ibn Harm

Author: harmenscholte

  • On the passions

    Praise be to the creator who created every thing

    To be continued

  • Introduction to reason

    Blessed is He who appoints for every matter her ordained time.

    Let’s continue with the topic. Reason has multiple modes. Firstly one can come to a conclusion through analysis and synthesis. In this process knowledge is derived from breaking and building. This way one gains episteme by coherence.

    A second way to make decisions is as opposed to x-raying a problem in abstraction choosing to imagine a knowledgeable person by your side and making decisions then based on intuition. This second method can also be used by imaging a loved one by your side if one wants to make room in her life for said person.

    The first method is metaphysical and the second method is statistical. They take place in the same tradition.

  • Faith and devotion

    In The Meaning and End of Religion W. C. Smith writes that the noun religion is at the end of its expiry date. He argues that instead of an abstract religion it is more meaningfull to speak of discursive tradition and personal faith. There is something to say for this dialectical analysis.

    Firstly it appeals to secular wisdom which is somestimes construed as “everything you give attention grows.” When considered in extremo this advice might not particularly make for a tranquil mind however. For more on this topic expect a sequel to this study focussing on creativity and the human mind deo volente.

    But the nominal “personal faith” does appeal to the importance of Belief in the life of human beings. This makes his theory muleable both to the secular and the sacred mind.

  • Is “James Bond” sexist or not?

    Good evening,

    This survey will discuss whether the cinematographic world of James Bond is sexist or not. First lets get the obvious examples to make an informed judgement:

    In the earlier bond movies James hits women (f.e. goldfinger), this is to be considered sexist since it perpetuates a victim role for the female and oppressor role for the male. It can be considered sexist since:

    • It teaches that women are weaker than men
    • It teaches that it is normal behaviour for a lover to hit his Love.

    Prima facie it might not be abundantly clear why the second reason reinforces sexist paradigms. But perhaps merely asking whether a franchise is sexist or not does not ultimately contribute to increased attention for femicide.

    A better approach might be to ask if the world which is promogated through James Bond is the world in which we want to live. Then James Bond can be sexist merely if enough women deem it sexist. Nothwithstanding the obvious first example (supra) if the conversation moves to “do we want to live in this world” instead of scrutinizing definitions it becomes clear right away that the world of James Bond is sexist.

    The later movies attempt to solve this ethical vacuum by introducing a female James Bond but in my opinion also the last installments do not convincingly answer the “do we want to live in this world” question.

    Thank you for your attention.

  • Introduction

    I realize I have not introduced myself so lets get that done d.v.

    السلام عليكم

    أنا هارمان سخولتا (إبن سخولتا)

    أنا ان اتعلمة الفلسقة و العربية

    أنا من هولندا و أنا عيش لهذي

    أنا ان حبّكة القهوة و الكتاب و ان اتعلمة الكلّ أمرٍ (و العربية)

    مع السلامة

  • The Goad of Grundelwald

    Blessed is He whose name is full of grace.

    During my teenage years I studied at the most amazing high-school. Our school was built in the remains of a monastery. This was one of the reasons that I chose to continue my education at Grundelwald. At Grundelwald I met up with friends from the past and made new friends. Together we had amazing times during lunch hour. 

    After a while of mediocre meals one of us brought a small grill with which we baked all the best cuisines. The smell of food attracted shy studentas to us and before we knew it we were enjoying primos and secundis in between courses. At one point a boisterous good-natured neighbour even brought steak for us to prepare. With kitchen wipes we wiped away the blood and before long everybody was discussing what there was to be discussed.

  • The Madness of Dutch Democracy

    A while ago the elections for the Dutch parliament were orchestrated after the coalition led by Wilders failed to prove to be the stable charismatic populist alternative it meant to be. After this experiment in leadership based on intuition now the party Democrats ’66 has gotten the opportunity to make the first moves.

    However at first sight it is unclear whether the Democrats will improve much upon the bottom-up management of her predecessors since the election program did not contain an index. This might seem trivial however it shows that at no point in the entire campaign has someone actually organized the election program.

    This is not unique to the democrats since I could not find a single party program which contained an organized index detailing where in the party program I could find the information on a topic I wanted to check. This makes the party programs glorified circus brochures leaving the only possible scientific metric the length of the party program.

    I ask the involved reader the following rhetorical question: if before parties even start to discuss to find common ground and possibilities for a coalition agreement the individual programs are already as scientific as high-school papers, how can we expect that the coalition agreement based on these handicrafts will contain any scientific merit?

    The only conclusion that can be derived is that the upcoming Dutch political works will be once more based on gut feeling and amateurism. After over 150 years of politics one would have hoped that there would have crept some accountability in the system.

  • The Science of Dating

    Now for a somewhat vulgar continuation we will discuss the science of dating i.e. Bayes will be used to model attraction between souls.

    Recall that P(a | b) = (P(b | a) * P(a)) / P(b).

    Recall that P(a) is the initual probability with regards to the prior.

    Thus P(a | b) is the attraction a hypothetical person feels towards her love given that event B has occured.

    Cont. P(a) is the initial attraction etc.

    Cont. P(b | a) is the updated attraction.

    And P(b) = P(b | a)*P(a) + P(b | !a)*P(!a) which models the probability of event B occuring regardless of event a viz. the person being attracted to her with a degree of belief.

    But here is the conondrum that it is not possible to know whether person n+1 makes her decisions in time or based on logic.

  • Ramadan 2026

    Ramadan is coming up again. The time when a protective cover falls over all believers. The time when light is extended to the earth and when souls are saved from the darkness of the pit.

    Last Ramadan occupied-Palestine broke the peace-treaty with free Palestine during the Ramadan. Not very long thereafter occupied-Palestine attacked Iran without just cause. Let us hope and pray for the oppressed. Let us remember the victims of senseless crime. (I am including the victims of the Sydney attack here)

    May God make us steadfast and allow us to reach Ramadan.

  • On love #1

    Acknowledgements

    I am borrowing the concept of “Con-Text” from S. Ahmed’s What is Islam? A full bibliography is given at the end of the post.

    Introduction

    Now for the million dollar question we will venture into one of the great mysteries viz. the topic of love. I anticipate that one blog post will not be enough to end all intercourse on love so d.v. more posts will follow in time.

    Love and Soul Mates

    In the symposion of Plato one of the men who are invited to give a speech on the topic of Love details a myth in which humankind originally did not consist of merely two sexes but of three. In this world there was a third sex which was a monstrous human-hybrid made of both the female sex and the male sex. This creature symbolizes the concept of the soulmate.

    The idea that two souls are bound together in heaven and then by the grace of God may d.v. reunite on earth is attested to in the Quran. Multiple ayas (viz. “verses”) of the Quran describe souls as being paired. It is on this topic that philosophy and theology reunite in theoria. We can for example consider Quran 81:7 (Surah At-Takwir) “and when the souls are paired” but also Quran 4:1 (Surah An-Nisa) states: “O humanity! Be mindful of your Lord Who created you from a single soul, and from it He created its mate.”

    I have seen the idea of soulmates also expressed in internetfora discussing Jewish theology although M. Goodman’s A History of Judaism (Penguin Books, 2019) does not make explicit reference to it. Goodman was a professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Oxford. As far as my knowledge goes no references to soulmades are also made in the Bible. So if the idea of soulmates is present in Jewish thought it would arise from the Con-Text.

    Bibliography

    Ahmed, Shahab. What is Islam?. Princeton University Press, 2015.

    Goodman, Martin. A History of Judaism. Penguin Books, 2019.