Question: Well, gee. if being eternal is a necessary condition for being perfect, why don't us human want to be eternal? We hate the idea.
Plato suggests that being eternal and unchanging is something necessary to be perfect. Everything that exists in the form world is so. Why then, don't humans want to be eternal- you hear people talking about how living forever would be terrible. The reasons they give generally include, well your friends would die, or you'd get bored. I answer that if humans were eternal, your friends would not die, and you wouldn't get bored if you were unchanging. It's simply because we are imperfect in other ways that we cannot enjoy the perfection of immortality.
Additionally, the parallels between the perfect form of a human and the notion of a Christian Heaven are astonishing. In both, you have eternal life, and nothing ever changes because you will always be good and content with the happiness that you have in obeying the good lordy-lord, everyday. It seems strange to me that people wouldn't want eternal life on earth, but that they find heaven to be a reward...
03 February 2012
Problem with Public Education
Question: Does public education make a person reasonable? Does it help democracy?
Public education, as it stands now, is essentially mandated for all people below the age of 16. This means, simply, that people do not actively choose to go to school, and thereby they learn less because they have no interest in learning. Plato thinks that the problem with democracy is that often times people do not know what is best for them. In response to that, democratic countries have invoked public education. This, however, is not an admirable attempt. Attempting to force knowledge onto those who don't want it is essentially useless. Additionally, even if they did want it, the public education system is teaching students how to be a part of society, not how to change it, it's not teaching them how they should think about voting. In fact, it's not teaching them how to think at all, it teaches them what to think. The emphasis is on mathematics and history and science and job training.
I, personally, think that the public education system should be mandated from K - 4th grade, and then the students should be relieve until they want to come back. With that, I think that even post secondary education should be free, for those who want the knowledge, and not the job training. Mostly those who have continued their education of their own choice should hold voting power. Though I do think that a certain power should be granted to those who didn't choose education. The power of rebellion maybe...
Public education, as it stands now, is essentially mandated for all people below the age of 16. This means, simply, that people do not actively choose to go to school, and thereby they learn less because they have no interest in learning. Plato thinks that the problem with democracy is that often times people do not know what is best for them. In response to that, democratic countries have invoked public education. This, however, is not an admirable attempt. Attempting to force knowledge onto those who don't want it is essentially useless. Additionally, even if they did want it, the public education system is teaching students how to be a part of society, not how to change it, it's not teaching them how they should think about voting. In fact, it's not teaching them how to think at all, it teaches them what to think. The emphasis is on mathematics and history and science and job training.
I, personally, think that the public education system should be mandated from K - 4th grade, and then the students should be relieve until they want to come back. With that, I think that even post secondary education should be free, for those who want the knowledge, and not the job training. Mostly those who have continued their education of their own choice should hold voting power. Though I do think that a certain power should be granted to those who didn't choose education. The power of rebellion maybe...
01 February 2012
Crawling Back to the Cave
In the allegory of the cave people are entertained by shadows on the back wall of a cave. They have to desire to see things that are real on the outside of the cave. When they are told to let loose their chains and to see the real world, they sometimes choose not to, or have a really difficult time in deciding to abandon their unjustified beliefs. It occurred to me that going into the cave is much easier than exiting it, You can spend you entire life enjoying reality and not being mindlessly entertained with fiction or things that are unknowable. Some people, however, will find their way back to the cave to die. When faced with death, yearning for more life, or for some great sense of comfort and so on, many people crawl back to their cave and become content with and enjoy the storytelling of the shadowy puppeteer of religion.
31 January 2012
Learning v. Reiteration/Reinforcement
Response to Emily - Full post here - http://hobbitsworld42.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-we-learn-morality.html
I think an important distinction should be made between learning and reiterating. Which is to say that movies, games, and stories are not necessarily there to teach us any morals, but rather to reiterate moral ideas that society finds agreeable. I think the same principle which you mentioned in the example of killing applies to other moral problems. If left to our own devices we would realize that we don't want people to steal things from us, or if we are invested in a relationship that we intend to be between only two people, we wouldn't want the other to go to someone else. We don't (generally) want people to lie to us (though in some instances, most people could find lying agreeable). We learn all of these things almost independent from media.
So, I think that we are not necessarily taught our morals. I think we have an evolutionary set of morals which we come around to knowing anyway. Society uses the mediums of parents, media, school, and so on, to reiterate or fortify the agreeable, according to contemporary society, morals . We see this when we look at books and consider what parents taught their children in the days of The Bible compared to now. You won't see 'stone people for picking up sticks on the Sabbath' or 'stone disobedient child' in many recently written moral guidance books. If you do, you'll be told it's a metaphor or that it's irrelevant to our society.
I think an important distinction should be made between learning and reiterating. Which is to say that movies, games, and stories are not necessarily there to teach us any morals, but rather to reiterate moral ideas that society finds agreeable. I think the same principle which you mentioned in the example of killing applies to other moral problems. If left to our own devices we would realize that we don't want people to steal things from us, or if we are invested in a relationship that we intend to be between only two people, we wouldn't want the other to go to someone else. We don't (generally) want people to lie to us (though in some instances, most people could find lying agreeable). We learn all of these things almost independent from media.
So, I think that we are not necessarily taught our morals. I think we have an evolutionary set of morals which we come around to knowing anyway. Society uses the mediums of parents, media, school, and so on, to reiterate or fortify the agreeable, according to contemporary society, morals . We see this when we look at books and consider what parents taught their children in the days of The Bible compared to now. You won't see 'stone people for picking up sticks on the Sabbath' or 'stone disobedient child' in many recently written moral guidance books. If you do, you'll be told it's a metaphor or that it's irrelevant to our society.
For Culture's Sake Alone
Response to Katie - full post here : http://notralphwaldoemerson.blogspot.com/2012/01/broke.html
Given that extrinsic motivation undermines intrinsic motivation - meaning that rewards/bonuses and such actually decrease a person's motivation to make music because they want to. I would argue that people making music for music's sake, and teaching for teaching's sake, and being athletic (and fit) for athletic's sake, would greatly increase the culture and passion to perform.
If all musicians were so because they loved music and not money, it would rule out those who write music for wealth - the industry would be better and filled with more heart-felt music.
If all teachers were so because they loved teaching and not money, it would allow them to be fully engaged in their teaching and to be fully invested in the students, not the check - the education system would be better and filled with genuinely compassionate students. P.S. Teachers are not really paid enough where a person would want to become one to receive high pay.
I mean think about ancient civilizations during which time they had no currency, people taught and made music just for fun, to continue legends, and because it's just enjoyable, no culture was destroyed there.
As an additional note, if the entire society followed benevolence, then this economic system would probably not flourish.
Given that extrinsic motivation undermines intrinsic motivation - meaning that rewards/bonuses and such actually decrease a person's motivation to make music because they want to. I would argue that people making music for music's sake, and teaching for teaching's sake, and being athletic (and fit) for athletic's sake, would greatly increase the culture and passion to perform.
If all musicians were so because they loved music and not money, it would rule out those who write music for wealth - the industry would be better and filled with more heart-felt music.
If all teachers were so because they loved teaching and not money, it would allow them to be fully engaged in their teaching and to be fully invested in the students, not the check - the education system would be better and filled with genuinely compassionate students. P.S. Teachers are not really paid enough where a person would want to become one to receive high pay.
I mean think about ancient civilizations during which time they had no currency, people taught and made music just for fun, to continue legends, and because it's just enjoyable, no culture was destroyed there.
As an additional note, if the entire society followed benevolence, then this economic system would probably not flourish.
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