Blog (Numero Trés) Do you really want to know the meaning of life?

The meaning of life is a mind exhausting activity. Who says the meaning of life is not held inside the enjoyment of a chocolate brownie. MMMmmmm, warm with ice cream on top. Happiness has a part in the meaning of life, what if, inside that envelope is a piece of paper that says the meaning of life is in a chocolate brownie. What if it really just tells me I am doing things all wrong. Talk about a complex subject matter. The meaning in life has a lot to with experiences that happen to individuals. Love, death, successes, and mistakes all play a part in the meaning of life... but is that what that envelope really says. Gosh I hope is is the brownie, because I love the way a nice brownie treats me. 

Blog (Numero Dos) The Meaning of Life

This is a particular chapter that interest me from our book Problems from Philosophy. Is there anything worth living for and what is the meaning of life? Hmmm!?! The thought makes me think about how I would view things if I were to be someone suffering from a horrifying disease that was life threatening. Seeing a I am not to me the answer is of course. I can think of many thing worth living for, and the one thing at the top of my list is LOVE! Life has many different aspects that make the experiences of living more interesting and diverse. It is important to understand how life works in order to have a complete appreciation for it. There are things that make people happy or sad. As well there are things that create an indifference in the world. Different religions, different ideals, and moral values. Everyone has different values and when the most important values are the ones that give people a sense of satisfaction in life. 

Mind and Body

The body is completely different from the soul, with the body being a material substance, an the soul being weighs nothing, and is an immaterial substance. The soul is made up of beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. In this chapter Materialists have a few theories of Body and soul. One theory is behaviorism, which involves explaining behavior with reference to thoughts and feelings. This theory was popular for half a century and then abandoned, by psychologists and philosophers. The second theory is Mind and body Identity with events in the brain causing mental experiences. This is experimentally confirmed in various ways. This theory can explain how thoughts can occur without behavior being involved. The third theory is functionalism which basically fills in the blanks for the Mind and body Identity theory. For example, conscious experiences such as being in pain is identical with neurological occurrences in the brain.

Ethics and Objectivity

Is ethics an invention of human nature?!? Every culture has their own moral codes. Something that is considered absolutely unacceptable may be considered a norm. In this chapter of the book Problems from Philosophy the author provides two examples of cultural moral acts. One of the examples was of a Pakistani 12 year old boy that is accused of romantic involvement with a 22 year old women of higher class. His punishment is his sister publicly raped by four men. She really had nothing to do with the incident. Ethical reasoning seems to come natural, and is justified differently in various cultures. I really like Davis Hume's quote in this chapter, "The life of a man is of no more importance to the universe then that of a oyster." 

History of Western Philosophy

This is a video that I found when keying philosophy in on you tube. It is a fun song and I think it is a bit funny. I hope you enjoy. 

What is Philosophy

Hmmmm! Philosophy?! Well, it is the ideas that are formed about the world around us. Everyone tries to understand how things work and why they work this way. There are many a men who try to philosophize about everything. Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato. The ideas that came form these men changed over time to form what people belive today. Life would not be the same with out Philosophy, and so it is important in my opinion for questions such as, "why things happen?".