The Gospel of Beckett

This article is a POE of Christianity, inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

And Godot’s Messenger said unto them:

“Blessed be the willfully ignorant, for they shall make the ignorant willful. Cursed be the knowers, for their knowledge is their tower of Babel. These intellectuals use knowledge as authority, so they compete with our Lord Godot. The intellectuals become dictators, using the authority of reason to oppress the ignorant with their reeducation. The intellectuals treat the willfully ignorant as barbarians and shove their godotless policies down our throats. Our Lord Godot, for whom we wait, has higher reason, which it infinitely greater than our own human unreason. The sheer fact that we cannot understand His reason proves He is wiser than ourselves. And Godot commands us, ‘Go out and make willful the ignorant of all nations,’ for this is His great commission.

“Blessed be the self-enslaved, for Godot is their Lord in mind and body. Cursed be the free, for they are unaided in their human struggles. When asked, ‘Where have our rights gone,’ respond, ‘We have gotten rid of them.” The self-enslaved rid themselves of these rights which make man his own authority. To be in His flock, be like sheep. Jesse, Godot’s son, commands me to be a German shepherd for you my fellow Jestians. I will bark at you from all sides, motivating you with blind fear in the straight and narrow. And fear the Jessane must the wolf that endangers them with his hungry free mouth. Only those strong in fear can fight the temptations of freedom and the infection of the Lupus.

“Blessed be the sneeezers, for they bring blameless death and great Heaven. Cursed be those who heal, for they love life. Socrates, man of knowing ignorance and great piety to the divine and customs who became a martyr of his divine mission, told his companions not to weep at his death and that death is a cure for life’s ills. Pascal, whose wager confirms our belief that doubters are foolishly unrestrained thinkers, taught us that Heaven is of infinite value. Death is of no cost and life of infinitely less value than Heaven; therefore, let us embrace sickness. We do willfully die this way, for sickness puts no blame of suicide on us. And remember flock that it is those who love life who waste it by enjoying the fruits of wide and sinful path, for this life must be dedicated to Godot in order to get to Heaven.

“Blessed be those in Heaven, for they were right! Cursed be those in Hell for they were foolish not to see we were right! Heavenites say to those Hellites, ‘told you so!’ When you meet a doubter, tell him, ‘Death shall prove finally to you that I was right.’ For what truly matters to us willfully ignorant, is that we are right and we get to go to Heaven. We will lie on the purple couches and look out the window into Hell and partake in one laugh with Godot. One eternal ha….

“Just a minute, this is not a fair trade, one laugh for pork and sex. There is no way an eternal moment of non-changing bliss is worth more than the variety of emotion during life. I just cannot shake my love of life, the flux, the roller coaster ride of emotion. Good-bye willfully ignorant, I have ceased to be willful.”

*

“Looking back, religion is buffoonery…I cannot believe what I was not thinking. Oh look the thought-police have come to take me to the guillotine…I should have know that speaking out my deconversion from the pulpit would be suicide. To think for the first time is not thinking, for I have had no practice.”

*

And they led him to the scaffold, and before he was executed they asked him if he had any last words. He spoke, “I will have my last laugh.” He laid his head upon the wooden collar. Time seemed to stop. He breathed slowly while attempting to shape his face into a smile, but he could not muster the strength. Before he could not laugh, the blade fell.

Time began again. His head rolled into a basket and blinked thirteen times before Death accepted his exchange. Whether he died between two thieves or in the midst of the youths that atheist had corrupted, it matters not. This is a fictitious story anyways.

Ethea and Society: The Imprisonment of Socrates and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Eric Stockhausen

September 16, 2010

Word Count: 1,214

Ethea and Society: The Imprisonment of Socrates and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Both Socrates and Martin Luther King, Jr. embrace imprisonment as a consequence of the tension between their ethea and society. Socrates and Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) exercise freedom by following their bioi over local customs of oppression. Ethea are guiding spirits which motivate ideas and actions, but can also refer to ideals and beliefs of a culture. Both Socrates and MLK have guiding spirits, which they appeal to as a higher authority. Bioi is to lead a way of life, and Aristotle “distinguished three bioi which man might choose freedom” (Arendt 13). King and Socrates lead different ways of free living. Though their ethea and bioi are different, imprisonment does not impede their kind of freedom. Applying the trade-unionism-like model of rebellion of Albert Camus, both MLK and Socrates rebel in the sense that they assert values essential to their ethea; though unintentionally in Socrates case, they become examples for their fellow human beings.

Athens sentences Socrates by a two-thirds vote to death. Because Socrates employs reason unaided by sophisms popular at his time, his apology offends his jurors. Athenians already has a prejudice against Socrates taught to them by the accusers, so it was emotion and not reason that sentenced him. Socrates opines that Athenians need him to enlighten them and steer them from folly. In order to live his ethos and follow his divine sign, Socrates considers himself obligated to live the philosopher’s life and prove the claim made by the Oracle of Delphi. Not only is he obligated by his divine quest, but Socrates feels that the unexamined life is not worth living (Apology 38a). Imprisoned, Socrates persuades his elder companion Crito that exile would be worse than death because if the Athenians would not accept him, then foreigners would be even less likely to. He also has attachment to the Law that nurtured him and derives meaning from his obedience, so Socrates feels an obligation to follow the Law. Drinking the hemlock, Socrates has repeatedly asserted to himself and his followers that death may be good in order for all of them to cope with his execution.

Socrates follows bios theoretikos, the life of the thinker or contemplator. Socrates in The Apology explains that he did not take part in the praxis (action) of the bios politikos (life of the statesman) in order to be safe and to concentrate on his philosophizing (Ardent 14). He was a citizen of Athens. He served the military and benefitted from the guiding spirit of the Law. By emphasizing the value of the examined life, Socrates acts freely as a thinker. Prison only restricts his body and capital punishment only shortens his life. Even in prison, he continues his dialogues, living consistently with his bios. Though Socrates used the ethos of the divine as a higher authority, the life of the philosopher represents the freedom of his guiding spirit.

Socrates rebels in the sense that he asserts the rights of others. As Albert Camus claims in The Rebel, “I rebel—therefore, we exist” (Camus 22). Camus means that rebelling inherently means to confirm solidarity. Socrates unintentionally extends the ideal of the philosopher’s life to the people of Athens and eventually to Western thought in general. His followers took on Socrates’ mantle, especially Plato, and out of Socrates came the birth of Western philosophy. In The Apology, Socrates claims not to be corrupting the youth intentionally because by doing so, in his words, he would harm himself. The young Athenians follow Socrates in the streets, learning to question those who claim wisdom and finding entertainment in Socrates interrogations. Socrates asserts that he did not intend for the Athenian youths to take to his dialogues. They also decide to follow Socrates without his approval. Despite unintentionally rebelling, Socrates becomes an example by asserting his particular ethos. Like a slave, who rebels against his master when he or she reaches a limit of oppression, by asserting freedom, Socrates asserts a value on his ethos by choosing philosophy, imprisonment, and death over exile.

Birmingham incarcerates Martin Luther King, Jr., because he had dared to question the local customs. The de facto segregation oppressed the African Americans, in MLK’s opinion, more than anywhere else in the country (King 99). Contacted by a local affiliate, MLK came to Birmingham in order participate in nonviolent direct action protest. The city neither imprisoned King indefinitely nor sentences him to death, but will eventually free him. While in jail, MLK responds to some clergymen. In his letter, he defends his actions, arguing for the effectiveness and necessity of direct action.

Martin Luther King, Jr., rebels against the status quo, asserting a value for justice and for civil rights founded on the ethea of Satyagraha and Christianity. Part of method of protest, to which MLK subscribes, is “collectivization of facts” (King 99). After determining their grievances, a protestor decides if he or she has reached a limit. Satyagraha means holding firmly to truth, which King exemplifies by not breaking from his principles during the “ordeal of prison” (King 100). Both Satyagraha and Christianity had long histories and were passed from generation to generation in order for them to reach MLK. By accepting imprisonment, MLK confirms the principles of Christianity and Satyagraha for all.

Martin Luther King, Jr., had the bios politikos or life of the politician. He led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, aided his organization’s affiliate and appeared on national news (King 99). Basically, he backed his bios with praxis (action). In this case, he followed the tradition of nonviolent direct action. Politikos means man of the city, and in A Letter From Birmingham Jail, MLK partakes in both local and national politics. MLK expressed the freedom by following his ethea in political action.

Both Socrates and MLK exist within the authority of their respective ethea can exercise freedom by the means of their bios. For both, there is a concept of the Law, which has a divine basis. By living within the ethical limits of this Law, they act freely. For them a human being wants to act justly, and to act according to that desire is freedom. The guiding spirit, whether a divine sign or some Judeo-Christian deity, establishes those ethical boundaries. But just having boundaries and knowing the just from the unjust is not enough, Socrates and MLK also have bioi. For Socrates, he leads the life of the philosopher. MLK leads the life of the politician. While these are different faucets of action, they have a kind of freedom that imprisonment does not take from them. This means that because society is unjust for not letting them act according the highest authority; for Socrates and MLK, being ethical necessitates aggravating society and being imprisoned.

Tension between the just individual and the unjust society results in innocent people being incarcerated, but as Socrates claims a “good man cannot be harmed” (Crito 48b), the just person remains free while embracing imprisonment. Despite Martin Luther King, Jr., and Socrates having a freedom from righteousness, the question of who is freer still stands. Is political freedom greater than philosophical freedom? Is it better to be the founder of a new freedom (like in Socrates case) or an inheritor of the rebel’s tradition? Even with these questions of value, both MLK and Socrates are great spirits, becoming authorities on justice for inheritors of the freedom tradition.

Works Cited:

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. New York: Doublebay and Company, Inc.: 1959

Camus, Albert. The Rebel. Translated and Revised by Anthony Bower. New York: Vintage International, 1991.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. A Letter From Birmingham Jail. 1961.

Plato. The Trial and Death of Socrates. Translated by G. M. A. Grube and Revised by John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000.

Appendage:

Henry Thoreau derived nonviolent protest from Eastern philosophy. Reading Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, Mahatma Gandhi conceived of Satyagraha, which means holding firmly to truth. Gandhi’s protests in India inspire MLK’s nonviolent direct action protest.

Martin Luther king, Jr., and Socrates rely on ethea, utilize rational arguments, act freely while imprisoned and assert values with rebellious actions. An ideal as concept of rebellion is “if not religious at least metaphysical” (Camus 170). Guiding spirits provide individuals ordering principles for their lives, so that they can believe away the absurd or meaninglessness. A divine sign and the tradition of Christianity supply MLK and Socrates respectively with abstract ideals in which to make their lives ultimately meaningful. The actions that this ultimate meaning necessitates make them free in the positive sense.

Neither MLK nor Socrates abandons humanity for this ideal presented by their ethea. As Socrates is an Athenian, MLK is an American. These group identities are human, as opposed to divine, in nature and represent their humanism. Humanity as an ideal can become a replacement for a deity, as it did for the Soviets. Because MLK and Socrates have solidarity with their tribes, their humanism is not religious. With humanism comes secular philosophy, which is characterized by open-endedness and reliance on reason. In order to persuade, both MLK and Socrates rely on arguments appealing to both human and divine concepts. Now an ethos can be secular if it is a custom or a social contract. In MLK’s case, the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court cases are secular entities, receiving their power from the consent of the governed (though often a deity is referred to as a higher authority in the people’s place). While in prison, both exercise their bioi, so are still essentially free. Their rebellious praxis represented their particular values, which make them examples for society.

Talk with Alyssa

Me

by find one value at a time, u create an ethics, a set of values

and that is why you want to be good

because u have limits

limits of how much pain is tolerable and such

9:10pmAlyssa

i want to be good because i want to uphold the rights of all people

because i want to live, therefore life is valuable to me

9:11pmMe

yeah, that is an important distinct people forget, if one says slavery is intolerable and then makes the master the slave, he is contradicting himself and place something above enduring

namely vengence

(understood he sorry)

which has its weaknesses I admit

as an argument, but I am working on it

9:13pmAlyssa

capital punishment contradicts the value it's trying to protect. man I soo shoulda used that for my research paper

9:13pmMe

interesting

9:13pmAlyssa

well isn't that what cames was trying to get at?

9:13pmMe

I would, if I were u, read more on Camus, for he would probably say it better than i can

9:13pmAlyssa

camus"

9:15pmMe

yeah, he focuses on that because think about how systematic killings are justified through law

9:15pmAlyssa

what is unclear to me is the freedom part of it. maybe you just haven't gotten there yet. don't you think a slave can be ethical?

9:15pmMe

He was working on these theories during and after WWII

9:15pmAlyssa

"we're protecting out lives by taking yours"

9:16pmMe

a slave can be ethical, because a great deal of morality is natural, pain, empathy, whatnot)

it is just that some more abstract things like equality need to be values by a process

of realization

DOes that make sense?

9:18pmAlyssa

yah i think so

how long have you been working on this?

9:19pmMe

starting from nothing on Camus, 2 years

I am still working on him, because I have not spent every waking hour memorizing and focusing on what he means

A good book to read, a novel of his, is called THe Plague

it will explain things for a beginner in Camus, but I have forgotten some of his arguments

I am currently working on The Rebel, a book length essay

9:21pmAlyssa

i will look into it next time im in the library

what's it about?

9:22pmMe

It is about the difference between rebellion and revolution

9:22pmAlyssa

and what do you think of it so far?

9:24pmMe

while rebellion is a protestation, with no specific leader, and has a sense of resulting from injustice to life or enduring (to not rebell against the injustice of Southern Jim Crow laws was to starve, to be disenfranchised into subhuamnness)

I like it, though his essays can be difficult

to read, because it is translated from French with specific terms from a specialized philosophy

Revolution is All or Nothing for the cuase

9:25pmAlyssa

hmnnnn

9:25pmMe

and because of this, it risks putting something above life

9:26pmAlyssa

well isn't the cause usually about your quality of life?

9:27pmMe

THe French Revolution started out as a rebellion, quality of life, then became equality, liberty, fraternity

they killed off all the aristocrats as being iconic as against those values

THomas Paine came to France and argued against systematic murdering of the higher classes and the hysteria of killing off sympathizers and was duely imrisoned

So this is the All or Nothing approach and rhetoric on revolutions often

9:30pmAlyssa

i guess I mean to say that equality and liberty is a part of life. i guess you could call it a right. but didn't you determine that it was worth establishing a slave's liberty because you value his life?

9:31pmMe

America had ran the risk of that, but the revolution was actually fairly small (most people were very loyal and did not join the revolution) and England did not have the resources to continue the fight long enough to make it All or Nothing

9:32pmMe

Equality is good for life so long as one does not maintain it with absolute justice (as one may remember the limits)

9:33pmAlyssa

the limits of equality?

9:33pmMe

For instance it would be bad to make everyone equal in the sense of wealth, intelligence, ability to play sports

because in order to do that one would have to reduce the quality of life for even the moderately well off

9:34pmAlyssa

right on

9:34pmMe

In a way that is was communist tried

in order to get rid of class struggle

now it is John Rawls who explains the best way to approach equality

9:36pmAlyssa

i wish i remembered the name of it, but there was this short story we had to read in junior english, this dystopian place with extreme equality. this huge guy was covered in "handicapps", things that lessened his strength so that he wasn't superior. basically he had to go around with heavy metal objects strapped to his body

9:37pmMe

He maintains that if we did not know who we are, and we had to choose what society we were to live in, we would try to make the worst off better because we would not want to risk being in their position

I read that story as well, and that is what I was thinking of

9:37pmAlyssa

do you remember what it was called?

9:38pmMe

no

9:39pmMe

So you learn anything

9:39pmAlyssa

okay

9:40pmAlyssa

ya i mean, obviously the things you're saying make sense. People just usually don't challenge me to draw conclusions like that because most people don't think about it

I guess they leave it up to the philosophers hah

9:42pmMe

well, it shouldnt be just the philosophers who know about it or think about or we have a lot of people being revolutionists (think of tea party)

9:43pmMe

Just a nice thing to say, when you laugh at a joke, remember that there is a language game behind it, and that language game is what philosophers do (smostly not comicly)

9:45pmAlyssa

i totally wish i knew what you meant by that

9:45pmMe

... jokes are philosophy in a sense

they question our expectations and what we mean by words

they make logical mistakes that are understood

why did he do that? because he thought...

well, whatever

I recently wrote an article for a blog and got it published

a link for it is on my wall

9:47pmAlyssa

oh yah, me too. its about quantum physics

9:48pmMe

interesting

9:48pmAlyssa

not

9:49pmMe

haha, playing with my catagorical trust of friends

9:49pmAlyssa

lol were you impressed?

9:50pmMe

yes, for it shows ingenuity and teaches me to assume less about people

wait until evidence before believing something that has not shown to be an interest of said friend

but that is just rationalizing this, but u were funny

9:52pmAlyssa

well, I try

9:53pmMe

well, if u are ever interested, u can read my articles, i post them every once in awhile, i got some things i want to do right now

9:54pmAlyssa

okay. i have the browser up actually for a while i just suddenly got popular on facebook im. but i'll read it and talk to you later

9:54pmMe

k

10:38pmAlyssa

so you said you had some things you want to do right now ad I thought you meant you were going off to do things

10:38pmMe

i did

just left my comp on

Please understand these few things

Most religious I have to deal with misunderstand why I become silent when they tell me about God, supernatural activities, and esoteric meaningfulness. Some religious people with some experience with the non-believing simply misunderstand their own terms, or the atheistic point of view. In order for me to to explain this, I am going to define some terms for future reference.

1. Faith: I recently read an article by Philosopher David S. Brown called Reasoning Down the Rabbit-Hole. In it he presents one of his pet peeves with New Atheists. He claims that atheists define Faith arbitrarily as "a beilief without evidence". Now I have generally eard that definition from atheists (not to mention my handy-dandy Webster's dictionary), but Dr. Brown seems to believe that the defintion of Faith should be that of Medieval philosophers. I am no expert on Medieval philosophy/theology, but I am aware of the arguments that were crafted to prove a deity which had to be Christian.

However, without even delving into the Medieval period, I have found a problem with Dr. Brown's argument. He first claims that one should not make artbitrary definitons to words. He secondly claims that New Atheists redefine Faith in order to defeat theologians. Finally, He asserts that Medieval philosophers did not use Faith in that fashion. There is a twist of hand that he uses in his argument so obvious, it sickens my philosophical heart. He is the one using redefintion of terms to win an argument instead of searching for the truth of the situation. He arbitrarily chose the Medieval meaning of Faith, and that is exactly what he warned in his essay not to do. This is what the enemy of philosophers, the Sophists, did.

Now to be more sympathetic, I will evaluate all his claims instead of just looking at that error he made.First, he claims New Atheists, especially Richard Dawkins, are redefining the word Faith to mean "a belief without evidence". Now, I understand why the faithful may feel they have evidence in all the feelings and God-sightings, but I am skeptical of these claims and take them as delusional thinking. I could give many examples of how believers I have work with have conditioned themselves to act and think as if they had seen God, but that is not necessary to prove my first point. As a rising philosopher, I have reviewed the common evidence used by common believers (as opposed to sophicated theologians) for their deity, and I have concluded that these believers do not have evidence that is conclusive to their beliefs. Now I may be wrong, but I even have plenty of belivers who share the sentiment that their is "lack of evidence" component to Faith.

Also, I have Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary which states that Faith is loyalty to a person or duty, a trust or belief in one's God, or a firm belief in which there is no proof. Now, Faith is a word that believers wave around a lot, using it with very complex nuances. They always want more of it and continually humble themselves as if one could never have enough of it. They use the three defintion interchangably.

In order for a claim aboiut the universe to be justified, there must be evidence that logically supports the claim. In order for a belief in a claim to be justfied, the claim must be considered in a logical and systematic way. These two claims I just made are understood to be true and absolutely essential to good science and philosophy. From the point of view that religious claims are unjustified because of the lack of evidence, the last two defintions logically infer religious Faith in those claims to be unjustified. To prove that there is no evidence for all religious claims would be impossible, but I will generalize for the sake of time and space.

Because the dictionary supports the definition Richard Dawkins uses as lexicon definition and the fact that religions calim things which they have no proof, the definition Richard Dawkins uses is not arbitrary but accurate. Because Dr. Brown asserts that Medieval philosophers used a different defintion has no bearing on the modern lexiconial usage of the word, it would be arbitrary and, by his own reasoning, wrong to use a defintion from a specific time period.

Ravings of a mad man

Sasha

hello eric, how goes thee

i hope you have found things to entertain your brain during the summer

11:43pmMe

LIke a winter breeze easily through to the marrow

I have

i have posted new videos

one is about football just for u

11:44pmSasha

hahaaha

erg.. i wish to separate myself from football

what is it about tho

11:44pmMe

its a song

complete spoof

11:45pmSasha

off of what other song

11:45pmMe

nvm

not a spoof on a song but on bfootball fans

just look at some of the top 4 videos on my wall or something and comment or something

11:47pmSasha

or something

you got it

you know i moved

i live in chicago

11:47pmMe

how many chicas in chicago?

11:48pmSasha

and our conversations (or rather, your conversations) have really interested me in philosophy, especially the classical philosophers

how many? 54 percent

11:48pmMe

haha

really, nice to hear.

im sorry if they are my conversation

11:48pmSasha

don't be

i don't think i could my words would have helped what you were saying

11:49pmMe

so who u interested in

"i could my words"

11:49pmSasha

bad grammar

aristotle

i am astonished at his scientific approach

it astounds me when i imagine the time and age

to think of matter

11:50pmMe

if u like aristotle, then u should talk to my brother in emory

he goes too far with aristotle in my opinion

the greeks were awesome i must say

but there are things aristotle made mistakes with

11:51pmSasha

how does he go too far?

and what mistakes?

11:52pmMe

My major problem is that aristotle is that he does allow for randomness or chaos

He believes everything has order and that the reason why things do the things they do is because of a telos

telos is roughly a goal

and through this argument he postulates a primeover

Primemover, a Deity for cause and effect

11:53pmSasha

i remember you telling me about telos

so.. is it that you disagree in there being a natural goal within everything?

11:54pmMe

Basically, Aristotle could not understand how something could not be intented to happen or have a prime intention

11:54pmSasha

would he believe there is a telos in a boulder

i see

11:54pmMe

Well i dont disagree that it is possible, but im saying his philosophy begs the question

He believed the planets moved around the earth out of love for the primemover

The rock falls because it wants to fall

that is its nature and nature is desire for aristotle

11:56pmSasha

awesome

11:56pmMe

Now he doesnt mean desire as in processes in the brain per se, but in a conceptual way of viewing how everything could be explained

By saying that things happen because of X Y Z does not prove that X Y or Z is real or relavent

or that a causal relationship exist

11:58pmSasha

hmm, i don't quite understand the xyz part

11:58pmMe

Basically Aristotle intended to make the world make sense in his own terms

11:58pmSasha

if things happen, isn't it real?

now that makes sense

11:58pmMe

XYZ are just place holders for anything

11:58pmSasha

and your brother follows aristotle in making the world just too neat?

with his beliefs?

11:59pmMe

Yeah, he hasaristotle weakness for design

my brother is a deist for aa designer

Today

12:00amMe

things have to be made, they cant be unintentional without foresight

Telos can be understood as having foresight

12:00amSasha

idk if intention is too much of a human concept

12:00amMe

THeintention has many different meanings in philosophy

12:00amSasha

hmm

12:02amMe

Intentionality is for the philosophy of language a way to explain why I mean what I do with my words

Basically intention in that sense connects the sentence to the real world

Intention for Foucault meant it in a darwinian sense

Intention that were not subjective

12:05amSasha

then i think aristotle had a quite clear grasp of telos considering his time and scenario

or intention

it astounds me how creativity and logic can exist together

12:05amMe

clear grasp of something you yourself defined, is it possible?

12:06amSasha

you're right, my judgements right now are without the readings of aristotle

so its all my intention

12:06amMe

DO we know what make

12:06amSasha

oh well

what make?

quarks

12:07amMe

hehe, i think it would be interesting to question our own ideas to the point of asking do we understand ourselves

do we do we understand the language our brain speaks

12:08amSasha

that i can answer.. no

i do not understand myself

i actually felt lost this year because of the numerous elements of my life that affect me uncontrollably

12:08amMe

i tbelieve a lot of people do not understand their thoughts, they speak the language but they dont understand it

12:08amSasha

and i know they are there, yet i have yet to analyze and discover for myself

agreed

i do feel like you could lose your life trying to understand yourself tho

12:09amMe

i know there are things I am sensing because they are clear and distinct

12:09amSasha

but that does not mean it isn't worth searching

12:09amMe

THings i am thinking

12:09amSasha

haha

chemicals! spewing from your brain

12:09amMe

DO u sense thoughts like you feel tables?

12:10amSasha

i do

12:10amMe

Are u seperate from your thoughts or part of them

12:10amSasha

if anything, the thoughts are more real than tables, because i hav ethe idea of what a table feels like

hmm

i think i am a byproduct

12:10amMe

and if part of them, why claim them as your own

12:10amSasha

erg no

because i hav ea part in them

i think they are inseperable

12:11amMe

inseperable, have u ever tried

12:11amSasha

i have not

12:11amMe

to break away

12:11amSasha

to live without thoughts is to not live

12:11amMe

or so u say

a plant lives

12:11amSasha

yes, but it doesn't have thoughts

or does it...

computational thoughts

12:12amMe

cells comunicate to each other

what are thoughts but a system of processes that inform each other

anything organized in a stregic power relationship

strategic*

12:13amSasha

i agree

12:13amMe

self preservation

to telos of natural organization

12:14amSasha

i think your thoughts are in control until you realize the presence and conditoin of those thoughts, at which point then there is free will in terms of that though

which goes back to what we were saying about the thoughts you might not realize are there

but worth searching

12:14amMe

If u have know free will, then who is not free?

no*

12:15amSasha

everyone is free

12:15amMe

but if u were notr free, then would u exist?

12:15amSasha

because everyone has SOME realization of themself, no?

i don't think so

if my thoughts were not free, i would have no will over them, and i would be only my thoughs

but i suppose my thoughts would be free from myself!

12:15amMe

They could simply recognize a body of flesh and bones but it is actually their mother's body

to think yet never have a thought of oneself the christian dream

12:16amSasha

hahaha

i am god

12:16amMe

the buddhist dream in a more accurate portrayal

12:16amSasha

he is me

12:16amMe

Creating a sims game and

12:17amSasha

eric.. there is a god

stop thinking

just do, as he says

12:17amMe

How can i not, if he is the one thinking in my place

12:17amSasha

haha

12:17amMe

I met some pentacostals of the predestination branch

12:18amSasha

oh ya

12:18amMe

Who thinks but the one who is in control

12:18amSasha

true, thank god for humanist religion!

12:18amMe

but the christian adopted humanism too but dont realize it

ignorance replaces true progress

12:19amSasha

i think religion was a very practical evolutionary tool that allowed for more moral and logical approaches, but its time has past

12:19amMe

no one knows why we care about others anymore

12:19amSasha

they don't

because we care about ourselves, right?

12:19amMe

If u didnt would u brush your teeth

12:19amSasha

if you watch a man being killed, don't you feel as if you're are being attacked?

12:20amMe

Well, if i felt that, i might run away

12:20amSasha

if i didn't what

HMM good point

12:20amMe

because the person who feels attack runs

12:21amMe

so we arent tricked into thinking we are another person, we keep our individuality (of some sorts)

12:21amSasha

is it selfish or a communal response?

no not tricked

12:22amMe

we think things, we make decisions, we have purposes to our actions (sometimes)

we have emotions and sensations

to save a person from danger is part of choosing what to do

we dont need a natural tendency to say do this or that

you want to say we are born good people or something

12:23amSasha

no no, i believe we are born noble savages

purely a byproduct of environment

12:23amMe

purely environment or some genetics

12:23amSasha

purely in the sense of an initial genetic makeup, and the rest

the rest environment, where your genetic makeup can be changed to your environment

12:24amMe

somethinThe brain has a blueprint on how to make and use its brain (that is primary knowledge)

The secondary is first experience

the color red must be experienced to be known

therefore it is secondary

12:25amSasha

do you think the blueprint can change though based on secondary experience?

nvm

12:26amMe

the blueprint explains how to modify the structure (or use the process avaible to make a learn thing

the language is a bit out of there, for no one talks about the brains blueprint in genetics like this except in the field of study

12:28amMe

I will concede that the environment develops our moral responses

12:28amSasha

is your major in college decided eric?

indeed

hmm

there is no moral fabric in our genetics?

what about the natural response of animals to protect their own species

12:28amMe

But I dont believe learn ways our at all moral or justified just because of our environment

12:29amSasha

if a rat warns another rat of a cat, is it moral?

12:29amMe

Matters

Does it matter?

If the rat lives or dies

Or if the cat is eaten by the the rat

because of the twists of fate and the dog eat dog world

12:30amSasha

ok, but i'm talking about if a rat consciencesly, or sub, decides to warn other rats, is it moral?

12:30amMe

are we to pacify existence to rid all suffering all struggle

why is that moral, because we dislike it, because we desire outcomes

12:31amSasha

moral being the protection of others like yourself?

12:32amMe

is not morality rigged, because it has the right to both say what is good and bad and say itself is good

So all morality is tribal

U are black, i dont look after u

Now i understand u, u are like me, join my tribe, be like white man

See my factories, work there

See my plantations work there

these are what those who have no past fortunes do in my tribe

12:33amSasha

eric, though i have enjoyed this talk, i feel we are becoming separated in ideas

12:34amMe

the system is beloved, we dare not change it

12:34amSasha

i hope to come across you someday

oh we dare

our discontent dares

12:34amMe

A system rigged to have unemployed people

To have unnecessary jobs and industries

to always put a bar in which one gets help

or not

whatever, i am mostly trying to disagree with whatever u say

see ya my friend

12:37amSasha

hahaha point taken dipshit

12:37amMe

just trying to spread the difficult material i have been reading in philosophy and social criticism

12:38amSasha

its greeted warmly, as a thought to be considered, and you a friend who's intentions are as moral and human as i can point to

good luck dude

and remember, i took part in your dance at prom

just like you expected people to lo