On Death, Descartes and Exam Times

My Modern exam is on Friday so I have been sat here attempting revision.

I took this picture before my Religion exam the other day. Sat getting those last-minute moments of greatness when I figured if I didn't know it by now, a last stab wasn't going to change anything. Luckily, it was Religion and I love the subject so it all went pretty well I guess. The best so far. 

I've gone for colour co-ordinating stuff this year, in the hopes of my brain being able to store things better. I think it's working. 

In yesterdays Phenomenology exam I was writing about Heidegger and Being-towards-death which hit a nerve a bit. On the way home my bus stopped for an unusual length of time at a bus stop with one of those 'don't let your friendship die on the road' posters, which made me think about Carrie and Chelsea (the friends hit by a car on Jan 1st) and remind me how much I hate the world sometimes. It's unfair and cruel and I have no idea how people are meant to deal with it. Heidegger said something along the lines of death being the one thing we're always moving towards but can never understand. It's the only thing we cannot understand through somebody else's experience; someone else dying doesn't help me understand what death is. It's this abstract idea that we're constantly surrounded by but will never get our heads around. 

Theists posit ideas of an Afterlife. I imagine theories on what happens next were created to make the whole process seem less scary. It means the end doesn't have to be an end. It means when you lose someone they don't have to be gone. It offers peace of mind to some degree. 

Let's take the resurrection approach to an Afterlife: On the last day we are all brought back. Our bodies are resurrected and continue in an afterlife with a god or something. For materialists all we are, are our bodies. There is no soul. So for a resurrection to be possible our bodies would have to remain in tact. Van Wagenen said only those whose bodies were not destroyed would make it; this implies our ancestors wont. Humans decompose, everything does; that's how it works. Chances are on this version, we wont make it either... 

Then he offered some crazy theory of God in his omnipotence storing the dead bodies in a magical freezer until it was time but replacing the bodies with look a likes so nobody got suspicious. Obviously for a materialist the Afterlife, though not impossible, seems unlikely. 

Then there is more of a common idea on the matter that we all have souls and when we die these immaterial entities rise up from our bodies and head to paradise. This makes an Afterlife more plausible; if you believe in the soul.

I remember when I believed in all this. I remember thinking that maybe Heaven was different for everyone and that it didn't matter what you believed, 'cause it would be moulded around that. Different religions weren't in conflict and everyone would get a happy ending. Looking back I can't help but think I was a little naive. 

But then people die. And people start talking about them watching over you and waiting for you and being happy and all this stuff that I can't relate to. I hold my tongue out of respect, because why the fuck should I try to take the little bit of comfort they get from such ideas because I'm sceptical. I don't think we could possibly know anything about any sort of supernatural or any immaterial existence or being based on our material, natural existences. 

Maybe there is something, but theists all fall in their theories in my opinion. Mostly because they think they have the answer before they begin. The answer is always God. They then commence to prove why they are right. They're not looking for what the answer could be because if it's anything other than what they want it to be they don't want to know. 

I'm agnostic about it all. 

There are so many different theories and gods and rules that all came about to suit the time they are found in. Religion offers people what they need. Take the ancient religions for example, they offered answers that science hadn't found yet. They were replaced by an all powerful being, because it sounded scarier and followers of the old religions converted just incase this new angry, jealous god took vengeance on them for believing in the lesser gods. 

None of this matters right now though, 'cause I'm looking at Descartes. He feigned scepticism to break down everything we know just so he could build it all back up again and prove that there must be a god. The God. But it's like he gave up. In fact, it's like he never even tried. All he wanted was to show there had to be God and there had to be a physical world, so when he got to the part about explaining how we know anything he rested it all on the fact that God wouldn't lie to us. 

But I realise, instead of getting angry at him I should just make notes and move onto Spinoza and Hume, 'cause regardless of any of this, I have an exam on Friday. I have three exams left before I finish. I have been working towards this for such a long time that I shouldn't just give up in the last leg. The world around me is a reminder than none of this matters much in the grand scheme of things, but it used to matter so much. £20K in debt or however much it is, shouldn't be in vein. I guess. And I'd be so disappointed in myself if I didn't do what I should be capable of doing. So I'm going to push for the last couple of weeks until it's over and I have to start working out what to do next. 

Socrates constantly echoes in my ears reminding me the only thing I know is that I don't know anything.


Oh and to the guys who's blogs I've not checked out in a while, I apologise! I have a lot to catch up on when all this revision and such is over with!

Names, Reference and God

After getting up to vote this morning (I could discuss the UK elections but my brain isn't currently up to such a task), which I hope any Brits reading this would have done too, I headed to the library for a revision day. I've lost lots of revisions days thanks to one reason or another so am swiftly running out of time before my first exam Monday. But all will be ok... She says, in a non-commital tone...

I had a revision day yesterday with a few philosophers, which left me feeling as though I'm lacking. I adopted a new revision technique (kinda) and a gauge of where I should be and how far I have to go; however nauseating, did give me some direction. So today I rocked up to the library, armed with some felt tips and coloured paper to tackle reference.

What is it about a name that allows us to talk about something? If I'm talking to you about 'Plato' how is it we both know who I'm talking about? 

This was more or less my day (up until 4pm): following an argument through and realising the complexities of language. I now know that just 'cause something means the same thing it can't just be interchangeable.

Pennie Varvarides = SuperPennie

Pennie Varvarides = Pennie Varvarides

Well, we can't just substitute one out for the other or we'd lose meaning. We don't gain anything from the second statement so it has to be something deeper.

I have thought about attempting to go into what I covered today properly, partly as it'll help towards my revision and partly 'cause it's kinda interesting. Only, I doubt that all that many of you want to be reading a philosophy essay (though I know there are in fact a few). So instead, if any philosophers have anything to say about name and reference or about Mill, Russell, Frege or Kripke please, leave a comment.

On taking a break from Logic and Metaphysics (which is Mondays exam) I met with a friend to discuss religion. We got side tracked a lot and I discovered one of our class mates actually found God so to speak, when most of us in studying the subject went the other way. This made me think, maybe there's something I missed. Maybe one day I'll work out what that was...

We tried to work through the design argument and pretty much concluded that theists make up a few dodgy arguments and assume it implies some omniscient being when really all it does is show humans like to make inferences.

Paley uses the example of a watch and the watchmaker to claim that the universe is the same. That because we wouldn't look at the intricate mechanics of a watch and not assume it had a creator so why look at the world and think it sprung up all on it's own. Only mechanics and nature are as different as can be, so why should they fall to the same rules?

Anyway, I just thought I'd share my day and leave you all something to think about. Feel free to share your thoughts on names or God or whatever in the comment section below; I'd love to know what you think.

I'm currently sat outside the library enjoying the cold air and waiting for rush hour to end so I don't need to squish into a metal tube with too many other people. I like my space.

Ooh talking about the underground, I've handed out a few more business cards today and gave my friends some to pass on! The group is growing faster with each day =] Be sure to get involved!

Goodbye Safety Net; Hello World

I have one month left; one. That's a month of exams that I am underprepared for and terrified of sitting. That's one month of living off a student loan and being an unemployed student. That's one month to determine where my world goes next.

Needless to say, I'm somewhat scared about having to take on the role of 'grown up'. Life is just a series of playing different parts; taking on new personas. We're all on some sort of journey in the process and I guess everyone takes their own, but I feel like mine is about finding out who I am and what it means to be. Not what it is to be me, but to be. Period.

Everyone has goals in mind for what they want their lives to be - or what they think it should be. Theres the capitalist ideology of getting a big house, full of nice things and all the bling to let everyone know you made it. But this has most people falling into debt to try to secure. There's the got-to-have-a-family ideology, where people end up settling too soon. There are people trying to find love or God or excitement. Everyone has something they are after. There's a link to most of them though; happiness. 

People think happiness is the goal. They're trying to achieve things they think will make them happy. The only problem is, most of the time as soon as we hit our target we soon discover it wasn't good enough; we need to aim higher. We're a greedy species really. Though maybe that's not completely true. Some people find contentment despite the pressures of their surrounding societies. That's what I'm after; contentment. Fuck knows where you find it though.

So here I stand, approaching the end of university and now I have some decisions to make. I need to work out what is 'best' for me. Which direction it is I 'need' to take. Which goals I need to aim for. But how can I possibly know what it is I need to do to understand life? All I want is some sort of understanding; some wisdom. And I know that as it stands I don't know anything. The more I understand, the more I realise I don't know a thing. This understanding is depressing. But even so, I'd rather know than be blissfully unaware, as I once was. As much as I hate the nausea I still feel as though I'm better for having got this far. 

Part of me wants to just believe something, even if it's the wrong 'something'. It's the part of me that thinks I wont ever really know anything but so long as I believe something, I'll find a contentment in my discovery. Only the rest of me thinks believing the wrong thing is worse than not believing in anything and I should put up with the nausea until it can be properly over come. 

So I'm at a loss. 

But I will read. And explore. And hopefully understand a little more everyday - both about myself but also about everyone else. About being and existence and life and death and maybe on this journey I'll just discover that I've been wasting my time looking for the wrong thing, but at least I'd have been looking. 

I started reading a book today. I was stood at the train station with a half hour wait until my train arrives plus a two and a half hour journey back home so stood in front of the books in Smiths scanning. Out of the corner of my eye was a bright blue one with clouds on it. At this moment I decided that would be the book. Before knowing anything about it - before even reading the title. Maybe that's a stupid way to pick books, but heck it worked out well. 

It's called Hector and the Search For Happiness. It's written like a kids book but it's a grown up theme. It's definitely a PennieBook. It even starts 'Once upon a time...' 

I'm just over half way through by the time I get home and I'm loving it. I'll share whatever I learn with you when I finish it. 

The internet where I am has been rubbish - so by the time I've posted this it's technically tomorrow... 

Roar!

I want to apologise for being absent from the posting, but I wont. I spent Monday through to Wednesday of this week studying, trying to get an economics essay for my Marxism class done. Wore myself out though, so didn't do any work yesterday, which is definitely a shame. I'll make up for it today (before I go see Alice in Wonderland tonight!), hopefully.

There is a boy in my philosophy class that was telling me how he get's his work done. Basically, he switches the parts of his brain that functions like a normal human and enters study mode. Aim seems to be to turn himself into a boring (but focused) person for the day. I am actually really jealous of his ability to do this. Focusing isn't something I've ever been very good at... unless I'm playing video games; I can focus on those pretty well - for hours. I remember sitting up through out the night playing on my Super Nintendo instead of sleeping. Now I wont allow myself a games consol in the house... my brother took the ps2 to his house, far far away and I stopped my mum getting me a ps3 for Christmas, just 'cause I know I'd never get anything done.

Trouble is, there's still enough to distract me from working. Normally, I need a 'beat-myself-up-day' which involves me sitting in front of the Mac, staring at the work I have to do and just not touching it until I'm angry enough at myself for being so ridiculous that I start reading and taking notes. The next day or two are the reading and planning days. Once I've started I'm normally ok and can carry on for ages, especially with my old friend, Mr Caffeine helping me out. But then I'm tired and stressed and need a nothing day all over again before the process can loop round for me to actually do the writing part. I'd love to just skip those nothing days... They're such a waste of time! Other people can study every day, all day. Why can't I?

If anyone knows the trick to this whole taking control of your mind malarky, let me in on it!

Will power is a strange concept I reckon. Basically it's the faculty that picks what it is that I want and it decides what I want based on the information about the options that are stored in my intellect. But everything has positives and negatives so it's not a clear cut decision... so how is it the will picks which one it wants to go for? The will is just part of me, so it's me that's picking and I imagine the choice is based on desire or something, right? So, what does that mean...?

What desire am I fulfilling by sitting around avoiding working? I know that I have the desire to not fail, but that's further away than my desire to avoid stress. Short term trumps long term. So my question to you, is how can I convince my brain to do what I want it to do and focus on those long term desires a little bit. At least for long enough to get these 9 essays done!

Right, that's enough from me. I shall return to this economics essay of mine!

Beat Procrastination!

I know you've stumbled over here expecting me to give you the holy grail and help you beat procrastination with some sort of magic trick. Unfortunately for you, I am hoping that since you've stumbled over here already, you'd give me the gold and tell me how I can beat it myself.

Thing is, I know there are like, tricks. Like breaking things up into manageable chunks for example. This is one that I do myself. For my essays, I read the bits I need to read and make notes, then make an essay plan, then first draft, then finalise it all. Only, the first draft part stumps me. Starting essays makes me a little anxious and I avoid it like it's poison or something. Once I've started and the ball has a steady roll going on I'm fine and I can sit and write and save myself a tiny bit from the mound of work I have to get through. But it takes me days to start.

I literally sit staring at it for days. I leave the window open all the time, so I can see it while I'm doing other things. Like this for example... I go to start it off, but can't seem to find the right words so I take a break and do something else. A lot of time is spent playing with photo booth, see Exhibit A above.

It seems to the rest of the world (well, ish - depends where they're picking my projection up from) that I'm projecting this super hard working ethic and that I don't leave my room or the library for mass amounts of time to study. Only most of that time I'm not really doing much.

So help me out. How do I go about starting?

The irony of this all is, that the essay I'm trying to write is that same weakness of will one I mentioned last week. I guess I'm a little weak willed myself? I guess that maybe I agree with Aristotle on the matter then rather than Socrates in saying that people can in fact know what the right thing is and be able to do it but still do something else. We do the thing we want to do, as a matter of opinion. It's the possibility of the incontinent person, who knows what is good but does wrong anyway because they lack self control required to resist licentious behaviour. It isn't just about being ignorant of certain things like Socrates suggested. Humans form bad habits and are constantly tempted to take pleasure in the wrong sorts of activities (Aristotle believed pleasure was a great thing - unlike Plato - and that we take pleasure from the right sorts of things). Our intellect and rationality do not have full control of our every action.

If there is a wallet on the floor with £100 in it I bet most people would pocket the money. Some people might even thank a god or two for the gift. But is taking the money wrong? Aren't you meant to hand wallets into police stations or something if you find them? Do you feel guilty for it?

I don't know. I'll keep thinking on this. But I guess I just found the solution to that procrastination problem after all...

Weakness of Will

I am about to begin working on my 3rd Greek essay and thought I'd share some thoughts with you lot. I know some of you are philosophers and may appreciate my ramblings - to those of you who are not, you can always play along =p

"No man can know the better and be able to do it, but do the worst"

So basically, we can't do the wrong thing on purpose if we're capable of doing the right thing. I've been thinking about this for a few days now, trying to work out what my thoughts on it actually are. I have yet to actually do the reading, because I only just finished my Theaetetus essay this morning, where I concluded knowledge is not perception and that they are two very different things. I didn't quite work out what knowledge was, just that it was something special and a certain shape - it doesn't fit through the perception shaped holes in my understanding box. I realise that is probably a really confused analogy, but it helped me work it all out.

Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent. What do you think, can people err knowingly?

I think (today) that it's all a very subjective subject. I might think that your actions are wrong but you may not agree, which would mean I guess that you're not erring knowingly. But are you erring at all? Let us think about an example so we can try to get our heads around it: smoking.

People smoke even though they know it is bad for them. They know they will lose years off their lives and that their insides are being destroyed. But they do it anyway. 
Why?

This makes me think it has to be something to do with instant gratification vs long term gratification. In the moment they feel better for it which seems worth the worse later on. It's a value scale - what's more important to me? What is it I want more, to live freely or live longer? Maybe.

I think we like our instant gratification, us humans. We respond to instinct to feed animal desires. Hunger for example - we get hungry, we eat. But sometimes we go on diets, do delay instant gratification for that long term goal of being skinny. So how does it all weigh up?

This is just an informal idea soup. I will read Plato and a bit of Aristotle and come up with my essay and let you know what conclusion I came to on the matter. Let me know what you think in general about whether or not we are weak willed. Do we do things even when we don't want to do them? What does that even mean?

Before The World Was Flat...

This is going to be a really short one I'm afraid as I'm currently working and paused to share this with you all. I'm sat transcribing my tutorial (I recorded us talking about stuff - it was a damn good plan) so I can have all the notes written down to refer to and it got to a part where were were talking about the Greeks and geometry and how they used it to work out the world was a sphere. Turns out that story about Christopher Columbus discovering the world was round rather than flat was a lie! I feel cheated. Part of me kind of wonders what the point of school (as in high school) even was you know, they didn't teach us anything and when they did teach us things it was a lie and they totally had us believing Britain were the saviours of the planet or something big and British - with all the look at us and our spirit. Ok that's just in history classes that last bit I guess, but still. In fact, I feel a rant about secondary schools in Britain may be in order. Just not today. This is me making a note of it.

They saw the shadow of the Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse was round. And they used the stars rising and falling to work it out too.

Plato used geometry (which he had mass love for) to tell us the sun, moon and planets would all have a natural circular motion.
Ok so we know the sun doesn't orbit anything now, but still - be impressed!

They even worked out how big the Earth had to be.
And when eclipses and other cosmology related events would happen.

I started researching this so I could share with you how awesome the Ancient Greeks were, but I should instead be writing my essay. I am like a super procrastinator, yet it's all somehow disguised to look like it's still work.... well I'm reading about Plato, so it still counts... only, that's not really true now is it? Sorry this entry isn't really up there with the awesomeness that is [SuperPennie] but I just needed to share my findings with someone and there's no one to talk to at 5.40am about this and I was far too excited to just keep it to myself.

You know, it kind of upset me that I wasn't an Ancient Greek. But I guess, being a girl I wouldn't have been able to go to any of those schools of thought and studied with all the lads anyway. Pretty sure only rich men or little boys the rich men could look after got to go to school. But I don't actually know how true that statement is.

Perceptual Experiences

So today I sat through the exact same Epistemology lecture I sat through last year on Sense Datum Theories. Part of me felt like just leaving when I realised I'd heard it all before, but let's be honest here, doing it again isn't going to hurt. So in accepting being given this second chance to understand I will take to discussing it with you lot. 

Personally I feel like epistemology shouldn't have it's own class but should just be discussed in relation to everything else. But maybe that's just because I am not a fan - 

So I'll give you the two claims we are (apparently) committed to before I discuss. If you are a non philosopher and absolutely horrified by my sharing this with you I do apologise and hope it doesn't lead to you never returning. But at the same time I did warn you all of this probably happening and as I have been sat in the library for a couple of hours and found myself not really doing much of anything I may as well do this. Let's call it Education Through Procrastination. 

In fact, I quite like that. I will be keeping it, somehow. 

1) Typically, the direct objects of perceptual experience are external, mind independent objects

2) Typically, perceptual experiences are relations to their direct objects. 

'Right, so what does that all mean' I hear you ask! Well, I don't hear much other than the clicking and the tapping I'm causing myself nor could I adequately answer such a question (I'm assuming) but by-golly I plan to try (...something). 

Now, according to number 2 those perceptual experiences are relational just like my laptop is sat in front of me is relational. If I were sat somewhere else that whole 'in front of me' placement would not hold. So according to that, a perceptual experience needs to have a relation going on, if there is no one around to relate to then the experience can't be happening. 

Ok, so that makes sense enough. 

'But wait!' I hear you cry. Does it make sense if we think about illusory experiences or hallucinations? 

Well, if you are a Sense-Datum Theorist the answer would be to abandon claim 1 and keep hold of number 2. So there is still the 'relation to the object' thing going on, but it doesn't necessarily have to be some external object. Only thing, if it's not an external object, what the hell is it? If I can see the laptop, doesn't the laptop have to be there? 

Well, the Sense Datum guys would say that those perceptual experiences are mind dependent 'sense-data' that are actually these internal things inside our minds. 

This is the point I start going - wait, what!?

So (from what I've gathered at least,) our perceptual experiences, i.e. things I can see, touch etc. are relations to the 'sense-data'. 

This sounds like they are saying that those perceptual experiences I'm having are all in my head, which I can almost go for... almost. Yeah ok, so I'll agree that what we're perceiving isn't necessarily what's out there. It's not like we could ever know, my experiences are all subjective. So on a low low scale, maybe when I see blue you can see green - that's not to say we're going to sit and argue about the blue object we're both looking it, but rather we see different things that are called the same thing through that relational language stuff. I learn to call this thing I see blue and so do you, even though we don't see the same thing. 

Sure, fine. This is ok. But now we're getting more into the 'what?' 

So how is it that you and I can both see a table if this is all some internal mental sense data relation? There has to be something making me perceive a table, right? 

Well I think so. But then you have those idealists that just make my head hurt who I think say no. Now, maybe I'm just misinterpreting the whole thing, but I think the idealists would say that everything I perceive and experience is just some representation or illusion or something and not what's really there. But then you have to wonder what really is there... 

It almost feels like they either don't have an answer or they're just going to make stuff up and hope it flies. 

I'm not really sure about all this idealism - It makes my head hurt. 

But please, enter into discussion (especially any philosophers!) and let's work all this out together!