Because I have time

So I will update.

Exams are over, and the sudden liberation left me senseless for the past two days. Yes, I have achieved absolutely nothing in the past two days, with minimal reading/thinking. Time passes when you are dazed.

A state of mindlessness is how I would describe it. It is a feeling of liberation from all woes, all cares, and funny that it all arose from the examination period, when you are tremendously occupied with scoring in a paper, and then............

It is also during this period that, I get the feeling that is constantly lost and regained all the time; nothing matters. Reality is, in a sense what we perceive. That is directly against solipsism (which is a philosophy that can be simplified into a sentence : "I am the only one that exists. The environment and people in it are products of my imagination". ) And naturally, while I doubt solipsism is 'correct' (mountains of logical thoughts against it), you cannot disprove such a notion, simply because we lack the tools to transcend reality. The same argument holds for God.

And from here, allow me to introduce to the world the embryo of my philosophy of reality. It is yet undeveloped, problems are everywhere yet to be solved, but nevertheless it is a project/a viewpoint/statement of problem, call it whatever you want.

The human reality is an egocentric one. Ego here, meaning how we perceive ourselves, and centrism meaning putting it in the centre. Naturally, since we feel inclined to think that we are the most (and not the only) intelligent being on Earth. Haven't came across a dog that blogged, but there certainly are interesting blogs out there (a pair of tooth comes to mind, some cats also).

Well the point is, if we stop in our tracks, stop in our habit of living, and just think about how would an alien perceive us, what can we imagine the alien will think?

We can't.

Why? Think of a room, a square, whatever. You are not in it. Colour every side a different colour. There should be six colours, the colours irrelevant.

Now fix a window on the square, a small one, a peephole, doesn't matter. The only rule being, you can only fix it on one side. And the circumstances are, when you view from the window into the room, you can see only one colour (the room being infinitely larger than the window, theoretically of course).

And that summarizes the argument. If you are born into a world seeing only red colour, then the word 'blue' or 'green' does not mean anything to you. Your viewpoint, in fact your habit of seeing things is accustomed to only from one side. 'Thinking outside the box' is rubbish because while you can tap into dormant ideas in your brain, you cannot escape from your 'red-only' world.

Hence, I define 'logic' and 'reason' something applied purely only to human beings, and maybe the animals/plants that inhabit the same world. This 'world' can extend to the universe, no problem there. But not to unimaginable worlds though.

If you had actually thought of what the alien would think, then you are imposing your view upon the fictional (maybe) alien. Since you don't even know what the alien looks like, much less how it thinks, you cannot for sure imagine anything remotely probably to the alien's way of thought.

If that confuses you, think of a colour outside of the three primary ones (all the colours as we know are mix and matches). Asking you to invent a new basic colour is an impossible task (I wonder if anybody can do that?)

Here I admit, though I stress that this is a thought entirely of my own but not without influences, that there are connections/similarities (some) to Plato's World of Ideas and Kant's idea of Faculties (which I still find it difficult to understand, mostly because its so wordy and heavy that I lose my concentration half a page down).

The central idea of egocentrism is that, because we have no other yardstick, we put ourselves at the centre and measure everything from there. (Copernicus anyone?)

The reason why I have not followed any mainstream religious faith up until now, is purely because I reject the notion of 'God who created Humans'. I do not reject the idea of God though. Blurry, I know.

Simply put, we are not special. And therefore it is presumptous of us to think that God is capable of emotions. Counter-intuitive and antilogic, but that's the gist of it. God cannot be logical because logic as we know it is a human thing. Thus the idea that God loves us, is one that I sense the idea of human arrogance. We seek to describe the undescribable.

Mathematics as we know it can prove many things. Physics thus far is uncovering heaps of facts about our reality.

But we cannot escape from logic, nor reason nor emotions. Those are what defines a human, and interestingly (though not meant to be contradicting) this same rule applies to intelligent animals as well. But that is no justification for such a rule to be imposed on a being not of this reality e.g. God and our alien friend.

Consider this an introduction. Now I have to resolve some conflicts in this theory, namely this theory is subject to the laws it introduces, since the only tools I have in developing this idea is logic and reason.

If you question what the significance is, well, nothing life-changing for you I guess. But it is a way I am trying to understand our existence. An ontological or epistemological quest if you like.

_________________________________________________________

Now, on to my little degenerating activities. I have been watching some animes, new and old. And I shall 'type' of some ideas I gleaned from them.

The first anime is currently an ongoing one, titled 'Shiki'. Literally in Chinese it is written using the words 'Corpse' and 'Ghost' (Shi Gui), but in comprehending it it means a 'Corpse Demon' of sorts. The Japanese words employed the same writings, and the same meaning.

The story is set in a remote village, and a strange family (with a family name Kirishiki, though not written with the Corpse Demon words) moved in. Before long, people began to die, and the local doctor notices the recurring symptoms in people dying (with the assumption that it was an unknown epidemic). Namely anaemia.

Oh yes, this is about vampires by the way, and no they do not glow. Nor are they sex-bombs. The vampires featured in this show are zombie like. They feed on human blood, cannot stand sun and go comatose during daytime. And they were friends of the victims, who still retain all their original thoughts but with an added insatiable hunger.

In my opinion, this is easily better than all your Hollywood shows about vampires (that I have seen, come across or heard thus far). The author discusses the course of actions of the characters very well. I should mention there are two main characters, a teenager and a doctor.

The teenager found out about the secretive, growing group of zombie-vampires and he was determined not to die. Yet when his friend became one, he wanted to save him. It cost him his life, because he persisted and gave blood to the vampire. As of now it is unknown but highly probably that he became one as well.

The doctor is the character that strikes me more. He found out about the zombies, but he is more prudent. In fact, the chief vampire family knew that he knew of them, but they sought no action against him other than a threat (reasons yet unknown though). The doctor, knowing that he would not be believed by the villagers anyway, sought other ways to fight other than screaming about the vampires to everyone.

He wanted a specimen to experiment on, but he cannot catch one. If he catches one (if he could anyway), they will retaliate in full force. Thus he could only watch silently as people fell prey.

Until his wife became a victim. He slowly nursed her in isolation, and waited for her to die. Then, after a few days, just as she was about to turn, he bound her up and began experiments on her, while she cried and screamed unable to understand that she herself had became a vampire. Oh, he cut her up, injected all sorts of stuff from drugs to pesiticides, and when he was finally satisfied he drove the stake through her heart. Gory.

Heartless? Perhaps. But faced with such a situation and knowing no cure nor way to save his wife, it seems the doctor was logical/reasonable enough to take such a course of action. Since the vampires have no access to knowing whether his wife would rise (she was not buried, they only know she died. And not all rise by the way).

I feel the author has sufficient 'darkness' in her work, and it justifies the story thus far. There is no catering to what people would expect (yet), and I have high hopes for the ending. It being original enough I mean.

Personal opinion? One of the best thus far, no doubt.

I have another one to discuss, 'Welcome to the NHK'. But the post is lengthy, and I doubt it will do any good to make it longer.

So I shall update tomorrow. Cheerio!