Philosophical interest

After the end of the semester, I borrowed three books from the library and read them during the days in the East Coast, Australia. They are part of the series of A Very Short Introduction, published by the Oxford Press - Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

I have been interested in philosophy for a while, yet I did not pay much effort. To record my recollection, I recall my first formal lesson of philosophy was the existentialism I took in my first semester, year 1. It is an interesting subject; unfortunately I was too fresh and not prepared to study this great subject, so it was sort of wasted and I did not do well.

Nonetheless the unit has hereafter caused my notice to matters related. Existentialism is a very difficult subject, and it takes so much time and energy to understand the logic. Until now I am still on my way to understand it, so I am not going to discuss more. Anyway it brings me further interest to read some books afterwards.

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are three of the greatest men in philosophy. Socrates invented Socratic method - to develop an idea or a belief and convince the others through arguments and discussion. Plato was the founder of the Academy, the first school of philosophy which marked the independence of the subject. Aristotle was considered as one of the most important person in scientific history, and influenced the development of science and philosophy.

The three books briefly described their lives and introduced their most important ideas. Socrates pursued and worked out the virtue he insisted. He claimed he was not a wise man and did not possess any knowledge; he also found the Socratic method, which was about to discover his own belief through arguments. Plato invented the idea of Forms and discussed how kwowledged was to be taught from one to another; he developed philosophy into an independent subject and his own platonism influenced the philosophers until now. Aristotle was a genius that he studied heaps of science subject and wrote the first book about biology; his logical thinking inspired hunreds and thousands of scientists afterwards. What a coincidence was one was the student of another - Socrates was the most important person in Plato's philosophical life while Aristotle was the most outstanding students of Plato's.

After reading the books, while I was waiting for the flight back to Perth from Sydney, I wrote down some of my thoughts provoked by the books.

Most things interlock with each other. In my life, there were countless coincidences. ONe of the most common examples is I often encounters some vocabulary right after I've just realized what they mean. It is interesting to see the connection among various items/incidents; meanwhile the reason for this is yet to discover. For one single item, it is probably not hard to explain, but since events somehow connect to each other, I think it is beyond my ability to grasp the answer that why things happen incredibily.

Some people suggest God holds the control. God is often protrait as a human-kind, but it's probably because of the limited imagination of man. What is God? Some claimed they talked with God before, or God sent them messages. The most outstanding instance was Jesus, who said he was the son of God. Who created God? How did man create this term with a divine meaning? If God can talk, somehow it means God is just another living creature. What form is it? What structure is it? If it controls the world order in such a complicated way, there're too many questions aroused.

Some say everything is written in the book of life. We've got no idea of what it is. If it is a book, we don't know who wrote it and the reason behind. Plato and Laozi had a similar view that they thought it was under some sort of Form. Scientists fail to find the answer.

Within the boundary, the knowledge of science is infinite; however boundary exists. Regardless of God, book of life, Form or so on, we know nothing beyond the boundary. In another way, we can't break through it. We have no way to know if human, or the universe is actually only like a glass box with water and fish. Astronomists tell us the universe is expanding all the time, but we don't know where it has the space to expand. Stop talking about huge matter, nonetheless we dxo not know many tiny matters. As basic as all of our acknowledgement, are we bound to know them? Where does our intelligence come from? Why do we have evolution? Why is everything changing? In films about going back to the past, it is always said that one could not and should not change anything. However, what if it was actually what should have happened? It is not only that we don't know the answers, but we do not even know how to find out the answer. It sounds a hopeless situation. Too difficult.

Another question: why do we believe things are what they are? To some extent I would say we're just following what our senses, body or brain tell us. What if these things in fact lie to us? Perhaps the answer is simple: we have no alternatives. Our own body is the only thing we control directly. Certainly there should be some arguments about this statement, yet it is true in certain condition. However, the truth is not known; it is just our only choice that we can only believe everything we experience or are told.

To me, trust is too fragile and weak. Nonetheless as long as this is the only choice, it has to be maintained firmly. Otherwise our mental system might have collapsed.

Many things are beyond our intelligence to manage or understand. Even trust can be doubted, such as what it is exactly, how it is formed and whether it is "trust" to trust. However, to think in this way will be like what another book I am currently reading (to be discussed) say that it becomes skepticism, although I am also interested to know how or why human determine certain degree of doubts to be skeptic.

I do not know how to conclude. At the moment I am thinking about atheism and theism, a worthy topic. Yet it is very complicated and I cannot discuss it without further knowledge. I am too shallow for this now, but I hope I could learn more later. I believe this has something to do with the books, as they stimulate my choices of reading.

A little episode - I told my friend about my interest, and guess what he replied - "Usually the people who read or study philosophy are crazy, or turn to be crazy finally".

I denied, despite the fact that crazy people is said to always deny they are crazy.