By Iraqi Post - Personal collection, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91832934
Arabic-Persian philosophy, also known as Islamic philosophy, arouse around the beginning of the 9th century CE, approximately 200 years after the death of Muhammad, continuing through the Islamic Golden Age, approximately the late 12th century CE. It began with the 'translation and interpretation of Ancient Greek philosophy', which also preserved the Greek philosopher's writings for the Western world, and then was shaped by Avincenna's 'comprehensive philosophical system'.
Early Arabic-Persian philosophy was grounded mostly in ancient Greek philosophy, primarily Aristotle and Plato's schools within the framework of Islamic revelation. Modern scholarship also seeks to tease apart the theology (kalam) and 'philosophy proper' (falsafa), with theology focused only on 'religious topics, such as proofs of the existence of God. Philosophers, on the other hand, investigated a broader range of topics, including those not directly covered by the scriptures'. Islamic philosophers were focused on 'rational inquiry and examined how to harmonize reason and revelation'.
Al-Kindi, or more fully Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī يوسف يعقوب بن إسحاق الصبّاح الكندي, who lived from 801-873 CE, is widely considered the first Arabic-Persian philosopher 'in contrast to the more theological works of his predecessors' and built off of Aristotle's works, especially 'regarding metaphysics as the first philosophy and the highest science' with 'metaphysics study[ing] the essence and attributes of God'. He argued for dualism between the immortal soul and the mortal body.
Al-Kindi was followed by al-Farabi, or more fully Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi أبو نصر محمد الفارابي, who lived from about 870-950, claimed 'that philosophy, rather than theology, is the best pathway to truth' with a focus on logic that gained him the title 'the Second Master', the first being Aristotle. He felt that 'logic is universal and forms the foundation of all language and thought, a view that contrasts with certain passages in the Quran that assign this role to Arabic grammar'. He endorsed Plato's philosopher-king ideal, though he also broke 'with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle […and…] moves from metaphysics to methodology, a move that anticipates modernity…at the level of philosophy, Farabi unites theory and practice […and] in the sphere of the political he liberates practice from theory'. He helped pave the way for Avincenna.
Avincenna, or Ibn Sīnā ابن سينا, or more fully ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn bin ʿAbdallāh bin al-Ḥasan bin ʿAlī bin Sīnā al-Balkhī al-Bukhārī أبو علي الحسين بن عبد الله بن الحسن بن علي بن سينا البلخي البخاري, lived about from 980-1037 CE, and was a philosopher and physician. He also contributed to astronomy, alchemy, psychology, logic, mathematics, geography and geology, and physics as well as leaving works of poetry. His philosophy derived from Aristotle through the Peripatetic school that encouraged members to conduct philosophical and scientific inquiries. he was educated in the Quran and multiple works of philosophy in his youth and then trained to be a physician. As with those who went before him, he sought to understand the difference between essence (māhiya ماهية) and existence (wujūd وجود), arguing that 'the fact of existence cannot be inferred from or accounted for by essence of existing things, and that form and matter by themselves cannot interact and originate the movement of the universe or the progressive actualization of existing things. Existence must, therefore be due to an agent-cause that necessitates, imparts, gives, or adds existence to an essence. To do so, the cause must be an existing thing and coexists with its effect'. In the field of psychology, Avincenna felt that souls 'as substances that give life to beings' and that all living things had souls, from plants, with the simplest through to animals, including humans, whose souls 'have additional faculties, such as the ability to move, sense, and think rationally'. He taught adherence to the teachings of the Quran was the way to achieve moral perfection.
Al-Farabi, Detail from Ara' Bhi el-Medinet al-Fâdüet, around 900 AD
“The hierarchy of these creatures first began in the lowest being, and then moved on to the higher being, and thus went up to a no higher level. The lowest entity is the first material entity to be formed, and the other entity above it is the entity made up of elements. Then comes the mineral, then the plant, then the non-speaking animal; There is no one greater than the talking animal..”
We are made of memories, a product of experience, guided by our genetically predetermined nature. Strolling through life as we get shaped by one event after another.
Like pawns in a scripted play with the universe as our theater and everyone playing their predetermined role.
Human needs & Desires:
A large portion of our behavior is based on codes written in our DNA, even though these codes can vary from human to human, they still share the basic information about survival, maintenance, desires, reproduction, as well as basic social behaviors; We can see that many of our actions are dictated to us by our genetic code; ordering us to desire, usually, the opposite sex and sexually fixate on specific shapes of the body without consciously choosing so or even understanding why. It also gives rise to many other basic behaviors and needs required for our survival. In the end, that's what makes us Humans; we share these data, and subsequently act generally the same, one way or the other.
Broader and more specific behavior differ a lot from one person to another, this can be attributed to the individual experience we were exposed to as we go through life. The vast amount of information we acquire from our surroundings while we grow up influence and shape our personalities, the further we go on the more the codes in our DNA become merely the base upon which we build our unique personalities and not the main factor. So even though we share this cornerstone of codes, we can differ a lot based on our experiences, and life events.
The DNA codes we inherit from our parents are outside of our control, therefore the cornerstone upon which our personalities are based on is not chosen by us, but rather given to us. Furthermore, the life events and the information we get from our surroundings, that further shape our personalities in details, are circumstances beyond our control, we get no say in choosing our parents, the country and place we are raised in, the socio-economic status of our family, the school we go to, the very first friends we make, and the traditions, religion and customs of our society. All of these factors have incremental effects on designing our very unique personalities. And all of these factors are never under our control, and thus, we start "choosing" according to these initial factors, and slowly start to accumulate more experience based on the results of these predetermined choices.
One can still argue that while our basic human needs are forced on us, we still act based on a bigger set of personal needs and desires that define our individualism. But this other set of needs is the result of a long chain reaction that started with the very first choice that was made based on factors outside of our control. Nothing that we want is truly “our” desire, it's rather implied to us by our circumstances to need, want, or do whatever we do.
The vast amount of information we gather from our surroundings shape our needs accordingly, a materialistic society and upbringing produces people mostly pursuing money and fame, while other societies and upbringing might influence people to seek respect and recognition. In the end, our social desires are vividly a mirror to our upbringing and social environment. A man from an uncontacted tribe won't desire a suburban house with a swimming pool, since he never saw one, and his society didn't portray it as a life goal. Same goes for a child raised 2 centuries ago who will have a completely different kind of social desires.
Eventually, our set of needs and desires we end up with when we grow up are the result of our inherited genes interacting with factors happening outside of us that are governed by circumstances of where we were born, the kind of parents we had, the school and friends we interacted with and the pop culture we were exposed to etc...
Causality:
If we take this further we can deduce that there is no room for free will. How can we entertain the notion of free will if we are the victims of causality? Our choices but a product of our accumulated circumstances. Every choice is dependent on previous interactions. We have no input in our choice making process that has not come from a past experience. We can't add anything to our choice making process that we can call our own, every choice we make has a cause.
Just as the movement of the Earth can be predicted by astronomers for hundreds of years in advance, and yet with extreme precision if they include all the influencing gravitational objects around it. So are humans. Our decisions are no different from the physical universe we live in, they are also bound by the same causality principle. Our thought process is influenced by external factors (parents, friends, events…) and internal factors (genetic traits, and body architecture…) these are the factors that shape our personality. Now how can we think that we created our personality when all of the information we have ever received to create it came from the outside world, and was processed by a brain we had nothing to do with its characteristics. What kind of traits can we call our own? That I’m intelligent? That I’m patient?
Our lives start to seem more like a chain reaction of determined events, and us as passengers in our bodies, perceiving life with no additional influence on its outcome. Our lives are but a process of cause and effect that can be predicted in its entirety by the one with the right equation to calculate all the external influencing factors we face, and the way they are processed by our specific brain.
But since no one has that ability, we subsequently feel as if we are consciously making every choice, an illusion of freewill that naturally manifests only from our perspective simply because we don't have the ability to know the processes by which we function. For if we did; we can clearly predict our predetermined path.
We enjoy free-will everyday even though we have none.
Time is just the barrier that prevents everything from unfolding instantly, preventing this chain reaction from reaching its eventual conclusion. It's there to stretch the already determined events. And we are here merely to witness these events, having no input of how they unfold, but rather playing our parts by the script. A big play designed by a creator for a purpose that eludes me.
I can't lie; I do question whether there is a purpose at all. Yet, what can be good enough to be called a purpose for such a big play involving over a hundred billion human consciousness? It might just be as pointless as I perceive it right now, considering that we cannot make free choices, but rather merely perceive our lives unfold before us.
Questioning our Creator:
Religions try to give us a purpose with the notion of heaven and hell, but even with such a system, which might not make sense if we lack a genuine free will, I still can't see a purpose in being in heaven. Hell! I don't even see a purpose for being in the first place! Why give consciousness to bodies made of blood and flesh? Why make things aware of themselves? Why give them certain desires that most of the time enslave them and leave them pursuing things in life without truly understanding if they actually want them? And for how long shall they be aware? Are we cursed to be self-aware forever after death? And even worse; aware as slaves, bound in that status for eternity, since obviously we were created by a higher entity, hence, remaining inferior forever.
These questions are all the result of the reality that shaped our minds, which is causal, time and purpose dependent, and can be greatly irrelevant in a greater reality after death.
Thinking of our creation demands me to contemplate the creation of God. I believe that asking where did god come from (Space bound thinking) or how long God has been around (time bound thinking) is me not asking the right questions. Space and time are 2 limits imposed on our minds and on our way of existence; they define the reality we live in, but doesn’t necessarily define the reality of an entity that created them. So let us ignore these 2 conditions and use a more primal aspect of the logic we have been given and let’s wonder about the causality; since causality affects everything we know about in the universe and is a basic logical structure that “makes sense” if I may say.
Hence, a more accurate question might be inquiring the causality of God; what caused such a highly intelligent entity capable of designing the universe with all its worlds and living creatures?
Following this argument leads to an endless loop: if god was created then god too is a slave to the higher entity that created it, and furthermore that higher entity is yet a slave to its creator and so on. Having no end to this loop can render the whole logical process from which we derived the question; insufficient. Perhaps the greater reality has no causal effect!
Limits of Logic:
Maybe we are simply designed to be unable to question our creator, but able to contemplate the idea to a level that satisfies our intelligence and sense of independent awareness. That way we can ignore the question and go on living without reaching an obvious rational block, but only reaching illogical answers that we can simply dismiss.
Reaching a rational block is infuriating to any intelligent life; it can reveal their logical limits and render them unable to encompass the whole truth, thus pointing to a creator and a greater reality.
We are obviously not in the greater reality, since we can easily reach a rational block when contemplating our creator. Knowing that something is not limited by time and space, oblige us to think of (excuse the conflicting language ahead):
First, a place without time: this can cause the rational block when imagining a place where no time passes by. Imagining everything frozen forever doesn’t remove time, since you’re assuming an external observer where time is still passing for them that they can notice stuff frozen for a duration of time, now remove the passage of time for that observer as well and you can feel a circuit fried in your brain. To help you a bit, having a reality with no time doesn’t mean events are frozen, quite the opposite, it means that all events happen simultaneously. Pretty much irrational.
Second, a place without space: Don’t try to think of empty space between Galaxies since it is not void of space, it's full of it. Space is the underlying fabric that allows anything to exist. The notion of empty space is like the notion of empty space in your hard disk drive inside your computer; the lack of data on it doesn't mean there is no space on the hard disk. Similarly, a place without space is a place where no data we know of can exist and will always be beyond our imaginative capability, forcing another rational block.
The Awareness:
A creator is not the only thing we can think of that can be in a place with no space and time, there's also a more familiar concept than the thought of a creator: Our consciousness!
Consciousness doesn’t require space to exist, I'm talking about the sense of awareness that perceives all of the information from the brain, and not the brain itself. This awareness uses our brain and body to interact with the world of space and time, but the sense of awareness doesn’t happen in any specific place in our brain, it doesn't take up space, and thus is not bound by it. (This was a brief conclusion that requires a longer discussion to prove itself, which is not feasible here)
It also doesn't seem to age, our body does, the sense of time is purely given to it by our brain. But the awareness that we are seems to be timeless. (again, a more detailed explanation is needed here, but you can simply ponder over the feeling of “you” from elementary school to university to right now, do you think that feeling of existence aged? Or was it merely the body which hosts you that aged?)
Here we can come to an assumption that our awareness is in the same "place/greater reality" as with God! Free of space and time.
This justifies why the scientific realm is still unable to clearly define consciousness and whether it even has physical properties or not, it’s a mystery, and indeed it is as it violates one of our core structures of logic; space, among other things as well.
We wonder about what lies outside of the universe not realizing that the awareness, which we are, has never been in it to begin with.
The edge of the Universe is not billions of light years away, the universe is infinite but it starts from our collective minds. We are at the edge of the universe! The borders between reality and the greater reality.
Further Readings and Discussions:
In the philosophical field, this note can be considered under Determinism and furthermore in the philosophical position of Hard Determinism since it eliminates free will. Having mentioned the soul and a creator the note might lean more to theological determinism which states that all events that happen are pre-ordained, or predestined to happen, by a monotheistic deity. This still doesn’t conflict with an absence of free will, but merely attribute the entire cause and effect process to be supervised and designed by God. Further discussions about the different positions of determinism are beyond the scope of this note.
The awareness, not being bound by space, might mean that it can’t be separate from another awareness. The idea shared by many of the Eastern religions and philosophies that we are all One might be pointing at that direction.
This can really alter the concept of the afterlife, it eliminates the individual experience, and suggests that we are all the same entity, and shall be conscious as one, perhaps we are no different from God rather parts of it.
Al-Farabi a renowned philosopher known as “the Second Teacher” after Aristotle adopted a similar view but left space for free will that resides in an immaterial soul that he divided into 4 faculties: “The appetitive, the sensitive, the imaginative, and the rational, which is the faculty of intellect. It is also the only part of the soul to survive the death of the body.” The first 3 are a consequence of the workings of our brain while the 4th can be considered the awareness we talked about in the note.
He writes that any individual or distinguishing features of the soul are annihilated after the death of the body; only the rational faculty survives (and then, only if it has attained perfection), it will become one with all other rational souls within the agent intellect (God) and enters a realm of pure intelligence.
The idea that the universe is a simulation or a hologram is not a far-fetched one, it does not contradict with any of the logic used above. The awareness that lies in the place free of space and time can be the link to the world where the simulation is run, with every mind plugged in to the system through it. (The movie ‘The Matrix’ offers a great representation of such a simulation) The philosophy in that movie also states that free will is impossible and that our choices have already been made, but we are here to understand why we made them.
Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.” (R. C. Henry, “The Mental Universe”; Nature 436:29, 2005)
Maya, a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy is the believe that reality which is solely created by the brain must be an illusion, and that we are essentially deceived by the brain, through its perceptions, into believing that its reality is our reality. The word Maya means illusion in their language, and that was at the heart of their philosophy.
Our awareness being free from space and time, yet our universe is not, suggests that the universe is but a grand illusion pulled upon us, and the brain is the tool that imprisons us with its perceptions.
“Our bodies are prisons for our souls. Our skin and blood: the iron bars of confinement. But fear not. All flesh decays. Death turns all to ash. And thus, death frees every soul.” -The Fountain
The more we contemplate about the essence of our existence the more bewildered we become, but I’ve never felt more alive than when I’m lost in awe over our creation.
The Seven Cups at the Pavilion of Whispering Pines
Apakah Anda memberi suara pada pemilihan pejabat politik?
The seeker climbed for three days through clouds that smelled of cedar and old rain, until the path opened onto a pavilion balanced between two cliffs like a question between two answers. Inside, an old tea master tended a small clay stove. Beside him, seven cups waited in a crescent — each empty, each patient.
“Master,” said the seeker,…
«La religión virtuosa se asemeja a la filosofía. Pues, así como la filosofía es teórica y práctica —siendo la teórica y reflexiva aquella que, cuando es conocida por el hombre, no puede ponerla en práctica, y siendo la práctica aquella que, cuando es conocida por el hombre, puede ponerla en práctica— así también es la religión. En la religión, la parte práctica es aquella cuyos universales están en la filosofía práctica; es decir, en la religión la parte práctica está constituida por aquellos universales que han sido determinados por medio de unas reglas que los delimitan, y lo que ha sido delimitado por reglas es más particular que lo que no está sujeto por reglas, como, por ejemplo, nuestra expresión: “el hombre escribiente”, que es más particular que esta otra: “el hombre”. Por tanto, todas las leyes religiosas virtuosas caen bajo los universales de la filosofía práctica. Y las demostraciones de las opiniones teóricas que hay en la religión pertenecen a la filosofía teórica, pero en la religión son aceptadas sin demostraciones.
En consecuencia, las dos partes de las que está constituida la religión están subordinadas a la filosofía, porque de una cosa se dice que es parte de una ciencia o que está subordinada a una ciencia sólo por uno de estos dos modos: o porque las demostraciones de lo que es aceptado en ella sin demostrar pertenecen a esa ciencia, o cuando la ciencia que contiene los universales es la que proporciona las causas de las particularidades que están subordinadas a ella.»
Abû Nasr al-Fârâbî: «Libro de la religión», en Obras filosóficas y políticas. Editorial Trotta, pág. 141. Madrid, 2009.
Jiwa Setelah Kematian: Perspektif Intelektual Al-Fārābī
Surau.co. Jiwa setelah kematian: perspektif intelektual Al-Fārābī menghadirkan pemikiran yang menarik tentang kesinambungan kesadaran dan peran akal dalam memahami eksistensi manusia. Dalam Risāla fī al-Nafs, Al-Fārābī menjelaskan bagaimana jiwa tidak sekadar hilang ketika tubuh mati, tetapi tetap memiliki kesinambungan melalui pengaruh intelektualnya terhadap alam dan masyarakat. Fenomena…
Etika dan Politik Jiwa: Al-Fārābī tentang Individu dan Masyarakat
Surau.co.Etika dan politik jiwa: Al-Fārābī tentang individu dan masyarakat merupakan salah satu pilar penting dalam khazanah filsafat Islam klasik. Di dalam Risāla fī al-Nafs, Al-Fārābī tidak sekadar membahas hakikat jiwa manusia, tetapi juga kaitannya dengan keteraturan sosial. Baginya, kesehatan batin seseorang tidak berhenti pada ranah pribadi. Ia akan memancar keluar, memengaruhi keluarga,…
Internal Senses: Mata Batin yang Menghubungkan Dunia dan Pikiran
Surau.co.Internal senses—mata batin yang menghubungkan dunia luar dengan ruang batin manusia—menjadi salah satu konsep penting dalam psikologi Al-Fārābī, khususnya dalam Risāla fī al-Nafs. Di sini, filsuf Muslim itu menekankan bahwa hidup manusia tidak hanya ditentukan oleh kemampuan indera fisik, tetapi juga oleh cara jiwa memproses, mengolah, dan memaknai apa yang ditangkap oleh tubuh. Fenomena…
