In Response to Misty's Post

"Would you give up your feelings and your life if it meant no more suffering? if it changed the way you lived and thought?"

I think that suffering is a necessary part of every life, and that life wouldn't be "life" without it. Suffering helps us appreciate all of the things that make us happy. Giving up feeling all together I think would be even worse than suffering. What use is life/thought if we can't truly experience it through emotion? Emmotion and feelings are what drive us to live and pursue our desires, though it is true that they also bring us sadness when we are not successful in reaching our goals, or when we experince loss. Please excuse my cheesy reference, but to me, the idea of being void of feelings whould put me in the same state as the Harry Potter villian Voldemort (though not necessarily as evil.) He is notorious for being unfased by the death and suffering of others, even his own followrs, but thoughout the books Harry Potter claims to pitty Voldemort for not being able to experience love and friendship.

What are some good philospohical books you have read and would reccomend?

Piggybacking on my post on Megan's post

Spekaing of the vastness of the uviverse, I found this interesting webpage with some interesting images on the topic. Enjoy.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2AKPqN/www.postimage.org/image.php%253Fv%253Dgx1G8GWS

My Theory of Human Nature (an addition to my other two posts for this week)

My current theory of human nature is all about finding balance. I like to think of each person’s personality/choices in the way Plato describes them: in terms of having a rational side and an emotional side, only my theory suggests that everyone needs to balance the two equally to maintain the “good life.” This could be looked at from a scientific perspective in terms of humans being left-brained versus right-brained, but overall I don’t believe that my theory can be explained from a scientific perspective (a possible downfall.) We need to be practical for survival purposes, and to keep society running smoothly, but I think that satisfying emotional inklings is equally important. We can’t have one in the absence of the other. After all, if we don’t enjoy and appreciate the life we are given, what is its purpose? This aspect of my theory of human nature was somewhat taken from the chapter we read on existentialism. We all, inevitably are going to die, and there is nothing we can do about it, therefore we must enjoy what we have now. My theory of human nature does not directly address the questions of afterlife or fate vs. freewill (another possible fault,) but instead requests that we accept that these questions will forever (in this life) remain unanswered. It does not deny, or encourage, the choosing of a particular religion since there is no evidence to prove or deny the existence of a God/ greater power/afterlife one way or another. Though, my theory of human nature does support the idea of something like a soul, that enables us to reflect independently on our choices, follow unique paths, have unique personalities/interests, and be attracted to different people/lifestyles. What happens to this “soul” after death is a complete mystery. All that we can be sure of is that we exist, because we are conscious, so we must do the most we can with what we have, and what we are sure of, but not without morals. I believe that by being privileged with the potential to live a good life comes with the notion that others are equally deserving of this opportunity. Not only should we strive for emotional/rational well being, but we should help others, or at least be respectful of others’ decision to do the same, as you would have them do for you. This leads to the debate over whether we, as humans, are innately good or evil. In my opinion, we are born neutral, and evil comes from the disrespecting of others’ desires to have a good life unless those desires happen to harm others or their moral goals etc. It seems that very few people do evil simply for the sake of being evil, but rather to fulfill selfish desires. I believe that this comes from our being animals, we are inclined to put ourselves before others for survival reasons, as this was probably necessary in earlier times.

Q:What is your opinion on this? What are some other faults to my theory? Are there any other things you would like me to address?

Since we've had so many posts on immortality and life...

"Geneticists Discover a Way to Extend Lifespans to 800 Years"
(Well, they're working on it)

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2Wpb9F/io9.com/345728/geneticists-discover-a-way-to-extend-lifespans-to-800-years

What do you think of this?

Response to Ausin's Blog

"Living a good life in this world is very difficult for many people. Do you think that there will ever be a world peace for everyone to have a good life?"

I don't think that is possible to have a perfect life, just as they like it, simply because we all have different opinions and perspectives that interfere with each other, but I think that we each have the potential to satisfy at least some our goals. This topic brings me to what I will be discussing in my book review next week on Philip Zimbardo's book on the Stanford Prison experiment. He looks at good and evil as differing perspectives rather than entities, and claims that we can only understand and transform one or the other by somehow gaining a glimpse of that perspective, rather than by immediately attacking an other's views. I think a greater number of people could experience "the good life" if everyone was more open-minded and respectful of others perspectives, though it is very important to hold close your own beliefs and understand your own reasons for them.

What do you think is the best path to "a good life" for the greatest number of people?

In response to Megan's Question

Q: "Is there something else really out there?"

In my opinion, it seems there must be. The universe is just so vast that it wouldn't make sense for us to be the only ones in existence. I don't necessarily think little green men make art in our crop fields, but I believe that there is more to the universe than what goes on on our tiny planet. I couldn't explain it, though. I think it is in our nature to believe in greater forces/beings/worlds/lives than the ones we experience, and that is in part how we have come up with concepts of Gods and afterlives. As hard as we try to explain everything in terms of religion and science, there is still so much that we don't know, and that we will probably never know, but still, we are compartmentalizing creatures and do our best to explain what we can. I tend to think anything is possible.

Q:Do you think the mysteries of the universe are better kept a mystery? Would you want to know them all if you could?

Discussion on Faith

In class this week we spent some time discussing the concepts of faith, belief, trust, doubt etc. A popular idea presented in our class suggested that faith is the trust in the absence of doubt, and that doubt diminishes faith. Though this is true in a very obvious sense (we can’t have complete faith in something if we doubt its existence,) I think that having some doubt builds a more secure, earnest faith. As we discussed in class, if there is a God, he/she gave us intellect and the ability to reason, and would want us to question what others tell us, rather than believe blindly. Having knowledge of the weaknesses and strengths of each religion we may be considering helps us make more informed decisions, and since statistics say that people are typically born into their chosen religions, I doubt any “all good” God would condemn an individual for being born into the “wrong” culture. Being skeptical of certain aspects of a religion doesn’t necessarily mean that faith is not present, but that the faith that is present is more sincere because it exists in spite of doubt.

Q:(Off-topic) What was your favorite class discussion this semester in NHN?