of philosophy
after 2 years of philosophy classes, I realize that I still have nothing much to say about philosophy. Yes, there were many topics of interest and many ideas to learn. Philosophy of religion, of ethics, of Man, of the mind (everytime I do this one, I get a headache - and it's my concentration too! CRAP!), of ancient problems.........
My question is: What can philosophy do for us? To answer this question, I can't help but dig into my personal experience. I have always been an all-rounder in the academic field. And in case you think that I am trying to act smart, what I actually mean is that I am not especially good in any field (or that I am equally bad in all fields). Since primary school, I have been wondering what I should study or do in the future because everything seems equally OK to me. I guess the turning point came about in secondary school because by some bizarre twist of events, I somehow got relegated to a weird program which forced me to attend different science and mathematics classes. It's not that I am not happy with the biology/immunology/neuroscience that I am doing now; don't mistake me. But my first love has always been something that appeals to the depth of the mind/soul (Descartes would like to say that the mind and body are 2 completely separate entities: mind-body dualism) and so I jumped at the opportunity to use somebody else's money to study philosophy (fine, i know officially it's printed as "philosophy-neuroscience-psychology" on my cert but it's just plain old philo to me).
Unfortunately (or fortunately, I don't even know), all true students of philosophy debunk all the mysticism associated with philosophy. All the stories about socrates being killed by the greek people and plato honoring his works and blah blah blah just serve to misinform the, erhmm, misinformed, about what philosophy actually is.
I am really no expert, but philsophy is, in my opinion, thinking. That's it. It's just that philosophy used to encompass immature fields then, which eventually branched off into mature science (astronomy, physics etc) while the crappy parts are still commonly associated with philosophy (come on guys! let the philosopher tell you what the stars have in hold for ya!). Plus philosophy chose to tackle the toughest questions in life (religion, mind etc) head on while science couldn't keep up, and hence the disparity in what we know and what we think. But even though this seems like the most useless thing someone could actually study (I kid you not: philosophy barely gives you any real applicational skill in this world), but it's saving grace comes from thinking.
So what exactly is philosophy's place in the current world? (yes I realize I am biting off something that's more than I can chew) In my opinion, philosophy leads the way on who we all should be.
Hmm, this is kinda anti-climax. I lost my line of thoughts. Let me think about this. Might revisit this again in future.
These are my classes for the semester:
3411: Principles of nervous system:
Clinical and biological neuroscience in a nutshell bah. 3 great professors. Quite optimistic about this course.
201: Enquiry into cognitive science:
Philosophical look at cognition. The prof is kinda bohemian. Long hair, dashing in an oscar wilde way, always talking about his daughter, walks across the classroom too many times.
315: Philosophy of the mind:
Erhmm, philosophy of the mind. Taught by the chair of the dept. Had very high expectations of the class, but philo classes always end up with the prof stammering bcos it's just too hard to figure it out.
4041: Immunology:
Freaking hard course. The prof smiles and talks for 2 hours and finishes 20 pages of 6 slides each, with numerous biochemical pathways and responses and categorizations. I get nightmares trying to distinguish my IL-10 from IP-10. From nonetheless, immunology is beautiful. Makes me feel like I know how to fight a war in real-life.
404: Neurophysiology:
I swear it's a physics/engineering class. I spend all my time working on computer stimulations, building electrical circuits and stuff like that. But I quite love it because it helps me transpose a concept from one field to another. Unfortunately, getting an electrode through one neuron in the electric fish and cochlear of the poor little mouse or the like-to-jump-around frog is a pain in the ass.
343C: Europe in the age of reformation:
A class that is cross-listed under medieval-renaissance studies, history, political science and religious studies. Damn cool. We attempt to understand the reasons for the protestant movement and how christianity is intertwined with politics and how the roman catholic church reacted. Did I say this course is damn cool?
500: West Nile Virus research lab:
Biatch-in-charge.
I feel like sleeping already. Goodnight to the world.