Philosophy Scmil-schoph-sch-schy

I'm taking some intellectually unimpressive courses this semester. I'm in my fourth semester here at Georgia State University, sitting pretty at 25 years old. The credit that I transfer is was almost all language credit, with some CLEP tests and humanities sequestered in. Because of this, almost all of my 17 hours consist of core, freshman level classes. So, it's pretty basic still. One of those classes is "Intro to Philosophy." I've been getting more and more frustrated with the content of said course. The professor is fine, she's passionate about her subject and takes time to memorize all of our names. The class has a couple of dummies in it, but for the most part consists of level headed thinkers. But, these guys that we are studying are what get me. Names like Fodor and Skinner and the like are commonplace, with their behaviorist theories and their over-analysis of the human psyche. These brilliant minds spend all of their lives trying to determine the subtleties of why the individual person acts the way they do, the reliability of the human mind, whether the human mind exists at all, why the mind and body cannot be inseparable, etc.I pondered today, amidst my other relentless and eternal ponderings, "why does any of this matter." It's so foolish, and is underlined with the intention of disproving the things that we supposedly know about who we are. But, why? Why do we need to faithfully study what makes us less "us" than we believe ourselves to be? I think it's nonsense. I may be ranting, and for that I apologize. I'm glad that I have something to cling to in times of oblivion and death, that I don't have to know all of the answers or disprove the existing answers to convince myself I'm alive. But, sitting in a class for three hours a week, dissecting the ins and outs of it all has got me annoyed. Here's the answer in a short and easy to swallow form,

1 Corinthians 3:18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”; 20 and again, “The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”


There was a slide on the the board today, a flowchart about dualism vs. behaviorism and functionality and all sorts of other concepts that I don't know about. It started with "Do you believe that the mind and the body can be separated?" If "no," than you're a Dualist and "good luck with that." If "yes," then there are seven or eight schools of thought to determine what else you believe and how it can all somehow come together in harmony with truth and functioning life and value to the universe. We spent the entire class talking about the "yes" options. Somewhere towards the end of class, I scribbled this:



[it says "mondo=dualist
I'll take my chances"]

Comments

Romondo Davis said…
Wonderful writing and analysis.

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