I'm sure you'll remember a recent entry in which I explained that I'll be doing some challenges on this blog. Well, it seems that, most likely, the challenge about planets will not happen, but, the philosophers one will, and so this is the first!
Since Socrates is so often called the father of western philosophy, I decided I would tell you a little about him first. Interestingly, he isn't known to have written anything of his own, instead all information about him comes from his contemporaries. But, basically, this is what's known about the life of Socrates: he would teach various young people about his philosophical ideas (most notably Plato), and this 'corruption' of the youth is what lead to his eventual execution (because his ideas contradicted those of the current religion). He was also known to have rather poor personal hygiene (even by standards of the past) and to have a rather poor relationship with his wife. When he was executed, they handed him a cup of hemlock and gave him the option of either apologising and having no further punishment, or drinking it and dying... He chose the latter. He was, supposedly, so sure of his belief in the afterlife, that he didn't fear death at all.
But of course, that's all biographical information; I guess I should talk about his beliefs... But that's tricky. Since he didn't write for himself, we can only trust what Plato and Xenophon wrote about him. However, Plato at least, is known to have used Socrates as a mouth piece for his own views, and so it's hard to distinguish between what Plato believes and what Socrates believes. Something very definitely Socrates-linked, is his method of getting people to reach the correct conclusions, not by telling them, but asking them questions which will get them there themselves. I quite like that. He also gave the argument that it’s better to be good, because then good men are your ally and bad men are your enemy, than it is to be bad, because then both good and bad men are your enemy, but that may have been Plato. What’s also interesting is that certain groups in some religions (I.E. Islam and Christianity) see him as a prophet.
But yes, that's Socrates, and this has been the first of my entries on philosophers. Plato might come next...
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The universe, if you think about it, is just a big ball of stuff (I think that may be a quote from Doctor Who), the exact same things which make up humans, also make up stars which are billions of miles away. That's atoms I'm talking about, in case it wasn't obvious. Now, atoms are not fixed things, the ones which are currently making you up may have been part of a shed or a porridge oat just a couple of days ago.
Think about that for a second: if humans are just part of all of that, does that not mean that we are merely the universe observing itself? We are made of the exact same stuff as everything else, and one day, within our lifetime, we'll be made of a completely new set of atoms, nothing is constant, the universe is just a shifting mass. People may not even have free will. Now, how does that reflect on morality? In this universe which has billions of life forms through which to view itself, there are people who do good and people who do evil. Now, I don't believe in evil people, obviously people can do evil, but I don't believe that anybody has done NO good, and an evil person would not do good. But I'd say it's a fact that every good person has done at least one bad deed within their lifetime. But while thinking about this the other day, I came to a strange conclusion: within this big mass which is the universe there are good things which happen and bad things which happen: does that then mean that there is a force for good and a force for evil which causes turmoil between the life in the universe? Everyone being moved by both of them. If so, then there is a scientific means for arguing for moral truth... Although I realise this argument is very flawed, I'll raise a very big point against myself now: calling things either good or bad, is merely a human construct, it is wrong of me to suggest that from a wholly detached point of view they are anything but things that happen (without good or bad coming into it). But still, people can feel happiness, and so, therefore, a very small part of the universe is happy every single time a person feels joy... and that can't be bad. Right? Just to clarify, this entry is another book review. It doesn't actually say clearly who wrote it, so I decided to avoid putting an author's name in the title. I was lucky enough to get this book for free, but even if you buy it new, it is still very cheap, so this alone is one good point if you're looking for an economical read.
Basically, what the book sets out to do is introduce people to the idea of Hare Krishna chanting. It talks a lot about how true happiness cannot be gain through material gains, and other such things. I suppose this is quite a good line of argument really, I think everybody agrees that happiness cannot be obtained through material objects alone and this proposes a way to achieve proper happiness (Hare Krishna chanting). The idea is that the vibrations caused by the chanting will make you aware of God, and God is pure love and therefore it will make you very happy. I do partially agree with the idea that certain vibrations evoke certain things from people: why is it, for example, that a particular piece of music will make us feel either happy or sad? So it's an interesting idea that sound vibrations can bring people close to God. However, while they may back up their claims by giving numerous personal accounts from people, other than that, they stereotype anybody who doesn't believe in the mantra's ability as 'intellectuals' and paint them as rather snobbish close minded people. Arguing for something by criticising the people who don't believe in it seems to be rather silly, in my opinion (not to mention rude!). Perhaps my favourite parts of the book though, were the conversations with George Harrison, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I'm quite a Beatles fan (as I'm sure regular readers of this blog will know) so it was nice to learn a little about their involvement with bringing Hare Krishna chanting to the western world. There was also a nice little story taken from the mythologies surrounding the mantra, which takes up one of the chapters. On the whole, while all the information on beliefs about the mantra, its history, and links with The Beatles, was very interesting, there were some parts of the book which bothered me. Firstly, I don't believe that the Hare Krishna mantra does link somebody to God, so that makes me into one of their snobbish 'intellectuals', though having said that, I think it's very possible that chanting it could make people happy, sound vibrations CAN make you happy (for example, as I said before, happy songs!) so whether you believe that this links you to God or not, it could be interesting to try. Also, the ending, in my opinion, is very bad. Throughout the book, they seem to be merely politely suggesting that you should try the chanting to see if it makes you happy, then at the end it suddenly gives you rules such as "Be a vegetarian" and "Only have sex if you are married and it will produce God-conscious children" which is ridiculous. There isn't even any real argument for it, they just say it. Plus, there's the very unfortunate fact that they are ruling out homosexuals (they just seem to be too scared to say it outright). So while it was certainly interesting (I always love to learn about the beliefs of others) at times I felt its points were argued poorly, and other times were downright disagreeable things were said. I'd rate it a 6/10. (buy it here) I've made this entry to clear up a few misconceptions about myself; as you may have gathered from other posts on here, there are a lot of things I choose not to take part in/do. Let me just list a few:
- Alcohol (and other recreational legal drugs) - Eating meat - Illegal recreational drugs - Religion - Sexually explicit activities - Swearing Now the reason I don't do these things is because I don't want to. If you're a carnivorous Christian who likes to smoke weed, while drinking alcohol at a swinger's party, it doesn't bother me. Just because I don't DO the things on this list, it does not mean I don't APPROVE. Let me go through each point individually. Firstly, alcohol. There are several things I don't like about alcohol: the taste, its effect on people and, well, no, that's about it. In the past I've been around drunken people a lot and it looks like one of the most embarrassing things in the world, to have yourself suddenly become so strange and erratic. I would much rather a drink a Trusty Water Bottle full of delicious water and remain perfectly level headed. As such, I choose not to drink any alcohol. Now, you might say "well you've never tried it, you don't know!" but I have tried it twice actually, and it wasn't very fun :(. Now, that's my reasoning behind not drinking alcohol, clearly it is all subjective, so why would I object to other people drinking it? I wouldn't. It would be wrong of me to disapprove of people drinking alcohol, because it is their free choice to do so and I would think it immoral to try and stop them. The same, as you can guess, is true of my view of illegal drugs. It would be wrong to stop people and prevent their free will. It may be against the law, but drug usage is perfectly fine in my eyes, so long as nobody other than the user is harmed. Secondly, eating meat. Since I was a child, I have been a vegetarian; it was the choice of my mother. Since then, I have decided to stay a vegetarian for two reasons: the taste of meat makes me physically ill, and I do believe it is moral not to eat meat. But that's my decision based on studying the facts about it, other people may study the same thing and come to a different conclusion. When I see a friend of mine eat meat, I don't see them as morally inferior; I just see that they have decided differently to me. It would be wrong for me to eat meat, because I believe it is morally wrong to, but it would be fine for somebody else since, by their own moral code, it is fine. Thirdly, religion. My view on the universe is this: there could indeed be some fantastical thing (perhaps God-like) behind all of the universe, but I don't believe that any of the world's religions (that I know of) are the correct answer and that science is the most likely route to the answer. After looking at all of the evidence, reading up on many different religions and philosophies from around the world and judging based on my own experience, I have decided this view is the one most likely to be correct. Other people have done the exact same thing as me, but to them it looks as if Christianity is the correct answer, or that Islam is the correct answer etc. I have no objections at all to people who follow religions and worship accordingly. Again, it would be against liberty for me to object to these views. However, having said that, I do object quite strongly to people who are taught blatantly false and offensive things through religion (e.g. anti-homosexual beliefs). Fourthly, sexually explicit activities. I have no desire to take part in these, so I do not. Anybody else, I believe, should feel free to take part in these and do anything and everything they like with any consenting partner (so long as nobody is hurt by them). That's pretty self-explanatory really. Finally, swearing. I get asked a lot by people if their swearing bothers me, and the answer is always no. Swear words are just words, and I take no offense at hearing them. I choose not to swear, because I try to make myself as inoffensive as possible and wouldn't like to offend anyone (I similarly do not blaspheme). How silly is it to object to people for just saying a word? I hope this clears up so misconceptions it seems that some people have about me. It also may be good to bear in mind that not doing and not approving are different things when talking to somebody with a different point of view than you. (Not to sound arrogant of course, I’m sure that point’s obvious). One thing I have a big problem with is the idea of Heaven and Hell (of Christian theology in particular, I don't know enough about other religions). How an 'all loving' God could burn somebody forever is quite beyond me. I was told once that, rather than being a God who loves everyone, I should look at this way: that God isn't 'all loving' but rather that he (or she, or it) is concerned with administering perfect justice to the universe. I can understand that, worshipping an all-powerful judge who will ensure perfect justice sounds perfectly reasonable (two side points though: I'm not going to go into arguments for or against God in this entry, and also Plato's Republic shows the 'perfect' society and that was arrived at via ideas of 'perfect justice' and that society would be pretty darn horrifying in real life!).
Anyway, I think the ideas of Heaven and Hell are very far from perfect justice; a mockery of justice really. Imagine a real-life judge: if the person being trailed tells the judge that he really loves him, regardless of the crime, he is let off and, not only is he let off, he's given a reward! That reward being endless pleasure in paradise. However, if the people don't tell him they love him, he sentences them to be tortured forever. Even if they didn't know they could just tell him they loved him, they still get the torture. I imagine lots of them would really despise him for sending people off to be tortured too. How is that perfect justice? Bringing it back to the main point, nobody will ever deserve to be punished forever, because they can't have done any bad which lasts forever. Meanwhile, you could also say that nobody deserves happiness forever, because everybody does some bad, although, this sounds quite mean to me, if I could give everyone utter happiness forever, I would do it right away. Now, I'm going to explain how I imagine an afterlife which was truly based on perfect justice would be (and it is a little similar to some ideas of reincarnation really). When you die, all of a sudden you're a foetus again (or maybe even a sperm) and you're actually about to live your life all over again! You get to re-live your childhood! Meet all your old friends! Be reunited with dead family members! etc.! Except, every bad thing that happens to you, and every good things that happens to you, are directly caused by what happened in your previous life. If you were really mean, then in your next run through of life, lots of things will go badly for you. It would go on and on until a 'perfect' person came about, somebody who never did any wrong (and no, consensual sexual explicitries are not immoral) this person would then live there life again, but this time in a perfect world... Heaven basically. But they wouldn't stay there forever, if they're 'perfect' again, there next life will be there too, but if, this time, they acted quite jerkish, then their next life would be a little worse. Like I said, it’s quite like ideas of reincarnation, but without the horrible nightmare of being separated from all your loved ones and having your memory erased so that you forget them entirely! Feel free to comment if you disagree with me, or you have different ideas! I'm interested in other thoughts. Have you ever wondered about the minds of other people? You don't actually know that every other person you've met is actually a living sentient creature. For all you know, yours is the only mind in existence.
Sure, you can talk to people and they can assure you that they do think and are a fully sentient creature just as you are. But still, you could programme a robot to say that as well, but it wouldn't make that true. I'm not too sure I've explained my point very well, but I'm basically saying that you have no way of knowing that there is any other intelligent life in the universe other than yourself. Things can appear to have life, when really they don't at all, and they could just be the case for everybody but you. There's no way for human beings to share their thoughts other than to talk, you can never experience another’s consciousness. So perhaps, really, yours is the only one. You think you have close friends, but secretly, they're just mindless things which appear to be the same as you. You'll always be alone, even when you're not. ... Not to be pessimistic of course! :) I don't believe this is true. But, nonetheless, it is a philosophical possibility! I must admit, before I start the main part of this entry, that my understanding of Karl Marx is rather limited. I've never read any of Marx's actual books (they are, however, on my list of 500+ books to read) so all my knowledge on the subject is based on other people's writing about him.
Anyway, it is my understanding that Marx, after having done an in-depth study of history, believed that he could determine the future based on what had happened in the past. He saw changes in society, changes which, he said, were ones which suggested the future coming of communism. Communism would then be achieved after several, or one global, revolutionary wars. After this there would be no change because communism would be the perfect political ideology and nobody would like to change it. So, for this entry, I'm going to assume that Marx was actually 100% correct, that he had accurately predicted what exactly was going to happen. Surely, though, if he was right, by publishing his ideas, he's put history on another track and in another direction? The publication of his ideas has meant that dictators have read and abused his ideas, using them for their own gains. Marx writing down what would happen suddenly means that it can't happen. Imagine if, instead of a philosopher, Marx had been a time traveller, he'd gone to the future, seen communism and a perfect world, learned how it all happened, came back and wrote it all in a book. Surely, history would be different now because all the people know what will happen, and so then will behave differently and cause it not to happen? This would, paradoxically, mean that Marx could have been right, but by being right he made it wrong. In his Poetics, Aristotle decides to describe just what is is that make humans appreciate works of art (particularly fiction) and what it is that makes a good story. These writings may be thousands of years old, but it's still very understandable and enjoyable. Many of his ideas are very clever and give rather satisfactory explanations for people's desire to write and read. The idea of art as imitation, mimesis, stems from here. Furthermore, this gives several arguments into the 'value of art' side of philosophy, and it's always interesting to gain more philosophic knowledge. I also think that anybody who likes to write stories recreationally will really enjoy this book because of his explanations of how to structure good plots and may give some inspiration.
However, one downside to this useful little book is that, it having been written thousands of years ago, all of the references to fiction which Aristotle makes to back up his points are from Ancient Greek plays which, today, are somewhat obscure meaning that these references will be lost on a lot of modern readers. Furthermore, this book is very short indeed (only fifty pages, not including all the 'special features' which are included in the Penguin Classics range) so you might not feel it's worth the cost of a full book. Still, on the whole, an interesting little book: 8.1/10 (buy it here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Poetics-Penguin-Classics-Aristotle/dp/0140446362/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329140975&sr=8-1) _ Basically, I'm going to use this blog entry to tell you why you should be choosing Philosophy as one of your A Level options (if you haven't chosen them yet). Philosophy seems to be a rather unpopular subject for some reason, so I'm hoping I can use this to help people realise how cool it is.
First, I'll tell you the educational benefits of choosing Philosophy. If you're planning on going on to university, this subject will be very useful to you. For every subject you do, you'll have to write essays and, no matter what subject you choose, it's pretty likely that having done a Philosophy A Level will give you a paragraph to write if you're running low on ideas. Off of the top of my head, I can think of the following university courses which Philosophy would link into: English Literature, Creative Writing, English Language, Music, Drama, Art, Religion and, of course, Philosophy. But that's just the immediate benefit of choosing it. Doing Philosophy will make you think of things you had never considered before (no, not just questions like "Where did the world come from?") such as Why are humans moral? How do we know we can trust our senses? Why do we like art? How's best for a government to rule? Do we have free will? Perhaps you think the answers to some of these are easy, well if you did Philosophy you'd find that they're infinitely complex and have equally compelling arguments in every direction. I believe you should definitely do Philosophy, it's the subject that you 'learn' the most in. In a recent English Literature seminar that I had, we were talking about emotions in fiction and it made me think about just why we like certain things. Why, for example, do we enjoy a story which is really sad? Or one which is very frightening? My conclusion was, that human beings feel pleasure from every single emotion that they feel, even the bad ones.
It's quite easy to demonstrate that humans get pleasure out of feeling some emotions (like happiness) but it becomes a little difficult to say that about others (like sadness). My theory is that, even feeling sadness, paradoxically, gives us pleasure, I believe humans get pleasure from all emotions, but usually the feeling of sadness happens at the same time as something bad so we don't get a chance to enjoy it, so we like the feeling of sadness, we just don't like the lost friend (or whatever it is that's making us sad) and it outweighs that pleasure of emotion so much that we don't realise it at all. My seminar teacher summed up my theory quite well by saying "so art is life with a safety net?" and that is pretty much exactly my point. Art allows us to feel sad, but without actually doing something which affects our lives at the same time and so allowing us to enjoy the feeling. |
About the AuthorAdam Randall is the author of the blog. Is he a good or bad writer? Who knows? Why not read a few entries and make a decision! New to this Site?
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