Monday, May 30, 2011

Competition

Competition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two or more parties strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For example, animals compete over water supplies, food, and mates, etc. Humans compete for water, food, and mates, though when these needs are met deep rivalries often arise over the pursuit of wealth, prestige, and fame. Business is often associated with competition as most companies are in competition with at least one other firm over the same group of customers.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Eternalism (philosophy of time)

Eternalism (philosophy of time)

Eternalism is a philosophical approach to the ontological nature of time, which takes the view that all points in time are equally "real", as opposed to the presentist idea that only the present is real.[1] Modern advocates often take inspiration from the way time is modeled as a dimension in the theory of relativity, giving time a similar ontology to that of space (although the basic idea dates back at least to McTaggart's B-Theory of time, first published in The Unreality of Time in 1908, only 3 years after the first paper on relativity). This would mean that time is just another dimension, that future events are "already there", and that there is no objective flow of time. It is sometimes referred to as the "Block Time" or "Block Universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block",[2] as opposed to the view of the world as a three-dimensional space modulated by the passage of time.

Time: Two Viewpoints

Two contrasting viewpoints on time divide many prominent philosophers. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Sir Isaac Newton subscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time.[3][4] Time travel, in this view, becomes a possibility as other "times" persist like frames of a film strip, spread out across the time line. The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events. This second view, in the tradition of Gottfried Leibniz[5] and Immanuel Kant,[6][7] holds that time is neither an event nor a thing, and thus is not itself measurable nor can it be travelled.

Temporal measurement has occupied scientists and technologists, and was a prime motivation in navigation and astronomy. Periodic events and periodic motion have long served as standards for units of time. Examples include the apparent motion of the sun across the sky, the phases of the moon, the swing of a pendulum, and the beat of a heart. Currently, the international unit of time, the second, is defined in terms of radiation emitted by caesium atoms (see below). Time is also of significant social importance, having economic value ("time is money") as well as personal value, due to an awareness of the limited time in each day and in human life spans.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The relationship between mind and body....

The question of the relationship between mind and body as posed by Descartes, Spinoza, and others remains a fundamental debate for philosophers. In Damasio’s Error and Descartes’ Truth, Andrew Gluck constructs a pluralistic response to the work of neurologist Antonio Damasio. Gluck critiques the neutral monistic assertions found in Descartes’ Error and Looking for Spinoza from a philosophical perspective, advocating an adaptive theory—physical monism in the natural sciences, dualism in the social sciences, and neutral monism in aesthetics.


Damasio's Error and Descartes' Truth: An Inquiry into Consciousness, Metaphysics, and Epistemology

Mind/Body Health: The Effects of Attitudes, Emotions, and Relationships (4th Edition)

Saturday, May 21, 2011

PhilosophyTweet is Free on Twitter

PhilosophyTweet is free to followers on Twitter.

The Oracle at @PhilospphyTweet:

The philosophers at PhilosophyTweet are advisers to the intelligent. Many of our clients and followers are high net worth individuals around the world.

PhilosophyTweet goes beyond saving time and money, guiding people to the rich experience of a happy life.

Our advice is prized because good decisions always make us better off. Wisdom is worth more than gold.

It is not uncommon for us to meet with a client 5-10 hours a month. They pay us out of a percentage of their assets at a rate of around $300 an hour. This is the hourly figure we charge.

Telos:
For speaking engagements we charge $20,000 per event. This is reasonable when you consider public figures are paid considerably more but have nothing of substance to say.

20 hour Seminars are limited to groups of 10 people at a rate of $2000 per person.

You can reach us by direct message on Twitter by following @PhilosophyTweet.


Friday, May 20, 2011

What PhilosophyTweet is reading over the Weekend:

Hopes and Prospects, Noam Chomsky: http://amzn.to/mePJ4x

Ethics, Efficiency and the Markets, Allen Buchanan
http://amzn.to/lIFpvP

Staying ahead of the curve, Soros
http://amzn.to/jGLXKn

Monday, May 16, 2011

What People are Reading

Philosophers are clicking on ads on our blogs and buying books. We use the revenue to build the anti-library. We haven't been recommending books but this is what they are buying:

Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe
http://amzn.to/lGdjdj

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
http://amzn.to/lxyuQX

During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity, and a total involvement with life.-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
http://amzn.to/kfEOyE

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,by David Hume:
http://amzn.to/mJkhjC

Friday, May 13, 2011

Perfection

Whence it follows that God is absolutely perfect, since perfection is nothing but magnitude of positive reality, in the strict sense, setting aside the limits or bounds in things which are limited. -Liebniz

What We Call God

This is why the ultimate reason of things must lie in a necessary substance, in which the differentiation of the changes only exists eminently as in their source; and this is what we call God. -Liebniz