Apathy

Thoughts i had before taking philosophy, which we have been discussing in philosophy.

1.  I think i first thought of this one when i was like 10 while in the shower:  What if i am the main character on a Truman type show?  What if everyone around me is acting, pretending to be my family, my friends, my loved ones?  What if there are hidden cameras everywhere and little beady eyes watching me on television sets right now?  Observing my every move...laughing at my mistakes...scoffing at my absurdities...musing over my decisions...critiquing the creators.  Who is the creator?  How elaborate is the set, the stage?  How are they manipulating me?  Perhaps creating the idea of God to see if i really believe it, if i'll really devote myself to such a notion.  Perhaps, watching me now, naked, in the shower...pervs.

Recently i took this one step further and mulled over the idea that the entire planet could be one big TV show.  That aliens that have been around for millions of years have spread out over the universe and, to boost their ratings, have created "Planet Earth!"  With the tag line: "What will become of Adam and Eve planted in the garden?"  Where early fans of the program would have flipped when they got the cliff-hanger at the end of the show, "And so, God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden!"  Doosh!  But we aren't the only planet of course, there are many shows, on many planets, and trillions of these aliens being entertained on a daily basis.  That might explain peoples insistence that aliens visit us from time to time.  They need to fix cameras and such.  Or maybe fans of the show really want to meet some of the people they have become invested in.  But they are probably arrested and thrown in prison for breaking on to the set of such a successful show, even if ratings have dropped in recent years.

2.  I have of course also considered the idea that we are in a Matrix sort of world.  Electrodes prodding our brains to give us the sensation that we are walking around meeting people and experiencing things.  But because of the movie i am sure most of us have given this one some thought and so i won't delve in to the idea.

3.  Time.  I think this is something i might have mentioned in a previous post at one time, but the idea of time really struck me on a trip to Kauai with my family...oddly enough also in the shower.  What is time exactly?  I mean, it is simply a human invention for giving a numerical value to our days.  Made up increments to guide our lives by.  But what exactly is time measuring?  The rate at which things age?  But why do things move in this way?  And how come sometimes time can seem to pass slow, and at other times very fast?  How come as i get older time seems to move at an increasingly rapid rate?  Does this mean time is merely a ploy of the brain?  That time could possibly be experienced very differently?  Like how we say God is outside of time.  This would explain a lot about his nature i feel.  And so is that what God did with us?  He gave us a brain that would experience time in a limited way?  In one direction, at a particular speed?

Now, if you think about now, right this second, right this millisecond, like right NOW!  It is gone...where?  I don't know, but it passed.  How do i know it happened?  Memory.  Phew, good thing for memory.  And what about the future?  Well, it is coming, ope, wait, there it went, its gone now too.  It seems you can really never define a moment.  You can infinitely divide the second up, just like mass, it can become increasingly smaller, theoretically, cause you can't wrap your brain around it ever not being able to divide...even if you can't wrap your brain around it never ending.  And so how do you define a moment?  Cause a moment cannot really be defined.  How do we capture a picture then?  That picture really did contain some movement, but the celluloid makes it look still.

And so time confuses me, because it seems like we an experience it, but never really define what it is, or why it is.

4.  Where am i seeing?  Where am i hearing?  Where am i feeling?  Where am i tasting?  Where am i smelling?  In my brain.  Right.  But if my brain is flipping and interpreting the information my eyes are sending it, what is looking at the image my brain is compiling?  What is experiencing this visual splendor? I suppose this is really begging to have the question answered: What am I?  Why do i refer to myself as an "I"?  What makes me conscious?  What makes me aware?  Spirit?  Soul?  Are scientists correct?  Does the complexity of cells and synapses and chemicals in my brain give rise to my "self"?  Or does God embody us with a type of immaterial being, that is attached to this body, and experiencing this world, through the brain?  But how?  Phew...what AM I?

5.  Do i have free will?  Touchy subject.  It sure does seem like i do.  I have a blogspot, what do i want to write a post about?  Philosophy?  Okay...that should be interesting...that should make my friends heads swim a little...i think i will do that.  I am really due for a post.  And so here i am writing, picking up the screw on my desk, feeling its grooves, holding it in my teeth.  Why?  Because i feel like doing so.  Or was i destined to do this?  Is it written?  Is it God ordained?  This is the tricky thing about predestination.  It seems to remove a certain human quality in things to think of things as predetermined.  Screw freedom and liberty if we are all simply responding to stimuli like the Determinists claim.  Although, according to them, freedom and liberty exist in our minds, so you can't screw it, because it was meant to be, there is no changing it, it happened.  Things will happen, and even if you think you caused it, you didn't.  You were only responding to the forces acting on you.  Like the hurricane that destroyed New Orleans, it  was simply a result of humidity levels, and atmospheric pressure, and temperatures.  Everything caused by something else.  A domino effect.  But people should be able to predict human behavior a lot better then...like meteorologists for humans, haha, wouldn't that be excellent.

And predestination?  Well, would God really make some people to believe in Him and others to not?  Some to scorn and some to love?  What good is the love of a thing forced to love you?  Although it surely does sound like the Bible is trying to convince us of this.  Or maybe the writers were just a little confused?  But God is suppose to know all things right?  The beginning and end?  And so is it that he causes us to end up this way?  Or just refuses to intervene?  We believe God intermingles to a certain extent, but how much?  How does he decide how far to push things?  This is very puzzling.

Honestly, my innermost being tells me i have free-will, and so i have to act believing this, or else i think i shall go crazy.

6.  God.  GOD.  I AM.  Elohim.  Yahweh.  Real?  Fake?  Singular?  Plural?  Theistic?  Deistic?  Pantheistic?  Alchemist?  Satanist?  I know we have all thought long and hard on the topic of religion, i won't write ten paragraphs...haha.

7.  Morality.  What is right and wrong?  What is good and bad?  Where did these concepts come from?  I claim they came from God.  But how do you explain them without God?  Certain things feel good, certain things are enjoyable, so you do those things.  Other things are harmful, things that hurt, so you avoid these things.  If you deny God's placing of these things in us, are they simply things that help us to propagate our species?  But why would things even form this drive?  Why would matter decide it needed to populate itself?

8.  This leads to number eight, the origin of all things.  What started all of this?  And maybe even why?  God?  I agree.

9.  Is there more to this world than what we can experience ourselves?  Is there a spiritual realm?  I believe there is.  Need it be proven by science?  Could it?

10.  Space.  Infinite?  Limitless?  What is beyond our universe?  Nothingness forever?  If it ends, what is on the other side?  Ouch.

11.  What happens after death?  You guys know what i believe.  Although, what if there was no afterlife?  What if at death, you died?  Like, that is it, nothing else.  It sounds a little scary at first, but if you think about the thought it isn't so bad, because you wouldn't realize it.  If you were truly and ultimately dead, kaput, you wouldn't be able to think the thought: "Aw crap, i died, i didn't get to do all those things i wanted to do!"  Because YOU'RE DEAD!  I don't know, sometimes i like the idea of ending better than the idea of living forever...it is like number 10, it hurts my head to think about continuing on forever.  I can understand ending.

12.  If a tree falls in the forest, and nothing is around to hear it, does it make a sound?  Well, it all hinges on how you define a "sound."  If you define a sound as air-waves then yes, it makes a sound.  But if you define sound as what the neurons in the inner ear signal to the brain, then no, it doesn't.  According to the definition my dashboard dictionary gives me, it is the latter.  A sound is something that "can" be heard.  So yes, the tree does make a sound.

13.  Should we seek knowledge?  Or is ignorance really bliss?  Are we really better of for all the scientific research we have done?  For all our tinkering and fooling around?  I sometimes think not.  I really would enjoy living in the wild, hunter-gatherer style.  But Blogspot really is fun isn't it?  Haha.  I appreciate knowledge.  I just really wish it wasn't so much a guessing game of trial and error.

14.  This is all a dream.  My dream.  I will wake up one day to find i have been in a coma this entire time, and you guys were all a figment of my imagination.  Just made up creatures in my mind.  I sure am clever to think of you all!  Although...you think i would have made my life a little more desirable huh?

Well, i am done...forgive me if i have missed anything.  I think you have read enough if you have made it this far!  But i will leave you with this, one thought i have gained from Philosophy!

-"I think, therefore i am."

This seriously struck me when we learned what it means, because it is a very striking thought.  No matter what you think about, or argue over, or try to convince yourself of, there is only one thing you can never really talk yourself out of.  And that is that you exist.  I am thinking right now, and weather it is over a real-reality, or a synthetic one made by robots, or weather i am dreaming it all, or not really deciding for myself what i am thinking of, i do know i am thinking.  And no matter what i think of, i cannot convince myself otherwise, i cannot even begin to convince myself that i do not exist.  I think, so i am.  And so are you.