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What is the most fulfilling: love or academic progress ?
First, this question let me perplex and honestly, I wish I could say academic progress. Especially in our current case, we are mostly looking for academic progress. Some might even say "this year I focus on school and love will come later." But (unfortunately), I don't think that academic progress is as fulfilling as love. When we talked about it with Alix, we took an example: if someone is unemployed and poor but belongs to a very united and loving family, he surely is happier as a 50 years-old single man who became very rich thanks to his successful career. But actually (as almost everything) I think the best is finding a good balance between both.
For the most part, humans are rational beings... They think in a reasonable way, make statements, decisions or judgments using reasoned thinking (based on facts). Indeed, a lot of humans are rational when it comes to utilizing inductive reasoning to solve life's problems, but when people get their emotions involved, then all rationality will disappear (until they are able to get over their emotions and move on in order to solve the problem).
The question I am going to discuss is whether human beings are irrational or not. To my mind, our world is driven by reason ; our life is based on scientific discoveries (our health is determined by progress in medicine, and our modern comfort is based on inventions, such as electricity or the Internet). Moreover, our ways of thinking value logic and reason : people are taught as young as possible to solve problems in a logical and rigourous way, for example by learning to structure their works at school. Last but not least, in our world, less and less unknown matters remain ; we now know that it is possible to go to space, and the mysteries of the human brain are to be unveiled thanks to the development of research. However, I believe that in man's nature, there has always been and will always be spirituality. Indeed, when there was no science, people had to find an explanation for natural phenomena such as storms or tides, in order to reassure themselves. Therefore, humans had to tell one another stories (or myths) that would maintain a feeling of safety, which was a benefit to build a social order. These fictional narratives were told orally to other people, and ended up being accepted and put in a written form when man developed the ability to write. I think that is the way that religions appeared. Nowadays, although we favour logic and rational ideas, and that we know the world better, there are still unexplained events, such as death (is there an afterlife ? what does really remain of us after death ?), which can create fear among people. Although religion is less important than before, humans keep hoping and believing in things that can be referred to as "irrational", and that are not scientifically proved (many people still believe in some form of afterlife, even though it's not as clear as the one told in the Bible, for example) As a conclusion, I would say that even though human beings are getting more and more rational in their ways of thinking, there is still a part of irrationality and spirituality in our minds, mostly because of our inner fears that we want to appease
I think that both theories are correct. "Most of nature is inherently chaotic. It's not rigidly determined in the old sense. It's not rigidly predictable." would say Rupert Sheldrake. It's because nature, and the universe in general, is unpredictable that, in a way, it can be defined as chaotic. The Human race has always wanted to control everything but as nature cannot be controlled, Men tend to define it a chaotic. In fact Humanity has always found scientific (or not) explanations for such or such phenomenon, the could even predict it, but never control it. However we can see some order in all this apparently chaos. Indeed in the world everything was created as best as it could be, that's what natural selection is. everything was created to serve a precise purpose. The universe is ordered in galaxies, and planets. Let's take the example of the solar system, isn't it perfectly ordered? So we can see two different answers to this question.
At first sight of this question, I thought I would never be able to answer because I found it very complex. But after much reflection, I would say that humans are fundamentally irrational. It's quite hard to explain but,in my opinion, we make our actions, thoughts and feelings seem rational while they represent the complete contrary. I think we truly believe that the decisions we take are rational, because the world we live in made us think they are, but deep down, when you try to see it in outsider's point of view and when you really think about it, that's not at all the case. Nothing we do or say really has a rhyme or reason, nothing is a necessity; being the humans we are, with conciousness and emotions, we never really act upon "reason" but our heart or upon what we have been tought. I think everything we do is completely irrational and it couldn't be otherwise, seeing the chaotic world we live in. The best representation of this is probably our dreams, at least in my case: it is the expression of our subconscious and when we wake up, most of the time, we don't understand a thing about what we just dreamt or why because it wasn't rational at all! On the outside, it may seem as everything is thought through thoroughly (what a tongue twister...) but when going back to the basics of instinct and necessity, to my mind, nothing humans do is really resonable. I hope I'm understood because I find it quite hard and complicated to explain, I think this subject would deserve a whole philosophy essay! It's just a very quick summary of my opinion and I would love to hear others on the question so feel free to comment!
I totally agree with your point of view! It is clear that humans want to believe that they are rational beings; they try to prove it using logic, doing studies, for example in mathematics so as to feel order through clear demonstrations and theses. But if we were truly driven by rational thoughts only, we would not be different from animals who act according to their survival instincts: we would only do things in order to eat and have children. However we humans are driven by other factors, such as love (which is 99% of the time completely irrational) and other emotions like friendship and help. Overall I don't really see the point of pretending to be rational while the only thing that makes us human is to think irrationally.
I also agree with both of you. However Alice P, you made a point that made me wonder whether I would support it. You said "But if we were truly driven by rational thoughts only, we would not be different from animals". After some reflexion, I don't believe that animals are able to think. Actually, I personally believe that animals are too rationnal to think.
How important are the following for you: mathematics & science; nature; literature & art; love & romance?
I’m aware that my response to this question is highly personal; therefore anyone could easily argue and discuss my point of view. In my opinion, nature is crucial. I can already read your thoughts: “She lives in a small village in the countryside, that’s to say basically in the woods, so her vision of the world is not really that of a civilized person…” But you’re wrong! In fact, nature determines the way we are biologically. We need it both physically and morally; it provides what’s vital for us: oxygen, food, land, so it contributes to our health, but not only. Nature is also our roots, and at many moments throughout history, humans have felt the need to come back to such traditional values (if you don’t understand what I’m talking about, consider doing revisions on modernism!). Even now in the news we often learn that some people doing stressing jobs with high responsibilities and pressure decided one day to quit and move to the countryside to breed sheep. I’m convinced that nature brings calm and peace; something that everyone needs at some point. After, I would say that maths & science and literature & art are equally important. They are both necessary in the sense that they are a way for humans to search for meaning, and eventually to build philosophical thoughts. What’s absurd in today’s world is that we tend to distinguish “scientific” people and “literary” ones, which makes no sense to me. One needs both to built intelligence; look at famous personalities in olden days like Pythagore ad Euclide: they were mathematicians, philosophers and literary critics at the same time! Last but not least, I tend to think that love and romance is only a medium, a tool used by literature and art to analyse human behaviour.
If I had to choose a style for my garden... Firstly, a romantic style would not make me feel at ease. The first reason why a romantic style would not suit me is that I dislike unpredictable things. I always want to know everything that is going to happen and I always question myself about what would be the consequences of my actions. Sometimes, this habit gets on my nerves as I am not able to do anything without thinking about it over and over. A romantic style for my garden would clutter up my mind with reflections about more trivial things and I wouldn't bear it. Secondly, a romantic garden is supposed to be irregular; I am obsessive about tidiness. And to conclude I like to get used to things and it is obvious that it would not be possible with an ever-changing garden. I had a hard time finding which of a natural style or a classical one I would choose. A natural style would not bother me. A classical one either. Both would make me feel at ease. Nevertheless, I personally think that if I had a garden it would look natural the first couples of weeks and it would soon become classical as I like things to be clearly set and impeccable. A classical style would suit me best as it would highlight my personality. It is also linked to the fact that I tend to act more with my head than with my heart, which would privilege tidy and unchanging surroundings rather than sentimental and flowing surroundings. That's why I think that if I had to choose a style for my garden, it would be a classical style. The group discussion about that matter made me realize that most people would opt out for a natural garden which is comprehensible. I would like to hear from others about what they would choose to see if anybody thinks the same as me and to understand why others would have chosen the other possible styles.
Do we tend to react more with our heart or with our intellect?
Our intellect and our emotions guide us and define how we behave in our society. As human beings our intellect and emotions are more developed than the other creatures inhabiting the Earth. Our conscience and reason allow us to perceive, understand and react in a much more complex way to the different situations we face every day (and of course we all do react to things!). The intellect is the faculty of the human soul by which it knows; it must be distinguished from the power to feel (our emotions belonging to this). Our emotions make us feel, they are open-doors to the myriad of feelings; they enable us to fear, to doubt, to smile, to cry, to laugh…They are part of who we are. Therefore there are two different aspects of humans’ reactions. We tend to react with our mind (and so our intellect), or with the heart (following our emotions). Sometimes our intellect and our heart are on the same page but there is often a huge difference between what our intellect is saying and what our heart is actually saying. Personally, I think that if we would only listen to our intellect, we would never know exciting experiences such as a love affair and we would never have a friendship…Our intellect is indeed in a constant transformation, it presupposes a long reflection, an effort. It is our rational part. Whereas our first reaction surely comes from our heart, it is an immediate reaction. If only a right balance could exist between the mind and the heart…I know it is not always so simple to make a decision only by following your heart, and the intellect should be here to balance out the making of our decision. In doing so, our decisions could be both intellectual and emotional. However, remember that “the heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of” (Pascal).
Some of us might have experienced this feeling of fulfillment in true love, especially when we love someone as much as this person loves us back. If not, this is the beacon to look for would say anyone deeply in love, for there's nothing as worthwile. To them , love equals life. It’s similar to an energy that would even strenghten the poorest ones. In other words, being loved or loving, makes up believe that we can cope with any issue for we are not lonly. We could then be convinced that nothing is incomparably superior to love and - in an impetus of kindness - that every single men deserves it. Why then wonder if love weakens when it's made obvious that it eases our seek for happiness? First, it has the particularity to enhance the perception of our surroundings. Meaning that it does prevent us from being objective in our judgment as well as fool our « down -to-hearth » part. On top of that the specific intimacy it requires, creates invitably a form of dependence. This dependence be felt by both lovers, making thus agonizing any separation or remotoness. Apart from the fact that this feeling is an ambivalent matter I think it echoes an other one that we tend to overclook. To me, then, the real question to be adressed should be the following: can our ego could bear being weakened by love ? Perceiving love as a strenght isn't it a way to comfort us in the ideal we have of ourselves? Just wondering...
As some of you probably know, the kind of surroundings I prefer are endless landscapes in foreign countries or in the mountains. This kind of places are my real freedom. The physical one, of course, seeing the sensation of holding my life in my hands it provides me, the impression of being within a kind of parenthesis, alone with myself, in front of myself. But what fulfills me the most is this mental freedom I can smell the perfume of with breathing deeply. In such places, I feel like I know who I am, like I am who I am for real, like it is no use faking any longer, it is no use being who the others, trends and society tell me to be. I am free to cry over human absurdity, to decide not to be like them all, slumped on a sofa like rubbish, eating rubbish, wrapped in rubbish, watching rubbish on TV. I am free to shout that I will certainly not be a slave to fashion, to money, to this lack of reason, to this lack of responsability. In such places, I am allowed to hope that I will one day free myself from this futility which ashames me. In such places, I am simply allowed to hope that I will one day manage to be a deserving, worthy and above all, a different person. (I know you will forgive me for being so personnal)
What is the most fulfilling: love or academic progress ?
Without any hesitations, I respond : love. It is in human nature to be unable to understand “why” people would love you. What in you can attract someone? You are, most of the time, only capable of seeing your defaults, and the feeling of insecurity is a perpetual emotion for a person. Academic progress might be an excellent way for a human to feel accomplished, but nothing overpowers love. Because love fills the gaps in your self-confidence, and makes disappear the negative image of yourself. You do not only feel accomplished – you feel completed. Love is like the ultimate piece of the human puzzle, it brings you the confidence you need to accept yourself for what you are. Is academic progress powerful enough to replace this extraordinary feeling of fullness? I cannot assure that. It is enough to look into lovers' eyes to understand that they will not exchange what they have. Not for all the knowledge in the world. I do not know if they are right or wrong, but I strongly believe that someone can live out of love. Ignorance can be bliss, if someone's love is here to make you forget it. But academic progress hardly makes you forget that you are alone.
There are always emotions that you don't understand or that you don't want to show to other people because you don't accept them. These emotions can be very different from one another; It can be love, sadness, regret... Love is probably the most difficult emotion to accept because it is often sudden and irrational. You don't know why or when it is going to happen. When people are sad or regretful they try to think about something else because it is an emotion that affects deeply your state of mind and your behaviour. But this is impossible. Event though they can be irrational or painful, our emotions are part of us and therefore you can't refuse them. However we often try to do so by attempting to forget them or trying to convince ourselves that they don't affect us. In fact we never entirely succeed because emotions define us and they influence us all along our lives. That's why I think we definitely can't refuse emotions no matter how hard we try.
How do we act ? Do we act with our head or with our heart? Personally I tend to act with my heart, even if sometime I wish I had act with my head. I tend to be spontaneous because over thinking blocks you from being yourself and being happy. My philosophy is “act now and think later” if not, I won’t ever be able to do something in fear of regrets. It is better to have regrets than remorse, because it means that you had experiences, and life is too short to prevent yourself from living. What is more, mistakes are needed to understand life; they make you stronger and aware of what is waiting for you in the future. If you act with your head, you will always be afraid of the consequences and you will end your life without any past because you never did anything. This is the worst thing that could happen to me, I want to make the most of each second of my life. The world is full of surprises, and I don’t want to miss one of them. This is why I prefer acting with my heart rather than with my head, I prefer letting my heart control myself. I know it will make the right decisions for me and that I will be grateful to him in the future.
Theoretically speaking, the universe is orderly, and human beings like being comforted in this vision of the world they live in. This is the role of religions, which give organized views of the world. They actually give dichotomous points of view, systematically presenting oppositions as the only way to think the universe. This is particularly obvious in their handling of good and evil, for example. The final aim to reach would be combatting the evil so as to see the good thriumph. In these theories, there are no alternatives, and our minds are forced to follow an ordered scheme. In a different way, science also gives an orderly view of the universe through its study of planets in the solar system, among others. In fact, planets are all arranged in an organized pattern and each of them has a defined movement. Many representations therefore set the universe as an ordered whole. In practice however, the universe turns out to be submitted to countless events that make it chaotic. One may easily think about wars as being an obvious way to ascertain this fact. Indeed, conflicts go against all logics: men consciously kill their fellows, thus compromising the survival of the human kind. Moreover, things are never so simple as to be strictly opposed. There are several ways to answer one single question for instance; it is never black or white, but rather “in between”. This does not nevertheless mean that chaos is a bad thing. If everything was ordered along the exact same lines, life would be monotonous and there wouldn’t be any cultural differences. We wouldn’t enjoy the improbable that spices up our lives! Chaos is actually part of the world we live in, and because it is fascinating, people have always been trying to understand it. But if we could, wouldn’t it deny its actual nature?
It is obvious that being in love with someone who barely knows you is emotionally damaging. However, many people believe that being in a serious relationship with someone strengthens you personality. I do not want to seem heartless or pessimistic but in fact, this idea is completely untrue. First of all, during the first months of a relationship, the two lovers are usually overjoyed, feeling powerful and care less about their daily problems - but of course this feeling will soon disappear as being in love will not exempt them from taxes -. However, being euphoric does not mean you are emotionally strong. It is sure that love strengthens a couple as a whole, but each of the two lovers are weakened by their feelings. Indeed, love seems to destroy the spiritual armour that protects you from the others : love is now the only thing that keeps you emotionally stable. It is true that love procures a certain motivation, allowing you to accomplish great things, but these actions are likely to be irrational, as they are based on an emotion and not on a real logical reflection. To conclude, I am not saying that you should not love someone, I just believe that it is somehow dangerous, as the “world” built with someone could easily be disappear and destroy your life.
Is there an answer to this question? I really do not know. Some people might think that the world has a pre-defined pattern that is always respected, a god-like scheme where everyone accomplishes what he is born for while others argue that every single event is happening in an unpredictable and chaotic way. To my mind, it is a bit depressing to think that we were born with the purpose to do something and nothing else as if we had no will whatsoever, only some god’s will. I would rather believe that the universe is chaotic even though it is reassuring to believe that our lives have a meaning and that nothing happens randomly.
Anyways, chaotically happening or not, every single event is important to the construction of the universe and contributes to its natural order.
Now it is up to you to make your mind and choose between those two answers.
As far as the question of whether the Universe is orderly or chaotic goes I would say that it is someone in between. It all depends on what you take those words to mean. It is clear that every event that occurs in the universe is random, but occasionally, you get the feeling that certain things seem just too “perfect”. When you see how finely balanced certain systems on Earth are: such as the massive disruption you would cause in the weather by raising the temperature by 1 degree globally for instance, you feel that somehow all this “perfectness” surely can’t have come about by mere chance. Then again, in the thousand million stars in our galaxy alone it’s not surprising that by trial and error at least one Earth has appeared. So in conclusion I don’t really know, and maybe no one ever will, because who knows perhaps we’re not supposed to!
It's an interesting question that I believe can be viewed in several ways; It depends on what we understand by the term " refuse". It can either mean to decline to accept or to decline to submit to. This small contrast is what enables this question to be answered by yes or by no. Let's simply define emotion by being "a person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data". In other words, we do not decide them; we cannot trigger fear for instance whenever we like. When we do feel something, it is not always easy to become conscious of which emotion the feelings refer to, but once we do know, we find ourselves having to face them. The reason why today we found ourselves needing to put a name on our feelings or emtions is because of an another manisfestation of our conscience: reason. Because both have to cohabitate within ourselves, conflicts can occur. Thus, we ask ourselves, should I let this emotion flow entirely or should I try to at least control it? Controling emotion usually means trying to surpress an emotion from flowing outwards. Of course, this can never be completely achieved, as our body tend to subconciously reveal our thoughts through microexpressions for instance, and does it really mean that we can "refuse" an emotion? Whether we choose to accept it or not ( this process usually passes through reason) our emotions remain present and will not leave when we decide just as it never came because we wanted it to. We cannot deny its existence. In this sens, we cannot "refuse" (decline in accepting it as a guest in our personal house)an emotion as whether we accept it or not, it will still force its way into our space. However, just as stated, we can to a certain extent "control" it, that is control the outward manisfestations of our emotions. Therefore, "refusing" to act through an emotion is possible. I can refuse to display my anger and stay calm. In other words, I decline in submiting to parts of an emotion. (although not without difficulties)This is possible thanks to reason. I just use reason to take over my mind.
The question remains over all ambiguous. Refuse experiencing an emotion? Refuse accepting it? Refuse admitting its existence? For who? It would be different for other animals...
I decided to try to provide an answer to the following question: Is it possible to refuse emotions?
Emotion could be defined as an effective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate or the like is experienced. To refuse means to express a determination not to accept. So, if we consider this definition, I think it is possible to refuse emotions. A lot of people do their best to refuse their emotions and to convince themselves that they actually do not feel what they are feeling. But, to my mind, the question below or the real question is whether we can ignore or not the emotions that overwhelm us. And considering this, I tend to answer as Maxim did, that is to say, we cannot refuse our emotions. Indeed, our emotions are what come naturally to us, without any self-control. Even if we can hide these emotions to other people, it is always quite hard, if not impossible to make as if they were not present.
M. Feynman is, as stated in the last sentences, a rewarded researcher : first of all, as every student in the world, he learned, then applied what he learned and based on all this he tried to go deeper in the study of physics: he made new experiments, new calculations, new analysis of the phenomenons, and after a certain time, he made some very stunning findings. For what concerns me, I am a pupil: I'm not at the same level as Feynman for the moment. I'm on this basic stage where I love to learn and to apply the things the teacher taught me. What drives me by now is the impulse of Knowledge. And when I get to the next stage when I can find things out from a poem without needing anybody; when I finish writing a work due in which I think I've made some interesting points or “discoveries” alone; and whatever I do by myself, I'm feeling like I've made a “kick in the discovery”. The best part of it is surely when my works are rewarded by a good mark or by a congratulation: it fulfills me with happiness and pride. I assure you, you'll maybe think it strange, but that's the impression I have. And to be honest, I hope I'll soon enjoy this impression again, after posting this little blogpost! Now tell me about you, guys! Did you ever experienced it in your life? If you did, in which circumstances? Are you driven by something too? By what exactly?
I believe that love does neither of those things. For me, love is a force and nothing more. And trying to say whether it strengthens or weakens is as impossible as trying to figure out whether it is good or bad. It is something that will influence you, the way you act. It will make you do things differently perhaps. But exactly what it does depends on the person feeling it and not on love itself. While some will achieve impossible feats, others will be destroyed. Some will not accept the feeling, be at war with themselves, weakened. Others will thrive and grow. To conclude, I realise my answer may not seem satisfactory but it is something I truly believe.
I chose to answer the question " What would be your favorite surroundings?"
The kind of surroundings that I prefer are quite different: Eventually I like woods,cliffs overlooking the ocean (like the cliffs of Moher) but the surroundings I'm really fond of are deserts. In fact what I like in deserts is the endless horizon and the fact of being completly alone, without other human being. However I reckon that deserts are truly hostile places and that, therefore living in one your entire life is quite utopic ( Human vs. Nature = Nature always wins) Nevertheless I think it would be a thrilling experience: being confronted to yourself, testing your limits, discovering who you really are... I am really convinced that it is in travelling, in changing your way of life and in living alone for a while,that you find what you are actually capable of. According to me it can really strengthen someone and gives him/her more confidence.
What is the most fulfilling: love or academic progress ?
ReplyDeleteFirst, this question let me perplex and honestly, I wish I could say academic progress. Especially in our current case, we are mostly looking for academic progress. Some might even say "this year I focus on school and love will come later."
But (unfortunately), I don't think that academic progress is as fulfilling as love. When we talked about it with Alix, we took an example: if someone is unemployed and poor but belongs to a very united and loving family, he surely is happier as a 50 years-old single man who became very rich thanks to his successful career.
But actually (as almost everything) I think the best is finding a good balance between both.
Are humans rational beings?
DeleteFor the most part, humans are rational beings... They think in a reasonable way, make statements, decisions or judgments using reasoned thinking (based on facts). Indeed, a lot of humans are rational when it comes to utilizing inductive reasoning to solve life's problems, but when people get their emotions involved, then all rationality will disappear (until they are able to get over their emotions and move on in order to solve the problem).
The question I am going to discuss is whether human beings are irrational or not.
ReplyDeleteTo my mind, our world is driven by reason ; our life is based on scientific discoveries (our health is determined by progress in medicine, and our modern comfort is based on inventions, such as electricity or the Internet). Moreover, our ways of thinking value logic and reason : people are taught as young as possible to solve problems in a logical and rigourous way, for example by learning to structure their works at school.
Last but not least, in our world, less and less unknown matters remain ; we now know that it is possible to go to space, and the mysteries of the human brain are to be unveiled thanks to the development of research.
However, I believe that in man's nature, there has always been and will always be spirituality.
Indeed, when there was no science, people had to find an explanation for natural phenomena such as storms or tides, in order to reassure themselves.
Therefore, humans had to tell one another stories (or myths) that would maintain a feeling of safety, which was a benefit to build a social order.
These fictional narratives were told orally to other people, and ended up being accepted and put in a written form when man developed the ability to write. I think that is the way that religions appeared.
Nowadays, although we favour logic and rational ideas, and that we know the world better, there are still unexplained events, such as death (is there an afterlife ? what does really remain of us after death ?), which can create fear among people. Although religion is less important than before, humans keep hoping and believing in things that can be referred to as "irrational", and that are not scientifically proved (many people still believe in some form of afterlife, even though it's not as clear as the one told in the Bible, for example)
As a conclusion, I would say that even though human beings are getting more and more rational in their ways of thinking, there is still a part of irrationality and spirituality in our minds, mostly because of our inner fears that we want to appease
Is Univers orderly or chaotic?
ReplyDeleteI think that both theories are correct. "Most of nature is inherently chaotic. It's not rigidly determined in the old sense. It's not rigidly predictable." would say Rupert Sheldrake. It's because nature, and the universe in general, is unpredictable that, in a way, it can be defined as chaotic. The Human race has always wanted to control everything but as nature cannot be controlled, Men tend to define it a chaotic. In fact Humanity has always found scientific (or not) explanations for such or such phenomenon, the could even predict it, but never control it. However we can see some order in all this apparently chaos. Indeed in the world everything was created as best as it could be, that's what natural selection is. everything was created to serve a precise purpose. The universe is ordered in galaxies, and planets. Let's take the example of the solar system, isn't it perfectly ordered?
So we can see two different answers to this question.
Are humans fundamentally rational or irrational?
ReplyDeleteAt first sight of this question, I thought I would never be able to answer because I found it very complex. But after much reflection, I would say that humans are fundamentally irrational. It's quite hard to explain but,in my opinion, we make our actions, thoughts and feelings seem rational while they represent the complete contrary.
I think we truly believe that the decisions we take are rational, because the world we live in made us think they are, but deep down, when you try to see it in outsider's point of view and when you really think about it, that's not at all the case. Nothing we do or say really has a rhyme or reason, nothing is a necessity; being the humans we are, with conciousness and emotions, we never really act upon "reason" but our heart or upon what we have been tought. I think everything we do is completely irrational and it couldn't be otherwise, seeing the chaotic world we live in. The best representation of this is probably our dreams, at least in my case: it is the expression of our subconscious and when we wake up, most of the time, we don't understand a thing about what we just dreamt or why because it wasn't rational at all! On the outside, it may seem as everything is thought through thoroughly (what a tongue twister...) but when going back to the basics of instinct and necessity, to my mind, nothing humans do is really resonable.
I hope I'm understood because I find it quite hard and complicated to explain, I think this subject would deserve a whole philosophy essay!
It's just a very quick summary of my opinion and I would love to hear others on the question so feel free to comment!
I totally agree with your point of view! It is clear that humans want to believe that they are rational beings; they try to prove it using logic, doing studies, for example in mathematics so as to feel order through clear demonstrations and theses.
DeleteBut if we were truly driven by rational thoughts only, we would not be different from animals who act according to their survival instincts: we would only do things in order to eat and have children. However we humans are driven by other factors, such as love (which is 99% of the time completely irrational) and other emotions like friendship and help.
Overall I don't really see the point of pretending to be rational while the only thing that makes us human is to think irrationally.
I also agree with both of you. However Alice P, you made a point that made me wonder whether I would support it. You said "But if we were truly driven by rational thoughts only, we would not be different from animals". After some reflexion, I don't believe that animals are able to think. Actually, I personally believe that animals are too rationnal to think.
DeleteHow important are the following for you: mathematics & science; nature; literature & art; love & romance?
ReplyDeleteI’m aware that my response to this question is highly personal; therefore anyone could easily argue and discuss my point of view.
In my opinion, nature is crucial. I can already read your thoughts: “She lives in a small village in the countryside, that’s to say basically in the woods, so her vision of the world is not really that of a civilized person…” But you’re wrong! In fact, nature determines the way we are biologically. We need it both physically and morally; it provides what’s vital for us: oxygen, food, land, so it contributes to our health, but not only. Nature is also our roots, and at many moments throughout history, humans have felt the need to come back to such traditional values (if you don’t understand what I’m talking about, consider doing revisions on modernism!). Even now in the news we often learn that some people doing stressing jobs with high responsibilities and pressure decided one day to quit and move to the countryside to breed sheep. I’m convinced that nature brings calm and peace; something that everyone needs at some point.
After, I would say that maths & science and literature & art are equally important. They are both necessary in the sense that they are a way for humans to search for meaning, and eventually to build philosophical thoughts. What’s absurd in today’s world is that we tend to distinguish “scientific” people and “literary” ones, which makes no sense to me. One needs both to built intelligence; look at famous personalities in olden days like Pythagore ad Euclide: they were mathematicians, philosophers and literary critics at the same time!
Last but not least, I tend to think that love and romance is only a medium, a tool used by literature and art to analyse human behaviour.
If I had to choose a style for my garden...
ReplyDeleteFirstly, a romantic style would not make me feel at ease. The first reason why a romantic style would not suit me is that I dislike unpredictable things. I always want to know everything that is going to happen and I always question myself about what would be the consequences of my actions. Sometimes, this habit gets on my nerves as I am not able to do anything without thinking about it over and over. A romantic style for my garden would clutter up my mind with reflections about more trivial things and I wouldn't bear it. Secondly, a romantic garden is supposed to be irregular; I am obsessive about tidiness. And to conclude I like to get used to things and it is obvious that it would not be possible with an ever-changing garden.
I had a hard time finding which of a natural style or a classical one I would choose. A natural style would not bother me. A classical one either. Both would make me feel at ease. Nevertheless, I personally think that if I had a garden it would look natural the first couples of weeks and it would soon become classical as I like things to be clearly set and impeccable. A classical style would suit me best as it would highlight my personality. It is also linked to the fact that I tend to act more with my head than with my heart, which would privilege tidy and unchanging surroundings rather than sentimental and flowing surroundings.
That's why I think that if I had to choose a style for my garden, it would be a classical style.
The group discussion about that matter made me realize that most people would opt out for a natural garden which is comprehensible. I would like to hear from others about what they would choose to see if anybody thinks the same as me and to understand why others would have chosen the other possible styles.
Do we tend to react more with our heart or with our intellect?
ReplyDeleteOur intellect and our emotions guide us and define how we behave in our society. As human beings our intellect and emotions are more developed than the other creatures inhabiting the Earth. Our conscience and reason allow us to perceive, understand and react in a much more complex way to the different situations we face every day (and of course we all do react to things!). The intellect is the faculty of the human soul by which it knows; it must be distinguished from the power to feel (our emotions belonging to this). Our emotions make us feel, they are open-doors to the myriad of feelings; they enable us to fear, to doubt, to smile, to cry, to laugh…They are part of who we are. Therefore there are two different aspects of humans’ reactions. We tend to react with our mind (and so our intellect), or with the heart (following our emotions). Sometimes our intellect and our heart are on the same page but there is often a huge difference between what our intellect is saying and what our heart is actually saying. Personally, I think that if we would only listen to our intellect, we would never know exciting experiences such as a love affair and we would never have a friendship…Our intellect is indeed in a constant transformation, it presupposes a long reflection, an effort. It is our rational part. Whereas our first reaction surely comes from our heart, it is an immediate reaction. If only a right balance could exist between the mind and the heart…I know it is not always so simple to make a decision only by following your heart, and the intellect should be here to balance out the making of our decision. In doing so, our decisions could be both intellectual and emotional. However, remember that “the heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of” (Pascal).
Some of us might have experienced this feeling of fulfillment in true love, especially when we love someone as much as this person loves us back. If not, this is the beacon to look for would say anyone deeply in love, for there's nothing as worthwile. To them , love equals life. It’s similar to an energy that would even strenghten the poorest ones. In other words, being loved or loving, makes up believe that we can cope with any issue for we are not lonly. We could then be convinced that nothing is incomparably superior to love and - in an impetus of kindness - that every single men deserves it.
ReplyDeleteWhy then wonder if love weakens when it's made obvious that it eases our seek for happiness?
First, it has the particularity to enhance the perception of our surroundings. Meaning that it does prevent us from being objective in our judgment as well as fool our « down -to-hearth » part. On top of that the specific intimacy it requires, creates invitably a form of dependence. This dependence be felt by both lovers, making thus agonizing any separation or remotoness.
Apart from the fact that this feeling is an ambivalent matter I think it echoes an other one that we tend to overclook. To me, then, the real question to be adressed should be the following: can our ego could bear being weakened by love ? Perceiving love as a strenght isn't it a way to comfort us in the ideal we have of ourselves? Just wondering...
As some of you probably know, the kind of surroundings I prefer are endless landscapes in foreign countries or in the mountains. This kind of places are my real freedom. The physical one, of course, seeing the sensation of holding my life in my hands it provides me, the impression of being within a kind of parenthesis, alone with myself, in front of myself. But what fulfills me the most is this mental freedom I can smell the perfume of with breathing deeply. In such places, I feel like I know who I am, like I am who I am for real, like it is no use faking any longer, it is no use being who the others, trends and society tell me to be. I am free to cry over human absurdity, to decide not to be like them all, slumped on a sofa like rubbish, eating rubbish, wrapped in rubbish, watching rubbish on TV. I am free to shout that I will certainly not be a slave to fashion, to money, to this lack of reason, to this lack of responsability. In such places, I am allowed to hope that I will one day free myself from this futility which ashames me. In such places, I am simply allowed to hope that I will one day manage to be a deserving, worthy and above all, a different person.
ReplyDelete(I know you will forgive me for being so personnal)
What is the most fulfilling: love or academic progress ?
ReplyDeleteWithout any hesitations, I respond : love. It is in human nature to be unable to understand “why” people would love you. What in you can attract someone? You are, most of the time, only capable of seeing your defaults, and the feeling of insecurity is a perpetual emotion for a person. Academic progress might be an excellent way for a human to feel accomplished, but nothing overpowers love. Because love fills the gaps in your self-confidence, and makes disappear the negative image of yourself. You do not only feel accomplished – you feel completed. Love is like the ultimate piece of the human puzzle, it brings you the confidence you need to accept yourself for what you are. Is academic progress powerful enough to replace this extraordinary feeling of fullness? I cannot assure that. It is enough to look into lovers' eyes to understand that they will not exchange what they have. Not for all the knowledge in the world. I do not know if they are right or wrong, but I strongly believe that someone can live out of love. Ignorance can be bliss, if someone's love is here to make you forget it. But academic progress hardly makes you forget that you are alone.
Is it possible to refuse emotion?
ReplyDeleteThere are always emotions that you don't understand or that you don't want to show to other people because you don't accept them. These emotions can be very different from one another; It can be love, sadness, regret...
Love is probably the most difficult emotion to accept because it is often sudden and irrational. You don't know why or when it is going to happen. When people are sad or regretful they try to think about something else because it is an emotion that affects deeply your state of mind and your behaviour. But this is impossible. Event though they can be irrational or painful, our emotions are part of us and therefore you can't refuse them. However we often try to do so by attempting to forget them or trying to convince ourselves that they don't affect us. In fact we never entirely succeed because emotions define us and they influence us all along our lives.
That's why I think we definitely can't refuse emotions no matter how hard we try.
How do we act ? Do we act with our head or with our heart? Personally I tend to act with my heart, even if sometime I wish I had act with my head. I tend to be spontaneous because over thinking blocks you from being yourself and being happy. My philosophy is “act now and think later” if not, I won’t ever be able to do something in fear of regrets. It is better to have regrets than remorse, because it means that you had experiences, and life is too short to prevent yourself from living. What is more, mistakes are needed to understand life; they make you stronger and aware of what is waiting for you in the future. If you act with your head, you will always be afraid of the consequences and you will end your life without any past because you never did anything. This is the worst thing that could happen to me, I want to make the most of each second of my life. The world is full of surprises, and I don’t want to miss one of them. This is why I prefer acting with my heart rather than with my head, I prefer letting my heart control myself. I know it will make the right decisions for me and that I will be grateful to him in the future.
ReplyDeleteIs the universe orderly or chaotic?
ReplyDeleteTheoretically speaking, the universe is orderly, and human beings like being comforted in this vision of the world they live in. This is the role of religions, which give organized views of the world. They actually give dichotomous points of view, systematically presenting oppositions as the only way to think the universe. This is particularly obvious in their handling of good and evil, for example. The final aim to reach would be combatting the evil so as to see the good thriumph. In these theories, there are no alternatives, and our minds are forced to follow an ordered scheme. In a different way, science also gives an orderly view of the universe through its study of planets in the solar system, among others. In fact, planets are all arranged in an organized pattern and each of them has a defined movement. Many representations therefore set the universe as an ordered whole.
In practice however, the universe turns out to be submitted to countless events that make it chaotic. One may easily think about wars as being an obvious way to ascertain this fact. Indeed, conflicts go against all logics: men consciously kill their fellows, thus compromising the survival of the human kind. Moreover, things are never so simple as to be strictly opposed. There are several ways to answer one single question for instance; it is never black or white, but rather “in between”.
This does not nevertheless mean that chaos is a bad thing. If everything was ordered along the exact same lines, life would be monotonous and there wouldn’t be any cultural differences. We wouldn’t enjoy the improbable that spices up our lives! Chaos is actually part of the world we live in, and because it is fascinating, people have always been trying to understand it. But if we could, wouldn’t it deny its actual nature?
Agathe
Does love strengthen or weaken ?
ReplyDeleteIt is obvious that being in love with someone who barely knows you is emotionally damaging. However, many people believe that being in a serious relationship with someone strengthens you personality. I do not want to seem heartless or pessimistic but in fact, this idea is completely untrue. First of all, during the first months of a relationship, the two lovers are usually overjoyed, feeling powerful and care less about their daily problems - but of course this feeling will soon disappear as being in love will not exempt them from taxes -. However, being euphoric does not mean you are emotionally strong. It is sure that love strengthens a couple as a whole, but each of the two lovers are weakened by their feelings. Indeed, love seems to destroy the spiritual armour that protects you from the others : love is now the only thing that keeps you emotionally stable. It is true that love procures a certain motivation, allowing you to accomplish great things, but these actions are likely to be irrational, as they are based on an emotion and not on a real logical reflection. To conclude, I am not saying that you should not love someone, I just believe that it is somehow dangerous, as the “world” built with someone could easily be disappear and destroy your life.
Is the universe orderly or chaotic?
ReplyDeleteIs there an answer to this question? I really do not know. Some people might think that the world has a pre-defined pattern that is always respected, a god-like scheme where everyone accomplishes what he is born for while others argue that every single event is happening in an unpredictable and chaotic way. To my mind, it is a bit depressing to think that we were born with the purpose to do something and nothing else as if we had no will whatsoever, only some god’s will. I would rather believe that the universe is chaotic even though it is reassuring to believe that our lives have a meaning and that nothing happens randomly.
Anyways, chaotically happening or not, every single event is important to the construction of the universe and contributes to its natural order.
Now it is up to you to make your mind and choose between those two answers.
As far as the question of whether the Universe is orderly or chaotic goes I would say that it is someone in between. It all depends on what you take those words to mean. It is clear that every event that occurs in the universe is random, but occasionally, you get the feeling that certain things seem just too “perfect”. When you see how finely balanced certain systems on Earth are: such as the massive disruption you would cause in the weather by raising the temperature by 1 degree globally for instance, you feel that somehow all this “perfectness” surely can’t have come about by mere chance. Then again, in the thousand million stars in our galaxy alone it’s not surprising that by trial and error at least one Earth has appeared. So in conclusion I don’t really know, and maybe no one ever will, because who knows perhaps we’re not supposed to!
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to refuse emotion?
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting question that I believe can be viewed in several ways; It depends on what we understand by the term " refuse". It can either mean to decline to accept or to decline to submit to. This small contrast is what enables this question to be answered by yes or by no. Let's simply define emotion by being "a person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data". In other words, we do not decide them; we cannot trigger fear for instance whenever we like. When we do feel something, it is not always easy to become conscious of which emotion the feelings refer to, but once we do know, we find ourselves having to face them. The reason why today we found ourselves needing to put a name on our feelings or emtions is because of an another manisfestation of our conscience: reason. Because both have to cohabitate within ourselves, conflicts can occur. Thus, we ask ourselves, should I let this emotion flow entirely or should I try to at least control it? Controling emotion usually means trying to surpress an emotion from flowing outwards. Of course, this can never be completely achieved, as our body tend to subconciously reveal our thoughts through microexpressions for instance, and does it really mean that we can "refuse" an emotion? Whether we choose to accept it or not ( this process usually passes through reason) our emotions remain present and will not leave when we decide just as it never came because we wanted it to. We cannot deny its existence. In this sens, we cannot "refuse" (decline in accepting it as a guest in our personal house)an emotion as whether we accept it or not, it will still force its way into our space. However, just as stated, we can to a certain extent "control" it, that is control the outward manisfestations of our emotions. Therefore, "refusing" to act through an emotion is possible. I can refuse to display my anger and stay calm. In other words, I decline in submiting to parts of an emotion. (although not without difficulties)This is possible thanks to reason. I just use reason to take over my mind.
The question remains over all ambiguous. Refuse experiencing an emotion? Refuse accepting it? Refuse admitting its existence? For who? It would be different for other animals...
I decided to try to provide an answer to the following question: Is it possible to refuse emotions?
ReplyDeleteEmotion could be defined as an effective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate or the like is experienced. To refuse means to express a determination not to accept. So, if we consider this definition, I think it is possible to refuse emotions. A lot of people do their best to refuse their emotions and to convince themselves that they actually do not feel what they are feeling. But, to my mind, the question below or the real question is whether we can ignore or not the emotions that overwhelm us. And considering this, I tend to answer as Maxim did, that is to say, we cannot refuse our emotions. Indeed, our emotions are what come naturally to us, without any self-control. Even if we can hide these emotions to other people, it is always quite hard, if not impossible to make as if they were not present.
M. Feynman is, as stated in the last sentences, a rewarded researcher : first of all, as every student in the world, he learned, then applied what he learned and based on all this he tried to go deeper in the study of physics: he made new experiments, new calculations, new analysis of the phenomenons, and after a certain time, he made some very stunning findings.
ReplyDeleteFor what concerns me, I am a pupil: I'm not at the same level as Feynman for the moment. I'm on this basic stage where I love to learn and to apply the things the teacher taught me. What drives me by now is the impulse of Knowledge. And when I get to the next stage when I can find things out from a poem without needing anybody; when I finish writing a work due in which I think I've made some interesting points or “discoveries” alone; and whatever I do by myself, I'm feeling like I've made a “kick in the discovery”. The best part of it is surely when my works are rewarded by a good mark or by a congratulation: it fulfills me with happiness and pride. I assure you, you'll maybe think it strange, but that's the impression I have. And to be honest, I hope I'll soon enjoy this impression again, after posting this little blogpost!
Now tell me about you, guys! Did you ever experienced it in your life? If you did, in which circumstances? Are you driven by something too? By what exactly?
Does love strengthen or weaken ?
ReplyDeleteI believe that love does neither of those things. For me, love is a force and nothing more. And trying to say whether it strengthens or weakens is as impossible as trying to figure out whether it is good or bad. It is something that will influence you, the way you act. It will make you do things differently perhaps. But exactly what it does depends on the person feeling it and not on love itself. While some will achieve impossible feats, others will be destroyed. Some will not accept the feeling, be at war with themselves, weakened. Others will thrive and grow. To conclude, I realise my answer may not seem satisfactory but it is something I truly believe.
I chose to answer the question " What would be your favorite surroundings?"
ReplyDeleteThe kind of surroundings that I prefer are quite different: Eventually I like woods,cliffs overlooking the ocean (like the cliffs of Moher) but the surroundings I'm really fond of are deserts. In fact what I like in deserts is the endless horizon and the fact of being completly alone, without other human being. However I reckon that deserts are truly hostile places and that, therefore living in one your entire life is quite utopic ( Human vs. Nature = Nature always wins) Nevertheless I think it would be a thrilling experience: being confronted to yourself, testing your limits, discovering who you really are... I am really convinced that it is in travelling, in changing your way of life and in living alone for a while,that you find what you are actually capable of. According to me it can really strengthen someone and gives him/her more confidence.