Hume's use of Analogy in 'Dialogues concerning Natural Religion'

Hume’s use of analogy in his ‘Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion’ seem to indicate that his understanding of the principle of analogy was based on likeness.  This is a partial view of course as he might have ascertained if he had taken a  peek at the books of metaphysics before he cast them on the fire.  Philo is taken by scholars to represent the views of Hume himself.  Analogy by him is based on:

“That a stone will fall, that fire will burn, that the earth has solidity, we have observed a thousand and a thousand times; and when any new instance of this nature is presented, we draw without hesitation the accustomed inference.  The exact similarity of the cases gives us a perfect assurance of a similar event; and a stronger evidence is never desired or sought after.”

To me this seems more like induction than analogy, a process which Hume impugned elsewhere on ‘metaphysical’ grounds.  I hope that I will not be obscure if I say that the focus for Hume was on the relata rather than the relation.  Now I am no Paleyite though I will confess to an interest in looking at youtube videos of watch repairs.  Arriving at the level of complexity of the chronometer was an evolutionary process and likely analogically counter to the thrust of the design argument for the existence of God.  In any case this has nothing to do with Philo/Hume’s understanding of analogy.  God is to the world as the watchmaker is to the watch (God:World :: Watchmaker:Watch)  It is the relation here that is suggestive and not our inductive encounters with god or gods in order to be able to claim an analogy.  Rightly understood, analogy uses a commonplace example to demonstrate a relationship that exists in the difficult to comprehend instance.

Following Hume the perfect analogy would be identity.  It is what it is.  A rose is a rose is a rose.  Contra Burns:

                O my Luve is like a red, red rose

                   That’s newly sprung in June;

                  O my Luve is like the melody

                   That’s sweetly played in tune.

 

Excess deaths in Ireland in 2020

The central statistics office in Ireland figures for all causes deaths in Ireland show a 2% increase between 2019 and 2020.  Recollect that the first case of covid death was in March 2019 and that there was a massive spike in deaths in April of that year mostly in care homes and that vaccines were not rolled out until December 29th 2019.

I wondered why the average of the previous 4 years was not given.  Excess deaths are calculated on this basis generally.  Then I remembered that 2017 was a bad flu year so there was likely an ‘early harvest’ which would account for a drop in all causes deaths in  subsequent years.

Does 2% (with qualification) sound like a pandemic of such extreme danger that  normal societal interaction was shut down for two years? 

Advaita's False Nose

 Advaita loves paradoxes.  Truth is in flagrant disguise with a false nose, an exploding cigar, and a dubious mustache.  Look closer is the watchword of the seeker.  There’s this:

“The Self which is of the nature of being always attained, does not depend on anything else in order to be acquired.  The acquisition that depends on other things (eg. effort etc.) is due to Ignorance (and so vanishes when the means to which it is due vanishes).( #6 Sankara’s ‘Upadesa Sahasri’ Chap. 17)

Magic and its vanishment or prestige is generally achieved by distraction at a crucial moment.  You are looking in the wrong place at the right time while the sleight is performed.  Thinking that this material attainment will give you completion you fall short.  Of course, as Advaita irritatingly observes, these goals are worked towards using instrumental methods and are tainted by that time bound causality.  What is always on does not have to be switched on.  It is, I am - Tat Tvam Asi - Thou Art That.

Sit, don’t chase your mind into a coruscating future.  Lapse into the glow of desiring as such.  Leave the stuff.

'I Am' - The Elephant in the Room.

 All those theories, schemas, transcendental hypothesoi and their basis is the single certain datum ‘I am’.  This is what Nisargadatta Maharaj was told to meditate continuously on by his guruji.  Ramana Maharshi became enveloped by the question ‘Who am I’.  Others with strong faith in Vedic revelation skipped that question and dwelt in the imponderable mahavakya ‘Thou art that’.

The seeker veers into theory when he notices the connection between dreaming and the waking state.

“Just as the same jewel assumes different colours owing to its proximity to different (coloured) things, so also the Pure Consciousness assumes different forms on account of various adjuncts which are superimposed on It (in dream).

As in dream, so in the waking state different forms are superimposed on this Consciousness.  It manifests the objects of the intellect when it performs actions produced by desires due to delusion.” (Upadesa Sahasri of Sankara, Chap 17 #16, 17)

Neither Ramana nor Nisargadatta would have spun out these theoretical webs in their initial stage of Atma Vichara ( Inquiry).  That solid nut of data would have to be cracked first and the kernel of realisation enjoyed.

“Just as a magician comes and goes on an elephant (created by his own magic), the Self, though devoid of all motions, appears to be undergoing conditions such as the undifferentiated, dream, etc.” (#29 ibid)

Fava Beans and a Nice Chianti

 It’s that time again when our masters require to know our condition that they may extrapolate from that knowledge to a future glazed with promise and showered with sprinkles.  What is the first question for those that don’t have to put down their sandwich and cuppa soup to fill it with an horizontal stroke.  Shelter?  Four Door Saloon doesn’t have a slot here.  It’s about the year of building and it begins with 1919  when this republic was a pup.  Before that time Paudeen complained about landlordism, bitterly.  He still does - why can’t I be one too?  Three quarters of our cabinet are landlords so we can expect rentier heaven to continue.  They, our tenants at will, can’t pay what we ask, well let us grant more money in aid to them that they may pay us.  That’s basic economics.

More questions about rent, rooms at your disposal, including conservatories.  If you’re going to be sick don’t do it in the orange tree tub.

Fuel, solar panels, wind turbines.  Yes, on my island.  Vehicles.  Internet connection and type of device.  Smart domestic appliance?  My maid has degree from Vilnius.

Marriage has a slot.  Married/Remarried/SameSex civil.  Only two slots for sex.  An outrage.  Where do you usually live?  At home like.  Why would anybody tell the government this sort of information?  More to the point why would you tell the census taker who probably knows you.

Ethnic group gets a section with the politically correct but deeply dopey ‘irish traveller’ as an option.  Are you white, Black Irish or Black (pur sang) or Asian/Asian Irish.   Octroon, Quadroon, 5 speed. D: Other including mixed group/background - Arabic, mixed (write in description), Other (write in description).  There you have it.  Still no room for the Coillte (kultee).

Religion if any.  Usual categories from None to Other (write in your religion)  Jedi Knight is not a religion.  Jihadi will bring unwelcome attention.

Do you speak Irish/any other language other than English.  How well do you speak English?

How is your health in general?  Beo ar eigin. (barely alive)  Do you smoke tobacco products?  Education?

An Interesting Question:  Do you provide regular unpaid personal help or support to a family member, neighbour or friend with a long term illness, health issue, an issue related to old age or disability?

I understand that they need to know what services they can cut, in these times of austerity.  Linked to that but with a separate entry is childcare, paid/unpaid/childminder/au pair/creche etc.  Again we need to get more women of the middle classes into employment, the conservatory must be paid for.

Doesn’t time fly.

I concur Dr. Strangelove

 

Dr.  Strangelove:

 -  Don’t you think that you would have had more of an impact by being deadly even if in the end that led to your self-elimination?

Dr.Virus:

 -  That is the dilemma, a single glorious episode of carnage or being a persistent nuisance.   But if there is a way between the horns of the dilemma it could be that hanging about harmless seeming leaves the chance of a virulent mutation occurring a live possibility.

Dr. Strangelove: You appear to be adopting a point of view which is not something available to a virus which is a simple molecular machine whose only strategy can be expressed as ‘I want to live, I want to replicate’.

Dr. Virus:

 -  True, yet there is help from humans such as yourself who can create the conditions  that make Covid great again.

Dr. Strangelove:

 -  A message of hope indeed.