My beliefs are often found to be controversial. Not the least controversial of my ideas, are my beliefs that the Universe— The All— is eternal, necessary, perfect, and absolute.
Being eternal, the Universe spans all of time, from the past to the distant future, without ever ceasing to exist there. Being necessary, it also spans the entire spectrum of reality and ideas. The perfection of the Universe, contrary to popular belief, is beyond both bad and good, and, in fact, encompasses them both. Being absolute, the Universe harnesses both subjective preference, and objective facts.
These are important concepts to my philosophy, because they allow for a dynamic that explains both how bad things happen in a Universe composed of meaningful and purposeful events, and how we can promote those things that we consider to be good within such a Universe. Such an ideology can explain why and how the Universe has allowed for atrocities, while allowing, or even commanding, progress.
Parmenides of Elea taught a very important doctrine, which many of the Eleatics, and those who would come after them, would retain. This was the doctrine of eternalism. Parmenides, in his doctrine of eternalism, suggested that the Universe— which he referred to as a monad, a sphere with nothing outside of itself— was always constant and forever unchanging, and that our recognition of change, and of time, is an illusion. The Universe, he suggested, is eternal; it never ceases to exist in any place in time or in space. We may think the past ceases to exist, and that the future is yet to be, but Parmenides refers to such an outlook as the world of doxa, or popular opinion. He does not believe it to be the fact. Recognition of an eternal and unchanging existence he refers to as recognition of the world of aletheia, or the world of fact.
How can one readily understand the position of Parmenides, who suggests that the past and the future currently, though not presently, exist? Take a good look at the words on this page. Now, look away from the page, into the room you are in. Does the page, the contents within, cease to exist, simply because you are unaware of it as you look away? Certainly not! So it is with time. We may not be aware of its entirety, but this is no reason to suggest it isn’t always there, that it isn’t eternal. In fact, it is much more illogical to suggest that the future is our creation (though it is fun to see it, in terms of doxa, unfolding from our choices); travel always entails the prior existence of one’s destination, even if unkown. The future is no exception.
In today’s physics, we are coming to find more and more that Parmenides was correct in his fundamental assertions. Indeed, the correct model of time, according to most theoretical physicists, is the B-model of time, as proposed by Michael McTaggart. The B-model of time treats past, present, and future as always currently existing, though...
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You can find more like this on my real blog, Ambiarchy Blog, where I cover topics such as:
- Pantheism: The Belief that Nature is God
- Mutualism: The Belief in Anarchy and Cooperation
- Antapodism: The Belief in Friendship Between Humanity and Nature
... as well as other topics related to natural philosophy, natural theology, science, and history, including but not limited to:
- Witnessing Shell Theory: An Alternative Natural Cosmology
- Henogenic Volution Out-of-Everywhere: An Alternative Approach to Evolution
- Ambiarchy: An Alternative to Neo-Anarchism
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