On Abandoning projects...

Soo... any of you still following this blog may have noticed the absence of new posts for the last few weeks. Have any of you had the brilliant idea and urge to undertake some large project, such as, I don't know, dissecting a lot of basic philosophical principles, and then you get a little bit into it and you realize that it is perhaps more effort than it is worth. Or perhaps you have found something that was more important to you?

Yeah...

I'll admit, I hate it when I do something like that. I want to show that I can stick it out to the end of something that I have started. Of course this creates a problem. What if there is something more important, more worth your time, do you stick with the thing that is less worth or do you move onto the next thing? Granted this isn't a universal question, There are lots of things you obviously should not so flippantly abandon, a devoted loved one for instance, that is something you should stick to till the end of eternity.

But as far as projects are concerned. I think that this question is definitely applicable. I think that it is important to have a trial period for these sort of things. You try it out, and you find out that it doesn't work. We do this all the time. We take classes in school for subjects that we may not be truly enthralled in. It may be the last class in that subject that we take, or we may even pull out of that class. But was it a waste of time? No. It was an experiment. It was a worthy trial.

We should not feel so ashamed for having tried and failed. In this philosophical project I have failed. It is now time for me to move onto the next thing, the next trial, to find something that sticks.

So... Yeah... I know that this post meanders, and repeats itself a bit. I suppose I will leave you with one gem of wisdom I collected today while at church.

We have a class on relationships in our church. The teachers, (a recently married couple) decided they would try to boost our hopes of getting married ourselves by passing around a wedding invitation for a friend of theirs. They informed us that the friend that got married was close to 42 years old.

They told us his story which for the most part was ho hum to me but there was one part that stuck out to me. They said that this friend's mentality while dating was that he looked at his life like a puzzle and that for the longest time he was looking for a girl to fit the one missing piece of the puzzle, in laymans terms, He had a lot of expectations, and a very distinct idea of what he wanted his future wife to be like. Then he met this girl whom he found he liked but didn't fit the puzzle at all. Then he had this brilliant realization that perhaps it isn't about finding the one that will fit the puzzle you already have, but instead finding the one you want to build a puzzle with. In laymans terms, perhaps you shouldn't have so many expectations, but instead you should just find one you like and try to make a new life with them, if it works out, it works out, if it doesn't that will hopefully become apparent.

So the overall moral. Make The Dang Attempt. Deal with the consequences afterward... Got it? Good.

~Floyd

What is Life?

Since I am tackling the basics to start with, like tackling knowledge last week, I might as well jump to the next large interrogative, defining life. Keeping in mind what was said last week, take a skeptical view of what is here on out expressed in this blog as it is not expressed with the intent to be irrefutable knowledge, but as a system of coherent beliefs, a paradigm, expressed for understanding, a form of two way communication between myself and the world around me.

What is Life? This is one of those topics that, like a greased pig, refuses to be pinned down easily. Many definitions have been brought forward to be put to the test. I will only go through a few of them here, for a more thorough coverage of the various views and definitions I would suggest starting with the wikipedia article life. One of the manners of defining life is the list of phenomena that seem common to much of the life here on earth, namely, homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction. Of course it is notable to state that Fire itself seems to arguably have most of these qualities. There are also some life forms which seem to bend these qualifications quite severely such as biological viruses (though some will argue that viruses might not be allowed to qualify as alive.)

However, there exists the question of machines and computer artificial intelligence. As modern computer programming becomes more and more complex, there occur programs which take on more and more of these qualities that we see in biological life. Where and how does one draw the line. Should it be drawn? And with that there are also many other questions that branch out into areas such as universal rights that we keep trying to grant to all living things. There are those who fight for animal rights, well what if popular belief could be swayed to believe that advanced computer programming is at some level alive, will there be people who would fight for the rights of the programs to not be erased. Of course that is mostly tangential at the moment, yet it is still useful information for grasping why it may be important to have a belief or a position on this topic.

As far as my belief and position on this topic goes, I take the frustrating position of the existence of a soul. I do this because somehow somewhere there still seems to be independent will in much of life, Much of our actions can be tacked down to biological process and neurological arrangement, but deep down there is still an element of randomness that seems incapable of being fully explained by either. Randomness here implying that there are no absolute laws that dictate outcome other than perhaps statistical law. That is a blog for another day.

So what is a soul? How do we determine if something has a soul and is therefore alive? Is it practical to believe in a soul, or even practical to try and make the distinction between what is alive and what is not according to the possession of a soul? Why abandon the list of biological qualifications? Should I feel bad about killing the bacteria that give me a cold every year?

These are all fine questions. Sadly, I came unprepared to answer them this week. I have been distracted by lovely fourth of july festivities, and friends and family, and other activities. But now that I have a bit of a direction to go. I'll be putting some thought into these questions and I will answer them as best I know how in accordance with my paradigm next week.

Knowledge (It's Fickle)

Knowledge is a fickle thing. Let me explain. I am sure that you have been in this situation before, especially if you have spent longer than 30 minutes perusing the internet. But have you ever been in the situation where you "know" something to be true, and yet there is someone out there who disagrees with you and says that what you "know" to be true is actually false. You try to prove to them that they are wrong and that whatever the subject in question is, it is really true. But they won't hear any of your "proof" and actually will begin to defend themselves and start throwing out "proof" of their own to support what they "know". How does anyone win this confrontation? Can it be won at all? Should it be won?

When both sides have "proof" and "know" they are right, the means of conflict resolution are somewhat slim, either one side has to voluntarily concede to the other, or there is the tried and failed method of gathering your gang and winning by numbers. You could agree to disagree but that doesn't really solve the question of who is actually right and who is wrong, who's knowledge is validated and who's knowledge is a load of candy fluff. You could try scientific inquiry, but either side can complain that the tests weren't conducted quite right, or claim that the scientists were bribed or bought out, or they could simply refuse to believe that it can really be testable, or throw out any one of dozens of arguments to try and trip up their opposition, bringing us back to square one on the subject, How does anyone win in this situation? As far as I can tell, There is none. Not even if one side concedes, because then the two of them are going to meet another person who disagrees with them. And another after that. And another after that. And the conflict will just rage on and on and on and on and ad infinitum. Even if a large number of people were convinced that one thing was correct, does that mean it is right? History contains evidence that perhaps masses don't make absolute proof. There have been popular beliefs that have been abandoned by later generations?

Can the battle for absolute knowledge be won then? That is a dang good question. I think not. I think that the best we can do is stake our position on a subject and stick with it, and agree to disagree if no one is going to concede. If we are wrong, we are wrong together. That is the nature of the beast known as knowledge. Knowledge, as I stated above, is fickle. We can try to predict things, and we can even be pretty good at it, but knowledge about the future is non existent, the best I'm afraid we can do is prediction. For example, you can predict that the sun will come up tomorrow, and for all practical purposes, you are probably right, the sun will probably come up tomorrow, but the fact is that other possibilities could exist, There could be a freakishly fast moving black hole that is approaching the sun from the exact opposite side of the sun where we might not be able to see, and in the night the sun could be absorbed by this black hole. I will say, it is not likely that this will happen, but it could, and therefore I can say I bet the sun will come up tomorrow, but I don't absolutely know it will happen.

Should this battle be won? For pragmatic purposes, No. Just as having genetic diversity among a species better grantees the species existence as a whole. Having a diversity of opinion and belief or "knowledge" helps to keep our social and political systems in a state of balance, and it creates conditions for the existence and development of a wider variety of life styles, skills, problem solutions, etc that may be needed to deal with problems that might arise in the world.

Anyway. So it is my belief that we can have strong enough belief that we can rely upon it like knowledge, but that absolute irrefutable knowledge can not be obtained. (Ironically, and I have seen this happen, there are other individuals who do not believe this basic premise on knowledge outlined here, and they do believe that some sort of absolute irrefutable knowledge exists and that, of course, they possess it. So as I am writing this, I know that there are others out there who would disagree with me even on this point of basic philosophy. I maintain that it is their right to believe the way they do, and I will not dispute it.)

~Floyd

My Philosophy on Philosophy (ad infinitum)

When people hear that I am majoring in Philosophy they give me this incredulous look and always ask “And what do you plan on doing with that?” In that tone of voice that just screams wariness. Officially I am just majoring in philosophy so that I can get into a graduate program... Un-officially, I am going to use philosophy to, how say, guide my life.

I make that last statement with a healthy dose of trepidation for the simple fact that what I mean when I say that I will use philosophy to guide my life is almost definitely not what you understand when I say such a thing. Language is a funny thing like that, it doesn’t always fulfill it’s purpose of conveying meaning like you want it to. Luckily for me, I understand that language is finicky like that and so I can try to elaborate and put into context my misleading statements so that you can understand what the heck I actually mean.

First off let me talk about what Philosophy means to me. In my opinion, everyone is a philosopher, wither they like it or not. Everyone is trying to find some form of Knowledge, or at the very least, some set of beliefs by which to run their lives. This set of beliefs in a whole can be called by different names, a paradigm, a lifestyle, or in my terms, a personal philosophy. Everyone has a personal philosophy even though many do not actively recognize it is there and/or have not found a way to articulate what their personal philosophy consists of.

Everyone develops their personal philosophy through their lives in different ways and at different times. A lot of people are taught a philosophy via their religion or culture and they stick with it. A personal philosophy consists of lots of various aspects, for example, one develops an Epistemological view, which is to say, one develops a means for determining how they individually “Know” something, and what can be “known.” Everyone has different and varying views when it comes to this subject. Some people decide that knowledge is acquired through life experience, others believe knowledge to come from scientific testing, still others believe that knowledge comes from some sort of Authority. Another example is that most people have some idea of how a “perfect society” would work, or they don’t believe in a perfect society all together, This constitutes their Political Philosophy. Some people believe that communism is the way to go, others believe in “good old American capitalism” and so forth and so on. Once again, sometimes people don’t know how to articulate or describe their ideas of the perfect society. None the less, most everyone has a few opinions on the subject of how to run society.

So now back to my original statement. I am going to use Philosophy to guide my life. Do I need to major in the subject in order to do so? Not really. As I just explained above, everyone has their own philosophy, in a sense, everyone already does use philosophy to guide their lives. So then why do I study philosophy. A large part of life is interacting with other people. The more I understand about other philosophies, the more I will be able to intuitively grasp the individual philosophies of the individuals around me, and thus I will understand others more. This isn’t to say that I will agree with everyone’s individual philosophies, because as a matter of fact, I have my own reasons for sticking to my own personal philosophy, just like everyone else. But I hope to be able to set aside my own comprehension in order to better function with those around me.

Thus my life will be guided by philosophy. Not just my own, but by the influence of the philosophies of everyone around me. This is the reason I consider philosophy to be important.

~Floyd

The Philosophy board

I live on the third floor of an old Victorian home. There are two windows in the room where I sleep and they face respectively east and north. This means that, effectively, it is a struggle to sleep in past 6:30 in the summer because sunlight pours through my window about that time, not to mention that my landlord owns chickens who begin to cluck wildly at about the same time.

So this morning, unable to sleep in, I prepared and restlessly made my way to church 30 minutes early, a feat that made me grumble in my previous ward. Due to the fact that I had nothing better to do for 30 minutes and the fact that my church meets in the basement of one of the university buildings, I began to meander the halls and read the various posters on all the department bulletin boards. Most of the postings were for scholarships that I couldn't qualify for, or study abroad programs that I wasn't interested in, but then I came across the Philosophy department board (which I might add was rather bare, much to my dismay, as I am going into the philosophy program for an undergrad) I found on the Philosophy board a notice regarding a convention that was being held somewhere out in Poland about how to fight against the philosophy of Nihilism (click for wiki article).

And that long exposition was just to tell you this.

I really love philosophy. There is stuff about it that I hate, like the fact that there has to be a thought experiments that produce philosophies like extreme Nihilism or Solipsism. But on the whole I love to delve into the paradoxes of our every day living and yet somehow figure out some way to get out unscathed.

Also, it gave me the idea that I should go back through some of the basic philosophic questions and begin defining for myself what my stances on those subjects are and why. And so I came up with a rather extensive list of terms, phrases, or concepts that I am going to be delving into one at a time. Philosophy really is a fascinating subject. If you don't believe me, look at the Wiki article on Philosophy. It's Huge. Also, a little tidbit of info, if you haven't tried this already, Go to Wikipedia and click random article, then click the first link that appears in the article that isn't italicized or in (parentheses), then repeat clicking the first non Italicized non parenthetical link in every succeeding article and you will eventually land yourself on the philosophy page. I am not joking. Try it.

We used to do soapbox nights at a friends house. I think we are going to start that up again.

Returning to the writing desk.

As many of you know, I like to write. However sometimes I lack the motivation or direction to write. Life currently feels busy. I have work, I am trying to focus on getting things prepared for school. There are girls to date and a focus on trying to get married. Etc, occasionally it is hard to find time to sit and write. And normally when I write I don't get more than a page out. This can be frustrating. But I finally did it this week. I wrote in various works three to four nights this week. I hope to keep this going, (though it is going to have a premature break this next week due to a week long backpacking trip)

I am quite pleased with what little writing I have accomplished. I feel that I am getting back in touch with the characters that I have loved and developed so much.

I recently passed my 8600 days old mark last Sunday. So far the 8600's have been off to a good start. I have been writing, I am living in a new apartment. I am going on this backpacking trip. I have been invited by a friend to join a small role play which I hope will be able to keep me in the writing mood. Things are just going well. I am happy. Let it not change for quite some time. And should it change, may there be friends there to lift me back up again.

Back to life as usual

Life is never entirely usual for me. But a time of major transition has just passed. I have just moved from one apartment, two blocks down the street to another apartment. My last two apartments were for me much more a temporary transitional arrangement. I think that this one is going to be a little more permanent. I stayed in my last two apartments about six months and nine months, This one I could see being in for a few years as I continue on with my schooling. I love this house. It definitely needs some fixing up here and there, holes in the walls that need patching and painting, tiles that need some replacing. An extra coat of paint here and there. But all in all, it has this unspoken charm to it, a colorfulness, a motif, age, and lots of stairs up to my apartment. I have grown to love stairs, they make me happy.

I just feel much more at peace here, in this place, with my new roommates, It is a beneficial arrangement. If you have heard about the Meyers Briggs personality profiling test then you might be able to understand that it is relieving for me (an INFJ) to finally live with an ENTP roommate. He is by nature more adventurous, something which I have desperately searched for in my own life, and I am intuitive grounded and a good sounding board, which is something that he also needs and craves. And so we satisfy one another's needs quite well. That and our method of communication is just very functionally good. Even when we are at our worst in our own personal communications (which Ironically may be said to be our best) when words break down and we can't find the words we want, all of our nonverbal communication skills kick in and we manage to understand one another better than we usually understand other people.

As such, in this new area, I am trying to make some changes. For one thing, I am going to try to cut even deeper into my free time and direct it away from video games and more toward writing. Again, I kind of wish I had a role play that I could play for a little while to get me back into the swing of typing and thinking fast and story composition. My brain craves that free form of play. But I have to be incredibly careful with it because I know that I have in the past been easily sucked into the vortex of addiction when it comes to such things. Bah, conundrum....

Well that is life... Conundrums.

~Floyd.