Art - By Eliza Veretilo

This weeks artist was Eliza Veretilo: http://neonsuitcase.blogspot.co.uk/

The Philosophy Takeaway Issue 48 'Freedom'

Freedom, are you free? - By Eliza Veretilo

Freedom, are you free?

My heart yearns for a promise,

That is not an actuality.

Inside of me,

There is a point that doesn’t break...

Wants to observe it all. I want to be myself.

Freedom is the promise,

Time is the price.

The clock reminds me that this dimension has its ties.

Freedom Lite - By St.Zagarus

Freedom Lite

Freedom is the most highly vaunted thing there is. Material gain and the social status attached to it are close competitors, but the people who get those things like to think they have done so by their own free effort.

Yet when confronted with the ultimate freedom, that feeling of being a living-feeling-thinking individual (a place we often end up in existentialist philosophy), you cannot gloss over the hole-filled road of life with easy answers.  Eventually, you must stare death itself in the face. You must come to grips with the very fact of your mortality and fully comprehend that you will someday cease to exist, becoming nothing. All of your personality ends at that terminus point, scattered into the winds. The body is broken down into tiny fragments and devoured back into  nature. In the eye of cosmic time, you were not even the batting of a lid - you were a slight twitch! What then confronts you is the sheer scale of this existence, and the grand context we human beings are thrown into. Just to continue breathing becomes a choice; each inhalation, each exhalation, is passed through a valve of thought and feeling. Why, breath in, why, breath out.

Understanding Freedom - By Sean Ash

Understanding Freedom

Freedom cannot truly be explained or put into place without a better understanding of what it actually is. For any individual trying to grasp the concept of freedom, it is always best to begin by overcoming fear so that one can find the courage to question, “Is this my prison? Is this my cell? Are these my chains?”

If freedom is to become more tangible, where it is completely felt and understood, then one must first experience and undergo the greatest extents of captivity to appreciate and better understand it. That is why most people never experiencing certain hardships will have no genuine understanding of the freedoms they have themselves. Instead, they will either abuse them or take them for granted. But this works both ways. Take an individual begging on the streets for example. You may have encountered someone experiencing severe hardships and they will beg for change and then use this money to buy alcohol, drugs or often, both. No matter what way you put it, freedoms have been abused.

When freedoms are abused, fear is created. We see the most unfortunate in society and we do not want to end up the same. We begin to blame others for their own misfortunes. We create scapegoats and the fear we harbour, which then evolves into ignorance. Unfortunately, being in a place of ignorance closes many doors that enable us to think critically -- doors that enable us to see what is behind them. We are easily duped because our fears are played on.

We become divided and placed into separate classes. We start to see the world in duality rather than oneness. We are constantly being mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) – I am sure many of you have been buggered by these guys! We are coerced into giving up certain parts of our freedoms in exchange for better security. Well, so we are told. Instead, they beat us with their batons and do with us whatever they will. A war kicks off 5,000 miles somewhere else and we are being fed a security story of why we must go there and deprive these people of their freedom.

The more this starts to happen, the greater the chance that you either fall so deep into fear that you become entirely dependent on the state and others; leaving you closed off, distrusting of human nature and buying into abstract things that govern your everyday life because you have consented.  Or, you start to question the prison you are in. You start to see the bars before your eyes and all these thoughts you've been having, are the thoughts you have been engraving on the wall the entire time. Everything is now starting to come together so you can see the map – You can see the way out. You become enlightened, so much by truth, that you pick yourself up and stand firmly on your own two feet and consent to autonomy – You consent to the right to self-govern.  Now, when we are presented with the options of:

a) The Free market

or

b) Government Intervention

Already, we crave freedom but paradoxically fear it at the same time. We start to fall back into our shells, like a snail finding cover. We live our entire lives with our heads in the sand because we are scared to hold our heads up and to see the world. We fear abuse rather than challenge it. We fear action rather than taking it. Because we fear, we make rash decisions.

We always tend to think from our own perspectives. We see the other as the enemy because we have formed profound relationships with our chains. We have built safety nets that are held in place by the ideologies we have been taught and so we say, “Oh yes, that is why! That is why it must be!”. We build up pride that is instilled along the way. A pride that is instilled by fear. The fear to challenge, the fear to think critically, the fear to question.

Our greatest enemy is ourselves and unless we can step out of our own bodies, out of our own chains and out of our own prison cells, we can never understand what it truly means to be free.

Sean Ash

The Philosophy Takeaway Issue 48 'Freedom'

Freedom

Determinism - By Rudy Mcnair

A number of Ancient Greek philosophers from various different schools once concluded that, for everything that happens, there are inescapable conditions that determine its occurrence.  Diodorus arrived at logical determinism, I think, as a consequence of belief in signs, omens and portents from which can be discovered what is going to happen and why.  However, in the development of Western philosophy, “antecedent causes” and “initial conditions” are still useful clues to the workings of “reality” and what is logically necessary.  Materialist philosophers of the Enlightenment maintained that men are stranded in nature and can govern neither themselves nor anything else.  Even Schopenhauer accepted that irrational forces influence human events.  A.J. Ayer  decided that all significant statements are “scientific”, or are nonsense. This means that value statements (socially meaningful, ethical terms, like “good” or “wrong”) are thought to violate this philosophy. Logical positivism has consequently sought to distinguish between ‘logical’ concepts (which are true or false) termed “nonmodal” and problems of what might and might not be possible or “fulfilled”.

Freedom

Only “God” is free - By Samuel Mack-Poole

“None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free.” -- Johann Wolfgang Goethe.

What a topic! Freedom is something that I’ve thought about in quite a lot of detail. I’ve really considered it; the implications it has, its definition, whether humans can be truly free. However, I think it is my duty to define what freedom is:

1.    the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint

2.    exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

3.    the power to determine action without restraint.

4.    political or national independence.

5.    personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom.

Art - By Harry Wareham

This weeks artist was Harry Wareham: http://subpots.wordpress.com/

The Philosophy Takeaway Issue 47 'Open Topic'

Patriotism

In Defence of patriotism - By Samuel “The People’s Poet” Mack-Poole

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” – James Boswell.

“Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.” – Adlai Stevenson.

April the 23^rd. Does that date mean anything to you? Or, my dear philosophers, is it just another day? For your information, just to keep you in the know, it is Saint George’s day. This, for me, is a day of vital significance; it is one I will celebrate with vigour. I will aim to explain why in this piece of philosophy. Whilst in conversation with Mark Tannett and Eliza Verethilo (but not at the same time), both members of The Philosophy Takeaway were quite hostile to patriotism. So, let’s define our terms: patriotism is defined as, “devoted love, support, and defence of one's country; national loyalty.”

Patriotism is an act of violence - By Eliza Veretilo

Here is the debate: what are the things we have caused and can be accounted for and what are the things we have not and can therefore not feel responsible?

Nationality is as accidental as eye colour. We did not consciously choose them. We cannot yet say they are our fault or responsibility.

Another example is the current war in Iraq. People do not currently feel their actions or lack of them are part of the reason for this ongoing massacre, even though our life-style might be part of the reason. Nonetheless, we hear countless amounts of people feeling proud of this or that empire’s achievements, regardless of the destruction it has brought upon others. Maybe your ancestors were very active in it. I do not know. But I have seen people very willing to ascribe the achievements of certain historical periods upon themselves; and of course, we have a selective memory on what events really took place, and which ones we are ‘proud of’.

The Existential Dunny Spider - By Selim “The People's Selim” Talat

A shanty toliet in the australian outback. A woman opens the creaky door and prepares her toliette, ignorant of the dunny spider lurking behind the bowl.

G’day mate, what are you doing here? Ah, one of those, I see. I never could quite understand what that was, not having one myself. Indeed, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on it mate.

I was waiting for you the other day. You never came. I thought you were never coming back! I have to say, I kinda missed ya.

This is a golden opportunity isn't it, this place. I noticed others come here too, every now and then, with roughly the same regularity as yourself.

I wonder how many of them see it as an opportunity, and how many just want to get it over and done with.

Mrs Thatcher: intuition vs logic, liberal vs conservative - By Martin Prior

If I were to do a one-page obituary of the ‘good’ lady, what would I say?  Many people would argue that Mrs Thatcher saved the country from the unions, and perhaps make mention of privatisation and monetarism.  In fact when people praise Thatcher - apart from those in Eastern Europe - they generally say that she suppressed the power of the unions when these latter were ruining the country. 

 

But others would say she did not in fact save the country: she saved it for the bankers, and the unions were simply trying to protect the workers from the banks: for nearly 25 years working people bore the brunt of ruinous economic policies such as keeping up the value of sterling, and acquiescing in terms dictated by the IMF, most notoriously in 1976.  And thus workers, through their unions, were in a militant mood.  And indeed they would say, rather than address the flawed economics creating this situation, Thatcher brought in doctrines to perpetuate what was basically in decline.

Robert Pirsig and the Metaphysics of Quality (MOQ)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZAMM) has sold more than 5 million copies, probably making Pirsig the most widely read living philosopher. Lila, his second book, adds to and expands the MOQ. His other published work is a paper presented at the Einstein Meets Magritte Conference held in Brussels from May 29 to June 3 1995.

At this event, Pirsig presented "Subjects, Objects, Data and Values. It concerns the meeting of art and science. Science is all about subjects and objects and particularly data, but it excludes values. Art is concerned primarily with values but doesn't really pay much attention to scientific data and sometimes excludes objects. My work is concerned with a Metaphysics of Quality that can cross over this division with a single overall rational framework”.

He also said “Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a 30,000 page menu and no food”

Despite this, he’s served a banquet of food for thought. His books are described as philosophical novels. A better description would be ‘biographical treatise’ where a kaleidoscope of topics are addressed in a discursive manner, and in depth. The biographies are those of the author, scientific method, rationality, Greek philosophy, Western philosophy and philosophers, Zen and Zeitgeist, anthropology and, in my opinion, a proto concept of Memes. Like the physicists who seek a ‘unified theory of everything’, Pirsig bridges philosophic traditions with the added bonus of helping quantum physicists to describe reality in non-mathematical terms.

Including studies at Benares Hindu University, time in the armed forces, and writing technical manuals for a living, Pirsig was a teacher of rhetoric at Bozeman University. His contract stated he was to teach quality. He also taught in Chicago where the end of ZAMM occurs.

What is Quality? Pirsig writes “You know what it is, yet you don't know what it is. But that's self-contradictory. But some things are better than others, that is, they have more quality. But when you try to say what the quality is, apart from the things that have it, it all goes pouf! There's nothing more to talk about. But if you can't say what Quality is, how do you know what it is, or how do you know that it even exists? If no one knows what it is, then for all practical purposes it doesn't exist at all. But for all practical purposes it really does exist. What else are the grades based on? Why else would people pay fortunes for some things and throw others in the trash pile? Obviously some things are better than others ... but what's the 'betterness'? ... So round and round you go spinning mental wheels and nowhere finding any place to get traction."

ZAMM forensically examines the subject-object, mind-matter dichotomy back to its source. Pirsig establishes that rationality and descriptions of reality in the western tradition are causing a ‘disconnect’ in the way we perceive, think and live. His inquiry into values establishes there is something deeply amiss within our system of thought and Pirsig identifies the chief culprit as Aristotle, aided and abetted by Plato and Socrates!

The Sophist Areté (Excellence) is later translated in Plato as virtue. Consequently we miss the meaning of what the ancient rhetoricians were teaching. “Areté implies a respect for the wholeness or oneness of life”.

Socrates and Plato corral the Sophist Areté and tether it to ‘Good’ and to ‘Truth’. Socrates is the enemy of rhetoric through the dialectic, which has the power to make the weaker argument. Socrates swears he is telling the truth and through dialogue elicits and establishes a pre-construct. “Socrates is not just expounding noble ideas in a vacuum. He is in the middle of a war between those who think truth is absolute and those who think truth is relative. He is fighting that war with everything he has. The Sophists are the enemy.

Says Pirsig: “Plato’s hatred of the Sophists makes sense. He and Socrates are defending the Immortal Principle of the Cosmologists against what they consider to be the decadence of the Sophists: Truth... Knowledge. That which is independent of what anyone thinks about it. Plato believed the dialectic was the sole method by which the truth was arrived at. The only one”.

“Aristotle attacked this belief, saying that the dialectic was only suitable for some purposes...to enquire into beliefs, to arrive at truths about eternal forms of things, known as Ideas, which were fixed and unchanging and which constituted Plato’s reality. Aristotle said there is also the method of science, or "physical" method, which observes physical facts and arrives at truths about substances, which undergo change. This duality of form and substance and the scientific method of arriving at facts about substances were central to Aristotle’s philosophy. Thus the dethronement of dialectic from what Socrates and Plato held it to be was absolutely essential for Aristotle”. And Aristotle goes further, making rhetoric the slave of ‘form’.

“Aristotle felt that the mortal horse of Appearance which ate grass and took people places and gave birth to little horses deserved far more attention than Plato was giving it. He said that the horse is not mere Appearance. The Appearances cling to something independent of them and like Ideas, are unchanging. The "something" that Appearances cling to he named "substance." And at that moment, and not until that moment, our modern scientific understanding of reality was born”.

Rhetoric, once "learning" itself, is reduced to the teaching of mannerisms. Aristotelian forms. “Some say the good is found in happiness, but how do we know what happiness is? And how can happiness be defined? Happiness and good are not objective terms. We cannot deal with them scientifically. And since they aren’t objective they just exist in your mind. So if you want to be happy just change your mind. Ha-ha, ha-ha. "Aristotelian ethics, Aristotelian definitions, Aristotelian logic, Aristotelian substances, Aristotelian rhetoric, Aristotelian laughter—ha-ha, ha-ha”.

“Walk into classrooms today and hear the teachers divide and subdivide and interrelate and establish “principles'' and study “methods'' and you will hear the ghost of Aristotle speaking down through the centuries...the desiccating lifeless voice of dualistic reason”.

Pirsig pulls down the church of reason and rebuilds it brick by metaphysical brick, resulting in an edifice where art and science meld. Where Quality is undefined and yet is shown to be the cutting edge of reality. That which creates the world. Imperceptible yet grasped.

Mike Gordon

The Philosophy Takeaway Issue 47 'Open Topic'

Art - Harry Wareham

This weeks artist was Harry Wareham: http://subpots.wordpress.com/

The Philosophy Takeaway Issue 46 'Open Topic'

A philosophy of the moving image - Samuel Mack-Poole

A philosophy of the moving image

“A self-destructive man feels completely alienated, utterly alone. He's an outsider to the human community. He thinks to himself, ‘I must be insane.’ What he fails to realize is that society has, just as he does, a vested interest in considerable losses and catastrophes. These wars, famines, floods and quakes meet well-defined needs. Man wants chaos.” – A Waking Life.

I have noticed, when looking back over my brief, brief existence that many an intellectual likes to proclaim they have read many books. Oh yes, my friends, dropping a cheeky quote here and a clever reference there is impressive when one is attempting to be a raconteur. Nevertheless, the same regard doesn’t seem to exist for film. Why is this the case?

It is fair to say that the classic medium of communication for philosophy, aside from talking, has been through the written word; or, in other words, a book. Thus, one can be a tad romantic when referring to a work of philosophy. Furthermore, books are less passive in a sense. When one reads a book, be it a work of philosophy or not, it is up to the reader to connect ideas, deduce, analyse, discover and imagine. With a film, these elements are controlled by the director.

Nevertheless, my friends, can you imagine what Aristotle, Nietzsche, Mill, or a plethora of other dead philosophers, could have done with a moving image? In the end, we can only imagine.

Film is incredibly crucial to philosophy. In fact, I would go so far as to say that philosophy’s accessibility is dependent on the moving image. Also, I think watching philosophical films should be studied side by side written works of philosophy.  I cannot think of a single reason why not.

Are the debates between Lennox and Dawkins not of a high quality? If one would rather refer to a film, is A Waking Life not provocative enough? Its contributors analyse the very essence of reality – amongst educating its viewers about history, literature and dreams.  And there are many, many little gems out there, too. The Three Minute Philosophy shorts by the YouTube user CollegeBinary are absolutely brilliant; I really couldn’t commend them enough. If you haven’t seen them, watch them. The videos are, quite simply, must see philosophy.

Now, I would like to discuss a film which inspired me to think of the moving image: Cloud Atlas. I really enjoyed the film, despite the prejudices I had, and maybe still have, regarding reincarnation. The film, directed by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer, is a philosophical masterpiece. There are, quite literally, many delicious onion-like layers to this film. It’s based upon the novel by the same, written by David Mitchell, which I have just read (see, I’m clever ‘cos I reads booksies). The film is largely true to the novel.

A huge theme of the film is reincarnation. Now, I must admit that I have no sympathies with the theological/ spiritual notion of reincarnation. It’s completely illogical from my perspective – that of a scientific materialist. However, in spite of my theological prejudice, I thought the exploration of the idea of reincarnation, being the main theme over three hours of film, was very extensive. And although I came out of the cinema with my thoughts on spiritual reincarnation unchanged, my thoughts on nurture and consequentialism had been refined. One line which inspired me to think is as follows:

“Our lives are not our own, we are bound to others, past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”

Whether you agree or disagree with this comment is of no consequence. From my perspective, an opinion succeeds if it is loved or hated with equal measure.  However, I do think the above quote really touches on something. Genealogy is a subject which I find to be of incredible interest.

Our identities are not solely created by ourselves. We have no say as to which culture we are born in; we have no say as to who our genetic creators are.  When I researched my family tree, I found that a correlation exists: many of my ancestors were highly educated. Is it then, merely a coincidence that I am a teacher? If a positive ethos towards learning has been prevalent within my family for six generations, was it almost inevitable that I would be a teacher?

And, what of me? I am only a part of the massive jigsaw that is me: the causes of me, and the consequences of me, are not entirely known to me.  How very interesting! If I own my house and give it to my daughter upon my death, she will be more affluent. If she is more affluent, her children are more likely to be affluent. Conversely, I could have a descendent who is an alcoholic, and by coming into property, their habit could be funded to horrid extremes.

The truth is, I had been very much focused on the now. Yes: getting tattoos, writing poetry, trying to stand out and hoping that by creating something of potential beauty, my life would have some value in the eyes of my peers. Cloud Atlas has changed that, at least to an extent. Although I feel pathetic at such an admission, and rightly so, I now view my life as a link in a long, long chain. Whilst this is nothing new per se, it is a new experience for me – to take a step outside of myself, and realise I am a consequence of many forces over which I have had no control. In addition to this, I know my decisions have many consequences, not just for the present, but for future generations I will never meet.

I am worried that this seems so very obvious: but that’s what excellent philosophy does! It takes what should be obvious, and presents it in a simple way. I love quotes, so let me end with a quote from Cloud Atlas, one which I will leave to you, the reader, to muse upon.

“Fear, belief, love. Yesterday my life was headed in one direction; today it is headed in another. Fear, belief, love: phenomena which dictate the course of our lives. These forces begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Yesterday I believe I would have never had done what I did today.  I feel like something important has happened to me. Is this possible? I just met her, and yet I have fallen in love.”

Samuel Mack-Poole

 

The Philosophy Takeaway Issue 46 'Open Topic'

Life is meaningless, right? Selim 'Selim' Talat

 Life is meaningless, right?

Let’s face it, God is dead. The only religious belief that can survive with a straight face these days is of the harmless variety. Pleasant church picnics and cultural visits to the mosque, community masses and colourful Hindu festivals -- wonderful things. If people start taking religion too seriously, eyebrows of worry start to rise, and few people really want a return to the good old days of church and state being bedfellows again (see the Dark Ages). The golden path to godly perfection and eternal bliss has been well and truly scrubbed away by the amoral brush of the rational mind. We do not know for certain where we are going after we die, and no amount of mass delusion is going to change that. The easy-ish answer of God and scripture is over. Religion is reduced to an interesting cultural antique, and a useful glue for charity-sector organisations.

Are we, then, lost in the cold cosmos with nothing to guide us? Without absolutes, are we not doomed to quarrel and strife? I would say no. Firstly, nothing causes quarrels like two groups of people both claiming to have absolute answers to absolute questions. Any debate between two fundamentalists is a prime example of this. They will never be able to find ultimate common ground and will always end up missing vital things in common. Without absolute belief we are inviting less violent disagreement, and more discussion. We can have the modesty to admit we might be wrong, and search for alternatives. This scepticism seems to be quite widespread, at least among the people I have met. An emphasis on individuals finding their own path has sprung up time and time again in my philosophical conversations. However, being able to think for yourself is not enough: being sceptical is vital to escape falsehood, yet it leads to nowhere but more scepticism. If we stay sceptical we are now confronted with a 'relativism of meaning': where reality comes down to the whims of individual people or groups, with no means to determine right or wrong outside of that, and with all views being equal in that they are ideally suited to their conditions. How do we escape relativism and anchor ourselves in something more reliable?

I think a lot of depressives could be cured of their ailments (starting with myself!) with a simple realisation: the universe is not meaningless by default. Nature is a realm outside of meaning, or meaninglessness. These two M-words are an invention of the human tongue, and should be left in the realm of the human tongue. What I am saying is that fundamentally we do not have the means to accurately depict reality from our position as individual human beings, experiencing reality from only one perspective. That does not mean reality is not out there, it just means it is beyond us; at best we can get a general idea of it. The sciences will greatly enhance our understanding of specific processes, but science is not one huge body of theory working in the same direction, but a battleground of ideas striving for supremacy, with brilliant experts on both sides clashing one against the other. There are no absolute answers in science, and there never will be. What we can find, however, are probabilities, and these provide us with the means to either improve the material conditions of our species or annihilate one another with ever-shinier weapons. We still have not completely escaped the clutches of relativism (for who do you believe when confronted with two great theories?), but at least now we are in the more comfortable territory of possibility. We don't have any absolute 'right and wrong' which exist beyond humanity, but we do have some damn good probabilities that are more than mere guesses.

Now, let us return to this notion of meaninglessness as a purely human concept. Trying to define it is a tough one. My own thoughts of meaninglessness come from the lack of permanence we are facing and the fleeting nature of our existence on this mortal span. Effectively, I am suffering from limited-time-angst. We will all someday perish, and in a thousand years few of us will be remembered. This lack of finality is rather dour, but should quantity of time be considered more than quality of it? The cosmos is vast, slowly moving through the aeons, and we are tiny specks of dust on the (insert analogy here). Our moments of love are fleeting. Our creative joy comes and goes at its own pace. We spend most of our lives in a state of dull plodding labour for the profit of pointless institutions; you dig a hole, I will fill it up. So it’s mostly quite shit. We could call our individual moments of passionate connection and artistic triumph worth the struggle. If these good things are just tiny moments of joy at least they are something quite genuine, and give us a little something to live for. Quality over quantity?

The meaning of life cannot be produced in a two page article, nor in a hundred thousand million word book written by re-arranging the stars into those queer little runes we call words. If the meaning of life could be produced in such a format, you can say goodbye to philosophy, wonder, mystery and art. All another person might be to you is a single inn on your journey, and this journey is all we are entitled to. It leads nowhere nice in the end, not unless you are something of a fetishist for being buried and devoured by hungry worms and such. It is quite funny though that meaning has to have to an end point to qualify as meaning. It seems to be a very "goal-orientated" capitalistic way of thinking, informed by our culture. In order to stick two fingers up at this aforementioned capitalist institution, with its inevitable 'go get 'em philosophy' market, I will end on this open-ended, pointless (but not worthless?) message.

There is no meaning in life, nor is there an absence of meaning. No one is going to give you any easy answers, and anyone who does is playing upon the insecurity all higher animals feel when faced with existence. Embrace the freedom offered to you by the collapse of cosmic authority by chasing artistic dreams, making the mystery a harmless way to pass your time and win a small snatch of pride in doing so. Debate and discussion must be permanent, so get stuck in and do not be afraid to stick to a solid position; if it turns out to be an improbable position, let it crumble.  Forget the destination, there is none, just make the journey worthwhile and always, always try to be a kat on the way.

Selim 'Selim' Talat

The Philosophy Takeaway Issue 46 'Open Topic'