The Error of Zeno: The Real and the Real Illusion - Paperback

by Daniel J. Shepard (Author)

Zeno is where the perception of physical distance split from abstract distance. Zeno, and for that matter philosophers throughout the past two thousand five hundred years, were not aware of what it was they were on the verge of understanding. The understanding eluding philosophers was not to reveal itself until after Einstein and his concept of 'relative' time was verbalized. Even then, even with the concept of 'relative' time being verbalized, the potential understanding regarding the relationship of the individual, God and 'acting within' was not to be immediately understood. And why would understanding the relationship of the individual, God, and 'acting within' not be immediately understood when Einstein revealed the concept of relative time? It was not understood because modern day philosophers had proclaimed the demise of Metaphysics and having done so, buried Metaphysics deep within the most inaccessible realms of the philosophical subconscious. With the virtual ostracism of metaphysics from serious academic debate, the tool needed to understand the concept of individuality/the individual, the whole/God, and action, process/reality/being (vb) was to languish until the time when Metaphysics was once again brought forth from the dark sub-sub conscious realm of philosophy. With the banishment of metaphysics to the far fringes of philosophy, the understanding regarding the role of the physical and the abstract as well as the understanding regarding the interrelationship between the physical and the abstract not only remain in a state of confusion but even more disconcerting, the existence of such an interrelationship is not recognized as a significant aspect of the 'larger' system. It is this state of confusion which will be specifically addressed within this tractate.

Author Biography

Mathematics/Science Undergraduate degree - University of Michigan Master's degree in Physical Science - Eastern Michigan University 30 years teaching mathematics & science 20 years science and/or mathematics department chair I'm not sure if I became a philosophical thinker because I was a depressant or if I became a depressant because I was a philosophical thinker. Whichever the case, I am both. To make matters even stranger I am an optimistic depressant philosophical thinker. Actually it might be more accurate of me to state that I am an optimistic depressant philosophical thinking metaphysicist. But how did metaphysics enter the picture? During my early teens I began questioning what was 'out there beyond ...' Over time this thinking sequentially lead to 'beyond the stars', 'beyond the galaxy', 'beyond time and space' until I came to the end of the physical universe itself. Once I had reached this 'outer wall' of the physical universe. I could not help but mentally poke a hole in this wall. Having created a hole in the outer wall of the physical, I peered through the hole only to see nothing. At this point I was mesmerized with questions that forever haunted me: What is this nothingness on the 'outside' of the physical universe? What is the physical universe immersed within? What is out there? What are the characteristics of this existence outside the universe? What does this outside of the universe have to do with us, with myself, with God Itself? The questions became cruelly unrelenting and overpoweringly dominating of my very psyche. With time and the use of humanity's four perceptual tools (observation - science, universal teachings - religions, rational dialectics - philosophy and universal language - mathematics) the answers began to reveal themselves. The answers came not in terms of a bias on the part of one tool as opposed to another but in terms of all four tools agreeing with each other. The biggest hurdles to the work came in the form of cynicism, skepticism, closed minds and most of all in the form of the words, 'can't', 'its impossible to know', 'humankind is not intended to understand', 'prove it'. In all good conscience, it must be stated, 'We cannot prove anything beyond all doubt ...' Having stated the obvious, we can then move on to state: '... but we can 'prove beyond a reasonable doubt.' So it is a new model of reality emerged capable of leading our species into the new age of the third millennium.