Does everything exist at once?

Brett

In the following conversation Socrates infers that the knowledge we possess is already within us. (I know there are challenges to this idea of his and the technique he used to demonstrate it.)

Socrates: So the man who does not know has within himself true opinions about the things that he does not know?

Memo: so it appears.

Socrates: These opinions have now just been stirred up like a dream, but if he were repeatedly asked these same questions in various ways, you know that his knowledge about these things would be accurate as anyone’s.

Meno: It is likely.

Socrates: And he will know it without being taught, but only questioned, and find the knowledge within himself?

But the idea is that mathematical knowledge was already there. Does this then mean that everything is already there, it only awaits our ability to see it; America was there before it was discovered, Einstein’s theory of relativity was there before he formulated it, viruses existed before we identified them. Over time we learn to see more as our knowledge expands. But even then, despite our advancement in science, are we still only comprehending one small aspect of a virus. Might we one day discover that a virus has a mind?

I recall a statement along the lines of, “God allows us to know as much as he chooses.”

Is belief the suspicion of something existing that can’t yet be proven? Is belief equal to science in human enquiry?

Would it be fair to say that even our own fate is already out there, waiting for us, that our fate already exists, like America?

If our fate already exists out there, waiting for us, then does everything exist at once? And if so does that mean no time?
Can the past affect the present, can individuals be affected by those from what we regard as the past, can the present have an affect on the past? Or is there nothing?

alcontali

But the idea is that mathematical knowledge was already there. Does this then mean that everything is already there, it only awaits our ability to see it; America was there before it was discovered, Einstein’s theory of relativity was there before he formulated it, viruses existed before we identified them. — Brett

Agreed.

Mathematics, science, and engineering are discovered, while economics, for example, is invented. One can invent an unlimited number of different economics. The Soviet Union successfully invented one too.

Quite a few academic disciplines are rightfully considered to be inventions. Economics is one discipline which still often gets incorrectly classified as being a discovery, while it is obviously also merely an invention.

Is belief the suspicion of something existing that can’t yet be proven? — Brett

We cannot prove anything about the physical universe. The definition of proof requires a set of "ab initio" basic beliefs, i.e. first principles or axioms, from which we derive theorems. We do not know the first principles of the physical universe, i.e. the Theory of Everything (ToE). Hence, proof about the physical universe is simply impossible.

The best we can have about the physical universe are falsifiable suspicions, i.e. science.

Brett

↪alcontali

One can invent an unlimited number of different economics — alcontali

This raises an interesting point for me. Is a Capitalist economy invented, or is it a natural evolution of existing ideas?

But if it’s an invention, and claimed by many to be unworkable and unfair, then are our inventions inferior to discoveries? This sort of winds back to Darwinism, I guess, in that the natural evolution of things, survival of the fittest (idea), is the most successful.

alcontali

This raises an interesting point for me. Is a Capitalist economy invented, or is it a natural evolution of existing ideas? — Brett

It depends on what "capitalist" is supposed to means. It is certainly not a synonym for free trade or free markets.

At the core of a contemporary western economy you will find the usury-infested fiat bankstering system, which is not merely a "natural evolution of existing ideas". It is the 1913 Federal Reserve Act that started imposing this form of organized theft in the USA through the use of force.

When people began to realize that the banksters were lying to them, and tried to call their bluff, another spectacular, forceful intervention followed:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Executive_Order_6102.jpg

So, Roosevelt threatened 10 years of imprisonment for anybody exposing the banksters' lies and manipulations.

The usury-infested depravity at the core of the contemporary economy is kept afloat with highly manipulative propaganda, gigantic bankster bailouts, skyrocketing taxes, along with an extensive police force which will incarcerate anybody who refuses to submit to the lying and scheming banksters.

Ultimately, the bankstering system is kept afloat by the false belief in the fake legitimacy of the voting circus. Therefore, it is merely a byproduct of rampant paganism. Religious law strictly forbids usury, but the unbelievers do not care about that, because they were born and came into this world in order to wallow in depravity and rampant promiscuity. They are a lost cause anyway. So, just let them crash and burn.

Brett

↪alcontali

Therefore, it is merely a byproduct of rampant paganism. — alcontali

I can’t be sure how you’re using the word “paganism”. Do you mean it in its original sense, or in a perjirative form condemning modern times?

Edit: by the way, this is how I regard the meaning of capitalism: an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

alcontali

I can’t be sure how you’re using the word “paganism”. Do you mean it in its original sense, or in a perjirative form condemning modern times? — Brett

Well, the usury-infested fiat bankstering system is based on very serious violations against religious law. At the same time, these people still "believe in something", if only, in the usurious depravity in which they wallow. These people are burdened in debt because of their false beliefs.

The further unspecified "something" in which they happen to believe, is a set of false, pagan ideologies, which include the belief in the permissibility of usury, which is in turn just one small element in the collection of falsehoods that they subscribe to.

This problem is not even specific to modern times. Paganism was, for example. also rampant during antiquity.

Paganism is the strong belief in counter-natural behaviour.

It is the strong belief that we can relax the laws that govern human nature. Self-discipline goes out of the window. That what used to be considered wrong, becomes good, and that what used to be considered good, becomes wrong. It is the slippery slope to the world upside down.

In some ways, the self-inflicted misery of the pagans is also funny. That is why it is ok for me, because I can endlessly laugh at them. That is probably also the reason why I do not feel the need to save the pagans. In that case, I would need to find something else to laugh at. So, no, just leave it "as is".

Brett

↪alcontali

Paganism is the strong belief in counter-natural behaviour. — alcontali

Of which period in history are you referring to?

Edit: this sounds more like a Christian point of view.

alcontali

Of which period in history are you referring to? — Brett

Nowadays, it is very strong. I guess that it is as strong as in the late Roman empire, if not stronger.

Rampant depravity is often considered an end-of-civilization phenomenon. The western world is widely considered "about to implode" because that kind of events is typically preceded by widespread degeneration.

Gnomon

Socrates infers that the knowledge we possess is already within us. — Brett

I don't pretend to know what Socrates meant by that assertion, but I don't take it literally. Perhaps he was referring to the metaphor that man is a micro-cosmos, containing the essence of the whole world, including mathematics, within himself.

Brett

↪Gnomon

I don't pretend to know what Socrates meant by that assertion, but I don't take it literally. — Gnomon

Why not?

Brett

↪alcontali

Okay, I get it. Paganism equals depravity. So back to the beginning; is Capitalism an invention?

Gnomon

Why not? — Brett

Because I assume it's a metaphor. It's as-if.

alcontali

is Capitalism an invention — Brett

If capitalism means:

an economy with at the core a usury-infested fiat bankstering system

then yes, it is an invention, just like putting the GOSPLAN at the core of the Soviet economy:

The State Planning Committee, commonly known as Gosplan (Russian: Госпла́н, pronounced [ɡɐsˈpɫan]),[1] was the agency responsible for central economic planning in the Soviet Union. Established in 1921 and remaining in existence until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Gosplan had as its main task the creation and administration of a series of five-year plans governing the economy of the USSR. — Wikipedia on the GOSPLAN

Brett

↪Gnomon

Because I assume it's a metaphor. It's as-if. — Gnomon

I don’t think he does mean it as a metaphor. The exercise he carried out wasn’t a metaphor.

Brett

↪alcontali

an economy with at the core a usury-infested fiat bankstering system — alcontali

I think that’s more of a description than a meaning. But my interest is whether our inventions, compared to our discoveries, are problematic. Has Capitalism, for example, as an invention, been successful or problematic?

Gnomon

I don’t think he does mean it as a metaphor. The exercise he carried out wasn’t a metaphor. — Brett

The exercise only proved that the human brain works with an inherent logic : a mathematical logic, including basic arithmetic. If Socrates had asked for the answer to a calculus problem, do you think Meno would have had a "true opinion" about that kind of knowledge? Sages like Socrates often made bold general statements without qualification or limitation. They may be true metaphorically without necessarily being true in detail. Like Jesus' parables they are intended to convey a general impression, not to be taken literally or historically. Socrates was teaching by leading instead of by lecturing.

Nils Loc

The second argument, known as the Theory of Recollection, asserts that learning is essentially an act of recollecting things we knew before we were born but then forgot. True knowledge, argues Socrates, is knowledge of the eternal and unchanging Forms that underlie perceptible reality. — SparkNotes: Plato

Sounds like Socrates is baggering Meno with his annoying rhetorical method. If only Meno could give him a dose of his own medicine. How does Socrates defend his theory of recollection?

Brett

↪Gnomon

The exercise only proved that the human brain works with an inherent logic : a mathematical logic, including basic arithmetic. — Gnomon

Yes, that’s the argument against the exercise, which is hard to refute. So does that deny the possibility of everything already existing?

Brett

↪Nils Loc

True knowledge, argues Socrates, is knowledge of the eternal and unchanging Forms that underlie perceptible reality. — SparkNotes: Plato

True knowledge, then, would be discovered.

alcontali

But my interest is whether our inventions, compared to our discoveries, are problematic. — Brett

Yes, I personally also think that inventions are problematic while discoveries are commendable.

Has Capitalism, for example, as an invention, been successful or problematic? — Brett

Free trade, and marketplaces in permissible products and services, are permissible behaviour, while usury is a problem and deemed, impermissible behaviour.

God has permitted trade but forbidden usury. — Quran, Al Baqarah 2:275

So, yes, I consider an economy with at its core a usury-infested fiat bankstering system to be an evil invention. Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, it is the entire ideology that justifies usury as morally permissible that is reprehensible.

I am not going to argue against commerce because God has permitted trade.

Brett

↪alcontali

Yes, I personally also think that inventions are problematic while discoveries are commendable. — alcontali

I have a sneaking suspicion that you say discoveries are commendable because they are the work of God. And then it becomes a conversation circling the idea of God, which just kills everything.

Gnomon

So does that deny the possibility of everything already existing? — Brett

I don't think that parable had any bearing on such an ontological question. It was just a demonstration of the Socratic method of indirect teaching, not of human omniscience, or a static universe.

Brett

↪Gnomon

Yes, I appreciate that. I had used it, probably unwisely, to introduce the idea of everything already existing.

Brett

↪Gnomon

But does everything already exist or not? Or can, in a dynamic universe, things come into being that had not previously existed? Or are the elements that created this new thing already, and always are, on the way to creation, like our moving towards our fate.

armonie

でも

alcontali

I have a sneaking suspicion that you say discoveries are commendable because they are the work of God. And then it becomes a conversation circling the idea of God, which just kills everything. — Brett

I am not a religious scholar or a specialized mufti.

Therefore, I do not know how to derive something like that, or its opposite view, from religious law, while asserting that type of proposition would definitely require a legitimate ruling ("hukm") in fiqh ("jurisprudence").

DingoJones

↪Brett

Knowledge isnt something that can be discovered, it is something you have as the result discovering something. Knowledge results from discovery, but the thing you are discovering isnt knowledge itself. You find a coin on the ground, and that results in knowledge of the coin. The coin existed before your discovery, but the knowledge only exists once you, the discoverer of the coin, becomes aware (gain knowledge) of the coin.

Brett

↪DingoJones

Knowledge isnt something that can be discovered, it is something you have as the result discovering something. — DingoJones

Okay. Then let's just talk about the thing discovered. Forget the word knowledge.

DingoJones

↪Brett

Ok. What about it exactly?

Brett

↪DingoJones

The idea that everything already exists, that everything that could ever exist is already out there awaiting our ability to see it. (See my OP).

Punshhh

↪Brett

I will approach the issue from left field. I once had a visionary dream in which I was taken up by Christ and experienced my past and future, the past and future, laid out on the ground (in the dream I visualised this as the houses in my street with the roofs taken off and as one moved across a room one would have been traversing time.), as I was lifted I saw more of the landscape, hence a broader space of time. The Christ communicated to me in such a way without speaking, but rather like the almost telepathic understanding between a mother and baby.

My point being that reality is probably not what it seems, spatial, temporal conditions may only be a function of something else more real like a soul, or ethereal world. This suggests, or implies an atemporal, unextended (spatially) reality. But also transcendent and possibly omniscient from our position within it. Allowing everything to exist at once.

Does everything exist at once?

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