ABOUT

I am developing this website and the work is gradual, It means I add material as I write them, or add my past writings, but in order to be decently visible in a coherent web format I have to pre-process them, and furthermore the design and development of the website itself is done by myself so it's a little extra work. Therefore I think If you visit my website few times a month then you will find new materials (My writings, commentaries and notes on the roughly these topics and interests).

 

However I want to begin with a seemingly unrelated story and then, some more points actually related to that story, then -- hopefully I believe we can reach a point that in itself explain and enlighten the purpose of this passages.

 

 

Let's do it : Imagine human infants are born with the same cognitive abilities of adults or even better with curious ability of early teenage-hood. In this setting, the new-borns would think and will witness through a "window" (analogues to our eyes) that opens into light, sounds, joy and beauty -- we "wonder"... and more wondering... and then emerges an unstoppable surge of curiosity that is inherent in us with our long history of evolution in the Universe. You might wonder why curious? In order to be "genuinely" curious, one must be firstly conscious or better-said self-aware. However, you will ask again why being self-conscious at all, in the first place? Well, good question. A short answer is, to not be dead immediately after your birth or shortly after! Why is so? First, we must forget about all the luxuries that the modern human civilisation has brought us. The "Nature" or more generally the Universe that we have opened our eyes into, "Yes... it is beautiful", BUT "is a very dangerous place." The absolute majority of the universe we know, is extremely hostile to kind of biological creatures like us. The overwhelming places that available in the universe, is empty space (between and among solar-systems, galaxies, cluster of galaxies and among super-clusters of galaxies), with temperatures approaching absolute zero and with nothing to support life. Back on the planet earth, the place that relatively is much better to support life and its initiation (Genesis of organic carbon-based life, although there are hypothesis about otherwise, like falling of meteoroids with seeds of life on them, or even with the chemical element Silicon as the base of life chemistry). Jump forward a few billion years in the evolutionary time and the tree of life, and you will find, for instance, multi-cellular animals and later on early mammalians or species that eventually led to modern homo-sapiens (Sapiens themselves mixed and mated with other homo-species branches like Neanderthals in Europe and Denisovans in Asia). -- Life then has been a very risky business. You could easily be dead with all kinds of diseases in your early childhood. Natural phenomena was completely indifferent towards us (as "is" right now, with a difference that we have in modern times, better tooling and technology and also better social structure and machinery). Famine, drought and other natural disasters together with fight and rivalries with other species, and no less within the same homo-species were widespread. You could be murdered by a neighbouring cave's men, so that your tribe's women and children being taken over and also your supply of food and tools being stolen. Or you could simply be killed by a tiger or bite of a snake. To make story short, I want to argue that : Self-awareness (or consciousness), despite its nature and properties, "is" a by-product of evolution by natural selection. However at the same time, It is a very valuable present for us. In fact, as David Chalmers also signifies, It is the single most important thing ever, even it be an illusion (as some have claimed, like Daniel Dennett). Because it (self-awareness) is the only thing that matters (Giving "matter" to everything else), what else?!  A note here is that, I personally prefer terms "self-awareness" to "self-consciousness", I have used them interchangeably in my writings, and I will elaborate on that preference of mine in a next opportunity.

 

If it is not already clear how it (self-awareness) has come about in the evolutionary process, then I shall explain my idea briefly: Remember our little story at the beginning of this writing. Generally, any specie, whatever it is, from single cell organisms up to most sophisticated animals, they want to keep themselves alive, at least to the point that they can re-produce. In order for anything to be able to protect itself, to feed, to breath in and pomp out poisonous material, to move about and discover new sources of food, water and also mating partners, to feel fear in order to fight for life or flee and also to understand or guess others' intentions (threats, co-operation, friendship) --- they must be able, firstly, to recognise themselves from others --- To distinguish their bodies from others, to somehow understand what it is that I want to protect and flourish in (the body) and pass it on to a-next-me (re-production). So as it is also evident from neuro-structure of our bodies, animals know the boundary of their bodies (we feel pain, and fear of "feeling pain" to carefully protect our bodies) and even recognise and protect their extended boundary which are their offspring (a possible explanation for why parents emotionally attached and protect their children). I think this realisation can also explain roots of selfishness, -- AND--  I want to make sure that I can modify and control it (my selfishness) with the same tool (my self-awareness).

 

Inclining to a conclusion, I believe that anyone should be able, ideally, at the teenagerhood or early adulthood, arrive at a point, that somehow announce to him/her self that he/she is about to having "an intellectual awakening," in a sense that, It will mark their beginning of their journey for a lifetime. It will be the journey itself, that is the purpose, not necessarily an endpoint achievement, like power, wealth or likewise.

 

At this stage, it is critically important--that-- we understand "what is important?!" And realising that, then decide "self-consciously", what are our "priorities"?

 

 

But what are those critically important "priorities" when the so called "intellectual awakening" happens?

 

1. To think that, what thought is, and how it works (empirical witnessing, logic)

 

2.  After recognising my own existence (of my thought)--, what are "priorities"?

 

3.  Maintaining to be self-aware (actively protecting it), this is critical.

 

       3.1  Using tools (physical, mental etc.) that can help us recognise and expand our self-awareness.

 

       3.2  Having a lifetime (thoughtful) passion, for example, Craftmanship, Art, maintaining expertise and knowledge of fields that you are already good at, and of-course reading a lot (in as many fields as you can).

 

          3.3  One possible starting point would be reading "History and Philosophy of Science, Enlightenment and scientific and industrial revolution, Principles of Evolution, Physics and Mathematics (at any level), Logic, Psychology and also nevertheless social sciences and Humanities in general". When appropriate, read on Philosophy of (Law, Art, Politics, Religion, Physics, Technology, Progress, Justice, Economics and more).

 

 4. (This one is a collective effort) we have to work on efficient ways and developing collective consensus, in order to organise our thoughts and achievements (added value in any form) and create new knowledge that is recognisable and (re-)usable in other disciplines. We must be able to accumulate (new) knowledge, preserve them and make conclusions (new knowledge). In a healthy society, this cycle should be repeated. There are certain methods and technologies that can help "guarantee" those steps. I shall elaborate on them later in this website.

 

 

 

{ What do I mostly write about, in this website? }

 

 · Philosophy of Mathematics & Logic

 

 · Philosophy of Modern Physics

 

 · Computer Language theory and computer science in general

 

 · Model-Driven Systems Engineering and Domain-Specific Languages

 

 · Interdisciplinary Complex Systems and Information Theory

 

 · Philosophy of Technology (and Ethics of_)

 

 · Some curious contemplations on evolutionary processes

 

 · Ludwig Wittgenstein, L. E. J. Brouwer, Per Martin Lof and few more.

 

· Ontology & Semantic Engineering

 

 · Type Theory (some variation of_), Intuitionistic, Dependent types, Higher-Order types, Univalence foundations in Homotopy type theory

 

 

Hossein Mousavi Bojnordi