The End of an Era...

Dr. Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov

Welcome back, everyone. In this week’s post I will finally write about the conversation I’d been having with my suitemates about Descartes. It took a fairly long time for me to update everyone on what exactly has been happening concerning my suitemate’s (apparent) hatred for one of the most significant figures in philosophy. But, before I dwell into this account, I must sadly pronounce the end of “The Daily Philosophy…” Blog. I will no longer continue to post about the slightly ridiculous debates I have with my suitemates – partly because, to be honest, I can no longer pay attention to the words that come out of their mouths; they’re too…trivial. Ah! But don’t be saddened, old chap; I’m sure you’ll find another feeding place on the web that will serve you good mouthfuls of silly, highbrow stories.

Anyhow, a few weeks ago I ended my “Descartes” post by relating that he was a hippie. Indeed, this is not all my suite had to say. Apparently, my friend sees Descartes as an “old fool”; he remained our topic of conversation for a few nights. The Elder came to the conclusion that Descartes’ argument for what was knowledge and true (e.g. that he existed not as a physical being, but as a mind) was circular. Descartes deduced that what he perceived, and consequently “knew”, had to be true since God would not allow him to be deceived; God is infinitely good and would not allow any harm to come to anyone. Descartes did not have a valid, deductive argument for the existence of God, instead, he posited that God exists because he exists, period. My suitemate asserted Descartes would fit in nicely with today’s religious extremists; “perhaps he’d be the pastor of a mega-church”, he said. In the end, my old pal shred to pieces Descartes’ book on Epistemology.

The air seems to be filled with woe and misery as I type the final words of the post that will finalize this blog (perhaps, a sorrowful air comparable to the wretchedness of this past hollow’s eve). It’s been a grand time everyone, I hope the blog was enjoyable!

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Tea with Insects at a Garden

(Side Note: the discussion on Descartes will be continued in a subsequent post to this one; we are currently in the midst of a peculiar debate).

Bush Cockroach

Welcome back, everyone. Alright, this week we’re going to jump right into it (simply because this particular discussion occurred last night, and I’d rather not wander from its slightly icky details).  Also, this gathering of “sages” occurred in quite an eccentric place; I believe it was “Japanese tea garden”. In any case, our discussion took place in a small plaza filled with trees, brush, and disturbingly malformed bird ornaments. And, to be fair, I should mention that we did not “burn the midnight oil” this time—no, we were not enveloped by an eerie fog, that evening,  nor were we cloaked by the night’s wretchedness—instead, we were sitting in the aforementioned flamboyant plaza, drinking tea (sigh). Nonetheless, one of the guys brought up the tale of a man waking and finding an enormous cockroach in his bed; in fact, the cockroach was the man himslef. Of course, I’m referring to Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”.  One morning, Gregor (the main character), awakens and discovers that he has transformed into an insect. One would assume that a person learning she has transformed into a distorted, gruesome, creature over night would cause her to worry about her livelihood, specifically about her health, but in Gregor’s case, he was mainly concerned with being late for work. After discussing the novel for a bit, one of my friends (who is a Buddhist) said that even though Buddhists believe in not harming another living entity, he is now more so inclined not to hurt anything, especially insects; “you never know, it just might be a person who happened to be dealing with Gregor’s situation”. Earnestly, I’m still not all that sure if his comment was sincere; his face seemed quite serious.  My friend decided to make a paper-sculpture of Gregor to honor his memory (Gregor does, indeed, die at the end of the novel).  My other roommate and I have decided to not speak of Gregor or Kafka any longer…………..My Buddhist friend might otherwise set up a shrine for Gregor, or worse, start talking to them (jeesh).

Next time, I’ll discuss a bit of Descartes. Until then!

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Descartes Was a Hippie!

"The Hippie Chick"

Hi there, my devoted followers. It seems like I’ve spent enough time dwelling on the distant past and am now ready to begin some mind-mystifying narratives from sophomore year; I think you guys will find this one oddly entertaining, it happened a couple weeks ago. As usual, it was around one a.m. on a Thursday morning, and one of my roommates was fidgeting with a box of old books from last year. He kicked the box and said: “835 dollars later, and look where my ‘portals to knowledge’ are, in a scruffy old box, decaying” (yes, he bought his books at the campus book store…Jeesh, what a moron). After kicking the box, a book on “Descartes” flew out onto the ground; it was a book on Epistemology. He said “oh, hey you guys, remember what a cynic Descartes turned out to be? I mean, for Pete’s sake, he didn’t even trust what he thought he believed”; Descartes was obsessed with trying to ascertain what was true in life, and questioned the concept of "knowledge". Suitemate 1: “He thought he had everything figured out…what he "knew" was "true" and was considered “knowledge” because God is infinitely good and would not allow him to be deceived by anything”. The other “elder”: how could he be so confident that there wasn’t a demon deceiving him into believing that God would never allow him to be deceived? Suitemate 1: this is why I don’t believe in religion, you guys, it makes every instance of life extremely complicated. Perhaps Descartes would have been better off being an atheist…He would have done so much more than just sitting in an dark, smelly room, sipping his tea, and thinking about the possible deception that could intrude in his life, or possible “chains” that encroached his existence…I bet he was hippie”.

I’m sorry to leave everyone “hanging” but, this tale is a bit too long to finish in one entry. Stay tuned! I’ll write more about my friend’s strong (and mostly negative) opinion of Descartes in my next entry. Until then!


"The Hippie Chick" by mwlguide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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"Tonight, we're discussing the moral rights of bacon". "Of bacon?" "Yes, of bacon".

Hi again, everyone. As promised a couple weeks ago, this entry will focus on one of the silliest and most trivial philosophical discussions I can recall from last year--but, before you get too eager about hearing of the moral standing of strips of fat, I'll dissipate some questions that may come to mind. Can bacon think? Well, no. Is bacon alive? Uh....no,no, bacon is an inanimate, lifeless object that we consume (and, frankly, if you think bacon can understand you when you tell it it's "yummy", in the morning, perhaps you shouldn't be reading my blog and should be talking to your psychiatrist--or your strips of bacon, whichever you prefer). However, are pigs living, sentient beings? Ah! Now we are getting somewhere. As you've probably already guessed, my friends and I were not discussing whether we should treat food morally or not, but were arguing about the moral standing of animals.

Compliments of "EveryStockPhoto"

It was around one a.m. when we decided to have our usual nocturnal discussion, this past February. My friends and I were exhausted that evening, but were able to muster enough energy to discuss a topic we'd recently been lectured on in Ethics class. First, I set out my argument: Animals should not be treated morally (should not be treated as equals to humans) because they are not sentient beings--by "sentient" I am referring to the belief that animals cannot engage in meta-cognition; they cannot think of their own thoughts. My suite-mates agreed with this, but proposed that if animals are not sentient, then how are they able to decide when to eat?  I suggested that the answer was obvious: animals are driven purely by instinct and by the need for immediate gratification of primordial needs. Hence, an animal will not "decide" when to eat, but will simply eat when it feels hungry; it was at this point that the conversation got a bit out of hand, so to speak, and I began to think my friends never gave much thought to what they posited. Without making the slightest effort to oppose my position, they asked if farm pigs could acknowledge the purpose of their existence: to be consumed by a jolly diner.They obviously were not considering my argument, since this implies pigs can think--don't worry, your trip into the world of philosophy gets better, and our conversation got worse. Thereafter, one of my friends thought it'd be "worth considering" if bacon-fed-pigs could understand they were being cannibals...So on, and so forth, "we" came to the conclusion that pigs were savages for eating their own "people" and that the Trinity cats talked students into forming the "Cat Alliance" on campus.

My loving compadres are not insane, I promise, just a tad bit goofy, that's all.

Next time, on "The Thinkers who Should not be Thinking, but Should Rather be Sleeping, or at Least Forming Sensible Opinions on Topics We're Actually Talking Time to Discuss" I'll fill you folks in on a more recent discussion. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Until then!

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So it begins.....began?.....If I think, therefore I am.....What is the meaning of "blog"?

Well, last night was another “though-invigorating” evening. As it’s typical, it was one a.m. and I was sitting on my balcony with my two roommates at TU—who, by the way, think of 1:45 a.m. as the proper time to discuss why Descartes thought he was a chair, instead of resting for their 8:30 morning classes …But, before I dwell into the moral, metaphysical, and palpably silly discourse my buddies spurt out endlessly, I’ll give a short introduction to this blog and a bit of background on what to expect in following entries.

Courtesy of "Flickr.com".

My name’s John Gallegos and I am a sophomore at TU. I’m a psychology and philosophy double-major, and consequently, I’ve ended up rooming with two other philosophy-majors. I’d mention their names, but the two “elders” would prefer to remain anonymous. My two friends were my suitemates fresh-man year, and towards the end of last semester it became custom for the three of us to sit on their balcony, late at night, and talk about “the world”—in philosophical (well, so called “philosophical”) terms, of course; we would sit out there, fish out a white-board, and try to convince one another that trees actually saw us as plants…Ok, ok, perhaps our debates weren’t that outrageous, but they did get pretty darn ridiculous. Nonetheless, with time came wisdom, and now-a-days our conversation our much more sensical—we used to make assertions based on the knowledge we gained from our “intro. to philosophy” courses; I suppose you could say we have grown to be something like philosophers this year (but we’re not quite there yet).

Our arguments have endured the mind-easing and cool ways of summer, and got under-way during our first night back at TU; I’ve decided to let you guys into our erudite circle, and I will update all of you on the eccentric and “mind blasting” conversations the three of us will have in upcoming weeks. In my next post I’ll start you guys off with one of the sillier ones I can recall from last year, and will include a bit of the ones that occur in upcoming weeks. See you guys then.