Philosophy the final chapter: Part II

My final post on the book we're reading is a realization that as the book gets weirder and weirder so do my posts, so I'm going to try to tone back the crazy this week for the final post. In the final chapters of the book we see Sophie and Alberto travel into reality ( or at least Albert Knagg's reality) by way of a deus ex machina, a random act of Ascension into a higher plane, becoming transcendental beings in the process. As they aren't from Albert's reality, they find that they can interact strangely with his world, phasing through objects and walls and entirely capable of giving him a really bad day. Except for the minor fact that nobody is capable of noticing them and they aren't capable of moving anything. Albert and Sophie have finally achieved the “absolute” free will they wanted, only to live in a world where only the two of them are aware of their existence ( for the most part). They cannot die but neither can they live, a tragic ending, at least from my point of view. It seems to be that they are in the same plane of existence as an idea, but rather than affecting the world, the world can only affect them. Maybe they aren't actually capable of dying, but they will still wear away as time passes by unmercifully. Their final success is a mixed blessing and a choice that I may not have made in their place if I knew the consequences. As a great man once said “It's better to burn out than fade away.”  

Philosophy the final chapter: Part I

To change things around a bit, I've decided that my next post should be on the nature of religion, that ever forbidden topic in polite conversation. Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses, a tool for placation and control. I personally think that religion, for all its vagueness and nigh incomprehensibility, at least from a purely logical standpoint, without relying on any inherent logical flaws, that's why its called faith right? But my tangentially minded thoughts aside, although I’ll talk about the nature of faith later. Religion's purpose is to ignite the hearts and souls of the people as well as inspire the dreams and enforce a moral code upon the people based on a mutual belief and understanding. But the funny thing about it is that every religion ever promotes a concept called free will, which is somehow concurrent with an God who is omniscient omnipotent and omnipresent or gods who are kinda like us, which seems infinitely more believable. Pascal's Wager is a statement that tells an individual to assume that God exists and to act accordingly, cause the possibility of a neutral to good ending is higher that way. One shouldn't assume anything, cause in the end, what I believe is the truth is that one must find their own truth and make their choice to believe in it. For example, if I want to believe that I am the reincarnation of a centuries old magician and I make that my truth, then that is my reality. In the end reality is merely attributed to the perceptions of the one who views it.

Plato's Forms

Recently, in the throes of what can only be described as a morbid curiosity, I have accepted a friends challenge to read multiple fanfics and then later write my own, about the world of my choice. These pale imitations of the original works, wrought with many a Mary Sue and plagued by the deus ex machina, made me think upon the nature of Plato's forms. Plato, in the throes of what can only be described as insanity, got the wacky idea that the things that exist in the world are merely the shades of bigger ideals. Though this is certainly false for some things, many other relationships it proves true for, like the fanfics and the original works. Like the internet and morality for example, the idea of morality on the internet, seems to be a joke to some people. Appeals to the pathos or ethos of the internet hive-mind often find themselves falling upon deaf ears. The only way to actually inspire the crowd of internet lovers is the infringement of personal rights. Even the threat of such an action is enough to force them up in arms, taking volatile action against friend and foe alike. Their idea of morality is so strange that many traditional news networks find themselves run around in circles by their love for the “lulz” and so on and so forth. I really dunno whether he's truly correct or not, but like Democritus's atomic theory, it seems really bloody strange from a merely intellectual stage.

Sophie's world: What wall?

Sophie's world has, like the incarnation of unpredictability, Deadpool, become merely a fourth wall defying monster. The fourth wall, which they've decided to downright demolish, build a hotdog stand on top of and then advertising a brand new hot dog stand with an annoyingly colored sign, complete with neon lights and such, made me have a conniption and led to my writers senses not just tingling but burning like a fiery coal. My rage thus established lets move on to the enjoyment of a reader at seeing the break of the fourth wall. At first, the novelty can force a laugh from both the green and experienced reader, but in the long run it only leads to a character being known as a cloud-cuckoo lander or a running gag. Mr. Amundsen pulls it off rather well, avoiding both of these possibilities with the use of both allusion and his setting to create a surreal environment that can only be described as downright bizarre, if at least a little bit believable. This understanding of the reader's suspension of disbelief is actually used quite well by the author, leading to a reading experience that actually works and helps promote philosophical thought. The fourth wall exists to divide the reader and the novel but the end result of the fourth wall is to link rather than divide, it brings the reader into the novel and brings the world of the novel into the mind of the reader.

The denim questions

Questions:

Would you be willing to be part of a genetic experiment that not only strengthened your muscles but prevented them from deteriorating with age?

if you had the chance (and it were possible), would you pick certain traits for your child before he/she was born?

Is this kind of genetic selection ethical?

I would be willing to participate in a genetic experiment that strengthened my muscles and prevented them from deteriorating, because even though it may have been beyond my natural capabilities, I would still have to work to gain complete control over my new-found strength and would also have to work to become stronger. Not everyone is born equal, contrary to popular belief, so I would welcome the tiny advantage. It would be able to help me in all parts of my life, and then once it hits the market it could help many people in all paths of life.

It depends what traits you are talking about. If its something as minor as appearance or talents, then no, but if my child could become the next Bruce Lee or Einstein or even have super hero level abilities*, then yes. I'm not exactly that religious, so while I think you should be comfortable for who your child is naturally, but if you have a chance to make them excel then take it. Of course, I wouldn't really know how I would react in this situation unless I was actually in the middle of it but that's besides the point. Really, I just think it would be really cool, but I think more can be done after your child is born through teaching him properly and encouraging independence and the value of hard work.

Genetic selection IS ETHICAL. But only within reason, such minor traits as hair color, skin color, and that dumb crap is for you dumb@ss heiress or rich b@stard who thinks such stereotypically retarded things as that. But if your child has a higher chance of heart disease, cancer, illness, hemophilia, then don't try and explain it away as being the “will of God”, do whatever you can to make your child have a carefree childhood. Having an easy childhood is dumb idea, childhood is for learning and understanding the world you live in, and our world sure ain't easy. Only hard work can truly get you to a beautiful ending.

*And I'm talking about beyond the edge of human capabilities here**

**Like not batman, edge of human capabilities, think like superpower superheroes.^

*** The Crazy awesome stuff

^Hey look, A footnote within a Footnote******

*****YAY TANGENT

Romantics

To be honest with you, I haven't exactly been rereading sophie's world recently, I read it all at the beginning of the year and as a result it's becoming more and more difficult to remember what happens when and why certain things are happening, it actually makes me feel a bit like Merlin*. So I just decided to grab a random chapter and write about that, so we're gonna go with the Romantics. Sophie starts by deciding to push the boundaries a little, having a garden party about philosophy and inviting Alberto. The Romantics believed that emotions and individuality was the best way to find the definition of life**. Art is also a way of conveying facts that canno be gained through pure reason, pure aesthetics as Kant said. Some romantics went as far as to state that an artist is God, creating and destroying their own worlds with their works. The thing about them that particularly fascinates me is their near endless search for arcane bits of knowledge, those few facts that are so different, so far off the well-beaten path of rationality. I particularly love how the author compares them to the hippies of the sixties and seventies***. The idol of the romantic era was the Byronic hero, alien, moody, and rebellious, was what many people aspired to be. Romanticism is easily one of the philosophical movements that has had the greatest effects on the arts in recent years.

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*Who, according to some more recent accounts, lived his life forwards to backwards, losing memories as he goes and travels crosswise to the Great King through time.

**This opinion spawned my favourite musical movement, as well as my favourite composer, Chopin

***The event I'd want to view throughout history most is the wonderfully misguided hippie movement, especially the display that was woodstock

Real World and Philosophy

For a little experiment, I decided to let the random button on wikipedia decide my topic for this blog so...

Unfortunately I got a lotta pages about science, so I decided to instead focus my essay on what man should know. This will not be a rant fueled by religion, or a lack of, and rather will be my own musings on horror host voice things man was never meant to know.... But lets steer clear of the Twilight Zone, that omnipotent Billy Mumy child creeps me out far too much. What I am really talking about is how much man wants to know about the true nature of his environment (no pun intended) until the little buggering rational voice in the back of his head begins to arbitrarily decide what is true and whats false, like, well an arbiter, and begins to just reject the possibility, no matter how large. Sometime I think I would be better off being left in the dark, just not when there's vampires around, and not the useless twighlight kind, I mean the unforgiving predators that they were in Bram Stoker's time, about certain question, if for nothing else to continue to allow me to guess at something, to find something to strive for and to find something to find. Part of what prompted this is my recollections of the mass hysteria and wild mass guessing that occurred as a result of a single particle accelerator, some people even willing to believe a botanist over the actual scientists who know what they're doing, perhaps in some foolish, suicidal hope.

Sophie's world: or Plato's cave

In the most recent reading of Sophie's World, her entire world began to unravel as both her and Alberto learn more about Mr. Knag and his role is there world, as the storyteller, the prime mover. Amazingly enough, Sophie appears to be able to interact with this other world, taking Hilde's cross back with her. Alberto however, seeks solace from this unfortunate reality in philosophy, playing along with “God's Plan”, as if seeking some proof of his own existence. This really calls into mind how one should interact with “God” or “gods” were they to suddenly appear in todays world. Should one just play along with their plans and just give in to fate or should one attempt to force their own will upon the world no matter what gods may do, as Norris does in the Adjustment bureau. Living in fear of what may happen is Alberto's entire life while Sophie refuses to accept Albert's plans. How would the average man react in case of a sudden and undeniable proof of God's existence? Not only that but that he's merely a delegate to a UN meeting, writing a story to keep his daughter happy while he's gone.

However, now that Sophie is aware of his existence, she appears to be able to do whatever she may desire, rather than having to conform to his plans. Like with Plato's cave, now that she is aware that the shadows are merely shadows and nothing more, they no longer have a hold on her. She seems to be on the edge of being capable of reaching the exit of the cave, able to move out of Albert's fantasy world and into his.

Connection numero tre: 0cCuPy W411 5tR33+

The occupy wall street movement, or as they would call it #OccupyWallStreet, suffers from strongly contrasting philosophies behind it, from communistic ideals to the quite epicurean hippies to the sociopathic and anarchistic Anonymous movement. The mainstream media seems to have a large problem with the array of ideals on display, albeit all with the goal of reforming corruption. The media can't seem to decide if its a communism movement(FOX "news" coughcough) or if its a cluster****. You have the marxists who are merely out there to try and save the proletariat from the capitalists while the hippies are running around talking on and on about how "the man is keeping them down", as well as just being there and preaching free love, drugs, and other epicurean crap.

Finally, Anonymous. The plague of the internet, a collective, a hive mind keeping itself ready to defend the rights of the people from any injustice, or just for the lulz, whichever anonymous we may see, we are guaranteed an interesting spectacle. Starting their reign as lord and master of the internet by taking down the likes of scientology, they quickly expanded in their strange ways. They seem to resemble a cthulian entity, driving insane those who view their true form as well as being a little insane themselves. Anonymous seems to function with not one head, but rather with many nodes of intelligence which each think differently. Its chaotic nature, its collective ways seem to be the ultimate expression of anarchy with the best idea immediately catapulting into the forefront of the hivemind.

Where #OWS will lead is only up to the protesters, until then, I wish you good night, and good luck.

Sophie's world reflection Nummer Zwei

Here it goes again...



Yesterday, as I was reading Sophie's world I stumbled across the chapter two worlds, a interesting comparison of semitic and indo-european schools of thought, sending me into some rather interesting reflections on America, Buddhism, Hinduism, and morality... have fun!!

First things first, America, cause <sarcasm> we're the best </sarcasm>. While most would argue that Americans are by no means represented by what the rest of the world thinks of us, arrogant xenophobic and racist, it appears that nine times out of ten, they're correct, at least when you look at who our celebrities are. America has decided to promote idiots and buffoons over those who are the smartest or those with the clearest morals, those who portray what we should aspire to be. America is a disease, the virus of Agent Smith, that doesn't actually work on making the world a better place (for the most part) when, as the country with the best means to do so, we should at least feel obligated. In America, the general goal is to experience everything we can, everything we WANT, over what we should do to better ourselves, our country, and our world.

Buddhism is a system based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha, and has Three Jewels, Buddha,  his teachings, and community. Hinduism on the other hand is a system based on the earlier Vedic texts of earlier Indian Cultures. However,they both have similar beliefs about the nature of sould, that it is trapped in this endless cycle of regeneration, until of course you gain enlightenment. Unlike most western religions, they preach not that the only way to salvation is through their way, *glances at christianity*, or you're on a highway to hell. Instead, they preach that their are many paths to God and that while some ways are more efficient, they all eventually have the same end goal. Instead of teaching to help whenever possible, which is a very difficult thing to do, instead they preach doing no harm and speaking truth, virtues that most Americans would assuredly benefit from.

Not only that, some of their teachings mimic those being taught by Jesus in the New Testament. For example, their belief that distancing oneself from the ideals of the world and foregoing material wealth resounds with Jesus's metaphor involving treasure instructing "Store your treasures in heaven, where neither moths nor rust corrupt, nor thieves break in to steal. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."


Morals... morals are entirely subjective to a society, what is moral, what is immoral cannot be defined on a cultural basis over anythinng more than a handful of years. What bugs me is when certain fools try to say that their morals are superior to anyone elses when they only follow them out of fear rather than duty or even true belief

Peace.

tHE pHILOSOPHY oF hARRY bLACKSTONE cOPPERFIELD dRESDEN

Sorry readers, I'm a little bit sick right now, so don't expect any brilliance from me...
the main character of Jim Butcher's the Dresden files, Harry Dresden shows signs of having a deep and very strong personal philosophy. Harry is a wizard, an individual who uses arcane knowledge to affect the actual world, embodying the indo-european belief that having a deeper understanding of the world grants us power. Dresden also shows signs of stoicism, bearing all personal pain and suffering for the sake of his beliefs and ideals, refusing to trade them for anything. On the other hand he shows obvious signs of a disregard for the future in an epicurean fashion, refusing to consider it and doing as best fits his beliefs dictate at the moment, starting a war for the sake of a single person and creating a power vacuum as he ends that war. What he unfortunately doesn't realize is that this power vacuum would cause even more suffering amongst people everywhere. Likely, he would be praised in the indo-european way of thought that teaches that the soul is immortal and must be well-kept rather than the semitic which believes that all things have an end and would have cursed him for his length of foresight.

Why Source Code did indeed create an Alternate Reality

4.  Is the ending a new "movie reality" (for lack of a better term)?  Why or why not?  Is it possible that Stevens' determination somehow merged the alternate universe with the movie's original reality?
I believe the ending is a new "movie reality" because the events resemble a time-line where the teacher (don't remember his name) stopped the anarchist cold, completely denying his attempt to "remake the world". I don't really believe that any one man's determination could actually break down the barrier between parallel universes. However I do believe that the instant Captain Stevens decided that he could and was going to save everyone that was on that train, as he contemplated the idea, the alternate universe was created. In the end, within the Source Code, he took the place of the teacher and, as he had no place to return to in the "real world", he was allowed to remain within said parallel universe.
Of course, there is always the alternative that the Source Code program was much more complex than what Rutledge let on, regardless of whethere he was aware of it or not and was capable of simulating not only the events that originally occurred but seemingly allowing for random occurrences, including how Stevens was capable of completely affecting everything that happened, finding the killer even though the teacher didn't know who it was. If Rutledge didn't exactly know the extent of his program, then it would seem to suggest a Singularity, an AI which is more intelligent and creative than a human being and capable of upgrading itself. However, Occam's Razor would seem to suggest that this is even more unlikely than the previous hypothesis.

Two Lost Souls Swimming in a Fish Bowl...

So because I decided to analyze an album, Wish you were here for my first post of this kind, I decided to start with an analysis of each of the six songs with a link to the lyrics first and my analysis below.

https://sites.google.com/site/pinkfloydlyrics/wishyouwerehere

Thoughts/Analysis

Shine on you Crazy Diamond:

This song has a feel of fatalism, as well as an existential tilt. I relate it to the writings of Kierkegaard as the sang seems to intimate that who we are is determined by the dreams and thoughts we form, rather than what the world forces us to do or tells us we are. In the words Shine on You Crazy Diamond, Roger Waters calls upon us to work to shine and prove meaning of our own existence. I say it is fatalistic because he says to accept that the world will take from us what we hope and blow us on the "steel winds."

Welcome to the Machine

I don't really have anything to say about this one except its strongly anti industrial.

Have A Cigar

This song, like the last one ( and the next one) is very strongly Romantic. It rails against the common aspects of what we consider to be a futuristic society, specifically in this case the Capitalistic tendency to treat people as faceless individuals, just another cost or commodity.

Wish You Were Here

This song is again not only about how society is taking all the beauty away from the world and replacing it with ugly, unhappy images "a green field from a cold steel rail?" but it is also about how we are trapped in the world like fish in a fish bowl until we can finally break free, but not by what we can sense or see.

Shine on you Crazy Diamond

The album ends with part 2 (or parts 6-9) of shine on you crazy diamonds, with much the same tilt as the beginning.

Album

The album as a whole is very reminiscent of philosophical terms like Idealism, the opposite to materialism, where instead of focusing on what you can see and touch, its more of what you can reason out and experience(in a spiritual sense). Another thing that it is similar to is the existential movement, popularized by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche which is basically, the idea that who you are is determined by your actions, something that I wished Sophie was told before she was presented with the questions of unquestionable importance. However in wish you were here they touch upon the fishbowl, something which binds to earth, an idea discussed by many theologians, for example a Hindu would call it karma, the ties that bind us to the wheel of fate whereas a Christian would call it sin, the weights and tar which separates us from God. I don't know if this is relevant to philosophy or not but the entire album is very Romantic as a whole.

To be honest, this entire band would likely take offense to me analyzing their album and classifying it, and really I wasn't exactly sure what was going on, making connections where there may or may not be any.

Peace.

Poor Sophie...

 The protagonist of Sophie's world is unfortunate in that not only is her closest friend a clueless, vapid individual but also that a crack squad of philosophy ninjas have seen fit to send her random questions along with a syllabus in philosophy, just to give her headaches. Such questions are thrown at her to make her see reality in an unusual light. To be honest, it all seems a little bit unfair, that this poor girl, who while gifted with with an unusually sharp mind in this time and age, has to deal with such an idiotic mother and stupid friends, as while as an existential crisis. I would be quite daunted, were I a "typical" American, to be confronted with a question of who you are, when to be honest, you are what you believe and think, what you enjoy and hate, not your blog, not your job, not your name, nor grades and accomplishments. While I may sound like a certain individual(as played by Brad Pitt), I don't believe in purposefully throwing chaos into the system, its already there. Then on top of a personal crisis, he returns with the question of where the world comes from, which is, to be the most precise within discoverable history, a hyper-dense point of all matter within the universe.

From the second chapter, you can sense some underlying questions, like what is truly important, not what we are convinced by societal pressures and parental mandates we "need" to accomplish. Also evident is what is philosophical truth. Is it what can be proved by years of study? reason? faith? Is it universal or is it only true on personal cases? What can we truly believe? What we can sense? No, at least if you believe in scientific studies or religious doctrine. What we are told? No for people make mistakes, if not lie outright. What we deduce? No, for reason cannot stand on its own? Or what we intuit? Only if you believe you are the only one alive.

Then he mentions a trait, held in common amongst children and philosophers (and those who are truly religious I guess(and I mean the thousandth of a percent that actually believes)) which he calls the Faculty of Wonder. The ability of looking at the world as if it is continuously new, continuously remade, and never taking anything for granted. To, as a way of saying, live and work in the real world but think apart from said world, making what we believe to be true and reality entirely uncommon.

These things are just a combination of things that would greatly succeed to make anyone’s life a living hell, so... I feel sorry for Sophie