Philosophhy of nothingness

Lately, I have felt more and more that philosophy makes up two distinct parts. One, which is purely analytical without any preconcieved understanding but rather just building on pure stimuli we get from the surrounding, where logic plays a secondary role. The other one is what I call the philosophy of nothingness, thus, the topic. This philosophy is the main stream philosophy dealing with justice, morality, dignity or other such abstract notions.The reason I call it nothingness because it is literally about nothing. Everybody has been going on and on for millenia what justice, love or any such abstract notions are and everybody thinks they have right, yet, building a consensus has been impossible. There are two parts to it. First, the notion that there is essentially something very basic or metaphysical about these concepts which needs to be discovered. While, the other part includes coming up with a good argument about a particular understanding of what these concepts are. I think there is a fundamental flaw in this philosophy because it holds two paradoxes in its bossom. One, if we are to discover any of these concepts like JLM (Justice, Love, morality) how do we know they already exist. Its like saying unicorns exist but just need to discover them. If something is to be discovered how can we know about it? The other paradox is more interesting; at least, for me. Philosophy is all about coming up withbetter arguments or/and better defining concepts. This methodology apparently does the following jobs: give a better understanding of the concept and forge a consensus. I contend, these two things are intertwined. When are philosopher is trying to 'better' define a concept, he or she is just trying to bring into the fold of defintion more people's understanding. Mind you, this process does not involve coming up with new understandings, it just includes more person's understanding. As a philosopher brings more understandings in the fold, he builds consensus. For example, lets suppose there are three people in the entire world and they are philosiphizing chair. Lets say A thinks chair is something with a wooden flat base on top of four legs. B thinks that chair is black and is made out of metal. The philosophy would give a better argument for and define chair, which would include both the understandings of chair, thus, solving the problem. This does not mean the concept of chair was discovered. The defintion was just vague enough and specific enough to define chair. This is something we need to do with justice or any other abstract topic. Therefore, at the hypothetical peak of philosophy, when philosophical problems do not exist any more, no friction is presented to a problem. Therefore, this shows that philosophy feeds on contradictions and it ceases when there is consensus. In other words, philosophy is about building concensus. This does not mean, there are any metaphysical concepts like JLM, all it means that we as human race just need to come up with a suitable understanding, and just start believing in it, instead of finding more basic because there is nothing metaphysical bases of these concepts. We give these words understandings. If there is any origin, it is us, nothing else.A weird, yet interesting, aspect of the philosophers of nothingness is that even do not know when to stop with their philosophy. They do not know what is the end point of philosophies of morality or justice or love. One question which any phinone (philosopher of nothingness) would evade is how do you know you have reached the right answer?By no means, am I, contending that certain actions which are characterized as 'just' actions or feelings associated with 'love' do not exist. The whole point is that characterizing different actions under one label creates problems like the ones we have not been able to solve for centuries. And, this is exactly, how philosophy of nothingness arises. All these philosophical concepts like JLM are a criteria of certain actions. This criteria promises to not only explain the actions which we associate with thoes words but also be able to tell us any future actions which might arise due to change in circumstances. Lets assume for a second we could just forget there are any theories of justice and other people have any concept of justice. How would we come up our definition or understanding of justice? Simply, we would look at the actions we deem just and then try to find a common theme running through all these actions, make it conspicuous and put that into words. And, voila! we have self tailored definition of justice. However, to make it more sellable, we would have to include the understanding of the justice of our audiences to make it more pallatable. And once, we have incorporated all people's understanding and considered people who deviate radically from our understanding as "mad" we would have turned into a perfect philosopher. *unfinished*

Against Irrationality, Towards Truth

In this note, I aim to hit religion's, especially Islam's, achilles heel and challenge its most basic assumptions in order to break down the last remnants of a pre-supposed view of the world for many. Religion for many is a "leap of faith." Faith remains the integral part of any religion. Hence, in order to start anywhere on religion, we have to understand the nature of faith. Faith is defined as a belief, without proof, in God or teachings of religion. The emphasis here should be on "without proof". Interesting, the question which begs itself is why is one prompted to accept the notion of a supreme being without any logic and, yet, reject everything else without proof? What makes the notion of God more acceptable than anything else, when it comes to rationalizing things? Perhaps one of the plausible answer could be: because there are blatant signs all around us. However, when one is tempted to point at them almost always we find a scientific reason behind them. And in order to find a connection between the object and God, the person is unwillingly coerced to find an aspect of the pointed thing's nature which has yet to be proven. Moreover, the very fact that there are different religions or at least enough non-believers, establishes that there are more than one view for anything that religion includes. Many would find it despicable to even challenge their assumption of God as it would break down their entire frame of mind and their unwillingless to accept the fact that religion could be a case of self believing lies, a lie repeated enough times to make oneself believe that it is a truth. Moreover, religion remains unproven through the established logical reasoning, the very fact that its not a science establishes that very effectively. Yet, religion remains an exception to the rule of not accepting things without proof. Why? At least, I am unable to give satisfactory answer. I mean why is there just leap of faith in God why not with unicorns or the inverted ass people? The idea of unreasoned acceptance of God, is not the only exception in religion. It can be traced to the trinity of God in Christianity, self-created standards for authentic traditions of Prophet Mohamed in sunni sect or infallibility of Imams in the shite sect of Islam.If the idea of ruthless presupposition and believing it to be a fact isnt enough, Islam goes on to propose that Quran is the book of God. There are two essential parts or proofs to that belief: first, Quran was revealed to Prophet Mohamed and Second, Quran mentions that its a book of God. There could be others like "scientific revelations" of Quran but I consider them not significant for now because most of the so called scientific revelations in Quran are in obscure or ambivalent passages which could be translated, as they already have been, into several different ways which in turn brings us to a completely new problem of the interpretation of Islam, which I would indulge in a while. The analysis of the first proof that "Quran was revealed to Prophet Mohammed" might make one thing conspicuous for many that its just a story, true or fictitious is a separate matter. But for now one thing ascertained is that it’s the story of revelation attached to Quran which makes it important. After all, without the story or the belief that it was revealed by God to Prophet, renders it unimportant at least for Islam and there could be nothing to distinguish it from any other book written on Islam. However, the problem which arises is whether it was revealed or not. The fact is we could never know for sure because in order for something to get established as a fact we need to experience it directly through our senses. I am differentiating two types of information assimilation here. For instance, I see the sun setting, is a fact. However, when I hear Mike telling me that the sun is setting, when I am not there to see it, doesn’t become a fact but we assume it’s a fact based on Mike's credibility. The true fact is one directly encountered while the other pseudo-fact, replaced for fact by many, is just a potential happening because we were told so.Therefore, the story of revelation of Quran is at best an unproven story which has all the possibility of being proven false as it has the possibility of being proven right because its a not a fact as we have not seen or at least perceived any other way Quran being revealed directly to the Prophet. On the other hand, if we choose to believe that someone who told us or made us to believe in Islam was credible enough, we have to determine our levels or criteria of credibility. Yet, are we at any point in time completely, without any shred of a doubt sure, that the person telling us wouldn’t lie or commit an honest humanly mistake?The second proof for Quran, that God mentions it revealed Quran is outright preposterous because if I wrote a book and I disguised myself as God and not let anyone know I had written the book, would anyone believe in it? My good answer is not many, except people who act like or probably are like Elmo.Established that Quran is word of God and the presupposition of God’s existence could be true, we deal with another problem. How do we interpret Islam? The interesting part about this problem is that people generally don’t understand the nature of language (I encourage my language paradox or wittgenstien's last works). Language is composed of words or sounds. Each sound has an understanding which is very personal and can never be expressed to another person. And, each person has different experiences attached to the same words. Therefore, when one is interpreting Islam the question remains is: can we ever truly understand Quran as languages evolve, rendering the old meanings to words different from new ones, or the understanding which one might derive might actually be very personal rather than public? Moreover, the very fact that Quran was revealed in Arabic makes problems first because many Moslems might not know Arabic while translation might loose the essence of the originally revealed material. In addition, many verses in Quran are rhetorical or metaphorical which could have several different meanings. Some people might try to supplant Quran with Hadiths, traditions of Prophet Mohamed. However, the question remains how do we decide what is the best way of interpreting Quran? Quran doesn’t lay down any rules for interpreting itself; while Hadiths, used to interpret Quran, have even lower credibility than Quran in general, therefore, we cant use something less credible to increase the incredibility of something else which is already of better credibility. It like saying person B, a drug addict, to testify for A, a relatively more respected person. It wouldn’t matter because B already has lower credibility. It’s important to go into the understanding of credibility because assuming everybody is on the same page with me on this word could create problems. When I talk about credibility of Hadiths lesser than Quran, I am referring to the historical 'fact', that Quran hasn’t changed and Hadiths, at least for Sunni school of thought in Islam, were collected approximately 150 years after the death of prophet Mohamed by a blind scholar, Imam Bukhari. If 150 years of gap isn’t enough to create doubts, perhaps the fact that the scholar was blind could help accentuate the doubts. Many try to support the validity of hadiths collected by Imam Bukhair by claiming that the scholar had a perfect memory. I could be wrong, but perfect memory doesnt logically result in authentic traditions of prophet mohammed even that after 150 years.Another notion attached to Islam is the fact that we need the help of a scholar to interpret Islam. And this takes us to the peak of the problem where it leads to a paradox. Going to a "learned" scholar to learn Islam is like going to a cow for milk when one has never seen either the cow or the milk. What makes us believe that the scholar is the right person to teach us? There are simply two criteria: we could test his/her knowledge of Islam or we could ask people who is the best learned scholar? If we are able to test the knowledge of the scholar, then what is the use of going to him or her because we already know enough to test him and equally testing on Islam doesnt mean that what the scholar might tell us which we already dont know is going to be right. Moreover, if we choose to ask people about the right scholar, we can never be sure if they are right because if more people point to one person, we know that more doesn’t always translate into right. While if lesser people point to another, the sheer paucity of numbers makes it worse. Just imagine if you had never seen a cow and you wanted milk, which you haven’t seen either. When you asked people, one group pointed towards a tree and told you that its a cow while others pointed towards a car believing that its a cow. You would never be able to figure out what cow is unless you just arbitrarily defined anything a cow. Likewise, one never knows what the knowledge is one is trying to seek, as knowledge is allegorical to milk and cow as scholar in the example. Lastly, apparently it takes an entire life to learn Islam. However, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of Islam or religion as a whole? If Islam is to lead life, and it takes an entire life to learn Islam, then what’s the point of Islam? There is perhaps one way to get out of the Islam problem. We could perhaps start backwards. Instead of looking towards religion for God, we could look towards God for religion. And how can we understand God to take a start? I propose a boat example. Let assume you created a boat. Left it water and gave it a thinking ability. How would the boat you created, know its creator when the boat has never seen or perceived you through any of its sense? I think the boat, your creation, will know you, the creator through reflecting on its ownself. When the boat will start asking the questions why am I here? Or why should I be shaped like this? Or why was I made? The boat will start realizing its creator because it would be going through the same thought process the creator had gone through. Likewise, if we aim to understand God, we should tear apart all established assumptions and start questioning our and everything’s existence and try to understand them and see their place in the world. And, that understanding will help us understand God just like the boat will understand its creator. However, the very fact that even our thought process has come from God, we have to trust ourselves and realize that if we will never be able to understand the true nature of God, if that is even true, its because of Gods own willingness because of the restrictions on our thinking ability. And therefore, we should start looking in our very personal existence for the very answer to our creator and perhaps Islam, if its indeed the religion from God. And, if it indeed is, then it wouldnt be hard for us to accept and live islam because it would be a part of us. However, if its not, then lets embark on a road towards God, wherever that leads you.

Pakistan needs to forget its heros [unedited]

For the last sixty something years, we Pakistanis, as a nation, have not been able to figure out what Pakistan is. For some Pakistan means "La Illa Ha Illal La" while for others its just a muslim majority secular country. And everytime we rage into this debate, we end up commiting a mistake, we look back to our leaders, mind you past leaders, for answers. We revert to history and try go through each every word the founding fathers said and try to get into symantics of something which might only have been true in that specific moment.I propose two arguments against looking back to individuals like Quaid-e-Azam or even Iqbal for the identity of Pakistan. First, we have a very strong assumption that all our founding fathers had a coherent view of what Pakistan's ideology would be. Even if thats true, that ideology might not be compatible with the aspirations of the youth in the twenty first century. Secondly, the vaccuum of a consistent ideology for Pakistan, has made Pakistani nation, if it exists, to evolve into a nation which only identifies itself as an antithesis of India. Pakistan on its own means nothing, unless, its in a context of India.If founding fathers knew what Pakistan meant then it wouldnt have had taken them nine years to figure out a constitution. Even Khwaja Nazimuddin, the first President of Pakistan, is on record to say that what Pakistan means is neither known by him nor any other member of Muslim League except Jinnah. Moreover, the idea of Pakistan seems to have been kept vague by Jinnah to mould several distinct nations like Sindhis, Balochis, Punjabis and Bengalis; and the religious minded individuals because nationalistic leaders were inherently secular while others were religious. Therefore, Pakistan came from a womb of a vague ideology.Even if we ignore, the entire historical account of the political astuteness rather than a consistent ideology through which Pakistan was formed, there are still chances that the new generation of Pakistan does not find it compatible or at the least, wants to tone down certain ideas here and there. After all, as I have said, nations evolve but somehow we Pakistanis have always been susceptible to change. For whatever reason, Pakistani society has dramatically polarized. We have on one end extremely religious individuals, while on the other we can find relatively modernized or even westernized individuals with comparably different thought processes. While, in the middle we find plethora of people, especially the youth, trying to figure out what Pakistan is, what is their identity, whether being a Pakistani means modern muslim or a devout muslim or can even both of them be reconciled with the identity of a Pakistani? And, as a nation we cannot survive, if the polarization continues and looking back to our "ideals" wouldnt help either because we have changed because its been sixty odd years of no identity. The only option left is to forge a new identity for what Pakistan is and what it stands for without any preconcieved notions of Pakistan means or without any hint of prejudice. Let the new generation take the lead, because we dont have choice.Perhaps its too late, but we can still give it a try. Let our heros die for once, and let them bask in their glory of achievements and giving us a pure land of Pakistan, instead of looking back to them for guidance. We are our own guidance, we are Pakistan. We have to take it forward and nobody from past will or can do it.

language paradox

Treatise I and II could be challenged on perhaps one point: how to define certain terms. In Treatise I, I assumed that every one knew what freewill was and in the latter treatise, I committed the same mistake of not effectively defining the word satisfaction. However, what remains to be ascertained is whether anyone can ever effectively define anything? Or perhaps to better understand the previous question we need to first answer: how to define something, and more importantly, what is the essence of meaning; in other words, how can we define a definition?The above questions are fundamental to what language is or what it stands for. And once we start answering thoes harsh questions, if we ever could, we uncover a very unsettling idea, a paradox in its own right. Language of any form consists of symbols. In case of words, they are noise symbols. However, thoes symbols have no meaning in itself whatsoever, untill they are supplanted with stimuli from one of the five senses. For instance, many of us have, and thoes who havent should, listen to people talking in languages we have not heard before. Thoes are languages, even if we dont understand them, because two people using the language seem to "understanding" everything effectively. Note the use of paranthesis, because I am skeptical of the word understanding. Anyways, what is essentially different between the people who know the different language X and we who have no knowledge of X. The difference is simple. The people who understand X have other sensations attached to the words which people who dont understand X couldnt. In fact, any and every sentence could be broken into fragments of experiences. For instance, lets take an English sentence example: I see a tree. I could be taken as a sensation of sight, tree again is a sensation of sight and the act of seeing is also learnt through the sensation of sight. We could supplant other sensations for I or tree or any other words, but to keep things simple here I have just chosen one sensation. However, to make things conspicuous, imagine what you think "xctws" means. I am sure nobody has a clue what that means because I just made that word up. However, now imagine what the word "I" would mean if you had never felt, smelled, seen, heard or tasted yourownself and associated it with the word I. It would exactly feel like the hypothetical word "xctws" in fact both of them will be identical.Therefore, at the very base of every language is that people seem to share the same sensations. However, the notion which needs to be challenged here is do we feel the same the sensations? And, there is absolutely noway of answering that question, which makes the whole language problem. If language has symbols, and symbols are made on sensations, but sensations are very private, personal and unshareable, then how do we communicate? One way to deal with the question is that if we are communicating then we should have similar sensations as well. However, I propose another view. And this view, I guess, is similar to wittgenstinian concept of the "language game." I propose that we are working in a bubble of assumptions. The assumption is that we all have the same sensations. Therefore, as long as we get the response, in the acceptable limit of responses, that is the recognizable symbols, we assume that the other person is understanding what we are saying. However, lets suppose we have a human with no thinking capabilities at all, but rather only has been programed to react to different situations in particular manner, or the manner which is commonly understood. Therefore, we would be talking to this person and he would be replying to us normally and we would never know that this person lacks the ability to understand. But another difficult problem arises, what do we mean by "understanding"? As long as somebody else is doing what seems to be appropriate, or that somebody seems to be doing things or replying with symbols that we deem are necessary for understanding, does it matter that ther other person understands or not? At the very basic level, we are communicating with other people but we might never be able to understand their ideas or their feels or more important their interpretations of the world. However, we think we understand because at the end we get replies or symbols which are outwardly common.

language paradox

Treatise I and II could be challenged on perhaps one point: how to define certain terms. In Treatise I, I assumed that every one knew what freewill was and in the latter treatise, I committed the same mistake of not effectively defining the word satisfaction. However, what remains to be ascertained is whether anyone can ever effectively define anything? Or perhaps to better understand the previous question we need to first answer: how to define something, and more importantly, what is the essence of meaning; in other words, how can we define a definition?The above questions are fundamental to what language is or what it stands for. And once we start answering thoes harsh questions, if we ever could, we uncover a very unsettling idea, a paradox in its own right. Language of any form consists of symbols. In case of words, they are noise symbols. However, thoes symbols have no meaning in itself whatsoever, untill they are supplanted with stimuli from one of the five senses. For instance, many of us have, and thoes who havent should, listen to people talking in languages we have not heard before. Thoes are languages, even if we dont understand them, because two people using the language seem to "understanding" everything effectively. Note the use of paranthesis, because I am skeptical of the word understanding. Anyways, what is essentially different between the people who know the different language X and we who have no knowledge of X. The difference is simple. The people who understand X have other sensations attached to the words which people who dont understand X couldnt. In fact, any and every sentence could be broken into fragments of experiences. For instance, lets take an English sentence example: I see a tree. I could be taken as a sensation of sight, tree again is a sensation of sight and the act of seeing is also learnt through the sensation of sight. We could supplant other sensations for I or tree or any other words, but to keep things simple here I have just chosen one sensation. However, to make things conspicuous, imagine what you think "xctws" means. I am sure nobody has a clue what that means because I just made that word up. However, now imagine what the word "I" would mean if you had never felt, smelled, seen, heard or tasted yourownself and associated it with the word I. It would exactly feel like the hypothetical word "xctws" in fact both of them will be identical.Therefore, at the very base of every language is that people seem to share the same sensations. However, the notion which needs to be challenged here is do we feel the same the sensations? And, there is absolutely noway of answering that question, which makes the whole language problem. If language has symbols, and symbols are made on sensations, but sensations are very private, personal and unshareable, then how do we communicate? One way to deal with the question is that if we are communicating then we should have similar sensations as well. However, I propose another view. And this view, I guess, is similar to wittgenstinian concept of the "language game." I propose that we are working in a bubble of assumptions. The assumption is that we all have the same sensations. Therefore, as long as we get the response, in the acceptable limit of responses, that is the recognizable symbols, we assume that the other person is understanding what we are saying. However, lets suppose we have a human with no thinking capabilities at all, but rather only has been programed to react to different situations in particular manner, or the manner which is commonly understood. Therefore, we would be talking to this person and he would be replying to us normally and we would never know that this person lacks the ability to understand. But another difficult problem arises, what do we mean by "understanding"? As long as somebody else is doing what seems to be appropriate, or that somebody seems to be doing things or replying with symbols that we deem are necessary for understanding, does it matter that ther other person understands or not? At the very basic level, we are communicating with other people but we might never be able to understand their ideas or their feels or more important their interpretations of the world. However, we think we understand because at the end we get replies or symbols which are outwardly common.

A theory of Conflict

A conflict is an interesting event. The two sides engage in defending of what they believe is right, rational or logical but at the same time each side thinks of the other as nonsensical on a certain "basic level." However, yet we have never gone beyond the skepticism of the other side or at least tried to unravel the philosophical or rather the metaphysical nature of a conflict.I propose that each conflict has basically one reason: uncommunicated assumptions. Certain things are taken to be understood and their philosophical nature is rendered unimportant. Each conflict is essentially between two or more contending arguments. Each side is very convinced of their ideas and fails to understand or rather presumes why other side holds their views. And, the very root cause of the entire conflict is this failure to understand or rather reluctance to indulge in understanding other side. Although some of us might think that we have tried to understand the side, my humble answer would be that our approach was not quiet right. However, the question which arises: how can we effectively understand the otherside? The best way to do it is to challenge the very basic notions of "universally accepted" concepts. Language is, as wittgenstien said, a game. We could never understand what any other person understands( for more on metaphysics of language keep tuned for my Treatise III). Therefore, each universally accepted concept has basically a history of actions and experiences attached to it which are different for different people, thus, thoes notions are not very universal after all. This begs another question: if universally accepted concepts are not universal then how are we so easily able to communicate with them in daily "unconflicted life". The answer is not that hard to comprehend. Each concept has many overlaps and these overlaps are what makes things easy. However, its the grey areas where our experiences of the concepts dont overlap that we have conflicts. And the best part is, most people, are not even aware of their own assumptions. And since people are not aware of the their own assumptions, they are not aware of the basic cause of contention in the conflict and thus, a persistent conflict.An example of a universally accepted concept would be human rights or morality. We indulge in different debates of what human rights constitutes or what they are but have we ever inquired what human rights mean. Perhaps we have. Perhaps we have looked up a definition of human rights which says that they are " basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Some might be contend that they know what human rights are, but not quiet. This an ideal error. To effectively understand the otherside, we should let the other side define, what basic, rights, freedoms and even the word entitlment means. And we should at the same time try to form a common definitions and each point of contention should be further challenged and analyzed. This sure looks like pain in the ass but this the first step towards effectively uncovering the experiences or exposing the nascent, hidden assumptions of the otherside which even they might not know about and would help us understand their view better. However, here we encounter one problem. Everytime we endulge in painstaking definition of words, there might be new words which would need a better clarification because it would hold a plethora of experiences and assumptions which would need to be exposed. The idea is to challenge the basic notion of universality or the meaning of the very basic mundane most redundant words to expose us the assumptions. And, this would eventually lead us to form a common base for a rational conflict free discourse because not anymore we would be picking in from experiences which are unknown to us but which are known to both the conflicting parties. A conflict without challenging the very basic words or concept is like the following allegory. Two people, both with a chest of knives and each chest has just one sharp knife which is visibly sharpest of the rest. And the two people, are in conflict of trying to prove that his knife is the sharpest. The two people are in two separate rooms and cannot test the sharpness of their knives. Therefore, for each person his knife is sharper than the other person's knife for one they cannot test the sharpness and for second they cannot see the other side. Just like the same example, the knife is like a word and its meaning and the experience is its relative sharpness to other knives. However, just like the two people we know where they know the structure of the knife, people usually know the structure of the word but cannot get into other person's mind to realize the experiences or assumptions behind thoes words just like the two people in the example who cannot look at eachother. On the contrary of conflict, we will find acceptance. Acceptance of other notions, concepts and logic. How is that possible? With acceptance, we are drawing on common experiences and common understanding which lacks in conflict. Therefore, if we could get into other person's head just effectively enough, we might see that conflict never existed.Nevertheless, the exposure of assumptions and challenging basic concepts and notions is philosophy. And, as it might follow, philosophy could help solve a lot of conflicts, not all of them though because philosophers need to get better, I guess. Therefore, enjoy philosophy and a conflict free environment !

Heretic and the Stars

Stars i have not betrayed you tonight,
I tried to seek you, I tried to embrace you,
But there are causes out of my control
Defeat is not my nature
Failure is a step before success
However when would I havethat forbidden fruit of success
It remains out of knowledge
Go tell your Lord, your creator, the so called God
Although I know He hears me
I want you to bear my witness
That pain is not what I seek, I want pleasure, I want satisfaction
Yet all i get are broken dreams
I also want my Creator to know
I hate him for creating pain
I hate him for creating hate
Why wouldnt he feel his own creation?
I stand blasphemous, I stand naked infront of silence
Make me feel the guilt
A bit more control over me, is that too much to ask for?
Yet! Yet! I am condemned to love you
I love you oh lord! Yet I cannot repent
I am just a piece under your control
Sway me. make me hate you.
However;In the end, I am but you.

Treatise II: A case against morality

The question of morality has been difficult in every age. In this piece, I attempt to present my point of view on the pertinent issue. Before I proceed, I encourage reading Treatise I, if you already haven't, because it would help understand my thought process.It is interesting to note that historically certain things which were unmoral before are moral now; whereas, just the opposite is true for many other things. In the grand Colosseum, It was moral, or at least natural, to derive pleasure when beasts devoured men; whereas, nowadays, we believe any such act is "inhumane" or in easier terms immoral. But why was the action moral then and unmoral now? More importantly, what makes something moral or unmoral? What happens when something is moral? Most importantly, what is morality?In order to answer the above questions, I would present a more recent example. We feel that child labor is immoral. There are various organizations working to eradicate child labor. In fact, many of us condemn it. However, there is another perspective in the whole example. How is it possible that people who use children for work do not think of it as an immoral act or at the least do not feel strongly about it? What is it that we moral people have and the immoral people dont, on any specific issue? On closer analysis, it would become clear that when we "moral people" talk or work against child labor, we feel satisfied or it "feels right."It is important to define satisfaction here. From my point of view, satisfaction is a state where a person asks no more question and does not want to go beyond that state. In other words, satisfaction is a state where aspirations exist no more. Or, in statisfaction, the need to make a decision of good or bad exists no more. Every time a person asks a question or aspires for something else the state of satisfaction eludes him. And, subconsciously, when we strive for something we think "benefits us", we are striving for satisfaction because we want to get into a state relative to the object where we want no more of that object anymore. Take an example of a person who is thin and likes being thin or the way he is. The person aspires for nothing more or else, in other words, he is satisfied. On the contrary, a obese person would, probably, strive for a lean figure. Therefore, the obese person is not satisfied. (the issue of how we get aspiration will be dealt later) Going back to child labor, we see that we feel satisfied--that is dont want to know anymore, if its bad or not--when we advocate for the eradication of child labor while the immoral people are satisfied to have children work for them. In other words, we "moral people know" we will be satisfied when every child goes to school instead of not wasting or dangering his life working.For a second, just imagine, hypothetically, you were satisfied with child labor. You felt about child labor just like you feel about a child going to school. The feeling one has when a child works and when a child goes to school is completely same. In that state, would the issue of child labor be of any significance any more? My good guess would be, not really! It should not be hard to imagine because we already feel the same about many issues out there. For instance, we might not care about the Pakistani judicial crisis or cutting down the trees or wearing blue over black. But does that mean: these issues, or any other issues we dont care about, are not a moral issues for other people? Again, incontrovertible answer is: no. Just because we do not feel strongly about something, does not mean that other people might not feel strongly about it either. In fact, an issue for one as mundane as walking down the street could be as important as committing genocide for another for the simple matter that we can never be sure enough!Therefore, morality at the least has to do something about what we are not satisfied about or something we feel strongly about. Just like in the example of child labor. If we did not 'feel it was bad' we would not care about. But, we know, once we have managed to eradicate child labor we will be happy or satisfied. Nevertheless, I am sure everyone would agree with the simple phrase: moral acts satisfy us. Don't they?Therefore, morality is satisfaction. Moral acts are acts geared towards satisfaction. Some very interesting questions may arise after defining moral. For instance, does that mean everything that satisfies me, like getting blue jammies instead of red jammies because I like blue better, an issue of morality? How can an issue as mundane as getting chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, just because one satisfies me more than other, be grouped together with child labor or other "more important moral issues like genocide" under morality? My answer, rather in the form of a question, is: why not?I have already established that nothing becomes a moral issue unless we feel bad or unsatisfied about it. Therefore, if genocide or child labor satisfy me, it would be a moral act for me! The criterion for moral acts is nomore good or bad of other, its criteria is just the satisfaction of self. When a person talks about religious morality, he or she is basically refering to accountability in the hereafter which would lead to heaven and hell. Therefore, the sole purpose of morality in religion is to get person into heaven which is a place of eternal satisfaction. The element of satisfaction, thus, remains prominent even in religion.On the other hand, society defines its acts of morality as well. If we take society as a single entity, the problem of morality would be much easier. The assumption is that society feels satisfied in perpetuating itself and everything which negates that is immoral. Therefore, morals according to a society are just actions which help perpetuate it. As a result, everything against society's perpetuity would be considered immoral.In other words, conflict of satisfactions of different people makes things moral or unmoral. If a person A likes wearing black shirt on Tuesday, but person B hates when anyone wears black on Tuesday, then this situation would represent a moral issue because B feels wrong about the way A does his things. And the conflict on the color, would represent a moral issue for the two people.Moreover, it is important to realize that morality is not a beginning in itself. Rather, it is an outcome of several causes which might be religion, culture or other experiences. Therefore, morality is natural rather than something which could be built because nobody can change what satisfies them. Satisfactions cannot be changed, but can only be suppressed.Therefore, morality should be found within oneself, rather than matching up to some external standards.

Shikwah (inspired by Iqbal) in urdu

ajj kar dalna hay mainay gilla
Us hasti say jiski takat hay bay panah
Jo karta hay pyar satar maon say ziadah
phir bhi chorta hay apnay pyaron ko is tarah
keh koi uska naam laytay hoye dard main ho mubtalah
tua hay us per Allah ka imtehan
aur agar kissi gunah gaar per par jaye zindagi-e-khizan
tua us per hay alam naak saza
agar yeahi sach hay tua humain yea bata
kyon nahi dekhta tera karam kissi ki wafa-o-jafa
tu agar waqieye khaliq-o-mutliq hay tua humain bana
bay dard-o-takleef kay koi insaan
naheen karsakta tua nahi suna
woh wadda bahisht ka woh wadda karam ka
akhir insaan ki lachari main hay kia mazah?
koi hay tua bus itni si hay dua
kaash hota koi waqiye main mera khuda

*I am not a poet. This is my pathetic attempt at organizing my thoughts. I would definitly enjoy criticism.*

Treatise I

I have been compelled to write this Treaties because its implications are unsettling for me and have changed my perspective of life. I am writing in the hope that someone would eventually break the logic of the argument and present a better and more convincing argument on our "free will" and helplessness. I would definitely like to throw my thought, which I meagerly call philosophy, into the vacuum around us to criticize and perhaps even change the outlook on life.Humanity or what makes us humans has incontrovertibly two parts: our biological self and the environment. Even an absence of one of the parts changes the whole identity of human. By biological self, I mean our biological, physical and inherited body which constitutes ears, eyes, hands, and everything that we associate as "my body." It’s not hard to imagine, that if we did not have the body or the biomass which constitutes our brain, heart or other organs, we would not simply exist. In other words, our biological self is the every intrinsically essentially condition for us to exist. On the other hand, even environment is important for us to be deemed human. Environment means everything and anything which is felt through our five senses. Therefore, without our five senses, like we usually feel I presume during our dreamless sleep, we would not have any identity or any clue of our presence. Thus, yet again, an environment is another and perhaps the only other requirement for us being human. What constitutes the biological self and the environment is debatable. It could be asked whether the biological self needs to have 2 hands or even a person with none could qualify as a human. Moreover, even the type of environment, whether it is freezing depths of Antarctica or hottest core of molten lava, can be a point of contention. Nevertheless, on a basic level, it could at the least be argued that some form of physical matter and its connection to anything apart itself is needed to form a human being.Therefore, a functioning human being needs a body and a space or environment for the body to exercise its existence. Now, the two constituents should consequently and in effect be responsible for everything that humans do because there are no other constituents required for being a human. However, it is important to recognize the relationship between the two constituents, that is biological self and environment. The body or biological self and the environment have an action-reaction relationship. The body reacts to certain stimuli from the environment and the body's reaction, in turn, becomes an action on the environment which reacts in the form of an action again on the body. Thus, the entire life of a human being is spent reacting to and acting on the environment. Interestingly, both the actions and reactions of the environment and our biological self have been fixed by virtue of our birth. Thus, it implies that our actions and reactions have been fixed. Nobody denies the fact that their body or biological self is due to their inherited traits from their parents. Nobody can change their parents or at the least choose them. If a person is black or white, tall or short, blonde or brunett, its all because of the genes inherited from our parents. As a result, our biological self stays fixed or chosen by the destiny or God or whatever one might think predetermines. Even the environment is fixed again by virtue of our birth. We of course could not choose where are born. Again the place or environment of birth is fixed. Even all the future places or environments will come as a result of the very first environment, which came due to the parents. Therefore, since both the biological self and environment are fixed, our actions and reactions are also fixed, consequently that is . As a corollary, everything we do (act upon or react to) has already been fixed by virtue of our birth. We could already contemplate the fact that certain restrictions have already been placed on us due to our inherited traits which would let us react to certain situations specifically everytime. For instance, if I a short heighted person goes for an interview to a person who hates people with short hieghts and has made company policy against them, then it is quite clear that the short hieghted person will be refused the job. In fact, each time the short hieghted person goes for a job where the boss hates short hieghted people, the result will be the same. Thus, the restrictions were already placed in when the person was born. We can also take the example of me writing this philosophy piece. I had already mentioned the reason or compulsion of writing this piece. However, there was also a cause to the compulsion of writing this piece which was that I had been induced because of my environment--which includes teachers, events, books and others--to think. However, the environment, which made me think voraciously and vividly, also had a cause. Just to take as an example one of the parts which constitutes my environment, teachers I got which made me think were there because of my parents, acting as a cause as a result of its own action, who chose for me a certain school which had thoes teachers. And my parents undoubtedly were fixed and I had not chosen them. Therefore, everything and I mean everything I do could be traced back to when I was born. Since everything has a cause and that cause is either because of a person's body or the environment, everything we do has been fixed for us by birth since the actions and reactions of the body and the environment have been fixed. And the reason of our birth was our parents, who had parents as well. Therefore, the actions I do at the very moment can be traced back to the very first person or cause.Before I get any further, I would like to share another exciting example. Let’s see why you--the reader--are reading this Treatise. You happen to be reading this because you are either someone I know or just some random person who is interested in reading. For the former, you know me because at the least we have met. Let’s just take one possibility that you happen to be my schoolmate. You are my friend because of the fact that I got through a certain school or chose certain major based on which I got a job or just volunteered. And, it can again be rightly assumed that I and you were in the school because your parents chose it for you, for whatever reason. Thus, you reading this Treatise were fixed right from the day (being modest, when in actual it was fixed when the first person came in) you were born, especially if you happen to be my school-mate. Therefore, it could be reduced to a principle that everything that has a cause was predetermined. If the same causes were given every time, then the same outcome would be achieved every time as well. Moreover, every cause also has a cause or causes behind it. Therefore, since we do things due to certain causes, which in turn also had causes, then everything could be traced back to the very first cause, which would also mean that everything was predetermined since that first cause came into being. Now, an important question arises: if everything has been fixed or is predetermined how do we feel that we have the power of making decisions or choosing? We after all do feel that we have control over our actions and we can change our decision any time we want. I would like to answer the pertinent inquiry with an allegory.Let’s suppose we throw a ball. The ball will travel in air in the form of an inverted "U". Let’s also hypothetically give the ball at each point of its flight the conscious that the ball has the power to move along any of the three dimensions. The ball will continue to move along its trajectory; in fact, the ball will do so willingly because it would be the most "logical" and "feasible" thing for the ball. Even the ball will remain contend that it has the decision to take any action at any time in flight to change its direction but its mere conscious does not change anything. Likewise, we humans are the same. All we have is a veil that we can make decisions when in fact we are just channeling the previous causes into new ones. Perhaps, the very fact that we do not know the future also contributes to the veil of decision-making-power. Nevertheless, there is no logical truth in the statement that if we do not know our future, our future is not fixed or predetermined. Therefore, we can safely conclude from the present argument, although redundantly once again, that everything is fixed. But the very thought might make me and many others of similar beliefs heretics. Why? It is so because the thought shows that there is nothing bad or good. It’s all been fixed. It’s all been pre-determined by whomever (in my case: pre-determined by God). Even if there is something good or bad, it takes place because the first cause or God had wanted it to be. Therefore, if a person murders, rapes, steals, gambles or does anything else, it was due to the very first cause or God who made the person do it. The person has no bearing. Even the human rights, which are usually used along with the word "fundamental", might not be fundamental after all because every injustice becomes justified. But does it?I believe the whole problem of injustice or heresy can be dealt if somehow the whole philosophy of pre-determinism can be made to reconcile with justice. Therefore, it becomes fundamental to ask what justice is. Usually, we ascribe certain actions as justice. For instance, killing a murderer or getting the stolen goods back to their owners is usually pointed out as justice. Nevertheless, what is justice? Perhaps the question is too fundamental to even ask. However, I have attempted to solve the quandary.I propose a definition for justice. Justice is fulfilling the purpose of existence. A close example for Justice would be the purpose for a knife. If a knife is created to cut apples, then it would be injustice to the knife if it is used for murdering someone. In fact, it would even be injustice to cut any other thing, even oranges, apart from apples because the knife was intended or created for apples. Nevertheless, as I have already mentioned, the example is the closest thing to the definition because a master creator would keep in mind all the situations the creation would get in, in order to produce highly specialized creation. If we look at the inventions around us, we can sense that things are undergoing continued improvements so that they can better work; in other words, we are becoming better creators because we are learning more about the environments of our creations and adapting them better according to their environments.Therefore, an ideal creator, while serving as a cause for its creation, would have a thorough knowledge about all the circumstances the creation would be under; and, thus, would include the best possible traits which would yield ideal product for the purpose the creation was made. The above thought has its own implications. It follows that God being the first cause and being the ideal creator had knowledge of all its creations, including both humans and environment. Therefore, the purpose human was created also included the circumstances it would be under. As we have already established, Justice is fulfilling the purpose of existence and everything that a human does was fixed by virtue of its birth, which in turn was fixed due the first cause or God. And, whenever certain causes result in anything they happen because of a purpose, which was collectively, established or made as a result of action-reaction relationship between the being and environment. Hence, poverty, murder, hardships; and each and every circumstance we go through are justified or come under justice. Therefore, anything that anybody does or has done or is doing will always be justice since nobody can act otherwise of its purpose of existence as the actions have themselves been predetermined by virtue of our existence as well. This Treatise can allay all the fears that we can even act against the will of God or the first cause because, simply, we cannot. Everything that constitutes us came from the first cause. The thought even goes on to assert that, taking into Islamic view, some people have been made for Hell while others have been made for heaven because God had prior knowledge of their actions which were determined when God made them come into existence. Therefore, nothing was, is or ever-will be injustice because everything that was, is or ever will be done is already predetermined because all of them had purposes to come into being. Nevertheless, I would like to divide us in two spheres of realization. One sphere is the one in which we already are, where our environment is society and we measure everything according to our ideas or thoughts which are consequently products of our environment or at times, biology. Otherwise, even our thoughts have no other source of generation. Therefore, human rights, justice, truth or any other abstract concept can never be absolute they are just figments of a society's imagination as they keep on changing as we keep on increasing or reducing the radius of our society. The second sphere realization is of the first cause or God for which is not limited by any influences and has no history; and for whom, time has no meaning because it is not limited by anything. Therefore, justice might mean different in the different spheres but the second sphere is, from my point of view, eternal absolute or natural because it is limited by nothing.However, one drawback or rather reassuring for others of this thought is that it points to the existence of one or many first causes which themselves were devoid of any causes. And, its hard to contemplate that there could be a cause with no prior causes. The existence of the one or many first causes might just be what we have named God because since the first cause has no prior pressures or causes or influences the first cause/s is self sufficient in its existence and thus, had or even has the faculty to make decisions, which we wrongfully assume even we have.