"The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits." G.K. Chesterton

Sunday, July 30, 2023

Osobliwy początek osobliwości technologicznej

Już od kilku dekad mówi się wiele o sztucznej inteligencji i o tej tajemniczej osobliwości technologicznej gdy to sztuczna inteligencja osiągnie poziom i tempo rozwoju, które zostawi ludzkość w tyle i może nawet jej zagrozić (chleb powszedni pisarzy sciencie-fiction). Ostatnio dyskusja ta znacznie się nasiliła, między innymi w związku z zaskakującymi możliwościami oraz rozpowszechnieniem czatbota ChatGPT. Słucham i doświadczam tych rewolucyjnych zmian na co dzień i przyznam że inspirują one wiele przemyśleń, których źródłem do niedawna byli głównie Asimov i Lem. Ale muszę przyznać że to wszystko nie miało na mnie takiego wpływu jak pewne osobliwe (nomen omen) zdarzenie, które miało miejsce kilka dni temu, na moim osiedlu. Jak wiemy, hulajnogi eklektyczne są wszędzie i również wiemy jak irytujący jest fakt że ludzie zostawiają je praktycznie wszędzie. Przyznam że niekiedy nawet mam ochotę taką hulajnogę kopnąć, jako zamiennik nawymyślania bezmyślnemu użytkownikowi. Przedwczoraj idę sobie do sklepu i mijam przewróconą hulajnogę. W pierwszym momencie się uśmiechnąłem, myśląc że ktoś inny dał upust frustracji, ale chęć zachowania względnego ładu estetycznego na moim osiedlu sprawiła że postanowiłem tą hulajnogę jednak postawić. I tak zrobiłem, po czym usłyszałem, metaliczny ale mimo wszystko miły głos wydobywający się z wnętrza tej podrapanej i poobijanej maszyny, mówiący -- dziękuję!

Sunday, September 12, 2021

I thought about you before I knew you!

Having a somewhat romantic disposition, I used to indulge in the following fantasy, in my former, bachelor years, when my passion for philosophy and science left little room for a long term relationship: 

"Suppose I fall in love sometime in the future, and meet the girl of my dreams. If that indeed happens, then she is alive today somewhere, going about her everyday life, oblivious to the fact that we're going to be together, and the fact that I'm thinking about her at this very moment." I indulged in the fact that I could think of her before we even met. 

But was I really thinking of her, or merely about a set of people who merely satisfied the predicate 'my next girlfriend'? This is analogous to thinking about the winner of a race before it has started. But it was difficult for me to accept that I'm merely thinking about a potential person, given that she already existed. Surely it wasn't determined who she is (going to be), before we actually met, and therefore at the time of my romantic deliberations. But such speculations aside, surely the predicate picks out a single person, although it can be said to apply to a number of potential candidates, as it were. At least the romantic mind tends to folly in this manner (I am thinking about her) where cold reason suggests otherwise (I am thinking about a set of potential the ones).

However, presently when I say to her "I thought about you before we met" it seems to be true, because now we know that it would actually be her. This is truly romantic! If so, then we have logically validated, or at least salvaged some of the reality underlying my spells of romantic imagination! And at the same time, it is also true that in some sense I was thinking about her before I met her.

Sunday, August 22, 2021

Opis wesela wiejskiego, na które miałem ostatnio zaszczyt być zaproszony.

Była to piękna i zaciszna okolica, otoczona polami i zagajnikami, położona wśród kilu uroczych stawów. Wieczór był wyjątkowo piękny – tuż po zachodzie słońca, na pobliskim polu leżał siwy szal gęstej mgły, pozłocony delikatnymi promieniami wschodzącej pełni księżyca. Niebo było nieskazitelnie czyste, więc mimo pełni widoczne były gwiazdy. W powietrzu panował magiczny bezruch, otulony tajemniczą ciszą, akcentowaną jedynie sporadycznymi plusknięciami ryb w stawie. Jedyną rzeczą mącącą tę serenadę natury był harmider urządzony przez hałaśliwe stado ludzi, który miał miejsce w samym środku tej cudownej nocy.

Saturday, January 2, 2021

Ruminations on the question 'Why there is something rather than nothing?' and the limits of explanation.

I find myself incessantly returning to the brute mystery of existence, and find Leibniz’s pioneering answer to the fundamental question of metaphysics (as it is sometimes referred to) 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' painfully unsatisfactory. Neither do modern attempts armed with the anthropic principle and the explanatory tool kit of multiverse cosmology bring a satisfactory outcome, as far as I'm concerned.

My current reflections confront logical reasons – identified by some philosophers  of our inability to satisfactorily answer this question. Some claim, as Roy Sorensen observes (SEP), that the question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' is unanswerable. The question stumps us by imposing an impossible explanatory demand, namely, to deduce the existence of something without using any existential premises. 

Venturing upon those ruminations once again, this morning I wondered whether the most universal of ontological categories, that of existence, along with its various modalities, may not be just one of a number of fundamental categories, or not even among fundamental ones to some other, cosmic mind – a mind that would see our limits as we see those of a toddler's inability to run the marathon. The mystery of existence need not be any more fundamental to such minds than some empirical fact to us, and as such not holding any special explanatory requirement. To such minds, the reason why there is something rather than nothing may have a caliber of metaphysical profundity no greater than asking why the sky is blue.

What I mean by other, more general fundamental categories, is a cosmic state of affairs whereby existence is a contingent property of another kind of "stuff". It is generally agreed that predicating existence of entities is a category error, thus on this grounds, Anzelm's famous ontological proof falls short of delivering the goods. But what follows if we allow it, but methodically? That is, what if we boldly allow existence to be a property of the universally ubiquitous slithy toves that gimble mimsly every now and then? And a contingent property at that, whereby the brilling frequency determines whether the slithy toves have it quibberly, intermittently or in a number of other modes of gimbling? That is, what if to some cosmic minds Anzelm's argument is not fallacious? But even so, this presumably wouldn't be a satisfactory answer to the question, which isn't conclusively answered but rather supplanted by its "broader" counterpart "Why the slithy toves gimble at all?" 

The aporias, which confront us with limits to reasonable explanation may very well be nothing less than the limits of our cognition – necessary limits, venturing beyond which would depart from any sense and meaning – one could delve so far into the mystery’s darkness as to abandon any possibility of even articulating the potential discoveries. This may even explain why such aporias exist, e.g. whether the universe has a beginning or is eternal, and why, in their essence, they conjure necessarily incomplete and unsatisfactory explanations. This inability to bring forth a satisfactory explanation to conundrums that span the limits of our cognition is much like trying to evoke deep emotion through a masterful symphony that is limited to being conveyed via the dull clanging of a stick against stone.

To sum up the above rumination, it suffices to say that the impossibility of meeting this explanatory demand seems to stem from the fact of existence – being a fundamental category of thought – places a limit on what it means to explain anything.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Worlds either exist eternally (without a beginning or end), or don't exist at all.

I reject the notion of the world (i.e. everything that exists) coming into being. However, I do permit, that nothing may have existed - or to put this less contentiously - that nothing, rather than something may have turned out. That is, worlds either exist eternally - without a beginning or end in time - or don't exist at all. Since our world exists, it is eternal. In this sense, phenomena like The Big Bang are temporally local.

Note that this doesn't rule out the possibilty of there existing more than one world. Of course, the typical spatiotemporal notions, applicable to any one world, don't apply accross worlds. That is, notions like "x happening in this world at the same time (or before/after) as y happening in another world" or "this world being x distance away from some other world" are meaningless. This doesn't however rule out an imposition of meaningful relations on the possibility space itself.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Mariusz uwielbia matchę

Moja fascynacja herbatą, a od niedawna matchą, ewidentnie zainspirowała Martę do napisania tego uroczego wierszyka.

Na co ma dziś Mariusz smaczek?
Oczywista, że na macze!
Miesza, dmucha, siorbie, mlaszcze,
Strasznie mu wykręca paszczę ...
Pije ją i prawie płacze, z poświeceniem - nie inaczej! 

Wszystkim wokół zaś tłumaczy, jakie są walory maczy.