あの ...
So, let's start this pseudo-philosophy with this: Gackt's "EMU ~for my dear~" (Live at his concert in 2007, Taiwan, titled "Drug Party")
(Gackt's voice has really matured over the years... if you compare his lives, his voice has become much more rich and much more closer to his studio voice.)
There is a basic assumption made in most philosophical discussions, sometimes attributed to Aristotle. That is the Principle of Non-Contradiction (or PNC, for short). In a rather simplified sense, this means that one cannot be something and the opposite of that at the same time. This holds true not only for material aspects but also of beliefs or ideas. Nevertheless, this holds only for what truly is or what makes a being what it is. That might be hard to follow but what it basically is saying that it isn't true if you were to say you believed or were one thing and the opposite. Only one of those statements can be true. The other simply isn't. The contradiction can't be true as a whole.
So what does this say? And why in hell did I introduce this quasi-argument with Gackt?
The lyrics in romaji and translated for the song can be found here. I conveniently own the DVD for this concert and thus have it in Kanji/Hiragana.
In the song, after the small break, Gackt sings:
「君だけお見つめていた / 僕は瞳お見つめていた」
"kimi dake o mitsumeteta / boku wa hitomi o mitsumeteta"
Which roughly translates to: "I was only watching you / I was forever gazing into your eyes"
So perhaps what I want to say is that people lie to themselves when they say they feel x but feel y. Perhaps that's too oblique. What I mean to say is that people often say one thing but mean another. Logically, this must mean that one is false. Generally, it is what we don't say that is true. Because both cannot be true. But why do people do this? That question isn't really what's important. It's that we do that. Nevertheless, without some form of communication, how can we understand what is really true? Russell notes that due to the different sort of knowledges (eg - "knowledge by acquaintance") we can never truly know another, whether it be a person or simply some physical object. What we know--or are "acquainted with"--are the ideas, the mental sense we have of that other. (I would like to add I don't mean to use the language of Levinas... because I HATE Levinas. His Other and mine are different.) And there comes the rub. So how do we know what's true? This is a question that I think is at the core of Philosophy, really. What is true? And, like we all know, I don't know if we will ever have that answer because what is true to one can never be truly--at least in my beliefs/ideas--expressed in a sufficient way.
I'm not sure if that made sense.
Click to view(Gackt's voice has really matured over the years... if you compare his lives, his voice has become much more rich and much more closer to his studio voice.)
There is a basic assumption made in most philosophical discussions, sometimes attributed to Aristotle. That is the Principle of Non-Contradiction (or PNC, for short). In a rather simplified sense, this means that one cannot be something and the opposite of that at the same time. This holds true not only for material aspects but also of beliefs or ideas. Nevertheless, this holds only for what truly is or what makes a being what it is. That might be hard to follow but what it basically is saying that it isn't true if you were to say you believed or were one thing and the opposite. Only one of those statements can be true. The other simply isn't. The contradiction can't be true as a whole.
So what does this say? And why in hell did I introduce this quasi-argument with Gackt?
The lyrics in romaji and translated for the song can be found here. I conveniently own the DVD for this concert and thus have it in Kanji/Hiragana.
In the song, after the small break, Gackt sings:
「君だけお見つめていた / 僕は瞳お見つめていた」
"kimi dake o mitsumeteta / boku wa hitomi o mitsumeteta"
Which roughly translates to: "I was only watching you / I was forever gazing into your eyes"
So perhaps what I want to say is that people lie to themselves when they say they feel x but feel y. Perhaps that's too oblique. What I mean to say is that people often say one thing but mean another. Logically, this must mean that one is false. Generally, it is what we don't say that is true. Because both cannot be true. But why do people do this? That question isn't really what's important. It's that we do that. Nevertheless, without some form of communication, how can we understand what is really true? Russell notes that due to the different sort of knowledges (eg - "knowledge by acquaintance") we can never truly know another, whether it be a person or simply some physical object. What we know--or are "acquainted with"--are the ideas, the mental sense we have of that other. (I would like to add I don't mean to use the language of Levinas... because I HATE Levinas. His Other and mine are different.) And there comes the rub. So how do we know what's true? This is a question that I think is at the core of Philosophy, really. What is true? And, like we all know, I don't know if we will ever have that answer because what is true to one can never be truly--at least in my beliefs/ideas--expressed in a sufficient way.
I'm not sure if that made sense.