Albert Camus

Albert Camus (1913-1960)
French existentialist
Stanford Camus article

-Human beings cannot escape the question of living "What is the meaning of existence"
-The endless search for the meaning of life and the existence itself is the absurd

Myth of Sisyphus, Philosophy of the Absurd:
Sisyphus rolls a rock up and down a hill for the rest of his life but still manages to live life by embracing the absurd
-Camus argues this situation is not unlike the existence of humans that find themselves in patterns in the monotony of life
-The paradox of life: We keep looking for the meaning of life (rolling the ball up/why we continue to desire to live) only to find out that we can never know the meaning (watching the ball roll down).
-Camus implies that if one is content with the monotony of life and its absurdity then they can live

Other philosophies:
Camus uses the absurd to present ideas surrounding suicide and death, to only name a couple

Sleep meditation

Assignment: Take a bath and consciously go to sleep

Because I couldn't take a bath I instead took a shower. While taking the shower before going to sleep I tried to consciously think about how I was interacting with the water around me. I made the connection between the heat I was experiencing and the heat of the water. The water is the medium through which the heat flows, and humans are apart of the continuous cycle of energy that exists in life. Many times water is compared to the way in the Tao Te Ching. Understanding the flow of water in a stream is understanding the way. Even though it might seem a little far fetched, while taking the shower I felt that I was closer to the way.
After the shower I felt calm and ready for bed. My worries about the next day subsided and I found myself left with an open mind. This made falling asleep very easy. I fell asleep that night quicker than I usually do.

Tao Te Ching favorite passages

Book 1
Exterminate the sage, discard the wise,
And the people will benefit a hundredfold;
Exterminate benevolence, discard rectitude,
And the people again will be filial;
Exterminate ingenuity, discard profit,
And there will be no more thieves and bandits.
These three being false adornments, are not enough
And the people must have something to which they can
attach themselves
Exhibit the unadorned and embrace the uncharted block,
Have little thought and as few desires as possible
pg 23

This passage has to do with the idea of inter-being, especially between opposites. Without profit there cannot be thieves to steal the wealth. This passages was intriguing to me because alludes to the classic saying 'with great power comes great responsibility.' With the knowledge that the sage and the wise bring, it also brings obsession with knowing and understanding. This idea of obsession with understanding is seen as a bad thing in Taoism as the 'way', or the Tao, is not supposed to be capable of knowing.

Book 2
When the way prevails in the empire, fleet footed horses
are relegated to ploughing the fields: when the way does
not prevail in the empire, war-horses breed on the border.
There is no crime greater than having too many desires;
There is no disaster greater than not being content;
There is no misfortune greater than being covetous.
Hence in being content, one will always have enough.

I chose this passage as one of my favorites because I thought that it related a lot to contemporary western society. Traditionally American society revolves around many desires. This is most clearly seen in consumerism as Americans constantly desire to buy more and more as well as accumulate as much wealth as possible. It makes sense to me that having no desires would correlate with being content and satisfied because if you desire things you are constantly looking for things that you don't already have.

Meal meditation

Assignment: consciously eat a meal while paying full attention to the food you're eating.

For my meal I chose to snack on some Fig Newtons and a cup of water. When I started to eat the fig newtons I had a similar experience to that of the tangerine party. I though about how many different ingredients had to go into the snack just to create it. This relates back to the idea of inter-being: The Fig Newton cannot be without any of the ingredients that are inside of it.
Drinking the cup of water consciously was especially unique from any other experience I have had while drinking water. I tried to sense the water flow down my throat. It felt unusually smooth and together. Water is composed of many different molecules, however, they can come together to have the sensation as one distinct object. I also noticed as the water seeped down into my chest it seemed to take a few different paths around the area of my stomach. The most obvious observation was how the water tasted. It had no real strong taste, yet I desired to drink it more than the flavorful Fig Newtons. Also as I drank the water I remembered from the Tao Te Ching that water is thought to be in competition with nothing. As I drank the cup of water I agreed with that thought because at that moment it made perfect sense: How could a substance that is necessary for life to many things every be in competition with those same things that desire it? Also, water is rarely at fault since it is the basis for many living things, much like the Tao.

Homework: Do nothing

For the first time ever my homework was to do nothing for 15 minutes straight. What a great assignment! When I first heard of the assignment I thought it would be incredibly easy, however, siting still for 15 minutes turns out to be harder than you would think. I sat on the couch in my house and just looked around the room aimlessly. At first my mind wandered. I thought about the homework that I still had to do, and then about the things that were coming up the next day. It felt like I was wasting a huge amount of time. To be completely honest I did not make it to the full 15 minute mark. Although, the fact that I couldn't stand still that long illustrates a good point: doing nothing for any period of time is something that I rarely do.
In the US many people are brought up believing that inaction is bad. This is very different from the eastern philosophies in Buddhism. If you're overly active and have no time for inactivity (like many people in the western world) then it can be reasonably assumed that you're setting goals or trying to accomplish things. This is fine to a certain extent, however, if it is to the extent of being stressed it may mean that you're desiring too much. This is opposite of what is stated in the Tao Te Ching: "There is no crime greater than having too many desires." In Buddhism, an abundance of desire leads to a perpetually unsatisfied life. This is why the opposite of having desires and constantly doing, or inaction, is respected. A person that has time to do nothing and just take in life is content and desires less than the  one who is constantly doing.

Tangerine Party

A couple of class periods ago the class had a 'tangerine party'. During the tangerine party the class went outside and each person consciously peeled and ate their citrus fruit. The exercise was overall very eye opening to the fact that most of the I eat I am not thinking about what I'm actually doing. This phenomenon of absentmindedness while eating is especially apparent in Western society. While I was peeling my tangerine I thought about the journey the tangerine took to get to me. First the tangerine tree was planted then it was picked. However, in order for the tangerine to have been picked someone needed to pick it. After the tangerine was picked it was shipped to the US where it was distributed to grocery stores (and so on). The point is that tangerine could not have been in my hand at that moment if it wasn't for a variety of other factors. In fact I could not have had that tangerine in my hand at that moment if it wasn't for everything else in the world. This relates to the Eastern philosophical idea of inter-being. In this idea things in the world are related to other things through the idea of existence. This is very opposite to US culture where people don't often think about what a thing is or where it came from but rather what the object can be used for. It is the essence, not the appreciation for existence that seems to be valued in many western cultures.  

Winston Simone De Beauvoir presentation

A couple of class periods ago Winston (aka DJ Wiz or The Winston-ator) gave a presentation to the class on Simone De Beauvoir. Overall the presentation was very thorough. I thought it was especially impressive that Winston was able to talk about De Beauvoir in such detail in front of the class given that he was put on the spot to give the presentation. He also saved everyone else in the class as we didn't have to take a quiz that day because he presented - yay Winston. 

The immanence and transcendence part of De Beauvoir's philosophy is a little confusing to me. By assigning men the sphere of 'transcendence' does she mean that men are able, or at least have a better chance of overcoming the absurd in life? If she does, wouldn't this conflict with her previous beliefs about how the absurd is something present in all humans that we must learn to accept?

Blank piece of paper

A blank piece of paper is more than its essence. The paper is a canvass for what is to come. It is actually the symbol ideas and the unintelligible world itself. As humans we are unable to see what how the significance of the paper different from anything else in Plato's intelligible world? From a Humean perceptive, there's nothing we can do to perceive the ideas that are being prepared to be written unto the paper. The intelligible world offers no sensory perception to which humans are able to discern. The ideas that are to be place on the paper are therefore as real to us as the designs we see on the blank white paper. The dualistic nature of life is that there to parts of of the world: the intelligible and the unintelligible. The only way to understand what words or ideas are going to be placed on the paper is if the unexpressed ideas are your own. According to Descartes, the furthest you can go in knowing ideas or existence is to know your own existence: cogito ergo sum: i think therefore i am. Of course this places Cartesian philosophy under the threat of solipsism, or the idea that you are the only one that exists. But when it really comes down to it, the Humean and empirical 'wrecking ball' explains it best: how do you know? How do you know that there are ideas that exist outside your own mind? How do you that the paper even exists in itself? The proposition that we are all just brains in a vat is incredibility possible at this juncture since the existence of almost everything is being questioned. 

The paper itself is alienated from its other paper friends. He is abandoned. From his home, his comrades, his consciousness, he lurks. The paper was once a tree. Which was once a seed. Which was once a tree. The cycle of life wears on. What is life? 

Below is a picture of a blank piece of paper. 

Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir 1908-1986

According to Professor DJ Wiz and IEP article

Simone de Beauvoir was a French existentialist philosopher who was inspired by philosophers such as Hegel, Sartre and Camus before creating her own distinct philosophies.

Most important points of her philosophies:

1) The 'absurd' or reality of the world crushes the human soul, humans must accept it:
"Human existence is an ambiguous mixture of internal drive to transcend and escape the oppressive and absurd world"
2) Each person has their own autonomy that others must recognize to form identity (mutual recognition)
3) The creation of goals, expectations destroys human freedom

Ethics "Ethics of Ambiguity'
4) Acting alone or only considering yourself in a situation is immoral. Everybody must be taken into account.
5) Inaction/being a bystander is useless and unethical

Feminism "Second Sex"
6) Women have been in oppression to men for much of history. Despite this, they still have freedom
7) Immanence- woman's sphere concerned with monotony of life/jobs v Transcendence- man's sphere of work with higher ideas/complexities less monotony in life
8) Biological differences have no effect on woman's differences and oppression. The differences between man and woman come from social constructs:
"One is not born, but becomes a woman"

Man in bad faith:
-Sub man- in constant compliance
-Serious man- in constant desire/recognition of another
-Nihilist- constant denial and rejection

Woman living (all lead to one dimensional living)
-Narcissist- loves/obsessed with oneself
-love- focused on another's happiness
-mystic- devoted to something else (god, Absurd etc.)

The Absurd- Camus PoV

Myth of Sisyphus
Existentialism is a Humanism

In the Myth of Sisyphus the writer, Albert Camus, introduces the idea of the absurd. This absurd can be defined in one way as the desire for humans to discover the meaning of life. However, because the meaning of life is unknown, humans become caught up in an endless unsatisfied desire. Camus gets to the point in his writing that it is better to be happy with the monotony of life (Sisyphus rolling the bolder up and down the hill) rather than engage in an internal mental battle that the human mind will never win.
In Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism he writes about the idea of existence preceding essence. First a person exists and everything that makes up that person besides his or her existence is secondary. The character of a person is determined by that person alone.

Funny spongebob moments

Spongebob greatest moments

Many of the greatest moments of the cartoon series Spongebob are based on real life occurrences. The fact that as viewers we can relate to the jokes is a large part of why they make us laugh. In number 9 of the video Patrick is put to sleep by Squidward's playing of the clarinet. This is something many of us can relate to as string and woodwind concerts tend to make people sleepy. However, Spongebob goes deeper than just relating to the human life. Spongebob actually addresses the absurdity of life in its episodes. In many ways the series of Spongebob itself is an alternate reality and  therefore also an alternate 'absurdity'. The philosopher Camus describes the absurd as a the desire for humans to fine the meaning of life. This desire is never satisfied and it thus becomes absurd to try to find this hidden meaning because it is widely accepted that no one will. Instead of trying to find the meaning of life it is better to become happy in the meaningless tasks we do in life like Sisyphus rolling a rock up and down a hill. Similarly, the nature or origin of the jokes in Spongebob are sometimes unknown. In this case it becomes better to focus on the joke itself rather than its origin or nature, just as it's sometimes better to focus on the monotony of life rather than catching yourself in the endless desire for life's meaning, or the absurd.