The "Wilson" Effect

I had quite a successful presentation today in existentialism, if my general observations are correct. While there were multiple strong discussions that took place during our presentation, I was most strongly interested in the so called “Wilson effect” that became a hot topic during discussion of self and the Other. The question goes as such, if there was a human being born and raised in complete isolation from any other mind, would that human have a concept of self or being? Many of the participants suggested that the human in this case would create there own version of the Other, much in the same way Tom Hanks created Wilson when he was stranded in the movie Castaway. While this seemed to be a popular solution, I’m not sure that it would hold true for someone who had never experienced another conscious entity. According to Sartre, it is the look of others that creates the foundation for our being. Without the Other there to reflect upon and become objectified, a conscious being can never move from the subjective I to the objective me. While I remained convinced that a person born and raised in isolation would have no concept of self, there was an interesting point raised about potentially absorbing the Other and making it a part of our own consciousness. This is at least suggested by Sartre, when he says we have to take the freedom of the Other, but the suggestion was to reflect inwardly upon one’s self, effectively becoming one’s own Other. This seems to be similar to what Tom Hanks’ character did in Castaway, only rather than creating the Other inside his own consciousness, he instead gave it a physical form in the volleyball known as Wilson. While I am not even sure that this type of reflective conflict with a manufactured Other is possible, I certainly remain interested in the idea and plan to ponder it further.  

Bad Faith

I am very interested in the concept of “Bad Faith”, and how Sartre portrays it as being in a state of self denial concerning the objective state of affairs of the world and the subjective meanings or values that conscious beings assign to things. Sartre introduces his concept of Bad Faith with an anecdote of a woman on a date. Throughout the evening, the woman is constantly attempting to live in denial of the objective facts, or facticity as Sartre called it, while also being consciously aware of the subjective implications of her actions. While this seems to be a harmless enough set of circumstances, Sartre claims that this woman is living an example of Bad Faith by failing to live with a proper synthesis of her facticity and her transcendence. What I found most interesting about this anecdote was how familiar it sounded to what would popularly be considered normal and socially acceptable actions. Sartre emphasizes the fact that this woman frequently distances the meanings that actions represent from the actions themselves. For example, Sartre states that, “If he says to her, “I find you so attractive!” she disarms this phrase of it’s sexual background” (Solomon 224). Sartre included this specific sentence in his short anecdote representing Bad Faith because he believes this is a symptom of someone living in Bad Faith, yet this seems to be a standard attitude for many dating age men and women that I associate with. Sartre claims that bad faith, concerning facticity and transcendence, “does not wish either to coordinate them or to surmount them in a synthesis” (Solomon 226). Obviously a state that one would wish to avoid, and yet the signs of bad faith being pervasive throughout popular culture today seem quite prevalent. The disassociation of objective actions and subjective value seems prevalent in today's society, and it makes me what the long term consequences of such bad faith could have on an entire society such as our own.

Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

Transcendence (but not like the movie)

“I am what I’m not and I’m not what I am”. I was struck by this Sartre quote that Thad gave during his lecture on Sartre’s philosophy. At first it seems completely incoherent and my initial reaction is to reject the statement outright as illogical and foolish, however, this statement is actually deceptively powerful in it’s implications. In order to understand what Sartre means by this quote, we must first understand Sartre’s definition of transcendence and facticity. Transcendence is the set of all the possibilities that a person has in their present or their future. A person’s hopes, dreams and goals are all constituent parts of the transcendence of that individual. Facticity, on the other hand, is the set of all the things that are true of a person either in their past or their present. Personal history, physical and mental attributes, and current social status are all examples of a persons facticity. Sartre’s quote, “I am what I’m not and I’m not what I am”, is directly in reference to these two concepts of transcendence and facticity. “I am what I’m not”, often times, we as individuals like to refer to ourselves in terms of the things we will do or plan to do. As a Physics major, I often consider myself a physicist, even though I have yet to graduate and thus do not have the facticity to back up this claim. In this half of the quote, Sartre is referring to the fact that the way we identify ourselves is not always the same as our facticity. The second half of the quote is merely a mirror image of the first with a very similar semantic meaning, “I’m not what I am”. If an individual prefers to think of themselves in terms of one’s own transcendence, then that individual is considering oneself as different from one’s own facticity. This quote seems to perfectly surmise the constant internal conflict that accompanies the consciousness of a social being. A constant struggle between what we are and what we wish to be.

A Search for Meaning

There certainly seems to be a theme throughout the majority of the existentialist literature that I have read up to this point. While none of them have been explicitly religious, quite the opposite actually, many of them still include premises that include some type of higher power, either in support of or against. I feel that this theme is the result of what existentialism, and philosophy in general, is trying to resolve within the human consciousness, a being understanding being. Take the simple existence of the ant, for example. The ant, with it’s significantly reduced cognitive ability as compared to your average human, does not have the capability for complex philosophical thought. The ant, although it performs a tremendous amount of physical work for its size and lives a considerably long time compared to other insects, will never recognize it’s own being. The ant will never question why there is something rather than nothing, or if there is a higher power, and while this may seem almost desirable for those who would prefer to live without the deep existential anguish that these questions can cause, this does not change the fact that we as humans are self conscious mammals, curious about our own existence. Jean-Paul Sartre follows in this theme of existentialism as a being attempting to understand existence in Existentialism is Humanism, where Sartre suggests that, if there is no higher power with knowledge of our essence, that we, as humans, are a being that has it’s own existence come before its essence. In effect, we are born into consciousness without a knowledge of our own essence or as Sartre put it, human nature. Because we had to exist before we could have knowledge of our essence, we use philosophy and existentialism to attempt to understand what we ourselves are. This search for understanding is what leads so many to religious faith, however it is also what leads people to higher philosophy, and this root cause is what leads to the seeming intertwinedness of the two schools of thought.

Something Rather Than Nothing

Why is there something rather than nothing? This is a question I have had experience with before, but always in a much more religious context. Normally it is proposed as a way to lead an individual to the conclusion that there must have been a creator to explain why there is anything at all. As such, I have grown quite bored of this question, however Heidegger proposes an alternate way of thinking of the question of why there is something rather than nothing. While I have typically regarded this question of being of little philosophical worth, Heidegger goes so far as to claim that it is, “the most fundamental of all questions”(Solomon 147). According to Heidegger, this is the most fundamental of all questions because it is the first question of true philosophy. Philosophy is not a field that you can do things with, Heidegger admits, but it is important rather because it is philosophy that can do things with us. While initially this seems rather counter intuitive, when it is considered again the deeper underlying truth of this statement seems to hold true. Heidegger is suggesting that it is philosophy that directly or indirectly precedes our actions. Before President John F. Kennedy could set the national goal to reach the moon, he had to have a philosophy that included the rationale that caused him to support space travel and national projects as morally good. This type of correlation can also be seen in young children who learn to obey the rules set by their parents. Their mental obedience of their parents’ ‘philosophy’ is what informs their physical actions in the adherence to those rules. While it has sometimes seemed that philosophy might have very few real world applications, the perspective that Heidegger introduced seems to be a way to bridge the gap between symbolic comprehension of philosophical thought and the real world application of said comprehension. Sadly, however, it seems that Heidegger’s profound revelation on the importance of philosophy has been lost on the general science community, as the philosophy field continues to be looked upon with subtle condescension, at least among undergraduate circles.

Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

Philosophy Through Video Games

If there is one theme that appears to be present throughout many of the existentialist essays that I have read to this point in the semester, it is the silently accepted fact of the inevitability of death. Even the most outright religious philosophers that I have read, such as Kierkegaard and now Heidegger, have rarely touched upon questions of existence after death, the question of that follow life before death seem to be of much greater importance. With the impact that the inevitability of death appears to have on the deepest philosophical musings of the human race, it raises the interesting question of how mankind's overall philosophical trends would change if death was no longer relevant. Heidegger describes this connection in this excerpt from Being and Time,

“In dying, it becomes evident that death is ontologically constituted by mineness and existence”(Solomon 141).

I am reminded of an enemy faction in an old computer game, System Shock 2, The Many. The Many is a single organic consciousness that consists of a hive mind of many individual entities. In the game, The Many acts in opposition to the goals of the protagonist, however it does not act against the player in malice or hatred. The Many acts against the player purely out of philosophical differences that put it at odds with the goals of the player. The Many, as a single hive mind consisting of many individual parts, does not have any concept of individual death, as each individual consciousness is absorbed into one umbrella consciousness. Without the concept of death, how would the philosophy of a consciousness such as The Many differ from the philosophy of an individual being? Throughout System Shock 2, The Many tries to convince the player that joining the hive mind is in the protagonists best interest. Although the game portrays The Many as the enemy, this motivation casts The Many in a different light, perhaps it sees individuality as a disease that inevitably leads to death. As much as the plot of the game is structured in a way to cast individual consciousness as the ‘correct’ choice, it seems very possible that the logically superior choice is actually the hive mind consciousness.

Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.

On Religion and Philosophy

One of the things I have enjoyed most while reading existentialist literature has been the lack of religious discussion that seems to describe many of these existentialist essays. Even the christian theologian of the 1700’s, Søren Kierkegaard only used his religious beliefs as a simple jumping off point for the more profound ideas he had concerning philosophy. It seems that Martin Heidegger may also fall into the same camp as Kierkegaard, although Heidegger seems to use a more general sense of religion rather than a strictly christian view. While I typically do not enjoy discussions of religion, I believe it is something that should be strictly personal, I find that having knowledge of a philosophers religious views can really add an enlightening perspective to their ideas. While Heidegger’s personal religious are never significantly revealed during these readings, his later works concerning being became increasingly theological in nature, having a prior knowledge of Heidegger’s strong Catholic identity make his views on death and Da-Sein all the more interesting. Particularly interesting to me is his hypothesis that one Da-Sein can experience the death of others. According to Heidegger, by one Da-Sein dying and transitioning into a state of no-longer-being-there, the Da-Sein enters a sort of being-with with others. Seemingly, as one dies, one also enters a new state of unity with other Da-Sein. As warm and fuzzy as this conclusion may seem at first, it is quite watered down due to the fact that, according to Heidegger, as a Da-Sein moves to a state of no-longer-being-there, it also loses the ability to experience this transition. Without an ability to experience this period, it makes little difference to the state of Da-Sein that we are currently in. I like the way this view seemingly contrasts with traditional Catholic belief of heaven and the afterlife. Rather than an eternity of heavenly bliss, Heidegger seems to propose that the afterlife is an endlessly un-experienceable state of being-with others.

Solomon, Robert C. Existentialism. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.