Opus 2024-364: The Descent into Philosophy

I started off thinking about the profane.  That was the old statement of Bill Clinton about the meaning of “is”.  It has a lot of implications.

Remember the declinsion of the verb “to be”?

I am        we are
you are   you are
he is        they are

We take this for granted but there are languages that don’t use it much.  If you are ever reading the Old Testament in the KJV or NASB you will notice that usually the words “is” and “are” are in italics.  That is because the word appearing in English is not in the Hebrew.  Because of how we talk it is implied and thus used.  For instance we might say “The sky is blue”.  Writing that in Hebrew would be “the sky blue”

It might very well matter what the meaning of “is” is.

From there my mind jumped to theology.

In the Bible we have what are called the “I Am” statements.  It is rooted in God talking to Moses and explaining who He was.  Moses asked what name he should use for God when he went to Pharaoh.  

(Exo 3:14 KJV)  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

God spells it out that His name means that He exists as contrasted with the idols and false gods of the pagans in Egypt.  This is where we get the name of God as Yahweh.

And from there I crossed the vapor thin barrier to philosophy.

I love philosophy on the experiential level.  Every time you disagreed with someone it ultimately comes back to your philosophy.  We are all philosophers, but we refuse to admit it.  We think of philosophy is being some kind of vague ivory tower nonsense that only over paid college professors talk about.  That’s part of philosophy, true, but that’s like saying that the meat in a great hamburger comes from a different cow than the meat in your steak.  Two different things, but the same idea.

Believe it or not one of the questions that Philosophers ask is, “Do we exist?”  Or maybe a better way of expressing it is, “do I exist?”  Or you would think that being able to ask that question would answer the question.  In fact the famous philosopher Rene Descartes came up with a summary, “I think, therefore, I am.”  There’s also the speculation of something called the Boltzmann brains.  Actually, the question is, “Do they exist?”  This philosopher came up with the idea that the universe, as we know it, is just our imagination and we are just these mental beings floating around in space and thinking great thoughts.

So do you exist?  According to the philosophers I must exist because I am asking the question, but I can’t be sure about you.  I might be the only aware creature in the entire universe, and I have created all of this circus of reality just for my own amusement.  I guess in a sense you might say that I am what some people think of us God.

Perish the thought.

homo unius libri