Tuesday, November 27, 2007

What I think of everytime I'm going to publish a post...

"Whatever you say, there will be always someone who would be offended by what you've said" - that's what I think of every time I'm going to write something publicly. There is a lot of people in this world who value their opinion so much (except for the case when it comes to applying their world view to practice, of course) that they think it is their debt to convince someone with a different point of view that he is wrong, to show him how wrong he is (and to do it at least once a day). But even this is not the worst option. Because there are also people that you can meet for which not even an opinion is the reason for starting up an argument. It's just their game. One says that he believes in God - and a person of that kind is trying to oppose him; another one says he doesn't believe in God - and the same person tries to persuade him in existence of God. See, he doesn't need to avoid controversies. He doesn't need to be logical. All he needs is to win. Because thinking is just his game. And all that is needed in a game is trying to become a winner.

Why does that happen? Partially, that happens because there are people who have failed in their attempt of finding a relation between their way of thinking and their way of living. "There's no matter what you think unless it affects your life".

Friday, November 23, 2007

There's no way...

There's no way one who doesn't belong to oneself can make anything else belong to him.

Time heals all things.

Time heals all things... inasmuch as it inevitably leads us to the occurrence which will cure us of all diseases and distempers at once and forever.

The most intellectual work.

The most intellectual work, I think, is sweeping the floor: the head isn't busy with anything, so that it's possible to analyze the most complex ideas within one's mind :).

Clever people vs. stupid people

Clever people who fight for stupid ideas are worse and more dangerous than stupid people.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Answers vs. questions.

The strength of mind is not in finding answers, but in asking questions: we can doubt in answers we give, but we cannot doubt in questions we ask.


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Friday, November 9, 2007

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

Having read the book "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers" written by Diogenes Laertius, I would like to express here the conclusions the above-mentioned work has led me to. First of all, it is important for me to note that the ease with which the thoughts and manners of people so different from us, who lived several thousands years ago can be understood is very surprising.

The study of ancient philosophy gives us the idea that mental abilities of people of the past were no worse than that of ours, despite the nuance that they, for instance, could think of the brain as of an organ, the purpose of which was to cool off the body (ironically speaking, I have to admit that this is true in some degree, for most people nowadays use their brains for anything but thinking).

On the other hand, it makes us face the fact that there certainly had not been any development of the human mind since the first sparks of what we now call "philosophy" appeared - this is just the human mind that technically improves everyday amenities (cars, aircrafts, computers, for example). Sitting behind the wheel of a supercharged Ferrari won't make a naked ape stop being a naked ape.

So, I think the questions I have raised in this thread are worth being thought through, and the book is worth being read; to demonstrate this, I am going to quote some excerpts below.

Thales.

Once being asked why he did not himself become a father, Thales answered, that it was because he was fond of children.

He said also that there was no difference between life and death. "Why, then," said some one to him, "do not you die?" "Because," said he, "it does make no difference."

Anacharsis.

Being reproached by an Athenian for being a Scythian, Anacharsis said, "Well, my country is a disgrace to me, but you are a disgrace to your country."

Diogenes.

On one occasion, when no one came to listen to him while he was discoursing seriously, he began to whistle. And then when people flocked round him, he reproached them for coming with eagerness to folly, but being lazy and indifferent about good things.

When some people said to him, "You are an old man, and should rest for the remainder of your life;" "Why so?" replied be, "suppose I had run a long distance, ought I to stop when I was near the end, and not rather press on?"

A man once asked him what was the proper time for supper, and he made answer, "If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can."

And when, on another occasion, some one said to him, "The people of Sinope condemned you to banishment," he replied, "And I condemned them to remain where they were."

He once asked for a statue ; and being questioned as to his reason for doing so, he said, "I am practicing disappointment."

"Most people laugh at you;" "And very likely," he replied, "the asses laugh at them; but they do not regard the asses, neither do I regard them."

When a man said to him, "I am not calculated for philosophy," he said, "Why then do you live, if you have no desire to live properly?"

One day he saw an unskilful archer shooting; so he went and sat down by the target, saying, "Now I shall be out of harm's way."

Alexander was once standing by him, and saying, "Do not you fear me?" He replied, "No; for what are you, a good or an evil?" And as he said that he was good, "Who, then," said Diogenes, "fears the good?"

Once, while he was sitting in the sun in the Craneum, Alexander was standing by, and said to him, "Ask any favour you choose of me." And he replied, "Cease to shade me from the sun."

When he was asked whether death was an evil, he replied, "How can that be an evil which we do not feel when it is present?"

On one occasion he was working with his hands in the market-place, and said, "I wish I could rub my stomach in the same way, and so avoid hunger."

About one idiotic belief.

There is an idiotic belief that is very popular in these days that "different" means "hostile". There is also a no less idiotic belief which is also very popular now that if we want to live in peace, we should fool ourselves into thinking that we are all the same.

Similarity can be found only in qualities separately considered, and the boundaries we impose to produce such separation are conventional and relative.

Moreover, if there is a qualitative similarity - there is a quantitative difference and vice versa.

And all that means that we are not the same and we'll never be the same. And we don't have to be the same.

Something about losers.

I think that being a loser is not simply losing. It's a state of conciousness in which people think that losing is their way of achieving victory over "the majority of people which is stupid".

"Oh, most people hate me, but, for they are stupid, they take the good for the bad and thus, being hated is a proof for me that I'm actually good."

They are proud of the fact that they fail to achieve whatever they tried to achieve. One of them told me that he even didn't want to do something to improve his life. "So why then" - I replied - "did you try to do this at all"? A second after, I noticed that he blushed. On one hand, I made him feel very uncomfortable. On the other hand, I'm sure that letting losers understand that they are nobody and nothing helps them to stop being nobody and nothing.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Something about what we call "personal".

In the life of every human being there is something that should be described as "personal". Not because a person feels too shy about it he (I will further say "he" meaning "a human being in general, male or female") doesn't want to make it public. And also, not because a person is afraid to dishonor oneself he doesn't want to talk about things in his life that he considers as personal. It is because that these are such things that can be understood only in the context of what can be known by the only one to whom these personal things are related.

The same considerations can be applied to what can be called "interpersonal", "only between me and you". For example, sexual relations, heart-to-heart talks... And, of course, nobody who respects oneself will have such relations with people he doesn't respect.

And here's one more notice: the notice that regards drinking. It's known by the many that alcohol destroys the interpersonal barriers between people who drink together: they start looking not only into each other's eyes, but into each other's souls.

And this too can be looked at as some kind of a more intimate interpersonal communication, and, like in case of sexual relationship, not only at conscious, but also at subconscious level (except that at physical level there is not that much communication).

This reasoning can be taken into account in event that somebody says "I won't drink with him|her".

By the way, it is interesting to notice that drinking alone is looked at as masturbating under the blanket.

What is reality?

What is reality? What can it be? Can it be at all?

Sometimes it seems to me that every one of us lives in an isolated within his mind world composed of hallucinations - complex and integrated ones, that involve all the senses, feelings and emotions it is possible to experience (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, thermoception, nociception, equilibrioception, proprioception). And, by some grandeous force, in some curious way, those isolated worlds of illusions are synchronized and coordinated with each other. You can call this "objective reality", which by itself has nothing to do with what we observe. I can tell you, this supposition is in no way worse than that which tells: "reality is material, mind derives from matter in its complicated form and reflects the outer world". Science is not going to oppose what I've written above. Science has nothing to tell about that. Science doesn't have to tell about that. Science doesn't deal with that, and so does it right. In defiance of people's prejudices, the purpose of science is not seeking the truth, despite what some philosophically uneducated scientists say. Science develops an integral, descriptive and predicting model of the aggregate of phenomenas observed. We can prove nothing about what stands behind the phenomenas. We cannot prove even whether something behind the phenomenas exists.