Category: Philosophy

Posted in Philosophy

Four Seasons

Posted on by Jinavie

Spring. The warm sunshine and the soft breeze form a balance to breathe new life into everything – flowers, trees, hibernating animals, babies. The baby grows on the nutrition that is love. The baby spends the most peaceful, free stage of childhood and experiences new things every day. He learns life slowly as he grows like a fresh sprout. Unfortunately, at this stage the sprout is also vulnerable to harm, and these scars will be a burden for the rest of the baby’s life.

Summer. The hot, burning sun, the boundless, clear ocean. The hot, burning love and desires, the boundless, clear possibilities life brings. The boy spends the happiest moments in his life, and discovers what he wants and who he is. Through this he also develops obsessions; his main obsession is love – so hot that it may even burn up into ashes or cause scalding wounds. He enjoys the present, without knowing the weight of the world and true pain. To him, the future is a land of infinite dreams and hope. His boyhood times burn like a roaring flame, and happiness reaches a climax.

Autumn. The leaves, bleached yellow, fall gently. The endless and cloudless sky. The cold wind. The boy, now a young adult, laments why life and love are so painful, and why he must suffer so much. The future that was once full of dreams has now become a hopeless reality. As the leaves die away, so do the boy’s hopes, romance and his identity. Can he pull through this bitter adolescence? What does he wonder while staring at the dead leaves? No one truly understands his thoughts and pain, and he trudges along a road strewn with leaves. The passion and heat of summer have completely disappeared.

Winter. There is no life. Only white snow covers the world, turning it into a blank page. The man feels that there is no meaning to life, and looks back on his life. The dream-like spring, the passionate summer, the despairing autumn, the end of the four seasons – winter. But then, he finally realises. The naive spring, the foolish summer, the pain he overcame through autumn. The man looks back at how he has grown and developed, and turns his attention to his inner self for the meaning of life and peace. After overcoming his mid-life crisis, he clears his mind and reaches nirvana.

Spring. A spring comes again, new life arises once more. The old man calmly smiles and thinks. He now understands the true meaning of life and is satisfied with his. He sees a baby facing another set of four seasons and thinks: “That child will walk a similar journey as I did.” He now knows that life cycles, and that spring will indubitably return always.

He is now completely at peace.

Posted in Philosophy

Lines

Posted on by Jinavie

There are two lines.
If they are parallel, they have many things in common but will never meet.
Sadly, all other pairs would still meet just once and then go their own ways for infinity.

One solution to this problem is making one line bend at an angle to make it continue in the same trajectory as the other line.
In life, there are moments when you must bend your line. Those who do not know how to bend will tread alone, ad infinitum.

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Posted in Philosophy

An Opinion On The Senses

Posted on by Jinavie

There are five physical senses and five mental senses.

The physical senses are sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.

The mental senses are emotions, imagination, intuition, understanding and inspiration.

If a person only uses their five physical senses to live, that is like using the five fingers on their left hand only.

(Die fünf Sinne (The Five Senses) by Hans Makart, 1840-1884)

Posted in Philosophy

Formula Of Love

Posted on by Jinavie

Einstein, considered to be the greatest genius in history, once faced this situation while giving a guest lecture at a university.
A student asked Einstein, who had just finished giving a physics lecture, the following:
“Professor, you have discovered the theory of relativity and managed to formularise it. Could you express love as an algebraic formula?”

Einstein thought for a while, then smiled as he wrote this equation on the board:

LOVE = 2△ + 2□ + 2~ + 4/

The students were confused and asked him to explain it further. He then solved it as shown below:

“The sorrow of having to take a path you must take, yet not being able to resist looking back over and over! The frustration of wanting to follow a path you cannot take! That is love.”

(Source: http://xkcd.com/55/)

Posted in Philosophy

Epimenides Paradox

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A Cretan named Epimenides once said: “All Cretans are liars.”
So if Epimenides is a Cretan and he is a liar, then the statement is false. But that means that Cretans tell the truth, and Cretans are in fact liars. So what is the truth? This paradox continues ad infinitum due to the self-referencing nature of the statement.

This is a well-known example of a logical fallacy, or a flaw in a logic. It is also referred to as the Liar Paradox, seen in: “This sentence is false”.
The power of a paradox is best portrayed in the following parable.

A wise woman who worked as a fortune teller was tried for being a witch. In her trial, the king demanded she tell a fortune. If the fortune was correct, she would be drowned. If the fortune was wrong, she would be burnt at the stake. The woman smiled, and replied: “I will be burnt at the stake”.

Posted in Philosophy

The Difference Between You And I

Posted on by Jinavie

If you do it, it’s verbal abuse;  if I do it, it’s humour.
If you do it, it’s an affair;  if I do it, it’s romance.
If you do it, it’s graffiti;  if I do it, it’s art.
If you do it, it’s showing off;  if I do it, it’s romance.

If you do it, it’s being drunk;  if I do it, it’s entertainment.
If you do it, it’s foolish;  if I do it, it’s romance.
If you do it, it’s a lie;  if I do it, it’s the truth.
If you do it, it’s a scandal;  if I do it, it’s romance.

If you do it, it’s wasting time;  if I do it, it’s resting.
If you do it, it’s stalking;  if I do it, it’s romance.
If you do it, it’s your fault;  if I do it, it’s your fault.
If you do it, it’s insane;  if I do it, it’s romance.

If you do it, it’s impossible;  if I do it, it’s possible.

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Posted in Philosophy

Cheshire Cat

Posted on by Jinavie

As an important character in the book Alice in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat is infamous for his non-sensical and strange questions and answers. But his words also carry a very strong philosophical message.
For example, when asked by Alice, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” he replies:

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. 
“I don’t much care where-” said Alice. 
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. 
“-so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation. 
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

This directly applies to life: if you keep walking without giving up, you will eventually end up somewhere. Even if you are lost and without direction, life will, without a doubt, take you somewhere as long as there is hope. However, it also points out how it’s much more useful and time-conserving to know the destination you want to reach, also known as a “goal”.

Additionally, the Cat is well-known for his ear-to-ear grin, thus the term “grinning like a Cheshire Cat”. The origin of this cat is most likely from Cheshire, England, where cheese made from there were molded into the shape of a grinning cat.

Posted in Philosophy

The Truth Lies Within The Finger

Posted on by Jinavie

A wise man points at the moon, but the fool looks at the finger. (Chinese proverb)

The wise man explains that his finger is not important and what should be looked at is the moon, but the fool carefully listens to him and thinks that he is a very good speaker. (a modern adaptation of the proverb)

The wise man pleads the fool to look at the damn moon, but the fool is only afraid and does not look up. (a very modern adaptation of the proverb)

The wise man finally gives up talking about the moon and instead starts talking about his finger, which he thinks the fool will be more interested in. The fool then says to himself, that the wise man is someone who is able to explain his own stories to others in an easily understandable manner, and that he can talk about any subject – even a random thing such as a finger. (an even more modern adaptation of the proverb)

When the wise man dies, the fool asks himself: “So really, what was it the wise man tried to explain to us lifting his finger so high?” (the ultimate adaptation of the proverb)

(from Paradise by Bernard Werber)

Posted in Philosophy

Two Clocks

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There are two clocks: a still clock and a clock that is always a minute late.
Which clock is more accurate?

The answer is the still clock – it tells the correct time twice every day, but the other clock is always wrong despite the fact that it constantly ticks.
Sometimes when life gets you down, it is better to stop and rest instead of trudging on forever, always out of sync.

Posted in Philosophy

Evidence

Posted on by Jinavie

When a person dies, what do they leave in the world? As an old proverb states, tigers leave their hide after death and people leave their name after death. Little is left after death: bodies slowly decay and return to the ground, wealth is split up and taken by others. If you think about it, the only thing that remains as evidence that the person existed is their name, and people’s memories regarding that name. Official records or photos can be lost among time and forgotten about, but a strong bond between people is hard to forget.

But as even memories fade away, a person who you met once or twice will be forgotten eventually. Therefore, a person who never was close to people or make an impact in someone’s life would “not have existed” to anyone other than a select few, such as family. Therefore, his or her life would have had no meaning, as it may have never existed. Although some may argue that there would have been meaning while the person was alive, there is no greater meaning outside of the past and present, with no impact in the future.

However, if one is close to many people and actively leaves some mark in someone’s life, they will be remembered for those “marks”. In other words, the way people see you is how you will be remembered after death, and by extension, it will define who you were. If you were generous and kind, you become a “good person” forever, but if you did not interact with people or treated them with little respect, you are then defined as a “not so good person”, or even worse, not defined at all. This is regardless of what kind of person you are on the inside, as that would be completely destroyed after death.

The main point of this thought process is that if you do not leave some evidence that you existed, more specifically a good mark, whatever you did in your life will be meaningless. One could accomplish a great feat and have their name known across the world, or leave a work of art or literature that will be seen and read, or even just befriend many people and leave an everlasting impression of yourself in their mind. 

But if you do not want your life to have any impact on the future, there is the option of simply enjoying the present and disappear as Andersen’s Little Mermaid did.
Ergo, it is ultimately your choice whether you want to leave a mark in the world or not.