socrates, it irks me to my little black and white tail! Why something at all? Why not nothing - a great nothingness. Did we not come out of nothing and become something? Surely there must be a reason for this emergence.
And presumeably after we die you believe we shall return to nothingness, Funkbadger.
Not so Socrates, for I am a badger and not likely to think such morbid thoughts - but now that you mention it - yes, we emerge out of nothing, into something and then back into nothingness, having gained nought from our time in somethingness. What a sad joke!
Tell me Funkbadger, is not the limited time we spend on this mortal plane (however brief in the cosmic scheme of things) not something of worth?
I suppose it is Socrates, yet all we are saying here is the vaguest of declarations: Somethingness has value over nothingness. And by my snuffly nose I cannot even pinpoint why it is that somethingness is valued over nothingness.
Perhaps we creatures of somethingness are merely biased toward somethingness is all.
Another generalizing answer oh Socrates! I want to pinpoint something solid (oh there I go again with the s-word!), I want to understand things beyond such broad answers.
We don't have enough time to go into every little detail-
Time Socrates! That is the answer. Time is the progression of something out of nothing and back into nothing. I will one day decay, as shall thee, as shall we all. It is time then that gives me somethingness and allows me to find value within it, and it is time that shall take me away into nothingness. This inevitable force takes something and turns it into nothing. And as something is better than nothing, time is the enemy of badgers, of humanity, of all things!
Yet what of the timeless ideas, the ones that do not decay? What of the concepts of perfection we are able to realize in our minds? These are more real than mere somethings we experience, and they are beyond time.
No Socrates! No, no, no. They are just ideas in your mind, they do not point to anything we can actually feel. They are not part of 'somethingness'.
Then there is your answer to the problem of something/nothing, Funkbadger. That which we can sense is something. That which we cannot is nothing. This means that ideals, say of justice, of humanity, are just illusions, and in actual fact refer to nothing. Correct?
Yes! There is nothing that is perfect or timeless, and any idea we think of as perfect will die out along with all mortal things.
Nothing that is perfect or timeless?
Precisely. There is...wait a second Socrates, I can feel you are trying to trip me up!
Not at all, so-called mammal of Athens, I was merely trying to come to a conclusion.
I just spoke of an absence of somethings. This must mean that something and nothing can co-exist: Those things which we cannot sense (such as justice) are illusions, but those illusions are still 'somethings' (thoughts in our heads).
Yet earlier you said those illusions referred to nothing, now you are saying that they refer to something – even if it is just a thought inside someone's head.
Yes Socrates, for badgers are prone to whimsy and often change their minds.
Where does this leave 'nothingness'?
It is 'absence'. For instance – the group containing 'perfect things' has nothing in it. Nothingness is useful for letting us know what cannot be. And why am I something over nothing? No reason, it is just a matter of pure chance...
By Selim 'Selim' Talat
Something & Nothing at the same time
"We are living in a holographic world; as the canvass turns, things just simply appear and disappear." - Sean Ash
It was the French philosopher René Descartes who once said "cogito ergo sum" in English meaning "I think therefore I am”. Well, I say that if this is the case then so must "Ego sum ergo esse," meaning I am, therefore, be. In other words, I am, therefore I must exist and if I do exist then I must be something rather than nothing. A fair point to add is that it is true that I have not always existed, and so at one point I may have been nothing. However, I have been pulled into the universe through the determinism of the other; the action of man combined with the labour of woman has initiated my existence and thus begun the process of becoming. This still does not explain where I was when the ancient greek philosopher Parmenides once wrote "Nothing comes from nothing" and when one of the greats Aristotle had argued that everything in motion must have been set into motion by the "unmoved mover". I must have been somewhere, surely?
If at first there was nothing, and though a thing such as 'nothing' is imagined to be non-existent, it is still ascribed specific attributes so that it can be identified and it is because we can identify it that it can be understood. Therefore, it must exist and paradoxically it must be something. Like the blank white screen I once stared at before writing this article. A white screen existed and yet it was the mind that brought life to it. The actor was not born on the stage but born for the stage as when the time was right, the curtains were pulled back and the performer appeared for all to see. When the end came, the curtains were closed and the actor was nowhere to be seen.
Another possibility could be a dual reality where we are living in a holographic world; as the canvass turns, things just simply appear and disappear. If no one is moving and if the hologram is not moving, all we are left with is a non-moving image; no life, no movement, an object but an object nonetheless and still something. Another dualist approach could be that we are the fusion from the physical and metaphysical and simply lose our presence when we are either cut off or disconnected from either side? Or maybe we are the fusion of both man and woman? Either way you look at it, there still exists an objective world and so maybe the question is not whether nothingness or something exists but whether we really exist at all?
Lets take the 'being' as in the human being into question. No matter how much it should accomplish it will always feel that more could have been done or that something is simply missing. It is always in search for 'other' like it has known the other its entire life but simply just forgot its name. This being strives and yet no matter how hard it tries, it can never be full. For some beings, they do not like the status quo and will stop at nothing to see some form of change as they move away from the darkness and into the light; never stopping or allowing themselves to be stagnated by nothingness. They've been nothing for far too long and now is finally the time to be somebody. There's no going back!
No living human being truly wants to equate to nothing or being no one. Simply existing alone is not enough as if life were to exist without purpose then what would be the point in living? Could it be that beings are possibly shifted from simply existing alone to becoming? Why? Was nothingness not enough? Or a fear to revert, to descend, to step back where man had already once walked as the philosopher had figured out the problems of nothingness and so now was time for something new? Was it the unconscious entity surrounded by darkness that sought to escape the fear, the pain and the deprivation of the infinite chain eternally binding it to the chaotic plane of nothingness where no-thing should exist? Who truly knows. Maybe nothingness is pain as nothingness is energy-less.
If you can try to imagine an empty stomach and what it feels like to be hungry; the stomach cramps that entail; the weakness of the limbs and the emerging mood swings and anger within the mind; the sheer will to do whatever one has to do in order to satisfy themselves and fill that once empty stomach with something. If you can imagine that then surely you can conceptualise what it must feel like when a part of you is empty. The material world is the food to the stomach of nothingness; it is all that nothingness highly depends on. The nothingness fills itself and sets out to bite into different objects so that it can bring out the light within itself. As it consumes it grows, and as it grows it starts to become more aware of itself and its own purpose. It begins to see the light and is filled with words and images; sights that have, hitherto, been missing. It is the darkness making its way into light so that it can escape all that is painful and grim to move forward into the world of harmonious tranquility.
Who truly knows? These are just some thoughts. They are thoughts made up of words that were made and existed before I existed, and so the only time I was truly wordless was as a baby; before I knew any word and to be frank I have no recollection of that. It meant nothing.
By Sean Ash
Can we own something or only nothing? - By Tom Moon
Can we own something or only nothing?
It strikes me as immediately obvious that one can possess objects in the world, by possess I mean control and use in a manner that is befitting to the owners, for surely it is a social custom and economic standpoint that by 'mixing our labour' with nature we impart a ownership as payment for an improvement upon nature. This is a Locke-ian theory from his 'Two treatise of Goverment', which argues that we inherit our body as one's own and by using said body when hunting by killing a the rabbit you gain ownership of the meat because you expended energy and labour in order to acquire the meat. This represents an extension of what is intrinsically yours (the body) and so long as the food is not wasted and that one is not consumed by greed, it becomes a fair stake and the notion of property feels justified.
But the same is said for those who farm the land; they reap what they sow and what is sown belongs to the reaper. In short property is what is produced from ones own labour, any excess can be traded accordingly and so an economy forms. What followed from this is a currency that in turn buys labour; be it food, salt or gold. This makes the employers in essence the owner of the time and effort of the person labouring.
The whole notion of this civil structure is a drive at stepping out of a state of war with another, (described much like Hobbes as brutish and cruel) and enter into the social contract of civility, allowing safer and stronger guarantees that can be enforced by public law. For instance, if someone steals your money he breaks the contract he has signed. By living in that country and previously agreeing to its laws, an agent of the contract (police say) can enforce the agreed punishment on the thief and thus, not only is a financial economy balanced, but a social economy is also balanced, a loss restored and a wrong righted.
Now in principle this all sounds fine, it seems equality in liberty for all, a fair exchange and a chance to earn ones keep.. It provides incentive to be productive for the society in which they live. If someone kills your rabbit, there are plenty of rabbits left in the field to eat, and all the above falls neatly on paper. But the titanic looked very neat on paper, this did not mean that the ship in practice did not sink, its teleology was inadequate, its goal unattainable, its design flawed, such is the case of the concept of ownership.
Tyranny dressed as liberty inherently follows from this aspect of the economical social contract and shows its spots when currency buys labour. This attempt at putting a price tag on effort (which is utterly immaterial and unfounded) is not within the realm of fair trade. One hours work could be worth 10 pence or 10 million pounds; any scale can be applied. Also a bias of wealth inherently creates slaves, in which the master increase his wealth but provides no labour, while the work force labours but gains no further wealth; for what is paid by the master is never over what is profitable for himself, and usually the profit margin is horrifically high.
Two workers in a field with the same tasks, one strong and one weak, the stronger man expends less effort for lifting, ploughing and sowing seeds, the weaker man expends more effort for the same tasks, but is paid the same. The phenomenological experience of the two cannot be measured or scaled for it is a private affair that is ultimately outside an economy due to the internal nature of struggle. It may well be the case that the strong toils more and the weaker man glides with ease in his chores, the point is we cannot know. But this scepticism is brushed over for it reveals the syndical element in buying labour, it places value in what is priceless.
But what is most sinister is that, if money buys labour then the money provider owns that person for the hours assigned, in essence creating a possession of a persons body, which inherently belongs to the labourer. Paid labour is the prostitution of being and we sell ourselves very cheap when the question of 'how can we eat?' hooves in view. What liberty can there be when a economy forces the majority, even an individual to sell his time and energy to improve the wealth of another? Freedom for the few and labour for many...at lest in full on slavery theirs an honesty about the state of affairs.
This slavery creates a vast wealth for those who own, and this is not a analytic conclusion but a fact of the world, when we see that the 1% owns 40% of the world assets as of 2000 (the World Distribution of Household Wealth. James B. Davies, Susanna Sandstrom, Anthony Shorrocks, and Edward N. Wolff. 5 December 2006). Thus it stands that a contradiction occurs as the notion employment becomes clear, if property comes about that we mix our labour with the project, then the rewards are yours but when we pay another for labour and still claim the rewards your, there is no mixing of labour and thus the rewards are not yours, its only economics that makes the rewards the employer not employee.
If wealth and currency naturally follow from non symmetric distribution of property then we cannot own something, we can own nothing, otherwise we create unethical and elitist hierarchies, benefiting the few and enslaving the poor, alas such is he way of things today.
By Tom Moon
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Something/Nothing' Issue 24
Something/Nothing - By Perry Smith
Something/Nothing
Something is Nothing (we shall leave it capitalised, as it is the name of an experiential state -albeit the absence of one- but is still distinguishable) if it is nominally so, if there is no ‘thing in itself’, nor is a relation among things; and we must distinguish this from a space in between objects, which have metaphysical corporeality and ideological extension. Rather, Nothingness is merely an abstract concept; it is something that is born from the understanding (we will not argue here on general linguistics, of whether all names of things are simply nominal, but of their having a direct correspondence to the object/objects –if we can disseminate or separate the ‘thing/s’ of experience from the general ‘block’ of perception/ consciousness) and is different in kind to Something, that is, to experience (it is not different in degree, but rather different in kind, as it is unexperienceable, and is conceptually existent as opposite, i.e., the negation of Something) (Fig. 1.). Therefore, Something is what we determine as being the object/s of our experience, and Nothing is simply the negation of this; it is merely a nominal abstract concept used to negate, and to understand this absence (although it is not existent, except conceptually, as I have already suggested). ‘All that is, is experienceable; and all that is not, is not. Rather, it is a polarised (albeit entirely separate) abstraction to general experience’ would be a good concision on what we have said.
Fig.1.
------------------------(Dividing line)------------------------
Something Nothing
So, why is the distinction between Something / Nothing even existent? I believe that this dichotomy of experience/ non-experience (and is not a dichotomy in the sense that they are not entirely separate, or are, but only in the terms of Nothing being the opposite of Something, but of not occupying any meaning, or qualities, except as lying in whatever the opposite of what something is- therefore being wholly dependent on it) exists as a self-reflective act on our parts on the nature of experience, and is used to understand the object/s therein / the nature of experience; it is simply a by-product of experiencing, of being able to formulate concepts -based on what we experience- and is merely an abstract negation of this. It is also a rationalisation of non-experience, or the cessation of experience, and may also be a comprehension of what death, or non-being (as a conscious entity), may be like. So, as a concept, it may be existent, partly, because of our own understanding of the finitude (notions of time, etc.) of experience, and may therefore be an entirely human concept, which further adds to the idea that Nothingness is nothing in itself, but rather, as being nominal, and based wholly on our understanding of Something, as a negation of it.
By Perry Smith
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Something/Nothing' Issue 24
Positive and negative reference - By Martin Prior
Positive and negative reference
Where some people might write
($x)(Px & Qx)
i.e. something is both P and Q, or some P are Q, I might write:
E (p, q)
where E means ‘there is’ and the comma represents ‘concept intersection’. This is an important operator in the field of Description Logic (see Baader et al (2003) below), an area of logic concerned with knowledge representation. It may often be glossed as ‘p which is q’ or ‘q which is p’ and indeed (p,q)=(q,p). It also corresponds to set intersection – see Venn diagram opposite – but works directly with the concepts not the sets.
It is very easy to bring in relationships, thus:
E(p, Rq)
i.e. Some p is/are an R of (a) q, eg. p is the father of (a) q.
Now here we may express an inverse:
E(R-1p, q) or indeed E(q, R-1p)
which means that some q has p as father. The inverse of father-of is not son-of (any more say than dog is the inverse of cat, whatever Violet Elizabeth Bott of Just William might think.)
Now we may here introduce an operator NON, to give
E(p, NON q)
i.e. Some p are not q, which we may rephrase as ‘not all p are q’.
That’s easy: and indeed we can now do something where Descriptive Logicians usually fear to tread - invert NON just as we have done with R (with the meaning suggested perhaps ‘father-of’.)
E(NON-1p, q) or again E(q, NON-1p)
Again the same as above, so as well as saying some p are not q, we can say not all p are q, OR q are not the only p. In certain contexts NON-1 means ‘not all’ and in others, ‘not the only’. Furthermore, as we can see from the above Venn diagram, we have here a concept which is only meaningful in the context of what surrounds it.
Now from the above discussion I can pick out that I would use e to describe ‘something’, so that (p, e) means ‘p which is something’, or ‘p which there is’ or simply p, so that in effect (p, e)=p. Thus e can be treated as that concept which when combined with p in concept intersection gives p, in effect an ‘identity co-ordinate wrt concept intersection’. (As every philosopher will know, wrt=with respect to, or sometimes meaning without respect to... wrt the editor.)
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Note that instead of ‘exists’ we might say ‘is a member of the universe of discourse’: if I say there’s a dragon I read about, it doesn’t mean there exists a dragon I read about, but the dragon is a member of the universe of discourse.
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And likewise ‘nothing’ is simply NON e, where (p, NON e) = NON e, an ‘annihilating co-ordinate wrt concept intersection’. But does ‘nothing’ - NON e – have any meaning except in the context of what surrounds it?
To my mind, 'nothing' only has meaning either in a sentence of the form 'it is not the case that ... something...' or the form 'everything... NON....' For example, 'nothing is perfect' can be interpreted as 'It is not the case that something is perfect' or 'Everything is NON perfect.'
But it seems to me that anything starting with NON-1 is an anti-concept, and next issue I shall argue that magic is an anti-concept.
Reference
F. Baader, D. Calvanese, D. L. McGuinness, D. Nardi, P. F. Patel-Schneider (2003) The Description Logic Handbook: Theory, Implementation, Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 0-521-78176-0
By Martin Prior
The Philosophy Takeaway 'Something/Nothing' Issue 24
Bus Culture - By Ellese Elliott
Bus Culture
No I'm afraid I'm not an automaton
in the sense that I fail to conform
I wanted to carry the stick on the bus
and not leave it outside because of us
I would say please excuse my rudeness
but it be a fiction inferred from a moral mess
so instead I look into your eyes
your simple mind they fail to disguise
A diagnoses of weirdanity
is clearly directed at me
mindful in my challenge
you mindless through sleeker means than a syringe
thoughts running parallel to my actions
but you equal a congealed set of reactions
I really truly feel
you all deserve to be killed
and yet I am an automaton
as I cannot turn my emotions on
but there is still meaning
all around it is beaming
a constant expression of dull
is the stain that appears on my soul
but underneath it is active
questioning and creative
unlike you batch no10 of hens
you who refer to yourself as men but are also women
who a behaviourist could fully account for
commodified, stamped and brought in store
your insides being sucked out
all on display for the right amount
but I have my stick on the bus with me
and I show more depth than the applied term of weirdanity.
By Ellese Elliott
Is madness more then a value judgement - By Tomas Moon
Is madness more then a value judgement
I've always pondered if the mad are actually so, or if they are just odd. The source of this stems from the huge variation between cultures as to what shows a mental difference or divergence to the normal. In some places like Spain, throwing knives at an angry and wild bull is a national past time whereas Tibetan monks believe in pure pacifism to the point of avoiding small insects as they walk. Cultural differentiation seems to be wide and undefined and so different behaviours have different reactions; put a Tibetan monk in a Spanish bull stadium and the end result will not be met with cheers from the crowd, but a tragic awe.
So firstly, given the cultural subjectivity of judgement (the agreement of what is normal behaviour) is there any objective grounds for madness, in which I mean, is there a universal constant behaviour that indicates madness in all cultures or perhaps a neurological in function that invariably causes mad like behaviours. If there is, then madness is not a value judgement but an innate awareness of abnormal behaviour found in all humans, which we all recognise – for instance, if the sun started to dance in the sky, everyone would see abnormal behaviour because there is something inherently wrong in that behaviour for the sun.
In respect to the first, if we look at all human cultures over time, it becomes clear that no one type of behaviour is universally found as a sign of madness. We find human sacrifice all the way to extreme altruism, from warlords and infanticide to spirituality and the preservation of life. Every type of behaviour has been found to become a norm of at least one culture, so while at one point rape and pillage was seen as perfectly normal and seen only a species of passive madness in those who allow it to happen, those who were raped and pillaged see it as violent insanity alien to their cultural understanding, so in this case it seems that one particular 'mad' behaviour has no universality in normality, at some point all manner of madnesses have been accepted.
In respect to the latter, that is a scientific approach we find in writers like Thomas Szasz. The underlying theme is that for psychiatry to be a science, it must be based in a materialism, thus gaining objectivity, otherwise its becomes a mysticism. To be sure, there have been cases that show similar brain behaviour in people who have been determined mad or mentally unstable, which is a promising result for answering the question presented. But does that brain behaviour amount to actual behaviours or does it fail to account for the intentionality of the subject? There is a difference between holding that belief of pushing the sun with your mind and actually standing and actively trying to do it. The intentionality must be followed with a behaviour in order for it to be known that something is off, but you cannot deem one who may have brain behaviours similar to a clinically insane person, to actually be so, if they do not behave absurdly. To make madness a scientific qualification cannot sufficiently account for the subjective realm, even if brain states are mind states, we do not act on every single thought generated by odd brain make up and chemical unbalance.
It seems, at least for this short series of thoughts that madness is a value judgement based on the cultural norms of a given society. As such, we should be weary about placing this label, for there is a difference between divergence and dangerous and against the right orator, anyone can be made to seem mad with a simple reductio ad absurdum (an argument structure that tries to guarantee the conclusion by making all other options absurd) creating necessity about a statement or invalidating it, a sense of 'it cannot be any other way'. Used at lot in mathematics in the case of proving your sanity, an example is the twilight zone classic tale of the gremlin on the plane, if you haven't seen this:
Imagine you are on a plane and you look out the window and there is really, actually a little monster ripping up the wing. You scream to the hostess 'I saw a monster on the plane wing, and its tearing the wing apart, I gotta stop it!'. The hostess pauses and calmly asks; 'Which is more likely sir, a little undiscovered monster, clawing on the outside of a plane as it is flying at hundreds of miles an hour in the sky, with no clear visible damage to the wing, or, could you just be hallucinating because you are afraid of flying?'
It makes more sense to see you as mad, when really you could be the sanest on the plane. If you experience something unique and possibly bizarre, and tell someone, even act on it (like in the example the man on the plane, he actually tries to climb out and stop it!) no one can see the value of your action (to save everyone on the plane) in a reasonable understanding. To them, you just tried to climb out the window of a flying plane. What you know, is not what everyone else knows, thus you seem absurd. The infidelity of sanity, like a rug that is pulled under ones feet, could happen at any time to anyone one. This is a shame because does this distinction to an extent not limit our ability to make dreams, imagination and idle mental wondering a reality? A certain magic is lost from our humanistic lives when the madness of life is no longer allowed to become a reality, and science fiction becomes only a mad mans dream.
By Tomas Moon
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