I’m finding myself on an emotional roller-coaster lately, experiencing fluctuations in perspective I’m finding difficult to explain. I have experienced no traumatic events recently that can account for my mood swings, so it doesn’t seem reasonable I should be soaring on the rarified air of well-being one minute and descending to the depths of despair the next.
As one might imagine I’m enjoying the highs and dreading the lows, but since I realize fluctuations will occur; what goes up must come down, I should, I suppose, be content to ride along. As I contemplate it all, searching for a rationale, I think I can realistically attribute the phenomenon to aging.
It occurs to me that as one contemplates, reaches toward the boundaries of understanding it becomes increasingly likely such an individual will find himself within the undesirable realm of the pseudo-intellectual.
As honest and unassuming as his intellectual pursuits might be, selflessly reaching toward understanding, negative responses to his ruminations has to cause him to wonder if perhaps he’s offering thoughts in a convoluted style, about ideas that are trivial or, even worse, common knowledge.
Still, one should not be deterred from his intellectual pursuit if motives are pure and not simply intended to boost self-esteem.
I understand that neuro-scientists are going to great efforts these days to make sense of what exactly constitutes consciousness. A lot of their efforts are about correlating conscious experiences, like the world view before us or our sense of time extension, with specific brain activity, what synapses fire when and where in the brain where it’s all happening.
No easy task, I guess, but one particular difficulty these researchers are having is how to deal with extreme subtleties of consciousness, those experiences that defy verbal representation, like the aesthetic response one might have when hearing a particular musical refrain or the ineffable responses to the smell of flowers on a spring day. To make matters even more difficult the same sounds or the same odor may not elicit the same conscious response experienced a second time.
It seems to me reducing conscious experience to specific brain activity isn’t necessarily a desirable enterprise anyway. Perhaps allowing the ineffable to remain ineffable is a breath of fresh air.
Robert and Judy have lived together in their small home in the country for a long time. Before they were married Robert lived alone in a small cabin. When Judy came to visit, she found that Robert harbored a weasel in the house. The animal was allowed free rein to come and go at will. According to Robert his unnamed companion kept the rodent population in check. After their marriage, Judy, finding the animal to be an unacceptable house guest saw to it a new house was built with a solid foundation.
Over the years, as will be the case for semi-isolated folks, idiosyncrasies have developed. Visitors are viewed a bit askance, long visits not encouraged and, as Judy might have expected, Robert has continued to harbor his excessive (in her opinion) attachment to the deer, wild turkeys, wood chucks and various other wild creatures that come around to be fed, which Robert continues to do with unerring regularity in order to keep them all nearby, while keeping them, in the interest of conjugal peace, out of the house.
As Robert’s health has begun to deteriorate, Judy, a registered nurse, diagnoses, treats and sees to it Robert gets needed medical attention while documenting his various skin maladies with color photos that she readily shares with whomever might be visiting. Clarence, reduced to physical specimen, shrugs off the attention, content to nap in his recliner until it’s time once again to feed his friends.
In 16th Century Europe, Luther’s Reformation provided a popular alternative for a population aggrieved by the excessive taxation imposed by the Roman church. The schism produced opposing factions that felt the need to impose doctrinal absolutes on their respective believers in order to reinforce professed Christian legitimacy. Heretics were found, declared and burned and in France the protestant Huguenots were slaughtered by ruling Catholics.
In response to the unchristian-like actions the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne offered some enlightening insights. He suggested if one took any one of his firmly held beliefs and then took time to consider the opposite view openly and thoroughly, he might very well change his opinion.
Unfortunately, his skepticism of rigid dogmatic belief did little to defer the unsettled populations, who ignored reason and continued to each passionately pursue their preferred narratives. Some things never change.
Does one’s mental acuity require an antagonist or are there just some of us who don’t function well without an oppositional push? Having a foil against which I can expend my energies allows for perceived successes, wins, against adversity and will produce a sense of euphoria (short-lived though it will be), that feeds the desire to continue to seek out opposition.
The commonly held desire for peaceful coexistence, the idea of a friction-free Utopia would send many of us into an undesirable state of ennui, although time to rest up between bouts will be welcome.
I’ve been reading about a time before electricity and central heating when Scandanavian people existed much closer to their natural environment, when enduring the harshness of cold, ice and snow could be mind-bending. I guess living in the northern climes during long winter months provided reason enough to explain the psychological darkness, existential angst that invaded the minds of inhabitants.
The indigenous Sami, nomadic reindeer herders, their sole economic existence dependent on the health of their herds, were required to constantly move through the harsh winters as lichen fields were depleted and new grazing areas found. It’s no wonders the culture of the area produced narratives with few happy endings, stories of protagonists arriving finally at the realization of existential aloneness.
I’ve been reading about the influence Plato and Aristotle had on the medieval Christian church. The thoughts of these two Greek philosophers were responsible for doctrinal controversy within the church hierarchy.
Plato, whose concept of ‘Ideal Forms’, on which the flawed material world was derivative provided some in the early church insight to see Plato as foretelling the existence of the Christian God, a God beyond rational understanding, a God unknowable before the Christ, to be accepted and revered through faithful observance. Thomas Aquinas, empiricist, thoughtful inquirer, found Aristotle’s sensate investigations proof of an ordered, natural world made that way by an omnipotent God. The contradictory thinking produced on the one hand the necessity of ‘blind faith’, the faithful encouraged to accept the mystery that is God, and, on the other an enquiring laity whose faith and rational understanding was based on knowledge.
The philosophical controversy still exists to this day but at the time paled in comparison to the power struggles and corruption within the medieval church.
I’ve been reading that biologists have determined that certain predators are key to preserving diversity in various eco systems: starfish, for example, serve the function by consuming mussels that would otherwise destroy the diversity in tide pools and fresh water largemouth bass are a keystone species in freshwater streams controlling the populations of minnows that would otherwise over-graze plant life. In the waters off western Alaska sea otters control the populations of sea urchins that can devastate kelp forests.
The lesson to be learned, I guess, is that keystone species are necessary to control populations of system threatening species in order to maintain healthy diverse eco-systems. I wonder whether a keystone species might exist somewhere that could control the species most responsible for threatening the health of the earth.
I visited with a childhood friend recently. We have known each other since elementary school and over the years have shared numerous interests, developed common sensibilities. Things change with time and experience, of course, and my friend and I have found ourselves philosophically polarized.
He has been, for quite some time now, a committed Evangelical harboring the benevolent belief Christian faith will bring serenity and peace not to mention a heavenly afterlife. I on the other hand, remain philosophically open-ended believing a pluralistic world view will produce the greatest likelihood mankind will be able to come together, to unite in a common empathy, reduce sectarian conflicts and direct us toward a peaceful future existence.
I though, unlike my friend, harbor the anxieties of real time, am unable to adapt to the closed system of religious faith, even though the vision of a sunny after-life is pretty attractive.
deideismusings 