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Note: the contents of this page as well as those which precede and follow, must be read as a continuation and/or overlap in order that the continuity about a relationship to/with the dichotomous arrangement of the idea that one could possibly talk seriously about peace from a different perspective as well as the typical dichotomous assignment of Artificial Intelligence (such as the usage of zeros and ones used in computer programming) ... will not be lost (such as war being frequently used to describe an absence of peace and vice-versa). However, if your mind is prone to being distracted by timed or untimed commercialization (such as that seen in various types of American-based television, radio, news media and magazine publishing... not to mention the average classroom which carries over into the everyday workplace), you may be unable to sustain prolonged exposures to divergent ideas about a singular topic without becoming confused, unless the information is provided in a very simplistic manner.
Let's face it, humanity has a lousy definition, accompanying practice, and analysis of peace.
One of the problems we run into as we pursue the topic of peace, is that it can mean something different to different people, who in turn may alter their interpretations in different contexts. Hence, the idea of peace can be fluid... that is, dynamic, though at times it can be quite static, or unmobile— depending on who is doing the defining and whether or not everyone goes along with it; just as is other interpretations involving political, religious and scientific thought... because human perceptions change over time. In a sense, peace and war and numerous other perceptions in music, art, etc., is very much like a person describing a flowing stream, an ocean scene, or even a dream. And yet, if we tried, we might find some recurring specificities... except that we don't often try to do so. Whereas someone may write a textbook about a given subject and describe what they believe to be recurring constants, another may provide a different list, and still another may collate a list from these two lists in order to develop what they think is a more comprehensive amalgamation to serve as a Universal rule-of-thumb... allowing the usage of some terms to be referenced as generalities instead of specificities that might be argued against. In other words they are attempting to present a compromise that everyone can agree upon... though some may adamantly refuse because they are not in charge of the offering... it is not their idea which is being considered as a sort of text-book standard.
In so many cases we find that ideas are not valued as highly when mathematics is applied because mathematics is used as a standard by which a superior valuation of truth is believed to occur. But, the measure of valuation is dependent on what type of mathematics is used. Yet, mathematics is but a type of language, a type of communication that has become favored in many instances, over words... because words are said to be too general, too variable and open to too many interpretations from which a definitive sense of regularity, prediction and control can be achieved. However, in the hands of some mathematicians, mathematics is an art merely interpreted as a science by those whose perceptions are attached to such a perch... allowing them to parrot what is said and thus enabling them to create the conditions of a social echo amongst like-minded peers who persuade others (like politicians and Nobel Prize Committee members), into believing they are in the presence of an inviolable standard they should be associated with by giving out an award... thus initiating a type of "greatness by association", which is a dichotomous derivative of the old "guilty by association" idea.
But let's say we all got together and decided to define peace in a uniform way. For example, let us interpret the need for the removal of poverty the world over. In fact, let us imaginatively view the situation in terms of everyone become a millionaire... and no one had more millions than any one else. Quite possibly we would perceive that no one would have to work, thus all public services would be without workers. There would be no grocery clerks nor professionals such as lawyers, because no one could sue another person to have more money then everyone else. Nor could they own any greater assets such as buildings, property, jewels, etc... However, in another scenario, let us say that peace would be defined by total Universal health care the world over that required no "middle man" insurance companies and that everyone participated in paying for medical costs that could not exceed the ability of the general population's minimum wage that forced them to choose between healthcare and other living expenses.
Yet, let us go a step further in our considerations and say that peace is to be defined by having no crime, no military activity, no spy agencies, no poverty, a universal healthcare operation, a guaranteed income, Universal shelter accommodations, universal transportation and anything else which would service basic needs... and those basic needs would be defined by the whole of society via a national and international referendum.
With all such provisions, would there be peace? Would the presence of an Actual Democracy as opposed to the many phony formulas being played out, help to insure peace? Would the absence of all disease? How about if there was a world mandate that all people would be eligible for training and or education to insure employment... if employment was their goal... or if their goal was merely for acquiring more knowledge? How about forcing all those who are enabled to generate money, have the money distributed equally amongst everyone... particularly when it is noted that most people who have larger personal accounts do not provide jobs. They simply want to make as much money as they can and keep it for themselves. Most wealth very often is little more than a means to make more wealth with or without creating conditions for others to acquire wealth. If they can make more money by providing employment they will do so or if they can make more money by not providing employment, they will then do this. Their drive to make more money is not tied to assisting humanity improve. They could care less how many get hurt or killed, just so long as they don't have to see the pain and/or destruction and the cause is not linked back to them.
How is its possible for the world to have peace, if the idea of peace is rarely if ever thought of as a foremost goal instead of money, property, power or some specialized award... and peace itself is viewed as a rewardable item, depending on one or another interpretation of activities thought to represent efforts for establishing peace, yet peace is being viewed as some sort of social Olympics event... with the Nobel Peace Prize as the Gold medal that will again be awarded at some other social occasion that can be created by way of intentional social manipulation because it is a tool that can be used to establish a form of communication for others to participated in such as charitable, educational, financial, infrastructure, agricultural and other services?
Let us also ask whether peace is based on a cognitive structure inclined towards a universal commonality, or does it require a specific form of training in order to think about, though the training for some occurs by way of personal experiences? Do most people think of peace in a very naive way, though we ourselves might view it as a desirable common sense? Is peace little more than an absence of war, though some might want to infer that it can mean other things as well— such as a lack of suffering, lack of poverty, lack of hunger, etc...? If peace is a simple state of being, than we must recognize that it is insufficient in addressing other social needs which can not be attached to it... though we could do so. Likewise, the situation of war can be defined simply as an occurrence of human destruction and death created by one or more persons, though the involvement of many persons attached to a governing body is most typical. Despite the fact that an organized armed force can declare a war on a nation, group or even activity such as drugs, an agency of a government or even a private group may claim that it is conducting a (war) campaign against poverty, homelessness, spouse battering, elderly exploitation, child abuse, etc...
When we acknowledge that one or another definition of peace does not lead us into the realm of sustained peace, we rightly come to question the definition... that is if a sustained and universal peace is our goal instead of using the occasions of peace as intermittent conversation pieces set between periods of war to permit less physically aggressive people to participate in some contributory social function. If there was no one to speak of or strive for peace, those whose interests were tied to war would not be able to take a break from their activities. There could be no social gatherings of people in clean uniforms to stand around like chickens in a barnyard at a watering hole or feeding trough ever vigilant of the embroidered tattoo reminders of a pecking order which their mates participate in as well. In other words, let us again remark that neither peace nor war are sustained events. Like the void of space which dwarfs the presence of planetary bodies and debris, peace and war are recurring exceptions and not the rule of a sustained presence. Hence, there is a three-way alliance consisting of peace/war and the void... in which neither peace nor war occur, yet many of us might define the absence of war as peace and the absence of a self-defined peace as a situation of war or war-like conditions.
Interestingly, we do not define peace as an absence of dying, though an absence of a particular death may thus be considered at a given moment... such as at the loss of someone or thing that creates a condition of sorrow and despair that are defined as an absence of peace. Yet, such sorrow and despair are personal experiences which are not experienced by everyone at the same moment... if at all, though a few might experience a moment of empathy or sympathy. In other words, there is a lack of universality to pain, sorrow, joy, happiness, peace, war, etc... In fact, any sense of "universality" is arbitrary. For example, if there exists other sentient life elsewhere in the universe, those on Earth do not feel their experiences, at least we don't think we do... unless there exists an unrecognized link amongst all things that we are unaware of, though some may think all things are connected even if we have difficulty in appreciating the link and communication between. But, metaphysical considerations aside, peace on Earth does not mean the same thing to everyone, and no doubt means something different to those experiencing the same event in the same place in time. Whereas we may defer the definition to some social authority, those who go along with the definition may do so because they share in the same kind of general ignorance. In fact, there may be many in a public who are quite aware of how arbitrary the definition of peace can be... just like the definition of beauty or truth.
When we say something is "peaceful", what are we describing to suggest it is "full" of peace? Can peace be half-full or a quarter-full, or some other extraneous measurement? Does an attempted analysis actually take away from a condition of peace, or help us to better appreciate how tenuous it is? Though an analysis of peace taking place when someone makes a general statement of a situation exhibiting a "peacefulness" may disturb their peace, the overall condition of peace may not at all be interrupted. Hence, let us ask whether peace exists inside, outside or both places of an object, person or situation. In such a view, "peace" is not owned by humanity. It does not depend on nor require human interpretation... and thus may be something that differs considerably from that being described by human consciousness— acting as a translating device.
In speaking of peace, in terms of an analysis, we need to differentiate that circumstance which can... but does not have to be... related to humanity. As such, it is of need to note that peace can occur without the presence of humanity and therefore can exist without a human label. But what then is it if we do not use the label "peace"? Indeed, what then is "Heaven" (or hell) if such "places" are not dependent on a human label? And if they are not dependent on a human label, may be humanity can be (or is) irrelevant. If we do not use human language to describe Heaven, Hell, War, Peace, Beauty, etc..., does mathematics afford us a clearer picture thereof? How about the language of music? How does one describe Heaven, Hell, Beauty, Peace, Truth, Beauty, Justice, Democracy, etc., with music or mathematics... or that which can not be perceived by any presently designed human senses?
If a state of calmness or defined tranquility is to be used to define peace, and their opposites to define war, are we to further assume that Heaven is a state of peace and Hell is a state of war? Are we thus using simplistic forms of association and correlation to illustrate inferences which may have no basis in fact... but is based on a suppositional line of reasoning born from the usage of a dichotomously oriented cognition? Then again, can we assume that an enhanced form of thinking is the usage of a tripartite formula, even though such formulas may exhibit an inherent dichotomy such as the "Major Premise/Minor Premise"-Conclusion setup in which an oppositional takes an initial precedence over the inclusion of a third part; thus presenting us with the situation which suggests the mind which created this idea was predominantly focused on a pattern-of-two profile transitioning towards the inclusion of a developing third part?... Such as in the case where early life forms grew from one Germ layer, followed by "advanced" life forms using two Germ layers followed by those life forms such as humanity (and worms), which grow from three Germ layers? Surely the developing brain of humanity might well express its own developmental stages by way of expressed ideas... and that not all brains simultaneously exhibit a clear one, two, three developmental distinction exhibited in a person's thoughts. In other words, just because human physiology uses three Germ layers doesn't mean this "third" staging effect is automatically endowed in everyone's brain from the womb onward... in little need of further developmental maturation.
As such, the concept of peace/war may not be an expression of a higher order of conceptualization, but of a lower order in need of development. Likewise, though many perceive the concept of a singular universal god as being superior to the old idea of multiple gods, this does not mean it is not an idea born in the mind of a primitive brain undergoing a transitional phase of development that other brains experiencing a similar phase of development have clasped on to... without realizing they are simply perpetuating an idea representing an early stage of brain development. As with religion, we find the same effort in politics and science philosophies... to establish some Universality (like the "GUT" and "TOE" theories of Physics: Grand Unified Theory, Theory Of Everything), without thinking of these as expressions of a cognition being subjected to a changing environment effecting a "fusion" of mental activity.
This "fusion" is incrementally taking place in the form of the Sun's three "Moments" (dawn, noon, dusk) "expanding" closer to the Earth as the Sun enlarges and the Earth's rotation slows, though the effect can as well be seen as an opposite reaction to the expansions of the Moon as it recedes from the Earth and the expansion of the galaxy in an expanding Universe. The notion of "opposite and equal reaction" comes from Newton's third (of three) laws of motion. The inclination of human consciousness to seek some "Universality" that we can refer to as fusion, is like the perturbation or deviation of a planet gives a tale-tell sign of something causing it, just as early astronomers deduced when trying to interpret planetary movements that could only be explained by the existence of another planetary body. The activities of humans can be viewed as (fluctuating) perturbations or deviations (eccentricities). And two of these activities are peace and war whose peculiarities of deviation have not as yet been schematically/graphically portrayed. In other words, human bodies are "bodies" and an increased population(s) changes the mass, speed and direction of movement that can interact with other "bodies". The idea of deviation can be easily viewed in an excerpt from the Britannica's Student Library from the Astronomy article:
Up to the 18th century people knew of seven bodies, besides Earth, that moved against the background of the fixed stars. These were the Sun, the Moon, and the five planets that are easily visible to the unaided eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Then, in 1781, William Herschel, a German-born English organist and amateur astronomer, discovered a new planet, which became known as Uranus.  Uranus' motion did not follow the exact path predicted by Newton's theory of gravitation. This problem was happily resolved by the discovery of an eighth planet, which was named Neptune. Two mathematicians, John Couch Adams and Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier, had calculated Neptune's probable location, but it was the German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle who located the planet, in 1846. Even then some small deviations seemed to remain in the orbits of both planets. This led to the search for yet another planet, based on calculations made by the U.S. astronomer Percival Lowell. In 1930 the U.S. astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered the object that became known as Pluto. Pluto is an icy body that is smaller than Earth's Moon. The mass of Pluto has proved so small—about 1/500 of Earth's mass—that it could not have been responsible for the deviations in the observed paths of Uranus and Neptune. The orbital deviations, however, had been predicted on the basis of the best estimates of the planets' mass available at that time. When astronomers recalculated using more accurate measurements taken by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1989, the deviations "disappeared." For some 75 years astronomers considered Pluto to be the solar system's ninth planet. This tiny distant body was found to be unusual for a planet, however, in its orbit, composition, size, and other properties. In the late 20th century astronomers discovered a group of numerous small icy bodies that orbit the Sun from beyond Neptune in a nearly flat ring called the Kuiper belt. Many of Pluto's characteristics seem similar to those of Kuiper belt objects. Several of those objects, especially Eris, are roughly the same size as Pluto. In 2006 the International Astronomical Union, the organization that approves the names of celestial objects, removed Pluto from the list of planets. Instead, it made Pluto the prototype of a new category of objects, called dwarf planets. Pluto is also considered one of the larger members of the Kuiper belt and a plutoid (a dwarf planet that is farther from the Sun than Neptune is, on average.) Source: "Astronomy." Britannica Student Library. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, 2013. |
But let us provide a review of Newton's three laws of motion.... along with Kepler's three laws of planetary motion which assisted Newton in developing his law of gravity for bodies and systems, of which humans and their populations are subject to due to changes in composition of mass, speed and direction acting on other smaller human systems within a larger system and still larger ones... like concentric epicycles seen as waves emerging from an object dropped into a pool of water which would startle some if they witnessed spoke-like emissions instead, or the motions were reversed or appeared as ellipsis:
Newton's first law states that, if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force. This postulate is known as the law of inertia. The law of inertia was first formulated by Galileo Galilei for horizontal motion on Earth and was later generalized by René Descartes. Before Galileo it had been thought that all horizontal motion required a direct cause, but Galileo deduced from his experiments that a body in motion would remain in motion unless a force (such as friction) caused it to come to rest. Newton's second law is a quantitative description of the changes that a force can produce on the motion of a body. It states that the time rate of change of the momentum of a body is equal in both magnitude and direction to the force imposed on it. The momentum of a body is equal to the product of its mass and its velocity. Momentum, like velocity, is a vector quantity, having both magnitude and direction. A force applied to a body can change the magnitude of the momentum, or its direction, or both. Newton's second law is one of the most important in all of physics. For a body whose mass m is constant, it can be written in the form F = ma, where F (force) and a (acceleration) are both vector quantities. If a body has a net force acting on it, it is accelerated in accordance with the equation. Conversely, if a body is not accelerated, there is no net force acting on it. Newton's third law states that when two bodies interact, they apply forces to one another that are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. The third law is also known as the law of action and reaction. This law is important in analyzing problems of static equilibrium, where all forces are balanced, but it also applies to bodies in uniform or accelerated motion. The forces it describes are real ones, not mere bookkeeping devices. For example, a book resting on a table applies a downward force equal to its weight on the table. According to the third law, the table applies an equal and opposite force to the book. This force occurs because the weight of the book causes the table to deform slightly so that it pushes back on the book like a coiled spring. Source: "Newton's laws of motion." Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, 2013.In astronomy and classical physics, the three laws of planetary motion describe the motions of the planets in the solar system. They were derived by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, whose analysis of the observations of the 16th-century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe enabled him to announce his first two laws in the year 1609 and a third law nearly a decade later, in 1618. Kepler himself never numbered these laws or specially distinguished them from his other discoveries. Kepler's three laws of planetary motion can be stated as follows:
Knowledge of these laws, especially the second (the law of areas), proved crucial to Sir Isaac Newton in 1684–85, when he formulated his famous law of gravitation between Earth and the Moon and between the Sun and the planets, postulated by him to have validity for all objects anywhere in the universe. Newton showed that the motion of bodies subject to central gravitational force need not always follow the elliptical orbits specified by the first law of Kepler but can take paths defined by other, open conic curves; the motion can be in parabolic or hyperbolic orbits, depending on the total energy of the body. Thus, an object of sufficient energy—e.g., a comet—can enter the solar system and leave again without returning. From Kepler's second law, it may be observed further that the angular momentum of any planet about an axis through the Sun and perpendicular to the orbital plane is also unchanging. Source: "Kepler's laws of planetary motion." Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, 2013.(Newton's law of gravitation is a) statement that any particle of matter in the universe attracts any other with a force varying directly as the product of the masses and inversely as the square of the distance between them. In symbols, the magnitude of the attractive force F is equal to G (the gravitational constant, a number the size of which depends on the system of units used and which is a universal constant) multiplied by the product of the masses (m1 and m2) and divided by the square of the distance R: F = G(m1m2)/R2. Isaac Newton put forward the law in 1687 and used it to explain the observed motions of the planets and their moons, which had been reduced to mathematical form by Johannes Kepler early in the 17th century. Source: "Newton's law of gravitation." Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, 2013. |
A "force" acting on a "body" can be restated as "peace or war" acting on a "person or population"... though some may want to define the "force" as a result and not necessarily as a cause. No less, the force and reaction changes due to the mass, speed and direction of a given population... and may be viewed as "population dynamics" or "population ecology" (applied to human affairs), though we could alternatively enlist the ideas of "population economics", "population psychology", etc..., as part of a larger philosophy of consideration. However, peace and war may be viewed more along the lines of being variables than a set figure of any computational formula... because those involved in attempting to create an equation do not have a grasp of peace and war as an example of a recurring cognitive pattern such as a dichotomy... only because they have not been able to observe the occurrence of other cognitive categories such as monads, trichotomies, quadrads, etc..., in a conserved set related to an incrementally deteriorating planet.
If peace and war are a "real dichotomy" in that it represents an example of an actual model of a pattern-of-two related to human cognition, then it can be included as a set value and not only as a variable, though the set value, like other enumerated values, have their own variability which deviates from the mean by way of illustration (for example, as "two apples" instead of "two oranges"), but the underlying "two" pattern remains the same. However, if the dichotomy is an artificialized one, then the 1 + 1 does not equal 2, as in the case of a binomial related in terms of a digital, as opposed to an analog configuration. In other words one or both of the "1's" equals zero or some other value whose variability and thus predictability as well as applicability seems undiscernible or even chaotic because the attempts to identify a pattern is being associated to an inapplicable model. Hence the need for introducing other types of models into an analysis of peace (and war). The usage of the incorrect model tends to force the usage of an equation which does not work well and causes frustration to the point that such a discussion is either irrelevant or fraught with too many infinitesimals that only a dedicated super-computer might be able to unravel and identify a pattern... that is if humans are even able to input all the data... regardless if it is defined as superfluous or unimportant.
However, is it possible to program a computer to recognize a pattern that is difficult for humans to readily see because the typical perceptions are distracted by other patterns that may or may not play a part? For example, a mathematician may claim to see "mathematics in everything", does not mean they actively do so or that such mathematics is of value to be put into usage, other than as an intellectual diversion. No less, a musician may claim nature is one big symphony yet having never heard by bits and pieces thereof themselves. And other perspectives centered on a given subject may likewise describe all of existence from their vantage point within the context of the jargon or language characteristic of their subject genre; but be unable to actually describe the "universal equation" to which they claim. In other words, they speak of a whole but are only able to illustrate a part, thus providing others with a statement they can not prove except for suggesting an existence that may need some other words or symbols or subject matter in order for a larger picture to be seen, symphony to be heard, or formula to provide a concise deduction. Because peace and war are for the most part typically aligned with general descriptions which use the other as supporting evidence and thus definition for themselves, the two together or apart may well be a crude image of a crude activity that has become traditionalized into that which no one doubts the existence of or can ever come to alter the structure of... or much less, remove them as viable expressions of human conduct.
Date of Origination: Monday, 10-April-2017... 03:47 AM
Date of initial posting: Tuesday, 11-April-2017... 2:09 PM
Updated posting: Saturday, 31-March-2018... 12:55 PM