I know this means something

Making music is easily one of the most meaningful things in my life.  I began making music seemingly by chance, though I'd like to think it was fated. 
I had a friend back in third grade who took piano lessons at this small music school.  She invited me to sit in a few lessons with her.  I started pestering my parents to let me take lessons.  Mostly because I wanted to be like my friend and do the things she was doing.  So we bought a small 44-key electric and signed me up for weekly lessons.  Now it's eight years later and I'm playing in the school musical. 
I started singing in a similarly spontaneous way.  It was the summer before freshman year and I was programming with my new counselor.  For some reason, she told me I had to take seven classes (I didn't know any better).  I had no idea what I was going to pick, I hadn't planned it out beforehand.  Instead of awkwardly wasting my counselor's time picking my final class, I looked for the first thing on the list.  What was it?  Beginning mixed chorus.  Now it's four years later and I'm singing in chamber choir.  
It's hard to imagine what I would do without music.  It evokes feelings and expressions in me that aren't strictly intellectual.  I'm sure at the root of it, there is some biological explanation for the way the pitches and frequencies vibrating in my ear drums are processed in the primal sensory cortexes of my brain.  But on a conscious level, I believe music has a meaning and power beyond its literal definition.  It is a way of communicating beyond words.  A language that all people can understand.  One can recognize the mood difference between the Entertainer and Mozart's Requiem just by understanding the language of booming minor chords versus allegro majors.  Yet both fine crafts can be appreciated in their own rights. 
I believe music has the power to bring people together, and at least for myself, it is something I must be a part of.  When the waking day is spent just with thoughts of language and speech bouncing from person to person, sometimes it's nice to settle back on an ancient language of feeling.  It touches those primordial parts of our beings that did not used to need words. 

Direction for this Class

I would like to start off by saying this is easily one of my all time favorite high school classes.  I feel like I can go in to this classroom knowing that I will have more to think about than when I came in.  I can go in there and know I will be interested in that day's topic of discussion.  And that at the end of the year I will come out a more intellectual and mature person than when I started. 
What improvements would I suggest for the class?  I don't feel like the discussion is balanced enough.  Sorry guys, what you say is really interesting, but we really need a system of participation that allows for more than the occasional outside comment. 
Also, I think the class needs a little more outside input.  I know we've read two books by great philosophers of old, but I think modern views are also very relevant.  We could watch short videos or read articles from outside philosophy professors.  Ideas from students are interesting, but a lot of times we end up going in circles and not truly addressing the point when we let the discussion get diverted in class (as interesting as these diversions are).  Maybe the class would have a little more direction if we brought in points of views from other people.  
Other than that, I think the class is going really well.  Even if we left it the way it is things would still be great. 

Who would Voltaire and Camus vote for?

I have no idea who these writers of old would vote for.  Would they lean more towards the liberals, the party that supposedly believes in more government social programs and less government restriction?  Or the republicans, who believe in less government involvement in socioeconomic issues and industry, but more restriction on the rights of their people?
Honestly, would they even vote at all?  To cast your vote says "Hey, I am taking an active role (no matter how small) in society at large, and I am expressing my opinion as to how things should be run".  It is easy to suppose that Camus would immediately refuse to cast his lot.  As an absurdist he would believe that his vote has no purpose and there is no point in deciding who should run our meaningless government especially since the outcome will not matter in the grand scheme of things.  But what about Voltaire?  From our reading of Candide, what conclusions can we draw about his philosophy?  Well, at the end of the day, Voltaire shows that even when a society has problems (all of them expect El Dorado), to attempt to change it could eventually lead to misunderstandings and mistakes.  Take the example of the monkeys and the savages in the woods.  Candide stumbles upon them and shoots the monkeys, assuming that they are unwanted creatures who are doing harm unto these women.  But, as it turns out, the monkeys were actually the women's lovers.  Through this narrative, I believe Voltaire is trying to tell us that we cannot actively change what we do not know because our preconceived notions could be wrong.   Therefore, I believe Voltaire would also sustain from voting.

What is the meaning of life?

Albert Camus uses the narrative of the stranger to exemplify the nature of absurdism, or the idea that there is no meaning in life.  As far as we have read, the main character, Meursault, lives a life without the socially normal emotions, purely living for the momentary satisfaction of personal needs.  He knows what is appropriate and can observe the way things are, but leads a life in which he doesn't care to follow most of those things.  His mother dies.  So what?  Her funeral is an inconvenience.  His neighbor beats his dog.  So what?  It isn't his dog.  His friend beats his girlfriend.  So what?  What matter to Camus is the fulfillment of his own desires, most of which do not involve deep personal interaction.  Sure, he finds certain things beautiful and inappropriate and realizes the nature of his existence, but he does not differentiate right and wrong, and frankly just doesn't care.  As far as he is concerned, the meaning of life is existence and pleasure.
How then, do I translate this to my own life?  Well part of me realizes the nature of Meursault's way of life and partially relates to it.  I go through life wondering why I apply to societal norms and attempt to better myself as a person.  And why, if I don't agree with some of these ideas, should I revolt against them?  What will my actions mean beyond this life?  Beyond this life, what will I have?  I think religion is an easy answer.  "If you are good, you go to heaven.  In heaven you will live an eternity of perfection and be rewarded until the end of time.  If you are bad, you go to hell.  In hell you will live an eternity of pain and suffering and be punished until the end of time."  Under this belief, we can act towards a future.  We can believe that what we do here on this Earth will have an effect later on, that whether we do "good" or "bad" will have a meaning.  Without this belief, it is difficult to imagine that our actions have meanings.  Even if we go down in human history and happen to be that small sect of the population actually remembered after death, what does that mean in the scheme of things?  If humanity is but a blink in the life of a universe in which our whole planet is but a speck of dirt on the fabric of a whole time and space continuum, what does legacy, change, betterment mean?  I find myself asking these questions under the belief that there is no life after death. 
But even with the belief in life after death, we must ask ourselves, "is there still meaning?"  It seems that the only meaning would be our own fate.  Whether we live in joy or in suffering.  Truthfully, I don't believe that life has any bigger meaning other than the pain or happiness that happens in this world.  And if it is true that our beings, consciousnesses, souls, carry on to another life, then the meaning will still be pain or happiness. 

Candide's Punishment

Candide's Punishment:
Well, there are lots of punishments Candide has to go through.  The first of which was being kicked out of the Baron's house for kissing Cunégonde.  I can't say I agree with this, but Candide broke the Baron's rules and was kicked out.  And so started our story. 
The punishment that I would like to talk about is the one he received when he deserted the army.  He was given the option of death or beating.  The beating was severe though it would have eventually resulted in death, therefore Candide was given two options, each of which were "equal worse".  Do I agree with death for desertion?  No. 
It has been a common tradition that people who desert are killed or at least severely punished.  They did not uphold the honor of their country, are utter cowards and deserve to die.  But why should war be any different from other professions?  We don't kill people who desert the medical or law professions.  We don't discipline people who leave whatever occupation they hold when they change their mind.  Why then should we have the right to kill those who leave one of the more stressful and dangerous professions in the world, that of a soldier? 
I know nowadays we have stopped killing deserters.  But it is still dishonorable and results in discipline.  Is this practice right?  I know giving up is looked down upon, but people should be given a fair chance to leave when the going gets hard without repercussions.    

How Do I Know What I Know?

Honestly, this is such a broad topic.  Knowledge is the basis of everything.  How do we know what to do without basing our actions on previous knowledge?  We can take this question to so many levels.  Eventually we would be questioning who we are and the nature of our existence.
For the purpose of this blog I would like to focus more on "How do we know that our knowledge is true and factual?"  Think of something we have been told our whole lives that we take to be irrefutable facts.  "The Earth is round".  "The building blocks of matter are atoms".  For the average person, these are phenomenons we cannot observe with our own senses.  I don't know anyone who has been out in space and seen the Earth and were able to tell me they saw the roundness with their naked eyes.  There isn't anyone who can shrink down to microscopic size and see the protons, neutrons and nuclei.  But we take these statements to be universal truths because they have been proven again and again.  There is ample evidence from numerous sources that say so.  We as a society have reached these conclusions through experimentation and inference.  We have even developed tools and technologies that allow us to virtually observe these phenomenon.  And so we can agree, this is true, this I know, this is irrefutable.
But there comes a point at which we must consider grander conclusions.  Statements that are no longer considered laws of the universe, but are just theory.  Though we have accepted that atoms are building blocks of matter, we do not yet know what makes up an atom.  There are several theories supported by results of ample experimentation, yet we have no concrete evidence that proves any at this point.  In addition, we know, yes "the Earth is round", but we have yet to ascertain the nature of the bigger universe.  Is space finite or infinite?  Again, there are theories that are both supported by evidence from what we can observe.  But many of these theories, though based on fact, are not themselves factual.  There comes a point in which knowledge is not KNOWING but rather rationalizing with doubt. 
And so for the purpose of differentiating factual knowledge versus theory, I would say the things that I KNOW to be true are statements supported by observation and public consensus.  If I see pictures of the Earth in all its roundness and there is no argument among the majority of our community on this fact, I KNOW that this statement is true.  But once there is debate among people and my conclusions are inferences rather than solid fact, I BELIEVE in something, rather than KNOW it.  It is a fine line between these two which gets fuzzier and fuzzier the more we stray from strictly scientific and mathematical studies.  Even in mathematics and the sciences it is hard to know when to draw this line.  Oftentimes, I think ours is a subjective world.  There is not much that i KNOW i know. 

Who is the Modern Gadfly?

Back in the day, Socrates was considered a Gadfly.  He spoke his opinions, even if they were considered heretic, blasphemous or impious.  He questioned the order or things and the nature of society and the people within it.
Nowadays, we have many gadflies.  Those most famous are perhaps not as keenly philosophical on life as a whole as Socrates was.  Many instead question politics and government.  I believe Michael Moore is the example of a present day gadfly.  He has written many movies and documentaries that question the government and many of their institutions.  Some of his statements are more radical than others, but he does use researched facts and public opinions to support his claims and criticisms on American society nowadays.
The first time I was exposed to Michael Moore was in seventh grade.  My social studies teacher showed us his documentary, "Sicko".  In this documentary, Moore criticizes the American health insurance system.  He first addresses those in America who have been rejected under the system and could not get adequate care.  For example, one man chopped off two of his fingers in a construction accident.  When he arrived at the hospital, they told him insurance would charge him $60,000 to reattach the middle finger and $14,000 to reattach the ring finger.  The man picked the ring finger and to this day only has four fingers.  Even though the doctors could have performed the surgery to reattach both fingers, this difficult choice had to be made because a working class man did not have the funds to have a necessary medical procedure.  Under a working health care system no man should have to decide between fingers because he doesn't have money.
Michael Moore then films in foreign countries where they have alternate healthcare systems.  He traveled to Canada, France and Cuba.  In these places, healthcare is a social program and is free for everyone, just as public education is in America.  Moore visits clinics and hospitals and never ceases to be amazed when the final bill comes out to be $0.  There are even windows at which you can receive money after visiting the hospital to reimburse for the cost of travel.
Moore then asks the obvious question, "How come other countries, even Cuba, have better health insurance systems than the United States?"  It is a difficult question.  In his documentary he mainly shows the negatives of the U.S. healthcare system and the positives of other systems.  Perhaps the benefits and downfalls are not as extremely opposite as he portrays them to be.  But he still asks difficult questions that many government officials would rather he not ask.  In this way, he is the modern gadfly.