Yesterday’s lunch was interrupted with a surprise phone from my life time friend Heleen in the old country. She phoned me on a home ground stopover to convey her special good wishes for my up coming birthday. It was a nice surprise as we had not chatted for years, but exchanged cards at birthdays and for Christmas.

Heleen’s youngest aunt had passed on, which was the reason for their visit back home. My last aunt Stien, also on father’s side, left us in 2007, while her brother died during military service in 1928. Heleen’s family is doing well in most respects and so are she and husband Peter. So, we caught up on a lot of items, but most importantly it was just hear Heleen’s distinct voice again and just converse without the restraints of cards or email formats.

So, we caught up on a lot of items, but most importantly it was just hear Heleen’s distinct voice again and just converse without the restraints of cards or email formats.

I did complete my second shopping trip - 72$$ - with some extra items, but did not get around my intended “expounditions”. I made an appointment for my driver licence medical, but almost forgot about the Stampede parade on Friday; so I switched the time of it to mid afternoon. Stampede parades I have not attended for years, but I do have a notion to visit the grounds on Senior’s day next week.

I searched the net for ‘gratitude meditations’, but did not find anything useful despite the wealth of mainly promotional references. The references are mostly about how to meditate for the purpose of gratitude, but do not post actual texts to read as meditation. However, I still have to try Gabriella’s web reference, may be it will have something.

Shirley left me a message about Shakespeare in the park show on Hamlet this summer. Now we have to synchronise with good summer weather, but we have weathered storms in the past.
That’s it for the diary portion this day.

Juliet will be celebrating Eid al-Fitr [feast of breaking of the fast] with her daughter’s family at their home.

The phone just rang and there was Juliet to let me know that we cannot meet today. She will be celebrating Eid al-Fitr with her daughter’s family at their home. I wished her a good time and asked her to keep me in mind for any leftovers:-)! <9:13am

Back again at 1:59pm.
Last Monday the fourth this instance, I wrote on ‘Old age advantage‘. I closed of with the observation that our policy regarding selecting buildings to keep as heritage from those to be replaced, might guide us when selecting ideas to keep versus those to replace by new insights. This notion I want to elaborate on a bit, with some examples.

Plato distinguished between the idea itself and its realised form. He called the first the world of being and the other the one of becoming. Suppose we have the idea of making a round coffee table. To realise the idea we mark a circle on a large piece of plywood, cut along the marked circle line and then sand down the round rim until it’s smooth. Is that wooden cut piece perfectly circular? Down to a centimetre hopefully, a millimetre possibly, but not down to a hundredth of a millimetre. Not that any own would care. Not ideally circular, but good enough for the world of use or being!

There you have it! Plato’s world of ideas and world of being illustrated. This insight of Plato is still being used and debated about to day …

There you have it! Plato’s world of ideas and world of being illustrated. This insight of Plato is still being used and debated about today and is felt to be of foundational importance in the world of Western thought, though maybe not for all thought.

But Plato had other ideas as well. Democracy was not considered a good form of government, since most people lack the understanding to make valid contributions. Plato also disapproved of the arts community, some say because many were gay or lesbian living on the island of Lesbos. As to those who died, Plato thought that their souls went up high into the sky, constituting the stars of heaven.

Aristotle systemised later on much thought in categories and also developed the beginnings of logic, both of which still are studied today as fundamentals, like Plato is. But Greeks liked to reason and speculate to resolve apparent questions and contradictions. One such is this: ‘If a Cartagen says “All Carthagens are liars!”, then does he speak the truth or is he lying?” That conundrum did not get resolved until centuries later by saying that you cannot make a general statement about your own group.

Aristotle also claimed in his physics that obviously an object twice as heavy as another will fall twice as fast in a free fall.

Aristotle also claimed in his physics that obviously an object twice as heavy as another will fall twice as fast in a free fall. That of course was never true, but Greeks did not experiment that much, they reasoned and speculated. Galileo much later demonstrated the fallacy of Aristotle’s speculation.

Descartes developed the very useful coordinate geometry for which he was employed in the Netherlands at that time. Prince Mauritz of Orange-Nassau was fighting the Spanish ca 1600 and needed to know where to position his cannons.

I found that essay fascinating and it read like a detective story to me at the time, that is my second year in Junior High in Holland.

I read Descartes’ exposition about how I, as a human do not really know what is out there, except through the conclusions or thoughts about what the senses tell me. Hence the famous line: “Cogito ergo sum!”, I think therefore I am. I found that essay fascinating and it read like a detective story to me at the time, that is my second year in Junior High in Holland.

I went on to read the more obscure explanation of where conscious awareness would be situated in the head. I think he located it in the pituitary gland. That was closer than what the Greeks thought, who located it in the gut, which does have many nerves centred there. Of course we are still looking and debating today about conscious awareness, its nature and domicile, if any.

I also mention Spinoza in my writings of last Monday. His thoughts and ideas were so controversial at the time that he was cast out from and cursed by the Amsterdam Synagogue of his day. This curse was repeated by the ‘Upper Rabbi’ of Amsterdam back in around 2002 when I was living in Holland! It was still valid in every way the paper reported. The Dutch protestants of his time did not agree with Spinoza’s ideas either and the latter were published [Ethics] under subterfuge after his death.

This [~1650] curse was repeated by the ‘Upper Rabbi’ of Amsterdam back in around 2002 when I was living in Holland!

Spinoza describes an existence in god that is governed by laws in all its aspects, except that we do not know them all. However, perfect understanding is held possible by Spinoza in potent. His world view does not give a place to sin, but neither has it much room for emotion. Yet, as a consistent and rigorous world view, it is an outstanding example.

I want to add Newton to the above row of ‘wise guys’ with all due respect. Newton was and still is today, regarded as a genius in the field of physics, that it mechanics and also optics, which he shares with Huygens. However there are a number of things that are kept under wraps about Newton and his time.

Natural philosophers were people who thought about nature and in Newton’s time …

First of all Newton called himself ’Natural Philosopher’. The term ’scientist’ was not invented until about 1850. Natural philosophers were people who thought about nature and in Newton’s time that had become supplemented with the use laboratory work in support of their thoughts, explanations and speculations. A unique and much valued Western contribution!

Newton also studied in the fields of theology, astrology and alchemy, which in those days were all part and parcel of this Natural Philosophy. Paracelsus is another example of this mix of investigative interest, not to mention Kepler’s attempt to cast more accurate horoscopes by understanding the courses of the planets!

I am adding this group of what we regards as early scientists to show that we humans develop new ideas from a mixture of half understood notions that combine with observable facts, and we then look for order, so as to make a prediction that can be tested. That process eventually evolved into modern science, but we still search, grope, test, experiment, combine and discard in order to discern that suspected order.

One thing we should not do is let these processes run on their own momentum, which is very costly.

This process has not changed and is also applicable to the social processes, which include religious ones. And this brings me to my point in that we need to understand our own process in which we are engaged in our world wide socialisation processes. Some of the ideas from the past that will still apply today, many will not and plenty new ones will have to be added.

One thing we should not do is let these processes run on their own momentum, which is very costly. The processes themselves cannot be prevented, but they can be guided and we just need to discover the rules of the process and apply them to save lives, heritage and money.
<3:45pm.

Plato 427-347 BC; Aristotle 384-322 BC;
Descartes 1596-1650; Spinoza 1632-1677; Newton 1642-1727;
<4:15pm with editing~