Monday, May 18, 2009
In memorandum.
A very dear friend recently left my school under less than opportune circumstances. In leu of his not having his own 5-second spot on the senior slide show, he created this. This one's for you, Nik.
Friday, May 8, 2009
WOW
What a huge load of stuff to upload. Sorry if it's a bit overwhelming, but I worked really hard on it. I hope everyone likes it. Maybe it'll even be humorous to some. I also find it amusing how it works out to be twelve posts long. (12 being the number of grades in school, etc.)
My Life and Times Part XII
Twelfth grade began and my tenure at ASFA was almost over. I had elected to take a wonderful, exuberant, outstanding, brilliant, radiant, high-spirited, magnificent, and astounding course in Philosophy (let’s hope flattery will get me somewhere), taught by an equally qualified professor by the name of Brad Hill. (Really at this point I think it’s getting a little overwhelming, so I’ll stop the mild adulation.) It challenged me to begin thinking more and more about an abundance of allegories and actualities, in which I began to philosophize more and more. After being taught the intricacies of Descartes, I became surer of my stance on life, and was able to recognize myself as a rational Atheist. I began writing philosophical proofs and treatise as they came to my mind, and thankfully the teacher accepted them for responses to the philosophical proofs and treatise we were reading for the class. One of the ones I am more proud of is one in which, based on Thomas Aquinas’s idea of a primary cause, using modern proof of his theory and a revised definition for God, proved God’s existence much the same way Aquinas did (albeit without a good definition for god or the scientific evidence to prove this). Later in the class, I discovered Immanuel Kant, who argued that no one could ever really know God or the future. After many long hours of though, I did finally come to a conclusion that resolved my viewpoints with his (he was important, I couldn’t let an important philosopher get the better of me now, could I?). I simply disagreed with him. I believe that we can know that there will be a future in that we know that there is time, and it progresses. There is a past; therefore there must be a future. However, Kant and I are in agreement in that we cannot know what the future holds.
My Life and Times Part XI
Tenth grade was fairly similar to ninth, sans depression. Although I did have this really great English class that year. Something about puritans or some such stuff.
Eleventh was really when I came back in full force. I was feeling better and I had regained some friends lost by the move, and I was back on track to pick up where I had left off four years ago. Except that I now no longer held almost any of the same views. My Deism had faded for a much more Atheistic viewpoint. I no longer believed in a God. Instead, what had taken its place was simply the natural order. There was no need for there to even be a God, barring the mountains of scientific evidence disproving many of the things God had been said to purportedly have done (at least according to most, if not all, of the world’s leading religious texts).
This happened to be the year in which I began taking biology. Prior to this, I had always had the inkling that a rational approach to problem solving had been the way to go, but this course cemented it for me. Science really could be the end-all for discussions. Not only was there a set methodology in which to pursue any line of questioning, but the community was essentially entirely skeptics. Were something to pass through that much doubt and still maintain credibility, the odds of it being true were high enough to be considered truth, in my opinion. All this heavily supported Georg Hegel’s own view that everything could be broken up into ration categories. Science has been able to accomplish this task with most biota on the planet, so why not everything? Now, I understand that this may seem very reminiscent of David Hume’s emphasis on the empirical method, but I differ in that I believe logical proofs are a valid form of proof. Another thing biology cemented for me was the debate between Darwin and Genesis. The body of evidence was so overwhelmingly in favor of evolution that the belief in Creationism, or that God created everything only a short while ago, seemed almost childlike in its simplicity.
Eleventh was really when I came back in full force. I was feeling better and I had regained some friends lost by the move, and I was back on track to pick up where I had left off four years ago. Except that I now no longer held almost any of the same views. My Deism had faded for a much more Atheistic viewpoint. I no longer believed in a God. Instead, what had taken its place was simply the natural order. There was no need for there to even be a God, barring the mountains of scientific evidence disproving many of the things God had been said to purportedly have done (at least according to most, if not all, of the world’s leading religious texts).
This happened to be the year in which I began taking biology. Prior to this, I had always had the inkling that a rational approach to problem solving had been the way to go, but this course cemented it for me. Science really could be the end-all for discussions. Not only was there a set methodology in which to pursue any line of questioning, but the community was essentially entirely skeptics. Were something to pass through that much doubt and still maintain credibility, the odds of it being true were high enough to be considered truth, in my opinion. All this heavily supported Georg Hegel’s own view that everything could be broken up into ration categories. Science has been able to accomplish this task with most biota on the planet, so why not everything? Now, I understand that this may seem very reminiscent of David Hume’s emphasis on the empirical method, but I differ in that I believe logical proofs are a valid form of proof. Another thing biology cemented for me was the debate between Darwin and Genesis. The body of evidence was so overwhelmingly in favor of evolution that the belief in Creationism, or that God created everything only a short while ago, seemed almost childlike in its simplicity.
My Life and Times Part X
Ninth grade was a more productive year in terms of philosophical viewpoints for me than was eighth grade. While eighth grade was easy, it was easy. By this, I mean that while I could relax, it offered me no real opportunities to challenge myself intellectually. During ninth grade I became depressed, and began thinking on many subjects, unfortunately the least of which was school. As my grades sank, however, my mind became more active, and I began to think more and more on many of the aspects of life. I was going to an arts school, and people were creating “art,” but was it really art. I have always found myself closer to music than the other arts, and I was exposed to many newer types of pieces (which were very poor indeed). Unlike Leo Tolstoy, I did not think art merely needed to elicit an emotion from the viewer; I thought that a piece was truly art if the artist conveyed the emotion they were trying to. From this, I did not and still do not consider many pieces which people rave over true “art.”
It was also during ninth grade in which I really began to pay attention to the news. One large story of the year was that of euthanasia in a brain-dead woman in Florida. By this point, I was pretty concrete in my view that euthanasia should be legalized. This was a very humane act, in my mind, and I see now that I was very much in agreement with James Rachels’ views on this topic. Instead of killing, it should really be viewed as a kind thing, to help make another person happier. A tandem story happened to be going on at around the same time as this one, in which the legality of lethal injection for prisoners was being put to question as a form of “cruel and unusual punishment.” The defense argued that due to the ineptitude of the prison guards and staff, the injection was being administered incorrectly and therefore causing the prisoners great pain. I remember that one proposed solution was to get physicians to administer the injection instead. The only problem was that there was not a single doctor in the entire United States of America willing to kill someone. I thought this was a very strong statement for the cause I had rallied myself behind. Even those doctors in favor of physician assisted suicide were not willing to kill someone without benefit to the person. Clearly, there was something to be gained by the patient in death that they could not have in life, even if that something was a painless death.
It was also during ninth grade in which I really began to pay attention to the news. One large story of the year was that of euthanasia in a brain-dead woman in Florida. By this point, I was pretty concrete in my view that euthanasia should be legalized. This was a very humane act, in my mind, and I see now that I was very much in agreement with James Rachels’ views on this topic. Instead of killing, it should really be viewed as a kind thing, to help make another person happier. A tandem story happened to be going on at around the same time as this one, in which the legality of lethal injection for prisoners was being put to question as a form of “cruel and unusual punishment.” The defense argued that due to the ineptitude of the prison guards and staff, the injection was being administered incorrectly and therefore causing the prisoners great pain. I remember that one proposed solution was to get physicians to administer the injection instead. The only problem was that there was not a single doctor in the entire United States of America willing to kill someone. I thought this was a very strong statement for the cause I had rallied myself behind. Even those doctors in favor of physician assisted suicide were not willing to kill someone without benefit to the person. Clearly, there was something to be gained by the patient in death that they could not have in life, even if that something was a painless death.
My Life and Times Part IX
Along with my change in faith (again, pardon the pun) in regards to God came for me a greater emphasis on testing and logic. I realize now that I was a rationalist. It really hit me during science in the sixth grade. This was the way to go. Logic could prove anything! This was science! For some reason though, my mother was much less infatuated with René Descartes than I was, and we constantly argued about logic. She was also not fond of my newfound habit of trying to sleep as late as possible.
In retrospect, I believe my mother was closer to British Empiricism, as she always argued that her experience overruled my logic. And granted I was younger than her by some 30 years (really, that’s not even a third of a decade), but I certainly did not believe that should rule my opinions out. While I always held the Cartesian side of these battles, my mother always seemed to be with Locke, always saying that I couldn’t know without experience. In a funny kind of way, we reenacted the British Empiricists attacking Descartes’ ideas in the 1700’s. And, despite the many arguments lost and won (mostly lost, but I do get to buffer myself some, I’m the one writing), I still remain fairly certain of my standing as ultimately, a rationalist.
As my year in seventh grade came to a close, I had been accepted into the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA). I would be starting there under the math and science program in my eighth grade year. Eighth grade was a bittersweet year. It was enjoyable in that it was easy, but it was difficult in that I didn’t really get along with anyone and in that it would be the last relatively easy year at my tenure at ASFA. For the most part, it was uneventful, but my mother and I did have more Cartesian v. Empiricist spats occasionally.
In retrospect, I believe my mother was closer to British Empiricism, as she always argued that her experience overruled my logic. And granted I was younger than her by some 30 years (really, that’s not even a third of a decade), but I certainly did not believe that should rule my opinions out. While I always held the Cartesian side of these battles, my mother always seemed to be with Locke, always saying that I couldn’t know without experience. In a funny kind of way, we reenacted the British Empiricists attacking Descartes’ ideas in the 1700’s. And, despite the many arguments lost and won (mostly lost, but I do get to buffer myself some, I’m the one writing), I still remain fairly certain of my standing as ultimately, a rationalist.
As my year in seventh grade came to a close, I had been accepted into the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA). I would be starting there under the math and science program in my eighth grade year. Eighth grade was a bittersweet year. It was enjoyable in that it was easy, but it was difficult in that I didn’t really get along with anyone and in that it would be the last relatively easy year at my tenure at ASFA. For the most part, it was uneventful, but my mother and I did have more Cartesian v. Empiricist spats occasionally.
My Life and Times Part VIII
Birmingham wasn’t really all that bad a place, actually. The city itself was a lot greener than Newark or New York City (with the exceptions of NYC’s parks, which Birmingham really can’t hold a candle to), and by and by the people were actually polite! Heck, they even decided to forgo burning a cross in our yard out of their famed Southern Hospitality. (Ok, I know that’s not really a philosophy, but on the off chance you count it, I get one more reference.) However, as I soon learned, this was not instinctual. The ever-present hospitality was in fact a learned behavior that took many years to fully master. To this end, the children growing up in our town were just as rude as anyone else, but had the unfortunate added detriment of also being devout Southern Baptists. Their ridiculous devotion to churches they cared very little about in their everyday lives, and really only frequented out of habit or parental strong-arming put a large distaste in my mouth. The idea of God being such a wonderful thing was quickly fading, despite the possibility of an upcoming Bar Mitzvah. It was around the time of this realization that I also became increasingly aware of world news. My newfound attraction to Nation Public Radio and Garrison Keillor had widened my eyes as to the scope of the world. In a sort of congregation of ideas, my perception of a god began to change. My formerly Aristotelian creation took on a newer form that better fit my current life. I now viewed God as more in tune with nature, in a way much more consistent with Deism than anything else. Even though I still occasionally went to temple (hey, the rabbi lived down the street, what would you do?), I put much less faith in religion (pardon the pun) and the supernatural.
My Life and Times Part VII
As I began growing older (but the sun was the same in a relative way [yes, I like Pink Floyd too]), my hunger to learn also got bigger. My parents had actively encouraged my curiosity, which may have contributed to this Confucian desire for education. I had always been asking questions of them, and for the most part, they responded to the best of their abilities. Expecting similar responses from worn out and underpaid grade-school teachers was something else altogether. I became known for my reputation to always question stuff. I now realize that the teachers were not very fond of this, but I also recognized at the time that my classmates hated it. However, being the little bourgeois elitist I was, I merely regarded it as the usual contempt for my kind.
I feel it is now important to notify you, dear reader, where I was growing up. Though I was born in Rhode Island and lived perhaps the first year of my life in Philadelphia, my family lived near Hartford, Connecticut for a few years around when my sister was born. After Hartford, we moved again to Livingston, New Jersey (located maybe 10 miles from Manhattan). This information, however, was a necessity as it is imperative to accurately perceive my next big philosophical swing.
We moved. Now, I don’t just mean we jumped up and down a little to jiggle ourselves, I mean we moved. Not to a better house, not to a neighboring town, but to Birmingham, Alabama. Imagine my surprise upon hearing the location of our next move after having been told that it was all “up in the air.” Regardless, we went through with it even through my protests.
I feel it is now important to notify you, dear reader, where I was growing up. Though I was born in Rhode Island and lived perhaps the first year of my life in Philadelphia, my family lived near Hartford, Connecticut for a few years around when my sister was born. After Hartford, we moved again to Livingston, New Jersey (located maybe 10 miles from Manhattan). This information, however, was a necessity as it is imperative to accurately perceive my next big philosophical swing.
We moved. Now, I don’t just mean we jumped up and down a little to jiggle ourselves, I mean we moved. Not to a better house, not to a neighboring town, but to Birmingham, Alabama. Imagine my surprise upon hearing the location of our next move after having been told that it was all “up in the air.” Regardless, we went through with it even through my protests.
My Life and Times Part VI
As fifth grade eventually turned to sixth, and I became older, the time of Bar Mitzvah began to approach. I had been raised in a mostly agnostic manner, and had never even been to synagogue, so the concept of the Bar Mitzvah was foreign to me. I began to think deeper on religious matters, and began to believe more and more in the concept of a God. I asked my parents, who said they would support anything I wanted to believe and follow. Asked what God was, they gave a definition very much like Aristotle’s unmoved mover, a perfect being with omnipotence and omniscience. I found this idea very appealing, and so began my belief in God. Still, I never really had a Bar Mitzvah (mainly from lack of trying, but I can always bring up that we didn’t really belong to a temple if anyone starts asking questions).
Another thing that happened around this time was the death of one of my two grandfathers. I will have to admit that I favored him more than my other grandfather, so his death was very shocking to me. Previously, I had never really considered the concept of death seriously; it had been so far off. Now, death took the stage, front and center, and forced me to think about it. At the time, the prospect was very frightening. I was very troubled by the loss of my grandfather, so the possible (and inevitable) loss of my parents frightened me even more. I know I began to have a number of restless nights fraught with frightening thoughts around this time. If only I had been so wise as I am now (I’m not wise now, but it sounds good). Now, I more readily understand and accept death as a part (ironically enough) of life. Had I been more like a Taoist at the time of my grandfather’s death, it might not have bothered me as much because I could have accepted it as part of nature.
Another thing that happened around this time was the death of one of my two grandfathers. I will have to admit that I favored him more than my other grandfather, so his death was very shocking to me. Previously, I had never really considered the concept of death seriously; it had been so far off. Now, death took the stage, front and center, and forced me to think about it. At the time, the prospect was very frightening. I was very troubled by the loss of my grandfather, so the possible (and inevitable) loss of my parents frightened me even more. I know I began to have a number of restless nights fraught with frightening thoughts around this time. If only I had been so wise as I am now (I’m not wise now, but it sounds good). Now, I more readily understand and accept death as a part (ironically enough) of life. Had I been more like a Taoist at the time of my grandfather’s death, it might not have bothered me as much because I could have accepted it as part of nature.
My Life and Times Part V
Later, I added another friend to my repertoire! He was very much the short term utilitarian, doing everything for immediate gain, and often procrastinating until the last minute to do things. His influence may have perhaps waived my dualistic view, but nothing very pronounced happened excepting possibly my increased happiness, but again, nothing overly notable.
By this time, I find it important to address that I had progressed out of the third grade and into the fifth. As my age had progressed, so had I; and I acquired yet one more friend. This time, he shared my interests in gaming and recreation, and made for a great bus partner.
Having been born before the turn of the century, I was old enough to kind of know what was happening during the September eleventh attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York. This also provides a great tangent for me to springboard off of, but I’ll not elaborate on the opportunistic practices of the late-night paper-writer (really it’s only 8, and I’m jumping around, so I’m almost done. Please don’t think too badly of me.). 9-11, as it has come to be more casually known, was a terrible day, regardless of standing, and my personal proximity to the event only made the impact that much greater. It got me thinking about many things. At this point, though I was not as independent as I now am, and was very keen on my parents’ thoughts, so I was not extremely original, but I did have perspective, and that does count for something (at least if you’re a good BSer). The attacks were egregious, but I feared our country’s retaliation would be too strong, as it usually is. Was it right to go to war over this? Few people disagreed with President Bush’s “War on Terror,” but already my family and I had the notion that this was too vague a term. This got me thinking about violence and what was really right. It was around then that I made the decision to become nonviolent (at least for a few years). I had seen what violence could bring, and so I decided to look into more peaceful means of resistance. This is when I incidentally came across Gandhi for a school project. His message of nonviolence immediately struck me (pardon the pun), and I was entranced.
By this time, I find it important to address that I had progressed out of the third grade and into the fifth. As my age had progressed, so had I; and I acquired yet one more friend. This time, he shared my interests in gaming and recreation, and made for a great bus partner.
Having been born before the turn of the century, I was old enough to kind of know what was happening during the September eleventh attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York. This also provides a great tangent for me to springboard off of, but I’ll not elaborate on the opportunistic practices of the late-night paper-writer (really it’s only 8, and I’m jumping around, so I’m almost done. Please don’t think too badly of me.). 9-11, as it has come to be more casually known, was a terrible day, regardless of standing, and my personal proximity to the event only made the impact that much greater. It got me thinking about many things. At this point, though I was not as independent as I now am, and was very keen on my parents’ thoughts, so I was not extremely original, but I did have perspective, and that does count for something (at least if you’re a good BSer). The attacks were egregious, but I feared our country’s retaliation would be too strong, as it usually is. Was it right to go to war over this? Few people disagreed with President Bush’s “War on Terror,” but already my family and I had the notion that this was too vague a term. This got me thinking about violence and what was really right. It was around then that I made the decision to become nonviolent (at least for a few years). I had seen what violence could bring, and so I decided to look into more peaceful means of resistance. This is when I incidentally came across Gandhi for a school project. His message of nonviolence immediately struck me (pardon the pun), and I was entranced.
My Life and Times Part IV
Things were at a relatively stable equilibrium, at least for a while. The next big thing to happen to change my perspective on the world was the beginning of school. I had previously been to preschool and pre-K, but those could never really compare to the experience of kindergarten. Not only were there many more people than I was used to, I had to get along with them as well! For what I can remember, I rarely played with any of them, and I was fairly indifferent towards actually going to school. I found myself simply going along with whatever in an attempt to placate the scrutinizing eyes of the other five-year-olds. However, I found this very difficult. I was actively involved in the outside world, and was interested in learning, while they were not. I now know that I had felt as if I were the enlightened pariah of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. I continued on in such a manner until roughly third grade, when I met my first friend. He was fairly similar to me, and basically confirmed my views that the other nine- and ten-year-olds were rude conformists, simply choosing the easiest path. It was as if it was us two against the world, and we gradually enlargened our views. We saw school as if it were merely a secondary, almost lesser world than another, more perfect, intellectual world. I see now that we had inadvertently stumbled upon Platonic Dualism. Unfortunately, much like Plato and Socrates, were shunned as outsiders. I could never understand why people would not want to share their relative social wealth with me and my friend. It was at this point when I began to think about the near limitless possibilities if everyone were to be perfectly equal. We know this now to be a form of Communism or Marxism, but at the time all I could think of was why anyone would ever have to go through friendlessness. Of course, in retrospect, I see two reasons why this couldn’t have happened. The first is that humans are inherently selfish, and really only do seemingly selfless acts to accomplish something that is worth the act to them. It’s why capitalism works and why Adam Smith was right in his the wealth of nations. The second reason I now see is that Communism rarely works. People would get greedy and bored with things would wish for ways to differentiate themselves from others. Also, if we are born inherently selfish, there is all the more reason why this could not work with fourth and fifth graders who are closer to birth than any adult. Not only this, but even in nature selfishness is inherent. Having now read Stephen Jay Gould, I see that his argument that selfishness is inherent in natural selection is also very compelling. If any given organism weren’t selfish, how would its species ever propagate?
My Life and Times Part III
When a sibling is born, regardless of what any parents may say, any given child’s allotted time for getting attention from their parents is intrinsically cut in half (or more!). Needless to say, I did not like having to share with my sister. I thought the wealth should not be distributed between the people (as Marx often said), but should be reserved solely for me. If I may quote myself upon coming to such a horrid realization, “It’s nice, but can we take it back to the hospital now?” Unfortunately, my parents were not keen on putting their second child up for adoption, and I eventually had to cease my begging for her “disposal.”
As my sister came to be a constant at home, I had to move my energies elsewhere, and so I started thinking on larger things. Like the universe. When I became confused as to where the universe ended, and my parents failed to provide a satisfactory answer, I decided that it must simply be a lot larger than I was used to things being. Perhaps even larger than that mountain I climbed with my grandma.
As my sister came to be a constant at home, I had to move my energies elsewhere, and so I started thinking on larger things. Like the universe. When I became confused as to where the universe ended, and my parents failed to provide a satisfactory answer, I decided that it must simply be a lot larger than I was used to things being. Perhaps even larger than that mountain I climbed with my grandma.
My Life and Times Part II
After my birth, I was still obsessed with only one thing. Expansion! As soon as I grew enough, I could move on to bigger and better things. To this end, I believe I was still a utilitarian. At least I can say I remained consistent throughout times of trouble, when Mother Mary came to me speaking words of wisdom. (Okay, I never really saw “Mother Mary,” but adding a Beatles reference to a paper I’m writing for a teacher who’d get that can’t not buy me love.) Actually, at this point in my life, I was probably not as much a utilitarian as I was a preference utilitarian. Whereas when I was a fetus, I considered the greater good (that is, of my mother and myself), when I was a baby I really only wanted what was good for me. Peter Singer would have been proud.
Probably the next big change for me was when I really became cognizant of myself. I think I became aware of myself at around the same time I made one of the biggest philosophical changes in my life (and really the first one). Instead of doing things for myself, I now did them for my parents in a truly altruistic manner. Their attention was paramount, and nothing was too big a task to be undertaken to get them to notice me. Eventually, this turned to a more malicious behavior pattern. I now believed that I was entitled to my parent’s attention, and, much to their chagrin, I began doing anything and everything to this end. In fact, I was very aggressive in the pursuit of my goals at this time, going so far as to break things to be noticed. This was very typical of the childhood aggression described by Freud. It was at this point in my life that I received probably the biggest blow to my hunt for attention: my sister was born.
Probably the next big change for me was when I really became cognizant of myself. I think I became aware of myself at around the same time I made one of the biggest philosophical changes in my life (and really the first one). Instead of doing things for myself, I now did them for my parents in a truly altruistic manner. Their attention was paramount, and nothing was too big a task to be undertaken to get them to notice me. Eventually, this turned to a more malicious behavior pattern. I now believed that I was entitled to my parent’s attention, and, much to their chagrin, I began doing anything and everything to this end. In fact, I was very aggressive in the pursuit of my goals at this time, going so far as to break things to be noticed. This was very typical of the childhood aggression described by Freud. It was at this point in my life that I received probably the biggest blow to my hunt for attention: my sister was born.
My Life and Times: A journey through various philosophical meanderings
My Life all began, arguably, after four months of hard work on my parents’ part to conceive the embryo that would later develop to the dysfunctional human being it now is. Now, I’m going to consider my embryo as myself mainly to make this paper look larger and more intimidating than it actually is, but if I were to look for a real reason as to why I might consider myself something alive when I was merely an embryo, it would be that I’m writing this paper in the last months of Mr. President Bush’s presidency, and I figure if anyone is to throw the poor guy a bone, it may as well be me. Getting on with out story, as an embryo, I had only one thing on my mind, expansion. As soon as I was big enough, I could move on to bigger and better things. To this end, I consider myself, at this point in time, a utilitarian.
The next stage of my life was when I was finally born. My goals as an embryo had finally been achieved! However, my birth was a complicated one. I was very reticent to let go of my views as an embryo. The outside world kind of scared me, and so I made every effort to cling to my existence as it was; very much afraid to take the “leap of faith” Nietzsche talks about. In fact, I was so reluctant to leave my mother’s womb that not only was I two weeks overdue, but I also had to be delivered as an emergency caesarian-section because I had wrapped my umbilical cord around my neck in a manner of protest to my birth. (The doctors said were I to have been born as-was, I would have probably choked to death.) Nevertheless, I was born.
The next stage of my life was when I was finally born. My goals as an embryo had finally been achieved! However, my birth was a complicated one. I was very reticent to let go of my views as an embryo. The outside world kind of scared me, and so I made every effort to cling to my existence as it was; very much afraid to take the “leap of faith” Nietzsche talks about. In fact, I was so reluctant to leave my mother’s womb that not only was I two weeks overdue, but I also had to be delivered as an emergency caesarian-section because I had wrapped my umbilical cord around my neck in a manner of protest to my birth. (The doctors said were I to have been born as-was, I would have probably choked to death.) Nevertheless, I was born.
And a "biography" just ot finish it off.
A number of moths ago, I was taking a philosophy class (which served as a substantial part of the underpinnings of these previous few posts). As the final project, the class was asked to create a philosophical autobiography of themselves, including as many references to anything philosophically linked as possible. The entire thing is a number of pages, but over the next couple of posts I'll post to you what I think is best from it. I sincerely hope it's enjoyable and intellectually... nourishing?
Since God Exists...
Let us explore the idea of God. To disassemble the idea completely, let us first understand the idea as a whole. So, what is God? This point is argued all around the world, and some believe that this is even begging the question of God’s existence. However, let us not argue about the existence of God at this time, for this argument.
Getting back to the definition of God, although the details of this entity are argued all around the world, there is common consensus that God is “the creator.” From this, we may assume that, if nothing else, God creates and is a creator. Now let us further break down the concept: what is a creator? Something that makes things. But, once again, we have not reached a dead end: what are things made of? Their constituent parts and this we may hold true for all objects. For example, humans are made up of organs, which are made up of tissues, which are made up of cells, which are made up of molecules, which are made up of atoms, which are made up of protons and neutrons and electrons, and protons and neutrons are made up of quarks and so on and so forth. A chain such as this could continue on indefinitely, ending only with the bounds of human knowledge, but which also leads us to the question, where do these constituent parts come from. Through physics we know that in a closed system (the universe, in our case), matter and energy are neither lost nor gained, only changed about. Therefore, our constituting parts must simply come from other things. It may seem as though we’ve come to an impasse (stuff from stuff from stuff, etc.) in our breaking apart of the idea of God, but, alas, we have not. How are the constituent parts used in creation collected from other objects? Destruction. To create, one must first have the necessary materials, and to gather these materials, one must destroy the compound that they are currently part of to get to them.
Take, for example, a growing human. The biomass that they are constantly adding to their body does not come from nowhere; it comes from the food they eat. To access the carbon stored inside of the plants and animals the human is consuming, the human must first break apart the food being ingested. What we call digestion. When the whole to which those parts originally belonged is no more, they parts are able to be used by the body for its own purposes.
Which brings us to a logical observance: things may not be created without something else first being destroyed, or; for creation to happen there must first be destruction. I cannot find any instance in which this does not hold true.
The two most powerful objections to this that present themselves are as follows: (1) ideas need not destroy anything to be created, and (2) the big bang did not destroy anything, and yet it created everything we now know. In response, I would like to look at the first objection from a purely pragmatic standpoint. Though it is not necessary that prior ideas or experience be destroyed to create a new idea (and some would argue that this is the stuff of new ideas), I say no, still something must be destroyed. Ideas are created by neurons firing in a specific pattern. The firing of neurons, however, does cost energy. This energy would be acquired, ultimately, from the food eaten by the thinking human. And as discussed earlier, digestion is in fact destruction. To address the second objection, we must examine what the big bang was. The big bang was the expansion of the known Universe from an infinitely dense point of matter that existed only before the big bang. This thing existed before the big bang and does not exist now; consequently, it must have been destroyed. As was explored before, things cannot simply cease existing as there can be no net gain or loss of mass in a closed system. So, ultimately, the universe did destroy something to become created.
This brings to light the interesting question, does God need to destroy in order to create as well. I believe so. Though others would argue against this, there is no evidence to the contrary. Finally, let it be summarized that, it is well known that the universe is in an ever changing, static state. No one would argue this point. Therefore, I must conclude that destruction is necessary.
Getting back to the definition of God, although the details of this entity are argued all around the world, there is common consensus that God is “the creator.” From this, we may assume that, if nothing else, God creates and is a creator. Now let us further break down the concept: what is a creator? Something that makes things. But, once again, we have not reached a dead end: what are things made of? Their constituent parts and this we may hold true for all objects. For example, humans are made up of organs, which are made up of tissues, which are made up of cells, which are made up of molecules, which are made up of atoms, which are made up of protons and neutrons and electrons, and protons and neutrons are made up of quarks and so on and so forth. A chain such as this could continue on indefinitely, ending only with the bounds of human knowledge, but which also leads us to the question, where do these constituent parts come from. Through physics we know that in a closed system (the universe, in our case), matter and energy are neither lost nor gained, only changed about. Therefore, our constituting parts must simply come from other things. It may seem as though we’ve come to an impasse (stuff from stuff from stuff, etc.) in our breaking apart of the idea of God, but, alas, we have not. How are the constituent parts used in creation collected from other objects? Destruction. To create, one must first have the necessary materials, and to gather these materials, one must destroy the compound that they are currently part of to get to them.
Take, for example, a growing human. The biomass that they are constantly adding to their body does not come from nowhere; it comes from the food they eat. To access the carbon stored inside of the plants and animals the human is consuming, the human must first break apart the food being ingested. What we call digestion. When the whole to which those parts originally belonged is no more, they parts are able to be used by the body for its own purposes.
Which brings us to a logical observance: things may not be created without something else first being destroyed, or; for creation to happen there must first be destruction. I cannot find any instance in which this does not hold true.
The two most powerful objections to this that present themselves are as follows: (1) ideas need not destroy anything to be created, and (2) the big bang did not destroy anything, and yet it created everything we now know. In response, I would like to look at the first objection from a purely pragmatic standpoint. Though it is not necessary that prior ideas or experience be destroyed to create a new idea (and some would argue that this is the stuff of new ideas), I say no, still something must be destroyed. Ideas are created by neurons firing in a specific pattern. The firing of neurons, however, does cost energy. This energy would be acquired, ultimately, from the food eaten by the thinking human. And as discussed earlier, digestion is in fact destruction. To address the second objection, we must examine what the big bang was. The big bang was the expansion of the known Universe from an infinitely dense point of matter that existed only before the big bang. This thing existed before the big bang and does not exist now; consequently, it must have been destroyed. As was explored before, things cannot simply cease existing as there can be no net gain or loss of mass in a closed system. So, ultimately, the universe did destroy something to become created.
This brings to light the interesting question, does God need to destroy in order to create as well. I believe so. Though others would argue against this, there is no evidence to the contrary. Finally, let it be summarized that, it is well known that the universe is in an ever changing, static state. No one would argue this point. Therefore, I must conclude that destruction is necessary.
Does God Exist?
For these next couple of posts, I'd like to wax philosophical. I've developed my own little proof as to the existence of God. Note that my personal beliefs are not present in this argument and are in no way reflected by. I thought the creation of this was an interesting exercise in philosophy. Also, I had just read a bunch of Thomas Aquinas, so please excuse all the references to him.
Does God Exist?
Immediately, upon having been asked this question, one is given to answer simply; yes or no. I, however, would like to justify myself in my beliefs much the same way Saint Thomas Aquinas has.
First, I would like to display my disappointment at Saint Thomas Aquinas’s argument that God exists. He begins by addressing two well thought out objections as to the existence of God, yet not once does he truly refute these objections in his argument. The first objection is simply that if God is infinite goodness, how can there be any bad; and the second objection, since we can deduce that all things may be reduced to having a singular purpose –to be “natural”- then there is no need to “suppose the existence of God.” I will later show Saint Thomas Aquinas’s argument more concretely, but let me first address these two objections. It is not safe to assume God is by definition infinitely good. If He were, it is fairly safe to assume that everything would be perfect, yet reality is not so. Also, were this definition biblically based, we may clearly see that hundreds of times throughout the bible God does perform acts that are not wholly good. The bible’s definition of god is contradicting even there, so the definition of God as “infinitely good” cannot be agreed upon, and is therefore moot as an assumption on which to base an argument. Even were God to be infinitely good, Augustine’s refutation of the argument that god doesn’t exist holds: God may be infinitely good and still exist because, being good as He is, He leaves evil to better creation.
The second objection may more easily be refuted by improving upon Saint Thomas Aquinas’s proof of God’s existence. Aquinas’s point was that, if all origins were traced to the VERY beginning, there must be some first causal point. The earliest of all of these can now be defined as the “Big Bang,” or the rapid expansion of the known universe and all matter from a tiny point. However, this draws the question, what started that? Surely, this must be the origin of all that we know, and according to Aquinas, that would be God. If the stipulated definition of God is that God is the thing which is the original cause for all that was to come later, we may therefore define God as the thing which caused the Big Bang (which in turn created everything that we know today from a string of events around 14 billion years long). At this point, one may be saying in argument that the assumption that the Big Bang is in fact a reality begs the question. However, I point to recent scientific progress that supports the existence of the Big Bang (see also last week’s response for further elaboration on this point). If the Big Bang exists, and God is the thing which created the Big Bang, then God, by definition, exists.
Does God Exist?
Immediately, upon having been asked this question, one is given to answer simply; yes or no. I, however, would like to justify myself in my beliefs much the same way Saint Thomas Aquinas has.
First, I would like to display my disappointment at Saint Thomas Aquinas’s argument that God exists. He begins by addressing two well thought out objections as to the existence of God, yet not once does he truly refute these objections in his argument. The first objection is simply that if God is infinite goodness, how can there be any bad; and the second objection, since we can deduce that all things may be reduced to having a singular purpose –to be “natural”- then there is no need to “suppose the existence of God.” I will later show Saint Thomas Aquinas’s argument more concretely, but let me first address these two objections. It is not safe to assume God is by definition infinitely good. If He were, it is fairly safe to assume that everything would be perfect, yet reality is not so. Also, were this definition biblically based, we may clearly see that hundreds of times throughout the bible God does perform acts that are not wholly good. The bible’s definition of god is contradicting even there, so the definition of God as “infinitely good” cannot be agreed upon, and is therefore moot as an assumption on which to base an argument. Even were God to be infinitely good, Augustine’s refutation of the argument that god doesn’t exist holds: God may be infinitely good and still exist because, being good as He is, He leaves evil to better creation.
The second objection may more easily be refuted by improving upon Saint Thomas Aquinas’s proof of God’s existence. Aquinas’s point was that, if all origins were traced to the VERY beginning, there must be some first causal point. The earliest of all of these can now be defined as the “Big Bang,” or the rapid expansion of the known universe and all matter from a tiny point. However, this draws the question, what started that? Surely, this must be the origin of all that we know, and according to Aquinas, that would be God. If the stipulated definition of God is that God is the thing which is the original cause for all that was to come later, we may therefore define God as the thing which caused the Big Bang (which in turn created everything that we know today from a string of events around 14 billion years long). At this point, one may be saying in argument that the assumption that the Big Bang is in fact a reality begs the question. However, I point to recent scientific progress that supports the existence of the Big Bang (see also last week’s response for further elaboration on this point). If the Big Bang exists, and God is the thing which created the Big Bang, then God, by definition, exists.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
That next post
-that I was talking about in the previous post. Having covered the (nonexistent) entertainment value inherent in modern classical music, I'd now like to go over entertainment. Mainly, what is entertainment. I'm going to forgo the typical "X dictionary records entertainment as..." because it's way too overused and provides absolutely no intelligent dialogue to any sort of discourse. Back to entertainment.
I believe entertainment, in any of its forms, provides humanity a means with which to "escape" from reality. To immerse oneself in a world completely unrelated to their own, and to forget about life for a while. Reality, as interesting as it is, is always there. To some extent, humans always take what they have for granted. After a while, reality begins to drone, and to some extent, everyone just wants to escape. Why do we take vacations? For the same reason. To escape from our realities. With music, we immerse ourselves in sound, books, another world. Art serves as a change of pace for the eyes, and sculptures create things that last (relatively) forever, and in the human real of existence, that's a rarity. I believe that these forms of escape allow us to look back onto our own existences and re-appreciate them better, making it a little bit easier to live out our lives.
I believe entertainment, in any of its forms, provides humanity a means with which to "escape" from reality. To immerse oneself in a world completely unrelated to their own, and to forget about life for a while. Reality, as interesting as it is, is always there. To some extent, humans always take what they have for granted. After a while, reality begins to drone, and to some extent, everyone just wants to escape. Why do we take vacations? For the same reason. To escape from our realities. With music, we immerse ourselves in sound, books, another world. Art serves as a change of pace for the eyes, and sculptures create things that last (relatively) forever, and in the human real of existence, that's a rarity. I believe that these forms of escape allow us to look back onto our own existences and re-appreciate them better, making it a little bit easier to live out our lives.
For what it's worth...
...here's my opinion. Well, now that the vast majority of anybody who's actually reading this is completely turned off and walking away from their computer screens with disgust at the thought of actually hearing (reading?) my opinion, I shall continue to you, my few loyal and masochistic readers, to berate you about about Stuff. This particular post I want to be about classical music (as many of my past posts have been). What can I say, it's an area of the vast world of knowledge that I know. Particularly though, I'd like to focus on modern music. According to one of my music teachers whose input I value greatly, modern and postmodern music are designed to, instead of being pleasing to the ear or offering some sort of intellectual refuge, to depict a scene from everyday life. Some such scenes may be like a cat chasing a mouse. However, in striving to generate the image of one of these scenes, I believe modern classical music looses sight of some of it's goals. What is the purpose of music? What is music? In my mind, music serves one of humanity's forms of escape (which I'll get into in the next post). In that function, music should be both intellectually compelling and pleasing to hear. However, because of their intense focus on recreating the scene or their emotions during this scene, the music produced becomes almost devoid of feeling, like a robotic grinding. Very often, this music is grating as well, have little to no melodic value. Granted, there may be some value in the understanding of the scene through musical interpretation, but what may be gleaned from that is far outweighed (at least in my mind) by the complete lack of musicality of most modern pieces.
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