Philosophy Now Forum

Several ideas have been floating around in my head of late,
I shall try to tie them together here...

We of 2022, have many ideas, thoughts, ism's, laws in which we use
to evaluate and understand our world.. for example, we have as means
of understanding the world, Marxism, democracy, Catholicism, Buddhism, Spengler,
Kuhn's theory of science in the book "Structure of Scientific Revolutions"
Kant's critiques, Nietzsche's books, continental philosophy, Goethe's
theory of color, Einstein's theory of relativity.. as examples...
Each of these theories are attempts to explain some or all of the world
in which we live in...some are scientific explanations and some
are historical explanations and some are social explanations within
a political or economic or social context... we could spend a lifetime
studying various explanations... for example, many people will spend a lifetime
studying Kant and his various philosophical theories...

But some have noticed that in various disciplines, that that virtually all
explanations are incomplete.. as within two such examples, Evolution by Darwin
and Newton's theory of Gravity... within each of these two examples that
they are incomplete.. for example, we still have no idea what Gravity
actually is... we think we know, but what is the actual mechanism of Gravity?
We can explain three of the four forces of physics, the weak force,
the Electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force.. these are the 4 fundamental
forces of the universe... (or so we think) and yet, we cannot connect
Gravity with the other three forces... the theory is incomplete...

In the 163 years since Darwin's book, "The Origin of Species", we still have
not fully worked the various aspects of Evolution.. There are gaps in
our understanding of Evolution.. the rise of the conscious mind for example,
and this question of the soul... Evolution fails to explain some basic aspects
of human existence... Am I saying that Evolution is not the method
of the rise of the biological creatures like us? No, not at all...
Personally, having studied the matter, I believe that Evolution is
the single best method of understanding of how we humans got here..
I am saying that evolution has not explain every single aspect of
how we got here.. does that failure leave room for god or other
religious base ideas? But the fact is, the story of evolution, while
it explains a huge chunk of human existence, it doesn't explain
all of it...and just as we have an incomplete story of Evolution,
our story of say, quantum mechanics, is incomplete...

I am not here to focus on the theories we have, but on the fact
that our stories, all of them are incomplete..
do we have a "Theory of Everything" in any discipline?
for example, do we have "TOE" in any branch of science,
history, math, biology, physics, politics? Do we have any theory of
history for example, that explains the "TOE" within history?
No, and we don't have any complete explanation of any branch or
discipline we study....

In other words, we don't have a single branch of study that has a
"TOE" with it...Every single discipline we study is incomplete..
left with holes within it, some large and some small, but nevertheless,
incomplete...and why is this?

because the fact is, no matter how big or small a field of study is,
we cannot include every single detail that would allow us to complete
a "TOE" within that field.. no matter how comprehensive we try to be,
we cannot include every single detail within that field of study...
something will be and must be left out...

Take an example.. for example, a car engine.. because it is an open system,
we cannot, no matter how hard we try, we cannot explain every single aspect
of a car engine and no matter how long we try to explain every single aspect
of a car engine, we cannot explain all the aspects of a car engine...
our explanation will be incomplete no matter how many words or how much
time we spend explaining the functions of the various aspects of the car engine...
we cannot fully explain every single aspect of a car's engine...

think about that..
and next I will explain why this is true..

Kropotkin

as I have noted before, our universe is full of random, chaotic, contingent,
full of chance.... it is this random and chaotic nature of the universe
that prevents us from fully explaining every single aspect of the universe...

as an example I used before was when I was basically unable to move, walk or
stand because of my ankle surgery... and you would think because I was sitting on
the couch all day, unable to move, that nothing happened.. but
the fact is my days were rather eventful because of random events,
chaotic events... some days one neighbor or another would stop by an
check up on me, sometime Amazon would deliver packages, some days
I would stare out the window and see events like the day, several dozen
hummingbirds were all about my central courtyard (I live in a condo)
I wasn't bored because something out of my control would happen around me,
something that happened because of the random, chaotic, nature of chance
universe we live in... to be able to fully and completely explain my day,
I would also have to be able to explain every single random, chance event
that occurred to me that day...my neighbor came by and checked on me..
to fully explain that day, I would have to understand that neighbor's day
and events in her life... explain why she came by that day... to fully
understand someone's day, we would also have to explain every single
random, chaotic event in that day and this we cannot do...because that
net is a worldwide net.. we would have to explain every single person
and action that happen to that person to get a complete and full explanation
for everything that happened.. in other words, no matter how far we spread
our net for information, we can never get enough to fully and completely
explain a day in a life... the random, chaotic, the effect of chance in our lives
prevent us from ever being able to explain any, ANY open system to its fullest..

how does one explain a random event? A bird shit on my clothes, and it ruined
my day, but how does that random event, get explained? as a random event
that could happen to anyone.. yep....a random event that could happen to
anyone... how does one explain that in a complete explanation of the
of one's day? At best, we can only give a partial, incomplete explanation
of the universe and the actions that occurred to us.. that is why
we cannot adequately give a full and complete explanation of any person,
or event or discipline on the planet Earth... we simply cannot ever
give a full and complete explanation of anything because the universe
we live in is random, chaotic, chance plays a role in our universe...
and that prevent us from ever being able to give a full and detailed
explanation of anything... that is why Kant Critiques were a failure
and why Einstein failed and why every single theory, ever produced has
failed.. because it cannot ever completely explain for our random,
chaotic, universe of chance...

the only way we could ever explain something to it complete and full
understanding is by removing chance, chaos, randomness within that
understanding.. and we know that is completely impossible.. we can
never remove chance or chaos or the random nature of the universe...

the very nature of existence is random, chaotic and full of chance...
and because of that we can never be able to fully explain anything,
or give a "TOE" about anything... all theories, facts, explanations are
incomplete because of the fact that the universe is random, chaotic
and completely full of chance.. and we can never be able to account
for that part of existence... how do you explain history in terms of
the nature of chance or of random events? and we can think of
hundreds of examples of chance and the random nature of the universe
that is part of any explanation... for example, in the battle of Waterloo,
rain played a major factor in the battle.. or that Napoleon's couldn't sit in
his horse because of Hemorrhoids... that random fact changed the battle
of Waterloo... how does one account for that in any descriptions of the
Battle of Waterloo? that is one aspect of the role chance and chaos
play in our lives...

Kropotkin

so, in the end, what does this mean for us?

No matter how "complete" we think a theory is, it will be partial
and incomplete.. we cannot, no matter how much we try, we cannot
ever create a 'TOE" in any subject or field of study... if we, for example,
create a philosophical theory, that theory will be by its very nature,
partial and incomplete.. we cannot ever create a complete and full
theory of any subject, ever

we are, in regard to any subject, simply blind men examining an
elephant... getting a partial and incomplete understanding
of whatever subject we are examining...
and never getting the full and complete understanding of that object
or subject..

and so, what are we to do given we cannot ever completely
explain or understand a particular object or subject?

Kropotkin

how are we supposed to create complete and universal explanation
of anything, if all of our explanations are partial and incomplete?

and much of what happens lays in the moments of silence..

for example, a true story... Once I was dating a girl, and we were
having issues, as couples often do, and she asked me, "Do you love me?"
and I paused, hesitated.. and all was lost.. she took my hesitation as
being an indictment of my lack of love for her.. within 10 seconds, she
dumped me... all because I paused, hesitated in answering a question...
how does one create a "TOE" if a pause, a hesitation can doom one?

There is no possibility of creating a theory of love, because so much
of that emotion, feeling is random, due to chance...
It is random that we meet people and fall in love
and spend our lives together.... there is no possibility of
knowing or even creating a theory of how, why, who and when
we meet the most important person of our lives... all that is random,
a chance encounter that dominates our lives..
and no theory will ever be able to explain that...

given our partial and incomplete understanding of all systems,
we can never give a complete and total "TOE" of any system...
be it political, social, economic, philosophical, historical or
scientific.... every single theory and belief we have is a partial
and an incomplete theory/belief... and now we, once again ask, now what?

in other words, there is no such thing as a universal, all-inclusive theory
that can include everything.. because any understanding we have,
is, at best, partial and incomplete...

Kropotkin