It's been an amazing day. I've wanted to see Barack Obama in the White House for years now, and it's finally happened. I don't have the words to describe how I'm feeling about this. For the first time in my life, I've felt a passion for a politician and what they're trying to do for our country, and now that man is the most powerful man in the world. Let's see what he can achieve.
I've heard a song on CNN.com's coverage (which I've been watching rabidly all day long) that fit perfectly with how I'm feeling right now, so I thought I'd share it.
Lyrics:
I'm taking my freedom
Pulling it off the shelf
Putting it on my chain
Wearing it 'round my neck
I'm taking my freedom
Putting it in my car
Wherever I choose to go
It will take me far
I'm…
Chorus:
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden, golden
(Repeat)
Verse 2:
I'm taking my own freedom
Putting it in my song
Singing loud and strong
Grooving all day long
I'm taking my freedom
Putting it in my stroll
I be high-stepping ya'll
Letting the joy unfold
I'm…
Chorus:
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden, golden
(Repeat)
Verse 3:
I'm holding on to my freedom
Can't take it from me
I was born into it and it comes naturally
I'm strumming my own freedom
Playing the God in me
Representing His glory
Hope He's proud of me!
Yeah!
Chorus:
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden (Hope he's proud of me!)
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden
Living my life like it's golden, golden
(Repeat)
Hook:
Living my life, Like it's golden, golden, golden, golden, golden, golden
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Simpsons on the couch
I grew up on the Simpsons and it's managed to remain one of my favorite shows even now. I stumbled across this little compilation of every couch scene from the opening credits and thought I'd share:
Blathering about the Holy Land
I am so sick of the Middle East, and especially the whole problem of Israel and the Holy Land. How dumb is it that the three biggest religions (I think - I'm pretty sure Hindus and Buddhists don't have the numbers to crack into the top 3), which all share a common background and should at least be somewhat civil to each other, claim the same 10,000 square miles as their holy land (or one of its holy lands in the case of Islam)? Couldn't at least one of them have just picked southern Europe? Or Africa? Or ANYWHERE else, just to make things easier for the rest of us?
Sure, officially religion isn't at the heart of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's "just" a matter of the Palestinians displaced by the United Nations' creation of the Israeli state - but it's still a religious matter at heart. Given the fact that both sides have been saying for more than a dozen years that a two-state solution is an acceptable one, why is this still going on? Oh, that's right - Hamas is dedicated not only to achieving independence, but also to the utter destruction of Israel itself. Man, I never would have thought that I'd be missing Yasir Arafat, but with the way things have devolved since his death, I have to say that I actually do. He at least managed to sort of rein in the extremists on the Palestinian side of things and offered a singular path of negotiation to try and get a solution figured out.
Still, given the fact that Islam shares the same tradition of Abraham and Moses with Judaism, you'd think they could figure something out that's acceptable to both sides. I mean, if you believe that Moses was a prophet and that he received the 10 Commandments (which I think is a common belief for both religions, but I could be wrong about Islam), then that basic concept of "Thou shalt not kill" is ingrained in both, so where's the peace? Tell me - WHERE... IS... THE... PEACE?? At the very least, can't they bond a bit over the fact they were both persecuted horribly in Europe for most of the last 1000 years?
Sure, officially religion isn't at the heart of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's "just" a matter of the Palestinians displaced by the United Nations' creation of the Israeli state - but it's still a religious matter at heart. Given the fact that both sides have been saying for more than a dozen years that a two-state solution is an acceptable one, why is this still going on? Oh, that's right - Hamas is dedicated not only to achieving independence, but also to the utter destruction of Israel itself. Man, I never would have thought that I'd be missing Yasir Arafat, but with the way things have devolved since his death, I have to say that I actually do. He at least managed to sort of rein in the extremists on the Palestinian side of things and offered a singular path of negotiation to try and get a solution figured out.
Still, given the fact that Islam shares the same tradition of Abraham and Moses with Judaism, you'd think they could figure something out that's acceptable to both sides. I mean, if you believe that Moses was a prophet and that he received the 10 Commandments (which I think is a common belief for both religions, but I could be wrong about Islam), then that basic concept of "Thou shalt not kill" is ingrained in both, so where's the peace? Tell me - WHERE... IS... THE... PEACE?? At the very least, can't they bond a bit over the fact they were both persecuted horribly in Europe for most of the last 1000 years?
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Thoughts on Bertrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy", part II
"In all history, nothing is so surprising or so difficult to account for as the sudden rise of civilization in Greece. ... They invented mathematics and science and philosophy; they first wrote history as opposed to mere annals; they speculated freely about life, without being bound in the fetters of any inherited orthodoxy." - p. 3, Part I.
It really is amazing to look at what the Greeks did and the ensuing progress in the West. I've always been impressed by what they achieved and the impact that they've had on civilization ever since, even down until today. But when you frame the way Russell did here - they not only excelled at what they did, they excelled at it with nothing to build upon - it's truly mind boggling. Every great philosopher/intellectual has had at least some prior work to pull from and add to, but not the Greeks. And yet, they still pushed human thought so far forward.
I mean, the geometry we learn today is at heart the same as what the Greeks formalized 2,300 years ago. It's even still called Euclidean geometry, and is sufficient to describe nearly the entire universe under "normal" human conditions. How freaky is that to think that basic Greek mathematics is still being taught 23 centuries later??
It really is amazing to look at what the Greeks did and the ensuing progress in the West. I've always been impressed by what they achieved and the impact that they've had on civilization ever since, even down until today. But when you frame the way Russell did here - they not only excelled at what they did, they excelled at it with nothing to build upon - it's truly mind boggling. Every great philosopher/intellectual has had at least some prior work to pull from and add to, but not the Greeks. And yet, they still pushed human thought so far forward.
I mean, the geometry we learn today is at heart the same as what the Greeks formalized 2,300 years ago. It's even still called Euclidean geometry, and is sufficient to describe nearly the entire universe under "normal" human conditions. How freaky is that to think that basic Greek mathematics is still being taught 23 centuries later??
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Thoughts on Bertrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy", part I
I've gone through this book a few times, and I always stumble across bits that stick in my mind. I've decided to read it again, and I figure I'll take notes on it and give some of my thoughts on it here for my own use later and for anyone else who might be interested. This will be an on-going project as I make my way through this again as a secondary philosophical pursuit while I also tangle with Jacques Derrida for the first time (an undertaking which is kicking my intellectual behind right now, btw).
"Science tells us what we can know... Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to life without the support of comforting fairy tales. ... To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it." - p. xiv, Introductory.
This really brought into focus what it is about Russell that's first appealed to me. In my struggles with religion and belief and where it is that I stood, I had never been able to accurately describe what I was or what I believed. I bounced between calling myself a doubter or an atheist, but I knew I had unmanageable problems with the atheistic approach. It wasn't until I read Russell's description of agnosticism and why he embraced it that my own stance was crystallized and became clear. I'm a firm believer that we don't, and in all likelihood can't, know the answer of whether or not there is any form of God out there (regardless of how much we might lean one way or another). With that inability for certain knowledge on either end, the only logically sensible position is to remain undecided and keep searching and pushing. The result can either end up in finding proof of God or in coming asymptotically close to "proving" God doesn't exist (as proving non-existence of anything is rather tricky even in much simpler cases). And so the discussion keeps marching forward.
As a totally irrelevant tangent, this is the first time I've delved into philosophy using an eBook as the text. It's an interesting experience. I've always had that comfort of holding the book in my hands and having that smell of a book as integral parts of the experience, and now I'm just looking at the screen while digesting the words, as my music plays away in the background and I keep cmd-tabbing over here to type some more. It's not better or worse - just a different experience of reading.
"Science tells us what we can know... Theology, on the other hand, induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance, and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to life without the support of comforting fairy tales. ... To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it." - p. xiv, Introductory.
This really brought into focus what it is about Russell that's first appealed to me. In my struggles with religion and belief and where it is that I stood, I had never been able to accurately describe what I was or what I believed. I bounced between calling myself a doubter or an atheist, but I knew I had unmanageable problems with the atheistic approach. It wasn't until I read Russell's description of agnosticism and why he embraced it that my own stance was crystallized and became clear. I'm a firm believer that we don't, and in all likelihood can't, know the answer of whether or not there is any form of God out there (regardless of how much we might lean one way or another). With that inability for certain knowledge on either end, the only logically sensible position is to remain undecided and keep searching and pushing. The result can either end up in finding proof of God or in coming asymptotically close to "proving" God doesn't exist (as proving non-existence of anything is rather tricky even in much simpler cases). And so the discussion keeps marching forward.
As a totally irrelevant tangent, this is the first time I've delved into philosophy using an eBook as the text. It's an interesting experience. I've always had that comfort of holding the book in my hands and having that smell of a book as integral parts of the experience, and now I'm just looking at the screen while digesting the words, as my music plays away in the background and I keep cmd-tabbing over here to type some more. It's not better or worse - just a different experience of reading.
Quotations
I've always wanted to keep track of some of my favorite quotes, so I'm going to start doing that on here. Most of them are things that have made me think, or things that I agree with, or things that were funny enough that I laughed out loud when I read/heard them. Others just found their way into the land of my mind by whatever means they employed. So here's a few that I've collected over the last couple of years as a start to all this.
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. -- Bertrand Russell
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -- Bertrand Russell
I wish to propose for the reader's favorable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: That it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. I must, of course, admit that if such an opinion became common it would completely transform our social life and political system; since both are at present faultless, this must weigh against it. -- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical Essays I" - taken from "Contact" by Carl Sagan
The tragedy of one successful politician after another is the gradual substitution of narcissism for an interest in the community and the measures for which he stands. The man who is only interested in himself is not admirable, and is not felt to be so. Consequently, the man whose sole concern with the world is that it shall admire him is not likely to achieve his object. -- Bertrand Russell, "The Conquest of Happiness", p. 20
Drunkenness, for example, is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness. -- Bertrand Russell, Conquest, p. 22
And not only is love a source of delight, but its absence is a source of pain. -- Bertrand Russell, Conquest, p. 34
"Finding someone is like finding yourself a home
If the key fits - just open the door
'Cause you're never gonna spend a lonely day here
Come and watch your fear fly away
And you'll never hunger for a greener side than here"
-- "Cottonwool" by Lamb
All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small. -- Lao Tzu
"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." -- Anais Nin, quoted at http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12092005.shtml
If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater. But if science is a topic of general interest and concern - if both its delights and social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press and at the dinner table - we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us. -- Carl Sagan, "Broca's Brain", p. 14
If a man is in the forest and his wife isn't there, is he still wrong? -- Fortune on Worldwinner.com
"Spinoza was persecuted during his lifetime, and after death his works were condemned as profane, blasphemous and atheistic. And yet it is probable that few men more sincerely religious than he have ever lived and taught. His doctrine was one of abnegation of self and patient devotion to the eternal. He was in love with the Infinite; it was Nature that fluttered his pulse; it was the Spirit of the universe that filled his heart with living springs. ... But in all sincerity one may ask which is the more blasphemous, nay, which is the more vulgar, the mind that pictures the Deity as a jealous tyrant who keeps the world as a separate establishment, or the thinker who seeks to banish the dream that veils the part from the whole, and who shows the soul of man and of the universe to be the same? -- Edgar Saltus, "The Anatomy of Negation"
"Aggrandise God; free Him from the captivity of temples and creeds. See Him everywhere, or say that He does not exist." -- Denis Diderot, quoted in "The Anatomy of Negation"
"Lastly, in admitting the doctrine that an Intelligence presided over the formation of the world and still watches over its well-being, it is hard to reconcile the theory of that Intelligence with the idea of infinite wisdom and power. For, to the misfortune of humanity, this world of ours is very far from being the best one possible. With the best of intentions, we are therefore unable to recognise any other God than one who, at most, is material, limited and dependent. I do not know whether this view is the correct one, but certainly it is not that of the Deity's partisans, who would much prefer to have us atheists than the Spinozists that we are. To mollify them, let us turn sceptic and repeat with Montaigne, Que sais-je?" -- Jean le RondD'Alembert, quoted in "The Anatomy of Negation"
"When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true." —- Bertrand Russell, p. 39, "A History of Western Philosophy"
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. -- Bertrand Russell
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -- Bertrand Russell
I wish to propose for the reader's favorable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: That it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. I must, of course, admit that if such an opinion became common it would completely transform our social life and political system; since both are at present faultless, this must weigh against it. -- Bertrand Russell, "Skeptical Essays I" - taken from "Contact" by Carl Sagan
The tragedy of one successful politician after another is the gradual substitution of narcissism for an interest in the community and the measures for which he stands. The man who is only interested in himself is not admirable, and is not felt to be so. Consequently, the man whose sole concern with the world is that it shall admire him is not likely to achieve his object. -- Bertrand Russell, "The Conquest of Happiness", p. 20
Drunkenness, for example, is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness. -- Bertrand Russell, Conquest, p. 22
And not only is love a source of delight, but its absence is a source of pain. -- Bertrand Russell, Conquest, p. 34
"Finding someone is like finding yourself a home
If the key fits - just open the door
'Cause you're never gonna spend a lonely day here
Come and watch your fear fly away
And you'll never hunger for a greener side than here"
-- "Cottonwool" by Lamb
All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small. -- Lao Tzu
"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish it's source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." -- Anais Nin, quoted at http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12092005.shtml
If science is considered a closed priesthood, too difficult and arcane for the average person to understand, the dangers of abuse are greater. But if science is a topic of general interest and concern - if both its delights and social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press and at the dinner table - we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us. -- Carl Sagan, "Broca's Brain", p. 14
If a man is in the forest and his wife isn't there, is he still wrong? -- Fortune on Worldwinner.com
"Spinoza was persecuted during his lifetime, and after death his works were condemned as profane, blasphemous and atheistic. And yet it is probable that few men more sincerely religious than he have ever lived and taught. His doctrine was one of abnegation of self and patient devotion to the eternal. He was in love with the Infinite; it was Nature that fluttered his pulse; it was the Spirit of the universe that filled his heart with living springs. ... But in all sincerity one may ask which is the more blasphemous, nay, which is the more vulgar, the mind that pictures the Deity as a jealous tyrant who keeps the world as a separate establishment, or the thinker who seeks to banish the dream that veils the part from the whole, and who shows the soul of man and of the universe to be the same? -- Edgar Saltus, "The Anatomy of Negation"
"Aggrandise God; free Him from the captivity of temples and creeds. See Him everywhere, or say that He does not exist." -- Denis Diderot, quoted in "The Anatomy of Negation"
"Lastly, in admitting the doctrine that an Intelligence presided over the formation of the world and still watches over its well-being, it is hard to reconcile the theory of that Intelligence with the idea of infinite wisdom and power. For, to the misfortune of humanity, this world of ours is very far from being the best one possible. With the best of intentions, we are therefore unable to recognise any other God than one who, at most, is material, limited and dependent. I do not know whether this view is the correct one, but certainly it is not that of the Deity's partisans, who would much prefer to have us atheists than the Spinozists that we are. To mollify them, let us turn sceptic and repeat with Montaigne, Que sais-je?" -- Jean le RondD'Alembert, quoted in "The Anatomy of Negation"
"When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true." —- Bertrand Russell, p. 39, "A History of Western Philosophy"
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