Monday, January 31, 2005

RANT

To all the morons who ride public transportation:

Stop acting like every bus you see is the last one that will ever pass you by. It's not 30 below, and it won't kill you to wait 5 minutes for the next bus. Furthermore, to the idiots who insist on crowding onto the bus through the rear door (which technically isn't allowed anyway), when you stand under the motion detectors that open the door, you are keeping the door open, which means the bus cannot move. You are thereby negating the whole purpose of public transportation. To those who treat the bus and metro as their own personal strip club (also known as pole-huggers), the rest of us need to hang on, too.

Thank you.

Friday, January 28, 2005

The Coin

Do things really exist? Again, I ask myself that question, as many who are not so inclined to think openly about the subject will kick a rock and say "of course!" (Then again, it is possible to be so open-minded that one's brain falls out, but that is a different discussion altogether).

Our definition of things is quite circular. Let us take the example of Good and Evil, as they are pertinent and easily understandable although their definitions are elusive. What is Good? Could we understand something to be Good if there was not Evil to define it? If one, say, helps an old lady cross the street, would it be considered Good if that person could not also just ignore the lady, or worse, push her into traffic? Similarly, do we not recognise events such as the Holocaust to be Evil because we believe that not murdering millions of people is Good?

On the other hand, consider rain and sunshine. We appreciate the sunshine because we know there are days that are rainy. However, the fact that we appreciate such days does not mean they would cease to exist without their opposite. Days would still be sunny even if it did not rain, however ungrateful we would be. There is, of course, the necessity of rain, as constant "beautiful" days would cause drought, starvation, and eventually, war. Regardless, they would still exist. However, their definition would change, and we would not think of sunny days as good or beautiful. If we lacked Evil to define Good, would Good change its definition as well? And then wouldn't we just end up with the two sides of the coin all over again?

The mystery of the coin confuses us all. Even if we could separate the two sides of the coin, would it be beneficial? In our struggle to be perfect, we wish to get rid of all that is "bad." However, does not perfection lie in the balance between good and evil?

"Disease makes health pleasant and good." -Heraclitus

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Phenomena and Noumena

Kant's view of the world is truly a "footnote to Plato," as A. N. Whitehead wrote. The idea of phenomena (the word meaning what we can sense) and noumena (the 'spirit' or ideal world) reflects greatly Plato's world Ideas and our world which attempts to replicate these Ideas. This is what it looks like to me:

Us (subjective) ||||||||| The world (objective) ||||||||| The world of Ideas

Now traditionally, philosophers (existentialists excepted, and we shall get to them in a minute) have been trying to empirically or rationally see the world as it really is. This is how philosophy got broken up into the Sciences (experimental, psychiatry, psychology, etc.). Is it possible to attain the world of ideas by plowing through the world as it is objectively?

The other possibility is as the existentialists believed, that there is no world of Ideas. There is no Ideal way of doing things, no big capitalised Ideas like Beauty, Justice and Truth. We should do things not because it follows some divine precept (as the world of the Ideas is surely divine if not traditionally so), but just because we want to do the right thing. While this does lead to freedom of will, it still begs the question of what those right things are and how we can know they are right. Maybe we don't know and that's the point, that we do things we believe to be right even though we will never know for sure. I for one believe that if you are constantly questioning your actions, you are in the right, no matter what decision you have made. The world's greatest atrocities have been committed by people who believed unquestioningly in their cause.

Quite possibly (and this is what I've been hinting at -loudly- since the beginning of my blog), my view is something that cannot be communicated in this 2 dimensional space. Perhaps the way into the world of Ideas is not through the world as we know it objectively, but backwards, away from our senses. It could be, instead of a straight line from us to the world to the Ideas, a circle from Ideas to us to the world.

"Human beings go around admiring the mountain heights, the mighty tides of the sea, the broad streams of the river, the circle of ocean, and the orbits of the stars, but do not care to look more deeply into themselves." -
Petrarch [Mt. Ventoux]

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

1776

Most Americans will know this date. It is revered by them as likely the most important date in the history of their country. However, I'd like to add to that and say for everyone, it can be an important date, representing the rise of many important ideas. I was introduced to this idea by a college professor of mine. The industrial revolution (and subsequent rise of capitalism), the American revolution, and the rise of romanticism are three things occurring at this time that have to do with one important -ism: Individualism. Surely the American revolution embodies individualism; the individual and individual rights and freedoms is what America stands for. Capitalism (a decidedly American pastime), is the individual profiting off of the many. Anyone who has ever read Romantic poetry (and we're not talking love sonnets here) knows how prevalent the authors (and their feelings) become during this period ("I wandered lonely as a cloud," says Wordsworth, one of my favourites).

We are said to live in a post-modern era (although you'll have to excuse me, I think I heard that we're post-post modern now). Frankly, I do not think civilisation has evolved much since our enlightened era of Romanticism. We are living in a post-1776 world. We revere the individual, our self, our feelings. One is special because they are unique, and we're all unique. (How we can all continue to be special is beyond me.) Wordsworth's cry is heard all over the world in the latest self-help book: "What do you when you find yourself lonely like a cloud."

Individuality is the new conformity. Everyone is different, and that must be accepted (see previous post on cultural relativism for the dangers of that). Those that aren't accepting cannot be a part of Us, they represent the enemy Them. "We are all equal," Us says, "and don't you forget it!"

The difficulty I have with these ideas is the inbalance it creates, exemplified with our very broken school system. Now I'm very happy with the idea of equality and equal access. IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and its Canadian counterpart are a movement in the right direction. However, so often we forget what our forefathers meant (or should have meant) when they wrote "all mean are created equal."

The common definition (and you can check dictionary.com as I did) is same or identical. We are all same and identical. However, we know this for a fact to be false. We are not equal. I am 5'5 and not atheletically inclined. I cannot play for the NBA. "Discrimination! Discrimination!" Us cries.

We are not equal, but we have equal rights under the law. I have the ability to buy a ticket to a NBA game, if I should so choose, just as anyone else does. The arena is required by law to provide special access to those who need it (read: wheelchair). This is all very well and good, but my problem begins in the school system. And the students who go there are a product of their home environment.

Want to hear something shocking? I'm sure this is representative of schools everywhere, and not just in my district. We don't fail kids anymore. Frankly, it's bad for their self-esteem. Students deserve to be in a group of their peers. How embarassing for someone to fail! They'll be scarred for life! As long as they're trying (and students all try at different levels) then we can pass them along to the next teacher. Parents, too, contribute to this. They can't punish their children for misbehaving. It's bad for their self-esteem! As long as they love them enough, they'll turn out allright. Besides, if the parents punish their children, they'll get mad at their parents (maybe even hate them) and that would be bad for the parents' self-esteem. What is this world coming to?

Here's something even more shocking: Contrary to the advice of a once popular book, I'm not OK, you're not OK, we're all not OK. Because if we're all not ok, then we still have something to strive for. Everyone should be striving for things, not attaining them. Remember, it's all about the pursuit of happiness, not the attainment of it.

"Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination." -Goodman

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Why Do We Have To Learn This?

For students not aspiring to be mathematicians (which is, apparently, all students of mine), math is an extremely boring and useless subject. I am not as perturbed as other teachers when asked that ubiquitous question, because I once felt the same way. Had somebody told me I would eventually become a junior high school math teacher, I would have laughed in their face. The fact that I am now enjoying math aside, today's topic of discussion is Knowledge.

Knowledge is power, or so the saying goes. Power reminds me of the use of force to attain means (by the way, that student who beat up that other student was suspended for 3 days). Knowledge, however, is the ultimate means to attain a desirable end for the one wielding it, as it allows one to know exactly what type of force would be the most advantageous. This is aside from the amount of bloodshed that has been caused by weapons of destruction developed by knowledgeable scientists.

The fact of the matter is, is that the question is an invalid one. We try to point out to our students this fact, but they only think we are telling them this to shut them up. Knowledge for use of power is also a bastardization of the idea of knowledge for knowledge's sake.

The first thing we must consider is this. What is important to know? If we looked at the media as an example (imagine a later civilisation digging up our ruins) we would think that who's dating whom (or breaking up with whom) is worth knowing. Everything about celebrities (whether these are people who should be celebrated, as the word origin tells us, is up for debate) is pertinent. We can then turn to the internet, where we find porn, conspiracy theories, hate sites and other random things. Out of the millions of sites that exist, which is the most important site? (In the beginning there was Google, and the word was with Google, and the word was Google). Then we can look at books. What should one read? Preferences aside, does a Harlequin novel have the same standing as a philosophy text? What about the books on the New York times bestseller list? Or (and I shudder to think of it), the latest popular novel that is so incredibly deep? (How a novel that the masses consider intelligent can ever be so is beyond me).

Finally, if we do decide amongst the multitude of knowledge that exists which is even worthy of our consideration, we must then decide what is true. Truth (and we must capitalise it, as we do with other important words), is elusive. Certainly I think we wouldn't know what to do with it when we caught it. Again, we act as though one particular group has a monopoly on truth and that is all there is. There is never talk of many truths, and with good reason, as stated in a previous post discussing cultural relativism. Not every belief can be valid, otherwise some beliefs would then be invalid. But if only some beliefs are valid, then some beliefs are invalid (if you'll excuse the obvious statement for the purposes of logic). So we have a Catch-22. Perhaps there is something out there that trancends logic, without being ridiculous.

"It takes considerable knowledge just to realise the extent of your own ignorance." -Thomas Sowell

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Us and Them

Yesterday I was embarrassed for my country. Never before to this extent have I been this embarrassed. Our school is hosting foreign exchange students from Korea. I have discussed what type of school I teach at, so you can imagine this student's culture shock as he sits in my special education grade 9 math class listening to the white boys call each other "dawg." He must think Canadians are the stupidest people on the planet, as I went over and over something I had already been teaching for the past few days. Cultural stereotypes aside, my class is slooooooooooooow, and he already understood what we were learning. At least I gain some perspective as I think about the differences between our countries.

Us and Them. Throughout history, this has been the cause of wars. Our circle of Us grows larger, but so does the Them. We started off as close-knit family groups, then tribes, then towns, cities, city-states, countries. Even as we speak nations are vying to join the EU, a union of countries. If what Star Trek predicts is correct, once we discover (or are discovered) by extra-planetary civilisations, the world will unite as one big Us against the universal Them. The future in Star Trek is great because there is no war on Earth. What occurs in the stars is a whole other matter. I hardly think that we are likely to go out peacefully just to explore, without trying to conquer and make clear the division between humans and aliens. But I digress. That is a long way off in the future, at any rate. Let us speak for now of the Us and Them that is so near.

Really, Us and Them is a false dichotomy. It is first and foremost a product of our need to belong, to feel special because we are a part of a group. The idea that we are part of an exclusive connection of people is tempting, but it only works if we are exclusionary at the same time. There can be no Us if there is no Them. Thus, people are left out of these groups to fend for themselves or become a part of their own exclusionary group. As a high school teacher I see this on a day to day basis.

The other reason we are so interested in forming groups is because we like to classify things. From the time we are very young (eat the red ones last) to our modern day science (mammals, amphibians, etc.) we put things in groups. It stems from the early days when Ugh would say "this berry is good, but Ook ate this berry and died." It was necessary as a means to survive, and continues to be necessary for scientific progress. However, is it socially necessary?

It would be naive to look at the world and see everything as being the same. We are each unique and our cultures offer so much that is different that it would be a shame just to melt it all together into one bland paste. But our discerning perceptions go into overdrive when we see what we perceive to be the enemy. Can we really tell just by looking at someone if they mean to hurt us or not (think of the date rape situation)? We were always warned about judging a book by its cover, and with good reason. Not to be taken to one extreme or the other, of course.

"We have met the enemy, and it is us." -Pogo

Monday, January 17, 2005

The Theory of Relativity

When it all comes down to it, discussions about belief systems usually end up in the realm of relativity. In our politically correct world, we are told to at the very least tolerate our differences, at the most, celebrate them. However, the danger here lies in cultural relativism, which most people don't even think of.

Fundamentalists (of any kind) are scorned because they do not let others have their beliefs peacefully. If it doesn't agree with their own beliefs, its morally wrong and there will be dire consequences (hell's fire usually being among them). Liberals deplore this kind of black and white thinking because so much falls in that gray area of life. What we don't realise is that it's all about where the line has been drawn, and eventually, no matter what your beliefs are, you will have to draw it somewhere. Some people just draw them a lot sooner, but shouldn't we at the very least tolerate their right to be more intolerable than we are?

Some things are just morally wrong. There is no 'gray' about it. Just because a culture holds something to be true, doesn't mean we have to celebrate it. The subjugation of females (including things like female circumcision), the extermination of races (the Holocaust, Rwanda, and most recently in Sudan), the murder of innocents (Matthew Shepherd) and other acts of violence are all examples of things that some people value that should not be tolerated in a civilised society.

So where do we draw this ever present line, without stepping on anyone's toes? If we believe that we can do so without offending someone, we are being naive. For each holds onto their beliefs, thinking they have what is true and it is the other that is mistaken. Some even go so far to convince others of the error of their ways, to 'save' them because their belief system is hurting them unbeknownst to them. Do we let each figure out their own, and risk the devastation it might bring? And if we really knew the truth, wouldn't we act like our fundamentalist friends and pressure, if not force it on them?

Sunday, January 16, 2005

The Meaning of Life

Humans are interesting creatures. We share 95% percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, but what differentiates us from other animals is something that (at least, as of yet) cannot be measured biologically. We are different from other animals because of our vast and complicated system of communication. This system extends beyond other complex communications such as "the honey is this way" (bees) or "hey, let's mate" (most animals). Although the search for food and other needs is primary among humans (and some people never go beyond their primary needs), humans have developed a system not only to discuss things, but to discuss ideas.

I was contemplating this while looking at a fruit fly today. Fruit flies make excellent guinea pigs in the lab because of the fact that they multiply so quickly, and live very short lives. Looking at this fruit fly, I wondered if it knew that its life was so short, and if it contemplated this at all, the way us humans do.

We obsess over the meaning of life because of the one thing that scares us the most, that dark void that surrounds us all. One day, no matter what we do, we will all die. We can exercise and eat well to our heart's content, but tomorrow a car could take us out on our morning jog. We all know people who smoke like chimneys and live to be 100, and those whose lives are taken from them at young ages from various diseases. No one, at any age, is immune to death, and none of us know when we will go.

Do dogs and cats work as furiously as we do to discover life's meaning before they go? We are only here for a short time, so we who can must wonder why. Interesting, isn't it, that humans have such consciousness and pursue this elusive meaning so hard. It's as Voltaire said, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." What is God anyway, but the biggest 'meaning' people can give life?

We struggle to create meaning before we die, clinging to a belief system. Atheists and theists alike, all of us with at least one commonality besides our humanity, we all will die, and we all need some kind of reassurance of meaning, whether it's the meaning we create or the meaning we get from organised religion. Wars are fought, whether on real battlegrounds or intellectual ones, on who has the monopoly on truth. And if you think about it, it is a big deal. Each person has only a small length of time to figure out what is true and to live their lives according to that truth that we are risking a lot by letting each figure out their own. But then again, perhaps that is the only way it can be.

"As you struggle with the mystery of your death, you will discover the meaning of your life." M. Scott Peck [Further Down the Road Less Traveled]

Friday, January 14, 2005

New England Trancendentalism

Yesterday, while on the treadmill at my gym, I contemplated how odd treadmills and gyms are. Here I was, paying not a small sum annually to use a machine to help me run, when I could very well be doing it for free in the great outdoors. How silly that we need exercise at specific buildings in order to keep ourselves fit and healthy. Now I now that gyms are not new inventions, the origin, I believe, going back to ancient Greece, however I still think that modern gyms are products of modern society, especially when you consider treadmills. Paying for a running machine? In Walden we are mocked for working so hard just to travel, when if we simply traveled we would get where we were going much sooner. Now, we work hard so that we can run far and get nowhere.

This is the message of my dear New England philosophers, high on the romantic idealism of Nature with a capital N. Today, we live in concrete jungles and become concrete monsters. I grew up in a small town, so I know what I am missing. The benefit of Nature isn't some romantic ideal of communing with Mother Earth, but the complete solitude it offers us to commune with ourselves. (When has a tree ever phoned you in th middle of dinner?)

Perhaps it is because of my upbringing that I understand that solitude and loneliness are not the same thing. We are afraid to be alone. We are afraid of loneliness. But what is loneliness, really? I don't believe that we are that insecure that we believe we will never connect with another person again. Most people are not so socially inept as to be complete loners. No, I believe that the reason we wish to crowd ourselves with others and avoid solitude is to avoid our own selves.When people cannot bear to look in the abyss, they avoid doing so by living in cities where they have so much to do that there is no possibility of even thinking about it, except for that dull feeling that there must be something more.

"All miseries derive from not being able to sit in a room alone." -Pascal

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Atropus, Lachesis and Clotho

School is a breeding ground for philosophy. My school is a somewhat rundown big brick building, built in the era when people believed that there were always going to be levels of enrollment similar to the baby-boom generation; alas, the building is mostly empty now. It's an inner-city school, not the "Dangerous-Minds-gangs-metal detectors-police officers" type inner city school, although I did see two police officers there the other day, but that was the first time this year. Although I am sure that some of the students are gang members, it's not as rampant as it could be. Still, the students come from low-income families and don't care about education, which is what differentiates it from other schools where the problems are much different. Today, one of my students got beat up by another student, and as much as my heart bleeds for all my students, I did not post this to vent my bleeding heart (It's on my sleeve anyway, it gets enough air as it is).

So where does this take us? Those familiar with the title of this post (I must admit ignorance, and God bless the Internet for helping me find those three names) know that they are the names of the Fates in Greek mythology. The violent student is your typical violent kid whose father is in jail, mother not around (whether by bad parenting or other reason, I do not know) and he is currently living with another relative. Can this boy escape his fate? Is he doomed, whether by Destiny or genetics, to end up like his father?

I would like to believe not; I wouldn't be a teacher if I thought each had his lot and that was so. It drove me crazy to be surrounded by so many sots during my post-secondary education. They had no right to be there except by virtue of the fact that they had a supportive home environment and a good school. They were naturally expected to go to university, and so they did. For many though, it was a waste of time and money as these dimwits fooled around, drank like crazy, partied and flunked out. So many other students, with less supportive home environments, schools where the majority of the population isn't even expected to graduate, let alone go on to post-secondary education could have benefited from having what these students just threw away! (as a side note, you must keep in mind that I did my degree in Education. These are people who are educating the future. A comment from one student flunking out was, "I'm already in Education, where can I go from here?" as if this program was the bottom of the barrel.) But still, there are some who manage to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" as the saying goes, and move on despite their beginnings.

My father always used to tell a story about 2 brothers that he knew. Their father was an abusive drunkard. One son grew up and became an abusive drunkard. He believed there was no other fate for him. The other grew up and refused to become like his father, and so did not. Anecdotal evidence aside, what is the point of this? If we say that the future is determined, we are setting ourselves up for failure. But if we say that the future is not determined, we neglect the difficulties that people face because of the situation that they are born into.

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

Existential Angst

Today's topic comes courtesy from one of my students, who saw something on a t-shirt and decided to copy it onto my chalkboard. Apparently unawares of its significance, he offended me greatly not only as a Jew, but as a human being.
If there is nothing, we are left hollow and empty. If there is nothing we can be sure of, even our perceptions, even the reality of our own selves, then to what moral standard can we hold ourselves? This is called existentialism, for those not in the know. Can we really turn our nose at events we find morally repugnant, such as the Holocaust? Who's to say what's right and what's wrong if we cannot even agree on basic truths?
The fundamental question that is usually asked is, "why do we exist?" To which the existentialists argue, there is no reason. (Really, it is a quite self-centered question to ask. This could only be asked by a people who believed that the universe literally revolved around them). Yet there is hope. For if life has no meaning, then we must work all the harder to create meaning and attempt to create a moral world.
Do I agree with them? We work so hard to establish meaning. We cling to our religion (or spirituality, whatever suits you best) and ask, "how can a good God (creator, spirit...) let (fill in the blank) happen?" The recent situation in Asia is a good example of this. We have difficulty enough understanding how sick-minded people can cause so much suffering that it is nearly impossible to understand natural disasters, where no one can be blamed. Except maybe God.

Philosophy, besides its literal meaning the love of wisdom, is a search for meaning. Perhaps though, we are approaching it the wrong way. Why must we find meaning in life? Will it assuage our suffering? For this is the purpose we cling to our beliefs. If there is joy in another life after this one, we feel better. If we can see the silver lining to the dark cloud (the restored belief in humanity's humaneness after the tsunami being a good example), we feel better. If we knew, if we truly knew the truth, we would feel better (the truth will set you free). Uncertainty drives us crazy. It is the black abyss facing us again, and we cannot look in. What if we did though? What if there really was nothing and we finally faced it?

The Thinker

Shall I offer up small talk until I begin with the meal? I could discuss the weather today, which is fairly decent, for January. I don't much care for sports, so how the team did yesterday I wouldn't know. I only look at the sports section if the comics or Ann Landers is located there. In fact, that's all I read in the paper besides the front page, so the news is out of the question. So then, let us begin.

"I think, therefore I am," says Descartes, and this aphorism begins the basis of all of his philosophy. Cartesian geometry aside, which my students would be happy to do without, perhaps this one statement presumes too much.

Why must we begin anew? Why do we presume that nothing is really real? All is illusion, blows a wind from the East. There is no reality, there is only our perception of it. Look at an object. Is that object there? Or do you only see it as there? Ultimately, it is because you use your senses to perceive this object that you think it is real. But can we trust our perceptions to be true? I, for one, do not trust them in the least. To state it simply, have you ever wondered if what you saw as green someone else saw as red? What colour is it then? Whose perception is more accurate? And if this is applicable to things which are not so important to the world, like the perceived colour of things, how much more does it make life difficult when deciding on the reality and subsequent truth of things like love, salvation and other matter which wars are fought over?
("I refute it thus," says Johnson as he kicks the stone. Of course, his philosophy was more of the common kind, like insulting his Scottish brethren).

Let us come back to Descartes. We can be sure that we exist, because there are thoughts occurring. Some being, regardless of what we can know about that being, is doing the thinking. There cannot be thoughts without someone to think them. This idea is somewhat flawed, as Hume points out. The idea that thoughts come from someone who thinks them is causational. Those familiar with the thinking of Hume know that causation is not something that can be rationally shown to be true. The standard method of showing this is with billiard balls. Imagine a pool table. The white ball hits the coloured ball and the coloured ball moves. We would say that the white ball caused the coloured ball to move. Where, empirically, did we see the causation? We see the white ball move, we see it touch the coloured ball, we see the coloured ball move. We see the thinker, we see the thinking, we see the thought. We assume that the thinker caused the thought to occur.

This to come back to the point made in the last post, is there really a self? Is is possible that the world is just a collective bunch of thoughts without thinkers?

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Introductions, please

I must admit that I very rarely do things I deem "popular." Everyone and his dog seems to have a blog these days. Yet, I feel that I can participate in this without feeling overly counter-culture for a few reasons, namely, that I have a regular webpage that I update using HTML, that I keep a hand-written journal (using a calligraphy pen I might add) and the fact that I have things to say that people should hear.
It amazes me how people have readily accepted the tools of the nerdly classes as their own. Computers, the Internet have all now been bastardized by people who can't get enough pornography and IM. At least the nerdly inclined are profiting from it. As they say, "The Geeks shall inherit the Earth."
Within these two paragraphs you have been introduced to a few of the characteristics of my personality, like it or leave it (leave it, by all means go read someone else's blog, what do I care?). Pretentiousness and anti-pop-culture combine into a superior form of nerdliness that begets a person so extreme that you love me or hate me. Quite alright, as I tend to feel strongly towards people as well. Frankly, no comment anyone could post would hurt my feelings. As if anything some nobody said matters.
Because really, that's all we are on the Internet. Nobodies. We post into some void; words appear around the world on the screens of people we don't even know. It's not so much that we can pretend to be whoever we want on the Internet (although we can) but the fact that we don't even know who we are really, in real life, to be able to present a person to those we meet that we aren't even truly interacting with. Frankly, is there an actual self? What defines it? Where did it come from? How do we know if it is our 'true' self? With all this talk of self actualization, finding out who we really are to live our lives to the fullest, I propose that we really don't know who we are. To know, we must look deep inside the abyss of our black souls, a thought too frightening for most to even conceive of. I think what scares us the most is looking to find nothing at all...