To All God's Children,
-->One of my professors is an uncarved block. The “uncarved block” (because I know you’re wondering) is a Tao master or a person who is untainted by the modern order of the world. He is forty, but he acts like a five year old maintaining a sense of wonder, always asking questions, and in tune with his playful nature.
Money has little importance to him; he isn’t tainted by the need to feel important by making a lot of money (or more money than his wife for example). He loves to play basketball probably for the coordination, grace, and rhythm of the sport; basketball could be perceived as a “masculine” form of competitive dance when thought of in this way.
He’s calm and quiet although I feel it’s been misinterpreted by people as being cold, calculating and apathetic. He has passion and I think that’s why he liked my essays for class so much. He has compassion whether he realizes it or not; he told us once that he “hates people”, but it’s probably because the way people use and abuse each other is absurd. He’s an uncarved block and we share so many qualities in common. I consider him a very interesting and special friend.
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Coexistence of the Soul and Body
To All God's Children,
-->The washcloth example: Water in the washcloth is absorbed and can be retained. Both washcloth and water are separate, but held together as one. Mind and soul can exist within the body, but can be released when ready. So when we die, it’s like the death angel wringing us out to dry. The spiritual energy built up within the body must go somewhere (matter cannot be created or destroyed) so it escapes the body into the environment and exists as a bodiless mind. Just a thought.
-->The washcloth example: Water in the washcloth is absorbed and can be retained. Both washcloth and water are separate, but held together as one. Mind and soul can exist within the body, but can be released when ready. So when we die, it’s like the death angel wringing us out to dry. The spiritual energy built up within the body must go somewhere (matter cannot be created or destroyed) so it escapes the body into the environment and exists as a bodiless mind. Just a thought.
Peace be with you
The Stress of Being Right
To All God's Children,
-->These nitpicky phds can’t think for themselves always running to a book or a higher power (professor or scholar) for an answer. This is my freedom by choosing to not live my life that way. I may be smarter then average or I may be a simpleton; I may be right about so many things or only guessing and be just as wrong. I feel like regardless of whether we get the answers from a book (which comes from another person) or ourselves (our own mind) it can be refuted, denounced or proven wrong in a number of years anyway. So what’s the point of panicking over wrong information? Might as well live, be free, and guess with a clear mind that you don’t have to be right about anything and that’s ok.
-->These nitpicky phds can’t think for themselves always running to a book or a higher power (professor or scholar) for an answer. This is my freedom by choosing to not live my life that way. I may be smarter then average or I may be a simpleton; I may be right about so many things or only guessing and be just as wrong. I feel like regardless of whether we get the answers from a book (which comes from another person) or ourselves (our own mind) it can be refuted, denounced or proven wrong in a number of years anyway. So what’s the point of panicking over wrong information? Might as well live, be free, and guess with a clear mind that you don’t have to be right about anything and that’s ok.
What are you blogging about? Oh, Nothing.
To All God's Children,
-->Nothing. I have an inner calm that's effortless to maintain. When I get angry I feel nothing; when I cry I feel nothing; even when I’m happy I feel nothing; when I make love I feel nothing; nothing but calm. At the end of the Diary of Anne Frank, there’s a second hand account of her dying in the concentration camp and the last thing she said was “I feel nothing.” Perhaps nothing is the most natural thing we can feel. Returning our bodies to nature is like returning it to nothing. She died at peace with nature; her soul escaping.
-->Nothing. I have an inner calm that's effortless to maintain. When I get angry I feel nothing; when I cry I feel nothing; even when I’m happy I feel nothing; when I make love I feel nothing; nothing but calm. At the end of the Diary of Anne Frank, there’s a second hand account of her dying in the concentration camp and the last thing she said was “I feel nothing.” Perhaps nothing is the most natural thing we can feel. Returning our bodies to nature is like returning it to nothing. She died at peace with nature; her soul escaping.
The Pursuit of Value
To All God's Children,
--> No matter what you do to convince someone who thinks poorly of you that you have worth, you’ll never be able to. It’s because we are all worthless. With that said, we seek things that establish our value – high status, nice clothes or an attractive mate. You’ll never convince someone that you’re worthwhile because you aren’t worth anything. This doesn’t entail that you are worthless either. You are what you are.
--> No matter what you do to convince someone who thinks poorly of you that you have worth, you’ll never be able to. It’s because we are all worthless. With that said, we seek things that establish our value – high status, nice clothes or an attractive mate. You’ll never convince someone that you’re worthwhile because you aren’t worth anything. This doesn’t entail that you are worthless either. You are what you are.
If a Tree Falls in Brooklyn... I mean in the Forest...
To All God's Children,
The infamous (and somewhat annoying) philosophical question: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?” No. It makes air waves that could be translated into meaningful sound through the process of transduction, but an “ear” must be present in order to receive those air waves and convert them into meaningful sounds. So if no one’s around, including the cute little woodland creatures, the tree makes no sound.
The infamous (and somewhat annoying) philosophical question: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound?” No. It makes air waves that could be translated into meaningful sound through the process of transduction, but an “ear” must be present in order to receive those air waves and convert them into meaningful sounds. So if no one’s around, including the cute little woodland creatures, the tree makes no sound.
What is Progress?
To All God's Children,
-->Why do we put so much value to learning math and science? This idea that science brings progress is the cause. Does it really? Does progress really come from advanced knowledge and abilities? When we level a forest to build roads and office buildings is that progress? When we invent cars that contribute to global warming is that progress? When we mass produce carcinogenic foods and use science to find a cure for the cancer we’re creating is that progress? No, there’s no such thing as progress. Draw value from other things in life because progress and success are an illusion. If anything, we should determine a child’s talent early on and nurture it instead of forcing them to learn things and feel stupid when they don’t understand them.
-->Why do we put so much value to learning math and science? This idea that science brings progress is the cause. Does it really? Does progress really come from advanced knowledge and abilities? When we level a forest to build roads and office buildings is that progress? When we invent cars that contribute to global warming is that progress? When we mass produce carcinogenic foods and use science to find a cure for the cancer we’re creating is that progress? No, there’s no such thing as progress. Draw value from other things in life because progress and success are an illusion. If anything, we should determine a child’s talent early on and nurture it instead of forcing them to learn things and feel stupid when they don’t understand them.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Labels
Understand God's Children,
-->We all have labels. What gender are you? What race are you? What sexual orientation, political ideology, personality type, hair and eye color, nationality, occupation, etc. are you? We’re even labeled by numbers for our phones, our addresses, our social security and even our age. I’ve decided to shed my labels. I don’t know what religion I am. I don’t know if I’m liberal or not. I’m sick of all these labels. I’m just a being that exists for the given time frame – that’s it.
Are my beliefs from French existentialism? Am I a material monist because I like Spinoza’s philosophies? No, because I don’t want a label for the way I think. Being perceived as a black female there are two times the labels and stereotypes and I’m tired. I don’t want to fight it, but I just want to flow with it, to rise above it. My philosophies and theories are my mind; they are me – not all these damn labels. Assigning objects to categories and names really limits the description of it and the true nature of it. It’s yet another fault of language.
-->We all have labels. What gender are you? What race are you? What sexual orientation, political ideology, personality type, hair and eye color, nationality, occupation, etc. are you? We’re even labeled by numbers for our phones, our addresses, our social security and even our age. I’ve decided to shed my labels. I don’t know what religion I am. I don’t know if I’m liberal or not. I’m sick of all these labels. I’m just a being that exists for the given time frame – that’s it.
Are my beliefs from French existentialism? Am I a material monist because I like Spinoza’s philosophies? No, because I don’t want a label for the way I think. Being perceived as a black female there are two times the labels and stereotypes and I’m tired. I don’t want to fight it, but I just want to flow with it, to rise above it. My philosophies and theories are my mind; they are me – not all these damn labels. Assigning objects to categories and names really limits the description of it and the true nature of it. It’s yet another fault of language.
Freedom within Limit
To All God's Children,
-->Freedom within Limit: Free will – do we have it? The philosophical debate in psychology is that we have the opposite of free will called “determinism”. When people are told that they have no free will then they tend to abide by fewer morals. Isn’t it their will that allows them to act immorally? On the other hand, it may be my will to fly, but I am limited by my physical state. I believe there is freedom within limit. Individuals born with full consciousness, or the capacity to make their own decisions, possess free will. Those with partial or no consciousness (e.g. mentally handicapped or people resting in a vegetative state) have no or very little free will. Free will is relative to our consciousness.
-->Freedom within Limit: Free will – do we have it? The philosophical debate in psychology is that we have the opposite of free will called “determinism”. When people are told that they have no free will then they tend to abide by fewer morals. Isn’t it their will that allows them to act immorally? On the other hand, it may be my will to fly, but I am limited by my physical state. I believe there is freedom within limit. Individuals born with full consciousness, or the capacity to make their own decisions, possess free will. Those with partial or no consciousness (e.g. mentally handicapped or people resting in a vegetative state) have no or very little free will. Free will is relative to our consciousness.
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Definition of God
To All God's Children,
-->I’m convinced that many philosophers are wrong. Just because the definition of a certain being is not true in all cases doesn’t mean that being doesn’t exist. However, what it might mean is that the definition of the being is wrong. God is all good, but because there is evil in the world God does not exist according to a Frenchman named Sartre. Well that’s just stupid; I can understand the idea that the Christian God is “all good” and that it’s logical for an omnipresent being to allow evil in its being. There’s so much that lies beyond what humans know there’s no way anyone can prove that God does not exist from such a simple statement.
Maybe God should not be defined as an “all good” being. The Taoists believe that there is a balance of good and bad like in the yin yang. Good vs. evil is all relative to your perspective of whether the action helps or harms you. If you label something as good then you must have something as evil. It makes the most sense to just not label it either way. But I guess calling God the all-powerful “neutral” would just sound lame.
Whatever, I’m getting off track, but essentially what I’m trying to say is that our definition of God might be wrong because; for one, God lies outside our understanding and therefore nearly impossible to limit him to a particular definition. I believe God should be defined as a spirit that lies beyond us, but within us – a disembodied current of life force thriving at the very core of existence. God is everywhere because the spirit is all matter thus we are included into its being; for we are nothing, but conscious matter ourselves.
-->I’m convinced that many philosophers are wrong. Just because the definition of a certain being is not true in all cases doesn’t mean that being doesn’t exist. However, what it might mean is that the definition of the being is wrong. God is all good, but because there is evil in the world God does not exist according to a Frenchman named Sartre. Well that’s just stupid; I can understand the idea that the Christian God is “all good” and that it’s logical for an omnipresent being to allow evil in its being. There’s so much that lies beyond what humans know there’s no way anyone can prove that God does not exist from such a simple statement.
Maybe God should not be defined as an “all good” being. The Taoists believe that there is a balance of good and bad like in the yin yang. Good vs. evil is all relative to your perspective of whether the action helps or harms you. If you label something as good then you must have something as evil. It makes the most sense to just not label it either way. But I guess calling God the all-powerful “neutral” would just sound lame.
Whatever, I’m getting off track, but essentially what I’m trying to say is that our definition of God might be wrong because; for one, God lies outside our understanding and therefore nearly impossible to limit him to a particular definition. I believe God should be defined as a spirit that lies beyond us, but within us – a disembodied current of life force thriving at the very core of existence. God is everywhere because the spirit is all matter thus we are included into its being; for we are nothing, but conscious matter ourselves.
Spinoza’s Monism
To All God's Children,
I believe this quote can say many things about human nature. In my interpretation, I would say that if “intellect” is free then one’s “will” is equally as free because to have a strong understanding pure of tainted knowledge is to set yourself free to control your fate (a.k.a. free will).
When I first learned about the philosophies of Spinoza, my entire perspective of the world changed. Spinoza is a material monist and in a sense this means that many things within the physical and metaphysical worlds. Things that seem separate are in fact the same such as the example above with will and intellect which to the naïve may seem completely different. Back in the days of Spinoza, the Jewish rabbis believed strongly in a separation between the secular and the sacred. Spinoza said no; there is no separation.
In doing so, he was excommunicated for his many other philosophies such as eternal life is not mentioned in the Old Testament. I think, his books were banned at the time, but they offered him many jobs at universities befitting a scholar. He would not accept them because he didn’t want them to limit what he was allowed to write and think about. He worked a low class job that eventually led to his death, but his story is admirable because not many people would be willing to abandon a better life for the pursuit of knowledge.
For this, he is one of my favorite historical persons. Without him, people would have taken longer to stop believing that demons possessed the minds of the mentally ill. Instead, we know that it’s something within the person because they are one with their brain and thus their disorder. Thank you, Spinoza.
“Will and intellect are one and the same thing” ~ Baruch Spinoza.
I believe this quote can say many things about human nature. In my interpretation, I would say that if “intellect” is free then one’s “will” is equally as free because to have a strong understanding pure of tainted knowledge is to set yourself free to control your fate (a.k.a. free will).
When I first learned about the philosophies of Spinoza, my entire perspective of the world changed. Spinoza is a material monist and in a sense this means that many things within the physical and metaphysical worlds. Things that seem separate are in fact the same such as the example above with will and intellect which to the naïve may seem completely different. Back in the days of Spinoza, the Jewish rabbis believed strongly in a separation between the secular and the sacred. Spinoza said no; there is no separation.
In doing so, he was excommunicated for his many other philosophies such as eternal life is not mentioned in the Old Testament. I think, his books were banned at the time, but they offered him many jobs at universities befitting a scholar. He would not accept them because he didn’t want them to limit what he was allowed to write and think about. He worked a low class job that eventually led to his death, but his story is admirable because not many people would be willing to abandon a better life for the pursuit of knowledge.
For this, he is one of my favorite historical persons. Without him, people would have taken longer to stop believing that demons possessed the minds of the mentally ill. Instead, we know that it’s something within the person because they are one with their brain and thus their disorder. Thank you, Spinoza.
The Rational Mind
To All God's Children,
-->The idea that I can control myself and my fate by using rational thinking and making deliberate choices, pops up in several disciplines. In classical psychology, Sigmund Freud stated that the nonconscious houses a lot of repressed sexual and aggressive instincts that impede the rational man's thought although many “rational” psychologists no longer listen to Freud. In Western philosophy, Descartes voiced that rational thought is what makes people human (the famous: I think therefore I am). Max Weber’s protestant work ethic stated that anyone can overcome obstacles with hard work and will power, and according to him, initiating the industrial revolution.
-->The idea that I can control myself and my fate by using rational thinking and making deliberate choices, pops up in several disciplines. In classical psychology, Sigmund Freud stated that the nonconscious houses a lot of repressed sexual and aggressive instincts that impede the rational man's thought although many “rational” psychologists no longer listen to Freud. In Western philosophy, Descartes voiced that rational thought is what makes people human (the famous: I think therefore I am). Max Weber’s protestant work ethic stated that anyone can overcome obstacles with hard work and will power, and according to him, initiating the industrial revolution.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Culture Wars: The Quest for Knowledge Through Migration
To All God's Children,
-->
Why are there so many cultures and different beliefs? Is culture the spawn of disagreement? Say all of our ancestors started out inAfrica . Why did some of them eventually migrate into new territory like Northern Africa, East Asia, The Middle East, Europe and eventually the Americas
Although it may make some people upset, technically the Native Americas are not native to the Americas either. A lot of people have been angry for years that the Native American’s land was stolen from them by the English, but we forget that Native Americans are descendants of the Mongoloid peoples who crossed the land bridge across the Atlantic ocean and settled in the Americas. But why do you think they settled there in the first place? Because they weren’t satisfied with what Asia and Europe had to offer them and they wanted more.
I really think that’s why Europeans have revolutionized the world with their inventions and innovative concepts towards science and philosophy. They are the people who were the least satisfy with our origins stemming fromAfrica . They are the descendants of the people with the greatest cognitive disequilibrium who desired to keep migrating and learning more.
That doesn’t necessarily make them smarter, but it makes them more desperate to find truth and to find peace of mind. How many years were they wrong about the center of the universe until Copernicus came along; or the world is flat until Eratosthenes; or how many people since then it has taken to develop knowledge to where it is now. More than any other race of people, the Jews have given us some of the greatest thinkers and excavators of truth ever – period. Freud, Einstein, and Jesus are included.
However, we may have this “Great Person” theory of history, but it has taken the contributions of millions of driven and desperate people to come up with all that we know today and will know tomorrow. So in other words, the people you see today in America are the ones for whatever reason were the most desperate to find truth and freedom in the world, and the others that we still see in loin clothes in Africa or South America are descendants of the ones who were content with their limited but satisfying understanding of the world.
Who’s the smarter person? The one who wants to live in the warmth of the African or South American sun or the person who wants to fair against the cold and harsh Scandinavian countryside? That’s why they lost all their color trying to stay healthy in the brutal climate by absorbing as much sunlight as possible. Or I could be wrong. I wish there was a way to prove all this.
-->
Why are there so many cultures and different beliefs? Is culture the spawn of disagreement? Say all of our ancestors started out in
Although it may make some people upset, technically the Native Americas are not native to the Americas either. A lot of people have been angry for years that the Native American’s land was stolen from them by the English, but we forget that Native Americans are descendants of the Mongoloid peoples who crossed the land bridge across the Atlantic ocean and settled in the Americas. But why do you think they settled there in the first place? Because they weren’t satisfied with what Asia and Europe had to offer them and they wanted more.
I really think that’s why Europeans have revolutionized the world with their inventions and innovative concepts towards science and philosophy. They are the people who were the least satisfy with our origins stemming from
That doesn’t necessarily make them smarter, but it makes them more desperate to find truth and to find peace of mind. How many years were they wrong about the center of the universe until Copernicus came along; or the world is flat until Eratosthenes; or how many people since then it has taken to develop knowledge to where it is now. More than any other race of people, the Jews have given us some of the greatest thinkers and excavators of truth ever – period. Freud, Einstein, and Jesus are included.
However, we may have this “Great Person” theory of history, but it has taken the contributions of millions of driven and desperate people to come up with all that we know today and will know tomorrow. So in other words, the people you see today in America are the ones for whatever reason were the most desperate to find truth and freedom in the world, and the others that we still see in loin clothes in Africa or South America are descendants of the ones who were content with their limited but satisfying understanding of the world.
Who’s the smarter person? The one who wants to live in the warmth of the African or South American sun or the person who wants to fair against the cold and harsh Scandinavian countryside? That’s why they lost all their color trying to stay healthy in the brutal climate by absorbing as much sunlight as possible. Or I could be wrong. I wish there was a way to prove all this.
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