I feel like I'm...

...slipping.

Blank White Page

How is the world represented in one blank white page? This is the question that left us as we exited class today. We had just done an activity on Hegelian philosophy about self-consciousness and consciousness, desire and intersubjectivity and mutual recognition.

So, how is the world manifested in one white page? Well, I think that the world is one white page in itself. It is there for humanity to paint, draw, sketch, scratch, and write upon. But why does it stay white? Why one white page? It's because history and humanity is a series of "heres" and "nows," and every here and every now gets its own white page. No two white pages will be the same, but they will all be beautiful. This is how we arrive at Hegel's Weltgeist--an arch of colorful history that has led us to this here and now. If we were to stack every colored page on top of one another we could have a vibrant display of human history. The top page, however, is always white.

But don't worry, I am coloring it as I write this.

Hegel and the Internet

I came into class today very confused about Hegelian's view of the subconscious, to be completely honest. I didn't know how to contextualize it, how to put it in a broader perspective so that I could successfully zoom out and say, "Yes, I understand now."

Today in class we attempted to crash the school network, at least that's what I thought Mr. Summers' initial plan was. But no. Instead we navigated the world of the interweb using philosophical triggers and through the exercise tried to arrive at a greater understanding of the "Geist."

Matthew T Grant put it brilliantly when he wrote, "Spirit (“Geist” or “Mind”) represented itself to itself in an unprecedented manner."

We are coming together through the world of the internet. In this invisible being, all of human history is connected, shared, and harbored. We are able to connect to others through social networking, e-mail, etc. We recognize other consciousnesses as they recognize our own. It is a world of connectedness and isolation, unity and disunity.

Hegel is still a bit foggy to me, but much clearer now than when I stepped into class.

Quote of the Week

"Nothing is worth more than this day." -Goethe

Finitude of the Human Condition

This is from the Nietzsche-Kierkegaard debate. The post is in favor of Kierkegaard.

The word fundamental is defined as being an essential part of something. The aspect of the human condition that is truly fundamental is its finitude. I define finitude not only as a limited life but a life that is cut off, alone, and shrouded in solitude. This finitude and realization of our aloneness leads to existential dread. Dread is defined as terror or apprehension toward something in the future. Humans are naturally anxious. We ask ourselves, do people care about us? Are we truly loved? Am I truly alone? What happens after I die?

Every human life will end. It is fundamental and it is unavoidable, but it is how we handle and question and contemplate this fundamental question that defines who we are in the scope of the human condition. This is done on an individual basis because fundamentally we are alone. We are individuals. An individual is defined as a single human being. So now the question is, how do we release ourselves from this suffocating dread of death, this all-consuming fear? Dread is a natural part of life, but there is a way to truly overcome this dread. Instead of fighting and trying to advance yourself in earthly life (this will eventually drive you insane...), release from existential dread comes through complete and utter surrender to a transcendent cause.

I know my time is limited. I am only here for a short while, so I want to contemplate the beyond, the incomprehensible, because I know someday everything that happened to me on Earth will be of trifling importance. By having faith in a greater cause, you begin to see your life in a broader context of salvation and eternal destiny as one with God. Faith fosters strength and love and companionship; it is a solution to the dread of finitude and isolation, the idea that you are alone on this Earth.

My Philosophy

I have always been afraid of stars. They sit there in the sky, radiating into the ashy, indigo abyss until their light reaches the furthest recesses of the universe. I am dwarfed, I am nothing. Stars terrify me; stars are beautiful to me. They represent that wonderfully terrifying transcendence of living, that pristine and fiery, wondrousness of existence. Stars beautify insignificance.

One night I lie on the soft turf of the stadium. My school is silhouetted in midnight’s darkness, my best friends are sprawled beside me. They are talking, probably about some calculus problem or critique we just read in class. I am merely here absorbing them, and then it happens. Looking up at the stars, I have a moment of all-seeing magnificence, of complete understanding. The stars have watched me watch them my entire life; they have watched me question and challenge them. Now they have given me my own philosophy.

I am insignificant. My life is eerily short, but I am so lucky to be at all. I read a poem in Spanish class by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer that stated, roughly translated, “this mortal life and the eternal one that touches me.” Eternity is alive; it touches me briefly, but its presence gives me purpose. One life is the equal of a grain spilling through the sands of time. We are nothing. But we are everything.

I am significant. Think of the factors that lead to a person’s existence—the magnificent coincidence of living. The Earth existed before I did, evolving in a dark universe, a rock that cooled to create nature and humans with reason and perception. Sometimes I feel that people underestimate the miracle of their own being. They are living. LIVING. We are all lotto winners in the cosmic shuffle of the most impossible odds. This is what gives me faith and fuses my steadfast belief in both science and spirit. I believe in the physical and holy wonder of the universe, and I always will.

My friends are all here with me, and with them I realize that I have a purpose on this Earth: love, learning, love of learning. I will spend the rest of my unbearably and wonderfully short life trying to fulfill this marvelous purpose. There are times when I feel a crushing fear of death, but then there are the instances of wonder, like lying on the field with the ones I love most, that without death would not have the same luminosity.

Last summer, as I stood inside the archaeological marvel of the passage tomb Newgrange in Ireland, I realized that history actually began with the stars. The tomb was built in accordance to celestial movement, and once a year, on the winter solstice, the sun rises and illuminates the passage. It’s a moment of life, of breathing history that reminds me that I really am part of a magnificent story. And I will never know its end. That’s the beauty of the story.

Don't Try to Comprehend

Today was our second day discussing Kierkegaard, and I feel his philosophy much more relatable than that of Nietzsche. Although both are existentialists, I can relate well to Kierkegaard's internal struggle and his fear and trembling. I feel that fear and anxiety are not things we should try to avoid and beat, but rather things that we need to understand. They are intrinsically part of what it means to be human. Oftentimes fear is irrational--we talked about paranoia in class a couple weeks ago. Kierkegaard's answer to fear is faith, another incomprehensible and sometimes irrational concept. But that is the beauty of faith. It is so beyond our understanding, it is putting all you have into something you don't need. The point of faith is that it is hard to comprehend, otherwise it wouldn't be faith at all.

Kierkegaard believed in God; Nietzsche did not. But Nietzsche (slipping into debate mode), don't you have a spirit? You have your soul, your being, your individuality. If you do not have faith in a greater power, at least have faith in that. And remember, that it is okay to be weak sometimes. It is okay to fear and tremble. It is okay to take refuge.

It is even okay to leap.

Descartes: Look Around

If I were arguing against Descartes, I would make the point that reason cannot be applicable without sense perception. When I reason mathematically, it is only because I have seen shapes (albeit in their imperfect forms) and perceived from that a mathematical proof. Nobody could have envisioned a triangle using only the mind; they must have seen it in nature.

When Descartes brought up that Galileo and Copernicus postulated celestial movements through pure reason alone, I would have said, how? How can only reason be at work in an external world? How can scientists only use reason? The answer is that they can't. Without the senses there is nothing to reason at all. Galileo went blind from looking at the sun. He used his senses and from there he used reason. Reason and the senses are both essential in perceiving and learning from the world. Descartes and Hume should not argue; rather they should collaborate, because the marriage of their ideas form a balanced view of life and the world around us.