Applicability of Spinoza II
First let us look at John Locke. He believed that human
beings enter into life with a blank slate or “tabula
rosa”.
Though this seems a very logical definition of the human
mind, Locke was strongly opposed to the concept of
innate
ideas saying that there are simple ideas and complex
ideas,
but he never came up with a suitable explanation for how
a
person comes up with his/her first complex idea. If we
look
back to Spinoza we see this; although we are not born
knowing what to do with our arms and legs, we eventually
grow stronger and learn to walk, and likewise
people are
not
first able to draw proper conclusions. We are the arms
and
legs of God. Just as we don’t tell our limbs to learn
something, God need not tell us to begin to live. We
are
ever evolving pieces of an ever expanding God. Locke
did
believe in innate capacity and if you combine Spinoza’s
ideas with those of Locke properly, you see that initial
thought, is indeed an innate capacity, as it is God’s
innate
capacity, not an individual's. It is like instinct or
reactions. When you fall forward, your arms reflexively
lift in front of you to break that fall. Such is the
same
when humans begin to draw conclusions. It is a
necessity,
and so occurs.
Another philosopher’s ideas that Spinoza’s concepts
can correlate with are those of David Hume. Hume had a
belief about people and there decisions concerning
emotion.
He believed that everyone based their decisions on
emotions
of some sort and that it was humanly impossible to be
completely objective about anything. He proposed the
idea
of the Agent, the Receiver, and the
Spectator. The
agent
was the person who acts upon another, the receiver was
the
person that received the action of the agent, and the
spectator was to be the “
impartial” witness to the
occurrence that could decide if it was right or wrong.
Hume
believed that although the Spectator was not directly
involved in the situation, he/she could never be truly
impartial because he/she would in some way base their
decision on an emotion. If we take this idea and look
at it
through “Spinozan” eyes, we see that it makes perfect
sense.
If two people are in conflict, we have to remember that
they are part of a whole. The third person or the
‘spectator’ is also a part of that whole. How can any
party
within this threesome be impartial if they are all
trying to
make a decision that pertains to themselves? It can be
compared to the inner workings of the human mind. When
a
person is battling himself over some question or dilemma
that he is trying to understand, he has an inner dialog.
When this occurs, it is not that there are different
people
in his head having a discussion, but different parts of
himself trying to decide what is best for the whole,
when
there is a conflict to consider. In situations like
this a
person often goes to a friend for advice, hoping to get
an
outside opinion, but since that person or ‘spectator’ is
so
very close to him, he also is not completely impartial.
Spinoza’s philosophies can be applied to so many
things that it is almost overwhelming proof that he may
truly have been onto something more plausible than
anything
that had been thought of before, even in regards to
modern
day thought and science. In considering the concepts of
time and the origin of the universe, we can apply
Spinoza’s
philosophy to the creation of all things and take it one
step further.
The most widely accepted explanation for the origin of
life is the Big Bang Theory. This theory states that
life
began within a singularity. A singularity is
essentially a
black hole, which is the complete absence of space and
time.
From this singularity came a massive eexplosion randomly
creating elements and compounds one after another
expanding
outward creating space as it went along. Looking at
this
theory, Spinoza’s philosophies fit it most adequately.
Consider then that if all things came of the same
substance,
that all things must be the same substance at its core,
specifically atoms and philotes. If we look at the
universe
as an ever expanding sentient being, then we are just
small
pieces of that expansion. Philotes theoretically being
smaller than the atom itself, they are what connects all
things to one another, some stronger than others. We
see
sometimes that the connection between sisters, or mother
and
child, can lead to cases of intuition where one knows
what
has happened to other before they are told. This is
because
of that philotic connection. People that “fall in love”
seem to have some sort of connection as well that is
beyond
explanation, but that explanation is that they truly are
connected. Just as humans become attached to pets or
objects for sentimental reasons, these connections are
really made and are made constantly everyday. When we
become ‘close’ to anything, we are sending out these
philotes that bind us to the other substance. Within
this
frame of thought, we see that everything that Spinoza
said
regarding the existence of God beautifully coincides
with
what is now theorized to be scientifically true.
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