Monday, September 17, 2012

Schopenhauer: Will





I have been reading a little about Schopenhauer. I was sort of chipping away at his book, the World as Will and idea. 

Schopenhauer developed Kant's idea of the thing in itself. Kant thought that beyond our perception and experience, there is an underlying reality which is beyond the grasp of our understanding: "understanding cannot go beyond sensibilities." this underlying reality is what Kant called the "thing-in-itself." Simply put, what we see is what our mind make us see. A chair looks like chair to us because that's how our eyes perceive it, and this is how our mind process the perception but the chair is not limited to what we see. The chair has properties that our senses and our mind cannot perceive because of the limitation of our senses and our minds  and we cannot go into the "thing-it-self.". Our understanding is like an a air-jet. The higher the jet fly to the atmosphere, the lesser air it gets and in the process, it will crash and burn. (Heard this from Prof. Cahoone).

Schopenhauer thought that the underlying reality was the will. (Other philosophers, especially the idealist, proposed  mind/s, or ideas, as the underlying reality.)

The Will is the thing-in-itself. Schopenhauer's Will is not the individual psychological will, but a universal metaphysical principle, spaceless and timeless and uncaused, even as Hegel's Reason, as he held, is not merely an individual function. The Will, says Schopenhauer, manifests itself in the individual as impulse, instinct and craving. The Will, again, it is that appears as consciousness and body. Thus the true self of man is identified with the Will.
Everything in the world, too, becomes an expression of the Will. The world is Will and Idea and has no independent material existence. The Will is above the Idea and is the only reality. The Will is blind, unconscious, and the Idea which is conscious is only its appearance in the intellect. We see nothing anywhere except the Will and the body which is the expression of the Will. Right from unconscious matter up to the self-conscious man the Will alone reigns supreme. It appears unconscious in something and conscious in another. It is all strife, activity, yearning that we observe everywhere. Desire is the cause of all things. With the Yogavasishtha, Schopenhauer would say that there is the eye because there is desire to see, there is the ear because there is desire to hear. The body and bodily functions are the expression of the Will. The digestive organs are the objectifications of hunger, the feet of the desire for movement, the brain of the desire for knowledge. There can be no body, and no world, without the Will. Longing, craving, or function, determines the nature of being, of the kind of organisation which becomes the body of the Will. The Will-to-live is the root of all things. It is the cause of struggle, suffering, pain. The Will is the great evil that accounts for the misery of all beings.
Schopenhauer's concept of the Will is fascinating. The Will is the Reality and it is blind urge. Consciousness or intelligence is its phenomenal effect made manifest in higher organisms in order to pave the way for the work of the Will in the world. For Schopenhauer intelligence is not the essential nature of the self. It is only a production of the brain created by the Will for its own purposes. Consciousness is an appearance, Will the Reality which is the immortal force that never dies with the death of individuals, never perishes through change. It may manifest itself in a mortal shape as individuals, but it cannot itself cease to be. The Will is imperishable being. (Swami Krishnananda)

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Ran out of fuel

I was on my home for lunch last Friday when my motorcycle conked out. I kick started it, then I heard the engine start and then choked again. I kick started it again and it ran for about a few meters before finally stopping,  for good. I was lucky because I made it a few meters to the Shell station. I pushed the motorcycle  to the pump and then I asked the attendant to fill a hundred pesos worth of unleaded gasoline (which was about a glass of fuel).

An old photo.

I was getting my wallet out of my pocket when the realized that I forgot my wallet; it was still on the table in the house, a few kilometers away. I looked at the gas attendant, gave my riding jacket and told him that I forgot my wallet; I had no money to pay him. I left him my jacket as a security and told him I would be coming back for it. I did not gave him any time to reply; I kick started the motorcycle and rode out of the gas station. After having my lunch at home, I passed by the gas station to pay the gas and then I picked my riding jacket. The attendant smiled and said thanks.

Well, what could I say but welcome.

This was the first time it happened to me, but I think this was the fourth or fifth time my motorcycle ran dry of fuel. Gas is just too expensive.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Early Christmas



Christmas season has officially started in the country what with the Christmas songs already being played on the radio and on TV. The days are shorter and the nights are getting longer as the -ber months started. Also, its getting more and more difficult to wake up in the morning and to take a shower because of the cold climate.

At the school, the teachers are now busy decorating their rooms and one could really feel the yuletide spirit in the classroom this early. The decorating is also part of the beautification of the school because we will host the Filipino Pres Conference.

...it's still less than four months before Christmas.

...really not been blogging that much.


I got a bikelog?

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