Thursday, 20 November 2008

Reflective Aestheticism

It's been a little while since my last post, and I apologize to you who frequent Rerum Causae (anyone? ... no?).  I've been slightly busy with coursework, but I thought I'd share some material (unrelated to school) that has had an influence on me as of late.  

A Poem

AFTER THE TITANIC


They said I got away in a boat

And humbled me at the inquiry. I tell you

I sank as far that night as any

Hero. As I sat shivering on the dark water

I turned to ice to hear my costly

Life go thundering down in a pandemonium of

Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches,

Boilers bursting and shredded ragtime. Now I hide

In a lonely house behind the sea

Where the tide leaves broken toys and hat-boxes

Silently at my door. The showers of

April, flowers of May mean nothing to me, nor the

Late light of June, when my gardener

Describes to strangers how the old man stays in bed

On seaward mornings after nights of

Wind, takes his cocaine and will see no-one. Then it is

I drown again with all those dim

Lost faces I never understood. My poor soul

Screams out in the starlight, heart

Breaks loose and rolls down like a stone.

Include me in your lamentations.


-- Derek Mahon


Philosophy


Kierkegaardian Aphorisms


What the philosophers say about reality is often as deceptive as when you see a sign in a second-hand store that reads:  Pressing Done Here.  If you went in with your clothes to have them pressed you would be fooled; the sign is for sale.


Aren't people absurd!  They never use the freedoms they do have but demand those they don't have; they have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.


Besides my other numerous circle of acquaintances I have one more intimate confidant - my melancholy.  In the midst of my joy, in the midst of my work, he waves to me, calls me to one side, even though physically I stay put.  My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known;  what wonder, then, that I love her in return.


This is the main defect with everything human, that it is only through opposition that the object of desire is possessed.  I shan't speak of the various syndromes that can keep the psychologist busy (the melancholic has the best-developed sense of humor, the most extravagant person is often the one most prone to the picturesque, the dissolute one often the most moral, the doubter often the most religious), but simply recall that it is through sin that one first catches sight of salvation.


A fire broke out backstage in a theatre.  The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded.  He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater.  I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.


--from Kierkegaard's Either/Or


A Quote


“We do not want to get committed to any one particular understanding or locked into 

it. This danger looms large for writers; in the public’s mind or in their own they easily 

can become identified with a particular “position.” Having myself written earlier a 

book of a political philosophy that marked out a distinctive view, one that now seems 

seriously inadequate to meI will say some words about this later onI am 

especially aware of the difficulty of living down an intellectual past or escaping it. 

Other people in conversation often want me to continue to maintain that young man’s 

“libertarian” position, even though they themselves reject it and probably would 

prefer that no one had ever maintained it at all.  In part, this may be due to people’s 

psychological economy—I speak of my own here too.  Once having pigeonholed 

people and figured out what they are saying, we do not welcome new information that 

would require us to re-understand and reclassify them, and we resent their forcing us 

to devote fresh energy to this when we have expended more than enough in their 

direction already!  I would do well to recognize, somewhat ruefully, that these 

meditations too may exert their own retarding gravitational force. 

 However, it is not quite positions I wish to present here.  I used to think it 

important, when I was younger, to have an opinion on just about every topic: 

euthanasia, minimum wage legislation, who would win the next American League 

pennant, whether Sacco and/or Vanzetti were guilty, whether there were any synthetic 

necessary truths—you name it.  When I met someone who had an opinion on a topic I 

hadn’t yet ever heard of, I felt a need to form one too.  Now I find it very easy to say I 

don’t have an opinion on something and don’t need one either, even when the topic 

elicits active public controversy, so I am somewhat bemused by my earlier stance.  It 

is not that I was opinionated exactly; I was quite open to reasons for changing an 

opinion, and I did not try to press mine upon others.  I just had to have some opinion 

or other—I was “opinionful.”  Perhaps opinions are especially useful for the young.  

Philosophy too is a subject that seems to invite opinions, “positions” on free will, the 

nature of knowledge, the status of logic, etc. In these meditations, however, it is 

enough, it might be better even, simply to mull topics through.” 


--Nozick from the introduction to The Examined Life


Music


Imagine one of the most influential moral and political philosophers in history.  Now imagine that he decides to compose some music on the side.  The result is this opening aria from Rousseau's Le Devin Du Village.  Simple, moving, beautiful.  Just when you think you might not be completely useless, you come to grips with someone like Rousseau.  The only way I could upload it was in movie format, so I made one with 4 recent photos.  Forgive the clumsy method of delivery.  If the photos distract, minimize and listen.  

video

Sunday, 9 November 2008

Bussed-Ad

UPDATE:  For those of you who have already read this post, you may have noticed I changed the title.  I decided the Tool lyric I originally used was a bit... daunting.  This one is much more inviting and happy... like me.  Also, I saw Fleet Foxes perform tonight.  They were astounding.  

A few weeks ago, I came across this news story.  I have to admit it made me laugh.  "There is probably no God."  Then there is the claim "now stop worrying and enjoy your life."  Whew! That's a relief to theists everywhere, because I'm sure every believer hates every second of their wretched faith filled lives.  My favorite however, is the ambitious use of the word "probably."  Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't all the bold declarations in the history of human thought have been prefaced with... "probably?"  Let's take Newton's third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."  Newton is without a doubt on the shortest imaginable list of the greatest thinkers of all time, but wouldn't this specific law be much more robust had Newton written it thusly: "For every action there is probably an equal and opposite reaction?"  If Newton was actually convinced of his position, he surely would have included the "probably."  Let's look at what he wrote about gravity.  

Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

This is a pretty profound discovery, which we can no doubt strengthen as follows:

Every particle of matter in the universe probably attracts every other particle with a probable force that is probably directly proportional to the probable product of the masses of the particles and probably inversely proportional to the probable square of the distance between them.  

With this amelioration of Newton's law, we've come to a conclusion that leaves nothing to doubt.  How can you argue with probably?  

Smugness aside, let me give credit where credit is due.  The advertisement which will be cropping up on buses around here I think is a good thing - for two reasons.  First, the declaration certainly appears fatuous given the world "probably," yet it is not inaccurate.  Given the mountain of empirical evidence, it's arduous not to hold, "God probably doesn't exist."  Secondly, these pseudo-atheist buses will stroll the streets of London propagating a memorandum of thought and reexamination more than merely advocating atheism.  

This is healthy.  In this light, the word "probably" plays an important and genuine role.  Religion should be examined, and then reexamined.  We can't prove or disprove the existence of God.  In other words, the dialogue will persevere, and will likely persist for the duration.  We should therefore carefully and perpetually examine our personal convictions, for no one has all the answers.  Faith in any sense is a process with no foreseeable end.  People of religion have a tendency to forget this.  They think they have all the answers, and no further examination is necessary.  Further, they forget that faith implies doubt.  We could not have faith, if we did not have doubt.  We cannot have absolute knowledge of anything really (another discussion entirely).  If we could, faith would evaporate.  Like the blind believer however, the atheist can easily fall victim to the same constipated thinking.  So now that I've berated the bus ad, setting it up for ridicule for its gratuitous use of "probably," through a further examination, I think we can applaud the ad for encouraging thought from all sides.  

Before I post this mental saunter through the implications of a bus poster, I feel it necessary to circumambulate back to my earlier point that the empirical evidence against the believer is not something to be sneezed at (not sure how I managed both walking and sneezing in that sentence, but let's go with it). There is something we must understand about the nature of belief.  We must admit that faith is absurd (a point the atheists are well aware of, the believers less so).  The absurdity of faith however is not exclusive to a belief in God.  There are other absurdities we deal with as human beings.  The following concepts in philosophy have proven to be just as absurd as the concept of God: the self, free will, and to a lesser extent love.  Despite a lack of knowledge of these things, we have reason to believe in them.  In other words, even though belief is not rational, we are not insane to believe in such things.  At this point, I will resist the urge to delve into a full argument for and against belief.  We'll save that for another day... probably.