A Life's Worth

What a shame.
How utterly unforgettable is the loss of a comrade.
Though you are now gone, by your own accord,
No dishonor is allotted you, no honor stolen away,
Though no honor is here amassed in your name any longer.
Destiny here stopped and fate here also decided
Where a young soul over come with sorrow, angel or foe but evil still
Here where you breathed an air of despair which was your last
Here you leave behind awe struck faces that bid you farewell
With tenderest love and Hope reserved in our hearts for exactly a moment such as this,
Now staring blankly outside windows, but seeing nothing there to steal the mood.
Those who did eagerly await your return shall fail to cease doing so
Until their own twilight befalls them and bright palace doors open wide
When there is no where to go but up or down.

"`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead?"

Despair

Prayer.
To find the peace that I once had in you
Which now and then returns unseen, like a ghost.
Now uncertainty runs rampant, desolation abounds
The soul is no man's land, between "what if?" and "how come?"
That simple faith that once irrigated this land
Those clouds have since gone with the virtues
I'm left without Grace, although I breathe it in the morning
And let it go in the evening.
Still, I can't say how it came to be
That son grew apart from father
That youthful eyes saw lies
That a true soul was lost in the same place it first learned to never feel fear.
Restore the indwelling spirit that first altered this life.

What if?

The other day while I was listening to Coldplay's song entitle "What if?" I was struck by one of their opening lines. "What if there was no light, nothing wrong, nothing right…what if there was not time and no reason…" I know, it's heavy stuff even for Coldplay. So I got to thinking particularly about the part about there being nothing wrong and nothing right. It reminded me of the book "1984" by George Orwell. He depicts a totalitarian government that wages wars against itself and watches everyone all the time, and eradicates anyone who dares to be different. You might have heard of the phrase, "big brother is watching you." In this society, the cameras constantly monitored every aspect of one's life to keep one from committing thought crime. Thought crime was the act of thinking anything negative or different from what the government wanted everyone to think. In the book the main character, tries to explain how society has changed because of big brother and thought crime. He says that there is no right or wrong in this society because there are no laws. Everything was right, but thought crime would get you killed. There was no choice. You either obeyed big brother or you died. So I think that Coldplay were talking about wrong and right in terms of morals. If these morals didn't exists then government could create its own idea of right and wrong and become totalitarian. Which In turn leads to lack of choice. So if there was nothing wrong and nothing right, there would be no choice at all in anything. No individuals, only a society like the matrix could exist whose whole existence it completely fabricated.

Delphic Maxims and Aristotle

Delphic Maxims

Know yourself.

Nothing in excess.

Aid friends.

Control anger.

Shun unjust acts.

Ackowledge sacred things.

Hold on to learning.

Praise virtue.

Avoid enemies.

Cultivate kinsmen.

Pity supplicants.

Accomplish your limit.

When you err, repent.

Consider the time.

Worship the divine.

 
 

Those are just a few of the Delphic Maxims. At the beginning of the semester I came across these Delphic maxims and thought about writing a blog concerning them. However, at the time it didn't seem interesting enough to me or I didn't see anything too exciting about them back then. So I was looking over the complete list of Delphic maxims (which can e found all over Google) and I realized that a lot of them actually seem like they could easily be integrated into my life if they weren't already. I think that they cover a lot of moral ground. It's sort of like Aristotle's moral virtues hidden in aphorisms. But still the suggestions don't tell you what you're aiming for like Aristotle does in the nichomechian ethics. There are only suggestions, some that seem perfectly normal and good and other that seem pointless and misguided. So it all depends on the "good" that you're trying to achieve whether or not the Delphic maxims could acts as the nichomechian ethics. Before we read the N.M I thought that the Delphic maxims were good tenets to live by, but now I think that they fall terribly short and could lead to any kind of life unlike the virtues taught in the N.M which Aristotle goes to incredible heights to show that they aim towards the greatest heights.

 
 

 
 

Zeno's Paradoxes

As I was reading Zeno's Stadium and Achilles paradoxes, I discovered something that I found very interesting. The paradoxes themselves make sense to me, but that's not necessarily a good thing. I think of the implications of such paradoxes and it makes me very pessimistic. What are the implications of the Stadium paradox for example? If there are infinite half-ways, and it makes theoretical sense, then why is motion for point A to point B practically possible? It signifies to me that there is a disconnect somewhere along the way and I'm afraid that the incongruence arises from us. How can we grasp that it's theoretically impossible to move across the room, yet acknowledge that we still perceive it to be possible? And what if we could somehow free ourselves from this practical world. What if the theoretical matched the practical? Imagine one day waking up and finding that it's impossible both theoretically and practically for you to walk across your room? Certainly, life would be a whole lot more interesting. Oh… and the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise that makes all physics classes I've ever taken seem so useless! No matter how much I try to reconcile the two, they seem like opposites. I can't decide what realer; the theoretical world or the practical world that I experience every moment of my life

Letter to Purpose

Difficult

You're one stubborn…You're just impossible

What do I have to do?

Live here, just live, looking for you only to find I'll never find you

What do you have to do with all of this?

There's no life without purpose

But what if there's no purpose?

Nothing worth noting

And how will we know when we find you.

To do what you're meant to do? Who says?

I'd like to think that purpose is another way of saying you're free to do whatever you want.

That we have the choice and we always have

That we're meant to do what we do, but that what we do is completely up to us.

That's not the case, not the case for me anyhow.

There's something that my soul yearns for, Something that seems right and purposeful.

Something unrecognizable and that's not of me

An outside influence upon my life, within me but foreign to me.

One day I'll know what it is, that which my soul yearns for

Which is attainable, but impossible to keep

That which once attained, the soul needs it no more

That which the mind doesn't care for, but it can't ignore

That which my heart can't live without

If all else disappeared, it would still remain completely self sufficient and unbounded.

Purpose… I can't make it appear, disappear or reappear.

Always in motion, in every thought in inside me mind.

 
 

 
 

 
 

Facebook Philosophy

This blog shouldn't be a monologue...so I'm trying my hand prose, and dialogue types of discussions. I'm also trying to explore a variety of topics. Here's a dialogue I set up on facebook yesterday (that's how Socrates would've done it) by stating a common argument and waiting for the responses to roll in. It's fair to say that only those interested in philosophy would even try to engage in this discussion, so I know that all those responses stated here are part of a genuine search for truth.

Steve (me):
God is the perfect being. As He is most perfect, He must have all perfections. If God lacked existence He would not be perfect, as He is perfect he must exist.

Dami: If God is perfect, shouldn't He be perfectly inexistent also?

Steve:
I think, it is not meant that God should be perfectly all things at once for a perfect thing cannot have contradictions. God cannot be partly one thing and partly another because to have two parts would cause contradictions (that they are not the same is implied in their being separated). God must be one and unchanging.

Dami: Therefore the existence of contradictions such as good and evil, light and darkness, matter and antimatter, etc.. disproves God's perfection and hence His existence?

Steve:
The existence of these things is not tied to God's perfection because God is the only being that exists for it's own existence. It is the prime mover, the only being that can move without being moved. These are necessary conditions for anything to be referred to as God. You could say that if God is the first being, then light, dark, good, and evil ... See More among other contradictions all originated from God. But these things are contradictions as far as they relate to each other and not to God. Since God is the first being, all things must "contain" God, but not the other way around.

Dami:
Dude..I see that you've been studying your Aquinas...I just argued to prove a point. You see, God is defined as a supernatural being that transcends human understanding. Once science or religion or philosophy can prove God's existence, God ceases to exist!

Steve:
This is true so I think it's safe to say that science and philosophy will never prove God's existence.

Dami:
Do not ignore RELIGION...Religion is a human creation to satisfy the yearn for a relationship with God. As a human creation, it CANNOT prove His existence.

Steve: Lol U caught me! I think it would be hard to disprove that humans do "yearn" for a relationship with divinity (whatever your conception of divinity is). Where this yearning comes from is a different issue but it's there. Hence does the yearning exist because God exists, or does God exist because humans yearn for a God?

Dan: wow

Amara:
I think the common philosopher would assert the latter, but I'd like to say the yearning exists because God exists...God showed himself to man before man could even formulate the existence of a god. Yeah?

Me: Dan wow is probably an understatement.

Amara, there are no common philosophers. lol

I think you would have a pretty hard time making that argument. Give it a spin!

 
 

 
 

Would it matter anyway?

Yesterday I was at the gas station buying my regular fix of red bull and twizzlers. This is nothing out of the ordinary: I get my stuff, stand in line, chat up the cashier and leave. But the routine was interrupted on this day. See, I always ask the cashier if he/she is having a good day and the response is consistently a rehearsed "I'm doing alright!" But, on this particular day he replied, "I can't complain…and if I did it wouldn't matter." He laughed and proceeded to overcharge me for fundamental things (twizzlers and a red bull) which should be freely given to every person on a daily basis... Forever. However, I found myself speechless and unable to find any response for his statement. What he said was powerful in a way that I couldn't explain. How could a person say, with a smile on his face, that his complaints/opinions don't matter? Should they matter? And if so, to whom should it matter? I could hear in his voice the slight disappointment that suggested he believed that someone should care, but that's not the case. He wasn't speaking about having someone to listen to either. For it seemed like his complaints couldn't or wouldn't be changed by conversing with another person.. And I'm sure he wasn't talking about a day at work. He was talking about life in general. I went to sleep thinking about it and when I awoke it was among my first thoughts. I think that this is the greatest appeals of religion. Because we know that there are things that feel out of control in our lives, we need to know that someone or somehow, these things matter and are taken care of. So that we can even dream of find stillness within our soul.

Letter to Love (I guess that would make this a love letter?)

You have completely swallowed me today, but you're never filled. You're always light but heavy upon my shoulders. Often I can't have enough, but still I wish you would make your exit. This is not to say that you're that simple! No…no, you have far more than that to teach man. Yesterday I saw u cover me with your thickness and it's the reason for this letter. Taking many forms, you reveal and conceal yourself from our human eyes. Like a fleeting light you shine, then faster than you came you're out of sight. You bring with you pleasure and pain; It's only right that you should. Most forces we humans have an affinity for tend to do so. I see you in some but not others, but I heard that you're everywhere. Like nature you have no feelings towards us and our opinions affect you little. I heard you bring things together and keep them in harmony. Well then, you would win Heraclitus's praise for you are one but many in unseen harmonies. Or maybe Parmenides would be more your style since you are "the one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be..." who was contrived first of all.

They say that God is Love. "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[a] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself,'" (Matthew 22:36-40) said the son of man, the son of "I am." Thus, for many of us, you're the purpose for living. Surely your goodness is assumed I can feel you're the same today as you were yesterday. So why do our hearts feel comfort and affliction all at once?

 
 

What Would Aristotle Do? Buy An iPad and Forget the World Of Course!

This past Tuesday the class discussion on Aristotle's Nichomechian Ethics happened to ask a very interesting question: What would Aristotle think of our society? My initial reaction was that "he would be hard pressed to write a book of manageable length in which he includes all the faults he finds in our way of life." But was Aristotle's society really that different from ours? Maybe he would see a lot of the same things that he saw during his own lifetime. I get the feeling that human society never really changes. We may become more advanced technologically, but I'm not even sure that we become better or worse. If Aristotle was alive today and in the process of writing the Nichomachean Ethics, I don't think that he would change it one bit. The virtues would not change, their means would not change, and their excess and deficiency would be just as pronounced to him now as they were in 350 B.C.E. Perhaps the most important thing is that the "means" of the virtues remains unchanged. Furthermore we still strive for virtue by striving for these means. Also, I think that the majority of our society would tend to err on the same side as Aristotle's society did. In conclusion, I don't see why my initial reaction to the big question was so bleak. It just felt at the moment like we have so ruined philosophy that Aristotle couldn't spend a day in our world. There's no reason that I find for thinking that Aristotle would despise us all and find nothing good about our society, except for iPads, iPods, and pretty much everything else made by Apple.

 
 

 
 

Dear Aristotle, My Name Is Hippocrates

According to Aristotle's Nichomechian Ethics, every action/science performed aims at achieving some good. The science of medicine seeks its end which is good health. Consider then the problem of physician assisted suicide. Physician assisted suicide often consists of a doctor providing lethal drugs and the proper instruments to a patient who then willingly administers them to himself with press of a button. It can be said that the reason for seeking good health is the avoidance of physical pain or distress. I would argue then that Aristotle didn't take the example of medicine as far as is necessary. For I think it could be well shown that even though good health is a good in itself, it's also a good that aims at a greater good, which is the lack of physical ailment or pain. Physician assisted suicide is an issue that has divided medical practitioners for a long time.

On the one hand, all medical students are taught that one principle and only one is the most important upon entrance into the field of medicine. Primum non nocere, "First, do no harm." (This also supports the notion that medicine is really all about reducing harm instead of just achieving good health for its own sake.) The Hippocratic Oath, which is an oath that all medical students must take, includes the confession that the future doctors will never do harm. And then there are those who believe that medicine is all about beneficence or doing the most good. It seems that Aristotle is advocating beneficence while Hippocrates is supporting "Primum non nocere."

Here's the dilemma: What is the proper and moral thing to do when a patient is terminally ill? I've discussed this issue in my Essentials of Ethics in Healthcare class, but I've never examined it in scope of its philosophical roots. It seems that you can always find a particular instance that supports each of the approaches to medicine. The patient is already doomed to a painful end due to his/her condition. However, there's something that irks us when we think about a doctor taking someone's life. Still, people who have ever made the decision to allow a loved one to chose suicide will tell you that it's hard to deny the afflicted their wish. As of today, physician assisted suicide is illegal, but patients can still chose to refuse treatment. So what is the good that the medicine strives for? Do the most good? Or eradicate harm?

 
 

 
 

Don’t Mind Your Mind, Please

In his article, "Mind Games" Jonah Lehrer of the New York Times does something that is somewhat unique. He combines philosophy with science. Specifically he manages to draw a significant connection between a medical condition and philosophy. In doing this, the man has basically merged my two loves into one awesome article. That puts a smile on my face every time I think about it.

Insomnia. Try not to think about insomnia. Don't I sound like Parmenides already? Well, when Parmenides said that it is impossible to think of nothing, he was at the same time harkening to one of the most curious achievements of the human mind. The human mind has the ability to think about itself. For example, while trying not to think about a 3 legged monkey, the brain is at frequent intervals thinking about what it's trying to achieve. Which is to say that while trying not think about 3 legged monkeys, the brain is thinking about itself trying not to think about the darn 3 legged monkey! Furthermore, we can all attest that by this point, for every time I've mentioned a monkey, you have thought about it, seen it and maybe you've even counted the legs. You're seeing tripod monkeys right now! I know I did.

That's insomnia in a nutshell. The more you're concerned with falling asleep, the harder you will find it to do just that. As Lehrer points out, "the worst thing we can do is think about not being able to sleep; the diagnosis exacerbates the disease." This is because our mind has set a goal (to fall asleep), but it constantly checks to see if progress is being made. The result is that your brain goes into a loop of being concerned with the goal, so much so that it keeps you awake. Here's the great part: According to Parmenides philosophy, "non-being" cannot exist, and I'm beginning to think that this has to be connected to the way our brain performs its functions. It constantly checks and re-checks until the job is done. There is no medicinal cure for Insomnia and Lehrer argues that there will never be a cure. His argument is that insomnia plays right into one of the human brain's greatest advantages and turns it into a disadvantage. Well, even if you somehow got rid of the disadvantage, you would lose a whole lot of important functions of the brain with it. Our mind would be like that of a dog; able to fall asleep at any time, but incapable of many things humans can do. If you can stop this biological process, then can you prove that "non-being" exists? So here's what I think: If you can prove that non-being exists, then you will have found the cure for insomnia and disproved Parmenides. Good luck. You'll need it. Your brain is your instrument no matter what way you approach this. Too bad your brain is against you on this one.

Says my friend Sarah, "See, this is the curse you philosophers have!"

P.S. She's a Neuroscience major and I fear that she might be right on this one. There's a biological curse running rampant in beloved Philosophy land.

All excerpts and references to the article "Mind games" were taken from the article found on this page:

Mind Games

By JONAH LEHRER 

<http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/mind-games/?em>

CELEBRATION PHILOSOPHY

"For though a man have sorrow and grief in his newly-troubled soul and live in dread because his heart is distressed…at once he forgets his heaviness and remembers not his sorrows at all…"

- (from Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica. THE THEOGONY)

In light of the New Year and my 19^th birthday, I have decided to dedicate this first post to the discussion of renewal and hopes. I hope that it will make for an important landmark in my life. Yesterday, as I celebrated growing older amidst friends and family I found that this year holds a certain level of significance for me. First of all, it will be the crossing over from the teenage life into the teen-less years. I also realize that I have been in conversation with so many important issues of a life in such a transition. Christianity, family, friends, love, relationships, the pursuit of wisdom and the inter dependence of all these. "For though a man have sorrow and grief in his newly-troubled soul and live in dread because his heart is distressed…at once he forgets his heaviness and remembers not his sorrows at all…" I chose this phrase from The Theogony, because at the moment it captures my thoughts and mood exactly. One minute a man could be happy and perfectly content and the next he's uneasy and at a loss of grace. Not a very complex thought, but then how do you suppose one is to know just what his true state is? This will surely affect what he thinks of the life and the world. That…is my life in one sentence. Trying to strike a balance between what has been, what is and what's to come. So we can't keep our hearts from swaying back and forth, but we can do what's possible to make sure we learn and grow from our condition. For when you make a hasty judgment because of a "newly-troubled soul", you quickly learn to avoid such fleeting thoughts in the future. I think that I've done a good job so far of evaluating the situation, the influences and the state of the heart in everyday life. It helps…to understand that the nature of the human heart is to oscillate between reality and the unknown. When you feel a certain way but you don't know why. It helps to know that your heart will scarcely feel a certain way just because it should. So, I say all of this to suggest that maybe, it is possible to use your heart's condition to advance spiritually, rationally and emotionally as philosopher. If you can keep still your soul still long enough then maybe you can achieve ultimate freedom of thought. Every time you recognize that your condition is the result of a soul that at a whim feels heavy or light, you can learn to overcome it and act according to pure reason. Good Luck.

-Steve

All thoughts and comments are welcome.

This post was originally meant to go up on January 16^th, 2009.

"Old habits are relinquished only with difficulty, and no one wants to be led any further than he can see in front of him." – Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ.

 

 

 

Martin Luther King and the emergence of philosophy

In Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham jail, we see several factors that influence the state of philosophical discussion in that City. Some of these same factors were at work at the time of the birth of philosophy. Most of them are still playing an important role today. I will discuss one factor, though there are many more to be observed. Positive tension is the contributor I want to point out today. In his letter, King is talking about the tension that is created by direct integrationist action. Since both sides agreed that negotiation was the wisest course of action, the only question then is whether the right conditions exist for such negotiation. But the negotiation cannot be initiated when either side is unwilling to participate actively. Therefore, King describes the way that direct action creates, "such a crisis and fosters such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue." In much the same way, Greek society was at the beginning of philosophy, a very tense environment. War, myth and poetry were the substance of everyday life. Socrates "felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths. The Greek myths and traditions that were present in this time were not essentially replaced by philosophy, but to use King's own words, philosophy was a step towards "the majestic heights of understanding." It could not have been achieved without the tensions that spurred new thinking and conversation within society. A refreshing way to look at the world and everything in it emerges. Philosophy is born.