The world and its outskirts

In this chapter Savater addresses the world and its surroundings, until what extent does the world goes on? To explain this he talks about what we call universe and describes it as both heavy and light, he also states with the help of Fernando Pessoa that the universe is in fact infinite. I would like to address this matter on my post.

For me, the world without a doubt is infinite, and I believe Pessoa is right when he starts talking about how there is no universe as a whole but rather just objects. This may be a little bit hard to understand but what he is trying to tell us is that there is no "end" to the universe, it just goes on and on, you can't just stretch your arm and find nothing in the outside, as Savater says; the universe continues forevermore. As Pessoa states, we are just objects in this world and everything and everyone is an object serving one purpose, and those objects are held in another object and so on, "there are turtles all the way down..." Of course I don't believe that the universe is held by a turtle and that turtle is standing on another and so on, and I also don't believe Savater believes it, its just and aid he uses to illustrate the point of a universe going forevermore.

We can't say that the universe is finite because we everything that has a beginning has and end, and by ending something another thing MUST start, the universe is like that and Savater introduces this idea since the very beginning when he explains how "our world" is part of a national environment and how the national is part of the international etc.. If we look deeply into this concept it is easy to understand how the universe is infinite and how it has no end, in my opinion we shouldn't disagree with this idea because it is what makes us so special, we may be objects inside and infinite universe but we have a roll that wouldn't be fulfilled to its maximum if we didn't have that desire to be a "bigger" object.

That the universe is infinite isn't a bad thing since it make us even greater we could say, it may sound ridiculous how and infinite thing would make a human greater but if we thing about it, this "fact" help us challenge ourselves and achieve for the best.

The world and its outskirts

When Savater explains what a world is, he says that: “it is an environment that makes sense, a framework within which all things relate to each other and possesses a relevance that can be explained”. Then he talks about all the different levels components contained in this idea. Here he starts with, what he refers to, ‘my small world’.
I think the name for this it’s quite graphic, ‘my small world’ has significantly less components that the other levels, the Russian dolls are a really good example of this; but when talking about meaning I think it is the most important one for us, because obviously all the other levels have an effect on us, but those effects produced in the different levels affect ‘my small world’, and if they don’t, it really doesn’t ends up affecting me.
I think philosophy is a consequence of all this levels, all this worlds acting together, of all this worlds coexisting and affecting themselves. But I also think that philosophy should especially focus on what is going on in ‘my small world’, because as we studied early philosophy is about taking knowledge and defining what that knowledge means to me, so if ‘my small world’ is formed by my family, my friends, my home, if it is formed by my everyday life, by the things that mean the most to me, the things I care more about; it seems logical to me for philosophy to focus on ‘my small world’.

The Symbolic Animal

Hy again everybody
This week I’m going to talk about a very different animal from the rest, I’m not saying that this animal if very different in quality’s, it is different from the inside, by the way it acts. This animal is the Human, this particular animal it is distinguish among all other by different quality’s it has, its an animal that has a very different ways of behaving. Next we have some differences between animals and humans.
One of the main differences between animals and humans is the way of thinking. Even duo we are animals that evolution from animals, we have many differences from them. The way you or me think is very different from the animals, animals just think for that moment (by instinct) and humans think for the future. This is why humans can develop and animals don’t, because animals don’t care what will happen the next day while human does and take measures.
The second thing I want to talk about is the form of communication. Humans as well as animals are able of communicate; the difference is that the human language is more complete from the one of animals. The main difference between this two is that humans give a symbol to everything, that’s the reason Savaatar says that we are symbolic animals, because we give a symbol to everything.
Well then I think this is all for today, but keep in mind that even duo we consider ourselves superior we are still animals, are we?

The symbolic Animal

This chapter made me knew a little bit more about myself, my ancestors and made me thankful for being a human.Since I was very young I’ve got the opportunity to have a pet and explore their worlds so I notice many differences between me and my dog a long time ago and I knew that I shouldn’t mix up my living with his. We humans are complex we have different feelings, humor, etc. And we are aware of this! I really don’t want to get to argue if animals have feelings or not, but I guess they don’t realize what they’re living they just go on “automatic” I mean is like… “I need to eat, Ok I’ll go and get some food” and so on!! We humans even dream our lives like… “I wish I could have this celphone that dances, sings and even does human faces!” Is not like a celphone is a real need! Though I’ll say “I can’t live without my celphone” I know this is false.

Animals don’t go through life pretending or wishing, animals are living for the day, doing what they need, responding to their instincts… we humans live for tomorrow!

Have you ever realize that every single action we do is for the future?? Never for the moment, we are always judging ourselves, pretending we’re cool with our lives and at the very end of our life we think “I wish I did... this, I wish I’d said… that” and so on.If a female dog is “on heat” a male dog is going to come around her and just… you know what happens next, in the human world if a guy likes a girl, he needs to “process” the girl through several steps until he gets to the same conclusion that he had since the beginning (“I like her”) and more and more steps! This is just the human way to say “this is the guy/girl I think I should reproduce with and maybe share my emotional life”This sounds awful because it is translated to the “animal language” but yeah, somehow we humans are pathetic for doing way too much for a very simple thing… but still I think we are smart… or maybe that’s what we want to think?? :O

I inside, I outside

Hi people me again.
Today I’m going to talk about some interesting things that happen within our body that we are not so sure. One interesting question, are we in some kind of dream? Or are we in the middle of a computer program designed to teach children what is good or bad? Is pretty crazy right? But even duo that is crazy it as well be probable. Think about it. Were do we live? (I mean in the galaxy outside us) we have never seen the end of this thing, right? So who knows, everything might be possible.
One good thing that makes me feel good is that they say we have a soul. This is cool because makes me feel that I’m not just a person, I’m also a spirit with different thoughts and feelings as other people. This soul lives within all of us in our body’s, like savaatar says, “it’s in all the body and in the same time nowhere” this means, that we don’t know were it is but we know is there (maybe as a type of energy) and this very soul makes us be different from animals and other humans.
One last thing is what about our body? You know is part of us, but does it play a role in our way of thinking, feeling, talking even the way you see another person? I think it does. Let me give you an example: a beautiful lady is walking and she knows she is beautiful because everyone tells her. Her attitude will be very different from a girl that is fat and short. I’m not saying that is a bad thing only that the way of thinking certainly will be different all because of how they look, this causes security between us. And the security we have inside us makes us do things.
To finish, what are we? A thought, a soul or a body? I like to thing that we are a soul, and god gave us a body so we can live, and the thoughts help us live in this world that as well not exist, but even if this world does not exist, our soul and thoughts exist. What do you think?

the symbolic animal

The chapter number four, “the symbolic animal” seem really interesting for me because it compared the animals with us, that’s a question that all people have and is kind of confusing some times, what’s the main difference between them and us? , ok the first thing we know is that we are talking beings we learn the language to communicate with the other people, the thing is that we have intelligence so as the animals but we use our intelligence in different manner, we have to learn more to survive, because the animals born knowing almost everything that they need to know, they follow their instincts and do things just to keep their selves alive, an in the other side we don’t use our intelligence just to keep us alive but to keep inventing new things and stuff, that’s a thing that I see like a big problem because we always want more and we are never satisfied with what we want, I’m not saying that we should be conformist about everything but I see that as a problem because we are never happy with what’s around us or what we do, so when are we reaching happiness and being happy with what we have?, but for the other side being able to make things better and invent new stuff is really admirable and the fact that we can do it is a big difference between animals and humans.

The symbolic animal

"The meanings of human language are abstractions, not material objects". This quote from Savater's chapter The symbolic animal, I found it quite interesting because I believe what he says its true. Human's meanings are abstractions and not objects, because for example when we express ourselves through language we feel and are talking about abstract things like feelings, we can't express something merely through objects. Abstractions, as the name says it are undefined things that we can't see our touch however when expressing ourselves are fundamental since we express from the deepest of ourself.

On the other hand, Savater also uses this quote as an argument to support the idea that we differ from animals because our language is based on the finding of a meaning, we say things because we want to mean something while animals just want to get something from it. And here I beg to differ, all though I agree than humans use language in order to find a meaning to the words we say I do believe than animals do the same thing.

Even though animals can't communicate through words, they communicate through different methods, one can be consider by symbols, and doesn't Savater says that human is a symbolic animal? By wagging its tail a dog is saying that he's happy he wants you to know the meaning of its wagging of the tail, it may sound as a simple example but its true. I do believe animals look for the meaning of what one communicates because by seeing their behaviour in certain circumstances we can see how they understand everything, and by understanding they're in fact giving a meaning to what is being communicated. Let us remember that by the symbol of a dog wagging his tail they become symbolic animals too, for what is a symbolic animal? Someone that communicates through symbols!

The symbolic animal

Rather on focusing on what man can do with the world, like Sophocles did, I prefer to think about what man can do with himself, more specifically, what I can do with myself. Because I believe that any change that we attempt to produce in the world has to start by ourselves, what man can do with the world is, in my opinion, a reflection of what he can do with himself.
The possibilities of what man can do with himself are infinite, we can be, we can do whatever we want. I don’t know if what Pico said about everything having his place on the universe and not being able to change it, is totally true, I don’t know if we are the only ones capable of this; but I am certain, as much as one can be after having this class, that we have no limitations, we can be whatever we want, we can change our place in this world, and is entirely up to us to produce any change.
What man can do with himself, that free will that characterize us humans, gives us tremendous power over the world around us, man is the “happiest animal”, at least as long as he wants to be it.

I inside, I outside

At the begging of the chapter I remember that in our class many of my classmates where asking too much, that the class got very noisy when we started with the quote of the floating brains… maybe we’re just scared to notice that we are not as amazing as we thought we are, or maybe is just a bunch of lies pulled out from a marihuana addict… but who really knows? Maybe it is true!! This chapter I think it was very reveling of how much do we really know about ourselves and what is around us, though I think it is very confusing trying to keep up with Savater and other’s ideas meaning quotes, teacher, students, etc. I hope at the end I get my own version of what this book’s content mean to me.

I liked when he said that we are inside of our body, as if the body was something temporary… and yes, it is!! I mean, we can’t go to a “body shop” and ask for the body we like the best and keep it that way the time we want, maybe because the body isn’t that important, is just like a tool to do what we want.Like the example of the bulb, “there’s no light without the bulb” and the bulb without light is useless! Is like “there’s no “spirit or soul” without a body” and a body without no spirit its useless… just try to picture yourself kissing a death body, it can be the hottest guy/girl in the world but still is disgusting and repulsive( in my opinion) .

This chapter was really interesting because it makes us doubt of ourselves and our very own existence as we know it. Maybe Savater wants us to picture life as an illusion because that's the only way to make us notice that our life is nothing, but we can make something out of that "nothing" but this "something" is only for ourselves, because at the end of the road that's all that matters.. What did I do for myself?

i inside, i outside

Chapter three, “I inside, I outside” seem to me kind of confusing because it really put me to think about myself, what happens inside of me, what I think and the things that happen around me, how I perceive them.
How can I know that what I know really exist or is true, everything can just be illusions that I have, Truth is a big word because I think that we could never be totally sure of something been true because everything can be just illusions. That’s the thing that I cannot be sure of anything being true but what I only know is that I exist because I think, because to be able to think and to do things I have to exist, that the only thing that I can be sure of, “ I am, I think”.
I know that I’m myself because I am unique, all the people in the world is different and no one can be the same, I know that I will be always myself even thought physically changes or ways of thinking the only thing that can end myself is death, that’s something that keeps me comfortable because I’m sure that I’m someone that thinks, that lives and perceive the things that happen around me, like the is raining, feeling cold, feeling sad.

I inside, I outside

“What if we are just brains floating around in a bottle full of reserving liquid and some cruel Martian scientist is subjecting us to a virtual experiment?” I like to start with this quote of Savater’s that may be consider a little bit radical but I would like to consider it. This quote Savater uses in the introduction comes from the explanation of how René Descartes is regarded as the founder of modern philosophy and methodical thinking.

In class many disagree with Descartes and even called him crazy, regardless of that, I actually found his hypothesis quite interesting. I don’t mean that yes in fact we are being controlled by some Martian, but the fact that somebody actually stopped and tried to question life as we see it is something that I truly believe deserves some credit. Life is full of unknown forces, experiences, and by accepting them as they come without questioning (as Savater said in the introduction of the book, when he said there are some who will just say Oh what a world we’re living in!) makes them mediocre; the fact that Descartes was the first human to wonder if reality is in fact true is something everyone should admire, even if you disagree with him, his questioning must be acknowledge. For what is reality, one may question and the fact that Descartes gave us two possible theories, I reaffirm, must be giving some credit.

Descartes give us two possibilities, the perpetual dream and the malignant spirit, we may consider them crazy but as Savater reassures he was just asking questions, he never said that was the way things were no questions asked. By developing the process of methodical doubt, Descartes was trying to find a method so he could explain reality among other questions which is more that many of us can say.

So to conclude I just wanted to state the fact that Descartes wasn’t mad nor was he fantasizing, he was simply asking questions no one ever thought about and for that he deserves to be called a philosopher and not a mad man as some stated in class. For no matter if the reality we’re living is a dream or a byproduct of some chemical equation made by Martians, one should never stop questioning life and its happenings because it is how man has discover and explained everything we partially know and that’s the only way of understanding both ourselves and the world.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” ~ Albert Einstein

I inside, I outside

As Descartes I also take me for granted, it doesn’t seem logical to take myself as just another illusion, because whatever I am with or without a name I exist.
Hume said, and some may agree, I is a requirement of the language a placeholder, but isn’t every word a placeholder? Didn’t humans give words their meaning? Isn’t language a product of humans’ thinking? Words really don’t mean anything, we created them, we gave them some sort of sense; even though I is nothing more than a placeholder, as every word in any language, I still am real, the existence of I is not determine by a word.
If I can’t be determine by a word, a simple placeholder which we by being part of a society accepted, it can be, in my opinion, be determine by ourselves, because who but me could be more qualify to establish what is me. Since we are little we are encourage to know ourselves, to find ourselves, to define ourselves; this is what makes me think that the only person who has control over me is myself, even though people may influence me I have the last word.

truth of reason

when I started to read this chapter i thought that how can things we see every day may not be real? or how things we have been teached scince we were small kids may be not true? after reading I realised that true is a variable. what thoes this means, that there are lots of truths for the same thing example: the sun. if we see the diferents points of view of the sun of the diferents cultures around the world we can see that they refer to the sun as a god, others like source of life, if we talk about poetry they might refer the sun as joy or happines, etc. the problem comes when this cultures crash, they are talking about the same things but with diferents words, this might even lead to war, example: the cold war, if we remember the cold war started because the comunism and the capitalist forms of goverment. all what this goverments wanted was the best for their people but by diferents methods. for this kind of problems that can arise from who is saying the true exist reason. reason is the method which we need to follo in order to aboid confrontation for the diferents point of truth. it is up to reason that the problem may be solved peacefully. because remember, "there are not absolut truths only some truths more real than others".

i thing that savatar says one smart thing, "there are always things to check" this is true, if we know at least something about the world is thar is always in change, so it is of vital importance that we check what we know so we dont stay behind.

The Truths of Reason

Too many questions and few answers! Life is really an endless puzzle ( I guess) Figures that the only way we human beings can live is by questioning!! though this can turn into a “seeking of truth struggle”.
But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? We humans were made for this, for reasoning! Or at least that’s what experts say… or at least that’s what I’ve figured out… for example I can tell my dog to come and eat his disgusting smelly food but he doesn’t even complain! He’s just like… Wagging his tail… If I was in that situation I’ll began to complain saying… WHAT?! THIS STINKY FOOD AGAIN?! WHY DO I HAVE TO EAT THIS?? AM NOT EVEN HUNGRY WHY DO I HAVE TO EAT RIGHT NOW!?

Remembering a video shown in class (the one about the little kid saying that the evolution is a lie) We can all say he’s so dumb and his Sunday church speech is worthless!, I think must of us agree that all he’s saying is stupid but, (according to what this video wants to tell us) he actually believes all the crappy stuff he is saying! And the worst of all is that thousands of people AGREE!!!! If we thought the world was falling apart, I guess that is because of that people but I don’t want to mess up with “the lord” fans.
What I really want to say is that everyone has a version of the “truth” and it all depends on our reasoning, obviously there are some people that need to develop more their reasoning skills but we need to improve them too.

Finally I want to make clear that seeking and finding the truth is very important because a truth can define us! But first of all, we need to reason what we are about to take as ours because we never know when we are going in the wrong direction.

the truths of reason

After reading this chapter of the book I became more interesting of things that happen in my life, I started to question myself of things that I know that exist but I want to know more about them. But these questions that Savater put in the book like for example “how we know the things we know?” “ How did we obtain it?”,l think I get most of the things I know from experience, but how can I know that I’m not wrong with what I see, because most of the times I just believe what I see but I don’t go any deeper in investigation and sometimes there can be illusions, ”How can you improve it?” well that’s a very hard question to ask because how can I know the best source of information or how can I now if I am right with what I see or experience, I think life just consist of constant questioning just like as Savater says.
But besides all we should always try to find the truth no matter what and for that we have to use reason. “ the truth and reason share the same claim to universality” that means that to have a better and more real believe in truth the truth have to be universal that means not just your truth, it has to be the truth for many people too.

The truths of reason

For this post I would like to address, Savater’s point on skeptics. In “The Questions of Life” he explains skeptical philosophers as the ones who question, or deny that reason is able to establish unquestionable truths; that is that “they question all human knowledge and even doubt that human beings have the capacity to acquire any kind of knowledge worthy of the name” (pg 29).

So I agree with Savater when he says skeptics are contradictory. How can they say that there’s no reason or a fact that is in some way certain when by denying it they are affirming something. This is why he says they are contradictory, because one can’t say he knows nothing because by saying such thing he at least knows one thing: he’s an ignorant, this example I believe expresses and explains easily what Savater’s point is.

I decided to base my comment on skeptics because I didn’t quite understand what he was talking about until I reread it carefully, and by doing so I discovered that for me skeptical philosophers are denying the truth in the most erroneous way per se. Of course there are many versions of truth, as well as different fields of truth, but we can in fact acquire some kind of knowledge that is worthy of the name as skeptics denies it. I can say for example that the earth is round, this is a truth, at least a kind of truth, men have been in outer space and proven it and it’s something recognized globally that’s why it is a truth. One may question this and many other things but that’s why Savater introduces the fields of truth (other point that I would like to establish in order to contradict skeptics more profoundly), reason may not be the same for everyone and that’s why these fields of truth explain how truth can take different paths.

So, to conclude I think skeptics should take another view to what they say and rethink about the fields of reason, because I think that way they’ll find out that we can acquire knowledge and that’s why we are different from other species, because humans do have the capacity of acquiring and search for knowledge, we just need to remember that that knowledge is a kind of truth, a truth of reason among many different ones.

The truths of reason

The different ways that we obtain knowledge are in my opinion very untrustworthy by themselves; I mean Savater even explains how we can’t fully trust our own experience to be truth because our perception could be wrong, because our brain could be misinterpreting the information and what we take for the absolute truth is in fact wrong, an illusion.

If we can trust our own opinion how can someone expect us to believe what we read, what someone else tell us, because if our experience is not right why would theirs be; or what we study, because information changes, hundreds of years ago everyone thought the Earth was the center of the universe, then they prove it wrong and everything that was supposed to be the absolute truth changed. The only thing we can be certain about is that there is no absolute truth.

To say there is no absolute truth doesn’t mean that we can’t search for truth, that we can’t get close to find it. We can look for truth, and the most effective way to do it is through reasoning, the most effective way to look for it is taking all the knowledge that we have from the different sources and put it together, we may not fully trust our experience or what we studied but if we combine all that knowledge and reason it we may find the right way, the way that would take us to the truth. There are different ways to obtain knowledge and apart they are not very trustworthy, but together they refute or support themselves, they complement each other.