This is a collection of ideas, thoughts, phrases, passages that combined suggest a bigger idea altogether. There is nothing here to suggest something that some aspect or way of thinking more right than another. Simply it’s a string, a collection that allows me to look at the world through another lens as to draw new conclusions, answer some questions and ask new ones. I do not know where some of the sayings or quotes came from but I will do my best to credit the ones I do, reference the ones I know, or simply mark them as unknown.
1: When Moses went spoke to God in the form of the burning bush, the response that is given is what can most commonly be agreed upon as being translated into “I am, that I am.” Exodus 3:14 I think that this is a rather profound statement any way you look at it. Anyone reading that one verse becomes that verse. For I am, that I am. I can’t help but think of Popeye the sailor man. Often he would go around saying “I am what I am, that’s what I am Popeye the sailor man” In this example he was clearly declaring to everyone exactly what and who he was.
2: I begin with a philosophical quote from the 19th-century french philosopher Des Cart. In his attempt to understand his existence the only thing that he could be sure of is that existed because he thought himself to exist famously saying. “I think, therefore I am” To me, this stands as a self-proclamation of acknowledging that you exist.
3: Now that we established both one and two we can look at both statements separately and as one coherent idea. A person can say “I am, that I am” and be what they are. Also, you can say I think therefor I am because you thought yourself into existence. No a merge between the two through the use of symbolic logic we come up with
a: I think there for I am, that I am, and
b: I am, that I am there for I think.
I believe that the first one suggest that the things we focus our mind upon are the things we inherently become. The second reinforces the idea that we exist because we can rationalize and contain the cognitive idea that we exist.
4. With being self-aware and acknowledging that you exist you imminently have to start taking responsibility. I think a great way of putting that very idea into perspective is by saying, “ do you know why you do what you do? Because if you don’t know why you do what you do, and people do react to the things you do, do, then how do you expect anyone to apart of anything that you are or could be about.” Unknown
At this point, I feel that we have established the basis of a limited rational thinking individual. The next logical linneral step is establishing a sense of morality. I think that this ideas is best summed up in the preface of the book “A clockwork orange” written by Anthony Burgess
“By definition a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only preform good, or only preform evil then he is a clock work orange. Meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with color, and juice but only in fact a clock work toy to be wound up by God or the Devil or since this is increasingly replacing both the all mighty state. It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil the important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.” Anthony Burgers, A Clockwork Orange. 1986
5. To establish an idea of moral development and continue this argument I think an important idea that best sums up this idea is, “ What are the ideas you hold as values worth preserving, values being the very thing that define us as individuals, our sense of being. In essence the charter make up our moral code, the proverbial moral compass that goes on to make our identity.
There is a lot of information out there in the world on the idea of identity, but I think that one of the best sources when it comes to identity is the 1995 anime Ghost in the shell. The movie goes to great depths to articulate the ideas of what what identity is, how it is formed and how it is formed thought he use of a genera known as Cyber-Punk. Cyber-Punk because it often deconstructs preconceived notions we hold about ourselves and the world around us, allowing us to look at life and events in new ways that lead us to new understandings.
6: I think that one of the things that the anime movie “Ghost in the Shell” is that our identity is held in our memory. When I think about it I come up with this thought; our identity is how we remember ourselves. I base this not only on the movie but in my own experience. I have watched people who began to suffer from the early onsets of dementia to it’s late stages. In that time I watched people forget who they are along with people around them not to mention various aspects of their life both in the short term and long term memory. The question then remains is who are we then when we forget who we are, a shell of our former selves? Even from personal experiences with various ideas that i visit from time to time and forget I have to ask myself how that changes me and impacts me as a person.
7: Now with some degree of certainty we can say that our identity resides within our memory we begin to look at how that sense of identity is influenced.
7.a: Again “Ghost in the Shell” makes mention of humans being hacked and given false memories. Like the garbageman of the movie, we see his perception of the world is changed because of the false memories that are placed within his mind. Anyone who as studied marketing knows that companies will go out of their way to subliminally plant ideas within people so that when they go out they are more inclined to buy their products. In the early to mid 90’s I remember there being legislation regarding the volume of commercials. Once a show was done airing their segment the decibel at which commercials were played at a much higher level. This was again a market ploy in order to sell more products in hopes of subliminally planting ideas within people.
7.b: One of the biggest factors when considering your identity and the identity that the movie makes note of is our relation with space. Nerd Writer off of You Tube goes into great detail talking about our relationship with spaces and influences that we have with them. I think the two biggest things I take away from his case study of Ghost in the Shell and spaces are this. “Ghost in the shell wants to show us the dynamic between ourselves and our spaces that we are one and the same, One. Secondly, “spaces like identities are constructed through space that often feels natural like we can move anywhere in it but our movements are activities our life is always limited by the way space is produced. Spaces and identities are constructed but not always by ourselves. Later in Nerd writer’s case study of “Ghost in the Shell”, he touches on a notion by the late philosopher Michell Focault. Foucault suggests that “a space that doesn’t succumb to the forces that try and make everything the same are marginal spaces for the voiceless to construct identities for themselves.
The mind is a infinite space unfilled unless we ourselves put ideas, and thoughts into it and grow our own original ideas out of it. The question is what sort of ideas and thoughts are we to fill our minds with, that is the question. Some people fill their minds with experiences, elaborate ideas contained within books, movies and the experiences of others giving themselves a depth and complexity that only comes with the consumption of knowledge and information.
8: Like two sides of a coin there are those who do not posses such knolwdge. Ideas like Plato’s cave, or the Theseus paradox go unknown. Worse history and the inharent lessons found within it become lost or remain irrelevant while it continues to repeat and unfolds around them. A functioning society simply going with the flow of things wearing the pervabile hat that “society” has produced and openly wears. The only thing that is more disturbing then there bing a scoiety that wears such a hat is a society that dosne’t know it wears such a hat.
9: There is a choice we must live with when it comes to knowledge. The old saying goes on to say “ignorance is bliss,” but what is life without ignorance, without that “bliss.” Almost like the movie The Matrix we can’t go back to living a life that we once know the truth that’s when life really begins.
10: In the end of this argument the thing we can take from it that the most important thing we posses is our minds because it keeps who we are. Our life is another most important metaphysical and tangible idea we posses as it is the body the shell in which keeps our mind. Finally is the ideas we fill our mind with, the ideas that keep us going that define us that give us purpose and fulfillment, beyond simply wearing preconceived ideas and notions.