My first grade teacher would always tell us that every single one of us was worth more than the all the money in the world and that we were all unique. She is not far off from the truth. The part that she is wrong is the fact that we should apply some numerical value to peoples lives even if the result is incalculable. Kierkegaard use to say that "when you label me, you negate me" essentially. He is pointing out the fact that once something is labeled or defined, it is then restricted to that definition. Some labels make life alot easier but even more labels create a sense of concreteness and nonfluidity in life. This restricts how we act and restricts how we think; if you label someone a jerk then you mentally strip away other contradictory labels as to not create confusion because "that guy is a jerk." This gives him almost no room to grow in your worldly perspective and so even if you caught him on a bad day, its going to take many times more good actions for you to remove the negative stigma that was your original association. My friend Weston would talk about his ideal experience was not always participating in life per say but seeing others in their element and enjoying life to its fullest. I always took this to mean that he loved to be witness to someone experiencing the fullness of life. This always made me think because life's value is solely personal and so trying to even comprehend what others are getting out of life by anything other than maybe their reactions is somewhat naive and potentially restrictive as you might be wanting to apply labels to others experience. I mean labels in it of themselves do no justice to things like a cold ice cream cone after a long summer day or the smell of freshly baked bread. My friend Josh would always get annoyed when attempting to describe experiences as all words are inert and have subjective value to people. If it were possible he would always rather have you experience it for yourself so that you both could have at least some semblence of common ground. These labels and words restrict growth and restrict that which makes us human. Supposedly the more labels things have, the more efficient society can operate but if we are labeling everything to get it out of the way then where does the actual living come in? The more efficient we are, the more like the robots we will become. The bad part of this is that we will lose the parts of ourselves that create differences and uniqueness of indivuals. Creativity and individualism are two of the most important aspects of life and after everything is categorized and packed into wooden crates, what all does it amount too? It is a necessity to embrace and appreciate the intricacies of life qualitatively instead of trying to deal with life quantitatively.
Once you label me, you negate me
What is the meaning of life? Some will say religion, some will say making the most of what you have, and I would say something along the lines of creating meaning for yourself. Sure that is not a bold statement as anyone that has come out of the free will era will say that you need to give meaning to it yourself but I think many of those people don't have any idea what their own meaning is and so they just use that as an excuse. I think the meaning of life is simply to celebrate the fullness of life in all its darkest and brightest aspects. We cannot appreciate the sunshine if we have no nighttime to compare it too.
The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die
I've never felt that the current fantasies of what artificial intelligence will ultimately be(humanoid robots that blend organics and machines into something we have philosophical discussions about) is something that will come to fruition anytime in the near future. It has taken us over 20 years just to try and mimic basic human actions that we take for granted like walking up stairs or picking up objects. I think that any discussions on it are really a moot point seeing as it will take many many many more years to even come close to something we might mistake for as a fully functional human like those depicted in AI and blade runner.
I do think we are not far from actual AI though even if its not in the hollywood depicted form. I believe that the programming code necessary for such a task is far to overwhelming for any group of people. The first truly artificial intelligence construct will be a conglomerative virus or program that harnesses and indexes the power and abilities of hundreds of programs already on the internet. It is from that index program that will direct the others to evolve and change to meet demands. It is from that one program that does not even need to be very complex as long as it can call upon the others.
Sure this idea is somewhat of a Skynet scenario but where the terminator movies fail is that the military simply takes on too much control over the initial program which leaves much less margin for evolution and self reflexivity than a simple index with a few lines of code about self preservation might allow.
The video from Waking Life from Robert Solomon
It seems to me that most people are intimidated by philosophy. Philosophy-speak does seem to use overtly extravagant words in order to make their point. I feel like I hang out with a relatively deep crowd but when most of them start to hear things like "deeply ontological musings of a nihilist turned moralist on the zeitgeist of which we call the world" their butt cheeks clench and they try to change the subject. You could get the exact same reaction from a few engineers discussing the "electrical capacitance over-regulated by the pharraday controller in response to random atmospheric discharge." Those are only words and they won't bite you. If you really want to understand what they mean then you can crack open a dictionary and have at it or you can just gloss over what you don't understand in a philosophical text and try to regain footing in context. Words shouldn't be daunting. Words are inert forms of self-expression in a society where we must define words with other words and all impressions are subjective and so no one can really know what anyone else means when they say "I'm having a bad day." Don't write yourself off as someone that cannot understand the deep stuff. Its all just words and all it might take is a little vocabulary adjustment.
The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity is that I think it has something very important to offer us for the new century. I'm afraid we're losing the real virtues of living life passionately, sense of taking responsibility for who you are, the ability to make something of yourself and feeling good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as if it's a philosophy of despair. But I think the truth is just the opposite. Sartre once interviewed said he never really felt a day of despair in his life. But one thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance of feeling on top of it. It's like your life is yours to create. I've read the postmodernists with some interest, even admiration. But when I read them, I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more that you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses. And when Sartre talks about responsibility, he's not talking about something abstract. He's not talking about the kind of self or soul that theologians would argue about. It's something very concrete. It's you and me talking. Making decisions. Doing things and taking the consequences. It might be true that there are six billion people in the world and counting. Nevertheless, what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms. Makes a difference to other people and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. It's always our decision who we are.
For centuries man has grappled with the riddle of what it means to be a person. But the questions Who is man? and What is the meaning of life? Are still unanswered. Yet, while man is still a long way from arriving at any acceptable definitions, there is deep within everyone the hint of an idea of what it means to be a whole person, that is happy, functioning and fulfilled. So, throughout history man has made a continuous search to find out what makes him whole. Every person is different so the special situation in which one person finds fulfillment can't work for everyone. But in the lives of those who have found fulfillment there is a universal pattern. The universal pattern is that those who have found fulfillment have had a willingness to accept change and take risks. Conversely, those who have not found wholeness are characterized by an unconquerable desire to be safe, to be out of danger and to avoid risk.
The first step in the search for identity is to answer the question, How do you see yourself? In the play No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre, Estelle loses sight of her identity. She says "When I can't see myself, I begin to wonder if I really and truly exist." What a man sees himself as in the mirror largely determines his actions during the day. Estelle had to look into the "mirror" of men to confirm her identity. A man is the number one determining factor in discovering who he is. Each individual must understand that he is responsible for his own pain, misery, unhappiness, or for his own joy. Man is not a product of what people have done or are now doing to us. Man has the power to become whatever he wants to be; to feel as much love or anger or joy as we want to feel. Another subsequent factor in determining our identity is the image, name, or label given to us by society. In other words, what we believe other people think of us. Most people participate in many groups, friends, school, family, jobs, clubs, churches and more each contributing to our identity. We have to accept the death of the superman who is alone needing no one, inner directed and indifferent to his surroundings. We see in Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment that when Raskolnkov separates himself from humanity by committing murder that he could not survive. A person needs to understand that they are responsible for their own choices but they cannot discount the fact that there will always be a group that is essential to understanding their identity.
There is a far more important area than how man sees himself or how society sees him, this area is where he has the most control over his own identity. The area in which he has most control over his own identity is in the area of what he is actually doing. In other words, man determines himself by the choices he makes. Having this freedom of choice entails commitment and responsibility. Since individuals are free to choose their own path they must accept the responsibility of following their commitment wherever it leads. In the play No Exit by Sartre, the characters Estelle and Garcin think of themselves as being nobler than what they actually are, when in reality the choices they made determined one to be a boy toy and the other to be a cruel coward. The Bible also gives us some insight on this point. What made Moses Moses? The fact that he made the choices he did. If Moses had stayed in Pharaoh's court, if Moses had stayed in the desserts of Midian, or if Moses had refused to go to Pharaoh, then he would not have been Moses, at least not in the sense that he made history in any of the same ways. We have the freedom to choose and we become what we choose to do.
Far too many people are locked into set patterns of thinking and living. People resist change vigorously satisfied with the dull normality of the same routines. One of the most vital ingredients to any fulfilling life is the ability to accept change and choose to risk. Change for most people does not always feel good but it is an important part in growing. Most people fear change because they are afraid of the risks that it will bring. When people do not conquer their fear all growth stops. The fear of growing of old is what kept Estelle from being more than mere a boy toy. The fear of dying kept Garcin from being a great pacifist journalist. If a Congressional Medal of Honor winner had not conquered his fear of death, to jump out of a trench to save his buddy, his friend would be dead. If Moses had not conquered his fear of losing a comfortable life, Israel would still be slaves to Egypt. If Columbus had not conquered his fear of falling off the earth, America would not have been settled. People need to look at their fear, consider all the options then move out and act boldly. People can stand outside their fear indefinitely and nothing will change. But everyone has within themselves the resources and the strengths to face and confront their fears and to become the whole person they want to become; that’s imperative.
The questions Who is man? and What is the meaning of life? May never be answered in our lifetime. But people can begin to lead more fulfilling lives by understanding and applying three closely related principles. People must begin to see themselves as being their own self and not just a product of society. After people realize that they are their own self they must realize they are what they do. The final step in living more fulfilling lives is to be open to change and risk. Breaking from this paralyzing fear will allow people to realize life is a gift and they will try to live every day to the fullest.
In short, we don’t control every aspect of our lives. We do have a large control of them though and the most important thing is that we control how we react to whatever we cannot control.
We have no excuses
Two of the main principles of Existentialist Human Condition are: That man exists and then creates himself and what man chooses for himself he chooses for everyone else as well. Let’s examine the first principle: man exists and then defines himself. What it means is that man is created on this earth and is nothing but a shell of potential consciousness. What he chooses to do and to be is what makes him his own unique person. If a man comes into this world and chooses to steal, cheat, kill and lie then that is what that man has made himself to be. While society may see him as a "evil" person, that is what is right for him. Now on the other hand if a person chooses to be generous, kind, honest and loving, society may see him as a "good" person while it is still right for him. According to the Existentialists, a person is placed on this earth with no predisposed "good" or "evil" values, one man is not created with any more good or evil than the next. By the decisions we make in life we create ourselves and by an extension of ourselves, the society around us. Everything we do in life affects someone else, whether we are aware of it or not. Every time we drive our car. Every time we eat something, spend money, go for a jog, someone else is affected. For an example: a man goes to the store and buys a stereo. First of all the clerk the clerk is affected because they have to check you out, so you have taken some of their time, been rude or nice to them which further affects how they act to others later. The store is affected because they are minus one radio from their store which means that one less person after you can purchase a radio which can make them angry or late to something else. The manufacturer now has to make one more to replace the one that was bought from the store. The manufacturing employees are affected because put the radio together, and so on. On the other hand a man who chooses to steal that same stereo will affect even more people. If he gets caught, the store, the manufacturer, the police, the courts, the jails and all the people who are involved with those organizations all get affected along with the people previously mentioned. So now the question is raised "what if everyone acted the same way that man did?" Well there could be nothing but anarchy, no laws, or government. Basically we would revert to a type of Neanderthal type state. This is why many classic philosophers have problems with the Existentialist point of view, because of the "what if" questions. If everyone is affected by that one person’s actions, then what is stopping them from acting in the same way? This is actually a fallacy as these people never take into account the old or already established society. Sure, the man can create the society around him but it is very rare to find an individual that believes he molds all that is around him and therefore his actions only take limited effect. He thinks “the world and all the people, actions, and events are independent of me and all exist concretely outside of me so how could I change anything?” Doubt is what truly limits man and how he shapes the world. In an odd turn of events doubt, which Descartes wants us to use doubt to be sure of the events transpiring around us as only skeptics have the best chance of making the right next step. But as irony would have it, it is this same doubt that keeps us in the world others have created as it what is keeping us from allowing our full potential to come to fruition.
