Category: Thinking Tuesday

Thinking Thursday: Parmenides

4/29/2015

I am moving Thinking Tuesday to Thursdays. Makes the week less stressed. :)

Today we are going to learn about Parmenides, a Greek philosopher.

Parmenides followed Heraclitus in history.    He looked at Heraclitus's way of thinking and logically deduced that his philosophy went in the wrong direction.   He concluded that if everything was, well then everything could simply not be.   BUT things cannot "NOT BE" because you can't get something for nothing.   One cannot start with a void.

Therefore he concluded that "everything that is real must be eternal and unchanging, and must have an indivisible unity" (ergo all is one).

He showed that our understanding of the universe is faulty and full of contradictions. For instance our experience might tell us that things change, but in reality they really don't, so we cannot depend upon our senses and what they say we experience.
________

"Aristotle, who said that his idea “follows logically, but to believe it is next door to madness.” (source)

I have to admit that I agree with Aristotle. Parmenides didn't know God and that he (being God) created the world and all that was in it.    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth [2] The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.(Genesis 1:2 ESV)       It did start from God saying "let there be" and it simply was.

It also doesn't make sense to say that what we experience, what our senses give us for information isn't correct. You'd go mad trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't.     So the thinking is interesting, but it's conclusion just is maddening. :)

Thinking Tuesday: Heraclitus

4/14/2015

Heraclitus taught that the road up and the road down where one and the same. He saw the world as being run by a divine Logos. The logos being a universal cosmic law. If one balances opposites, then one gains the unity of the universe.

Those opposites are in a constant state of flux, there is always a tension between the opposites. Day will be night, night will be day. This constant flux can be seen when you step into a river, it remains a river but the river itself constantly changes. It's waters are always new.

He believed that most people sleep-walk through life, never truly being away of the balance needed and the constant state of flux we live in.

Sources
Book The philosophy book
Internet encyclopedia of philosophy.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Thinking Tuesday: Confucius

4/6/2015

Confucius.. I have to admit I don't know a whole lot about Confucius before I approached this chapter.   Other than to offer that sage wisdom "Confucius say..." and then utter some witty wisdom or some saying.

Originally his name was Kong Qiu.   He was born into a wealthy family ad worked as a servant when his father died.   He found time to study and over time became an administrator in the Lu Court.     When his suggestions to the rulers were ignored he left his position to concentrate on teaching.   He travelled throughout the Chinese Empire teaching as he went and fragments of his teachings and sayings have been collected by Confucian scholars.

So what did Confucius believe?
Confucius looked to the past for his wisdom.    He blended the wisdom of the past with the changing of the present.   China was developing a civil service class of people, people who earned their positions through merit rather than by family position.

The Analects, a collection of his teachings and sayings, is the main source for learning about Confucius.   It is more of a political treatise for how to form a good government with some attention to how to be a good gentleman (junzi).      At it's heart is a comprehensive ethical system.    Good gentlemen form good governments.

Heaven (tian) uses people (not just those in high classes but ANYONE) to unite the world with moral order.   It is the duty of people to act with virtue(the "de") and benevolence in order to achieve a just and stable society.

Confucius followed this train of thought
Faithfulness and sincerity are shown in traditional rituals and ceremonies.
These qualities in these settings allow virtue to become visible.
Virtue is then made manifest in the world.
Virtue can then be seen by others.
Others are transformed by virtue.
Faithfulness and sincerity hold the power of transformation.

click image to go to source: Chinese traditions

In these five constant relationships Confucius stressed loyalty. The first loyalty is politcal, then family and then clan. One must possess this virtue of Loyalty. This outward show of loyalty to one's position and to the way things should be done (via rituals) was the outward sign of true inner sincerity. And through this, the world can be transformed.

Some of Confucius' sayings

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it. Confucius, The Confucian Analects

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. Confucius, The Confucian Analects

The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete. Confucius, The Confucian Analects

When anger rises, think of the consequences. Confucius

A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake. Confucius

My Thoughts
I have to admit, I'm glad I took the time to try to understand some of what Confucius taught. He wasn't just a man of random sayings (Like I'd had thought). :)

But he's a man who really wanted to change society for the best, and he thought that by letting your virtue be seen that society could be changed for the better.

As believers we know that society is changed by letting people see God at work in you and telling others the reason for why you do things. It's not just in how we live. THOUGH how we maintain our relationships with others speaks to our relationship with God as well.

What do you think of Confucius???

Thinking Tuesday: Siddhartha Gautama

3/24/2015

Siddhartha Gautama, over time, became known as Buddha.   Before he came on the scene Brahmanism was the major religion of India. He challenged it's teachings using philosophical reasoning.

"Gautama, although revered by Buddhists for his wisdom, was neither a messiah nor a prophet, and he did not act as a medium between God and man.   His ideas were arrived at through reasoning, not divine revelations, and it is this that marks Buddhism out as a philosophy as much as (perhaps even more than) a religion.' (p31)

Gautama used philosophy as his method to search for truth. His early life was marked by self-indulgence, and he noticed suffering in the world around him. He noticed that people used self-indulgence to alleviate the results of suffering in their lives and thought there must be a middle ground between the transitory pleasure of self-indulgence and self-mortification (where people suffer in order to be happy).   Their must be a middle path he reasons.

He discovered what he called the Four Noble Truths
The truth of suffering.- suffering is an inherent part of existence
The truth of the origin of suffering.- the cause of suffering is desire
The truth of the ending of suffering - Detaching oneself from cravings
The truth of the path to the ending of suffering - following the eightfold path rids desire

click image to go to source IEET

The eightfold path is a code of ethics. A prescription, if you would, of how to attain a good life and happiness. If you follow the eightfold path you will eliminate suffering from your life and will have attained the state of Nirvana. It will be as if your life has simply blown out like a candle (and you break the cycle of rebirth/reincarnation).   The cycle of life is live, die, reborn, live, die, reborn UNLESS you follow the eightfold path and achieve nirvana. Nirvana, as he described it, as simple an eternal existence that transcended any sort of sensory experience.

My thoughts:

I found this short study on Buddhism enlightening. I never quite understood what they believed in.   I find it disturbing how it's so works oriented. Live this way, fight against your desires, and you will have no suffering. I also now understand the confusion people have in calling it a religion or simply just a way by which you live life.

I find it horrible how Buddhist thought has gotten into some circles of Christianity.   If you love God enough and do what he wants you to do you will live a prosperous life.

God doesn't promise us a life without suffering. What he promises us is that he will never give us more than we can endure, through his grace.   God calls us to seek HIM first.   That is how we can keep our desires under control.

Seek God, not the lack of desire. :)

Thinking Tuesday: Pythagorus

3/17/2015

I think everyone has heard of Pythagoras. He was a deeply religious and superstitious man who grew up in Greece and learned geometry in Egypt. He believed in reincarnation, and even established a religious cult where he cast himself as a virtual messiah.

He thought that is you lived by a strict set of behavioural rules and objective scientific thinking that you could avoid the reincarnation cycle.

This is brief explanation of how his thinking progressed.
NUMBER is the ruler of FORMS
- everything in the universe conforms to mathematical rules and ratios.
- so if we understand number and mathematical relationship
- we came to understand the structure of the cosmos
and if so then mathematics is the key model for philosophical thought
ERGO
Number is the ruler of ideas.

I can sorta see where he is coming from. If you think mathematics explains everything. If your goal in life is freedom from the cycle of reincarnation, and you believe that living a certain way and being objective in your thinking will free you from that. Numbers would be the way to go. AND if you have a thorough understanding of math, probabilities and such like, it rather makes sense. I know from having watched the show Numbers and other such shows that there is more math in life than I generally even consider. :).

Pythagoras is best remembered for his theorem. which states "that the square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. The theorem can be written as an equation relating the lengths of the sides a, b and c, often called the "Pythagorean equation"" For more on this theory go here.

click to go to source

His community of about 300 people lived near Croton in southern Italy until they were forced to leave.   His community, which studied a mixture of mystical and academics study disappeared by the end of the fourth century BCE.   He advance thinking in the realms of mathematics, science and mysticism.

It was very important to Pythagoras and his followers to make order out of chaos.   If you want to know about what he and his followers contributed, please check out this site for more information.

So what do I think of Pythagoras?
I think he was a man who knew how think and did a good job at it. I think he did all the work in thinking that he did so that he could make sense of the world.   He wanted to avoid reincarnation and I suppose that had a lot of do with his wanting order in the world and mathematics is a well ordered discipline.

What say you?

Thinking Tuesday: Laozi

3/9/2015

I have to admit, understanding the Chinese Mindset is a difficult one for me, so I found this chapter a bit of a challenge. :) But challenge is good for the soul is it not?

The Chinese approach their philosophy from a different viewpoint. Their concern is understanding morality and ethics rather than how the world is put together.

Laozi was either originally known as Li Er or Lao Tan.   He as a scholar during the Zhou Dynasty, who over time gained the title of master. It means Old Master.   legend has that he worked at the court as the dynasty declined and as he crossed the border, a guard recognized him and asked him for a record of his wisdom. He wrote the Daode Jing for him and continued on his way. (book pg 25).

So what did he teach?
That knowledge of oneself is true wisdom, knowing others is wisdom.

The Chinese see the world on a cyclical basis...that it continued changes from one state to another. All changes are related to each other so as day turns to night, or the seasons change..it's all interconnected.

This process of change is called the DAO.   And this leads to the 10,000 manifestations that make up what is called the world. Humans are just one of the many manifestations and are nothing special.

BUT humans being who we are... we mess up the harmonious balance of the world. Our desire and free will lead us away from the path of the DAO, and only by living a virtuous life can we act in accordance to the Dao.

But following the Dao isn't as simple as that.   we can't really understand the Dao.   We can really only live according to the Dao but utilizing Wu Wei (which means non-action).    So we are not to make choices about how we live, but more that we are to live in accordance with Nature....spontaneously and intuitively. If we do this we are acting without desire, ambition or recourse to social conventions.

It's a whole cycle you see?
Live by the Dao (the source of all things) but not acting (wu wei) but living in a thoughtful, harmonious way, that is not self-serving, but living within what nature decrees (which we know intuitively). Then we are living a life of mediation and peace. It's a simple, tranquil life.

My thoughts as a Christian:
It's hard to wrap my head around this philosophy... Living in harmony without acting.

I do wish it were easy like that.
As a believer I want God to fill me more and more so that I live more and more in accordance to who he is. This is my goal. But to get there I have to know God more and more (this takes intent).   I don't quite understand how those who follow Laozi's teachings) could learn to live this type of life without being intentional about learning how to live this way?    Non-action implies lack of intent.   So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

I can't agree that humans are nothing special.   We are made in the very image of God. This makes us special.   And we aught to remember that. :)

But I don't know... parts of it make sense to me. That desire to live in harmony with the source.... That's the need for God right there.

Thinking Tuesday: Thales of Miletus

3/3/2015

So I picked up this book a while back called "the Philosophy Book". It's subtitle is big ideas explained simply. I thought to myself.. wouldn't that be fun to go through?

I've been pondering it off and on and thought, hey.. why not put some of it up on my blog? Wouldn't that be fun? :) I have to admit, I am not a philosopher, but sometimes it's fun to see what other people think and then ponder what I think of what they have to say. To that end, here goes the start to a new series on the blog. Thinking Tuesdays.

oops.. the time period should be 624-546 BCE

Thales of Miletus was a man who grew up in Greek Ionia (now Turkey), in the town of Miletus.   He was one of the first deep thinkers.   He believed that everything came from Water.   He is important to the world of philosophy because he didn't try to explain everything as coming from the hands of gods, but by looking at the world around him and using that to form his thoughts about how the world was.   He used natural objects and rational thinking to form his foundational thoughts.

He was a man who was interested in everything: investigating almost all areas of knowledge, philosophy, history, science, mathematics, engineering, geography, and politics.    He was highly regarded in his day and many philosophers and thinkers started with the work that he did.   See reference: Thales of Miletus.

Thales opened the way to a more scientific approach to understanding the world around us.

Very little survives of anything that he wrote. "Only few fragmentary sources survive from Thales’ work. Some ancient authors ascribe to him, without serious justification, a work with the name Nautical Star-guide while according to some others he wrote only two works: On the Solstice and On the Equinox." See reference: Thales of Miletus.

Planet Facts tells us "Thales impressed everyone by accurately foretelling a solar eclipse. In those days, it was considered a grand achievement, and rightly so. Solar eclipses were much harder to predict than lunar ones, and the people didn’t have calendars or the mathematical knowhow to predict important astronomical events."

click image to go to source: GIreesh IAS

In regards to his theory that everything is made of water... he used this reasoning.

What is the basic material of the cosmos?
It must be

Something from which everything can be formed
Essential to life
Capable of motion
Capable of change

Ergo: Everything is made of water.   From the book "Thales concludes that all matter, regardless of its apparent properties, must be water in some stage of transformation" .(page 23)

I read this to my nine year old and he said "but water can't become dirt!".   And I have to admit.. that makes sense to me. So was fascinating and as forward thinking as Thales was, and it's great that he took the focus of understanding the world off the hands of what was thought at the time, capricious gods, I can't get past the "water can't be dirt" reaction of my boy child. :)

Thales set up a school "Milesian School of philosophers"   A student Anaximander expanded his scientific theories and later mentored Anaximenes who probably taught the young Pythagoroas" (page 23 of the book).

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this look at Thales of Miletus.   There's tons of information about him on line. Just do a basic search if you want to know more about this fascinating individual. :)