Aesthetic or Ethical

A homeless man sits on a street corner, a mug in one hand, a sign in the other which reads, "spare change." The aesthetic person pays no attention. Though she may have some desire to help the poor man, her unwillingness to act on her desire gives her an aesthetic personality. On the other hand she may know the man, he may be a drug addict. If so she may not pay him any mind to avoid feeling an obligation to give him money. If she acts this way she is doing so to keep the man from purchasing more drugs, does this move her into the ethical? or does her silence still deem her aesthetic?

Existence: Exclusive to the mind

Descartes says that we think therefore we are. Because we are able to ponder the idea of our own existence or anything for that matter proves that we exist. If I were non existent then there would be no thought. Does this mean that the only thing that exists with any certainty is the mind, and outside of the mind there is only doubt? With no grasp on what, other than self, is real then why bother with rules, regulations, and expectations. If nothing is real for certain then there are no consequences for the things that one does because those things which were done may not have been done at all, or may have been done to non existent things... therefore it yields no consequences. For example: When Dr Layne experiences sleep paralysis she is ,in her head, screaming at her husband to wake up when in reality she has not moved. Her mind made her think that she was yelling but when she awoke she hadn't been, therefore there was no consequence for her action.

Cosmology: an eye opener

When i define my religious beliefs I use the word agnostic. According to one source on Dictionary.com an Agnostic is "a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause,as god, and the essential nature of things

are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience."

This, for my purposes has always been a good way to dismiss any argument of theology. What I have never considered before is an Ontological argument for God's existence. I find it incredibly interesting and far more convincing to hear an argument for the existence of god based on logic and necessity as opposed to what I've always been told: You will believe in god or you will be cast into the fiery pits of hell. Though convincing in its own terrifying way, this was never proof enough or even proof at all for god's existence so much as a way to scare people into believing.

What came first, god or existence? If God is the creator of all things and without god existence ceases to be, then all that my mother has told me is sound I suppose. Aquinas' argument for god as a cause for existence easily refute my more youthful assumptions that there is no god. Had my mom a grasp on these concepts I would have lost the arguments that Ultimately resulted in my lack of church attendance. Now I hold true the idea that God, if existent, is something that cannot be explained nor understood, and with this new cosmological explanation of god I find it harder to refute his existence as I have before.

Virtue?

This past week we discussed virtue as knowledge. Socrates said that when committing virtuous acts one must be able to define why these acts are good. Good actions are not virtuous actions until the he who has committed them can explain why they are good. We also spoke about how one person's definition of good may be different than someone else's. This concept can be applied to Fyodor Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment when the main character convinces himself for a short time period that killing the pawn broker lady would be a virtuous act. He explains many reasons why the world would be better off without her and how she was an evil woman. He justifies stealing her money saying that it could be put to good use rather than donated to a church to ensure her place in heaven, which is simply a self righteous thing to do. He believes that he is doing good and can define the virtue in his actions to a certain degree, therefore his actions... at the time at which he was committing them, must have been virtuous.

Class Synopsis Monday January 31st

On Monday January 31^st in Philosophy class we began by discussing the “Good Life,” and what exactly the “Good Life” is. We threw around some ideas concerning consistent happiness and what constitutes a consistently happy life, be it relative or not. We moved on to consider the concept of virtue and what it is to be virtuous. Some common virtues we discussed were courage, Piety, Justice, Friendship. Socrates Considered Virtue to be knowledge and said that you can’t be virtuous if you know not what virtue is. Being virtuous means that while you do good things, you can also give a definition as to what makes your actions good.

After explaining how virtue is knowledge we moved on to discuss what a good definition of virtue would be. Any explanation of virtue must be fluid with all of the definer’s beliefs, if the definition lacks coherence with its creator’s ideals then the definition is false and the action in question is not virtuous. The definition must also be “Universally Applicable.” All aspects of a definition of virtue must be applicable to all aspects of reality. Third of all the Definition must be practical, it must be something that is based on practice and not theory, something that is based on theory and not practice is based on assumption which is born of ignorance.

After we defined virtue (or pondered ways of doing so) we moved on to ask if Virtue could be taught. Yes was the first answer which came to my mind because I have always assumed that everything I know was taught to me by my peers and my parents. Others believe that we are born with some instinctual knowledge like the instinct not to kill other human beings. With this in mind we asked what of the children who do kill people and receive a pardon due to their adolescence. The question was raised in class “what of those who know right from wrong and still strive for evil?” and we moved on to the question of desire over knowledge. Often times we know things are bad and we do them anyway, for example: Most everybody knows and believes that cigarette smoking is bad for you in the long run but the good in being healthy doesn’t always overcome the good feeling that comes immediately with the cigarette. This is not a question of weak will but a question of what is good to the individual; the immediate gratification from the cigarette, or knowing that your lungs are healthy. In conclusion we were told that nobody wants to do bad things or what they believe is bad, but what some people perceive as bad others may perceive as good. This scenario is what makes cigarette smokers keep smoking and serial killers keep killing. They believe the good is in the feeling they get when they’re committing their action, not the action itself.

Contradictions, Parents, Arguments and Justice

Argument is not contradiction(yes it is, no it isn’t), Abuse (insults), or a statement of belief. With that said a real argument is sometimes hard to come by. A small child who argues with his or her mother often would say something is black simply because the mother said it was white. The mother on the other side would respond to say, “no, it is white.” This conversation is no argument because neither side has presented any premises on the topic. If the topic is something more complex such as the child wishing to spend the night at a friend’s house then more of an argument can ensue. A small child would most likely complain and state over and over how badly he/she wants to go. The parent would come back with an actual argument consisting of premises pertaining to bedtimes, the time of week, how much time the child had already spent at that friend’s house that week. Hindsight can now tell me that I lost those arguments when I was a child because I wasn’t arguing at all!

When arguing with my peers I find that we do in fact argue, though these arguments often conclude with frustration which produces abuse and then eventually an agreement to disagree….

Tangent time: From my notes: An argument is a series of statements, facts or assertions which are interwoven or sown together to support a conclusion. An argument can be badly constructed or well-constructed i.e. valid or invalid. It may be something one believes, but not necessarily. It may produce truth statements but not necessarily. If this is so then an individual who wins an argument is not necessarily the possessor of accurate knowledge but simply the more skillful arguer. If this is so then what of our justice system. Our “fair” trial by jury is simply an argument between lawyers the result of which is simply the a question of who’s argument is stronger. So is our justice system truly just? Or is it simply a contest of who can pose a better argument?

Live for the moment... But what moment?

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have a class titled Business communications in which our introductory exercise was to stand in front of the class and give a short formal presentation which consisted of; your name, your major, where you are from, and two interesting things about yourself. I gave it my best shot but what struck me was that one of my pier’s interesting things was his philosophy on life. His take on life and time is as follows (plus some interpretation on my part):

Time is what separates reality from imagination. Anything that occurs in the past can’t be relived but can only be remembered. When we remember events we imagine them as we perceived them at the time they were happening and therefore we only remember specific details letting our imaginations fill in the gaps. Therefore the past exists only in our imaginations.

That which is going to occur has yet to do so and so once again we can only imagine what the future will hold. Therefore the future too is a non-existent product of our imagination.

Taking all of this into consideration the present is the only thing that is unquestionably real.

The basis of his philosophy is that one should always live for the moment that exists right now because it is the only thing that exists for certain. With that in mind I began to think about what it really means to live for the moment. If one does nothing in this present time then what of the time that approaches? It may be non-existent in its approach but when it arrives it is very real. If you lived for the previous moment then you may not be able to enjoy the present moment, so who’s to say that what has happened has no influence on what is happening, And if the past does in fact influence what happens in the present then it’s hard to believe that the past does not exist. The future on the other hand does not exist yet. When it becomes the present it will come into existence as a compilation of the consequences produced by the past unless there is a god who controls everything, in which case all time is final and cannot be altered which means that the future already exists, just not on this present plain of existence.