the God delusion
What an incendiary title for an innocuous post.
"The most general expression of the danger being addressed in this puzzle is that if people base their moral beliefs - that is, their beliefs concerning how they should treat others and themselves - exclusively on an authority's voice, they run the risk of carrying out some highly immoral deeds and feeling themselves justified in performing them. There is no guarantee concerning what an authority commands. However, once people recognize that there are conceivable circumstances in which it would be wrong for them to obey the authority, they recognize they have some moral beliefs that are independent of that authority...Indeed, it is the fact that many believers have moral beliefs not grounded in religious authority that often explains why they interpret their scriptures in such a way that the scriptures support those moral beliefs."
- Can a Robot be Human? 33 Perplexing Philosophy Puzzles, Peter Cave
The title of the book sounds irreverent, and it's not the greatest philosophy text of the millennium, but that part made me think - or rather, it verbalized the gist of my sullen thoughts during Philo today.
Philo today was - probably the worst Philo lesson I had in my three years of RGS thus far? As far as I can remember, at least. I'm not exactly sure why; I just felt really sullen throughout the entire COI discussion, and inexplicably angry at the points being raised; the futility of our discussion, the superficial analysis and debate going on, the gentle, wary, tip-toeing around what most people consider a sensitive, controversial topic, annoyed me to no end, and I think it showed, because I basically sulked throughout the entire lesson and did not contribute a single thing to the discussion. I felt quite small and vindictive after that, I admit, but that hour simply put my mind and my enthusiasm in a dark, deep pit I couldn't seem to get out off, no matter how hard I tried, and it lingered all the way through Lit, History and then Math, which made things very uncomfortable for me, because the people around me had no idea what I was feeling, and it's hard to put into words for them to understand.
Lit then, dragged really badly too, and despite the ease of words coming to me as I wrote, it lacked something. I have never thought Lit was difficult for me, Lit used to be a comfort, something I sought solace from, because I was at ease, the words came comfortably, I could rely on my mind for Lit. History, too, to an extent, or at least in S3 RAH, but today, today all of that fled me. It was terrifying, because I wasn't making the connections I should have, mostly in History, and I didn't say anything much in History either, and another point of comfort for me has always been my confidence in my intelligence. It sounds obnoxious saying that, but thinking has never felt particularly hard for me, in the sense that I can question, I can infer, I can think independently in situations without the factual knowledge, so losing that today, or losing my faith in that today, was scary. I think I need to be intelligent.
The worst place to be is at the threshold, one foot in intelligence but the other trapped in mediocrity, being aware of genius but unable to partake of it personally. It's rather like Charlie in Flowers for Algernon, who was once brilliant, and fell so hard; that knowledge of the capacity, the possibility for genius is crippling, like a star in the sky you will forever want to reach out to, but will never be able to touch. It really scares me, because I place so much importance on intelligence and sentience and coherence that I'm afraid of what I'd think of myself if I lose them.
Thus, today was disillusioning. After the double horrors of Philo and Lit, I commented to people that the two blocks are making me seriously consider homeschooling - an alternative to this, an opportunity to learn wisdom instead of facts, dialogues with people who think about issues the way I do, who aren't afraid to pursue the matter to its ugly end, dissect everything till all the assumptions break, till everyone is mad and half-demented and practically yells at each other - I want to live for the knowledge, I want to be argumentative and annoying and poke at everything as though it was a particularly ugly bug, and squash it into a brown mess.
For my math journal entry, I intend to write a long philosophical essay on the nature of mathematics and how it relates to morality/society, for one, and why mathematicians are geniuses.
I don't want to go to school anymore. I'm terrified that I've lost the will, the blindness to submit myself to the school system, to move through the rank and file semi-obediently through the regimen of structured syllabi and sit through hours of uninspired lecturing, the previous ambivalence about school which allowed me to drown the nagging thought at the back of my head questioning fervently the point of schooling with assurances that I was beating the system by excelling in it, swimming upstream, stepping out of the box by first mapping its perimeter. I need the illusion of utility, purpose; I cannot survive a year of school if I don't believe in it, if I cannot convince myself it's worth it, and I shouldn't just quit school right now and subsist on a diet of books, reading and reading so much it seems I'd sometimes drown in words. I want to just sit out of lessons, and read, read, read till I go blind (metaphorically, of course) and then talk about them with people, discuss thoughts and feelings, have dialogues and conversations far, far more real than any COI our Philo curriculum can come up with. Books have been way better teachers than most 'qualified educational instructors' I've seen, and - I'm losing it.
Right now I desperately want, need to eventually get accepted into UWC, overseas, a change of environment, more potential and I feel the strongest, most despairingly of philosophy in conscious memory - right now it is my heaviest anchor, my highest-flying kite - and I am resolved to compile a portfolio of essays on that note. My compass points sharply at philosophy, and academia right now; no wavering between the political sciences, the social sciences, history, literature, social activism. I want to go to university majoring in Philosophy and minoring in the Classic languages or Greek or Latin or something idealistic like that so I will be able to read the original texts and then I want to be a professor, preferably at universities but I would like to give talks to people too, youths, people like me who are searching for guidance to latch on to, and eventually I will return to Singapore, RGS, and teach. Right now I cannot stomach the thought of going to RJC, or even Hwa Chong, with all their realism and firmly grounded feet, the idea of being trapped in a similar system, nose to the grindstone, seeing only grey and concrete, for two more years. At the same time all this sounds so idealistic, so flighty, I'm half-afraid to even form the thoughts because I'm afraid I'll never achieve it, that I won't be good enough to pursue an academic career, to do what I want to do, and eventually I'd have to settle for an uninspiring, dull, mundane life working in an office job, nine to five, taking care of two children and going home to a husband who would probably be too tired to listen to my philosophical thoughts, if I still have any left, after an afternoon of housework.
I feel - trapped.
I may have begun to understand how liz feels. I don't suppose the school will let me skip some classes to do self-study /: I AM UNTAPPED. UNDEVELOPED. UNCHALLENGED. UNFULFILLED. I AM STRUGGLING !
More positively, ELDS callbacks cheered me up considerably, or at least blocked out all the existential angst temporarily.
"The most general expression of the danger being addressed in this puzzle is that if people base their moral beliefs - that is, their beliefs concerning how they should treat others and themselves - exclusively on an authority's voice, they run the risk of carrying out some highly immoral deeds and feeling themselves justified in performing them. There is no guarantee concerning what an authority commands. However, once people recognize that there are conceivable circumstances in which it would be wrong for them to obey the authority, they recognize they have some moral beliefs that are independent of that authority...Indeed, it is the fact that many believers have moral beliefs not grounded in religious authority that often explains why they interpret their scriptures in such a way that the scriptures support those moral beliefs."
- Can a Robot be Human? 33 Perplexing Philosophy Puzzles, Peter Cave
The title of the book sounds irreverent, and it's not the greatest philosophy text of the millennium, but that part made me think - or rather, it verbalized the gist of my sullen thoughts during Philo today.
Philo today was - probably the worst Philo lesson I had in my three years of RGS thus far? As far as I can remember, at least. I'm not exactly sure why; I just felt really sullen throughout the entire COI discussion, and inexplicably angry at the points being raised; the futility of our discussion, the superficial analysis and debate going on, the gentle, wary, tip-toeing around what most people consider a sensitive, controversial topic, annoyed me to no end, and I think it showed, because I basically sulked throughout the entire lesson and did not contribute a single thing to the discussion. I felt quite small and vindictive after that, I admit, but that hour simply put my mind and my enthusiasm in a dark, deep pit I couldn't seem to get out off, no matter how hard I tried, and it lingered all the way through Lit, History and then Math, which made things very uncomfortable for me, because the people around me had no idea what I was feeling, and it's hard to put into words for them to understand.
Lit then, dragged really badly too, and despite the ease of words coming to me as I wrote, it lacked something. I have never thought Lit was difficult for me, Lit used to be a comfort, something I sought solace from, because I was at ease, the words came comfortably, I could rely on my mind for Lit. History, too, to an extent, or at least in S3 RAH, but today, today all of that fled me. It was terrifying, because I wasn't making the connections I should have, mostly in History, and I didn't say anything much in History either, and another point of comfort for me has always been my confidence in my intelligence. It sounds obnoxious saying that, but thinking has never felt particularly hard for me, in the sense that I can question, I can infer, I can think independently in situations without the factual knowledge, so losing that today, or losing my faith in that today, was scary. I think I need to be intelligent.
The worst place to be is at the threshold, one foot in intelligence but the other trapped in mediocrity, being aware of genius but unable to partake of it personally. It's rather like Charlie in Flowers for Algernon, who was once brilliant, and fell so hard; that knowledge of the capacity, the possibility for genius is crippling, like a star in the sky you will forever want to reach out to, but will never be able to touch. It really scares me, because I place so much importance on intelligence and sentience and coherence that I'm afraid of what I'd think of myself if I lose them.
Thus, today was disillusioning. After the double horrors of Philo and Lit, I commented to people that the two blocks are making me seriously consider homeschooling - an alternative to this, an opportunity to learn wisdom instead of facts, dialogues with people who think about issues the way I do, who aren't afraid to pursue the matter to its ugly end, dissect everything till all the assumptions break, till everyone is mad and half-demented and practically yells at each other - I want to live for the knowledge, I want to be argumentative and annoying and poke at everything as though it was a particularly ugly bug, and squash it into a brown mess.
For my math journal entry, I intend to write a long philosophical essay on the nature of mathematics and how it relates to morality/society, for one, and why mathematicians are geniuses.
I don't want to go to school anymore. I'm terrified that I've lost the will, the blindness to submit myself to the school system, to move through the rank and file semi-obediently through the regimen of structured syllabi and sit through hours of uninspired lecturing, the previous ambivalence about school which allowed me to drown the nagging thought at the back of my head questioning fervently the point of schooling with assurances that I was beating the system by excelling in it, swimming upstream, stepping out of the box by first mapping its perimeter. I need the illusion of utility, purpose; I cannot survive a year of school if I don't believe in it, if I cannot convince myself it's worth it, and I shouldn't just quit school right now and subsist on a diet of books, reading and reading so much it seems I'd sometimes drown in words. I want to just sit out of lessons, and read, read, read till I go blind (metaphorically, of course) and then talk about them with people, discuss thoughts and feelings, have dialogues and conversations far, far more real than any COI our Philo curriculum can come up with. Books have been way better teachers than most 'qualified educational instructors' I've seen, and - I'm losing it.
Right now I desperately want, need to eventually get accepted into UWC, overseas, a change of environment, more potential and I feel the strongest, most despairingly of philosophy in conscious memory - right now it is my heaviest anchor, my highest-flying kite - and I am resolved to compile a portfolio of essays on that note. My compass points sharply at philosophy, and academia right now; no wavering between the political sciences, the social sciences, history, literature, social activism. I want to go to university majoring in Philosophy and minoring in the Classic languages or Greek or Latin or something idealistic like that so I will be able to read the original texts and then I want to be a professor, preferably at universities but I would like to give talks to people too, youths, people like me who are searching for guidance to latch on to, and eventually I will return to Singapore, RGS, and teach. Right now I cannot stomach the thought of going to RJC, or even Hwa Chong, with all their realism and firmly grounded feet, the idea of being trapped in a similar system, nose to the grindstone, seeing only grey and concrete, for two more years. At the same time all this sounds so idealistic, so flighty, I'm half-afraid to even form the thoughts because I'm afraid I'll never achieve it, that I won't be good enough to pursue an academic career, to do what I want to do, and eventually I'd have to settle for an uninspiring, dull, mundane life working in an office job, nine to five, taking care of two children and going home to a husband who would probably be too tired to listen to my philosophical thoughts, if I still have any left, after an afternoon of housework.
I feel - trapped.
I may have begun to understand how liz feels. I don't suppose the school will let me skip some classes to do self-study /: I AM UNTAPPED. UNDEVELOPED. UNCHALLENGED. UNFULFILLED. I AM STRUGGLING !
More positively, ELDS callbacks cheered me up considerably, or at least blocked out all the existential angst temporarily.