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>