Wednesday, April 06, 2005
sophie's world is a really nice book.. its really ingenious the way the author tangles a mystery within the *dull* philosophy outline.. towards the end, the book becomes more interesting as the mystery unravels and you have a better idea of what is happening.. i am particularly intrigued by Freud's ideas.. his psychoanalysis, theories of the conscious and unconscious.. really interesting.. and then you have absurd things happening during sophie's midsummer's eve party.. like what joanna and jeremy did at the table and in the bushes.. i mean.. i am really shocked that the author included that into a philosophy book.. and to think the book was published in 94, when the world was still somewhat on the conservative side.. ahem.. took me by surprise..
there are many ideas worth pondering over.. i realise that i have escaped from asking all those philosophical questions, cos those questions are really open ended and there will be no end if you keep searching for answers.. where did the world come from? did it exist from nothing? or did it always exist? if there is the big bang, then where did that initial ball of matter come from? meaning of life.. i tend to agree with the existentialists like satre.. there is no universal meaning of life.. there is no innate moral law that instills in us an idea of a meaningful life.. we have to find and carve out our own meanings.. however, i do believe that some part of our behaviour is nature, while some is nurture.. man interacts with his surroundings, and his surroundings interact with him too.. man carries with him his conscience.. but is this conscience innate? or is it determined by the norms of society.. i would like to think some parts of it are innate.. but.. most of us believe that killing other homosapiens is wrong, but what about those who believe in honour killing? so is "murder is a sin" something innate or cultivated?
freud's ideas are really attention-grabbing.. his theory that things we try to repress and relinquish into our "unconscious" will try their very best to gain entry into our conscious.. thus sometimes we find ourselves making slips of tongue or pen (parapraxes).. its scary how the little things we do might actually be reflections of things we are trying to repress and which we might have no idea about.. he also said people tend to rationalise.. meaning we do not give the real reason for what we are doing either to ourselves or to other people because the real reason is unacceptable.. and people tend to project too, ie we transfer the characteristics we are trying to repress in ourselves onto other people.. the "theatre of the absurd" which flourished during his time which showcased many of the ordinary things people do which seem trivial in everyday life, but are actually hilarious or shocking when re-enacted on stage..
he said that even babies have some form of sexuality (which offended many of the middle high class people during his time).. he observed that infants love to touch their private parts (??!).. this is something innate in humans, but to conform to social norms, we are educated that sex and anything to do with it is a taboo (ie Victorianism) and we feel guilt whenever ideas of sex pop into our mind.. hence, sex and sexuality is repressed in our unconscious, trying to fight its way out into our conscious.. thus many people face this lifelong conflict between desire and guilt.. something innate that is being repressed..
Freud determined that all dreams are wish fulfillments. This is clearly observable in children (i agree.. i always dream of polly pocket and Penz candies and riding on the kiddy rides). But in adults, the wishes that are to be fulfilled in dreams are disguised. That is because even when we sleep, censorship is at work on what we will permit ourselves. And although this censorship, or repression mechanism, is considerable weaken when we are asleep than when we are awake, it is still strong enough to cause our dreams to distort the wishes we cannot acknowledge. Which is why our dreams have to be interpreted. The apparent dream always takes its material or scenario fromthe previous day. But the dream also contains a deeper meaning which is hidden from consciousness. Freud called this the latent dream thoughts, and these hidden thoughts which the dream is really about may stem from the distant past, from earliest childhood for instance.
Besides Freud, Marx and Darwin are really remarkable people too.. :) their ideas and courage are terrific
Some other lines that i like..
wisest is she who knows she does not know -- Socrates
like a giddy planet round a burning sun
the path of mystery leads inwards-- novalis
(man bears the whole universe within himself *ie man is one whole divine being with the universe* and comes closest to the mystery of the world by stepping inside himself)
the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me
man is condemned to be free
he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth --goethe
Give me a firm point on which to stand and i will move the earth -- archimedes
(that's how the term "archimedian point came about)
What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?
(what a pretty verse.. i'm in love with the mystic and dreamy notions it emcompasses)
In Goethe's Faust
As faust dies and looks back on his life's work, he says in triumph:
Then to the moment could i say
linger you now, you are so fair!
now records of my earthly day
no flights of aeons can impair
foreknowledge comes, and fills me with such bliss,
i take my joy, my highest moment this.
and then as soon as faust dies, the Devil exclaims:
A foolish word bygone.
How so then, gone?
Gone, to sheer Nothing, past with nullmade one!
What matters creative toil
when at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?
"it is bygone"--how shall this riddle run?
As good as if things never had begun,
yet circle back, existence to possess:
I'd rather have Eternal Emptiness.
(i'm really rather baffled by what the verses mean)
Thomas Hardy's *Transformations*
Portion of this yew
is a man my grandsire knew,
bosomed here at its foot:
this branch may be his wife,
a ruddy human life
now turned to a green shoot.
These grasses must be made
of her who often prayed
last century, for repose;
and the fair girl long ago
who i often tried to know
may be entering this rose.
So they are not underground,
but as nerves an veins abound
in the growths of upper air,
and they feel the sun and rain,
and the energy again
that made them what they were!
excerpts from a poem by Arnulf Overland:
Wakened one night by a curious dream
and a voice that seemed to be speaking to me
like a far off subterranean stream,
i rosed and askedL what do you want of me?
