Occam’s Razor

“Occam’s Razor” by H. Whitver

 

we like simple things
simple rationale for war
simpler yet for peace

reductionist thought
shaves away all the puzzling
hard metaphysics

but problems arise
when the simplest formulas
turn out to be wrong

“no” is so easy
while “yes” affirms commitment
entailing some work

beware the straight line
without testing his razor
may lead you to doom

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)

 

Time Before Time

 

“Planetary Plasmas” by Richard Ortolano

 

a lone singularity

infinite density

temporal spatial

dimensions as yet

nonexistent sheer

numberless absence

of space and of place

quantum vacuum

mathematically moribund

paradox of a particulate God

life and matter ex nihilo

cunningly curvingly

dovetailed to fit relativity

bent by uncertainty

Einstein and Heisenberg

iconoclastic in neat

intellectual joinery

only to find they’ve been

rendered asunder when

come to great clash with

arcane modern notions

of lawless invisible motion

a chaos of vibrating strings

singing cyclical songs of

expansion contraction

ethereal inhales and exhales

replete cosmogenesis

parallel opposite worlds

full of opposite parallel minds

time in omni-directional course

unpredictably carried by chance

forward backward and sideways

perhaps all is ever and always

an infinite multiverse

able to procreate gravity branes

who suspend every universe

each in its own isolation

or possibly even

produce countless

self-contained bubbles

discrete of existence

expanding for all of eternity

each cosmic entity destined

to never perceive any other

yet all must perforce face

the very same question

will time before time

be resolved and revealed

by theology steeped in

a fluid forensic philosophy

or will it happen that

better-made pictures

emerge from a faith in

untamed theoretical physics

Quiddity

St Thomas Aquinas by Gentile da Fabriano

 

what am I
at my core
blank of color
and caste
unaligned
and unlabeled
without pose
and possessions
stripped of roles
and relationships

in simple
I am but
all that I think
in complex
I am also
all I believe

Agápē

Agape Love
Greek Biblical Transcription From kirbasinstitute.com

love not as emotion
but rather as motive
to act on behalf of another
to follow His earthly example
to give of oneself
sacrificially selflessly
brotherly sisterly humanly

here love is impetus
clean noble impulse
for willful extension
for joyous provision
of charity purest in form
here is rational charter
to love the unlovable

here I admit I fall short
of philosophy fall shorter
still of theology my love
is not so impartial
reserved for that segment
of my fellow men
who deserve it

Observational Theology

“Creation”
Digital Art by Jaison Cianelli
From cianellistudios.com

every last detail
speaks to the eye
shape and color
dimension and
movement the
odd transformation
the violent nature
that sometimes lays
cleave to the calm
life and death
move with tandem
persistence in
passage among
inorganic creations
though never alive
nonetheless undergo
constant change
between points of
existence demarked by
beginnings and ends

every last detail
the living and lifeless
corporeal features
comprising the
manifest quantum
the extant extinct and
the yet unrevealed
bear and share
divine intricate
patterns of purpose
remarkably evident
only to eyes who
are willing to see

Occam’s Razor

William of Ockham 1287-1347
Logician, Philosopher, Theologian

we like simple things

simple rationale for war

simpler yet for peace

 

reductionist thought

shaves away all the puzzling

hard metaphysics

 

but problems arise

when the simplest formulas

turn out to be wrong

 

“no” is so easy

while “yes” affirms commitment

entailing some work

 

beware the straight line

without testing his razor

may lead you to doom

Kant

Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804, German Philosopher
Portrait by Klaus Heinz Clasen

 

the old Jacobin
shook the foundations
eighteen centuries in their accretion
they collapsed under force
of his pounding critique
of accepted pure reason

 

then he rebuilt them strong
where they still stand erect
on progenitive, perceptive
practical reason
autonomous
in yield of morality

 

he achieved revolution
some measured Copernican
fixing man’s mind
as the sun-centered point
for ineluctable orbit
of ethical knowledge

 

he fused metaphysics
with morals in his blunt
categorical imperative
for judging motivation
and gauging the truth
of virtue in action

 

as champion of civil liberties
he ushered embrace of
constitutional means
to self-ruling republics
by the then-breaking wave
of enlightenment

 

he still shores schools of ethics,
metaphysics, theology,
logic, epistemology,
even his critics are forced
to describe what’s non-Kantian
about their own precepts

 

I confess being smitten
with this sociable prodigy
loved by his students
respected by colleagues
his legacy vastly enriches
the human condition

 

 

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”  
– Immanuel Kant, from “Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals”

 

Recommended readings:

• Critique of Pure Reason
• Critique of Practical Reason
• Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
• What is Enlightenment?