My email correspondence with my professor, Jack Whelan, about my philosophical musings....
HI Neva--
Thank you for this reflection. I think you were very eloquent in expressing how the themes of this course affected you. I have commented below in blue interspersed throughout your reflection.
Have a great break--
jw
On Mar 13, 2019, at 3:08 PM, Neva C. Hahn <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Professor Whelan!
Here is my essay to end the quarter…thank you for a very thoughtful class, I hope to take another with you soon!
Sincerely,
Neva Crnković Hahn
I feel as though my thoughts that I want to convey to you, what I want to write down, are too muddled and cumbersome for my limited vocabulary. Like Bostrom trying to describe his utopia, I am having trouble explaining what I believe it means to be a human, what I believe it means to live and die on this Earth.
I will make no promises of the eloquence of this essay, I just hope I am able to at least elude to what I wish to say.
People have laughed at me for being “too optimistic” before, for laughing too much and being too loud. For always taking sides with the “bad guy” because I believe everyone’s heart has pureness and goodness somewhere within. But I think if you don’t live life with optimism, for the sole purpose of living, if you don’t learn for the purpose of learning, and if you don’t feel for the purpose of feeling than you won’t feel fulfilled, and the alienation that starts from birth (via the Oedipus complex) slowly begins to take over until the you inside you conflicts with the you outside—resulting in hatred and confusion, with no one to blame and no one to turn to except yourself.
I think the most dangerous sort of alienation, like Marx said, are constraints created and put on by us humans, for us. One of his examples was religion, which makes sense to me. In its purest form, religion is a belief of something greater than oneself, a belief in stories, which I think can be magical. But the structures and rules of many religions (and many other societal norms and practices) are shackles that, if we free ourselves from, we will become closer to the natural and imaginative wonders that this world can provide. I think that being humanist, optimistic, someone who many will call naïve, will open your mind to the possibilities in this Earth and to the true nature of Being.
There’s a saying in the gospels to be wise as serpents and guileless as doves. Most of us are more inclined one way or the other, and so we have to learn to strengthen the weaker side without losing the qualities of the stronger.
We can form our then open mind to control our matter, our reality. Then, our Beings will be aloud to freely roam outside of our bodies, allowing everyone to communicate and live harmoniously, with complete understanding of one another. Sounds a bit like the utopia Bostrom was describing, which I truly believe is a real possibility for every individual to achieve.
Being without bodies is the classic Platonic/Neoplatonic/Gonostic ideal, but I like the German Idealists' idea of Nature becoming aware of itself in the human rather than the human escaping nature, i.e., the body. It requires more of a commitment to be in the world and to transform it rather than to escape it.
To be pessimistic is to be unrealistic, as our confines will then reside only inside of us, and optimism and freedom (coming from individuality) will free us. To attempt to provide an example for my ramblings, I will talk about a tree. This particular tree is on a corner, on the property of a very small house. It is a tall silver fur tree, rising high and proud. When my grandfather was alive and healthy, he absolutely loved that tree, and walked for miles from our house just to visit it. When he passed away, our family still looks at that tree as containing a vital part of his soul that is still alive and living. When we drive past it, we say ‘dobar dan, dedino drvo,’ which means ‘good day, grandpa’s tree’. When I look at it, I see him there as healthy and mobile, even though in this life I only knew him as confined to his armchair in Croatia. My mind has created this image of him there, and I believe that image has shaped reality. It will sound silly, but I truly believe that a part of him is in that tree, and it is there because I believe in it so strongly. Beliefs can mold our realities, our minds can predict matter. I think that the fact we give so little power to our minds, that we don’t believe our minds can produce external events, in addition to internal.
I like very much this way of remembering your grandfather. It would be very good if we could think of everybody in our lives as their best selves by developing similar symbols that represent their best possibilities.
I believe this is why the industrial revolution diminished our capacity for mindfulness, because when we make something, some material thing, a part of our mind, a part of our soul is in that thing; in an assembly line, however, we give up that individuality and the soul completely leaves ones work. When a part of yourself is in your work, pride is engrained in everything you do and make. This pride, and any sense of being a part of something greater than oneself, I believe, is what makes ‘work’ or making/doing things enjoyable and pleasurable, even if it isn’t what most would typically consider fun.
Good summary of Marx’s idea about the alienaton of labor.
Spieltribe, the pleasure drive, is something we as humans don’t give into enough. People say having fun is a waste of time when tasks have yet to be completed, but then also judge if you find pleasure in the task itself. I believe that having fun, finding pleasure in life, in work, in relationships, is the key to enjoying and understanding the human experience. If we see everything from an optimistic perspective, a brighter light maybe, then it’ll all be clearer.
To have a spirit of playfulness comes easily to some temperaments, some of whom are people who never grow up. The real challenge is to be both a grown up in full possession of his or her autonomy and still to maintain a lightheartedness and nimbleness of spirt. That was at the heart of Schiller’s spieltriev idea. He acknowledged the importance of Kant’s idea of duty as governing the ethical life, but he wanted to find a way of being dutiful that was also playful, that wasn’t just an onerous grind. Easier said than done, but it’s a worthy aspiration.
An assembly line would make ourselves disassociate from what we make, making the pleasure disassociate from our work until they become completely separate entities, making boredom run rapid, and, thus, resulting in a world of people turning to virtual reality to gain instant gratification and pleasure. Although I believe a certain amount of boredom is actually helpful in the expansion of learning and understanding—which is why I believe that people in prison excel in studies and learning when given the chance—too much boredom without anything new to think about would be just horrible. Work should entertain play, and the other way around, creating an equilibrium between the two.
I think the biggest challenge for your generation will be to find the world that is not presented through a screen interesting. I fear the seductive qualities of technologies that draw us into a deeper forgetfulness of Being, to use Heidegger’s famous phrase for what ails moderns.
There should be soul in the things we do, such as in some remote communities, where societal rules don’t confine you (as a construct made by us to imprison us), where you are aloud to play, but still take pride in the work you do as it betters the people/places around you, sounds the closest to the answers we are all seeking. Spieltribe will free our minds, which will possibly lead to the control of the world around us and our realities.
After reading through this, I realize that maybe I am naïve to deeper issues, naïve to the necessary anxiety that we all feel, too optimistic—but I can’t help but imagine utopia for the mind, where things are as they should be—whatever that comes to mean. I hope that one day my family and I, and every single other person can find their own utopia of the mind, and create a reality for themselves that answers all their deeper hopes.
See comment above regarding clever, pragmatic, calculative, sometimes cynical serpents and naive, optimistic, open and innocent doves. Both are important and both need to be held in tension. I know many people who were born naive optimistic doves who were disappointed to learn that their optimism was not supported by the hard facts of the real world, and so they would adopt a cynicism and bitterness in reaction to that disappointment. The world is ofter a hard cruel place, and yet it is also a place full of wonder and possibility.
This philosophy course has made me pretty scared to be honest. I’m scared I’ll never really come to a coherent conclusion about what I believe and what I don’t believe—what the world is, truly, and why I was placed here in this place at this time. How to say any of this eloquently in writing. And if I can’t even figure out what I believe, then how am I supposed to know what Truth, or Being is.
It’s not important to have a complete philosophy. I think wisdom begins in acknowledging that what we know is dwarfed by what we don’t. But that doesn’t mean that we know nothing. I think for someone like you it starts with what your moral intuition tells you about the fundamental goodness in things. This is not the whole truth, but it is an important part, and that intution should always be a kind of North Star for you. As you mature, you will develop a more nuanced, textured way of experiencing and thinking about the world. Uncertainty and anxiety are kind of baked into the human condition, and it’s ok The real question is whether you let it paralyze you or whether you find a way of moving forward despite them.
I have been asking myself some questions, and sometimes I feel like I’m on the brink of understanding…understanding something, but the moment always passes. I guess I have time to figure things out, but I don’t want to be wasting my life in the meantime. It has also made me think about my family, and hope they are thinking about everything, without just living life on the surface. If more people did that, thought deeply, like this class has forced me to, then I believe the world would be clearer and brighter for everybody.
I’m glad this course brought some of these questions and issues into focus for you. That was my goal. I threw a lot at you, and some of it will stick. But more importanty perhaps some of the ideas will be like seeds that germinate and take root and make a difference for you later in life. I hope so.
HI Neva--
Thank you for this reflection. I think you were very eloquent in expressing how the themes of this course affected you. I have commented below in blue interspersed throughout your reflection.
Have a great break--
jw
On Mar 13, 2019, at 3:08 PM, Neva C. Hahn <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Professor Whelan!
Here is my essay to end the quarter…thank you for a very thoughtful class, I hope to take another with you soon!
Sincerely,
Neva Crnković Hahn
I feel as though my thoughts that I want to convey to you, what I want to write down, are too muddled and cumbersome for my limited vocabulary. Like Bostrom trying to describe his utopia, I am having trouble explaining what I believe it means to be a human, what I believe it means to live and die on this Earth.
I will make no promises of the eloquence of this essay, I just hope I am able to at least elude to what I wish to say.
People have laughed at me for being “too optimistic” before, for laughing too much and being too loud. For always taking sides with the “bad guy” because I believe everyone’s heart has pureness and goodness somewhere within. But I think if you don’t live life with optimism, for the sole purpose of living, if you don’t learn for the purpose of learning, and if you don’t feel for the purpose of feeling than you won’t feel fulfilled, and the alienation that starts from birth (via the Oedipus complex) slowly begins to take over until the you inside you conflicts with the you outside—resulting in hatred and confusion, with no one to blame and no one to turn to except yourself.
I think the most dangerous sort of alienation, like Marx said, are constraints created and put on by us humans, for us. One of his examples was religion, which makes sense to me. In its purest form, religion is a belief of something greater than oneself, a belief in stories, which I think can be magical. But the structures and rules of many religions (and many other societal norms and practices) are shackles that, if we free ourselves from, we will become closer to the natural and imaginative wonders that this world can provide. I think that being humanist, optimistic, someone who many will call naïve, will open your mind to the possibilities in this Earth and to the true nature of Being.
There’s a saying in the gospels to be wise as serpents and guileless as doves. Most of us are more inclined one way or the other, and so we have to learn to strengthen the weaker side without losing the qualities of the stronger.
We can form our then open mind to control our matter, our reality. Then, our Beings will be aloud to freely roam outside of our bodies, allowing everyone to communicate and live harmoniously, with complete understanding of one another. Sounds a bit like the utopia Bostrom was describing, which I truly believe is a real possibility for every individual to achieve.
Being without bodies is the classic Platonic/Neoplatonic/Gonostic ideal, but I like the German Idealists' idea of Nature becoming aware of itself in the human rather than the human escaping nature, i.e., the body. It requires more of a commitment to be in the world and to transform it rather than to escape it.
To be pessimistic is to be unrealistic, as our confines will then reside only inside of us, and optimism and freedom (coming from individuality) will free us. To attempt to provide an example for my ramblings, I will talk about a tree. This particular tree is on a corner, on the property of a very small house. It is a tall silver fur tree, rising high and proud. When my grandfather was alive and healthy, he absolutely loved that tree, and walked for miles from our house just to visit it. When he passed away, our family still looks at that tree as containing a vital part of his soul that is still alive and living. When we drive past it, we say ‘dobar dan, dedino drvo,’ which means ‘good day, grandpa’s tree’. When I look at it, I see him there as healthy and mobile, even though in this life I only knew him as confined to his armchair in Croatia. My mind has created this image of him there, and I believe that image has shaped reality. It will sound silly, but I truly believe that a part of him is in that tree, and it is there because I believe in it so strongly. Beliefs can mold our realities, our minds can predict matter. I think that the fact we give so little power to our minds, that we don’t believe our minds can produce external events, in addition to internal.
I like very much this way of remembering your grandfather. It would be very good if we could think of everybody in our lives as their best selves by developing similar symbols that represent their best possibilities.
I believe this is why the industrial revolution diminished our capacity for mindfulness, because when we make something, some material thing, a part of our mind, a part of our soul is in that thing; in an assembly line, however, we give up that individuality and the soul completely leaves ones work. When a part of yourself is in your work, pride is engrained in everything you do and make. This pride, and any sense of being a part of something greater than oneself, I believe, is what makes ‘work’ or making/doing things enjoyable and pleasurable, even if it isn’t what most would typically consider fun.
Good summary of Marx’s idea about the alienaton of labor.
Spieltribe, the pleasure drive, is something we as humans don’t give into enough. People say having fun is a waste of time when tasks have yet to be completed, but then also judge if you find pleasure in the task itself. I believe that having fun, finding pleasure in life, in work, in relationships, is the key to enjoying and understanding the human experience. If we see everything from an optimistic perspective, a brighter light maybe, then it’ll all be clearer.
To have a spirit of playfulness comes easily to some temperaments, some of whom are people who never grow up. The real challenge is to be both a grown up in full possession of his or her autonomy and still to maintain a lightheartedness and nimbleness of spirt. That was at the heart of Schiller’s spieltriev idea. He acknowledged the importance of Kant’s idea of duty as governing the ethical life, but he wanted to find a way of being dutiful that was also playful, that wasn’t just an onerous grind. Easier said than done, but it’s a worthy aspiration.
An assembly line would make ourselves disassociate from what we make, making the pleasure disassociate from our work until they become completely separate entities, making boredom run rapid, and, thus, resulting in a world of people turning to virtual reality to gain instant gratification and pleasure. Although I believe a certain amount of boredom is actually helpful in the expansion of learning and understanding—which is why I believe that people in prison excel in studies and learning when given the chance—too much boredom without anything new to think about would be just horrible. Work should entertain play, and the other way around, creating an equilibrium between the two.
I think the biggest challenge for your generation will be to find the world that is not presented through a screen interesting. I fear the seductive qualities of technologies that draw us into a deeper forgetfulness of Being, to use Heidegger’s famous phrase for what ails moderns.
There should be soul in the things we do, such as in some remote communities, where societal rules don’t confine you (as a construct made by us to imprison us), where you are aloud to play, but still take pride in the work you do as it betters the people/places around you, sounds the closest to the answers we are all seeking. Spieltribe will free our minds, which will possibly lead to the control of the world around us and our realities.
After reading through this, I realize that maybe I am naïve to deeper issues, naïve to the necessary anxiety that we all feel, too optimistic—but I can’t help but imagine utopia for the mind, where things are as they should be—whatever that comes to mean. I hope that one day my family and I, and every single other person can find their own utopia of the mind, and create a reality for themselves that answers all their deeper hopes.
See comment above regarding clever, pragmatic, calculative, sometimes cynical serpents and naive, optimistic, open and innocent doves. Both are important and both need to be held in tension. I know many people who were born naive optimistic doves who were disappointed to learn that their optimism was not supported by the hard facts of the real world, and so they would adopt a cynicism and bitterness in reaction to that disappointment. The world is ofter a hard cruel place, and yet it is also a place full of wonder and possibility.
This philosophy course has made me pretty scared to be honest. I’m scared I’ll never really come to a coherent conclusion about what I believe and what I don’t believe—what the world is, truly, and why I was placed here in this place at this time. How to say any of this eloquently in writing. And if I can’t even figure out what I believe, then how am I supposed to know what Truth, or Being is.
It’s not important to have a complete philosophy. I think wisdom begins in acknowledging that what we know is dwarfed by what we don’t. But that doesn’t mean that we know nothing. I think for someone like you it starts with what your moral intuition tells you about the fundamental goodness in things. This is not the whole truth, but it is an important part, and that intution should always be a kind of North Star for you. As you mature, you will develop a more nuanced, textured way of experiencing and thinking about the world. Uncertainty and anxiety are kind of baked into the human condition, and it’s ok The real question is whether you let it paralyze you or whether you find a way of moving forward despite them.
I have been asking myself some questions, and sometimes I feel like I’m on the brink of understanding…understanding something, but the moment always passes. I guess I have time to figure things out, but I don’t want to be wasting my life in the meantime. It has also made me think about my family, and hope they are thinking about everything, without just living life on the surface. If more people did that, thought deeply, like this class has forced me to, then I believe the world would be clearer and brighter for everybody.
I’m glad this course brought some of these questions and issues into focus for you. That was my goal. I threw a lot at you, and some of it will stick. But more importanty perhaps some of the ideas will be like seeds that germinate and take root and make a difference for you later in life. I hope so.