In response to Dan's "The Beginning of the Beginning" posted this morning.
I am glad to be able to get the philosophical juices flowing, as was my intent for anyone reading these posts and who show even a small bit of interest in these posts. Allowing the thought process to flow is what I feel to be not only important, but crucial to anyone with a conviction. Knowing exactly why you believe in something helps justify the belief's existence, helps justify the way you live your life, the reason you go to church, the reason you choose the method of raising your children, and the justification for judgements we put on non believers or people of different beliefs, just to name a few. Without this conviction, without having a solid answer to "why", you risk being considered a follower, a conformer, an inherited believer, or worse, you risk being challenged without having the answers. If you are a believer in God, or in Allah, or in a Benevolent One or a believer in any of the other many many gods, and are living your life in service to your chosen creator, I call you to task. I call you to put aside the fears you might have about approaching this, to roll up your sleeves, and to put down your books and your DVDs, to think past your years of schooling and your years of indoctrination. I call you to use your common sense, your intuition. I call you to really think outside the box, or the bubble if you will.
My First Thought Challenge: "The New Human"
You are a brand new human, just becoming into being. You are not a child though. You started out your human life as an adult, how you came to be is obviously NOT important here. You are standing on the ground somewhere on the earth, location not a factor, as a matter of fact, neither does your race, your sex, or the language you speak. You have no history, or at least none that you know of. The first item on your agenda (besides getting clothed) is figuring out why you exist. Where and how do you find your answer?
I understand this is not an easy thing to do, and I applaud Dan for being willing to take the challenge in a rather public forum, but of course anyone is welcome.
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12 comments:
Amazingly thought out post Alex. That is an excellent challenge. I wonder... if I was a "new" human being, I would most likely just believe the first thing I was told regarding the meaning of life, no?
Hmmm wait... isn't this what sorta already happens? Why is it that the majority of us tend to stick to the first thing we are told?
Wow, that is quite the proposal. And I am not sure I would be able to do it even with many blogs. But at first blush I would say that the first thing I would want to answer is "How" did I get here. That would hopefully give me a clue as to "Why." Of course we can also look at how primitive man did it, which might be a close analogy. It seems like they did not have the skills, knowledge etc to discover how and just assumed that the most powerful force around (the sun?) was the how and the why.
Thats all I got until I get through the how on my own blog.
Dan...
I think Alex might mean the world as it is right now, which would mean you have access to information on every worldly issue.
Correct, one can assume it's todays day and age.
I understand that. What I was thinking was to drawing a parallel between what the primitives did then, I think we would do much the same.
I would look for the most powerful force around and basically think that It was what had put me here. And then, depending on what that It was, I would draw conclusions as to why.
I have some ideas what the most powerful force would be in my mind but I am curious as to what other ideas might be out there. I would describe it as some kind of Giant Rationality, because if I am set down "tabula rasa" in the present, I would likely conclude that reason is the most powerful force on the planet. (Either that or the internet. Way back when, it was likely the sun or some other such force of nature).
From there I would try to figure why a Rationality would put me here. (Is this why if the sun is the most powerful force to a primitive, a great ball of fire, it makes sense that we are here as fuel, hence human sacrifice?)
On a side note, would not an agnostic simply throw up his hands and say, "Who knows?"
Or would an agnostic throw up his hands and say "who cares?" :)
Very thoughtful challnge Sir Alex. I shall craft my response.
I like Dan's suggestions - with a little shout-out to Descartes. A little "I think, therefore I am" action to get us started.
I'd suggest we may want to ask what our kids would do. For all intents and purposes, the "New Human" you have described is a child in every sense of the word, but the physical.
I don't know about yours, but I have yet to find my kids wondering why they exist. When does, or what triggers someone to search for a purpose, or the "why" to their life? The "how" is a whole other story. We get THAT question all the time from our oldest. Maybe there's something there.
I like that Darren, maybe there is something there. Some of us like to have fun with our kids and tell them about the "tooth fairy" or "santa claus", and because they are children with a clean slate they believe everything we tell them, even to a point of realism "DAD I JUST HEARD SANTA ON THE ROOF!!" or "Dad, that tooth fairy is sneaky, I stayed up all night to catch her, and she tricked me!"
If were a new human, you would most likely find someone to talk to, and ask them, they will tell you what they know, and you would have to make a choice to believe them or not, and because you dont' know any better you believe your quest is fulfilled. Then you start walking...
This challenge is very problematic to me, and let me tell you why. First of all, why would you want to get clothed...
Okay, you have got me thinking which can be a scary thing. I have gone from a large funk, to having tons to say without the words to say it (I know a first lol)
I will try to find the words to get it all out of my head.
I think I (as a new human) would immediately search for food, shelter and water. I would think my purpose in life would be to get cozy. After that I would just copy those around me - after all they must know what I'm supposed to do around here. I would surmise that I am supposed to amass wealth. Maybe I would become promiscuous (after all isn’t that what the world tells us is exciting?) or maybe give birth (lots of people do it). Maybe I would take up extreme sports or drugs because adventure might be the point of existence. After a while I would succeed at everything but I would still feel empty and out of sorts and then I would listen to my inner voice because all of the advice of others that I would be learning from the world around me would not be working.
I like where missy is going with this. Can you continue?
now present in your city
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