Fridays are the reason I drag myself out of bed on monday mornings. Thank gosh I have grown accustomed to the method of delayed gratification... by the time friday comes nothing could ruin it. And I always buy myself a steamer on fridays as a reward for making it through the week. And this morning I had a pancake! And so far no attempts to purge. Today may not have been lovely all around (stupid muscle test in biology... how can you tell whether the pin is in the cleidobrachialis or the acromiodeltoideous?) but it was awesome just because it was friday. So I have formulated a new incentive program... every day I will give myself a reward for making it through the day, all my homework, lessons, etc. That will make the current tediousness (is that a word?) of life more bearable.
In English we were trying to decide whether this story about ants by Driesser (spelling?) was more realistic or romantic, and we started talking about whether it was subjective or objective, and as tends to happen we got confused over the line and blurred it hopelessly. Siobhan decided everything was subjective and I told her she should be an existentialist... but that existentialism implied that everyone is hopelessly trapped in an isolated sphere of subjective material and can't really interact due to the lack of anything common and objective. Siobhan said that sounded nice, (Sad!) and my teacher told me I should read Kierkegard.
I went to coffee with debate people today and Amanda, also ran into a ton of people, including Kristin and Alexis, who is the hottest guy in the universe, and smart too, and who had a conversation with me, and Brittany later was going on about Schroeder or somebody or other's cats. What if a cat is in a box, and if you open the box you'll spill acid or something that will kill it, but you don't know if the acid is already spilt and the cat is already dead? Could the cat be simultaneously dead and alive? I told Brittany that was stupid, because if you believe in the objective then it wouldn't matter if you knew the cat's status or not- the cat would either be objectively alive or not. But taking this example and taking away any literal meaning of cats drowning in acid etc. (and I know this is a somewhat stupid observation but it's friday, my brain has given up) what would an existentialist think? Just in general... if you define your world, and everything is subjective, what happens when your senses cannot give you any subjectively objective (lol, confusing) data? You don't know if the cat is dead or alive... what is it? In limbo? Dead and alive? In pergutory paying for it's sins before damnation or redemption?
The more I read philosophy, and think about what it means, love of knowledge, the more I realize how circular everything is... in the end, with all of that contradicting info, what can we trust besides our own instincts? And if those differ, how can any philosophy be true? Also, you don't really achieve knowledge from philosophy. You simply end up realizing how undefinable 'knowledge' really is.
Where is the off-switch in my brain? I am tired of the endless speculation!
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2 comments:
dude, existentialism rocks my world! sure, it has its difficulties, but that is not unique to the framework itself. what i love about it in general is its focus on individual action, recognition of free will and the power of the mind, and acceptance of uncertainty. your last comment is exactly why i am so excited about philosophy... you realize that knowledge is transitory and evolutionary. that there is more than one way of understanding things, and mostly that the world is not some sterile, finite thing. existentialism in particular i think embraces that. i don't like or agree with all existentialists (i'm not quite sure what i think of sarte, for instance. which is funny as he is considered the father of existentialism), but to albert camus(currently my favorite), dostoevsky, kafka i say bring it. that is another thing: existentialism is particularly conducive to literary synthesis, which is a subject of my constant ponderings and admiration.
Lindsay, do you think you could spare just a fraction of your intelligence and send it to me?
;o)
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