It’s a Tuesday morning, it’s raining, I’m sick with a
wonderful head and chest cold, pumped full of day-quill, and I am sitting in my
business statistics class. Don’t worry,
it hasn’t started yet. I’m a good
student, I swear.
Even though I am in a technical based class, I can’t seem to
quench my thirst of wanting to examine the abstract nature of the world. I
blame the “non-drowsy” medicine.
Here it goes.
Throughout my undergraduate career I started to realize, in
a lot of ways, knowledge and certain truths themselves are merely subject to
circumstances. “The times they are a
changing,” is how Dylan captured the shift in American identity throughout the
mid-20th century, but these words stand true for all corners of
history. Understanding this grand scheme
of how things perpetually change contradicts the fact that we as humans, as we
age, grow, live, and build, become rather righteous in our beliefs. We hold strong to what our time has declared
as a certain truth, we discover the paragons of morality that will drive us
forward, but at the same time, these once novel means of progression become
shackles of decline. This is a rather odd paradox, but I suppose all paradoxes
are odd, hence the word. Still, why is this?
Why do we seek knowledge? What is the point of it? What constitutes it? Well I firmly believe the pursuit of grasping
the unknown is one of the fundamental aspects of existence. In opinion, without the unknown, we do not
exist.
I believe the issue of not understanding
something in the first place is what continues to usher humanity forward. Think about it, if we knew everything, all
truths no matter the circumstance, what was going to happen one minute into the
future, 2 weeks from today, or 10 centuries from now, what would be the reason
for living? By not knowing we
experience, and through this event we exist.
So if we lived in a world where all would be known, needless of
experience, would we even exist? By not knowing
we are forced to take action, and again by taking action, we exist, create, and
we live. The body and mind becomes a
mirror reflecting what we’ve seen and thought onto the world.
Moreover, what constitutes existence? People say it’s all empirical, that if we
can’t feel, see, study, or hear it, then it must not truly exist. Others claim it’s about rationality, that we
are able to deduce the realities of the world with the shrewd ability of our
mind; premises stacking up against premises creating logical conclusions. I disagree with anyone who claims one or the
other is solely true. There are numerous
concepts and ideas within the world that are not visible, but yet encouraged
one’s actions. Furthermore, recent
studies in moral psychology and philosophy have opined that rationality itself
stems from our intuition, which to an extent, is bias based off of our own
personal needs and physiological makeup. (If you’re interested in reading more about
this topic, check out any work by Jonathan Haidt, specifically, The Righteous
Mind: Why Good People Are Divided Over Religion and Politics)
If you think about
it, if something is within our lexicon, our modern dictionary of words, then it
by all means exists. For example, the
fact that people believe in the idea of god means they, in some way, act upon
the idea of his existence. And if by
taking action, we exist, then any idea that creates action and experience, must
exist to a degree as well. So if a person builds a church in the name of a god,
that church is a reflection of an idea.
That reflection leaves an imprint upon our world. It affects the
individuals who live around it, their values, actions, and belief systems. It even impacts their economy.
Another example would
be ghosts. While many may not believe in
ghosts, the idea exists itself, and some people fear that idea. That fear causes action. Now whether or not
you feel that action is irrational or not, is relevant, to a degree, but the
point here is that these people hold these beliefs. They exist within the paradigm of our
reality, and we interact and live through them.
Therefore, they exist.
This is what makes me smile when I think about people like
Richard Dawkins. The man is a
well-received atheist and in some ways, I agree with his concern about how
religious dogma has the ability to create a close-minded view on the world,
which can lead to pernicious results.
But still, he is utterly convinced that there is no such thing as
god. Yet, if everything above holds
true, than to a degree, god does exist. And moreover, Dawkins, the world-renowned
atheist, is making a living operating within the paradigm of his/her existence.
I think no matter what, anytime someone is utterly sure, I
tend to be less convinced. I think the
only true thing we can say is that something occurs within the world that makes
us believe. It gives us passion, faith,
and a million of other ideas that continue to impact the world. Let’s call this the human experience.
In the end though, nothing will ever stand as powerful as an
idea. For while we will all eventually
die, one of the few truths we know of, our ideas will live on. They will burn on in myriads of different
shapes and forms; songs, books, morals and laws. They are our greatest creations, for they
assist in creating everything else. But
it is important to note, the reason why the world is as chaotic as it appears
to be sometimes is in fact because there will always be an infinite amount of
contradicting ideas out there that will continue to create action. Throughout this action, we exist.
Have a wonderful Tuesday.
Best wishes,
Mark
PS - Non-Drowsy my ass.
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