The Error of Russell

This essay will begin where we, humankind, have lead ourselves as we attempted to slash our way through the jungle of life's seemingly endless paradoxes. These paradoxes, which life has persistently thrown across our path, are signposts for us. They are indicators that we do not have all the answers. They warn us to beware. They warn us there is something wrong with our perception of life; there is something wrong with our thinking. They have a function of their own, they direct us towards a state of understanding where we are, what we are, and why it is we exist. In this essay, we will be attempting to understand the likes of Russell, Wittgenstein, Frege, Plotinus, and back again to Russell as we attempt to move past parts of Heidegger. Our objective will be to step back in time in order to get back to today. What is the point of going to all this trouble just to get back to where we started? The point is to bring back with us a new perception regarding a simpler solution to Russell's paradox. Why is this important? Presently we have a solution to Russell's paradox, which involves a complex understanding of 'separation through exclusionism', which in turn represents what we do to people in society. We separate individuals and groups from our own groups and ourselves. Once having separated them from ourselves we exclude them from ourselves through a process of rejection, exclusionism, and separation. It is Russell's paradox, which provides the key to rectifying these constant actions of rejection. For this reason we will accompany Russell as he travels eighteen hundred years back in time. This trip will allow us to bring back with us a different solution to Russell's paradox. This trip will allow us to bring back a process known as 'separation through inclusion'. Now the name would seem to imply our creating a paradox to act as a solution to Russell's paradox but as we shall see it does nothing of the kind. What it does is allow us to find a much simpler solution to Russell's paradox. 'But what does this concept of 'separation through exclusion' as opposed to 'separation through inclusion' have to do with me?' you may ask. The process provides an alternative means to resolving a fundamental paradox of mathematics, which in turn can be applied directly to the process of understanding life. It is the simplistic resolution of complex paradoxes, which provides us with a simplistic understanding of life. It is through this process that we shall see 'Ockham's razor not only cuts away the complexity of science but becomes the primary tool for Husserl's bracketing . Ockham's Razor now becomes not only a principle axiom for science but now moves on to become a principle axiom of philosophy. This is an essay beginning in complexity and ending in simplicity. Why is it that we must begin in complexity rather than begin at the logical point of origin, the point of simplicity? We begin in complexity for it is through complexity that we presently have begun to understand Russell's paradox . Presently we have solved Russell's paradox in a complex fashion. This has led us to understanding life in a complex manner. We cannot understand the simplicity of life as long as the basics remain complex. The solution to this problem lies in the understanding of Russell's paradox. Once you understand the end of this essay, you will begin to understand why it is that we must go back and make a correctional adjustment to our journey as individuals and as specie. The question becomes, 'How far back in time must we travel to do all this?' We must go back 1700 years. Who will lead us on this backtracking expedition? The honors will go to Bertrand Russell himself. Russell verbalized the paradox in 1901. As such, it is Russell's paradox. Therefore, it will be Russell who will lead our backtracking expedition, which will lead us to an understanding of life.
About the Author: 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.