Philosophy, Literature, Essays, and Thoughts
Life, classically, is that which acts against what is non-self to maintain itself. A reproducing locus of being that guards against non-being. It exists spatially and temporally, becoming amongst being. Life is the being that becomes; the becoming that is. To give a scientifically precise definition to life, we can perhaps turn to Schrodinger, who … Continue reading What is Life?
Kierkegaard: "Hope is a pretty girl, who slips away from one’s grasp." And again (!), "He who will only hope is cowardly. He who wants only to recollect is a voluptuary. But he who wills repetition, he is a man, and the more emphatically he has endeavoured to understand what this means, the deeper he … Continue reading Hope Contra Kierkegaard
For Kierkegaard, repetition, in contrast to (the Platonic) remembrance, a forward drive. It awaits a certain fresh recurrence of the wondrous beginning. It is an anticipation of pure faith, incomprehensible but necessary. (Reminding one of K's more famous lines, "life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forward.") Repetition is, in some … Continue reading Repetition
The foremost imagery that I associate with the later Heidegger's analysis of technology is the Mine. A place where the logic of "challenging" nature, measuring the resources available, the most efficient ways to mine, the instrumental value of the stones, thus seeing everything as a "standing reserve" to be used and exhausted, "enframing" nature in … Continue reading Minecraft and Heidegger
What excites me most in philosophy are the making and clarifying of concepts that are muddled in everyday thinking. Hannah Arendt is a great practitioner of this, and here is one of her brilliant distinctions. Following the Holocaust, Arendt found it necessary to draw a distinction between guilt and responsibility. Guilt is to deserve punishment. … Continue reading Collective Guilt
(University of Cambridge Philosophy Entrance Exam Essay. My Practice. 40 Minutes. Hope it is informative and interesting.) I will argue that the future is not open in any sense in which the past is not. But, instead, the past is open in the way that the future is not, and only by changing the past, … Continue reading Is the Future Open in Any Sense in Which the Past is Not?
"I don't want be a human being. It's too much responsibility"—someone responded to me in a dinner conversation, after my long rumination on why I am not fit to own a pet ("I don't want to take care of him. But then I feel the obligation to do so if I get a pet. Ergo, … Continue reading “I don’t want be a human being. It’s too much responsibility.”
Sometimes what sounds the easiest is often the hardest. As everyone who is trying to lose weight can attest, "eat less", "sleep better", "exercise more", are deceptively difficult. The same goes for thinking. In its most elementary, thinking is opening oneself to the other within oneself, to sit down and listen to that seed within … Continue reading Thinking
“Higher Power”. “Inner Child”. “Trauma”. A 21st century technological inept human being cannot but cringe when those words are uttered. Indeed, the entire 12 Step program is cringe and corny all the way through. Its simplicity verges on brutality, One almost cannot help but treat it with irony and sarcasm. Because it really is ridiculous. … Continue reading 12 Step
Out of the thinkers I know, Kant most rigorously theorized Ethics, tying it with Duty, Categories, Freedom, Universal Law, Causality (outside of nature), Immortality, and God. But his insight is remarkably simple: the very state of acting ethically is qualitatively different from everything else we do (what he calls "pathological actions"). It must be done … Continue reading Being Ethical
