TWELVE YEARS OF SLAVERY

This story of one man's plight, kidnapped from his family home and forced into a life of slavery, reawakens one to the horrific acts that may be committed in the shadows of a sick mind.

This shadow casts an ideology of power, fear and evil, that unites men and women of the same colour, and divides them if they are of a different colour. Yet there are other divisions cast in the same way. Of great importance are such stories, which vividly demonstrate and show just how base we can become within a delusional narrative.

When such a narrative spreads into the minds and the actions of people, one enters into a false dialogue. One becomes seemingly ensnared by theatre, as a character who cannot see any other alternative unfolding of events; frozen and fixed within a self-fulfilling nightmare of which one partakes. When freedom of choice is limited within the parameters of such a story, it appears there is no way out. Permeating the unconscious behaviours, we so-called thinkers become enslaved to it, only to be awakened to drives pushing us into a direction none of us wish to go.

How can that be? It simply would not, if there was at one's disposal, a true, fair and moral tale. If there was more than one set of parameters, more than one theatrical performance, likewise there would be more than one script. However, who will narrate, produce, combust into a flame of flickering ideas? Becoming stuck in the thick slime of beliefs which allude to no other option but this one, one fails to do so.

Any sparks of creativity are quickly extinguished by the dominant powers, whose very foundation of truth contradicts any rebellion against them. From fear of retribution, the rulers, or benefactors, will conceal and destroy the tools of creativity and freedom. Passion and creative thought is quickly curtailed as folly, even by those who may be freed by it. Scared of the vengeful violence that occurs within such a paradigm, the nightmare deepens, reinforcing a fixed monologue of shit. What then, can awaken one from this evil reverie, when reason may ride the wildest dreams, and a fiction may be perfectly logical?

Indeed, a great author with a turbulent mind is needed to rage against such systems. A new story needs to be written. One which will encourage the minds of people to believe in something completely different, and so set them free from partaking in a play where only misery, loss, and fear is injected into all of our hearts; even those of the powerful. Lest their hearts have already burned out, surrounded by no light by which they may be guided out, let them be reignited by the imagination. The freedom to write and to think outside of such a dialogue presents a dash for freedom beyond the maze.

Do not believe, any of you, that there is no way out. Do not believe, not for a single second, that there is no alternative. For as long as human beings preserve the ability to tell stories, especially those stories which may find different assumptions, assumptions which lay the foundations for better conclusions, then it simply is not true that there is nothing we can do. It is wrong that you must play the role of the slave, or the master. Reject such notions as having no place in your story.

Once you have done this you may tell others, who also must reject such notions. And only when enough people have realised that they have been entranced and hypnotised by a persuasive lie, may they break out of it.

However, the lie is not the hardest part to accept, it is the fact that one may believe that they chose such a life. But no, this is not true either. It is only when one is made aware, when one understands they have been tricked, that they have any power to choose otherwise. But unless one wakes the others, one's own attempts to break out of such a narrative will be rife with booby traps, and zombies.

Ellese Elliott

Art - By Ben Varney

This weeks artist was Ben Varney: http://bonelab.wordpress.com/

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Truth' Issue 42

The Yeti Under the bed - By Lloyd Duddridge

The Yeti Under the bed

I am going to outline in this article the problems that I have with conspiracy theories. Here is why is think that most of them are based around stupid reasoning processes.

I) Most conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable. By this I mean that a conspiracy has no mechanism by which it can be proved wrong. At first glance this may seem like a positive thing. What could be stronger than a theory that cannot be proved wrong? However, is it not the case that every theory should have a mechanism by which we can decide if a theory is incorrect? Conspiracy theories do not conform to this way of reasoning. This is because it doesn’t matter what evidence you place before the conspiracy theory; it can be dismissed. It is dismissed not because the evidence is weak, but because the conspiracy relies on hidden groups or evidence. Consequently, whatever evidence produced against it will not be seen as sufficient. This means whatever evidence one has against the truthfulness of a conspiracy theory is not seen as significant -- the conspiracy will continue. Thus the conspiracy theory is not open to being proved incorrect.

II) The conspiracy theorist, especially the holocaust denier, will often argue like this: Sadie and Bob embellished their testimonies.They exaggerated in all that they said. How can we now take seriously the thousands of other eye witnesses? Now, of course people often exaggerate when retelling a story. Imagine a night out you go on; it is a great evening and a lot of fun was had. Often the story becomes greater than what went on. Or when people are involved a fight it often becomes more violent that it was in reality. Now do these exaggerations mean that the fight or the night out did not take place? The conspiracy theorist is prone to dwell on those testimonies that are exaggerated rather than those that are not.

III) The conspiracy theorist argues in a way that has become known as the God of the gaps argument. Just as people seem to argue that any hole in our understanding can be filled with God, the conspiracy theorist does the same with the validity of an argument. For example, if you can’t tell us what socks Napoleon was wearing during the battle of Waterloo, then the battle cannot really have taken place. The conspiracy theorist is happy to disregard huge swathes of documented evidence because a historian does not yet know the answer to a specific often small question.

IV) The conspiracy theorist seemingly overvalues the human ability to keep a secret. Sometimes the conspiracy theory involves thousands of people involved in them. Does this really seem plausible? It is often argued that ‘the Jews’ set up the holocaust in order to receive the state of Israel. This would mean that millions of people were able to keep their mouths shut. It would also mean that a whole racial group was able to keep what must surely be huge levels of documentation secret. Try keeping a secret within a group of ten, let alone groups of up to millions of people.

V) The conspiracy theorist argues the wrong way round. They start with a conclusion, all banks are evil. They then proceed to find any evidence that supports this conclusion. We see the same line with Biblical archaeology. Their Bible is true, and therefore we will find evidence for it. The evidence should, in clear and rational thought, come prior to the conclusion. That is just the way decent thought is conducted.

This article is not intended to say we as people are never lied to. There are many cases throughout history where a conspiracy has been found. However, these did not rest upon conspiracy lines of thinking. They relied upon positive evidence being presented. Next time you come across a conspiracy theory, see how many of them tick the boxes of the five points I have outlined in this article. If they do, it is probably safe to say the Yeti is not under the bed.  

Lloyd Duddridge

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Truth' Issue 42

The Four Great Dogmas - By Selim 'Selim' Talat

The Four Great Dogmas

        Dogma, with its authority of force and power, with its reliance on tradition and ritual, cannot be used to discover truth. Dogma is often used by manipulators and liars to control people, and has no 'higher' motives of bettering our understanding of the cosmos, and our place within it. This has been understood by a lot of people, since the dawn of civilization. History is full of thinkers who defied the dogma imposed upon them; not only the great philosophers but also religious thinkers, such as the lollards; the levellers, and so forth. There have always been people who understand that the discovery of truth requires freedom of thought and emotion - the first to explore avenues of knowledge free from authority, the second to ensure that one is not attached to truth because of familiarity or manipulation of one’s feelings.

Freedom can overcome dogma, though it is an endless struggle. For new ideas also become set in stone, and it is not long before we lean on them without realising it. And old ideas grow upon us like old friends, and they are very difficult to overcome.

Descartes came to the well-known phrase ‘I think therefore I am’ by exploring everything there was doubt, being left only with a doubting ‘I’ which can think. The way to truth is found along similar lines: extreme scepticism can remove us of our dogma, like a crab discarding its old shell. Yet like that same crab, being without a shell is not so useful in this sea! And so a new one grows. Our doubting is not a position we hold forever, or else we end up thinking nothing substantial. This is perhaps equally as bad as thinking something purely because we have been told to do so. I will now cover four big categories of dogma I believe to be limiting us. These are the dogmas:

Of the Mind - Constrained by politics which dictate its limits and declares what can and cannot be achieved. By doing so, it creates those same limits. An identity which is shaped and limited by these same politics, and which sees those who disagree with it as enemies who can never be reasoned with. Such obedience is well cultivated, and its basis is rational, grounded in well selected evidence to support its case, whilst ignoring or undermining any evidence against it.

Of the Body - Trained to satiate its desires at a certain pace, ever increasing as the creation of new technology brings about abundance and luxury. Those luxuries, the great wants, evolve into needs and the body is always at a loss to obtain them, endlessly struggling and labouring to satiate itself. Why else are people who live in the most advanced societies imaginable still working so hard; why haven't the advanced machines we construct eradicated the need for pointless drudgery? Why do we confuse simple things with complex, refined bodily desires?

The body is trained long before its commander has matured to the age where it might make choices. The devouring of flesh is a prime example - those who no longer wish to do so must struggle to alter their ways, so engrained are they from a young age, so normalized are they by the culture surrounding them.

Of the Soul - Blackmailed into obedience by religions-of-threat, which condemn people to damnation and then offer them salvation from their own warnings. The more dogmatic strains of religion tend to reign supreme, offering people easy answers and hopeful (highly marketable) solutions to existential problems, all at the price of submitting to a spiritual collective. Such warmth and comfort for the soul is veiled in vague language and historical tradition which make its roots immune to the gardener’s trident.

A morality of after-worlds and divinities can then be created, none of which have any foundation in this world. It prepares people for a life that will never be, like baldly lying to a grandmother on her deathbed about the wonderful existence she will soon be privy to, because it is so convenient to do so.

Of the Heart - Perhaps the most deeply entrenched dogma of them all, flying too low to be detected by our radars of doubt! A heart which loves those immediately around it more than any other. A heart taught to respect sacred bonds of family and marriage. Before it has pounded but once, before it has found its own rhythm, the heart is deemed to love in a certain way, or else risk isolation.

In such an environment as this, how can we tell who is choosing freely, and who is coerced, threatened, prodded, or just going along with the tide? Who has come to their conclusions by searching for the truth, and who has swallowed the four great dogmas whole? We cannot say, and thus we cannot judge people, pointing the finger and declaring them asleep where one is awake. How immodest and evangelical we would be if we did!

However, what we can all do is retreat into total doubt, and see what emerges when we return to face the world anew. This I believe is truth, for from it follows total and terrifying freedom of thought and emotion. Or at worst, it is not truth, but at least it is not falsehood, designed to maintain structures of power and pressure.

Selim 'Selim' Talat

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Truth' Issue 42

Truth, flux and movement - By Alexandra Baybutt

Truth, flux and movement

          Movement is required for life: beyond that we can debate many possible truths. Even in the comparative stillness of lying down or sitting we can feel the heartbeat, sending a pulse throughout the body, and the motion of ribcage and abdomen in breathing. Even if asleep, these motions happen unconsciously, wonderfully. We grew from motions of cells subdividing, compressing, giving space and different densities and qualities to our human form. Even recuperation and recovery involve movement, cells grow and decay. Without movement, regardless of size and scale, there is no growth and renewal. We can but zoom the microscope further in, or telescope further out. The earth spins, the universe expands.

Beyond this necessity of movement for simply being, we can speculate over the various 'truths' of movement. There is an increasing understanding and appreciation of the notion of 'body language'. It is by no means new to acknowledge the huge, inherently communicative capacity of the body moving. What can reduce and oversimplify human movements are observations that do not take into account context. For example, crossed arms being an indication the person is closed-off. Such limited deductions diminish a complex collection of a body’s actions, dynamics and use of personal space to an implausible and perhaps even damaging conclusion (maybe this person is just a bit cold).

Due to the constraints of space and time, the media's use of ideas stemming from 'body language' research can reduce and label some aspect of movement or posture, which becomes, perhaps unintentionally, insulting. The next stage of appreciating and exploring 'body language' is to look at changes in a person's movement over a period of time. Like a classic novel, we can look for a sense of the beginning, the middle and the end. Maybe there isn't an obvious 'resolution' to a particular movement, maybe it comes out of nowhere with no preparation at all. As we already found, relative stillness has motion in it, and either side of it, giving more nuanced detail as to how it emerged, rather than simply the snapshot of a single posture.

Responding truthfully within a given set of circumstances can be a definition of acting. For attempting a degree of consistency and creating a convincing character, this is a useful rule. Movement is change, the very nature of being is its inconsistency, or impermanence; that cells decay, and each breath changes the air and gasses in the body. She was standing by the table, now by the clock. This rather flippant opening statement leads, of course, to increasing complexity, then recognising these notions as being by degrees is vital. How we perceive is also subject to change.

We learn through touching the environment around us, and our other senses are constantly in communication with this sensing of touch. From this corporeal experience of one's own body, the environment and others in it, comes the brilliant faculty of language; an abstraction of experience. It is in our language, this echo of movement: I'm stuck, she's an immovable force, I remember (literally re-organising through the body, the members).

For health and greater access to more movement choices, experiencing body parts in conversation with other parts is useful. Where there is less movement, it can be said there is less sensation there, for example in parts of the back, vertebrae could be less mobile due to muscular tension. Feeling the whole of me, the mass and vibrancy of my body gives the sense of being at-home, present to the resilience and endurance of my body, and a recollection of how movement, and change, are necessary. Less movement somewhere can be protective, and the result of the valuable protective mechanisms to contain injury, for example, but after an injury is healed, the holding around the area is no longer necessary. The process of re-finding mobility in the body after such increased stability can be neglected. It requires practice to distinguish the difference between protection, stability and passivity.

In remembrance of Colombian singer Shakira, and her catchy message that the “Hips Don't Lie”, seeing a walk where there is very little weight shift across someone's pelvis with each step, I am reminded of what Irmgard Bartenieff referred to as the “dead seven inches.” The intention of her work as a physiotherapist was an attempt to mobilise and alter patterns of where movement comes from and how it travels. She did this in order to help her patients recover from Polio to gain independence. Ideally,  this would transpire with her eventually drawing herself out of the picture.

Mobilising the conversation of each leg to where it meets each side of the pelvis means shifting weight. This activity, so acutely obvious in infants, can diminish with age due to many factors (expectations, culture, work, sense of self, perceptions of gender to name a few). Weight shift means sitting, standing, walking, and running. I urge putting observations in a greater context so: sitting up to reach for a glass of water, standing to see over a fence, walking in the park, running to greet a loved one.

So, we find no concrete truths in movement, but perhaps an exploration of what is appropriate in that moment. The body is in direct relationship with its environment, others in it, and itself. We are not sealed units, isolated or above contexts. These relationships inform and are informing at every level. We think and learn through moving - tasting, retracing, consolidating, testing, asking, retreating, advancing, expressing needs, wants, and inner attitudes. How and where we move is highly complex, but whether one discrete part could be considered the truth or a lie is impossible in a system that is always changing. This flux is reflected in a day: what is the centre of attention and what is on the edge changes at different times and places. Rocks erode into sand. Tectonic plates push up mountains.

More access to more choices in how and where we can move increases the ability to see different perspectives, both literally, and conceptually. Noticing how we see, having the skills to get up when we fall, using gravity and a solid base of support, and what is necessary in the moment takes us beyond mere coping but to mastery in a huge range of contexts. The admiration of athletes does not mean relinquishing one's own sense of personal mastery; simply the context is different, and the competition isn't necessarily quite so obvious. Your life and work may not call for an extremely refined level of fitness or risk, but nevertheless there is considerable reward in the increased well-being and presence through being at home in your body.

Alexandra Baybutt    

For more of Alexandra's work visit: http://alexandrabaybutt.wordpress.com/

The Truth According To Martin Prior - By Martin Prior

The Truth According To Martin Prior

        I have often understood that truth is that which corresponds to the facts, though then we must address what we mean by facts and most importantly, what we mean by ‘corresponds (to)’.  According to Wikipedia, “Truth is most often used to mean in accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal.” In effect, ‘correspond’ suggests some kind of semantic or semiotic analysis.

In formal logic, with our system of axioms, we understand that each statement or line is true, so it is embedded within our formal logical analysis. In attempts to capture language as forms of mathematics, some philosophers feel that such analyses must include a definition of truth.  This was the view of Richard Montague, but not I understand of Arthur Prior. In a tentative analysis long ago, I was considering a semantic model.  It was not my intention to provide a definition of truth, but it emerged.  It accorded an approach, but did not really accord with either Montague or Prior:

truth'{a} ≡ a

The expression truth'{ a } treats ‘truth’ as a niladic operator: an operator with the output or result a, but lacking an input or what are often called parameters.  In fact the expression represents a statement defining that output a. We might define 5 as follows:

5'{a} ≡ ( a=5)

On some other occasion I might use this format to outline truth-conditional semantics, devised by Donald Davidson on the basis of work by Alfred Tarski. But in the above expression, truth'{a} ≡ a, the definition of that output a is a itself.

And this approach only works if you can produce expressions that include (a ≡ a ), i.e.  a is equivalent to itself.  Where in fact you need say nothing about a, but just as with correspondence you need to say something about equivalence.

Martin Prior

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Truth' Issue 42