November 26, 2020
[Beginning of recorded material]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So in metaphysical inversion, that’s the idea, continuing from last session, I was in correspondence with a Christian professor friend. He recommended reading “Letters on Humanism” by Heidegger.
As I read through some comments and the essay through the day, I wrote an article for the day. Yesterday, I posited something. I’ve had called it, something like universal metaphysical inversalization, because Heidegger in that article or the lengthy article, “Letters on Humanism” talks about the reverse of a metaphysical statement is still a metaphysical statement.
He is critiquing Sartre because Sartre is positing Existentialism as a form of Humanism, not only Humanism or the only Humanism, but a form of Humanism. I think it is wrong. So, I also think Heidegger is wrong because I think that you can basically have an operation, which, I think is probably novel.
Where, basically, universally, you can take a metaphysical statement now and make an inverse of it. So, basically, you evoke a stomach and then you just squeeze it out so that the innards of the stomach are on the outside now.
Basically, it’s like physicalizing what was seen as the metaphysical.
Rick Rosner: So, can you give an example?
Jacobsen: Yes, I checked titles of the stuff. It isn’t around. So, the idea would be something like… first as an analogy, I’ll give an example. So, the analogy, the infinities that were seen before, the majesty of God, the Heavens.
Those were infinite to more original people. I think it’s a fair statement. However, I think we what can say is that it turned out to be the case is that it’s an apparent infinity, which is a big finite.
Rosner: So hold on, because that brings up a question where, like the gods that we’re used to, the God we’re used to, the Christian, Jewish…
Jacobsen: God of Abraham and Isaac.
Rosner: Yes. That God is infinite in power.
Jacobsen: I would go even better than that. He has a series of attributes theologians give him. Omnibenevolence, omniscience, and, say, anything like this. He’s omni-infinite. He’s infinite in all relevant properties.
Rosner: Yes. Now, the Greek and Roman gods, they weren’t monotheist. No, there were a shitload of them and they include gods that were infinite in power or whatever else?
Jacobsen: They had ideas like the Fates. But I don’t think that was kind of…
Rosner: Is a God with infinite power… how common is that?
Jacobsen: Right now, right now, over half the world, easily.
Rosner: Right. But when you look at all the different religions, did anybody have a modest God who only had enough power to create the world? That wasn’t that much power.
Jacobsen: Yes. The Descartian gods, Spinoza and Einstein, the Pantheist god, or some of the Founding Fathers, the Hellenistic polytheistic pantheon, some of the Hindu gods, they do creation stuff. A lot of the Native American myths, they have capital C “Creator,” they call them.
There is the Vancouver School of Theology. They, basically, have some people who are Aboriginal or Indigenous, and they talk in the manner of the Christian God and Creator as the same, where there was God’s providence.
There is the hope. There was a purpose of bringing together a literate people, Europeans and oral people, First Nations. The way in which it happened was evil. But in “God’s providence,” it’s going to be right in the best of all possible worlds.
So, there is a lot of that around, “Yes,” Parochial gods, powerful but finite gods.
Rosner: Because we’re used to thinking of God as infinite.
Jacobsen: Infinite in all relevant attributes, I would say. It’s not just the beyond apex conceivable of all relevant traits. But, “We are like God.” So, they extend human attributes to that God.
So, knowing that’s a human attribute of being in a space, that’s a human attribute, being outside of time rather than in time, so infinite in temporality in a way by being outside of it. Self-existing, so, it’s better than him because every human being is contingent on so many different things, including each other, or God is non-contingent.
That’s just stealing from Aristotle arguing about Forms and having the final form as God, so it’s common, is prevalent. Even if there is an infinite God like a creator God, it might just be in that one attribute.
But it’s not in an omni-infinite way or it’s in all sorts of different things. So, I think the analogy there is with the idea that we have about what are claimed as infinities are really large finites in a real world, not in some imaginary world.
Also, you can then extend that to this operation. So, you just, basically, invert the guts of metaphysical statements, even by prominent people like Heidegger, who made a mix of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche into a formalized philosophy of being and time, and so on.
I think he’s wrong on a number of levels. So, an example that arose in the correspondence is the idea that, even if “A equals B” is a statement, “Yes,” the reversal of that is just a reversal in presentation: “B equals A.”
So, that’s just a reversal of metaphysical statements. So, yes, Heidegger might be correct. In that, on Humanism, to state both, Sartre’s reverse of a metaphysical statement. It’s just another metaphysical statement.
But if you have an inversion, in other words, make the innards or the guts, the outer shell, then you have a different situation. I named the operation “Universal Metaphysical Inversalization.”
It’s like a universal acid for metaphysical statements, which would mean that which appear to be metaphysical but are truly physical and putting ‘physical’ in air quotes to have more general applicability to natural or informational, to make it more relevant.
Rosner: Ok, that makes sense. But can you give me a sentence that works like that?
Jacobsen: Yes. So, I’m going to read out, and again; this would not be getting rid of the magic or the power of formerly metaphysical statements like “consciousness.” It’s not meant as a magic property, but has a certain — not powerful in the way other words are powerful to as claims of the world — power to us.
So, something that would be metaphysical will physicalize either absolutely or probabilistically to the point of asymptotic certainty. This’ll be something making us somewhat more scientific.
He (Heidegger) talks about Being as if there is a certain process, metaphysics as this undivided base, but it seems like two properties on the face as one. Then it’s reified into an infinite circular.
So, it’s both to exist or to be, and an existing being. So, there is both existence and time in existence. So, it’s not one concept, really. It’s two separate things as to be properly divided existence, as opposed to non-existence temporality — as opposed to atemporality or non-temporality.
So, by separating that, you can then throw that paint up against the canvas of what we know about existence and time. So, it’s not a reverse of these things. It’s inverting it so that you come to basically more concretized forms of ideas, so it’s not filled.
So, he has this idea of being in time and it’s like the everything is being, but then time is a severe concept alongside that. So, he’s talking like he thinks philosophy is metaphysics and metaphysics is philosophy.
So, characterized as philosophical being, philosophical time, when you’re deriving from this process is natural philosophical existence and natural philosophical temporality. The latter, natural philosophical temporality or scientific time, is, basically, built into the principles of existence, as we call them, or the laws of nature, where you see something like the second law of thermodynamics tied to the arrow of time as in an actual temporality.
That’s the physical whizzing out of the metaphysical.
And so by doing that, you both nullify the definitions of metaphysics and the physical in that way, the metaphysical and physical in that way, into an extended sense of what we mean by the physical, but by concretizing what we mean by the metaphysical.
Because you’re tying it to that which is; then if you’re going to define anything that it’s not, then you use that which we know about the reality via science, then you pass what we know about reality through those, and then you use the negation of those as the nothing of those as in an actual nothing as opposed to a no-content nothing.
Nothing that’s not defined with respect to that which is and isn’t. Yes, so, to get a proper nothing, you have to define what isn’t, to define what is, and what is given to us by nature, philosophy, or science.
So, Universal Metaphysical Inversalization would take metaphysical statements, invert them, concretize them, and then give you a proper framework for them. It can be done even down to psychology where you don’t get absolute truths about consciousness, but you do get an asymptote to certainty about the physical process of these metaphysical statements.
So, consciousness is not a magical property running around in a flesh and bone body. You get neural correlates of consciousness that give a very strong indication that the brain is the seat of what’s going on or running or processing through time.
So, that’s a way you get to that place and you can have no absolute knowledge of consciousness, but you get this asymptote to certainty that you can sit relatively comfortably where you’re not. It’s so you’re dealing with metaphysics when it comes to even consciousness or existence.
Rosner: Sounds like what you are saying is that a good durable metaphysical statement comes as close as possible to physical description of what’s going on.
Jacobsen: That would be the first step. Yes, basically, you can then extend what we even mean by physical, so that the whole question, “Is it metaphysical, or is it physical?”, or just even the questions; it’s beyond those questions.
So, for instance, we talk about the physical. It, by definition, is something connected to the body, of the senses.
Rosner: The metaphysics has to hew, has to stick closely like a coat of paint to the physics of the thing.
Jacobsen: Yes, it’s more general than physical as material. Because it’s a building off there, but objectifying things. Then beyond that, you have a natural, where you, basically, are saying there is no magic.
There is no divine figure coming in and helping you with your spelling bee because you prayed for it, or the informational. I think it’s a more modern view, which, again, we’re not claiming computers are doing metaphysical processes. Therefore, we cannot claim human beings are either.
So, it’s either something like a universal acid or an asymptotic acid where there might be some areas in which it doesn’t quite work in an inalienable way. But in general, I think this is a way in which the whole question about discipline, titles, and domains might not be appropriate.
So, it might not be metaphysics. It might be… I don’t know what the term would be because I don’t think when we’re talking about these things, we’re making much sense in a modern context because you’re talking about mentation.
You’re talking about just your senses coming in from the world. The brain is caged in the world and the processes, the objects that are in mind. They’re about the world, the relationships, about each other, about things.
They’re both the world. So, it’s not about anything else. There is no invocation of anything transcendent. So, that, by definition, isn’t metaphysical, but it’s thought to be. That’s the problem. That’s why I think this process of thinking, this preparation, helps clarify that and actually extends some thinking.
Rosner: Okay.
Jacobsen: So, there we go. So, theology is dead and what we think is metaphysics isn’t metaphysics. That’s a lot for one night.
Rosner: Ok. All right, tomorrow?
Jacobsen: Yes, please.
[End of recorded material]
Authors[1]
American Television Writer
(Updated July 25, 2019)
*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.*
According to some semi-reputable sources gathered in a listing here, Rick G. Rosner may have among America’s, North America’s, and the world’s highest measured IQs at or above 190 (S.D. 15)/196 (S.D. 16) based on several high range test performances created by Christopher Harding, Jason Betts, Paul Cooijmans, and Ronald Hoeflin. He earned 12 years of college credit in less than a year and graduated with the equivalent of 8 majors. He has received 8 Writers Guild Awards and Emmy nominations, and was titled 2013 North American Genius of the Year by The World Genius Directory with the main “Genius” listing here.
He has written for Remote Control, Crank Yankers, The Man Show, The Emmys, The Grammys, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He worked as a bouncer, a nude art model, a roller-skating waiter, and a stripper. In a television commercial, Domino’s Pizza named him the “World’s Smartest Man.” The commercial was taken off the air after Subway sandwiches issued a cease-and-desist. He was named “Best Bouncer” in the Denver Area, Colorado, by Westwood Magazine.
Rosner spent much of the late Disco Era as an undercover high school student. In addition, he spent 25 years as a bar bouncer and American fake ID-catcher, and 25+ years as a stripper, and nearly 30 years as a writer for more than 2,500 hours of network television. Errol Morris featured Rosner in the interview series entitled First Person, where some of this history was covered by Morris. He came in second, or lost, on Jeopardy!, sued Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? over a flawed question and lost the lawsuit. He won one game and lost one game on Are You Smarter Than a Drunk Person? (He was drunk). Finally, he spent 37+ years working on a time-invariant variation of the Big Bang Theory.
Currently, Rosner sits tweeting in a bathrobe (winter) or a towel (summer). He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, dog, and goldfish. He and his wife have a daughter. You can send him money or questions at LanceVersusRick@Gmail.Com, or a direct message via Twitter, or find him on LinkedIn, or see him on YouTube.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Founder, In-Sight Publishing
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight Publishing and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal (ISSN 2369–6885). Jacobsen works for science and human rights, especially women’s and children’s rights. He considers the modern scientific and technological world the foundation for the provision of the basics of human life throughout the world and the advancement of human rights as the universal movement among peoples everywhere.
Footnotes
[1] Four format points for the session article:
- Bold text following “Scott Douglas Jacobsen:” or “Jacobsen:” is Scott Douglas Jacobsen & non-bold text following “Rick Rosner:” or “Rosner:” is Rick Rosner.
- Session article conducted, transcribed, edited, formatted, and published by Scott.
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- This session article has been edited for clarity and readability.
For further information on the formatting guidelines incorporated into this document, please see the following documents:
- American Psychological Association. (2010). Citation Guide: APA. Retrieved from http://www.lib.sfu.ca/system/files/28281/APA6CitationGuideSFUv3.pdf.
- Humble, A. (n.d.). Guide to Transcribing. Retrieved from http://www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/Transcription%20Guide.pdf.
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