Importance of Philosophy

We start the discussion with an etymological introduction, exploring its Greek origin but we will go no further into historical or even modern definitions. We will remain in the origins of the richness of the notion of philosophy and will not succumb to anything less, refraining in this way from the modern deflating definitions.

All notions have a name. The name itself, if it is appropriate, carries the metaphysical meaning of the notion. The origin of the notion of philosophy is surely not Greek, it is an eternal metaphysical concept, but the word philosophy is.

Philosophy, φιλοσοφία consists of two words; φιλο (philo) which is love, attraction, affection and σοφία (sophia), which is wisdom, knowledge. Therefore, philosophy is the love, attraction towards knowledge. I would argue it is not a science itself but a ‘metascience’, a guiding feeling for anyone who desires knowledge in any discipline. It must always be present, be the starting point of all sciences. Science itself is a set of methods or means of obtaining knowledge on specific sections of life. Isn’t it true that science itself is impossible without philosophy, the desire for knowledge? Philosophy is also the basis of art, which is the exposition of internal knowledge and cognition, internal beauty exposed and put into motion. The motivation then must be the love for knowledge and desire for it to be spread. Isn’t it true that art itself is impossible without philosophy, the desire for knowledge?

Having a healthy basis must not be avoided in all explorations, actions and constructions. When we are motivated by a clean desire and attraction to wisdom, then our actions will be such that their consequences are wisdom. It is a natural phenomenon; a healthy apple has healthy seeds and its fruits will also be healthy since they are endowed with their ancestor’s health. Philosophy is the healthy ancestor of all sciences; therefore it is not a science but a ‘metascience’. It is the pleasure we feel in any true cognition which than becomes a sort of mental art piece. Philosophy contains within, as a set of its themes, all disciplines and should be the measure of all disciplines of mind and its actions, as the seed of an apple is the measure of its fruits. It is the agreement that we will be devoted exclusively to knowledge and its propagation into all areas through our actions. It should be to a scientist precisely what the Hippocrates’s pledge is to a doctor. An oath that all his actions will be founded in knowledge, based, caused and put in motion by pure knowledge. This will assure that we belong to and are the knowledge and would never go against the principles of life. This is the basis of a healthy civilization.

We return to the beginning and the Greek origin of the name, since the Greek culture was closer to the true, original state of affairs which is the metaphysical reality of life. Their names for notions, ideas, concepts were alive, as the notions themselves are. They are living within us and they can be described by none less than infinity of words for they are infinite in their nature. They never vanish, there is no absolute truth except the absolute truth of the infinite life of notions and their endless existence. All else is the play of knowledge which we must release into our world. Then, the words become vivid, knowledge is alive, present and omnipresent and it becomes our present, basis for our future. Our buildings become homes, forts, fortresses and temples of knowledge and our civilization can move forward into metaphysical revolution. For our truth is we are living on or to say through the physical revolution of our home, Earth.

On the other pole, the endless stream of knowledge is the goal of philosophy and means of destruction and deconstruction of blockages of the flow of knowledge, the metaphysical wall that allows ignorance. We are living on a sphere in Space, so we should act accordingly. We are in the Universe, that is our physical and should be our metaphysical reality.

. https://imaginary.org/hands-on/stereographic-projection-globe

Earth’s measure or measure of Earth

Once again, we begin with etymology. Philosophy starts and ends with Phi. Phi is surely one of the most popular numbers, honoured by a name referring to the highest value – the golden number. We are more interested in its interpretation than its numerical value, and this interpretation is the fractal nature of the construction which circularly is again the definition of its value. And this is the golden section, proportion, ratio, mean, altogether referring to measure. But what is measure, metaphysically? The word measure has multiple meanings. First, we must note the difference between measure and measurement. Notion of measure is the quantity of quality. From this we can get all other interpretations, varying the qualities, choosing and setting the standards of quantity.

In a non-mathematical sense, measure can be described as the assessment of importance, effect of value and measurement as a plan or course of actions taken to achieve a particular purpose based on the measure. Further, a measure is also judging by comparison and reaching the required standard, and in more negative tone, measure is scrutinizing someone in order to form an assessment of them. As we can see, this notion is deeply intertwined into our lives on many levels.

Returning to mathematics, geometry is, etymologically, Earth’s measure, but our usual usage is in expressions of size, amounts or degrees of something. The other discipline, the one dealing with actual measuring of Earth is geodesy. Here we also have a linguistic connection, since the archaic meaning of measure is to travel over a certain distance.

The question now becomes what is our measure of Earth, what is our assessment of Earth? What is our geometry, where is our knowledge of geometry on a civilizational level, if we have doubts on the shape and position of our home, of Earth? This also reflects and propagates to all our scientific disciplines and eventually enters our lives on a daily basis, when we read articles in newspapers or on the Internet about the Earth being flat. To our scientists this is a deprecated topic, they do not deal with this. And funny as it is, most proofs of the thesis as well as refutes are based on measurement, rarely do we see measure being a part of the argument. Here we see a breach of reciprocity law. On one hand, the Earth’s measure - perpetual rotation providing us with a home and possibility of life, and on the other hand our measurements of Earth and life which usually end with a desire to escape, probably from ourselves. We end with conclusion that philosophy is the golden measure of science, of life and our greatest necessity.