Yayyy religion
Or rather, I can excuse the rationality behind this because it agrees with me -- and that's clearly what counts. :D :D (not really, guys ><< but there is still a valid point in this)
God will not intervene to prevent humanity from wreaking disastrous damage to the environment, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned. I love the fact that environmentalism is becoming an increasingly mainstream topic. This fact was evidenced in part by the overwhelming absence of hippie-types at Powershift. We might be unusually passionate about our concerns, but so is anyone else who gives a fuck in the realm of politics. This in itself is a sad concept -- the fact that to give a fuck even to the smallest degree such that you'd go out and vote is unique. So, while not everyone may listen to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the influence of religion is undeniably powerful to some, and those some may now become responsible individuals.
Also, I give a fuck.
Two days ago, I called Tedisco's Albany office. There's an impending district election in NY, and Steph is organizing a small faction of Skidmore's EAC (environmental action coalition). Tedisco is the opposition. Each of us have been calling on different days, saying we represent different demographics (but not lying -- ie: I am representing a group of new female voters) with two goals in mind. We want to learn the specifics of his platforms including whether he intends to support our agendas. We also want him and his campaign office to feel pressured to give a shit about the things that we give a shit about because so many callers are asking about environmental issues. I call him the opposition because we attended Scott Murphy's Q & A on campus, and he is kick ass. Not only is he an incredibly competent businessman, but he loves what Obama is doing, supports green jobs, carbon reduction, legislation to end mountain-top coal mining, etc, etc. The only downside is that he supports nuclear energy which we can lobby about once he's been elected. He was an unknown relative to Tedisco, but he's been steadily gaining in the polls. We have hope. :D :D
Philosophy. I suppose this takes me back to the subject of religion. I love my philosophy class. :D :D Last week, we read and discussed articles by Nagel, specifically "What is it like to be a bat?" which refutes the concept of physicalism and asserts that there exists some consciousness independent of the brain. Our class is small, but we have an interesting variety of people. And this piece is particularly interesting because I disagree with it passionately. I would argue that to state that you have elements of your identity which lack roots in your corporeal body is the same thing as asserting the existence of a soul, even though it is not stated explicitly. On a very fundamental level, I disagree with this by principle of being atheist. But Ryan and I brought neuroscience into play. I mean, it's one thing to argue that, in the future, we may have science to explain the phenomenon of experience, but... you don't even have to do it because we know enough now. I can excuse Einstein for coming up with thought experiments independent of concrete empirical experiments, but Nagel is no neurologist. He doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. We can explain why people have unique perceptions of reality through the brain, and we don't need an abstract idea such as a consciousness independent of the brain to help us explain what we don't understand. We might not be able to stare at the individual twistings and variations of neurons and be able to read what it means to the person in question the same way we'd read a book, but we can explain thoughts, perceptions, experiences, ideas, etc. And maybe some day we would even be able through some algorithm to compute what the nondiscrete distances between synaptic terminals, and lengths, and densities, and hormonal interactions mean in real time. But we don't need to reach that state to refute the necessity of a consciousness independent of the brain because it can all be explained biologically.
So cool.
And today we focused on Descartes who is even more hardcore than Nagel. He 'proves' that the mind is different and more powerful than the body and later the explicit existence of the soul, God, etc. Thank you for your Cartesian coordinates, but...
I want to learn about Existentialism.
Also, new anime: anyone heard of/watched Karas? And I finished Rah-Xephon.