If I think about them from my perspective now, the first few introduces the idea of good and bad. Monsters are bad, because they eat people. The heroes/heroines are good, because they protect us. Simple as that. And violence against such creatures are justified, because well, they are evil.
Disney introduces the idea that each and everyone of us are unique. It feeds our imagination, and plants the ideas that the world can be a better place if we would just love everyone more, and express it properly. In fact, if we take one step further, it subtly hints that each of us are princes and princesses in our own rights, and that we will find 'the one for us', enjoy love and bask in its sweetness and live happily forever after. Such ideals are wonderful, and I still do think so now.
But reality is strange. Everybody loves Disney stories, everybody agrees with it. But you don't see happy people dancing in the street. Reason is? I don't know but I guess people are weary and think reality is a bitch. There's work.. there's relationship problems. Love is not what was portrayed in Disney. Something I personally feel, well, nothing is complicated. We are the complicated ones, and we complicate everything. The same argument holds for physics and mathematics. Although I doubt there is an absolute truth in these, the beauty of these two subject lies in its simplicity.
Now, at the age of 21 (approaching 22), I introduce to you the 'Philosopher Rangers'. Warriors who fight against the crushing depression of human stupidity, and seek to make sense of the reality and people. My heroes, are all dead unfortunately.
Before that, I must confess I do not understand them completely yet, though I doubt there is a single soul on Earth even now who understands them 100%. You can't even understand your wife, how could you understand deep thinkers?
First up, we have Kirky (an affectionate nickname I gave him, not Kirby though).
I was listening to the radio on BBC website this morning on Kirky, and well, much of what I said about my philosophy in the previous post had actually been covered by Kirky. So much for my own originality, but I find comfort not in recognition of originality, rather I am happy that I have made the same realization as someone who heavily influenced the world of thinking with (not exactly) same ideas that I had. In fact, it was pretty much summarized in the first 20 minutes of the talkshow. Kierkegaard holds that we cannot know anything absolute, i.e. we are not entitled to God's view as mentioned in the talkshow. Reason and rationalization are not absolute, but acceptance is what constitutes faith. he rejects all manner of institutionalization of religion (namely Christianity).
However, I do not agree entirely with Kierkegaard's ideas. Not all. Definitely.
Second Hero, we have Heidi.
Heidegger was one who studied profusely into the subject of 'existence' or as he termed it, 'Being'. I admire him strongly for that, for he spent a great deal of time making sense of why we exist, why we are 'be-ing'. The field in question is none other than 'Ontology', the question of Being. Unfortunately, Heidi got entangled in the Nazi craze. Of course, why he did it is very possibly because the Nazis were partly influenced by his thoughts. And naturally they incorporated his ideas into their doctrines of German supremacy.
Heidi was deeply into language. A romantic perhaps? He believed in primordial languages, namely Greek, and that these oldest languages held 'True meanings' to words, unlike his 'present' language where words are said without meaning what they meant. Think of slangs even now, that is perhaps what he felt was the corruption of language.
And no, I do not agree entirely with Heidi either. Whatever I understand anyway.
And third, we have Can't.
Kant is the one I understand the least. The few books I read about him, explaining his ideas, employs super heavy words and super heavy languages. But nevertheless, the essence of his ideas are what attracts me. We strongly cannot know anything absolute, according to Kant. He divides the human mind into four primary faculties, namely Pure Reason, Practical Reason, Judgement and one more I forgot what. And he studies (armchair speculation, I believe) deeply into the relation between these. I don't understand much, but from what little I gleaned, Kant holds a treasure of ideas on, well, Ideas.
Because I don't understand much, I can't say I disagree with him. Partly because whatever I understood (I hope not wrongly), I agreed.
Fourth, we have Bertie.
Bertie is known for his quick wit. His major(? there are others but major to me) study is in philosphical history, epistemology, logic, and of course the main interest of him I think is NUMBERS. Numbers are so embedded into our lives we don't even realize they are there. And incidentally, numbers are logical axioms. You cannot prove them logically, and Bertie tried using mathematical sets. Can't remember if he succeeded (I think he did, I didn't bother understanding the logics, its taxing on the brain). While Newton wrote Philosophie Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Bertie wrote 'Principia Mathematica'. And one book I am keen on reading by Bertie is 'The History of Western Philosophy bla bla bla politics'.
One famous (I think it was improptu) answer Bertie gave, when during a lecture (I think), some guy questioned him as 'If what you are saying is true, then 1+1=3 and you are the Pope should be equivalent!'. The answer came:
"If 1+1 = 3, then we have 2=3. Subtract 1 from each side, we now have 1=2. The Pope and I are two people, therefore we are 1."
And a lovely quote by Bertie goes "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the smart are always full of doubts".
Moving on, we have Leibby. The antihero of Isaac Newton.
Leibniz invented calculus independently of Isaac Newton. And the two are bitter rivals, so I understand. Newton was famous for being a taciturn character, some described as 'arrogant' etc. and I read somewhere that some professor thinks he has some form of autism. But the subject is on Leibniz. Leibniz, unlike Newton, sought to socialize a lot. With powerful figures, namely princesses and the like.
The work by Leibniz that I find intriguing is his work on 'monads'. In it, he tries to form a model to explain reality, and matter. The general idea is that the universe is made up of infinite 'monads', little round stuff that floats around throughtout the entire universe. And these monads are infinitesimally small, and he described them as 'beings in harmony with each and all others. All information of every single monad is known by every other single monad, and any change in one is immediately conveyed to every other one of them' is what I remember.
And currently, Physicists are spooked by electron entanglement, where information is transferred faster than the speed of light. Quantum mechancis comes in, but I shall not delve into a subject I am not too confident of yet. Suffice to say, electronic entanglement is currently being researched as a means of teleporting information, according to Michio Kaku.
That's 5 philosophers that I strongly admire. Nonetheless, Socrates deserves an honorary mention, for he was the Father of Philosophy. The very first human being who sought to employ reasoning and rationality to tell people they are stupid. And we know that Socrates didn't like writing, and frequently sought conversations with people and asking simple questions that make people admit they are stupid and didn't know (but thought they did).
Plato too, is a hero by his own rights. His world of Ideas, now coupled with Kant can make your supposed knowledge or wisdom turn to dust if you concede to their arguments.
Edit : How could I forget George Carlin? Goodness me.
Oh and in case you're wondering, no I do not get all (or for now, any) sources from wikipedia. I am reading real life physical books.
Fun Fact : In case you didn't know it, 'Science' and 'Scientists' didn't come about until people like Galileo, Hegel and Descartes (Pronounced as Dey-kah I think) established it. Hegel (Kirky does not like Hegel) believed in totality, an organized rationality that explains stuff in all subjects. Formally though, Descartes is the "Father of Modern Philosophy", and Galileo the "Father of Science". The basis of science is one of 'Cause-and-Effect', but that is steadily being dismantled currently (by quantum physics, and some logics).
Opinion : Of course, science works so well its uncanny. Applying the principles of similitude (studying something specifically in labs by simulations/experiments and then applying the results in real projects) currently is what drives our world of economy and science now. But, the wry side of it is that scientists are observers, and currently it is realized that the observers unknowingly change what is being observed. Quantum mechanics again. But, on a more common-sensical well, sense, below is a pretty cute logical flaw in experiments that captures the idea of 'you measure only what you want to measure'. I forgot the author, but the book was titled 'I think, therefore I laugh' (Wittgenstein said if you understood philosophy completely, you can write a book on it that is made up entirely of jokes).
"Professor A has a jar full of fleas (Jar A), and another same-sized jar that is empty (Jar B). Professor A took out one flea from the jar A, and put it before Jar B. He yelled 'JUMP!', to which the flea responded by jumping into Jar B. He then meticulously repeated the activity with every single flea until Jar A is empty.
Now, he reversed the experiment. He took out a flea from the now full jar B, plucked out its legs and put it before Jar A. He yelled 'JUMP!', but the flea did not jump. He then, very meticulously repeated the experiment with every flea, plucking the legs out everytime and yelling 'JUMP!'. All the fleas did not jump, of course. Faced with a monumental 100% success rate in this part of the experiment, he happily noted in his lab journal that:
Fleas without legs cannot hear".
1 comment:
Hahahaha, dear professor leslie. if you write a book one day i'd buy it.
even if it was from Borders and costs and bomb.
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