|
humorist-workshop
Am I insane, or is it everyone else? What do you think about my thoughts?
This is a question of what you think of my craziness. Everyone is insanne, because we all see different things from the same things. Our ears turn noise into something comprehensible. Maybe, what each of us hear from the same thing is different. Same for seeing. In turn, what I hear or see happening is based on what I think I said or did. So, in a way, we are all living in our own little fantasy. There's no way for me to even know your real opinion, because you could think I'm saying something totally different than I am. I just see the words, and, from what my brain says I typed, I interpret what anyone would say back. So in a way, we are all completely alone. By the way, I'm 13, so excuse my oddness for being a teenager, and hormones, or whatever people say. I don't see why knowing that I'm a girl would help you in telling you my thoughts, but who knows, right?
[ ]
Want to answer more questions in the Health & Fitness category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
I believe what you are saying can be summed up in just one word; "perception." We all perceive things slightly differently then someone else. An oversimplification would be with colors. One person sees just the color blue. Another person with better color perception will see the same blue but in one of the hues of the blue family. Then their is the person who is color stupid, yes their is such a thing, who sees what they believe is green. Perception we see or hear what we think we heard or saw.
There is nothing wrong with you or your friends. Your all teenagers starting the next phase of life. Young adults who after learning about life as a child now have the ability to explore and question things. You now are even asked at time to question and come up with different views on subjects. This is life; embrace it, discuss it. Maybe your generation will find the cure for things my generation has not yet been able to.
It is our ability to question that leads to great discoveries. As a race we humans hate mysteries. We question and we look for answers until we are satisfied we have found the answer or exhausted all means available to us to find an answer. Who knows you could be the one to find the answer to the common cold?
Never stop questioning what you don't understand or feel is wrong. If you feel you can do better than someone else has than try. Never question you own abilities and never think you or anyone else is crazy just because you or they are in disagreement.
]
They are perfectly fine. Everyone has their own interests. Some are interested in fashion, some in interior designing, some in painting. You seem to be much of an observer which is the basic requirement of all these professions. So, don't stop yourself. Inquire. Observe. Be mesmerised. It's teenage and you should enjoy it. Good luck.
Regards.
]
You're not crazy, you're pondering 'existence' and following the path of many of the great names in western philosophy. Which we could spend a long time discussing. And you're on the right path, even if it's a path that many never step on. If you and I looked at the fields and trees, and then a sunset, no there is no way of knowing if the clours for example, that you see are 'the same' as the colours I see. But so long as there is an 'agreed' dialogue, meaning we both call the grass 'green' and we both call the sunset sky 'red' we get along fine. But if 'your' red is 'my red' who indeed will ever know? Sounds are indeed just wave disturbances in air, and NOT sounds until our ear, or some sort of sound sensitive device like a microphone receives them. Begging the question, if a tree falls in the middle of a large empty forest...does it make a sound?? Is ANYTHING there until we look for it? And does our observation itself influence it.. would it be the same if we didn't look at it? And clearly a chair for example is not a chair simply because we put the 'word-label' chair on it. The word label 'chair' is entirely meaningless, and adds or subtracts nothing from the object. By and large, we're looking at the conflict between two different worlds. The physical world of form and objects, and the intellectual world of ideas. Now you can't 'put a real, physical chair inside your brain'...obviously. But neither can you sit on 'the idea of a chair'!! There is clearly a very real 'bridge' between the two worlds. And the precise nature of this bridge has baffled great thinkers for a long time. And I'm afraid there is no definitive answer, no fully explained cause. The world of human biology/medicine has no unarguable answer either, and pondering it at all is mostly left to the philiosopher. Holding one thought in your mind is while expressing another is one very good reason why nobody has ever been able to expound a 'philosophy of language' with the precision a mathematician or physicist can present his equations, theories and laws. Bertrand Russell had a very good go I believe, but it's easy to defeat. For example, there is nothing grammatically 'wrong' in the statement. "The present King of France has a beard". It fulfils all the required 'laws' and can have it's 'truth values' (Positive if he has a beard, negative if he's clean shaven). Apart from there IS NO King of France! So were applying all the laws to a 'premise' (or 'basic idea' if you prefer) which is non-existent!! And think about saying 'Macbeth killed the Banquo'. Now the world has NEVER held the persons named 'Macbeth' or 'Banquo' (who are characters in a Shakespeare play) so he couldn't have killed, or not killed the Banquo. There was never 'Banquo' either! Yet the statement is flawless! His 'imaginary lawyer' could argue it's truth. If you like pondering stuff like this you might want to look at Plato for the world of forms and ideas, Wittgenstein and Schroedinger for the language and observation stuff, and for a modern take on 'existence' in general, Jean-Paul Sartre. If you want me to say it's all 'teens and hormones'....wrong!! There's a lot more to it than that! So we are all alone in essence, and the only existence we can vouch for with any true certainty is our own. How? The fact that you are pondering questions about your existence PROVES that whatever else may be illusion, YOU exist. The unarguable "cogito, ergo sum". Which simply means 'I think...therefore I AM.' Which was Descartes...who you can add to your list of seriously heavy philosophers! And by the way, if I walked up to you and said. 'You're a girl' that does not of course MAKE you a girl. But it's at least one area where the there is a little mathematical precision in perception. Namely that the idea of a girl is a girl...and ONLY a girl. It cannot be applied to anything other than a girl. And the fact that 'You are NOT a boy' is the only argument I need to qualify it to my satisfaction. I can happily put you in the 'set' of 'things in the world which posess 'girlness' and are 'girls'. I'm talking to you, so I can talk to 'a girl'...but clearly I cannot talk to 'girl'...which is the name of the set. Just like you could own a dog...but you can't own 'dog'. Your observations are indeed influenced by your thoughts. Imagine you walked past a guy sitting on a bench on your way to school, and saw him there at the same time next day, and the next. (To avoid the 'easy' answer...he's dressed exactly the same!) Do you assume he HASN'T LEFT the bench, he's been there all the time? It's unlikely you'll think that. Yet everything you've seen confirms that he HASN'T BEEN AWAY. You have NOTHING to 'prove' otherwise. So why is the thought that he's been sitting there all the time rather ridiculous? Because you understand the way humans work. He couldn't have not moved. He'd have to go and eat, go and have a pee...etc. And anyway...humans just DON'T BEHAVE like that! Would an alien from another world have that knowledge of human behaviour? To be sure the man left, he would have to observe him leaving, observe his return. There could be no intuitive knowlegde for our alien visitor. (ps No, I'm NOT saying there are aliens from other worlds...it's a hypothetical argument!). Are you more, or less confused now than before you asked this question?? Is there a 'philosopher' in you? I'd start by reading a bit of Sartre in my spare time if there is, he's an entertaining writer, and his works are in the story/play style. Far less heavy-going than Wittgenstein!
]
I think I am following you. Our brain plays crazy games with us. Sometimes we've kind of programmed it to run only certain programs like a computer.
<lets see if this sounds something like what you are trying to explain:
I state: The sky looks like its gonna rain.
My sister hears the word rain and her brain screens out the rest of my sentence and fills in with its own so she thinks she heard, "Wow, would you look at that rain" and she freaks out because she hung her bedspread up outside to air it out and she thinks its getting soaked.
My brother knows I have a friend named Skye and thats the word his brain latches onto and replaces the rest so he heard, "Skye has gone and done it again." And in confusion he looks at me and asks, "What did Skye do?" I look at him like he's insane when my sister re enters the house from outside and says, "It's not raining, why did you say it was raining?"
Is this what you are experiencing? Believe me, it does happen.
]
More Questions: |