Friday

Sometimes you get the feeling like all your life, all your readings, all your pastimes, they all lead towards one conclusion, one epic revelation. One thought that sparks within the confines of your brain cells like it has always been there. A gentle throb, almost like a heartbeat that you cannot escape without at the same time giving up on life. A brick wall that has always been staring you in the face, waiting for the inevitable collision that you try to postpone for as long as possible. And you run from it. You hide from it. You ignore it. But there is no escape. The harder you push, the harder it pulls you back.

I am talking about the endless quest for meaning. Libraries and libraries have been filled with philosophical literature on the subject and still no answer in sight. Or at least not a pretty one. We all need something to wake up for in the morning. Be it exams or hunger or a cause or a job. But what does it all add up to in the end? Should we live for ourselves or for others? Should we embody goodness and morality or just experience life in its raw form without any limits or concerns for what we leave behind? Does it even matter in the end?

I am sometimes so tired of all this philosophical debate. Everything seems pointless. Pompous. Arrogant. We talk to pass the time. To give ourselves importance. Because maybe that is what life is about. To be noticed. If somebody is thinking about you, then you did your job right. If people like your status or your picture, then you somehow feel like you matter. Within your own little microcosm, you have your time in the spotlight. Even if that means only the one second that it took to press a virtual button on a dusty screen. It is better than nothing. It means that for that one second you occupy a space in another person's consciousness. Our worst fear is not disease nor famine nor war. Anyway these concepts only exist on a theoretical level in our minds. No, it is to be forgotten. Invisible. To die alone of a heart attack and to be found only a week later when the smell makes our physical presence unbearable anymore.

We embody a devil-may-care culture during the day and cry ourselves to sleep like children during the night. We pretend to be strong because nobody wants to see flowers when they are withering away and smelling of decay. We are all so lost that we can only be attracted to idols who inspire us to be better and greater. Does it matter that the idols themselves are nothing but images? Every role model has to crumble once in a while. At least during the intermission. The show can go on afterwards.

We are so scared to make goodbyes final. Nobody says "have a nice life" and actually mean it. It has to be disguised into an "maybe we'll see each other again". Even when there is no intention nor desire to do so. "Let's stay friends". The magic pacifier. Because "I never want to speak to you again" seems so harsh. Still better than "I sometimes forget you exist". Rejection and indifference seem inevitable in this world where the population is constantly growing and the distance disappearing. We are all squished into a tiny room with all the faces blending in together and becoming simply part of the decorum. And there comes the need to stand out. Because your options are to either reject the whole ordeal or to sign the social contract. But the first one is only really there to make you feel like there actually is a choice to be made. There isn't. Nobody can be self-sufficient. Even Robinson Crusoe had Friday. And we all need our Fridays. But Friday only comes once a week.

Pursuits

I really don't have time for this but I feel that if I don't get it out now, it'll probably choke me as I walk towards my bus stop. And as a side note, I am wondering how healthy it really is to be writing all this down on a blog instead of just telling it to an actual person. It probably ties in with everything I guess. Paper, or in this case electronic bits on an unknown server somewhere in the world, they don't talk back, they don't argue. They take all your arguments as being the ultimate truth. You cannot be wrong as there is no one to disprove you. And this brings me to my main point: perfection. I do believe I have been talking about this before. Naturally, as it has been on my mind constantly for the past couple of years. Perfection put on a pedestal. Perfection elevated up to an art. Perfection on a white frame hung up on the wall. Perfection pursued with a tenacity that becomes maladive. I think I read somewhere that perfectionists also tend to be procrastinators because, unless they have that perfect idea on how to start the job (and let's be honest, how often does that happen?), they will put off starting to work on it, waiting for divine inspiration to strike. And when that doesn't happen, you eventually run out of time and do it last minute in sictir simply because you don't have any other choice. But anyway, this is not supposed to be an apology for why I'm constantly doing my assignments at 2 AM the night before I have to hand them in. I guess that what I'm trying to say is that the  pursuit of perfection and excellence is ingrained in our society (just look at the presidential elections in the US... you're not allowed to have one single fault) to the point of it becoming a part of our nature. Every new year we pledge that we will become better, healthier, more organized, more loving, more open, etc. Only to fail miserably every single year. And then we beat ourselves up over it. So my question is this: perfection might be a pretty concept (kind of like unicorns), but does it make us happy? I might try my hardest to be critical and smart and thin, but does that make me happier than the poor slob who's laughing his ass off watching Charlie the unicorn. And after all what is happiness? Yes, I know, 3 000 years of philosophy haven't been able to answer that question, what the hell are my chances of figuring it out? Probably slim to none, but there are some questions that never leave you. And maybe when you can stop worrying about the end, you can actually enjoy the ride. Maybe a better strategy would be to pursue the perfection of each moment and take the chance that the end result would be less than perfect.

The equivalent exchange principle

In the past week, England has been assaulted by violent riots which have shocked the world and many theories have been put forward to explain this phenomenon. In the following article, Rebekah Hebbert explains these recent events by a lack of morality and the prevalence of relativism in western societies. And while I don't believe in pure relativism, here is however the rational outlook on the situation.

While Miss Hebbert is coherent, she makes one assumption which is at the basis of her argument with which I don't agree. She mixes relativism with anarchy when she says that doing no harm is an arbitrary moral principle. That is not true. If you are an extreme supporter of relativism, you believe that every person has the right to choose what they want to believe. It also comes with the principle that no belief is more important or has more value than any other. And if you are to take Descartes' principle of "I think therefore I am", you equate a person's existence or being with their cognitive activity and therefore their beliefs (I make here the assumption that all beliefs are the product of a rational process and while that is an entirely different argument, I do think that to be true for every person believes what they do either because of their education, their past, their disposition, etc.). Therefore, if all beliefs are equal, all people are equal. And if you respect all beliefs, you must respect all people and their right to live out their beliefs. And for that, you must not harm them. Relativism represents a person's freedom to think and to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't overlap with that of someone else and the difficulty stands in determining where one freedom ends and another one starts (material and physical damage on the other hand are way across the line so it's not hard to figure out that me hurting you or breaking into your house and stealing is not supported by a relativist philosophy). You can look at relativism as a continuum where everyone is connected and I can only push so far without bumping into the person next to me. Anarchy on the other hand is quite egocentric and does not consider others. It is individual freedom pushed to the extreme without taking into account the others around.

I believe that what happened in England is a mix of all the reasons mentioned in the article. Yes society is relativistic and yes conflicting points of view can stand side by side. However, the "do no harm" imperative has been respected because relativism holds it in high esteem. But when figures of authority such as policemen and business people break it by abusing their position, the equality of people principle comes into place. Therefore, if those in authority believe that hurting those in a lesser position is alright, then that last group of people will come to the conclusion that such a belief is valid for them as well. And here the continuum and connectivity breaks and we slip into anarchy. But this only happened because those in authority chose to break relativist principles in the first place. Kind of like Newton's 3rd law that states that if you exert a force on an object, that object will exert an equal and opposite force on you.

However, I have to say that pure relativism is impossible to attain in any society because stereotypes and prejudice exist, thus putting an imbalance in the perceived value of a person and his or her beliefs. For example, if I were to believe that people who are unemployed are in this situation because they are lazy and I were to consider laziness as a bad thing, then I would come to see these people as a bad thing for society and this would decrease their value as a person and the value of their beliefs in my eyes. But you see, if I were a pure relativist, I would never harm them because I would consider that there is no absolute truth so I cannot be sure that I am right and, in the offset chance that I am wrong, me harming them would become objectionable. So if we think about it, it is not relativism that is in cause here, but, on the contrary, the fact that people think that there is an absolute truth and that they possess it. Therefore, they would excuse harming others by saying that they work in the name of truth and goodness or if they are conscious that what they are doing is bad, then they would see it as just payback for a wrong that they have been done in the past (like the death penalty for criminals).

This situation in England started because a man who was being arrested by the police got killed in the process (we had something similar in Canada when a young black got killed by the police in Montreal North). Therefore, the policemen stereotype and their targets want justice for the wrong that they perceived has been done to them. Which brings us to the conclusion that, like I mentioned earlier, the problem is not relativism, but the belief in an absolute truth which is based not on reason, but on emotion, stereotypes and prejudice.

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost". That is the principle of equivalent exchange. If, for whatever reason, the scale points in favor of a group, all equilibrium is lost and sooner or later revolt will come in order to restore the balance (thesis and antithesis bring about synthesis like good old Marx said). The only damper on this particular revolt is that it was done impulsively and as a means to vent out accumulated frustrations and to get even. Therefore, instead of restoring any balance, it will achieve the exact opposite as the government's response seems to be a turn towards absolute control (actually, it kind of reminds me of the US' attitude towards communists during the Cold War). All that to say that we still have a long way to go until equivalent exchange will be respected (in England as well as everywhere else in the world; look at the Middle East or the civil wars over elections in Africa). But for that, we must recognize our problems for what they are. Not a question of philosophy or morality. But an imbalance of power and wealth that is not always distributed based on individual effort alone. Life's not fair, true! But we must strive to make it as fair as possible.

L'instinct intellectuel ou La nature humaine

Qui est trop lucide pour adorer le sera également pour démolir, ou il ne démolira que ses... révoltes; car à quoi bon se révolter pour retrouver ensuite l'univers intact? Monologue dérisoire. On s'insurge contre la justice et l'injustice, contre la paix et la guerre, contre ses semblables et contre les dieux. Puis, on en vient à penser que le dernier des gâteux est peut-être plus sage que Prométhée. Cependant on n'arrive pas à étouffer en soi un cri insurrectionnel, et on continue de tempêter à propos de tout et de rien: automatisme pitoyable qui explique pourquoi nous sommes tous des Lucifers de statistique.

[...]

L'intellectuel fatigué résume les difformités et les vices d'un monde à la dérive. Il n'agit pas, il pâtit; s'il se tourne vers l'idée de tolérance, il n'y trouve pas l'excitant dont il aurait besoin. La terreur, elle, le lui fournit, de même que les doctrines dont elle est l'aboutissement. En est-il la première victime? Il ne s'en plaindra pas. Seule le séduit la force qui le broie. Vouloir être libre c'est vouloir être soi, de cheminer dans l'incertain, d'errer à travers les vérités. "Mettez-moi les chaînes de l'Illusion", soupire-t-il, tandis qu'il dit adieu aux pérégrinations de la Connaissance. C'est ainisi qu'il se jettera tête baissée dans n'importe quelle mythologie qui lui assurera la protection et la paix du joug. Déclinant l'honneur d'assumer ses propres anxiétés, il s'engagera en des entreprises dont il escomptera des sensations qu'il ne saurait puiser en lui-même, de sorte que les excès de sa lassitude affermiront les tyrannies. Églises, idéologies, polices, cherchez-en l'origine dans l'horreur qu'il nourrit pour sa propre lucidité plutôt que dans la stupidité des masses. Cet avorton se transforme, au nom d'une utopie de jean-foutre, en fossoyeur de l'intellect, et, persuadé de faire oeuvre utile, prostitue l' "abêtissez-vous", devise tragique d'un solitaire.

Cioran - La tentation d'exister

Alienation of the mind or How Descartes was, naturally, right

I'm always fascinated when people use cold hard reason to arrive at a conclusion. Or how a world could be organized using pure logic. How Robinson Crusoe built his hut and kept track of time and cultivated his fields and how he somehow managed to think of everything. How Descartes came up with "I think, therefore I am" (doesn't seem like much, but it really is something to be able to prove man's existence through his mental capabilities). Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Archimedes, bref all the ancient Greek philosophers who screwed up horribly when it comes to the laws of physics, but they set the foundations of democracy, of logic, of mathematics (what high school student hasn't heard of and learned to hate Pythagoras?). And they only used their minds. No repeated experiments and pocking around with trial and error.

Nowadays, when you look at people around you, when I look at myself, all of us, we just make a summary and a medley of what has already been said with a small twist of our own. Nobody comes up with an original idea anymore (unless you're in marketing... when it comes to making money, people can be really creative). Even the books that come out. Either they're the same old, same old detective novels with just a different flavor added to it, either it's one of those smutty romance novels, either it's a remake of an old classic. The truth is, once the wheel has been invented, what do the rest of us have left to contribute? Once 1984 and Catch-22 and Alice in Wonderland have been written, what more can you add (shut up, Alice in Wonderland is an amazing book)? And actually that is only the excuse that we give ourselves. That there's nothing more to add except commas and footnotes. If you want to innovate something, go into computer science and create the next generation of blue-rays or the successor of C++ (I actually have no clue about computer languages... I did some Pascal in 6th grade and never got a iota of what I was writing in my exams... also tried VBA recently and gave up after a couple of hours...). But this can't be it. After the wheel, you still have to build the car on top of it. And I refuse to believe that we are at the top of the evolutionary curve when it comes to social organization and political systems. Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to fix the world. I don't think I care enough for that. But I'd love to know if in theory it would be possible. A sort of communism without the weak link of the proletarian dictatorship.

Anyway, I know I'm not making much sense, but what I'm trying to say is that I admire people who can just shut out the outside world and immerse themselves in their minds and then come out of there with ANSWERS! Nowadays, things go so fast that it's nearly impossible to think. Everything is so loud, there's so much movement, there are so many things to do, that it is almost dizzying. And when you have a moment to yourself, you just feel so drained and exhausted that you don't want to think anymore. You just want to sleep and forget. Forget how the entire world is going to hell, forget how repetitive world events and people and life in general can be. Forget the routine. Just forget you exist (if "I think" equates with "I am", then a lack of thought would equate with an escape from existence or some sort of lack of existence for the moment being). But yesterday, a miracle happened. I decided to go to the library to read. I sat down in my usual sofa next to the windows. And it stopped. It all stopped. The noise, the movement, the dizzying crowds. It was just me, the sun and good old Faust. I could hear myself think. I was in peace. It was amazing. It felt as though time was standing still (guess that must be what it's like to have a conversation with Now). But anyway, to cut my babbling short, I think I need a break. Maybe move to the library for a while. Maybe take a trip somewhere just by myself. I need to spend some quality time with me, myself and I. I need to start existing. I need to think.

Food for thought or How the materialist theory of history is related to my lazy study habits

I think I fell in love today.

For the very first time in my meager 20 years of existence, I am looking forward to a course and I am NOT disappointed after the first class!! And I bought the book and I started reading it right after class (and a bit before) and taking notes and....now I sound like a nerd. That's what my friend told me when she saw me studying on the first day back to school. I don't caaaarrreee!

But that rant wasn't the purpose of my post (I know, could've fooled you). I actually wanted to share a piece of information that I learned and that I find shocking (even though it really isn't when you stop to think about it). So dear reader, imagine this: in humans, the frontal lobe of the brain, which is largely responsible for personality and organization, doesn't fully develop and continues to change until well into one's 20's!!!

Ahhhh I know, right? I can see your face right now. Amazing, incredible, fan-freakin-tastic, why are you getting so worked up over this useless piece of information, you nerd? Aha, well I shall tell you, avid reader of mine! This means that from certain points of view, there is still hope for me, while from others I just might be doomed.

For example, like many students in this world, I have a fundamental flaw and which is that I do everything (or almost) at the last minute. Which means that I'm very familiar with the concept of starting to cram 6 chapters 3 days before an exam. And that is not good. I always wondered what my grades would be like if I actually studied on time (or if I could actually remember the material from a course for more than a semester). BUT, with this new fact put into light, it might mean that my organizational (or lazy) habits are just a consequence of the not-yet-development of my brain (just as teenagers are more prone to depression over small things because they are not yet mentally equipped with the maturity needed to deal with them...that is not a judgement, it is a fact). So yey for that (though I'm not kidding myself too much)!

On the other hand, personality traits that I used to admire in myself no more than 3 years ago from which I have strayed and which I thought still hidden deep down inside, just waiting to come out again, well I might have to face the very real possibility that they are gone! So my creativity might have been blown out the window (maybe I still have some hope for this one), my environmental sense gone down the drain, my empathy completely dried out and my cool, aloof, non-mushy-huggy-touchy-feely character completely broken down. And I have noticed in the last couple of years that people and experiences to which I am extensively exposed have changed who I am and have shaped the way I see the world. I initially thought this might be a phase caused by the afterglow of the exposure (like a cake that is still hot when you take it out of the oven) . However, I might now be forced to reconsider that assumption and come to terms with the fact that these changes might be permanent. This has also made me realize that when you choose a field of study or a job, even though you might not pursue a career in that field, even though you tell yourself it is a temporary disposition until something better comes up, it might still affect your personality for better or for worse. The same reasoning applying to the people you spend your time with. And it might bring some credit to Marx's materialist theory of history. What he basically says is that human nature does not exist and that human behaviour is only dictated by the mode of production which causes the social conditions available. Therefore, capitalism would encourage individualism and selfishness in people, while communism would encourage a sense of collectivity and of selfless involvement in the community. However, I don't think Marx was talking only about people under 30 years old.

Anyway, I think that pretty much resumes what I had to say on the subject. Therefore dear reader, I hope that this discussion will make you think twice before making a choice in the future for it might affect you more than you think!

Le Vide

Je suis une personne influençable. J'ai deja parlé du fait que je me retrouve au stade estetique de ma vie, stade où toute decision, toute conviction, toute passion est éphemère. Rien ne dure plus que quelques journées et ces états passagers sont inévitablement influencé par mes lectures, mes discussions avec mon entourage, les films que je vois, bref, mon quotidien. Ceci étant dit, la reflexion suivante est une conséquence directe du livre Le vide par Patrick Senécal que je viens de finir. Comme le titre l'explique si bien, l'auteur pose un regard pessimiste et très cynique sur notre société. Nos vies sont vides. Et ça nous rend malheureux même si on ne s'en rend peut-être pas compte tout de suite. Il y a les gens qui souffrent et qui subissent, qui essayent de s'en sortir et qui n'y arrivent pas. Et puis il y a les riches, pour qui tout est un jeu accompagné par la façade qui lui permet de continuer. Mais ce qui nous lie tous, riches et pauvres, heureux et misereux, est le vide. Les mensonges qu'on se raconte à tous les jours pour pouvoir continuer. La tête qu'on tourne lorsqu'on voit le mendiant dans le métro. L'indifference qu'on éprouve lorsqu'on entend parler des guerres et des morts. La fascination morbide pour la douleur des autres. Les analyses psychologiques et philosophiques des livres et des films, des photos et des histoires, des spectacles et des conférences. Tout pour essayer de trouver un sens. Tout pour denicher un indice qui nous prouverait que nos vies ont un but, une utilité quelconque, qu'on est plus que juste une erreur statistique ou, si on préfère, l'aboutissement de l'adaptation d'une chaine évolutionnaire. Pendant des siècles, ce rôle a été rempli par la religion. On est ici parce que Dieu a decidé ainsi et la discussion s'arrêtait là. Mais avec l'avancement de la science, notre dieu se mourrait sous nos yeux. Chaque nouvelle étoile, chaque nouvelle molecule, chaque nouveau fonctionnement physiologique que l'on découvrait, portait un coup de plus à la divinité chancelante jusqu'à tant qu'elle s'effondre. Dieu est mort et c'est nous qui l'avons tué. Mais maintenant, qu'est-ce qui va le remplacer pour remplire le vide qui menace de nous consommer tous? La science? Penant longtemps on l'a cru. Mais la science amène une bien piètre consolation puisqu'elle explique le comment et non le pourquoi. Et pour cette raison on cherche une solution miracle qui sera compatible avec la science qui a envahi notre monde, mais qui comportera la souplesse et la flexibilité de raisonnement qui venait avec les croyances réligieuses. La mechanique quantique et la rélativité réunies sous une même théorie. La théorie des cordes de la vie. Des réponses logiques qui viendront tout seules, qui résoudront le mystère de la vie et qui donneront un but à nos vies errantes. Pourtant ces réponses n'existent pas. Parce que, comme Sartre le disait si bien, notre devoir dans la vie est justement de nous trouver un but. Et il faut qu'on le trouve par nous-mêmes parce que la vie ne vient pas avec un but d'office. Mais ceci n'est pas une tâche facile. Lorsqu'on comprend que les possibilités qui s'offrent à nous sont infinies, limitées seulement par nos jugements et les limites qu'on s'impose à soi-même, on commence à se perdre devant la multitude de chemins qui nous entourrent. Lequel prendre? Lequel est mieux? Lequel je veux prendre? Lequel je dois prendre? En fait, il n'y a même pas de chemin tracé. Juste un champ qui s'étire à l'infini partout où l'on regarde. Et à cause du fait qu'on vit en société et qu'à chaque moment de notre vie on est encadrés par des règles et des normes de conduite, on trouve cette liberté totale deconcertante. Et beaucoup se perdent en cours de route. C'est tellement plus facile de s'occuper d'activités superflues et superficielles. Et c'est vrai qu'on oublie souvent qu'il y a plus que juste la vaisselle ou le voisin qui nous fait chier ou le gars qui nous fait de l'oeil dans l'autobus. Pourtant, dans le livre de Patrick Senécal, on semblait indiquer que la seule façon de remplir le vide était avec des activités altruistes. Et je ne suis pas d'accord. Le vide existe, c'est vrai. Mais on n'est pas obligés de sauver le monde pour se sentir vivant et pour être heureux. Et le paradoxe est que plus on vient d'un milieu aisé, plus le vide se fait sentir. De la façon que je vois les choses, pour être heureux, il nous faut une quête que l'on poursuit toute notre vie et avec un peu de chance, on réussira à l'atteindre avant de mourir. Lorsqu'on meurt de faim, notre quête est de survivre d'un jour à l'autre. Ça dicte nos actions, notre mentalité, nos désirs, nos rêves. Notre chemin est tracé dans la haute herbe du champ infini et on le suit sans flechir. Cependant, lorsqu'on a tout ce que l'on peut demander, lorsque toute l'herbe du champ a été complétement rasée et l'on peut se promener à notre guise partout, on finit inéluctablement par érrer d'une place à l'autre sans aucun cap précis. On saute d'une colline à une autre, sans jamais arriver à une destination précise. Les gens cherchent le bonheur dans les fêtes, dans l'alcool, dans le sexe. On pense qu'on vit pour ça. Et peut-être que pour un temps ça marche. Mais on finit toujours par voir l'inutilité, le vide. En fait, je sais pas pourquoi on vit. Je cherche toujours. Et je pense pas que quelqu'un réussira un jour à trouver une réponse miracle. Parce que la réponse n'est pas la même pour tout le monde. Chacun doit trouver sa propre réponse. La seule chose qui fait peur est la possibilité qu'on ne la trouve jamais. C'est dans ces moments qu'on commence à regretter la réligion...



I used to believe. But somewhere along the way, I lost the capacity of blind faith. My rational mind cannot compute the existence of a being without any proof. And even when you have proof, there's still room to doubt. There's always room for doubt. And why should I believe in God? Why God? Why not Allah? Or Buddha? Or Krishna or Shiva? Or Zeus and Poseidon and Hades? Or Isis and Horus? Or no god at all? Either one god, be he christian or muslim or hindu, or a whole hoard of them, comes back to the same thing because there's as much proof for one as for the other (aka none). And random rant here, I just noticed that as I was typing the last sentence, the spelling corrector identified the words muslim and hindu as being wrong because I didn't capitalize them (no idea why not christian). But I find that weird. Why capitalize religion? You don't see us capitalizing physical concepts or names of molecules. Mechanics, dynamics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, relativity, string theory, black holes, supernovae, carbon dioxide, methyl benzoate, brain, neurons, glial cells, vena cava, aorta, mitochondria, adenine-tri-phosphate, enzyme, heart, hemoglobin, oxygen, hydrogen dioxide, photons, all these things that explain our origins and KEEP US ALIVE, and, unless they have been named after the scientist who has discovered them, none of them is capitalized. What has religion brought us except an easy, miracle answer to things we don't understand? An answer that avoids us the pain of having to think and to look deeper than the surface. People keep talking about the good things religion has done such as humanitarian aids and education. Of course, at one time, when christianity first came to be, when the concept of charity didn't exist, it might have been useful to tell people that an invisible man was watching them and that he would punish everyone unless they kept a good conduct. But this mentality is not relevant anymore. We now know how to be charitable and socially involved for the betterment of all humanity without needing the motivation of an angry god who will send us all into the fires of hell if we do otherwise. The child has grown and he now needs to face the fact that Santa Claus doesn't exist. Plus, if you help someone out and you do it because of your religion, because you are afraid of the consequences if you act otherwise, because you think that someone is watching you, then your act doesn't have the slightest value anymore. I know that it sounds very Kantian, but the fact remains that generosity should come from the inside, not from an external god. And if there is a god out there, there is only one single question I would want to ask him: if I am a good person but I refuse to believe in you, would you still send me to hell? If the answer is no, then I have nothing to be afraid of. If the answer is yes, then you are not a god worth believing in.

What makes life worth living?

Falling out of existentialism

There’s something wrong with me. Something is not entirely right if I’m starting to miss people depending on my hormonal imbalance. I’m way too dependent on my moods. That’s no way to lead your life. Kierkegaard said there were 3 stages in life: the aesthetic phase where you just go depending on your mood and everything’s ephemeral, the ethical phase where you live by moral rules and only for duty, and finally the religious phase where you just let yourself “fall in God’s loving arms” or some bull like that. Obviously I’m at the first stage. And it’s not a fun place to be because since everything is dictated by momentary feelings and moods, it’s very difficult to make a decision and then stick to it. Everything changes according to the present moment and while I may be sure of something right now, tomorrow might all of a sudden make me realize that my divine illumination was just pure foolishness. So how do you find truth in that case? How do you figure out what you want, when that which you want today, you might perceive as being worthless tomorrow?

This might be the time to move on to the second stage you might think. But what if I don’t want to live a life of duty? What if I don’t want to live my life according to a set of fixed and rigid rules that begin with the starting premise that they can never be broken? I mean, lying can be good sometimes, right? And who wants to make their everyday life into a boring and endless routine? That might work for Kant, but I think I’d end up shooting myself after a while.

And I don’t even want to think about the third stage. I mean the idea of God and everything religion preaches is all good and noble, but I simply cannot believe in the existence of an invisible man up in the sky. There was this part in Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (yes his books are crap for the most part, but I liked the way he put this into words) where the main character was asked if he believed in God and in a nutshell his answer was that he didn’t have the strength needed to believe in Him. I find that’s a nice way to put it. Because by believing in God, so many things are all of a sudden simplified. If not, just the simple fact of not having to find a reason for your existence on this planet is worth the time and energy spent on that belief. Sometimes I wish so much that I could believe, that I could stop feeling like the world around us is nothing more than just atoms and probabilities. A friend of mine once asked me how I could go about my everyday life without believing in God and without a general purpose. And the question is legitimate. How can you go on knowing that you are alone, that nothing you do ever matters in the end and that, when it comes down to it, you are the only person you can count on? The answer? You don’t think about it. I see life like a particularly rough exam period where you can’t take everything in as a whole without it becoming too overwhelming. So you take it one week at a time, one day at a time if necessary, and you just don’t think about the rest. Because if you do, you become suicidal. Literally.

So that leaves me stuck at the first phase with no way out. Sometimes I think that maybe I don’t have the necessary maturity to move on or at least to function properly within this stage. But what if, on the other hand, there was a time to make a choice and I missed my chance to do it? Keating in The Dead Poets’ Society says that in this life we all have to strive to find our voice and that the longer we wait to do it, the harder it becomes and the less likely it is that we ever end up finding it. I already see myself slowly slipping out of the existential crisis and, while in a way this is a good thing for it gives me the chance to enjoy myself a bit more, on the other hand, I find it scary because I no longer question things as much as I used to, I am no longer as open-minded as I used to be, and I feel like I’m slowly turning into my parents, or in other words, like I’m becoming a conventional, blasé and cynical adult who has stopped wondering at the world and whose eyes are slowly but surely closing. I’m becoming trapped by the present day and the mundane. I’m forgetting how to step out of my reality and look beyond.

Maybe I need to cut my hair. Maybe I need to look deep down and try to find the teenager I used to be and uncover my inner rebel who’s slowly falling asleep. The truth is I don’t want to grow up and become an adult. I don’t want to be settled with kids and a dog in a suburban house, with a 9 to 5 job and a daily routine of “metro, boulot, dodo”. Life’s more than that (or in any case I’m still hoping). But then again, unless you make philosophy your job, you don’t have the time to spend your days wondering at the world (the proof? Right now I should be studying for my Organizational Behaviour exam and I somehow feel like I’ll really regret the time I spent on this in two days). Maybe I should just drop out of business school and become a librarian. I mean, if there is one thing in life that I love and have always loved, the only constant for the past 6 years, it’s books. And a library sometimes feels more like home than anything else. But then again, I’m too ambitious to settle for just some crummy old job. How much does a librarian make per year anyway?

Quote of the month

credit: http://nnoik.deviantart.com/

Continuing a bit on yesterday's topic, this month's quote talks about the extremes of freedom:

"La liberté, surtout quand elle est le rêve du prisonnier, ne peut supporter de limites. Elle est le crime ou elle n'est plus la liberté."

Marquis de Sade

And even though it strays from the topic (yes I know I'm very bad at staying on topic, just deal with it), here is another quote from the Marquis de Sade which I love due to its "screw the world" type of tone (despite everything he stands for, I actually like the Marquis de Sade...or in any case I like the attitude he takes when it comes to standing up for his beliefs):

"Ma façon de penser, dites-vous, ne peut être approuvée. Eh, que m'importe! Bien fou est celui qui adopte une façon de penser pour les autres! Ma façon de penser est le fruit de mes reflexions; elle tient à mon existence, à mon organisation. Je ne suis pas le maître de la changer; je le serais, que je ne le ferais pas. Cette façon de penser que vous blâmez fait l'unique consolation de ma vie; elle allège toutes mes peines en prison et j'y tiens plus qu'à la vie. Ce n'est point ma façon de penser qui a fait mon malheur, c'est celle des autres."

I think, therefore I am...or maybe not.

Lately I have been thinking about the concept of freedom and just how free we actually are. I remember talking in a previous post about Jean Paul Sartre and how he says that men are free and that freedom is their burden. In a sense that is true. We do always have a choice, even a slave that works on a sugar cane plantation. He can choose to obey his master or to rebel. What limits our freedom are the consequences of our choices which are not the same for everybody. But in a way you could say that the bigger the consequences, the more important are our choices because they reveal our true nature and how much we are willing to sacrifice.

However, that aspect of freedom is not really what I want to talk about. This post is not dedicated to freedom of action or freedom of speech, but to the freedom of thought. And the limits here are more subtle and much more insidious because most of the time we are not even conscious of them. What I'm trying to say is that without even realizing it, we are the ones who limit our freedom of thought, firstly, through our personality and who we are and, secondly, through socialization and our adhesion to social norms and values. No man is born free for the simple reason that we come into this world in already made cages that we spend our entire life refining. We are trapped by our perception of the world and it is very difficult to extend ourselves beyond our boundaries when each new day that we are alive and that we come into contact with society we only add new bars to our mental prisons. In a way, we are all chained in Plato's Cave but none of us will ever be able to break free and see the Sun.

An atheist who cannot find within him the power to believe in God, how can he fully comprehend a christian who would give his life away for his beliefs? How could one walk in the shoes of the other when, in order to do that, he would have to change his beliefs, thus changing who he is. Aristotle said that "it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it". True. You need to be open minded in order to be able to reflect upon points of view with which you disagree. But can you fully comprehend them in that case?

No matter what we do, we are always biased. And ironically, as we grow older, we accumulate more and more biases. Which leads me to ask myself. Traditionally we see old people as being wise due to their life experience. But what is wisdom? Is it real knowledge, or is it just an extensive accumulation of societal norms and values which have been embedded in rational and empirical arguments? Because our culture, our society, our friends, our parents, our idols, our experiences, our hobbies, they all limit our ability to think freely and creatively. In 1984, George Orwell even explores the idea that language can limit our thoughts and therefore our freedom. Of course, some people and some experiences can on the contrary broaden our horizons, but that is only possible because our mind is so closed to the real world to begin with.

And what's more, what is the real world anyway? Is there such a thing as absolute truth when there is not one single person alive or dead who is able to perceive it in its entirety? No matter what we do, from the instant we are born, we will always be closed to certain aspects of the world. And therefore, if we are limited in that which we believe in, we are limited in our actions. So even in the purest anarchy, which Proudhon considered to be the epitome of liberty, there is no true liberty. And the irony is that it is not another human being who cuts our ability to act, but we ourselves who set limits on our liberty. Of course, in that case, one might wonder if it can still be considered lack of freedom when we are not conscious of it. But then we fall into a question of semantics and I really don't want to get into that.

Endless Questions

What is a human being made of? Fundamentally I mean. If you go deep down to the basic elementary units of homo sapiens sapiens. What would you find? My answer would have been matter. Atoms. Neutrons, protons and electrons. Quarks. Photons. The same subatomic particles that make up the rest of the universe. But if this is the basis of what we are, then why are we different? Different concentrations? Different mixtures of these basic particles? Could be very plausible. After all, no two people have the exact same DNA.

But that still doesn't answer the initial question. What are we physically? You could say it's our atoms, but then again there's that theory that says that after 7 years each and every atom we had initially, has been exchanged by another identical one. So as we go about our day, we exchange a carbon atom for another, we leave an electron and pick up another one passing by, we exchange phosphate groups, so that after 7 years, there's nothing left of our original particles and then the cycle starts all over again.

But can we even say that there's a particular carbon or hydrogen or oxygen atom out there that is solely ours? I read in a book once (I think it was "First you build a cloud" if I remember correctly) that we are more like a wave than a structure by itself. Meaning that we are not so much constituted of individual particles, but by the links and the bonds between them. A wave is a vertical movement of particles and as it travels towards the shore (thus it travels horizontally), it constantly changes particles. But the movement that it confers to each new acquired particle is identical to that of each and every previous particle. Therefore, a wave is an independent entity with no material constitution. It is merely a repetition of patterns and movement. And that's what we are as well: a repetition of chemical reactions and bond formation. Nothing stays fixed and the only thing that stays constant is the pattern. In a way, we are like a dish that constantly recreates itself, but never changing the initial recipe.

So then where does our consciousness come from? What is so different between me, a cat and a lamp? Why can I think this very instant, the cat can only follow instincts and the lamp can't even move? Well you can say that the lamp is a solid and therefore cannot move even if it was conscious. Ok fine, what about water or mud then? They certainly have the capacity of movement, but they don't unless something interacts with them. Maybe it's like the formation of atoms. An extra proton and electron makes up an oxygen atom with completely different properties compared to nitrogen. So more is not only quantitative, but also qualitative. However, since a 25 story building is by far bigger and has more matter than me, but that still doesn't give it the ability to move or think (at least as far as we know), we could say that it is the complexity of the structure and not its size that brings about this fundamental difference.

However, that still doesn't convince me. A computer can be fairly complex but that doesn't give it a consciousness. In Western cultures, we associate consciousness and the ability to think with the brain. But animals have a brain or some sort of a nervous system and you don't see dolphins or dogs inventing the theory of relativity. What part exactly of our brain makes us different? And what is it about the brain that makes it so special to begin with? After all, it's just a bunch of chemical reactions that conduct an electrical current. Any house has a hellish amount of wires going through it plus whatever appliances we plug in and since here in Canada almost everything runs on electricity, in what sense is this different from a human brain (putting aside the fact that our brain has a lot more "wires" than a house)? What about our brain enables it to coordinate an entire body, all the while helping us interact with others in society and letting us reflect upon our existence and discover the world that surrounds us?

When I was in high school I learned in biology that a human being is made up of cells and in chemistry that the basic building blocks of matter are atoms (which then make up molecules). But these two views seemed contradictory and somehow I was missing the link between them. Then I took a course in molecular biology and finally, upon studying the cell, I found out that cells are made up of molecules and thus atoms, and the connection between the two was made and these different views of the world were reunited. In the same way, I am now trying to relate the physical existence of the brain, which is that of molecules, chemical reactions and electrical currents, to the more esoteric, but nonetheless real existence which is the consciousness and the ability to form thoughts.

Somehow, I feel like the consciousness is to the brain what virtual particles are to a proton in physics. But at the same time, I have a hard time believing that this reasoning can go beyond the level of a metaphor since there's no Uncertainty Principle for objects as big as a brain (hell, even a cell is too big to fit in the Uncertainty Principle) and therefore that excludes the possibility of a virtual particle for the brain. And even if it were possible, the only resemblance between a virtual particle and a conscience is their lack of material existence and nothing more (though, now that I think about it, some virtual particles have mass so even that doesn't hold true).

On the other hand, the exchange of virtual particles makes up a force and therefore has the power to pull particles together. So maybe consciousness is an exchange. One of my chemistry teachers once told me that energy was represented by movement (as abstract as that may seem...and anyway I was never fully satisfied with that explanation) and I always thought that the formation of thoughts was actually a connection that was made between two neurons. However, how those connections are formed I have no clue. You could say that they are influenced by our outside surroundings and the signals that we collect through our senses, but then could you say that the only difference between an ordinary person like myself and Einstein is our experiences? Somehow I find that doubtful since there was nothing extraordinary about the life Einstein lead. Then can we say that some people are predestined to be geniuses? Is it in our DNA? But then how is that expressed in our phenotype? Because DNA is useless unless it's expressed in some sort of physical form, be it a protein or an eye color. So then how is the DNA of a genius expressed? Does he have a bigger brain or more neuron connections?

I can't give any definitive conclusions on this topic since all I can do is come up with hypotheses. However, this is what I find so fascinating about the human brain. We can see it, we can touch it, we can cut it up in pieces, we can put it under a microscope, but even with all that, we still know less about it than about subatomic particles which can only be studied through collisions in a cyclotron and through an analysis of electromagnetic traces on a sheet.

Quote of the month

These are a couple of quotes by Jean-Paul Sartre that I discovered this summer while reading Sophie's World and they struck a chord in my own reflections. They didn't bring any answers, but they kind of confirmed some thoughts that I already had (which I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not....I try to stay as far away as possible from confirmation bias, but that doesn't always happen). They are kind of long, but they develop the same idea in a brilliant way.

"We are like actors dragged onto the stage without having learned our lines, with no script and no prompter to whisper stage directions to us. We must decide for ourselves how to live."

"Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he has not created himself and is nevertheless free. Because having once been hurled into the world, he is responsible for everything he does."

"Man must never disclaim the responsibility for his actions. Nor can we avoid the responsibility of making our own choices on the grounds that we 'must' go to work, or we 'must' live up to certain middle-class expectations regarding how we should live. Those who thus slip into the anonymous masses will never be other than members of the impersonal flock, having fled from themselves into self-deception. On the other hand, our freedom obliges us to make something of ourselves, to live 'authentically' or 'truly'."

"Life must have a meaning. It is an imperative. But it is we ourselves who must create this meaning in our own lives. To exist is to create your own life."

Monument in the memory of Pasolini

I feel myself slipping. On the board of insanity, the abyss lying at my feet, I slowly drift towards the dark confines of my mind. This macabre obsession, continuously unearthing skeletons from the dark pages of history, seamlessly absorbs the words of devious spirits and little by little becomes one of them. A man who writes a script about cannibalism, is he horrified or fascinated by it? By criticizing society and its absurdities do we rise above it or do we fall into the pit of hypocrisy? Touching the fine line between solid ground and a freefall jump, exhilaration runs through my veins. I try to prolong the feeling for as long as possible before it fades away and the mundane world takes back its place. I like to toy with the idea of crossing the line, of going past the point of no return. But that will not happen. Not tonight. For now, I remain irrevocably sane.

“Tatal lui era un prof de filozofie. In viata mea nu am vazut un om atat de trist.”