This may belong in discuss, but, hell, it is my myspace blog.
On the Subject of Reading Material
Start: Nov. 28, 2008, 23:11
On the subject of reading material, one can learn much about a person by a list of the novels and other literature they read. For instance, by listing Twilight, a menagerie of romance novels, the occasional Shakespeare or mythology book, one can almost assuredly assume that the person is a teenage girl, probably a senior in a California high school. However, another example, one filled with Nietzche, Marx, and other nihilist literature may very well be a goth teen, or a strong atheist. The concept of this could lead to terrible assumptions, or a peak into the lives of many of our friends.
On the subject of my own reading material, I read Machiavelli, Descartes, Sun Tzu, and Salinger. Machiavelli and Sun Tzu's writings cover leadership, how to lead in war and peace. Perhaps aspirations of leading. Salinger covers cynicism and misanthropy, nihilism, society, how people act. Perhaps I am looking for an easier way to know people than years of talking, chattering, mindless conversations. And Descartes? He famously said "Cogito, ergo sum." I think, therefore, I am. Am I searching for meaning? Descartes was famous for his philosophical lectures, his geometrical contributions, and, not as famous as the others, his proving of God. He discussed the fact of our existence, created the Cartesian system, more commonly known as a two-dimensional graph dealing with two vectors(x, y), and then, as a coup de grâce, the existence of God.
The doubt of existence troubles whoever may find it. Could this all be a dream, a façade, or a hallucination? Although Descartes covered existence wholly by saying "I think, therefore I am.", what if our perception is indeed, tricking us. That would be a quandary.
I don't care about geometry, so I am not covering Descartes' contributions.
On the subject of human emotion, I believe there are four base emotions; malice/hate, doubt/skepticism, cynicism/selfishness, and love. Of these four, the most common are the three that are not love. From any combination, with different magnitudes, you can create any emotion. Although evolutionarily, you can explain the other 3 emotions by the prerogatives of basic life: survival & procreation, love is a bit tougher to explain. Procreation does not explain love, in fact, it is inhibited by love. By limiting the numbers of mates, you decrease the chance of offspring. The only fairly logical explanation is that love is either a: false, b: created by God, or c: a product of mass mental defect in humans. I prefer b.
End Nov. 29, 2008, 0:12