Space Time Relativity

My title is far more ambitious than my idea. While I'm rushing through, trying to scrape a grade for my future's sake, I'm beginning to realize just how odd time is.

Three months ago, I had all the time in the world for this. I could make it up the next week. And the next, and the next hour, and Oh, there it is. My life down the toilet due entirely to my procrastination.

As I sit here trying to salvage my future, each second feels like a miniature fleeting eternity. It's as if every stroke of the backspace takes another year off of my life. I'm sure Kant would have something to say about my time perception.

Insomnia also has an odd effect on time. I had a pretty rough bout with it for about a year and a half. I would realize halfway through the day that I was sitting in a class, but didn't know how I had gotten there. I could be eating my food and not actually know how I got my fork. I could assume, but I couldn't remember it. Time just sort of passed over me. I don't know how many of you have seen Fight Club (great film), but the whole autopilot sequence is very real.

So if lack of rest can change your time perception, then how real is time actually? Can we accurately measure time, or is a second merely a sequential system. At any given point, someone's one second could feel like another's two. Does that mean the one is living longer than the other?

Time is weird.

Ask Not For Who The Idea Calls

It should be fairly evident at this point that I am trying to comment my way to an A. That being said, it has provided me some insight that I might not have found, had I been responsible--which might be the blog equivalent of the lottery, or at least a carnival game.

Simply, our class blogs have gotten way better through the course of the semester. 

Some observations (I'm going to use generalizations here, but they aren't meant to pigeon-hole):

• January and early February as well as mid to late April have the most posts. It seems the idea of getting ahead and making up ground are more prevalent than discipline and consistency (which is no accusation, I assure you)
• Early blogs tend to meander. Most of us seemed to be blogging for the grade, and our lack of ideas showed.
• When given a prompt, we make a short answer exam. Particularly with the speeches of the Symposium, there are more bullet points used than nearly anywhere else. We also restate the question and give a brief answer.
• Talli's (sorry, I can't spell your nickname) blogs come through in her voice more than most. Seriously, read them and try not to hear her. Maybe it's the vivid language. At any rate, it struck me.
• Later blogs have more opinions and points to make. Connor really made the jump with his blog about marijuana. Most early blogs did not have such gusto behind them. 

In summation, the blogs seemed to work. Even though my own blog is quite "Lacking," in general, thoughts definitely developed well through the blogs. 

Do What He Says, Not What He Does

I love reading Plato. I laugh. I chuckle. I get frustrated. I sit and stare. Occasionally, I nap.

I find Plato so profound and inspiring. I love reading his works so much that I seem to subconsciously try to replicate it. That's a booboo. Plato wrote in such a way that ten lines of his can inspire ten pages and more from each of dozens (and quite probably hundreds) of authors. I aspire to be like that. But is that right of me?

Philosophy has some responsibility to adapt with the society in which it is practised. Ours just doesn't seem to want to dig for wisdom. It wants proofs and explicit statements. Professional philosophy is very estranged from popular society. It is deemed dry, bland, and confusing. The best efforts to make an argument flow logically are thwarted by the need to over explain each term to defend from arguments. And why does it need to?

Are arguments really used to advance the discipline, or to thwart another argument in some grand rat race to be right? I really hope it is the former. I'm not convinced though. So back to Plato: how do we enthral people like he did? How do we write to inspire one-hundred fold the ideas we create?

I do not pretend to know the answer. I do, however, know that there needs to be a reckoning between clarity and form: argumentation and pursuit of wisdom

Socratobatics: A Balancing Act

Greetings all,

This is more of a free flowing exploration of ideas from my abstract. Spoiler alert. In other news, I am aware that we are reading Aristotle, but I like Plato more. Favouritism is alive and well.

Plato places Socrates in the middle of several contradictions. He is a pauper welcomed by aristocrats, is ugly but loved by youths, and is the wisest man who claims to know nothing. Another tension in which we see him is between silence and company.

Socrates obviously endorses communion and company when philosophizing. Not only does the dialectic nature of Plato's writing intimate this, but Socrates himself is always presented as being among a group when travelling--or at the very least, not far away from one of his interoculars. Philosophy as much as Socrates must then depend on companionship to get by.

Socrates has another side, however. While he is not shown to be alone many times, Socrates does institute a sort of isolation when necessary.The Symposium shows him standing outside the doors of the party in a trance, and when questioned where he is and what he is doing, Socrates' companion mentions that he is prone to such trances.

Another time Socrates separates himself from the conversation is to be found in the Phaedo. Here, Socrates is not free to leave, but does take a long time before replying to Cebes. He seems to be imposing upon himself a level of isolation and reflection.

Why he does this is up for much debate. Perhaps he is merely taking a moment to gather his thoughts; even the quick witted Socrates cannot always have the answers right on hand. Maybe he views philosophy as organic and prioritises that above whatever else he is doing by taking the time to fully explore a thought as it comes to him. Perhaps still, he is talking to his daemon. Socrates could be about to do or say something against the divine will of the gods, and his daemon is reproaching him. Plato may be using this pause as a dramatic devise to either attract the readers attention, or suggest chewing the cud--to borrow from Nietzsche--of a particular idea either preceding or succeeding the action.

Could it be that Socrates is simply balancing contemplation and conversation? If philosophy is to be a way of life in the most holistic way, then it must encompass both the communal and the private. This might be Plato's only way of insinuating that idea in his dialogue format.

All of this an more--or less--I intend to grapple with in my essay.

Socratic Silence

Socrates begins his entrance to the Symposium by not doing exactly that. He actually manages to avoid entering for quite some time. In fact, he managed to avoid entering in its entirety just the day before. I would like to explore why he did so. My reasoning is three fold: Socrates likes the quiet, philosophers at times must separate themselves, and the daimon.

The first reason is seeking silence. As I stated in my (immediately) preceding blog, leisure is important to philosophy. While I have not conducted an exhaustive (or any) search of the corpus of Plato, from the near dozen of dialogues I have read, I cannot recall any of them beginning with someone working (the closest I recall being the Euthyphro and the Apology since court is exhausting enough to be considered work). The ability to philosophize without pressures seems highlighted given the (lack of) evidence (to the contrary). Socrates' standing spell could simply be a way for him to avoid pressures and enjoy his soul. Alternatively, he could be actually exploring an idea as it comes up, rather than putting it off for spare time (which never comes) like all of these millenneals (read: the people with whom I am likewise grouped). Whatever he is doing, it seems to be placing philosophy and the internal pre-eminent over the world and the external.

Second, philosophers sometimes must separate themselves. Philosophy cannot be done in the face of distraction. Socrates entirely avoids the initial party. While exploring why Socrates would do this could be fruitful, I would like to entertain the thought of why Plato would have Socrates do this. Socrates can reasonably be viewed as Plato's personification of philosophy. For Plato to have him avoid the public celebration must mean that philosophy incarnate would do the same. Perhaps this means that philosophy will lead to a state of mind where one is separated from the masses, or that one must view society from outside (though Hegel will have a thing or two to say about that in a couple thousand years) (as a second aside, I don't think Plato means philosophers should only view society as an outsider, but given his penchant for communion with philosophy, I think philosophers must have two minds about themselves). It could mean that philosophy avoids distraction or environments in which philosophy is not practised. Perhaps gluttony is to be avoided. More than likely though, it means philosophers are socially awkward.

I would love to explore the possibility of Socrates spells being guidance from the daimon, but I need to research more of his dialogues with the daimon appearing. I'm also quite sleepy.

Cheers,
Bryant

The Gentle Prick of Irony

"Leisure is the basis of culture," is both often quoted, and the title of a book by Josef Pieper. Beginning a written work with a quote or generalization are taboo. So is referring to a book one has never read. I have just done all three.

I have noticed my blog has been lacking (that dreaded word). I have also noticed how little time I spend eating, sleeping, drinking, and thinking. Perhaps there is some correlation, but alas, I am no doctor, psychologist, or detective to go about drawing conclusions. I digress. It took me a while to notice all of the above, which seemed to drive home the opening quote at a far more substantial level. Not only is leisure the basis of culture, but leisure is the foundation for humanity (another generalization if you are counting).

When I say humanity, I don't mean upright, sparsely haired (perhaps in some more than others) primates. I mean humanity in the distinguishing sense: the humanities if you will (which I assume you will, if you are reading this). Humans did something no other species did. We brought our food to us and made it stay there. That gave us free time to think, kill each other, then think about why we kill each other. For other animal, the ends of that sequence are lopped off like so many heads...of wheat, which is why we are having this (or any) conversation (or soliloquy). 

This free time is why philosophy was an act of the aristocracy with the ancients and why you don't encounter many philosophers in war zones. While I have never been either of those, I like to think I fall somewhere between. I am in a first world country and have only gone to war with my noisy neighbors (If the Persians were as inconsiderate as these guys, Thermopile would have been the end of the war) and the fourth wall. That is probably why I write blogs and not books though. 

At any rate, this was a long introduction to get to a short point. I will be starting a little sub blog about how leisure really is important. Some of the topics I hope to explore are as follows (read: I am writing them here so I remember later):

What does leisure look like? (This seems especially important for those of us who haven't seen it in a while).

Does undergraduate education support the growth of philosophy and culture?

Is being busy easier than having free time?

Do we value leisure?

When asked to think about the most beautiful thing imaginable in class the other day, it took me a while to think of it. I was coming up blank. That's when I realized, maybe I just really love silence. I'm not sure if the silence in my head meant I had the answer all along, or if it had been so long since I hear the sound of silence (copyright Simon and Garfunkel) that I didn't recognize it. The irony struck when we never came back around to me to share. Double that irony in my desire to speak about silence, then raise it a power for my writing about it, and you get the title.

If you made it this far, congratulations. The posts to follow will have more content. 

Cheers,

Bryant

P.S: Garfunkel was suggested in the spellcheck. Someone had some free time.

Earth, Aer, and Fire

What I found most interesting about Heraclitus is how much cross cultural trade is evident in his works. While this is not necessarily the most philosophical content, it is interesting to see how ideas spread.

The theme that makes this trade so evident is his reference to apes. There are no European apes. There are not even Ionian apes. The closes primates are Saharan Africa and the tropics of Asia. While those regions could be trading closer to the Greek world, this at least demonstrates that Greeks are now including aspects of the far East in their thoughts and philosophies.

Additionally, the inclusion of a life and death cycle of the elements seems particularly influenced by the East (though it is quite possible that both organically arose in their respective domains). Taoism and Tai Chi in particular emphasize a cycle of destruction and birth with the elements, though theirs are fire, metal, wood, earth, water (in order of destruction). It is still intriguing to see the study of physics begin focussing on how elements can be transmuted.

I would be interested to know more about how much intellectual trade was being done, and how closely the various philosophies of the East and West were in chronological development. I feel like even if they are unrelated, this shows that philosophy is a natural part of humanity, and that there is some progression of ideas innate in our species. Then again, that may just be the Hegelian in me.