Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

THIS POST IS REALLY LONG and PSYCHOLOGICALLY CHALLENGING. ONLY READ WHEN EXPERIENCING A DEARTH OF RESPONSIBILITY.



No, I'm not relating the two things. I just have two different things to talk about. First, philosophy.

I've learned a bunch of stuff in the past few weeks, with most of which I agreed. Socrates: there are definite qualities called "truth" and "justice" and "goodness" which do exist in and of themselves on some higher plane and which also exist in our human plane such that, if found, each particular case dealing with any of those qualities could be quantifiably judged as "good," "just," "fair," or "free." To find these, Socrates accepts nothing that may have been interpreted by man; he does not allow the judging of particulars to define a universal quality; he does not allow one entity to give a universal quality to another (rather arguing that universals are independently extant in all things which may concern them); he does not allow fallacious or delusional logic to worm its way into the effort to absolutely define a universal quality. With that, I have no problems. I, being a scientist and further, according to astrological interpretation, a Capricorn and yet further, a naturally stubborn and persistent (at least in matters of the soul, ethics, and what to do with them) person, am extremely in tune with these ideas and embrace them wholeheartedly, gladly accepting the posits of universal cognitive ability pertaining to philosophy and possible disillusionment with any given circumstance so that I, too, can seek out this higher Truth.
Plato: Didn't learn much about Plato. Mostly hoped that he was not being entirely fictitious when he wrote about Socrates so that I could attribute the entirety of the seed of the Theory of Forms (higher truths, etc.) to a man with no active voice in the world because he didn't write. It's more of a love-of-character thing overpowering a distaste with his "obvious" (theorized) distaste for lasting self-expression.
Confucius: There are Truth, Virtue, Destiny, and Harmony to be found in the world. Seek them out, and peace, order, and unity will ensue. It can get more complicated, but those are his basic arguments. Pretty much an awesome guy, with whom I agree. Oh, and something I forgot to point out: one reason I like all these people is because I have, to some small and unworthy extent, used their methods prior to a formal introduction to them. Not putting myself on a pedestal; this just happens to lead into something pretty important I hit up later.
Descartes: Cogito ergo sum. Plain and simple: "I think, therefore I am." Descartes reaches this conclusion in the middle of and prior to a huge and largely successful attempt to tell the Church that geocentric thought was outdated and useless in light of the wonderful simplicity and accuracy of a heliocentric model of the universe without getting himself imprisoned like Galileo did because he was a senile old man who believed that good intentions and good science would be accepted by all despite Copernicus's massive fail (burning at the stake for heresy). He starts out by effectively saying that all sensory input can easily be fallacious due to the natural failures of the human body (e.g., blindness, deafness, madness, etc.). Therefore, we must strip away all that we sense and restrict ourselves to our very minds. Even there, though, we may be found at fault as he says due to the whims of "some being set out to deceive [us] at every turn" (paraphrased, Descartes, obviously speaking of the Devil) and our own conceited mindsets. Bare of everything, we are left with one thing: doubt. That doubt, which has cost us senses and sense alike, grants us existence for without doubt, there is nothing and with doubt, we can build everything. From there, Descartes makes some grimace-worthy twists and turns to prove God, existence, and the natural separation of the religious world from the scientific world, succeeds, and becomes the Father of Modern Philosophy by allowing scientists to actually do their job instead of keeping it all undercover so they won't be... burned at the stake for heresy or put under house arrest at the age of seventy and forced to sign a statement denying self and rationale. Once again, this is all fairly awesome for me, because I can wrap my mind around the God argument and I completely agree with the cogito ergo sum endpoint. Yeah, he almost gets illegal in his rational ways, but he has basically built off the Socratic method and said, "Church, your 'science' is ridiculous, get off my case" in the nicest and most effective way possible.
Locke: Proposes that all human knowledge is a product of correspondence between beholder and beholden. This is the "Correspondence Theory of Knowledge" and incorporates a concept he calls the tabula rasa or "blank slate" into the current (at that time) philosophies, which were primarily Platonic/Socratic or their modern counterpart, Cartesian. The "blank slate" theory proposes that real objects make an impression upon the observer which the observer then inputs as real knowledge in his or her brain. For me, this made sense, but seemed a little unnecessary. Of course that's how one comes to know, if we accept this possibly false universe we perceive as necessary truth brought about, as Descartes says, by the infallible non-deception (and therefore truth) granted to us as a perfect God's creations. I didn't see, in class, where my professor was taking us.
Hume: The next step in this sadistic progression. No, I did not consider it sadistic during the whole of my learning; only afterwards, once I realized the full implications. Hume tells us that because, as Locke says, all information comes to us necessarily through these possibly false senses, each experience is effectively a snapshot; that is, no experience can truly be of a total universal, only of one instance of such a universal. Therefore, we can have no actual, universal knowledge. Basically, Hume took a bat with Locke's name on it and smashed it over Socrates's head. This didn't sit well with me, but I was willing to consider it for the sake of the total logic leading me to it. I mean, this makes sense. If we have these easily-deceived senses, why should we ever believe that some instance of something could possibly lead to a total understanding of the full implications and definition of a universal Truth? It's disheartening to me as a scientist and as a poet, because both professions seek total perfection and a necessary cognitive lack of function kind of puts a wrench in my mechanisms towards that goal, but it is logical and it does make sense. Then, I learned that this wrench had an explosive charge in it, and it was labelled "Kant."
Kant: A jerk. He produced what many call a "Copernican Revolution" in epistemology by setting the tracks for phenomenological thinking. He recognized ( and I say "recognized" because, as you'll see, I had to see this as truth) that the human brain is what controls all five senses and that when the brain receives sensory input from any organ, it interprets, categorizes, and responds to such an input. That "interprets" stage is on what Kant focused. Turning Descartes, Plato, and Socrates on their heads while breaking Locke like an insecticide does a jewel wasp's central nervous system, Kant posited that all ideas are internalized because the journey from "thing" to "self" is also necessarily internalized. We receive no outside influence that can be trusted as real; all experience is restricted to the self; there can be no effective communication between entities; there can be found no Truth. Backing away from his chemical onslaught, he at least made it smell good by introducing this realm of lies and hallucinations as the "phenomenal reality" and Truth as "noumenal reality." Noumenal reality is, obviously, that which truly exists and may, perhaps, in one way or another, possibly, if we're really lucky, every once in a while, have something to do with what we immediately transform into this phenomenal reality we have for so long believed was teaching us how to find Truth. He fused the mind and body into one, crushing the Platonic psyche/body dualism that allows preexisting and/or ultimate Knowledge even to be considered and striking a heavy blow against the Church's very foundation: the soul. This was not good, for me. I have to believe in a soul; I must believe that life is not constricted to this realm and this time period - that cognition will not end. Not only must I believe in a soul, but I must believe in the quest for Truth and the existence of Truth or else all morality is meaningless. Not only that, but I must believe in the existence of other human beings in this world because the thought of being totally alone is only slightly less horrifying than that of oblivion. Not only that, but life must have meaning, and though he has not stripped that away from me, he has done his darnedest because in the depths of what I can know only hope is the reality of my mind I believe him and must believe him because logically, what he says must be true and because as I said before, the seed of what he has articulated so caustically perfectly already existed in me. The seed of total doubt: not Socratic doubt, not Cartesian doubt, not even Lockean interpretation, but total doubt. I held it on a scientific level; evading the annoying stubbornness of the skeptic, I have long wondered if the basis upon which we have believed all physics, all chemistry, and all biology has been wrong. What if the very foundation, that one particle, the fabled "Higgs boson," if you will, was misinterpreted by our hardwired brains and everything we know is a lie? What if the programs built to ensure we are perfectly and mathematically correct have been based on the idea that we were never wrong in the first place and are therefore fallacious in and of their "perfect" selves? This would seem to be perfectly legitimate, given the calculation, at the end of our trials, that ninety percent of matter in the universe is totally undetectable by the peak of technology. So Kant saying to me that this terrifying skepticism might somehow be broadened not only from science to psyche but even silently suggesting that it might involve religion and saying in such away that I am forced to accept its legitimacy was the detonation that has wrecked the brain I have since wracked for answers. Kant says, "I found it necessary to deny rationality to make room for faith." If even rationality is under question, then such a silly thing as faith, which has been founded on not even experiential bases, is surely ludicrous in its conception. But! Kant was only the charge. It took another to set it off.
Husserl: Damn you, Husserl. This man took Kant's ideas and turned them into a system. He further explained and clarified the works of a man who already has turned the world of philosophy sideways and fearful. Kant said, "What if we've been wrong all along? I mean, 'I think,' but... can we really say that 'I am'?" Husserl said, "Hell no! You can hardly even say that you think!" Effectively, Husserl posits that human beings are glorified animals. We have no definite rationale; we only believe that we have rationale. He says this progressively, though, by following it up with a possible solution: focus all study on epistemology until we can determine real observation, and thus does he propose the phenomenological method. This method takes place entirely in the mind of the individual and focuses on the eidetic, or “formal” ideas; the same Truth Socrates originally sought. So far as I’ve learned, though, Husserl takes what is ludicrous to me and says we ought to embrace it. His theory is that one ought to seek out the universals in one’s own mind, despite the fact that all that resides in one’s mind is a compilation of experience, which is necessarily of phenomenal reality, which makes even this method impossible, unless he has further explanation to offer down my educational road. He had better, because as it stands, he has taken away everything I know and amplified that which I wished to ignore in the face of what I formerly saw as more important philosophical inquiries; that is, into my personal immortality/eternity, impersonation of God, and global social reform. But no. He tosses those aside like little nothings. He has broken down everything I have by burning my steel wool trail to the core and I’m left with a pulsing heart which is cracking under the pressure of existential crisis. I cannot build up until I heal the wounds, which in itself will be hard enough. And I thought I was good for having reconciled Plato and Socrates with Jesus Christ as an entity separate from God…

This wasn’t meant to sound like self-pity, if it did. It’s just a description of what this God-forsaking class has done to me. I have no proposal for how to fix my own ideals (all of which are still intact, just without a connection to the central dogma of existence) except in the pursuit of science, which, so far, has not yielded any solutions. But, my philosophy professor claims Husserl was one of the first to make Philosophy an actual science, so maybe the answer will come with time, rather than personal reflection. Because the latter has gotten me nowhere.


SUBJECT CHANGE. BE WARNED.



“I kissed a girl.”
“Did you?”
“And I liked it.”
“That’s nice. What did you like about it?”
“I was about to tell you, but you interrupted me. Let me start again.”
“Go ahead.”
“I kissed a girl and I liked it: the taste of her cherry chap stick.”
“Wait. All you liked was the taste of the chap stick?”
“Well, no.”
“But that’s what you said.”
“No, you see, I was ruminating upon the delicate flavor.”
“In the midst of a story?”
“That’s not how the story began. Let me start over.”
“Fine, let’s see if you can repair this.”
“This was never the way I planned – not my intention. I got so brave, drink in hand. Lost: my discretion.”
“Hold on. You just stopped in the middle of your story to put up a ‘Lost’ sign?”
“No, I’m telling you that I lost my discretion.”
“But that’s not what you said. If you want to be syntactically correct, you have to have put a colon between ‘lost’ and ‘my.’ So now you’re just spouting stories about your irresponsibility with various personal traits.”
“It’s no what I’m used to. (I) Just wanna try you on. I’m curious, for you caught my attention.”
“I did?”
“No, she did. I’m using an apostrophe.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one. What about the ellipsis?”
“I put that in there just to satisfy you, but most people would insert the deleted letter for themselves.”
“I’ll also give you the metaphorical ‘try you on,’ then. Go on.”
“Well, here’s my framework story, or subject, if you will. I kissed a girl and I liked it: the taste of her cherry chap stick. I guess that was the only thing I liked…”
“I told you.”
“Anyway. I kissed a girl just to try it: hope my boyfriend won’t mind it.”
“You were trying the hope?”
“No…”
“But that’s what you said. You said you were trying, that is, testing the hope that your boyfriend wouldn’t mind it. Either, you were testing him, or you were testing your own mental fortitude. Would you really give up hope just on the basis of a single, inebriated moment of curiosity? Or is it that case that you’re shallow enough that you consider it a test of your relationship on your boyfriend’s side, rather than yours?”
“I just…”
“Finish the story. I’m entertained.”
“It felt so wrong. It felt so right. Don’t mean I’m in love tonight.”
“I didn’t say anything of the sort.”
“Would you shut up?”
“Not yet; you’ve got a ways to go, I feel.”
“I kissed a girl and I liked it. I liked it!
“No, I don’t even know your name. It doesn’t matter. You’re my experimental game: just human nature.”
“In no way is human experimentation just except in the case of signed contracts. Some social experiments are also warranted, but even those are frowned upon when detected. Anyway, ‘just human nature’ is an oxymoron. Human nature is selfish and cruel. Justice is fair and unbiased.”
“It’s not what good girls do – not how they should behave. My head gets so confused (and) hard to obey.”
“That’s another ellipsis. What’s this one for?”
“You.”
“It’s not even my main contention. My contention is that if your head is confused, it would of course be hard to obey. If it’s confused, how would you even know what it’s telling you to do? If this is a defense against calumny, it’s entirely useless. Start making sense.”
“Us, girls? We are so magical.”
“So now girls are a separate entity from you and whomever you’re with?”
“Us girls – we are so magical.”
“Grammatically incorrect. ‘Us’ is the object form. You want subject. You’d only have to say, ‘We girls are so magical.’”
“But it doesn’t fit in with the rhythm.”
“We girls are so damn magical.”
“But that’s self-deprecating. We can’t have that; I’m building a defense for a girl-girl relationship. That statement would tear down both parties.”
“We girls a-are so magical.”
“I… guess extending the syllable a beat could work, but I’d rather do it on the ‘so.’”
“So do it.”
“I’ll make that edit, I guess. Anyway.”
“Anyway.”
“Soft skin, red lips, so kissable – hard to resist. So touchable, (we’re) too good to deny it. Ain’t no big de-“
“No. I’m out of here.”
“What?”
“All you had to say was ‘it’s’ and you couldn’t even do that. Get out of here.”
“You should hear the dance groove I’m gonna put behind this.”
“… say again?”
“There will be an awesome dance groove associated with this song.”
“DAMN IT IF YOU DO NOT PUBLISH THIS SONG I WILL SHOVE A THESAURUS DOWN YOUR EAR CANALS.”
Thus: “I Kissed a Girl.”