Dissappearing in alphabetical order

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

David Hume cuts off logic from causality stating that all conceptions of reality are based on observations. These observations do not have any correspondence to the cause we associate these observations. Ultimately, we are left with a choice concerning causality.

When a cause is not part of some underlying nature we almost pick and choose it as if from a menu. This sounds like how we explain culture rather than some matter of fact.

The Amazing Shrinking Woman (1981) 

The movie is a joke about consumerism. Oddly it relates to Hume's comments on observation but in an inverted way. The woman who shrinks becomes a victim of some admixture of all the chemicals she owns. Her shrinking body has no known cause other than her purchases. Hume notes that when we try to get to the root of a cause we finally rest at some object or memory. Hume also notes that observations have a weakened impression on us if it from some memory and not currently being an experience.

The well-marketed items do not fade. In fact, the colors of the packaging are the bright advertising colors throughout the film. What fades is the observer and there is even a plot by some mad scientists to infect this inverted observer disorder to the rest of humanity as the final warped incarnation of capitalism.

No Creatures Hiding

David Hume's starting point is an object or a memory. He does seem to allow general properties that can be deduced like the three sides of a triangle but that is more or less trivial. He envisions a creaturely role for humans.

It is not as if past thinkers ignored creaturely but they allowed us to think beyond it as well to something much better. This is generally conceptualized as God or something like Hegel's 'spirit'.

According to Hume, we make judgments based on observations and memories and we act responding to them. However, our response is in no way integral with observations and memories. Because this connection between memory and judgment lacks intrinsic necessity we are proposed as thinkers who cannot get our bearings and have no compass or coordinates.

In a curious way, this way of thinking reminds me of economics. There are a lot of conjectures based on statistical data. Who would define the true meaning of the stock market in a Socratic dialogue? It may be an unfair statement but maybe Hume is not trying to find deep rooted truths but prepare us for a society governed by markets and modernity.

Very like finding a hole possibly made by an animal, but where we do not see any creature there. The hole seems mysterious and without origin and at best vacant.